Happy Easter everyone!

Sorry there has been so little going up on here lately.  My boss has made a new rule - if I work until 11pm, I am not allowed to work on the weekend.  I think that sums up how nuts things have been.

I will post the wine charms tutorial and progress on the quilt in the next few weeks and then I think I'm going to once a week posting.  No matter what my intentions, a few times a week does not seem to be happening.  Perhaps if I win the lottery and can quit my job someday...

Hope everyone hunted colored eggs and gorged on chocolate!
Anna

Space Invaders Quilt - Progress!

Hello Again, 

I have finally made some more progress on the Space Invaders quilt.  All that cutting of black fabric took forever!  I was really excited to move on and make some progress, so honestly I still have a whole bunch of cutting to do on the background. 

I have a small table, so I use a sheet on the ground to lay out the pieces.  I laid out the first few rows (there's a mistake here, but I fixed it).

Then I divided them up into pairs and pieced those together.  There were once pictures of those, but I had a memory card debacle and lost all the photos of the piecing process.  I had these very pretty chains of pieces, which I got all out of order when I cut them apart. Silly of me, huh?

I then had this mess to put back in order:

It wasn't hard, just a little annoying to sit down and figure out what should go where (annoying only because I had already done this part).  

See that missing top corner piece?  Casey is not a good quilting helper.  While I was sewing, he made off with one of the pieces and happily pulled out the seam for fun. (Weird dog.)

I was very please with myself about putting these all in order, so I went to grab a cup of coffee from the kitchen and Casey decided to help again.

He was very confused by my walking back in going "No, no no!!" and then thought he wasn't allowed to chew on his bone.  We had a minor crisis.  Note to self: make sure never to leave the room with quilt squares on the floor! (And poor Casey.)

Up next - a quick interim project I did one evening.

Till next time, 

A

Anne of Green Gables Cross Stitch #2

Hello Again, 

Last time, I started a cross stitch project and this time, I'll show you the final product and the intermediate stages.  Hooray for regular posting again!

When we stopped last time, I had just done the first night's stitching.  The next night, I had a bit of time to do some more and got the text almost finished.

Silly me, I didn't get a photo of just the finished text, but that's OK.  I had to wait a few days to get some time to work on the rest, but I did eventually get the leaves in. (In this pic, almost there!)

Then came the flowers in two shades of purple.  I think I did, in the end, pick well for the colors.

The last part was the vines and they always make the back look terrible on mine.  My mother always checks the back to see how neat I've been and laughs at me (kindly, of course)!

So the final product:

A closer shot of one of those lovely borders.  I wish I could remember which book I got these from! (If anyone knows them, please let me know, I would love to post the reference and be able to find similar ones in future.)

Isn't that lovely?  Now I just need to get a frame for it and stretch it.  No idea when I'll have time for that, but I'm planning a little embroidery gallery for my house, so I'll have to do it eventually.  I'm in the process of re-doing everything in my house and I think that will be a nice addition.

Till next time, 
A

Anne of Green Gables Cross Stitch #1

Hi Everyone, 

Sorry for the long delay. I've been running around like crazy, but I really have still been crafting.  I just haven't gotten anything up on here!  

Ages ago, I made a cross stitch pattern out of a friend's favorite quote and realized I wanted one for myself.  So a few weeks ago, I decided I would make myself one with different colored flowers and only got around to it recently.  

I again made the pattern in Excel, though I had to draw in the diagonal lines by hand once I had printed it.

As always, I cut the fabric 2" larger than the final size I wanted (in this case, 8x10).

Then I fold in quarters and mark the center with one of my sewing pencils.  I can wash it off just a damp paper towel if it's visible through the embroidery later. (These fabric pencils are one of my favorite things!)

For this one, color selection took forever.  I wanted the leaves about the same color as last time, but I wanted to do purple flowers.  Apparently, my inability to make small decisions conveys to picking colors for embroidery!

Finally, I could start stitching!

And yes, all of that took an entire evening.  Unbelievable how much time I can spend setting up just one project!

The final version will be in the next post.

Till next time, 
A