Two Red Birds

The first red bird is this cutie decorating his house for the season. White bows blow ALL the light back in your face when you take a snap. I love how the birdhouse has an actual smoking chimney. Not that birds decorate for Christmas either, right? SIGH, I was sewing on the last of the cording when I realized I had forgotten to stitch all the falling snowflakes...

Design ~ Waiting for Santa, 2008 freebie

Designer ~ Helga Mandl Designs

Fabric ~ 28 count tea-dyed Lugana

Fiber ~ DMC

Our second red bird is so sweet! This isn't a Christmas design at all. This is Bent Creek's Plum Berry Sampler! I stitched the bird in red and added a topknot, the charted bird is bald and blue. If you look close, I stitched my initials in green. Stitched 1 over 1, I stitched the little sampler bands only in Smyrna stitches. 

Design ~ Plum Berry Sampler, modified

Designer ~ Bent Creek

Fabric ~ 28 count tea-dyed Monaco

Fiber ~ DMC

The teeny tiny micro buttons rock this design. I can't wait to decorate my Christmas tree this year!

Thank you for visiting my blog today!

xox

An Unexpected Visitor

We had a visitor the other night a 3:54 am. He triggered our Ring Doorbell. We didn't open the door because we don't answer the door that early in the morning, even if you are a cute cat. 

The cat is staring at a birdhouse that is hanging on the wall next to the door. Currently, the birdhouse is full of sparrows and they must have been rustling around...

Thank you for visiting my blog today!

xox

Can't Keep Up!

I'm running about 12 days behind on my blog reader. I've only made four posts so far this month. I haven't finished or finished-finished either of the two cross stitch pieces I showed you on Tuesday. My studio is in disarray, as happens when I create. Dash and I spent hours at the Apple Store getting the batteries in our phones and my iPad replaced. They broke my phone when they were working on it so I got a brand new one and a new iPad as well since they don't replace the batteries in those on site. This had me spending hours getting everything set back up, remembering passwords and waiting for updates and all that. I got to have lunch with a friend last week and we sat in Olive Garden for four hours talking! I get a little ahead on some things and way behind in others!

I did get the little quilt basted:

I set up my 8-foot folding table in the front room, clamp everything tight and pin the layers together. The quilt gets shifted to pin the sides, careful to not get the layers wonky.  A little quilt like this doesn't take long at all. The tool you see helps close the pins. Lots of people hate basting. I don't mind it at all. I've quilted all the ups and downs on the long rows and I'm ready to do the short ones, maybe today.

Miss Molly is still ornery as ever. Sometimes I stay up late and craft and Molly keeps me company. She will happily chew her bones or nap. Unlike while watching TV she's pestering constantly to play fetch! But often, late at night as I'm stitching and it's quiet, Molly lets out a long, low, snarling growl behind me for possibly thinking of stealing her bone! OMG! You crazy dog!

Mom! Stop coveting my bones!

I get a couple years of life scared out of me at least twice a week.

Thank you for visiting my blog today!

xox 

Yesterday Was Totally Useless

I missed our Totally Useless Stitch A Long yesterday because I spend most Mondays at my parent's house. This gives my dad a chance to mow the lawn or run errands without leaving my mother alone. My sister goes on Saturdays and my daughter on Thursdays. I wish we lived closer so I could go every day. But it was the New Moon and I have ORTs to share!

All these Christmas ornaments are really filling up my ORT jar! I am having to pack them down. 

See? Such a full jar! I have one completed ornament and another started. I'll get you all the design info when I get them finished. 

Lots of sewing/quilting/finishing ORTs in my leaf bowl too. This is a sneak peek at the quilt I've been working on. Working on this has slowed down my ornament stitching but as long as I'm creating I'm happy!

A day trip on Saturday, antique mall shopping, netted me some quilting book stash! The book on top, Scrap Quilts has a lovely pattern to make a quilt called Cathedral Window, I'm dying to try. It doesn't have batting or backing as the blocks you make create it all at once. A king size quilt calls for 35 yards of backing fabric. 35! Those of you that don't quilt...that is an astronomical amount of fabric! Oh, but the construction of the quilt is amazing and I'm longing to give it a go!

Does anything have you stirred up to give it a go right now?

=^..^=

Now it is YOUR turn...we want to see your ORTs! Leave a comment on this post with a link to your April TUSAL post so we can come visit! If I hold a Totally Useless giveaway your comment will earn you an extra entry.

Wondering what a TUSAL is and why all these people are posting pictures of rubbish? Click here to learn more and join the fun!

Thank you for visiting my blog today!

xox

Merry Christmas!

Don't let my title throw you, spring is still here even though we keep warming up, then falling back into cold winter. It's been lovely here this week and I'm sitting at my desk drinking Lady Gray tea after a nice lunch.

I thought my lunch was pretty so I snapped a pic. My dinnerware has seen better days though. Is it cheating making your tea by popping a tea bag into a reusable K-cup and running it through the Keurig? Oh, how lazy!

But I didn't title this post Pretty Lunch and Cheaters Tea, did I? Here is Merry Christmas:

Design ~ Merry Christmas

Designer ~ Nancy Boyarsky of Glory Bee

design from the JCS 10th Anniversary Collection book

Fabric ~ 32 count Lugana, tea dyed

Fiber ~ DMC

I did something different when finishing this, after I sewed it up I thought it looked awfully nice, just the way it was. Instead of stuffing it, I added a piece of cotton quilt batting that I put iron-on interfacing on both sides of to stiffen and trimmed to fit inside. I hand-sewed the turning space and trimmed the seams with cording to match.

The result was this flat, but still soft ornament. I probably won't make many of these because usually I need to stuff them to hide imperfections, but this one looked great. I love everything about this ornament, the design, with the crammed together "MAS" to make it fit and the smyrna stitches in the border and I love the unusual finish. 

I leave you with a picture of Molly and her tongue tip poked out. She goes about like this ever since she lost those three little front teeth, it's much worse when she sleeps, an inch or more. My conclusion is those three teeth were a key component of the tongue retention system...

  

Thank you for visiting my blog today!

xox

Chickadee Dee Dee

Chickadees are one of my favorite birds. You can imagine my glee a couple years ago, when a pair nested in the box on my front porch! When I took this quick clip, they were starting to fledge, calling back and forth to the parent birds, "Chick-A-Dee-Dee-Dee!" Before the day was over they were gone from the nest but I was able to watch the parents teach the babies sunflower-seed-cracking-skills at my feeder for a few weeks.

Design ~ Snowy Garden

Designer ~Susan Penny

Design from the book "Cross Stitch Greeting Cards"

Fabric ~ 28 count glass blue monaco

Fiber ~ DMC

I love how this one turned out! I may need to swap the bow for blue in later years when the white is dingy but I think it's adorable. Yet another Christmas ornament this year. Are y'all getting tired of Christmas ornament posts from me yet?

Thank you for visiting my blog today!

xox

Warm Hands, Warm Heart

A happy Easter evening! We spent a quiet holiday. Dash happily colored eggs, I happily munched egg salad sandwiches!

I stopped by a local quilt shop (yesterday) and found this charm pack:

Here are the prints in the package of five inch squares:

Thanks to The Fat Quarter Shop for the image! You can buy the fabrics in the line here.

Aren't those fun prints? When I saw them, I knew they'd be perfect for backing smaller Ornaments like this:

Design ~ Warm Hands, Warm Heart

Designer ~ The Little Stitcher

Fabric ~ 28 count black Jobelan

Fiber ~ DMC

This is such a darling design! I changed the colors to brighter ones since I stitched it on black fabric. You can find this one in the Just CrossStitch Christmas Ornaments 2017 issue.

Why do you only see the giant red fuzzy stuck right in the middle after you took the photos, transferred them to the computer, and your blog post is written? Whhyyyy? 

Thank you for visiting my blog today!

xox

Just Can't Stop

Design ~ Joy

Designer ~ Kay Hanson Cavnar, Lilybet Designs

Fabric ~ 28 count black Jobelan

Fiber ~ DMC

I am on a Christmas Ornament Fest and I just can't stop! These things are as bad as potato chips. I was shopping in a quilt shop and came across a package of buttons just the right size for my little "Joy" ornament. Yippee! Trying to justify spending money on more stash just to cover shipping on a $1.40 button was beyond me. Don't get me wrong. I love stash. I am not in dire need of it just the now!

Just for the record, this is my seventh Christmas ornament finished since December last year. I have another on the go and two more kitted up and a pile of patterns at the ready. I won't forget the big box of finishes, though! When inspiration strikes, I'll pull one out and have at it.

Thank you for visiting my blog today!

xox

Patterns Patterns Everywhere

I stitched this design once before for a Christmas card exchange in 2007. I decided to stitch it again for myself. It turned out way cuter than I imagined it.

Design ~ Pump, Leisure Arts leaflet 197

Designer ~ Anne Van Wagner Young

Fabric ~ 32 count white Lugana

Fiber ~ DMC

Funny thing, I started looking through my stash last week to find the pattern. I couldn't remember what the design was in! Was it a magazine? A leaflet? Book? Where was it? After searching through everything I could think of...twice over, for five hours and even posting on Facebook for help and then another two hours search, there it was. No kidding, I searched for seven hours. My pattern stash is ridiculous. I am a terrible packrat! I would take pictures and show you but I'm too embarrassed! Let's just say there are boxes and boxes and boxes full and I cannot bear to part with any of them.

What do you hoard even though you know you will never be able to use it all?

Thank you for visiting my blog today!

xox

Totally Useless Luck o' the Irish

Yesterday, (St. Patrick's Day) was the New Moon, are your ORTs ready for the Totally Useless Stitch A Long? I am late because I spent the day with my parents and didn't even turn the desktop on! I should have planned better and written my post Friday night but I didn't. Phhht!

All the thread ORTs I've saved this year are really filling up this jar! The stitching is another Christmas Ornament I've started. Looks strange now but this will be a water pump and bucket soon...

My sewing/finishing ORTs are good too:

Since I was gone all day Miss Molly was extra snuggly and sweet. Can you see the gap of her missing teeth? You can't see in the photo but she has purple stitches that will eventually dissolve. She's back to regular kibble, and didn't care one whit that it wasn't canned-food-treat any more! We have a vet visit in the morning and hopefully she can have the cone off and get toys back! She's been terribly polite about wearing the cone. She took it off twice that first full day and after being admonished that it must stay on she has left it alone.I wish she always minded so well!

=^..^=

Now it is YOUR turn...we want to see your ORTs! Leave a comment on this post with a link to your March TUSAL post so we can come visit! If I hold a Totally Useless giveaway your comment will earn you an extra entry.

Wondering what a TUSAL is and why all these people are posting pictures of rubbish? Click here to learn more and join the fun!

Thank you for visiting my blog today!

xox