Summertime!

It's summer! The last couple of months have just FLOWN by here in our house. We've had pre-school "graduations" (very cute but ridiculous to call it a graduation), beach excursions for birthdays, tea parties, matching shirts for Father's Day, fireworks in the backyard, cousins and aunts and uncles visiting, and I have two extra helpers in the kitchen lately wanting to help with every meal I make (sometimes a good thing, sometimes not so much).

We've also decided to put our house on the market but before we do we have had to do some sprucing up around the place. But with all this packing up and cleaning I have been doing a lot of de-cluttering and have gotten rid of so much stuff.  So. Much. Stuff. It's amazing. It's  kind of embarrassing how much stuff we have but it feels so good to give it away and get what's leftover organized.

But with packing up and making the house ready for strangers to walk through (ugh) I did put a lot of my sewing/crafting stuff in storage (and by storage I mean my in-laws garage!). I do know myself, though, and I have to keep some sort of project going, so I kept a few of my counted cross stitch projects here at home so I can work on those during down times. My thinking is I can get the stitching stuff done on a few projects and once we are at the new place and settled in I will finish them to completion! I do have an unspoken agreement with myself that I will not purchase any new craft or sewing project until I finish at least ten from my list. Confession time: I may have bought some Christmas fabric for a project that I already have but didn't have the fabric to complete it. That doesn't count, right?

This little plan has worked so far: I've finished an Easter sampler and some Christmas ornaments and now I am working on something for Autumn.

I'm thinking of adding their names somewhere

One for each of the girls

Right now back stitching the quilt.

I'm also going to try and post once a week if only to show the progress that I have made on any given project. 

I have so many ideas running around in my head. My latest idea is to take this giant, ugly quilt top I started eight or nine years ago, finish it and make it into a picnic blanket. I've found we have been taking lots of picnics or going to lots of parks this summer and we need a giant picnic blanket for everyone to spread out on. But I've got some cool ideas to make it awesome. Guess I will have to add that to The List.

What's everyone been working on this summer?? Let me know in the comments below, I love to hear from you!

Fall Sampler Completed!

I had quite the time finishing this project. I stated in an earlier blog post that I have "pregnancy brain" and just couldn't wrap my mind around how to finish it. I was smart enough to keep it simple but just the smallest amount of basic math-which I love-was preventing me from even starting.

Finally this afternoon during nap time I decided that it was going to get done once and for all. I got out my handy notebook and started drawing little diagrams and doing the math but was still struggling with seam allowances and whatnot. I realized that I just couldn't look 4-5 steps ahead so I would write down a step and then complete that step.

With the cut fabric in front of me I was able to then figure out how much border fabric I needed to cut, I wrote that down and then did it. So it probably took me about an hour longer than necessary but it's all done and that's all that matters.


I began by removing the excess Aida that was around the finished cross stitch and left about a 1.25" border. I then measured the fabric and determined how long to cut the top and bottom pieces of the border.

The fabric I chose all ready to be cut. I liked it because it matched the scarecrows arms but if I had to do it again, I might have used a more "Fallish" pattern. Oh well, you live, you learn. 

 After I cut the top and bottom borders 2.25" wide I pinned them to the cross stitch and sewed the two pieces together.

 I measured the piece again, wrote that down in my handy notebook and then figured out how big to cut the side border pieces. That had to be written down as well lest I forget between the taking a picture of my progress and picking up my rotary cutter to make the next cut-which is a real possibility!

 All four pieces are sewn together! Kind of cute, right?

 This next idea really has to be credited to my friend Taylor. So the great thing about the booklet I used, Sample the Seasons Cross Stitch Designs, is that there are several really cute seasonal samplers. So I thought instead of making wall hangings or pillows that I would then have to store, why not just use one frame and change them out from season to season? Awhile back I found a couple of frames at a thrift store that were about $3.00 and they would be perfect for this idea! So here we go!

 Sorry for the side view. I'm working on my photography skills and the glare was really bad from a straight on approach. But other than that, it looks kind of awesome! My mom suggested spraying the back with some tacky stuff-we could not remember the name of that stuff-and then adding a piece of thin batting to the back to make it look a little more stable and smooth!

So another project completed! I am really loving this system. I probably would have either given up after I had completed the cross stitch or the border but knowing that I can't start a new project until I finish this one kind of makes me be creative and find ways to finish and finish quickly!

Hopefully the next pick from the lottery is an easy one; with my mushy brain there are four quilts that are all related that I don't think I have the capacity to work on just yet. They are all pretty much applique and I am not even remotely comfortable doing applique even with a brain working at 100%.

So what are you working on these days?