I finished my year long stitch a long 3 months over the deadline but at least it's finished.
Here's the finished product.

I change alot on it. The pattern calls for tiny buttons but decided to use buttons along with a few beads. I think the gold beads on March turned out cute. Also gave the sunflowers a couple of buttons each, now they look like they have little faces.
The picture of November came out blurry so I just have December to show you.



I bought some fabrics while on vacation back in October last year that I loved. All florals that I could just see made into a Grandmothers Flower Garden quilt.
Steve left Thursday for his yearly snagging trip. (For those who don't know what snagging is, they ride around in a boat dragging these big fishing lines behind the boat with huge hooks on them to try to "snag" spoonbill.) They are a large fish that kind of reminds you of a swordfish. A few days before he was to leave I mentioned the quilt that I have not started yet and Steve told me this would be a good weekend to start it. Home alone for 4 days. I could really stay with it. So I prewashed all the fabrics, and started cutting some strips then cutting the strips down to size. I have not stitched a flower garden before, but from everything I read, they go together best if you do the English paper piecing. You have to cut perfect hexagons from paper for each piece. Then sew the fabric to each paper. Now I spent all Thursday evening trying to get the perfect hexagon pattern and with each try they were always off on one side or another. I did find a website with free hexagon patterns but my printer and laptop are still ticked off at each other so I just waited until the next day and printed a copy at work. Friday night, after running several copies of hexagons on cardstock I started cutting them out. I finished my first flower. WOHOO! It was very fun!

I finished 2 more since then.
The threads on top of the flower will be taken out after the flowers are sewn to each other. I am planning on this being a quilt for our queen size bed. Now how many years will that take to finish????
Saturday morning, I got up, started laundry, played with fabric, cross stitched a little and then about 2:30pm I wasn't feeling too great.
Sat. night I had a very important date at the school dance with my 6 year old grandson, Austin.
A couple of hours after the blahs set in, I knew I wasn't going anywhere. I hated to make that call and back out. Austin was so excited for me to come.
Good thing I didn't go. I continued to get worse and spent most of the night on the bathroom floor with my pillow and blanket. By Sunday morning, I wasn't quite back to normal but a lot better. Spent Sunday on the couch until Steve came home. So an exciting weekend sort of fizzled out. It was pretty disapointing.
Steve's knee surgery is this coming Monday so I will be busy with him the next couple of weeks. I will try to post but I'll have to see how things go.
Until next time.
Have fun.
Deana

Happy St. Patrick's Day. Nothing much going on here lately. It's been rather quiet around our house. We're finally moving into springtime with some wonderful weather this week. I opened windows today for the first time this year. I love to hear the birds singing. We have our zebra finches in the house, but it's a nice change to hear all the different birds. They make the dogs bark everyday for a while until they get use to them.
My daffodils and surprise lilies are coming up. Corcus are blooming. I did rake the front yard last Sat. but have tons more to do. We have Sweetgum trees in the front yard that dropped their little pods pretty much into summer. I hate them, but they do provide nice shade.
Steve is going in the hospital April 4th to have both knees replaced, so I have started a honey do list for him to get done before surgery since I will doing it all for a while. I hope he does well with it but he will be off work for a several weeks.
I haven't taken any stitching pictures lately. I'm moving along quite nicely on the Yellow House Sampler. I did finish my first pieced and machine quilted project. It's a small table topper. It's not perfect but I am pretty pleased with the finished piece. I think I might make another one with different colors.

I started working on a patchwork quilt for Austin for Christmas. Their 4 1/2" squares of some fun fabrics he'll like. Since I'm really new to quilting, I figure I can make him a quilt and he'd never see the imperfections.
I have my moms old Singer Creative Touch 1030 sewing machine now and I have set it up in the basement so I can sew on Austin's quilt when we're downstairs. She sewed on for years but had not for the last few years. Dad bought it for her back in 1979 along with a really nice cabinet. I thought I might have to have it cleaned and adjusted before using it but I cleaned the outside of it and plugged it in and it run like a new one.
Since I don't have stitching pics to show, I figured I always have some of the "kids" to show off. Here's all 3 posing for a shot in the living room.

I'm going to go do a little stitching on my Lizzie Kate Stamps for a while. Almost done with November.
Until next time, happy stitching.
Deana

Here We go Again

Once again we have been dumped on by Mother Nature. Another big snowfall yesterday and last night. Since I haven't ventured out yet, I'm guessing about 7-8". Mother Nature has not been kind to most of the country this year. Flooding, storms, earthquakes,extreme heat,extreme cold and more snow than most of us have ever seen. Spring can not come too soon for me.
I'm still stitching on Yellow House Sampler, just started the border to Nov. stitch a long that was suppose to be finished in Dec. The Lizzie Kate Monthly Stamps have been fun and cute to stitch just need to finish Nov and Dec.
I'v been cutting up alot of fabric for a couple of quilts. Last night I finished with my first pieced and quilted mini quilt. Actually not quite finished. I need to finish the binding, hopefully tonight and then I'll post a pic of it.
This Sunday the kids will be coming in for dinner. It's Brian's (son-in-law) birthday. Steve got his smoker for Christmas and has used it a couple of times.
So he is going to do some smoked meats for dinner. I'm thinking of a good old Bar-B-Que type lunch. Pasta Salad, Green Beans cooked all day in bacon grease and onions,
a few other things and a cheese cake for dessert.
Here's a couple of cuties taking a nap while I do some stitching. The livingroom had been a race track eariler so now time to catch some zzzz's before the next race.


And I have to show you this pic.
Who Made That Mess?

Emmie scoops her food out on the floor, then eats it off the floor. I'm still not sure why I even bother putting it in the bowl. I think she learned this from Molly.
Molly did the same thing when we had her. Tanner doesn't take time to scoop, he gobbles it up like it's his last meal for a while.
And speaking of Tanner, here's how the potty training is going.

Go potty like a good puppy.

I don't have too!

I don't want to!

I'm not going to!

Until later,
Enjoy your day
Deana

Here's what we have 24 hrs later.


Thanks goodness we have Steves big truck.


Here's my car from the house side. It doesn't look quit so bad, but I still won't be able to get it out for a while. Living on a dead end street, I couldn't believe it when I got up this morning and saw the street was already plowed.
Today I am hopefully going to do some more playing inside. Stitching, sewing maybe even get a nap in.


Sage is not impressed with the snowfall this time. She usually likes to go out and run around in it. But it was so funny last night, she couldn't figure out where to go potty, either it was too deep or she couldn't "sniff" out a spot. She wanted to go outside but when she ran out the door, she would stop on the porch, look around and you could just see her thinking, what in the heck is this? She'd try to venture out in the yard a few feet, then turn around and come back up on the porch. She must have done that a half dozen times until she really had to go.
This morning, I scooped her out a potty spot in the yard.

This was taken from inside looking out at the deck.
Have a good day.
Deana

Still snowing

As it continues to snow, here's what I just took pics of. I could probably find more interesting things to shoot but I don't like getting out in the cold.


And just so you have something besides snow pics to look at, I've add these of the "kids".

Tanner


Sage


Emmie (aka...The Princess)

I have been in my sewing room sorting some of my fabrics and picking out fabrics to start a small quilt. Just finished prewashing them so I ready to start cutting.
Until later, stay warm.
Deana

10:00 am

Here's the newest pics taken at 10:00am. I just noticed the time was wrong on my camera in the earlier shots. These also have the wrong time. I have reset it so the rest of the pics should be with the correct time they were taken.
This is looking off the deck, over the garage roof to the camper.

If you look close the birds are still out eating.


Deana

Winter Storm 2011

I have a snow day :)
Here in Mid Missouri, our snow is predicted to reach 18-24 inches. There is even a BLIZZARD WARNING issued for our area. Unbelievable! I remember 13" back in 2006, but if we get what they are saying, it will make that look like nothing.
I have taken pictures just as it started snowing this morning and I hoping to take pictures hourly for a while. The local weather station is saying we could get 2 to 3 inches per hour at times. Here's what I took at 8:00am.

I taped a yard stick to our bird feeder but I don't think you will be able to read it, so I'll just let you know what it says.


Here's my car. It won't be out and about for a while.


And Steve's truck.

I did go to work but there was only 3 others in the office and once the snow started they were rounding up to leave. So I just came home too. My plan today is to do some sewing, stitching and relaxing. Apparently tomorrow will be a total shut down for everyone, another snow day is a guarantee. :)
I'll post off and on today. Check back from time to time to see the current snowfall.
Deana