halfway through…

How is it July already?!

But here it is, four days in, celebrating Independence Day, here in the good ol’ USA! Weather permitting, we (as in me and the Merkel crew) plan on taking the boat out for an afternoon of swimming and an evening of fireworks on the lake. Boom!

I’ve done some fun things this year. After signing on to be the 2nd VP of Programs for my guild, I decided it wasn’t as bad as I’d worried it would be. In fact, I really enjoyed getting speakers, managing programs, and writing blurbs for the newsletter and introductions. I was actually all set to volunteer to do it again for the next guild year, but the incoming president (who’s currently the 1st VP—a position which automatically rolls into President the following year) told me no. Or rather, she said she’d rather have me as her 1st VP. 😳 Needless to say, I sat on that for a hot minute, but in the end, I agreed. So here I am.  LOL! The position starts with close of our August meeting.

 

I took a very fun wool appliqué workshop with one very darling Vicki McCarty, of Calico Patch Designs. Each day we received four of the first sixteen blocks and worked on one block in particular. There were lots of goodies and door prizes, too—it was like going on retreat, but sleeping in my own bed! Loads of fun!

Our May program at guild was MJ Kinman. Our workshops coordinator was out of town, so I had the privilege of not only escorting MJ through the program, but the workshops as well. 

          

She was a fabulous speaker and teacher. Her classes were full both days and the inspiration level was high! I had planned on paying for both workshops, but since I had to coordinate, I didn’t have to pay…but it also means I had other duties that didn’t allow me to be fully present in her teaching. I did go home and make my topaz jewel!

Nine year old Edith (local granddaughter number three) decided she wanted to make a quilt. By hand. With my help.  She brought me a 5” charm pack of purples and asked. What could I say? I picked up a second pack and she laid them out the way she wanted. Six of the nine rows are stitched. 

 

She’s stitching the squares together and then I’ll machine stitch the rows together and add borders, to make it big enough for it to be a nice lap quilt for her. I’m thinking it would be the perfect quilt for hand tied quilting. We could do that together! With purple yarn, of course!

 

Twelve year old Olivia (California granddaughter number two) flew out with her mama for a wedding. It also happened to be Olivia’s birthday weekend and we were so pleased to be able to celebrate with her! 

Later in June I took a traveled north east to spend a long weekend with my sister and her local family, and then went on to Annapolis for a mini reunion with friend from high school. 

Same group I traveled to Charleston with last year. We had a really lovely time. It was so nostalgic and sweet, plus Annapolis is a hotbed of historical significance, which made being there in our country’s 250th year all the more exciting! And it was Plebe Week, which just added to the fun! I felt 16 again! Plus I got my fill of Maryland blue crabs:  steamed, crabcakes, cream of crab soup, crab puffs . . . ALL THE CRAB! We’re already making plans for next year. Quebec is at the top of our list!

My girls are doing great! 

 

 

They are definitely divas—but such fun and a complete comfort. I love them so much! Even when they are so bad.  LOL! And thank goodness they’re around—they save me from talking to myself! ;)

Happy 4th!!  :)

passing time in doorways . . .

It's been a while.  I figured the simplest way to acknowledge the passing of time was through photos . . . of my 'doorscapes', since that's how I opened my last post (with the first photo).

Happy Thanksgiving!

Merry Christmas!

Happy New Year 2026!

Happy Valentine's Day!!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Welcome, Spring!!

Happy Resurrection Day!

I'll come back and do some true updating with words.  Or maybe I'll just start where I am.  It's been alot.  (Go figure; five months between posts will do that.) But life is good, and I'm doing well.  God is faithful—He is oh-so-faithful. 

Happy Spring!

:)

every little thing . . .

I can hardly believe we're already halfway through the month of November.  Where did the first half go?!  Well, actually, I have a pretty good idea . . . I have a lot to show for the last two weeks!

First off, I do enjoy decorating my doorway, so when we moved from October to November, I re-staged my front door accordingly . . .

It makes me smile every time I come home!

Lots of stitching.  Ellie has been working on ornaments for her table at Advent Market next week.  Originally she thought Everley would be able to do half, but Evey is still a new stitcher, and I think it was overwhelming to her.  So I offered.  At first I did the three snowmen . . .

And then I took on the trees, the snowflakes, and candy canes . . . 

I've got one more candy cane to finish.  Phew!  I'll wrap it up with some slow Sunday stitching.  :)  I'll deliver these tomorrow, and then Ellie will do the work to finish them out as ornaments.  She's so clever!

I took a class last weekend for this super cute turkey . . .

Isn't he darling?! The tail feathers (and the body) use the Petal Pop Acrylic Template by Sugar Bee Quilts.  It took about a day to complete and was a fun project to kick off the Thanksgiving month!

Ellie and I decided we liked working on tandem projects, so we picked up a couple of cross stitch patterns to stitch in anticipation of Christmas.  We're going to work on this Primose Cottage Stitches pattern first . . .

It is Merry & Bright! We're working this on 25-count mocha linen, two over two.  

I've also joined along with Mary Corbet's latest SAL, Twinkle,Twinkle. I even got the kit.  It's so pretty!  And the blues—*swoon*!  Plus it has beading.  I've finished the first two steps . . . 

That fishbone stitch was a first for me (and it shows), but it was such fun to work! 

I also got the components cut out for the quilt Sawyer asked me to make for him when he visited in July.  He picked the fabrics, then helped me decide on the pattern.  It's a three-yard quilt, but I'm going to put extra borders on it to make it a little bigger.

I have to still stitch up the strips, and then all the components will be ready for assembly!

Again on the machine front, I got my sweet little wool bowl warmers finished up!

I would have put them in a bowl, but this cornucopia (that you can't see for the pillows) was begging for filler.  Voila.

Every time I get on my machine, Celeste feels the need to come snoopervise my work.  

I finally got out my foot pedal so I could use my hand to shield the needle from her little paws!

And speaking of cats, they had an 'ears' competition yesterday . . .

They're both so stinking cute, I can never declare a winner!  They are such good, sweet, and playful companions.  I'm really grateful for them.

I'll close with some select sunset captures from the last two weeks.  I think I've mentioned that my balcony is west facing, so I see the sun setting in all it's glory, and we've had some interesting ones. I also will include a beautiful shot of the northern lights in our skies!  I had to go to the front of our building to get that one.  Haha.

Have a great week! I'm headed to Las Vegas to meet my James for the F1 Grand Prix next weekend, and then headed back with him to spend Thanksgiving in Temecula.  So Happy Thankgsiving to my 'Merican friends!  Only thirty-nine days until Christmas!!

:)

rabbit, rabbit

Trifecta day . . . not only is it the first of the month (hence the rabbit, rabbit), but its the end of daylight savings time!  Hurrah!  I look forward to falling back every year, and in fact, have turned all my clocks back already.  LOL!  That's only two things, but twofecta sounds dumb, so there's that.

It's been a fairly productive week.  I finished out three projects.  Two were the cute little nine-patch cross stitch designs that Ellie and I stitched in tandem . . .

Aren't these cute?  Ellie did such a fabulous job ... I had a really hard time differentiating between the two!

And the other project was one I stumbled across when I did all that organizing last week.  It was a sweet little pumpkin embroidery that Ellie had sketched out (I put it on fabric) and stitched on in 2022, finishing it up late that year.  I was supposed to construct a border and make a throw pillow slipcase with it.  Well, 2023 was a tough year, and 2024 wasn't much better, and so when I found it, I thought maybe it was time.  So cute!

Here's the back . . . 

Ellie was so pleased!  I brought it and her cross stitch pillow to her on the morning of Halloween, so at least she'd get a little use out of them this year before it's time to pull out all things Christmas!

Speaking of Halloween . . . more importantly, October 31 is June's birthday!

She turned THIRTEEN!  She's a beauty!  Three out of my seven grands are teenagers!!! How the heck??

Celeste agrees with me . . .

Starry let me know that she doesn't do costumes.  LOL!

All the sewing this past week made me realize I needed a way to keep a pair of snippers close to my machine, without getting lost in the shuffle.  A quick google search, and a text conversation with my son-in-law, and look what I had, less than four hours later . . .

 

Isn't that great?!  He made me a total of eight.  I used double-sided tape to mount it.  It's the perfect size!  Gotta love 3D printers and those who know how to make them! (Especially since this same thing was available on Etsy for $4 + s/h!)

What else? Oh yeah!  Another project I "found" during my re-org was a Thanksgiving wool project that I started in 2021. I had three of the five tops finished, but I guess lost momentum when I realized I'd not traced the words correctly.  Took care of that!

Mostly I worked on this today as I carefreely watched college football.  I say "carefreely" because Alabama had a bi- week. No stress! I got them re-traced, selected the wool, fused them, cut them out, and put them to fabric . . .

Whoohoo! 

I even had time to do a little stitching!

Speaking of which, Ellie decided to do some embroidered ornaments to sell for our Advent Market at the end of the month.  I told her I'd help, so she handed off the snowmen to me!

Between these and the wool project, I'll have plenty to keep me busy for a Slow Sunday Stitching!  Linking up with Kathy's Quilts.

Before I sign off, I wanted to see if anyone else had seen the Quilt Fusion online seminar happening November 13? 

I decided to go ahead and sign up for it; I'm really excited!!

Temps are dropping, the sun will be setting earlier . . . it's coming up on the most wonderful time of the year . . . 54 more days!!

:)