Ernestine

 Ernestine of the Bag Ladies of Fat Quarter Club.

I have finished Ernestine except for her buttons.  I will add those after I have quilted the quilt.

When I was pressing her tonight, the backing Pellon came loose and gunked up the iron.  I did not notice it when I turned the fabric over to press on the right side.  It left a brown stain on the upper right corner.  I used Grand Ma's stain remover and it did not remove it.  When I rinsed that out, the backing turned loose completely, so I trimmed it off.  I then dabbed a little bleach on it  and rinsed it again. I cleaned the iron and pressed the unaffected areas to dry it.  Up close I can still see some of the stain.  I will let it dry over night and see how it looks.


I have not received block 2.  I guess I will have to call Chickadee tomorrow.  I am ready to get started on the next one.  


Today my hand stitching or slow stitching group, The Knotty Ladies, had a modified Jelly Roll Race.  When we got to the meeting place, Bernina of Plano, most of us had our strips sewn together.  Several of joined the strips with a triangle, some squares. One lady did hers end to end and she did not have any prep work done.  We started at 10 and every one was finished by 2.  If it has been a race starting at the stage we were at upon arrival, I would have won the race!

I used a brown Grunge with a Batik jelly roll. I will use the brown Grunge for an inner border but have not selected an outer border.   The lady sitting next to me, kept unplugging my machine or un-threading it to slow me down!

I was helping the lady that had not sewn her strips together keep her first set of two strips from twisting and ended up in a mess.

 

That is the sewing machine cord through the loop.   I had to unplug her machine to get it fixed. 

I will have to crop out the ladies in  the photos so that I can post the photos of the quilts

Owls

Ten little owls all in a row

One flew away

Where will he go? 

Well, I think he will be going to West Texas

I wonder which one?

Finishing old projects and starting new

Last spring I had a dear friend that was planning to move and downsize at the same time.  I and another friend volunteered to help.  More like sold ourselves into slavery.  The other lady does a lot of hand work, so she started taking all the cross stitch, couchette and knitting to her house to organize.  The friend that was moving went through it all and made two piles, keep and let go. We went through the let go pile and took a few things.   Now my friend had 5 complete sets of DMC thread.  The other friend wound one complete set on to bobbins.  She kept one set, gave one to her sister and sold the rest.

We were in the last closet and running out of time before the actual close date and move date.  I pulled a large tote out of a closet thinking it was stabilizer.  It was not.  It was more needle work.  My friend had gone to the bank and to run some last errands, so we both grabbed an end of the tote and put it in her car.   Several days later six ladies was at the second ladies house.  WE opened the tote.  It had Just Cross Stitch kits from 2002-2005.   There was also a   Mill Hill Cross Stitch calendar.  Another friend fell in love with them, but does not know how to cross stitch. Another of the six said she would do one for her for Christmas.  She took July.   I could not believe that I said I would do June.  Some where along the way, I ended up with August, through December.

This is a long explanation for the projects I have finished in the past three weeks.


August was already half over, so I did September,  then October after completing June.  I will get pictures of these next week.   Then I started November. I completed it the week before Christmas. 

Then I started December.  

I finished it Monday after Christmas

Then I went back and did August. 

I had never applied Mill Hill beads before.  I learned quickly. The beads do not show up in these pictures.

Today I started The Bag Ladies of the Fat Quarter club.  I am getting these one at  a time, so I started with Ernestine.  I will be linking up with the Facebook group each month to show progress. 

 I got this far today.  These are pre-printed and colored, so all I have to do is stitch

  I purchased this Dorcy  Head light today. It has an elastic band to go around your head.

The front tilts down so it shins directly on my needle work.  This photo does not show the brightness very well, but it has 8 LEDs