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!

Catching Up

Hi all.  I am almost done with the zipper tutorial; will probably post that tomorrow later in the day.  In the meantime, I have a few things to share. Sort of like Show & Tell, LOL.

Now that Bruce is officially retired, he is not only cleaning up his laBORatory, but also beginning some of the “honey-do” projects that we’ve had around for awhile.  One of them is putting up new house numbers by our mailbox to replace the almost 50-year-old tarnished ones that have been there from Day One.  These are hand painted Mexican ceramic tiles, set in a wrought iron frame.  The numbers are out of sequence, which I would rather show than when they are actually up and in the right sequence.  :-)

The above picture I saw on one of my favorite blogs, Empress of Dirt. Just had to pass it on so you could enjoy, too!

And finally, this is one of the cool things that I found at an estate sale this weekend.  It’s a finished needlepoint picture, in pristine condition.  I love the colors, the arrangement, everything.  It measures about 16x20”.  I would really like to do some sort of CQ-ed frame for it.  It would have to be simple, so as not to compete with the picture.  Right now it’s up on my design board so we can “talk” to each other. There are a few other projects that need doing first, so this one can percolate for awhile.   Oh, and I only paid $3.00 for it....

Tomorrow: The Zipper Flower Tutorial (if I have any energy after tending DGD London all day, LOL). I’ll be showing you three variations on making flowers with zippers - for your crazy quilting, collages, or to decorate headbands, handbags, etc.

Talk to you then!  Hugs,

Liquidation Sale Finds and Roses

On Tuesday, the day before his surgery, Bruce and I went to a liquidation sale held by Utah Corrections Industries, which is affiliated with (and right next door to) the Utah State Prison in Bluffdale.   It opened in the morning but we didn’t go until late afternoon on the first of four days.  The only picture I took was the boring building.....

...but I did find some goodies.

A roll of small elastic (50 cents), a large roll of cotton sewing tape for labels (50 cents), a pack of 100 white metal 7” zippers (to resell for crafts) and a bazillion black metal separating zippers, 27” each.  Hoo-boy! Maureen suggested I look for these, and the idea had occurred to me before, so I took that as a sign.  ;-)  There were pallets and pallets of zippers, but most were small and with plastic teeth.  I know many crafters use the plastic teeth zippers with colored tapes to fashion flowers, but I don`t know how many inches are necessary, and most of them were small. So, I stuck to the basics.

Bruce also found a whole box of rubber feet (used for the bottoms of sports bags, totes, backpacks, etc.). They were sweeping them off the floor and were going to throw them away.  Bruce uses these feet in the radio kits he builds for kids.  They charged him 50 cents for the entire box, which is about what he normally pays for just two of the feet.

Today, Saturday, I hit the motherlode of estate sales.  I found a box of vintage sewing things for $3.00.  Most of the sewing patterns (and there are over 60) are from the Forties and Fifties. OMG.  I had already started listing some of my vintage patterns in my Etsy shop, and this was another “sign” to me that quitting my part-time job as bookkeeper at The Farm in favor of selling on Etsy (and staying home with DH now that he will be retiring in July) is what is in the cards.

And there was the coolest Singer Sewing Course book and materials (fabric and instructions) for six sewing lessons, dated 1954.  All this woman’s samples are there.... oh this is a story in itself for a future post!

Here are some more irises and roses that are blooming in our garden this weekend.  Enjoy!

Happy front rosebush

Front bed

When I first planted the pink rosebush above, I used Miracle Grow and watched it nearly wither away that first spring.  It was sickly, mildew-y and probably in shock.  So, I did what I always do to my roses; just water and ignore them.  The second year it became apparent it would survive, and every year has gotten better.  This is the fourth or fifth year, and it is now a happy camper.  The delphiniums behind it are staked and ready to start blooming soon!

Double Delight - backlit bloom from one of my front rose trees

I love this color!  But they fade as they get older...

Climber along back wall

Another back wall climber.  

Our third back wall climber is a white rose which always blooms AFTER the pink and red roses are done.

The apricot tree (above) has grown so large, that this fall I will need to replant these two miniature rose bushes, a large red tea rose bush, an Asiatic lily, and my hollyhock.  I will leave the chives and (not visible, but in two spots) and perhaps add some small herbs.  Must do some research first.

A couple rose bushes that were here when we moved in

The ground cover in this area has done a terrible job (and so have I) of keeping out the grass, so digging it up is another project for this year. I will probably use a landscape cloth and put rocks around the roses here. I’m thinking lower maintenance is the way to go since I am not getting any younger. Not that I haven’t tried, LOL.

Tomorrow, in honor of Father’s Day, I will have some “manly” vintage images for you.  I am hoping they will be a little different than what you usually see.  

Have a wonderful weekend!

Motifs for Swap! Estate Sale!

I signed up for the motif swap for the CQ Adventure and needed to complete 10 nice handmade motifs.  I kept trying and rejecting ideas, and after viewing the ones that (goddess) Shirlee Fassell made (drool over them here), it became apparent that only the very, very best materials and workmanship would do.  Not that I would knowingly settle for less, it’s just that with so much to do to get ready for the Adventure, they were not my highest priority. Until Shirlee’s post.  Then CQ supplies, and inventory and clothes (in that order) all dropped down a few notches.

What I finally ended up with is these millinery-style velvet flowers that I learned at a Helen Gibb workshop several years ago.  I love making them!

The stamens are all vintage, but the lush velvet ribbon for the roses and wired ribbon for the leaves are all new.

The velvet is tucked and gathered, then sewn onto crinoline.  The leaves and stamens were added next (or a leaf and a feather, as you can see on some), and then a backing was sewn or glued on.

I will leave it up to the recipients to decide if they want to use it as a CQ motif or if they would prefer to add a pin back.

I added one of these velvet roses to my “I Love Paris” purse last year.  (By the way, I have a pattern and kit in progress for this purse and hope to debut it this fall!)

The only rejected motif I will even show you is this one below. The rest ended up in the trash.

* * * * * * * * * * * *
Last Saturday we had a sunny, beautiful morning in the 60’s.  Bruce and I went for our first 3-mile walk of the season.  I am on the e-mailing list of two local estate sale companies, but had just deleted their emails of the week before.  But as Bruce and I turned the corner back onto our street (a block away from our house), we saw an All in the Family Estate Sale sign.  Well, since I HAD to pass by it to get home, I just took a small detour through the house to check it out!

I really had to exercise restraint, because I’m saving my pennies for the CQ Adventure, but a couple things just happened to find their way into my possession (yes, I did pay for them, if that’s what you’re thinking...)

First I got a cute little vintage shell pin (minus most of the back closure).  It has a few broken shells here and there, but I think it will make a nice motif to add to CQ or something.  Thank goodness The Rules say that I don’t have to have a specific plan for it when I buy it.

And check out this cute vintage purse that I scored for $4.   It really needs a good soaking (sans handle, of course) and I think (hope?) most of the age spots will come out.  I’m guessing this purse is circa 1940’s, possibly 1950’s.

Check out that AWESOME plastic handle!!   

I am torn on this purse.  I would love to use that handle in a purse that I make on my own.  I’m thinking that if the bag part doesn’t clean up satisfactorily, I could just use the handle.  But then, I hate to plunder a great purse.  Maybe I should resell it?  Start a purse collection (again)?  What would YOU do??

Well, I still have half of my packing to do and possibly another CQ block or two to piece.  Tomorrow I will try to get my act together long enough to show you my CQ block for Hearts and Hands for Sendai before I pack it up.

Only 36 hours until I leave for Connecticut!  Gerry flies in here (Salt Lake) from Spokane and we’ll fly the rest of the way together.  Diane M. is meeting us at the airport to take us to the hotel.   What an Adventure, indeed!

Hugs,

Can You Say..... GOLD MINE??

Well, to me anyway, it felt like I’d struck gold last Saturday.  DH and I were going to go out and hit some yard sales, when I noticed an ad in the paper for an estate sale in our subdivision - about 3-4 blocks away.  We thought we’d swing by there first, not really expecting much.  And at first glance, we were right.

But then I noticed that it was being run by two elderly ladies who were very calmly and slowly bringing things out and fussing about where to put them.  In chatting with one of them, I learned that she was cleaning out her 90+ year-old mother’s things, and some of hers, too.  It was apparent they needed help, so I gently began asking questions and helping carry out things from the depths of the garage to the driveway and lawn.  

One of the ladies took a shine to Bruce (that happens alot; he’s such a sweetie) and they began talking about an old radio in the back of the garage with a bullet hole through it.    She said it was her mother’s pride and joy and was the first radio “back in the day” in Delta, Utah.  One of the men accidentally shot off a gun, it went through the window and into the radio.  Didn’t harm any of the internal workings, but she cried and cried about her lovely radio.  But they had the bullet hole reminder from then on to remind them that they were lucky it was ONLY the radio that was shot!

Then she showed us a couple old sewing machines she wanted to sell.  I took an immediate shine to this one.   It’s a very early electric portable machine.  “Portable” is a relative term, however, because it is heavy enough to pull your arm out of its socket!!  

All the attachments, the foot pedal and the manual were included “for one low price”, LOL.  Yes, it works.  The brand is a Eureka Good Housekeeper, and from the limited research I’ve been able to do, it is circa 1951-1953.  Look at the lovely workmanship on the arm, below.

When she found out I was interested in linens, she grabbed everything she had.  Together we went through them and she pulled a few things she wanted for sentimental reasons, which was fine.  The only thing I lusted for that she kept was her own sweet little baby shoes.  But who could blame her?  

The hot pink fabric in the upper right is a yard of bridal-weight satin, fresh and clean, circa the 1960’s.  The top left shows two vintage sheet sets I snatched.  They’re getting highly collectible because they coordinate so well with today’s bright prints.  I intend to begin cutting them up and selling fat quarters.  Stripes are especially coveted because they are a timeless accent for children’s clothing and crafts.

The crocheted potholders she gave to me as we were leaving.  I really didn’t want them, but thanked her profusely anyway.  After washing, they looked a bit better.  I took them apart and the flip side (that was the inside) of the rings are pristine, so I can hopefully use the crocheted rings for something.

The peacock cross-stitch dishtowel (above and below) charmed me.  I’ll eventually get it listed in either my Etsy or on Ebay.   I also loved the colors in the embroidered dishtowel, but you can barely see the center pink stitching of glasses.  I may just have to salvage the trim off this.... any ideas?? 

Stitched peacock (above) and the tin, which came from England (below)

I couldn’t resist picking up the old indoor clothes hanger.  It’ll come in handy for displaying linens as necessary, as well as drying clothes.  I don’t have an outdoor clothesline, although I covet one.  It’s on DH’s long list of honey-do’s!  But in the meantime, this will be a great place to hang hand-washed items, dyed laces, etc.    Or to show you some more treasures....

I’m no Martha when it comes to staging pictures, and the lovely tablecloths were particularly problematic.  Not to mention I should’ve ironed them first.  The striped one (underneath) is immaculate around the stripes, which were the part that hung down from the table.  The center part is stained.  The vintage strawberry print (what a beautiful, soft feel it has!) is torn and stained in too many places to fix.  I thought of cutting it up.... and the idea came to me that I should fussy-cut some of the motifs and applique them to the stains in the center of the other one.  That sounds like a fun winter project. 

A lovely hand-embroidered linen towel.  The linen is a pale yellow.

 More tea towel, hand towels and an embroidered doily.

I LOVE these bright, festive dishtowels because they remind me of the ones my Grandma Szakal (mom’s mom) used to have in her kitchen.   

 A lovely dresser scarf

An embroidered butterfly to salvage from a dishtowel

Senor Siesta here is in great shape (well, the towel is)

And then the hankies.  Several dozen of them.   This pink one is on its way to a friend.

The white one with green squares is silk.  Mmmm....  Several of these are coming with me to Colorado next month for our Crazy Quilting International Retreat.  One of our classes will be Making a Hankie Quilt, and I’m going to share with those ladies who haven’t been bitten by the HankieBug, or who can’t bear to cut up an old hankie.

When a hankie is beyond redemption because of holes or stains, often the edging is salvageable.  I also find that white hankies are great to layer behind other hankies, because they’re all so thin.  And the white edging is often a great counterpoint to a colored edging or busy hanky when piecing.

My personal favorite in the batch was the hankie on the left with the appliqued roses.  But that embroidered hankie with pansies and lilies-of-the-valley is beautiful too!

Well, that’s it for the pictures.  This morning as I loaded these pictures, I noticed that Blogger has upgraded their picture uploading process.  Wow.  All 17 of these pictures transferred from the clipboard to the blog at once.  NICE!!!!

By the way, if you are into Crazy Quilting, stop by the Crazy Quilting International blog (a couple links on my sidebar).  They’ll soon be announcing a CQ Giveaway contest!  Also, if you’d like to learn more about CQI, check out the post here.

Hugs,