Give Kids the World Village helps children with life-threatening illnesses enjoy weeklong, cost-free vacations with their families. Together, the designers are donating royalties from the book’s sales to benefit this charity.

Until later!
Alma

     Mix a few birds in with some scrappy baskets of flowers, and you have folk art at its best! Notice how the sweet plaids make the burgundies and blues pop. This quilt would be the perfect accent for any room in your home. Barb used a fat quarter pack of  "At Home,"our latest fabric line with Moda Fabrics. She added yardage of several other prints and the look is fun! I'm always surprised how much I love the blue and red and burgundy leaves. It's nice when they don't all have to be green.
     The appliqué shapes are large and simple, making this a quick and easy project. "A Little Flower" is a 60" square.

     Below is pictured # 5 in our Loose Feather series, For the Birds. The same color palette helps to make sure they go together well. "Sing a Song of Seasons" is at the printer and will be picked up on Monday. Then off to the distributors, and they will be ready for you hopefully by the end of next week. I'm working on # 6 now. I know we have missed a couple of months publishing this series. I've had a couple of delays. 

     The pattern below is the newest one in our Christmas Series. It is adapted from an antique piece that captured my eye. The large floral border is my favorite part. This was such an easy stitch. This one will be in shops very soon.

         
     Here's a picture of M. Bowker's antique piece. Her sampler is joyous!



     I have to share two photos from my bike ride too. Becky is posing in front of this enormous rock. She's looking really glad to have biked so far! After taking her picture, I was going to do the same pose. Then, I noticed something under the stone's ledge. (Look just behind Becky's right foot.)


 

The Light Upon the Lawn is our newest Loose Feathers pattern. (Second in the series) It's on its way to the printer today, and shipping out to the distributors in a weeks time. The floss colors are the same as last month's palette, and I think one set of floss should be enough to do two of these small samplers.


     The title of this pattern is inspired by Emily Dickenson’s poem, ‘A Light Exists in Spring’. In the poem she speaks of the light in spring being colored differently than the rest of the year. I loved the idea of spring light awaiting on the lawn ... ready for us to come outside and view the landscape. You can read her poem here.
     Last weekend Barb and I traveled north for Stitchville USA's retreat in Minnesota. We had a lovey time! Great women, venue and food! Can't beat that combination! This trip really got me thinking about spring.
      After we had driven about 250 miles north, I noticed the landscape had changed. No trees were in bloom and no buds on the trees. I told Barb we could experience about 6 springs a year. Start in the south and slowly travel north over a period of 10 weeks. Might be the perfect bike trip. I digress here....anyway someone from the retreat asked me how we come up with some of the pattern titles. It got me thinking that Barb and I should share how we name our patterns.
    


     I had to wake Corey up for this picture. After our morning walk, he has been sleeping by my chair helping me work. Well....he's not really helping .....he's just lovely companionship. Look at those droopy eyes! Not to worry about any lack of sleep on his part...he's already snoring again.

Until later!

Alma

     My oldest son and I walk dogs at Wayside Waifs for a couple of hours each week. It's a time we enjoy spending together. We are working on our fourth year of volunteering. Each time we walk 3 - 4 dogs a mile, giving them a chance to get out, get some affection and work out some of the stress of being cooped up. Last month we found Corey, aka Dozer, in the holding area. The staff at Wayside Waifs worried he had ring worm and had isolated him.
    Andy and I fell in love with him. I went home and told my husband I wanted to get him ring worm for his birthday. After he met Corey, he couldn't resist. I think this dog is about the best birthday gift I've given to him.
     He's getting to pose on one of my favorite hooked rugs. I'm only letting him perch here for a photo! This rug was made by Sandy Williams and I don't want anything happening to it!!!
    Don't be fooled by his sweet look though! He's turned out to be a dirty, sneaking, lying thief. When I'm not in the kitchen he jumps up to see what's in reach on the counter tops. Last week he got a stick of butter, and this week he got a helping of tuna fish! I'd take him back ....but I seem to like him in spite of his bad ways.

     I love to begin a new project to celebrate the holiday after the rush of the season is over. All is quiet, no more gifts to buy or make, and there are enough leftovers to keep us going for a while.    
     An antique sampler by J. Mair’s was the inspiration for my newest Christmas design, Feliz Navidad.  This is the second in our Christmas Sampler Series. The first one was published in 2012.


      Each of Barb’s grandnieces and nephews initials are stitched into this sampler. Now she has a permanent record of the next generation of her family. An alphabet chart is included so you may replace her family’s initials with yours. Also included in this chart is a pattern for a heart pincushion. This sampler is based on an antique piece too. I love how the frame comes up right to the last stitch....very much as it would have been framed long ago.


Lady Liberty was a club piece done for Dyeing to Stitch. We have released it for all now. I love how Barb designed her holding a threaded needle.


The Sewing Bird- scissor pocket was also a club piece done for Dyeing to Stitch. We have released it for all now.


Hats off to Uncle Sam was a class piece we had taught last year. The drum pincushion fits inside the hat box. Instructions for the had and pincushion are included inside the pattern. The pincushion is stitched on Murky linen by Picture This Plus. I love everything about this small pincushion. I'm going to have to stitch one for myself!

This Winter is Past  was my favorite stitch of the year. It was stitched on Picture This Plus - Oaken linen. (A new color released at market.) I decided to use Weeks Dye Works blue and brown/gray shades. I guess it was my favorite because everything just seemed to come together just right. A lot of times, I have to take floss out and replace it with another to get it right. Feels like I'm stitching each piece twice. The linen looks lighter here than it really is, because I use a white mat board backing. The splotchy color of the linen gives dimension to the sampler. 

     This is the first pattern of our new Loose Feather Series for 2017. We are framing all of them in the same frame as pictured above. We plan to hang all of them together on the wall. Each of the nine in the series, celebrates our fine feathered friends. We will release one each month until the series is completed. Each will be the same square size. The floss colors are from Weeks Dye Works and will all be in a similar colorway. The next linen used will be Picture This Plus - Ale, and the third one will use Oaken.

     I've just finished getting our newest quilt book to the printer and it will be ready to ship out Friday and Monday.
Here's a sneak peak at the cover.


Will show you the latest addition to our family soon. Hope you are enjoying spring!

Until later,
Alma

 The cross stitch sampler above was originally adapted from a quilt block pattern from our quilt book Home Sweet Home. Barb changed 6 of the blocks from the 9 block quilt into cross stitch patterns. It's a little different from the block in the book....but still basically the same design.


 "Merry Christmas Ella Vaughn" was adapted from the far right block in the middle row.