Crazy Quilt Dragonfly Purse

I've been looking forward to sharing this project with you.  It was a commissioned piece that I did but I had to wait until after Christmas to post photos:

I'll be staying home for the most of today.  I feel like my house is a mess.  It's really not but it feels that way.  I'll be taking the tree down after my annual New Year's Eve JoAnn's Fabric Store shopping spree.  The tree is very pretty and surprisingly, I have been enjoying it but I'm ready to have "normal" again.

Valentine Cats

I finished up on my Pink Cat Doll yesterday:

The little pink flowers are not the Cast On stitch.  I tatted them while watching television the other day.  Simple little tatted flowers in variegated #8 Perle cotton.  I just sewed them on.

And here are the seam treatments for this piece:

Click here for more Crazy Quilt Seam Treatment Inspiration.

This will be my next Valentine Cat Doll:

I'm going to stitch on this now for an hour before I get myself together to run up to the WalMart.

More Vintage Hankies

After going out for breakfast yesterday, Bubba took me to the Colonial Antique Mall in Woodstock Illinois where I wandered around, in my own little world for awhile.  I found some gorgeous vintage laces but some vendors seem to think they have gold and I know better so I didn't buy any.  Instead, I found a few more pretty vintage handkerchiefs:

So Springy!  2 are for mom and 2 are for me. 

If you remember from my post yesterday, I said I would share a photo of the pink Mile A Minute afghan my mom made me for Christmas:

It's crocheted in strips and then the strips are crocheted together.  Yes, I have white wicker furniture in my living room.  When we remodeled our living room a few years back, it just wasn't in our budget to buy new furniture but I couldn't live with what we had so I bought a set of white wicker patio furniture.  It's really pretty.  Light and airy and gardeny however, it is not particularly comfortable for living room furniture.  The plan is, at some point to get something more Victorian looking.  Either a set of antique furniture that we can have reupholstered or something new that looks antique.  As you can see from the photo, it has to be cat friendly so I'm thinking of leather.  It comes in soft, pastel colors like pink and aqua blue now.  I can't live with anything dark.  We also plan to put a wrap around front porch on our house so we'll then move our wicker furniture outside to enjoy.

Anyway, that's the afghan mom made for me.  As you can see, mom is well aware of my love for the color pink!

Finally, I did do a little stitching yesterday:

When we got home, I put my Marie Antoinette movie on.  I may have mentioned that my husband has been working on Saturday's and doing a lot of side jobs and saving his money.  Last week, he bought us a 60 inch television.  Christmas has been very lean for the past few years and he wanted to do something nice that we could both enjoy.  All I can say is wow!  It was a surprise and I was blown away.

Of course, when you upgrade one thing, you have to upgrade everything.  The picture was quite grainy so we had to buy a new DVD player and we also have to upgrade our Direct TV box and service.  It's crazy.

But anyway, the new DVD player made a huge difference in the picture quality and so I decided it would be nice to see Marie Antoinette in all her pink fluffiness!

I was so taken with the quality of the picture and sound that I couldn't hardly tear my eyes away from the TV long enough to stitch!  Ha, ha, ha!  I felt like I had never seen the movie before.  Too funny!

After that, Bubba put National Treasure on and again, I was just in awe of how different it looked and sounded on the new TV.  I'd better not plan on any movies today or I'll never get that cat doll done!

For today, I actually plan to do some straightening up and hopefully, I can finish up on that cat doll.

Pink Cats

I hope everyone had a nice Christmas.  Ours was very nice.  We spent the day at my parents house and I was able see my sister and nephew for awhile too.

My mom made me a gorgeous Mile A Minute afghan in pink!  Pink, are you surprised?  I'm going to drape it over the back of my sofa later so I'll take a photo of it for tomorrow.  I've always loved Mile A Minute afghans.

I haven't had any stitching time but I thought I'd share my current pink cat doll since I have a bit of stitching done on it:

Both borders were worked using my Waste Canvas technique.  If you look closely at the white border, it's the Creten stitch with lazy daisies on the points.  Yes, even the Creten stitch can be worked using waste canvas.  It's the only way I can get it straight!

Scott is going to take me to the antique mall in Woodstock Illinois today.  One nice thing about the holidays is that I get extra time with him!  And he's willing to go anywhere I want to go.  He's a good man.  Anyway, if I find some cool goody's, I'll share pics tomorrow.

Happy Christmas!

I had a lovely Birthday yesterday.  It was sunny and almost 40 degrees outside.  I sure couldn't ask for anything better as far as the weather goes!

As planned, Bubba took me to the antique mall in Volo, Illinois.  It's a huge antique mall and just a hop, skip and jump from where we live.  I found a few nice vintage goodies to add to my stash.

First, a few vintage hankies:

The blue one is flocked!  I have a few in my collection from my flea market travels. 

Next, I found 2 yards of this beautiful machine embroidered fabric:

I love the scalloped edge on this!  And 2 yards will go a long way for what I do with it.

Next, I found this gorgeous vintage apron:

I almost hate to cut it up because it's in mint condition.  It just needs a good hand wash.  But I did buy it to cut up for my crazy quilting.

Last but not least, this pair of sweet vintage bunnies:

Yes, I'm always thinking of Spring! 

Today, we'll be going over to mom's for a few hours.

I hope ya'll have a wonderful Christmas Day!