The Desk

My Mom in Love gifted me a desk a couple of years ago that I just love. It is small, I am short, and it is perfect for me to sit and write and do that chore we all hate, pay those bills.  I loved the color of green it was already painted but then I moved it into another room and I painted this room a shade of green which made it disappear into the background of the wall.  The chair was a gift also and the smaller size that I love.  I have not decided if I want to paint it or not, I like the seat but it does not really go with the new color I picked.

This is the first time I have used chalk paint and I did not use the brand everyone else has been using. I used paint from American Paint Company and the color is Surfboard. I did not really distress it a lot and decided to use a poly instead of a wax for the topcoat.  

I bought a set of the Martha Stewart adhesive silkscreens to stencil the feathers and I want to tell you there is such a difference in these and the stencil's I used years ago.  It was so easy and a quick project.

Should have taken the pictures away from the wall so you would not see the cold air vent where I have the desk sitting but I decided I might as well be real about it since that is where it sits. I have a wooden shelf and file box that I have given a coat of the same color to sit on the desk but I am going to do some decoupage and a different finish so I will show how I dress the top later.  

I could not believe how little of the paint I used and do not feel so bad about the price that I paid for a quart.  I think I need to buy a couple more colors and work on some more of the items I have piled in my work area waiting for a coat of paint.  

So glad that you stopped by!  Blessings from our home in the woods.

Brenda

Linking with:

A Finish and a WIP

I am happy to show you a finished project today.  If you remember a while back I posted about the Kaffe Fusion Blanket SAL/CAL here.  I finished it about two weeks ago took pictures and really did not have any time to post about it until now.

Could not decide which way I wanted to hang it on the back of our sofa at first but I think I like the next look better.

Close-up.

If you are making one of these from the Tutorial you will notice a lot of differences in the one that I put together.  Started out the same but decided I wanted my corners to meet so used my knowledge of past granny squares and made the corners squared off instead of round.  Then I decided that I wanted the throw to be larger and added another color around each square but used the same amount of squares the tutorial called for at the Sewing Daisies link.  After crocheting all the squares together I decided it needed a boarder.  I went around the complete throw twice with 1/2 double crochet then I used a boarder that I found in the Around the Corner Crochet Boarder book by Edie Eckman.  You can find it here.

As for my WIP, I just finished a block for the Girls Own Stitching Club over at Red Brolly.

Here is the lay out so far:

I am using the 30's fabrics that I have been using in the Great Granny Square quilt for one of our guest rooms for this wall hanging. As with the quilt I am trying to get that scrappy look.  I am working on the center block right now, the next block comes out in a week or so with the last block to follow the beginning of next year.  Is anyone else working on this BOM?  Let me know I would love to see how yours are coming along.

I hope everyone is having a great week!  Blessings from our home in the woods.

Brenda

Linking with:

A Grand Party and Time with the Grands

I decided it was time to play a little catch up and start posting here on my blog again.  I have some finished  projects and have a lot in the works to share but I will stretch that out over the next week.

First off I want to share a few pictures from a Grand Party given for my husbands parents for their 50th
Wedding Anniversary by their children and children's spouses.   My camera seems to be taking fewer clear pictures of late but I picked out the best that I took, hubs and I sure hope that we will get some of the better pictures that others were taking.

My husbands Mother, Father and children.  They are sure a photogenic family. This family means the world to me and my daughters.  They are the best.

Just some random shots.  I picked out the best that I took.

Hubs and oldest daughter.

Sis-in-law and a favorite Uncle.

Mom-in-love and one of her best buddies.

This area is at the front of the church we attend.  It is rather large and was full most of the time.  There were tables sat up in the sanctuary and we had food and cake for the guests.

Mine and hubs project for the event was to put together a memory tree.  Took my wonderful man three tries but he put together some branches from our woods and I made the tags for the tree.

We also put my hubs in charge creating a poem to go with the tree.  I think you might be able to read it if you click on the picture to enlarge it.

That was the best of the pictures for the Anniversary party that I have so on to the Grands.  We have had some of the Grands visit this month over a couple of weekends.  These brothers were here earlier this month and spent some time in the wood shop with Grandpa building boxes to keep some treasures in.

There are two more brothers in this family but they were not able to come this time around.

This past weekend we had  the three children of my youngest daughter visit.

We put together a quick tea party.

Cookies and hot chocolate.  Of coarse instead of sugar on the table there had to be marshmallows. And the girls picked out their favorite tea cups to use.

Grandpa cut out airplane pieces which the girls glued together and painted.

This little guy spent the weekend zooming around and most of the pictures I tried to take were a blur until finally:

That is all I have for now,  I know there was a lot more going on around here since I last posted but these were the highlights.  I hope everyone is well and safe from all the storms that have gone through the states and hope you leave a comment letting me know what you have been up to.  I will try and catch up with everyone soon.

Blessings from our home in the woods!

Sunday Praise

I know I have been away for quite awhile but I hope to get some new posts up this coming week.  Have a great week!

Blessings from our home in the woods.

Guest Post

Good Morning!  I am excited to send you all over to Jane's Fabric and Quilts where she has invited me to write my first Guest Post ever.  Want to see how I used this fabric I have been coveting since it came out?

I hope you will come visit me at http://janesfabrics.blogspot.com/ and check out her series "For the Love of Hand Embroidery"


Blessings from our home in the woods.

Brenda

Sunday Praise

Do You SAL, CAL, QAL, KAL, do you?

So tell me how many Sew alongs,  crochet alongs, quilt alongs, knit alongs, you get the idea, do you sign up for or start?  I want to do them all.  When I first started blogging I was buying fabric and yarn all the time for all the different crafty goodies I wanted to make along with all of you.  I finally decided after 2 years of finding out there is just no way I could keep up with that many fun things and still finish gifts for family and friends that I would only try and keep up with one project on line at a time.  This years pick was the Girls own Stitching Club over at Red Brolly.  And I have kept up so far although the BOM that I started with a local quilt shop I have fallen behind on.  Here is this months block from the Girls Own Stitching Club.

I am loving these blocks.  I am stitching on muslin backed with a light weight fusible interfacing.  They remind me of vintage table scarves or hankies.  If you would like to join the club there is a button on my side bar. I learned two new stitches this month the Granitos stitch which I figured out pretty quickly and the Bullion stitch which I need a lot of practice at.

Since I did not have a crochet project going and was itching to do a little hook work I decided to start this project.

I found the tutorial at Sewing Daisies if you are interested.  I bought the charm squares and yarn way back when there was a CAL/SAL going around for it.  Sew, I am not doing an "along", I am doing it "alone".  But that is ok, because even though this tutorial has been around for close to two years I still wanted to try my hand at it.  I did change out the corners, I wanted them to meet when I put it together instead of the rounded ones in the tutorial.  Easy enough to change out.  I think when I have all the squares done I will trim each the same with a natural color and then use the same color to crochet them together.  What do you think?  I have this many done so far.

And I do have a finished project!  I have finished the baby blanket that I have been showing you the start of for a couple of weeks.

I have shared this tutorial with you before, but just in case you have not visited in the past you can find it at the Moda Bake shop here.

This baby blanket is winging its way across the country for my best friends new grand baby that is due to arrive this next month.  

So there you have it, a new project started, one finished and one that is a mystery.  

I hope you are having a wonderful week, blessing from our home in the woods!

Brenda

Sunday Praise!

Most Things Fall

Happy Friday sweet friends!  I know you are all blogging about Fall, so I thought I should chime in.  I will start with a recipe.  More to the tune of, I will send you to the site that shares the recipe, and then just tell you to try this, it is wonderful!  I made this for hubs and myself a little over a week ago when the nights started cooling off and I decided it was time to start making some of the yummy, warm your soul, foods that we all love come Fall.

This is Touchdown Chili is out of the Susan Branch Autumn book.  You can find the recipe here on her wonderful site.  Not only are you in for a treat if you try out this recipe but you also are going to love reading the wonderful posts that Susan writes.  Better yet, you might want to pick up a copy of the book because it is full of great recipes for this time of the year.

Now that the season has changed and it is almost time to start working on those Christmas gifts, I have been trying to spend more time in my sewing room finishing off some of the projects that have been sitting while I have been gardening, canning and just having summer fun.  Today is

and I have been in the sewing room finishing up a couple of projects this evening.  I finished the August BOM and replaced May's block since I did not get June or July's made yet.  This is diffidently more seasonal.

I also finished up another project this evening but am unable to share it with you because I am taking part in a blog hop at Jane's Fabrics and Quilts.  Each Monday someone shares an embroidery project.  My turn to share  is September 30th.

Since I cannot share the completed project I will just give you a peek of the material that I used to put it all together with.  I have been determined to find a project to use some of this Moda fabric in so I hope you will come back on the 30th and see the result.

I am going to work on another project through through the rest of the evening.  I shared the pieced side of the chenille baby blanket I am making for a gift a couple of weeks ago.

This evening I am backing with layers of flannel in these colors sewing the channels through all the layers that I hope to get cut and the binding on and in the washer to turn into chenille by the end of the weekend.  A soft warm blanket for a new Fall baby due next month.  

I will try and come back later tomorrow and share the fun things I have planned with my best friend tomorrow if there is time.  Have a wonderful weekend!  Blessings from our home in the woods.

Brenda

Linking up with some of my favorite friends: