More stuff

Here is a picture of one of my tables at the Disney craft show that I had a chance to do. The red cigar box purse is the first one I made. Kept that one for myself.

The green box is cardboard and I covered it with oriental paper and paint and used little wooden blocks to make the feet and the handle.











So now you can see a little of my handiwork. I did a lot more things. Little journals and note books. Xmas tags and cards, notecards, and regular cards with rubber stamping and all sorts of stuff.

When I get all my stuff moved up here I have to go thru it all and get it organized and then start trying again to do some little craft shows. I have so much stuff finished.

Any and all comments are welcome. Thanks for looking.

Never iron again

OK Never again will I iron my quilting blocks. I will PRESS them. I will try hard to remember to press my seams in any which way that will benefit my quilt laying flat. I will trim more off my seam allowance. I will press seams open if that makes the laying flat work better.

I suppose now you are wondering how I got so smart in such a short time. Go to Quilting is my Passion blog and you too can learn a lot of great things to help make you a better quilter. It was a blog I have been thoroughly enjoying reading. Now I can count this wonderful lady a friend. She is wonderful and a very kind person.

I know, I haven't posted in awhile. I have been quilting to my heart's content. I am almost finished with the 5th top. Wow, for me that is doing great. I know other's can do it a lot faster and get more done in a shorter time. I am happy with what I have done so far. Soon to start a new project of trying to learn and do crumb blocks. I am so excited about that. I hate to throw good material away and now I found a new way to use them and come up with a finished quilt in the process.

The picture above is a bird house I picked up at Michaels and painted and stamped and added stuff to for my sister. Notice my little birds in the holes. I also used velumn and punched out some flowers to add to the house. I was a fun thing to do and I did a lot more after that one.

The other picture is a flying fish. I used 2 cd's and using glue and fish line I glued them together. Then using the foam craft sheets and a pattern I had been given cut out the pieces to make the tail and arms and stuff. I used spray on webbing to decorate the cd and plastic jewel pieces for the eyes. I made almost a hundred of these to hang in our clubhouse for a party. ( Don't live there anymore ). They were a big hit and I sold quite a few for a dollar apiece. So now the RVer's where we used to live have these things hanging off their awnings for decoration. I used many different colors and stuff to decorate them. Wanted to figure out how to do a frog but never got around to it. I am not an artist and can't draw worth a darn.

Ok I will close for now and get back to quilting. All is well in this little world I have created for myself. My daughter is not coming from Utah and this makes me very sad. So I have to stay very busy to keep myself positive. I just started a new altered book and am in the process of gessoing the pages together. Hadn't studied what the theme would be, was just letting it talk to me. Well , thanks to a new friend I had a brainstorm and decided it would be about quilting. So now a new direction and project to occupy my time.

I will post more picture's of other project's I have done. Now that I have that figured out.

So for now Stay safe Stay warm Later

Some of my stuff

This is a picture of the second collage book I did. This one went to a friend.

So now I have figured out how to post a picture, I have a lot more to post. Will have to download from a cd and the new stuff I have done will require me getting out my camera.

After all, tomorrow is another day!

Later all
Stay safe Stay warm

This is really fun

I can't say thank you enough to the ladies for making comments on my blog. Also to all the ladies that have looked and emailed me. And all the ladies I talk to via the blogs. And can't forget all the ladies, now friends, I am making from the yahoo groups I belong to. The is an awesome and a reality check for me. Thought I would spend a lot of time here in SE Ala alone. Not so, in fact I am getting really busy answering and sending emails, reading blogs and of course my quilting. In between I cook and wash and all those other boring things.

I finished the second quilt top and now into the third one. Not using any pattern so to speak. Sort of just putting them together. I think I mentioned earlier about the Moda fabrics I am using. Also that I had been out of quilting for a few years. As with anything else quilting has grown. Moda, as many of you probably know ( but I didn't ) takes a group of material that have been designed to go together and makes a bundle of 5" squares ( called charm blocks ), then they have the same material cut into 2.5" strips ( called jelly rolls ). So you can buy a set of charm blocks and jelly rolls and some extra material and wola you have a stash of material all matched up for you. You can cut it, fold it, just anything and then sew it together and you are done. I love it. No decision to make on what goes together, it is all done for you. I have to say they have some real talented designer's and artist's and the quality of the material is top of the line. Since I have been out of touch with the process and all my material is in Central Florida in storage this is working out great. Beautiful colors, darks and pastels, and all kinds of prints and solid and everything in between.

Mentioned earlier about the little tote bag I made and sort of messed up. Well I have started a second one and this time will do it right. Especially now that I know where I went wrong. Also made a cute little mini bag. It is going to hold my thread and bobbins and stuff for when I take a class or are working on something that I am taking camping with me. One of those good things.

Now I am stuck or tired. The last two or three day's I have been thinking of things that I wanted to say in this post. I guess I should have posted then because now I can't think of the things I wanted to say. Let's see, 61 coming in June, I wonder if that has anything to do with my forgetting. Now it is getting deep.

So will close for now. I am sure when I go and lay down all the thing's I wanted to put down and can't remember will just pop into my head. Then I will lay there trying to decide if I should get up or not. Decisions decisions.

Hope all are well and safe and warm.

More to follow.

My dollhouse

I belong to several yahoo groups and have been talking with a member of one of them. They just bought themselves and used Cabin A3 just like mine. They took it on their first trip and had a great time. Course after they had more question's to ask me. I don't mind that at all cause I just love my little rig and love to talk to anyone about it.

Finished the little bag and it turned out quite nice. Been working on the second quilt top and am over half way finished that. Am on quite a roll for now. It is all because sewing with my new Bernina is just a dream. I am really enjoying having such a great tool to work with.

Haven't decided what I am going to do next. I have gotten two of the three deliveries on the craft/collage stuff I ordered. The third order shipped and should be here in a day or two and then I want to get started on some of that. The black paper I ordered is here now so that means I can get started making and working on the pages for the journal. I have had the cover made now since the summer and couldn't find the black paper I thought I had. Got tired of waiting and trying to find it so just ordered some new stuff. If I start that I will have to put off sewing for a little cause that will take some time to work on.

I have a altered book I started for use with my craft info. I can put info, stuff I want or need, or anything I want to add to it. So have decided to make one for the quilt stuff I do. I figure I can keep a record of the quilts I am making, the kind of thread I am using, or anything that pertains to that particular quilt in there. Have to do some altering to it first. Thinking of covering the outside in pieces of upholstery material . Make it look like a quilt, but sturdy and will hold up to a lot of abuse. Just thinking about it at this stage. Will be a work in progress as most of my stuff usually is.

It is chilly tonight and I have the heat on low. I am feeling colder than usual and hope that is all that it is. Don't feel like I am coming down with anything, just cold. Hope I am warmer tomorrow. It is in the low 40's so it is not as cold as a lot of other places, thank goodness.

Today is bill paying day. Boring, but it has to be done. I will just have to hurry up and do it so I can get back to playing, which is so much better.

Got to talk to daughter and find out if there is anything more definite about her coming in March. I can hardly wait to see her. I really miss her so much, and my son in law and my grandbabies ( the three dogs ). I miss the love and attention I get from them and the hugs I get from my daughter. Course my son in law will hug me, just not as often as my daughter does.
Miss cooking in the kitchen with her and doing other things too. Maybe soon.

Well, it is late and I am getting tired and I think I will just get covered up and crash.

Stay safe Stay warm Take care

Finished

The quilt is done. Now I took some of the leftover square's and made a cute little bag. It is about 3x3x6 with a little handle. Have to get a zipper for it tomorrow so I can finish it.

Tired tonight. Guess I tried to do too much. It is what I do a lot of the time anyway. No one to blame but me.

Beautiful day today and spent it inside. Tomorrow it is supposed to rain. Then clear for the rest of the week. Will get out and do some cleaning up of my little dollhouse to get ready to go to Florida the end of the month or the first of next month. Either way it will be strawberries and more strawberries. Can't wait for that.

Must mention about something I picked up last week. I had seen the advertisement on TV and had thought about getting one. Looked at it a time or two before. I finally got one at WalMart for the RV mainly because of the size. It is one of those new hand held vacuum systems for the storage of food. You can get quart and gallon size bags to use with it. It wasn't that expensive it it lasts for awhile. First time I tried it I was following the directions, but was pushing down too hard on the counter. Found info on use on the web site and decided to try it again. This time with positive results. In fact it works great and will be a neat tool to add to my little dollhouse.
It would have been great last year when we went to Jacksonville and I found fresh caught shrimp for 2.50 a lb. and bought 40 lbs to take home. Of course I had to wash them and take the heads off, then pack them in ice so they would take the trip home. Could have used this little device and also gotten them ready to freeze. Oh well, next time.

Later Stay warm and safe wherever you are. Happy quilting/crafting or cooking.

All I Have to do is Dream

That's right. Got the Everly Brother's playing on my Windows Media Player. Sewing my sister's quilt on my new Bernina. Looking at a beautiful Valentines card from my daughter. Just talked to hubby. All is right in my world.

You know, maybe what my crazy workman's doctor said is right that day in his office when he told me I would have to go 100% disabled. He had tried the same thing a year earlier and I refused. Told him I would die if I couldn't work. So I kept it up for another year and just made myself worse. I loved my nursing and I was good at it. My patient's liked me and in the area I was living in we got a lot of repeats. Young diabetics having problems learning how to adjust the meds and diets to keep the sugar in control. Older folks with all the problem's that come with age. Then the surgical patients and so on.

So after another year of trying and having several episodes that put me on the floor and then unable to barely walk for over a week, he said " that's enough ". You will end up in a wheelchair before it is over and then you will be no good to anyone. So that left me with no choice but to stop.

To get back to the doc. He told me it might take 5 year's or more , but that I would be ok and happy again. Well he was wrong about the time frame. It has been more like over 8 years, but I am better. Got diagnosed with severe depression and post traumatic stress syndrome because of all the stress and not being able to work. Tried medication's and didn't like the side effects of wanting to sleep all the time and not have any get up and go . Other things factored in to make my life a mess.

It is better now. I love my little Bernina and I think that is the best medicine I could take. I love to create and to have the right tools to do the job is the best.

I am in a better place and hope to stay there. Climbing up out of that dark hole took a lot of hard work and effort. I am over the edge right now and hope I don't ever fall back in. It is a kind of hell all in it's own.

It is not over, some day's are good and some not so good. I hurt a lot and can't do what I want all the time . My energy level is not what it used to be, but then it may be that at 60 I am not suposed to have what I had at 20 or 40. I still want it.

So now I am going to listen to my music and quilt. That is a good thing.

Take care Stay safe and warm