Between Christmas and New Year's Day

We've been busy around here -- shock! shock! My son and his family arrived Sunday (21st). With two boys, aged 3 & 6, it's been fun and very active. We had our Christmas turkey dinner the day they arrived and exchanged gifts on Tuesday morning. Jacob (3) got a couple of styrofoam (?) airplanes which gave us great joy throwing them about in the backyard. The weather was perfect -- sunny, 60s with a light breeze. That fun ended when we discovered the neighbor's rocks and we could throw them into the pond out back! Why do boys always NEED to throw things into water??!! Lol! Anyway the family packed it up on Wednesday (24th) and headed to the other grandparent's house. We'll see the group again tomorrow, the 28th, before they head back to Maryland on the 30th.

In the meantime, we've got a family funeral to attend today. Hubby's great-niece's 17-year-old son passed away from an epileptic seizure recently. We'll drive on down today to express condolences. So sad and especially so during to the holidays.

So have you been enjoying the month of December? We started the month with extremely cold temperatures which flipped last week with unbelievably mild temperatures. We're about to get cold-snapped this upcoming week so I hope to get behind my sewing machine a bit. I've got Christmas gifts to finish sewing! ACK!!! And a couple of flannel blankets to put a crocheted edging around. Sounds like a good project for watching all the upcoming football games!

As I'm sure you've noticed, there hasn't been a lot of time for sewing or blogging for me recently. There's lots to  do with doctor appointments and things to get straightened out for selling Mom's house. However, I have made sure that I've gotten in a little handwork most everyday. That's the beauty of cross-stitch & embroidery -- pick it up and go! Time's up? Shove it aside. Hahaha!

Here's my cross-stitch project -- Scarlett. I took a picture last week of where I was. Today I discovered I never even shared it. DOH! So here's my progress in four steps for your enjoyment -- whatever!

November 8th

November 20th

December 19th

Today, December 27

She's definitely coming along, slowly but surely. I feel like I'm in the final stretch anyway.

Since I also mentioned embroidery, during Mom's weekly standing Friday hair appointments and bi-weekly PT appointments, I've been working on Primitive Gatherings Snowman Gatherings panel. You really can't see it but the top half is done and I've only got from about the waist on down. I hope to piece the outer borders this winter/spring. I've got the pattern and the layer cake for it.

That's about it from here. Take some time to enjoy the stillness of Winter here in the Northern Hemisphere or enjoy swimming & boating if you live in the Southern Hemisphere. Wishing eveyone a moment of reflection as we approach 2026.

Not Much Purple But I Have a Finish!

Hip! Hip! Hooray! I have a finish! Miss Jane's Best is done.

I took it outside for some beauty shots.

So pretty!

A glimpse of the back.
I love the fabric from my stash!
OOPS! Not signed!

Quickly corrected!

The little embroidery blocks measure 2-1/2" finished. They're tiny! I worked on these during Mom's PT, podiatrist, and hair appointments. I could have had this finished if Mom wasn't in such good physical shape! Lol! She doesn't have many doctor appointments. She's a wonder Woman! 92 years young and still going strong! Hahaha!

I took some close-ups of the embroidery. It really was fun to stitch.

Purple flowers!

More purple flowers

And more purple flowers!

A couple more snuck in here too!

The kit was all inclusive to make the top & binding. The cornerstones were supposed to be white like the embroidery blocks but, not realizing that, I accidentally chucked the scraps after cutting out my flower blocks. I'm so glad I did because I found that sweet 30's print in my stash and I thnk it worked better than perfectly! (Can that even be? Lol!)

As for true RSC purple month, I collected these fabrics for the GemTones this month. 

Lights, Mediums, & Darks for Two Blocks

I am a bit behind on these. I never did the Green RSC or the Orange RSC blocks!!! Thursday morning I cut out two sets of green before anyone else was up. Have to do things when the opportunity presents!

So that's it from around here. Hope you're having a great weekend. We're still unbelievably hot & humid in these neck of the woods. Ugh!

I think I'll try to catch up at Angela's Rainbow Scrap Challenge post HERE. You should join me!

June Orange Coming to a Close

Time to start winding down RSC Orange for 2025. I did manage to get caught up on my LQS Mystery Quilt. Here's a peek at my Project Box. Oops! No orange ...

I finished the last two hexies for the Fishy Hexi project. Here's my layout. I think I've figured out how to fill it in. What a momentary nightmare trying to work with the fabrics I'd already bought and not having to buy more. Lol!

I'm also caught up on the A Quilting Life's BOM. I'm choosing to make the table runner size rather than the bed quilt size. Shocked, aren't you? Here is the final addition, RSC May's green block.

And here are all six blocks together.

Aunt Jane's Best moved forward this week also. The last of the blocks was embroidered and the fill-ins sewn up. I used my Caterpillar Glow lightbox to cut out the 3" embroidered blocks. I love this lightbox! Lightweight & portable plus one can rotary cut right on top with the mat!

Here's my scrappy layout.

Did you know I finished "Winter Garden" by Kristin Hannah? What a fabulously written book. I love her style, love her verbiage, love her stories. This one had some difficult passages to read as I had been warned by friends. I don't usually cry while reading books, but let's just say that a few tears were shed while reading this one.

My current read is definitely a lot lighter, "A Map to Paradise" by Susan Meissner.

GoodReads synopsis HERE

I also checked out from my library "Today Loves Food". It contains favorite recipes contributed by the staff and guests from The Today Show. The family recently enjoyed Siri Daly's Pull-Apart Monte Cristo Sliders and Jet Gila's Beef & Broccoli Lo Mein. Both of these recipes were easy and delicious. If you can get your hands on this cookbook, I'd recomment it.

Mom had a cookbook that I retrieved from her house called "Great Food Fast". Catchy title, huh? This week brought Indian-Spiced Chicken Burgers. They were served in pita pockets and the cucumber slices with the cumin yogurt sauce put them over the top! Yum! Yum! Enjoyed by all.

On my own, since I had pita pockets left over, I made a shrimp salad which were stuffed in the pitas along with some lettuce & Arkansas tomatoes. OMG! Another delicious dinner at the Hoover House!

I enjoyed the Shrimp Salad Stuffed Pitas
with Radish Slices and Chips

And that concludes my post for the week. How was your week?

Today I'm sewing with friends. I'll be working on the hexies and also taking an applique UFO (UnFinished Object). I would love to get this one finished up!

Please feel free to peek in on the other Rainbow Scrap Challenge participants. This is the last Saturday of June so there should be a lot of eye-candy being shared! Thanks to Angela for rounding us up each week at SuperScrappy.

This Week's Progress & FNwF

Sadly I really didn't make much progress this week for Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I did pull my RSC 2025 Tracking Sheet out and discovered that I need to make the May Green Gemstone blocks and now also the June Orange Gemstone blocks. That means there needs to be some green/orange sewing happening soon! I'll sort my colors and start cutting for those.

According to my sheet, I'm behind on A Quilty Life's SAL too. Those are small-ish 6" blocks so I should be able to pull that off easily as well. I didn't realize how far behind I'd gotten until I looked at my sheet. Thank you, Angela, for keeping us organized. You can find the RSC 2025 Tracking Sheet and all the colors so far this year right HERE.

As if that weren't enough, I discovered that I was also behind on the MQAL which my LQS is offering. I was happily making stars and apparently had only cut out point segments for half. Here is my stack of points for the other 20.

That's 80 Background Rectangles &
160 Scrappy Yellow Squares

I'm just about finished with the embroidery of Aunt Jane's Best. Only part of one leaf left to go. With the end in sight, I decided to starch up the cotton pieces in the kit so I can maybe -- just maybe -- finish this up this month?

The Bottom Right Floral was Finished
During Mom's Friday Hair Appt.
The Orange Flowes & Centers for RSC Win!

Bottom Left Needs That Last Leaf Done

 
Progress was also made on the Georgian Floral cross-stitch project. It's been with me during all the Roland Garros Tennis Tournament TV-watching. As you can see, I made a good dent in it this week! So happy that Coco Gauff won the Women's Singles Final this morning. ❤️

Photo From Last Week

Look How Far I Got!

I've continued to read when I can, especially before bed. My recent finish was "The Waiting" by Michael Connelly. He's a great author and this book was very good too. I recently put my name on the list for Connelly's newest book that just came out this year.

GoodReads Synopsis HERE

In the meantime, my library notified me that I had another book waiting. I've been anxious to read this one, "Winter Garden" by Kristin Hannah. She's a wonderful author and, 50 pages in, I'm enjoying it so far.

GoodReads Synopsis HERE

Last Saturday we enjoyed a picnic 50th birthday party with our niece. The cake was wonderful but the company was even better. What a great day!

Birthday Girl Blowing Out the Candles

My Piece of Cake -- YUMMY!

Our Gang with the Birthday Girl
(Mom, Me, Tanya, & Fred)

That's enough from me for now. We're off to the races -- watching the Belmont Stakes on TV, that is. Have a great weekend.

Linking up with Cheryll for FNwF and Angela for RSC. Check it all out on the links!

On the Brink of June

Well, May certainly dissolved into "Huh?" Being gone for a couple of weeks certainly made it challenging to get much sewing accomplished. All the prep work of going away plus helping Mom get ready along with her weekly appointments ate up the majority of this month. I did manage a bit of sewing at the beginning of the month which I'll share. Also, there was a bit of hetel and car-riding time to manage some handwork.

In Janauary I took a class with Tina Craig through The Applique Society. She is known for her Wonder Window technique for English Paper Piecing. It was a great class so I decided to go ahead and make the bigger project. Instead of a mug rug/candle mat with one block, I went with the table runner making three blocks. Also, RSC friends, please notice all the green!

Tina Craig Workshop
Wonder Window EPP Table Runner

Close-up of One Block & Backing
Love the Green Grunge Binding!

My First Block
Kitties All Around

2nd Block with Doggy in the Middle
Leafy Triangles are Fussy-Cut Too!

3rd Block - Kitty in the Middle
Dogs All Around
(Ran Out of Dogs to Fussy-Cut. Rats!)

On to some handwork now. Recently I started cross-stitching Georgian Floral Basket. I've made some progress but this one is tedious. The pattern by JBW is postcard-sized and tiny. There's also a lot of counting involved with this one. I'm looking forward to finishing this one up because it so pretty though.

Progress Earlier

Progress To Date

While waiting during Mom's PT, hair, and podiatrist appointments this month, I've stayed steady embroidering Miss Jane's Best (pattern by Lori Smith).

Last of the Flowers Coming Along

My mornings start quite a bit earlier than Fred's & Mom's. When we're on the road, you can find me in the hotel lobby, drinking coffee and sewing. I had started this one a while ago and recently pulled it out and started making some headway.

Keeping Organized with My 4-Pocket Case

Green Hexie Block

Whoa! Another Green Hexi!

More Hexies Completed

I'm not real sure where I'm going with this one. Just enjoying the ride. The hexies are large, I'm using 1.25" hexies. If you look back at the picture with the organizer, you will see the turquoise hexies that I've prepped for connecting these all together. I'd like another green or yellow block to round out this set before I decide what's next.

When we got home, I started cutting for this month's clue to the Mystery QAL I'm participating in at my LQS. No pictures, just cutting. No sewing, just cutting. Ugh!

That's it for me this month. I see Angela has decided that orange will be the color for June. I'm ready for some sewing to happen around here next month. I'm thinking of a Halloween kit that I bought a couple of years ago that I've been wanting to start. I'm such a good starter -- need to work on being a finisher! Lol!

Linking up with Angela at SoScrappy.

Rainbow Scrap Challenge Turned into FNwF

This is my first RSC post in quite a while. We had a lot of company the middle two weeks of September followed by our week-long trip at the end of September. Not much time to read or post blogs. Hopefully things will be settling down for a bit again.

While on the All-Illinois Shop Hop I picked up a scarecrow pattern to embroider. It is called My Fall Guy. I'm not going to show you a picture of the pattern because it is not a good picture. Why do pattern designers typically have the worst pictures on the covers of their patterns???? Anyway, I saw it done at a quilt shop and decided it would be a good project for on the road. Plus it's pretty dark so fits in with the RSC scheme of things.

He's a Long Fellow

Last night I worked on the leaves and the Xs at the bottom.

I started the Xs at the top also.

I managed this while watching the season opener to Survivor. Besides falling behind on my sewing, I'm also behind on the new shows for 2024! Lol!

I hope you have a great weekend. We have lovely weather here which I hope to enjoy myself!

Linking up with Angela at SoScrappy.