It's our 35th anniversary!

Sometimes it is hard to believe that Kevin and I have been married for 35 years. We have raised 5 children and still love each other. It think that is something to be proud of. Kevin does not like to have his picture taken or posted online, so I will respect his wishes. He had to work today, so no plans. I did send him a Snickers bar in his lunch with a little love note wrapped around it. (grin)  Maybe we will do something this weekend.

I finished the July block for the Aurifil Designer BOM. It is called Colors of Summer by Sarah Fielke. I even figured out how to do a Colonial knot to represent the grains of sand.

I am doing the Temecula summer quilt along. I am using a bundle of 5 fat quarters. This is kind of fun. It will be a small wall hanging when done. I think a new block is posted every Friday through August. I still have to do block 3 because block 4 will be out on Friday.

Please excuse my ironing board cover. I am in dire need of replacing it. LOL

Look Bren, what I found at Walmart. It is a lap desk. I am loving it. I use it when I embroider and when I am quilting on a small wall quilt. It is so nice to use when sitting in my rocker.

Before I forget, this is Thimbleberries Day. I have not done very well with this for the past few months. It seems like there is always something going on at the last of the month. I am still working on Sunflower Glory.

I am making some headway. It will eventually get done. LOL I am thinking about doing a hand applique around the sunflower. I can't remember if I used wonder under or heat 'n' bond lite. If the heat 'n' bond, I will have to machine applique it. That stuff is too tough to hand sew through. Anyway, here is where I am on this project.

I have also been working on my Borders and Promises BOM. Almost caught up with it. Yesterday I worked on my Farmers Wife blocks. I am doing the Barristers Block Sew Along. Randy has given us a break till August, so I figured I'd try to catch up. Why am I always behind? LOL

Isaiah stopped by for a while. I always love to see my kids. Even if it is only for an hour or so. I was able to catch up with him.

Well, that is all for today. Thanks for visiting. Please come again. Have a wonderful evening. I'm praying for rain. We have some in the area, so I hope we get some.

I Love Aurifil Thread!

My summer has not been great, but I will talk about that another time. Our whole state is in a drought condition and it is so hot here. It has been 107* for highs for the past couple of days. Tomorrow is town day. I am hoping to get my groceries and get home before the heat gets hideous.

Since it has been so hot, I have spent my time sitting in the a/c doing some embroidery. I finished the June block for Thoughts in Threads and have the July block prepped and ready to work on. Since I am behind on my Promises and Borders, I have been working on it.
Here is block 6 of Thoughts and Threads....

While cruising around the net, I found a free block of the month stitchery. It is Aurifil's Desighner BOM and hosted by Pat Sloan.  Hmmm, since I had won some Aurifil saize 12 thread, I decided to give it a go. Oh my goodness, this thread embroiders like a dream. I am loving it. Of course, I don't have quite all the colors I need, so I use my DMC to fill it.  I will share my blocks so far. Sorry, I didn't look up the links, but you can google. (grin)
Jan.'s block is called Snowbird, by Roseann Kermes....

Feb.'s block is Snow Much Love by Sherri K. Falls.

March's block is called Spring if We're Lucky by Victoria Findlay Wolfe.

April's block is April Showers by Gail Pan.

May's block is called Maypole Dance by Thimbleanna.

June's block is Summer Flowers by Pam Kitty Morning.

I have July's block done but guess I haven't uploaded it yet. I am using a charm pack of Urban Cowgirl by Urban Chicks for Moda for the sashings. Cyndi sent this to me for my birthday. I am having so much fun stitching these blocks.

Well, I need to run out real quick and do my evening chores. I try to wait till it drops below 100* before going out. I also need to get my grocery list ready for tomorrow. So I'll get this posted. Thanks for visiting. Have a great night.

Handmade Gift Exchange

It is so hot here right now. They are saying we have not had temps in the 100s in June since 1988. Well, we have had several this year. I believe it is right at 106* right now. Way too hot for me. The heat with the little amount of rain we have had is going to do in the garden, I am afraid. I have been spending my days sitting in the a/c doing some embroidery. It is too hot to have a quilt in my lap.

I joined a Handmade gift exchange this month. I sent my gift off to my giftee last weekend, so I am hoping she has received it by now. Anyway, I figured I'd share it with you all. I found the pattern for this little wall quilt in the Summer 2011 copy of Fons and Porter's Easy Quilts. It is called Tweet Others with Kindness by Kelly Mueller. I think it turned out pretty cute.

Here it is on the back of our front door.

I did a hand blanket stitch around each applique piece with Perle cotton. I hand quilted it. Here is the back. It is hard to see the quilting because the backing is so busy. Oh well. As you can see, I even put hangers and a label on it.

I hope my giftee likes it. I need to check on the animals' waterers  so I will go ahead and post this. Thanks for visiting. Please come again. Have a good evening.

Thoughts in Thread

This has been a very busy month. I have a project in progress that has to be done by the end of the month, but I can't show it just yet. I have also had lots of outside work to do. We have finally gotten a little rain. Not really enough, but every little bit helps. I am also slowly working on my BOMs. Of course I am behind again. LOL What is new. I don't remember if I have shared any of these blocks or not, but if so, you get to see them again. LOL This BOM is called Thoughts in Thread by Val Laird. It is so cute.

Here is block one....

Here is block two...

Block three....

Block four...

Block five in progress....

Block six is cute as can be. It has an owl in it. (grin) I still need to get the block made and trace the design on it.

Look what my honey made for me yesterday morning. Our Sassy rabbit is due on June 26th and Sara on July 8th. So Kevin made me these nest boxes. They should be plenty roomy enough for our does and their litters.

Please overlook the stuff in the background. Our microwave recently bit the dust and we still need to get rid of it, plus Kevin sat the propane bottle up on the deck for some reason. Hmmm, I guess I should have moved things before taking the picture. LOL

We spent most of Saturday getting the big chicken house ready for my young pullets. Kevin got the gate posts set for their run. Now we just need to build the gate and check out the fence. Then their run will be ready for them. They are loving all the space. I go down to their house and just sit and watch them.

Hard to believe they have grown this much in just 6 weeks. The ducks have grown even more, but I didn't get a good picture of them.

Well, that is all for today. I need to get back to work. Thanks for visiting and please come again. Have a good one.

Borders and Promises

I am caught up with Borders and Promises. I really am loving working on this BOM. It is too warm to sit with a quilt in my lap quilting, so I have been doing embroidery when I have time to do some handwork. This has been a very busy spring. Not so much right now, though. We need rain bad. So, since it is so dry, don't need to mow and no gardening. Not even the weeds are growing. Of course the chicks, ducks, and rabbits keep me busy, but that is just a couple of times a day.

Anyway, back to Borders and Promises....I have already shared blocks one and two with you. Here is block three...

Block four....

I just finished block five yesterday. I have had the embroidery done for a while, but needed to sew the sashing on it.  Here it is.....

I think these are going to make a very pretty small quilt.

I also did some sewing yesterday. My poor sewing machine thought I had abandoned it. LOL I was supposed to be repairing a rip in Kevin's shirt, thanks to Sassy, but never did get around to that. I made Kevin a bag to carry his headphones in. Then I decided I needed a case for my Sony MP3 player that actually fit. I made a case for my first player. Then when I bought this one, it was too long to fit into the case. I gave the old player and case to Kevin. I finally got around to making a new case for mine. I just used a few scraps. Here is the front of it.....

I left an opening in the bottom left corner for the headphones to plug into the player. Here is the back of it, hooked onto the arm strap....

Here it is opened up. It fits perfectly and works great when I go on a walk.

I love it when I can create something that we need that would cost at least $20 to buy.  Kevin loved his bag for his headphones so much that he asked me to make him another bag to keep all his recharging cords in. Let's see he has a laptop, Sony MP3 player, Zune, Kindle, Pad, and Palm. So yes, he has a lot of cords to try to keep track of. LOL He is the King of electronic gadgets. LOL
I hope you all have a good day. It is nice here today, only in the 70's. Supposed to be a good chance of rain tonight and tomorrow. I am praying we get it. Thanks for visiting. Please come again.

Big Stitch Quilting

Can you believe I am doing three posts in one day? LOL I have not shared any sort of crafting in such a long time that I was afraid you would think this is no longer a quilting etc. blog. LOL  I am working on some BOM blocks, just about caught up with my May blocks, but today I thought I would share a new to me way of quilting. It is called Big Stitch Quilting. I am quilting Birdie Stitches this way.  I am using a Fons and Porter Utility quilting needle that I got at Joanns. It says #5 Embroidery on the package. I am using Perle cotton #8 ecru color. I just cut off a large length and go to town. I still make the knot and bury it inside the batting just like normal hand quilting.

I bought this PVC hoop thinking I would like the square hoop better. I haven't used it much, but so far I have not been too impressed. I think I will go back to my round wooden hoop. I am glad I used a coupon to buy this hoop at Joanns. (grin) At least I didn't waste too much money. Who knows, I might like it on another project. (grin)
Here is a closeup of one of the blocks and sashing.

So far, I am really enjoying this way of quilting. It is quicker and no worries about getting tiny stitches. LOL Of course I still love quilting the regular way, but this is a nice change of pace.

I was so excited to win this Aurifil Sashiko Thread Collection a while back. Sorry I don't remember for sure where I won it.  I know it had something to do with Pat Sloan and Quilting Bloggers.

Aren't these some fabulous colors of thread?

Well, I think I am done posting for today. LOL Just thought I would share my experience with Big Stitch Quilting. Thanks for visiting. Please come again. Have a wonderful evening.

The ducks and chicks are 2 weeks old.

The baby chicks and ducklings are just over 2 weeks old. Goodness they have grown fast. I had to make a special trip to town this morning to get a bigger waterer for the ducks. LOL A gallon waterer just wasn't doing it. They can go through a gallon of water in less than 2 hours. So in order to prevent a day of walking back and forth between the house and the brooder, I bought a bigger waterer. I took a bunch of pictures this morning. The chicks are at that awkward stage where their feathers are just coming in.

The chicks have feathered out more, but the ducks have grown lots more. Of course, the amount they eat probably accounts for that. LOL

Well, I think that is enough pictures for now. At this rate the ducks will be ready to move into the big chicken house before long. Can you believe how much they have grown in just two weeks? Thanks for visiting. Please come again.