A Fun Start To The Day.

Hi to all,
I'm still working on my sewing room. It's just going sooo slow. I pulled out all my fabrics this weekend and sorted them on the spare room bed. Here's a pic of the piles.

I've finished putting them away in my fabric cabinet and a chest of drawers that are now both full to the brim. 1 problem. I still haven't sorted the solid color fabrics and can't figure out where to put them for easy access. At least I don't have as many of the solids as I do the prints.

Over the weekend I took what I had on the walls in my sewing room and hung my Prairie Schooler ABC's. No picture yet because no one can see the mess they surround. I will get pictures posted when the room is finished.

A few days ago we awoke to these mushrooms in our front yard. I've been watching and taking pics each day. It's been fun watching how much they change and so quickly. Since they are right out our kitchen window, it has been a fun start to the day.
Pic #1 Day One
Early in the morning.

Pic #2
Later the same day.

Pic #3 Day 2

Pic #4 Day 3
Almost forgot to take the picture today. This was taken after dark.

They are still there but not really changing now. Guess they'll start drying up soon.

I've been stitching on my monthly stitch a long. I've finished August and am working on Sept. I have been stitching on Mermaids a little but not alot of progress there. I pulled my lighthouse sampler out of the rotation basket the other night and am stitching on block #4. There are 9 blocks total. I didn't realize I haven't taken updated pictures of these so will do so for next posting..... It just dawned on me, most everything I'm stitching on are multiples. Houses of Hawk Run Hollow are blocks of 12 house. Light House Sampler blocks of 9. The Prairie Schooler alphabet are 27.(26 letters and 1 extra). Monthly stitch a long, 12. Could it be my OCD????
Until next time, keep stitching.
Deana

Another Sad Day

Monday, Sept 6th,2010 Steve's mom, passed away.
The funeral was Thurs.afternoon.
After my aunt passing the end of April, mom the end of June and now my mother in law, I hope this is it for a long,long time.
It has been such a stressful summer,actually the last year. We have had many good friends that have been there for us with prayers, cards, flowers and visits. We appreciate and are very thankful for all of you.
Steve is going to work tonight so will be sleeping some today, I am hoping to work in my sewing room today. I'm still trying to get it organized with the sewing and quilting stuff from moms. I bought fabric for a really cute Halloween wall hanging about a month ago and have not had the chance to start it. Then I decided if I bought more of the same fabric, I could do an assembly line of 3 of them. One for Angie,Sabrina and myself.
Needless to say I have done nothing since my last post,so the Prairie Schooler ABC's have not been framed,the frames haven't even been assembled or painted yet.
I have ordered a couple of patterns for Needle Delights and think they may come today, I'm excited to receive them. They are the Halloween issue and the Christmas ornament issue of Just Cross Stitch Magazine. The other one is a cute Halloween design called Olga. I can't think of the designer and am too lazy to get up and look at my list, but it's a primitive Halloween cat sampler.
That's about it for today. Hope your weekend is an enjoyable one with some stitching involved.
Deana

A New Look

Good Morning,
After messing with my blog yesterday and this morning, I now have a new look to it. One simple thing, to change the picture at the top of my blog,became a huge ordeal. I tend not to change the layout and such because I always have to fight with it. Does anyone else have the same problem?
Yesterday Steve and I took a nice motorcycle ride around the Mark Twain Lake area with another couple. Stopped and ate lunch at The Rustic Pine restaurant and it was very good. Best onion rings I've ever had. After we got home Steve took a nap since he had worked the night before. I spent some time sorting and ironing fabric scraps I brought home from moms. Since ironing isn't one of my favorite things to do, I set down and did some stitching on my Lizzie Kate August Stamp.
Then just a quickie supper. I cooked a pork roast Friday, so I shredded it, added BBQ sauce, baked a couple of potato's and made stuffed spuds. Add sour cream and shredded cheese. Yum!
I'm really feeling like stitching on something fallish, but keep telling myself, I don't need to start anything new. But I already have everything I need for it, so why not? The last couple of mornings have that Fall feel to them. Maybe that's why.
I really need to work in my sewing room today. I have the frame mouldings we cut down for The Prairie Schooler ABC's that I have stitched. Maybe I'll put the frames together, paint them and get them finished up.
I guess I should start breakfast and wake Steve up so will say TA TA! for now.
Deana

Hi Everyone,
Hope your having a good week. Just one more day and then I have 3 days off. Yipee!
I finished R is for Rabbit the other night so here's a pic of it.

It looks really wavy but it straightens out easily with my hand, just won't stay that way long enough for me to get the picture of it.
We cut down frame moulding the other night so now I think I have 4 or 5 Prairie Schooler ABC's to frame.
Just finished my Stitch A Long for July this morning. After work tonight I pulled together the threads for August. I fell behind after mom passed away. I am hoping to get ahead so if things get hectic during Oct, Nov and Dec. I can have them done before the end of the year.

Steve worked the State Fair Fire Dept. mid August and the fire dept was having a raffle as a fund raiser. Steve bought $20.00 worth of raffle tickets and was the lucky winner of the cute Fire Truck pedal car. You don't know how long I have wanted a Fire Truck pedal car. We have quite a collection of fire dept stuff, so it will be so cute sitting with the it.

Here's a new pic of Sage with one of her many toys. My house looks like it did when the girls were growing up. These "kids" don't pick up their toys either.

And Buddy roaming around trying to find just the right spot to hide his toy. He put it in 3 different places, each time he just wasn't satisfied with the spot so he would go back and get it and try another place. Finally after roaming around for a while, he just gave up and got up on the couch and laid down with it.

And here's Emmie peeking out from under the love seat. She's the only one small enough to get under there. I think she likes to hide to get away from Buddy sometimes when she doesn't feel like playing. The toy in the floor is one of Sage's oldest and most favorite toys. It's a dinosaur I bought for her at a flea market. She chewed the head off, poor thing, and has so much mending done to it.
As you can see it even has had it's fur pulled out. But Sage loves it so much, I just can't bare to throw it away.

After a busy evening, I'm going to go sit down and do a little stitching now.
Have a good weekend and stitch, stitch, stitch.

Deana

A Halloween Pillow

Hi all,
I have a Halloween finish to show you. I originally made this into a wall hanging, but just didn't like the look of it, so yesterday I ripped it apart and made it into a pillow. I like it alot better.

I have almost finished making Austin's tooth fairy pillow. Just need to finish the cording which I hope to do today. So no picture until it's done. I haven't work on Grandmother's Flower Garden this week. I have been stitching on R is For Rabbit. I'm not too far from finishing it.

I really need to start considering the 2 ornaments that I need to do for this year. One for our SWANS Christmas exchange, and the other one for Austin. I have plenty of patterns to choose from but really would like to see the 2010 Just X Stitch Ornament book first.
Thursday I stopped by an estate garage sale and picked up several pieces of fabric at a very good price.


I also bought several quilting magazines and 3 hardback quilting books.
While I was busy in my sewing room yesterday, the little girls and boy were catching up on some sleep on a quilt I have in there to repair. As you see Molly is her unsociable self, sleeping under my machine.

Sage was asleep in the livingroom, preferring the couch, as usual.
The summer is rapidly coming to an end and even though I love summer, I'm sure looking forward to cooler temps. I haven't been outside much at all this year. It's just soooo humid on top of high temperatures.
Here's a pic of Molly and Buddy. Molly has always been a loner when it comes to the other dogs, so as you see, she doesn't think much of Buddy rutting his way into her bed. She tolerated him, but the minute he got out of the bed, she headed for her usual sleeping spot under the antique kitchen cabinet.

Buddy has adjusted to his new home well, but hasn't figured out how the program works yet. He has been guarding the food bowls, which is a no-no and Molly let him know it a time or two. And his personality has been showing more each day. The first three weeks or so, he never bothered anything, or played with any toys. Now he has decided to drag the toys out just like the girls do. And gets into things. Let's see, he knock the covered candy dish off the end table in the basement and M&M went everywhere. Luckily I heard it crash and quickly scooped them up and threw them away.
When I've been cleaning in my sewing room he would try to sneek out with a skein of floss or two when I had them out on the floor sorting the numbers. Friday, I picked up a large can of pellets for the fish. I set them on the floor by the steps thinking I'd take them to the basement next time I head down. As I was coming out of the sewing room, here came Buddy carrying the can by the lip on the can. It's not all that light weight but he managed to drag in along.
And the funny one was last weekend, I was downstairs painting the bathroom, when I came up stairs, Mr.Buddy had pulled everything out of Steve's lunchbox that he leaves sitting in the floor under the cabinet in the kitchen. There was(and I do mean WAS and in past tense) a zip lock bag of granola bars, a bag of chocolate covered coffee beans, (that I got to clean up later with the rug shampooer) along with paper plates, fork, a tube of lotion. The chocolate cover coffee beans really scared me. I didn't even know he ate them until he got sick. Chocolate can be deadly to dogs not to mention what the coffee beans could do. Anyway,needless to say, even after upchucking the chocolate, he was wired for the evening. Now Steve has to find a new place to keep his lunchbox.
It looks like rain this morning, but not too hot, I think I'll go see if I can set outside and stitch a bit now.
Have a good week.
Deana

Here's What's Been Going On In My Life.

Good Morning to all,
It's Sat. and I haven't decided what I want or need to do today, but I wanted post some pics of what have been going on this last month or 2. Steve had his motorcycle custom painted with the Maltese cross of the fire dept. he belongs to. It really turned out nice. Here's the pic of the gas tank. The 202 is his fire dept number.


A couple of weeks ago we all got together for my birthday July 7th, Sabrina's birthday July 18th and would you believe Fathers Day. We haven't been able to get it together lately so just combined all 3 in 1.
Here's the pic of Sab's and my cake Angie made. If you have read and seen past pics on my blog, you know Angie is the "Official Cake Baker" for all events in our family. She carved the sunflower from a round cake. It was a lemon poppy seed cake and she added the blueberries to the center. Very good.

Last weekend we had Austin's 6th birthday party at their house. Again, Angie made the cake. Angie has made every birthday cake for Austin. She always lets him pick the theme and this year he wanted camouflage and army men. I'm always amazed at what Angie comes up with.


On the stitching front, here's a pic of Mermaids by Little House Needleworks. I started it last weekend.

Prairie Schooler R is for Rabbit has only been stitched on during our Swan stitching nights. The green cabbage on the left was a rip out this Thurs. night. I stitched most of it in the wrong color (brown) before realizing it was wrong. I didn't pay attention to it, thought it was a bush, not a cabbage.

I have been cutting hexagon templates this last couple of weeks. I want to make a table runner for Ang and Sab with fabrics that belonged to mom. I thought this Christmas would be nice but that's probably pushing it considering all that is going on. I still haven't chose an ornament for our Swan exchange or Austin's ornament for this year. I have been plugging along on the Grandmothers Flower Garden, and am making great headway.

And before I end, I have to post a pic of the new fridge I finally got after 4 months of dealing with Lowe's. After all the screw ups they made, I got it for half price. They managed to even screw things up right down to the delivery. They brought the wrong truck and my fridge was in the "other truck." They didn't tell me until I had emptied the old fridge out (FOR THE SECOND TIME)When I went out to the truck to tell them I was ready for them to bring it in was when they told me. So, after my explosion out at the truck, they went back to Columbia and brought the right one.
I would never order anything again from Lowes. After the long wait, I am glad I did get the fridge on the bottom and ice and water in the door.

I leave you with a pic of Austin and Buddy.

It's going to be another scorcher today, so I'll be inside working or stitching.
Have a good weekend.
Deana

It's Been A While

Good Morning to All,
I'm finally back. I've just been in a "funk" since mom passed away. Thanks to all of you for your kind words,and prayers. Since my last posting lots has been going on. I'm continuing to clean and sort moms house. There hasn't been alot of free time to do "fun stuff". I haven't picked up a cross stitch needle since mom has been gone. Just couldn't get into it. I have been quilting on a Grandmothers Flower Garden quilt that mom started decades ago and never finished. Here's a pic of it.

What free time I have have, I've spent working on this. This has always been my favorite quilt design. I haven't quilted for about 30 years. Since discovering x stitch, I really wasn't interested in getting into any other craft. Mom had several pieced quilts started from years ago, but she hadn't worked on them much since she started doing the stamped emborderery quilt tops. She also did all her own hand quilting. No machine quilting for her. I think that made all her quilts even more special. It kind of weird because I haven't had the interest to make a quilt in the past, loved hers but not interest in doing one myself. Now I want to finish her tops and quilt them. Maybe she passed a little quilting bug onto me as she passed in hope they got finished.
I went to our stitching get together Thurs. night. I hadn't been there either since mom passed. It was a small group of us,but very fun. I think I needed that little kick in the butt. I did get back to stitching on my Prairie Schooler ABC.
Denise, you are so funny. I always enjoy seeing you, no one can be in a crappy mood around you for long. You make everyone have fun.
Two weeks ago we added a new member to the family.

His name is Buddy.

Notice the saying on the rug.
He's about 2 years old. I had one of our managers at work tell me his daughter wanted to give him away. He is full pomerainian,but his fur was trimmed down because he stayed out side most of the time. I'm anxious to see what he coat will look like when it grows out. He's just a love bug and between him and Emmie, one or the other, or both are on my lap when I'm sitting down. He has not been nuetered yet so nexted Monday it's off the the doggy hospital for his little snip-snip. And to top everything off Emmie is not spayed and in heat. So I have to keep them seperated if they are not right with me. Buddy thinks he's in love. We keep telling him Emmie is his sister not his girlfriend but he doesn't seem to listen.
I have more to tell but will need to stop for now.
I will try not to be so long posting from now on.
Deana