Another Update and Halloween Wrap Up

I've kind of lost my blog writing uumph but thought I'd post a few pictures from Halloween here at my house and give you a bit of an update.    I'll save the update until the end in case you want to skip that.  

Our two grandsons came over and helped decorate for Halloween.  The oldest is 14, so he did most of the outside decorating.  I think the trick or treaters enjoyed the lights.

                                       


Here are the three tomato cage ghosts that we put out every year.  My tomato cage ghost tutorial can be found in my blog post here.  

Since I wrote the tutorial, I've put a styrofoam ball on top to make the heads more rounded.  

Our youngest grandson is 10.  He's pretty creative when he's turned loose with a couple of containers of Halloween decorations.  He likes this quilt, so it hangs in the kitchen.  

He stuffed every single stem that he could find into this one vase.  He kept asking me where I wanted him to put things, and I told him to just put things where he thought they looked best.

He put lots of pumpkins on the coffee table.  He spent a lot of time decorating.   He worked really hard to make sure that every cross stitch pillow was visible.  

Then he moved out to the porch and decorated the coffee table there.

This display is on the floor.  He kind of has a circle thing going.  

Even the fan had a pumpkin.  

And the person that sits in this chair will get a pumpkin surprise.  After all the decorating was finished, we took the boys out for pizza and breadsticks at our favorite place.  

Last weekend I went up to Shipshewana, Indiana, to the Midwest Fabric Study Group meeting.  This was my first time, and I really enjoyed getting to see Mary Kerr and her quilts.  I've been a fan of hers since I saw her quilts in Paducah about 10 years ago, and I have 4 of her books.  

This hexagon quilt is in one of her books, but photos don't do this one justice.  She left it hanging during the entire weekend, and I couldn't stop looking at it.  

If I were making this block, I'd be stressing over the direction of the stripes in that outer round.   The maker of this quilt didn't worry about fabric direction or consistency as you can see in the bottom corner of the photo.  And the entire quilt is quilted with red thread.  

Update:    I just finished my 8 weeks of physical therapy for my knee at the end of October.  I've had the kneecap pain for several months now, and the physical therapy didn't change anything.  I saw the surgeon again, and he's recommending kneecap resurfacing.  I won't give you the gory details, but there will be another surgery using the same incision and they will put a "button" on the back side of my kneecap.  That means more recovery time, and you guessed it-more physical therapy.  Meanwhile, during a routine visit to my primary care doc last week, she heard something in my heart that wasn't supposed to be there so I'm seeing a heart doctor on Monday.  I'm also having a test in December on my surgery leg because it's numb down to my 2 outer toes. That test is right before Christmas, so I'll most likely have the surgery in January sometime.  At least that's the plan for now.  

Thanks for stopping by for a visit.  

I hope you're finding some time to stitch today.

Some Cross Stitch Finishes and the Future

I have a basket of shame full of cross stitched pieces that aren't finished into either a frame, on a backer, or into a pillow.  There are a lot of cross stitchers that just stitch and then put their finished stitches in a basket or a drawer.  Mine are in a basket so I call it my basket of shame.  

Here is one that I finished stitching quite awhile ago.  

These are Robin Pickens Seasonal Couriers.  The one above is summer.  

In this photo there are spring, fall, winter and the bottom right stitch is Patriotic Typeface from Fat Quarter Shop.  Honestly, I finished stitching all of these awhile ago.

All 5 of these fit on the wooden backer from Chantelle's 141 Design Company.  The backer comes unfinished.  I painted it and wiped it down with a pecan stain.  I've put magnets on the back side of the backer and on the back side of the stitches so I can switch them out for the seasons.  

I glue the fabric to the foam board I order from Amazon.  Then I thread lace my stitching to more foam board.  I find that if I lace my stitching, it's easier to center it and get things even.  And if something happens to the fabric backer,.....well, there's always more fabric!

Here are 4 Patriotic stitches that I made into pillows.  So far I haven't even made a dent in my basket of shame.  I'll keep working on it.  

Do you have this guy where you live?  This guy is called Tally, and he goes through the grocery store taking inventory.  I don't see him every time I'm there, but he's in the aisles pretty often.  And he's stubborn.  I can walk right up to him and stand in front of him, and he keeps nudging forward.  I like technology, but I can't get used to this guy.  

That's all for now.  

I hope you're finding some time to stitch today.  

Thanks for stopping by for a visit.  

Quilts, Hexagons. Cross Stitch and Shopping

Hello   I hope you are all doing well.  I've been busy with physical therapy and exercises, and in between I've managed to squeeze in some other fun things.  

This is my latest little quilt from the Simple Whatnots group.  Our group meeting was last week on Tuesday.  This one is called Prairie Pretties.  I just did some simple quilting on this one.  This stitch is made by choosing the zig-zag option on your machine and setting the stitch width and length wide.   

I sewed the binding on by machine and then I stitched it by hand on the back.  I think hand sewing the binding to do the last part of a quilt is kind of relaxing.  I know everyone doesn't agree with that.  

I've watched several videos on You Tube about crocheting an edge on a quilt.   I decided this little quilt was small enough that it wouldn't be a huge time investment to give it a try.  The video I watched used a backstitch on the edge of the binding,  I started out that way, but my backstitching on the quilt looked like my backstitching on an embroidery piece.   So I used a buttonhole stitch instead.  I'm kind of glad I did because it seemed like it gave the quilt edging more stability.  The buttonhole stitch is a bit tricky to put on the edge of the binding.  I kept trying different needles until I found one with a large enough eye to get the thread through and one that was sharp enough to get the thread through the binding.  I have no idea what kind of needle it was.  I'd guess a chenille needle????   I used Aunt Lydia's Crochet Thread Fashion 3 (100% cotton) that I bought at Michaels.  I started with 2 rounds of single crochet to give the next round a good foundation.  Then I did a 4 double crochets, skip 1 chain, 1 single crochet, skip a chain then another 4 double crochets.  You continue that all the way around the quilt.  If you crochet, that's a pretty simple shell stitch.  

I've also made a few more 5/8" hexagon arches for my Avignon quilt.

I found a little zipper bag and had no idea what was in it.  There were more hexagons.  I think they just keep multiplying.  I pulled out sets of 6 and sewed them into a ring so I can put centers in them sometime later.  These are 3/4" which is the size I use most often.  

I make the ring leaving one side open, and then I find a hexagon from my box of centers and clip them together.  

Here's the pencil box full of odd 3/4" hexagons that I use to choose my centers.  

                                                   

I also found some time to meet a friend in Rushville at Mystic Fabrics.  We shop first then head over to Pizza Hut to eat and then we sit there and stitch.  The girl working there always comes over and says she loves that we're getting together to stitch.  Here's a few photos from inside Mystic.  There's lot of cross stitch patterns, floss, and some yarn.  

They have a lot more fabric than this.  Somehow I only took photos of the wide backing fabrics.  

I've made quite bit of progress on America the Beautiful by Stitching with the Housewives.  I'm working on the flag now.  I kind of like repetitive stitching so I'm enjoying this part.  

That's all for now.   Until next time.......

I hope you are finding some time to stitch today.  

Thanks for stopping by for a visit.