Totally Tuesday............

This morning we had the most wonderful cool breezes – ahhhh. Have to enjoy it as very shortly the heat of summer will be here to stay and there won’t be much mercy on us until fall. I just wish it could stay this way awhile longer!  My husband Dave and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary at the end of April – and coincidentally by reading Vonna’s blog I found out we share the same anniversary. I got my husband an iPad that he had been wanting and he gifted me with new wedding rings! We reset the diamond from my original yellow-gold wedding set into a new white-gold setting and also reset an anniversary band I had into white gold as well - that one is still at the jewelers as they had to order the setting. I'd never been able to wear the anniversary band with my former ring set as they were curved.    I still love my original wedding set and of course it has sentimental value so I kept it and we put a gorgeous sapphire in where the center diamond was before. I’m loving wearing my new rings while sitting on the couch reading blogs with the iPad of course. :)

I’m still reveling in the fact that Star Jones got kicked off of Celebrity Apprentice this week  LOL. DH and I have been waiting and hoping for that. It sure is crazy some of the wacky stuff we watch on TV these days – I never thought I would be interested in a bunch of crab fisherman in Alaska and loggers in Maine  either but I find myself watching the craziest stuff these days!

I recently got an order from Amy’s “Down Sunshine Lane” – the rest of the supplies I needed for kitting up Lizzie Kate’s Christmas Rules & Halloween Rules. I haven’t started them yet but hopefully soon. I was so pleased with the lightening-quick shipping of my order from Amy too – it was great having it arrive at my door in just a couple of days. Even though I have an LNS in my metropolitan area, it does take a couple of hours for me to drive there, shop, and drive home again – about the only time I have to go is Saturday and it takes up a chunk of my weekend.  So I still shop online some for the convenience and time-saving.  I'd love to make the Halloween Rules twice – once for me and once for a friend who loves Halloween but we’ll see.  I’ll be lucky if I get it done once let alone twice!

I’ve been diligently pushing forward on some projects of course. I started this king-sized quilt about 2 years ago – it’s a reproduction of an antique quilt that Moda Fabrics put out . The colors are subtle but I really love it – it just has so many pieces! I was cutting and sewing forEVER it seemed and no wonder – I counted it all up and the quilt has almost 1500 pieces in it! I finally reached the point of laying it out as you can see here – I’ve got my rows all stacked and numbered now so I can start sewing the blocks into rows and then the rows into the final quilt. I could’ve kicked myself as when I laid it all out I discovered I made like 16 extra blocks somehow – I miscalculated something when converting the pattern to king-sized. Sigh............... It’s funny as I just happened to fall in love with this quilt when I saw a model of it – and we have since redecorated our bedroom in shades of browns, mochas and aqua so that the quilt should fit in perfectly someday. It’s been a long haul so far but this quilt will not defeat me!

I had to break away from the big quilt this week as it was time again to make another baby quilt. My husband’s niece had a little boy not long ago and I’ve made quilts for all the new generation babies in the family so I’ve got to get this done in the next month in time to make the christening in June. I have this darling pattern called “Dog Daze” and so there will be 9 dog faces in this quilt. Here is the work in progress – trust me it’ll be much easier to recognize the dogs when they get their eyes and noses. Luckily I found a nice collection of cheerful fabrics at the quilt store on Friday and I got this far over the weekend – everything is cut out and ready to start sewing. I’m pretty happy with it so far and for once I picked something fairly quick and easy!

Meanwhile back on the stitching front.......I’m trying hard to finish up this little project by Ewe Eye & Friends called Kona Coast. It hasn’t been my all time favorite project, but it was one of those ‘self obligated’ projects – ever have those? I’ve had this little pattern probably a dozen years or more – the model used to hang in a local LNS and I always liked it so promised myself I would stitch it someday. For some reason once I make a stitching or quilting commitment I have to see it through. The shop has long since closed so I wanted to do this kind of to remember the place. They used to have an annual retreat in Hawaii and I believe EE& F designed this for one of their retreats as it has “Kona, Hawaii’ and ‘1994’ on the pattern. I will be leaving those out. I just have this endless sand at the bottom to get through and the borders and I can put this in the ‘finished’ column. I’ve been toying with the idea of making it into a tote bag.....but then again maybe I’ll just watch for a good framing coupon at Michael’s. I don’t take most of my things there but this one is just small and not something that I want to spend a lot of money to frame.

Quakers & Quilts has been coming along as well – this project and I have a love/hate relationship! I love how it looks but I am really REALLY tired of stitching it. Those quilt motifs along the bottom take a long time and there is so much backstitching – it reminds me of my days of stitching Paula Vaughan patterns – you’d think you were almost done once you got the cross-stitching completed then you’d spend a couple weeks backstitching. Aaarrgghhhh! I’m about two-thirds done so hoping I can knock this off the list maybe over the next month or so. I have the Quaker Diamonds pattern also by Rosewood Manor patterns but now that I look at the chart I see it uses all the same colors as Quakers & Quilts. I guess I could convert it to something different but right now I've lost my desire to stitch it. There are just those other hundreds of patterns in my cabinets that need my attention more!

My stitching companions Abby and Buster celebrated their birthdays last week. Buster is officially 8 and Abby about 7.  They had a great day enjoying their special chewies and new toys of course. My babies are getting older sniff sniff.........which reminds me they still don’t have the stitched Christmas stockings I thought I’d make years back........!

I’m also secretly making plans for some good giveaways this summer – I’m coming up on a significant blogiversary so making some special items and and gathering other gifties.....please stay tuned over the next couple of months!