Happy Easter!

God loves each of us as if 

there were only one of us

(Saint Augustine)

a little change

There's been a little progress on the latest barn - as hopefully you can see from this picture....

Today I hope to work on the barn roof and see what happens.  Have decided, too, that the clump of grass on the lower right has to change.  It's just a bit too in-your-face, even though I do plan to embroider that area.

Today's quote is from Hugh Sidey..."A sense of humor is needed armor.  Joy in one's heart and some laughter on one's lips is a sign that the person down deep has a pretty good grasp of life"

And....it begins again......

I started another landscape on the weekend.  Do you think maybe I'm just a tad obsessed??  This is the image I'm working from....

A wonderful old barn and chicken coop from somewhere in Alberta.  Image used with the kind permission of the photographer - Dale Stewart.  Thank you Dale!

This is where I am so far...

Doesn't look like much at this point!

Today's quote..."Your attitude is like a box of crayons that color your world.  Constantly color your picture grey and your picture will always be bleak.  Try adding some bright colors to the picture by including humor and your picture begins to lighten up"

Mystery solved?

On Monday I asked the eternal question about what I might be planning to do with the three crazy quilted blocks I showed you.  Well....here 'tis.....

Are you still no wiser???

Perhaps - if I were a REALLY mean person, I should make you wait until Monday for a further reveal?  What do you think?

Oh, oh - I can hear you from here!  All right, all right - I'll reveal the rest of it.....

I added a bit of embellishment to the three 

blocks to finish them off and put them together

as you can see above.

Then....I made myself a new 

crochet hook holder!!

I think you can click to embiggen the photos.

The hooks on the left are my collection and the really fine ones on the right belonged to my maternal grandmother who crocheted lace that she often used to trim pillowcases.  She also knit very fine lace for the same purpose.  Alas, her knitting needle collection wasn't passed down to me.  

So there you go, mystery solved!

Today's quote...."Life is partly what we make it and partly what is made by the friends whom we choose"

Silly Grandma!

What's a grandmother to do?  Especially when she comes across a really cute pattern?  Or when there's a special request from her grandson's daddy?

Yesterday I played with toys.  First of all I finished working on a wee monkey....this one....

Our littlest grandson loves the first one I made him and carries it around and sleeps with it.  There have been a couple of close calls when his monkey went awol, but luckily he was found.  Our son thought it might be a plan if there was a replacement in the wings, just in case.  I didn't have the heart to tell him that a new monkey wouldn't be as well loved as the old! 

Pattern is found HERE.   

And, I made him this, just because I wanted to!  

Grandma has a resident dragon in her sewing room that oversees all she does, so our little guy needs one too.  See?  I can justify anything when it comes to grandkids!!!  Pattern for the dragon can be found HERE.  

A condundrum

What do you suppose might

be happening with these?...

You'll have to stay tuned to find out!

Today's quote is from Frank Tyger..."Be a good listener.  Your ears will never get you in trouble"

Drum roll......

Tah Dah!!!  The Louisiana Church is done!!

FOR SALE

Below is the original photo of the church in Chackbay, Louisiana - photographed by Euvah Bryant and used with her permission.  Thank you Euvah!  I hope you like what I've done with it.

This church has since been torn down - such a shame.

THIS ONE IS FOR SALE - contact me if interested!!

Today's quote..."The two most important days in our life are the day we were born and the day we find out why"

More additions

You hopefully can see the results of two days work on this now...

A close-up of the embroidery, and the sweet wee bunny applique.  I had a precious scrap of bunny fabric and this is the last of the little bunnies.  Wish I could find some more!

Some things just make me wonder.  I recently had to purchase a new printer and just bought my first new ink for it.  I thought I should read the directions (for once) and was rather astounded to see that the first caution (and in large print no less!) said 'Do not drink'.  Ummmm - wonder who would think it was wise to try to drink printer ink - to say nothing about the logistics of sucking it out of the cartridges!

Instead of a quote.....

Many people give their sewing machines a name - some of them really cute.  I, however, have never named a machine, why I don't know.  After spending pretty much all day on Saturday swearing at mine I have decided that a very apt name is 'PMS'  with a middle name of 'Albatross'.  She woke up on the wrong side of the bed and hissy fits (both hers AND mine) were the order of the day.  She snarled and she tangled and she grabbed hold of the fabric with her little teeth and refused to let go.  I cleaned her....I untangled her.....I rethreaded her.....and she still wasn't happy.  She didn't like the way that bobbin was threaded, and this one wasn't any better.  She didn't like a new needle either, thank you very much.  Sigh.

However, perhaps you can see that in between the hissy fits some of the quilting was actually completed.  Sort of.  

And here is a close-up (clickable to embiggen I think) of the grass and the church where hopefully you can see how I add texture by simply using some of the 'fancy' stitches on PMS Albatross (when she cooperates, of course!)

Today's quote..."Do not listen with the intent to reply, but with the intent to understand"

Hard to tell?

I know it's probably very hard to tell from the picture, but there actually HAS been a lot of stitching added to the church.  Just a little more to do and then it's on to the grass area.  

Your quote..."Hate no one, no matter how much they've wronged you.  Live humbly, no matter how wealthy you've become.  Think positively, no matter how hard life is.  Give much, even if you've been given little.  Forgive all, especially yourself, and never stop praying for the best for everyone"

Disaster averted

Well, never let it be said that excitement doesn't touch down occasionally here at Chez Magpie.  Yesterday I had an entire day (practically unheard of!) home and planned to spend it working on the latest landscape.  My idea of heaven!  Part of the plan was to augment the birch trees with some paint to hopefully make them look a tad more realistic.  Good plan...

You know what happens to many good plans....they're bound to run amuck.  

Needless to say, the advisability of having a small palette of paint perched on the side of my worktable was perhaps not 'the thing', particularly when one decides to get up to answer the phone and watch in horror as the in-process landscape slid to the floor, managing to marry up with the paint palette during the descent.

I didn't want to look.

Paint....on my pants.

Paint .... on the floor.

Which I promptly stepped in,

so...

Paint....on my shoe.

Oh, and just a few splatters on my landscape.

ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!

Took off pants....washed pant leg.....mopped up paint on the floor.....mopped off my shoe......flooded splatters with water...hoped for the best (oh, and there was just a teeny little bit of swearing too).

To my complete relief the damage to the landscape was minimal and the application of some more paint (scary thought!) will set things right.  Phew!

From that anonymous source again...."Never regret a day in your life:  good days give happiness, bad days give experience, worst days give lessons, and best days give memories"

Use it up!

In my ongoing quest to use up stash I decided I'd make a little sweater for my grandson using some leftover yarns I had.  This is the result...

The pattern is  'Snow Bunnies' from a Beehive booklet called 'Knit Menagerie' - knit in the round and made a tad longer than it called for because our grandson is tall.  If I had to do it again, I would make the stripes much wider (and less of them) and I wouldn't carry them quite so high up the body.  

HOWEVER - after all that, I don't seem to have made so much

as a DENT in my stash!!

Anonymous quote again..."Hate has 4 letters, so does Love.  Enemies has 7 letters, so does Friends.  Lying has 5 letters, so does Truth.  Negative has 8, so does Positive.  Under has 5, so does Above.  Cry has 3 letters, so does Joy.  Anger has 5 letters, so does Happy.  Right has 5 letters, so does Wrong.  Hurt has 4 letters, so does Heal.  It means life is like a doubled edged sword....so transform every negative side into an aura of positivity....we should choose the better side of life"

Ahhhhhhh - that's better!

There's an old line that says 'when momma ain't happy, nobody's happy' and I have to say that my first two attempts at grass for the church scene were NOT making me happy.  So....here's the latest effort and I have to say it looks a whole lot better (at least in my mind anyway).  

Either way, I'm not doing it again!

I Got Mail!!!

Last week there were some surprises that arrived in my mailbox and I wanted to show them to you...

My camera isn't happy about taking pictures this close,

but the first surprise was a wonderful hand-painted

button in my favourite theme!

The details are incredible and I thank Gerry Krueger 

so much for making this little treasure and

letting me give it a home.

Thanks Gerry!

The other thing that arrived in my

mailbox was a lovely little 

book - from the creative fingers

of Liz (also known as Boud).

She used a commercial card for the

cover and inside I discovered some of

her handmade onion-skin paper!
UPDATED TO ADD:
the lovely card was from a 
woodblock print created by
Hajime Namiki

Thank you Liz 

Today your quote is from Karen Salmonsohn...."The older I get the more I realize the importance of walking away from people and situations which threaten my peace of mind, self-respect, values and self worth"

Maybe, but then again....

Some additions, deletions, and distortions have happened.....which may, or may not have made it better....or worse.  Waffling?  Oh yeah!!!!

But, then again, perhaps this....

or maybe......

Well, tomorrow is another day and we'll have to see what

happens!

I do have a quote though....from Phil McGraw..."Sometimes you make the right decision, sometimes you make the decision right"

A little bit of progress

Perhaps now you can see the evolution of a church - maybe?  Then again, maybe not!!  There's a lot of stages that look like a dogs breakfast until it finally starts coming together and at the moment it's very dog breakfast-y (of the sort that some might think more closely resembles barf!!). 

An anonymous quote..."Never regret a day in your life:  good days give happiness, bad days give experience, worst days give lessons, and best days give memories"

And.......

Just another reminder that I'm now responding to your comments directly here on the blog, so don't forget to check back! 

- And.....another one starts.....

This is the beginning of the next landscape.  At this stage I pretty much always hate it and this is no exception.  Hopefully it will look better as I go!  

Today the quote is from Oprah Winfrey..."One of the hardest things in life to learn are which bridges to cross and which bridges to burn"

Framed!

Someone wanted to see this after it was framed so here it is (mainly because I still don't have anything else to share!)....

SOLD!

It's really hard to get a photo of something that's behind glass because there is always a reflection.  I took half a dozen pictures and when I downloaded them I had to laugh because the glare on this one looks as though the headlight is on!!  I chose not to mat this for two reasons - 1.  I got this frame for nothing and I didn't want to fork over the bucks for a larger one, and 2. trying to mat something that's relatively thick is really difficult, unless you opt to go for a shadow box effect.  Nice, but costly!!  If the new owners want to re-frame it, they are welcome to do so, but in the meantime this will have to do.  I rather wish I was keeping this one!

Mumblings - again

First of all, thank you for the supportive comments over my scanner woes.  You'll be happy to know that I figured it out and (fingers crossed) all seems to be working the way it should now.  Of course now I've said that, I'm liable to have jinxed myself!

This morning we woke up to sunshine.  Amazing how that improves your outlook on life!  It's cold, but the sun makes you feel so much better.

Alas, today I have no pictures for you.  Not a one.  Nada.  None.  Zip.  Zilch.  We won't discuss how I managed to fall head first down the rabbit hole commonly known as Ancestry and spend altogether too many hours inputting family history that was generously shared by a distant cousin.  It's amazing how wrapped up one can get in what was happening in people's lives many years ago.  This morning I was rather taken aback to see that one relative ended up marrying (AND divorcing!) the same woman three times!!  Too bad they couldn't make up their minds!

I will do my level best to break away from my fascination with family and get back to creating tomorrow.  The next landscape is calling me.....

Today the quote is from Kate Morton..."Don't slide down the rabbit hole.  The way down is a breeze, but climbing back's a battle"

ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SOME DAYS JUST SUCK

Heaven deliver me from technology.  Why is something that should be so simple is bound and determined to thwart me every single solitary step of the way???

My much-loved Canon printer/scanner/copier decided, after much service, that perhaps it was tired and deserved to die a natural death.  After appropriate funeral-like sympathy, your blogger got a brand shiny new Epson (which seems to be one of the few printers these days that simply prints, scans and copies without all sorts of other bells, whistles and farts that aren't necessary to my existence).  

It arrived yesterday and after much nail-biting and mustering of courage, your writer undertook to set it up.  Hmmm.....plug this into that....and that into this.  So far, so good.

Oh....and it comes with a CD.....wow, that's easy.  Right?  Wrong!!  Inserted CD and watched while things whirled, and spun and said click this....click that....wait.....and finally, finish!  Woo hoo!!!  

Well, not so fast.  It didn't want to play nice with my computer.  Hmmm......much reading of manual....that first had to be located on the internet because, after all, such things no longer come with it.  After much swearing and trying this and that....oh, and maybe this other thing too.....they decided that talking to each other might be good.  Yay - it even printed a whole entire photo!!!  

Much celebration here at Chez Magpie.  

But wait....

Someone (moi) jumped the gun and celebrated much too soon.  Maybe she believed it would scan because after all, it said it did.  Hah....not.  

So....much more reading of on line manual and googling ensued and lo - another 'thing' had to be downloaded and installed.    More whirling and spinning and clicking ensued.  And we had a scanner that worked.  Maybe. 

Yep, success.

But wait.....

(we're now on Day 2 of this process)

Now why do you suppose your writer would ever want to do something so stupid as to want to RESIZE a scanned image for insertion in such places as Ancestry....or.....gasp.....this blog???  Yes, why......

Well, much more reading of online manual where, it appears,  resizing images is not 'a thing'.  Hmmm.  Your writer then consulted with the experts at Google who seemed very sure that another 'thing' had to be installed.  So more whirling, spinning and clicking....

.....and swearing.....

AND IT STILL WON'T WORK

Two days....lost.  Your writer's temper.....lost.  

And the saga continues...........

The quote - "There was a piece of ornamental water immediately below the parapet, on the other side, into which Mrs. James Harthouse had a very strong inclination to pitch Mr. Thomas Gradgrind Junior"  ( from Charles Dickens, Hard Times)

A very good quote, but I think it should read - "There was the Scugog River immediately below the balcony, into which Magpie had a very strong inclination to pitch a certain Epson XP-5100 printer"  (so there)