Ann Medd Framed and an Easter Surprise

Woo Hoo!  Ann Medd is finally framed!  Actually, she was done last week, but between our not so perfect weather around here and getting ready for Easter, I didn't have time to take a picture of her!  So here she is in all her glory:

The frame I chose for her is a very simple one.  After spending an almost an hour throwing frames on her, I kept coming back to this one - simple with not a lot of foo-foo.  I didn't think that Ann needed a lot of fussing.  I suppose I figured that in the 1700's things would be simple, so that's what I did.

Just a little bit of distressing so that it looked a little old and slightly beat up.  I think that it works very well.  Now to get her on the wall with ATS and all the others that I've been working on over the past few years.

No stitching to show this time around, but I am making somewhat good progress on Elizabeth Clayton and should have a finish on her soon.  I've been playing with stash to figure out what the next victim of stitching will be!  It's a hard choice.

But something exciting happened yesterday (at least for me).  The Easter Bunny came to our house.  He comes every year and leaves baskets for the kids.  Even though the biggest kid is getting ready to head off to college, he still wants a basket.  Mom never gets a basket.  I think the Easter Bunny thinks that either Mom is too old or seriously doesn't need the chocolate!!  You know "a moment on your lips, forever on your hips" thing!  Well, I manage to eat a couple things while the Bunny's assistant (me) makes those baskets.  But after the hunt was over, the kids told me that I had to hunt for something.  That perhaps one of the Bunny's assistant's had left something for me.  Of course, the kids can't keep quiet and just make me look for it, they have to hint that it's near something that I had recently done.  So, of course, my first thought is Ann, who was propped up against the wall in the dining room:

So I looked behind Ann.............

And what do I see???????

OMG, OMG, OMG..................

An Ipad!!  The latest one!!!!  I have only wanted one of these since they came out.  Dreamed of one, hinted for one.  I see people working on them at Starbucks, people reading books on them and wanted one......oh, did I want one.  But I never asked.  Seems that with having two kids around and their need to be technologically "with it", I never asked.  But I wanted one so bad!!!  And as you can imagine, when I found this I cried.........cried like a baby, I'll tell you!!  I couldn't get it out of the box fast enough!!!   And what do you think I did????

Yep, you guessed it.  Hit the blogs since I'm so behind on reading.  And what do I see, but Becky talking about an abundance of frogs - flower frogs that is!!  That got my attention wouldn't you know!!  Love, love all those frogs you found Becky!!

So now Mom is "with it".  I can read blogs, emails and troll the net from anywhere.  I can download books, figure out where I'm going with GPS.  It was a little eerie when GPS pinpointed us to the back of our house - kind of like Big Brother watching.  Now, I don't have to spend endless hours at dance lessons staring at four walls when it's too cold to get myself into trouble shopping.  I am just beside myself!!  I was informed by the other Easter Bunny's assistant (that would be my DH) that this would just about cover all those gift giving occasions this year (Mother's Day, my birthday, etc.).  But that's good in my book.  I'm now going to be technologically "with it" like my kids.

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Easter and has a great week.  We're in for some heavy rain this week, but that's okay in my book.  I'm taking the Ipad into the craft room and watching a tutorial on sewing!  Oh happy day!!!!

Ann Medd Finish - Five Years in the Making (Lots of Pics)

WOO HOO!  There is some happy dancing going on around here!!  Ann Medd is finally finished - after five years!  I started her on January 1, 2006 and finished her March 30, 2011.  Better late than never, right?  I would have posted this yesterday, but I was down for the count with a cold/flu/general feeling of crappiness, so here she is!  This qualifies for Finish #2 in the Crazy January Challenge!  Hopefully, I never pick anything this big ever again!  Yeah, like that's going to happen!!  I love me those BAPs!!  I've been eyeballing Dutch Beauty!    Anyway, here she is in all her glory.  Sorry that some of the pictures are not the best, but the light just isn't cooperating and she hasn't been ironed:

Ann Medd

The Scarlett Letter

35 count Elegant Bean and DMC Threads

My daughter (who wished not to have her picture shown due to hair issues, etc. - you know those teens) is about 5'4", so this shows you the size of dear Ann.  Ann Medd has been described as the "Mother of all Samplers" and I would think that description aptly applies.  She's a big one!!  What amazes me is that Ann Medd was 10 years old when this sampler was finished.  If she finished it when she was 10 years old, when exactly did she start it? I'm sure that she wasn't a slacker like I was in stitching this, but I wonder when she did start it.   The whole sampler consists of basically four samplers - each different in their own ways.

Anyway, here are more pictures - I'll let them do most of the talking:

In this first portion there was eyelet stitch, over one, four sided back and a couple other stitches.  I took some creative license and put in the initials of my family in place of Ann's.

In the second section, we have my two favorite people - Adam and Eve:

The next section is described as whimsical with stylized flower-trees and a very fashionably attired couple with their pet, dog, squirrel and deer.

And the last section is considered non-traditional and curious.  A fisherman engaged in hooking a large fish (looks like a salmon to me) while a shepherdess/mermaid tends a flock of sheep.

I liked the notation that Ann made about her teacher, Ann Smith, at the bottom.

All the verses were done in back stitch starting with the letter A and working down through Z.  Although Ann added a little surprise and decided to add in an extra Y.  You probably heard a loud groan in your part of the world when I thought I was going to be stitching the Z and ended up stitching another "Y".

There were a few changes I made to the sampler.  I guess you would call them cheating.  There was a lot of tent stitching done on the faces and a few other places - like the animals.  Most of that I did as charted, but when it came to the last portion, I ended up doing them in regular cross stitch just because I liked the look better.  The gold satin stitch border I also cheated on.  Laying two threads in a satin stitch is hard when on scroll rods, so I substituted a pearl cotton for those stitches and it worked out well.

So there you have her - five years in the making and a labor of love - I think.  Actually, this was a very easy sampler to work on - just very time consuming.

Now, I have no idea what I want to work on now.  Isn't that the way?  We get so caught up in working on something that when it's over - like a really good book - we don't know what direction to go.  So I think that I'm going to take my sniffly self into the craft room and see what else I can come up with.  Just something a little smaller - at least for now!!!

Thanks for stopping by and I hope that you have a great weekend!

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!!

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!!  

No Title Post

Okay, I didn't know what to come up with as a blog post title today because it's a little bit of a mixed bag - well, really only a couple things, but like, what do I title it?

I've been good on my projects for the 15 Day Challenge - well, specifically good on one project - poor ole Ann Medd.  This poor ole girl is going to be the death of me.  I want her finished - I want her on the wall.  But she's a big ole girl and obviously this isn't going to happen overnight.

When I started back on her, she looked like this (obviously there was something on my camera lens when I took this picture a couple weeks ago:

Now she looks like this:

I got through the verses K through N and you know what, that N verse with just those two words is the bottom of the sampler - OH HAPPY DAY!!!  But all that fill in - UGH.  It's not hard - it's just time consuming.  Same with the verses - not hard, just time consuming.  And I have a lot of backstitching to do in this.  Right now the fish looks like a blob.  Funny thing is as I'm working on this and looking at this fish (looks like a salmon to me), I'm singing this song in my head about fishies having fun - makes me think of a song that was on one of my kids tapes when they were younger and seemed to play non-stop in the car!  "Hey, little fishies - we're having some fun, we're going to swim 'til the day is done".  OY - that keeps going over and over in my head!  I need to get off this part so I can sing Baa Baa Black Sheep because the next portion is filled with sheep!  But we'll change that to Baa Baa White Sheep because the sheep are all white.

Part of the reason for my lackluster stitching accomplishments this week or so was because I finally got hit hard with the bug the kids had.  Even though I didn't feel good at all and slept most of three days, I figured I'd try to take advantage of having no steam in my body and sit and stitch.  Problem was, every time I'd sit, I'd doze off, so no stellar accomplishments this week.  It also resulted me in being way behind in blog reading this week - my eyes always seems too tired to stay on the computer too long.

Nothing really exciting going on around here besides the Ann accomplishments (or lack there of).  I finally escaped for a day to myself yesterday.  I started feeling like myself and even though we got about four inches of snow, I didn't let that stop me and I went for a drive.  Not a good thing as my car ended up taking me to some new quilt stores.  And because you all know how I need more stash (yeah, right), I came out with this stuff - had to take advantage of the end of the month 20% off sale:

A whole lot of repro fat quarters.  Actually these came from two different stores but I decided to show what lovely surprise was put in the bag at Jennifer's - CHOCOLATE.  Her shop was the second store I went into, but thought I would give her credit for raising my blood sugar up a bit.  Shopping is hard work, I'll tell ya and the chocolate hit the spot.  Especially after the damage I did in the first store - I SAW RED!!:

Yummy, yummy red and white fabrics!!!  Actually this is a kit made up for the Yellow Brick Road pattern, but when I saw it hanging in the store, I swooned.  I had to have it.  And luck was with me - they had just one left!!!  Rotary cutter - here I come.

I met a wonderful woman in this shop - Lake St. Mercantile - who does a lot of Marsha McCloskey quilts and it just so happened that I brought one of my Marsha patterns in with me to look for fabrics.  When she saw it in my hand, she started pulling out fabrics like a crazy woman and this is what I ended up with - some more red fabrics:

I should have spread all the fabrics out, but I'm trying to get this post in before everyone comes home and finds out that I've done nothing but playing with fabrics all day!  LOL  But it's lots of reds and creams and browns - it's going to be wonderful.  And the charge card is in ashes!!  Just crumbly bits in the wallet!!  There was more, but I'll save that stuff for another time.  Let's just say if I keep going like this, my poor son will be going to community college!  I'm also thinking that my husband may be seeing red when he sees the bill.  Oh well, he'll get over it!  He usually does!

To add insult to injury, I went by a couple antique places, so I thought I'd stop in.  Not a good thing.  Actually didn't find too much but a couple things - another flower frog.  Actually this was a real deal.  They had one with the top and bottom for $19.00, but I found the base for $4 and the top for $5 so saved myself $10 - had to save somewhere after that card burning in the quilt stores.

And a pin cushion - is there a particular name for these?:

I'm getting quite a collection of these.  I thought that she was very sweet.

So that's it for me.  I understand that we're in for a heck of a snow storm here on Tuesday into Wednesday.  Late report - double digit snowfall.  Means a day where I won't venture out of the house and maybe can have some quilty love.  The kids will be home too I'm sure, but they're teenagers and want to sleep until noon - and guess what?  I'm going to let them!!!

Thank you again for all your wonderful comments especially on my UGLY block last time.  I think that at this point I'm going to keep it in the quilt.  Not all blocks are beautiful, and it will probably look fine.  If not, it will be destined to be a pincushion.  I would never throw it away.

Have a wonderful week!!

On the 16th Day I'm Resting.

Happy Sunday everyone!  Well, the 15 Project Challenge is over and I don't know if I'm sad or happy to get back to some regularly scheduled stitching.  Quite frankly, I breathed a sigh of relief yesterday knowing that now I can just get back to stitching one thing.  Well, at least stitch on one thing for a little while - I am known to be a project jumper!!  LOL  But in going through my stash, I found a bazillion other things that I would love to stitch, so in a rather sick way, I wanted to keep going - adding new projects with reckless abandon.  But I decided to just stop before I drove myself crazy.  I have come to the realization that I don't need to ever buy another thing EVER (yeah, like that's going to happen!!!!!).

Anyway, here are Projects 9 through 15.  And again, before you chuckle over my miserable progress on anything just remember I have had a husband trailing me around and Mr. Bailey went for his little operation this week and is sporting what is known as the Cone of Shame (pic to follow).

Last Sunday, Day 9, was a new start - Sarah Esch - I just had to get something that was a realistic size into this crazy mix.  You know, something that I'd was sure that I could finish before the New Year rolls around again:

Day 10 was back to a WIP and it was Hannah Lancaster day.  I was suppose to be stitching this with Sandra, but in my true slacker fashion, I took a different road and went sight-seeing by myself.  Sandra's been barreling along on hers, and me - well, I've been driving in the slow lane:

Before:

After:

Again, not a lot of progress, but now that I have a little bit more color in this piece, I'm really loving it.  It seemed rather drab on the cover, but is so much prettier in real life.

Say 11 was a new start day and I picked Miriam Chilvers:

Now, I'm really on the fence with this one.  I have seen this sampler done on this fabric - Vintage Meadowrue, I think - on another blog, but I'm not sure that I'm going to like it.  It actually photographed better than what it looks like to the naked eye.  I may have to revisit the fabric on this one.

Day 12 was back to an oldie - Frances Eden:

Before:

After:

Okay, no chuckling here - not too much accomplished!!!

Day 13 was a new piece - Sovine Palphreyman:

I like this one a lot.  The colors are funky!!!  And fun.  On 34 ct. Cafe au Lait linen.  I just realized as I was typing that, that three of my new pieces are single women - not the traditional A&E's.  Hannah, Sovine and Miriam are all women alone.  I think that I'd like a wall devoted to samplers with just women in them.

Day 14 - well, I was suppose to go back to a WIP and finish on Day 15 with a new piece, but I decided to reverse that because I wanted to spend some time on my last WIP in the challenge, so I went to another new piece - Stories to Live By - Eve.  Another smaller project that should work up fast.

I think that if I had this one and Sovine on scroll rods I would have made a lot more progress on both of them.  Working on a hoop or in hand really slows me down.

So now we come to Day 15 and I wanted to end it with a bang - with the piece that I really, really hope that I can get finished this year - Ann Medd.  When I last took a good picture of her, she looked like this - like a darned bedspread:

Then I worked on her some more here and there:

And on the fifteenth day, I got almost the entire verse done on the left:

Doing the verse is actually a lot of fun.  Unfortunately, there are twenty six verses in total (I think) divided between both sides of the sampler - the first verse starts with the letter "A" and each verse works it's way through the alphabet.  This is "I" and the next one will be "K"  The letter "J" is skipped as it wasn't used in older samplers for various reasons.  This is going to be my focus piece for a while.  Poor Ann was my New Year's start back in 2006 so I think that I really should give it the old college try here.

On the quilting front, I didn't do too much so don't have pictures.  Which is unfortunate because another Block in my Civil War Tribute showed up this week.  UGH - I can't sew fast enough!!!  I hope to spend some time today and tomorrow, while I have a dog sitters around, to put the pedal to the metal and get some sewing done.  But I did add another stash project into the pile (thanks Loraine!!!!).  Many years ago, I joined a BOM for the Dear Jane quilt and then right after that life just got too darned busy and I stopped quilting.  These little bundles have been waiting for me for over eight years.  With the encouragement of Loraine, who is working on this with her mother and SIL, I'm biting the bullet.  No time like the present, right?

You would think after working on the Farmer's Wife quilt I'd be tired of little blocks.  Well, not so, and these are even smaller - 4-1/2"!  I guess I'm just a glutton for punishment.  But how fun this is going to be?

Well, with the aftermath of the past 15 days, this is what my stitching area looks like.  DH has raised his eyebrows a few time and DD asked numerous times what I'm pulling out now:

24 project envelopes full of Challenge projects, a couple new ones and few others that are WIPs (yes, Michelle, Provence is in there!!!):

And a huge mess around the stitching chair.

But now I'm breathing a sigh of relief!  But it's been a lot of fun and made me go through stash and, of course, I made a huge list of other things I'd like to stitch and quilt this year.  Although, truth be told, I'll be one happy camper if I can get through half the things that I've put into this challenge.  (Oh, and a note to my sister Cindy who I know stalks this blog - the Mermaid isn't part of the challenge even though I probably should have added it as one.  She's on her own and I haven't forgotten about her.   She is seeing some stitchy love too!!) 

On the home front - everyone will be out of my hair next Tuesday!  Ya Hoo.  Well, that is if we don't get a winter storm that they've been predicting for Monday.  Fingers crossed it misses us!  DH is doing well with his shoulder, DS is recuperated although still coughing to beat the band - he's had one vicious bug!!  The only caveat to this whole thing is Mr. Bailey.  He had his "little" surgery this week and is none too happy about it, but would you be happy if you had to wear this?

Yes, the Cone of Shame and it's driving him absolutely nuts.  This dog usually runs on high octane, but that cone has really hampered him.  But he'll be able to get it off on Wednesday.  I can only imagine how he's going to be when it's taken off.  He'll probably be bouncing off of walls!  LOL

I have to say that I've had a great time following everyone's challenges these past couple weeks and again, have only had time for a few hit or miss comments.  Hopefully, my life will return to normal this coming week.  But, it's been a lot of fun watching what things people have pulled out of their stash to do, and unfortunately, reminded me of things that I have in my stash! LOL  But that's a good thing!

I want to thank everyone for your wonderful comments to my post on first half of this challenge.  They truly mean a lot to me and do keep me going!!!  I hope that everyone has a wonderful week and can make great progress on their own Challenge pieces!