A Few Finishes

I have been hibernating to finish out this crazy winter!   At long last most of our snow is melting.  Chicago (Chi-beria) is now beginning to thaw. We have had a few warmer days, but not enough!  However, I did finish a few things while keeping warm.

My yellow whole-cloth quilt is now complete.   I finished doing the trapunto work a few weeks ago.   I am in love with the quilt and am so sorry it took me SO LONG to finish it.   My thanks to Tim Latimer whose beautiful hand quilting and exquisite trapunto inspired me to complete this.  Please visit his blog to see his work.

Yellow Whole Cloth Finished

Next I finally did the “finishing” of two Christmas ornaments I did a while ago. I made some for friends for Christmas and liked them so much I made a couple for myself.   I KNOW that the photo background is not exactly a “christmasy” background, but my quilt was JUST SITTING THERE waiting to be photographed again!  Note…the red on the ornaments is really red…not orange!  (Both ornaments are Little House Needlework patterns.)

Xmas Ornies Jan 2014

And last but not least is an Easter ornament that I love. I have a couple more in the works but they are not completed yet.  This ornament is from a Prairie Schooler  leaflet entitled “Folk Eggs.”

Easter Egg 1

QUESTION FOR MY READERS:
Does anyone out there have the pattern from Prairie Schooler called “A Prairie Garden“?  It is rather old.   I wondered if anyone out there would be willing to sell me theirs?   Please let me know if you have one for sale or trade.

During the last blog hop I was lucky enough to be the recipient of some very nice gifts from Joyce at “Joyces Love of Life” blog.   Please visit her here.   She has a LOT of lovely cross-stitch projects in the works!    Thank you again Joyce for the lovely gifts.

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Others things have been in the in my studio, but my wonderful lovely Husqvarna sewing machine is in for repair at the moment.   Hopefully it won’t be TOO expensive for the repairs.    I was working on a king size red and white quilt and it just up and quit on me!    Oh the pain!    But then my hand stitching is getting caught up, so I shouldn’t complain!

Hope the Spring Solstice scares away the frigid north winds and lets the balmy breezes blow up from down south!

Amities, Averyclaire

Grow Your Blog Winner!

Make My Heart Happy-Green

Once again, thank you to everyone who visited my blog during the “Grow Your Blog” days.   And a special thank you to all of you who have signed up to be followers of my blog.    The winner of my giveaway for this special time is Barbara Lillian In France.   A special thank you to you Barbara for participating.  Please stop in to see her blog…her photos are LOVELY!   I previous made one of these for a friend’s birthday…and I liked it so much I made another one for the giveaway.  Hope you enjoy it Barb! My days have been filled with lots of diligent work on finishing my unfinished projects.

Here is one of my projects I managed to finish.  It was so fun stitching one bird, that I made four of them!   It is a Just Nan pattern called “Cardinal Tweet” and it is available from Inspired Needle in Lemont, IL.  The pattern includes only the finishing materials for one bird.  I had to create my own tails and beaks, and add extra beads to make four birds.  Fun:(

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My trapunto flowers are coming along, although I had hoped to have them all done. It goes fairly quickly, but I worked on other things instead!

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Another favorite project I hope to finish soon is this one. I will not reveal the pattern until it is finished. Can anyone out there guess what it is?

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Of course, much time was spent in helping my DH clear out our snow-filled walkways. Recently when a group of ladies were complaining about the terrible winter, one friend said, “I woke up this morning, and I am not in any pain…so I cannot complain about something so minor as the weather.” I whole-heartedly agree!

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And so I let my beautiful African Violet inspire me. Just looking at it reminds me that Spring is just around the corner!

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Congratulations Barb.    Happy stitching to all.     Amities, Averyclaire