Stitches & This & That

     I did start on one of the embroidery wolf panels yesterday-this one is mostly all X's and then some type of border stitch around the wolf, trees, stars, moon.  I needed something simple right now-with Not a lot of thinking.

  If you are on Instagram-they have amazing embroidery tutorials. I started following a couple and then of course many more popped into my feed. Some of the best how to videos for embroidery I have seen so far.

  We got a major storm last night into this morning, my rain gauge had 2 inches of rain in it.  Of course more of the roof on the dock has come loose since it continues to be very windy.  The noise drives me crazy with the loose metal roofing panels flapping in the wind. and Wow next week is July 4th already-where did the time go??? The lake will be crazy busy during that time. The 4th is the busiest on the lake.

  If not raining tomorrow hoping to do some food shopping including finding some melons before the holiday weekend gets here.. 

  I got more cleaning done this morning too-washed down all the wood kitchen cabinets with a wood soap, dusted the two ceiling fans. Since it was cooler today and the a/c was not running all day today-I caught up with laundry too. I try not to have too many electric things going when the a/c is on. Our co-op electric co is now charging for excess usage at peak times. Of course when I called about this, she could not tell me what the peak times were. I keep the a/c at 79 too so it can go off and not run 24 hours.

 I bought fresh lemons to make a from scratch lemon meringue pie soon. So refreshing during a hot day. I may make that on Friday,

   Hoping things are going well for you all.

I liked this one too

About Crazy Quilts

   One of my friends mentioned she wasn't familiar with crazy quilts, so I thought I would do a post about them.

  I always thought they were beautiful and very creative as well. They were most popular in the late 1800's and the Victorian era especially.

   Many fabrics were used-wool, silk, cotton, velvet, tulle, satin and more. The fun part for me was all the embellishments-buttons, lace, ribbons, beads and embroidery.  They also use many odd shapes and are worked on a foundation. 

  Found this online:

The style likely originated from a combination of factors, including trends in home decoration, quiltmaking, embroidery, and the Japanese Pavilion and exhibit by The Royal School of Needlework at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition. American audiences were drawn to the satin stitches used in English embroidery, which created a painterly surface, and the Japanese pavilion's silk-screened work and cracked-glazed pottery, which inspired unique patterns and stitching that resembled spider webs and fans. 

Crazy quilts were icons of the Victorian era and are considered intentional statements that reflect a turning point in American history. They were a chance to show or practice hand embroidery skills, especially along the edges of each piece. The quilts are also characterized by their rich and varied textures, irregularity and asymmetry, luxurious materials, and abundant ornamentation. 

Photos found online:

   If you do a computer search there are lots of photos of vintage and also modern 

crazy quilts. Above you can see hat the fabrics are butted up to the next one and

then stitched with embroidery to close the seams. coping and pasting has made 

this post a bit of a mess so please excuse that.

Stitch Projects

    The other evening I browsed on Ebay for Jack Dempsey's embroidery projects. I think this company has been around a long time. The prices are pretty low as you buy your own threads. Ebay had the lowest prices and a large selection too The pattern is already stamped onto the cotton/poly fabric and will rinse right out after you stitch the pieces.

  I wasn't going to buy something new, but I decided I needed something simple to stitch---like I need more quilts haha   Hubs will have a fit about it I am sure. I have everything here in my fabric stash to put quilts together including the batting. I also still have lots of embroidery threads, some of it was my Mom's and Grandmas, some I picked up at garage sales, and some was gifted to me as well-thanks Deb. (in Texas)

  Originally I was looking at this company's towel embroidery projects but most all of the reviews mentioned they thought the towel fabric was way too thin for a towel.  

    These quilt blocks I bought can be made into pillows or anything really that you want to put together..

 I found these wolf blocks and had to have it-smiles. This one is all X's I believe for the stitches, don't like the red at all but I am thinking of playing around with the background for sky colors and the ground area. Thought this was unique how the pattern shows up.

I found these flower blocks that I really liked and I may be able to play around with different stitches on this one.

  The printed blocks are all that is included-but they showed this idea for a quilt.

Before I bought those two I had put in a bid for these dragonflies. I won the bid so picked it up at very little expense. Thought they will go well with the flowers, as they are both 9 inch blocks.

  If you have any suggestions on what to make with these blocks please share, I am open to ideas.

I found better for me stitching videos than the class link I had shared  find here  I may not continue with those summer stitch videos as I like this new link better. I do have a couple small stitching books with photos but videos are better for me.  The two books I have in my library were for crazy quilts.

   Years ago, I made a pillow to try out a crazy quilt technique to see if I wanted to do something larger. The yellow is my own hand dyed cotton with dried mimosa leaves and the stitches are all on wool with wool threads.  Some of you may remember this one. I really enjoyed this project but decided did not want to commit to a large quilt. I had thought of just making a couple rows of blocks for the end of the bed-as a foot warmer-but didn't pursue it. We have an 1800's iron bed so thought that would like nice-and keep our feet warm too..

 This area is next to the living room tv. I wove the piece that the crazy quilt pillow is sitting on, the bottom pillow was stitched with  trapunto stitches that my Mom had stitched.  You can see a few handmade pottery pieces, the pretty painted  flower is from one of my slow mail friends.  The crazy quilt pillow is sitting on top of Larry's mountain man wooden back pack filled with different furs.

  Each day we are getting more humidity and higher temperatures. So far looks like we will reach 97 F degrees this coming Monday.  I have been going out early every morning to cut grass for an hour with the weed eater. Yesterday I got over heated so I did not go out this morning. Got into reading a good book last night and stayed up half the night reading-I do that sometimes but today I am dragging for sure.

  Happy Friday and Weekend! stay cool in this heat. I would love to send some of  this heat to friend Iris in Germany where she is having a very cold summer so far.

Those of you that Stitch-A Question--Updated

   Hello Friends,

       I want to do a little embroidery, I think it would be more fun to learn some new stitches if I had a small project.

   Years ago I bought sets of large blocks that were stamped with the design-and then just rinse when finished and the lines dissolve away Looking online I can not find anything like this. Just finding patterns that are pdf-ugh how would I even get that transferred onto fabric? 

  That all sounds too complicated for me right now

  Soooo do any of you have suggestions on where I can find this online? thanks   The last one I did was a set of 12 inch blocks that I sewed into a quilt and a pillow. Oh and no counted cross stitch for me-just embroidery stitches, don't mind a few of those X's

  thanks

Update: I just found the company I was looking for Jack Dempsey they have towels and quilt blocks. Back in Illinois there was a sweet little shop with all sorts of craft items and threads etc and she sold these. Now I am remembering I have quilt blocks somewhere that I had laid out in a quilt per my Mom at the time it was soooo large took that all apart-have no clue if I still have that in my stash or not haha.

  The Jack Dempsey just uses very simple stitches but I could always change things up a bit I am thinking

Friday morning early--we are headed towards even hotter days with high humidity-so will be outdoors cutting grass very early this morning.  I am just doing an hour each morning now-to not aggravate my back and shoulders too much.

  I browsed on Ebay for Jack Dempsey embroidery blocks and they have pages of listings found one for flowers which I bought and put a bid on one for wolves-that one was different-all x's and plain is the wolf etc-interesting. 

   If you are hot where you are-stay safe and cool

Happy Father's Day & Stitches

  Good morning, now I know why the lake was crazy busy all day and night yesterday-it's Father's Day weekend. We have full sun, humidity and 90's F so the younger ones love this weather for sure. Especially on a lake. Loads of fireworks all around us too.

Sooo  Happy Father's Day

  You know you are a  senior when your parents are no longer with us. My Mom had told me she felt so old as her friends and family passed over the years. It's the way of life though.

 I have bad hand writing, always have. I keep trying to improve that. So my hand stitching is not super good either.  I finished the first week of stitches this morning. She asked us to make a flower with the three stitches from the class.

  I grabbed a piece of cotton from my reclaimed clothing stash. Over the years I have collected 100% cotton, wool, silk and linen pieces from clothing. Washed them and took them apart at the seams-makes wonderful fabrics for quilts etc.

  This blue fabric is from a very light weight jeans fabric from a pair of ladies jeans.

I am working on not having to be perfect with these lessons, and enjoy learning and having fun with it.

Wolves & Stitching

   Those of you that have been online friends with me for some time-know my love for wolves.

Our beloved Nikita, a wolf, that Larry rescued from people who had no clue how to take care of and should never had gotten her in the first place was our fur family member for many years. She was truly a part of our family. We still miss her so much. We always had German short haired pointers for our family pet before her. Larry trained them to hunt pheasants and to be loving family members. We were getting older and not hunting for the pheasants any more so when our last one passed we didn't intend to get another.  Well until Larry rescued Nikita. Personally I do not think that a wild animal should be bred to sell pups. 

    If you haven't seen on social media about the horrible torture and killing of a female wolf pup, it has reached a global following.   I just won't go into all the politics about this in our western states-but if interested this has started a movement to protect our nation's wildlife from torture and senseless killing. I don't get into politics and issues here on my blog-but this has really upset me-so am following this movement that is now headed to DC this month to hold a rally and talk with congress to get the laws changed.

   This has gotten me back into reading Rick Mcintyre's books. I have discovered he has written more books than I realized so am searching them out. I also saw on Amazon he has a new release in October. His books are quite expensive new so I search for used books.

  Being so downhearted about all this I bought myself a wolf charm and a St Francis of Assisi medal made and from Italy that I found on Etsy. I had a small medal that I added to Nikitas tags back then.

  Being a senior I am watching the decline of our society over the past several years-disheartening to watch occur. I believe this ties in with the brutality of our wildlife-which I can not wrap my head around.

 On a happier note-I started watching the embroidery videos at the link I shared on my last post. I went through my fabric stash and found a pretty blue that came from a ladies pant leg that I had picked up at resale shops years ago. I used to make a lot of quilts from recycled clothing-looked for 100% cotton.

  I also ran into two pieces of flower pounding I did soon after we retired in 2003. I had gone to a fiber retreat for a weekend with my husband's pushing me to go. I did have fun and is the only one I have ever gone to. One of the classes there was flower pounding. It really is fun.

  Anyways, I ended up ironing these two pieces and at the end of this summer class of learning embroidery stitches-I am going to embroider around these pounded flowers and leaves. and probably make into a pillow. I had done this with a very small piece back then and the little pillow still sets on my desk. For some reason that piece held a bit more colors.

  The flower pounding is a fun project and is so pretty for the first year, but soon after it will  go to these browns. I did soaked this cloth in a mordant first.  I think it will be pretty with stitches.

  Being in the 90's the lake is crazy busy today. I just close the blinds as sometimes it is too much. Well we did buy a lake house on one of the main channels  smiles

Enjoy the rest of your weekend

  

Sharing a Summer Stitch Along

   I have been following Erin Eggenburg for awhile now but have not had the time to participate. She does sashiko and also regular embroidery  I had purchased some of her sashiko stitch patterns but with events happening, have not been able to get back to that. I think it is a few years now since I cut out bag patterns with my hand dyed fabrics for that project. Hoping this winter to get my head focused for that.

  I asked if it was ok to share her Summer Stitching event and she said yes. This is a free sign up, learning embroidery stitches during June - August   Here is the link to click on

Photo from her site

 We had a major storm come through last night that sounded like a mini tornado I had my head under the pillow, lasted at least 20-30 minutes. We do have dock damage-I know just what we did Not need at this point. Hopefully we can find help next week.

  Enjoy your weekend!

Summer Card From Canada

   I received a lovely summer card from Christine in today's mail.

    Love that she had one of her paintings made into this card.

 Lovely postage stamps too and a poem inside the card. Thank you so much Christine, I am enjoying seeing your card on my mantel

These pretty stamps did not get cancelled by the mail service-they will go into my stash of papers etc

We are Headed to the 90's F

   It was a matter of when not if here in SW Missouri for the 90's to arrive. It starts today and looks like for a couple weeks.

  I did finally get to the grocery store early yesterday, but the other day when walking down the hill and steps my left knee popped or stretched out too much or something. This left knee has not given me any troubles for many years  now-I had to think about where my knee support was.

  Back around 2000 after we bought our woods property, we had someone set up hunting stands-back then I was climbing up in those with my muzzle loader or my bow. Had opportunities to shoot but I never did-anyways one of the tree stands had the step into the stand too far away and  I messed  up my knee. It only gave me troubles off and on. I had taken a couple very strong shots in the knee that would help for 5 or 6 years. I refused the operation if I didn't actually have to have it.

  So this was a surprise when this happened.again. It feels swollen inside and not real steady-so the knee support helps a lot.

  I will be out early today working on getting the tall grass knocked down-we have had so much rain since the month of May and most of June as well.

 I posted a few photos on my Instagram page of the gorgeous amaryllis blooms and another bloom that the butterflies love.  

As you can tell, I am not posting as much as I used to. 

   Praying Larry continues to get better and I am hoping to get back to my crafts more. Our Wisconsin friends may take a drive down for a long weekend with us soon. Had not seen them in  a couple years now. We look forward to seeing them again.

   I do enjoy reading your posts, but I think I will continue to slow down with social media.

 I do still enjoy letter writing with friends so if interested and you like to write slow mail  just contact me. 

  I was writing many letters to seniors for Letters Against Isolation but have dropped out of that program. At my age now I don't need time deadlines which was one of the reasons I have stopped participating.

 We have reached "hump day" again-I can see that June is already flying by too fast.

Summer Cards Update

   Just an update: I had fun Sunday making up 12 Summer cards I had bought some new rubber stamps from a shop on Etsy that I love-thinking the shop owner designs and makes her series Little Ladies

  I added the below to that blog post but thinking no one will see it there

 "Good evening, I spent most of today finishing up making my Summer cards-they were fun and am happy with them. I rarely have a plan I just jump in haha.

   This is now CLOSED-I made a dozen handmade cards and will mail the international cards out tomorrow-June 10th  and the USA cards end of this week. 

   Thank you to the friend that is joining in, the rest of my cards went to a few long time friends and a couple cards will go to my slow mail friends."

  Woke  up this morning to sunshine-finally and NO rain.  We had been getting flooded with hard rain over the weekend and most of last week. 

    Soooo hoping I can begin tackling the very tall grass here-ugh. and the ticks are out-never knew about these bugs til we moved to Missouri in the woods-they are here at the lake as well. So time to get out the bug spray.

  Enjoy your new week ahead.

Pretty Blooms

  I shared my amaryllis bulb a couple posts ago-being so excited to have two flower stems.

   The first stem has been blooming this week and the blooms are huge and gorgeous.

 I think this plant below might be one of the milkweed seeds I planted last year. The butterflies are loving it

.

  We continue to have too much rain here in the Ozarks. I have a rain gauge now and it has shown 3 inches of rain the last couple times  (including last night) of hard rain that lasts several hours. More rain coming late today.

  Larry overdid the steps two weeks ago so sadly he is now paying the price for that. He was making it up to the top and back down again  on the stairs, with very little pain, so he did this every day for a week, along with walking with just his cane.  Now he is suffering from that-I so feel for him. The physical therapy ended this week. We are thankful that they helped Larry since he came home from the hospital mid October last year. A very long recovery for sure.

  So this also means we can not get back to this water project to finish that-which rain water from above is just pouring in on this right side looking up the steps. The chocolate mint-while killing out my perennials is keeping the soil in place-somewhat.  So I  decided to stop fretting about it and will need to replace next year. makes me sad as I grew lot from seeds to plants in this space.

 On June 5th we celebrated our 42nd wedding anniversary. I made bbq ribs and sides-Larry's favorite so I always make those for us.

  I am enjoying watching baseball again-following the KC Royals. They are a young team and finally working well together this season-fun to watch.

Happy June and enjoy your weekend