Happenings at Chateau Roman

Okay, lame title, but you know, you just run out of snappy titles sometimes.  Actually not much is happening in recent days at the Chateau, so nothing real recent - like in the last week.  Spring always seems to bring a flurry of things with the kids and once again, I start living out of my car - so not a lot of crafting is accomplished.  And I'm so behind on blogs and emails - I'll catch up soon!

Anyway, it's a beautiful day here in Michigan - bright, sunny (oh, is that what that glowing ball in the sky is? - scared me for a minute), and it's warm - so warm that I had to take a walk this morning (after the grocery shopping, that is).  Going through my neighborhood is like a nature walk.  This morning I had my path crossed by a red fox (rather scrawny looking and leering at my thighs and licking his lips, and eight deer roaming the woods - one of them an albino deer which I had never heard of or seen before - definitely need to take a camera next time)!

In my own Garden of Eden around the old Chateau, we also have those two half-naked people in Paradise.  They've been finished for a week or so, but I just got around to the staining:

Margaret Pence 1781

The Goode Huswife

40 ct. Daily Grind (Walnut Ink Stained) and DMC Threads

This was fun, although once again, I can't stitch these smaller pieces without making mistakes.  Luckily they're not glaring. The only change I made to this was the date - since the date of her sampler was 10 days before my birthday, I changed it to my birthday.  I'm on to my next A and E and another project, although not much to show on either one of them yet so I'll hold those till next time.

I don't know why, probably because of Easter and it being spring, I always seem to get into some kind of sewing mood - not to do quilts or things like that, but to make fun things.  I went through the same thing last year, and that bunny, from Country Stitches, is now my header for Easter.  Anyway, I saw this pattern recently in my web surfing and decided I needed to make one:

She's meant to be a pincushion, and I'm still waiting for the base for her, so I have her sitting on one of my grandmother's antique egg cups.  And I just realized that I didn't put blush on her ears!  I'll have to do that.  Anyway, this pattern is Cottontail Pincushion by Under The Garden Moon, and she was a snap to finish up!  For some reason, I've fallen in love with pincushions and recently bought a few patterns to do. She's the first and was so quick - one night!  A couple blogging friends, Siobhan, in particular, has been trying to get me to stitch some seasonal things.  I so stink at doing that, but do you think that this qualifies???  I know it's not cross stitch, but.......?????

Here's another one that I made, but it was a year or so ago.  This was from Lori Birmingham:

I finally finished up my Bullseye Quilt, too.  Taken as a whole I really love it, but when I was working with some of those blocks, especially after you cut them in quarters and put them back together again, well, they offended me:

This turned out to be a lot of fun to do and not quite as wonky as I thought it would be.  I can't wait until I get it quilted and washed so that the edges of the circles fray.  I had a couple people ask me about cutting the layers away as you sewed the circles.  Since I can't really describe it without too lengthy of a description, I'll have to construct a block and take pictures as I go along.  But it's very easy to do.

With that quilt finished I started another one.  This one is a Civil War quilt called Women's Voices, but I only have a little bit of it put together.  These are the first set of blocks:

And these are the second set although not completely put together:

This was a BOM and included fabric to make two blocks in different colorways every month.  It will end up being a king sized quilt when I'm finished.  I was surprised at the size of the blocks - 15 inches each.  I am very proud of myself that these are from stash from a few years ago, and not some of the new goodies that I bought, although those have been really calling my name.  These blue and green blocks are called different things depending on how you lay out the fabric.  It can be called Underground Railroad, Jacobs Ladder or Trail of the Covered Wagon in Mississippi and the prairie states.  I love how each month there is a little history written about each block.

I have barely done anything on my poor rug since my class last Thursday.  My last class, I might add, and I'm going to miss it.  I hope that I can get involved with the Monthly group that Kris has.  This is all the progress I've made:

Not a lot of progress and I'm seriously of thinking about tearing out the white yet once again.  I don't like working with white anyway - whether it's in xstitch or now wool, and I can see all kinds of glaring mistakes I did, but Kris told me it looks fine and will look better when it's steamed.  And it's my first - a learning process - but still, it bugs me.  Part of the whole problem is that I haven't had a frame so it's been hard to get my loop length consistent while trying to balance a quilt hoop in my lap - not the best thing to hook a rug on.  But Mr. Postman - hero that he is (don't tell him that though, he's really a crank), dropped off the frame yesterday.  Was I home?  Of course not, so I'm high-tailing it to the post office now to pick it up!

Well, that's about all that's going on around here.  I don't expect to get too much done in the next week or so with all the kids activities, etc.  Plus I just realized that this is the time of year again for my annual Spring thrifty/antique store time.  Seems next week is about the only free week (knock on wood) that I see for a while, so hopefully the weather will hold out, I can get my Cafe Mocha from Mickey D's, crank up some tunes in the car and drive in pursuit of fun things.  Maybe!  Those fun times are always subject to change.

Thanks so much again for all your wonderful comments.  I loved the comments I received last time, especially those of you that shared a little fun fact about yourself.  Have a wonderful week and make it stitchy!!!