Sunday, February 27, 2011

BAPs are Not Conducive to Blogging

Trying to work on a BAP (big a$$ed project for those who don't know the lingo), is not conducive to blogging at all.  I stitch and stitch and don't see much progress at all.   So therefore, not much to show.  It's not like I can stitch little motifs here and there filling up the linen.  No, I've been toiling with fill-in and back stitching and lettering (have I ever mentioned that I hate backstitching?).  My needle flies, but not fast enough.  But I'm getting closer - little by little.

When we last left Ann (sounds like a Soap Opera, doesn't it?), she looked like this:


She is now looking like this:


She finally has some facial expression (I think she's eyeballing the fisherman), and her body is almost complete (although there is - yes - more backstitching to look like folds in her gown), and there was a lot of catch up wording done on the verses on the right.  You can imagine my excitement when I got to the letter "Y" which is what is showing on the right (minus the beginning letters of each word - they're done in a different color).  I was excited.  I was doing a happy dance!!  Imagine Snoppy with his head pointed to the heavens, his arms flung wide and a smile on his face -  that was me!!  Until I flipped over the page and discovered..........horror of horrors...............Miss Ann Medd - stinker that she is, or should I say, was - decided that she needed to put two Y's in her sampler!!!!  One just wasn't enough.  Well, quite honestly it wasn't because the wording wouldn't have made it to the bottom if she didn't do something.  With that discovery, I gently put her down and left the room.  My elation deflated!

I've been dreaming of doing other samplers - ones that have caught my eye - Susanna Rambo, Ann Grant and the list goes on and on..........but they're going to have wait.  I see many bloggers starting these beauties and I'm jealous.  Insanely jealous.  But I continue on.  I love you Ann - I truly do - but you're a stinker!!  I'm being cautiously optimistic though and am thinking that she can be finished by the time Spring arrives.  Very cautiously optimistic.  That's about three weeks - can I do it??

So to console myself I buried myself and my sorrows in my craft room.  So many unfinished projects.  We do all know that I'm a habitual starter, but the basket with all things cut out was overflowing, so I finally decided that I needed to make space so I could cut out more (like those pesky FW and CW blocks that keep arriving in my mailbox).  So I finally put together the Basket Case quilt:

 Basket Case
Pattern by Cluck, Cluck, Sew
Bliss Fabrics

Then I went back to the red and white quilt since the border fabric finally showed up (sorry for the less than perfect photo set up with the folds in it):

Yellow Brick Road Pattern
Mostly Moda and French General Fabrics

I really love this quilt a lot and think that it will hang from a rack in my craft room.

Then I finally finished up the quilt for my daughter:

Not the best picture as the wind was blowing just a little too much and kept throwing it off the holly bush.  Here's a better one (somewhat):

Turning Twenty Pattern
Pillow and Maxfield Whimsy Fabric

All these of these were a welcome relief from the Farmer's Wife blocks and the Civil War blocks.  Basket Case was made from a jelly roll (most of the cutting done for you), and the other two were just cutting different sized blocks!  A lot of fun, but now I need to get them off to the quilters and get down to business on all those tiny FW blocks!!

So that's all the news that fit to report right now.  The weather is being its typical Michigan self.  Almost a foot of snow last weekend with more during the week here and there, and now we're in for heavy rain and thunderstorms!  Crazy!  But you should have heard the birds singing this morning.  They know that Spring is just around the corner - and for that I'm very thankful!!!

Thank you for all your great comments on my last post.  I'm always tickled to receive them.  They definitely keep me going - and with Ann I need all the cheering on I can get!!

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Framing, Stitching and Quilting

As usual, I've got my hands in both the stitching and quilting, and can't seem to make much headway with either of them.  But something is done.  I picked up Mary's Best Handworke from the framer's yesterday and here she is:


I was on the fence about how to frame her, but I love this frame even though, now that I'm looking at it, I'm almost wondering if I should have gone with something even simpler.  The design in the frame seems to be fighting the scroll work in the border.  Is it just me?  Anyway, I love how she came out and the colors are a much better representation than my finish pic of a couple posts ago.  Daylight always makes a piece look great - even though I fell off the porch into three feet of snow while taking it!  LOL

I've been trudging along on Ann Medd and it just amazes me how long this is taking me to stitch.  Fill-in isn't hard, just so time consuming.  Then there were the sheep.  Let's talk sheep, shall we?  The sheep in this section - well, there was a point when I was ready to throw this ole girl onto the bar-b-que (yes, we grill in the dead cold of winter).  The sheep were driving me absolutely nuts!!!  Making me crazy!!  I think that it took me all of four, maybe five, days to get them in.    And then one sheep had a leg that was all crazy and I discovered that I was going over three threads instead of two.  So a frogging we go!!  But, I seriously had mad moments just relishing the thought of this sampler going up in flames!!  Bar-b-qued sheep!!  But common sense took over and I trudged along.  

Last post:




Are we getting bored yet???  I'll tell you - there are days when I long to work on something else.  But I told myself that she has to be done - and I want her done - but there are just some days.  But those nasty sheep are done, so maybe things will be fine.  Anyway, there's some progress - the fish and fisherman are now outlined, the sheep are in, although not all outlined and a wee bit of progress on the Shepherdess/Mermaid.  The sheep were about the death of me though.   

On the quilting front - lots done!!  Well, kind of.  I took advantage of that big storm we had last week.  The kids had two days off and in the true fashion of teenagers, slept in late so I headed down to the craft room and took rotary cutter in hand and cut out all my BOMs and some extra:


All my civil war BOMs, the red and black quilt and Farmer's Wife blocks for the month.  In the background is the Bliss quilt that I so optimistically thought that I'd have put together.  Didn't get there!  I was on a cutting tear, so instead I cut out some others and almost have them finished:

Remember those red and white fabrics!  Well, here's just a peek!!  I'd show the whole quilt, but it's not done.  Reason why?  Well, the kit included fabric for the borders - a great polka dot fabric, but it was upholstery fabric!  Say what?  Just too heavy to border the quilt with so I'm waiting for the correct fabric to show up.  But this really brightens my day to look at it.  Reminds me of a quilt that you would sit on when you're having a picnic.  I used the Yellow Brick Road pattern for this one.  Quick and easy!

So because I couldn't go any further with that quilt, I started on this:


Another similar quilt, but with bigger blocks made from the pattern Turning Twenty, and Pillow and Maxfield's Whimsy fabric!  This is for my daughter - the crazier the fabric the better she likes it.  Just have to sew these rows together, slap on borders and it's a WRAP!!!  I loved making both of these - quick cutting and piecing.  A welcome break from all those tiny pieces that are in the Farmer's Wife and Civil War quilts.  But now the fun is over and time to go back to my other pieces.  Although I was kind of thinking of cutting out that Marsha McCloskey pattern............hmmmmm.

And to leave on a note appropriate for the season, I thought I'd show a little wallhanging that I did years ago in honor of Valentine's Day.  This is an old Thimbleberries pattern - if I remember right they used to have monthly kits that you could purchase and this was one of them.  This is also my first machine quilting project.  It was small so I managed to get through it.  Probably the last one I will ever do myself though!


So that's what's been happening in my part of the world.  The weather is absolutely frigid today - probably about 4 degrees with below zero temps with the wind chill.  But maybe the groundhog was right - it's warming up into the 30's next week.  Ya hoo!!!!  Better get that red and white quilt finished.  We may have to do a picnic!!

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful weekend!!