I'VE BEEN BUSY....

I woke up this morning with much less tremor than I have had the past week or two...so "Ellie" and I spent some time getting properly reacquainted. 

The first thing I did was try to complete MOST of the three mug rugs I am giving to my mom, dad and aunt.  I won't show you the back yet because I want the back as cute as the front and I am still looking for a particular shade of rick-rack to finish it off, lol.  

"Ellie" is still uncooperative at times.  This is my FAVORITE little fancy stitch for "prettifying" seams.  Okay, it is sort of like a baseball stitch...but I still think it is pretty and use it quite frequently.  For some reason (known only to "Ellie") she is skipping stitches all over the place.  On the first of the three mug rugs I attempted to go over the missing stitches.  Not good...all I did was draw attention to the area.  So on the last two I simply left it be.  My mom, dad and aunt won't mind as these mug rugs are not for "show and tell" but to be USED.  I think my dear sweet "Ellie" is going in the hospital while we are away on vacation this fall!  Do you hear that, "Ellie"?  Straighten up or you are going to have your guts examined!

Fortunately, even if I want to use this stitch on my mom's quilt...I won't get to that point in the process until WELL after we are home and my Ellie girl should be "all better" and sewing properly by then. 

Today was also a day to experiment and plan.  The design I have in my head for mom's quilt calls for dresden blocks alternating with machine embroidered blocks.  There is just one little catch to that plan...I have NEVER made a dresden!  I'm nothing if not ambitious!

I decided it would be a good idea to experiment with making a dresden using scrap materials.  That way I could make sure the overall block size is what I want....AND that I am actually CAPABLE of making a dresden, lol.  The result?  I am THRILLED with how my experimental dresden turned out.  I still have to properly center the circle and sew it on...but the tremor is returning and for safety's sake I am moving far away from sharp, pointy objects, lol.  But, I am THRILLED.  I keep looking over at my sewing table and smiling.  I think this is eventually going to have to turn into a mini quilt.  It is just So. Darn. Cute! 

In other news, with the giveaway just a little over a week away, I think I am FINALLY done adding to the pile.  This was SO MUCH FUN!  I can't wait to ship this bundle off to the winner!  Don't forget the drawing is September 8th and for a chance to win...please follow my blog and LET ME KNOW YOU ARE A FOLLOWER ON THE ORIGINAL GIVEAWAY POST.

Take care and have a great day!

JUST A QUICK CHECK-IN...

Well, I'm FINALLY starting to work on some Christmas gifts!

Today I began work on a set of holiday mug rugs for my mom, dad and aunt...and one extra for when they have a visitor....one for each place at their kitchen table.  They no longer decorate the house for the holidays, it is just too much effort for them with all of their health issues...and DH and I are lucky if we get anything decorated at OUR house (we have reduced our decorations to just a table-top tree and 4 stockings), so we really aren't able to help them much.  I thought maybe having just a few mug rugs in a holiday theme would give them a little bit of the "holiday" feeling without having to run down to the basement and pull out boxes of decorations.  They can slide these little pretties into a drawer for storage.  

The golden text fabric is The 12 Days of Christmas, which has special meaning in our family.  Every Christmas Eve when J was little we would sing the song...with each member of the family taking two days.  My aunt even bought a set of 12 ornaments and we would randomly pick two in order to be assigned our days!  The funniest part?  My husband HATES to sing in front of people and especially hates The 12 Days of Christmas.  But, MOST Christmas Eves he would give in and mumble his two days, lol.  I'm sure the back of the mug rugs will ring some bells for the folks and my aunt! 

I have had both the green fabric and golden fabric for a few years now.  They were part of a bundle of fat quarters I purchased on Ebay when I first shut down my business.  The burgundy stripe is a material that I got for free yesterday.  What did they used to say on A-Team?  I just LOVE it when a plan comes together!  I plan to attach the little block with some decorative stitching and then stitch something on the empty side (in a matching burgundy thread).  I think I have a plain Christmas tree outline in my machine embroidery patterns. 

The green fabric included these cute little blocks along the bottom selvage.  The piece I received had 2 of the Season's Greetings block...

...one Happy Holidays...

and one Merry & Bright.  I will give a different one to each and wrap the second Season's Greetings separately for the last place setting at their table.  I only got as far as pinning on the blocks today...dang tremor!  But I will continue work on them the next chance I get. 

In the mail today I received this GORGEOUS necklace from my Best Friend (...me waving wildly...) who lives in Florida.  She picks out the BEST birthday presents!  They are always something beautiful, super unique, and usually purchased from talented local crafters.  She knows me so well!!!  I can't wait to call her tonight and thank her!

All in all this has been a great day!  I have managed to chip away a bit at my LONG "ToDo" List and received a beautiful gift from a special friend.  Can't do much better than that!  I'm off to "rock and read" for a while...

Take care, everyone!

SIMPLE SEW-SEW SUNDAY

Ahhh....Sunday.

Since it is officially the start of a new week, I try to spend Sundays accomplishing some necessary chores (clean underware IS a necessity, lol) and a bit of relaxing... crafting, reading and/or crocheting.  It is my hope that by beginning my week in a simple, slow, SANE manner the rest of the week will follow suit.  Does it work?  Usually...no, lol.  But that doesn't mean I can't hope for less craziness in my life, and certainly spending the day in peace and contentment can't hurt! 

I awoke at 7:00 AM, threw on my robe and headed into my sewing room.  I started my computer and then mosied downstairs to the kitchen for my breakfast and a steaming mug of rich black coffee.  YUM.  In the intervening two hours I have finished one load of laundry (I will fold it later today during another chunk of activity), have the second load of laundry washing and the third load is sorted and waiting its turn.

After checking my emails I turned on my sewing machine, opened my windows to the beautiful spring morning and started my MP3 playing Celtic Thunder, Enter the Haggis and a Tchaikovsky Nature CD.  Quite a variation in music genres, but a perfect foil to my sew-sew Sunday...Celtic Thunder and ETH to spur on my sewing mojo and Tchaikovsky to soothe me as I periodically rest in my rocker, reading.  Yes, I have a thing for alliteration this morning!

I sewed up about a half dozen 5" blocks for my guest room quilt (which, by the way, is going to take FOREVER) before moving to the computer side of the room to begin this post.  Activities in tiny bites with chunks of resting interspersed along the way usually make for more accomplishment overall.  In a few moments I will save this post to continue later and will move to my rocker to read.  I've downloaded 50 Shades of Grey from the free library.  I haven't gotten very far yet, and while I could do with a little less "explicit details", I am anxious to read forward and see how the "romance" plays out.  Why do writers assume that "explicit" is necessary to "grab" the audience?...no pun intended.  I'm really not a prude, but GEEZ.

After a pretty long resting period I have pulled out the sock loom that DS bought me for my birthday back in August.  I wanted to try something "different".

I watched the video a few times, looked up some other information on the website and have "cast on" and am knitting the first row of my very first sock!  It is SO simple.  I don't think I will be able to do it on a really bad "tremor" day, but I'm sure I will find some times when I am capable of the task. I think the loom will be packed in my crochet bag for the trip to Myrtle! I worked on the sock loom for a brief period before I ripped out the first few rows I had done.

I am using yarn that was given to me on Freecycle and I'm not sure it is actually the type of yarn that should be used with the loom.  I think I will buy actual SOCK yarn for my first real attempt.  What I was using is separating way too easily.

Since I was giving up on the socks I decided to sit in my rocker and do a few rows on my cotton dishcloths.  I LOVE this pattern.  It is SO easy to do and I love the effect!

See my cute little mug rug?  This was my very first attempt at free motion quilting.  I didn't attempt to follow any particular pattern, just did a rather wonky spiral on the brick side and some small loops on the floral side.  The quilting is actually pretty pathetic, but I was not about to waste material!  So I added a bit of ric-rac and some premade binding and turned it into a mug rug for next to my rocking chair.

After dinner I signed the contract for our new roof and Dear Hubby wrote out the check for one third down.  All I have to do is mail it and our job will be on the books for sometime after May 21st.  We have picked out the shingles...Granite Gray.  The contractor said he will call me a few days after he receives our paperwork to discuss colors.

Then I placed a rather large order for our prescription medications for the next three months.  I am SO thankful that we have good health insurance with prescription coverage!

I have spent the past half hour browsing on Pinterest, looking for crocheted afghan patterns that I can try while we are on vacation.  I intend to take enough yarn to make socks with my loom, crochet a pair of slippers for my Dear Hubby and assorted acrylic colors to make an afghan for the guest room.  Of course, NONE of these will get finished in our one week of vacation (well MAYBE the slippers will be completed), but at least I will have variety!  Between reading, crocheting and watching the ocean I have more than enough relaxing activities...no matter what my body decides to do while we are away!