A trip to Joann's

Well I did it. I finally went to Joann's fabrics. Now as many of you krafters know, this can be a dangerous place. especially if you have extra cash. Well I have been working extra hours so extra cash I had. not a lot, but enough to buy you guessed it PURPLE scissors and a PURPLE rotary cutter. I also bought a stack of bright fat quarters that were on clearance, and a ruler holder which I have to say probably is a waste of 5 bucks.... because I can't use it for the ruler that I wanted to. but oh well I've wasted money before.



Not to mention a new machine with 17 different stitches. This should be a big enough variety that I wont get bored using the same one for every project. I am really excited.

Gown work

Well, the straps didn't quite take all of the gape out of the top. between the two of us we realized that the beading around the top of the dress wasn't sewn directly on the dress. But on a piece of fabric the same as what the dress is made of. So, we started taking SOME of it off not to keep off just to get a look and see if we could put in a dart or something.

Well, to put in a dart for one side of the dress we would have to put in a dart on the OTHER side of the dress, and you guessed it! there's a ZIPPER on the other side. Now I have the most respect for someone who can take a zipper out and put one back in but I"M not going to do it.

so we had to back up and punt....

The solution? ONE dart in the back under the sweeping buttons! It worked GREAT! now all that is left is sew the beading back on (by hand of course) I don't think you will even see this dart!

Finished project pictures soon to come!

Prom Gown Straps

My daughter was given a prom gown. But when she tried it on it gaped in the front. After some thought we decided that perhaps we needed some straps for it.

We wanted something that was sturdy enough, but yet did not take away from the elegance of the simple red dress.

So she and I decided on some red ribbon. What we were able to find in our stores around there though were to wide. Although we did get a GREAT color match.

So we folded the ribbon in half and stitched it down, then as an added "so we can't tell" top stitched the fold. With a simple fitting and some hand stitching we should have this ready for wear!

Philly trip

Last week I did not do a lot of posting. My daughter was on a trip to Philadelphia. No I didn't go but kids that come home from trips leave a mess before they go and then just as you get that cleaned up they bring a new one home.

I thought you might be interested to see some of the pictures that her director just sent me.

She has been involved with this choir since she was about 7 years old. so that is like 10 years.

The first picture is in front of independence hall. They sang our national anthem there.

The second picture is of them singing the national anthem at the Phillies Game. Behind them is the mascot for the Phillies, the "Philly Phanatic".

So as you can guess I am quite proud of her. This choir from a town of 3,000 + people to sing the national anthem for a stadium full of people.

wind chimes

I love wind chimes. My house sits in a valley, and the wind just seems to "tunnel" past my house all year round. In the winter its not so nice, we have a lot of drifting problems with the snow, but come spring/ summer my chimes come out!

This particular set I bought in Knoxville, Tennessee while vacationing with my parents. It was the last vacation I was able to take with my father who passed in 2007. So these chimes are especially special to me. They chime almost obnoxiously loud. Loud enough that Daddy was able to hear it without his hearing aid, or you can hear it inside with the doors and windows shut.

They make me smile.

tinkering with the blog

Hi everyone! its almost 80 degrees here in northern Pennsylvania today. and oddly enough i had to work all day! (isn't that just the luck?) So I'm not doing much crafting, I'm getting my screens out, and such.

I did however tinker with my blog a bit... I put up a check box at the bottom of each post. So if you try a recipe and you really like it you can check the box and show that you do. I am certain other readers would appreciate it! I would love the feedback as well.

Bag re-thought

After sitting down over my plate of cookies, and some serious thought about that bag disaster. I decided, "Its PURPLE! you can't just throw it out!"

So, I didn't try to pull out the threads to start over, I just squared up the whole mess and cut off the previous mess ups. I lined it back up, picked a better stitch on the machine, and resewed the bag sides.

Then I loaded a MATCHING thread, and sewed down the handles.

I might try this bag again, maybe with a contrasting fabric, or a pocket or something. its not one of my favorites, but i see now that it has potential to be a great bag. maybe after I work it and think it over I can figure a way to make it un-stumbly. but for now this bag is OK and I can actually use it.

cake mix cookies

What do you do when you can't seem to figure something out?

Easy! you eat cookies! well you don't if you REALLY want to keep that 12 pounds off you just lost. But I thought four couldn't do that much damage.

So we made some cake mix cookies!

Cake mix cookies are so easy, you just pick up the cheapest mix you can find add in 1/4 cup of vegetable oil, and two eggs and a bag of choc. chips. and bake them!

Most of my cookies I bake in a slower oven, and my recipes may say 350 degrees, but I normally burn them at this temp. So I use either a 300 degree or a 250 degree. If you want your cookies chewier, take them out after the bottoms are done but not the tops, if you want them crispier, leave them in a bit longer. It really depends on how much I have going when I bake them. I try not to have more than one thing at a time going, but then it gets late and then I have to start dinner/ laundry/ well you know the drill. Either way a slower oven keeps me from forgetting that I have cookies going thus I don't burn them.

what an awful bag!

I decided that I was going to use a tutorial to make a new bag for earth day.

I had it all laid out in my mind. I knew what fabric to use, how it would look as a finished project, just the awesome-ness of it all.

While my past few days have been busy with work and a teen who not only went to Philadelphia, but also had her wisdom teeth out, dry socket and all... I have sat and thought about this tutorial. I had some issues with wrapping my mind around what they wanted me to do, but I made a point that after I did laundry today, and bought groceries I was going to do this. for me, for the environment. FOR EARTH DAY!

OH! What a mess! It looked easy, but there was a lot of wasted fabric, (which I hate) sewing over an already sewn seam (which I also hate) and obscure directions that I thought I followed but by the end of the project I realized that I had done it backwards. The end product on the tutorial, stood up. Mine wilted like an old daisy.

I don't really think I rushed into this project, I am pretty certain I had read and re-read it plenty of times, I also don't think that it should have been this complex.

Needless to say, I don't know if I will attempt this again, I may just can the whole thing

Baby blue

This is the Blanket I have been attempting to work on. Although not whole heartedly.

the stripe is some really soft baby eyelash that my Big sis gave me to use. but its a HUGE pain in the backside. you cant count it, you cant see the stitches, they don't hold true.

I think if I can ever get it done it will be super fantastic. But I am having a lot of trouble focusing right now on crafting (as if you didn't know) I am planning on getting back to it asap. Life should settle down quite soon.

Pennies

I love coins. especially pennies. Mostly because they are everywhere. I am the person who will bend down and pick up a penny in a crosswalk.

Most of the time they just go into my ceramic bank. but once in a while I will spend an hour or so looking through the dates and putting them in my book. Once I have the right dates, well basically its money I'll spend the rest.

I found quite a few this morning. 1962, 1964, 1967, 1968, 1972d, and a 1974

That filled this book quite a bit on the far right. This book goes back to 1941, and as you can see I do not have that one.

The top oldest pennies I have are a 1898 Indian head (out of curiosity I looked up the value of this coin it's worth a whole dollar... oh wait that's if it wasn't corroded like it is) a 1918 which is the year my father was born ($0.12), and a 1930 ($0.06).

All of the coins I collect are just circulated found in change I bring home from the store. I know I wont get rich doing it, but I have fun with it, it feels like a scavenger hunt. Maybe you should look a bit closer at what you have in your pocket, you might find a whole new hobby in it.

Happy Easter

Wishing you and Yours a very happy Easter. Spend this day with people you love and who love you.

Purple BLOG!

A very special thanks going out to my "computer programmer" who talked me through changing my blog from that awful pink to this wonderful purple! I hope everyone gets as much enjoyment out of the change as I do!

Finally a Bloom!

I truly think I'm behind by 2 weeks from everyone else around here. But I do have a crocus bloomed in my flower bed!

Everyone say hello to spring!

Suet Cakes Tutorial

Recently I was telling someone about how I make my own birdie cakes.
I though everyone might like to know as well.

I retain any meat drippings from cooking and keep them in a tupper type container in the back of the fridge until I have what looks to be enough. How much is that? Well, that depends on how many cakes you want to make. After all I don't have to eat this, so I pretty much wing my measurements. But I'll try to keep track so you have something to go by.So when I think I have the amount I wish to do, I dump that in a big pot and heat it back up to liquid form, and then turn off the heat. We don't need to cook this just make the fat into the binding agent. (This is 1 1/2 cups of fat.)
Then I add some bird seed. I feed strait black oil sunflower seed because this is what attracts the largest variety of birds. Sun flower seeds float in grease so we have to use more than just that. (3 cups of black oil seed)


Right about now I add about a cup of peanut butter, creamy, crunchy it doesn't matter they love the stuff, and my PB is always the cheapest I can find.


I will also add a corn type of product either corn meal or grits, which ever you have in the house, I have a heart from the south so I ALWAYS have grits in the house. mix this in. This time I used both, about a cup of each.


Here comes the creative part... look in the cupboards... what do you find that is stale (non sugary) bread ends, oyster crackers, Cheerios. don't use a lot of this, birds break down carbs really fast, but it will make it press better. NEVER USE RICE! IT WILL MAKE YOUR BIRDIES SICK!
This is a half a sleeve of stale saltines.


This should be the constancy of your suet, if it isn't resist putting any more flour based items in, add some more corn meal or more grits or even a cheaper grade seed. (more PB will just make it runnier). It wont hold together to make a ball or anything. It is very greasy and crumbly.

Find containers that are about the size of your suet cages. I use Chinese take out boxes.. not the paper ones they are a tupper kind we have locally.

If you do not have anything, you can simply press it into a 9x13 pan the amount I ended up with would have fit in a 9x13 pan nicely. I would probably line my pan with waxed paper first though.


Refrigerate overnight or freeze. After frozen cut to desired size. If you have crumbs from cutting them, sprinkle it on the ground when you put out your cakes, it wont be there tomorrow. You can wrap your cakes in plastic wrap (yes, my plastic wrap is purple! Did you expect anything less?) and store them in the freezer. I make these year round but only feed them in the months that it is cold... they don't stand up well in 80+ deg weather
These are some I simply set in an old cookie sheet on a window flower box.

Palm Sunday Place setting

A while ago I posted a table set that I had made. I thought you might like to see how it all looked when I set it out for our Palm Sunday dinner.

Palm Sunday has always been the Sunday we celebrate Easter at home with. That way if our family has to go to different places on Easter we still get to have a dinner together.

The tradition has since lived out its usefulness and is now only celebrated by my immediate family. but you know how it is with tradition, once you start one things don't seem right if you don't do it

coffee table runner

After my sister gave me that new machine to use, I thought I better practice some, and if I am going to practice I'm going to stare at all day at fabric, then I am going to use the colors that I like best .

Of course that means purple....

Well, I had some pre-cut strips given to me. That had been laying around. What a better way to practice my 1/4 inch seams and sewing strait, that sewing strips together?

Well after I ran out of strips I got to looking at what I had. With a little bit of squaring cuts, and a back, all I had to do was add the binding.

I was finishing this project up at work, thinking to myself, well its a great coffee table runner but I will have to take the gorgeous quilted block off my coffee table that my Aunt Daisybell made for me for Christmas. When a girl I work with said to me "oh wow that's so pretty! It would look fantastic on my coffee table, hint hint" Much to her surprise I told her "you want it? ok you can have it"

Its nice to know that it will go to someone who will love it. Where it will just sit in a drawer here.

More Purple!

Seems when I go looking for purple stuff I can never find it. Luckily everyone around me knows if they see it grab it!

Big sis picked this up for me when she went out thrifting. To me this is just a purple sheet that is in awesome shape. But my sister, who has been handling fabric much longer than I have been not to mention the wide variety of fabrics she sees.

When I picked this up from her, she told me that it felt like Good cotton fabric. Now I didn't pretend to know what that meant then nor am I going to pretend that the fabric I felt that day felt any different than any other fabric I have felt before.

Maybe when I have been quilting for 10 years, like she has, maybe then I'll know.

Purple Hound?

Look at what I drug home yesterday...

I don't have a use for it...
I don't know where to put it...


BUT IT'S FANTASTIC! and you can put anything in a basket... the purple is just a plus

I am starting to think that I don't just LIKE purple... maybe its an obsession. After all how many people have a Purple ironing board? Oddly I didn't even realize it was purple until last week.... I just thrift-ed it home.

I have been accused of buying things "because its purple" and I didn't realize it until today. I needed another basket like I needed a hole in the head.

vintage tablecloth

My sister has got me on a search for vintage tablecloths. Well I found one.

but its purple....

Poses a problem... but just a slight one. I got to tell her I found one but she can't have it. but also on the plus side, she doesn't like purple the way I do.

I am not certain the Osmonds like purple that way I do.

simple easy lunch sacks

These are two of the vintage sheets I picked up last week. I have lots of fabric left over for other stuff... (not sure yet what that will be) but I do love the way these turned out! They are just the right size for a "glad" box and a snack pack and an apple.

This has got to be the easiest project I have made yet! The worst part was whining to get my big sis to make the pattern for me. One of these days I'm going to have to get up the guts to measure out a pattern for something myself...

Anyhow I found the pattern here, with the most fabulous tutorial. I really admire those of you that do tutorials. That looks like a ton of work. They make those of us who haven't sewn for very long. actually look like we know what we are doing! Thank you for this one Emily!