Farewell 2009

and good riddance! It's been a horrible year for me, my husband and so many hard working people. For me, it's been the nightmare depression and of course, Scott has had to deal with helping me so it's been hard on him. He's a Ford technician at a large dealership near the city and things haven't been good at most dealerships this year including ours.

Despite not watching the news or reading newspapers, I'm well aware of the fact that so many hard working people have lost jobs and homes. So many have to dig & scratch just to put food on the table these days.

I look forward to 2010 and pray that it brings balance to our economy, healing for those who suffer from depression for whatever reason and peace to our planet.

With that said, I brought a little peace into my own life yesterday. You may remember me talking about the Mason Jar lamp that my dad made for me:



Well, that lampshade has been bugging me for about 2 years now! It was too plain and boring despite my addition of the beaded trim and braid. The other day, it finally occurred to me to add some roses to it and so yesterday, I did:



So much better now! And it couldn't have been easier! I found some fabric with shabby roses on it, cut them out and glued them on with fabric glue. Voila! A new old lampshade.

I just love the shabby chic cottage look. And I've mentioned several times now that I just adore pink! Pink & mint green! Even when I was little, those were my favorite colors. So more and more of that is moving into my little cottage home!

Moving on to my Garden Crazy Quilt, I finished up Block #4 yesterday:



The colors look a little dark in the scan but it's really quite soft and pastel. I haven't started on Block #5 yet. This was supposed to be my "winter project" and I'm already almost 1/2 way done with the stitching. I'm thinking of a taking a tiny break and doing a few other things. I have craft ideas that are calling to me. Stay tuned to see what I come up with. You know, there will be glitter!

So what do you all think about the changes to my banner? I was going to add flowers but the lace seemed like enough of a change and enlarging it a bit fills the space nicely. I'll be making changes to the banner in my Etsy shop as well.

In regards to my photo yesterday about my mom's therapy dog Chooch, Christine mentioned that Chooch looks like a senior herself. Indeed she is. Chooch just turned 10 years old back in October. Other than her grey muzzle, you'd never know it. She has tons of energy, she plays and she loves to beg me to take her walking! And do I love to walk her! In her younger years, Chooch was a show dog. She won many ribbons. When she reached the age of being too old for dog shows, she made her way to my mom through our vet. So now Chooch is a therapy dog and she enjoys it as much as the residents of the retirement center do. It's her purpose and it probably helps to keep her youthful.

Well, I've rambled on long enough for one post! Again, I say goodbye and good riddance to 2009!
I wish everyone peace, comfort & plenty of quiet time in 2010! Have a safe New Year's Eve everyone!

Treasures

I hope everyone had a very nice holiday. My birthday and Christmas were both quite nice and much better than last year!

I wanted to share the lovely gifts I received from several of my friends in blog-land. I first saw these on Cathy's blog and absolutely loved them:





I left a messagefor Cathy, telling her how pretty they are. A few days later, I received a package in the mail from Cathy. Needless to say, I was blown away. They are so pretty and such treasures to me. Thank you very much Cathy!

A day later, I received these gorgeous vintage lace cuffs from Freda:



Oh, I can see these with my black velvet blouse! These are lovely Freda, thank you so very much! They are in my treasure chest.

I actually do have a "treasure chest" that I keep my handmade gifts from my blog friends in. I'll have to share a photo of that with you. It's a box that DMC sent to me years ago and it's perfect for the special gifts that I've received.

I mentioned that Scott took me junkin' at the antique mall on my birthday. I hit the vintage embroidery transfer jackpot as well as the vintage cookie book jackpot:



2 of these books were $3.00 and the others were only $1.00. There's one from 1924. That is quite interesting. In fact, my mom had to decipher a few things for me! Oh, back in the day!

I promised ya'll a photo of my mom's therapy dog with her santa hat on. Here's Santa Chooch:



Isn't she cute? I took about a dozen photos of her and this is the only one that wasn't blurry. I'm going print a bunch of copies of this photo, then mom and I are going to make little cards to take to the residents at the retirement center. They adore Chooch and we thought it would be nice to give them a photo of her next time we go.

In other news, here's a quick update on my Block #4 of my Garden Quilt:



Just a bit more beading to do and this one will be complete.

I'm feeling a bit more like myself but still rather scattered. I can't decide if I want to stitch now, or start on a few Valentine's or sit here and update my Kitty & Me Banner a bit. As I mentioned a few weeks back, I'm going to expand my Etsy shop and I thought it would be nice to add some flowers to my banner. I think I'll have some tea and a Clementine first and then I'll decide!

Finally for today, this is what we dealt with on Saturday:



This is a view of my house & deck from my backyard. Scott felt we needed a photo to remind us of the snow. Ha, ha, ha! I think not!

Well, that's all for today. Like I said, my mind is kind of scattered at the moment. I need to find a way to focus on something. Scott is taking me to JoAnn Fabrics tomorrow for a little shopping spree. To be honest, that's all I've done for the past week! After tomorrow, it's time to sit down and use my stuff.

Quick note to Alayna - thank you so much for your message! I'm glad to know that you were pleased with the Gingerbread Cookie recipe. I've tried several different Gingerbread recipes and that one is the absolute best!

Happy Christmas To All!

I wanted to stop by for a moment and wish everyone a very Happy Holiday Season.

The weather did cooperate yesterday for us. We had to wait a little longer to go out than we wanted to but we did get to the IHOP for breakfast. They were out of the Gingerbread pancakes so I had the Eggnog pancakes and I must say, they were very, very good!

We also went to the antique mall so I was able to do my junkin' and I hit the mother load on vintage embroidery patterns, vintage needlework catalogs and vintage baking cookbooks! Wow! I will post photos during the week.

Despite the lack of sunshine, it was a very nice birthday! Thank you to everyone for birthday wishes.

I'm off to get ready to head over to my mom's house. Merry Christmas to all and to all a Good Night!

White Christmas?

I must say, to those who live in a warm climate and would love to have a white Christmas, you can have it! It's snowing again, quite heavily too. Scott and I had to cancel our plans for tonight. The snow is supposed to turn to freezing rain and then all rain tomorrow. I don't mean to sound like a spoiled brat but I do hope that the weather cooperates for tomorrow. I need to go junkin'! I went into the depths of hell last year on my birthday and I've really been looking forward to wandering around the antique mall. I'll let you know in the morning how our roads are.

In the meantime, I just received the loveliest gift for my birthday from my dear friend Kim:



Aren't these beautiful? And I just love the teacup! I don't think I ever got fresh flowers for my birthday. What a nice surprise! Thank you so much Kim!!!!

I also received the sweetest Christmas gift this week from another friend:



The little boxes that make up this cute Gingerbread Man are filled with yummy treats. I'm saving them for New Year's Day. My parents are coming over and we're ordering Chinese food! I just love Gingerbread Men! He's just so cute!

I made a slight change to Block #4 of my Garden Quilt:



Cathy left me a message saying that she felt that the blue flower appliqués were distracting. I went and looked at the block and Cathy was right. The blue flowers were overpowering the roses on the hankie. So off they came! I pulled out another little appliqué that I had already painted and now I feel that the block looks more balanced. I have that appliqué beaded now and will move on to another seam.

Well, I've moaned about the weather, shared my gifts and posted an update on Block #4. I could moan about the weather some more but I will spare you! Yes, my Seasonal Affective Disorder Syndrome is rather extreme. The lack of daylight is bad enough (can't remember the last time we had some sun) but trying to make plans around the weather makes me insane.

Is it Spring yet? I'll go stitch on my Garden quilt and think about shamrocks & bunnies.

A quick note to Ann F., I've tried to email you but they keep coming back to me. Just wanted to say thank you for the lovely comments you leave for me.

And a note to Pam, if you would like to drop me an email so that I can reply to you, that would be great! I so much appreciate the comments that you've left for me.

Ok everyone, I'm off to stitch. Have a nice evening!

It's Snowing Here....

so I didn't try to go out today. I was going to run up to WalMart and then over to Mom's for awhile but decided it might be best to hang out at home. Scott called me a little while ago and said he would take me to WalMart in the truck when he gets home. What a great guy!

I put my cookie tray together to take over to Mom's for Christmas Eve, did a bit of cleaning (still have more to do) and then I stitched. I figured now is a good time to scan Block #4 so you can see it before I start adding the sparkle:



As you can see, this block has quite the combination of seam treatments on it. I was looking through my Judith Montano books the other day and decided to try a few of her techniques. The tufted flowers are from one of her books. They're not quite as fuzzy as I wanted them to be. I took a small nail brush and "scrubbed" them at bit. That seemed to fluff them up. It'll be fun to try these little flowers with different threads. Rayon threads might give me some nice results.

The Cretan stitch is one that has always eluded me. I've done it several times but until I started using waste canvas, I was never happy with how it came out. It was like my crazy mind just couldn't figure out how to do it. Well, once I started using waste canvas to do the Cretan stitch, I haven't had any more trouble with it. To learn more about my waste canvas technique, click here.

The blue SRE flower vine at the top was done with Carol Samples "Dream A Seam" templates. I think Carolyn at Evening Star Designs carries them. You might have to email her and ask. I bought my set from Carolyn a few years ago.

Well, that's where I'm at. Christmas Eve is two days away. I'm really looking forward to "junking" with my husband. Scott is going to take me to IHOP for Gingerbread pancakes (I have a slight weakness for Gingerbread) and then he's going to take me to the antique mall. Oh how I love my old junk!

I was thinking about a cross stitch design series for 2010. It occurred to me that a Biscornu Of The Month series might be fun. I may tinker around with that idea a little bit this afternoon. My Kitchenaid is screaming at me but I keep telling it that we're taking a little break at least until the weekend. Ha, ha, ha! Have a good afternoon & evening everyone! I'd better go clean something!