something about that space . . .

When it's clean, anyway, there's definitely something about my Nook space that stirs the creative juices!  Since being in there most of the day on Saturday, I've dreamed of sewing and UFOs that become finished, and fabric that I'd forgotten about, but am suddenly anxious to put to work and ideas for new projects.

Whoa, slow down there Tiger . . . beware the ides of March!  ;)

I recently saw this photo on Instagram, posted by Lucy Brennan of Charm About You fame. 

When I saw it, I *immediately* thought of the five orphan fairy frost blocks and the pile of fairy frost fabric (Michael Miller's) that Jean (Creates) had picked up somewhere and sent me (see this post). 

(Oh, and pay no attention to the fact that it was sent nearly three years ago, okay?)

I've played around and used the fabric in projects. A wall hanging here. A table topper there. But I've never been able to decide what to do with those block and how to really use that fabric up.

Until I saw that IG pic. BAM. It clicked and all the pieces fell into place and I knew *exactly* what I wanted to do with those blocks and that fabric. Oh my yes, I did know. And I have a burning desire to work on it immediately, too!

I have two problems.  One is not so big.  I need a sixth block.  I wasn't sure what I wanted to do about that, until I got to looking at the blocks in My Orange Crush.

Surely any one of those blocks would fit in well with the blocks already prepped. I feel better already.

The second problem I need some help/advice/coaching on. All of the blocks are 10.5" (unfinished). Except one. 

This particular block is 10"ish. One side measured 10.25", one measured 10". What do I do about that?  I've got more of the background fabric--should I just sew a generous strip around on all sides and then square it down to the appropriate dimensions? Someone please tell me how to make this work using the block!  I don't want to create an additional block if I can help it.

Any idears?  Please and thank you!

:)

another chance for traveling stash . . .

Yup, I've got a second box (or rather, Box #1) of Traveling Stash . . . and I had a *great* stash report this week, too:

Getting My Orange Crush finished was a huge help ... plus I put in a little more than I took out of the first traveling stash box.  Linking up to the stash report at Patchwork Times!  :)

I'm sure you can guess where the majority of my 'fifteen minutes' were spent this week, too!

Yup,  MOC dominated both my reports!  What's the Valentine project, you ask?

It's a little CQ project I found online HERE and modified for my own use.  I didn't like the picture they used in the Vintage Vogue project, so I found one I liked better.  I'll use this afternoon to do some Slow Sunday Stitching, and once the fabric heart is in place, embroider my embellishments on!  Hop over to Kathy's Quilts to see other Sunday creations!

Okay, okay, on to the traveling stash!  This box was huge and was filled with tons of goodies . . . 

Lots of pretty fabrics, and some with decent yardage, too.  Fun patterns and bag full of assorted notions. Some nice spools of thread.  And I thought this was rather fitting for the day:

For anyone who needs a project for Slow Sunday Stitching, right?

And I loved this Thimbleberry's kit -- isn't that cute??

I pulled a modest handful of prints . . .

And again, if you want to see what I'm putting in the box, you'll have to win the right!!  I'd like to expedite getting this box on the road, so I'll leave it open through midnight, pacific time, today.  No hoops -- just tell me in your comment you'd enjoy having it come your way. Before you do, note: you must be an active blogger, you must be in the U.S. (it's got to be shipped priority), and you must be willing to abide by the rest of the rules and guidelines found HERE.

Good luck and happy Sunday!!

:)

two winners and a tribute . . .

The first would be Nann of With Strings Attached.  She had responded to my question about taking on a new skill with:

I'd love to be in the contest! New skill? Our guild's next workshop is with a local shop owner who is a certified Square in a Square instructor. For years I thought the SIS ruler was more work than it was worth, but this instructor did a trunk show for the guild a couple of months ago. Wow! Great design ideas. So the SIS ruler will be my next new skill.

And the number generator at random.org picked her!  Congratulations, Nann!  I'll be sending the Traveling Stash Box #5 her way, as soon as I hear back from her. And hey, if you're sad because you didn't win it? Lookie, lookie . . .

Yup.  I also won Traveling Stash Box #1!  I'll be posting the delightful contents of this big ol' box tomorrow with another chance for someone lucky!!

The second winner?  That would be . . .

ME!  Yay!!  I finally put in the last stitch and ran it through the washer!  I have to share, though, this poor needle.  I'd used it for assembling the blocks into rows, the rows into blocks, and stitching down the binding. But it just couldn't handle the pressure of the last 18 inches . . .

It *snapped* in half by my *fingers*!!!  CRAZY!  But I finished my sweet My Orange Crush, and Todd and I have even snuggled under it already . . . 

*Happy finished quilt sigh!*

I have three younger sisters and though we're spread out from Texas to Alabama to Virginia to New Jersey, we are very close and I count them as my dearest friends.  The four of us keep an ongoing text conversation going and I love that one (or all) of them is always just an iMessage away!

Of course, when one of us hurts, all of us hurt ... and so this Feline Friday is a tribute to Malachi, the sweet fur-baby of my beautiful sister Cynthia.  Malachi passed away this week leaving a definite empty spot.

He was a handsome, dapper fella in his mustache and tuxedo.

Her snuggle buddy.

I love that Malachi had a perpetually surprised look on his sweet face!  He reminds me so much of my own Gwenevere in this shot:

He was a good, loving and sweet cat who will be much missed.

Rest in peace, sweet Malachi!

:)

this girl is on fire . . .

(Quick note here:  if you've ever heard this song sung, you know the singer is *definitely* not from the South. Otherwise, it would have sounded like this:  "This girl is on faaaaaaar!"  LOL!)

Well *this* girl is on fire.  Or perhaps it's the quilt ... or the sewing machine.  One of the three is, cuz we're smoking!

Yes, my friends, this is a picture of a quilt whose binding has been machine-stitched!

I put the final hand stitch in the stripping on the way to our presentation last night. Speaking of which, it was a great group of women (and even the churches Missions Director showed up to listen in) and there actually turned out to be a good-sized crowd. I completely lost my head and forgot to take a single picture.  Ugh. But Todd and I both enjoyed it and left encouraged!  I was so encouraged I headed right to the sewing machine to get the binding in place!  And since I started this post with a song, I'll end that way, too . . .

♫♪This quilt was made for binding.

So that's what I'm gonna do.♫♪

♫♪One of these day this quilt is ♫♪ gonna warmly wrap 'round . . .

ME!!!

:)

weather forecast = stitching . . .

It is a grey, cold, blustery day and as I look out the RV window, one minute it's sleeting and the next it's snowing. Hard to believe that yesterday's temps got into the 60's! Anyway, today's forecast makes it the perfect day to do this . . .

Two and a half strips sewn, three and a half more to go!  Add a pot of tea to the picture and we've definitely got a winner.  I'm already enjoying snuggling up in this quilt.  :)

Todd and I are headed to Hartselle, Alabama, this evening to speak about our ministry to the Women on Mission group at East Highland Baptist Church.  And while Todd is typically the public voice for the ministry, since he knows how much I love to speak to women, he's handed this one to me. Yay! Have power point, will travel!

Speaking of traveling . . . if you're interested in the Traveling Stash box, be sure to check it out HERE.  It closes tomorrow evening!

:)

a fulfilled wall and traveling stash . . .

There is no secret what's on my design wall (actually the kitchen slide out) this Monday morning . . .

Booo-yaaaah!!

I got all my rows assembled and I'm so tickled with the result.  All my cross lines match up so well!

I'll spend this week working on the hand-stitching part.  It'll be a little tougher than it was with the blocks -- it's hard to maneuver that bulk of fabric, stitch, and not catch the fabric on the other side.  But I will persevere!  And who knows, by the next Monday, this may be a finish!!  Linking up today with Patchwork Times and Design Wall Monday!

I also finished my new crochet homework . . .

Another baby doll blankie!  Yay!  I think this one looks much better than the first one.  Practice, practice, practice.  I wonder if I'm ready for a scarf?  Haha!

Lastly . . . I finally got to get into that box of traveling stash (Box #5)! There are loads of fun prints!

There's a darling Moda panel by Sandy Gervais and stripes and gingham and lots of pretties. And a healthy portion of notions and patterns, too!!

I pulled a handful of fun prints from the box to keep, along with a really cute cross stitch pattern/kit . . . 

And wouldn't you like to see what I put *in* the box ?!?!?!

You'll have to win the box to do that! But before you jump in, you must be an active blogger, you must be in the U.S. (it's got to be shipped priority), and you must be willing to abide by the rest of the rules and guidelines found HERE.

So, are you interested?  You wanna see what I've put into the box??  Something in there appeal to you??! Okay then, leave me a comment and tell me what *new* skill you've started working on, or are planning to work on in the coming weeks?  That's it!  I'll keep this open until Wednesday, January 22, at 10:00 p.m. central time and post the winner Thursday morning!

:)

reporting in . . .

What a WEEK!  I feel like I went non-stop every single one of the past seven days! It amazes me, actually, that I was able to get the five solid fifteen minutes of sewing in that I did . . .

Friday ... I think I was so darn tired by the time I got home Friday and got dinner ready, I didn't care about anything else.  LOL!  Anyway, I need to find something different to work on -- I'm getting tired of seeing, "My Orange Crush" on post-it notes!

My stash report isn't all that original, either . . . 

The intake is the purple fabric I purchased to finish up (what else?) MOC.  Linking up to Patchwork Times!

Yesterday I headed out for our Stitchers Etc. group -- we had our bi-monthly stitch-in.  Wanna take a guess at what I brought with me?  I'll give you three and the first two don't count!

Yup -- purple fabric for MOC -- got all the cutting done for my horizontal strips, plus got them folded and pressed *and* I got all the binding cut and those strips folded, pressed and ready!  Whoohoo!  I guess another week or so of MOC in the 15 Minutes report!  It's nice to know that when I get serious about something, it's full-speed-ahead.

I also tried my hand at something new.  One of our group does lovely crochet work (actually, several of our ladies do lovely crochet or knitting) and agreed to help me learn some basics.  We started with cotton yarn and a size "I" crochet needle . . . 

And I have a *finished* project--a cotton wash cloth (or a little bitty baby blanket)!  I'm rather proud, I have to say.  Ashley was a great and *very* patient teacher.  My homework is to make a second one, making sure (this time) that my rows stay consistent.  Ha!

So I'm set up for about an hour or two of hard sewing this afternoon (getting those rows stitched together) and then I plan to take it real  s l o w  and work on the hand stitching aspect of getting those rows finished! I'm really looking forward to that part of my afternoon/evening.  Are you doing any hand-stitching?  You ought to mosey on over to Kathy's Quilts!

Have a peace-filled Sunday!

:)

mid-week happies . . .

A quickie (yeah, right!), mid-week, update post:

Yesterday, I spent a fun day with my Ellie-belly-baby . . . oh what a fun day we had!  Ellie showed me her fave rocking cow (a gift from mommy and daddy).

She also demonstrated her new found skills ... she's practicing for olympic trick cow riding . . .   

Look at that foot placement!  Girl's a natural.  Ummm, but don't tell her mommy I was encouraging this, please!  Hahaha!!

Then she showed me her new baby crib . . . 

Ummmm, okay Goldilocks wannabe . . . Baby Bear will not be happy if you break his bed!! (Oh yeah, don't tell her mommy about this, either.)

Then, since the weather was *so* nice, we played outside in her little sports coupe.

Can you tell how windy it was?  Check out her hair, blowing all over the place!

In the end, I think it was the hair in the wind that ended our outside time.  Trust me, this girl will never be the convertible type -- she hates her hair blowing in her face!!  She also didn't care for the sun in her eyes.

From there I headed to Patches and Stitches to look for my lavender 'Evening Mist' fabric for My Orange Crush.  I knew it was a small chance they'd have it, but I thought I'd take a look.  They didn't have any, and would you believe, they just sold the last of it in the last month or so?!  Crazy!  Instead of ordering fabric and having to wait, I decided to go ahead and see if I could find something close.

I ended up picking this.  It's really close in color and because the strips are *so* small, I decided that color was more important then pattern, necessarily. I think I'm right: 

What do you think?  The new fabric is along the bottom of the row!  

And . . . guess what came in yesterday's mail??

Whoohoo!!!  I had a little extra Christmas money and found a good price for it online . . . and I wish I'd done this SOONER!  Oh my gosh -- I loaded it and it's fabulous!

Then, to cap off what had already been a fabulous day, James, Kim, Sawyer and June joined us for dinner at the camp -- and Kim brought a yummy dinner!  We had a picnic style supper in front of the fireplace at the pavilion.  It was such fun and Sawyer definitely enjoyed his dessert of chocolate cheesecake . . . 

Brings new meaning to the phrase, "Cheese!" (Yuck!)

And June was introduced (by me, of course) to the pleasures of whipped cream straight from the can! Haha! She kept her mouth open for about thirty minutes after that, waiting for another shot!

Still working on all the ministry paperwork, but I've had time to do some hand stitching on MOC -- only eight more strips to stitch down and I'm ready to assemble rows!  Tomorrow is hugely busy and Friday is our ministry's annual board meeting, but Saturday is a stitch-in -- so I hope to make great progress over the weekend!!

:)

confession time . . .

I have a couple of them, actually.  The first is, I barely spent any time stitching on poor ol' Mr. Owlie yesterday.

I stitched a red flower and finished a stem.  And then that temptress of a quilt sang her siren song and I gave in.

Which leads me to my second confession.  I'd already told someone that having so MUCH time pass between the beginning blocks I quilted and the last blocks I quilted showed differences in my quilting.  Eeek. You know what else happens when a lot of time has passed since you first started a quilt?

You forget that the yard-and-a-half of lavender Evening Mist was purchased for the assembly and binding of a particular quilt and instead use it to back a dolly quilt for Christmas.  

Aye yi yi!!!  First thing I did was jump online to see if I could find some somewhere, just in case my LQS doesn't have it any more (which it probably won't -- I purchased this three YEARS ago, after all!). Whew! I'm good. Then I went ahead and looked at my leftover piece and started cutting, just to see if I had enough to assemble my blocks into row. I did!

So then I decided to just put two blocks together . . . for old times sake . . . and one thing led to another and all of a sudden, lo and behold . . . 

One row.

Two rows?!

THREE rows??!!

FOUR ROWS!!!!!

This is a lovely thing!  I took lots of pics of the process and will 'whip' up a tutorial as soon as I get more fabric and can assemble my rows.  And I figure as busy as I'll be this week, it'll be nice to have some hand work for the evenings -- I can stitch down my strips.

So that's my design wall for today!  I *may* try to get the GC *or* the snowflake block finished this week, but no promises -- waaaay too much going on.  Linking up to the design wall post on Patchwork Times!

Our final day at CBC went really well, though I did manage to soak a dozen or more Kleenex!  And, in tribute to my sweet husband, nearly *everyone* showed up in camouflage!  It was SO great!!  We looked like it was Duck Dynasty Sunday or something!

At first I just thought it was coincidence that a couple of guys were wearing it (and Todd had worn it, too, of course).  But then when I saw several women and some youth and children all wearing it too, I knew it had been planned -- and I had my first cry of the morning!

My girls gave me this sweet gift:

I was so touched!  The daisy tag in the middle reads, "Thank you for helping us bloom!"   Awww....cry two!

Then they prayed over us and had a lovely going-away lunch.  Even the table decoration and the banner they put up were camo-oriented.

Such fun!  And such a sweet and gracious spirit in our brothers and sisters there -- what a blessing they've been to us.

Today.  Today I need to hit the ground running -- much work to do!!  Enjoy your Monday...make it count!

:)