Finished for Friday - Baby Shower Gifts

It has been a while since I have posted on Finished for Friday hosted by Lit and Laundry. Seems I have been in a blog fog lately; not really knowing what to post, not wanting to take the time it takes to down load the pictures, just a general indifference more or less. Hopefully, that has changed.

I have been a busy busy busy Bea in my studio the last couple of weeks. Christmas is rapidly approaching and I do not want to be racing from the cookie baking in the kitchen to sewing in the studio a couple of weeks before the holiday.

One of my dear friends is expecting her first grandchild, a girl, in December. They are having a shower for the expectant mother this weekend. I was caught off guard by the early date and have not quilted the blanket I have made for the new baby. Quickly, I put together this doll quilt that looks like the baby's blanket with a note to the new momma explaining what it represents. The little matching Teddy Bear came together quickly too.

I also wanted to send something to the grandma to be. This "Grandma Tote" went together quickly. I am very pleased with how it turned out. The fabric is beautiful, feminine but not girly.

This bag is from the Lazy Girl line and is called the "Whimsy Bag". If you have been toying with the idea of creating a purse or bag, this is a great one to help you build skills and confidence.


Besides these two projects, I have all the little, tiny pieces cut for a quilting class I will attend on Monday. I am hoping to show you the progress on that quilt next week. Tomorrow I am on my way to Clarksville, VA to attend a class on machine quilting. Maybe I will have that baby quilt finished by next week too.

I hope you have a productive week so you can show us what you have Finished for Friday.

Finished for Friday - Domestic Goddess Stuff

With the wedding reception preparations and the trip back to Kansas, the house cleaning took a back seat. This week I managed to get the house clean. I'm sure I swept and dusted up enough dog hair to make a complete dog.

There was a pile of linens that had accumulated from yard sales, auctions and flea markets. They all got a good soaking in Biz and OxyClean, then rinsed a thousand times, sun dried and then ironed.Since I had such pressing business, I thought I would iron some new fabric waiting to be put away.

I got Phase I of some Christmas presents finished. Since they are Christmas presents, I can only give you a little peek.

I hope I got enough rest this week as my weekend will be filled with this little firecracker.

Finished for Friday is hosted by Threeundertwo at Lit and Laundry. See what others have finished this week. Tell us what you have accomplished.

Hope you all have a great Memorial Day weekend. Be safe!

Finished for Friday - Another Needle Case and I WON!

Can it be Friday already? I'm sitting here thinking of all the things I need to get done in the next few days before I head back to Kansas to visit family and friends. And as usual, when I'm stressed, I do nothing or I try to do everything all at once accomplishing nothing.

This week, I finished the needle case and pin cushion I'm giving to my mom for Mother's Day while I am *home*. You can see one similar here.

I got several things finalized for Daughter P and SIL A's wedding reception, including finding a dress and shoes.

I've made two trips to the post office to check our new P.O. box for mail only to arrive home and find our mailbox on the house stuffed with mail. What a mess! If it is delivered to our house today, I will make ANOTHER trip to the post office to find out what is happening. If you missed my rant about my *enjoyable* trips to the post office, you can read that here.

Back in March, Kelly at (un)Deniably Domestic led me to a give away at Apron Memories, ElleynAnne Geisel's blog. My entry for this give away can be seen here. The random drawing took place today and I am one of the six lucky winners! WOOHOO! You can check out all the goodies I won here.

Now I must get busy cutting and sewing ten yards of red gingham fabric into table mats and runners for the wedding reception. The reception's theme is picnic. I ordered black plastic ants to go on the gingham mats for the tables. They should have been here by now but with our messed up mail delivery, who knows where they could be! Makes me want to curse!

Don't forget to visit threeundertwo at Lit and Laundry to see what others have accomplished this week. Tell us what you Finished for Friday.

Vintage Thingies Thursday - More Bees

It's that time of the week again. Thursday! I missed posting last week. I did stop in at Suzanne's last week to see what others shared. Make sure you stop by Coloradolady's place this week to see the fabulous vintage items my friends are sharing.

Several weeks ago, I shared my non-vintage collection of bees along with my vintage beehive cookie jar. If you missed it, you can see that post here.

I want to share some new bee items I have acquired since that post.







This is not a vintage item as its copyright is 1990, but I wanted to share it as another one of those unusual finds from Hubs. I have no plans to make this bee glove as I already have a manufactured one.





I've been doing some EBay shopping. Very dangerous! Recently I purchased two separate lots of vintage embroidery transfers. I knew this pattern was in one lot. Click on the picture to enlarge it. The price sticker on it says "CO-OP" and cost nineteen cents.

In the other lot, to my surprise, I found this one. It has a price sticker and cost nineteen cents as well. This one is from Sprouse-Reitz Co. Inc. Anyone ever hear of this store? I'm not familiar with it.

I've been busy getting ready for a trip home next week so I will miss posting to VTT again next week. On my return, I will check in to see all your goodies.

Tuesday Tidbits - TUSAL is Not a Misspelled City in Oklahoma

If you spend any time in the blogosphere, you have probably found that lots of crafters, quilters, stitchers and sewers (Hmmm? Maybe I should say “people who sew”) have blogs. They often come together in SALs, Stitch Alongs, to compete with one another in completing a project. The hostess of the SAL sets the rules and people interested in that particular activity may join. Everyone seems to have a lot of fun.

Since I am a *flitter*, working on this project then moving to another project and another before anything else is complete, I wouldn’t do well in most of these competitions. I’m also too humble and too much of a perfectionist to think that any of my work would be good enough to pass along to someone else.

However, one of my bloggy friends, threeundertwo at "Lit and Laundry", led me to the TUSAL, Totally Useless Stitch Along at "Dragon My Needle". I can so do this! No worry about perfection or completing something in a given time frame. For the rules of the TUSAL, go here.

Here is my TUSAL so far.


Three containers? What can I say? I've always been an overachiever. But here is why I have three containers:

This vase holds the tidbits from the embroidery and crocheting I do while watching television in the evening.

This vase sits beside my sewing machine. It gets all the tidbits from the starts of seams, seams I have to rip out, basting stitches, etc.

This vase sits beside the ironing board. It gets scraps of fabric too small to go in my scrap basket, selvages trimmed from fabric, and other bits of fabric "debris". May need to get a bigger container for this one. Check back at the next new moon to see how I am progressing with my TUSAL.

The azaleas are in full bloom in North Carolina. They are gorgeous. I think they have more blooms than last year. Ann, our 86 year old neighbor, says, “If you come to North Carolina when the azaleas are in bloom, you will never want to leave.”

Here are some pictures of the azaleas in our yard.

Most of the red buds have leafed already, but the dogwoods are in full flower. I’m anxious to see what our magnolia tree looks like this year.A couple weeks ago, I put out the hummingbird feeders. To my delight, I have seen a couple scouts feeding from them this week. I fed three or four pairs last summer. Hopefully, I will have that many and more this year.

The wrap around porch reconstruction has been stalled waiting for a mason to replace the brick foundation. He was here today for a bit and will be back tomorrow. Now maybe things will move along quickly.

The city did come by and picked up most of the old porch that could not be salvaged.

Saturday, Hubs, daughter K, grandson Boogie and I took a day trip to the Crystal Coast of NC. The purpose was to look at some vacation properties for our upcoming family vacation in September. We found this place. It is absolutely perfect for our family of five kids, spouses, and two grandsons. This is a picture from the beach side of the house. To see picture of the inside, click here.



Hubs is like a kid waiting for Christmas. So I’ve added the countdown clock to my left sidebar just for him. Lots of time left but lots of projects and plans in between that will make time pass quickly.

Finished for Friday - Needle Case

It seems like this week has gone so fast. Maybe I'm just moving a little slower or I've finished a lot of unfinished projects for previous Fridays. This week I only have one item to share for "Finished for Friday".
I finished this needle case and matching pin cushion as a gift for my mother in law for Mother's Day.

Thanks to Threeundertwo, our weekly hostess of "Finished for Friday" for the idea. She shared a needle case she had completed a few weeks ago. That got me to searching the internet for free patterns for them. I couldn't find one that was "just right" so I took bits and pieces of what I liked about ones I found and created this one.

The embroidered flower is on muslin. It was a free pattern I found on the internet then just reduced it to the size I needed. It folds up and closes with a bit of ribbon wrapped around a button.

This is the inside of the needle case.

The "pages" are of felted wool. The left side is for needles and pins. On the right side, I stitched a pocket to hold a pair of small scissors or thread snippers. Then I added three little pockets at the bottom to hold small items such as a thimble, needle threader or a stitch puller.

The matching pin cushion was a pattern I had saved from a weekly craft e-letter I get from Better Homes and Gardens. Once I figured out the instructions, it took less than an hour to complete. You can see the pattern and instructions here. You may have to sign in as a new member, but it's free and they have some great ideas there.

It was fun putting this together. I am about finished with the one for my mom and will share it with you next week. The prototype of a seamstress apron I have been working on will also be finished. Can't wait to share that with you.

What have you finished this week? Share it with us. Check out what others have finished this week at "Lit and Laundry".