My 15 Minutes of Fame

A couple blogging buddies sent me emails this morning with some wonderful news!  My blog is featured in Quilter's Home Magazine as one of the 55 Best Quilting Blogs!  Now we all know that I'm not the greatest quilter in the world, nor is it the only thing I do, but just to see my blog's name in print gave me a huge rush.

All I can say is WOW!  What a great thing to wake up to in the morning!!  Now, I better get off this computer and get my shower and pick up my own copy (or two or three) of the magazine.  I'm just so tickled.  Listed right above me, is a quilting buddy, Wendy.  If you haven't visited her blog, please do.  It's filled with quilty goodness!

(copied from Wendy's site since I don't have the magazine)

Here's the link to the entire article if you don't get the magazine.  But grab a cup of coffee (or tea), you'll find some great blogs listed:  PDF

Back soon with stitching, and yes, some quilting updates.  After I run to the store for my copies of the magazine!!

It's a Mystery and More Darned Frogs

I want to thank everyone for their sweet comments on Elizabeth Clayton.  I'm hoping that I can get her framed soon and up on the wall.  God must have been hearing my thoughts because a 50% plus an additional 20% coupon for framing landed in my mail yesterday, so hopefully she'll be framed soon.

It's been another busy week or so with the end of the school year, but I've managed to get a little bit of stitching done.  Not as much as I would like, but a little.  I started WTN&T's Mystery sampler and it's so much fun to stitch and the colors are so pretty (pix are clickable):

Mystery Sampler

With Thy Needle & Thread

Confederate Grey Linen and GAST Threads

I'm about at the half way mark.  I can't wait to finish this up and receive the next section.

And check out those scissors!  Are those not so cool or what?  A pair of legs!  I couldn't resist these.  And I'm cursing Gabi for pointing them out to me!  LOL

I've also been working on Sarah Esch, but haven't gotten much more done than what you saw the last time:

I don't know what it is about this sampler, but I'm having all kinds of things going on with it.  First I had frogging issues last week, then I ran out of the thread that I'm using and wouldn't you know it - with all the DMC I have around this house, I didn't have another skein of it.  Then on top of it, the frogs came back in a big way.  I think that smaller samplers and I just don't get along!  Why is that?

And I've been doing a little bit of quilting here and there.  I won't tell you how long it took me to get this block done:

Month #2 - Hatchet Block

Civil War Tribute Quilt

Actually I have two of these blocks done - out of 16!!!!  This is what the rest look like:

Seems like every time I sit down to sew, I get a little bit of time and then have to run out and do something.  And I'm two months behind on the Farmer's Wife quilt!  Yikes.  The last month will be arriving soon and I would so love to get that baby together!  

Speaking of frogs, this past weekend was garage sale time in my subdivision.  I ended up stopping at a couple places and scored a new frog.  It's rather usual, but it was practically free, so it had to come home with me.  I've seen these before - it comes in two pieces - but I've always found just one piece of it and not the other, so I was thrilled to find both parts together.  And the seller also threw in an arrangement book that originally came with it!

Seeing as this one isn't as heavy as the others I have, I think that I'll be using this one strictly for arranging flowers, but maybe I'll put scissors in it once just to see how it looks.

And yesterday was a somewhat sad day for me - sad and happy at the same time.  My son's last day of high school was yesterday.  And the prom will be tomorrow.  I hope that he'll allow me to post pictures.  He's rather camera shy!  Anyway, I just can't believe that this day has arrived.  He's done so well and graduated with Honors.  He's still Wait Listed for the University of Michigan, so it looks like he'll be going to Michigan State at least for the short term.  Not his first choice, but I still think he'll be happy there.  Anyway, it made me think about how quickly he's grown.  It seems like yesterday when I had him.  Now he's out of high school and has a date for the Prom.  He's going to Spain in June and then off to college.  When he was born, I stitched this sampler for him.  When I saw it yesterday, it brought a tear to my eye, because my baby - my first born - is all grown up:

Again, thank you for all your wonderful comments on Elizabeth Clayton, and I hope that everyone has a fantastic Memorial Weekend!!

Elizabeth Clayton is a Wrap

Woo Hoo!  Another one off the To-Do list - finally!  I don't know what took me so long on dear Elizabeth, but I put the final stitches into her last week!  I love her, although I look at Adam and Eve as being rather ghostly beings - they're so light!

Elizabeth Clayton

Handwork Samplers

36 ct. Legacy Linen and DMC threads

Top of Elizabeth:

Bottom of Elizabeth:

Sorry these aren't the best pictures.  Michigan has been having the worst weather the past few days.  80 one day - rainy and cold for three days, so taking good pictures is a hit or miss proposition.  Anyway, back in the day, when something didn't stand out all that well on a piece, we'd outline it.  But that was back in the day, so no outlining on Adam &Eve - I'm just going to leave them ghost-like.  Actually they look better in real life.  Another one crossed off that crazy January Challenge and another one for the A&E wall.  Me thinks that at the rate I'm going,  I won't be completing 15 projects this year.  Oh well, it's all about the journey, right?

And where is the A&E wall, you ask?  Well, it's coming along.  I want to get Elizabeth framed and then I'll unveil the wall.  I have templates stuck all over the wall and no matter how I arrange them, I know that I need Elizabeth framed before I start pounding nails.  You have to remember that my husband is anal about holes in the wall, so I don't want to make mistakes!  LOL

After finishing Elizabeth, I went back to another January challenge piece, Sarah Esch.  But we have very pitiful progress - pitiful because those pesky frogs visited:

Not only are these letters boring as all get out, I got to the end of the second line and realized that I had left too many spaces between the "N" and the "O".  Instead of frogging at that point, I just kept going with the next line and then went back and frogged out the O, P,Q & R - you can probably see a little bit of thread droppings - or frog droppings - where I did that.  Not loving stitching these letters at all, after I frogged out those letters, I picked up another WIP - Ann Grant - but I didn't make much progress on it:

Not much done from the last time, but I'm just loving the colors of this one.

Things have been in high gear around here with the end of the year things - dance recitals, track meets, AP exams and all the cramming and my son's upcoming graduation.  So it's been busy and that's probably why Elizabeth took me forever.  Last weekend was the normal round of recitals and would you believe it - I have no pictures!  Well, I do, but they're on the other camera which is not digital, so no great costumes to show this year.  But while DD was at one of her recitals, I took a little hike to an Antiques Market that was being held nearby and scored another frog - but the kind I love - not the frogs involved with threads:

A cut crystal one this time.  The woman I bought this from had the most amazing flower frog, but with also an amazing price tag.  I wish that I had taken a picture of it!  It was really something else.  The little pincushion doll I found at one of the other booths there.  I thought that she was sweet!

Well, once again, there isn't much else to talk about unless you want to her about my son grumbling about AP exams, or the normal trials and tribulations of life.  I did have a shock this week though.  My son informed me that he asked a girl to the Prom - and even more shocking - she accepted!!  LOL  Not really, my son is a great kid, but this is the first I've heard of a girl in the picture.  I guess it's time - he's going off to Spain this summer and then college in the fall, so it's about time a girl showed up in the picture somewhere.  But oh dear, does it make me feel OLD!!

Thanks so much for stopping by and leaving me the wonderful comments that you do.  I'm still having a bit of trouble commenting on blogs.  The Geek Squad can't figure out what it is unless it has something to do with Blogger.  Some times of the day I can get in and make comments with no problem and then other times, I can't - the wireless modem shuts down.  So bear with me - I'm reading everyone's blogs, just not able to comment all the time.

Hope you have a wonderful week, and make it a stitchy one!!

A Drive By Post - Literally

Not much stitching has been going on around here lately.  I'm within a hair's breath of being finished with Elizabeth Clayton - but not quite there!  Dance rehearsals, recitals and just the normal things that usually go on around here have really cut into my stitching and blogging time.  It doesn't help that our wireless modem is on its last legs and every time I try to get into blogs it shuts me out.  So far it hasn't kicked me out here, so I'll try to post this and see what happens.  But if you haven't seen me comment, blame it on the modem.  I'm going to try to get out today and get a new one.

Anyway, because it's been so busy, I decided to get out of Dodge last Saturday, go for a drive and take in some of the local culture.  Rochester Hills has some wonderful historic places to visit.  I've lived here for almost six years and have been to the school house (it's a right of passage for the school children to spend a couple days there in prairie dress with hornbooks and being put into the corner with a dunce cap on your head when bad).  But they also have a lot of exhibits.  So I finally went to one -  a rug exhibit at the Van Hoosen Farm.

I just fell in love with this Alice in Wonderland rug.  To see it in person was breathtaking.  It was done with a 3 cut for those who are in the know about rug hooking.  And a couple more:

The lighting wasn't the best, but you get the idea.  The rug exhibit was held at the Van Hoosen Farm in the reconstructed cattle barn.  If you want to read a little bit about the history of the Van Hoosen farm you can click on the link: www.thebarnjournal/org/stories/story014/index.html (well, the link is not clickable no matter what I do, but if you are interested you can do a copy and paste to read a little history of the farm).


The original barn burned down in 1968 when two boys were playing with matches.  A new barn was reconstructed and in one of the pictures below, is a picture of what is left of the original barn and the cattle area.  Sarah Van Hoosen Jones took over the farm from her grandfather and enlarged the home and barn.  She had built a new dairy unit and bred her own stock of cattle.  She graduated with a doctorate degree in genetics from the University of Wisconsin and her aunt, Dr. Bertha Van Hoosen, did important research in cattle diseases.

The Village encompasses a small community - schoolhouse, cemetery, and various buildings.  I didn't get a picture of the school house or the cemetery - I'll do those on another trip, but here are a few others:

I don't know if you can read the sign, but the name of the building is The Sign of the Black and White Cow.  This used to be the Dairy Store for the Van Hoosen Dairy Farm.  It's now a private residence, but the owners have to keep it up to City requirements.

1850's Red House:

The Farmhouse:

The reconstructed barn and museum:

What is left of the original barn:

One of my favorite houses which sits across the road (heavily traveled) is this one and I can't get the best picture of it because of the traffic.  All homes in this area are kept to strict standards as to how they are maintained.

From there I went to a quilt show held in Romeo, Michigan.  Romeo is probably best known for peaches.  Here are a couple quilts:

I'm usually into the more primitive style of quilting, but I thought that these two were pretty:

Romeo is also known for antiques.  And what would be a good days drive, if I didn't stop into the antique store???  You know how my car just can't pass up one of those places.  Romeo tends to be a bit pricey, but I lucked out and walked away with a new addition to the sewing room:

It needs a bit of cleaning, but I loved the graphics on it.

Well, that's about it for me.  Sorry there are no stitchy pictures, but there will be soon.  Thanks for stopping by and even though there are no pictures of cross stitch, I hope you liked seeing a little part of my world.