Back to Business (Lots of Pics)

I can't believe that it's been almost a month since I posted a stitching update.  But I haven't stitched much in the past month, so maybe having the Accquilt giveaway was a blessing in disguise.  It's been a busy month (when isn't it busy?), but I have gotten a little bit done here and there.

I've been working on Sun and Moon:

Sun and Moon

The Scarlett Letter

Not too much accomplished for a month, is there?  I have to tell you that this sampler has been giving me all kinds of fits.  I was going to take another picture and put arrows all over it where I've made mistakes, but then you wouldn't be able to see the sampler!  Seriously!!  It's been one mistake after another - like putting that border in on the left five times!  Yep, five times and it's still not right.  Well, I know my limits and I'll just do some fudging somewhere along the line.  Like I've said before - small samplers and I don't play well together.  I just don't know what it is.  I've been also working on the Mary Allen sampler, but it's just more words and just words are boring for a photo op, so I'll show a picture of that next time around.  And no mistakes on her so far - but she's a bigger sampler.  I don't understand that!!

And I've been doing some quilting - and - I FINISHED THE FARMER'S WIFE BLOCKS!!  Ya Hoo!!  Here are the last ones in all their glory:

Whirlpool and Windblown Square look suspiciously similar, don't they?  Well, they're the same block just different fabric.  I don't know why there two of the same pattern, but the quilt is big enough that you'll probably never notice them.  But, do you know how excited I am about this?  At least 18 months in the making and they're finally finished.

I was so excited that I snuck down to the sewing cave and started putting them together.  I couldn't wait (helps that the weather is hotter than Hades around here and it's cool down in the cave). This quilt is going to take a long time to put together, but this is how far I managed to get:

Four blocks pieced out of 111.  Yes, 111 blocks!  And you know what?  I want to do another one!  Sick, I know!!!  This quilt is going to be huge - well, maybe not huge, but Queen sized!! I can't wait to get this one finished, but I have a funny feeling that it's not going to be until fall sometime.

Other fun things that have happened is that my son came home from Spain.  He had a wonderful time and can't wait to go back again (hopefully, on his dime)!  And sweetheart that he is, he brought me back some goodies:

Three pair of scissors from Toledo (the tape measure is an antique find)!  Was I excited?  You bet!  I only asked for one pair, but he knows how much I love scissors so he brought me three.  He also brought me a Matador spoon:

I don't collect spoons, but if my son is going to become a world traveler, I guess that I will!

The same day that Nick got home from Spain, a dear friend came into town - Robin.  We met up last year and decided to meet up again.  Her mother lives up in my neck of the woods, and she drives all the way from Maryland to bring her daughter up to stay with her.  We had a great time quilt shopping and antique shopping, and in my usual fashion I forgot to take my camera, but I did get one of her with my cell phone:

Not the best picture Robin!!  Sorry!  But we had a wonderful time and she came bearing gifts:

A vintage spool holder, a jar of vintage thimbles and Stitcher Girl socks!!  Love them all, Robin!!  We did have a great time and she'll be coming back up at the end of the month and is going to bring her daughter (who is 6) to see the play my daughter will be performing in - Suessical The Musical.

Anyway, we had a great day together, but I didn't find anything antiquey, although Robin came out of the shops with her arms loaded.  I wish I had taken my camera - she got some great things!

Last weekend, I spent a wonderful couple of days in Chicago!  I had the best time!  Unfortunately, no real pictures here either.  Well, there is one with me in it, but I'll spare you - I looked like something the cat dragged in - it was a hot day and my hair goes all beserk in heat and humidity (you get the picture), so I'm not going to show that one, but I do have one of this - All Saints:

Not the best picture.  I had heard of this store in New York, but had never seen it, so it was fun to see this one in Chicago.  Hard to get a good picture with the sunshine!  You know any store with a lot of sewing machines in the window will grab my attention.  And you're probably thinking I've lost it - with all the beautiful things in Chicago - like the shoreline and parks - I take a picture of sewing machines!

And speaking of sewing machines - I found another cute one a couple months ago at an antique mall that I had never been to before.  I keep telling myself that I don't need more than a couple....but, well, you know.....they're like potato chips and I couldn't pass it up - I love these little things:

A little nicked up, but I had to bring it home.  The needle is still in it and an old spool of thread on top.  

The big antique find recently was a new flower frog.  I had gone to an antique market a couple months ago and saw it and wanted it so bad, but the price.....well, it was a little high and I couldn't justify it.  But all I thought about after was that darned flower frog.  The market comes around every two months, so I woke up bright and early to be there when it opened last Saturday (envision one of those Christmas commercials with the women with their noses pressed against the store door waiting for the sales saying OPEN, OPEN, OPEN - that was me).  I found the booth, but no frog on the tables.  I was so disheartened.  But it pays to ask, right?  So I asked the woman who ran the booth and she told me she had sold it.  Again, my heart fell.  But then I asked again, trying to draw a picture of it.  A smile came over her face and she said that she did have it, in a bin, under a table.  She didn't have enough room to put it out because it was large.  So she went through the bins and in the very last bin there it was!!  COME TO MAMA!!  

LOVE!  I also found the tape measure for a mere $2.00.  But can you say LOVE???  Now I won't use this for scissors, although I probably could.  The frog is in two pieces:

The larger bowl measures about 14" and the frog itself measures 8" and both pieces are stamped on the bottom "Made in England".

So I could use it for scissors:

Or use it for it's intended purpose - Flowers:

I think this will be used for flowers!  Maybe!  

Well, that's all that's been going on this month.  I'll start posting on a more regular basis soon!  I have a lot of blog reading to do and hope to catch up with everyone soon and visit the blogs of my new followers.  I love finding people with the same interests!  And I want to thank everyone who entered the Accuquilt contest.  It was fun to have it and I was thrilled that Blu won (although I wish I had one for everyone who entered).

I  hope that you're having a wonderful weekend and if you weather is anything like ours (HOT!), you're inside stitching!

Elizabeth Clayton is a Wrap

Woo Hoo!  Another one off the To-Do list - finally!  I don't know what took me so long on dear Elizabeth, but I put the final stitches into her last week!  I love her, although I look at Adam and Eve as being rather ghostly beings - they're so light!

Elizabeth Clayton

Handwork Samplers

36 ct. Legacy Linen and DMC threads

Top of Elizabeth:

Bottom of Elizabeth:

Sorry these aren't the best pictures.  Michigan has been having the worst weather the past few days.  80 one day - rainy and cold for three days, so taking good pictures is a hit or miss proposition.  Anyway, back in the day, when something didn't stand out all that well on a piece, we'd outline it.  But that was back in the day, so no outlining on Adam &Eve - I'm just going to leave them ghost-like.  Actually they look better in real life.  Another one crossed off that crazy January Challenge and another one for the A&E wall.  Me thinks that at the rate I'm going,  I won't be completing 15 projects this year.  Oh well, it's all about the journey, right?

And where is the A&E wall, you ask?  Well, it's coming along.  I want to get Elizabeth framed and then I'll unveil the wall.  I have templates stuck all over the wall and no matter how I arrange them, I know that I need Elizabeth framed before I start pounding nails.  You have to remember that my husband is anal about holes in the wall, so I don't want to make mistakes!  LOL

After finishing Elizabeth, I went back to another January challenge piece, Sarah Esch.  But we have very pitiful progress - pitiful because those pesky frogs visited:

Not only are these letters boring as all get out, I got to the end of the second line and realized that I had left too many spaces between the "N" and the "O".  Instead of frogging at that point, I just kept going with the next line and then went back and frogged out the O, P,Q & R - you can probably see a little bit of thread droppings - or frog droppings - where I did that.  Not loving stitching these letters at all, after I frogged out those letters, I picked up another WIP - Ann Grant - but I didn't make much progress on it:

Not much done from the last time, but I'm just loving the colors of this one.

Things have been in high gear around here with the end of the year things - dance recitals, track meets, AP exams and all the cramming and my son's upcoming graduation.  So it's been busy and that's probably why Elizabeth took me forever.  Last weekend was the normal round of recitals and would you believe it - I have no pictures!  Well, I do, but they're on the other camera which is not digital, so no great costumes to show this year.  But while DD was at one of her recitals, I took a little hike to an Antiques Market that was being held nearby and scored another frog - but the kind I love - not the frogs involved with threads:

A cut crystal one this time.  The woman I bought this from had the most amazing flower frog, but with also an amazing price tag.  I wish that I had taken a picture of it!  It was really something else.  The little pincushion doll I found at one of the other booths there.  I thought that she was sweet!

Well, once again, there isn't much else to talk about unless you want to her about my son grumbling about AP exams, or the normal trials and tribulations of life.  I did have a shock this week though.  My son informed me that he asked a girl to the Prom - and even more shocking - she accepted!!  LOL  Not really, my son is a great kid, but this is the first I've heard of a girl in the picture.  I guess it's time - he's going off to Spain this summer and then college in the fall, so it's about time a girl showed up in the picture somewhere.  But oh dear, does it make me feel OLD!!

Thanks so much for stopping by and leaving me the wonderful comments that you do.  I'm still having a bit of trouble commenting on blogs.  The Geek Squad can't figure out what it is unless it has something to do with Blogger.  Some times of the day I can get in and make comments with no problem and then other times, I can't - the wireless modem shuts down.  So bear with me - I'm reading everyone's blogs, just not able to comment all the time.

Hope you have a wonderful week, and make it a stitchy one!!

What Do You Do After Finishing Up a BAP?????

That is what I've been asking myself the past couple weeks.  What do I do after Ann Medd?  But first, I have to thank everyone for all the wonderful comments you made concerning Ann's finish.  I was absolutely overwhelmed!  All your comments made it so worth me finally finishing her up and I thank you so much for each and every one of them.  I was just blown away!  And I hope that maybe one of you will have your own Ann Medd adventure too.  Even though she's large, she was an easy and fun stitch.  I do have her back from the framers, but I can't get a good picture of her and will do that as soon as our crazy, overcast skies clear up and the sun's at the right angle!!   My husband, sampler enthusiast that he is (NOT) asked me where I was going to put her.  HA!  Do you know what I was thinking at that point about where to put her???  You probably do so I won't say it.  LOL  Seriously, she WILL be residing in the stairway with ATS.  Finally some company for ATS!!

After I was finished with Ann, I didn't know what to do.  It's just like reading a really good book, and you don't know what you want to read next.  I really felt like starting something new - I thought that I deserved it!!  Going back to a WIP for me felt like trying to get my kids to eat vegetables - I don't wanna do it. But I did and picked up Ann Grant.  She lasted a night.  I picked up Susanna Lane.  She also lasted a night.  Then I picked up Elizabeth Clayton, and she whispered softly and said, "Pick me - Finish Me!"  So I have worked on Elizabeth.  She's not quite done, but I'm getting to the fun part - Adam and Eve:

Not a lot of progress for a couple weeks - just a lot of wording and the borders.  But now comes the fun part - a little more lettering and then that fun couple in Eden and the scene around them.  Shouldn't take me too long (I hope)!

No sewing has really taken place, unfortunately, - well a little, but I've only completed two blocks out of the 16 required for my Civil War Chronicles BOM, and nothing on the Farmer's Wife.  But a little bit of antiquing has.  A while ago, Terri posted a little sewing machine that she had found in an antique shop.  This made me remember that when I was young I had a small Singer sewing machine, but didn't know where it was.  So the hunt was on.  Did I find it?  No.  I'm sure that it's packed in a box somewhere.  I thought it was in a couple trunks that I had brought from my father's, but I didn't have the keys.  I eventually found the keys stuffed in the back of my husband's workbench (where else?).  But no sewing machine - some cool vintage things that I'll show at some other time, but no sewing machine.  So during this time of trying to figure out where the machine was, I hit the antique store and score!!!!

Not in too bad condition and a good price.  The shop was having Thrifty Tuesdays and 20% off any purchase!!  So this baby came home with me.  Since that time, I've found three more through various places and I'll post those at a later date.  But I thought it would be so much fun to have a variety of these machines lined up in.....where else??  My sewing room!!

I also found another flower frog:

Another amber frog.  This one joins two others in my collection:

My husband just shakes his head every time I come home with another one.

The only other crafty thing that I've come across lately is some wonderful things I found on a blog.  The blog is Me and My Stitches, and the girl that makes these wonderful things is named Julie.  Being a sucker for anything stitchy or quilty, I had to purchase a couple of her things and I love them:

The pendant and earrings I bought for myself, and Julie, sweetheart that she is, sent me the scissor fob as a gift.  There is a link on her blog to her jewelry website and I know that she would love to hear from you.  She has some wonderful things and some quilt patterns too, so give her blog and website a look!! Julie and I have struck up an internet friendship of sorts.  She calls me Satan!  The reason for that is that now I have her on the hunt for little sewing machines!  With her living in Iowa, at least we won't be fighting each other at the antique stores!!

The only other thing that has been going on worth mentioning (you don't want to hear about all the errands I run all the time), is that my daughter finally has been able to give up her glasses (she had a lazy eye which was corrected with glasses) and got her braces off.  This was a monumental day for her because she feels that she is no longer - in her terms - a geek.  I think that she looks so beautiful (and way too old - sigh):

Ignore her attempt at trying to look like she's one of Eminem's possee!  Just look at the smile.  I think it's a gorgeous one!!  And one more picture of her and her favorite canine:

They are great buddies!  He follows her around like a shadow.  And he is looking much better now that his hair has finally grown out a little bit.

Well, that's all I have for now.  Not too much.  But thank you all once again for the wonderful comments you left me.  It really warmed my heart and I think it was because of some of you cheering me on, that finally got me to finish Ann.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Easter!!

No Title Post

Okay, I didn't know what to come up with as a blog post title today because it's a little bit of a mixed bag - well, really only a couple things, but like, what do I title it?

I've been good on my projects for the 15 Day Challenge - well, specifically good on one project - poor ole Ann Medd.  This poor ole girl is going to be the death of me.  I want her finished - I want her on the wall.  But she's a big ole girl and obviously this isn't going to happen overnight.

When I started back on her, she looked like this (obviously there was something on my camera lens when I took this picture a couple weeks ago:

Now she looks like this:

I got through the verses K through N and you know what, that N verse with just those two words is the bottom of the sampler - OH HAPPY DAY!!!  But all that fill in - UGH.  It's not hard - it's just time consuming.  Same with the verses - not hard, just time consuming.  And I have a lot of backstitching to do in this.  Right now the fish looks like a blob.  Funny thing is as I'm working on this and looking at this fish (looks like a salmon to me), I'm singing this song in my head about fishies having fun - makes me think of a song that was on one of my kids tapes when they were younger and seemed to play non-stop in the car!  "Hey, little fishies - we're having some fun, we're going to swim 'til the day is done".  OY - that keeps going over and over in my head!  I need to get off this part so I can sing Baa Baa Black Sheep because the next portion is filled with sheep!  But we'll change that to Baa Baa White Sheep because the sheep are all white.

Part of the reason for my lackluster stitching accomplishments this week or so was because I finally got hit hard with the bug the kids had.  Even though I didn't feel good at all and slept most of three days, I figured I'd try to take advantage of having no steam in my body and sit and stitch.  Problem was, every time I'd sit, I'd doze off, so no stellar accomplishments this week.  It also resulted me in being way behind in blog reading this week - my eyes always seems too tired to stay on the computer too long.

Nothing really exciting going on around here besides the Ann accomplishments (or lack there of).  I finally escaped for a day to myself yesterday.  I started feeling like myself and even though we got about four inches of snow, I didn't let that stop me and I went for a drive.  Not a good thing as my car ended up taking me to some new quilt stores.  And because you all know how I need more stash (yeah, right), I came out with this stuff - had to take advantage of the end of the month 20% off sale:

A whole lot of repro fat quarters.  Actually these came from two different stores but I decided to show what lovely surprise was put in the bag at Jennifer's - CHOCOLATE.  Her shop was the second store I went into, but thought I would give her credit for raising my blood sugar up a bit.  Shopping is hard work, I'll tell ya and the chocolate hit the spot.  Especially after the damage I did in the first store - I SAW RED!!:

Yummy, yummy red and white fabrics!!!  Actually this is a kit made up for the Yellow Brick Road pattern, but when I saw it hanging in the store, I swooned.  I had to have it.  And luck was with me - they had just one left!!!  Rotary cutter - here I come.

I met a wonderful woman in this shop - Lake St. Mercantile - who does a lot of Marsha McCloskey quilts and it just so happened that I brought one of my Marsha patterns in with me to look for fabrics.  When she saw it in my hand, she started pulling out fabrics like a crazy woman and this is what I ended up with - some more red fabrics:

I should have spread all the fabrics out, but I'm trying to get this post in before everyone comes home and finds out that I've done nothing but playing with fabrics all day!  LOL  But it's lots of reds and creams and browns - it's going to be wonderful.  And the charge card is in ashes!!  Just crumbly bits in the wallet!!  There was more, but I'll save that stuff for another time.  Let's just say if I keep going like this, my poor son will be going to community college!  I'm also thinking that my husband may be seeing red when he sees the bill.  Oh well, he'll get over it!  He usually does!

To add insult to injury, I went by a couple antique places, so I thought I'd stop in.  Not a good thing.  Actually didn't find too much but a couple things - another flower frog.  Actually this was a real deal.  They had one with the top and bottom for $19.00, but I found the base for $4 and the top for $5 so saved myself $10 - had to save somewhere after that card burning in the quilt stores.

And a pin cushion - is there a particular name for these?:

I'm getting quite a collection of these.  I thought that she was very sweet.

So that's it for me.  I understand that we're in for a heck of a snow storm here on Tuesday into Wednesday.  Late report - double digit snowfall.  Means a day where I won't venture out of the house and maybe can have some quilty love.  The kids will be home too I'm sure, but they're teenagers and want to sleep until noon - and guess what?  I'm going to let them!!!

Thank you again for all your wonderful comments especially on my UGLY block last time.  I think that at this point I'm going to keep it in the quilt.  Not all blocks are beautiful, and it will probably look fine.  If not, it will be destined to be a pincushion.  I would never throw it away.

Have a wonderful week!!

The Color Blue, a Finish and HEXED!!

Happy Friday everyone!!  I don't know about you, but I'm glad that's it Friday.  It's going to be a hot one around here too - kind of crazy weather we've been having in Michigan - but I'll take it - at least it's not snowing.

I love the color blue - it's my favorite - maybe because it's so calming - laying in a chair watching clouds go across a blue sky, the ocean.  It's a color that makes me happy.  So I'm smiling this week because I acquired something blue - such a gorgeous shade of blue that it makes me smile every time I look at it and makes me smile to think of Jolene who sent it to me:

I JUST LOVE IT!!!

Jolene wrote in her card "since you love blue & frogs & scissors......you may need a 'new' dish to display your future scissor purchases".  Well, she was right - I love all those things and I just happen to have a frog lid and a pair of blue scissors (why is no one surprised?)!!!!

I just love this so much Jolene - the color is sooooooooo pretty!  I will treasure it forever!!!  Thank you so, so much!!

It's been another one of those weeks where things have gone not according to plan.  Do they ever?  But I did have a little finish this week - something that I've been dragging around with me to put stitches in here and there:

This was really a fun stitch.  I put the pins that I recently received from Faye's giveaway into it and I think that they're perfect!  Not a big finish, but a finish nonetheless.

I did manage to work on Sarah Seifer this week, but didn't make too much progress on it.  It's a smaller piece, but I haven't had a lot of opportunity to park my butt in the happy stitching chair:

I've managed to get a little bit of quilting done this week, but not enough to really show.  Sometimes I think that I get my hands in too many pots with these crafts so I work on everything a little bit, but by the end of the week, there's not much to show.  But part of that is because now I've been bitten by the hexie bug.

I've got hexies hanging from my trees:

I've got hexies laying on the floor!!!!!

But not a flower put together!!  Well, one, but I'm still trying to find the right needle for putting them together, so I've been experimenting.  But I know of someone else who has been hit by the bug!!!!  My friend Diane.  She is not a quilter.  Well, she's made a couple quilts, but then decided that machine quilting wasn't for her.  But then I told her about hexies and she loves to hand sew.  She was interested, she looked online - she became more interested - so much so that she made me take her to the quilt store.  She bought some fabric - quite a bit of fabric.  I gave her some out of my stash.  SHE BECAME OBSESSED!!!  And this is what she's done:

Okay, I can't get this picture to rotate since I took it with my picture phone.  We met at a Coney Island for breakfast (yes, a strange place to meet, but they do have good breakfasts) and hexies started growing on the table!

Look at these wonderful hexies Di made out of batiks.  Be still my heart.  Are these not the prettiest flowers?  I think that I've created a monster!  Oh, it's such a happy world to enable others!!   Now she's making me want to do batik hexies!  Now she's enabling me - I guess the saying "What goes around, comes around" is true!!

Well, that all I have to report this week.  I spent most of it running around to appliance stores.  If you've been reading my blog for a while, you know that I've been cooking on appliances from hell.  Original stuff from when the house was built 20 years ago.  We've been here five years and nothing has ever worked right - burners from hell, double ovens that didn't heat right, refrigerator with drawers on their last legs.  Well, last weekend the ovens blew up (no, I didn't purposely do something to them, although it has been a thought).  The oven started making screeching noises and error messages began appearing on the control panel and the ovens shut off.  Since I don't have the manuals, who knew what was going on (and even if I had those manuals, they wouldn't have made an appearance - no way Jose').  Did you think that I was secretly smiling at this development???  You bet 'cha!!   I could not contain my excitement because I knew that the time had come!!  So, I spent my week buying all new appliances!  YAHOOO!   DH had to lay down after I was done - I told him NO to just replacing the stove and ovens, but I had to have a refrigerator and microwave too - they all had to match (the dishwasher I had already replaced last year).  The kitchen is my second workroom!!  We got home after placing the order and DH had to retire to the man chair and put an ice pack on his head.  HA!  Me, well, I was dancing all over the house.  It's the small things in life that make you happy right?  That's what I told DH.  His answer, "That da#$ed bill isn't going to be small!"  Oh well, he'll get over it right?

Hope that everyone has a wonderful weekend and that you have some quality time with your father and/or husband.  I'm going to just make sure that the ice packs are at the ready for DH's headache!  It's the least I can do!!  I have a funny feeling he's going to be laying in the prone position for most of the weekend with those ice packs on his head!  LOL

What I did on Easter Vacation (Lots of Pics)

It's been another busy week around here.  DH and kids home for eleven days (I need to insert a picture of a frazzled cat here), relatives in from out of town for five of those days, college campus tours for my son (University of Michigan and Michigan State University - he can't be that old, can he?), some antiquing and very little stitching.   I always think that nothing is really going on - that I have just about the most boring life on earth - but when I take a step back from what I posted last time, I realize that there is something always going on.  If there's not, then I have to get in my car and make trouble at the antique/thrifty/quilt stores. LOL  But, if I haven't visited your blog this week, it's not because I didn't want to.  It's because of lack of time!!  I'll catch up.

Stitching progress on Elizabeth Clayton has been slow this week :

I started going down the side and then got bored with that and went into the house.  I'm bored with that too, but I'm almost done.  I do see a stitch that I'm going to have to go in and fix on the house though.  UGH.  I love the bright colors in this piece.  I still have some things to do on the trees, but figured I'd catch those up when I got to the trees on the other side of the house.

I also started Hannah Lancaster.  This poor chart has been in the stash pile for years, and I decided that it was time that she got some daylight:

Not too much stitching on this piece.  I am actually doing this as a SAL!  Yes, you read right!  Me - who absolutely stinks at SALs - is going for the gusto and trying to do this.  I'm stitching this on Sundays with Sandra and Tawny (no blog).  It's going to take me a long, long time, but at least the dust is off her now! This is a good compliment piece to Elizabeth above, because the colors are much drabber.  I'd probably have a hard time working on Hannah day after day.

I received some wonderful packages in the mail the past week or so.  From Ranae I received the cutest ornament.  Don't you just love it!!!  I think that it's absolutely adorable.  So perfect for the time of the year it came around - Easter, but so sweet it will be displayed all year round.  Thank you so much Ranae - I just love it!!

On Diane's blog, I won a giveaway that she recently had.  I think that great things come in small, sweetly wrapped packages:

Mausimom Freebie

32 ct. Natural Linen w/ NPI Silk

Diane's stitching and finishing is absolutely beautiful.  I just love it Diane.  Thank you so much for picking my name (she also put her initials and date on the back).

Okay, one more.  For someone who was barely home this week and unable to stalk the mailman (and he was probably very happy about that), he was busy delivering things.  I also won a giveaway on Terrie's blog.  She is the owner of The Stitch Store (formerly the Dogwood Patch) and is just the sweetest person to talk to.

Terrie had emailed me and told me that I had won her giveaway, but also left her phone number.  I thought it would be great fun to actually call a person that I had won something from.  Email is nice, but to actually hear the voice of the person was wonderful.  We both had a few minutes of chuckling over our different accents - she being southern and having the voice to prove it, and me with my hard Northern talk.  But she is a sweet, sweet lady and I think that if you're looking for stitching supplies, you should give her a shout.

On Saturday, Terri and I met up at a high school that was having an antique show.  From there we went to a few different antiques shops.  We actually had a little route that I kind of planned out.  Although at one point my routing skills went awry and we almost ended up lost.  Stopping at a convenience store in a very small town is sometimes a scary thing!!!  Anyway, we had a great time and we did have an encounter with a small homeless dog.  I'm going to leave that story to Terri, but it has a wonderful ending.  Anyway, I found a few goodies:

This beautiful blue bowl.  I love, love the color blue and I just had to have it.  I'm almost kicking myself now because one of the booths we visited had a lot of plates that matched this.  I wish that I had gotten them now or at least a place setting of it.  I love tables with different place settings.  But I thought that perhaps this bowl may be frog-worthy....and it is.  I happened to have a top that fits perfectly into it.  But to tell you the truth, I almost like this bowl without the frog.

Then I found this old lunch pail - it does need some cleaning:

Actually, I wasn't going to buy this, but Terri convinced me that I needed it!!  Like a hole in the head!  LOL  But I'm glad that I got it.  

Some sewing supplies (except for the key).  The scissors are supposedly from the 1880's.  They look like it with the dull patina.  Never can turn down a pretty pair of scissors.  And I love the scene on the tape measure - and it actually still works.

I loved this thimble.  One booth had it for double the price I paid for this one, so I couldn't pass it up.

Then some pincushions.  Actually the only one from the antique show/shops is the one on the right.  The backing fabric is very faded - you can tell that it was a wonderful blue at one point.  The other two pincushions are ones that I found at an antique barn that we discovered - although they're definitely not antique.

Along the way, we stopped into a quilt store.  Now, even though I keep telling myself that I don't need a darned thing, that I'm in a crafting slump and don't need more stuff, I caved.  

I just couldn't resist.  I've seen a lot of these Schnibble's patterns on different blogs, and finally decided to buy a couple.  Along with the Tuffit pattern and a needle case pattern.  Now, will someone get a prod under me and get me down to the sewing room?????

Then to top it all off I had to buy these - the newest Gingher scissors (and of course, I've forgotten the name and I'm too lazy to talk downstairs for the case).  The teacup and saucer was my grandmothers.  Just gotta love those 50% off coupons at Joanne's.

 

Well, like I said, I think that I never really have anything to blog about, but then I discover that I do.  But I wish someone could shake me and get me out of the crafting slump.  I think the weather has just been too nice here in Michigan for me to want to stay inside much!!  Which means - more antique shopping.  I still have more pictures to show from my previous jaunts but I'll save them for another time.  Have to fill up my posts with something since stitching is at a minimum.

Thanks everyone for stopping by and leaving what wonderful comments that you do.  I truly feel blessed at having met so many wonderful people through blogging.  And thank you again Ranae, Terrie and Diane for the wonderful goodies that arrived in my mail this week.  I hope that everyone has a happy and stitchy week.