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I finished the rest of the North Pole Village I set. i was getting a little disapointed when i got another house instead of a shop. but it is this cute A-frame house. i think one of the elves must live there. LOL
But all is not lost. there is the Sleigh Repair shop. of course, you have to have that...after all those stops on rooftops i imagine the sleigh rails get a bit worn. gotta love the little guys wrench...looks almost as big as he is.
And after all that work you need a little treat of Milk and Cookies. wouldn't it be nice if you could just go to town for a treat of milk and cookies and not have to bake the cookies yourself. in person, that giant cookie over the door has chocolate chips in it...but it doesn't show well in the picture.
Or, if milk and cookies didn't do it for you....how about some Ice Cream....yum.
And another favorite of mine (how many 'favorites' can you have?..LOL)...is the Egg Nog Pub. just adorable. can't you just picture little elves all lined up on the barstools? hahahahahaha
And that ends set 1. i've already finished the first one in set 2 and it is adorable, too.
Which is your favorite? i'm trying to think how to set these in a quilt....i really don't want to do the traditional rows of blocks...i need a village 'scene'. Any ideas? Hhhmmmm????
I just got back home from a 2-day stripper party.
No, i didn't learn how to BECOME a stripper...that would be too scary for the world....and would probably throw us off our axis. Nor did i get to watch male strippers for 2 days....darn it. LOL
My sis invited me to a stripper party.....a wallpaper stripping party. just doesn't sound like as much fun....does it?
She got tired of stripping wallpaper alone and said it was much more fun with company. so, armed with sprayer bottles full of water and our scrapers....we tackled a bedroom upstairs. there were 2 layers of wallpaper in some places. and all of it was painted over. kind of makes you want to find the people who did it and hurt them.
I am making progress....bottom finished...starting on the top.
The trick i discovered .... after a frustrating start....is spraying LOTS of water and giving it a minute to soak in. soon after we started i also discovered if i scored the wallpaper with the edge of my scraper and then sprayed more water it seemed to soak in better. i also worked 2 spots at once...scraping one spot and spraying the other. and then working back and forth. once i got my mojo going it went pretty quickly and easily. it is just a tedious process.
We left the ceiling for the time being. trying to scrape a ceiling while standing on a ladder is not easy. you are at the wrong angle....and the ladder makes my feet tired. i had to keep reminding myself that i was 4 foot off the floor and not to just back up.
After i finished up in the bedroom i moved to the hallway outside that room. there were also nails to pull out from the paneling that we pulled down last summer. thank goodness for milk crates. LOL
We've been working on this house for over a year and still don't have all the ugly out of it.
We spent the night on Wednesday so we could have even more fun. we don't have water and don't have heat....so it's kind of like camping out. but it was comfortable and not at all a problem. we set up a small heater in a bedroom early in the day and close the doors and by evening it is cozy. we have blow up mattresses to sleep on and electric blankets. what more could you ask for.
And we haul a lot of water so we can flush the toilet. we have a refrigerator to hold water and diet cokes and my sis just added a microwave to our amenities. we are probably up to a 2 star hotel. hahahahahahahaha
The house next door to my sister's house is now for sale. it is a smallish....2 bedroom, 1 bath on a typical city lot. with garage and little back shed, fenced yard and back deck. i am considering looking at that house or other property to buy. if i outlive dh i probably won't stay out in the woods on the farm. so being closer to my sis would be good. all the houses i look at out there are somewhat fixer-uppers. they are still all living in the 60s with the paneling and ugly carpet. LOL but i might find a deal....who knows. i'm thinkin' on it.
Well, the party's over....back to work in the studio.
I managed to get 2 more blocks embroidered on the North Pole Village. you're gonna like these
Here is the reindeer barn. excuse the fuzzy picture.
And another favorite....the teddy bear factory. love how the fur around the bear is all straggly.
Gonna go play at my sister's for the rest of the week.
But i am taking my piecing machine so i can work on piecing some squares. see you next week.
Remember Christmas will be here soon.
I need a 12 step program...for quilters and/or embroiderers. i have dozens of UFOs already...but does that deter me? oh no...let's start another. LOL
Along with using up my old stash of fabric i have decided i need to use up my old stash of hundreds of spools of embroidery thread and use those embroidery designs that i keep buying. why are they so cute? i am weak. sigghhh!!
Anyway, i started the North Pole Village I.....i say 1 because i believe there might be a 2 and possibly a 3. i have about 30 designs. check out http://www.designsbyjuju.com/ her stuff is soooo cute... sign up for her newsletter...she has awesome sales quite frequently. sales like buy 1 set ($20) and get 2 sets free; buy 2 sets and get 8 sets free. crazy, i know...that's why i have a couple hundred sets of her designs. and once you are a regular customer you get free designs...can't beat that. i have all the north pole applique village sets...3 so far....so decided to get busy and put a few million more stitches on the embroidery machine.
So far i have made 5 blocks in the last 2 days. i just let them stitch while i am quilting. i am good at multi-tasking. LOL
Here is the Pie Shop
And the Elf School
Someone's house in the Village
The Sweet Shop
And the Toy Store....my favorite so far. i just had to put Winnie the Pooh on the door.
I got 3 of them done today so perhaps i can do 3 more tomorrow. who cares about those other 40 UFOs.....if i live long enough....they'll all get done.....some day. hahahahahahaha
I have a lot of Anita Goodesign embroidery CDs. i belonged to their club for 2 years and got 2 CDs every month. and both my sister and I spend a little money at the http://www.emblibrary.com/ online. they have some really cute stuff, too.
Do you have an embroidery machine? whose designs do you like best?
Well, it is 4 hours later and i am done with my sister's French Braid quilt. actually, count a half hour break in there, too. so it went pretty quickly. i loaded the quilt sideways and took 3 passes...centering them on the middle of the rows as best i could.
That doesn't really show any quilting .... here's a closeup so you can see it better.
and the back shows it better still. i used gray thread and it shows better in real life. hahahaha
This pattern flows well and quilts up beautifully. i like it a lot.
My sister mainly hangs her quilts on her walls so i assume this one is headed for the beast. i will take it to her on Tuesday when i go to visit and help remove even more wallpaper from the beast.
You might want to check out Adam and Linda at http://www.quiltazoid.com/ they are awesome.
Last night about 6pm....late for our UPS driver...i had kind of given up on him for the day....but he brought my newest package from the wonderful Quiltazoid people, Linda and Adam.
I got 2 new continuous templates....
Simply Ornate.....isn't that an oxymoron....how can you be simple and ornate at the same time...aren't those opposites? LOL anyway...it is beautiful. i am using it on my sister's quilt today.
And Adam made me baby clamshells...just 2" wide. aren't they cute? i think they will be great for background fill for larger blocks.
I also got 6 new individual templates. Since i am doing donation quilts a lot these days i think i will try each one out on its own quilt top and see how many designs i can make with each template. should prove interesting.
Here is #6 Crosses
#8 Snowflakes
#18 Regal
#10 Ovals
and #16...it doesn't have a name. there are 4 designs for 12" blocks.
and the pinched square spiral. i really like square spirals so can hardly wait to try out this one, too.
And that is my loot for today. my dh says i now officially have more toys than he does....i say no way. his barn is larger than my studio. LOL
I am off to do a quilt with the simply ornate continuous template and will show you when it is finished.
Quitazoid Rocks!!
Remember Tony the Tiger....from the Kellogg's folks?
I had 3 panels of Tony and decided to quilt one up yesterday while i waited anxiously for the UPS man to bring my new QZ toys...which he didn't do by the way. hopefully, today.
Anyway, Tony was fun to do...it only took a few hours. it was just a quick freehand job and will be a donation quilt. i just think some little kid will love it and make his mom crazy going around saying "they're ggrreeeaattt!!". LOL
