My Saturday with my Stitchin' Friends.....

This past Saturday was our monthly group meeting with my "Stitchin' Friends" hosted by Teresa of ....what else....Stitchin' Friends!

This month, Teresa taught a new-to-us technique from Helen at Hugs 'n Kisses. It was great fun.


After this step, we are supposed to outline all the coloring with embroidery but I like the black outline so much, I may leave it.


I happened to trace my pattern with a black pigma pen with every intention of stitching it. What do YOU think?

Blessings, Cathi

Some quilty pictures.....

Here is a picture of my Charming Girls Challenge all laid out on the bed.


Most of the black "logs" have disintegrated. Not all of them are the same width, just made the size needed to make the blocks the same size.


The yellow that you see a lot of in all the pictures is the backing showing through.


The backing is so thin that I will have to replace it also.


But I think it will be beautiful when I am through with it and hopefully last even longer.


And another little project I have been working on.


Can you tell by the colors what it is going to be?

Blessings, Cathi

Charming Girls in September.....

Nothing like waiting until the last minute to post my September Challenge for Kelly!


Do you remember my little rant last November about never volunteering to fix an old quilt? Well, regardless of what I want to do, I still owe this guy his quilt. It was part of a barter with him and my Dear Hubby and I. He has fulfilled his end of the bargain and now I have to hold up my end.

I didn't take a new picture but will soon. I am just throwing this one in from the other post to make the deadline for the challenge.

Blessings, Cathi

Half-Pint and Me.....

Didn't want you to think I was totally uncrafty this week. I finished stitching my Petites Lettres Rouges that Blackbird Designs first came out with WAY back in April. Not too far behind, am I? I've narrowed down the way I want to finish it. Still thinking.....


So Arline Clause in the stitchery is my paternal grandmother.....or more affectionately known around our house as HALF-PINT. She was rather vertically challenged......but she is the one that taught me handwork. She did amazing work. She could knit, crochet, cross-stitch, needlepoint, even dye wool and hook rugs. I don't remember her quilting, though.

Funny story about her name. I was named after her, at least my middle name was. When Dad filled out the paperwork at the hospital for my birth certificate, he inadvertently misspelled it. Hers was Arline with an "i" and mine was spelled Arlene, with an "e". When she found out that her own son didn't know how to spell her name.....well let's just say I think he was left off the Christmas card list that year!


She was born and raised in Staten Island at the turn of the last century in a very proper, fairly wealthy, Victorian-era house.....hence the handwork. She had a married sister and two spinster sisters and one lone brother. This is a picture of Half-Pint and my grandfather at Metedeconk River, NJ sometime in the 1930's I think.



And here they are again in Ocean City, New Jersey in 1980. I had never seen two people so in love in my entire life. Grandpa always called her "my bride". Grandpa died in 1983 and Half-Pint a few years later......I think of a broken heart.


Blessings, Cathi