Beautiful Faces

It is hard to decide which picture of which grandchild to share first.  This first picture is of our youngest granddaughter.  Both of our granddaughters are home schooled and take some extra curriculum classes at a church they have attended.  They both take a class called Keys and Strings where they are getting some basics on the keyboard and violin.

We have celebrated a lot of the grands birthdays in the past couple of months.  Yesterday was our youngest grandsons birthday and today we went to a party for him.

He got a fake tattoo in the middle of the forehead the night before in case you were wondering what that red spot is.  I guess they do not wash off to easily.

Eating his ice cream cone from the bottom.  I think he must have found the cone more to his liking.

Birthday boy's sisters.

Our grandsons, the cousins:

Oldest who's birthday was in April and I forgot my camera.

Second oldest who's birthday was also in April and I shared a picture during the month of April with you.

Brother number three, and next brother number four.

Also last month our oldest granddaughter celebrated her birthday.

She loves the girly cloths.  The pink is from myself and grandpa.

The next dress is from her Auntie.

She went to Chicago for her birthday and visited the American Girl doll shop.  Her present from mommy and daddy was to get her dolls hair done and ears pierced.  She also used some birthday money to buy some doll accessories.

I had many more beautiful faces in pictures from the parties but I expect this post is long enough already. I will share the afghan that I gave our one year old grand when I can get a good picture of him with it.  Hope you are all having a great weekend and Happy Mothers Day from our home in the woods!

Brenda

Friday Night with Friends Results

I spent yesterday evening cutting pieces for two more Farmers Wife blocks.  I did not get them pieced last night but I did finish them up this morning.

Block #1 Attic Windows:  I really liked how easily and quickly this block went together.  I would like to make a few of these into a table topper.

I decided to make a second block again this week.  This one is block # 31 Evening Star.  The piecing is getting easier for me now that I have made 10 of the blocks.

Has anyone joined in with Red Brolly's Girls Own Stitching Club?  

I have made a dent in the first sampler that came out the end of April.

All the pieces will go together in a quilt and it is garden themed.  You might want to join in if you haven't!

Just want to share a picture that is not stitching related.  Our weather has taken a turn for the best and we are now enjoying our spring!  All of the rain has the ponds over the banks this spring.  I tried to take a picture of the Mallards that come in every morning for a swim without scaring them off.  Hopefully you can find the Mr. Mallard that I finally caught in my lens.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Brenda

Friday Night With Friends

Happy Friday!  It seems I have only been posting on Friday's and not very often.  I have some Farmers Wife blocks to share tonight.  I put together this first block the Friday before last.  It is number 104 Wild Geese.

 I pieced an extra block that week, number 75, Rainbow Flowers.  I have decided I need to add an extra block in the mix so it does not take me two years to finish this quilt.  This is the only block that I have went out and bought fabric for so far.  I liked how the example in the book was the same print just different colors so when I found a line I could use I made that my next block.

Last week's block was number 14, Butterfly at the Crossroads.

I have picked out the fabrics for this weeks block and for an extra block.  I am going to spend the rest of the evening cutting the pieces out and hopefully starting to piece them together.

Hopefully I will have something to show tomorrow to the other participants of Friday Night With Friends.

I also finished another bag to take on my trip which is just 17 days away.  Have I told you I am going to Hawaii with my very best friend?!  More about that later.

This is the Mini Messenger bag from Quilts Illustrated designed by Darci Wright.  If you remember  on my last post I made the rather large Cosmo Bag for my carry on tote to stash all my magazines, books, crocheting and some hand stitching in.  And it was not an easy bag.  But this one, I would make again.  The pattern was very easy to follow and I love how it turned out.

I used Moda's PB & J line of fabric, one charm pack and a yard of the fabric for the outside and lining.  I also bought 1/2 yard of one of the other fabrics for the inside pockets so they would stand out.  I have fabric left to make another bag for a gift if I want.  This is the back of the bag.

As much as I am enjoying my sewing time, I am going to have to wind the larger projects up and start working on my gardening.  The days have finally started warming up over the last 3 or 4 days.  The grass is turning green and the hens have been enjoying their time outside of the run scratching in the yard.

Thank you for stopping by!  Blessings from our home in the woods.

Brenda

Linking with these Friday night parties:

Sharing

Time to share what I have been up to as of late.  I did not get my weekly Farmer's Wife quilt block put together last week.  I did finish it yesterday, but I did not get this weeks cut out yet.  This is block #7 called Birds in the Air.  I really like the way this block turned out.

I flipped through the book to try and find an exert to share with you again this week.  I have three grown daughters so when I read this mothers letter to the Farmer' Wife magazine that started out "I hope to see my daughters, three in number, marry farmers, and I'm not particular about any special sort of farming." I decided to finish reading this particular letter. This mother talks in her letter about a cultured woman.  "I want my daughter to be a cultured woman; a cultured person must be a thinker and I am sure there is no other place or work which affords the chance for one to think than the farm does."  and "Women of today have greater opportunities and greater knowledge but our problems are more difficult.  We must be thinkers in order to build for the health, happiness and success of tomorrow."  Although these letters were written the the 1920's I believe there are a lot of correctness to them today.

The reason I am behind on my Farmer's Wife blocks is this very large Amy Butler Cosmo bag that I put together last week.  My best friend and I are getting ready for a trip the end of May and we decided to each make one of these bags. She has the pattern so we spent many hours together cutting them out.   I was going to go with brighter colors but I already had some of this Anna Griffin Fiona fabric in my stash for a couple of years.  I did have to buy some of the coordinating fabric from eBay.   We are going to Hawaii for close to two weeks.  I'll tell you more about how that came about later.  But since we are going for so long we will be checking a larger piece of luggage and we are going to use these bags as our carry on.

 

The bottom has some extra padding a sits really well and the inside has some great large pockets.  There are also pocket on the outside down the each side but I do not think the picture shows that.  The directions do say this is an easy bag to make but as we have found others on their blogs have said it was not so easy and we agree.  It took many hours to cut it out and many more to sew it together.  But I am really happy with it and would probably make another, but with some brighter fun colors.

And the last thing I have to share is the April block of the month.  I finished putting it together last weekend just in time for the May block to show up in the mail.

The weather is keeping me inside and there has been absolutely no gardening or yard work done yet this spring.  The rain turned to snow flurries today and our ponds are the highest they have been in years.  Hopefully soon I can share something besides my sewing projects. 

It has been a sad week for our country as all of you know.  The bombs in Boston, the fire in Texas and this crazy weather has certainly been hard to watch.  I wish you all the blessings possible from our home in the woods!

Brenda

Linking up with my favorite Friday night parties:

A Little Show and Tell and a Treasure

I need to get back into the swing of things.  I have been keeping busy but I have not shared a whole lot lately.  Each Friday evening I have been sewing a block for my Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt.  Last Friday night I started and finished #99 which is titled W.C.T.U.  I did a little research through the book and found this stands for the Women's Christian Temperance Union which was founded in 1874.

My treasure to share with The House on the Side of the Hill's Tuesdays Treasures is this little guy.

This is our number two of five grandsons and he turned 8 last week.  He is as sweet as can be, just look at those big blue eyes.  And on his shoulder is a little toy called a shoulder buddy.  Very cute little thing.  There is a magnet that you put under the shoulder of the shirt and the buddy just sits there.  Funny how the simplest of gifts are the favorites they receive. Hubs and I bought a video game and a new outfit for this young man and he was a very thankful and happy little guy. All seven of our grands were at this party but I could not get a picture of them all together. If they would have stopped playing together long enough  you could have saw all of our treasures in one glance.

I hope you are all having a wonderful week.  Blessings from our home in the woods!

Linking with:

Giveaway Winner!

I am late again this week!  Seems to be the story of my life lately.  I told all the participants that I would draw   the give-away winner on the first of April.  Our four oldest grandsons came to spend the night and I totally forgot.  I also forgot to take any pictures of them while they were here this time also.  We had a great time.  Pizza for dinner, a lot of video games being played, the oldest got his game of cribbage in with Grandpa and I took them all to the movies today before taking them home.  I always take the grands that are old enough  to the movies every year on spring break.  We went to see the Croods, it was great fun.  I am going a second time this week when I take our two granddaughters.  I am not brave enough to take all of them at one time.  Maybe when they are teenagers and they can drive me and buy my popcorn and candy I will take all seven, the youngest is not old enough yet.  There may be more by then.....

So back to the winner.

Wrote all your names out in the order you commented and numbered them just in case we pulled one of the duplicate first names.

Hubs stuck his big hand in and pulled out a winner!

lauraluvsloons, I am sending you a note by email, get back to me and I will send your pattern along with some extra goodies.  thanks to everyone for visiting my blog and leaving your sweet comments over the last four years.  I have loved making new friends and getting to know all of you.

Blessing from our home in the the woods!

Farmgirl Friday

This week I am sharing another Farmers Wife Block.  The block assigned to us this week was #41 the Friendship Star.

This has been hubs favorite so far.  I thought I would share a page from the journal I am keeping for the quilt.  I am listing the number and name of each block, adding some samples of the fabric and a small thumbnail picture.

I have never liked my penmanship and when I scrapbook I usually ask hubs to do the writing for me or type it out on the computer to print out for the pages.  I have decided I should use my own handwriting on these pages and I have already found a lot of mistakes in the previous pages.  Maybe I should rethink going in this direction.

For those who do not have this book and are not quilting along with a group or on their own I thought I would give a short bit out of one of the letters to the newspaper that are listed in the book.  Such as the following letter from a mother speaking of her daughter marrying a farmer.

"She will have the best place in the world to raise her children.  They will have all out-doors to play and grow in.  They will learn nature's lessons naturally and normally, without acquiring wrong and oftentimes soul-blighting conceptions of life's wonders."

I was thinking as I read this even though it was written in the 1920's, wouldn't we all love these things for our daughters and grandchildren in this very modern time?

Thank you for stopping by!  Blessings from our home in the woods.

Linking with Deborah Jean's Farmgirl Friday Hop

My Day! Stitch Me Up Blog Hop

Today is my day to share what I have created for the Stitch Me Up Blog Hop.

I am so excited to participate in my first blog hop and I hope you are all enjoying everyone's creative projects!  Must thank Jane of Jane's Fabrics and Quilts for cheering us all on.  Also must thank Madame Samm for coming up with all these great hop's and finding such wonderful sponsors.  Here are the participants that are scheduled to share today.

Kristin @That Other Blog

Robin @That Other Blog

Jane's Fabric and Quilts

Dexterdays The WorldThrough Our Window

Sew Nicely 

thistle creek cottage

My Art, My So Called Life

Just Sew Sue

Co mne bavi...

life, quilts and a cat too

TeaTimeCreations

Read, quit, cook, pray

Cate's Linens

Shade Tree Quilting

Ladybug Dreams

 I chose two of the patterns provided for my projects.  First I chose the marvelous chair design from Debbie of Busy As Can Be.  

 I love the threads we were able to buy from Jane for these projects, as you can see I did go out and purchase a few more colors.

Precensia Thread

I started out using french knots in the design but found that the colonial knot worked best with this thread.   I did have to pick out a few french knots and replace with the colonial knots but it was not much of a set back.  As you can see I also got a lot of practice making lazy daisies.

I took pictures in the sunniest room in the house I could find.  It is still snowy and grey here in our neck of the woods.  Then I took a picture where the pillow will be staying in my cozy green chair in my studio.  I will admit, I was dreaming of a chair that is as cushy as the one I stitched looks.

I have been trying to decide whether to paint the arms and legs of this chair, if you have an opinion on that, it would be welcomed.

The second project I finished was one of Madame Samm's little tots.  I love this little girl and soon as I saw her, knew I would have to stitch her up.  Added some vintage buttons and made her into a dolly.

And next, her new spot until the grands come by and decide to rearrange all the dolly's.

I have used the pattern twice before that I stitched up the pillow from.  

This one usually sits in this chair in the sunny family room.

This next one I stitched up for my best friend's birthday present.

I would like to have a little give away to celebrate my very first blog hop and to also celebrate that tomorrow is my 4th blogaversary.   

I plan on picking up a new copy of this pattern for one of you, I know right where I can get one,  and will add some extras to sweeten up the gift.  

Just leave a comment, no need to follow unless you really want to.  And I will plan on having the drawing on April 1'st.  

Thanks for coming by and please visit all the other participants that are listed above for today's hop.  Blessings from our home in the woods!

Brenda