Today's Title Is .... Slice of Reality

I participate in a group called "Today's Title Is". This week we are doing "slice of reality" so my submission is ...... "My Lunch :)"

What can I say. Our lives are dominated by food and I am supposed to be watching what I eat because of hypoglycemia. (My doctor would have a kiniption (sp?) if he saw my lunch!!!!).

So John made the bread and sliced it up very carefully with his electric slicer. Our peach tree had fruit for the first time last summer so we made some freezer jam. We came home from Ohio recently with a lot of strawberries and made the bulk of that into freezer jam last week-end.

We like to buy things as cheaply as possible so John found the strawberry candle on sale for $1 and I found the plant in a basket at a yard sale for $1.

We are showing Kris how to garden this year and one of the gardening books I enjoy is "Lasagna Gardening". We have heavy clay soil so raised beds are a good option to go with.

So there you go part of our "slice of reality."

Oh and the flower in my header was for another group I'm with called Doodle Days. We had to do a daisy doodle and I just so happened to have a picture partly done sitting in my sewing room. It's sketched in ink on wrapping paper.

Cross Stitch Corner - Exchange Heaven

I'm participating in a swap at Exchange Heaven. This is my first one and the theme is "Colour" (British group spelling). Each participant had to give some color options so I am going to have some fun stitching up this one :) I've picked out a design from one of my books and gridded up my fabric.

I won't start stitching it up till next week because I am helping my kids house sit till Sunday and plan on doing another of my snowmen. It should sew up fairly quickly given that I won't be bouncing around in a vehicle for hours (as per the last one) trying to coordinate eye and hand too needle, floss and fabric :)

Textile Corner - "4 Seasons" Challenge - an update

I'm thread painting the tree ....... finally. It's proving to be a whole lot more fun than I thought it would. I'm currently putting on color one and am planning on doing a couple more colors before adding the snow. By the time it is done there will be a lot more twiggy bits.

When I turned the piece over I got a nice surprise. A white on white thread tree. It doesn't photograph well but I may develop the look further in another project :)

Textile Corner - "How Many Times Round the Block" - completed

I've added the rick-rack and am calling it done :)

I tried different buttons for doggie eyes and did not like any of them. The "googly" eye ones looked too silly for my genteel dog.

Now to finish up the 4 seasons Scottie Dog wall hanging. I'll tackle that one next week. I have a number of swaps to finish up first.

I've also finished a mystery 8"x10" fabric piece for a fundraiser but I am not ready to reveal that one yet. (I'll explain why in due time.)

Cross-stitch Corner - "I Love Snowmen"

Two more completed with 3 left to go. The end is almost in sight :)

I was originally thinking about turning the 10 of them into a wall hanging for Christmas but now

I'm contemplating making individual Christmas ornaments about the size of fabric postcards.

Textile Corner - Landscape quilting

I've mentioned in previous postings that I am taking some landscape quilting classes taught by Shirley Paterson at LearningFA. I absolutely love this generous and very talented lady's work. Having said that I want to find my own "style" so to speak.

I've been trawling around the internet for months now looking at what is out there and today had an AHA moment.

Heather Lair does some fabulous landscapes. She combines fairly simple layouts with some gorgeous abstract quilting borders. I am definitely feeling inspired by what I saw.

www.mts.net/~rhlair/pages_galleries/land_quilt_01.html

It always goes back to some form of hand applique.

You would think that with all the sewing I've done over the years that machine quilting would not be a problem. Not so :) 

To help me overcome my machine quilting neurosis I ordered "60 Machine Quilting Patterns" by Pat Holly and Sue Nickels. It arrived in the mail a couple of days ago and I am in hog heaven. For a dunderhead like myself the layouts show you where to place the needle, what direction to go, where to start and end, and what it looks like when it's done. I'll be cutting up a lot of muslin fairly soon to start practicing. I also had John retrieve my other sewing machine from the back of the closet because I want to try using it for this project. I think this will also work well with the blocks I plan on putting together from "Grandma's Best Full Size Quilt Blocks."

Lunchtime tutorial - Nik's squishy toy - gathering supplies

I promised Nik last week I would do a little tutorial about the toy he made. After a number of interruptions during the course of today hopefully this is it.

So off we go and greetings from the Dancing Caterpillars :)

Supplies

2 fleece fabric squares - mine are 51/2" left over from another project.

Circle template

pencil

scissors

thread

polyfill/fiberfill