Happy Belated Easter!

Thanks for stopping by! 

Courtney - thank you for being a follower.  I checked out your blog and added it to my list.  Just kind of curious - how did you come up with the name for your blog?  Thanks for your comments on the pictures and my quilt.  That quilt was my first big quilt ever!  A very long time ago I made a sampler that I hung in my kitchen but the log cabing quilt was a queen size quilt.  I have since learned that before I pin the top to the back - lay it on my bed to make sure it will fit!!!

Kim - I'm glad you liked the pictures.  I wish I had taken more and tried to jot down a little info about each one.  But it was my first hook-in so I have a lot to learn obviously! 

Julia - it took almost a week for Stacy and I to get rested from our hook-in (it's only a 2 hour drive from our homes!!!).  I knew you'd love the rooster!  I told the woman I had a friend who liked roosters and would just fall in love with it.  She said she used a #6 to hook it.  I wish I'd found out who did the pattern for you.  The yellow was like a blended yellow, kind of light red and light orange colors.

Lauren - It was a fun, but very rainy day!  The biggest problem I had is that once I got home I wanted to start going to town on my Winter Welcome but was just too tired, then I got up Monday to come to work and whined to my husband that I really wanted to stay home and hook.  Sigh...  The bugger is probably going to retire this summer so then it really will be brutal to come to work while he gets to stay home!!!

Things are kind of crazy here at work - rumors/talk about lay offs, etc.  I'm just a mere two years away from being able to retire and hope I get to keep my job that long.  I'd be afraid to look for a job at my age and we can't afford for me to not work - bills to pay, rugs to hook, quilts to quilt - you've got the picture.  I supervise five really wonderful workers and am concerned about their positions and what will they do if they lose their jobs.  So, for a while I may be in and out, but will try to stay upbeat and post pictures and fun things like that.

Thanks to everyone who stops by.  If you have a second or two drop me a line, introduce yourself, let me know if you have a blog - I'd love to follow along!

Take care and happy hooking! 

Finally!

I have the time to post some pictures - one of them is the project I'm currently working on.  The rest are pictures from the hook-in.

These are two shots of what I'm currently working on.  It's called "Winter Welcome Heart" (I know - it's spring...what can I say...!)  Designed by Jill Holmes of Northwoods Wool (http://www.northwoodswool.com/)

 A picture of my friend, Stacy's rug - Pearl, LaVerne, and Mae by Spruce Ridge studios.

 A picture of the crowd at the hook-in in Holmes County this past weekend.

Below are some of the rugs brought in for display.  The pictures don't do them justice!

This was a lovely wool applique done on wool fabric.  Absolutely beautiful!  The colors are so vibrant!!

 A rug being hooked by one of the attendees!  Aren't to colors gorgeous!

 A rug that I thought was so nice!  At first I thought "Wow! I'd love to hook this rug!" but then I thought of how big it is and decided I needed to pace myself and work up to something this big!  LOL!  I can't remember which vendor had it displayed.  :(

So the hook-in was fun, overwhelming, inspiring, and at the end of the day tiring!  On the way there it rained.  When we got there it was pouring!  We made a mad dash from the car into the building.  We found a table and as I was setting up I realized I had left my frame in the car.  So it was a mad dash to the car and back but oh well.  We met a lot of very friendly people.  Saw a lot of awesome rugs in progress.  We were amazed at the women that were hooking with #3 wool!  WOW!  Such tiny pieces of wool!!!!  But the results were beautiful!  An awesome lunch provided by Log Cabin Caterers.  Then we went shopping at Country Craft Cupboard in Berlin, Ohio.  I bought some rug binding, a pair of scissors, some primitive linen, and a few other odds and ends.  They were having people pull eggs from a basket and inside were little pieces of paper with a % off - I got 25% off my purchase so I was a very happy camper.  The drive home wasn't as rainy but we were pretty tired.  By the time I got home and ate some dinner I was practically falling asleep in my plate!  I went to bed at 8:15 p.m. and slept until 7:30 the next morning.

Thanks for dropping by.  I hope you enjoy the pictures!

Have a great evening!

Finally! It's FRIDAY!

I'm really looking forward to tomorrow's hook-in in Holmes County.  Stacy and I will be hitting the road around 7:30 a.m.!    I'll be taking a small heart shaped mat to work on - sorry I can't remember who designed it.  It's a winter scene welcome with a snowman.

Note to self:  TAKE CAMERA AND USE IT!!!  :)

Have a great weekend everyone!

A beautiful weekend!

Saturday we drove down to Amish Country (Walnut Creek and Berlin Ohio).  No particular reason for going except to get away for a day.  It was supposed to be a nice day.  It was overcast and chillier than they predicted but still better than rain and snow.  Bought a rug hooking pattern to hang over the doorway from the Living Room into the Kitchen.  Bought some yarn so I can whipstitch my cardinal mat.  And of course pastries from Der Dutchman.

Sunday Stacy came over to work on her quilt.  And of course I totally forgot to take pictures yet again!  Sigh...

This coming Saturday, April 16 - Stacy and I are going to a hook-in in Holmes County (Walnut Creek) Mennonite Church down in Amish country.  I'm sure after that we'll have to head into Berlin to the Country Craft Cupboard and probably some other stops along the way!

Have a great day!

Happy April!

Sorry I haven't be on in a while.  Was having some chest pain with nausea and shortness of breath at my cardiologist's office so he sent me for a heart cath last Thursday.  Everything came out fine - no angioplasty, no stents - arteries are good.  So I gues when I do my follow-up with him on April 28 we'll talk about what could be causing the chest pain, etc.  I'm thinking - STRESS!  Things have just been so crazy here at work and so crazy at home and I haven't been taking care of myself and paying attention to what my body was trying to tell me so it just reached up and slapped me upside the head to get my attention! 

I did start on a small cross stitch project that I'll post when I'm done.  I still have to bind my cardinal mat.

My friend Stacy and I are going to a hook-in down in Amish country here in Ohio on April 16 - looking forward to that!

Still have to have two more classes of quilting with Stacy and Mary Jane and hopefully they'll be satisfied with the results!  :)  I'll try to remember to take pictures at our next class and post them!

Thanks for stopping by!

Char

This and that



Our house after they tore off the stoop and before adding the front porch.



Midway into the job.

The porch is finished - now to paint the house.

The house painted and shutters on.

So the reason I'm showing this is because now that spring is right around the corner we need to decide on some type of landscaping.  I read in my country gardens magazine that there is a lilac bush that gets only 4-5 feet tall and blooms all summer.  So I'm thinking of adding that to the left corner, then some type of shrubs.  We have rose bushes in front of the picket fence.  Then we'd need to add some types of shrubs under the picture window.  I'm not a good gardener so I'm going to need something that requires little care.  So much work to do!  So little time!  :)  We also need to get some nice rockers or gliders to put on the porch so we can sit out and enjoy the evenings or mornings on the weekends.  We have a nice back porch as well.  I'll get pictures of that later.  We like sitting out back - less traffic, lots of birds, quieter.

Almost finished with my cardinal mat.  I was running out of my background wool so I decided to add an extra row to the border, then do little half circles in the corners with the same color wool as the border.  I think I'm going to be okay now with the background wool.  I'll post as soon as I'm done.  I need to get some wool yarn to do my edging with - I thought I had bought some but can't find it.  I have the binding tape to do that part of the mat.  Yay!

Have a great day!  And thank you for stopping by!



It's a beautiful day!

The sun is shining, it's about 55 degrees.  Sigh... wish two things - 1) that I had the day off and 2) that this would mean the end of the cold and snow, but sadly they're predicting another snow event next Thursday evening into Friday.  At this point they're not sure how little or how much snow we might get but it SNOW!  Yuck!

I had the first of a three part quilting class this past Sunday.  They got all their fabric cut out so on April 3 we'll beging the sewing.  I totally, totally forgot to take pictures while they were working away, pics of their fabric choices etc.  I even had the camera sitting on a side table! 

I am really in a dither about what to do about the fact that I'm running out of wool for the background on my cardinal mat.  :(  I tried addinng a goldish beige color but it looks too gold.  So I'm thinking I just need to put it on hold until I can go to Ault's and see if I can find some wool close to that color.  Meanwhile I can start on a new project.  Sigh...  I can see that I really need to learn how to dye my own wool so that hopefully this won't happen to me again.  I just need to get all the supplies, read the book and start one color at a time...