April - It Came and Went

 Still reading many books each month and this month besides taking care of some remaining items from Mom's life, many seasonal chores, the athletics for the grand children, and the WIPs I wanted to complete I was again really busy.  A quick recap follows.

Books read since I last shared:

Mom's stuff: though she gave away most all there are some sentimental items I received and another quilt (the Solids in Spiral) I brought to my Long arm quilter just last week.  Still need to attend to much of it as I am mourning and somewhat growing and getting away from my "life's feeling of overwhelm".  Thankfully, I keep telling myself    I don't procrastinate   , that alone is helping.  

Seasonal Items:  Besides the winter blow down, raking the yard and lawns, blowing the landscape around the home, cleaning out the gutters (PHEW! that alone took 2 days), deadheading and pruning shrubs and the flowers , fertilizing the fruit trees and evergreens I managed to get it all done.  Happy and glad I obtained nearly 141 miles walked as I went about it. Another WIN.

Disregard that wheel barrow full of fire logs back near the gate, while going for a hike at a favorite spot of mine, the Power Company had cut down sections of trees in their way, thus leaving a mess.  I helped them  out and brought home some useable awkward sections for my fire pit enjoyment.  lol  

The gutters needed replacing so while still on target I inquired with the Leaf Guard company.  Their quote made me stagger.  I kid you not, so I opted to go to the same company that installed the earlier out of date system 25 + years ago and was happy with both the result and price.  Two areas of concern were the black ice build up near my front and side door entrances.  It seemed to always drip from the seams or over flow them causing icicles and more drips.  Of course sure enough those areas would  freeze in those most critical areas.  I'm assured those days are done with.  

The other area are the 2 downspouts.  The one newly installed near the front door I want to landscape into its environment and this is how it currently looks in the above photo. 

Not Pretty.  ;-(  

Initially they laid that 4" PVC pipe just next to the paver bricks.  NOPE! What an EYESORE for the first impression of my home.  

So I asked them to angle it backwards into the rock area not the patio so it would not be able to pool there on the step area.

 The other downspout is my access point to the hose manifold area so I asked if they could use the 4" PVC pipe for sturdiness and I'd purchase landscape blocks to elevate a bricked patio step for use.  

They tried and here it is to the left.  

They used a cut piece of pine bough timber to support the patio bricks that had been thrown in there initially and temporarily.  They tried to make it nice while workable.  I see when taking the pic that the alignment and the pitch is off now, so more potential problems down the road....   A for effort anyways.  As they mentioned, they don't dig.  lol

So both of those tasks move onto my May chores.  

The two youngest Grands:  

The youngest grands are both enjoying their sports and doing well scholastically.

PGS#3 pictured on the left is an 8th grader, high honor roll student who also happens to be on the Varsity Hockey team.  A once in a lifetime chance occurred for him this Spring at the end of the Hockey season that I haven't yet shared.  His team made it to the NYS Final Four Competition.  Fanfare upon their departure to Buffalo, NY for the weekend to practice and then compete.   I'll do a separate post for that.  

He's close to 5'10" here and he's solid with a-lot of muscle.   Awhile ago as he was going through a rapid growth spirt (about an inch every 6 months), I asked him if he hurt.  He'd inquire...What?  I'd reply growing so quickly with one part not quite corresponding to the next part's growth?  "NO"  was his reply and I think he assumed I was cracked!  lol   Soon after I asked him what his goal was since I've always maintained that we manifest our destiny and futures dependent on our life choices, and then again he looked at me like, WHAT?  I clarified, "How tall are you going to be? What's your desire?"   Being a teen, he didn't care of course.   LOL  

This past week,  PGS#3 stole the winning run on an err when they tried to throw him out on 3rd.  Game Over.

🎤mic drop.

PGD#1 Was noted as "Player of the Game" with the win 2 weeks ago for her softball team.   All in all, great times to watch especially as she'll graduate in June and has committed to Oneonta for the fall- pursuing her dream in the Medical field.  I'll share one of her Senior Pictures below with some of her talents, not too shabby for an High Honor Roll Student!  Truly, during her photo shoot she had over 50 pictures taken and not 1 shot was off.  She is beautiful and very photogenic.

I'm proud of all my grandchildren and children too for that matter.  Good Peeps - all around.

WIPS:  Managed to get my Spool quilt center top assembled (believe that was done in March) but there she sits.  Am auditioning border treatments and made a couple of purchases to continue but my creativity breaks slam down hard and I know it just isn't quite right.  So I'm percolating that project.   

Did complete a Needlebook for one of my stitching bags.  Included a corded lobster claw loop to help stuff stay inside if needed and also placed a magnet under the applique on the batting page as a just in case and then don't you know I had a bugger of a time getting that snap adhered correctly.  Third time was the charm truly.  Sewed the binding by machine and then  hand stitched the interior side to close it.   

I cross stitched a piece from Melisa of Pinker n Punker Quilting that she gives out often and are so nice.  

I used her "HIVE in a Jar" but refrained from using the jar effect. I also created 2 smaller designs.   Another hive (due to an error in counting I went with it and made it up as I went designing my own nine patch crosses on it) and for the flower part I duplicated it close enough to Melisa's design on the larger piece, but added stitches and bees to fill it in more for the backside of the scissor fob.  Luckily, I've been able to slowly immerse myself from following the directions entirely and make these stitchings uniquely my own.

Am planning on making another needle book with that larger stitched piece and the 2 smaller parts a fob to complement them.  Then of course I plan on making another project bag with BEE stuff with the same fabrics.   lol   Wish me luck!

Sorry, so much for a quick recap. But that just seems to be the norm around here.  lol

TTFN

May and June have gone by....July's hopes

PGD#1 ready for her semi formal, June 2019 

Again, I've been super busy and tending to all my priorities, nothing major just the house, yard, gardens, and traveling and regretfully for me my sewing tasks have slid . farther .  aside. : ~ (


The only grand daughter had her semi-formal eighth grade dance so all the females in the family spent the day together getting her ready for it. 




Lunch out at her choice- Arnies in Plattsburgh, pedicures and manicure at A Plus nails and then the hair dresser arranged to do her hair on her day off, thanks Michelle!  It was an enjoyable day and she looked really nice.  She actually agreed to wear a couple of my bracelets for accessories which she kindly returned. 

The back side of her semi up do

Since the camera was out to document this milestone, I had her brother and their dog jump in for photos.

PGS#3 with their 3 year old dog, Scout.

lil miss talking to her brother

And just so you know we are totally normal some "real shots too"!  They get along great and then like oil  and vinegar, typical siblings.  One would smile and the other would act up and vise versa.

He's not into getting pics taken, it's too hot!

On another post I'll share about my trip to Florida to visit with my Mom and sister.  It was such a nice visit and I enjoyed my time with them thoroughly while getting some much needed warmer weather and some sunshine.  So back home for a couple days and then back to Boston for DH's 1 year post heart transplant check up.  Thankfully all is going extremely well. 
Then came the end of school sessions with a BANG!  Concerts, National Junior Honor Society events and sporting events.   Both of the youngest grands played ball, (softball and baseball) with an assortments of 5-6 different teams, modified, city league, All star and both are on Traveling ball besides the town summer league.  SO many games and so many miles traveled while we supported their activities with our presence but phew!  We're glad many of them are now over,  just the traveling ball teams and the town team are left.  It's been so busy that we haven't yet opened the pool as we were gone, or when we were home the weather wasn't cooperating.

AS for projects I've been dawdling around with my needle roll that I started while in Florida while visiting Mom.  It's been great stitching it, but when I ran into the bees wings, I've done them twice so far and now have ripped them out twice as well.  Perhaps I'll play with my angelica fibers to see if that would be an improvement.   What's that?  theh third times the charm, crossing my fingers here. 
Here's it is in it's present state:

in progress Sue Spargo kit - needle roll, I've embroidered  stitches around the labels to coincide with the color of spools relevant to the different weight threads (3,5,8,12)  to help me stay organized down the line. 
FINGERS CROSSED
My plan is to use a straight pin to denote which needle I've pulled out to work on.  I may use different colored heads for counted cross stitch, needlepoint and wool work, TBD!

It's was a kit I purchased through Sue Spargo.com and I've changed out bits and stitches to suit me.  She had excellent instructions and designs slated for it, the problem is me, I can't seem to follow the main stream.  Yet I am having fun stitching it.    The de-winged bee closeup.

bee detail sans wings

Section showing some of the lupines and poppies.

So I'll post the needle roll as my July OPAM focus.





I'll end this post with a couple of photos of my garden.    It's been my  focus for May and June to get the gardens done.  Everything got in despite all the travels we've been on there just remains more weeds and now to finally open the pool this week.

The darkest colored lilacs next to the butterfly house were fabulous!

Just now the Missouri primroses and lilies are flowering. 

TTFN,
Jane

December 2018

December was smooth and it was nice to observe some "family time" and the traditions of the holiday, "couple time" and some "me time" as well.

Near the first of the month, my youngest grandson turned 10, (my favorite number btw!).
He and a friend who was too quick for me to catch on film were having fun popping the balloons by sitting on them.

Robbi won in this endeavor.  They are great friends.  They play Fort Nite on the X-box, Hockey, are in the same grade though not the same class this year at school and have been friends for years.







Then we were back in Boston for another heart biopsy, clinic check, echo, and blood work.

While there, we were able to see "How the Grinch Stole Christmas at the Wang Theatre, it was a fantastic show.  The props, music and story line so closely followed  the Suessical book and DH tolerated it well as he'll go to honor my enjoyment of these shows.

The following two pictures are some of the architectural details within the Wang theatre.

We had a nice dinner before going back to our hotel room at the Park Plaza with an enjoyable stroll along the street.

I actually was humming the "Silver Bells," Christmas Carol while strolling and just a hint of snow was falling.

It was Beautiful yet so.o.o.oo Cold.

Our stay at the Park Plaza was very nice and comfortable besides it was conveniently located.
They happened to have an in-scale  gingerbread House of the Plaza as part of their decor in the lobby.  You could walk around the whole gingerbread table for a full view of the establishment and the accessories finishing the scene were perfect and quite nice.
It was massive and Gorgeous!

Shortly after that, my Mother sent a package for her Great Grand son #3, my  PGS#3.
It wasn't for any special occasion like Christmas or Birthday it was just because she loves him and she wanted to make this quilt.  She made a label hinting at him flying to the planets in the future and when I saw it, thought they were flying pucks, so I'm calling it "triple play" not quite a hat trick yet, lol. 

He showed me his favorite block and then started dodging away from the camera.

While spending the night, we played games as is our usual but we spent time reminiscing by looking through my blog books of years gone by.

He loved hearing stories about what happened and the roles he played within those stories.
I let him know that I couldn't produce those stories and pictures if he kept hiding from my camera.
He graciously  thankfully stayed put and I as able to take the shots.  (Not sure how long this will last!)

This pic he reminds me of Mcauley Culkin when he did the Home Alone series,
another holiday tradition we l;ike to watch and make time for. 

Then Christmas came with all the usual flurry of the season.

Christmas concerts, church services, family gatherings all contributed to make it a wonderful Holiday season.

PGD#! plays trombone for the Christmas concert, she's the second one in.

PGS#3, is in the grey sweater for his class song presentation.








I found and made some time to sit by the fire and stitch while listening to Christmas music.  Heaven!  Started a new Cross stitch project after the holiday just befor eNew Years.













As for finished projects, there were a couple of successes in that domain-


The long time WIP of St. Patrick's Day a Patch-a-bilities design took me
F-O-R-E-V-E-R!

The rainbow I embroidered the old fashioned way, then started to play with shiva paint sticks for those coins and then Mod Podge for the white petals on the daisies so the background fabrics wouldn't' show through as I learned from Lara's book, Crafted Applique.

Then to make the daisy centers stand out better I did colonial knots, not a gazillion but probably around 35 or so until it was enough.  The next step I puttered around to make the gold piping which I used a roll of lace sold by Sue Spargo wrapped around the cording to "finish" it. 
Am so happy with the final results.







Another project that I started and actually finished in December was the needlepoint called "Liberty Stars" designed by Nancy's needles.
I  find the rhythm of the needle even in needlepoint is so enjoyable and with this design found it easy enough to do anywhere.  When company stops by I can pull a length of thread/yarn  as the pattern became quite evident to me.  With this one,  I'll wait to frame for a couple of months, perhaps get it framed later in the Spring.
Notice the Christmas themed reading glasses.



It was a very eventful year and I'm glad to see it behind me.
Things can only be up from now on.

Small successes

Trying to get into my sewing room more lately.  A successful impulse was this smaller project (it's been on my radar for a couple of years), the wonder clip pocket pincushion.   Here's a tutorial for another style that holds many more clips than mine.  I was able to pull some scraps out of my 1-1/2" squares for the nine-patched pocket and then cut the rest from other fabrics from the scrap stash.

It was done just in time to go to a quilting class on English Paper Piecing where I knew I'd need my wonder clips, aka: La Passacaglia offered in Saratoga Springs on September 13th.   What tiny pieces are used in "La Pass"! 

I managed to cut out 5 A pieces and only got two of them sewn together.  (Mom- This may end up being another decade project!, lol)

So far with 5 of the  A pieces:   TADA one nights worth of time.   I used oak tag paper to audition which part I'd use and also for placement when cutting out.  Worked pretty well.

This is the fabric used for that first star center.

The fabrics selected for it (so far), I am thinking it needs some more blacks, solid colors, some very light-lights,  and those "read-like-solids" prints besides of course some Tula Pink prints perhaps.

The assortment of fabrics (so far) for La Passacaglia. 
My theme fabric that touched my heart for this quilt is on the upper right
and the upper left is what I choose to make the first configuration of the 5 star center.

September's goal of finishing this wool piece  -  DONE!

Nesting Time, a Primitive Gatherings design was my portable/totable project and has come to an end.

I love and enjoyed stitching on this wool table mat "Nesting Time",  the good Lord knows that's what I like to do too!  lol   (Love my nest! btw)

With this project I continuously tried to expand my stitching repertoire.  I own two of Sue Spargo books which helped me with their excellent illustrations.
Also on this table mat is my first ever Colonial  knot.  Thanks to a yahoo group I belong to, Lisa Bongean had a video explaining this knot perfectly in the moon Garden SAL, Thanks Lisa!


Since I was out of the fusible that was large enough to attach the backing, DH and I took an hour ride to Joann's so I could obtain some.  Couldn't believe with all that I own, I didn't have any!







Also learning how to draw on a picture with editing (notice the blue arrow above), it's good to learn new things though I feel like I'm stumbling through and on wards  in getting it done or just happy accidents!

Got the fusible for backing it - Done,
Adhered it - Done,
Stitched the edge finish - Done!

I won't be labeling this one though, it's good enough as is.

DH and I are still working on the island garden, should be finished this week if the weather stops crying, and crying so hard too.  Another project that we want to get finished is to repaint the outside of the above ground pool, so even with the dampness wetness/condensation on the walls, we started prepping that area by scrubbing the walls and moving the stones away from the bottom.

Christian Science Chapel 

As for health, we are both doing great.  While DH was hospitalized at Tufts, his nurse, Audrey told us about a sight we should see whenever we could called the Mapporium at the Christian Science Center so during last month's transplant clinic and heart biopsy visit, we visited that site and the chapels that were on the premises.  The Site is absolutely gorgeous and a stunning creation representing a moment of time on this earth.  I believe the creation was finished in 1935 and since funding besides the many global changes that have occured since that time, geographically it has 'stayed at that moment of time'.  Mary Baker Eddy had vision and altruistic benevolence.  Just letting you know now, that if you have any secrets do NOT whisper them in the globe as all sounds are amplified.

Now a Miss Teenager and her younger brother - 2018

The youngest grands going off to school, 2018.
Going into fourth and eighth grades.  Another year of learning, fun and adventure besides reconnecting with their friends.


TTFN,

Jane

OMG January by the skin of my teeth!

One Monthly Goal for Janauary  just finished!

The Hungry Hungry Caterpillar pillow is completely done.   Yippee!!!!
Just 37 minutes left until the OMG deadline ET, how's that for pushing it to the edge since I started sewing on it this am after seeing the thread challenge sponsored by Kim  at Persimmon Dreams  knew how this one would fit the bill in several arenas I want to play in.

A panel was used for the front and I had a nice butterfly fabric in the stash to use for the backside with an older white on white fabric used for the lining fabrics.  The butterflies worked like a charm surrounding the poem copied onto fabric using the fusible computer printer fabric made by Tailor.   Worked like a charm.
In progress quilting playing with many threads.....

Using the blue Fine Point Mark B Gone Pen to draw in the flamed curves on the face of the sun before quilting helped me to stitch it.  Pay no mind though that I didn't follow it exactly, ah hum... I call that creative license!  VBG

Some more of the details showing the lining with a few of the stitched elements of it.....

I free motion quilted the rest as I saw fit and had fun while doing it.  The worst part was trying to follow that cobweb.  It had so many starts and stops to get that one stitched.  So I had many thread tails to bury when it was done, but now that it is, am glad I took the extra effort with it.  Was tempted to use a razzle-dazzle thread for that spider then decided not to make it too offensive since PGD#1 deoesn't care for them to begin with.

This project only me took four plus years to get done and it all started when PGD#1's teacher gave her the laminated poem when she left first grade.  That's when my WHIMM started then luckily found the panel several years ago so it turned it into a PIG at that time and then there- that -little -pig -sat.
PGD#3 loves the way the dragonfly is quilted with that glow in the dark lime thread.  Am happy about that!
This completion also strikes a ufo off my Q1 FAL challenge list for 2016, Yippee Skippee!

Thank you so much Heidi for this incentive to push this little PIG to the finish, Kim for challenging us beyond our normal and the incentives offered.  For your entertainment, check out finish up January check in blog post and see all the wondrous eye candy other quilters have managed to complete in January.
Another plus is that a little over a yard of fabric has been used!  Finally movement for the stash report in the using direction for next week.