Saturday, August 28, 2010

Delivered Three Squares to Bonnie C.

Today I delivered three stitched squares to Bonnie C., one of our quilters for our charity group, World of Charity Stitching:  the King of Spades playing card, the Larkspur Floral Beauty and the Antique Cars.  These will be made into lap quilts for the seniors of a nursing home where we donate our quilts.   I can't wait to see the beautiful colors that Bonnie will choose to compliment these squares.  The quilts are usually made of six to nine squares stitched by several members in our group. 

Friday, August 27, 2010

The Lab Puppy Square for Love Quilts

The Laborador puppy is coming along well.  There are a lot of shades of brown in this one and a lot of thread changing.  I haven't had to do a lot of frogging, thank goodness, as I really hate to pull out the threads.  I hope to finish this one next week, so I can do some bookmarks for WOCS.  I have two more Love Quilt commitments, besides the Lab puppy, and am planning on signing up for one more, a Flower/Butterfly theme, but it is not due until Feb. 1, so I should have plenty of time to start and finish all the Love Quilt squares.

I'm almost finished with this piece, (August 29th) but had to make some modifications to the flowers and leaves.  Also, I still need to do the backstitching, which shouldn't take too long, I hope. 

Monday, August 23, 2010

Finished the EMS Larkspur Floral Beauty for World of Charity Stitching group and Started a New Square for Love Quilts

I finished the EMS Larkspur Floral Beauty over the weekend and started on the new Love Quilts square. Will post a picture of the EMS square as soon as it is washed, dried and ironed.  These designs are very easy to follow and don't take a lot of time to complete, especially with changing the floss colors all the time.  I love these EMS designs and will probably stitch more of them as time permits.

The new Love Quilts square I signed up for is a Laborador puppy on a windowsill with some geraniums in a flower box.  I think it will make a very nice square for the quilt being made for the little girl who loves dogs.  I had a hard time picking out an appropriate pattern, but found it finally in one of my older pamphlets.  This one has two dogs in the window, but I have shortened it down to just one, as it would have been too large for the Love Quilts requirements.

I had done a beautiful piece from these patterns several years ago for a friend who had three Laboradors living in the house with them.  The pattern was one with three dogs in a field.  I didn't take a picture of that one, like a lot of my work in the past, but now that I am keeping a record, I will take a photo of my new one for Love Quilts.



Monday, August 16, 2010

Started a New Square for World of Charity Stitching Group

Yesterday I gathered the floss for a new square for WOCS and the floss for a square for Love Quilts.  I will try to do several days worth of stitching on one and then switch to the other.  The Love Quilts square is not due until mid-October, so I should have plenty of time to finish both.


Our group has signed up for a quilt to be donated to a woman at a nursing home made up of beautiful squares designed by Ellen Maurer-Stroh, which are the Flower of the Month freebies.  Her website is http://www.maurer-stroh.com/; there are lots of great freebie patterns. 


The ladies of our group have chosen the squares they wish to stitch and one member, Vicki, has already stitched hers and posted a picture - a colorful square of Violets. 


I have chosen the Larkspur chart, which is various shades of blue.  I started this morning while sitting on the back porch again, but had only a little while to stitch before we left for our exercise of playing senior volleyball.   I stitched a little bit before dinner (husband cooked tonight - yeah!) and will do some more stitching while "watching" television tonight.

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Working on a WOCS Transportation Themed Square

I'm working on a new square for WOCS, which is going to be made into a lap quilt for a senior man.  It will be a part of five or six other squares made by the ladies of our group and sent to Bonnie, one of our quilters, who will make it into a beautiful quilt using her very special skills.   The one I am doing is from a freebie pattern made of six different small antique cars, but I changed it a little bit and am only doing five of the cars.  It has to be a certain size to fit the quilt and the original pattern was too large. 

Can't wait to see all the variety of squares made into this lap quilt.  I'll try to post a picture later when the quilt is finished.


I finished the Antique Cars square, washed, dried, ironed, and scanned it, getting it ready to send to one of our quilters, Bonnie C. 

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Finished the Baseball Pitcher

I finally finished the baseball pitcher and it will be mailed to Love Quilts on Friday, along with the Two Foxes in the Snow piece.  Love Quilts is a wonderful organization that makes quilts for sick children, ones with life-threatening diseases or ongoing dibilitating illnesses. 


The stitching on the face of the pitcher is not exactly the way I would have liked it, but that is the way the pattern was made and I didn't know how to change it to make it more realistic.   This is one pattern I probably won't make again, as there are lots of other freebie patterns on the internet, plus I have some magazines with sports charts in them.

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Beautiful Day in Pensacola

This little fairy was stitched for Love Quilts for the American Cancer Society quilt to be auctioned off to raise money for cancer research- stitched in June 2010
It's a beautiful day in Pensacola today; did a little bit of stitching on the back porch this morning before it got too hot and before we went out to breakfast at Cracker Barrel, a special treat. 

Almost finished with the stitching of the ball pitcher, except for the face, hat, and ball glove.  After that, it's back-stitching (ugh), though I usually take the material out of the hoop or q-snap and stitch by hand; it is easier, goes a lot faster, and I can't tell any difference in keeping it in the frame and doing it the lazy way.   Someone once told me I was "cheating" by doing it that way, but so what?  Each of us has our own way of doing things - that's what makes us unique. 




Saturday, August 7, 2010

Not Much Stitching Done Today

Today is Saturday, with the usual errands to run and we (my husband, Verdon and I) have a dinner and swim get-together scheduled tonight with some friends, so I won't be doing much stitching tonight either. Maybe tomorrow will not be as busy and I can get in some much-needed stitching time. I am working very hard on the baseball pitcher and have most of the body completed. This one hasn't been terribly difficult, so far.

Friday, August 6, 2010

Early Bird Stitching

This piece was stitched for World of Charity Stitching
and is now part of a lovely quilt made by Bonnie C.,
one of our quilters; it was donated to a nursing home.
Got up very early today (couldn't sleep), so I got my coffee, stitching basket and sat on the back porch, listening to the chirps and calls of the birds in our backyard while stitching.  I am currently working on a piece for Love Quilts, a baseball theme for a young boy.   The pattern (Cross Stitchers Club) is a baseball pitcher, winding up to throw the ball.  It has a lot of 1/2 and 1/4 stitches, which I don't enjoy, but it is going pretty well.  It is due to be mailed before the end of the month, so I really need to work hard on finishing it, so it can get mailed to the Love Quilts coordinator in time to be ready to go to the quilter.

Thursday, August 5, 2010

First Posting

This is my very first posting on my first ever blog.  I really have no clue what I am doing, but I am going to do it anyway. 

This blog is being posted mainly so I can tell about my stitching and the wonderful internet stitching group I belong to.    I have been stitching since about 1985 and am a self-taught stitcher.  Many mistakes have been made along the way - lots of frogging, but persistance has paid off. 

I am currently donating most of my work to charity, as I belong to a wonderful group of ladies, a Yahoo Group called World of Charity Stitching.  Our Yahoo website is:  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WOCS
Anyone wishing to join can go to our website and request to join.