Nautical Times

Happy Monday everyone! Hope everyone had a great weekend and got some quality stitching time in. I'm going to try to make this post short and sweet, but thinking about it, when has that ever happened? LOL I tend to post like I talk - a lot! Anyway, I finished Block #5 this weekend!! Woo Hoo!!

Of course I'm only, what......12 days behind schedule? But that's what happens during the summer. Just too many other things going on. In the winter it's so much easier to plop in the chair and stitch seeing as it gets dark at 6:00. When it's still light out at 9:00, it's so much harder. I did start a little bit on Block #6 - that one is going to be a monster - and I doubt that there will be much updating on that for a while. My hope was to get it done in a month and take a month off from stitching Shores (since #6 is actually like two blocks), but that's probably not going to happen. DD's performances are all next week and my sister is coming in for almost two weeks and then we may take off for a much needed few days out of Dodge, so not much stitching is going to get done (insert sad face here). Maybe some small things.

This weekend everyone took off their separate ways and I was home alone for some part of it. Did I stitch? Of course not. I cleaned the house and the mom-mobile, weeded, washed clothes, washed some windows (geez, I wish I could bottle that energy!). Couldn't get myself to sit down. But I did do something stitchy...........

I actually framed something myself! Thanks to Vonna's tutorial and this frame I found at Michael's in my travels last week, I decided to give it a try and see just how difficult it was. It's hard to tell from the pictures, but the greenish accenting on the frame matches perfectly the grass area where the bird is. And I have to say, it wasn't hard at all......well, maybe I exaggerate that a wee bit - I think I may have cussed a slight bit - but no one was home so I could get away with it! LOL But really, the hardest part was getting it lined up - the pinning was a snap and once I knew I had it centered, I actually liked the pinning part!! I think the centering was a little bit more tedious because of the border around the piece - it's hard to make two parallel lines line up correctly - the black border and the frame border. The best part of this whole experience was the cost - $12.99 for the frame with a 1/2 coupon from Michaels. I already had the matt board and the tape and I learned a trick years ago with the backing. Brown shopping bags dampened straighten themselves out - glue them down with archival glue - and it forms a taunt backing as it dries! I think I can love this cost savings.

So, now I feel like I get some of my smaller framing out of the way. Larger stuff I'll still let the experts handle, but I'm just tickled that I could do it.

Continuing with the nautical theme, I was digging through some things this weekend - actually rearranging things (I'll tell you I was like a woman possessed with the cleaning) and came across this scrimshaw I had purchased through my Sampler Guild. I have an oak quilt cabinet with glass on three sides and a removable glass shelf in the middle, in case you want to use it as a display curio. I was using this for some of my tea cups and for displaying smalls rather than hanging a quilt in it. Now, that the tea cups are going to a new home, I realized the scrimshaw would be great with all the other little things I've put in there. I couldn't get a good pic in the cabinet so I just laid them on the floor (which really isn't a good pic either). I will never actually use these - I can just see the scissor fob shattering if I really put it on the end of a pair of scissors, but since they're nautical, I thought I'd take a pic.

On a non-nautical note, when I was reading blogs this week, I came across Margaret's (my idol for super fast stitching) and she talked about a blog that was asking for pictures of your first quilt. Well, I didn't send a picture, but I did find mine rummaging through the linen closet this weekend trying to get the guest room ready for my sister's visit next week and I found my first two (don't laugh!!)

Okay, can we guess which decade these were made in? LOL Actually, these were made before quilting really became such a revolution like it appears to be now. These patterns came out of Family Circle magazine that my mom had around and I pulled the patterns out of them and kept them when I was a teenager. Years later I actually made them. And dang, I remember cutting the strips for these with scissors - not a rotary cutter! The top one is suppose to have applique hearts in the blank areas (do you think that I had a thing for hearts around that time?). And I remember not enjoying the construction of the Prairie Points around the edges. I never finished these off - I suppose I should.....someday. I still have the hearts cut out and ready for applique. I honestly don't think I'd display either of them now. But then again, who knows. DD saw them and thought they were cute. Perhaps I should finish them off for her.

Well, that's it for me. Have to fly as the rat race continues. I have to say that I'm touched by everyone's comments. I really love reading all of them and your blogs too. You all leave such wonderful comments and I feel that I've made a tremendous amount of wonderful friends! And your blogs are a wonderful source of inspiration!