Post #73 - It's the most wonderful time of the year

I went to my favorite Amish produce farm today only to find out that he no longer has the help to keep up the produce stand. He sold me a bushel of Roma tomatoes anyway.  He said most of his 5 brothers and 2 sisters have moved on and he probably won't have a stand next year, either. I'm really going to miss dealing with him. I am more heartbroken about not getting fresh garlic than anything else.

So I stopped at another farm and stocked up on bell peppers, yellow onions, candy onions (sweet), and watermelon.

 While driving home a friend called and offered some fresh-dug potatoes so I drove there and also got some corn and cucumbers.

These four potatoes and three ears of the corn played a big role in supper last night along with a pepper and an onion. Yum, yum.

And while at the grocery store Wednesday I picked up some fresh peaches and fall mums. 

Isn't this a great time of year?

Post #72 - WIP Wednesday

My name is Pam and it's been two weeks since my last Work In Progress blog post.  Or any blog post, for that matter.

But I've been really busy and I have the photos to prove it.

The last time I posted I had just started sewing the dark brown dog doll.  Today both dogs are finished.

I bought the pattern from Wendi. Go check out her blog.

The last time I blogged I had just started on the dark brown one. He is made from a low-pile textured cuddle fleece and he went together rather quickly.

Stuff me!Stuff me!

The burnt orange dog took more time to sew. It is made from a two-sided medium/deep-pile cuddle fleece.  

 It takes a LOT of pins to keep this stuff from shifting while you sew it.

It takes time to put all those pins in.

 And it takes time stopping to take the pins out while you're sewing.

Then once it's sewn you have to pick the pile (fur) out of the seams.

Before and after picking on the medium pile:

  I use an awl to get underneath the fur and lift it out of the seam.  (Oh, in the background is a peek at the fabric Kate is preparing for her quilt.)

Just look at the difference it made on this ear. To the left is the fur stuck in the seam of the deeper pile; to the right it has been picked out. 
The seam disappears!

 The cuddle fleece is soft and just makes you want to pet it. The deeper pile of the burnt orange dog makes it softer than the brown one, though. I didn't stuff the orange one as much as I did the brown one because I wanted him to be "squishier".  :-) I'm very happy with both of them. Now I need to find children who would enjoy them and give them a good home.

#50StatesStitching

 The 50 States Stitching Quilt is coming along. I have the embroidery part caught up. Here is a close up of them.  I still have to paper piece the last 4 stars and sew them onto their blocks. I have not sewn any more striped blocks since the last update.

 Thomas Jefferson called Delaware a diamond (small, but valuable).

 Pennsylvania is represented by the Liberty Bell.

 The New Jersey beach is represented by a seashell.

 Maryland has an adorable blue crab.

 Massachusetts proudly displays the Mayflower.

 Connecticut's state flower is the Mountain Laurel.

 And New Hampshire's state flower is the purple Lilac.  

This one was so much fun to stitch!

Well, I *was* caught up with the embroidery until the new pattern arrived yesterday. A Virginia Ham!  This cracks me up.

I should probably mention that the embroidery hoop in that picture is 3 inches wide. These are tiny patterns...roughly an inch wide (some more, some less). So if my lettering is a little wonky, it's because I find it difficult to stitch a word that is about 1/8-inch tall. I get impatient and use bigger stitches than I should. The letter "s" is giving me fits. Just look at how many are in Massachusetts! Maybe I'll be a pro at this by the 50th state?

Mollie's patterns always make me smile. Even though I adore them, I decided not to put the smiling faces on every object. I also decided to use the full name of the State instead of the postal abbreviation.  The abbreviation would have been much easier (not nearly as many "s" letters) but I don't always take the easy road.

And that's it. 

I did not stitch on the Ohio state counties pillow project. 

Nor did I work on the pumpkin panel that I showed you last time. 

Kate is working on her first quilt and we are both excited. She has it planned, the fabric is cut, and the blocks are laid out and organized. She will begin stitching soon. I can't wait!

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Post #71 - Work in Progress (WIP) Wednesday

I've seen WIP (Work in Progress) posts on craft blogs and didn't think anything of it. But today I realized that it could be a great motivation tool. So here we go, I'm going to tell you what I'm working on and hopefully you will continue to ask me, "whatever happened with..." and thus you will motivate me to finish said projects.  M'kay?   I will update from time to time. Let's see if we can keep these project rolling, shall we?

 You may remember the *Buster the Dog stuffed animal project I cut out a couple of weeks ago. I started sewing it together today. It's going pretty quick. I enjoy sewing dolls, so this is an easy project for me.

 I stopped at the fabric store in town and asked if she had compression gloves in stock. I didn't get gloves, but I bought this beautiful panel to quilt as a wall hanging.   How did THAT happen?

 I've been embroidering the counties on my state panel. It's slow going because I usually work on it while we're camping.  Ohio has 88 counties, so this is taking longer than the *US map I stitched this Spring.

 I am a little behind in the #50StatesStitching *quilt project.

I keep telling myself that it won't take long to stitch up those little patterns, but it's not getting done. I guess I'm waiting on the perfect lighting.

And there you have it. That's everything I'm working on at the moment. That is until I make another trip to the fabric store and come out with something I wasn't looking for.
{sigh}

But I did finish a project this past week.  
Albeit an unplanned one that I started on a whim.

I found a free pattern for a *Peanut Baby doll online and I had to try it out.

One side has an awake face. Turn it over, flip the hair to the other side and you see an asleep face.

And of course we have to show a kitty picture. Lizzie blends in so well with Hub's camo backpack that I had trouble finding her a time or two today.
I had a heart stopping moment this afternoon while looking for Brutus and saw his brother, who looks exactly like him, sunning himself on the front porch. For a moment I thought Brutus had gotten out. He hadn't. I soon found him snoozing not far from Lizzie in his own sunbeam.

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Post #70 - shamelessly blogging kitten pics

Looking back through the pics on my camera over the past week and I see that I only captured one subject: the kittens.

But can you blame me? Brutus and Lizzie are adorable. And they don't run when they see the camera as do my children. I have tons of pics of my children when they were young, but they don't sit still for pics now.  Why is that, hmm?

But these little cuties are curious about everything, 

so the camera is interesting.

Of course, so is the spray bottle. But I digress.

Just look at these innocent faces.

Okay, maybe they aren't so innocent.

But they are quickly learning what they can do and what they can't.

 They still take plenty of naps.

 And sometimes they are light sleepers.

 It's funny how they will run and play like crazy 
but when they get sleepy they search us out.

They are content just to be nearby.
No petting is required.
In fact, petting seems to keep them awake. 

We took them camping last week. 

They seemed to enjoy the change of scenery. 

Lizzie blended in with the camper cushions.

 Brutus was concerned about the dirty windows.

Or maybe it was the kids in the neighboring campsite that held his gaze.

 Discovering a fly was great entertainment.

For them. 
The humans were less thrilled.

Brutus doesn't travel well, though. 

He was very vocal during the car ride to and from the campground.  

It could be because he is a tomcat.

Any tips?

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Post #69 - Day off. Or off day. Whichever.

I had big plans for today.

That's nothing new. I have big plans for every day. Sometimes things get done, sometimes life gets in the way.

Today life gets in the way of my plans.

I had a huge stack of newspapers that I'd planned on turning into rolled logs.  We tried that a few years ago by wetting the newspaper and rolling it then letting it dry for weeks. We weren't impressed with the results.  But I recently did some research and some people were claiming to have good results with rolling dry newspaper. So I thought I'd give it a shot. 

Last night I started rolling the paper logs and finished up this morning. I didn't count how many there were.  Quite frankly I am done looking at them.  A short time later I realized that my hands were rebelling. They ache so badly that I am taking the rest of the day off.

So here, enjoy some pictures of sleepy kitties.

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Post #68 - The week in review

This has been a busy week for our household.  We had one at church camp and two at Boy Scout camp.  And then there was Family Night at Scout camp on Wednesday where we enjoyed a potluck meal with our Troop families.  Then a storm came through and lowered the temperature AND the humidity.  We were all happy to see that happen.

The boys were home on Friday and had wedding rehearsal Friday night. The oldest is the Best Man, the youngest a Groomsman.  

When did the kids that my kids ran around with get old enough to get married, hmm?  

Anyway, Hubs got home from Scout camp today, we ate lunch, then attended the wedding.  And it was a lovely wedding. The bride was beautiful, her dress was fairytale gorgeous. But I couldn't help myself--when the Groom walked out I commented that he's just a baby!  
Kids.

I've taken a short break from the quilt piecing. I ordered a new foot for my sewing machine and it should be here early next week. It will help me keep the seams even and exact.
Exact is important when quilting. So I hear.

Meanwhile I began work on a stuffed animal pattern.  I joined the *Cuddle Club sewing club last month. The first pattern I received was for Buster the dog.  

 (Image taken from *Wendi's website.)

I've used Wendi's Shiny Happy World patterns before and I recommend them. Remember the*Easter Eggs from felt?  Actually, that stitching club set is what reignited my love for doing crafts. I was pretty depressed after my parents died last year and it was good therapy for me.  So Wendi holds a special place in my heart, even though we've never met. 

But I digress.

I joined the Cuddle Club a little late and missed the first two stuffed animals. My kit arrived in the mail while I was in *New York. So here I am, nearly a month later, just now starting work on it. Wendi keeps the pattern a secret until you receive it; I was tickled to see it was for a cute puppy dog. The kit arrives with everything needed to make the stuffy except for the stuffing, sewing machine and thread. She even included a cookie! But after setting in the package for over a week it was inedible. Still, it was very thoughtful of her.

Since I've been hanging out in fabric stores lately, I went ahead and picked up more cuddle fleece to make a second stuffy. 

Because I can, that's why. 

And since I always give away the stuffed animals I make I figured why not make two at once? Wendi had sent me fleece in pretty rust and brown tones. I picked out a cute brown textured fleece to make a whimsical dog.

Several years ago the kids helped me make pattern weights using different size washers and some fabulous nylon strips on a spool that my cousin gave me. I wish I had more of that stuff. Anyway, this was the perfect project to use fabric weights and the rotary cutter.  All the pieces were cut out in no time.

While I'm thinking of it, why haven't I ever heard of Wonder Clips before?  I ordered a set of small ones and have been using them all this week. I LOVE these little clips. 

 I use them instead of pins to hold the cut pattern pieces all together. I'm also using them to keep the quilt blocks and pieces in their piles. When I begin sewing this slippery fleece, I will use them to hold the fabric pieces in place instead of pins. They are turning out to be very useful tools.

After everything was cut out, I got distracted when I noticed that the boys' dress shirts for the wedding still had the creases from being in the package.  So I stopped working on my project to iron them.

While I had the iron out I went ahead 

and pressed the seams on the quilt blocks that I have pieced. Pressing the seams helps the block lie flat.

And then Kate and I stopped to play with 

the kitties who were just waking from a nap.

 Brutus doesn't normally care to be held, 

so this was definitely a photo worthy moment.

 And then things got silly when I put a glow bracelet on Lizzie. 

It lasted about 15 seconds before she took it off. Then we took it away from her so she wouldn't chew on it.

I will work on the stuffies next week and share pictures when they are done.

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