Quaker Diamonds

Yesterday I had the pleasure of working on Quaker Diamonds from Rosewood Manor.

There is just something about this piece that I really love and it was a real pleasure to work on it yesterday. I was very pleased with the progress I made.

I'm stitching this on a 28 cashel linen solo dye from Silkweavers using the called for Valdani threads (you can see an example of the pack in the original picture) - fun little balls of thread that are a pleasure to work with!

Until next time!
~Katy

American Flag Quilt Sampler

This is what happens when you inadvertently schedule your post for 8 PM rather than 8 AM! Ooops!

Yesterday I got to work on the American Flag Quilt Sampler by Rosewood Manor!

I finished the Massachusetts square yesterday. I really like this piece because each square feels like a mini finish!

I may regret not doing the blue around it before putting it away yesterday, but I wasn't feeling the big block of colors there. I will take care of it next time.

Here is the full piece to date:

Until next time!
~Katy

Stitch Maynia - Quaker Diamonds

Day Eight of Stitch Maynia was dedicated to Quaker Diamonds by Rosewood Manor:

Quaker patterns are usually not my style, but the line by Rosewood Manor is just gorgeous that they are the exception to my non-Quaker rule. This piece had me using Valdani threads for the first time. I love the little balls of thread and not needing to divide the strands, and the colors are beautiful, but other than that, Valdani didn't impress me as much as the other first-time threads I used this week. Not that I dislike them because I don't, but it didn't feel much different to me to use Valdani than, say, DMC.

This is where I got to yesterday before I called it a night:

I'm stitching this on a solo dye 28 Cashel Linen from Silkweavers. It was a relaxing stitch to work on and I'm looking forward to when it comes back up in the rotation!

Today we are having my son's birthday party so we'll see how far I get with stitching today. Oh! I will be posting my giveaway details tomorrow. I didn't forget, I just haven't posted it yet! Come back tomorrow to get all the details!

Until next time!
~Katy

American Flag Quilt Sampler - Connecticut

Last night I worked on the American Flag Quilt Sampler by Rosewood Manor:

As usual, my goal whenever I work on this piece is to finish one quilt square. This time, Connecticut was up on the list:

I just loved the colors in this square this time. I swear that last T isn't crooked! Here is the piece as it stands after this rotation:

I think this is coming along nicely! I'll continue working on the blue section with the first thirteen states. The next few actually won't have the outer border for me to do too, so who knows, maybe I'll be able to get a little bit ahead when preparing for the next rotation! We shall see!

Until next time!
~Katy

American Flag Quilt Sampler

Another holiday, another appropriate piece to work on! What better piece to work on for President's Day than the American Flag Quilt Sampler?

I finished the "placeholder" block on the top of the blue section, and I have to admit, this is my favorite of the blocks so far. I can't exactly tell you why, it just is!

I did make a mistake, but I'm not going to tell anyone where. I've already figured out how it will be corrected here on out, and that's what matters! I decided I want to do all of the blue section first since those are the first thirteen states plus the two place holder blocks, so I started the next bit of blue background before packing it in for the evening. Here is where the piece was left as of last night:

Sorry for the less than stellar picture! I'll get a better one next time I pull this piece out, I promise!

Until next time!
~Katy

Stitch Filled Day

Yesterday was a very stitchy themed day! Gotta love days like that.

It started off with me taking my very first trip to the LNS I had no idea existed in my city called Threads That Bind. Oh my goodness, is that a dangerous, dangerous store! It's dedicated to cross stitch on one side and quilting on the other and there were so many wonderful things, I could have spent hours there! I didn't take any pictures (that felt a little weird), but I did leave with some new stash (how could I resist?) as well as the schedule for when they have Stitch-In's and other classes. Now, I will say I was by far the youngest person in the store when I was in there, but I think it could be a lot of fun to meet and hang out with other stitchers somewhere other than just in the blog world.

This was the stash I left with - Quaker Diamonds by Rosewood Manor and the corresponding Valdani thread pack:

Now, Quaker type patterns usually aren't my style, but Rosewood Manor has this beautiful line of Quaker patterns in such gorgeous colors and most every one of them is on my wish list. Do I know when I will start them? Nope, but hey, yay stash!

I also took time yesterday to go through my Mo's Sale floss stash to do an inventory and figure out what flosses I am missing from my hiatus from being on her automatic order list and ordered several of the missing ones - others will have to wait until they're redyed and available on the website. Plus, I also got stash mail with my fabric of the month from Hand Dyed Fabrics by Stephanie, which made me very happy too!

Yesterday was also the day that the February installment of the Story Time Sampler came out! The Secret Garden is the theme this month and I absolutely love it! I got started right away and had to do Mary and her little robin first!

I did another floss substitution with her hair and used Tom Branson silk for it and I love how it came out. Now, you would think this would have been enough for one day, right? Well, you see, there are days when I suffer from insomnia and nothing helps me sleep. So what did I do instead of just laying in bed frustrated I couldn't sleep? I kept stitching. So much so, that I finished the entire frame for the month!

The pictures aren't the best thanks to it being a very cloudy day and the light being less than ideal, but I absolutely love how it came out! This pattern is such a joy to stitch! I'm very glad that February is a short month - can't wait to see what we get in March!

Until next time!
~Katy

Alice and the American Flag

It is a cold, wet, yucky day here today. It's very hard not to just curl up and stitch, but I do have other things I need to do today first.

I did make a lot of progress yesterday! First, Alice is done!

I love how this frame turned out! So with Alice being done, I'm entirely complete with the first installment of Story Time Sampler!

The next installment comes out on January 31st, so this piece has been put away for now until the next frame comes out!

So since I was finished with Alice early in the day, I picked up the American Flag Quilt Sampler and completed the next block for that piece as well,which was Georgia.

My one complaint about this chart is that it did not tell you how many skeins of floss you would need of a certain color, and I'm almost completely out of the blue for the background of this part of the flag. I ordered several more skeins last night, so hopefully that will be enough.

Here is the full piece to date.

I love this piece, but it's definitely going to be one of those that is slow going because I can really only handle doing one block at a time. Maybe that will change when I'm working on the stripes rather than the "stars" section. We'll see!

I'll be working on Angel of Compassion next. It is one of my huge HAED WIP's, so it will likely just be blocks of color with some confetti thrown in, but progress is progress. We'll see how much of it I can get done today!

Until next time!
~Katy

New Start

So I worked for a few days on American Flag Quilt Sampler, and while I love this piece and adore seeing other people's progression on it, it seems to be one of those pieces I'm only able to do in short spurts for some reason. This is especially true when the urge for a new start strikes! So here is where American Quilt Sampler was left when I put it away for now:

The next installment of the Once Upon A Time Sampler is due out in a few days, but in the meantime, I gave into my urge for a new start with another Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery creation, this time selecting there Halloween Spooky Sampler! This is what the example looks like:

Of course, I had to make some substitutions, and here is my floss toss for the piece:

The fabric I am using is 32 count Jobelan in Bewitched from Hand Dyed Fabrics by Stephanie, and except for black and white, the flosses are all from Mo's Sale. This time around, I am using Darkness, Brownie (silk), Waterlily (silk), Rose (silk), Candy Corn, Sun, Flesh, Golden Sun (silk), Leak (silk), Grassy (silk), Mona (silk), Eggplant (silk) and Regina (silk). It's becoming a habit with pieces from The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery to make these substitutions - it just seems like they make pieces that are much easier to make substitutions for!

I did make a little bit of a start yesterday. It's not much, but it's a beginning!

Until next time!
~Katy

Winter Flowers Ornament - Completed!

Well, I got the last of my beads in the mail yesterday and finished up the beading for Winter Flowers Ornament last night! Yay!

Winter Flowers Ornament by Turquoise Graphics & Designs

Started: 1/9/13

Finished: 4/17/14

Stitched on 32-ct. off white linen

While I was waiting for the beads to arrive, I picked up American Flag Quilt Sampler by Rosewood Manor. I love this piece and have seen it on several blogs and was inspired to pick it up again. When I last worked on it, the piece looked like this:

And after working on it for a few days this week, this is where it stands now:

I'm going to keep working on this piece for the rest of the month and may continue it next month too. We'll see!

Until next time!
~Katy

Bad, Bad Blogger...

I've been such a bad blogger of late...not due to a lack of things to post about or a desire to post, but more a lack of energy! Of course, I'm saying that at 12:09 AM when I should be sound asleep in bed, but I'm wide awake...so time to get caught up!

I haven't been stitching every day, but I have been continuing with the March Madness theme this month (a full update on that to come on Friday, hopefully!), so I have lots of different pieces I've been working on!

Since my last update, I worked some more on the border for Christmas Countdown and went from this:

to this:

As of 3/9/13

Then I moved on to American Flag Quilt Sampler and went from this:

To this:

As of 3/12/13

Then it was on to Beauty and the Beast Falling in Love:

which grew to this:

As of 3/13/13

And then finally there is Celtic Christmas Ornament #4, which started here:

and ended here:

As of 3/14/13

Not a bad bit of stitching progress if I do say so myself! I've also discovered a new vendor on facebook who is making some really beautiful hand dyed floss for incredibly reasonable prices! I mean, look at all of these beauties!

Floss!

Really, this picture doesn't do these gorgeous threads justice! Do I have pieces for them right now? No, but I love having them for my stash! Head on over to Mo's Sale on facebook (you'll have to join a group) to see these colors and more!

I also late on posting my TUSAL this month, but here we go!

Last month:

This month:

Last month:

This month:

That's a lot of thread! I love seeing all of the colors build up bit by bit!

Whew, now that is a pretty extensive update! That's what I get for not blogging more regularly! Hopefully life will slow down a bit and I won't get this far behind again!

Until next time!
~Katy

Crazy January Challenge - American Flag Quilt Sampler

I have been so excited about starting this piece. I fell in love with American Flag Quilt Sampler by Rosewood Manor when I first saw it on Sarah's blog:

Hard to see, but the piece is beautiful!

And as I expected, it was an absolute joy to stitch today, I was sad to put it down!

Progress as of 1/6/13

It's hard to tell in this picture, but I'm stitching this 2 over 2 on 28 count joblean in bone. This piece also has a lot of backstitching in each individual quilt square, so there is no way I'm leaving that until the very end! It's set up to make it relatively easy to do the stitching on each piece as you do it, which I like. The states will be stitched in the order in which they entered the union, so Delaware is first!

My intention is to give this to my father when it's done, as he works for the government and is a very patriotic man. Who knows when that will be, but this piece, at least, does have an intended home!

Back to the work week tomorrow...boo hiss! Work always interferes with stitchy time!

Until next time!
~Katy

Brrrrrr...

Cooler weather is definitely here in Texas! A cold front came through last night and I was actually chilly when I got up this morning! I'm not a huge fan of the cold, I'm a Texas girl born and raised so I'm used to heat, but it definitely means fall is here when the temperature falls!

Luckily, I'll be able to warm up more working on Flames of Desire for one more day! I worked on it a bit last night after Girl Scouts but was too tired to post. Here's the progress I made last night:

As of 10/5/12

Today is the last day of Flames for this rotation. I told my husband that I don't want to go anywhere today - after weeks of constantly going and not relaxing, I want a day at home where I don't have to worry about going anywhere or doing anything. I plan on using that to the fullest to work more on Flames today and hopefully try to get the moon and the tendrils on this page done before I put it away for now.

Oh, I did get some more stitchy goodness in the mail yesterday!

Goodies!

The goodies included some fabric I was going to use for a project but am not now so it's just going to my statsh, the rest of the threads for my teacup and Halloween pieces and an awesome pattern called the American Flag Quilt Sampler by Rosewood Manor. I saw Sarah from Sarah in Stitches working on this pattern and just loved it, so I had to get it too! It will probably be my 4th of July start next year if I don't get started on it sooner!

I did spend some time yesterday putting my new thread into bobbins...it's the part of this hobby that I like the least, but it's one of those necessary evils. I haven't even touched the thread for my next two HAED's yet...but since I'm just waiting for the fabric to arrive to work on these two pieces, I wanted to go ahead and be prepared!

Pretty Threads!

So now all of my pretty threads for Flames of Desire, May Lily of the Valley Teacup and My Witches' Brew are wound up on bobbins, organized and ready for use! Yay!

Off to spend this cool, grey day relaxing with my needle and thread! See you tonight with the last update for Flames of Desire!

Until then!
~Katy