Kitchen update

So many of you have said you are enjoying following my kitchen renovation project, ok...so two of you said that...I thought I would show you some pictures with the new paint in place: The first picture is the area of the kitchen that used to house the washer and dryer and the ugly grey fuse box. We are going to add one more cabinet in front of the fuse box which will just cover the the fuse box and provide me a place to store bread, which will allow me to get rid of the ugly bread box o the far right.

And just to let you know that I did accomplish something at retreat, although I did not take any pictures I am showing my Jingle Bell Swirl project from a 4-Patch Swirl workshop I took with Lyn Buske. It sure was a fun workshop and I will show more later on this. All the blocks are made from the same fabric which will also be used in the border. More on this project later.

I also finished up my October block for the redwork BOM that many of us in the guild are doing. This owl seems to be missing an eye - but then it is Halloween!

Its Retreat Time!!!!!

Woohooo....time to leave for retreat, as soon as I finish this message. This is the Quilters of South Carolina and is so much fun each year. Looks like I am packing for a month, don't ya think? At least in quilt goodies. That small red suitcase is my clothes and personal stuff, hmmmm guess you see where my priorities are. I will be back Sunday afternoon.

This past Wednesday my friends and I exchanged our October blocks. Cheryl has become a skilled paper piecer and sent us camping in the mountains with her cheerful yellow tent block. Carol did a beautiful job with oriental fabric and fan blocks. Notice the perfect embroidery stitching - she's a pro at handwork. And me, well I just put together a pumpkin as everyone needs a pumpkin in October, right?
I hope you all have a great weekend - I know I will!

Early to bed...Early to rise...

Makes for some great quilting time!!! I must have been really tired yesterday as I went to bed at 9:00pm and woke up ready to go at 4:00am this morning. The house is always so nice and quiet early in the morning, no tv going, everyone sleeping - gotta love that! I want to share some pictures with you of various things and hope you will grab a cup of coffee, as I am doing, and read along.

Kitchen update - we now have a big gaping hole in the wall that separates my dining room from the kitchen. This is actually where a window used to be before we added a deck onto the house which eventually we closed in and made into a dining room.

My daughter-in-law, Holli, sells tupperware, and I promised to do a party for her on October 28..YIKES!! Hubby has promised it will be finished in by then. Sure would be nice if I could get the kitchen painted by then too, but I don't think that is going to happen. Poor hubby got a sliver of steel in his leg yesterday removing the brick on the dining room side of that hole. Took over an hour to get the bleeding to stop even though the cut was very small. He just felt like something was in there, although he could not see it from the outside or feel it - so being the handy carpenter man he is, he whipped out his stud finder, moved it over his leg and sure enough, there was metal in there. Four hours later after a trip to the medical clinic he returned home, with the metal sliver in a jar and funny stories about how he entertained the folks at the medical clinic with his stud finder and leg. His doctor even borrowed it to check out another patients foot that he had removed a nail from to make sure he had gotten all the metal out, LOL. Now this is a non-electronic plastic thingie that he bought probably 20 years ago at Sears for around $1 !

I did a little decorating this morning, hanging my fall wall hanging over the fireplace. Don't look too close as I did not finish the quilting! I want to hand quilt it, but I also want to use it this year - so, I just machine stitched in the ditch around the sashing, and will finish the quilting once I put up the Christmas wall hanging. The pilgrims I found at Tuesday Mornings - one of my all time favorite places to browse and all to often to buy.

My quilt club met yesterday and we worked on our Forever Friends table runner. Here is mine finished and on the coffee table in the living room. This was a lot of fun and most of the ladies just about finished theirs at the meeting.

We meet at Hobby Lobby, and they were having a 50% off sale on all the Fall decorating stuff, so I picked up the candle holder, garland and the Seasons of Thanks shown shown on the mantle.

.....And last, but certainly not least, my two friends, Carol and Cheryl, and I were finally able to swap our September Friendship Blocks this past Wednesday - October 8. You know how it is, life just gets in the way sometimes of doing what we want. Here they are. Cheryl did the cute lil fella in the yellow raincoat and red boots, Carol the delicate pink flower and I did the Autumn maple leaf. We are really having fun with these blocks!

Thanks for dropping by! (I probably should have said that two paragraphs ago.)

Fireplace wall hanging...

Just thought I would show you all what I have been working on tonight while watching the scintillating (NOT)debate..a fall wall hanging that will go over my fireplace.


The center picture is a panel that also had the smaller pictures with it. I purchased FQ's to match to create a look of tile . I still have the sashing at the top and bottom rows to add and then I can start quilting it. Just simple quilting in the ditch around the "tiles" and something fancier in the center. I do love this fabric though.



I also finished up my Flowers block in the NPNT project: The blocks are laying on my ironing board and thus the weird background.

Hope you have all had a pleasant evening, and definitely time for me to go to bed.

A little of this.....a little of that.....

...and not much of anything to share with you all!

This being Vintage Thursday, I thought I would share one of my treasures with you. This is a cameo necklace that belonged to my maternal Grandmother. Its one of the few things of hers that I have, and it is very special to me.

I have been spending my evenings getting ready for two workshops this month - one being a fall table runner that I call Forever Friends. I have put together kits to make these and will be presenting this project to my club on Saturday, 11th.

And then there is the Cathedral Window workshop that I will be presenting at the Quilters of South Carolina retreat at the end of this month. I have the kits all together and started making a new CW quilt to use as a demo model. I do love this pattern and hope I can present it well enough at the conference to get the ladies coming to my workshop excited about making one. This is a first for me and needless to say, I am just a little aprehensive.

I have stated another NPNT block and finished another friendship block that I hope to be able to show you soon. So00000.....a little of this, a little of that, but nothing "finished."

Happy stitching!