December 22 Morning

Christmas Myspace Comments
I collapsed today, got my Christmas cards finished at 5:30 this morning. got up at 9:30 to go shopping and then our moving business intefered so we didn't go. Have done most of my shopping online and the rest I can just do locally. Hope to do some baking over the weekend. Something I never seem to have time for. I love to make home made cinnamon and orange rolls for Christmas morning and haven't had a chance for several years. Still have a little housework to do to make the house presentable for guests.

Have a MERRY CHRISTMAS everyone!

Merry Christmas

Too busy to post

I don't know about the rest of you but I am so busy getting ready for Christmas I don't have time to sit at the computer more than a few seconds to check for important email. Oh well, will be back and post some pics of my decorations or something soon.

Have fun you all, getting ready for the holidays.

Not much new

Have been so busy working on my house and getting through Thanksgiving haven't posted to my blog in a while. Haven't sewed much. Have worked on a little Christmas tree skirt have had for a few years. Got it off a moving job where a lady gave us stuff that was left over in her house along with a bunch of other craft supplies. It is a muted pink and gold and I have been embroidering metallic gold around the gold and pink metallic around the pink. Then have added the acrylic flower beads I like so well to all the flowers on half of it so far, plus beads to all the berries. I have a pink Christmas tree I plan to use it under. Will take pics soon whether I finish it or not.

We got a lot of snow for us Thanksgiving day and a day later. Was really beautiful and enjoyed every minute of it. The kids sure had a good time having snow ball fights and there were snowmen all over town. Everyone took advantage of the rare snow that was enough snow to do something in.

Just catching up

Well our little boy is doing really good, one side of his face is really healing fast and the other is looking good too. He now has a new scratch down the middle of his nose. He may have learned not to do what caused the eye damage but he is still not afraid to accost every other cat in the neighborhood!

You might notice a new link on my blog to Sew Mama Sew. What a great idea to make something, a small gift, everyday for the month of November. Last year I had lots of things done ahead of time but not this year. Got myself in to entirely too many round robins this year. Which i enjoyed every single one and learned soooo much, but over extended myself. So now am going to do this to help me catch up. Tonight I think I will make an apron for my oldest DD who cooks and cleans for us and we jokingly call her Cinderella. So will make her an apron with the name Cinderella on it.

I am still working on doors for my hallway and stairs, refinishing a antique bed, and various other similar projects. Also having a yard sale. Haven't done a lot of sewing but have kept a little tree skirt I am embellishing in the car so i can work on it when am waiting or riding in the car. it is coming along nicely and will take a picture in a few more days when i get the embroidery done if not more.

Well, am back to my projects for now.

Our hurt baby

Our "son" Gandalf came running up to "Dad" this morning to tell him he got hurt. Of course he had to go the emergency room. The Dr. thinks he got caught in the fan belt of a car. We can't imagine him doing that but it was cold for the first time this morning???? Our big tough guy who usually fights, spits, bites, and screams and has to be restrained just to be examined, when he is at the Dr., didn't make a protest. Just a big shot of antibiotics and some cream for his eyes and he is home again. Can you imagine how much that hurts though!

OH NO! I've been MEMEd!

I have been meme'd by Jane, http://crazyhereandnow.blogspot.com/

I really don't know anyone else to tag so will have to add some later if I can find anyone that hasn't already been tagged.

Ah! I found one, Susan at http://cq4fun.livejournal.com/

If you want to play, great! If you don't that's great! No obligations here, just trying to have fun, sooooo.....1. Link to your tagger and post these rules.2. Share 7 facts about yourself: some random, some weird.3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them).4. Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment at their blogs.

Now let's see! I think i am supposed to do 7 things you might not know about me or something like that.

No 1

I grew up in the Air Force and have lived in Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona, Tennessee, Arkansas, New Mexico, Wyoming, on Okinawa, and Colorado. I have lived in 18 different cities that i can remember and have visited 19 States so far.

No 2

My first job was as a soda fountain jerk and I have worked as a waitress, sales clerk, cook, caregiver, housewife, in a chicken factory, restaurant assistant manager, restaurant manager, motel housekeeper, motel desk clerk, motel night auditor, motel accounts receivable secretary, radio station newsman helper, in a pet store, as a college continueing education computer teacher, computer lab technician, and I own a moving company.

No 3

My favorite place I lived was in Arkansas with all the water and trees. My favorite job was motel desk clerk

No 4

My dream is to own and operate a Bed and Breakfast with a Quilt shop as part of it.

No 5

My favorite vacation was a week long trip to Cancun Mexico with my DH, we toured a pyramid, rode in a glass bottom boat, snorkeled, shopped, and just had a great time.

No 6

Sleeping on my back causes me to have nightmares!

No 7

I love to read stories about animals and especially fantasies about dragons, and read lots of fantasy books from the teen section of the library.

Wow! that was kind of hard, made me think!

Another Julie's Round Robin

This week i worked on this Round Robin from an off shoot of the Kaye Woods Quilting Friends group called the Learning Fabric Art's group. This one belongs to another lady named Julie. I decided her traditional style quilt needed some crazy quilting so i did a crazy quilt border on one side and a regular strip of elephant print fabric on the other, after adding a 1 1/4" black border all around.

Here at the top of the strip i added a branch of flowers and leaves, below that is a printed on silk, pic of an elephant and her baby, i added some coconut shell beads at each corner. To the left i added some little metal charms and an elephant button I had.
Below i made some golden yellow yoyo flowers and to the right of that some cascading lily like acrylic flowers down the seam. The elephant print fabric is from a friend in South Africa.
Below the print i used some cool fringe trim and a bead and button cluster featuring an African mask button. Then i used a couple of coconut shell spears with some beads between to do that seam.
Another elephant with some trim around and acrylic flowers framing it. Also a feather stitch seam treatment to the right, and a couple of lazy daisies with bead stems
The bottom is another african type fabric with a black fringy trim and beads above it. i thought this pic of the indian elephants all dressed up was neat so printed it out on silk too and used a gold metallic trim to frame it. made a wooden bead flower in the corner.

Latest Round Robins worked on

This first one is a sewing themed Choose your own theme of "Carole's" Had fun doing this one. I used a piece of a tape measure, some ric rac, a piece of elastic, some seam tape, piping, covered buttons, regular buttons, snaps, ribbons, beads, yo yo flowers, silk ribbon flowers, acrylic flowers, sewing themed charms, and a little cross stitch of a embroidery hoop and work. Plus a few basic sewing stitches like the blanket stitch and a basting stitch, and a couple of embroidery stitches.
This is Flora's kitty kitty block. Such a great colorful block. Had no trouble picking out colors for it. I add the little prissy white kitty with the pink collar among the acrylic flowers at the bottom right. Above that I used her great red grosgrain ribbon with the white stitching, couched it down and added bead flowers and beads and a few paw prints. To the left I did a featherstitch in a pretty variegated thread got in a thread buy from Susan N. and added some purple beads to highlight the stitching. This kitty kitty has been a great Round Robin. Such great stitching and ideas from all the ladies. Got to work on two of Rebecca's kitty kitty blocks, this being the second one. I add the hidden kitty at the bottom among a bunch of acrylic flowers and a little butterfly he is watching. Above that I used a set of kitty buttons that spell out meow. Drilled holes with them to sew them on. Don't they look like they are looking up at the great big kitty in awe?! To the left on that gorgeous piece of fabric in soft aqua with butterflies and silver highlights I added some beads to all the butterflies spots.

September 29, 2007

I thought I would try to make a mini crazy quilt block which I have never done before so was not sure on the size to make it. I made these four blocks and as you can tell from the second picture next to my hand it is a little big. I plan to try again when I have time and use a 1 1/2" backing to get a 1" block. I might use these for pillows or something.
Here is something else I did. I saw the most magnificent stairs in a magazine so copied some of it on the back of my stairs. It's not perfect but I like it. The next pic is of the front of the stairs. I plan to put a small study under the stairs for the man of the house with more of the fancy wood work and a leather chair.

Now this is what I have worked on mostly for over a week now. This is part of my real stairs and landing that I have painted dazzling red! The trim is white and the baseboards, floors, and doors, are to be the natural wood. I started this project last fall by stripping the stairs, baseboards and railing. Before I started all the stairs were painted black with a gold design on them as well as the top landing. the first landing had gray tile on it. I took pics but who knows where they are. So these pics are after I stripped all the black paint off the stairs and while I am in the process of stripping the awful, horrible black tar like stuff they put down the tile with. This is the main set of stairs that have already been stripped.This is the first landing at the top of the main set of stairs. Have all my supplies out there ready to get started. I tried to remove most of the gunk with paint remover, orange paint remover and scraping, and wiping up with rags and over and over and over again. Whoever thought it was a good idea to use this black gunk was nuts!After you turn the corner there is a walkway before you get to the next set of stairs. More tar gunk to be removed. I didn't do a perfect job but it turned out pretty good. I did alllll the work by myself and it took the whole winter to recover.This view is from the top landing looking down on the bottom landing. Here you get an idea of some of the rails I had to strip black paint off of. Here is a better picture of all the railing and part of the upper landing after it was stripped.This is the top landing looking over the railing towards the bottom landing. To the left is a shelf where i have all my supplies piled up. Inside this shelf is old cast iron plumbing. Makes a great place to set up my Christmas sleigh collection and my ceramic cats the rest of the year. and finally a part of it after some of my painting. Will post more pics when I am through, this is just to give you an idea of the color I am using. Isn't it enough to wake you up when you come out of the bedroom in the mornings? I think it will make a great backdrop for all my bright color quilts too! I have very few walls in the house where I can hang my quilts so plan on hanging some of them in the stairwell. When I wasn't working on my real house I was working on the miniautures. Some of these kits go so fast that I get lots made but here are just a few I got made this week. Here is the hanging shelf. I love the design on the sides.

I finished this corner cabinet yesterday. Plan to paint it to match the room I put it in.
The biggest piece so far, the flat top highboy. Still have to make the broken bonnet highboy but it is made the same with only a different top to it. See my tapewire in the back ground, I finished it this week and it actually works, so all but one room is electrified, forgot about the last room when I was doing it so will have to do it later.
Ah, and the slat back chair. They remind me of the chairs my Grandmother had in her kitchen. Only thing is, is that hers were strung with wire and had a throw pillow in them. I got some wood this week and plan to make a replica of her house. Can remember the whole thing from memory. One of my Uncle's and Aunt tore the old house down and built a new one in it's place. They built a great house but sure miss the old one and wish it was still there.

This was the most fun I had building something, even though it was a real challenge. A dollhouse for my dollhouse. I painted the inside after I had most of it together. Talk about challenging. Each room is a different color and 3 of the floors are stained and one painted. Just too cute, huh?!Well bye for now. Will post again when I get those stairs finally finished, the real ones that is!

September 24, 2007

What a challenging and fun block to make this one was. It is a Geronimo Choose your own theme block for a lady in our group named Jane. I looked up pics for Geronimo and Apache Indians and came up with quite a few images. My favorite is the dream catcher. I had the fabric pic of the canoe from a quilt I made for my daughter and thought it was perfect for the theme so framed it in the center. As I forgot to use the focus fabric in the block itself I made yo yo flowers to accent the center. I have had the saquaro cactus and thunderbird concho's for years so used them adding a little tassel for each. For the button bead cluster I used some coconut shell beads have also had for years, as well as some old buttons, and feather shaped charms from an old broken necklace. The fall leaves seemed to match, and I found the pic of the needlepoint thunderbird online and used waste canvas to turn it into a needlepoint pic. Oh, and that glorious fringe! I just loved it when I bought it, then never had anything to use it on. the color was just perfect so it was the first thing I added. The couched ribbon was some Jane included in her baggie and I added beads of various kinds to it. Here is another kitty kitty block I worked on for a lady named Kate. Can you find the kitty hiding among the flowers? These are acrylic flowers with a button kitty. I used beads for the dragonflies trail that the kitty is fixing to pounce on. I think I did the seam treatment below it but can't even remember. Oh well, Quiltimers has hit again. I do remember block was pretty full and still a few people to work on it so wanted to leave some room.
Another Kitty kitty block. This prissy little kitty is just sitting among the flowers after walking across the block, see paw prints on yellow patch. I also added the beaded feather stitch in red and the red and white with beads chain stitch.
Back to sane quilting. I wanted to add some interest and character so only did rows on 2 sides of this center using the friendship block. I love the RR's that come back with row encroaching upon previous rows and hope this gives this RR some of that character of thinking outside the box. The colors were hard to match on this one with fabric from my stash. Never realized how much color variation there are between different batiks, even if they look similar.
That's about all I have done so far. Have another Choose your own theme block am working on and still working on that dollhouse. Mostly boring structual stuff for the moment. Will write about that next time.

Update on Dollhouse work

All of these pictures are the dollhouse and furniute I have been making, from kits of course! I have been collecting the House of Miniature furniture kits and started putting them together. These kits are really fun and of very high quality. Wish the company would start making them again. I have paid top dollar for some of the rarer pieces. the two chairs were the hardest pieces I have made as far as trying to line up the parts and get them to stay that way until the glue set. Most of the furniture I have used a aged oak stain on. Some, as in this picture, I used a bottle of the mahogany stain that originally came with the kits. I have run out of that though, so bought some mahogony stain. It is different but pretty too. I know originally all these pieces were done in the really dark stains but I like the lighter stains much better.
The clock was an adventure. I glued mine together backwards, bought one from another lady that had hers partly done, so I put the two together and I still managed to put the border around the clock face on upside down. Oh well, it's unique now.
I made this little stool and decided I would do a cross stitch design for the seat. Thought this heart pattern was cute.
Don't know if you can see but have some of the tiny spatterware utensils on the dry sink. I found a set of cannisters, cup holder and cups, cooking utensils, pots and pans, coffee pot and cups, and dishes. Just too cute.

Here is some of the dining room furniture. Notice more of the spatterware dishes. The little white things are cookies my 7 year old Grandson made for me. I am upholstering the chairs in a green velvet that I used to have my real antique dining room chairs covered in.
I just love the variety of pieces in these kits. The one on the left is a desk on frame. Just too cute.
Here is some of the bedroom furniture. Still need to make a bedspread for this bed.
Living room furniture. I am trying to use all fabrics that mean something or are vintage. Both the pink and the black velvet came out of a old doll museum that we cleaned out quite a few years ago. These fabrics were used as display drapes. The pink is a soft satin with a paisley design and the black has a pink and white bird design on it.
Have mostly done touch ups to the outside of the dollhouse. Second coat of paint on the trim, etc. I did put the deck together. For the floor of the deck I used tongue depressors and stained it with redwood stain. The railing is various pieces stained with the same redwood stain. It's not perfect but I like it. I need to put shingles on each end and top and will be through with the outside except any landscaping I deside to add. Need to finish the electrical next so can start working on the inside.