Friday Finish and Fun!

This week I worked on a stitchery. It is a pattern from Kathy Schmitz's, One Stitch Club. It is fun to get a new one each month and they make wonderful pillows. The designs this year have a bird theme and are all the same size, so those who want, can make them into a quilt.

I made a pillow, something I can decorate with or give as a gift. It measures 10" x 10". I wanted it a bit larger, so I added a little border.

Last weekend we took the boys to the aquarium and then to the owl sanctuary, as well as a picnic. The boys loved seeing the outside areas, now that it is warm enough. The sanctuary was a great place to play and explore.

We went for a picnic in between and I wanted some place close that wasn't crowded, so we went to the Mystic cemetery, which was nearby. It was a beautiful day to sit and enjoy watching the boats and the boys were fascinated by the gravestones. The funny thing was, I told Bill to stop at a place that had an open area and parking, and when we got out, I noticed the gravestone in front, said Daniele. Spelled differently than my daughter's name, but a strange coincidence.

At the sanctuary, they noticed that the different trees, made different sounds when they banged a stick on them.

And a few of the critters we saw at the aquarium, as well as, a Tom who was showing off to the two females in my yard. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

New Punch Needle Pattern!

I finally finished my piece and the pattern is ready. I made a few changes and finished it off with a white cording. The finished piece is 6 1/2 x 4 1/2. I think this would make a great gift idea for an ocean lover or a church lover. I may do it in an art quilt with a saying, love redoing designs in different ways.

I had Bill check out my DIL's Facebook page, I still am not on her list, so I have not seen any photos of Nick in months. There were a few and here is one with Nick and the baby, along with his cousins. A few more weeks and they should be coming home, can't wait to see them.

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday weekend. Bill told me he can take off a couple of extra days, now that the job is finished. But, all of the camps are full and I cannot imagine how crazy they would be on the last weekend of summer. It is also cooling down, so I told him not to take off time now and wait till next week, so hopefully we can get out and have some fun, after the holiday crowds have gone home.

Friday not-Finish!

I have been working all week on my new piece and as I worked it, colors were not working with each other. Some were too bold, some are too close in hue, so they got lost. So, I started changing colors and changing colors, over and over and now the backing is getting to the point where they threads are not holding properly, so I think I am going to have to start over.

I made it larger and used 6 strands, so I may reduce it and use a mix of 6 and 3 strand, as well as valdani where I can. I had an idea in my head and it just isn't working the way I wanted. The original sea was a mix of blues and greens, a nice look but the colors around it got lost, so it is a choice of changing the sea to a lighter color or making items like the fence a lighter color to go against the darker sea. The cliff is a mess now, I was trying to outline with a black and lost track of where the rocks had crevices, so it is a mess now.

This is how it looks now, I might save this and use some art pens to add some detail and fix things, then I can give it to someone who doesn't care if it is perfect, lol. I also plan on making it into a nautical pillow with a saying and a matching stitchery, wall hanging, so it will be another week to work it all up and get the pattern ready.

Another thing is the position, I think I like the back better, going the other way, just seems to work better but I may change a few things, so I better get to work. Bill has to work the weekend, so I can work on the pieces, though I rather be at the beach;)

The design is called Sailor's Sanctuary and will include a saying.

I decided to give up this afternoon, it was making me nuts, the new changes looked horrible with the light sea, it does have to all come out and I don't know if the backing can take it. So, what to do instead, organize my floss. It is a mess, I have to use floss with numbers for the color charts which usually means new floss and then I make more mess with lose floss, so time to organize it and keep it organized so I can use what I have.

I used card stock and cut strips with my paper cutter. I wrote the numbers on ones I had and the others can go into a hit or miss project. I cut a little slit on the side and top so I could keep the threads from coming lose. For now it is in a box, then I can put it in a more organized box by colors. Easy way to store the thread and a lot cheaper than buying floss cards.

And for fun, here is Izzy, Bald but Beautiful, haha. She is such a conceited cat. The good thing is, she has not puked since she got the cut, so it is well worth it. I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. I will take it easy and work on the stitchery and give my brain a break as I work out the details to better my design, maybe it is time to use my watercolors to do designs first, so I can make better color choices.

Quilt show photos!

There were a lots of nice quilts but I know we all see the same things most of the time so I picked a few of my favorites that are unique for different reasons.

The first is an angel, but Barbara Barbara. She had a few of her painted pieces in the show, but this was different from what she normally does. Nice idea if you are interested in doing a piece for your church, lots of free angel images online.

The next few quilts were done with quilts bought from the New England Quilt museum. Love seeing old quilts and these were tops that were sold and the ladies quilted them.

This was my favorite, love the design and fabrics.

Unique quilt and great for scraps.

 The next  two are examples of quilts you can make from used clothing, especially from a loved one.

Something to cuddle in, when she misses her dad, all from his flannel shirts.

A unique way to use ties in a quilt, love the fence idea and ties could be made into other types of designs for art pieces.

This piece is wonderful, a style I would love to make. She used a resist to bleach out some color in the background. 

And for you wooly lovers, a Heart to Hand design, it was really gorgeous in person. Beautiful wools and beautifully made.

And last but not least, was a quilt made by my friend Tina. She does beautiful work and I loved how she used the graduated colors for the background and then hand stitching around the blocks, then beautiful quilting around that. I like the idea of doing hand stitching to enhance some of the designs, mixed with machine quilting.

This is just a section of the quilt, it is huge and i wanted to show the work close up. 

Monday Finish and Fun!

I never seem to get much done on the weekend, I work better when I am by myself but I managed to get some stitching done and finish today. This was the last block for the free Garden Blocks by Theodore Cleave, but she added two new ones that fit with the pieces. I will see what I have so far and how they look together and what size I have, then I can decide if I want to add more to the quilt.

Another idea I had was to make two quilts with at least four blocks each, so the next step is to try them out and see what versions look best. I am using tea stained muslin for the backgrounds.

We got to spend a little time with Nick this weekend while his dad was getting a few things done. He always puts a smile on my face and he and Bean are becoming best friends. Nick has finally got the hang of throwing and Bean was enjoying some extra play time.

This week I will be doing photos of Nick and the family and reducing them to fit in a mini booklet I found. I thought it was a fun activity to add to his backpack with photos he can go through and photos of us to see while he is away. I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend.

Weekend Wanderings!

We had a beautiful weekend to be outside, so of course I had to take advantage of it. Saturday we watched Baby Nicholas while his mom went to an interview, so we enjoyed out time with him and went for a late drive to the lighthouse.

We walked around the road and Dani had fun scrambling around on the rocks.

The tide was out, so the seagulls were soaring with the winds, looking for anything that washed up, for dinner.

This guy was enjoying crab for dinner.

Sunday was bike riding day. We went to a bike path that starts at a historical rail station. It goes through  swamps and even towns. It is a beautiful place to ride in the fall.

Lots of winding rivers, we have actually paddled down this one.

The bike path still has one section that isn't finished, so we kept going and went to Narragansett Beach.
We sat on the wall and this was our view to the right.

 And our view to the right. We did 15 miles on this trip.

Today we finally got to try the bike path in town. It is a new one and was surprised at how nice the path was, all paved and new plantings where the old base used to be. It goes past a cove and ends at a beach, so perfect for riding close to home.

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. This afternoon I caught up with housework and working on a stitchery.