PillowVision (Pic heavy!)

So I've had visions of pillows in my head.....

Remember the stars? and the red ticking stripe? I picked up some saturated red cording trim...


Ready for assembly!!

I've had a very very longstanding vision of a couple other pillows. I picked these fruit needlepoint canvases up on Ebay a very very very long time ago for $7.99....


Only the fruits were stitched, so I got some black wool and stitched the backgrounds. And then they went on the blocking board. Where they hung. and hung. and hung. for years. YEARS! I had a vision...of a lovely tapestry fabric...dripping trims...and two lovely pillows. And yet..the needlepoint remained hanging on the blocking board.

Enter girls junkin' day with my friend, blogless Kimm. We went to one of our favorite haunts and I kept being drawn to this.


A pillow cover. .99 cents. The color was wonderful...and it had fruit all over it...lovely. I left it hanging. We were getting ready to leave and it caught my eye again. Kimm asked if I would put a pillow form in it or what (because we like to bounce ideas off of each other before purchasing things). I said I really liked the colors...and that I could CUT IT UP! And use it to frame out my fruit NEEDLEPOINTS! She concurred that for .99 cents...it was a good purchase regardless of if it worked for the needlepoints. It was a buck. So I bought it.

And it worked!!!

I picked up interfacing, drippy fringe...


and today...I got busy!


I was giddy as I was framing these out.


The pillow cover fabric is PERFECT!!!


I wanted a more elaborate trim treatment..so I coupled the green chenille fringe with the saturated red cording. A little tricky sewing...


but it all worked out!


I love them!


I took an old flattened down bed pillow and sewed two parallel seams. Then I cup up the center and had to squishy pillow forms! Perfect! Because I really like squishy pillows!


I took another down bed pillow and used it as the pillow form for the stars & stripes pillow!


I just did the simple red cording on this one. I love it!!

I did the overlap back treatment on all of these so they can be easily laundered. The dogs, ya know.


Of course certain house inhabitants felt the need to suggest that perhaps the fruit pillows do not 'match' with the stars & stripes pillow. PSHAW! They all have the same red neutral! They're FINE, I say!

And just in time for the Independence Day holiday, and the rest of summer!


I think they all say 'casual'....and anyway...my intent was not for them to all be arranged TOGETHER on the same sofa...but heck..I think they work anyway.

PillowVision is complete!

NEEEEEXT!!!!!!

*Peace!

Another Day...Another Checkmark!

Another item marked off my to-do-while-on-vacation list!!!

My round robin assignment is complete for this round! And let me tell you...this quilt is stunning! Of course I know I've been saying that about all of them. They're all great!

This one started out with an absolutely gorgeous Blackbird Designs block....


Goooorgeous!!!!

And I added some of these...


I wish I could show you what went on in between, but I can't...not yet. But I promise when we all get our quilts back later this fall, I'll have a quilt show post!

Hmmmmm...I wonder what they're doing to mine????

I'm planning to finish up some pillows.....tomorrow.


These will be used. And I have a couple vintage fruit needlepoints that I'm going to finish in to pillows. Need to get some drippy trims tomorrow for those. Maybe just a twisted cording for the stars & stripes....not sure yet!

Sure is fun marking things off that list!

Tonight...I stitch!!

Happy Sunday!

*Peace!

Ten Days!

I am officially on vacation!! No office...no alarms....no deadlines....for ten whole days. To say I'm happy about this would be an understatement!

And I've got big plans...lots of things to occupy my time!

I'm hoping to get lots done!!

Tonight I did this...


and can now check one thing off of my imaginary to-do-while-on-vacation list!


William Morris quilt bound! Done!

Yeppers...lots of plans for projects to be started and finished over the next ten days!

And of course there will be some baby-holding in there too...


The hubs is completely enamored with the little bundle of joy. She's just so sweet, petite...a sweet little blessing!

Ten whole days off....

*Peace!

Thrifty Thursday!

If you've read prior posts, then you know my week's been pretty full with little Avery's arrival, but I did stop off at G'Willy's yesterday after work (before heading up for another baby holding session!), and I found a couple things!


$5.00 big apple cookie jar! Love it! Can't really see it in the pic, but the coloring and shading is AWESOME and it shows a little age. Marked 'Made in Portugal', I'm excited to put it up with the other colorful fruit pitchers, cookie jars and roosters!

And then for two bucks I picked up the kind of dominoes I'm allowed to continue to collect for now (self-imposed wooden dominoes moratorium).

Sorry for the poor picture lighting! My usual camera isn't where I keep it (hmmmm....new baby in the family...missing camera...) so I used my other camera that I haven't used much (translation: don't know much about the settings etc yet but need to learn!). But I hope you get the gist of the purchases!

Did you get out and about and come home with any finds this week??

*Peace!

A Face with the Name

I had lunch with Avery Mae today...

She's very good company!

*Peace!

Avery Mae

Born 6/23 @ 1:10AM!!!
6 lbs 7 oz
19 1/2 inches long

LONG day but oh my GOSH she is darling! Pics to come!!!

Monday and More Finishes

Have I mentioned lately how much I love having Mondays off? I am really starting to relax and enjoy these three day weekends. It has taken a while...I was so used to being all worked up on Sundays knowing the office loomed the very next day...but not any more! I can completely slack off on Sundays and still feel relaxed when Sunday evening rolls around!

Yesterday I spent my Sunday evening (after really slacking off through the day) down in the sewing room/studio/quilt den aka the basement. I had some butt ends of French General toweling rolls to tend to.


Super simple finishing of the ends...


and walaaaah!


Lots of new dish towels...of the French variety!


If you get the chance to pick up any of the French General toweling...I would recommend it. The towels are great! As I mentioned...these were made from the butt end of the rolls I had for sale. Which means I don't have any more of these colors available. I do have one roll that just came in...it's the natural color with the blue stripes. I can't wait to have a butt end of that roll to tend to!

This morning, I decided to tackle some of the hand work that IS quilt binding that is building up.


I finished this one....made from a few charm packs of Nest by Tula Pink...makes you wanna say "Marsha Marsha Marsha" doesn't it? Uber 70s! Love it!!


and I love the back just as much, if not a little more! It's a Heather Bailey print that I just fell in love with!

I also got the binding all done on this great Jo Morton quilt too.


Quite the opposite end of the quilt spectrum than the 70s Nest quilt...but my heart sings when I work with reproduction fabrics in this vein!


I would definitely say I have way more civil war style fabrics and quilts around the house than any other.


And the backing on this one....I chose the Blackbird Designs sampler backing! Combining two of my favorite things. Samplers and quilts!

It was a very productive three days this weekend! I've got four more quilts that need the binding handwork done....I've got 20 blocks to sew for the round robin quilt that's due in July...and I've got a quilt that is crying out for scallops to be measured and cut, along with binding. After those things are taken care of....there will not be anything else crying out "Finish Me!" when I go downstairs! I'm excited to get things done...so I can create MORE things that need finishing!

It's neverending....but that's okay!

*Peace!

and an EARLY Sunday morning finish too!

Yes! It's true! We have GGS completion!

Tails have been buried...


I stopped it at about 50" square.


A perfect size for a lap warmer while I'm stitching and knitting.


And I think it's a nice size to cover up a sleeping baby too! ;o)


Yessirreeee...the Cascade 220 stash has been condensed CONSIDERABLY! YAY!!!

Time to tidy up around the living room and call it a night!

*Peace!

A Saturday Finish

Hope you're having a grand Saturday! I enjoyed a leisurely morning....then decided I would just run the vacuum....and tidy up a bit. And three hours later....ahem....I was done cleaning out and reorganizing the corner by my stitching chair, sorted thru numerous magazines, organized a huge pile of books..AND I did, indeed, run the vacuum!

After running a few errands and enjoying the gorgeous day...I did go downstairs to the quilt den to finish up the Grandma's Album quilt that has been laying down on the floor this past week.


This is not my normal palette.


But I do like it. It's not 30s....


I think it has more of a cheery 40s or 50s vibe to it!


and it's done and ready for quilting. Not sure if I'll do some straight line quilting on my Bernina, or ship this off to the longarm quilter. But...it goes in the 'done' quilt top pile!

The rest of the evening I plan to work on the GGS afghan. I see an end in sight on that...and none too soon for me, as I'm kind of getting my 'fill' of crochet. At least for a while. I want to get it done and move on the knitting and stitching! And of course I'll be planning another quilt or two in my head!

Enjoy the rest of your Saturday and thanks so much for stopping by!

*Peace!

Thrifty Thursday!

Good morning and happy Thursday!!! I hope you're week is going along swell! Mine is..but I can tell you, as always, I am more than ready for another weekend!

Last evening after work, I stopped off at G'Willy's and brought home some great little finds and spent less than five bucks! Every single item I'm going to show you was 75 cents each! Gotta love that!

First up...


Weird little container huh? Kind of icky now that I actually READ the label! LOL But it caught my eye. Or I should say what was IN it caught my eye...


some wonderful marbles to add to my marble canister!! These are great! Glad I didn't get hung up on that container label!

And then the ironstone started jumping out and waving at me...


and they brought friends along...


and so I have some new pieces.

I also got another nice canister jar for the sewing room...


You can see it in the back there. One of these days when I get the quilt den spiffed up, I'll take pics and you'll see the canister jars in action. I'm getting quite the collection of this specific style. Same lids on all of them. So 70s....so me!

Did you find any fun things this week?

*Peace!

Tuesday Already?

Where did that long weekend go anyway?? It was a rainy one, I remember that. And I kind of felt like a slug, I remember that. But where did those 72 hours go?

I did watch some Cascade 220 cakes collapse even more...


which means there was quite a bit of progress on the GGS.


I'm going to go until the current cakes are gone and then decide whether to continue on in similar colors or call it good. We'll see how bit it ends up I suppose! But I do enjoy working with all that color!

I also got 35 quilt blocks put together and laid out on my design floor...HA! Laid out on the FLOOR...I need to clear a wall and get a design wall up, but for now..the floor works.


I'm leaning toward using that Denyse Schmidt bias plaid on this one for the border. Mainly because I have another quilt I want to make that has a piano key border. Of course the quilt has laid in that state since Sunday. And it remains in that state this morning.

I wish I had another day off...but..back to the grindstone. I'm sure Ellie Mae the Fat Cat (who's not so fat anymore) will have fun tearing thru the sewing room messing up the blocks.

I hope you have fun tearing thru your Tuesday!!

*Peace!

A Summer Kitchen In Italy?

Don't I wish! Nope...instead I'm coming to your from a 50s Ranch Kitchen in South Dakota.

But it sure smells like Italy...mmmmmmmm...can you smell that?

A couple pints of grape tomatoes....several heads of garlic...


drizzle with olive oil, kosher salt and fresh cracked pepper...and roast. The ranch is filled with a heavenly smell! LOVE it!!

I looked out the window this morning and noticed my basil is thriving...as in REALLY REALLY growing.


So I thought I'd roast some tomatoes and garlic. Yummy chewy roasted tomatoes...fresh basil...roasted garlic...tossed with some angel hair pasta and a little olive oil. That will be on the menu at some point this weekend!

I'm also going to be adding some of those roasted chewy red treats to this..


along with some button mushrooms, bottled Italian dressing...and some feta cheese. One of my fav' pasta salads to keep on hand!

That's what I'm up to this afternoon. I may venture downstairs for some more sewing....and we're also on 'oh-my-gosh-that-first-grandbaby-could-come-at-any-moment' watch. Amber was dilated to a one on Thursday...and I stopped over today to visit and she was feeling 'crampy' and had a backache. Yeppers.....little baby girl will be here soon!

What are you up to today?

*Peace!