A Small Holiday Project

I hadn't done any machine embroidery since I did the aprons for a friend who works at a nearby shop back in November.  I know.  I had burned myself out coming up with projects for the quilt shop and I just couldn't even think embroidery until, well, until now.  And did I mention I retired from the quilt shop?  I did.  The flowers finally did me in and I never went back after my last day on January 2.  

Anyhoo, after I finished the runner I felt the call of my 830.  And it said hitch up the embroidery unit and do something!  I'd gotten an email from Gooseberry Patch featuring food and decorating for the Fourth, and one of the ideas was a table topper, which I initially thought was a coaster.  Anyway, it gave me an idea and I decided to run with it.  I brought up a design from a patriotic set from OESD, resized it to be four inches square and set about stitching it out.  And stitch I did. Or rather my machine did.  The entire top is solid stitches and it took just over a bobbin of thread!  And the bobbin on an 830 is, they say, 40% larger than a normal bobbin!  That's a whole lotta thread!

I wasn't sure what I'd end up with, and given the time it took to stitch out, I wasn't sure I'd want to do more than one, but as I used the coaster today, I think I'll do at least one more. 

I used a blue heather felt for the fabric and slid another piece under for a backing before the red border stitched. I think I might have liked white felt better, but it would get dirty faster.  My daughter Ann came up with the idea for these felt coasters some years ago.  They wash and seem impervious to assaults by little boys.  Oh, and they don't scratch the furniture.  ♥

Another Finish

Hooray!  I finished the table runner I've been working on last night.  Whew!  

I love the appliqued leaves in the middle, but there was a whole lotta blank space that I wasn't sure about quilting-wise.  I pondered what to do for several days and finally, yesterday morning, I decided to take the plunge and just meander quilt the whole thing.  As I put in on my Handi-Quilter, I kept telling myself that if I ruined it, to just consider the whole thing a learning experience.  :-) Overall, I'm happy with how it turned out although perhaps I should have used a lighter thread.  Maybe. Anyway, when I put it on the coffee table to photograph, I loved how it looked there, so I think I've found its home for fall!  ♥

Stitching Fun

Apparently a dark and cozy day was just what I needed to rev up my sewing mojo.  After doing some knitting and a sending a few messages back and forth with my friend Kathy, I decided to see about making a little wall hanging for the entry way instead of working on the table runner. 

I had a certain pattern in mind and amazingly enough, I found it!  There are lots of patterns and books in my sewing room and while I try to be organized, things are a bit, um, unorganized at the moment.  But maybe not as unorganized as I think, because in a matter of ten minutes I had the pattern and had found all the fabrics I needed.  I had a totally fun time tracing, cutting, ironing and stitching away.  The pieces are all backed with Steam-A-Seam and ironed on to the background.  I used stitch 1329 on my Bernina 830 to cover the edges and add detail.  

I just love the funkiness of it!  The pattern comes from the book Special Occasion Wall Hangings by Julie Bohringer of Patch Abilities.  The pattern called for the hanging to be thirty inches long, which of course was much too long for where I wanted it.  I made the red streamers a third shorter and I think it turned out just right.  Fun, fun, fun!  ♥

June Marches On

It's a dark and cold day here at the resort.  We even have the heat on!  I confess to sitting here in my jammies and robe while I contemplate what I'm going to do today.  Given the weather, it's safe to say I'll be spending the day inside.  Meanwhile, my sweetie is out in the woods helping some foresters try to determine what's wrong with their plantations.  (FYI:  plantations are what foresters call areas where they have planted trees.)  Hope he stays warm and dry!

I picked up my knitting again after a few weeks hiatus. I've made enough socks that I thought I knew what to do next without looking at the pattern.  Turns out, I was wrong.  I had to pull out several inches on the heel, but now I'm a few rows into the correct sequence.  I predict I'll be knitting on this cozy, indoor day.

On the scrapbooking front, I have completed seven pages in the last few days!  Yay for me!  Onward and upward: summer of 2002 coming right up.  :-)  I do have a problem though--when I finish this album, as in use all the pages that are in it, I will have used the last of my Creative Memories supplies and they went out of business.  I have checked locally and on the internet, but it seems albums had changed dramatically since I was last busily scrapbooking, and I don't care for the new styles. I hope to be able to get some from a new company that is supposedly taking Creative Memories place, but so far my attempts to meet up with the consultant haven't panned out.  I guess I need to try again.  There's always Ebay, but I don't shop there and really don't want to try although I may have to in the end.  

And in the sewing room?  I had to order some fabric for the center of the runner I'm working on, but it came a few days ago so I can get back to it. 

Looks like I have plenty of fun projects I can work on today.  Guess I'd better get in the shower and get started on this day!  ♥      

D-Day

For those of us born in the years following World War II, there's only one D-Day.  June 6, 1944.  And tomorrow marks the 70th anniversary of that "Longest Day", the invasion of Europe by the allied forces against Hitler's Germany.  

As my faithful readers know, my dad was a member of the 101st Airborne Division.  Tonight will mark their anniversary as they boarded their planes and gliders to travel to France to drop by parachute behind enemy lines before the beach assault of the next morning.  Dad had turned twenty-one just a month before. Like many other soldiers of that war, he was a small-town boy raised during the depression.  He will sometimes comment that he was eighteen the first time he saw Spokane, the region's largest city.  Three years later he traveled the width of this country, sailed the Atlantic, spent months in England, and then jumped into France where he would fight for his life and his country.  

1944 -  Dad is the one standing.

I've heard him say more than once that no amount of money could get him to live those war days over again, and no amount of money would be worth what he learned through that time. 

He's ninety-one now.  Those amazing men of that era are passing from our midst daily.  We have been blessed by their sacrifice.  ♥

Landscaping Update

After many hours of work and very tired muscles, my sweetheart has almost finished the re-landscaping of our front yard.  Last weekend he purchased more little boxwood and planted them along the driveway.  He was working out of town most of this week, so yesterday was devoted to trying to finish up.

A trip to a landscaping store brought a trailer full of rock back. Shovel after shovel of it was placed in the appropriate places.

A side-note on the trailer: he bought it last summer to use when he cut firewood.  He'd contemplated buying one for years, but when we bought the new truck, it had a shorter box, thus had less wood-hauling capacity, so he made the plunge.  It has proved to be a very wise purchase.  He used it all hunting season to take the 4-wheeler, and then this spring it was a life saver when he took out the shrubs.  And now it proved it's worth again when it made unloading the rock much easier than from the box of the truck.  

But I digress.  Back to the yard.  It's looking so great!  

Now all we need is to add to the sprinkler system and plant grass.  We're almost there!  ♥