Saturday, July 3, 2010

Midnight Progress


Way teenie for me. One over one. Practicing on this freebie.

Spent most of the day deep cleaning the kitchen and doing laundry. Hubbie spent all day cleaning out books, 30 year old books, taking off -----grip yourself---1200 lbs to the dump as they were so outdated. He said he has 1200 lbs more and then the building will be clean that he was renting for this.
Cleaning clutter is reducing stress immensely.


It's fun to find old pictures.

I found this one.


Panama City Beach, Summer 1973, 9 years old. Skinny as a rail.  Funny to me. It's kinda funny that I sat on the diving board and never jumped off one.  ;)

Sad to watch the news that the water there is affected by the oil spill now.
I remember the water was clear and blue. Haven't been back since that time. I'm surprised I don't have white Solarcaine on my face because I burned so easy and ran around getting coated with the stuff regularly.

Finally about an hour ago picked up stitching in my basket and crossed my eyes with reading glasses as I watch the Michael Jackson saga on TV. The details are telling of themselves.

I can only work on one over one for a short time but this is my midnight progress.

Tomorrow is the Fourth!  Enjoy the freedom and the fireworks we have right now in this country.
Till later,
Jennifer

The promised Christmas in July Give-a-way Post is HERE


It's time now for the Christmas in July give-a-way!   I promised this about a week ago and July is here.
This is the post to comment if you would like a chance to win these.
The pattern is called Sallie's Feather Tree by Carriage House Samplings and the scissors are called the Augusta scissors which has meaning to me, spent many years in Augusta Georgia.

So factos about this giveaway are:


  • one posting here if you are a follower of this blog or become one the day you post

  • 2nd posting here if you have a blog and shared it on your sidebar

  • 3rd posting if you would also like to join a SAL on this piece starting probably August 1st to give you time if you don't win this to order/get supplies, i.e. pattern, threads, etc.

  • International accepted if it's written in English

  • starts today through July 15th!!

  • the random computer generator will choose so make each post separate. The drawing will be on July 16th.
  • these are brand-new in the package

Good luck and let the fun begin  ;)

What's in the fiber?


I love this Norman Rockwell painting. Reminds me of the brief moments in time when I stop long enough to look in the mirror and take care of myself instead of other people. I also start to freak out at the new grays or the new wrinkles.......LOL

 It's a great feeling to help people get healthy.

 It's even better to help people help themselves get healthy.

And then it feels best to help myself get healthier......

 but most of the time that is on the backburner and I am the first to admit that trait, not that I think it's a good thing at all. In fact, recognizing burnout is sometimes hard for me. Preventing it, though, is the best if possible.
That's why I'm so thankful we acrue some time to take off now so as one of my good friends say in hopeless cases....... help me help you.....then we  laugh.  We have to laugh or otherwise we would be nuts by now.....wait a minute......that's it, I'm nuts!  LOL

This is just totally my opinion and I'm sure everybody has one (I digress)  but I think all woman are really little girls inside for the rest of their life and it's the tweaking of how we nurture that inner girl through life that is critical.
 Stitching for me is the best way I nurture myself. It's a spontaneous, Crayola-filled moments, that makes me smile. Looking at fabric colors or thread colors, or cruising in an art museum, listening to music are also good ways to nurture. That's the time I can choose, I can "fix" something if it didn't work out, I can start on something new any or everyday or I can choose not to for a few weeks. I can tell when the thread knots. I know what's on the underside.

In life, I sometimes don't get to choose but get dealt, I don't even realize there are knots and I can't imagine what the underside looks like.

But everybody is different.

I can be the first to vouche for not nurturing that spirit sometimes and being pretty burned out.
That's what staycations are for me. Everybody has their way of nurturing themselves and for me it's not expensive trips or cruises that I replenish my inner soul, it's time away for the taking care of all things/people and doing a self-check on what I need to work on.

The noise is away and I look in the mirror.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure if it's a woman thing, a Virgo thing, or just a characteristic, not always good to want to take care of everybody's problems or "fix them".

It took me about 45 years to realize I can't fix people but the sweet release it brings to let things go for awhile and take care of me is becoming through the years easier to do and without as much guilt. In looking back I can't say I had the role model for this so it's taken a bit of time. Growing up there were no boundaries at all.
I know this had an imprint on what is "in my fiber" today.

Things I learned I didn't want to do again.

But when dad is sitting as the king rattling the ice in his glass and banging it on the table until you fill it every meal and if it didn't get refilled fast enough I was called a huzzy, or there was white bread missing from a meal, or I didn't get his shirts ironed out straight enough on Saturdays, or I shelled so many beans and peas my fingers were purple and blistered while my friends were at the pool, or I had to cook every Saturday lunch and it had to be on the table exactly at 12 for him or then payback, or when I chose to go to college.....oh my gosh, that was an insult, I got slapped around for saying that and told I was stupid and would never be anybody.
Heck, it's funny now. Just this past year he was calling me up apologizing for all this and other stuff and I just laughed. I told him that's what made my fiber. It helped me grow up fast. It helped me be determined to never be totally reliant on a man. So I thanked him. He didn't know how to take that.
Yeah he even said", "we'll call you next week and be right back on track"........still waiting Dad.......4 months now.....I suspect the truth.got a little too much into his uncomfortable zone. Me? Happy? Making lemons out of lemonade? Yep.....dad, I'll be waiting for that call again.........right.

So, I guess it was natural to be more of a "fixer".

I've seen more women at the brink of extreme stress in the past year than I ever have in 20 years practice. The environment, economy, health, relationship strains, etc. just overflow all into the health of the woman.
I think sometimes women just need someone to listen to them. The world is on fast motion, an instant everything, staring at cell phones and texting while driving or anytime. There is a generation, I would say, the less than 30 age group that is really into instant gratification and if it's impossible to give at that moment, then they completely do not understand it. It's foreign. Having a mood swing premenstrually during puberty now is totally unacceptable to the general public. TV has folks convinced there is a pill for everything. Natural occurences like the ebb and flow of cycles are a part of life.

They know everything already by 18 and have little no respect for professionals. I've been cursed at, told I was the only adult in the room, asked questions you would never, ever  have thought of many years ago while mothers are sitting there not a word spoken, allowing their kids to jerk them around emotionally, financially, and the women ask us to "fix them". We smile and try to help them help themselves first, then listen to things that make my little dramas a breeze.

I mean like everything. I've gotten phone calls from mothers in a rage wanting me to fix their daughter for.....throwing a biscuit in their face while they drove to school that morning or staying up all night texting and being a zombie during the day or I could go on and on with "indiscretions" that would pop your eyes out.
Women are burned out by the time they finish raising kids and it really shows when it comes to their own health. Me included. While listening I usually at some point ask what's one thing they can do just for themselves and 80% of the time they give me a blank expression and can't recall one thing.

My husband has learned over the years that I use the phrase  "it's just not in my fiber" and just this week I heard him say that about himself.....thought it was funny. I don't know why I say that but it basically is my response to things I can't or won't do. Loving a needle and thread probably intiated the phrase even when sewing on those cardboards with punched holes at the age of 3. LOL Seriously, this is not to mean that I have the perfect constellation of genetics here...not at all, I'm included in the burnout generation and remember the days of guilt when I chose not to cater to the every whim of an adolescent. I'm sure my kids could tell you some words of description even to this day because they didn't get those new cars at 16 or have all they could have and OMG! assume bills gradually after 18...that was a real shocker :o
Bills?  What are bills? LOL

I hope they learned a little about respect but.......... I'm not sure on that one.
I hope for them that they are happy and able to be independent and take care of themselves.

We all have our own "fiber" we are made of and different is good. Knowing what's in your fiber or what's not in your fiber is probably something that occurs with age. Thank goodness for wisdom over the years which unfortunately sometimes could only be attained by experiences dealt to us.

Taking a week off every now and again is a way for me to do a fiber check so I can get back on the road to "fixing" in another week.

I started my staycation after work with a pedicure. I was amazed at how I think that is a luxury and get one about 3 times a year and there was a lady with 2 year old twins, holding them down for their pedicures while they were screaming and also was homeschooling their 8 year old son so he was forever asking questions about whales.
For a brief moment I thought....homeschooling....guilt.....then teaching my daughter that a pedicure is a luxury not a regular thing.....guilt......but it didn't hang around long by the time I got home.  LOL

I'm pretty happy with my fiber now. It took me about 47 years to get there.

Thank you to all readers and I do enjoy comments. Sometimes I get long-winded and write alot and not the typical show and tell stitchy blog but this is me.

It's what's in my fiber.

Friday, July 2, 2010

Not that I'm counting.....

But only 3 hours and 24 minutes and 47 seconds till vacation...........happy dance!

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Gathering up some ideas for a freebie sampler



Today, I gathered up some finishing items for a freebie I really like on The Sampler Girl's blog, I Love Watermelon.  Check it out.  I loved this fabbie and trim and hope to finish into a small pillowkeep for the kitchen.
This is MUCH better than thinking about snakes before bedtime. ;)
In fact, just looking at it again makes my mouth water because I do love watermelon.

I yelled snake! He said worm.

Living in the woods brings lots of treasures and joys....and sometimes, the ugly....like worms, and snakes and spiders and yucky stuff.

Tom, the cat, likes to bring us snakes, baby snakes. I'm surprised he hasn't gotten bit.

Our casual strolling in and around the house was like this:

mewhat's Tom looking at?

BG: a worm

me:  are you sure? that's a big worm. Worms don't have diamond-shaped heads!

BG standing over them:  Yep, that's just a worm.

me ,walking over there after looking at the SNAKE and yelling : THAT's A SNAKE! SNAKE SNAKE!

me, taking a stick after BG stomps on it over and over while it wiggles to it's death: SNAKE!


BG: WORM.

me:  that's a snake, OMG, a baby snake, where's the mama?  OMG, the electricians were here today with the basement door open. OMG! my sewing area, laundry, office....SNAKES!

BG: ok, it's a snake. (calmly)

me: so that's it?  just a snake? weren't you a Boy Scout?  I mean I'm a girlie girl and know that's a snake (not calmly)

BG:  well, we live in the woods and I didn't have my glasses on. (calmly in his Rhett Butler tone)

Me:  That's still a snake ( in my Scarlett accent) and I went promptly in the house.
I felt like grabbing some mint and making a mint julep.

So I give up. Tonight I will dream of snakes. I'm not an expert but Copperheads, deadly Copperheads are the common ones to our area and this one looks like a baby one.
So  much for trying to wander around the "yard" for relaxation tonight---in flipflops......


was it the fresh lemon balm?


or the troll?


or the butterfly bush?


or the mums blooming in July?


 
nope, my mind just remembers the snake.


  I know there are good ones and bad ones but in my mind all are bad, I really don't like them AT ALL!
All the lovely walks, woods, blooming of flowers and front porch rocking just can't cancel out screaming the word, SNAKE.

Reminds me of when we went tubing in the river with the kids. Brandon was a teen then and I was having a good day in July in a pink tube just floating along the river with alot of other folks, and then I hear Brandon behind me yell, SNAKE!
I still to this day don't know if he really saw one or just wanted to see me flop out of the tube and scream! He was always making jokes....but the word, and I'm convinced......LOL

Thursday thoughts

Stayed up quite late last night with an ear infection. I finally relented to taking the dreaded antibiotics that usually kill my GI tract but the pain was too severe.....huh????? what did ya say? yep, can't hear too good out of it either.
I think I was about 8 years old when I had an ear infection last......lucky me, right? So, maybe it will be 40 more years till another one.

So, 2am came and finally I went to sleep with a throbbing like my heart had dislocated to my left side of the head.
Abbie stayed up with me like a champ as always, snuggling with me while I read. The alarm at 6a was too early.

Thursday is already here and I have my list of things to do for this week and I haven't struck off many on my lists, but......life is meant to be fun and spontaneous! (most of the time)

So far today I've:

  • ate at Mickie D's twice today while my stomach is expanding, readying itself for the antibiotic kill!
  • Drank a large Decaf coffee with a yummy cinnamon melt from Mickie D's.
  • worked somewhere in between all this....
  • lunchtime, went roaming through thrift stores again......went for one thing, got 4 but they just marked down, the already marked-down, 5 minutes before I got there so it was 50% off---a good deal.
  • hope to make the post office for the third day in a row now!  Errands are just not happening so fast when work is going on.....but anyway, I'm off all next week with hubbie and we have some day trips and stuff planned----can't wait!!!! It includes the state of Tennessee.
  • totally almost went to a quilt store and gripped the wheel of the car pretty hard not to turn in that direction.  Have fabric? Got machine? Got ideas?  need skills.....
  • plan to refrain from stopping by Walmart, my favorite place as I went to Target yesterday. I digress....
  • supper thoughts?  I have no idea, if it involves washing dishes, I'm not interested.
  • thinking about Abbie getting her first nail trim. Wondering how many people she has snapped and growled at by now?
  • thinking.....the day is not over yet......but only 1 more day till the weekend!!!! WOOHOO and then a whole week where I won't ask anyone "when was your last period?"  That brings joy to my soul!

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

A potential stitching box in the making


The best fragrant soap I ventured to try came in a box that is just too good to toss in the trash.



It's a heavy box with magnetic lid when you close it. I actually found this in a seconds store last week. It has shea butter in it and French milled. Smells heavenly.
And very large too.



See the size of it?


You know what I'm thinking about this box?
If I had the brave talent to cover it with fabric, this would make a lovely little stitching box. One that could carry scissors and a small design and tuck nicely in a tote bag for lunchtime stitching on small projects.

AND it would be already fragranced with fig and vanilla and lavender!!!!
I've got to go searching for the Blackbird Design Blog tutorial on covering boxes with fabric and try this weekend.
I've so admired the box Jennifer from Confessions of a Serial Starter blog gave me and covered in fabric that it's got me thinking now when I got this soap box.
Anybody like to cover boxes or have experience covering boxes with fabrics?



Abbie's Day


It's Wednesday and Abbie has graduated from a larger indoor pen during the day and night to a small crate at night. The rest of the day she's queen of the house, the matriarch, the defender of home, the sweet love muffin of mine and protector of Ren.
So, today when I got home, she presented me with

  • 3 pairs of dirty underwear

  • old doggie treats she buried in mysterious places

  • torn up Ren's potty paper by pulling it through the crate......

  • gathered her favorite DMC floss colors which tend to be brown......Really....I digress....

  • and my robe drawn from the closet to a comfy spot in the hallway for her hiney to enjoy.
While home she gets a massage and rolls her eyes in the back of her head~~~


Watches for daddy to come home.



hears the security beep that he is coming down the driveway.


Tries to be pitiful that I left her all day long
And with this face, I do feel sorry for her........


she loves to hear the heartbeat.


and in 5 minutes, she's asleep. 


Poor Abbie, a stay -at home kid. She's dealing ok now that she rules the house....LOL

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

When this you see, is this really me?

As I end the evening with some news on TV, I decide to practice my one over one, which really needs alot of practice. Sometimes I think it looks like French knots.......

.anyway, I saved this freebie from Liberty Primatives and the name of the design is When This You See ornament. I picked different colors than the mustard ones recommended.

 I wuv pink!


well, I stopped here right now but go over to Liberty Primitives Blog and you will see some cute, cute, freebies. This is one of them!



Upon further evaluation, seems this really does look like me with one gray hair here.......naaaaaaaahhh
that must me one of Abbie's lovely white hairs. (yes she is clean)
But somehow I stitched in one of her pretty little white hairs in the middle of the dark.
I had to laugh at that as I pulled it out.  I remember when I first found a gray hair and I could just pull one or two out........those were the days....LOL
Now, I would be completely bald if I pulled out all grays.


I have a small tiny walnut frame to put this in when finished, it's almost like a miniture antiquey frame but I got it at Hobby Lobby after Christmas for such a moment as this when a tiny sampler would be a cutie patootie.

Hope your night is restful and your tomorrow is bright!
Jennifer

Come Sail Away With Me


Finished Summer Day 1776 freebie by The Sampler Girl today and my spontaneous mind went into overtime thinking of something useful and decorative for this piece. As I was rummaging through my fabbies, I remembered I had this Sturbridge Village fabbie that I bought in Boston and had just enough to make a runner! 

 Boston fab, seafood, fun times, ocean.........I can just recall that lobster while I'm making this....YUM!
I handstitched this onto the fabbie after hemming all the edges of the fabric.



And I decided to make a hanging for the refrigerator door instead. Ok, I'm fickle.....I know.
I found this cotton Prim ribbon here at Bessie Mae's Cottage one day a couple of week's ago and decided to sew it on the top of the folded fab to make a slot for the wooden calender hanger.

I put the wooden stick through and for once, was glad I could use this for something....I keep everything!
I usually buy linen calenders for the refrigerator door but this year I didn't. I had an old tea towel on it but removed it to make this. The colors are great for our kitchen.


I stitched this piece with several odd pieces of threads I had leftover and in my jar of  unknowns not labeled but I know that the navy is CC Wavy Navy and the green is CC Belle Soi silk, Bean Stalk.
The others are definitely remnants.
32 count natural belfast linen


This can easily be converted to a runner for the kitchen island by removing the ribbon and threads and folding out if I decide in the future. Right now, it's a hanging for the frig.



I think about the song "Come Sail Away" by Styx.
 Meghan and I liked this song and today is her birthday.....HAPPY BIRTHDAY MEGHAN!!!

Come Sail Away
 by Styx

I'm sailing away,
Set an open course for the Virgin Sea
' Cause I've got to be free
Free to face the life that's ahead of me.

On board I'm the Captain,
So climb onboard.
We'll search for tomorrow...... on every shore
And I'll try, Oh, Lord, I'll try to carry on.

I look to the sea
Reflections of the waves spark my memory
Some happy, some sad
I think of childhood friends and the dreams we had

We lived happily forever
So the story goes
But somehow we missed out
on the pot of gold.
But we'll try the best that we can,
To carry on.

A gathering of Angels appeared above my head;
They sang to me this song of hope
And this is what they said, they said~~~

Come sail away~~
Come sail away~~
Come and sail away with me.

I thought they were angels but to my surprise
We climbed aboard their starship,
We headed for the skies.

Singing, come sail away, come sail away, come and sail away with me..........


HAPPY BIRTHDAY MEGHAN

She's twenty-two
eyes of blue
smart as a whip
inside her ship
sailing away to her dreams.........love ya!

Love always,
Momma

Monday, June 28, 2010

The Needle is in Park


I have been so busy lately that it seems when I finally get to sit about 10pm at night I haven't got very far on this but on my to-do list today is to finish this by midnight.
Well, vacuuming and cleaning the kitchen ----check
supper---leftovers----check
work, work, work, and drive , drive, drive----check
contacting folks who I need to mail on the swing to the Post Office----check
washing----partly check
stitching..........I think I can...I think I can....oh, my! I finally at 10pm have sat down.
Methinks I'm tired.  Or tard as they say in the mountains. ;0

I found this hoop while I was cleaning out some things and decided to use it for this one. Well, hoop marks are not my favorite thing to press out when finished but I will say it gives quite a bit of tension while stitching.

so onward now to put some sails on this ship and finish the border. I got some extra sugar surge just a minute ago with some strawberry ice cream. YUMMM!


A Beautiful Gift from a friend


Parsley sent me this absolutely delicious tea from Teavana with a beautiful card full of words very touching.
I close this Sunday with such because my heart is thankful for meeting so many friends, people who still care in the world. She remembered Lavender Dreams is my favorite and Teavana is a luxury tea store. I'm really honored to receive such a thoughtful gift in the mail.

In my cleaning and sorting of books this past week, I found a book that BG had in his library and it has a daisy pasted to the front page. The book is called Friend Gift by Perry Tanksley 1972. It was a gift evidently to his mother years ago from one of her friends. The book is full of encouraging words and poems.
I will end the day with one of them.

Friends Know What We're Against

We witness with deeds performed
And with those left undone,
And by the things we laugh at
And what we do for fun.

We witness with spoken words
Whether fair or unjust,
And by reactions we make
To those who don't like us.

We witness~~~but life is witness,
No matter where we are;
Friends know what we're against
And what we're really for.

Thank you, Parsley. Your heart is big and though we've never met in person, I truly needed your words of encouragement. Your gift I opened today was a pleasant surprise and so much enjoyed!

Lavender Dreams is a mixture of Lavender and Chamomile which are very calming. It's actually the tea I drank alot of after my hospitalization with ulcerative colitis in 2007 and I will be taking this with me on my commute to work in the morning.
It's so calming to the stomach and helped me about as much as prescription medicines.

Here's hoping you have sweet Lavender dreams~~~~

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Afternoon mug shots

You have to love animals to look at our self-imposed mug shots today.......LOL 
We are just playing around.

It's a bad hair day for both of us.

I've just about mastered the extended-arm-and-hope-you-aim-good-method of photography.



Cooperation from Abbie is not so good right now. She really likes Peppermint chapstick about as much as the Dr. Pepper Lipsmacker.



Focus at the camera, Abbie!



Yeah, right.......
she wants to go play now that she has licked me all over my face.


But I luuuuuuv ha  so



Christmas in July stitching

My mind is planning today and that's a scarey thing as usual I'm pretty spontaneously going through the weekend; however, it's a good thing as I found a design I really wanted to stitch for Christmas.

I  know it's brutal hot outside right now and probably no one is thinking Christmas stitching but if I stitch Christmas I have to plan ahead or it's here before ya know it and then....over.

I also thought it would be cool to have a separate blog for a SAL for this Christmas piece from Carriage House Samplings.  I was so sad to read that she is not going to be designing any longer  :(

In the process, I know that July is right around the corner and I will be giving away this pattern + a brand new pair of Hardwick scissors from Kelmscott. So stay-tuned starting first week of July. I have just ordered this, one for me and one for you!

Here is the pattern pic:


Designer---Carriage House Samplings

Sally's Feather Tree
stitch ct 102 x 124


I was drawn to the little bitty prim flags on the ends of this feather tree with the angel on top. I just love the colors!

So stay-tuned!  I will post a separate posting in July for this pattern AND a Kelmscott scissors for your stitching enjoyment!!!!

If anyone is interested in stitching this with a SAL for Christmas, post here for the SAL only and I ALWAYS enjoy your comments !!!!!!

SAL's are so fun and if started early enough during the year, still gives time for other stitching designs and just the networking with other stitchers and sharing are gifts too.

Anyway.........

Please do not post on this posting for the giveaway....I will post a separate one in July so that all names will be on the same post for the random number generator. Thanks so much!

Hope your Sunday is going well and stay safe and cool!

Jennifer