Another Fun and Productive Week

Happy Monday!  Wow, after trying all day to get into Blogger, it finally worked.  I don't know if anyone else had problems, but I couldn't post or comment since yesterday afternoon.  Thank goodness they got the problem taken care of.  I probably would go through withdrawals if I couldn't read everyone's blogs!  LOL


Last week on my birthday, I read Faye's blog and found out that I had won her giveaway.  What a great birthday present, don't you think?  And what Faye sent is wonderful (all pictures are clickable):

Look at these great things that she sent.  The pincushion is a work of art and I say that because I'm finishing-challenged and admire people that can make such wonderful things.  This pincushion is beautiful and it feels so good.  I asked Faye what she used and she said crushed walnut shells.  I love both the charts so much and that red floss is such a luscious shade of red I can't wait to stitch with it.  I think that Quaker pattern would be perfect, don't you?  Thank you, thank you Faye, I love everything.


Then another piece of birthday fun was a present that I ordered for myself.  Can't have a birthday without buying yourself something, can you?

This is from Eldreth Pottery and someone that I know talked about this plate and before I could run over and scarf the thing up, another "Sister" friend (you know who you are) snatched the plate and it was gone.  But thank goodness the great people at Eldreth Pottery said that they would gladly make another one.  I think this will look good with the A&E Samplers don't you???


Then a mystery package came in the mail.  Just a note telling me thank you for my generosity.  Now I don't have a clue who sent it or what I was so generous with, but look at these goodies:

Oh my goodness am I going to have fun with these or what?  The sender said that she noted that I liked hornbooks and so two of these are hornbooks.  And the other charts I didn't have.  Woo Hoo.  But now I need to know who the sender is.  It's going to bug me unless I find out - I will get to the bottom of the mystery!!!  But thank you, thank you whoever you are!!!


I've been busy in the stitching/quilting area this week too.  I had to put Ann down before she drove me up the wall.  I'm still working on her - putting a thread a night into her.  The background is just a killer - or maybe not - maybe I'm just not in the mood.  So I started two projects - one is almost done so I'll wait until it's finished to show you, but I also started Sarah Seifer by the Goode Huswife:

This is a fun stitch and I got all this done in about two nights - pretty good for me.  Although lately at night I've been burning the midnight oil doing these:

Yep, a whole lot of quilt blocks!  Love, love them.  For some reason I'm going through one of those stages where I don't want to go to sleep at night, so why waste the time!  I'm now caught up through May.  June's arrived right before the holiday weekend so I've got some cutting out to do, but it felt good to get these done!!!
Here's a better picture:

One block among these has to be torn apart because I sewed one square upside down - I think it was about 2:00 a.m. when I was trying to finish it up - the red, green and yellow one in the second row, and one block came out so bad that I'm going to do it over again.  But woo hoo was I glad to get caught up!  I think I've done about 33 blocks so far.  Only 78 more to go!!


Last weekend while I was out with the girls antique/quilt shopping, I picked up a few things and thought that I'd post them now before I forget:

Not much but a few fun things (couldn't afford much - I spent so much at the quilt stores I had to restrain myself somewhere!!!) - a jar of buttons, a cute plate and some thimbles, the two mannequins (although the wire one came from the Salvation Army), some great old spools of thread that I think someone wound newer thread around, but the ends are stamped with some old companies.  And the little toile piece - it has a candle inside, but thought that it would make a good holder for a pin cushion when I burn the candle out.

Then this little beaten set of drawers.  I think someone just slapped a coat of white paint over it, but it works for me!


So it was another great week.  And you know what else was great about it?  Well, look at these pictures - it does a mother's heart proud:

DD wasn't feeling too well yesterday (can you tell by that messy hair?), and she was just moping around the house so I got her stitching.  Pulled out the Ott light, grabbed a chart out of stash, she picked the floss and away she went.  She decided on BBD's Souvenier de France and this is the progress she made:

You go girl!  Does this make a stitchy mother proud, or what?  She's doing a great job!  I told her that we'd sew it together into a pin pillow with a beaded edge.   By the end of the evening she was completely done with the Eiffel Tower and starting on some of the motifs.  She says she loves it.  Oh my happy heart!!!  Now I know that my stash will be in good hands in the future!!


Well that's it for me except for this picture.  Everyone is posting pictures of their gardens and so thought I'd show a couple pictures of my clematis as of last week:

The flowers were just huge this year.  But they're no more.  We had some bad storms come through here this weekend (and tornados south of us) and the winds and rain just blew all those petals off.  But there are still a lot of buds so hopefully it will look like this again.


Oh, and before I forget.  I mentioned Barbie dolls in my last post and was amazed at how many people commented or emailed about those dolls and that they had theirs from when they were young or collected them too.  I'll try to pull some out this week and post them on my next post.


That's about it for me!  I'm hoping to get a lot more quilting and stitching in during the next week.  I'm kind of taking it off for myself before the kids get out of school and the summer games begin!


Thanks so much for stopping by and leaving all your wonderful comments once again.  Now I'm off to try to catch up on two days' worth of posts by all of you.  I can't wait to see what everyone has been up to!!!


Have a wonderful week.