January Finishes

January has seen a fair amount of productivity, and huge successes.

Tilda is the first quilt of the year to be completed. I'm linking this one back to A Lovely Year of Finishes as my first accomplished goal for the year.

A second mouse pin cushion for BFF - first one got lost in transport after she received it from me.

A swap exchange made from Jenny's Stitchery Club.

Blessing of the month - Raspberry Rabbits.

There are several other projects that are monthly and works in progress:

Vintage Kitchen - Elefantz

Quilter's Garden - DOD.

Both of these are linked with buttons on my side bar.

Thanks for stopping by,

Wishing you a day filled with creativity.

Catching up

It has been a very productive week for me :)  Menu made, house cleaned, laundry caught up, appointments and time for friends and sewing and stitching.

Currently, I'm working feverishly to finish my Garderner's Quilt swap block.

I took the long road on this one because I was just sure that my way was better - NOT :) 

I love the end result. It's now finished. This one is for the swap. I still have to finish the one for me, but I'll do that over the weekend.

Recently, I've been hearing grumblings about CAPTCHA - this is a word verification on Blogger. Some bloggers like it, others don't.

I was reading a blog this morning that I follow, and sweet Kathy did the leg work to figure out how to get rid of it, if you don't like it.  Here's her link, and you can read her instructions. 

Thanks for stopping by,

Wishing you a day filled with creativity.

GROW YOUR BLOG

Hi, I'm Edi . . . or Edith . . . or "e", which is usually how I sign my notes and emails.

I'm a wife, mother, Sunday School teacher and follower of Jesus Christ. AND I'm a blogger because someone told me almost two year ago that it was something I could  do and would enjoy. To be perfectly honest, I don't know why anyone would find what I do interesting, but surprisingly, they do. I keep blogging because I'm making friends - not just acquaintences, but friends. I can ask them questions and not feel completely inept. The worst critism I've received is that I'm too hard on myself. Everyone I've come in contact with has been VERY encouraging and supportive. I love being part of the blogging community. It's a very tight, close-knit group of wonderful people.

I'll blog about almost anything . . . sewing, quilting, stitchery, cooking, gardening, church, my family. I haven't stepped into the realm of design yet, but I have modified designs I've worked with. I try to be very supportive of my fellow bloggers by sharing things they blog about or designs they are working on.

Here's what I'm working on currently:

These little applique hearts are from another block of the month, but I'm going to use them in my new wall hanging. You can find the pattern here.  

This sweet little stitchery is from my dear friend Wendy. The pattern isn't available for sale (yet?), but she has others to choose from.

Both of those components will be a new wall hanging . . .

Quilter's Garden block of the month . . .

Blessings of the Month. . .

My most recent finish is my Tilda quilt. I started it last spring and had hoped to finish it last year, so I started my year with a UFO. Now it's off the list and on my bed :)

Thanks for stopping by,

Wishing you a day filled with creativity.

Friday Night Sew-In

Here's what I did for my Friday Night Sew-In:

Cut out the pieces for the next Gardener's Quilt block . . . 

Fabrics for a new wall-hanging. . .

Components from another pattern. 

I'll spend Saturday with my family - I'm encouraging them to help with grocery shopping so that I don't have to make all the food decisions on my own. Menu has been made, only need the supplies, especially for lunches.

Thanks for stopping by,

Wishing you a day filled with creativity.

Near and dear

Something very near and dear to my heart is children. Especially children that don't have a good home life . . . or even a home and family. 

My son has been through the foster care system, until we adopted him eight years ago. It wasn't an easy process to navigate and life hasn't been rosey either. But without the foster care system we wouldn't have a child.

Jenny of Elelfantz has been approached to use one of her designs in a fund raising effort for Sparrow Ministries. Something else I love is embroidery and what better way to help a worthy cause than by doing something you enjoy. I'm going to be making several of these.

In an effort to help cut down on postage cost, I'm willing to collect your projects and pay the airmail postage to have them delievered. Just let me know you are sending them and I will provide you with my address.  Thank you for considering this worthwhile effort.

Don't forget, it's Friday Night Sew-In. Hope you have your projects all lined up and ready to go. I'm ready :) You can still sign up here with Ms. Wendy.

Speaking of Wendy, as a bonus offering for her Christmas table runner, I received the sweetest little stitchery that I've been working on the last couple of evenings. I have it completed and am working on a finishing project.

Sorry about the shadows - didn't see them when I downloaded the photo.

Another successful project this week . . .

This is a block of the month, however, you purchase them only on the months that you want them. There is no long term commitment.  It's called Blessings of the Month and you can find it here. The next one will be published on February 1st.

Thanks for stopping by,

Wishing you a day filled with creativity.

Gratitude

Sometimes the best time of the day is when the postman comes to your door. Today was one of those days.

 

I am so very grateful for new friends that have shown so much kindness and generosity to me in the last few months. I received all this goodnes today from Karen. She is cleaning and purging and reorganizing and sent me all these wooden spools of thread and frabric.

I was like a kid in the candy store when this box came. I've never seen spools painted, only natural wood. The dark wood with purple thread is stamped not only on the ends but all around and thread isn't cotton - it's silk !!! And the two black spools in the front . . . the dark thread is about 1/2 inch tall and the lighter is only about 3/8 inch. I've NEVER seen a spool that small !!!

Thank you Karen !!!

 

I've spent the last two weeks hand tying, machine quilting and hand sewing on Tilda.

I am grateful to report today that Tilda is F-I-N-S-H-E-D !!!!!

My first UFO of the years. I'll be linking back to ALYOFs at the end of the month with my update.

This couple has been very special to me. They were instrumental in bringing me to my faith in Christ Jesus. They have been married for 57 years and raised 4 children and loved on grandchildren, great-grandchildren and many of us they generously adopted into their families and treated as one of their own. 

Mom passed through the pearly gates this morning to spend eternity with Jesus and all her loved ones that have gone on before.

Mom had a generous, loving spirit. She prayed for us daily and will be sorely missed, but Heaven has filled one more seat with an Angel.

I love you Mom and will be eternally grateful for your love and support.

Thank you for stopping by,

Wishing you a day filled with creativity.

How much progress was made?

My week had several changes in plans. . . Originally, I was going to be home and deal with all the piles and projects I needed to start and others I need to finish. I don't want this year to be a year where I feel that all I do is juggle my time to keep up with my projects and I especially wanted to focus on my ever-growing pile of UFOs.

But the UFOs are starting to take over. Everywhere I look I see something that I want to work on and keep loosing focus.

Well, there are tools to help with that :)

I signed up to participate in A Lovely Year of Finishes. 

The goal here is to have 12 projects done with one per month being your goal. You post the project and we try to encourage each other throughout the month to be successful.

AOQ UFO Challenge

On this one, you fill out a form with your UFOs and what you want to accomplish. They randomly draw a number and that's the one you work on for the month. The next month, a new number is drawn and you work on that project. You won't necessarily finish your project(s), but you will be concentrating on working on them for at least the current month.

I made a goal list last year, and did ok keeping up with the new projects but not so much the UFOs. So they are the focus this year.

The new items I'm working on will end up as gifts for the coming year.

Another tool to keep us moving forward and getting things done is Friday Night Sew-In. You can sign up with Ms. Wendy :)

Tilda is all hand and machine quilted. I did both and love the way it's turning out. All that's left to do is add the binding. After several days of looking for the binding - I'm amazed at how disorganized I am sometimes - I cut new binding and got it sewn on. 

 

All that's left is the hand-stitching and I'm working on that freverishly :)

Thanks for stopping by,

Wishing you a day filled with creativity.