Just a Little Something

I am trying to post at least once a week and here it is the end of the week and I was sitting here wondering what can I share.  I don't have much.  We have another big snow storm coming our way tomorrow.  Cannot say I am excited about that though.

I did finish the pin keep I was working on last week.  I found some butterfly pins that I thought would look cute stuck in it.  It does make me smile.

I know you are all probably done talking about Christmas.  But I joined a CAL (Crochet Along) on Facebook to get a head start on next year.  I have managed to keep up.  Tamera of the All About Moogly blog is hosting and every two weeks sharing a new square for us to work on.  You can go here for the first block if you are interested.  This is my first block.

And this is the second block.  I have not blocked them yet and they are 12" blocks.

 And this week I decided to make one more of each block using these colors and by next December I will have a gift for my Mom and my Mom-in-Love.

 Hope you are all staying safe in all these winter storms and am so glad that you have stopped by for a visit!
Blessings from our home in the woods.

Brenda

FNSI Results

I feel like I actually accomplished a lot sewing along with everyone last night!  I started out with these pieces that I had already cut out for the Aurifil BOM.

 Here is the result.

If you would like to make this block I would use Pat Sloan's tip that I followed here.  This block went together very easily and I loved the results I got using Pat's instructions.

At the end of the evening I picked up where I had left off on this pin keep.  I received this small kit as a free gift one year on a quilt shop hop.  It has been hiding in a drawer that I was going through a couple of weeks ago so I decided to pull it out and give it a go.  Now, if it did not come with these wool pieces I probably would have made all the petals one color and would have backed it with black wool. 

 Here is the top with the hand stitching finished last night in my happy chair.  If I finish it today I will come back and add to this post.

I hope you all had a great FNSI!  I look forward to seeing what everyone else worked on last night.

 Blessings from my home in the woods!

Brenda

I am hanging out with everyone participating in the Friday Night Sew-In over at Sugarlane Quilts.  Why don't you join us?  I'll be back tomorrow to share what I get done.  I am getting a late start so I have not decided what I want to work on yet but it will not be hard because I have so many projects in the process!  See you all back here tomorrow with the results!

Brenda

Continuing On

Boy oh boy, have you ever written an entire post, saved it, published it and went back in to add something and the whole post disappeared?  Well that just happened to me and I was a bit wordy so it will be to your advantage that I do not have the time or want to rewrite it all word for word.  SO, here it is shortened by many words.   This is what my cutting table looks like right now.  Picking out fabrics for the next five or six Farmers Wife blocks.

The next three pics are the remaining blocks that I finished since last weeks post.

#102 Whirlpool

#45 Grape Basket

#97 Waste Not

 The fabric in the next picture was in my stash and I had not found a use for it so I decided to use it in the Aurifil Quilt along block of the month.  I need to find one more piece of fabric to add to this stack.

Wow your never going to know how much more I said the first time through, lucky you!  I hope you are all staying warm in this very deep freeze we are going through.  Blessings from our home in the woods!

Brenda

Farmers Wife

As I showed you on my last post I have started working on my Farmers Wife quilt blocks again after many months hiatus.  So I spent a couple of afternoons cutting templates and the fabric pieces out for five blocks so I could just spend some hours just sewing.  It always takes me a lot of time deciding on the fabrics I want to use for each block.  I should have moved the other things off the table before taking the picture but this is actually quite a bit neater than this table top usually is.  My design wall is full of other projects that I am working on so  I had to stop cutting because pieces on the table started becoming a jumble from them sliding around.

Block #84/Spool

Block #9/Box

I also took a picture of these two blocks together because I wanted to show you how using the very same two templates in both blocks, but less of one or more of the other, and switching the direction they are sewn together changes the look of the blocks.  These both use half square triangles and squares that are exactly the same size.  I also thought I had made a mistake because the points were not coming together along the edge before I remembered the 1/4 inch seam that will be taken when the blocks are sewn together.  So glad I did remember because I was about to rip apart and start over.  Ouch, that would have been sad to remember after the fact.

I will be sharing a lot of these in the future because I really want to make some progress on this quilt in the coming months.  Thanks for stopping by for a look and enjoy your weekend!

Blessings from our home in the woods!

Brenda

 

Recently Finished and What Comes Next

Good Morning Friends!  I thought I would share some finished projects before I show you what I am going to be working on this afternoon.  For Christmas I made 24 of these Little Duffle Do It bags for gifts. You can find the pattern here, although I think I purchased it as a PDF pattern somewhere else.  I just goggled and found a shop in case you were interested.   I do not have pictures of all of them, wish I would have remembered to take some.  For the grands I picked out fabrics of cartoons, super heroes or something that interests them and filled them with things that they would find in a Christmas stocking.  We have always filled stockings for the grands but it has become to expensive as we keep getting blessed by more of them.  These were easier to fill, just a pair of socks or slipper socks, new toothbrush, trial size bath supplies and well, don't boo, candy and gum.  The adults got some lotion or shaving supplies in theirs. The following ones are some that went out after Christmas to some out of state family. 

For my dad who still after retirement works for a farm implement dealership in their repair shop.

Well I took the picture together but of coarse they do not live together
for my mother and step mother.

For my sister!  Cute fabric isn't it?!

I also sent this long past due apron out to my sister that I finished just after the first of the year.  For those that have visited me before you know I spent a little over a year making aprons for birthday presents for all the women in the family and sewing/work aprons for all my friends.  I still had this one and one more I have not started yet and I will be done with all the fabric I have bought for that purpose.  I always start the year out determined to finish projects I have started or fabric already bought for, but that quickly goes down the drain the first time I step into a fabric/quilt shop.  My sister has received this in the mail so I can share with you now.

As you can see I walk all over my house trying to find a good spot to get the best picture during our dreary winter months.  

I have also finished my last two blocks from the Red Brolly Girls Own Stitching Club, Le Jardin Quilt Along. Only one more block and the finishing to do.  Waiting not so patiently for that last block that is to be posted sometime next month.  

Every month we get a new stitch to learn.  This has been my favorite used for the roses that I tried to take a close up below.  It is called the Bullion stitch and is hard to control at first but once you get the hang of it, it sure makes some pretty stitching.  

Now for the work in progress.  I have started cutting out the pieces for the Farmers Wife quilt blocks I had put away in the spring after planning to work really hard on this one all year.  Yeah right.  These two blocks use the very same two templates. How awesome it is to see how using the same templates can create so many different blocks.  Of coarse I will share again when I have them sewn together.

I have also cut out the pieces from the blue fabrics and have the templates ready for the the others so I hope to have five blocks finished by the end of this week.  The key word is hope!  

So that catches you up with anything I have finished and what is in the works.  I have not got much done on the socks I shared on Friday but have been working on them a bit each night.  I hope you are all having a wonderful week!

Blessings from our home in the woods!

Brenda

       

FNWF

Last night was Friday Night With Friends over at Gone Stitchin'.

I had planned on cutting out some quilt blocks for the Farmers Wife quilt I have not worked on since last spring and a couple of jumpers for my granddaughters.  You know the saying, best plans laid, actually I cannot remember the exact words.  I did not touch a piece of fabric, but I did crochet for a short time on the second cuff of this free sock pattern I got from the Redheart site. I am using Deborah Norville Serenity sock weight in the color of Surf.

I will share how these come out when I get them finished.  They certainly do not look like much at this time. This is only the second pair of socks I have crocheted.  I really would like to take a class to learn to knit a pair.  I hope all the Friday Night Friends accomplished what they set out to do, I am off to go visit a few and see what they have to share.
Blessings from our home in the woods!
Brenda

Sharing

This past year was not a great blogging year for me.  I only posted 74 times total, less than the first year I blogged almost 6 years ago.  I decided that if this next year my heart is not really into keeping this blog current I should take a break from blogging.  I have thought of a lot over the year to post about but then when it comes down to sitting down, uploading pictures and writing something up my heart just has not been in it. And I am afraid to count how many times I promised to come back and give you pictures of finished projects and have dropped the ball.  So I will start with one of those promises today.  A few weeks ago I showed you a desk that I painted with chalk paint, it was the first time I had used that kind of paint and was really happy with the outcome.  That post was here and this is the picture of the desk from that post.


Well I had promised to come back and show you some projects that I was working on for the top of the desk and that is what I have for you today.

I started out painting an old vintage shelf and box that had been sitting around for a while.  I like the chalk paint but decided I need to set them off from the top of the desk a bit.  So I decoupaged paper and fabrics to dress them up.

I distressed the top of the shelf a lot more than I did the desk and added paper and fabric to the in-sides and shelves.  This desk sits in an area of my house that does not get a lot of natural light so the pictures are not as clear as I would like. 

One of the first things I pinned when I joined Pinterest was a daily journal using index cards.  You can see the original I pinned here.  I had been really good at keeping the journal the first year because I just added a new card everyday. But this past year I had a hard time keeping the cards together because I had not found the perfect container for them and I just let my daily journal slip away.  This past summer I found an old recipe box the larger size that the cards I had been using and would fit in at a flea market and it hit the pile of things to paint and stayed there until a month ago.  I forgot to take a before I painted picture but here is what it looked like before I started decoupaging.

The insides will give you an idea of what the outside looked like before the paint was applied.

I had this fabric in my stash that I had fell in love with but had not found anything to sew it into yet.

 Here are a couple close up pictures of the box finished.

Top

Inside lid, added a little glitter to the decoupage.

I have started writing daily again and decided each month to set up a monthly tab.  Although it will never really be where it is seen I decided to make it pretty. I smudged glue around the quote I found and sprinkled with blue glitter to give it an icy look.  Do you think it worked?  

So as promised here is what my desktop looks like.  I plan to change it out with the seasons.

I hope everyone is keeping warm and many blessings from my home in the woods!

Brenda

 Linking up late with the following Friday Parties: