Stashbusting Report #2

I used up 3 more yards of my stash. yeah!!!  while cleaning out the studio the other day i came across these little applique embroidered animals that i had done ages ago. there were 10 of them. don't know why i stopped at 10. 12 would have been better for a baby quilt...well wasn't going to embroider 2 more. so i used some black and white kid faces fabric and cut 2 more blocks.

then found some wild floral print with bold kid like colors along with fabrics to match in purple, green, orange, pink and yellow. i put a little 1" border around each animal and sewed them together. since i used the black and white kid faces print in 2 blocks, i put a small 1/2" border with some black and white print and then the wild floral for the last border. it came out to 38"x50" and i think that is the perfect size.

i used most of the rest of the fabrics to piece a backing for it.

and this little lovely will be the binding.

so, 3 more yards gone easy as pie. i believe this will be saved for a friend in Texas who is having a baby in May.

of course, now it goes in the 'to be quilted' pile. but, i am working on that, too. LOL

4 yards down; 96 to go.  now...what's next....hhhmmmm.  did you bust any of your stash today?

First 2010 StashBusting Report.....Ta Da!!!

First official stashbusting report of 2010

Goal: 100 yards out the door in 2010

Used:  1 yard....yep, that's right....i whole yard. hey, you got to start somewhere. the first step is the hardest. i finally finished up a wallhanging that was ordered back in September or October last year. the embroidery part was the holdup.

Yards to go:  99 yards

reminds me of that song....99 bottles of beer on the wall...99 bottles of beer....if one of those bottles should happen to falll....98 bottles of beer on the wall.....98 bottles of beer on the wall....98 bottles of beer...if one......you get the idea.

99 yards of fabric on the shelves....99 yards of fabric....hahahahahaha

here's my proof....i yard gone....half yard for the front; sashing, borders, binding and hangers. this came out to about 18"x24".

And 1/2 yard for the backing...a rust colored paisley. 

wouldn't it be nice to look out the window today and see these flowers instead of snow?  aaaahhhhh spring....

99 days till spring is here....99 days till spring.....

Through 5 miles of snow...3 feet deep....uphill

oh no,..... that was the father story when you didn't want to go out into the snow. and who knows, my father may have trudged through 5 miles of snow...3 feet deep....uphill....to get out. he grew up in Toledo, Ohio.


today i braved the snow and trudged out to the studio. granted, it is just across the road. BUT, from the house is downhill down the first part of the driveway and there is where my main problem lies. i am always afraid i will slip and fall and break something....then down a LOOOONG driveway to the road...then across the road and to the studio. it seemed like 5 miles. it's about 12 degrees and we had 3 inches of snow. it just seemed like 3 feet deep....and 5 miles....and uphill.

my truck is 2 wheel drive so there was no hope of driving it over. i tried that last year and got stuck at the studio and dh had to pull me out. the truck is lazing in the barn till spring or the snow melts...whichever comes first. as dh left this morning to deliver mail he asked if i was going to the studio and reminded me about the truck fiasco from last year.

i did bring the cane over to the studio with me. i have a fear of falling and breaking something in the snow. so i think the cane gives me some stability. it may not be true but it makes me feel better. here's my trudge across the frozen tundra. LOL
 
see the little 'line' next to my tracks...that's the cane. hahahaha
 

Looonng driveway...then make a slight right and up the hill  

Back behind those trees and up the hill is the house. Brrrr!!  

I'm not venturing back out until i am ready to go back to the house for the day. during nice weather (think no snow) i will sometimes go back to the house for lunch and then walk back to the studio. not today.

also i usually go out and pick up the mail when i notice Jean has come by. not today

and since dh is gone all day today delivering mail...i would usually go back up to the house and let the dog out to go potty. not today....she can just cross her legs till i get back. besides...she is laying on the couch right in front of the vent from the wood stove with nice warm air blowing on her. i think i hate her.

 

Re-crafted thrift store hat

I love thrift stores....do you?  sometimes my sister and I spend the whole day checking out thrift stores all over town. some days we fill the truck with goodies and some days we just go have lunch instead.

the local Goodwill stores around our area seem to be getting donations from Target and such stores. you see many more clothes with the tags still on them and lots of kitchen items, household items and such that are recognizable as coming from a retail store.

a few weeks ago i found a hat...they had several colors of the same hat. it was made of angora and still had a tag on it. so i figured i would give one of them a new home. i was thinking of adding some felt embellishments or something to it with my embellishment machine.

it had a funky flower on it made of wool....i took that off. i had some different yarns that i thought might look good. so i embellished them on there first. i went around the hat 3 or 4 times with each yarn.

then i had a piece of silk that i folded and stuck on there with a piece of folded pink felt over that. i embellished it all down in the middle. then piled 3 buttons on top. that was it. quick and easy with a whole new look.

my niece loves thrift shops, too and i thought she might enjoy this hat so i sent it to her. she showed me a picture of a knitted cap that she had gotten at the thrift store and that is what made me remember this hat.

so the hat is on it's way to savannah, georgia.  if you see it around somewhere, you will know where it came from. LOL

perhaps the next time i am at the thrift store i will look for another hat and see what else i can do.

 

Meet Jigs

This is Jigs

 

I know it's not a great picture but he was on the road and it was too cold to go our and get closer. i took the pic from the doorway.

Jigs is a great dog that lives with Bill and Ruth, our 80-something neighbors, about a half mile down our road. I don't know what kind he is but he is about 70 pounds of friendly. He has become quite the wanderer here lately. i think he is lonely.

His life has been turned upside down. Bill had a stroke last spring and is now residing in a nursing home and won't be coming home again. Bill spent all his time outside...piddling around here and there....with Jigs by his side.

Then a few months ago Ruth fell and broke her neck. so she has been staying with relatives and not been home for weeks. Now she is back home but she is not the outside person....so Jigs has no one to play with.

Jigs started coming by our house a few weeks ago. he would show up in the morning and we would feed him and give him a drink...he would play with our dog for a while...and then he would wander on. sometimes he showed up again in the evening and we would feed him again. i knew that relatives were going by Ruth's place to feed Jigs and the chickens. and he had never wandered down this far before. so we checked on Ruth and things were fine. Jigs was just lonely.

sometimes he came by every day for a while. then we wouldn't see him for a few days. he is a great dog and although he is about 10 or 12 years old, he gets around like a much younger dog. they have a large pond and when the guys go down to fish, Jigs is right there. Jigs is a snake killer. he jumps in the pond after the water moccasins, pulls them out and kills them. he has been bit several times but i guess he thinks this is his job....Jigs the snake killer.

so, yesterday he showed up again. that's when i snapped this picture of him. he was just laying on the side of road at the studio. i guess he saw my truck there and came to protect me for a while. after about 30 minutes i looked out again and he was gone. once he was here really late at night and jim took him back home and checked on Ruth. Jigs was just lonely.

Jigs is basically an outside dog and Bill was always outside so i guess poor Jigs doesn't know what to do with hisself now. we figure if Jigs is still around when Ruth passes on then we will just adopt him. he is house broken and a good dog....and a snake killer.

Bobbins can be trouble

I have been throwing away bobbins. i have read posts on winding bobbins slowly and straight. and how bobbins can get out of true. or not to wind them too fast so they don't get too tight. so, when i started having problems with some of my bobbins i figured they were just old or getting out of whack....no idea how that happens. but my bobbins were tight and not fitting in their case. i couldn't get them out without a needle or pin to pry them out. and i couldn't stitch properly with them.

over the last year i have thrown away about 8 bobbins.

and just last week i figured out that i have been throwing away bobbins for nothing...it wasn't the bobbin....it wasn't the thread...it was ME.   siiggghhh!!!

check this out.

see that little bit of thread that is all curled up. that has been my problem all along. when winding the bobbin, i hold the end of the thread and then cut it off after it winds around a few times. and as it winds, the thread curls up on itself. when i just snip the thread and finish winding, there is a little curl of thread there. sometimes it goes down into the hole when i put the bobbin in the case. then the bobbin is caught and doesn't want to move. i have to take a needle or pin to pull the bobbin out. i would put in a different bobbin and it would be fine. so i thought the first bobbin was bad and rewound the thread onto another bobbin and threw that one away.

finally one day i guess i looked closer or something. when i pulled out the tight bobbin i saw the bit of thread curl. i pulled it up and there was about an inch of thread...all curled on itself. once i clipped that off, the bobbin slipped right in...no problem.

so, the new rule is to pull up and snip off that last little bit of thread before putting the bobbin in. works every time and no more thrown away bobbins.

sheesh.....it must be the Polish in me.....sometimes it takes forever to figure something out.  i guess it is good that i figured it out before i threw away ALL the bobbins and went and bought more.

i was thinking that if I had the problem...perhaps someone else did, too.  or not...you all might be more clever than i am and know about this already. but i feel so relieved that i have solved one of my life's little problems. now i love my bobbins again.

Happy Anniversary to us

Today is our 10th wedding anniversary. we don't usually do anything special...just go out to eat. but i thought the 10th is a bigger one ... then say the 4th or 8th. i did a little research. 10 years is designated by the colors blue and silver; the flower is daffodils; the gift would be tin or pewter.

I decided to make a card. so i went through our pictures and found some that had special meaning over the last 10 years. things that we had done together or were interested in.

I am into crazy quilting now so the pages got a little embroidery on them. i added pewter charms and used blue and gray (silver) fabric. we even have daffodils in the yard, so i had a picture of those. it took a couple of weeks to get it together. and a little embroidery late at night after Jim went to sleep.

He was totally surprised and really liked it. said you couldn't buy anything like that.

Here are pictures for you...don't know if you can read the wording...picture taking is not my best thing.

Front says Happy 10th Anniversary with a picture of us on our wedding day and a pewter charm of 2 people in a heart.

This page explains the blue and silver; the pewter and the daffodils. i realize the yellow embroidered flowers aren't daffodils, but hey...they ARE flowers. hahahahaha

This page has a poem found on the internet along with a hunting picture of Jim. I had deleted my hunting pictures so just had one of me helping him gut his last kill. He taught me to hunt and gut a deer when we first met. togetherness. LOL  I have gone hunting with him for about 3 years and always got a deer (or 2) but finally decided to give it up and just let him hunt. but if we need meat and he doesn't get a deer, i will have to come out of retirement.  

Here he is on his old Ford tractor. it reminds me of that old show...Green Acres. they move to the country and he has a tractor....the song says "the Chores"....so Jim is ready for the chores on his tractor. 

and there is our pond which Jim stocked with fish and waited 3 years for them to grow up so he could catch them and we would have fish for dinner. yum!!

 This is the house after we built the deck and the barn. and cleaned up all the trash. haha  

Jim loves his barn. after it was built i took a picture of him in front of it and he yelled..."This is mine...all mine".  hahahaha  it is big enough to hold both trucks, the tractor, the boat, the 4 wheeler, the lawn tractors, etc., etc. and his office. country life requires a lot of equipment.  

And this is our favorite dog in all the world, Shimmy. She died last year after living 13 years. she was the smartest dog i have ever seen and a ferocious watchdog. this is my favorite picture of her. 

And the little dog on the chair is our SuzyQ who was also ferocious when she had Shimmy to imitate. now she is useless as a protector...but loves to ride in the truck if you are going anywhere. 

Aahh!!  Vacations......we went horseback riding in Texas while visiting my son

And out to eat in Oklahoma while visiting Jim's kids.

And my sister babysat that ferocious twosome. 

The back page says 10 years later. the house has a new metal roof and is all painted pretty. 

Jim is into fixing and building computers and i have my longarm. Life is good. 

Sometimes the 10 years seems like 10 months.....and sometimes like 20 years. haha  but that is life and life in the country is good....if you don't count the ticks.

Wonder if we'll have 10 more?