ANOTHER FREE BLOG BACKGROUND SITE

I happened upon another site that has blog backgrounds -- lots of cute ones too.

http://www.scrappinblogs.blogspot.com/

We had a great family weekend. Since everyone left, I've been working on my "recovery" plan :)
Heading to bed cause I have duty this week -- another "last" -- woo hoo!!

IT’S ALL IN THE DETAILS

Here

and here

Got at least half of the handwork finished today and this evening.

MARATHON UPDATE

Here are the results of my sewing marathon – sans handwork—which I’ll do during free time at school and while watching Jack and NCIS.

Check

Check

Check

Check

Check

(back) (front)

Check

One stack of projects is now much smaller.  Now it’s tuck time.  AND the sun is shining too :)

What do you do when you don’t have any big buttons except for orange or white and no stores to go get some – You take the orange button which doesn’t do much by itself because there is so little orange in the fabric and you top it with a smaller  aqua button that matches all the aqua in the dress and . . .

What do you think?

TIDY MOM IS HAVING A GIVEAWAY

Check out Tidy Mom’s blog and enter her giveaway.  While you’re there you can find lots of organizing and other ideas. We can all use good ideas – especially me.

RAIN RAIN AND MORE RAIN

Yesterday the weather was soooo very nice so I went to three different nurseries including Walmart and got some plants for my patio.   Then I got my gloves and and potting soil out and transplanted them into the pots on the patio.  They looked pretty nice when I got finished.  You can see some of the yard in the background too.  Notice the lack of water.

I have some geraniums, verbena, petunias, impatiens, a kimberly fern, sweet potato vine, lantana, and some parsley and basil.  We’ll see if they survive my baby travels later this spring.

I got up this morning and it was overcast.  Went to some friends for dinner after church this morning and around one we had a thunder storm.  The bottom just fell out.  It rained so much in 2 1/2 hours that my back yard looked like this.

Kinda wet out there right now.

Was lazy for a while this afternoon but then got busy pressing some hems and pinning bodice linings so I can get the handwork done either at school or during the evenings this week.  I’ve got only the underarm ties and attaching the the bottom of the dresses to the linings and I’ll be finished with the blue fish dresses.  The only handwork there will be a thread loop and sewing on a button.  Most of tomorrow will be spent working on the tuck dress for Mabry Grace.  I marked the tucks one day at school last week so I can get right busy on the sewing. 

Oh – I also finished the minky blankets Jennifer asked for this afternoon so I’ve done pretty well working through my list even if  I kind of broke out of my “marathon” yesterday to work on prettying up the patio.

Well, it’s actually  Monday already so I think I’ll hit the sack.  I’ll leave you with a couple of Toby pictures. He’s starting to resemble Little Lord Faunt Le Roy with all those curls.  They will get cut off or shortened Tuesday when he gets his bath.  he’ll look more like a cocker.

 

G’night

NAVY SEALS ROCK!!

Don’t know him except he’s an American who was being held for ransom by Pirates  (yes real live pirates ) and he’s been rescued by Navy Seals.  Take that you idiot pirates – we’re not negotiating.   Captain Phillips is safe in American hands now – safe.  If this is not a case for arming these cargo vessels then what is?  Twenty crew members – 0 guns.  Four pirates and all kinds of automatic weapons.   We should be able to protect ourselves.  

A REALLY COOL CAT

 

I’m more a dog person but I think I could learn to love a cat.  And this cat is awesome – click the two links below to see just how awesome he really is.

http://colormekatie.blogspot.com/

http://colormekatie.blogspot.com/2009/01/sunday.html

FRIDAY’S PROGRESS

 

From this

to this

And this

From this

to this

And Toby and I went to the Walmarts and got a Kimberly fern and two pots of verbena, some parsley, some basil and a really pretty geranium.  We’ll transfer the stuff to the pots on the patio tomorrow and do some more sewing too. 

Night everybody.

MY SEWING MARATHON WEEKEND BEGINS….

I’m off – a little slow due to the electricity going off three times this evening – but off none-the-less.  One blanket top is finished.

Another is sewn in strips and two of the five strips sewn together

 

Jennifer is addicted to Minky Blankets and her kids seem to love them too:)  They are pretty easy to make although the Minky can be slippy slidey  sometimes. 

The status of the rest of my list . . . .

 

barely begun and

2/3 done. 

Someone else looked at the house today before I got home from school.  So far no one is lined up for the weekend but  I’m not really anticipating anything since it’s a holiday.  We shall see.  Tomorrow I’m hoping to sleep – 8:30 or 9:00 would be really nice.

I’m done for the evening.  More tomorrow.

HOW TO HAVE THE CLEANEST HOUSE IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD and A TO DO LIST FOR THE LONG WEEKEND COMING UP.

I spent the weekend getting my house ready for an Open House that the realtor had today.  It really looks great!! And people can open my closets and I won’t be embarrassed:) I have learned to keep my house a lot neater since all the kids left (what does that say about me?) so there really wasn’t just a whole lot to do.  My sewing is what makes a mess these days.  Little stacks here and there and scraps laying on the table  -- you get the picture.  So, I’m trying to do better with that and maybe I’ll cultivate better habits about keeping my sewing picked up. 

The Open House was from 4 to 6.  Four different sets of people came through.  The realtor said all the comments were positive.  The house has been on the market for twelve days counting tomorrow and if I’ve counted correctly, after tomorrow 10 different groups will have looked at the house.  I’d say that’s a good start. 

I get a four day weekend so I’ve made a to do list so I can finish the stuff I cut out a couple of weekends ago

Wed: put together the two minky quilt tops.

Thurs: Put together the green tie over the shoulder dress

Fri – Mon : Finish the blue fish dresses and the bright fish dress and get as much done on the tuck dress as I can.  (I can’t believe I’ve started naming my dresses by colors , patterns and fabrics)  These are all easily contained projects in case someone calls and wants to show the house.

Okay –I’m off to bed – I’ll try to post pictures as I make progress on my to do list.

Night all.

COOL GIVE AWAY AT JUST BEACHY

Chris at JUST BEACHY is giving away 2  one room design plans.  Just check out her blog entry and leave a comment.  I’d love  a redesign.   Bet you would too.

In other news, I ‘ve finished 14 of 24 embroidered squares for Baby Girl Neal’s quilt.  I ran out of the stabilizer I was using so I decided to work on my other projects til I have a chance to get some more.   I finished the pockets on the dress I made for Lucy’s’ granddaughter and will finish the handwork before bed so I can give it to her tomorrow.  She’ll be so surprised.  I hope she likes it.

Back to work.

I THINK IT WILL WORK

I think this darker thread will work on the quilt I’m making – what do you think?

Here are the finished pillowcases too.

 

I’m off to bed.

This post written and published to MUSINGS through MS Live Writer in less than two minutes.  Blog Life IS good :)

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A SHADE (or two) MAKES

Here is a comparison of the new darker embroidery thread and the lighter thread I first used. I plan to embroidery a couple more squares after school and then I'll lay them out on the fabric and take a picture and post so you can see the difference. I think I'll be okay using the darker thread.

USING WINDOWS LIVE WRITER

UPDATE - 8:20 PM

Window's Live Writer is the bomb. I did my little test below in about one minute. The pictures uploaded so easily. That was my favorite part. They didn't move to the top of the post and then me have to move them around and get frustrated when the spacing was all wrong etc. It was great. Visit this blog post for more info about Window's Live Writer. Be sure that you only install the writer part of Windows Live --- unless you want some of the other stuff. It's easy and it's awesome!!!

And I even inserted the line below to divide my update from the original post!!!  Okay, I’m calming down now, but it is a fun toy.  Try it, you’ll like it. 

I’m trying out a new way to update my blog. My WONDERFUL sis told me about it and she doesn’t even have a blog :)) So, this is a test run to see if it makes it easier to add pictures and stuff.

Okay – just inserted these pics I had on my desktop – if you read Stacey’s blog you’ve seen them before. It was soooooo simple and they are arranged in the order that I loaded them.

QUILTS AND PILLOWCASES

Jennifer asked me to make some pillowcases for the girls out of some flannel she had so I did and embroidered their names. I think they will like them. Vail especially as she is totally obsessed with anything fish. Here's a sneak peek. I'll post the finished ones tomorrow.































































I've embroidered 1/4 of the squares for the quilt. They are sitting on the sashing fabric. I think I may have to put some interfacing or white behind the white squares so the outline stitching shows up. It shows up well on the squares where the stabilizer is still on but on the square I washed it doesn't stand out well at all.
I might see if I can find the thread color I'm using but several shades darker and redo the embroidery. Then I won't have to worry about backing the squares. I'll try to look at the shop downtown tomorrow -- she only has a small selection but maybe I'll get lucky.





































Last but not least, I forgot to pick the TobMagnet up off the floor and in the middle of updating I was forced to take a picture of this ----- Can't help but love him!!

A CUTTING DAY

Today I've done a lot of cutting. Pillow Cases (2) - with fish, Dresses (4) - 3 with fish and one without, 1 pattern I've made before and 2 that I haven't, and red minky squares to go with the puppy quilt. Tomorrow I'll cut out one more dress that my neice has commissioned for her sweet Mabry, at least some of the squares for the soon to be Neal baby girl quilt so I can start embroidering and then if time is left I'll do a little sewing also. I've got quite a few projects lined up -- a tote to finish, 5 dresses, 1 large and 1 small minky blanket and an embroidered quilt, plus a quilt top ready to quilt and another that needs to be sandwiched and then quilted. I'll post some pictures tomorrow.

I watched a three part video today on how to use glue when binding a quilt and how it turns out perfect every time -- they were by Sharon Schamber. She sure does make it look easy. I'm going to try the glue technique on my next quilt. Her binding looked perfect.

I saw a great corn recipe at Back Porch Musings and plan to try it when the kids come in a couple of weeks. All the recipes she posted looked yummy but this corn recipe is different and SUPER easy.

It's been a cold fall day - except that it's spring outside. We've had a good bit of rain the past couple of days but the sun was around alot this afternoon. Wish the weekend was two days longer but I'll settle for having tomorrow.

Hope nobody had any really bad storms when all the weather passed by.