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Currently working on...

I looked at this pile o' scraps n strips the other day, then saw the bag o' 5inch zippers I'd bought at my special secret place in TX (will routinely go visit sis there if only for this store) and the idea of 'bagettes' was born. Catchy name, huh? Not a bag, a bag-ette (sounds enough like food to please me).  It's kind of fun and mindless strip quilting the four sides to each pyramid. I'd been without a zipper foot for eons...literally years. The local sewing machine store recently special ordered one for my 30year old Kenmore (all I had to do was ask!) and now I'm back in business. With zippers that is. Although I still feel like a hack every time I install one.  I have 6 zippers left so I reckon that's how many more bagettes I'll be making.

Not sure why I think anyone else but me will like these button bouquets but I keep crankin' 'em out as if they're a sure thing.  Now I'm busy futzing and futzing with the little vases they're in. Of course I had to make it hard---first I set the wire stems in the plaster of paris filled vases, THEN I start painting the vases. And painting. And painting again. The more I work on these the more I hate them, but of course I can't stop 'cause I still don't like them. :-p

This is kinda cute.  Have made two and am not sure how many more I'll do in this design. It's a slightly padded journal slip-cover.

Have I mentioned I'm patiently waiting on a website being built to sell all this stuff? Spent several hours yesterday uploading products (til I locked it up by hitting the wrong key. Touchy!) Anyway, I quickly realized I'll be wantin' to trim my offerings down to a select few items. Can't even imagine what those will be...as I appear to lack discipline OR direction. All I know is I HAVE TO KEEP MAKING STUFF!

Currently making quilts

Not sure why...I guess because all my fabric is exposed in my little sewing nook upstairs and every time I see it I see a different combination of pieces and making quilts is the quickest route to pleasing results. 

This dotted one was a lot of fun. I have a definite *thing* for polka dots. I used 22 different dotted fabrics for this quilt and that wasn't even all of the ones I had!

I'm keeping them smallish for several reasons, mostly to do with being comfortable selling them for a reasonable price. When they get too big you end up working for 50cents an hour and at that point I'd rather just give them away.

Plus, at this size (they're shown on a full/double bed) it's good for babies or grownup throws.  Well, maybe the black one isn't so great for a baby, but you get the idea.

This weekend I photographed a walking tour that Caleb and I take . Thought I wanted to make a photo quilt of the shots--you know; a montage of 2" squares kind of 'quilt'. May do that and may not, but I did upload them into a photo album here(the link is on the left side of this page; "A walk down G Street"). I've been thinking for a few months now that maybe we want to move/retire to a cheaper place to live, like TX or something, but when I walked 20 minutes on a June afternoon through record high temps of 70 degrees to end up at water I realized I'm REALLY lucky to live here and I think I'll just stay, thank you very much. :-)

a glimpse of what I'm up to at the moment

Talk about happily serendipitous...a couple months ago I rented a duplex to a gal who stayed there exactly one month before she decided she'd rather go back down to Monterey (ummmm....DUH!) She'd asked if she could paint an accent wall in the living room and I'd told her yes; as long as she paints it back to white when she leaves. So in the one month she was in there, she tried 7 different shades of blue to blue/green. Seriously, a couple of weeks ago I hauled out of the front hall closet 4 gallons and 3 quarts of brand new paint. So last week I grab a five gallon bucket and start dumping in colors. Three of her different blues and blue/greens and all the dribs and drabs of white paint I happened to have on hand. And I'll be dipped if it didn't turn out exactly as I'd have gone to the paint store and asked to have it made!

It's not near done but it's a good start. I know that old flower pot rack under the window looks to merchandise-y with all the old off white pottery, but I had to try!  Melissa actually walked in there last night and started turning pieces upside down looking for price tags. Gotta love a smart-ass! I think I need to add some images behind the glass of the window over the bed, too. Or not. Trying to take it slow and let the room speak to me (feel free to roll your eyes here). And of course, I have to figure out a super groovy window treatment (that's had me squirelly for days now). I always forget to take 'before' pictures, but believe me, this is a bright and cheery improvement to the dull white it was before.

The birthday boy

This was a big weekend for us. C graduated on Friday and the following day we had his fifth birthday party at the Discovery Museum. If you've never been to one you may enjoy the following photos.

First is Kate posing in the crawl through colon. As you can see, you first have to go through the mouth to get to the colon :>O

In this next picture of an invitee, you can learn even more about the colon and nose-picking and boogers by enlarging the pic and reading the posters on the wall. (Yegods. TMI!!!)

Here's a cute little shopping/store set up they have. That brings back a lot of memories for me. I just loved playing store when we were little.

They also had a 10 minute planetarium show.

Can't leave out our precious Miss Kadence standing up and thinking about walking at only 9 months old!

Time to gather for pizza, presents and cupcakes.

Cameron has been coming to Caleb's birthday parties since he turned one. Here's a couple of then and now pics. Cameron drew that pic for Caleb's birthday. Awwwww...

Finally, a nice shot of C with his mom and Kadence. Too bad he inherited his 'smile for the camera' from me rather than his mother!

The graduate

It will probably seem like tomorrow when we are comparing these pics to his high school graduation. These kids were so danged CUTE! I tried three times to catch a photo of C throwing his mortarboard up in the air when it was over but never could quite catch the moment. It was all very special and they did a great job. I took a pic of each child receiving his/her diploma and am trying to think up some special presentation for Teacher Deb. Ideas would be appreciated!

I'm wondering if my child and grandchild could very well have gotten their ADD straight  from me. Today was my first of three days without Caleb and I'd planned to be in high gear getting ready for a yard sale this weekend, yet I just sat around twisting wire and playing with buttons like it was the only thing I needed to do. I saw this idea here yesterday and just had to get busy making some myself! I already had those fabric flowers cut out so went ahead and stuck a few in there. This looks better IRL....good photography is an ART I would love to someday master.

A little post about aprons

I feel like I should tell a bit about my latest apron adventures, since really that's about all I've been doing in the creative dept.

I made the cherries aprons almost a year ago because I had so much cherry fabric collected and just had fun making them. Then more recently I got in my mind to make these half aprons.

I think I saw that patchwork across the bottom on someone else's blog, and I thought it a great way to use up scraps. I love the way I can add chenille to trim the pockets. Found a big ol' roll called "Chenille It" at a good quilt store in my recent travels. It's just bias cut cotton stripping that fluffs up after you wash and dry it.

Let's see...so then; I found this old apron of my grandmother's that I've kept in the kitchen towel drawer for 20+ years.

I was so pleased with the fit and ease of construction when I put it on that I immediately started cranking out aprons based on the pattern:

During this time, I pulled an old box of family collectibles out of the closet...just being nosey, I guess. I was amazed at the good condition everything was in...all the way back to my grandmother's baby clothes and a set of never-used embroidered kitchen towels that my grandmother's mother had made! Only problem was they smelled mildewy After two days of soaking and washing in mostly vinegar and oxyclean they're now pretty much odor-free but I'm afraid to pile them back into storage again so Lord knows how long they'll teeter in this pile

Among these multi-generational linens, I came across a couple of flashbacks. First, a granny-style reversible apron that I bought in 1979. I remember that day vividly; a finally cooling off San Joanquin valley day in autumn. I spent the day with my aunt JoAnn...drove up to the river, had a sandwich of cream cheese and black olives (first and last time I ever had that!) and stopped at a couple of tourist shops. I also clearly remember smoking pot with her that day. Why else would I have picked such an apron OR sandwich? 

Also hidden away in this musty time-capsule was and still is this lil apron I wore when I was two...almost 50 years ago and I've been carting it around ever since. Funny...

Okay, so then when I was down south visiting the folks I was telling my mom that even tho I basically just inherited the one apron from her mother, I was so glad I did because I was now using it as an original pattern. She goes, "Oh, you mean something like this?" and goes down the hall and whips out this even cuter version

and oh my goodness I just had to have it (see how fickle I am?) so will be making these instead from now on: (YAY! FInally got the flea market fancy fabrics!)

Hmmm...Then I came across this cute towel set at K-mart and thought up an apron pattern for them...you can pretty  much figure it out by looking at the before and after pic. They're fun to make, and now I'm always on the lookout for cute kitchen towels.

 

I was so happy to be able to use some vintage trims on these. I used an 8cents per pack zig zag on the chicken apron. Got so danged mad when I pulled it out of the wash that I threw the rest of the trim pack away, but here's another package in pink just like it to give you an idea; basically most of the black, that appears to be woven in, washed away. And not even in a uniform way. I then spray-n-washed it and washed it a second time to get the rest of the black out and it wouldn't budge. argh! What the heck is THAT about?

Okay, just ONE MORE and I promise I'll be done. For now. I'm making six of these because the fabric was on sale at JoAnn's and I loved not only the look but the fact that both selvages were bordered identically, so I can get six gathered half aprons out of three yards. Pretty cute, huh? I pulled out the decorative stitch cams from my 30year old sewing machine to do the scallop hem in green thread (can't see it too well in the pic)