It's another week, another month . . .

Can you believe we are almost at the end of October??

We are in the fourth quarter of the year!!!

Congratulations to our Cleveland Indians - They are 2 and 1 for the World Series. 

(Photo - Yahoo - Getty Images)

We are so proud of our teams this year, not that we aren't usually.

So Saturday morning dawned beautifully. Sunshine, breezy, warm.

Grass is mowed. And the porch decorated.

Furniture is put up for winter. I still have to get a tarp to cover it, otherwise it's checked off the list.

On to the Saturday goals . . . 

Working on the borders . . .

and the applique of the Christmas wall hangings.

I hand appliqued the first one, but opted to machine applique the remaining three. It was much faster and I really ended up liking it.

The back shows how much and what was done.

And the first top is done :) This is the hand appliqued.

I'm going to use the larger blocks in the bottom left and right corners for my signature blocks. Still have to decide what I'm going to say.

Three more to go.

Thanks for stopping by,

Wishing you a day filled with countless blessings.

The Sewing Sentry :)

Mid-week busy . . .

My goal for today:

These are all things that have been accumulating on the mantle of my electric fireplace. I want to decorate for autumn, but I don't want to just move things around. My goal for this hump day is to deal with all these things that I have been avoiding because I just haven't wanted to do them.

First up, mending a shirt for Newton and shortening a pair of jeans for me. I really don't mind mending - once I get started. And once I did get started, I found the jeans didn't need shortening :)

Next up, I finished some 9-patches that have been laying around.

Up next, I'm finally finished with the scarecrow wall hanging!

The glue for his "hair" is all dry and he's up.

   

 

Buttons, new and old, and ribbon details completed the project.

As you might recall, I did one in September for BF's birthday. I had two panels and did the prep work for both of them at the same time. It's taken me until now to do the detail stitching and assembly, even though it's been on my goal list for quite a while.

My next task was to dig out the Halloween decorations. I don't put a lot out and I go for the cute, fun stuff - not the scary. The lights are new this year. They add a fun touch.

The evening was spent attempting to stitch on the lace cabins. They are feeling like they are taking a long time to complete. To be fair to myself, stitching on the darker fabric is not an ideal evening project.

Thanks for stopping by, 

Wishing you a day filled with countless blessings.

Goal report for 10/16/16

Goals Week of 10/16/16

1. Christmas PJs - DONE

2. Lace Cabin - some progress made

3. Christmas Wall Hanging - progress made, stitching done

4. House Quilt - nada

5. UFO - Palm tree - DONE

6. Sheep quilt block - some progress made

7. Scarecrow wall hanging - nada

8. Library book project - supplies pulled

Since it's already mid-week, I'm not setting any goals for myself.

Goals for the week of 10/20/16 

1. Christmas PJs

2. Christmas wall hanging - complete #1

3. UFO - Wendy's Christmas

4. - Library book project - draw off designs

5. Lace Cabin - finish stitching

6. Sheep - finish stitching block

7. Scarecrow wall hanging

Thanks for stopping by,

Wishing you a day filled with countless blessings.

We interrupt this productivity . . .

I was on the road to Mom's on Thursday.

I was fairly certain this would be my prime week to see color from the highway. 

As you can see, it was a soggy mess and not very conforming to taking good photos. The rain is forecast for the next few days. And temperatures only in the 50s - yaaaahooo !!!! :)

I got better photos when I pulled over and stopped.

Needless to say, Mom and I had a good few hours together. We love to just sit and chat, but we did have a project planned. . . 

Cleaning up my old bedroom. It's become a bit of a catch-all for her. Sister and I haven't used the room for years, so we've taken all of our things.

Mom uses the room to collect Christmas gifts each year, a guest bedroom (when her sister comes to visit - which isn't all that often) and the overflow of her yarn.

We managed three boxes to Salvation Army, a bag of trash, lots of reorganization and of course, a box for me.

I always garner some goodies through these projects.

After evening chores were complete, I debated about my next goal.

One of them is a project from a library book. This is a Gail Pan design.

This is the project I've chosen. Not sure it will be finished this week, but the hard parts are done - choosing the project and the materials.

I found everything I needed in my stash. 

Even a FQ to go in my swapbox!!!

Carpets are getting cleaned on Friday, which means I get to spend an entire day at home. Shouldn't be a problem to at least put a good dent in the preparation work.

Thanks for stopping by,

Wishing you a day filled with countless blessings.

Tuesday . . . Finishes?

Nothing keeps you motivated like a finish . . .

Ten down - three to go.

I'm finding that dealing with the leftover scraps for future quilts is beneficial - one less thing I have to do later. The plan is to make scrap quilts. I don't have any design ideas making a scrap the easiest, fastest way to accomplish the quilts. I'm cutting the scraps from 2.5 to 7 inches.

I moved on to the quilted palm tree wall hanging. I was almost done and wanted to keep going to finish. I ran out of Tuesday and made it my priority for Wednesday.

Wednesday started on the down side of the hump. That happens very rarely, making me very blessed as I finished this UFO.

This was one of the designs a couple of years ago for a Vacation Bible School community service project. The kids colored them with permanent markers and a group of ladies, myself included, assembled, quilted and bound the quilts for a local shelter. I don't remember how many we made. It was a great project and I was glad to be part of it.

Any way, one of the volunteers in my department colored this one for me. In March of that year we'd been to Hawaii for the first time (I plan to go again someday). This became reminiscent of that trip.

Now, another goal and UFO has been completed. 

I'm on a roll!!!!

Thanks for stopping by,

Wishing you a day filled with countless blessings.

Morning surprise

I can't think of a more beautiful sight first thing in the morning. 

I've had this rose bush for about 15 years. Actually, this is a root from the original plant. Honey Do mistakenly cut the original down while weed-whacking along this fence. It's supposed to be a climbing rose, but it never really has done much. In fact there's usually only one bloom on it at a time. So imagine my surprise this morning when Rocky and I went for a walk in the yard and came upon it.

I might just have to print this one and frame it :)

I managed to keep myself motivated most of Monday. I just didn't make much progress on any one thing. I got a seam quilted on my Palm tree and moved the hoop, cut out another pair of pajamas, moved the hoop and stitched a bit on the log cabin.  Once I sat down in the lazy boy chair, I was pretty much done for the day. Any progress is a step forward and I'll keep trudging along.

Weather has warmed again over the weekend making is humid. Forecast is for rain Tuesday evening - here's hoping. I'm home on Wednesday and looking forward to making lots of progress on all my goals.

Thanks for stopping by,

Wishing you a day filled with countless blessings.

Weekly Goal Report - 10/9/16

Goals Week of 10/9/16:

1. Christmas PJs - Done

I also managed to cut up the leftover scraps of fabric into squares. This works so much better for me than cutting a bunch of them.

2. Lace Cabin - Progress made

It's hard to see how much is done but this is actually half of the tree. 

3. UFO - Quilted Palm Tree - Progress made

4. Christmas Wall Hanging - Progress made

Top portion of the first one is stitched.

Two more are prepped and ready for stitching.

5. - House Quilt 

Assemble rack - Done

Mount quilt - Done

This is a potential finish for this year yet.

Goals Week of 10/16/16

1. Christmas PJs

2. Lace Cabin

3. Christmas Wall Hanging

4. House Quilt

5. UFO - Palm tree

6. Sheep quilt block

7. Scarecrow wall hanging

8. Library book project

Yes, this is a very ambitious week but I feel like I'm taking too much down time and am kicking myself in the pants to get moving and motivated. I've planned my days accordingly - No, I didn't leave any room for anything unexpected. I'm just tired of feeling like I'm not satisfying my need to do something creative. We'll see how it goes. With not at much yard work demanding my time, this should be doable.

 

I got up to these beauties on Sunday morning. What a great way to start the day :)

Thanks for stopping by,

Wishing you a day filled with countless blessings.

What's been happening this week . . .

Well, I'm finally making some progress on my goals. Last week I got the small parts made - the cabin, windows and barn door.

 

 

I finally drew off the tree and started stitching on it. I have just about the top third stitched.

I am so excited about this being block five of six that I just had to lay out the other four and take a look at them together. I'm close enough to done that I need to start thinking about how I want to finish this quilt top.

I stopped at the library to do some Christmas shopping. I'm finding ideas for now and even some for next year. The "Half Yard Kids" might be some projects for the Bible Study Children's program since I work with such young children. 

I pulled out this sweet little project. I'm making four of these. Three for my nieces for Christmas and one for myself. What didn't come out in the photo (or barely) is the wording which says - "Santa, Please define good". Just too cute.

One more goal on the list this week was to get the quilt rack up so I could put the house quilt back on it and try to get it finished before the end of the year. The rack is up :) I just need to put the quilt on it and get busy.

So even though I'm not blogging much, I am actually getting something done this week. That, of course, was before my head cold resurfaced again :(

Thanks for stopping by,

Wishing you a day filled with countless blessings.