Ho Ho Ho Blog Hop has started!!!

 

Yeah!!! The Ho Ho Ho Blog Hop has begun!!! Go over to Sew We Quilt  or to Just Let Me Quilt each day to see the list of very creative ladies participating in this hop. Today isn't my day to show off what I've been working on (my projects are just almost done!!!), my day will be next Wednesday. But it is first day of the blog hop and I thought I would show you a sneak peek at what I am working on:)

 

 

Wool felt all cut up and ready to put together. The great thing about this project is that it will be used as my first present all ready for Christmas time:)

 

And this one is turning out SOOO cute!!! This will be my first embroidery project that I will have completely finished. It will also be my first applique project:)

 

Both of these will have links as to the websites I found the free patterns on, so you can make them yourselves if you like!!!

July's Friday Night Sew In

http://sugarlanequilts.blogspot.com/p/friday-night-sew-in-fnsi.html

This month the Friday Night Sew In is being hosted by Sugar Lane Quilts  and I am super excited to see this Sew-Along come back!!! My goal this month was to get my quilt top finished and I DID!!!  I started out with the quilt top looking like this...

 

4 strips already sewn together, 16 more to go. I started early yesterday as I wanted to make sure I had plenty of time to get this done and not be stressed about it. If you've read my FNSI posts before you'll know that I'm not super friendly with a sewing machine. Short periods at a time keeps me happy:)

However in the middle of the day I realized that I need to go into town. We were out of bottled water (our water is icky and our purifier needs a new filter, so bottled water for right now), and we were out of cat food. I trip into town is never a quick thing, so 3 hours later we were finally home.

 

 This meant that I was up much later than I would have been to get this done. BUT, I did get it done!!! I am super happy with how it looks and I can't wait to have it all the way quilted and finished so I can have it on my bed!!!

 

Here is a close up of the fabrics I used in this quilt. I'm planning on using the blue flower as my backing and binding as it is my favorite print of them all:)

 

Next month my goal will be to have the backing pinned on and maybe get the quilting done. I'm planning to machine quilt a simple diagonal line through all the blocks. Nothing fancy, but maybe if I keep it simple this quilt will actually get done!!! 

Happy Mail!!

Remember the exchange piece that I finished a week or two ago???

The one that was cross stitched, but not finished off into anything???

The one that had 'Christmas' written along the bottom and had pretty red flowers on it???

No?? 

Well, shame on you!! :) 

Okay, so you probably don't need to see it again, but here it is...

 

And, of course, everyone who sent one, received one. This is what I found in my mailbox!!! 

This is a snowman teapot, and I LOVE the colors and the huge carrot nose!! I received this from 'Molly' off of one of the stitching Yahoo groups that I'm on.

It is so much fun to do exchanges and get happy mail. I have another one of these I'm doing on another group, but I haven't picked out what I'm going to stitch for my exchange partner yet. I better get that figured out!!!

Daybook Entry for July 15

I haven't done one of these for a while, so here I go...

Outside my window...It is cloudy and blessedly cooler than normal. Today topped out at 82 or so and was super muggy this morning. Then we got some RAIN!!! :) Not much, but it has been sprinkling off and on today so that at least everything is damp. And the rain made it even cooler. So happy and thankful to be having this kind of weather in the middle of July.

I'm thinking...That this summer hasn't had nearly enough 'stay-at-home' days. Dd's schedule just continued on without skipping a beat:)

I am thankful for... My hubby. He has been working so many hours lately and spending some extra time with his parents and he is so tired!! But he has also been trying to do things with us as well, so long as he doesn't fall asleep first:0)

In my kitchen... I had a fairly productive day in the kitchen today. I made myself a huge pot of cheeseburger soup for lunch (and dinner, and lunch and dinner, etc for the next week or so). I say it's for me because my hubby has a thing against eating soup in the summer and because it has lots of onions, peppers, mushrooms and tomatoes. Yum!! But dd won't eat any of that. I also actually have dinner ready and did up most of the dishes as well!! :)

Creativity this week included...I have so many things I'm working on right now!! Lots of fun things, and I'm making sure that it's all a little different from one another. A little quilting, a bit of sewing (hand and machine), some crocheting and lots and lots of stitching.

I am going... We have a few places to go this week. Dd has swim team practice several times, we have a rabbit project meeting for 4-H (County Fair is next week!!!), a Sunday School picnic, and we are going to a water park!! I think I need a nap:)

My reading indulgences...I was given a chance to review a book from a new author about a month ago and I'm just now getting to reading the book. Really good so far, I'll post a review of it soon.

Around the house...I'm pretty sure there should be a rule that if you are crafty/creative then you are exempt from needing to ever clean the house:) It's not clean, it's not gross either but my mother would get after me if she saw it!! :0)

What's going on with you this week?

A FINISH!!!

Not one that I get to keep though. This project is for a Mystery Exchange that I participated in on a Stitching Yahoo group that I'm in. We all got to pic up to 5 themes that we were interested in (like certain holidays, seasons, or other things) and then the person who gets our name chooses from those themes to stitch up a block (unfinished in this case) and mail it off to us. The person I got choose Christmas as one of her themes, so this is what I stitched for her...

Christmas 2010 by Glory Bee, found in 2010 JCS Christmas Ornament Issue

I did this one over 1 on 25 ct. cream Lugana. This was a quick and fun stitch and I may need to do this one again for myself:)

July TUSAL

It seems like I haven't done the TUSAL in the last month or two, so my pile of orts is a little bigger than usual.

 

I took this pic outside and had to chase after the threads just a bit:) Silly wind doesn't ever want to hold still!! I only had one cat out to help this morning, so that was better than the last time I took a pic of my threads outside.

If you want to know what the heck TUSAL is, follow the link over to Daffycat's blog and find out. It's not to late to join in!!

July YOTA update

I guess I'm not going to be posting everyday;0) I will be happy, though, if I get a post in every other day, so that is what I'm going to aim for. As for today, I have a YOTA update. YOTA stands for 'Year Of The Acronym' and is the creator's (over at Pull The Other Thread) way of making fun of all the acronyms we stitchers use:) The point is to take one of your WIPs (works in progress) or UFO (unfinished objects - usually an older project) and take the first Saturday of the month to work on it. I choose a project that I hadn't worked on in a long time and make tiny bits of progress on it through the year. And by the way this is going, I can plan on using this project for my YOTA piece for the next several years!!!

I haven't had a chance to work on my YOTA project for the past couple of months. This is where I was in April, I believe...

Four Seasons by Marjolein  Bastin

 

And a really bad pic of where I am tonight. I finished the shading around the bench and wanted to finish up the birds as well, but there are 2 thread colors that I am missing and need to buy before I can do that. Once the birds are done, the bench area is completely finished. I moved on to the mushroom that is under the bench so I could do something with some different colors in it. Turns out I am missing a couple of the colors for it as well, but I was able to get this far. I really love this design!! 

OOPS!!

That must be some kind of new record for announcing that you are going to blog every day this month and then missing the next day:) LOL Well, it was a holiday so it didn't count, right? 

 

I hope all my fellow American readers had a wonderful 4th of July (and all my non-American readers too:). We had plans to have some family over for a BBQ and then head over to a neighboring town to see the fireworks, but it was not to be. DD came down ill with a fever and aches and pains Wednesday night and slept most of yesterday away. Dh went ahead and smoked the pork roasts that we had planned to have and he and I spent a nice quiet day watching movies. Dd is starting to feel better today though she is still a little puny.

 

Since I had some quiet time, I finished my part on this Round Robin piece. This one is much different from the others I have stitched on as 'Murf' choose really different colors for her piece. I rather like it and dd said it was her favorite of the bunch so far. This one will be mailed off tomorrow for the last stitcher and I should be getting the last piece that I need to stitch on before getting my own back!! I can't wait to see how mine has turned out!!!

 

Live Laugh Love by La D Da

NaBloPoMo

I decided to join in on July's National Blog Post Month over at BlogHer. I've been slacking off on posting on my blog and I'm wanting to be more active here, so I thought a little challenge is in order!!

So how this works is that you sign up over at BlogHer and then post on your blog every day for the entire month. Last time I did this I didn't get through the whole month, but I came really close, so we'll see how I do this time!!! :)

FIRE!!!

Around here it is harvest time. We live in an area where wheat is all around us (yes the very wheat that I'm allergic to:). I love how pretty and green it is in the spring and the golden color it gets to be when it's ripe and ready for harvest. 

But the one thing about living with agriculture all around that has always made me nervous is once the crops are harvested, how dry the land is. Fire is a huge concern this time of year, usually it is fireworks we are worried about right about now. We have never been directly effected before this year, this weekend was the first time we had a close call. We took a day-trip on Saturday and when we came back home that afternoon, we noticed lots of smoke. Farmers often burn off their wheat stubble, but this day was very windy and we thought someone had a field get out of control. This first fire was about 5 miles from our house, so not a direct concern for us, but we drove around to see what was going on.

We first realized it was not a controlled fire when we saw that one of the fields being burnt was uncut wheat, about 200 acres of it!! We then saw that along-side the highway was a camper that had been burnt to the ground and some people standing around a truck that was also partially burnt (just the back of the truck, no one was hurt). That's when I noticed that there was another fire closer to our place, so we drove home, hoping that it wasn't as close as it looked. The second fire was directly north of our house, by about 1 mile, but thankfully the train tracks and a paved road kept it from jumping across and getting any closer to us.

All in all, around 600 or so acres burnt, but no one got hurt. Only 2 houses were in danger, and only bits of their yards ever caught on fire, the houses were all safe. I think this year we will skip doing any fireworks at all as we've had enough fire for the time being!! :)

July Goals

I only finished ONE of my June goals!!! ACK!! I will have to do much better this month:) Only one more full month of summer break left, and I want to make it count. I've decided to add some personal goals to this list as well, so it won't all be about stitching.

 The goal I did get done in June was this toddler sized blanket. I'm also working on a girl version.

For my July goals...

1. I want to finish stitching the other girl that will go along with this one and get them made into a needle case.

 2. Get the top to this quilt all sewn together.

 

3. Get the birds all stitched up and made into a bag.

 

4. Have 2 ornaments to show off including this Spring Ornie from Prairie Schooler.

 

5. Have my 'Ho Ho Ho' blog hop projects done. My day for this hop won't be until Aug 7th, but I am determined to have this done before hand this time!! :)

 

For my personal goals...

 

1. Walk or do a exercise video at least 6 days a week all month.

 

2. Have the first week of school scheduled and ready.

 

3. Take dd to at least one extra activity for the next 5 weeks before school starts. This week we are going to a splash park with a play group. Okay, yes play groups are usually for little kids, and this one is too, but dd's best friend has a little sister and her best friend was the only kid over 10 when these play groups started. So we started going too so that she would have someone there for her. Most of the littles at this group are the siblings of the older kids in their Youth Group. So dd gets to see her best friend for both Youth Group and Play Dates:)  I think my dd is going to turn into a drowned rat with all the swim team practices, swimming at my parents house, going to the public pool and then these splash park play dates!!! She really loves the water:)

 

4. 'Spring Cleaning' all done before school starts back up. I'm horrible when it comes to house work so I try to take the summer months and do a bit of deeper cleaning that I won't get to during the school year. I hate house cleaning!!! But I do like having a clean house and with as small as our house is, it really needs it!!

 

 

Okay that should do for this month. I have a few other things I hope to also get done, but as you can see from last month, I probably wouldn't get to them!! LOL