And yes, this is my 100th post! Woo Hoo! I can't believe that it snuck up me. I feel like there should be balloons and dancing boys! A champagne bottle uncorking or at least some sparkling water. Well, maybe not on the dancing boys - my DH may not approve! LOL But I'm having a hard time believing that I've made this many posts. I promised a giveaway when I reached that point and it will happen. I think that I'll combine that and my 2 year blogging milestone together. Or maybe not. Maybe I'll sneak in another giveaway after the current one. Aw, two more giveaways would be better, right?
Not much has been going on around here. Not much stitching and not much quilting either. But I do have a small finish that I had framed:
Petites Lettres Rouges
Freebie from Blackbird Designs
I sat on this piece for the longest time trying to figure out what to do with it. A pincushion, a flat fold, what? I finally decided to get it framed because I need some small things for my craft room. The matt color looks too pink in this picture - IRL it looks more like the lighter letters of the sampler. I think it came out sweet and will look great in the craft room.
The reason there hasn't been much going on is that our air conditioning died. Boy, this has been a year - first our furnace earlier in the year, then the appliances and now the A/C. I guess that's what happens when the house reaches the 20 year mark. We've been without it for a week. Long story on that one - one company not diagnosing the problem and giving us freon we didn't need. The condensor was blown - so it's been a back and forth thing trying to get it fixed - by another company. The new A/C is being put in as I write this, but it's been rather hot to do much of anything. Sitting under my Ott Light and stitching was just not something that I wanted to do. But that should be the last it, hopefully, as far as major expenses. I think we're going to be living on hot dogs and beans for a while! LOL
The basement has been relatively cool (thankfully), so I did get in a little quilting, but not much - it's hot standing around an ironing board too. I worked on the Marti Michell quilt. There are six of these blocks.
Why is this one not totally put together (nor the other five)? Well, I pulled a stupid human trick and sewed the corner blocks the wrong way (and there were specific instructions to watch orientation which I obviously ignored - DUH), so the green and white squares have to be all taken off (all 24 of them) and put back on correctly. UGH!!! The more I work with this quilt, the less I like it. The fabric has to be some of the thinnest I've ever worked with, stretches like crazy and so having to rip out anything is a tedious process. So on to Plan B:
The Farmer's Wife Quilt - Two more down and one to go and I'm caught up for the month! The one on the right, Corn and Beans, gave me headaches. It's not perfect, but I'm happy. And I see a wrinkle in the black and white one - I'll have to investigate that - probably an ironing error. The third one would have been done, but the rotary cutting instructions that came with the BOM didn't jive with the templates so I have to cut out a whole new block.
I haven't posted any thrifty finds lately - probably because there hasn't been much, but I do have a few. I found this glove mold one day while I was out and about at an antique store I had never seen before:
I've never come across a glove mold in any of the stores I had been in before and it was a pretty good price I think - $10 so it came home with me.
This weekend I was on a secret mission. I can't disclose any details right now, but will next month. Anyway, I drove to Ohio and my destination was really close to Sauder Village, so I stopped in. I had the T-Bag pattern, but had to pick up these fabrics. I just love pink and black:
Then another sign for my craft room:
The sign seemed fitting because I feel at times that I'm going at this quilting like a crazy fool.
Ohio has a ton of antique shops, thrift stores, etc. I wish that I could have stopped at every one that I saw during my journey, but I only ended up stopping at one. I'll try to stop at more when I go back in a couple of weeks. But I did find a couple things all for under $10. A deal to me:
The je t'aime ribbons came from the quilt store, but I came away with yards of pretty laces, a jar full of buttons, and the large glass jar filled with crochet cottons and hankies that someone was edging.
Pure Irish linen:
I was a happy camper. Hopefully when I go back in a couple weeks (with sister in tow), we'll get a really early start, do what we have to do and mindlessly drift our way back home via all the antique stores. Speaking of my sister coming in - she's all geared up for our annual antique tour, touristy dinner at Frankenmuth and all the other crazy things we got into while she was here last year. Her price of admission: putting up the shelves in my craft room. I'm the crafty one (although she paints), but she could appear on an episode of This Old House for all the things that she knows how to do.
Thank you so much for your response to my giveaway and don't forget to sign up on my previous post if you haven't yet. I wish that I had enough flower frogs to send one to everyone. But I guess the best I can do is find them and give them away. But thanks again for being a regular follower, a new follower or a lurker. Your comments mean the world to me.
