Blogville Ladies Crochet Society

A few weeks ago Lynne, the mom of Dinah, Bridget and Elliot, from Dip-Dip and The Bridge posted a tutorial for a crochet dish cloth. Her goal was to encourage some of us that haven’t tried crochet or those who maybe haven’t done it in a while to give it a go.  She wanted our endeavors to sound official so she is calling the group “The Blogsville Ladies Crochet Society” and came up with this cute badge too. I am sure men would be welcome to join us, but I bet none have tried so far.

As a child I remember both of my grandmother’s doing crochet among other crafty things.  I probably picked up a crochet hook at some point, but it was never anything I stuck with. After seeing some of the amazing things Lynne and her friend Melissa, Archies mom from Life is Art…Art is Life, create with crochet I have been tempted to try my hand at this craft.  When Lynne offered her tutorial for the dish cloth I couldn’t resist.

I popped over to one of our local yarn shops to look for the right supplies.  Lynne suggested that we use 100% cotton which wasn’t something this yarn shop had a lot of.  I found a couple of skeins of yarn that I thought would also work in my kitchen, found the right crochet hook (with some help from the staff) and was on my way.

I started working with this variegated yarn and quickly realized that it helped me keep track of what I was doing.  Since the color changes were so short it made it easier to see which step I was on. Step one in the picture above was to push the hook through the next loop on the row you just finished.  As you can see the trailing yarn is green and the loop I pushed through was yellow.

After you push through that first loop you loop the green part of the yarn over the hook and pull it through the yellow loop so you have the two green loops on your hook.

The next step is to loop the green yarn around the hook again and then pull it through both loops so you end up with just one loop on the hook again like the above picture.  Since I was almost always pushing the hook through a different color yarn for that first step it made it easier to tell which step I was on.

Completed Variegated Dish Cloth

Since I picked out two colors of yarn I decided to add the trim that Lynne had in her tutorial. You can’t really see it in the above photo, but the first one I made, this variegated one, has a bit of a flub in one of the first few rows.  I think adding the trim helped to camouflage it.

Yellow Crochet Dish Cloth

I did a much neater job on this yellow cloth and I love how they both turned out. The two color yarns work well together and look good in my kitchen.

Dish Clothes Ready for Action

I can’t wait to get started on our next project. I found that it was nice to have the crochet project to work on while the embroidery machine was stitching away.  Thanks Lynne for starting me on a new addiction. I think I am hooked on hooking!

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A Donation & a Father’s Day Gift

A couple of month’s ago Christina, Sagira’s mom of Sagira’s Agility Adventures, solicited me regarding a donation for the Louisville Weimaraner Rescue for their Weim & Cheese Fundraiser they held on June 16th. She had seen some of the bags I previously posted about and thought one would make a great addition to their event.  Originally she offered to pay for a bag, but being the pet lover that I am I couldn’t charge for something going to a charity.

Weimaraner Clutch in Faux Suede

I decided to make a clutch in faux suede with the Weimaraner embroidery on both sides. The faux suede is so soft and gives the bag an elegant look and feel.

Interior of Weimaraner Clutch

Thanks to Giles from Touch and Sew I had just the right fabric for the lining. He recently moved back to England and couldn’t fit all of his fabric stash in the suitcases that he and his parents were carrying home so he graciously gave what they couldn’t carry to me. This cute paw print fabric was among the many fat quarters I received and the colors were perfect for the clutch.

Weimaraner Embroidery

I think the embroidery turned out great! The other great thing about making this bag was that the day Christina posted a picture of the bag on the Louisville Weimaraner Rescue’s Facebook page I had an email from someone who saw the bag and wasn’t going to be able to go to the event, but wanted a bag just like the one I made.  After a few emails back and forth the order was placed and I started stitching again.  When I first told my husband that I was going to make a bag to donate his response was that we couldn’t afford that since we are both not working at the moment, but I told him that I was hoping it might generate some sales and I guess I was right!

Now on to the Father’s day gift I created for a fellow blogger. Shortly after I posted my pictures about the “Grill Master” polo shirt I embellished for my father for his birthday Mindy Slimmer of the Slimmer Pugs and more recently of Pugs and Purrs emailed me about making a shirt like it for her father.

BBQ Crest Shirt

I emailed her back and showed her some of the other barbecue designs I had and she chose the “fancy” Grill Crest to be stitched on a Navy blue polo. We finalized the order and I headed off to Tarjay (Target) to pick up the shirt.

BBQ Crest Embroidery

I love the subtlety of this embroidery and had it as my second choice for my dad’s shirt as well. I think if you saw it being worn you would have to do a double take to tell what it was.

Whether it is making a bag or embellishing a shirt, I always enjoy adding embroidery to my work.  If you are interested in custom designing a bag for yourself or a friend or would like to embellish a t-shirt with a special design just leave me a comment.  I have a lot of embroideries that haven’t been shown on this blog so I might already have the one you are looking for.

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Flower Power!

Okay so I am a child of the 60’s, but this post isn’t about anything philosophical or psychedelic. It’s just about the flowers in our garden. This post is picture heavy so I won’t say too much.

First up are some updates of the containers we planted a few weeks ago. After a couple of fertilizations they are taking off like crazy. Here are some side by side comparisons of the current and previous pictures of them. I am using small images for display so click on them to make them bigger.

Morning glory pots

The newer picture is the one on the left and even since I took that picture a couple of days ago the container on the left has covered the entire trellis.

Blue pot – today

Blue Pot – original

The variegated geranium in this container has finally started to bloom. You can also see the huge hosta we have on our patio in the background.

Canna Lily pot – today

Canna Lily pot – original

This container featuring the Canna Lilies has really filled out and the Canna’s have started blooming.

Blue Sage pot – today

Blue Sage pot – original

This container was pretty full to begin with, but if you look closely you can see how much everything has grown.

Brown pot on patio – today

Brown pot on patio – original

This container also looked full to begin with, but look at it now!

Elsewhere around the yard the perennial garden is blooming blue and purple.

Perennial garden with blue flowers

That tall grass in the garden is one of my favorite features.

Veronica on the left and Campanula Poscharskyana “Blue Waterfall”

Most of what is blooming right now are Campanula. Hidden among some of the plants these Campanula didn’t even bloom last year, but are putting on a nice show this year.

Campanula glomerata

Near by the Campanula haylodgensis first open up with a blush of blue tint and then fade to white.

Campanula haylodgensis

Campanula haylodgensis

Next up is the clematis on the trellis in the perennial garden. It looks great this year as opposed to past years when it has barely managed to cover the top of the trellis.

Clematis ‘Jackmanii’

Clematis ‘Jackmanii’

Here is a unique combination of plants.

Clematis ‘Comtesse de Bouchaud’ on blueberry bush

Charlie planted this clematis at the base of one of our blueberry bushes and it makes a fine trellis.  The blueberries are almost ripe which will make all our bird friends very happy.  We don’t try to pick any berries and keep them for ourselves. The main reason we planted the blueberry bushes was for fruit for our feathered and furry friends (check out the link for videos of action from a previous year).

Hemerocallis ‘Stella de Oro’ – Daylily with Geranium ‘Rozanne’

Our Stella de Oro daylilies have started to bloom as well as our Rozanne geranium.  Our other daylilies are not far behind and will probably be featured in a future garden post.

Canna Lily pot with Stewartia Tree

Last by not least our Stewartia tree is in bloom along with the Ladies Mantle and Potentilla next to our patio.

I hope you enjoyed this visit in our garden.

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Perinton Quilt Guild

The Perinton Quilt Guild, which is the smaller of the two clubs I belong to, wrapped up our season with our last meeting on June 4th.  About a month ago we had our bi-annual quilt show and it was a great success! This year the show was held in the gymnasium at the Perinton Recreation Center. Except for it being a bit chilly for those of us that were there for extended periods it was a great location for the show.

View of the show from walking track above gym

The show was a great success with over 300 quilts made from members of our guild hanging. We had more visitors than previous shows and were very pleased with the reception we received from the town. Many people visited the show because they were already at the recreation center for another activity.

You can see most of the show from this view

I was responsible for signing up vendors for the show and they were all pleased with the turn out as well.

Handbags and other small items

In addition to the quilts there was also a display of some smaller items such as handbags and pillows.

Garage sale tables

The guild members also donated sewing and craft items for garage sale tables and we made a bundle of money from the sales. The show was not professionally judged, but rather was judged by popular vote from the visiting public.  I had seven quilts hanging in the show.  Three lap quilts that you can see below and four wall hangings.

Here are my lap quilts

Two of my wall hanging quilts were winners in this show.  My Lily Pond quilt won best small wall hanging and my Autumn Leaves quilt won second place in the large wall hanging category.

There were also a few special activities taking place during the show.

Last Minute Sales of Raffle Quilt Tickets

Tickets were sold for our raffle quilts and the winning ticket was drawn at the end of the show. The other special event was the unveiling of the Perinton Bicentennial Quilt the guild made for the town.

Perinton Bicentennial Quilt

You might remember when I previously blogged about the two blocks I made for the quilt. The church block is in the upper left and the Powder Mills Park block is in the lower right.  I am so pleased with how beautiful this quilt turned out.  All the ladies that participated did magnificent jobs, from the organizers to the quilt block makers and finally to the quilter that added the finishing touches.  If you click on the image you can see a larger view.  The border around the outside of the quilt has the names of local parks quilted in script writing.

Gail Mazur presents quilt to town leaders

About two weeks after the quilt show the guild officially presented the quilt to the town.  Gail Mazur was the coordinator of the quilt and she gave a small speech before the town supervisor helped to reveal the quilt in its display case.

Guild Members with Supervisor Jim Smith

Some of the ladies that worked on the quilt were able to make it to the presentation and posed in front of the quilt.

Some of us pointing to our blocks

Here are a few of us (that’s me on the left) pointing to the blocks we made. My blocks are so far apart I had difficulty pointing to them and looking at the camera at the same time.

The quilt guild season is now over until September.  I really enjoy both of the groups I belong to and will miss meeting up with all of these ladies until then. I hope you enjoyed checking out our quilt show and the beautiful Perinton Bicentennial quilt.

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I’m Still Here

Hi everyone! I know I have been a bit absent the past couple of weeks but I have been visiting your blogs, just not commenting on all of them.  I’ve been busy with yard work and lots of sewing, machine embroidery and even some crocheting!  I will catch you all up with posts over the next week or so. Stay tuned because there will also be a GIVE AWAY coming up.

First I will show you a little of why I have been so busy.

Just after I finished planting my containers we had 10 cubic yards of mulch delivered. In case you don’t know how much that is the above dump truck is like the one that did the delivery. It was full and a bit mounded up with mulch for the gardens.  The pile took up almost the entire two car parking area in our driveway and was slightly taller than me at 5 feet 2 inches (sorry I forgot to get a picture). In other words it was a HUGE pile that needed to be moved to all the planting beds and then spread.

As usual Charlie did all the hauling, one wheel barrow full at a time. I assisted by doing all the spreading after he piled it up in the beds. We were lucky that the week we had the delivery the weather was rather cool so we worked every day until is was all done. After a full week of work the mulching was done.

In between the mulching and after that I was working in my sewing room.

This is an overall view of my sewing room after about 2 weeks of constant working.  More on all the projects later. This is a far shot so you might not be able to see just how messy it is so I will show you a few close-ups. When I am working on projects I just keep going and don’t always stop to put things away after I finish one thing before going on to the other so things start piling up.

This is the closet where I keep most of my fabric and other supplies. The grey and red thing on the floor is for storing the embroidery part of my sewing machine. In this picture it is full of all sorts of sewing supplies (fabric, stabilizer, embroidery hoops) with the embroidery unit laying on top.  When you do projects with machine embroidery you have to attach that unit to the sewing machine, do the embroidery and then take the embroidery unit off to do the sewing to put the bag or whatever it is you are making together. I don’t really have a place to store this without zipping it back in the bag and when I am doing a lot of projects it just isn’t practical.  Needless to say it did block my access to the closet just a bit. Not to mention the pile of left over fabric and stabilizer on the floor as well.

On the other side of the room my ironing table looks more like a storage area on top. This time the grey and red bag on the floor was used to transport items to and from my quilt club meeting.  Above is what it looked like before I started putting everything away. Here is how it looks after the clean up.

All that sewing coupled with a few quilt club meetings over the past two weeks meant for a busy time.  Unfortunately my blog post writing suffered.  I am going to try to write more often in the future and not leave you hanging for so long.  By the way just after I took the “neat” pictures I started on another embroidery project so the room is well on its way to being messy again.

 

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