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Showing posts with the label crafting/sewing

A Scrappy Greeting

  My first crafted greeting cards were made of fabric scraps and costume jewelry.  Bzzz, bzzz went the sewing machine.  Ouch! went I as I stitched by hand.  See the red hearts in this card. They’re cut from my once-upon-a-dress Mama made for me in grammar school. Fun!

Rambling x 13

  1. This morning I went all the way down the stairs on my feet, without a gasp or flinch from my knee. Yay! I had been making my way down on my butt. Thump. Thump. Thump.  2. The first morning I bumped down the stairs, Missy Molly the pinky-nosed (wilde) Cat tried to help me at one point. She actually got behind me and pushed on my back. Such a sweetie!  3. The Husband has been carrying and fetching stuff for me. He also reminds me to stop doing things I ought not to be doing.  I'm still not used to be taken care of. You'd think after three surgeries in the last four years, I would be.   4. Between the Husband and me, we have had six surgeries since Mama died in 2016. The Husband got a pacemaker, I had my reproductive system removed, and we both had cataract surgeries for our eyes.  5. Molly says don't forget me. "I was the first one to have surgery, miao, miao." Poor baby. She had dental surgery, a month after Mama's Spirit moved onward and upward.  Molly sp

Holey Yoga Pants!

My yoga pants are 10 years old or so. Until last year they had a new look to them because I rarely wore them. I didn't like how fitted they were. That's no longer the problem. I've worn and washed them so often that the legs got baggy and holey, in particular around the knees. I wonder why the knees since I can't bend them. I lost the ability to sit cross-legged in my late 30s. I wonder if I can do that again if I were to get knee replacements. Anyway, back to the holey yoga pants. By today's standards of yoga pants, mine are loosey-goosey, which I like and which means I won't find a similar pair ever. Fortunately, the rest of my holey pair of yoga pants still has a lot of wear to them. Simply patch the knees, right?  I've only sewn stretchy material once or twice. I always got nervous, panicky, even a bit scared. Today, I nipped all that in the face, and had a lot of fun. :-)  

New Things Tried

 Sweet Pea Song, my computer, is whining loudly. She's quite hot to the touch. At least we're not in Death Valley right now. Weather experts say it's 130 Fahrenheit. Ouch! In our neck of the woods, the temperature has inched up to 102 Fahrenheit. Seven degrees less than yesterday's high point. Hopefully, that's the highest it gets around here for the rest of the year. Tomorrow, the temperatures ought to start dipping  into the 90s and  stay that way for the rest of the week. Yippiee! The heat has kept me indoors. So, I've been playing with new things. Embroidering (kinda), for one. I drew an elephant on what was once the bodice of Mama's dress and outlined it in green backstitches and regular stitches.  This is my first piece since I was 9 or 10. I finally have the patience and attention span to keep on practicing hand and embroidery stitches. So I think. Back in February, I bought a set of watercolor paints. On Saturday evening I started playing with them.

Breathing Deeply

I finally got around to sewing face masks, two for the Husband and two for me. I only had one oopsie. The photo shows a collage of mask #5.   :-) I followed a pattern with straps, using bias tape to make the ties. The oopsie mask was made with elastic. Elastics elude me.  The elastic straps were like rubber bands. The mask flung forward each time the Husband or I put it on. The Great Elastic Escape.  Molly the pinky-nosed (wild) Cat likes to nap on the love seat in front of the patio window these past weeks. When summer comes, she'll scarf her last bite of breakfast, jump off her table, and scamper out the patio door, to come back for lunch or to use her litter box.  And, sometimes she'll wander back in to check on her humans. Sweet girl, her. Today I sat beside Missy, gazing out the window with her. I got to wondering how the world looks to her. Does she see the same thing that I see?  Perhaps the world looks like this. More than likely Molly w

Approaching Normal

Molly the (wild) Cat asked, "Is it ever going to be normal again?" A week or so ago, the blinds for the sliding door bit the dust after 32 years of excellent service. Fortunately, the vertical panels were being drawn for the night when the system snapped only several inches away from the door. Missy Molly still has a bit of unobstructed window onto (into?) the backyard. Monitor the birds, she can. Nothing out of the ordinary there for Molly Girl. Now, to get the curtains sewn and up before she gets used to the nonworking blinds.  Some of you may remember that back in July I bought eight yards of this cool peacock print at an antique fair, with not a notion of what to do with all that fabric. Want to guess what I'm going to finally sew with it? Mama's jade plant is in full bloom. It flowers around this time, which amazes me because it's winter, by golly. I finally looked up how it is that this succulent flowers in winter. It's normal: The darker days

More than Fair Results

As the Husband and I were starting to unwind into our evening relax mode, I thought about the grumpy ladies guarding the fair's quilt and sewing division's submissions when I went to pick up my entries an hour or so earlier. "Oh no!" Down thumped my feet from the hassock. "I forgot my elephant!" Off the Husband and I scampered back into must-get-things-done mode. The fairgrounds is only seven miles away so it was not a big deal to go back, especially since the first time out I caught a ride with a friend who was also fetching her entries. Back at the fairgrounds,  I wondered if the grumpy ladies wouldn't give me my elephant because I didn't have my claim check. All six or seven women, middle-aged and older, sitting in chairs and around a table, looked at me. All long-time sewers and quilters, no doubt. Gulp. "I'm picking up my textile," I said, knowing right away that's the wrong term. Amateur, I am. "A wall hangi

Knockouts!

Do you remember a 1940s cartoon in which a slick wolf sitting in a nightclub starts howling and making big eyes at a sultry femme fatale voice singing stage right? No, then check this youtube link and come back, please. Back, good. We can proceed. That wolf was me when I laid first glance at the decoupage rocks in the sunlight. Whoaaaaa! These are my first experiments decoupaging rocks. Yup, they are. (Imagine my big smile!) A decoupage rock is one of my planned entries for the county fair in a few weeks. Maybe one of these if I don't get a chance to play with more possibilities. Easy-peasy: Paint one side of rocks white. Dry. Paint other side of rocks white. Dry. Tear pictures to fit rocks to your pleasure. Glue pictures to rocks with decoupage medium.  Dry. At first I wanted to use pretty paper napkins for my pictures. I got excited about shopping at the party supply store. Then I recalled the last time I was there. The aisles were messy and little kids talked loudl

Dishing About Me

1. On Sunday, I came away from the antique fair in Moss Landing with eight yards of the above fabric. It was $3/yard, a bargain I could not resist, especially when it's such a cool print. I have no idea what I'm going to do with all that material. Any suggestions? 2. In case some of you are wondering, the huge pile of fabric strips (scroll to xiii) that I cut several weeks ago are still sitting on the bed in L Studio. Molly the Cat seems to enjoy sleeping on top of them. 3.  Carol of Comfort Spring nominated me for The Sunshine Blogger Award . Thank you very much, Carol! As part of receiving the award, I'm to answer Carol's 11 questions.  Here's the first one: How did you begin blogging? I wanted to hear my voice again -- the storyteller, not the writer of educational and reference materials -- so I decided to publish a blog about my hometown, Hollister, California. It became more like a travel blog, which was something else I wanted to try. Since I wa

Hobbies

A few weeks ago Saturday Night Live featured a video about two women talking about their hobbies. Oh my gosh,  I recognized myself. When I was a young single thing living la dolce vita in San Francisco, a guy I met for coffee asked, "What are your hobbies?" "Hobbies?" "Interests. What do you like to do?" Totally stumped, I was. I liked to read and write, but I didn't consider those activities as hobbies. They were simply a part of what I did.  Without trying, in the last three years, I've embraced hobbies. Sewing, drawing, painting, gardening, and crafting are what have showed up at my door, thus far. That guy at the cafe 40 years ago? I never saw him again. SO, MOLLY DID The other day I didn't feel like folding the pieces of fabric I laid out on the bed in L Studio. It wasn't going to bother me if Molly the Cat felt like lying on top of the fabric. I told her so, too, before I sat down to contemplate how much of the vari

Rags, Bottles, and Books

Once upon a time there were people who collected other people's trash and resold the items. Some of these early recycling entrepreneurs were said to go down the street calling out something like "I'm here for any rags, bottles, and bones." Rags, bottles, and bones. For me, it would be books rather than bones. But, I'm not looking to purchase any rags, bottles, or books. Not at all. I mention the phrase because the past week, I've been repurposing fabric scraps, wine bottles, and old books. RAGS The elephant scene (above) is my first try at fabric art. I machine stitched everything but the the red flowery thing, which is the top of a tree, onto a purple napkin. The zipper is the second, if not the first, one I've ever sewn. I have several more purple napkins and a whole bunch of scraps so I might experiment with more fabric art. We shall see. BOTTLES Last year I decided to make a garden border with wine bottles that I collected mostly from our

Glue Time!

I now own a mini glue gun! And a whole lot of glue sticks. Whoooo-hoooo! I've never had a glue gun before. In fact, I have never used one.  Heee-heee. This morning, The Husband and I went to the new hardware store in the town next door to buy a solution for buffing up brass things. The store had nothing on hand. Being a small shop in a small town, I expected not to find anything appropriate. I also didn't expect to purchase a mini glue gun. It was $5.49. Cheap, I thought. Please don't tell me otherwise. The Husband asked me, "What are you going to use it for?" Chissa? Who knows?  Maybe I'll glue cows to the ground. Just kidding. Vedremo. We shall see.   I'm connecting with Our World Tuesday . Here's the link . Thank you, OWT administrators.  Ciao.

An Armful of Bags

Where oh where did my fabric go? Where oh where did it go? I've been looking for the pieces of rayon fabric for my tunic, the cotton remnants for L Studio's curtains, and the blue hue bunch of fat quarters and scrap. Well, I've been talking about looking. That's not true. I did look through the boxes and containers of fabric in the NW corner of L Studio on Monday. Since then, I've been letting my brain consider where these missing materials might be. Regardless of the misplaced fabric, I have been busy on the sewing machine. In my search, I found worn-out tee-shirts of ours and skirts I bought at a thrift shop that I put aside years ago to repurpose into something useful. So, there you go. Up in that photo, Husband is modeling our four new tee-shirt shopping bags and in the photo below, another new shopping bag made from a skirt. Hot cha-cha.

Buttons & Tobacco Tins

There ought to be a song about that combination—buttons and tobacco tins, la la la lah. Remember the song "Buttons and Bows"? I think Dick Dale on Lawrence Welk sang that song, while dressed in cowboy clothes or dapper 1890s suit. Or, was that Larry Hooper? The Lennon Sisters in prairie dresses and bonnets? Yup, I watched Lawrence Welk when I was a kid, developing what I thought was sarcasm and wit. Watching it with The Daddy was a treat. I never tired listening to his assessment on the tenor Joe Feeney after he trilled "Danny Boy" or another break-your-heart song, holding the last note to kingdom come and back. When Feeney was done, The Daddy remarked, "He earned his two-bits." I never knew if The Daddy liked Feeney's singing. Should I meet up with The Daddy in the after life, that's one question I shall ask of him. The tobacco tins in the photo belonged to The Daddy, which meant Older & Only Bro and I bought The Daddy a new pipe for

Cutie Coffee Cozies for Us

Closed eyes no more. Time to be responsible, my aching knees.  ~ Su- sieee ! Mac That was my pronouncement to myself this morning. Neither The Husband nor Molly the Cat heard, so you, dear readers, are my witnesses. I am going to do my best to go through, organize, and throw out the piles of papers and boxes of stuff that are in this house, as well as "do" instead of "thinking about doing" something fun and creative for no reason at all. Yes! In that second regard, I am happy to say I made something yesterday evening. Actually two somethings—those coffee cup cozies you see in the above photo. Sewing them was easy-peasy. Unlike the first time, a bunch of years ago, when figuring how to do it completely stumped me. I was sweating bullets while stitching it on the machine. Sweating bullets, what an image! We've been getting coffee to go lately so cardboard coffee sleeves have been collecting in our car. We don't remember until we get back into t

A VHS-Tape Planter

The VHS tapes have been staring at me in the living room for more than a month. It could even be two months. I think that was the last time the Husband and I opened a bunch of boxes from storage to determine what to use, keep, throw, donate, recycle, maybe repurpose, or maybe sell. I think these VHS tapes are ones that I thought we might be able to sell online one day. This morning I finally did something with 12 of the VHS tapes. I bound them together with duct tape to make two walls for a bottomless planter. That's it in the photo. Pretty cool, huh? The planter would've been made of all VHS tapes, but I didn't have enough tapes. Fortunately, I kept the doors of a small cabinet, which fell apart last year, for the other two walls. I figure the pretty flowers will take the focus away from the funky taping. Maybe later I'll pretty up the planter with color or simply put something beside the taped VHS-tape side. It feels good to make something! Today I'm