College

Speaking of school. Here we are with Brett, #1 Grandson after his good bye dinner. He left the week after this picture for college in Chico. He is rooming with 2 or 3 other college students. He certainly darfs us. We figure the football coaches are going to be after him to play ball but he has never been interested in playing football. He's a gentle giant!

Now Kelcy is due to leave soon for Santa Cruz to start college too. She is a year younger than Brett. She graduated wtih honors and a 4.xx gpa. She intends to bcome a pharmacist. Their parents are left with 2 at home but know it will a tough adjustment.

Here's Kelcy with her group on the grounds at BC during graduation in June.

Now this was her group from North High that had GPAs above 4.0. Amazing! Kelcy was right in the middle, in fact, she is behind the guy in the suit right in the middle of the picture. I snapped this at that moment while in the stadium bleachers. It was pretty darn warm that night. The year Brett graduated was the last year the graduation was held at North high due to the large number of students graduating. Kelcy was the first North High student to compete in the state tennis championship.

Time does go by quickly! Enjoy your kids and grandkids because they grow up, go away to school and on to lead their own lives!

Real School

Caitlin is in 1st grade this year. Real school you know.

And she turned 6 ,  2 days after school started.

I thought her shoes were pretty cool. They were colorful, had bling and when she walked lights flashed all over the shoes. And remember when you were a kid with new tennies how fast you thought you could run? Well she had to show me how fast she could run in her new tennies! Streakin' fast for sure.

Feet don't fail me now ~~ Keep on truckin'

Raggedy Ann and Andy Stitch outs

Ok, I have stitched the embroidery out for both months. I didn't get the sizes right for month 2 - they're a little too large. So I've got them resized and will stitch them out again.

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For my embroidery background I'm using osnaburg fabric. Not sure why some of the stitching on the right collar didn't stitch so will double check that in the software. Raggedy Ann and Andy in block 1 are my favorites to this point! Ha. Will shoot for constructing the blocks tomorrow.

Summer Sea Shell Towel Pattern

New free design from Bird Brain that would be easy for digitizing but can also be done by hand.

Are you stitching the Raggedy and Ann designs from Kaaren? I'm digitizing them and have sewn just the two from last month. I have the fabrics cut to piece the whole block, including the sashing. Tomorrow I hope to stitch out the two from this month. If you have V6 Designer Plus embroidery software you will find these single color images fairly simple to digitize. I'm enjoying the freehand open object  tool in V6. There's a closed object version but since the embroidery is redwork the open object tool is perfect. That and the blackwork run tool help make this quick to do. My goal is to at least post the embroidered blocks tomorrow, if not the pieced blocks.

New Bernina Foot

Here's the new pintuck foot from Bernina. Am anxious to get my hands on one.

Reusable Sandwich Wrap

Have you laminated fabric yet? It's pretty darn simple. Just choose matte or glossy. Then follow the instructions to fuse to one side of your fabric - usually the "right" side of the fabric, but hey there, this time the side that is laminated is what goes next to your sandwich or whatever is being wrapped. Now you're ready to create a number of nifty projects. Here is one that is in keeping with the "go green" focus that is pretty popular these days.

Click here to go to the site for instructions on creating this reusable sandwich wrap.

NOTE**

What I forgot to add was that if you want to spruce yours up by adding embroidery to your fabric, add the embroidery BEFORE laminating the fabric.That allows your fabric to still work correctly for this project.

Embroidery on the bed

Recently I was wondering through Bed, Bath and Beyond and stumbled on some embroidery quilts, terrific shams or pillow treatments. Luckily I had my camera with me so I snagged some photos to share with you. I just kept forgetting to post this pictures.

This one had the embroidered block, surrounded with just the small pieced fabrics. The embroidered blocks were the same as what you see here. Really a charming piece. Didn't want to see which 3rd world country created this one.

This pillow sham had piping all around. The strip of embroidery and applique extended across the width of the bed-sized pillow. Loved the aqua shade of fabric and embroidery. Very soothing.

Yes, this was on the same display as the previous pillow. Actually there are 2 in this shot that I thought were worthy to mention. The pillow on the left on the white background has a nice embroidery design laid out across the pillow front. The pillow on the right has a fun treatment of rows of fabric that finishes into nice rows of pleats across the pillow front. Looked like you could do this with a tie or piece of fabric that was seamed together and then turned right side out so no raw edges. This one was a little smaller than the others - more of an accent pillow. More of that grayish aqua shade that is very nice.

 

Well, imagine that! I found a lime green pillow on display. Now this is just a simple embroidered medillion or even a quilting pattern that is evenly spaced across the width of the pillow sham in a contrasting thread color so the design pops against the color of the fabric!

Knowing how pricey these things can be I am sure that you could find the perfect fabrics and all to make something very similar to any of these for a fraction of the cost. And it would be an original. So now, get started!!