Another Great Discovery!

Do you have any of these?

I think I must have gotten some of these when I got married  nearly 49 years ago!  But this particular one I brought home when my mother-in-love died and it's my favorite size.  Every other day or so I cut up two or three apples throw in some Splenda and cinnamon, spritz on a little spray margerine (I know, I know, but it's zero calories!), put the lid on and microwave it for 6 minutes.  It's a "recipe" I got in Weight Watchers years ago and still continue to use because I love it.  Of course, it's much better if you use real sugar and real butter but when you're counting calories....

Anyway, over time it has stained badly.  I don't know if it's the apple peelings or the cinnamon but it was sure ugly.  This morning I got the brilliant idea to try this:

And you know what?  It came clean, bright and shiny again in just a jiffy!  Just thought you might want to know.  :)

Love, Love, Love This!

Do you know what this is?

Look closely.  I bought two Missouri tomatoes in this little plastic package this week.  Don't judge me; there were no Arkansas tomatoes in that whole store!  They were quite nice tomatoes though there's no comparison to Arkansas tomatoes of course.  Just sayin'.  I looked and looked at that little plastic package and just like magic I had this amazing idea.

I buy red Presencia perle cotton thread, size 12, in extra large balls.  They are hard to find but when I do I buy a couple because I love red work.  love. red. work.  I have too much red work.  I've run out of places to put red work.  But I can't quit...it's addictive.  And that's where the amazing, incredible idea came into play.

I present to you my Missouri Tomato Thread Holder!  I probably should have taken that label off before I took this picture but I'm out of Goo Gone and can't remember the formula for taking off labels from homemade stuff.  Come to think of it I don't think I've ever had any Goo Gone.

 Don't you love it?  Sometimes I amaze myself. It takes so little to make me happy.   :)

Twelve, Maybe Fourteen or Nine

I told you I'm emptying my sewing room right?  Well, it's a great time to clean and get organized so that when I move back in I can just put everything on the shelves and not waste any time getting back to stitching.  Guess how many quilt tops I found that need quilting?  Yep, you guessed it....twelve, maybe fourteen or nine.

Here's how it plays out if you count all fourteen:  two were given to me some time ago (long enough ago that I don't remember when it was) to pass on to the long arm quilters who do the quilting for charity quilts, so really those two aren't mine;  three more are tops that I bought at junk stores, so technically I don't think I should have to count those either.  That leaves nine that I made that aren't quilted yet.  But since two of those are baby/children's quilts they will be super fast to do so honestly, do I have to count those?  I don't think so.  That means really there are only 7 and two of those are sandwiched already.  I'm down to five which I think is totally reasonable.  Don't you?  :)

These are a few of the ones I found.

Oh Dear, Oh Dear, Oh Dear

I've decided to change the flooring in my sewing room.  It currently has old carpet.  Very old carpet.  Nasty old carpet.  I'm putting in, or rather some very nice floor men, are putting in vinyl plank flooring.  I had it put in my sunroom a couple of years ago and I love it.  It's the perfect thing for that room since that's where we go in and out to the lake, dripping water and mud and grass.  It's easy to clean and looks nice as well.  You can see it here in this picture of my little evening stitching nook.  The floor I mean since some other things have changed in these, like a new television to replace that one that was 272 years old.  Well, maybe not that ancient, but close.   Hmmm, I think I like that table there, wonder why I moved it somewhere else.  I digress.

Did you notice the most important part of this post.  I'm putting new flooring in my sewing room.  That means I have to empty my sewing room.  Empty.  Yikes!  Double Yikes!  

I have until a week from Tuesday to do it.  My husband says, "just throw it in some boxes".  Is he kidding?  You don't do that...not to a sewing room.  You carefully go through everything.  You make piles.  You throw some away (a very small pile).  You pass some on to friends (another small pile).  You reminisce over some.  You drool over some.  And then you pack it in boxes.  And when you put it all back in you rearrange everything from your nice, neat, cleaned out and sorted boxes.

I'm also replacing my bedroom floor.  It'll take me about 10 minutes to pack that room.  :)

Sunflower Days

It's hot here.  Really hot.  Normal for Arkansas but after the couple of weeks we had earlier in the month when it was cool enough to open the windows it's kind of like a slap in the face.  One good thing about heat is that it drives you inside and invites long slow days of stitching.  I've finished the embroidery on three of my Kathy Schmitz BOM patterns but only one has all the final finishing touches.  I added two pictures, one looking each direction off my deck, so you can see what this heat has done to my yard!  Everything had dried up and the dirt patch under this huge oak tree just seems to be getting bigger and bigger.  :(  Thankfully my azaleas and other plants are holding their own with my husband's watering.  And farther out, close to the lake, the grass remains green in direct proportion to our water bill.

All of this particular set of patterns comes with a bit of iron on applique....in this one it's this sweet sunflower face.  I love that component.  

I used both stem stitch and back stitch in this pattern, as well as a running stitch, some satin stitch, and a few french knots.

This isn't the border shown on Kathy's pattern.  That one was darling flying geese, which I automatically assumed I would do.  However, one of my geese decided to fly north, another west, the third east and so on.  Honestly I do not know what happened but my mother would have called the strips "wonky jawed".  I tossed them in the scrap heap and went for something a bit simpler.  Which translates to something that wouldn't have me pulling out my hair.  I hope this afternoon to work on the other finished ones but their borders are debatable....we'll see if simple becomes better.  :)

Burlap

Makes a huge mess when cut and fringed. Just thought you'd want to know. :)




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad