TAST 5, Studio Reshuffle, and an Enjoyable Day

Someone needs to come over to my house and force me to sit down and stitch until I get caught up. That person is NOT my granddaughter London.  London is one of those “Grammy, look at me!” girls who wants to wow me with every new concept she learns (and yes, sucker doting Grammy here is always wow’ed).  Are 2 year olds (2 ½ at the end of this month) supposed to be dexterous enough to write with a pencil, then use the pencil eraser to erase it?  So grown up. And then a few minutes later when we are adding raisins to the cookie dough, she eats the raisins saying “I love raisins!" But then she asks if they are “chokkit chips”, and THEN asks if they are bugs.   Bruce announced last night after London went home that he now knows how grandkids get their energy; they suck it out of their grandparents.  And we plopped ourselves down and watched TV for two blissful, mind-numbing hours.

But I need to stitch. Thank goodness the weekend is here!!

So, let me show you that I have done a few seams.  After all, London does recharge nap. These seams are on my journal cover.  The basic herringbone was accented with a plain stitch in a varigated red, white and green cotton.  I used that same stitch to do a buttonhole stitch (bottom left corner) along one edge of the trim, too.  It adds just the right amount of random white into the intense red, green and black mix.

Below is another herringbone, this time laced with a contrasting thread. 

This weekend I will finish up my chevron seams (week 6) and get those posted on Monday.

But I had such an ENJOYable day today, that I want to share it with you.  Enjoy is my word for the year, so the other day I ordered a wall sign for my office area (from a great Etsy shop). I am at the computer a lot, blogging for me or for CQI, reading and writing emails, playing Jigzone, listing things in my Etsy shoppe, reading blogs, etc., so I thought what better place to put it?

That is all that I will let you see of my mess of an office.  I have piles everywhere, and this time of year (taxes) makes it doubly messy. But I know where everything is!!!!!!!   yeah, right...

And then I also got these in the mail today, also an Etsy purchase.

Aren’t those pink nautilus shell beads the bomb???  I am going to add them to my seascape valance whenever I get back to stitching on it.    And those vintage … thingys… um, navettes (what is a navette?).  Aren’t they cool, too??  Good mail day!!

This morning I went to an estate sale.  The ad said the deceased was a crafter and sew-er.  Yes, she certainly was.  My big score was not crafty stuff, though (although I did get silk ribbon and some linens), it was storage. This woman had a bazillion plastic storage cabinets, and I needed more.  So, I found the perfect one for my cut fabrics (for fabric packs), and moved them into it.  That resulted in me shuffling around all sorts of other things for hours, getting lost in my stash.  You know how that goes.  So, my silk ribbon got new storage.

Pay no attention to that pile of red velvet above - it needs to be cut up and filed away. Below, the new  drawer unit I moved the cut fabrics into fit perfectly right next to my shelves along one wall of the studio.

The painting was done by my son Shane (London’s dad) when he was in high school. He won lots of awards for it.  But I digress.  So, while I was snapping pictures, I thought I would show you this area of my studio that I haven’t shown before.  Mostly everything in my studio is functional, but a few of these shelves display some sweet gifts, sentimental items, or just cool stuff.

This dish on the top shelf holds some vintage shell pins.

Vintage millinery fruit (?) and vintage ribbonwork

Some pincushions made by Gerry K (gold), Lisa B (pink), Jo N (tall blue) and  Laurie B (cup and saucer).  Bracelets by me.

Vintage hat, gloves, purse circa 1940s.  Peacock feather fan circa 1900.

Back: cups for future pin cushions. Front:  decorated tin from Simona.
Right: vintage pincushion chair to redo.

Lace to be sorted. Ballerina hankie holder was a gift from Freda B.

Tan tin used to hold my mom’s sewing miscellany. Other I’ve just collected

Bottom shelf holds home dec trims, belts, purse handles, etc. for purse-making

And continuing right along with this mish-mash post, I had this great idea that my potassium permanganate way of dyeing rayon venice lace would look nice on other colors of lace that are mixed with white. Now, black and white venice lace (or any color and white) are really difficult to find. I didn’t find one store in the Los Angeles fabric district that carried it. But I did find an online source. It’s very expensive, but I bought a yard of 10.5” wide black and white lace to play with.
 



The result?  Glorious!! Black and golden lace that is not metallic!  So classy!  So lovely!  So …. so what am I going to do with it? I don’t know yet.  Make a black and gold purse? (been there, done that. I don’t need another). Sell it online? Maybe - but I would have to figure out how to cut it up. In pieces? Sell it by the quarter yard? For now, I am not going to worry about it; too much else going on. And I have to see if other styles are available. But isn’t it lovely?

The average person would have made this into three or four separate posts, I know.  :-)  Or at the very least warned you at the beginning, LOL.  So, now I am caught up on blogging!  hehehehe   And I will see you back here in a couple days with more stitching samples and who knows what else!

ENJOY!