New home???

Up for grabs - a copy of Somerset Life magazine -

issue from Oct/Nov/Dec 2010 as pictured above

and.... a copy of Green Craft
Autumn 2010 issue.

What shall I ask you to do in order to have one of them winging their way to you??  

TWO things!!

1. Leave me a comment noting which magazine you'd like (the first person 'wins')

2.  Please donate $5 to your local animal shelter

EDITED TO ADD:  BOTH ARE HEADING TO NEW HOMES!!  Thanks!

Puzzled????

I know - two posts in one day?  What's this world coming to?

However, I'm totally puzzled about something that's happening in cyberspace and I wanted to know if anyone else was experiencing the same phenomenon.  Today I have suddenly received (in my email account) a number of emails that I had sent to myself (and never received) over a year ago!!!  Not only that, I just received another email from a friend who was quite puzzled as to why I had emailed her in great excitement over winning something from her blog...which also happened OVER A YEAR AGO!!   W-h-aaaa-t???? 

Any ideas of what's going on??  Have the planets shifted or something and let loose all the lost emails that I figured had ended up plugging the hole in the ozone layer? 

Oh, and before you ask why I would be silly enough to send emails to myself - they had to do with the book I was working on and were quite legitimate.  No, I haven't taken up emailing myself (I do talk to myself sometimes, but I haven't quite resorted to doing that via email.....yet).  

More cards and some mumblings

Here are a couple more of the baby cards for you to play with....

(scroll down for the remainder of this post!!)

Sorry!  I still haven't figured out the latest changes in the picture program and my cropping is leaving something to be desired. 

Today my order from Patternworks arrived in the mail and I'm now the proud owner of two sets (pairs, pair??) of Addi Turbo circular knitting needles.  I am so tired of knitting with my old aluminum/plastic ones and have it on good authority that Addi is the way to go.  I'll be testing them out later tonight.  I really hope to be able to knit faster!

More, and wishes

First of all, I want to be sure to wish all my friends in the US a very happy Thanksgiving Day.  Hope you are enjoying turkey and all the trimmings, or whatever  is the tradition in your family.

And, are you tired of these yet???

here's more....

More of the 'found' baby cards.  Please do feel free to copy them and use them in your art! 

Sorry about one being sideways, but I think you can still make use of it. 

Interesting 'find'!

I found all the cards my parents received when I was born and thought I'd share some of them here.  Please do feel free to make copies and use them in your art!!  I would LOVE to see what you do with them.  Enjoy!! (Edited to add:  Yes, I DID crop these and obviously it didn't work....hmmmmmm!!  Be sure to scroll down!)

Dilemma -

What to do, what to do?

Oh, what should I do
with a 10 inch stack

of these....

They're lovely old magazines and I really do wish I had space to keep them, but I don't.  Does anyone have any ideas of what I should do with them? 

Oh, so close!!

The contractors arrived yesterday to begin tearing out the downstairs bathroom.  Today they undertook to move the new shower in.  Well, had it been an eighth of an inch bigger it would not have gone in!!  As it was, they had to take all the doors (and frames) off between the bathroom and outside ... that was four doorways.  Yikes!  I felt so sorry for the guys because they were sure sweating their way through it.  However, the shower is in the bathroom and the next step (also very much of a problem apparently) is to marry it up somehow with the drain.  We've been feeding them cookies and coffee in the hopes that they won't hate us TOO much!!

I should be finishing up my painting, but didn't want to chance it in case something they needed to move in ended up having to move through my space.  Instead I've continued attacking the fabric stash.  4 1/2 drawers done - 1 1/2 left to go. 

WHY OH WHY
DOES A CRAZY QUILTER
NEED SO MUCH
S-T-A-S-H
???????????

Look what the mailman brought!!

A few weeks ago I was the lucky winner of a giveaway on Kim's blog - a $35 gift certificate from CSN Stores and was able to choose my own prize.  It was really hard to pick from all the goodies CSN have available, but I finally settled on this.....

Our old kitchen clock is exactly that - old.  It's been painted over several times to 'match' whatever the current kitchen colour scheme was and I know it's ready to give up the ghost.  B'sides, it's a plain old cheapie plastic clock!  This one is gorgeous...I love the old-fashioned look and it will go in our kitchen perfectly!!

Thank you SO much Kim for having the giveaway, and CSN Stores for their very prompt delivery all the way to Canada!  

ummmmmm.........

Paint

Paint

Painterly, paint, paint

AND

Hammer

hammer

saw

Yep, I got nuttin!!!

Please do carry on with what is
exciting in YOUR

life!!!!

Kitchen done!

Here's the before....

And, here's the after......

I love it!!!

I painted in my studio pretty much all day and got the second coat on the walls and the first coat on the ceiling, doors and trim.  You'll have to stay tuned for before and afters of that because right now it's just totally a MESS!!!

Proof we're working.....

 MALE BONDING

Jack and Shawn working on the kitchen floor today.  The old tiles required the use of the heat gun to get them off.  The new ones are looking beautiful though and they have nearly finished...only a few odd little pieces to cut and put down tomorrow. 

Shawn is now a pro with the heat gun!

I, being a wife of thirty one years, know full well that the best way to get a big job like the kitchen floor done by the men...is to stay the heck out of the road and tackle my own project....in this case, painting my studio.

I have the first coat on the walls and it looks awful, but that's the way painting always looks.  

Tomorrow I hope to get the second coat on and hopefully start at the trim.

Yikes!

The drawers are exploding,

The drawers are exploding!!!!!!!!!!

THE DRAWERS.......

Well, they say a picture is worth a thousand words, right?

The great studio re-paint is about to happen over the next few days and the chest of drawers that holds my crazy quilting fabric stash are bulging open (quite literally).  

SO.....

 

this is drawer #1,

upended on the floor.  

The scissors and the iron have been busy most of the afternoon and I have this lot only HALF done.

(too much stash you say???)

There just might be a few chubby envelopes of stash enhancement up for grabs in the next while along with at least one large garbage bag destined for the fabric recycling depot.  Now, if only I could lose weight this easily!!

Spoiled offspring!

#2 son (the one that's 6'8" and has a 38" inseam) has been crying the blues because the sleep pants I made him in 2005 have had the audacity to wear out.  They just don't make things like they used to, do they?

Anyway,

because I'm his mother
and don't like seeing
a grown boy cry...

I hauled out the pattern and made him two more pairs
out of these fabrics....

And yes, I DID crop these pictures and the computer told me they were saved as cropped.  So....hmmm....wonder why they aren't cropped here?  Serves me right for thinking I should pay attention to that little icon that kept popping up telling me to 'update' my computer!!!  Why is it that the so-called updates really aren't and are subtly hidden as huge learning curves and muck-ups of something you had just managed to figure out how to do from the LAST time there was an update??  Feel free to interject a letter of your choice to begin the word 'muck'.  

 

quilt and tute

There has been some discussion lately about the Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt patterns (and I've noticed a definite resurgence in interest in making them).  My aunt made us one as a wedding gift 31 years ago and it's one of my special treasures.  Unfortunately it doesn't fit any of our beds, but it is special nonetheless.

On another subject - there were a few enquiries yesterday regarding how I made the little napkin ring pincushions, so I thought I'd break it down so you could see...

This photo pretty much shows all the necessary 'ingredients' - a napkin ring, a small block of wood cut to fit inside the napkin ring (not necessary, but gives a more finished look), a small amount of stuffing, and a circle of fabric.  I simply used floss to embroider little flowers on the fabric, gathered up the edge of the circle, stuffed it with fabric and plunked it in the ring.  I'll be painting the wooden blocks black to finish them.  Then it's just a case of gluing the parts together - I'll use E6000, but I would imagine a good white glue that dries clear (or even hot glue) would work just as well.  If you make any, please let me know because I'd love to see them!!

Small things

 (Yes, I can hear you all muttering things about 'small things...small minds', so don't think you're being sneaky about it!!)

Twelve of these wee pincushions - made with a sterling silver napkin ring as the base and some scrap fabric, beads & embroidery floss.  Easy peasy!!

I'm honoured!

My friend Pam Kellogg of Kitty and Me has done me an extreme honour and asked me to be one of her guest bloggers.  To me it IS an incredible honour to be asked because I admire Pam so much for her beautiful work AND for her willingness to talk so openly on her blog about her struggles with depression.  I think Pam and I have 'bonded' over our issues with it (depression) and also with the fact that we both enjoy crazy quilting so much. 

If you're interested in reading my guest post please visit Pam here, and leave a comment to say hi to her!  While you're there be sure to have a look around and also check out her etsy shop where you will find all kinds of lovely things!  Pam also recently did an excellent post on creating a crazy quilt block - great learning tool for beginners. 

Thank you Pam - I really enjoyed being your guest blogger and am so tickled you asked me!!

Art doll - Audacity

This afternoon I finished working on Gail's doll Audacity for the Art Doll Cool-aberation 2010.  When Audacity arrived, this is what she looked like....

Gail is the queen of paper mache and did a wonderful job of creating a base for us to work on.  In case you don't remember me talking about this before - we were to create the beginning of a doll but not the entire body, which would leave more room for interpretation by the other artists.  I had a really difficult time deciding what I wanted to add to her - I thought of, and rejected, numerous ideas.  I finally resorted to the old trick of thinking about it just before I went to sleep hoping for inspiration.  Well, she did speak to me, but again I dragged my heels.  After three nights of waking up with the SAME thought running through my mind, here is what she became.....

She wanted to have an octopus.  

There were no ifs, ands, or buts about it - she insisted!

She wanted to be a Queen
of the lost city of
ATLANTIS!!

Well, never let it be said that I don't listen to dolls so I created her an octopus, made from painted felt with sequins (160 of them, to be exact) for suckers.  Raiding the teddy bear eye stash yielded perfect eyes.

Her journal was fun to do, but I think I got a trifle carried away.  I have a habit of wanting to make journals fat and chubby, so Gails nicely put together journal doesn't close properly now (oops).  Here's page one...

Page two (remember the glue-ey mess I was in a few days ago with watercolour paper, fibers and white glue?)...

Page three...well, that sand dollar HAD to be on there, right??  AND then I wonder why the pages are fat???

Finally, page four....yet more geehaws to make the pages thick.  The little tag at the top has my name on the back and the little charm was in my stash, along with the copper washers.

Hope Gail likes what I did, and that she won't be too upset that her book gained so much 'weight' while Audacity was visiting with me!

A meeting of the minds

Every month our little crafting group gets together and exchanges atcs and generally the hostess comes up with a small how-to that we can play with.  This month is was my turn to host and I'm sure the ladies arrived with trepidation knowing full well that some of the 'how-tos' I've managed to come up with have been more like 'how NOT to'.  Being a last-minute sort of person I left it til last night to come up with what we would do.  

We made decoupaged buttons and these are mine...

These will be great sewn onto a crazy quilt piece.  

Above are the atcs we exchanged.  Last month the theme was 'masks' and the top one on the left was what I did and Sue made the one on the right.  This month it was 'artist choice' and Halloween is on everyone's mind I guess.  I made the one on the left and Sue did the other two.  My efforts this time were quite paltry, but I was under a time restraint and thought I did well to get anything done at all.

A fun day, with a couple of fun-to-be-with friends - what more could I want?

And the winner is.....!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

BUT - before we get around to that announcement, I have a few other newsworthy things to pass on to my faithful readers....

This blog is supposed to be about crazy quilting (amongst other mumblings) and, believe it or not, I have some CQ content today!

FINALLY

I will get to the winner!

(go ahead, fess up if you scrolled down to read this bit first!!)

First of all I want to thank all of you who took the time to enter my giveaway (and those of you who signed up to be followers).  Thirty six of you were hoping to win and I SO wish I had 36 copies of the book to give you each one!  Believe me, I'd be so happy if I could.  But there's only one copy and, using the extremely scientific method of asking my hubby to choose a number between 1 & 36, the lucky winner is............

CHRISTINE (from sunny down under)!!!!!!!!!!

Christine said she will be taking a special in-depth class over the next couple of years and that she thought this book might be useful.  

Congratulations Christine - drop me your snail mail addy (to my email at marmic1954 at gmail dot com)  and I will get the book in the mail this week.  Hope you like it!!

As I said, I'm sorry you all couldn't win, but  keep tuned to this space for further giveaways over the next while.  I'm seriously downsizing my studio and there will be tons of stuff that won't be moved with us - a lot of it just might become giveaways!!