Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe: Primitive Floss winner today! And another give-away, enter now!

Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe: Primitive Floss winner today! And another give-away, enter now!

Happy New Year! 

I hope everyone has had a wonderful Christmas this year and are looking forward to the New Year 2013!  How fast time flies anymore!

I worked on some customer quilts on the longarm machine in December so I have not had a lot of time for any personal sewing.  I did get some progress made on my Thanksgiving embroidery quilt.  Not as much as I had hoped but it is coming along.

I also finished crocheting my new granddaughter's afghan for Christmas.  She loved it.  She clutched it in her tiny fingers and her eyes got so big!  I loved it!  Only 4 months old and knows the love of handmade things. 

My daughter, Becca, wanted it to have a tight, close stitch so I alternated rows of half double crochet with rows of single crochet.  It was toasty warm.  I used Caron Simply Soft yarn in the color of Watermelon.

Two new kitties have found their way into my home and heart.  I got 2 Manx three month old kittens 26 Dec.  They are brother and sister.  I was only going to take the female, but I just could not split them up.  They are precious and ornery and fun.  The female is grey with no tail as is typical of Manx.  This is a pix of her discovering the bathtub.

Isn't she just a sweetie?  Zilmer is the male and he sports a regular tail but has more of the markings of what I think of a Manx to have.

He is very loving and cuddly and was the first one to start purring once they got used to me and a new home to explore.  Lulubelle has since become very friendly and loving too but she is a bit more cautious in everything the two of them dream up to do.

It is starting to rain and freeze now.  I think I will probably be sliding to work tomorrow on freezing streets.  This weather was certainly unexpected!  I have New Year's day off and hope to work some more on my Embroidery and maybe take a stab at cleaning house.  I want to work on my Diamond in the Rough top and see if I can finish putting sashing on and start putting it together.  Pix later on that project.  Take care!

Not sure I will be on here before Christmas, so I am wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas ahead of the day!  It has been a very wonderful year what with a new job, new little grandbaby, and many, many blessings!  I am working on longarm quilting since I don't have to be back to work till the 26th.  Also trying to work on my cross stitch a little bit to catch up. Good tidings to you all.

 

 

Well, I have been a little bit busy in the sewing room today and got started on the embroidering of this quilt.  I traced off the design on 100 % cotton with a green Pigma Pen.  I am going to do the embroidery in dark green DMC 895.  The pattern is one by Crabapple Hill called Over the River and Through the Woods.  Their quilt on the front of the pattern is done in tans and blacks but I am going to do mine in greens and golds and oranges of Fall.  I just love patterns with a Thanksgiving theme to them and you see so few things for Thanksgiving.  There are 3 panels of embroidery work and then patchwork blocks.  I just noticed the picture says it was taken in 2007 so I guess I need to figure out how to change the date on my camera!  Darn, I just learned how to upload and make a folder on the computer this afternoon!  It may  take me years to figure out how to change the date on my camera!   I like to do hand stitching while listening to books on tapes, cds, etc and today I started listening to the book The Summons by John Grisham.  It is good so far.  Back to my sewing room now; I have lots to do yet today!

It has been such a wild year and I have not been blogging at all as you can well see.  I got a new job in March working 10 hour days Mon thru Fri.  Then, I work on Sats at a quilt shop 20 miles up the road.  Between a new grandbaby in Aug and life in general, the year has just whizzed by.  I hope to be better at this in 2013.  I am in my sewing room today between bouts of housecleaning so I hope to have something to show for all my hours later today or tomorrow. I hope everyone has had a wonderful Thanksgiving and can now look forward to Christmas season with peace and happiness in your hearts.

Good heavens, what a wonky week it has been.  I was without my trusty car for 2 days while it was locked inside my garage.  I belong to the Artful Hands quilt group here in town. We meet every Wednesday and I was excited that I could go for awhile before I had to be at work.I went out to  the garage and  the door would not go up.  Not panicking yet, I tried several times to open it up.  I went back inside and found the box of keys that my landlady gave me four years ago when I first moved in.  It is full of keys that I have no idea what they belong to but I tried them all on the garage door to see if I could open it with a key.   Nope, not even.  I texted my landlady and then decided that I would work on my cross stitching till I had to leave for work.  My daughter took me and a friend from work gave me a ride home that night.  Thurs my son in law picked me up so I could be at work at 7 a.m. I hate  being without wheels and dependent on others for a ride.  In the meantime, the landlady and her hubby come over and forced the door up until he could get in and trip a switch so that it overrides the automatic opener and we can manually open it.  I walked home from work and with the help of two strong neighbor guys, I got my car out so I have wheels again!  The garage door is still not fixed but at least I can get my errands done and go to work.

Haven't done much on my Christmas Cardinals this week either.  I must have slept at a funny angle one night because I have such a neck ache that it is hard to do anything.  So, here is my progress on the Cardinals; the female is not as vibrant as the male and she is tucked away on a branch. I finished a Homespun Elegance cross stitch design today that I started last month.  I am going to make it into an ornament for my grandson for Christmas 2012.   He loves Snowmen.

I am hoping that all is back to normal this next week.  We are done with inventory at work so the overtime that the company expected us to work is a thing of the past and now this week the store cut hours to make payroll.  My hours were cut 3 hours yesterday so I came home early, did some laundry, and took a nap.  Tomorrow I hope to work some more on the Cardinals and I need to cut out some quilt blocks for my Veterans quilt.  I am also quilting a customer's top but I've had to rest from that to let my neck heal.  Maybe some pictures of my quilt squares will be posted tomorrow - yea!  Until then, happy stitching to everyone. 

Started back working on my cardinal cross stitch project from Just Cross Stitch Magazine Nov/Dec 2011 issue designed by Marie Barber.  Just such totally wonderful colors already.  I am working it on 28 ct Jobelan Lambswool, working over 2 threads.

Hope everyone is having an awesome Sunday.  Now that I have a little more knowledge on blogging, I will try to keep up with this and also add some features as I figure them out.