Let It Snow!

 Finished just in time for the 6 inches of snow we had here in NC last night.  I used a rusty snowflake charm (thank you Carol!) and some bits of ribbon and pom pom trim for the accents. 

Now I know 6 inches of snow isn't much for most of you but it is a big deal here in NC.  The hospital was closed today so I was able to have some fun with the animals in the snow. 

Needless to say, neither of them were amused!

Just In Time...

...for Valentine's Day!

What do you think?  I wanted to keep the finish simple and make it look more primitive.  I used Briwax to stain the little chalkboard and used the finishing technique suggested by Hands On Design.  I added a tiny piece of the velcro to the top of the chalkboard so I can fashion  different embellishments to suit each month's design.  For this one I used a mother of pearl heart, a pink seed bead, and a bit of Victorian Motto's hand dyed rick rack.  I really like it and have started stitching the January design.  Crossing my fingers and hoping my elbow continues to behave.

We took another quick trip to the beach as a family member was having surgery Monday.  The temperature was in the 70's - really strange for February here.  We took advantage of the beautiful weather and headed down to Kure Beach Pier to watch the sunrise.

This little guy didn't seem to mind sharing his perch with us!

I would like to wish you all a Happy Valentine's Day.  May you spend it with your loved ones doing something fabulous!

I Stitched!

Yessiree I did and I have my first finish of 2015.

Something about this series really appeals to me. I just love the look of chalkboards but they are so messy. This way I get the chalkboard but not the mess!

I have an idea for my finish using this little chalkboard I found at Wal-Mart. I think with a bit of Briwax and some ribbon it will be cute. I just hope it turns out like the picture in my head.

Stay tuned!

January!

How in the world is it the end of January already?  I have been trying to get a post together for this month since the 1st!  So much for that, right?  I just can't make myself sit down and spend much time on the computer lately. 

Not a lot has happened around here since I last posted.  We did take a day trip to the beach in December. 

Betty really enjoyed the water.  She was so funny...she kept trying to bite the waves and couldn't understand why they kept going away from her.

I did manage to do a little Christmas sewing.  I made several of these little birds and finished them as ornaments for gifts.

 I also made a few of these bells.

Most recently I finished this sofa size quilt for an auction for a local Boxer rescue group.  I am hoping it raises lots of money for the rescue.  There is a Boxer face quilted in one of the corner squares and paw prints in the others.

That just about catches me up for now.  I plan to post at least one update a month to try to ease myself back into blogging after having been gone so long.  

I also plan to get back to visiting your blogs...I miss you guys!  I do visit when I have a spare moment or two but haven't been very good at leaving comments. Shame on me.

I'll be back soon to show you my latest stitching.  I haven't been able to stitch as much because of my elbow but I did start something new.  :o)  Just when I think it has healed it flares up again and I have to stop using it until the pain subsides.   

I hope you all had a great start to 2015!  Thank you for continuing to visit even thought I have been absent for a while.  I really appreciate your comments and encouragement.

Knock Knock!

Anyone home?  Wow!  It has been over 3 months since I last posted on this here blog.  The dust here nearly took me out.  :o)


Not a lot has happened since we last met.  I developed a severe case of tennis elbow which has brought my stitching and sewing and computing to a screeching halt.  Several visits to the doctor and orthopedist and I am finally getting some relief.  It was to the point I couldn't even lift a glass of water.  I can do very little stitching even now but at least I can use the sewing machine.

 

I made a few more wonder wallets.  These will make nice little gifts.

I found a pump kit at Hobby Lobby and made a new soap dispenser for my bathroom.  I just love the new blue mason jars and find myself looking for things to make with them.

 

Betty continues to bring us much joy every day.  She still has issues with the cats along with some pretty severe seperation anxiety but we love her all the same.  Here she is preparing for Sunday football.

Of course Ziggy has to get in on the action. 

I also celebrated another birthday in September.  I received some lovely birthday presents but haven't taken the time to snap pictures of those.  Thank you again Carol, Chris, and Vera for making me feel special when I really needed a pick me up.

I am hoping to get my blogging mojo back soon.  For those of you who are still here....thank you!  I appreciate each and every one of you and really do miss our visits.  My life right now just isn't allowing much computer time but I will try my best not to be so scarce in blogland in the future.

Stitching!

Hello friends!  I finished stitching Mary's half of the Trexler sisters sampler.  I just love the quirky colors and simplicity of this piece.

In the garden we are seeing our first ripe cherry tomatoes.  I am anxious for the Big Boys to ripen so I can enjoy a tomato sandwich!

I have a few days off work so I am hoping to get a little sewing machine time in.  My sewing supervisor says I need to hop to it.

Thank you for visiting.  I hope you are having a wonderful week!

Hot!

Hello friends!  There is just one word to describe this past week around here....HOT!  It was in the 90's every single day last week.  Factor in my 50 hot flashes a day and I have been miserable.  I told my husband this may just be my last summer!  UGH!

Last Saturday our guild had a workshop conducted by Pam and Susan of Praiseworthy Stitches.  They were teaching us about 2 historic schoolgirl samplers from North Carolina.  This was my first workshop and I must say it was fantastic.  So well organized, fun and informative.  I chose to start stitching on the Trexler Sisters Sampler first.  It was stitched by what is believed to be 2 sisters - each sister stitched one half of the sampler and then the two halves were sewn together.

 

 Here is my meager start.

The garden is still going gangbusters.  The cherry tomato, cucumber, and peas have now reached the top of the 5 foot trellis.  I have been harvesting lettuce almost every other day but with the heat last week I think it is done.

I kept losing my yellow squash but with the help of  Dr. Google I was able to determine that they simply weren't being pollinated.  We just don't have an abundance of bees around here.  Did you know there are male and female blooms on a squash plant?  If a bee doesn't visit the male bloom and then deposit the pollen in the female bloom, the squash doesn't grow and just shrivels up.  So....I tuned in to a You Tube video about hand pollinating squash and I am hand pollinating my plants.  The 2 yellow squash I pollinated last Monday are now thriving.

Please be careful when using insecticides and such in your gardens.  I know I am going to be much more careful in the future.  In speaking with some other gardeners in the area they are having the same problem...no bees to pollinate their vegetables.

This week I harvested my first zucchini.  I am going to marinade it along with some yellow squash I purchased at the farmers market and grill it up today. 

 
I hope you are all enjoying your weekend and staying cool!  I think I'll go stick my head in the freezer for a while now.  :o)

No Stitching

Hello friends!  Still no stitching happening around here.  Between work, the garden, and Betty I have been staying busy, busy, busy.

I had my first harvest from the garden this week.  A few radishes (I should have left them a few more days) and a handful of lettuce.

As you can see everything is growing like crazy.  I counted 21 flowers on my marigolds.  I have a baby squash and a baby tomato now.  LOL  I am a proud mama!

I still had a few of the succulents left from my adventure to Lowe's.  I made a gnome home using an old rusty roasting pan that belonged to my mother.

And a post from me just wouldn't be complete without a picture of Betty.  Thank you all for stopping by and know that I really appreciate your comments and feedback.  Have a great week!

 

More Gardening

Hello!  I hope you all had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend.  I don't have any stitching to show because I have been spending most of my time outside.   After 3 weeks my little garden is really starting to grow.

I will be harvesting the radishes at the end of this week.  Now I have to decide what to replant in that square.

I was strolling through Lowe's this weekend and was caught up by their selection of succulents.  Of course a few had to come home with me.  I had lots of fun making little container gardens with them.
This one uses a bird's nest that had fallen from a tree.

 

I had a house shaped container for this one.

And this one is the one I had the most fun making.

I made the adirondack chair with popsicle sticks and a tutorial I found online.  I printed a cute pattern on photo paper and fashioned the umbrella with a bamboo skewer.  The little flip flops are buttons.

I found the printout for the sign online, made a fence using more popsicle sticks and painted a little tin bucket pink to match the flip flops.  I have enough plants to make one more garden and I am thinking it will be a fun one too... it might even have a gnome who lives there.  :o)

Betty was groomed this week.  Here she is sporting her pink bandanna.

And she wants to make sure you check out her hot pink nails!

Thank you for stopping by.  Have a great week!

Garden Update Week 2

My little garden has been growing for 2 weeks now and I can really tell a difference.  The Master Gardener and I headed out to take a picture.  :o)

As you can see, Betty is there to supervise my every move.  Radishes will be the first item to harvest and they are coming along quite nicely.  They only take a month to mature.  You can grow 16 in a square foot using this method.

Since I know some of you might have stopped by to see some stitching, I pulled out a few of my WIP's hoping to "shame" myself into putting in a few stitches.

 "Liberty" - Little House Needleworks

Prairie Schooler - One of the Santas

 

"Neighborhood Friends" - Little House Needleworks

There are a few more tucked away...I need to take pictures of those as well.  Somewhere along the way I went from stitching and finishing a single project before starting another to starting new projects with wild abandon, paying no attention to how many I might have in various states of completion.  

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and that you have an even better week ahead!

Hello!

I was thinking I should pop in for a quick post so you wouldn't think I had totally disappeared from the face of the earth.  I don't know what is wrong with me.  I have had lots going on but lost my blogging/stitching mojo somewhere.  Hopefully it will return soon.  I have been reading some blogs when time allows but have been terrible at leaving comments.  I do apologize as I find you all so inspirational and I enjoy seeing what you are doing.

The past couple of months have been spent battling a rezoning of the property next door to ours.  There were plans for a septic tank business to be constructed but I am happy to say all our hard work paid off and the rezoning was denied.  I learned quite a bit about our local government in the process but I am so glad that is behind me.  I am not much of a public speaker and having to give a presentation before both the Planning and Zoning Board and the County Commissioners was not fun.

Betty seems to have finally settled in and realizes that we aren't going to leave her.  She was quite a handful at first because she was so terrified of being left and followed me every step.  We are now taking obedience classes and I am hoping that will help with her relationship with the cats.

 When she is bored, she does destructive things.  Here she murdered her big red dog toy.  :o)

After thinking about it and deciding I wasn't going to plant a garden this year, I did.  LOL  I blame this website mysquarefootgarden .  This picture is right after planting.

And this is one week later.  I added a trellis for my tomatoes, cucumbers, and snap peas to climb and a couple of posts for my squash.  I am going to try to train the squash to grow vertically so they don't take up so much space in the garden

In one week I have had radish, lettuce, onions, peas, and carrots to sprout.  Those little sprouts have given me hope that my garden may just produce something this year.  Wish me luck!

I hope that all you mothers had a fabulous Mother's Day.  I think this one will go down as my worst ever.  I woke up very nauseated.  By 10:30 am I was vomiting and by 2:30 pm I had taken up residence on the throne.  I had a temperature of over 100 and I can't remember the last time I felt so sick.  I missed work today and I do think the worst is behind me although I feel very weak.

On the stitching front, I am turtleing along on the Little House Needleworks doggie rescue piece.  Next month Praiseworthy Stitches is doing a workshop for our guild and I am really looking forward to it.  It will be my very first stitching workshop and should be lots of fun.

So that's my update for now.  I will try my best not to be such a stranger.

Thanks for visiting and I hope you are all having a wonderful spring!