Another new start

I like to cross stitch,  I have been doing it for almost 40 years.  I have quite a bit of stuff I have bought over the years to stitch and even paid more then I should have for some of the projects I have.  One of the ones I probably paid to much for is Queen of the Needle by Just Nan.  I have made several of her charts over the years and even entered one in the fair and won a ribbon.  It is actually two samplers put together.  Last Stitches and First Stitches.  One was finished the end of the last millennium and the other was started the first day of the new millennium. 

                

So I started a Stitch a Long with a long time stitching friend, Mayte Bermudez-Garcia.  She is a wonderful stitcher.  I started Queen of the Needle after ordering all the silks and such it called for.  It is such a unique piece that it just called for the silks versus the DMC alternative. 

Here is my progress so far.  I have done the left side of row one

I will be posting regular updates here and over on Instagram Maryskup

Enjoying the quiet

 It's nice and quiet here today.  No having to run around picking up this and that. just a nice quiet Sunday at home with my doggies and hubby.  

I have been a 15+ year player of World of Warcraft and today while sitting around waiting for a rare mob to spawn I got into a conversation with a couple of folks over of all things Craftying.  One was working on a SAL black work project and another was working on knitting a scarf for a friend while they wait.  Sometimes we could sit around for an hour or so waiting for this current rare to show up, and you will have to do this for 6 days to get the reward at the end.  So bringing a craft project to your computer seems like a great way to pass the time.  I will have to find something small and easy to do while I sit here tomorrow and wait for the rare to spawn.

Hope you all have a nice quiet Sunday too :)

Order Of Golden Fries Scavenger Hunt 2021

 Theme: Opposite - Each clue contains at least one word that is the opposite word of what item is needed.

Jandressa, Boomkin Orebalist here, reporting on the Order of Golden Fries 15th Anniversary celebration! This sure is shaping up to be a wonderful celebration! Here is a list of just a few of the highlights! 1. An interesting fact I learned this year: the guild shadow priests like to season their soup with poisoning pepper, but the holy priests preferred the opposite and chose _______ ______. 2. Portalot brought Millhouse Manastorm by for a visit. Millhouse started sneezing due to this familiar powder; it sure lit him up! 3. Yulila thought Hecate could use some help in battlegrounds and provided a homemade concoction that she could use to slip away unseen. Unfortunately, it ended up being appearing dust instead! You can imagine how well that went over... 4. Thankfully, the Fries have a lot of great hunters that avenged Hec quite nicely! When fighting Horde, hunters definitely need to walk softly and carry a light wood mount. 5. While they were all PvPing, Caritha thought to prep for raiding by making some flasks. It didn't work out that way because the alchemy lab caught on fire! That's just what happens when you're cheap and use plastic beakers! I secretly think the fire was set by Arsoness, but as of this reporting time, I haven't been able to find any proof! 6. After everyone was done PvPing, Marwen had limited supplies and couldn't darn anyone's clothes the normal way. Instead, she had to use smooth sinew from the creepy legion hounds. 7. The picnic started up soon after. It was all fun and games until Dadderz brought sour goat juice to the party! 8. Lugging around heavy pressed wood pulp wasn't exactly what Patchulli had in mind when Jitters asked her to take notes on healing strategies instead of playing picnic games. 9. Everyone was asked to bring something fun to the picnic. Lidstrom missed the memo and brought sluggish tin racers instead. 10. Thankfully, the Fries had a fantastic picnic where everyone shared crackers and dry Azsunian goat cheese, followed by Zerlena healing them all from food poisoning. They then finished off the festivities with an amazing parade that made all other guilds jealous!

 Wow I have been a very bad blogger, it has been almost 3 years since I have posted any kind of update.  I have been busy the past little while.  

Of course 2020 was a fun year for most of us and of course I waited the entire year to get Covid-19,  hubby and I got it over the Xmas holiday and I managed to pass it on to most of my family.  I'm sorry for that but thankfully we are all pretty much healthy again and doing well.  Been trying for the past week to find out about the shot and can't get through on the phone to our local public health dept.

Any how, the quilt that was shown in my last post back in 2018 is actually finished and off to my sister. 

I am working on a couple quilts for my grand daughters, I am trying my hand at quilting them on my home machine, I will post pictures here when I'm done. 

 I pulled out and oldie but goodie cross stitch pattern to work on for a bit.  I have decided to try and work on a few UFO's this year.  I don't have any cross stitch patterns that are screaming at me to start it now.  So I will try to work on some older ones and try to get a few finished I hope this year.

This one is Lady of the Flag an OOP pattern by Mirabilia, Nora Corbet.  I have the one designed by her mom on the go as well and will probably pull that out as well.   

I did also manage last year to finish a long standing UFO, over 20 years I'm thinking, by Just Nan, Lady Scarlett's Journey 

My journey starts today

So, my journey begins today.  I have had a weight problem all my adult life, and that is pretty sad to say because next month I’ll be 62 and I am just now coming to the realization that I need to do something and do it now. 

My father in law passed away last week at the ripe old age of 93 and my mother in law is still around at 91 while my parent are no longer here.  My mom took wonderful care of herself but passed away at 69 due to cancer and my dad passed at 80 due to a brain bleed.  I would like to be around longer then this and to do that I have to change things, starting today.

I have been going to Weight Watchers for a few years but kind of paid lip service to the whole thing.  If I had taken it as serious as I should have I would be a life time member by now.  That ends today.  I am going to lose the weight, I am going to get moving more and I am going to become the person I want to be from this moment forward.

So, day one:  Tracked everything so far, have only had breakfast but counted it, tracked it.  Took the dog for a walk, not as far as I plan on going but a good start (and the weather here is beautiful today), and I am drinking water, I learned in a WW meeting yesterday that 70% of Americans are dehydrated.  I drink coffee at breakfast, usually 2 cups, one diet coke with Splenda at lunch, milk and coffee with dinner that that’s about it.  I maybe one of the 70%.  Time to change that.  I do like La Croix water but I seriously don’t think I can drink 5 cans of carbonated water a day so I will have to drink other water as well. 

A day in my Quilty Life

One of the things I have become addicted to over the last several years is Quilting.  I love turning scraps of fabric into a Quilt, big or small doesn't really matter to me at this point, I'm still trying to learn to be better at it.  I have had issues with points matching but I keep plugging away at it.  I look all over the internet for tips and tricks on how to be better at it.  Man are there a lot of tips and tricks.  I got my hubby to buy me a new machine for Christmas to learn machine quilting on.  Nothing fancy with tons of bells and whistles but so far it's working for me.

I also started working on planning my sewing time to try and get more done.  I got the The Quilters Planner to help me get more organized in my sewing and daily life.  There is a Block of the Month challenge going on with other folks who have the planner and I decided to join.  I mean after all you have an entire month to do one block and at the end you will have a quilt.  I am seriously working on the first block.  I found some cute fat quarters packs at Hobby Lobby here in town and got 2 just to be on the safe side.  

 So this is the fabric with all the piece cut to specs

And this is my first ever Split Square Triangles.  I thought they were going to be a pain to figure out but they are easy :)  

On the flip side, still friggin cold here.  We won't warm up until mid week next week.  I know I know I don't live in the North East so I only have to contend with cold, not snow and terrible winds etc.  but there is a reason I stayed in the south :)

Baby it's cold outside

Woke up this morning it was 20 degrees with a windchill of 12, now most of you would think for winter that that would be pretty normal but I live in the south, in the Middle of Georgia to be exact.  I don't think it's suppose to be this cold here.  Anyway it kind of put a monkey wrench in my New Years plans to walk the dog everyday.  I'm sorry I just don't do cold, I will have to find other ways around the inside of my house to get my steps in today.  I have a fabric room that needs cleaning, floors that need mopping so I'm sure I'll get them in.

On the stitching front I have started a new cross stitch, this one will be for my sister Kelley when it's done.  I am working on "The Letter S by Nora Corbett,  She wasn't a fan of the K for Kelley so we went with the last name instead.  When I have more the 10 stitches in I'll post my progress. 

On the quilting front I have a couple of things going on. I fell in love with this Riley Blake fabric a few years ago and bought a few layer cakes.  I finally found a pattern I thought I could do and got distracted by life in general.  When my son and daughter in law told us they were expecting a new addition after the new year I was excited, when they told us it would be another girl I got really excited, now I could use that cute fabric.  Started working on it and our little Haley Belle decided to come 7 weeks early.  I am so not ready for this.  Squares are half done so now I have to kick the sewing into high gear to get this done, hopefully by February when we plan on going up to Chicago to see the family.This the the quilt I'm working on, Disappearing hourglass, this makes me wish I had a lap top instead of just  tablet or phone to follow along with.  Again more pics to follow in a day or two

Hope it's warm where you are and that all your stitches and such are true :)

Hexie this and Hexie that, my way of doing Hexies

I was explaining to a friend the other day how you do Hexies by hand using cardboard shapes.  She said she had never heard of that before so I figured since I was working on a Hexie Table Runner for my table for this upcoming Christmas I’d try writing instructions on how to do this and use my progress.

First off you need Hexagon shapes in whatever size to stitch fabric to.  I have a 2” hexagon paper cutter I got at Hobby Lobby a year or so ago using a coupon.  People use other stuff to make theirs, some use freezer paper that when you iron shiny side down it will stick to the fabric and you never have to remove it.  I prefer cardboard, I don’t want to spend all that time ironing.  You can use old cards, or card stock from the store to cut your shapes. 

This is the cutter I used and some of my shapes

Now you need your fabric, like I said I’m making a Christmas table runner and found this cute pattern at the Moda Bake Shop a few years ago.  Theirs was machine sewn and I tried that but wasn’t really happy with it.  I had a bunch of 2 -1/2” hexies cut out so just used those to sew to the card board shapes.  You can cut out 2-1/2” squares that will give you enough for a seam allowance. 

 Next you have to sew the fabric around the shapes, this is done by hand and a great project to work on while you watch TV.  I did a bunch this weekend while binge watching House of Cards on Netflix.  You need some kind of clips to hold the fabric down as you fold it over the shapes to sew down.

  You go corner to corner until you have them all sewn down and looks like this.

Then of course you have to attach the hexies to each other,  use the same clips to hold two of them together and whip stitch from corner to corner.

You can make all kinds of shapes with these little things,  I was doing rows, 7 across once I got the first few done to make the correct shape of the runner, for a total of 16 rows.

 Once it's done your back with look like this, of course depending on the shapes you have made

You can press front and back to set the seams before you remover the templates. You use a crochet hook to remove the papers just pick a corner and pull gently.  Now you can reuse the templates for your next Hexie project.

Mine looks like this right now, I haven't pressed it yet.

Check back next week, I will have it finished and ready for the holidays :)

Pretty spring day

We have had a bit of rain the last few days, actually a lot last night.  I got up this morning and the sun was out and the grass was so green, I didn’t have my glasses on at first and saw a brown lump in the yard under where two of my trees are.  I thought it was a clump of leaves that fell off the tree(s).  Turns out it wasn’t, it was this cute little rabbit, just lying there in the grass.  It didn’t even move when I got a bit closer to take its picture.  My doggies didn’t even notice it.

After I took a picture of the bunny I had to get some of my roses.  They are blooming so nicely at the moment.  Several more have big fat buds on them so I see more lovely roses in my future. 

I have spent way too much time today sitting at this computer, think I need to go putter around and get a few things done.  But Einstein will be staying here taking his nap.

Another Swap for me

I decided to do another quilt square swap.  I have finished two swaps, but not the quilts J.  One the squares are together just working on the border, piano keys which are kind of tedious, the other is a Friendship Ribbon quilt in Christmas fabrics.  I will probably get that one together this month.  However, in the mean time I am now doing a Random Ohio Star quilt using Bonnie Hunters free pattern Random Ohio Stars.  I chose Civil War prints for mine.

This is all my way of saying don’t be in a rush.  I needed to have this blocks mailed to arrive before April 15 and I’m cutting it close, I will be mailing them today.  I was on a birthday adventure which I will be sharing in a few days and was gone for 10 days, when I got home I had to get caught up on so much stuff.  

I finally got a chance to sit down and sew and got to work on the 4 blocks I needed to made.  I made the half square triangles first, since I have learned chain piecing I decided to do all that part first.  Anyone see the problem here? 

 All the triangles are sewn on the wrong side, so I had to go back and sew them all on the correct side then take the wrong stitches out.  They look like this when done correctly.

They finish into this really nice block that is now going in the mail with 3 others.  

A Happy Dance for Me :)

I had a happy dance just before Thanksgiving and forgot to share ....shame on me :).  I actually finished sewing a quilt mystery before the next one started.  I finished Grand Illusion by Bonnie Hunter which is now available here Grand Illusion Digital Download.  I used the colors recommended as I'm not brave enough yet to try my own.

Now I will need to press it, make and backing for it, have a few ideas for that, and then send it to be quilted, but all that will have to wait until after Christmas.  I think I'm going to put it on the bed in my guest bedroom when finished.

Allietare Part 1

I have been working on part one of  Allietare Mystery by Bonnie Hunter the past 2 days.  I got a later start then most, I have a good excuse, I was visiting this little cutie

for Thanksgiving and got home really, really late on Saturday, it may have even been Sunday. I did spend time yesterday cutting out stripes of gray and neutral and have about 60 half square triangles done now.

So tomorrow I'll cut more and sew more and maybe by Friday I will be ready to start clue 2, or maybe not but either way I'm getting it done, slowly but surely.  

 You can check out other folk's progress on this new mystery at mystery-monday-link-up-allietare-part-1

What I do when I'm not quilting :)

I have an  Etsy Shop that has been sorely neglected over the past year or so but I am motivated to get more stuff in there.  Aprons of course and dishcloths but after all it is called  Withthisneedle so I need to put other things I do with needles in there.  However I have been working for the past 2 days on cute Halloween Aprons that will go up today or tomorrow (whenever I get a chance to take better pictures of them).

It has been so pretty here the last few days that I finally got outside and did some weeding.  I have much more to do but it’s a good start and I took my poor little Leia for a much deserved walk around the block, she was so happy to go I will have to take her again later, maybe after supper if I have any energy left J.  

A fresh quilting start

I have been bitten by the quilting bug.  I got nipped over 30 years ago but life got in the way as it usually does and since I also love to Cross Stitch that one won out for most of my life.  I won’t lie, Cross Stitch is my first love, but this quilting thing has bite me hard.  I think part of it is because it is harder to see what I’m stitching and watch TV at the same time.  I can see close up but not far away.  I love to sit and stitch and watch TV.  With sewing I really don’t have that issue, I can see to sew and my TV is pretty close too in the sewing room, it’s usually on for noise though.

Anyway, this bug started almost 2 years ago when an online friend posted a link to Bonnie Hunter’s http://quiltville.blogspot.com/ Mystery quilt for that year, which was Celtic Solstice.  I loved the idea of working on it week by week (how fast that didn’t happen is too funny for words).  I learned a few things though but working on it, and no it is nowhere near finished and may not be for a good while.  I learned from this experience the importance of 100% accuracy when cutting and sewing.  I learned the importance and scant quarter inch versus a regular quarter inch.  All my parts and make for this quilt but they are make correctly as I discovered when I started putting them together. 

Fast forward to last Thanksgiving, a new mystery came out Grand Illusions and I was ready for that one too J  I took what I learned from CS and applied it to GI and though I am not done yet I promise my parts are accurate and will go together like they should.

When you do a Bonnie mystery she gives you the list of colors she used around Halloween and the first clue comes out the day after Thanksgiving, they are free in her shop until around sometime in June, then you can buy them in a digital download here http://quiltville.com/shop.html#!/Digital-Downloads/c/13038426/offset=0&sort=normal if she doesn’t plan on putting in into an upcoming book.  You can get CS and GI there now.  I have however saved all my clues on my computer and a flash drive so I can actually get them done.

So the reason for this intro of sorts is to explain the purpose of this post.  Precision, you have to be very accurate when cutting out your bits of fabric and you have to be precise when sewing them together.  I have learned the hard way i.e. Celtic Solstice that it is   important to measure and cut right in order to sew it correctly and even that must be done correctly. 

I have my tools, my iron, a very good rotary cutter and mat, a good ruler and very good scissors.  I also bought  Bonnie Hunter's ruler for making sure I have my scant quarter inch for sewing. 

I put some of the flex tap on the back of all my rulers so they don’t slide when I am using them.  I also used the tape to make the quarter inch on my sewing machine so my seams are all the same.  So far it seems to be working well for me.

I am working on clue 4 of GI and will be doing 5 next week then the real test will begin will they all line up correctly but that is for another day J

This and That

Well it has been a long time since I have posted anything here, keep saying I'm going to do better but that doesn't always happen.

Have had a busy year so far though.  My in-laws came for a visit to avoid the nasty Midwest winter, they came in February and went home the day after Easter.  It was a very nice visit and I am happy they were able to come and enjoy the milder weather down here in Georgia.

I have been plugging away on the Bonnie Hunter Grand Illusions Mystery quilt http://quiltville.blogspot.com/p/grand-illusion-mystery.html .  I have part one done and am working on part 2, I would say I am more than half way done with part 2 :)

Last year I was blessed with a beautiful granddaughter and this month she turned 1 and moved from Chicago to RI,  my oldest son and I went up to New England for her birthday and spent the weekend there.  Of course I had to sew her a few things so I made her a few outfits, here is one of them.

And  I have made one of these for every girl in my family so why not Chloe :)

I see more outfits in Chloe's future but for now I think I will get back to my quilt making and cross stitching.

Grand Illusion Part One

I am working on Bonnie Hunter's Grand Illusion Mystery quilt http://quiltville.blogspot.com/p/grand-illusion-mystery.html part 1.  I started later then most because I was in Connecticut for Thanksgiving week, I got to spend the week with my granddaughter, Ms Chloe Dylan aged 7 months

and  didn't get home until way late on Friday.  Saturday was run around town, getting caught up on stuff day so I didn't start until Sunday.  I am taking my time and going slow as I rushed through the first few clues for Celtic Solstice last year and my parts aren't matching up like they should.  This time I am doing 25 or so HST at a time (about what I get out of a 44/45 wide piece of fabric) and squaring them up before I move on.

Here I have 150 done and have the others cut out and ready to be chain sewn together.  I probably won't  get the yellow and black parts done before tomorrow's clue comes out but at least when I get the parts done this time I know the parts will be the right sizes.

Color me Crazy

Color me crazy but I'm starting another Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt next month when I get home from seeing Chloe in Connecticut.  This one is called Grand Illusion  and all the info about it so far can be found here http://quiltville.blogspot.com/p/grand-illusion-mystery.html .  I pulled a lot of the black and neutrals from my stash of fabrics but don't have that much yellow, pinks, greens or teals so I have had to go shopping.  I did luck out last week, Hancock's was having a half off cotton fabrics and I got most of what I needed there.  Picked up a few from Hobby Lobby too as they run 30% off calico and cotton all the time.

Yes the dresser behind it a mess and yes those are dog treats on the ironing board, my doggies are waiting none to patiently for them in the other room.  It's all washed and ready to press and await further instructions.

Another Month Another block and other stuff

Over on Facebook I am a member of the Friendship Quilting Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/477849245677551/, and every month we do a mystery block. We got to chose which fabric(s)  we wanted to use.  Some chose shirting, some chose everyday fabrics, some chose batiks and some brave souls chose them all :).  I chose batiks so every month I make 9 blocks to send of the pattern posted to the group and I get 9 back.  I am working on this months and I'm liking the chose of colors I picked for this month.

Since I can't spend 24/7 at the sewing machine and I like to do other stuff too I have also been crocheting dish cloths for my Etsy Shop, https://www.etsy.com/shop/WithThisNeedle.  These ones are for Christmas but I have been working on ones for Halloween as well.

I took some advice

I made part of yesterday a stay away from the computer day and decided to be creative.  Some one had said in one of the Facebook groups I belong too that you would be surprised how much you get done when you don't spend all day at the computer.  I have to admit I spend more time at the computer then I should so I took this advice to heart.

My husband's niece is getting married next month so I need a few new things to wear.  I will go shopping for some clothes here in the next week or so but wanted to make something new to take along.  Several years ago I made a vest that had all colors of fabric cut and pressed onto interfacing then free stitched all over.  I decided to try something like that again only with Hexes instead.  Well my first attempt as free stitching didn't  go as planned.  I thought well why not just stitch around the hexes kind of like a quilt without it actually being a quilt.

This is kind of what I came up with.  Going to do the other side then go from there.  This vest pattern as a lapel so I'm thinking blue for it and the back, maybe the lining too :)

Coming along, slowly but surely

So last November I stumbled upon a quilter named Bonnie Hunter http://quiltville.blogspot.com/, thanks to a cross stitch buddy named Teri Overton Way http://thisisterri.com/ and she was starting a mystery quilt based on her travels to Ireland over the summer.  I figured how hard can it be??  I've sewn and cross stitched for years and years.  Yeah, it was a bit harder than I expected.  I have never made pinwheels or chevrons before.  It was easier to master the chevrons then the pinwheels.  I finally got the 25 done that I need for this project.  Only one part to go and then I can put it all together.  Not sure if I will do many pinwheels again but you never know.  I’m always up for a challenge.  So anyway here are my pinwheels

Hopefully I will get that last part done and the top put together before the next mystery comes out.  Can't wait for that one.  Bonnie went to the UK this summer.  Been there done that so I can only imagine what she picked for her inspiration.