A graduation card...

I just noticed that this week's trend for the "Just Us Girls" card-making challenge is wood grain.  I so rarely get to participate in the challenges, so I jumped at the chance to take part this time!  My nephew graduated from Grade 8 two weeks ago - and my dad just mentioned that he wanted to give him a small gift, but he needed a card to give as well.  You don't need to ask me twice for a hand-made card!  I had picked up a wood-grain embossing folder a few months ago - with a few woodworking family members, it's a handy thing to have.  I'd seen a card somewhere in my travels, that used a paper tree with a knot-hole to "house" an owl, so I used that idea.  I had borrowed a friend's SU owl punch a few months ago, and I punched out a bunch of owls, with their matching vests and little heart shapes, so I assembled a congratulatory owl to sit in my "tree".  Here he is, in all his glory:

Dad loves the card, and I hope my nephew does too!

On my needles Fri. July 11, 2014

I've been working hard this week to get Ila's prayer shawl done.  I've managed to get quite a few inches knit up - and I'm more than half done, but I'd love to have it finished already.  Ila's DDIL called this morning to say that she was scheduled for a brain biopsy sometime today;  she's had a number of tests done in the past week, and she's quite drained by all of it.  She could really use a prayer shawl!
This is what it looks like now:

I realized about 2 rows back that I'd mis-read the pattern - the eyelet rows are supposed to be knit every 20 rows, not every 10 as I've done.  I like this look though, and I'll continue to knit it wrong - besides that, I don't have time to pull it all back and re-knit it...

I'm linking up on Judy's On the Needles site.

Here I am again!

I apologize for not updating a little more regularly - and, unfortunately, I think that it may happen again a time or two this summer.  But I'm here now - partly because of some unpleasant news that we received Saturday evening.  A very dear friend of mine has been diagnosed with a brain tumour.  That sort of news hits hard, especially since she's the perfect mix of surrogate mother and best friend....
I've been re-reading Debbie Macomber's "Blossom Street" series - the stories (mostly) revolve around a yarn shop, and the people who work and shop there.  Most of the books include a knitting class as part of the story-line, and a pattern that's used in the class is also provided.  Why bring this up now?  Because I just finished "Back on Blossom Street" - and the project that the class worked on was prayer shawls!  I've been wondering what I could do to help Ila get through the testing and uncertainty that this diagnosis can bring (for both of us), and the idea of knitting a prayer shawl came to me during church yesterday morning.  I spent some time looking at online patterns and came across this one on Ravelry.  I found some yarn in my stash that I'm hoping will be just the right thing, and I got started on it this morning.  This is my progress so far:

The yarn is soft and light-weight - perfect for this time of year, and I love the colour of it.

I also needed a birthday card for another friend, and, of course, there aren't any made up in my box.   I've posted a lot of cards to my Pinterest boards, and I found one that I decided would make a wonderful birthday greeting.  Fortunately, I had some great designer paper, and matching card-stock, so it didn't take long to come up with this: 

I even discovered some "jewels" that come close the the rusty orange C/S, so they were added, and the card is ready to mail!

Hey, what happened to June?

I think I'm safe to say that this summer is flying by all of a sudden....  I know that quite a few bloggers have commented on how quickly June came and went, and I'm joining their ranks.  I had such great plans to get my Black, White and Lime "Swoon" quilt top assembled for my ALYoF June project - and I think I blinked, because June is gone, and I'm NOWHERE near finishing.  I did manage to get started, not without problems - let's just say that it's NOT a good idea to cut HSTs when you're tired...  I cut the wrong sized blocks, and then couldn't find any extra fabric to re-cut the blocks, so I had to find a different B&W fabric, and then re-cut all the pieces needed for that particular block.  Now I'm back on track; I have the HSTs all sewn together, and am ready to start assembling the flying geese blocks.  Needless to say, this will now be my JULY goal for ALYoF!
Here's a picture of some of the blocks I managed to sew for June:

I'll be linking up this project on Melissa's site.

More Yellow Goodness!

I know that I'm a day late posting this - the blocks were done yesterday, but I just ran out of time and energy to post anything.  I did laundry - hung most of it on the clothesline - then decided to check out the veggie garden....  We've had a bit of rain in the past few days - just enough to get the weeds going!  At first, I thought I'd just pull them out, but using the small hoe and trowel made the job much more productive.  Of course, I'm paying for that half-hour now ;-(
But, I did get my last yellow blocks done!  These are my Kickin' Stash blocks - and I LOVE how good they look!  I didn't think that they'd show up really well against the white of the blocks, but choosing darker yellows helped a lot.
So, I'm sure that you'd like to see the blocks - and then I'm off to link up to the Rainbow Scrappy Challenge page:

Lots of yellow-y goodness for a Saturday!

(I know that it's Sunday!  It was too late to post this last night).
I actually got to spend about 15 minutes in my sewing room last night.  Our kids surprised DH and I with a mostly un-announced visit - DD#1 called to say she was coming home for a few days (Thurs. to Sat.); she also casually mentioned that DD#2 might be showing up after work on Fri. evening...  Well, DD#2 arrived with her hubby - and our son showed up too!  He actually had to learn to drive a car with a standard transmission on Thurs. evening so he could come home.  Hubby and I both had birthdays the first week of June, and our wedding anniversary this past week, and the kids wanted to celebrate all of those events with us.
So, what did I do with my 15 minutes of sewing?  I had pre-cut all the yellow fabrics I'd need for this month's yellow Rainbow Scrappy Challenge, so it didn't take long to add to my scrappy technicolor braid, and to put my Japanese + and x blocks together.
I also did a bit of fabric shopping this week, and found some orange FQs, just in case the colour orange should pop up some time this year - *hint, hint* Angela!  It can be a difficult fabric colour to find, so I figured I'd better grab it while I could!
So, check out my scrappy yellow blocks, and check Angela's site for other yellow scrappy goodness!

 

I'm cutting it close!

You'd think that with all the half-done projects I have, it would be easy to pick one for my June "A Lovely Year of Finishes" project... so why has it taken me this long to decide on one?  I finished quilting my May choice, and then right away quilted a baby quilt (I've almost finished sewing down the binding), but, even though I've got 3 more quilts that are layered and ready to quilt, I really don't feel like quilting another one right now.
So....... I decided that I'm going to start a project that's been cut for about 8 months - it seems like every time I was ready to start piecing it, something would come up, and I'd have to put it aside; and then another project would get put on top of it, and I'd forget about it....  But not any more!  June's ALYoF project is going to be my Black & White & Lime Swoon quilt!  I think I'll be doing well to finish the top, so don't look for a complete quilt - but, if it happens, that will be a happy bonus!
Here's a pic of some of my fabrics - the B&Ws change from block to block, but the green will be constant:

I'm off to post this on Melissa's site.