I love to share my Quilting projects with other Quilters. My goal is to share my progress on projects that I am working on. I would love for you to follow along with me during my endeavors. I hope you enjoy watching me tackle new techniques and projects. Hopefully you can learn from my "hiccups" and mistakes and make your journey easier.
I am sure most of you are preparing for a lot of company and cooking all the goodies you can tonight! Clay and I will have meatloaf and scalloped potatoes. The only thing missing is a cake, pie, or cobbler, so we will settle for Hershey’s Chocolate Kisses!
I have completed my Boo’s and Bat’s quilt top! I made the outside border with the same fabric as the black, but with a white background and black and orange lightening. I made it larger for a reason. It gives me time to decide on the 6″ finished border, or cut it down to 5″ finished. I will be binding it in the black lightening fabric and that should calm down the 6″ border.
Boo’s and Bats
Maybe I make it a 4” border. Would that look better like this?
Next up is my first Cross Stitch project – now don’t laugh because it is small, but I learned so much working on her! I gave it to Clay to hang on his wall by his little kitty cat that reminded him of his Ms Kitty. Ms Kitty was a cat that he brought home from the Fire Department one shift in the 1990’s. She was a unique outside country cat that never wandered from home.
Well, that is all for now! Have a great Thanksgiving Day and a great meal!
A Happy Thanksgiving week to all! We will be enjoying more peace and quiet at home and being thankful for all the blessings that God has bestowed on Clay and I. Sometimes we do not understand why bad things happen in our lives, but eventually the reason comes out why.
I thank God mostly this week for Kyle Rittenhouse and the Jury he picked at random, who found him NOT Guilty. Just maybe the American public are beginning to wake up and realize that the USA has lost is moral compass and it needs to be corrected. This is just the beginning to push back on our freedoms that have been taken away by the Radicals. I pray that Kyle continues dealing with his Anxiety and PTSD and becomes a successful adult in his life. I watched the interview last evening on Tucker Carlson and Kyle is matured way beyond his 18 years. I pray for his safety and a free life.
But now to regular life in the country where the news will be shut off for awhile. Back to The Rifleman, Leave it to Beaver, and Lucy! It is peaceful and I am back to my walking routine after a 6 days of fun in the sun!
I have made some small accomplishments in the last month. My routine of appliquéing in the evening is getting better, I have worked on Minnie Mouse, and finished one dishcloth and starting on another, and have the Boo’s and Bat’s ready for borders or whatever. .
Slowly but Surely and the spaces are where the flowers will go!
I am going to make Honeycomb. I tried it once and had issues, so I went on to another pattern. But now I wanted a challenge – and this it! Just trying to improve my knitting for bigger things.
New Dishcloth
I am pleased that after 4 starts I have finished Minnie Mouse, with the exception of outlining her face. I messed it up and will re-do it. All in all, I am looking forward to making more cross stitch patterns. It is so relaxing once I understood what I was doing!
Little Minnie Mouse
Now for Boo’s and Bat’s. I changed the pumpkins – I just could not deal with the one in the pattern. I still have the fabric that I purchased for this project in which I cannot handle the fabric. Let me know if you are interested. I love the way I used the Spider Web for the corner patches and the bat’s head and tail are fabric that are little bats. How cool. Next is to do a border to stop them from flying out of their corners, and then add some more borders. I enjoyed making it thus far.
Boo’s and Bat’s (a work in progress)
Of course, we love our new door mat that tells the story in a nutshell!
Our new door mat!
Clay has been busy adding acrylic plastic to the 4 front windows. Here is a picture of the last window he finished Saturday and will paint the silver trim brown to match the existing window. This acrylic will serve as double pane windows and hopefully stop the sweating inside the windows during the winter.
Clay is such the genius on fixing things and when he does something it is perfect or it doesn’t get done. I believe he has made me more of a perfectionist than I have been all my life because he challenges me when I quilt or work on other hobbies. He thinks out of the box so many times when either making something better, or fixing something that has broken! Lucky me!
Front WindowsWaiting for Caulking and Brown Paint
As you can see – I was not born with a green thumb! No bushes, flowers, or gardens in my life! But then we live in the country and it has become drought country the last 10 years so it is good that I am not a plant/garden person. Just the bookkeeper and quilter!
I am doing much better, with no additional panic/anxiety attacks. But since I am 77 I will go and see Clay’s Cardiologist on 1 December – I think everyone should have access to one at our age. Probably the majority of the people have already been to one, but not me. I am very thankful that I have always maintained an exercise program and tried to keep my weight under control. I have lost half of the pounds I gained the last 10 months and want to lose 7 more! Wish me luck. Since I quit bananas in September I am sure that my A1C will be down to 6.1 again! I will get it checked in December!
Have a wonderful and Happy Thanksgiving Day with your families or friends, and do not count the calories you intake Turkey Day – they are freebies!
Well, we can begin to kiss November 2021 goodby, and almost ready to leave the entire year! Weather here in South Texas is crazy – up and down – This morning’s walk was a summer hot and sweaty walk and that was at 7:00AM. But as usual, it will change this afternoon, a cool front to blow out the humidity! My walking is paying off as I have lost 7 pounds since I started walking again in September with 7 more to go. My goal now is to not take a day off from my routine and definitely won’t be doing any indoor exercise biking next summer. I will just have to love the humidity and heat!
About 2 weeks ago I had a critical Panic Anxiety attack – like the severe one I had while living in Sterling Virginia in 1995. I did get checked out and I am OK, but it made me realize we had to get away and relax from our last few years of stress and have a change of pace. So off we went for a week at the coast which is about a 2 and 1/2 hour trip from home – Rockport Fulton Beach, Texas. It was just what we needed – Six days on the water!
It was a wonderful trip. We stayed at The Lighthouse on Fulton Beach. We spent a lot of time on the pier and on our balcony watching the fishing boats leaving early in the morning and returning in the late afternoon with the great hauls of oysters (it is the season this month). Naps and rests were in store and it was absolutely perfect. There were over 50 boats that left out in the early morning (4:00-5:00 AM) and returning about 4:00 in the afternoon.
Here are some great pictures that I hope you will enjoy.
The LighthouseThe view from the Restaurant – overlooking the BaySunrise over Aransas BayMy Favorite – an almost Full Moon view from our BalconySunrise on Thursday morning when the cool front arrivedI could have stayed another week looking at the bay at night with the full moon!Loved watching the Pelicans dipping for the Fish Coming in from a successful Oyster RunWe loved watching the boatsThe new Fulton Beach Pier – about a mile round trip walking from land to the pier and back! This is what you call a windblown look – the wind was really blowing Wednesday!
We will be leaving for another trip soon to Durant OK to visit my favorite – the Casino!!! We are hoping to return to Rockport for a Christmas on the Bay – we shall see if we are still needing more nights and morning on the Balcony.
Have a great day and Thanksgiving week! Enjoy your family gatherings.
Good morning! Great weather here in South Texas, nice and cool in the mid-40’s and 60 and 70’s during the day. Even though it will warm up a little this next week, next Friday our next cold front will arrive! We just might have a nice winter! Walking is going well, and I am increasing my steps each day. Life is without drama and I am at peace. We are both looking forward to our get away this month! AND best of all, we get rid of Daylight Savings Time! I will be able to walk in the daylight early in the morning and not in the dark. Just think – we all have an extra hour to sew today! YEA!
I have FINALLY started working on Minnie Mouse Cross Stitch project which is my first cross stitch project. Kathy helped me where I was having issues, such as going from one row to another. I had worked quite a few stitches but it had some problems, so Jack the Ripper came to visit. I started over with Minnie and glad I did because she is beginning to look so much better.
Since part of subject of this post was Making the Pumpkins, I first refer you back to my last post where I discussed Boo’s and Bat’s. I had finished the Bat blocks and started on the Pumpkin block. Right off the ‘bat’ I had problems with the fabric I had purchased for the pumpkins. There is nothing wrong with the fabric, it is the geometric designs that Mr Meniere’s does not like. Once I started sewing the block together, I discovered that I did not like the pattern at all! Once I realized that I had a fabric design problem and then a pattern issue, I stepped back from the project for a few days and to figure out my next step in making the quilt. I loved making the Bat blocks – so much fun but not the pumpkin block. I moved forward with another pumpkin block patten from Autumn Jubilee 2020.
Boo’s and Bat’s Revised
I am not sure what the final quilt will look like when I am finished as it is a work in progress, and I am flying by the seat of my pants! I will be working on the Center Star today. I would like to make a larger center Star and may end up adding more pumpkin and bat blocks to accommodate that change. I want to make the quilt larger so I am considering different borders too. I liked what Laura did with her version. We shall see what I end up with.
Have a great week-end, enjoy what you are doing, and if not, change what you are doing. It makes life so much better when we eliminate the negatives.
Let me see, today is Thursday so about time for me to do a post for Tuesday (yea, I know, I am very late)! The weather today is great overcast and in the 50’s and 47 this morning. Yesterday it was a rainy day with a run into San Antonio. Tuesday was hair cut day and a trip to San Antonio. Oh what fun! My walking is improving and glad for that! Today is overcast and cool!
For some reason I am just not in the mood to quilt. Hand work – yes, but making or quilting a quilt – absolutely not! I am beginning to believe I am enjoying days that I do what ever I want to do, without ”have to’s”. It is new and interesting to me. When we did our annual trek to Sierra Vista AZ each winter I loved it. Very relaxing, cooler weather, going to Tombstone, leaving all the responsibilities at home in Texas!
I started on Boo’s and Bat’s, but have stopped in the middle of making the pumpkins. I have a Meniere’s problem with the fabric I purchased. I should have known better. Geometric and Diagnonal prints give me Migraine Headaches. I have 4 fabrics that I cannot use and would like to sell them. I paid $11.00 a yard, but will sell them for less. Here is a picture of the fabrics. There is one yard of fabric from Holiday Essentials by Moda (Orange with Bats) and the other 3 pieces are 2 yards each of the Sleepy Hollow fabric by Andover. You can email me (fredericsneice@gmail.com) if interested. I hate this because I invested so much to make the quilt, The other fabrics are agreeing with me, but not these. I will use my batiks to make the pumpkins. The last time this happened to me was in 2009 and I had cut out the entire quilt before I realized what the geometric designs were doing to me. Another lesson learned. Maybe this is what stopping me from making the quilt…..Hum….
For Sale
I am pleased with how my Bat Blocks turned out! I will probably change the pattern.
I have made little progress on my leaves, but it is getting there.
I did finish one thing – the Color Wheel project that I received from Mary a couple of weeks ago. It was easy and fun to make. I did it by machine. Someday it will be quilted with my Designer.
Well, this is how my week + 2 days has gone. Have a wonderful week-end!
Chopin - A Passionate Quilter From Texas 