Who said You Need a Plan?

Night before last I had a plan. After stitching like a maniac for the last 2 weeks and working everyday, I decided Saturday would have to be catch-up day. I was going to get up early,clean the house, do laundry, clean the kitchen really good, work on framing some pieces for friends and maybe stitch in the evening.
I went into my sewing room to work on framing, but I couldn't work on it while looking at the stuff that I needed to put away, or the dust. I thought I'll just put stuff where it goes and run a quick duster on the funiture. And as we all know how one thing leads to another, I TOTALLY cleaned my sewing room. Moved furniture, vaccuumed baseboards,carpet,took down blinds and washed them in the bathtub. Sorted and put things away. I think I'm a compulsive organizer, but I never get it quite the way I want, so I'm always trying new ways. I bought a large 3 drawer rubbermaid organizer at my neighbors garage sale a couple of weeks ago and it was setting in the middle of the floor waiting for me to figure out where I wanted to set it. My other rubbermaid drawers are exploding with fabric so I was going to move it around and put some of it in this one.
Sage and Emmie love playing with stuffed toys but they also love ripping them up. I had a pile of 10 toys that needed rips sewn up and I got that done.

I had a cross stitch Christmas pillow that I made years and years ago that at the time I didn't know I needed to stuff it really good so it had became flat over the years. For probably at least 4 or 5 years, that pillow has been in my "TO DO" box to take apart and restuff. And yes, I finally did it!! It probably took a whole 30 min. to redo, so why did I keep it laying around for that long???
Now, I started this whole thing about 8:00 Sat. morning and finished in there at 2:00. I know what your thinking, "That must have been really bad to take 6 hrs) and yes it was. It's looking pretty good now.
The afternoon consist doing a quick vaccuuming and dusting to the rest of the house and putting country ribs in the oven for dinner. I also brushed and trimmed Molly, our pom. She looks so pretty now. But she hates being brushed, it takes me about an hour every time.

And since I posted a pic of Emmie and Molly, here's what Sage did most of the day.

This weekend is the St Charles needlework show, and I can't wait to see what's new. If you like Halloween, take a look at The Primitive Needle. She has a great new design, Witches Hollow. A must have for me along with Christmas at Hawk Run Hollow from Carriage House Samplings.
Steve's home from work so I need to stop for now and fix breakfast.
Have a good day.
Deana

What's be keeping me away from the computer

I don't know if you noticed or not, but I did get a chance to change the background of my blog. It's from The Cutest Blog on the Block. They have sooo many to choose from. I could change more often if I just had more time to spend playing around with my blog.
As I said in last post, I've been doing some marathon stitching for a designer that needed her new models for market this weekend. I did 4 projects in 10 days. Needless to say my projects went on the wayside, but that's ok. I enjoy stitching so much,that I don't mind and I get a little more stash money. I did take a couple of pics of the progress of Quaker Christmas. Here it is...

I have stitch just a little on stitching night on Spooky Treats. I need to get this stitched so I can do the finishing before Halloween.

I did get my dining room table all dressed up for Halloween. I bought the Pumpkin guy at the Santa Caligon days in Kansas City a few weekends back.
I really want to get the rest of my Halloween stuff out. I have alot of it.For the last several years we have gone to Tallageda for the race and then on down to the Gulf for a couple of weeks in Oct, so I quit putting out much Halloween because we weren't here to enjoy it. But this year we changed our vacation so now I want to do it up really good. Just get it all out.

I have to go work on the laundry now but before ending, I just wanted to show you my little stitching helper. Emmie holds down my lapstand while I stitch. I told her I can stitch pretty good all by myself, but she's afraid my stand might fall off my lap if she doesn't help.

Have a good night, and if I get enough time, I'll try to post again before the weekend is over.
Deana

Why I Haven't Posted Lately

Just a quick note to let you know I have been very busy and doing some marathon stitching.... working and a deadline. I have to have finished by this Wed. I will tell you later. Every spare minute is spent stitching. Planned on stitching all day today and tomorrow but we have a wedding this afternoon and Steve's company picnic tomorrow. I will be stitching as much as possible in between. I have pics to post and want to update the look.Please check back when you can.
In the meantime, have a nice weekend, and keep stitching.
Deana

Another stitching night

Steve is back working the fire dept. at the state fair so I came home from work, mowed the yard. And now I'm going to spend the evening stitching. Tomorrow Sabrina and I are going to the state fair to see Brooks and Dunn so there won't be any stitching going on until Sunday.
The nascar race is at Bristol this weekend, actually tomorrow night. I will have to record it, then Steve and I can watch it Sunday after he get home.
I've been stitching at least a little while almost every evening this week on Quaker Christmas. The one motif I was working on was kind of a pain. I couldn't get into a rythum with it and ripped out about as often as I was stitching. I found several mistakes in that one motif. I would either put in the wrong stitch or the pattern was off and I'd have to redo it. I think I'll look over each one now before I start stitching on it to see if I can spot any mistakes before I make them.

I opened the windows tonight because the tempature has dropped and it's really cool out. The dogs are going nuts barking at noises outside they don't usually hear with the house closed up. Of course with 3 of them, all it takes is for one to bark and they all are barking. And they haven't a clue as to what their barking at. I opened the deck door for them to go out on the deck (we have gates up at the deck steps so they can't get off it. They fly out the door, run around on the deck barking, come back in until someone barks and they all go running out again.
Maybe by the time I'm done posting I can shut the door and they will be tired enough to lay down for a nap and I can stitch without interuption.

I've update the look of my blog today. Not a big change, but for me it was some accomplishment. I seem to struggle at times with new things. I found The Cutest Blog on the Net and they have so many backgrounds to choose from. And it was easy.
Well, I think it's time for some stitching, so until next time, everyone have a fun weekend.
Deana

Quaker Christmas Progress

I got to thinking how quickly the year has been moving, that Christmas will be here before we know it and what I've been stitching on. I had put Quaker Christmas in my sewing room and hadn't stitched on it since shortly after I started it. After unrolling my Houses of Hawk Run Hollow and seeing the date I had stitched in as 2006, I thought I needed to consontrate on it for a while. Then I thought about Quaker Christmas, and if I wanted to have it done for this year to display, I'd better get back to stitching on it. So, Houses moved to the sewing room and Quaker came back in the living room. I've stitched on it just this week and have made pretty good progress. Still, I'm not sure I can finish it for this Christmas.
I had halloween designs I wanted to do for this year and haven't got those done either.
Here's the progress on Quaker Christmas.

I did do a quick little freebie one camping weekend a while back. It's from The Primitive Needle called By The Light Of The Moon. I tea dyed the fabric and it's stitched with Weeks Dye Works. I found this cute halloween fabric I want to use with it.


Here's Spooky Treats by Knotted Tree. I have been going to the park for lunch,parking by the lake and stitching. It's my quiet time. It's hard to tell what it is so far but I'm stitching on a ghost but you use a JABCO button for the head. I saw this stitched at The Silver Needle and it was the cutest idea.



And last for my WIPS, Austin's toothfairy pillow. I stitched it on 10ct.Heatherfield. It's been so long since I've stitched on large count that it seemed weird at first, but I needed to have it come out larger than the pattern called for because I have a little treasure chest to put the tooth in that goes in the pocket which I haven't sewn on yet. I still have to look thru my fabrics and see if I have anything to finish it or if I'm going to have to buy some.



Steve left Wed morning to work the MO. State Fair fire dept. He will be gone until Tues. and will come home to work his regular job Wed and Thrus. and then he is going back to work the fire dept until Sun. when the fair is over. He has done this for years and enjoys it so much. There are firefighters from all over the state of MO. that volunteer to work the fire dept at the fair each year.
Next Sat. night, Sabrina and I have tickets to see Brooks and Dunn at the fair.
I heard this week Brooks and Dunn are calling it quits after 2010. I'm glad we're going to get to see them now.
With Steve gone this week, I've been coming home from work, eating what ever I can grab and trying to spend a 2 or 3 hrs.doing some extra work around the house that has been getting pushed to the back burner. I've also been getting some stitching in too.
Last Sat. Sabrina and Brian had a birthday party for Austin. He was 5 on Monday. I can't beleive he's that old already. He wanted a camping theme so they had a weinie roast. Sabrina was going to set dome tents up with things the kids could do in each tent. But since the heat index was going to be around 100 degrees she opted for a slip N slide and water sprinker. They had sent up canopies for the adults to set under and it was pretty nice in the shade of the tents. Our daughter Angie made his cake which she has done every year since he was born. Here's some pics of it.
Sabrina has to get credit for the trees. Angie showed her how to make them and she did a really nice job. They are sugar cones turned upside down.



And here's one of the birthday boy. Yes, it's a mohawk!!! Not my thing, but he thinks it's so "cool". Grammy likes the regular hair cuts.

I have to get busy now, the day will be gone before I know it.
Until next time.
Deana

Some framing finished

Happy Saturday!
I have a busy weekend planned but have not posted anything for a couple of weeks, and I've been wanting to get some more of my finishing pics posted. Here are 3 Prairie Schooler alphabets that I framed a couple of weeks ago. L is for Leaf, M is for Mermaid and N is for Nest. Slowly but surely they are coming along.



Our stitching group has not been meeting thru July and August but one of the gals, Denise emailed all of us to see if we would like to meet this last Thursday at It's A Grind to stitch. All of us must have been going thru withdrawal because we all loved the idea. I don't think most of us had been to It's A Grind, a great little coffee house that had a room for us to use, so we weren't bothering anyone else in the shop. We can get a little loud sometimes.

Here's some pics of my flowers in the backyard. I love the Stargazer lilies, just wish they would last longer. The purple cone flower is from a plant that has to be 10 yrs old or more. I also enjoy seeing it come back each year.





Angie & Darrell, Sabrina, Brian and Austin are coming tomorrow for us to celebrate Sabrina and my birthdays. They were both in July but with vacation and other things going on we could not get together sooner.
Angie has been taking a cake decorating class using the fondent icing and she's making the cake. I'm excited to see what it looks like. She will be able to get lots of practice now until the end of the year. All of our birthdays fall in the last half of the year.

And last, here's a picture of Austin, I can't believe he will be five in ten more days. I don't think my girls grow that fast. Here he is posing with his John Deere bike.



Happy Stitching,
Deana

Vacation Stash Purchases

It's Sunday morning and I'm sitting on the deck with the tempature 73 degrees. Just wonderful. It just started raining a little while ago, which we need but I hope I don't have to go inside. The new screen gazebo we have on the deck is so enjoyable.
We can sit out at night without the bugs and like now I can enjoy the sound of rain without being in the house.
Steve left early this morning for a farm extracation class they have having at the fire station this weekend. When he left I just decided to sleep in and when I woke up it was exactly 10:00. I can't believe I slept that late. I might still be asleep if it wasn't for Emmie licking me in the face to let her out.
Well, here's the buys I made while on vacation.
Quaker Gone Tropic by Michelle Ink. I love the twist she put on the quaker look. It calls for Silks from The Thread Gatherer but I have sooo much Needle Necessities that I was going to see if I have anything that will be a close match but if not I'm going to order the silks.


Next is Blooming With Inspiration by Blue Ribbon Designs. I love her designs.


Dragonfly Quaker by Stickideen von der Wiehenburg.

Fruit Of The Vine by Rosewood Manor.


Victoria's Quaker by A Mon Ami Pierre


Nantucket Summer Sampler by By The Bay.


Bayside Bungalows by Country Cotttage Needleworks.


Love Is In The Air by Blackbird Designs


Mermaids by Country Cottage Needleworks. I really like the colors in this, it may be one that goes in my rotation soon.


My Favorite Kitten by Primitivebetties. I want to do several in different colors and put in a basket.

Berry Time by Blackbird Designs

And finally a Doodle by Hobb-Nobb called Where's the Cat?

The rain has continued and I had to come inside about half way thru posting this. Steve is home and now we have to go to Wally World.
I did alot of picture taking so will have new posts with photos again soon.
Have a good day.
Deana