A Wee Bit of Applique

I finished one of Jenny's blocks which has a teeny tiny bit of applique and some embroidery.
Check out the new button on my sidebar. Kaaren is going to be sharing her talents with some free embroidery patterns on the first Friday of each month. The first design has something to do with Fall. It is will be fun to see what she shares each month.

Mandy has sent me a picture of her second AMG block. It is fabulous. Each petal is so different and I love the leaves done in the checked fabric. Great job, Mandy. Thanks again for sharing your block with me.

Have you been to Jodi's new web site? No, you must check it out. Lots of fun stuff!

With Passion,

Carrie P.

Peace, beauty, contentment, harmony... are all ours for the taking. We must open our eyes, our hearts, our minds, our souls.

Here's the dirt!

Can you see that stain on that old applique block I found several weeks ago in an antique store?
Recently I bought the book called Sugar Sacks by Glenna Bailey. In it she mentioned using OxiClean to soak old feed sacks in the solution to clean the fabrics.
I decided to soak the applique block, a dish towel, and the crochet lace in my kitchen sink.
Look how brown the water is after soaking those three things for several hours. After soaking them then I rinsed them out in clean water several times to make sure the solution was all out.
Now look at this lace. I thought is was done in beige thread but it was just dirt and dust. The stain came out of the block and the towel looks almost like new again.
Amazing!!

With Passion,

Carrie P.

Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Psalm 51:7

Eye Candy

Yesterday was my applique bee meeting. So I thought I would share their beautiful works of art with you all.
These Celtic knots were made by Shirley.
Aunt Millie's Garden block done by Sheila.
Fall wallhanging done by Jackie.
These two quilts were made by Ellen F. These were from a local shop that was doing a BOM.
These three Aunt Millie's Garden blocks were made by Patti who has finished all the blocks and is now working on the appliqueing the border. You go girl! I am proud of you. Aren't they just beautiful on the black fabric?
This block was made by Ellen H. Another AMG block.

Here is a pillow made by Becky. This is a Robyn Pandolph pattern. You will notice my version in my header.
Hope you are now a little inspired to go to your sewing room and create.

With Passion,

Carrie P.

Mark your days in ways that bring your heart joy.

The End!

Here is the last of our summer day trip. The next stop after Welcome was Lexington. Our first stop was the Candy Store. This store had more candy than antiques but it was fun to walk around.

When you first enter the store up on a high shelf I spotted this display of thread. Oh, it was so beautiful to see all those wooden spools full of that shiny thread. It was for sale too. $250.00 but I didn't buy it. I had to remind myself that I have a daughter in college. Oh!! but it was so pretty!!

There are several other antique stores in Lexington. All on Main Street. I found this cook booklet with a copyright of 1930 in one of the shops. Recipes for using jams and jellies.
In another store I found some plain white handkerchiefs.
All along Main Street you will see painted pigs. Lexington is famous for their Bar-b-Que.
If you travel to Lexington your husband will love to go with you. He can go in this hardware store while you shop in the antique stores and there is one fabric store on Main Street too. It is called Verona's Fabrics. This Hardware store has everything. It is better than if you were to put Lowes Hardware and Walmart together. You might even like wandering the aisle yourself. Some really neat stuff.
Some more of the pigs. This is my favorite. There were a whole lot more than I am showing you.


As we were leaving Lexington we stopped at one more new quilt shop called Quilting Quest. I just found some background fabric for applique. Nothing real exciting. After leaving there, we stopped at one of my favorite restaurants, Cracker Barrel, for lunch. Then it was off to Thomasville to this shop.
This big ole' chair is in downtown Thomasville. When you see this you know you are one block away from the antique mall.
When you spot this water tower you know you are right across the street from the antique mall. This picture is for Bear Hugs All Around.
This place was fun to look around. The ladies that work there are real friendly too. The first booth I walked into I felt like I hit the jackpot. Look at all these cook books from 1950 I found. Such great recipes except so many of them call for shortening. Can anyone give me the equivalent of something that is more healthy to use instead of shortening?
And here is the most unique thing I found. It is a card table cover. On each of the four corners is the embroidery with the little ties to keep the table cloth in place.
It was a fun weekend and I hope you enjoyed sharing some of it with me. Now I am off to hang out with the girls in my applique bee.

With Passion,

Carrie P.

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. Eleanor Roosevelt

Interruption

I interrupt the "Last Hoorah" with some chain piecing!
Yesterday I just had to sit at the sewing machine for a while and do some sewing. Do you ever feel that you just have to sew? I worked on my signature blocks for Melissa's swap. I also worked on some of the wedding quilt for my son. All the those triangles that are being cut off the signature blocks are being sewn too.

With Passion,

Carrie P.

May all your weeds by wildflowers.

Last Hoorah Continued

When we were at Granddaddy's antique mall I picked up one of these maps. When you open it up it has dots that represent the antique malls in North Carolina. I picked up the last one there but I did pick up 6 more at another store. If you would like one, email me privately with your snail mail address I will put one in the mail to you.

So now the Saturday begins! The plan was that my husband was going to cut down a dead tree on our property and chop it up for future fire wood. An all day chore. Remember Saturdays were our day to work around the house. He really did not want to do it and he was glad that we were getting some much needed rain. So I asked him if he wanted to go exploring again and he jumped at the chance. Besides checking antique stores we really do like to drive around and explore different small towns. So the towns we decided to visit this day was Welcome, Lexington, and Thomasville.

Today I will share with you what I found in Welcome at Finishing Touch Antiques and Consignment store. It is a small shop but it is packed with all kinds of stuff. I found this crochet lace wrapped around a piece of cardboard. I think it is hand crochet because if you look at the two ends you can see the difference in the points. The top section looks like the beginning and as the person went along the crochet got better and better. It has some stains and spots so I am going to soak it in some Oxiclean and see if they will come out. When I got it home I measured it and there was 10 yards.

Now for those of you who crochet, if I wanted to use a yard of this in a project how do I go about cutting it where it doesn't all unravel on me?
I found this old towel with this embroidery on it. The picture makes it look much better than it does. The stains on it are really bad but I just loved the embroidery on it. I will soak it too.
And the last thing I found at this shop was this pillow case in excellent condition. Look at the crochet border.
I will share Lexington and Thomasville tomorrow. I don't want to make the post to long and bore you. But I did want to share two more things here today. There is going to be an outdoor Antique Festival in Liberty, North Carolina (rain or shine) on September 25-26 from 8-5pm. They do this twice a year. Over 375 dealers come to this 100 acre farm to have this festival. We have not ever been so it might be fun to visit one time.

The other thing is that Bonnie over at Calamity Jane's Cottage is having a fantastic giveaway. Her birthday is also September 4 so tell her Happy Birthday and tell her I sent you.

With Passion,

Carrie P.

Color is my day-long obsession, joy and torment. Claude Monet

Last Hoorah of the Summer

Farewell to Summer. My daughter who is a senior in college started the fall semester today and my husband has gone back to his regular work schedule. The company that he works for has changed the work schedule for the last two summers. He would work 10 hour days for 4 days and then have Fridays off. It worked out great for us because on Fridays we would take our day trips and on Saturdays we would work around the house. A week ago I cleaned up the summer garden and planted the fall garden. My husband chopped wood for winter. So this Friday we took off to Apex, NC for our first stop which was Plain and Simple quilt shop. Found some lovely fat quarters, some yardage of fabric and rick rack. And I got it all on sale too.
I also found this pattern at the shop for these star shaped pillows. The original are done in wool but they would look very cute in some cotton fabric too.

We left Apex and headed for Burlington. We stopped at a newly opened quilt shop called ABC Quilting with Nana. I found this Tom and Jerry fabric for a charity project we are doing in our guild. I bought a 1/4 yard of the green Christmas fabric thinking I could use it in my Christmas Wish embroidery blocks but it is not quite the right green I was looking for.
On our way home from our Outer Banks trip we saw a bill board for Granddaddy's antique mall at exit 145 off Interstate 40. So we decided to check it out when we finished shopping at the quilt store. It was located in an old grocery store building so it was huge but I would recommend visiting when the weather is cooler because it was hot in that building.
We didn't find much but my husband did find a spoke shave which is an old tool and I found these old cook books. The soup book has a copyright of 1956. The cooking school leaflets are from 1940. The person that attended also took some notes in the little booklets which was fun to read. The Salad dressings booklet has 1925 in the front but I am not sure if that is the copyright date or just when the Wesson Oil company was formed. Either way the booklet is in great shape.
I also found this yellow milk glass cup and saucer for my future daughter-in-law. Her favorite color is this bright yellow. There was only one or I would have bought more for her.
I also found this apron. If you look close you can see rick rack around the pockets and the edge of the apron. If you look at the center bottom part of the apron the rick rack used to be the same blue as the flowered fabric. It sure would be pretty with the original blue rick rack but I still like it.


That was all on Friday. More about Saturday which was not spent working around the house.

With Passion,

Carrie P.

Faith is the daring of the soul to go farther than it can see.

TA DAH!

Finished and ready to hang in the shop. I used a variety of fabrics. Most of the applique pieces were from Portobello Road by RJR fabrics which was from a charm pack that I won from Tracy way back in June. The border and flower pot are from Monaco by Dena for Free Spirit.

I will be teaching beginning applique using this pattern by Susan Brubaker Knapp. Check out her blog sometime. She is so talented and she has a new applique book coming out in October. Several year ago she was a guest speaker at our guild. She had one great trunk show too. I bought this pattern then and have been wanting to make this quilt and finally decided to make it. I am very please at the way it turned out too.

Sweet Gina did the machine quilting for me. She is also going to be teaching classes at Karen Gray's shop. Thanks so much Gina! I just found out she has a blog. She is very talented and her blog is a great read too.

With Passion,

Carrie P.

To dream of the person you would like to be is to waste the person you are. Anonymous

I have been busy with an applique project and that is why I have not done a post in a few days.

I have finished the applique and it is now being quilted. I am making a new sample for a class I hope to teach in September at Karen Gray's shop. I will show you the quilt as soon as I get the binding on it. So at this time I really don't have anything to show since I am working on several things right now. So how about I share a visit to an antique store.

It is always so fascinating to go through antique stores. You just never know what you will find. My husband and I went to one recently and it was really neat how the owner arranged the store. She had different spots all around the store and all the antiques were arranged by colors. When you walked into the store the first section you walk into is all blue and white items. Then it was pinks, yellows, greens, oranges, and then browns. She had this section that was dedicated to clothes and sewing paraphernalia. That is where I found these vintage buttons. She also had a large section full of old books.
I found this little birthday card with the bluebird on it in the blue and white section.
In the pink section I found three piles of handkerchiefs. I chose this one for the crochet trim and the little crochet circle.
With Passion, Carrie P.

Happiness is found along the way, not at the end of the road.

I have been trying to visit some blogs this morning and google is coming up with a warning window that is detecting Malware from siggiez.com. I got the window on The Painted Quilted and The Rabbit factory this morning. Quilting Fiesta said she thought it had to do with a Christmas countdown button. Anyway, just thought you all might want to know so you can check it out.

Embroidery

Since I have taken up reading blogs I find myself doing a lot of embroidery which I have not done since I was a little girl. There are so many talented ladies out there that share their talent with us. One of the blogs I read is Knot-y Girls Stitchery Club. It is by Meg Hawkey of Crabapple Hill. I love her designs and have done several of her patterns. It was another one I just could not pass up. And if you are like me you have time to get it done before the September one is published. LOLWith Passion,

Carrie P.

You can not always have happiness but you can always give happiness. Anonymous

Guild Show and Tell

I love show and tell at our guild meetings. I hope you do too. Here are a few of the many beautiful projects.




Remember on one of the posts about my vacation I showed you a picture of a sign about sea turtles? Check out this post on Lynn's blog. She has pictures and tells about the "turtle patrol." Very interesting!

With Passion,

Carrie P.

When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us. Helen Keller