Goodbye to 2023! 

Here it is New Year's Eve 2023. This year has been a struggle! I had to close my piano and sewing studio, which was located in a very large building. I had all kinds of room for designing and making quilts for clients. There was plenty of room for the ironing station, large cutting table, with plenty of light, design wall, three large tables for designing and storage for books, patterns, sewing notions, fabric and lots of wall space for hanging quilts. There was a nice upright piano in the building when I rented it, so I was able to continue with my piano lessons, which was a real blessing. I only used half of the building for my studio, the other half was a huge storage room.  My parents had passed away and my brother so there were lots stored from their estates. Long story short, it took me almost the whole summer to get moved out. Oh, I didn't tell you why I had to close it. My landlady decided to have the building torn down. It did need quite a lot of work that needed to be done, and she just didn't want to spend the money on it, which I understood. I really miss my studio, I had it for almost ten years. Most of my things are now stored in our barn. Hopefully I will be able to have a small building put on our place in the spring or summer. 

Looking forward to 2024! I have lots of plans that I hope to get accomplished this new year.  One is to share more tutorials with you. 

Blessings to you!

https://youtu.be/lslqtUMwDxA

It is Almost Turkey Day!

For most Thanksgiving dinners the turkey is the star of the whole meal. For those who prepare the meal the most pride goes into roasting a beautiful turkey to perfection and showcasing it as the centerpiece of most tables. If prepared correctly it is a mild, delicious, moist meat, having light and dark meat to choose from. There are several other items that are a standard for most Thanksgiving meals. These include cranberry sauce, candied sweet potatoes, bread dressing, gravy, hot rolls, green bean casserole, pumpkin pie etc.  

It is also a time for family and friends to gather together to not only enjoy a delicious meal, but to share what each one is thankful for in their lives. I know many people go around the table at the end of the meal and tell what they are thankful for, for that year. Many families also say a special prayer, thanking God for the many blessings in their lives. 

So, I am wishing everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving and enjoy that special turkey.

Blessing to you all!

 

 Fall is Here!!!

After the long HOT summer that we have had, the beginning of Fall is a blessing. The early mornings and the evenings are now, for the most part, nice and cool. It is so nice to be able to go out on the deck in the morning for my coffee and bible reading. Then, in the evening to be able to sit out there and have a nice glass of wine. The leaves are not turning here very much, and some of the trees are even loosing their leaves already. 

I finally got a little Fall decorating done. This year I don't think I will be putting up as much as I usually do. I will, however, be adding to it with more things for Thanksgiving. I had started a small turkey collection last year, so can't wait to put them out. For some reason I just love anything turkey.

Pumpkins are another favorite thing of mine. I have managed to get one big pumpkin for the deck and a couple of pots of mums, along with some other Fall items. YouTube is a favorite place for me to go to when I am looking for ideas's and then how to made what I have found. I have made a few small fabric pumpkins that I want to give to some friends this year. Got a few more to finish up.

Last year I designed a garland of fabric acorns that I hung across the fireplace. I still have to find them to add to my decorations this year. Here is a picture so you can see what they look like. Oh yes, in the second picture you can see my pumpkin head doll I made several years ago. His head is made out of papier mache. He was a lot of fun to make.

I have been working on my cross stitch, but I am so slow, and my stitching time has been very limited since I have opened my little booth in an antique district in a town about 34 minutes from here at home. I hope to have a couple or finishes to show you in November.

Here are a few pictures to close with. This is a short, not very newsy post, hope to have a much better one for November. I probably won't have one for Halloween since I don't do much with that anymore.

Happy Sewing and stitching to all.

This last picture is how I wish my deck looked like!! Love it.

Blessing to you all!

 

Boy Is It Hot!!!

Oh, my has it been hot here in Kansas!! We are in the second week of 100 and over degrees every day. Some of the older folks that I know, say this weather is a lot like it was about 80 years ago. I think of that and feel blessed that at least now, we have air conditioning to help keep us cool. My heart goes out to all of the livestock. When I was on my way into town yesterday, I noticed the cattle in the ponds. Hopefully we are supposed to get a break from this heat on Sunday. Can't wait. 

 

I finally got my studio all cleaned out and moved all of my fabric and sewing supplies to our home and barn. I have gone from around 750 sq feet to a very small bedroom, for now. My poor house looks like a storage unit!  I think that I will try, in the spring, to get a small pre-built building moved out here for my sewing studio. I will still use the barn for storage for my Ebay listings. This move forced me into something I had been thinking about for a long time. That is, I have opened up a very small booth at an antique mall building. My main items are vintage fabrics, patterns, books and sewing related items. I will also offer some quilts along the way. So far it has held its own, so I am pleased about that.

Needless to say, I haven't been getting much sewing done lately, but I have been doing some cross stitching in the evenings. My horses and stitching help to save my sanity :-)  The  coloradostitcher hosts an online summer camp each year, so I decided to sign up. It really has been fun. Keeping kept up each month has been a real challenge, but I have managed to get the stitching done, but only one fully finished. The first month, June, we were supposed to stitch a bird. I chose to do a robin by theprairieschooler. I'm not sure how I want to fully finish this one up yet.

For July it was supposed to be something that grows. This time I chose a small stitch from a book called 'The Sampler Motif Book by Brenda Keyes. It is a small basket full of oranges and grapefruits, I made it into a needle book. I just made it up as I went. It turned out pretty good.

Unfortunately, I got a late start on the August stitch. For this last stitch I have chosen Nessie Mitchell 1929 by MommaLovesYouGB. The assignment was to choose to do something you had never done. This is a black sampler and I have never done one in black before. I haven't gotten very far yet but am working on it almost every evening. Pretty sure I won't have it done by the end of the month, but hopefully, shortly thereafter.

I am so thankful that I found Cross Stitching again, I am a subscriber to Fat Quarter Shop's Video's with Kimberly Jolly and Quilt Roadies on Flosstube. This is how I found out that it has become very popular again.  I am thoroughly enjoying cross stitching again, and there are so many beautiful patterns out there! 

Thought it would be nice to close with a few pictures of some of my flowers that bloomed this summer.

Take care everyone, and Happy Stitching

Blessings to all. 

 What a Busy Time It Has Been!!

 For the past 10 years I have had my sewing studio in Auburn Kansas. It was a large building and I loved being able to spread out all of my sewing items and fabrics. Well, I found out that the ladies that own the building had decided to tear it down! I was so saddened by this news. I knew that the building was in need of quite a bit of repair, which I thought maybe this summer they would start on that, but instead they decided to just have it torn down. I have to admit I had this large building chuck full! I still had items from my parents' estate that didn't get in the auction and items from my brothers' estate. My daughter also had one corner full of things that she needed to store, not to mention all of my stuff. I have been busy going thru and getting rid of and sending the items left over from my family's estates to an online auction company. I have been doing all of this by myself. During all of this, my husband was diagnosed with colon cancer again and went thru surgery, my daughter started a new job in KC and commutes every day, and my son and his family decided to move back to Topeka, so they have been busy with their own move. The day before they were scheduled to get the big moving truck and load the large items my son took a terrible fall after his workout on his bike and dislocated his shoulder, broke his nose and was scrapped up quite a bit. He just had his surgery a couple of day's ago. Oh yes, I also decided to open a small booth in an art/craft and antique area called NOTO. So yes, I have been really busy!!!  It is finally coming to an end. I have to be completely out of the building by the last day of this month. Needless to say, I will be so glad when all of this is behind me. Here are a few pictures of my studio shortly after I got it set up.

Oh, how I am going to miss my studio!! It was my refuge, a place that was just for me and all of the things that went with what I love to do. A place to create, gather my thoughts and have the privilege of making and restoring beautiful quilts for my clients. It will be a very sad day for me, when I lock that red door behind me for the last time and say goodbye to my 'Loving Stitches' studio.

Now I must move on to new adventures, with my booth and downsizing my sewing space, by a lot.

Please wish me luck.

Blessing to you all.

 

Beautiful, Vintage Valentines

A Little Bit of History

and 

Pictures of Vintage Valentines

Who was the real St. Valentine?  There were multiple St. Valentines (including the decapitated ones), but it was a medieval poet who established the holiday's romantic tradition. 

It is on February 14th that we celebrate this day by sharing red roses, chocolates, fancy dinners or special teas, or beautiful Valentine cards with the loved ones in our life. We do this in the name of Saint Valentine. But who was this saint of romance?

One St. Valentine was supposedly a Roman priest who performed secret wedding against the wishes of the authorities in the third century. While imprisoned in the house of a noble, it's said he healed his captor's blind daughter, causing the whole household to convert to Christianity and sealing his fate. Before being tortured and decapitated on February 14, he sent the girl a note signed "Your Valentine".

Some say another saint named Valentine during the same period was the Bishop of Terni, also credited with secret weddings and martyrdom via beheading on February 14. 

There are some of those who say there is very little basis for these accounts. The fact is, Valentine's Day only became associated with love in the late Middle Ages thanks to the English poet Geoffrey Chaucer.

So how did Chaucer create the Valentine's Day we know today? In the 1370's or 1380's he wrote a poem called "Parliament of Fowl's" that contains this line: "For this was on St. Valentine's Day, when every bird comest here to choose his mate". 

By the 1400's, nobles inspired by Chaucer had begun writing poems known as "valentines" to their love interests. It was only at this point that stories began to appear linking Saint Valentine to Remance.

The above taken from History Show, This Day in History.

Formal messages, or valentines, appeared in the 1500's and by the late 1700"s commercially printed cards were being used, the first commercial valentines in the United States were printed in the mid 1800's.

Taken from: More from Britannica.

Here are some pictures of Vintage Valentines

I hope this helped brighten up your winter day.

No sewing this time, but I am working on a small counted  cross stitch piece. Hope to get it done in time to share before Valentines Day. Gosh, I better hurry!

See you soon.

Blessings, Jan

 

 Welcome 2023

 Hello! Here we are in 2023 and I have so many idea's that I would like to try this year. I will really have to budget my time wisely, of which I am not very good at ☺. 

I start each day with a cup of coffee and Pat Sloans daily video on YouTube. She has so many good ideas!  If you don't already watch her, you should give it a try. She usually gets a giggle or two out of me. This month she is sharing her idea's on getting our sewing rooms organized. I am in the process of getting all of my fabric's organized in open containers, by color and holiday. After I get this all done, I will be on the lookout for storage units to place them in. Whew, a BIG job, but it will be so nice when I get it all done. Here is a link to her website: www.ilovetomakequilts.com.

I have been struggling with which direction to go with my Etsy shop. The items that sold the best were the repurposed items that I had made. I love creating them, although they can be very time consuming which really cuts into my profit margins. So, I am trying to figure out how to create nice items without spending too much time on them. I am very fortunate to have two friend's that share their overflow of vintage laces, cutter quilts, doilies etc. with me to use in my project, which is a real blessing.

I did get a little cross stitching in over the holidays. I finally finished the Prairie Schooler Santa 2005. I can't decide if I want to mount him on sticky board to put on a stand or make him into a pillow. Decisions, decisions.

Another love of mine is small quilts or mini quilts. I have made a few and really enjoy making them. I came acrost a Kathleen Tracy book about them several years ago and became hooked. You can find her on facebook and instgram. I am working on one now that is a gift for a friend of mine, so I can't show you yet. I will put a picture of it in my next blog post. 

I have a favor to ask of you. If you see this blog would you please leave a comment for me. I was getting them but the last few blogs there hasn't been any showing, so I am wondering if maybe something is wrong with it. Thank you!

These winter months is a perfect time to get some sewing or stitching done. Enjoy the process and Happy Sewing/Stitching!!

Blessings to All❤