Autumn Love

I love Autumn.  I love the cooler weather, the changing leaves and all their brilliant colors, Halloween, outdoor festivals and craft shows, comfort foods such as chili and hot dishes made in the crock pot, and of course, decorating the house with the warm, inviting colors of the season.  Autumn is easily my favorite time of year, followed closely by Spring.  After the heat of Summer in the South, the cooler temperatures and crisp breezes of Fall are very welcome.  As I sit typing this morning, it's about 55 degrees and should warm to around 67 degrees by this afternoon.  Love that crisp chill in the air!  

This time of year seems to make me want to engage in more arts and crafts.  I've been busy working on several projects over the past couple of weeks, some cross-stitch related, others are rag wreaths and other projects.  My good friend Kim is expecting her 2nd daughter any day now and I'm working with another fellow crafter to create a cross-stitch quilt for baby Samantha's nursery.  The room is being decorated with a butterfly theme in lavenders and pinks.  I found a cute pattern from Gail Bussi in one of my "The World of Cross Stitching" magazines (WOCS) called "Flutterby Trio".  I changed a few colors around and added metallic thread and iridescent filament to give it a little sparkle.  I've been working on the cross-stitch portion while my partner has been picking out matching fabric to create the quilt.  So far, I've finished one butterfly completely and have two others partially finished.  I really hope that Kim and baby Sam will love it.

I've also been busy trying to decorate my fireplace mantle for the season.  As I mentioned before, I love the warm colors of Autumn and I also love Halloween.  I wanted a mantle that didn't necessarily scream Halloween and could stay up even after the holiday but definitely had elements from this favorite holiday.  I decided to use one of my framed Halloween cross-stitch pieces and one of our many "scary" buildings from my husband's Halloween village.  We have a ton of these but I only chose one to go over the fireplace.  The rest are packed up pending our move to Charleston.  I think it came out pretty well and we are definitely enjoying it each evening.

It's Been a While...

Much has been going on in my life over the past several months and unfortunately, blogging was moved to the bottom of my to do list.  My husband left his job of 15 years to tackle a new position with a company in Charleston, SC.  We will eventually be moving to Charleston after being in the Atlanta Metro area for just over 14 years.  It's a big challenge for us and we are both excited and nervous.  I too will be leaving my current job of almost 15 years in the next couple of months.  We've been making weekend trips to the lowcountry area to try to learn the city layout and look for housing.  It's been a crazy few weeks to say the least!  

Add to that the arrival of one friend's baby girl Dakota and another friend's soon-to-be baby girl Samantha, two baby showers, our vacation and the arrival of a friend from Australia who stayed with us for about 10 days, cleaning out and organizing the garage for our impending move, my birthday, and my hubby and I both being sick with a nasty stomach flu and it's been a jam-packed few months of activity.  Even with everything going on, I've still tried to make time for working on my crafts.  I've made a little more progress on my cross-stitching, my latch hook rug, and my rag wreaths (both for me and as gifts).  I've even started making fabric Christmas ornaments to give as gifts for friends and family.  I'm amazed that I've been able to get started on this a bit early this year!  I'm normally struggling to complete my craft gifts in early to mid-December!  

With everything going on, I will probably not be blogging as regularly as I would like but I'll try to pop in periodically with an update.  Happy crafting! 


P.S.  Here's a photo of my latch hook rug that is coming along very slowly and another of my baby boy "supervising" my latch hook to make sure I am doing it correctly.  I think it will be wonderful when it's finally complete. :-) 

Making Progress...

Just thought I'd post a couple of pictures of two small designs that I am currently working on.  I hope to have them completed very soon.  

The first is going to be a greeting card design for Christmas.  It's a group of ornaments hanging from a string of Christmas lights.  It's a pattern from one of my cross-stitching magazines from the UK.

The butterfly piece is a sample I am doing for my friend Kim.  She is expecting her 2nd daughter in early November and would love to have the baby room completed with a butterfly theme.  She would really like a small baby quilt with cross-stitch butterflies to use in the room.  I found this pattern in a cross-stitch magazine and thought I'd show Kim the finished piece to see if she would like this design for the quilt.  If not, I can always use it for something else, but if so, I'll have one of nine butterflies completed.

This last one is a small design for another Christmas card.  I completed it last month and added it to my "2014 Smalls SAL - Completed Projects" page but I thought I'd add it to the main blog page as well.  I think he's cute!

The Weekend is Just Too Short!

This past weekend went by way too fast.  I mean, I blinked and it was practically gone.  Sometimes I really would like to go back in time and make the typical work week four days instead of five.  Three-day weekends every week would be so wonderful.  I could get so much more accomplished.  Or I could just be a bit lazier.  Either way works for me!

I spent this past Saturday at home, working on fabric wreaths for the Calico Craft Designs’ Etsy Shop.  I finished one for spring/summer that was already in progress and I started a second one that is more of a prototype.  I’m trying to combine another type of fabric into the typical “rag” wreath and it’s proving to be an interesting task.  If the prototype works out the way that I hope it will, I’ll post more about it.  If not, well…we’ll see.  I may post something anyway.  I could definitely use the feedback.

Oh, and I’ve got at least two new items for the Etsy Shop but for the first time in a very long time, I am without a camera at the moment.  I have the one that is built-in to my mobile phone but the quality is just not the same.  [sigh]  I may have to break down and borrow a friend’s camera for a few days so I can get these listed for sale.

I spent Sunday afternoon visiting with friends who have a 2-month old baby boy.  He is sooooo cute and is such a good baby.  It was a joy to spend some time with them.  I didn’t actually work on any crafts, believe it or not, but I did try to jot down a few ideas for future projects.  Maybe I’ll have to find something to do for the beautiful little boy’s room.

Yes, this weekend went by way too fast.  How did you spend your weekend?  Did you get to work on any UFOs (unfinished objects) or start something new?