30 JULY 2017

Helpful

Looking for Roly Poly's. We check for them several times a day.

'Grandpa, please bring my bike'

I joined this journal group on line and have not been very good with keeping up on the writing. Having a one year old during the day is far more interesting than anything else I can think of doing, but it is time to get more involved with 'other' things that are of interest to me. So this week's assignment is on BBQ's, do you and what do you BBQ? Normally during the summer we BBQ a lot, but not this year for several reason. One, a broken foot, just haven't been up to it and two, it has been hotter than hades this summer and our porch has full sun(west side) at cooking time. Grilling anything in the heat is a great diet incentive for me. Sweat pouring down my face just makes me cranky and not hungry, thirsty for an ice cold beer maybe, but not grilled food. I will say though last weekend we were at the lake and S-I-L grilled the best charred dogs I think ever crossed these lips of mine, I had two!

This week I do plan on grilling some burgers and some pork chops. I make a weekly loose menu and these  are on the menu. Eric and I have been working our way through the freezer, (feels so good to use what we have)and it's chops time for sure! Having our big meal at noon also helps with eating what we have and eating at home, not wimping out and being too lazy at dinner time to cook. I have perfected that habit(eating out) since the kids have left home to start their own lives. I am also really tired of restaurant food, especially knowing I could make it so much better if my laziness would not rear it's ugly head at around 4-5pm. 

Yesterday, I had a lovely day sewing ALL DAY in my sewing cave. I finished one quilt for Baby B,(christmas present) and worked on two other ones for gifts. I pulled fabric for 3 reproduction quilts and tested one of the blocks. I am off on the block, not a perfect 9.5 inch square so am going to try starching the fabric  then cut and sew. This is new to me, though all over the internet, I read about this starching technique on Minick and Simpson blog. Sure hope it works, will be worth the extra steps if the blocks come out truer to size I need. I hate fudging when off a couple of centimeters, gets to be to much to deal with when making a big quilt.

Missing my baby today, she is 28 years old this very day! Happy Birthday sweet girl!

PJ's and IRONING BOARDS

my ironing board cover is always an eye sore.....uuggg.

and since i tend to sew a lot that means i use my ironing board a lot.

well i just could no longer bare to look at that ugly burned, torn covering.

mind you, i made a covering with in the last 18 months, it {the one i just replaced} was a blue check.

i bought a new covering for the ironing board at ikea but of course it did not fit properly, the store bought ones never do unless i want to cough up 30 dollars.....

i'm choking now!

so i ventured into my favorite store located in the "one butt" room known as my fabric storage room.

yes, i can hardly call it a sewing room since i can't fit in there to sew any longer. i envy all those beautiful sewing rooms i see on blogs, organized, everything put it in it's place and the floor vacuumed! 

i have come to believe these pictures are nothing short of a roost, if any sewing room is that clean it means...

 NO ONE IS SEWING IN THE ROOM.

which brings me to another short fall of mine,

i don't sew in my sewing room for the above mentioned reason and my sewing room is still a mess.

maybe i need therapy.

i did bring home a book from the library that was titled something to the fact of:

is your mess making you fat

i decided i neither wanted to answer the question nor wanted to read the book,

it went back to the library.

oh yeah, back to the ironing board cover,

i made a new one, this time pink checker!

it is so pretty i decided that the ironing board could stay in the living room.

if i put a lamp on it do you think anyone will notice it is an ironing board?

anyways...

i also made another pair of pj's from material i found in the " fabric storage room".

yes they are identical as the last pair of pj's i made, however this pair is from the top sheet otherwise known as the "flat sheet".

i even left the lace on one leg.

yes one leg, i thought i had the pattern set up so when i cut out the legs, the lace would be on the front of both legs.

when all said and sewn, i looked at the legs and thought; "how did that happen"?

i'm sure it has something to do with

if x=y and y=z , x must equal..... but as my mother in law would say,

" all you have is a lot of nothing"!

loved that lady...

betty

BOKEH and THINGS

I have been a busy girl around here and under not such great conditions !

Am putting on the finial touches on above quilt, more on this tomorrow.

Found some old acrylic yarn in my store [ sewing room ], and am making another crochet blanket, this one for the puppies.

They loved the last one and were always in it. 

Well they shed too much and Sam had a little "lemonade" accident on it.

He gets soo excited to see us he will sometimes make " lemonade", then he won't even look at us, he is so embarrassed.

Wool blankets that can't be wash and dried in the machine are not for puppies,

so they will be getting this dog friendly blanket.

I love bokeh and my friend Julie does a beautiful job getting it just right.

Me, I try and I get this. Love the picture but not the effect I am looking for.

Practice practice is all I can do and will do !

So why are things not under the best conditions around here.

My back again is out of whack.

Not just a little, but more so everyday.

If my leg is not on "fire" it is tingling or sleeping.

Glad some part of my body is getting rest.

I have some "anticonvulsant"drug to help calm the nerves down,

however it calms down all the nerves in my entire body. 

Talk about feeling like Gumby.

Mr. P ask if he was going to get a hug and I said:" sure just pick up my arms and wrap them around you".

I have to get to January then I can get another  Epidural Steroid Injection.

Love, love those things !!

Getting older is not for the weak at heart.

The good news is every morning I wake up stiff or even hurting I know I am still on the planet.

Have a wonderful Thursday!!!!

VINTAGE QUILT

I bought a bunch of old vintage sheets from Good Will a couple of months ago.

My youngest likes all things vintage and thought these would make a wonderful bed quilt.

So I on spent an hour cutting and stacking.

About four hours sewing and

- cooking

- answering the phone

- letting the dogs out

- letting the dogs in

- repeat above a thousand times

{ no kidding ask my middle daughter.

puppies do not know what they want,

in out- in out all day long }

Point being : this quilt was really, really fast !

I love the results.

So very

 cheerful

simple

fresh looking

I will be using a flat vintage sheet for the backing.

Quilting ladies please do not fall to your knees, [ at least till the smelling salts are with in reach ].         

I know sheets are not 100% cotton

[  these aren't ]

but it is all part of the 

use it up

or do with out

thingie

and they are so pretty.

This honey will be machined quilted with simple eloquence.

I love 

simple

and

eloquence

SEWING CLEAN-UP

I have no idea what I have been thinking of these past 20 years. Why did I ever buy all this? Oh, I am like so many quilters, we love to buy, buy lots and faster than we can ever sew up all that fabric we have collected.

A women I knew who loved to quilt, died last year and this past month her family held a garage sale to get rid of the last of her treasures. I was moved and horrified. This was going to be my treasures out on the driveway in the future. With my girls smiling and repeating;" she had a way of collecting fabric faster than she could produce the quilts". When my Grandmother died she had boxes of cards. Cards that she always intended to send, but their were just too many. She did not know that many people to communicate with all those cards. I thought how sad, she spent hours picking out the right card for that "someone" some day. I do not have cards, I have fabric. Same obsession just a different medium.

This sale disturbed me enough that I have spent 3 days in my sewing room trying to get some control over my dilemma. I have made great headway but still a long ways to go.

I can actually see the carpet on the floor, it's blue! Two car loads of "stuff" has been delivered to Salvation Army, and the fabric under the cutting table filled 6 large bins , organized by color.

I have not seen this cutting table for maybe a year, the corner table for possible 5 years! I forgot how much I liked the wood on the corner cabinet.

Sewing machines is another"medium" I have in excess. I was telling my husband that each child will inherit three . The look on his face was priceless, some call this look SHOCK.

We will not even discuss the yarn today.

Sunday's

Sunday the day of rest, yes that is surely all I have done all day. Mr.P. and myself went to see VALYKE this afternoon. We went to the early show, ( I hate movie theaters, but Mr.P. loves them). Going to the first show is cheaper and very few people in the theater, Both bonuses for me. Any who the film was slow, very slow. I do not care for Tom Cruise and he did not add anything to the film, but it is a true story and even though slow, it was interesting.

So today I signed up for the Quiltville mystery quilt that will start on NY day. Put lots of Christmas stuff away. And lastly started another knitted washcloth, finished the one I started yesterday.

Something that I WILL get done this week is to clean up and organize my sewing room. yesterday i did go on my last big fabric binge. I had set this money aside and bought some great things. Is this frugal, no of course not, but I had planned on this since last January. They say the more organized one is the more they can accomplish, well I plan on testing the theory.