WIP Wednesday

Today I made the second set of blocks for the Christmas table runner and now I am playing around with EQ4 to find out whether I want cornerstones or not.
I also finished another afghan for the camp this week and because I had a ball of that yarn left I decided to make myself a scarf with it. I like how the color in the yarn forms a pattern of its own.
I have been fighting an early bout of Christmas blues, but I am feeling better now. This weekend we will put up the tree and decorate our home.
My Pens won the game last night and my favorite player scored his first two goals of this season. :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what
we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into
acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It
can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home,
a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of
our past, brings peace for today, and creates a
vision for tomorrow.
Melody Beattie

WIP Wednesday

Today I have something special to share with you. The very first quilt blocks I ever made. When Granny Fran asked about the pattern for the six point star I remembered that it was one of the first blocks we learned in the first quilt class I ever took. It was in 1993, back in Vienna. I knew nothing about quilts or quilting. The first time I ever heard about them was when I read "The Color Purple", quilts are mentioned in the book and they are made out of fabric strips, that's what I remembered. :) So I found a class in one of the community schools in Vienna and took it. Back then I thought all the patterns were traditional ones and everybody who knows about quilting would know them. I know better now. :) I did not have a sewing machine yet and the only cotton fabrics that were available were Dirndl-fabrics. Dirndl costume, the last time I wore one is the traditional Austrian women's of them was when I was very little. Well, anyway, Granny Fran's questions sent me scrambling to find the patterns from that class and I actually found them and the old quilt top as well. It is all hand pieced and I am quite sure it was cut out with scissors. I also found two more blocks for it and as far as I remember I had planned on making a third one to add another row to the top.

My cold wandered from my nose down to my chest and I have a nasty cough. I took yesterday off and did not do any sewing, instead I started the felting project. Yes, I know, I said I only get
to start that once I worked on my Christmas projects. Well, I did make four of the blocks for the table runner yesterday. Please refrain from pointing out the obvious. :) The way I felt yesterday I was glad I did not sew them together with the wrong ends. ;) And besides, there should be at least one mistake in every quilt, only God's creation is perfect. The good thing is, in most cases I don't have to make a mistake deliberately, they just happen. :)

Fran, if you still want the pattern for the six-point star, please email me.

Monday

Well, my cold did not get much better but after a healthy dose of aspirin my head was clear enough to get some stuff done.
I always print my own address labels for my Christmas cards. It may seem a bit impersonal but my handwriting is not that great and it is easier on the postpeople if the address is actually readable. ;) So first thing this morning I took a picture of a penguin glass ball I recently bought and used that as decoration for this year's address labels.
Then I went to finish the Christmas cards I made earlier. I used a rubber stamp for the greeting on the inside. Next I had planned to put on the labels, but Miss Kitty thought it a good idea to give me a hand with that. :) After some gentle convincing from my side she finally decided to go to sleep on the blanket you can see in the background.
I also put my alternative advent wreath together and I am happy with the result. It is actually a tart baking form filled with glass pebbles and plastic balls, completed with votiv holders and artificial ivy. So totally different from what I used to do in the past.
Blogger does not let me add the pictures nicely on the side so I just add them all here at the end.

Weekend

I have a cold and feel crappy and cranky. Whine. :) I have not had a cold in years thanks to the vitamins I took in Vienna. Since we got here I had trouble finding a multi-vitamin pill that would not give me problems. They either have too much iron in them, which I cannot take or the give me digestive problems. I am now taking one that I hope I will be able to keep, but obviously it was too late. Grrrr! I have so much to do at the moment and a fuzzy head is the last thing I need.
We went to a craft show in Winston-Salem yesterday, it was very nice, very high quality items from professional craftsmen and -women, also very pricey.
Afterwards we went shopping, I got everything I need for my alternative advent wreath and my blue Christmas. And some yarn for something new I want to try - felting.
I had 86 of my recent photos printed. I tried for the first time to upload them to Walgreen's photo service from home and then pick up the prints. They turned out very well. I will send them - together with a long report about our adventures - to my parents. Today I printed 12 different photos on my printer at home and made this CALENDAR, which I will give my parents for Christmas. I found the photo-album-calendar at Big Lots yesterday and thought it looked really cute. I have another one and maybe I make one for my friend back in Vienna.
I really hope I feel better tomorrow.

Afghans

That's what I have been working on while watching TV during the past months. A pile of afghans for VJGC, not quite finished yet, still have to weave in the loose threads. The colors represent the colors of Adam Petty's first race car and they are also used throughout the camp.

WIP Wednesday

Here are the three WIPs I plan to work on in the coming weeks and hopefully finish before Christmas. One of them is a true WIP, the other two are new projects that have been in planning for a while. Star wall hanging, table runner and the fabrics I plan to use for it, train wall hanging - Christmas present for Del.

Blue Christmas

Last year Christmas came in the middle of our move and settling down and therefore I did not plan or do much. This year I will. :)
Since we have decided to do things differently when we moved to the US I am going to change "my" Christmas colors this year. For me Christmas was always red-white-green-gold. This year I will replace the red with blue. I never really saw blue as a Christmas color, don't know why. All I really need to buy for the change are some blue baubles, I got a lot of golden ones already, our tree last year was red and gold. I would also like to get some kind of decorative rope or ribbon for the tree.
This is also giving me the motivation to finish one of my WIPs, a star wallhanging that I made many moons ago. It is hand pieced and now I will hand quilt it and hope to have it finished before Christmas.
And I will make a table runner for the coffee table. I have the design all picked out and just made a drawing of it using my EQ4 program (yes, I know, EQ6 is about to come out, but I
use the one I have so rarely that I never considered upgrading to EQ5). Here it is. I can make it with fabrics from my stash and don't have to buy anything. The blocks will be paper pieced and I plan to machine quilt it.
I will also make an alternative Advent wreath, but more about that once I get back from shopping, I still need a few ingredients for it.
May I ask a favor from all you fellow quilters out there? Please keep me accountable for sticking to my plans and really get these projects done. :)
BTW, Del and I are making presents for each other this year. I asked for a display case for my thimble collection and he asked for a train wall hanging. One more project to get done.
On this note I better get off the computer and on to my sewing machine. :)

Quilter's Block

I am suffering from quilter's block. I came up with that expression a few years ago when I experienced a time where I could absolutely not get myself to do any sewing. And now it seems I hit that point again. Maybe it is the season, but right now I prefer working with yarn over working with fabrics. I have a number of knitting and crocheting projects lined up and I am taking a break from all my quilting projects. I keep looking at other people's projects and try hard to get inspirations for my own, but no success so far. I know that phase will eventually pass, I just hope it will be in time to get some Christmas presents done. :)

Arty Meme

I like this idea of sharing your work with others, here is where I got it from. http://quiltcontemplation.blogspot.com/
So, if you would like a small fiber creation from me, I will give one to the first five people who ask for it in the comments. But remember, you have to offer the same thing then in your blog/LJ.
I can't say what it will be yet, but probably something seasonal (Christmas, Fall).

More Hats

I made two more crochet hats yesterday while watching old Frankenstein movies on TV. They are pretty good for their age (the movies, not my hats). I think I might have overdone it just a bit, my right arm hurts. :)

Penguins

Speaking of penguins, I got two new additions to my collection. #1 is actually a squeaky toy for dogs that Del got me at the petstore and #2 is a plushy one from the dollar store. :)

Hockey

"My" Penguins won 5 out of 8 games so far and are on top of their group!

Success

Yesterday I finished crochet hat #1. It is actually the first hat I made since elementary school (don't ask about that one ;)). At first I was struggling a bit with the instructions but then I decided to just make it a little bigger on my own and it worked. I got enough yarn for several others.
I also made a shawl from a different yarn and since I have one skein of it left, I will make a matching hat. Taking a picture of it was a bit of a challenge, in case anybody wonders, it is draped over a pillow. :) Somehow I feel more like knitting and crocheting than
sewing at the moment, must be the cold weather.

Christmas

I finally finished the ornaments for the swap. I did not feel like making anything complicated and time consuming and I definitely did not feel like Christmas yet. So I made these little bags, filled them with rice (for weight) and spices and tied a little bell to each one. They smell heavenly and I hope the people in the swap will enjoy them.

Weekend

Friday night we did our usual shopping, extended a bit this time by a trip to Hobby Lobby for more yarn and silk ribbon for my friend Faith. They did not have the yarn I was looking for so we stopped at a Michael's in Winston-Salem on Saturday afternoon where I found what I wanted and on sale too. Me like. :) I bought yarn for another shawl and and for some hats, looks like we will be getting a much colder Winter than we had last year.
Since I don't get out much during the week, I really enjoy being out and about on the weekend. On Saturday we first went to the Farmer's Market, I wanted fresh apples without the wax the ones from the store are always covered with and I wanted to see if I could still get red and green peppers, they still have them and at half the price of the ones in the store. I also got potatoes and onions and pretty green beans.
After the market we went to the Annual Corn Shucking Frolic at Horne Creek Farm in Pinnacle, NC. The farm is a living historical farm owned by the state. It was a perfect Fall day, sunny and warm with a cool breeze. There was a lot going on at the farm, demonstrations on how to make apple butter, molasses and dried apples, making corn shuck dolls and of course corn shucking, everything the way it was done at the farm ca. 150 years ago. The farm house has been lovingly restored and it is beautiful. The Hauser family, who started the farm, came from Colmar in France, they had 12 children - 11 boys and 1 girl. They were successful farmers and at the last turn of the century (19th to 20th) the farm was over 450 acres big. We also went on a ride in a mule drawn wagon to the Southern Heritage Apple Orchard, where they grow over 400 old apple varieties to save them from becoming extinct. In today's paper is an article about the man who actually started doing this after he retired from the Army in 1982 and who gave the trees for the orchard to the Horne Creek Farm, very interesting. People in costumes of the time were doing the demonstrations and also giving tours of the house. There seemed to be an unusual large number of lady bugs in the house and when I mentioned it, the lady who did the tour said that when she opened the house in the morning she swept out about 4 shovels full of them. Yikes, I guess that would be a bit too much country for my taste. ;) We got to taste the molasses they were making and I bought a jar of it, it is delicious and I plan to use it in a shoo fly pie and a molasses cake (they also handed out recipes for cake and cookies). There was also traditional music - Bluegrass, I just love it - and dancing. The food was simple and very good, we had pinto beans and ham biscuits and shared a fried sweet potato pie and homemade icecream. I took over 100 PHOTOS at the event. The countryside up there is gorgeous and the trees have turned nicely, I love all those blazing yellows and reds with the dark green of the pines mixed in.
It is funny, when we first moved here we had planned to move to Randleman, which is south of High Point, but now, since Del got a job in Winston-Salem we are more and more going north on our explorations. The countryside is totally different there as you get closer to the mountains, it is very hilly and wooded with farms in between. I don't really want to move away from High Point anyway, I really like it here, big enough to be a city, small enough not to be disgusting. ;) And now, that the Furniture Market is over for this year, it is nice and quiet again.
On Sunday we went to a Model Railroad Show in Winston-Salem. Del was happy, he found what he was looking for. The weather was totally different from Saturday, cold and raining buckets. After lunch I spent the rest of the day watching three races and two football games - all at the same time :) - and finishing my shawl and starting the first hat.

This and that

It sure looks like Fall today, it has been raining all night and it still is, the ground is covered with dead leaves and it is rather gloomy. Del is in Hickory until tomorrow night to take SAP classes for work.
I signed up for a Christmas ornament swap a while ago when the deadline seemed so far away, now it is less then two weeks away and I have not made one single ornament. I just don't feel like Christmas yet. I even tried listening to Christmas music, but that did not work either. I made one test ornament yesterday, but then,
instead of making more I baked a batch of applesauce-raisin cookies. ;) And I made two Halloween fabric postcards. I think they are cute. I used felt for the ghost and the bat and glass beads for the eyes and the mouth of the ghost and since I learned in the meantime to not put any batting into the cards, they were a lot easier to make then the first one I tried.
Sometimes I wish I had a dumber cat. I swear my cat thinks and can put two and two together. If she were dumb it would be easier to determine whether she pukes because she is sick or just because her little nose is out of joint. I know that she never really forgave Del for leaving us alone for a week in Vienna before we left for NC. Once we got here, she ignored him for several weeks. I guess watching everything she knew - except me - disappear was quite traumatic for her. And now, every time something happens that is out of the ordinary she gets miffed and I swear she can throw up on demand whenever something does not go the way she wants it to go. Like when she does not get fed the food she wanted or at the time she demanded to be fed. I guess I love her anyway. ;)
I bought some new yarn on Sunday for a shawl. I found the pattern for it on the Michael's website and it looked so cozy and comfy that I want to make it for myself. I also bought more clothes despite the fact that after a recent inventory of all my clothes, I asked Del to shoot me whenever he catches me buying more. ;) Kohl's had a sale on tops by a certain manufacturer, buy one, get one free, oh well, I only wanted the fleece cardigan with the penguins on it but now I also have one with cowboy snowmen. They are so soft and cuddly and a size smaller than what I needed last year.
We went to a quilt show in Greensboro on Sunday, organized by the Piedmont Quilters' Guild. Lots of beautiful quilts. Of course I took a ton of PHOTOS. My new camera takes pretty good pictures.
I am officially broke now. I used up almost all of the money I had brought with me and can spend no more for fun and entertainment. ;) Oh well, I got more crafting materials and fabrics than I will probably ever use in my lifetime so I should be good for a while. And since cooking magazines benefit the whole family, they can be bought with household money. :))

Hockey

My Penguins won against the NY Rangers last night, 6:5. I very much hope that they will have a better season than they did last year. They got a lot of potential, they are motivated and have many young players in the team. Their future is still undecided since the team has been put up for sale but I really hope they will be able to stay in Pittsburgh and that they will finally get their new arena.

WOBQ

This is the block for Lot's Wife, who does not even have a name in the Bible. Her whole story is told in 12 words in Genesis 19:26: "But Lot's wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt." End of story. The part about looking back was what was significant for me in the story. I have done a lot of looking back recently, but not longingly for sure. There were some things I needed to work out and get over, now I can put them behind and move forward in my new life.

WOBQ

This is the block for Hagar, it took me a long time to finally finish it and it is an exercise in self discipline, I really had to force myself to sit down and finish it today. I did not feel like hand sewing at all. It looks like a candidate for "better finished than perfect" but I am glad it is done and I actually like the way it looks. I am a few blocks behind again, but I do keep up with the study.