Whatch Working on Wednesday

Leslie over at My Country Home is the host for

Whatcha Working on Wednesday.

Let's see what have I done since last week.

Not as much as I hoped but better than nothing.

Those fabrics I have posted.

I started cutting them this week.

I bought a new olfa cutter.

Amazing how much better it cuts than my old cutters.

Guess the blades on my old ones are getting very dull.

Dull as in not sharp, not as in boring....

I also cut this fabric.

I know, I know.

I am late for Valentines' Day and St. Patrick's Day.

But what I make will be done for next year.

Besides, some of this may be gifts too....

At least I am early cutting the Easter fabric.

What am I making.

Some of you might be able to figure it out based on what I have been making lately.

Cutting out more muslins squares with my new template.

So nice to have a new template. Less cutting errors this way.

The muslin squares are for those 8, yes you read me right,

8 block of the month quilts I am attempting to make.

I did do more on my cross stitch too. This is the picture posted on the

Step by Step Stitchalong blog I am a part of right now.

Boy, I tell you, being part of that blog is keeping me working on this project.

I am glad too because it is slowly but surely getting done.

I have another one planned after I finish this one.

See my main blog for my crazy day yesterday.

~Linnea~

Whatcha Working on Wednesday

Today I am joining Leslie at My Country Home for Whatch Working on Wednesday.

Thank you Leslie for hosting this. It really does inspire me to work on my projects.

Today I was off work for a change during the week. Hooray! Been working Saturdays. So today is sort of my Saturday.

Here is what I have been up to lately in my crafting and such.

This is the progress picture I posted on the Step by Step Stitchalong blog.
Participating in this blog is definitely keeping me on my toes to finally finish this cross stitch project.

I am actually farther along than it shows here. I will post another progress picture on Sunday.

I definitely hope to have even more done than I do now. And yes I did do some stitching this morning on it.

I posted these fabrics earlier. This week I have been doing laundry and included these fabrics to prewash them. So one of my projects today has been ironing the never ending pile I can't seem to get rid of. That included ironing these fabrics to prepare them for my projects.

I have decided to partipate in the Block of Month project from Gail Pan Designs.

The same one our host Leslie is doing.

Here Helmi is helping me hold on to the muslin squares as I cut them.

Then I show her the red and green fabrics I am using for this project.

Note: not the same fabrics in the earlier picture.

Although I may be using them for this also. Because......

I am thinking of trying to make 8 sets. eeek!

Don't know if I am trying to bite off more than I can chew, but I want to do this idea as gifts for Christmas. So starting this early, hey, it is only March, I am off to a good start so far.

I show Helmi the first design I will be stitching on the muslin blocks.

But first I need to prepare the blocks. My machine does not have very good markings for the seam allowances. Cindy at Just Another Day in Paradise (her blog is private right now) had talked about this gadget for helping with sewing quilting blocks and getting the accurate seam allowance. I thought "How cool." At the same time I kind of thought I had seen it before. One day while searching for something else (isn't that the way it always is?) I came across this one. I had forgotten I had the same exact thing Cindy had. What a surprise that was!!

I show Helmi how it works on the sewing machine.

And now she is watching me stitch the strips to the muslin blocks.

Boy!! That gadget works really good for keeping the seam allowances to 1/4".

I love it! Thanks Cindy for showing it!!

Now I am doing some green blocks. Helmi really likes to get into the midst of things when I am crafting. Notice she is still wearing that purse I made her. She loves it!!

Here are the nine blocks I will need for the first quilt.

Now I need to start the embroidery part.

I checked and I have all the floss colors I need.

I guess I will do the stitching in 3 strands. The instructions don't really specify how many strands to use. So I guess it is up to each person's preference on that part.

I have also started a new PLARN project.

Helmi is checking it out here. She notices it is kind of big.

Yep it is kind of big. She can sit on it and it is still big.

Look at the size of the crochet hook I am using for this project.

Biggest one I have ever used. This is size "N".

Notice I ran out of PLARN there?

Helmi is going to help me add some more so I can continue to crochet.

I decided to just start crocheting instead of trying to make this huge ball.

This kind of project you can add as you go. Unlike with yarn.

Okay, Helmi, hand me another strip out of the bag.

See my angel peeking over Helmi's shoulder back there?

She is probably making sure Helmi is behaving herself.

So that is what I have been up to this past week or so.

Tonight our church has a soup supper then a service.

We do this during Lent every year.

I have not made it to a service yet due to getting home from work too late to make it for soup.

Plus being just plain too tired to be driving as well.

But today I am contributing one of the soups.

I will be making a Zesty Potato Soup I got from Jennifer over at Smelling Coffee.

I have made it once so far and it is yummy.

I will be taking my stock pot and the ingredients to my mom's and making it there.

That way it will be just a short drive to take the hot soup to the church instead of a 35 minute drive from our house.

Gotta pay attention to the time so I leave myself enough time to make the soup and get it to the church on time.

Happy Wednesday everyone!!

~Linnea~

Blue Monday #24A

Happy Blue Monday everyone! Thank you to Sally at Smiling Sally for hosting this fun Blue Monday for us.

I did it again.

Did what again??

Bought more fabric.

I guess I am starting to be a fabricaholic here.

I mean there is evidence of it now.

So what did I get?

More fabric of course!!

And some of it is BLUE!!

And some BLUE ribbon and BLUE thread too!

The red and green is for a project I am working on.

The bottom item is a charm pack, also for a planned project.

Here is a close up of the BLUE fabric.

It has Easter eggs all over it!!

I have already prewashed it.

Next I need to iron it and cut it out into my project.

Happy Blue Monday!!

~Linnea~

Vintage Thingie Thursday

Here it is again. Time for Vintage Thingie Thursday!

Thank you to Suzanne over at Coloradolady for hosting this fun day.

I am going to share with you a couple of items I have posted before.

When I posted these things before some of you commented you had never seen them before.

I call these knitting bowls because that is what they were referred to as when I was growing up.

They have been around as long as I can remember so if they are not quite yet vintage, it won't be long before they really are vintage.
I always saw these in use as a place to keep the yarn of your current knitting or crochet project.

The one above was my grandmother's and the one below my godmother's.

Or was it the other way around?

See now I can't remember who had which bowl. Ha!

Currently I have the one above in my living room.

And my mother has the one below in hers.

Thank you for visiting me this fine Vintage Thingie Thursday.

Happy Thursday!

~Linnea~

Pillow Parade

I got home from my long day of continuing ed and discovered some people were doing this Pillow Parade. I thought hey what is this? I can do that.

So here we are.

Kari and Kijsa are the hosts for this fun event.

This one I have posted before. It is a pillow I made from a patchwork piece I made.

This pillow is made from a preprinted piece of fabric. I finished it with some machine quilting to give the picture more depth.

This one I bought in the year 2000. Hard to believe I have had it 9 years already.

This is another pillow I made years ago. I had it in my daughter's dollbed.

Here is a basket of small pillows made from nine patch squares.

This one I use 4 nine patch squares.

Then finally here is the pillow I posted recently. I won this one from a giveaway at Mo's Cottage.

I am glad I caught this event in time to post it.

Hope you all had a Happy Tuesday!

~Linnea~

Wordless Wednesday

Thank you to Dixie at French Lique, Texas for hosting Wordless Wednesday for us every week.

Today's theme is "Crafts".

I have here my piles of fabric waiting to be crafted into something.

Whether it be clothing, gift bags, placemats or something else.

So many fabrics, so little time.

~Linnea~