A Little Support Here

Cancer is such an ugly word!

I doubt there is even one person reading this who hasn't been affected by it one way or another.

I've lost a few friends and family to cancer. I miss them a lot.

Some of them would still be here if they'd gotten their cancer today instead of 5-25 years ago. 

We've come a long way with treatment for this dreaded disease. 

We have a ways to go to get rid of it. Hopefully, not too much longer!

Just last year I had two friends diagnosed with breast cancer...different types.

I didn't even know there was more than one type of breast cancer!

Since then I've learned way more about breast cancer than I ever wanted to know.

They've gone through surgeries, chemo and/or radiation. Tough times for them.

But, they are still here making the world a better place. 

Thank goodness! I'm kind of selfish and want them in my life for a lot more years.

I just love this lady and plan to hang out with her for a long, long time!

This was in 2002...we need a picture together that's a little more current and with a better camera.

Maybe a barista at Starbucks will take our picture next time we're there.

Sew We Quilt has a blog hop coming up soon to show our support for breast cancer.

I'll be taking part in it along with many others. I hope you'll join us beginning January 29th.

Pat at Life in the Scrapatch will be cheering us on for this hop. 

She has the full schedule HERE.

New Blog Hop Going On With Tree Bird Fabric

Another fabulous blog hop to sign up for over at Sew We Quilt!

I love, love, love this button and the Tree Bird fabric by Elizabeth's Studio!

Check out the whole collection HERE.

My Cross Stitched Tammy Bags Are In Season

Madame Samm of Sew We Quilt and Mary from I Piece 2-Mary have totally kept us all in stitches.

Cross stitches that is!

With beautiful designs by Brooke Nolan and Cori Blunt, we've all come together for

this blog hop to show how stitchy we can be when adding their creations to a Tammy Bag or a pinny.

It's been such fun learning this counted cross stitching thing that Madame Samm

promised me was relaxing. It really has been...after a few learning hiccups here and there.

With the right tools, even I was able to cross stitch.

Just don't look close! I've learned that I'm not so good at counting which means there

are a few stitches that aren't there that should be or are there but shouldn't be.  

Seeing those little tiny holes was a must, so I bought three pairs of glasses from Readers.com. 

Two reading and one pair of reading sunglasses. In a moment of rushing to clean up my sewing

room, I threw out the mailer they had arrived in WITH ALL THREE PAIRS STILL IN THERE! 

Slap my head...I thought it was empty! I was sick about it!

Luckily, another gorgeous pair arrived a week later and I was back to work on my project.

Whew!

With DMC Thread, DMC Aida cloth, a Q-Snap frame, and my Beam N Read, 

I stitched like crazy and actually loved it!

Then there the magnets...couldn't have done it without them, either!

They held the paper pattern and needles just perfectly in place.

You can find them at Ms. Appleheart's Shoppe.

Once I finished the cross stitching, it was off on an outing with my hubby to take pics.

I had so much fun taking photos of these little bags!

Cori's pinnies are adorable!
I tried my hand at turned under applique...not pretty..so I embroidered the little bird to create mine.

This Tammy Bag has some angora thread on it, but it washed out in the photo.

Trust me, it was a beautiful touch to the stole on this bag!

I added a zippered pocket to the back of this one. I love those scalloped zippers!

With quick trip away from "Dixie" to a warmer climate, I made this bag, too.
I love those DMC purples!

Shall we just say this blog hop has been one big learning adventure for me!

Look's who's hopping and stitching with me:

January 9, 2015

Sew Peace To Peace

Sun Shine Quilting

How arT you?

January 12, 2015

Living with Purpose

Grammie Q's

Stitchin By the Lake

Ipiece2-Mary

Just Let Me Quilt

January 13, 2015

Lovelli Quilts

Quilted Delights

Cheryl Wilkinson will post to Ipiece2-Mary

Just Because Quilts

Stitchen' My Life Away

January 14, 2015

Jane's Quilting

Lisa In Port Hope

Brookes Books

Leslie Schmidt will post to IPiece2-Mary

Creativity Amongst Chaos

January 15, 2015

The Quilting Queen Online

Needled Mom

Bumbleberry Cottage

Moose Stash Quilting

Amy Stitches

Sew Incredibly Crazy

Meadowbrook

January 16, 2015

Kwilt Krazy

Selina Quilts

Hill Valley Quilter

Lakeshore Stitches

Malini's Quilting Adventure

Julia Plunkett will post on Sewwequilt
It Seams To Be Sew

January 19, 2015

KrisLovesFabric

Ga's House

Secretly Stitching

Creatin' in the Sticks

Grandmama's Stories

WHY-KNOT-KWILT

CeLynn's Sunflower Patch

January 20, 2015

Sewn-Seabees-Crafty-and-Vintage-Musin

Buzzing and Bumbling

Karamino's handmade

Quiltscapes

Quilt N Queen
Stitch and Quilt

Sew We Quilt

Oh I Wish I Were In Dixie

I wished I was in Dixie so that's where I am...sort of.

The mountain says "Dixie" so it must be true!

With the Tammy 4 all Seasons blog hop fast approaching, the hubby and I went

looking for the perfect spot to take photos of my Tammy Bags. Found it here!

There's still a little snow in the shaded areas.

A Love Lock Bridge, too!

A love lock is a padlock which lovers lock to a bridge, gate, or public fixture to symbolize their love

and forever commitment to each other. Usually the names or initials of the lovers are inscribed on 

the padlock and the key is thrown away to symbolize unbreakable love. The history of love locks

dates back at least 100 years to a Serbian tale of a broken engagement and heartbreak. Padlocks 
were attached to bridges by young women to hopefully protect their own loves. How romantic!

Just so you know, we didn't leave a padlock on the bridge. 

We've been together for so long, we know our love is unbreakable!

Ahhh, was that just so ooey gooey sugary sweet sounding? 

How could I not feel that way when he is such a fun and crazy guy!

Almost time for Tammy 4 all Seasons! 

Another Monkey Boy Quilt And Label

I finished the rest of Monkey Boy #2's quilt top, back, and label...time to quilt it now!

It's so fun to have them each draw their own label and pick what fabric/design they want for a quilt.
Here's his hand embroidered label...he thought it was "awesome!" I did, too!

(I embroidered his signature/name on it, but I removed it with a little PicMonkey cloning.)

Monkey Boy #2 loves volleyball, which is why he chose volleyball fabric for two of his quilts.

He let me know he'd outgrown the one I made in 2012 and that he needed a BIGGER volleyball quilt.

He designed that one, too!

This is one I made for his dad in 2009. They are a VERY serious volleyball playing family!
Monkey Boy's quilt was made with the leftover scraps.

Hmmm...I think my photos have improved a bit over the years thanks to a better camera and helpful
hints from Madame Samm at Sew We Quilt. She's got some helpful hints for cross stitching, too.
You can find those hints at her new blog...check it out!

Just A Word Or Two For The Year, Maybe More

Every year since 2011 I have picked a Word of the Year. 

In 2011 I picked the word “Different.”

I failed on everything I said I wanted to do different. 
It all just stayed the same.

Another year I picked "Positive." That one didn't go so good, either.
I was actually more negative about that "positive" kind of thing.

This year I’m not picking a word. 
I’m picking several so that maybe, just maybe, I will get one right for a change.

BRAVE

Be brave when meeting new people.

Most of them don’t bite, but some look they are going to.

Think creatively with a brave mind.

Who cares if someone doesn’t like what I make! It’s my stuff!

WATCH

Watch the time.

It’s going faster than it used to.

Watch for someone else’s talent.

They might be willing to teach me a thing or two.

PEACE

Take a moment to look for peace.

It’s hard to find, but I'm hoping someone will show me where to look.

Make peace with myself.

I can’t change what was.

VALUE

Search for value in others.

It will be difficult to see sometimes…I just have to look deeper!

Value my old and new friends.

I do, but I just need to value them even more and show that I value them!

BELIEVE

Stand up for what I believe in.
I sit down on this one way too often.

Believe I can do better.
Of course I can!

Take time to believe in someone.
I hope that if I do, someone will take time to believe in me.

Believe that what I do really DOES matter!

That’s it.

Maybe one of these Word of the Year words will work for me this time.
I'm going to BELIEVE that it will.

Do you have a Word of the Year?

The Bugs Are Gone

My computer is up and running better than ever (picked it up late last night...happy dance!)

Thank you Geek Squad!

The bugs are gone...all 12 of them. That was quite a virus my computer was struck with!

The pop ups are gone and I'm no longer locked out of the internet...that was no fun!

I haven't had a virus on my computer in years, mostly because:

1.  I'm really careful about what links I click on.

2.  I have virus software that's kept updated.

3.   I don't download anything from sites I'm not sure about.

Unfortunately, all of the above didn't help prevent my computer from getting sick.

Apparently a "trusted site" that I downloaded from had a "click here" thing that I didn't 

read all the way through and it let a nasty little bug sneak right into my computer. 

Not good!

Here's to 2015 being bug free (on my computer at least)!

On the plus side, with no computer I was able to get more sewing and stitching done.

Tammy 4 all Seasons blog hop coming next week!

It's A Big Bad Bug

My computer caught a big and bad bug. 

I'm usually so careful to wash my hands before touching it,

but apparently I wasn't careful enough because it's really sick. 

A few days with the Geek Squad should hopefully solve the problem. 

If it doesn't, I will be off getting fitted for a pretty purple strait jacket. 

I'm grateful for my iPad, but it's not good for blogging. 

It does let me add cute little emoticons and take so-so pics, though.
It also takes FOREVER to create a post!

(I was wrong. The emoticons don't show up)

😢

We had snow last night so I built a snowman this morning. 

Here's hoping that the rest of 2015 is better than today.

Happy New Year

BB In A Boxcar Or What

Now that Christmas is over I feel like two BB's in a boxcar. I'm all over the place!

There's way too many sewing ideas bouncing around in my head.

Which reminds me about a book I read as a child, The Boxcar Children.

I loved this book! I remember checking it out over and over from the library.

As for my sewing...

I feel like a bouncing ball that can't seem to land anywhere in particular and keeps hitting walls.

Kind of like Mitch Miller's bouncing ball...the one he had you follow along to sing.
I loved watching his show and had fun singing along as the ball bounced over the words.

Uh, back to my confused state of sewing decisions...
it appears that I have the attention span of a two year old Monkey Boy!

Oh look! He's playing Heads Up with the phone. If you've played the game with your family,
you know he has the phone backwards making it impossible to play the game.
Yes, that's chocolate on his face. I wonder if I have some chocolate leftover from Christmas?

Uh, where was I?
Oh, that's right. What to sew, what to sew, what to sew.

There's this cross stitching thing I'm working on for the next blog hop, Tammy 4 All Seasons.

It's far from perfect, but I've learned what not to do when cross stitching.

There's the We Support You blog hop that I just started working on.
Surprise, surprise...I keep changing my mind what to make.

I started this quilt a month or so ago for the second oldest Monkey Boy.
I put borders on it yesterday.

The label he drew needs to be embroidered before I can make the back of the quilt.

It's close to being done...well, sort of close.

Last night I started this other piece for Tammy 4 All Seasons.

I have no idea why I started it when the other one isn't done, yet.

Like I said...BB in a boxcar, bouncing ball, blah, blah, blah!

Maybe there's a little procrastination going on because I'm sitting here blogging instead of sewing.
Or, I may be sitting here because my head hurts from bouncing all over the place!

Maybe I should go take down the Christmas stuff and put it away.
Maybe not.

I hope you're all having a fun (and focused) day of sewing!