BUSY MONTH! GARDEN, FELT, WEAVING, CROSS STITCH AND BAKING.

Hi everyone! Has been a very busy month. Meant to update the end of march. But, joined a new SAL and needed to do a post, the first saturday of the month, to complete the requirements.
The garden is very happy this year! And, so are the weeds! Much cleaning, trimming and mowing grass.

We are finding that our butterfly iris is quite the water hog!!

Very proud of our amaryllis plants. We bought these about 9 or 10 years ago. Walmart had them, discounted down to a dollar, in an after christmas sale. We have been carrying them with us with every move. Planted in a big galvanized wash tub.

The iris flowers are just getting started! Have many colors and variety's. These have also been moved with us. When we were driving 18 wheeler we collected many different iris plants from all over the country. Some of the white and peach colors are from my grandma's garden. So I can't wait to see them bloom. Grandma loved her iris.

We also have some pretty rose bushes. The pink one was not labeled a climbing bush. Has become very evident that we will need to put a trellis up for her. The yellow rose is a miniature from mothers day gift 2012. 

Michelle sent us a very pretty terrarium planter for christmas. My first thought was to have some miniature violets. Another idea came to me. My grandfather always had a bonsai tree in his office window and in retirement years the trees migrated to grandmas kitchen window. Could not find one anywhere. Then, we were driving home from a neighboring town service call. Happen to look to one side and a roadside plant stand caught my eye. A very sweet oriental lady was selling bonsai trees. We bought the smallest one. A 2 1/2 year old plant. The lady also gave us a little fisherman. Then she put my hand on her cheek and offered a small prayer. I am assuming the prayer was for the tree and that this dumb person(me) knows enough about plants so as not to kill it! The tree is doing well and is sprayed down with spritz of water every day.

Easter sunday was dinner with family. But, first came the baking of cookies and an experiment with some cupcakes. Decided to use some big flower baking cups and make some easter baskets. 

Found some pretty pip cleaners/fuzzy sticks for the basket handles. I braided three of them together so they would be thicker. The handles are decorative only and were not to used for lifting the heavy cupcake.

Ingredients used

I don't have an oven in the house we rent, so I bake in a counter top convection oven. I am limited on pan size and used muffin pan for the over sized cupcake. I did not use the flower baking cups in the oven. I didn't know what the high temp's would do to the color of the cups. Frosted, decorated and delivered them to dinner!

On to cross stitch!

Had some finished and a lot of fun with JBW French country bunny's

This was a complimentary march chart from Brooke, designer of Brooke's Books.

And a great quaker cat! Found the chart on Pinterest and it has been pasted into the very bottom of my blog.

This was my traveling companion for a few weeks! Kept in the pickup trucks glove box. JBW French Country Hen.

Some new WIP's and the current Wip's are showing progress!

Margaret Sherry halloween kitty and mouse.

I have joined another SAL. It is a monthly sal from another blog called YOTO for Year Of The Acronym. Which means to take out a UFO project, stitch on the piece, post a before and after picture in your blog, on the first saturday of every month. You can join http://pulltheotherthread.blogspot.com/p/yota-year-of-acronyms.html

This will be my first month. This piece is also in the HAEDless sal which is the last week of each month. So this fits in nicely on a rotation.

I found this 2011 Patriotic Quaker Heart through pinterest  on the Aury Tm website as a freebie.  Found the link!
http://aurytm.com/blog/free-charts/

Put quite a bit of stitching on bubbles. Was happily stitching my way across the bottom. Even got to the middle, bottom page. Then I stood back and took a look.... Well, the piece looked so fragmented. Like some one threw different colors of paint in splotches. So I went back to my first pages and started filling them in. Now bubbles looks much better. Can't wait to get off the planet and start working on the telescope.

Here is the Faby Reilly Peony biscornu. Have the lightest pink color done and should be able to fill the flower in pretty quickly.

Can't forget Chocolate! 3 bottom pages are nearly finished.

Well, I finally took the dive and joined Pinterest. And found FELT!!! This is a picture that I used for a template.

I cut out 2 birds at one time.

Made some more templates. Then decided to speed thing up and get the most out of 2 sheets of felt. And save every scrap of felt as it can be used for decorating ornies.

Have about 40 sets of  7 different templates. Would also like to make some snowmen and maybe use cookie cutters for more templates.

One of the black kitties!

                                                        Using plain craft ribbon for the spider web roses. 4mm and 6mm beads for trimming out.

Experimented with Isacord embroidery thread for the blanket stitch edging. Then settled on DMC #8 perle cottons for sewing the ornaments together.

Found another thing to play with. My mom has been knitting/weaving with her knifty knitter for about 10 years now. She has probably made close to 1000 hats, in dark colors, for our troops serving over seas. She donates them to a local support group. The group packs them in care packages and send them where they need to go. Mom also find dolls, makes clothes for them and donates them to the local childrens center. 

I has always left the knitting to mom. THEN, I was walking past a store shelf and saw the most beautiful fuzzy yarn! A Bernat brand Boa yarn. Gorgeous fall colors. Only found one skein. Bought it and tried to crochet with the yarn. Pretty much knew that I wouldn't be able to crochet with it, but tried anyway. Ended up printing a coupon and buying a set of round hobby lobby looms. This is what I ended up with!

This is one piece that can be used and a warm cowel or short scarf.

The hat pic kind of washed the color out. But, it is the same color as the scarf.

This is a matching headband.

Here is my TUSAL bucket.

Michelle has knitted more miniature mice. Soooo talented and creative!

Michelle's mom wanted a glass cover for her wedding mice. Michelle found the perfect glass dome for the wedding party!

Beautiful miniature sewing maching!

  Dora the Explorer miniature mouse. Complete with binoculars and back pack. Beautiful fairy mouse.

This is the characters from Titanic. I absolutely love the detail on the boy mouse. The vest, hat are perfect. And the blue stone is fabulous!

Painter mouse has created a master piece!

 Lucky leprechaun in time for St. Patrick's day.

A wonderful way to display all Michelle' adorable knitted slippers and shoes. Love the 3 tier effect!

Well, Think that's most everything! Thanks for visiting!

Happy stitching, Deb

HAPPY FEBRUARY!

Hi everyone. Hope you have had a very stitchy month! We are having some beaufitul weather and I have spent time weeding the garden. Getting it ready for spring flowers. Dh gave me another double bloom hibiscus tree and some tulips for valentines day. He though the plants would be better than cut flowers. Very much agree with him!

Now to get a 1/2 cut whisky barrel to plant them in!
We also had some very good news concerning my right eye. Last summer, Dh and I were working on an 18 wheeler, putting the drive shaft back in. For some reason the driver opened his door, to look in his truck, and left it open. With the air compressor and impact running, I did not hear him open the door. Rolled out from under the truck, raised up and hit the top of my head, smack dab, on the bottom of the metal door. Was dizzy, seeing bright points of light and sat on the ground for a while. This was last july. This past October I went to the eye doctor for new glasses. Dear doc asked me if I was having head aches(yes...). Apparently I hit my head so hard I tired to knock my right eyeball out of my socket. I was still bleeding, slightly, inside the eyeball(for lack of a better word). Referred to a specialist and eventually the bleeding has stopped, and much to my eye doc's relief, my eye has shifted blood away from the retina. The 8 or 9 tiny holes are now healed and no more bleeding! Great relief. All I could think of was that I had so many cross stitch pictures left to do... And, that I could manage to stitch with one eye. Fortunately, I don't have to worry about that any more and have definately started looking UP, before rising from the ground.
I had a sewing fit! Which is good, as many items were sewn into ornaments.

These are Just Nan smalls, sewn into ornaments.

  Celtic Wedding knot, designer Joan Elliott.

Another Just Nan smalls.

 And a JBW French Country design. The flower is a gift from Michelle, mon ami en France, and tacked on with invisable thread. Know that a strawberry bloom is white, But, this color shows up better than the white.
This past week I had a finish. All my WIP's went by the wayside. Became obsessed with finishing The Spirit of America Angel, designer Brooke's Books.

She is stitched on 14 count brown plastic canvas. With an assortment of Kreinik, DMC light effects and DMC floss/threads.

She is perched on one of my wrought iron wall hangers. Bought this at hobby lobby and painted it white. Although it is looking like I need to find another, as this one is getting full!

Now for the WIP's!

A Wizards View, artist Joan Elliott. Have been working on this one and putting him in the HAEDless sal, every month. Decided to focus on UFO's in this years 2013 sal.

HAED 2013 sal. This is my friday or saturday stitching, depending on work.

Bubbles is coming along. However, I am working on 6 pages now. Hope to finish more than one page, someday....

HAED has weekly themed sals. So I try so set a small goal for the week. For Autumn Cat, I decided to make the goal of filling in the three leaves, Was happy that goal was met.
Then, for Fun Guy, I worked on getting the snowball stitched. Mission accomplished!

Currently, I have 5 HAED's WIP's in rotation. When I get bored with those, I have some back up HAED's.  The new start, for a back up, is a most beautiful horse named Cielo! My camera did not pickup the beautiful pinks and mauve's on the chart. But, the horse's conformation is superb in every way.

And a new evening stitching start! I have been threatening to stitch a biscornu. It is on my stitching "bucket"list. Have many small, suitable designs and was putting off stitching one. Then stumbled upon the Creative Poppy, Faby Reilly designs.  Beautiful biscornu's, star ornaments, fob's and other stitchy ornament gadgets! So, this is the first of 4 designs I purchased.

 Looking forward to finishing this one so I can stitch the others.

This is my TUSAL bucket for the month. Also added bits of left over ribbon and shiny fabric bits, in with the thread tailings, from all the sewing of finished ornaments.

Michelle also sent another package with scrumptious goodies! And, included a very cute miniature witch mouse and an adorable, miniature strawberry slipper.

I love how Michelle knits the hat and then sews the ears on to the hat. Not stuffing the ears under the hat. Just so very cute, perfect and adorable.

  An absolutely beautiful miniature strawberry slipper. The stitches are so perfect!

Back to gardening! A few days ago we went shopping at Sams Club. I bought a box of gladiolus bulbs. The box really wasn't that big. Had a small handle and no bigger than a box of cookies. However, when we got home, I read the package to the tune of 90 bulbs... Soooo, DH has traveled to the home improvement store for some holding pans and soil to plant them in. They are already sprouting. Even after giving half to sister in law, we still have 45 of them. Looks like the rest of the day will be spent in the garden! Which doesn't break my heart.
Happy stitching and thanks for visiting!
Deb