CRAFTY DIANE

BIRTHDAY & BRACELET

2012-01-30T11:47:00.001-06:00

My birthday was this past Friday. It is hard for me to believe I am now 52 years old! Time sure has flown! It seems like I should still be in my 20's. hahaha I can wish, can't I?!
My husband bought me a beautiful cake and he and two of my children sang Happy Birthday to me. My daughter, Tara, had not gotten off work and we had to go ahead and have cake as my husband had to go to work. After the kids are grown it just seems to never work out to get everyone together at a certain time.
Here is a picture of the cake and then one of me blowing out the candles.

Here is a picture of my husband and me:

Here is a picture of me and two of my kids. Left to right is Keith, Me, and Amber.

My son, and his two friends sang Happy Birthday to me later that night. Of course, Keith is on the left, his friend, Daniel, is on the right and his friend, Phillip, is the one playing the guitar. I walked into the house from putting clothes into the washer and they were waiting there and started singing. I was so surprised! It was so sweet!

Here is a Romanian Lace Bracelet I made. I think it turned out pretty good. I love the thread I used. It is called Autumn Apple Pie.

Butterfly & Purse

2012-01-25T10:20:00.001-06:00

I finally finished my Romanian Lace Butterfly. I think it turned out pretty good for only my second piece of Romanian Lace.

Here is a little coin purse I crocheted and a small Romanian lace flower I made and put on it.

Close-up of the flower.

CHRISTMAS & NEW NEEDLEWORK

2012-01-18T14:19:00.000-06:00

I just realized that I have not put any Christmas pictures on here. Of course we did not take many pictures at all this year. Just a few at the nursing home when we went to visit my Daddy.

Here is a picture of me and my kids. I was trying to get my son, Keith to smile and so we all look silly.

Starting on the left is my daughter Amber, my daughter Tara is in front of her, me and then my son Keith.

Keith had decided that he wanted to shave all his hair off. Here it has grown back just a very little! That boy!

Here is a picture of the kids with my Daddy.

I am sure you see the whiskers on Amber's face. I am not going to comment on that at the moment.

Here is a picture of my Daddy & me.

Here is a picture of my husband Clark and our daughter Tara.

Christmas night I decided to read my book before going to sleep. Tara's cat, Lily, decided she wanted to sleep on top of me. She is the funniest cat! So here she is sleeping on me and me trying to read!

My Daddy is such a hoot! Bless him. As I have mentioned before he is very OCD. He has to have everything just so so and in it's proper place. He has these napkins that he keeps on his table that goes over his bed. People are always bumping into them and knocking them crocked or sometimes off the table and this drives him insane. I don't blame him, it would make me crazy too. So he decided that I needed to make him a box to put them in and put something on the bottom so it will not slide. I finally got the box made yesterday. I just used some cardboard. My son told me I should put a picture on the top of it. I found a copy of my wedding photo of me and my Daddy and put that on top. My Daddy loved it! He was so excited to have that box. He put his napkins in it right away. And he loved the picture on top.
Here is a couple pictures of his box.

I have been working on some Romanian Lace. I have seen lots of this lace on Sunshine's Creations blog and on flickr. I learned how to do the cording for the Romanian Lace from Sunshine. I have done lots of searches on the web for Romanian Lace and looked at how lots of people do it. I think I finally have it. I bought an old issue of Piecework Magazine with a Romanian Lace Butterfly in it and am presently working on that. I just love it! The butterfly was done in size 20 thread and in ecru color. I am doing it in size 10 thread and in a variegated pink, yellow, blue, and turquoise color thread.
here are a couple of pictures of it. I still have a lot of work to do on it.

Before I started the butterfly I did this little ornament to get some practice on Romanian Lace.

It is lots of fun doing Romanian Lace. I have also been looking at other kinds of lace out there to make. I would like to try other kinds of needle lace. I don't think I will ever want to do bobbin lace. It is so beautiful, but all those bobbins scare me. I don't think I would be able to keep them all straight!

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Years Holiday. My favorite part was being off for a couple extra days from work.

Felt, Sequins, Beads and Louisiana

2011-12-20T09:51:00.001-06:00

Long time no see! It has been awhile since I have been on here. I tell myself that I am going to post more often but then time just seems to fly by in between my post. I have been keeping busy.

First I want to show you a picture of my cactus. I keep calling it a Christmas Cactus but really it must be a Thanksgiving Cactus as it blooms right around Thanksgiving.

I have been busy working with felt and sequins lately. The man who owns the building that the store is in where I work and he also has a business next door came over one day with a felt Santa that he was trying to sew sequins and beads on for a stocking he was making for his new grandson. He had made a mess of the thread! He said that he has made these stockings in the past but that was 19 years ago when he was 50. So he asked me if I would make the stocking for him. I told him sure thing. Here are some pictures of the stocking and closeups of the objects on it.

He and his wife were very happy with how it turned out. Working on this socking got me in the mood to work with felt, sequins, and beads. It has been years since I had done anything out of these supplies.

First thing I made was this beautiful redbird pin. The picture does not do it justice. Sequins just don't photograph well. At least not for me. It really looks a lot darker and sparkly then this photo shows.

I also made these gingerbread people ornaments for my best friend in Minnesota. She lost all her Christmas ornaments and decorations. This was a great loss for her. I put the word out to all her friends so they would send her a special ornament to rebuild her collection. These are the ones I sent to her.

I also made several of these little Kokeshia dolls that are lanyards. Below are two of them. I forgot to take pictures of the other two I made before I sold them.

Below is the Nativity scene I have at work. It is clear acrylic and I love it!

We made a trip to Lafayette, Louisiana this past weekend. We went to celebrate the graduation of my nephew, Ross, from college. My husband's twin came down from Michigan. My husband had not seen him in almost 3 years and their sister and her husband came from Arizona. They had not seen her in quiet a number of years. It was a nice little family reunion.

My husbands twin Mark and my husband Clark. Do you think they look alike? Everyone says Mark looks older then Clark. That is because he lives in Michigan with all that dry air. I told him he needed to move back to the humid South! He said he looks older cause he is older as he was born first. hahaha

My husband with my niece's rat on his shoulder. My nephew put that rat on my shoulder and it climbed into my hair! I was screaming at him to get it off! I hate rats! I told him not to put it on me in the first place.

Mark & Clark with their sister Jackie. My husband is on the right. All three of them kept taking off their glasses for the pictures so I told them to leave them on for one!

My nephew Ross and me.

Me, my son Keith, my husband Clark, my daughter Amber, and my daughter Tara. My husband was loving that yacht in the background. We had the party at a small yacht club that my nephew is a member of.

Here is the whole clan. My nephew Ross, my brother-in-law Claud, my sister-in-law Jackie, my brother-in-law Mark, Clark, Keith, Tara, me, Amber.
My camera does not take very good pictures at a distance. My nephew's friend took some really good ones with her camera and is going to email them to me.

My husband's sister Jackie and her husband Claud. This was at breakfast the next morning.

The sunset on the water at the yacht club we were at. It was beautiful!

We had a great weekend. It was a long drive and I tell you having three grown kids in the back seat is worse then having three little kids back there, I think!!! They were always fussing about something. Mostly about how croweded it was! Poor Tara is the smallest and she had to sit in the middle. She said she felt like a sardine crammed in between her brother and sister! hahaha I was so glad to get home and get out of that car!

Hopefully I will post again before too much time has passed again!

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!

Magnolias & Earrings

2011-09-13T09:35:00.000-05:00

Have you ever noticed the seed pod on a Magnolia Tree after the blooms all fall off? I hadn't until recently. There are a couple of Magnolia Trees at the nursing home where my Daddy is. The past few days I have noticed the pods with red berries on them. I figured it must be seeds and not berries. Today I pick one off the tree. Following are some pictures I took of it. The red color is beautiful! I think I am gonna try to plant some of the seeds. I looked it up on line how to plant them. My cousin, Minnie Mae, has a huge Magnolia Tree at her house. When it blooms it is so beautiful and smells wonderful! I have always loved Magnolia Trees.

I have tatted a few more pairs of earrings. I hope you like them. I am having the most fun picking out thread and beads to make my earrings. Although it seems to take me forever to decide which thread and beads to use! hahaha The pattern for the first two pairs of earrings is by Jane Eborall. Here is the link to the pattern if you would like it : http://www.janeeborall.freeservers.com/Palmetto3DEarwigs.pdf Jane does beautiful work and has some great patterns!

CHRISTMAS RED DROP BLOSSOMS - $20

JUICY WATERMELON DROP BLOSSOMS - $20

MOCHA BROWN DARK - $15

MOCHA SWIRL CHANDELIER - $12

The next pair of earrings is my first attempt at macrame' earrings. It has been a lot of years since I did any macrame' at all and I never did do very much of it. But when I saw Donna Littlewood's, of KnotGypsy Designs, beautiful creations I had to give these earrings a try. I bought the pattern from her and got right on them. I am afraid my knots are not very good. I had the hardest time with the Double Half-Hitch Knot. I still can't seem to do it very well. I sat and worked on another pair of earrings last night and just finally gave up on the knot. Maybe it was because it was late and I was tired. I'm gonna give it another try today.

These are called Fan Earrings. They are not for sell as they are my first macrame' earrings and like I said before the knots are not too good. Be sure and check out Donna's website and see all her beautiful creations!

First Day of School & Tatted Earrings

2011-08-15T09:14:00.000-05:00

My baby boy is now a Senior! Today is his first day back to school this year. I can hardly believe this is his last year of high school. Seems like just yesterday I was taking him to kindergarten. Now he is all grown up. He has turned in to a good Christian young man and I am very proud of him.

I have still been tatting earrings. I love making these with the large beads in the center! I have been digging through my boxes of beads looking for large beads. It is so funny how when I am tatting earrings with small beads then I am digging out all of the small ones. Then I change to large beads and have to go digging through for large beads! It's an ever changing process with me!

Pink Earrings - $20

Zebra - $20

I have my poor car in the shop for repairs this morning. Nothing too bad. Just needed new brake shoes. Friday as I was driving home the brakes were locking up on me. The man told me this morning that probably the pads were slipping causing the brake to catch. It was fine when I drove it to work this morning. It is so nice that the man who works on my car is right next door to where I work.

My Daddy is doing good. For those who have been keeping up with the saga of my Daddy being in the nursing home. His mind is so much better since I had the doctor take him off that medicine called Seroquel. My cousin saved his life by telling me he should not be on that! He was so confused and agitated when he was on it and now that he is off it his mind is so clear! It is unreal! I love to visit with him and sit and talk to him. I ask him a lot about when he was young and he remembers it all. Yesterday when I was visiting with him his cousin, Earline, came by to see him. That really made him happy. He does not get many visitors and it is nice when he does.

New Tatted Earrings

2011-08-10T13:59:00.000-05:00

These are some new earrings that I have tatted to sell.

This pair sells for $20

This pair sells for $15

This pair sells for $12

Victorian purse

2011-07-19T09:53:00.000-05:00

I found this old Victorian purse pattern and just had to crochet it. It is crocheted out of size 10 cotton thread in single crochets. Took a while to get it finished. Here are some pictures of it during the process. I just love it! I don't know when I will ever use it. I just love purses and bags, though.

It looked really neat turned upside down like this when I was working on it. It would have made a pretty decoration just like this! hahaha

Then I flipped it over the other way. Look how it just stands up by itself!

Here I added the rings to it. I wound up crocheting over plastic rings twice as they were too large to begin with and I had to go buy some smaller ones.

I think this is pretty just like this!

Here it is all finished. I had a hard time getting a good picture of it. I hung it in front of some scrub pants where I work. Hahaha

I then laid it on the counter on a piece of white paper so you can see what the straps look like too! Hope you like my little purse! It's definitely not big enough to hold everything I carry in my purse, but I can use it when I just run up to the store for a minute.

Daddy's brothers

2011-07-05T10:23:00.000-05:00

I could just kick myself! My Daddy's brother's came to see him on Sunday and I totally forgot to take any pictures of them with him! How insane is that! He did recognize them, though, and that was so great! He also recognized my cousins, Sandra & Janet. He had not recognized them on their past two visits. Since we got him off this certain drug he is much more alert and clear headed! He is still somewhat confused about things and will say off the wall stuff, but that is not hard to deal with now. This morning he did not say anything that was off the wall. He was totally clear headed talking to me. We were even discussing the fact that my daughter, Tara, is a carhop at the Sonic here and my Mama was a carhop at Shaw's Drive-In in Gulfport, Missisisspi when she and my Daddy met back in 1950! It's hard to believe that has been 61 years ago! He was telling me once again how she would tell him he owed half a dollar and so he would take a dollar out and tear it in half and give her half! He was always doing this and Mama had told me her boss bought a roll of tape for her to tape the bills back together! I have always loved this story! My Mama had a half of a dollar bill in her jewelry box when she died. I have it now in an album I made of my life. Daddy used to have a half of a dollar bill in his wallet, but when he was robbed once and his wallet stolen then it was gone. That is sad.

Here is a picture of Daddy & Mama on their wedding day - 1951!

Since I did not get a picture of Daddy and his two brothers on Sunday here is an old picture of them! Actually this is Daddy and 4 of his brothers. Two of them are dead now.
Left to right: Daddy, Uncle Tom (dead), Uncle Bill (dead), Uncle Goat, and Uncle Junior. Uncle Goat and Uncle Junior are the ones who came to visit Daddy. Uncle Goat lives in Miami, Florida now and Uncle Junior lives in Orange Beach, Alabama now.

This was when they were first starting their furniture making business called Dumas Brothers. Next time they come visit Daddy I am gonna get lots of pictures!

Doll, Reunion, & Brother's visit

2011-07-01T09:15:00.000-05:00

I have a doll that I have had since I was 7 years old. I can still remember when I got her. My brother, Freddy, and me were going to spend a week with our grandparents in Gulfport, Mississippi. Our Mama gave us each $5.00 to buy something for ourselves. I bought this baby doll. Freddy bought a little radio. My doll must have been under $5.00 cause I remember Grandma making me give Freddy some of my money to finish paying for his radio. My doll had light auburn hair, blue eyes, a cloth body with plastic legs and arms. Sometime during my young age I cut her hair. She lost eyelashes through the years and her clothes. Her cloth body was really stained and wearing out. I made her a new cloth body and glued on some new eyelashes. I crocheted her some new clothes. I cut out all her hair and ordered her a wig. In the photo below I crocheted her a hat to wear while she was waiting for her wig to arrive.

Here she is with her new wig!

Now that I have made these clothes for her I am not really liking them. I think I want to make her something more pastel looking. These just don't seem right on her.

Our local high school here had a reunion spanning 10 years (1970-1979). I had several cousins to graduate during this time span and my brother and I both graduated during it. My brother did not get to come to the reunion and quiet a few of my cousins did not get to come. Below is a picture of the ones who did come including me!

Left to right are:

Me, Mike, Janet, Sandra, Anita, Donnie, Jeff.

It was like having a small family reunion along with a class reunion! It was great! Some of us got together for lunch earlier that day. I just love having my cousins around. We all grew up more like brothers and sisters then cousins.

This is a picture of my cousin, Anita, and me. We are the same age and were always playing together growing up.

This is a picture of Janet, Me, and Sandra. They are sisters. I think I was over at their house more then anyone elses. They only live a couple hours away and I have been so blessed to see them more in the past few months then in several years.

This is a classmate of mine. I had not seen her since we were in grade school. I did not even recognize her!

This is lunch with my cousins!

Janet & Jeff

Shelia & Me (Shelia is Jeff's wife)

Sandra & Janet

We really need to have another family reunion soon! I just love all my cousins, Aunts and Uncles and miss seeing them!

My brother, Freddy, came to visit this past weekend. He got here late Saturday evening after a very long drive up from Florida. He spent all day Sunday and Monday with our Daddy in the nursing home. I made his favorite cake for him. In fact I wound up making two! My son, Keith, helped me make the first one on Saturday. It was gone by Sunday night. So Monday we made another one! It was nearly gone by Tuesday morning! They love that cake! It is a Coca-Cola cake. My brother had to leave Tuesday morning and go back to Florida and work. I sure miss him! We had a great visit and Daddy really loved having him with him.

Here is a picture of Freddy & Daddy.

I had carpal tunnel surgery on my left wrist two weeks ago. It is still sore and there is still some numbness in the end of a couple of my fingers, but it is getting better every day.

Surgery and Vacation

2011-04-29T11:13:00.001-05:00

I had Carpal Tunnel Surgery a month ago on my right hand.
here is a picture of my hand before the surgery.

Here is a picture right after I got the brace off it. They took off the big brace that they put on right after surgery and gave me a smaller brace to wear for 3 weeks.

Here is my hand right after I got the stitches out. I was so glad to get them out!

The surgery went fine. My hand is doing much better now. It's still somewhat sore and I have to be careful not to hit it. Last night I bumped it on the door knob opening the closet door and it really hurt bad.

At least I am able to Tat and Crochet again!

I also went on vacation! I left on Sunday, April 17th and came back on Friday, April 22nd. I flew down to Tampa, Florida to visit my brother for the week. It was the first vacation I have had in years! I really needed the time away and really enjoyed it!

This is a picture of myself and my brother, Freddy, at his restaurant, Beef 'O Brady's! I miss him already!

This is my niece, Lacey. We were at her basketball game. She is so good in sports!

This is Spike. He is my brother's bearded dragon!

One of the highlights of my trip was getting to go to this fantastic bead store! I live in a small town and there are not any bead stores close by. The name of this store is Breezy's Beads. It is actually in Brandon, Florida which is 12 miles from my brother's house. He had to go over to Brandon for an appointment and as luck would have it the bead store was only a few blocks from where his appointment was! So I went to the bead store while he was at his appointment! It was a great trip and I hope I can go again sometime!

This is a bracelet I have tatted. I have to put the clasp on it yet.

This is a bookmark I have tatted. I have also been working on some earrings. I just love tatting!

I am hoping I can get enough things tatted to be in the arts & crafts show the first weekend in November.

A little Tatting

2011-03-17T13:26:00.001-06:00

This is a small cardinal I tatted from Miranda's free pattern over at Tatting Fool's blog. I just love how he turned out! I just gave him away to a dear friend of mine who collects cardinals so I will have to tat myself another one!

Below are two bookmarks that I have tatted. I did them in purple and gold which are the school colors here in town.

Below is a little picture that my friend has. The table and vase look like watercolor and the flowers are tatted. I would love to make something like this. I will have to brush up on my watercolor skills. I never was very good at painting! I am afraid the pictures are not really clear. It is hard to get a good picture of something in a glass frame.

My "baby boy", Keith, decided to sit in my lap! What a big baby! hahaha I should be the one sitting in his lap!

This is my daughter, Tara, and her friend, Tiffanie. Tara is the one with dark brown hair.

This is my daughter, Amber. Tara's cat, Lily, is laying on her leg. That cat loves to be in that chair or laying on anyone who is sitting in that chair!

What a WIN!!!

2011-03-01T09:53:00.002-06:00

Gina over at Threads of a Tatting Goddess had a give away and I was one of the lucky winners. I was expecting just a little bag with a few tatting related items in it. Imagine my surprise when this big box full of goodies arrived! I was blown away!

She sent me all the items below! A shopping list tablet with butterflies on it! I love butterflies! Two hair clips, two things of thread, beads, a blinged out tatting shuttle, gold ring, paper weight, little fabric bag, candy, and two tatted butterfly! And that is not all!

She also sent me all these lovely vintage crochet books! I love these books!

And this very nice Needlecraft Treasury book filled with crochet!

And a pattern to make a pin cushion trimmed in tatting!

Thank you so much, Gina, for all the fantastic things you sent me! I am truly blessed to have won this give away!

Be sure and check out Gina's blog! She is fantastic at tatting!

Birthday and Cat who rules the recliner!

2011-02-28T12:42:00.000-06:00

My baby boy has turned 17! It is so hard to believe that my baby is nearly grown up! He definitely looks older then 17 at 6"2 and with a beard. It's weird how it grows from ear to ear and under his chin, but not on his chin. He shaves it every so often. I am so proud of him. He is a sweet, kind, Christian young man.

Here is his cake. He loves Fun Fetti cake and wanted me to get 4 boxes of it and bake them and stack them on top of each other and ice them. I told him that was way too many. So we settled for two boxes of cake mix!

He got a nice bow for his birthday. He is really into archery and very good at it!

This past Saturday night I was sitting in the recliner doing some handwork. My daughter's car, Lily, decided that she wanted to lay on the footrest. So she jumped up on it and pushed my legs out of the way!

My daughter thought it was so cute and she took Lily's picture.

Lily can be very territorial! Every time I tried to put my foot back on the footrest she would bite me! Here is a picture of her biting me! Let me tell you, that cat bites hard! You can't play with her too much cause she will bite you and sink her claws into you! Our other two cats you can play with and they will just barely put their teeth on you and not claw you hardly ever. But not Lily! So I just decided to leave my feet off the footrest!

Then my son came along and picked her up and carried her off. Notice how she is over his shoulder. She loves to be held this way. My daughter has held her just like she was a baby since she was a kitten and Lily does not mind it at all! She really is a sweet cat. Just got to watch out for those teeth and claws!

This is what I was working on while sitting in the recliner. Kokeshi Key rings. Actually they have a hook inside of them and you pull your keys up into the doll and they are hidden. I had made myself one a year or so ago and a lady saw it and wants one. So I decided I would make several and maybe I can sell them.

Here are my Kokeshi dolls before I put their hair on. The one on the bottom left is the one I had made myself a year or so ago.

Here is a little tatted bookmark I made. I love tatting! I am getting better every day with it!

I spent almost 3 hours on Saturday at the doctor's office. I have a sinus infection and ear infection. It has been going on for nearly a week now and I was treating myself with over the counter medicine, but that was not doing the trick. Finally went to the doctor and got a shot and some antibiotics. Sure hope this mess clears up soon!

Dolls

2011-02-24T13:20:00.000-06:00

I have always loved dolls! For as long as I can remember I have always had several dolls. Here is a picture of the corner of my bedroom where I have some of my childhood dolls displayed.

The little Chinese Doll is one that my brother gave me when I was young. She is so cute! She is holding a crocheted bird I made.

Here you can see my Marie & Donny Osmond Dolls! I was a very big fan of Donny Osmond as a teenager. Oops! I am showing my age!

Below is my Cricket Doll. She was the very last doll I got as a child. I was 11 years old at the time. Some people think she is Chrissy as there was a Chrissy doll with red hair and she looked similar to Cricket.

These are two very old dolls. I have posted about them on here before. I crocheted their outfits and just love how they turned out!

This final doll is my Tippie Toes Doll. She is not the actual doll that I had growing up. I loved my Tippie Toes doll so much that her head popped off! Back then they did not have super glue and so I was unable to glue it back on. I found this Tippie Toes on Ebay and just had to have her! She just brought back so many nice memories!

As you can see I have had a long love of dolls! I still have a few more from childhood that I need to take pictures of and post. One of them is a baby doll that I got at about the age of 7. I want to get her some more clothes made and then I will take pictures of her and post them.

I hope there are lots of women out there who have a love of dolls like I do! I think it is great!

Too long gone!

2011-02-22T13:03:00.003-06:00

I feel like it has been forever since I have posted on my blog. It has been quiet awhile. I have had a lot going on at home and have just kinda been out of the loop. I had to make the decision to put my Daddy into a nursing home and that was very hard. I kept him at home as long as possible, but when he got where he could not walk at all I just could not manage. We have a good nursing home here. It is only a little over a mile from where I work and from where I live. I know a lot of the ladies who work there as they come to where I work to buy uniforms. I go up and visit with Daddy every morning before I go to work and then I go and sit with him for few hours on the weekends. He is happy there and is well looked after. But it was still a very hard decision to make to put him there.

Below is an art project Daddy made at the nursing home. He gave it to me for my birthday and Valentines since my birthday is close to the end of January. I love it!

I have been doing some tatting and crocheting lately. Below is a pair of earrings I tatted for my daughter, Tara. I had trouble getting a good picture of them. I hope you can tell what they look like!

This is another pair of earrings I tatted. I hope to tat lots more earrings and sell them.

I have crocheted lots of rings. My daughter, Tara, loves them all! She picked out lots of them that she wanted. So here she is modeling the ones she choose and I gave to her.

I also had a lady want me to crochet her a band for her watch and attach crocheted flowers to it. The result is below.

Here is a close up of one side of the band.

And here is the other side. If you look closely at the flower on the far left you will see that it is a tatted flower.

I am going to try and post more often to my blog. I really love posting, but sometimes it just seems I don't have much to say.

Tatting!

2010-09-24T08:22:00.000-05:00

Some things I have tatted and are tatting!

Tatting & Crochet

2010-08-16T11:22:00.001-05:00

Now that my Great Aunt Doodle has taught me how to make Porcelain dolls she is teaching me to tat. I must say tatting is the hardest handwork I have ever learned! I sat there for nearly 3 hours watching her and doing exactly what she was doing and still I could not get my stitches to work right. If you know anything about tatting you will know that your stitches are suppose to be on the bobbin thread and not the ring thread. Of course mine were coming out on the ring thread and therefore I could not draw up the thread to close the circle. I finally got out my camera and recorded her doing it so when I got home I could put it on my computer and study it. After a zillion tries and lots of cutting thread and starting over I finally got it! At first I would get a stitch to land on the bobbin thread and did not know how I did it. And then couldn't get it to do it again for the next few tries. Finally after sitting there and watching this you-tube video over and over where this lady kept saying you had to pull the bobbin thread tight I figured it out! I was so excited! Now I get my stitches to land right every time. I am just having trouble getting my picots to come out uniform. But with practice I will get that right too!

Here is a picture of my tatting. It's not great, but it is getting there!

I have also been working on some more crocheted rings. I love crocheting these little roses out of size 20 thread and making them into rings to wear. I love wearing them and have been making some to sell too.

I don't know if any of you saw the watch band I crocheted for my watch several posts back or not. It was a beautiful band. The problem with having a crocheted watch band that you wear all the time is it gets extremely dirty after a time. So I cut that band off my watch and am now working on a new one. I am not finished with it by a long shot, but decided to post pictures of it in process.

I will be putting some crocheted flowers on it. I love crocheted flowers!

Porcelain Dolls & Family

2010-08-16T10:31:00.000-05:00

In an earlier post I talked about the porcelain dolls I was making at my Great Aunt Doodle's house. I finally finished all my dolls! I have five of them in all.

To the left is my doll Victoria Rose. She is the one with the beautiful brown ringlets. She is a sit down doll.

Leaning against Victoria Rose is Elsbeth.

This is the back of Victoria Roses' head. Isn't her hair beautiful? I just love it!

Here is close up of Victoria Rose's face.

Here is Elsbeth's close ups!

My Aunt let me copy patterns to make Elsbeth and Victoria Rose dresses. I am going to start on those soon!

These three are My Princess and My Little Princess'. Aren't the bodies weird on the little dolls? They seem too big to me, but they are the patterns my Aunt gave me. Once I get their gowns made and get them dressed they will look fine.

Close ups of My Little Princess'. I think I did better painting the sleeping eyes then the awake eyes! Please remember that this was my first time painting dolls! I don't usually paint anything! The enlargement of the picture makes them look worse then they really do. I love all my dolls! It was so much fun making them!

I crocheted an outfit for My Princess and here she is in it!

We have such a hard time getting together to take family pictures. We finally got a few made the other day, but without my oldest daughter as she was at work! Ugh! Maybe one day I will be able to get a picture of the five of us!
This is my husband, Clark, my daughter, Tara, and me:

This is my son, Keith, Tara, and me:

Here is Keith and Tara. I think this is such a sweet picture!

And here is a picture of my Daddy and me:

School has started here and here is a picture of Keith on his first day of 11th grade. It is so hard to believe that my baby is now a Junior in high school! He wasn't excited about having his picture taken, but I have taken pictures of my kids on the first day of school their whole lives. I told him he only has one more year and then there will be no more pictures on the first day of school. How sad :(

Little Baby Doll

2010-07-14T10:53:00.001-05:00

When I was a little girl my Daddy traveled a lot on business. He would always bring us kids back a surprise. One time he brought me this little doll. I was about 6 or 7 at the time. I don't know what happened to her original clothes. I saw on the back of her head it says 1963 so I guess she was manufactured that year. I just loved this doll. The poor thing has some hair missing and what hair she does have is very brittle and looks terrible. I imagine that is from when I used to play with her in the bathtub. Maybe one day I can get her some new hair. The blue outfit she has on in the first pictures is one I crocheted for her when I was in my teens. I used worsted weight yarn to make it. She did have booties on, but I seemed to have lost them. I came across her recently in a box in my closet. I decided it was time to make her a new outfit.

Here is the new clothes I just finished crocheting her! I crocheted them out of size 10 crochet thread. I think she looks so beautiful! I made her hat so that it would come down over all her hair and the holes where her hair is missing.

My daughter said you could really tell that my crocheting had improved over the years! The first outfit is done in all plain double crochets. Whereas the new outfit has more design to it and different stitches. I guess maybe she is right. It has been so much fun making this outfit for my baby doll!

Lace is on Etsy!

2010-07-01T12:27:00.000-05:00

I finally got my lace all listed in my Etsy store! Check it out to purchase any you would like to have!

Problems with ETSY!

2010-06-30T15:59:00.000-05:00

I have decided that I need to clean out some of my craft and sewing stuff. Today I took a lot of my lace and measured the different pieces and put labels on them as to the yardage, then took pictures so I could put them in my ETSY store. I always forget that the megapixels of pictures to put on etsy have to be lower as you can not put a big picture on there. So I took all these pictures then tried to upload them to etsy and they would not load! They were too big! Ugh! So I went to resize them on my camera and redownload them onto the computer, only to discover my batteries had gone dead in my camera! So now I have to wait till I get home to resize them. I decided I would just put them on here for now.

This package of lace has approximately 22 yards of lace and will sell for $7.00 plus shipping.

This package of lace has approximately 8 yards of lace and will sell for $5.00 plus shipping.

This package of lace has approximately 15 yards of lace and will sell for $5.00 plus shipping.

This package of lace has approximately 29 yards of lace and will sell for $8.00 plus shipping.

This package of lace has approximately 22 yards of lace and will sell for $7.00 plus shipping.

And lastly I have a package of eyelet with approximately 17 yards of eyelet that will sell for $5.00 plus shipping.

I hope to get these on my ETSY tonight or tomorrow. If anyone is interested in purchasing them just let me know.

Crocheted Coasters

2010-06-29T12:34:00.001-05:00

Is this not the cutest coaster?! I finished it last night. I found the coaster on Pink Rose Crochet's blog. She had not really given any directions for it so I had to just look at the picture to figure it out. Mine may not be exactly like hers. But that is good. I just made it to put on my dresser or something at home. I just love the colors in it. I used Lizbeth Cordonnet 100% Egyptian Cotton Thread to do the outside flowers in. The color is called Tropical Punch. I just love this thread. It is a little more expensive then some thread, but worth it. The thread I used is size 10. I have also gotten lots of this thread in size 20 and that is what I use to make the rings I have talked about in the previous post. There are so many beautiful colors of this thread that it is hard to chose which ones to buy! I hope to eventually own them all! Just have to get a few at a time!

What's been going on in my life!

2010-06-28T15:25:00.000-05:00

First of all my best friend came to visit all the way from Minnesota! It was the first time I had seen her in two years and boy, was I excited!!! We had a great time together! We went out and ate at our favorite restaurant the first night she was here. The next morning I dropped her off to visit with a friend of hers who is like a mother to her while I went and did my grocery shopping. Then that night we went to another friend's daughter's wedding. It sure was hot at that wedding! The reception tables were set up outside! We went out for a little while, but opted to stand up and eat inside in the air-conditioned building! Then the next day, which was Sunday, she went to her old church and then we met for lunch along with some of her other friends. Afterwards I hugged her goodbye and another friend, named Diane, took her to the airport to go back to Minnesota. It was such a great weekend but passed way too fast!

Hopefully I will get to fly up and visit her before too long!

This is a really neat little piece! It is only about 2 inches tall. It was carved by my great-great grandfather! It is a little ball inside a little cage. My Great-Aunt Doodle had it in her wot-not cabinet and took it out so I could take a picture of it! I just love it!

As I have mentioned before, My Great Aunt Doodle makes porcelain dolls. Above are some dolls that others made and she made the dresses for. Aren't they gorgeous?! She does such excellent work!

The dolls above are wrapped in tissue paper and sit atop the cabinets in Aunt Doodle's sewing room. She calls them her mummy dolls! They are dolls that she has yet to make outfits for. She has so many dolls in her house. She has two beautiful, huge glass cabinets in her living room full of dolls she has made. They are beautiful and I love looking at them! It's like being a little girl again and dreaming of dolls!
I have always wanted to make a porcelain doll, but Aunt Doodle's doll classes were always during the week days when I had to work. Several weeks ago she asked me if I would like to make a doll! I was so excited and immediately told her yes. So she told me to come pick one out. She is nearing 80 and no longer teaches class during the week and so has quiet a number of dolls that have been poured into molds and soft fired, but not cleaned up and painted and completed. I went over the following Saturday thinking I was just gonna do 1 doll. I wound up with 5 dolls I am working on! She is so sweet to let me do 5. I have been going over there every Saturday and working on them. She is teaching me so much and it is so wonderful to have this one on one time with her. I seem to learn a little more about my family history each time I go.

This is the first baby head I worked on. This picture shows it before I started to clean it. Her name is My Princess and she is sleeping. She has a porcelain head and hands and will have a cloth body. I have already gotten her body sewn and waiting for when I finish her.

Here I am cleaning My Princess' head.

Here is My Princess after I cleaned her and she has been fired a second time.

And here is My Princess after I have painted her and she has been fired a third time! I still have to put a little more blush on her cheeks and glue on some eyelashes. Then I will have to put a wig on her and I think she will be ready for her body. But I am not sure. I have to see what else Aunt Doodle tells me to do to her!

This leg and arm are soaking in water getting ready for me to clean them up. They go to a doll named Victoria Rose. Isn't that a pretty name?

Here are some of my doll parts before they have been cleaned. Looks odd doesn't it?

These are doll parts after they have been cleaned and had their second firing.

This is Aunt Doodle's kiln that she fires the dolls in!

This is Victoria Rose's head. She looks a little spooky right now, but she will look beautiful when I finish her. I have not painted her yet and she will have glass eyes! How exciting!

This is Elsbeth. She is all porcelain. There are a lot of steps in making her. After she was cleaned and fired, I had to put this wash all over her and then she had to be fired again!

Here is Elsbeth and all her body parts with the wash on them. I also am making two little tiny dolls with porcelain heads and hands. They are here also with the wash on them. They will have cloth bodies, also. In the upper left corner of the photo you can see part of My Princess head and her hands.

This is part of Elsbeth and the heads of the tiny babies after they have been fired again and I have painted on their hair and Elesbeth's face. Now they will be fired again!

These two dolls are my Aunt Doodle's Elsbeth's. I just love them! I especially like the one on the right. Her dress is so beautiful. I might crochet a dress for mine, though, as I have patterns for some that Aunt Doodle let me borrow and copy. My Elsbeth's coloring is more like the one on the left.

This doll is My Princess that my Aunt Doodle made. She is so pretty. I can hardly wait to get mine finished!

The two babies with the real hair are like the tiny ones I am making. Mine will have painted hair, though. I took several pictures of these but could not seem to get a really clear picture of them. This one was the best. Once again notice the beautiful gowns they are in that my Aunt made!

This is another one of my Aunts dolls that she made. I think she is so beautiful! My Aunt dresses her dolls in clothes of different periods right down to their under clothes! It is amazing! I have put other post on here about my Aunt and her dolls. Check the side bar to click on them.

Besides working on my porcelain dolls on Satrudays I have been crocheting. I made this purse for my friend's 88th birthday. She just loved it!

I also made this thread holder to carry my crochet thread in when I go somewhere. I made it a little larger then the last one I made and I made it purple and gold which is my son's school colors since I often take my crochet to his football games!

I have also been making rings with crocheted roses on top. I have sold a few of them and am working on lots more!

Here are some more of my rings. Such beautiful colors of thread!

I am still crocheting baby items. Above and to the left are a hat and booties set. I just love the pink and white together!

I also crocheted this lovely little baby Saque'.

We have had other stuff going on also this past week. My daughter's cat, Apollo, had his eye taken out last Tuesday. He had gotten hurt in that eye 6 years ago and had been blind ever since. But the eyeball got infected and swelled up and had to be removed. It looks pretty awful now because of the way the vet sewed it shut. When he gets his stitches out on Wednesday of this week it will look much better. We love this cat and are so happy that the surgery went well and he is doing so good!

Easter 2010

2010-04-05T07:31:00.000-05:00

My son, Keith, was Jesus in the Easter Cantata Drama at our church yesterday. I was so proud of him. He had volunteered to play the part. Here he is after he got dressed and right before the cantata began.

Here he is bringing the little girl back to life. I love the way her hair is going straight up after he threw her up in the air!

Here he is healing the blind man.

The choir director was directing the choir right in front of us so that is her that you see in the right of the pictures.
Here he is talking to the people.

Here he is getting his feet washed.

The women discover he has risen from the dead!

Talking to everyone after he has risen.

I took this one after the program. I think he is quiet handsome and he did a very good job playing Jesus!

This is our choir!

It was a wonderful service!

Flowers on Etsy!

2010-03-29T06:05:00.000-06:00

I have added some crocheted roses to my etsy store! Please hop over and check them out! I will be adding more as the days go by. I also crochet all kinds of other flowers. Will be adding different kinds soon too.

Missing my Mama day

2010-03-12T19:12:00.000-06:00

I am having a missing my Mama evening. Actually I was doing OK all day at work and then it just hit me. This is a picture of the front of the store where I work. They are getting ready to repaint the building so have been scrapping off the peeling paint. Underneath the paint I discovered these green signs painted on the front of the building. One says "WASH 25 cents" and the other one says "DRY 10 cents. You see the building that my store is located in was at one time a laundry mat. I can remember going there with my Mama when I was a very little girl. That has been about 45 years ago! I have always known this building was the old laundry mat, but seeing these two signs just brought back the memories of going to the mat with my Mama and started me missing her.

When I got home from work it was so hot in my house. I put on some laundry to wash and went outside for awhile. As most people know I live in the house that was my Mama's. She left it to me. So walking out into the yard there were all kinds of things that reminded me of my Mama even more.
Here is the glider on the porch where she used to love to sit and read a book. She loved sitting out on the front porch.

Here is her flower stand. It is so old and needs to be sand blasted and repainted. When I was in my late teens I saved up all my change and took it to T.G.&Y. and bought it for her. I still put my plants on it.

And of course here is another blossom from her Tulip Tree!

She loved that tree! She loved all flowers and really had a green thumb. I am afraid I have a brown thumb and have trouble keeping flowers alive.

While I was outside I took a few more pictures of things around my yard. I found this daffodil! It is the only one in the whole yard! I think it somehow got brought over by animals from the neighbors yard and sprouted up in the front yard! It sure is beautiful!

Then I found these old tree remains in the back. I think they must be trees that got hit by the Hurricane back in 2005. They looked neat, though.

I also found a lot of little wild flowers blooming in the yard. The picture does not do them justice.

As I was wondering around outside all three cats were wondering around with me!

Here is Lilie!

Here is Molly!

And here is Apollo!

They make good companions when you are feeling down. So now I am back inside as it is dark outside. I have to get up from here and go check on my laundry. I'm trying to get most of it done tonight so I won't have so much to do tomorrow.

Beauty in my front yard

2010-03-12T07:08:00.000-06:00

My Mama's beautiful tulip tree is in full bloom! I just love it! Spring is finally here!

My Etsy Store!

2010-03-10T07:17:00.000-06:00

I am trying to get some of my crocheted flowers put in my etsy store. I discovered that my pictures on my computer were too large to upload to etsy. Took me a little while to figure out what to do. I am working on getting some more flowers made so I can take some group pictures of like ones. So bare with me! I will have some in there soon!

Crocheted Purse & Misc.

2010-03-07T17:17:00.001-06:00

I finally got my purse crocheted! I had been planning it forever! The only thing is I don't use is everyday as I don't want to mess it up. I usually use it on Sundays or special occasions. Now I need to make one that is maybe darker in color that I can use every day.

I've also been crocheting on a few other things.

Here is a butterfly I have crocheted

Here is a little pot of flowers I have made:

I have also made a little cupcake:

My daughter, Amber, wanted me to crochet around a paper mache' egg for her so here it is!

These are a couple pot holders I made:

I also made a new bag to hold my crochet thread:

I am still working on making more crocheted baby booties.

When I got home the other day I looked in the yard and saw that my Mama's Tulip tree was in bloom! It is so beautiful!

Snow! Watch and Necklace

2010-02-18T07:00:00.007-06:00

Can you believe we had snow way down here in Southern Alabama! It was so exciting and beautiful! I went to work and after being there for about 45 minutes my boss brought me my paycheck and told me I could leave in two hours. I just sat there by myself watching the snow fall. I did not have any customers come into my store. I know for you people who live up North the amount of snowfall we got was nothing. But here, where we have snow every 10 to 12 years, it was a big event! Business' were closed all over town and the kids were out of school.

Here I am out in the snow. My sister-in-law asked me if I was wearing just socks! It does kinda look that way, but I do have on my shoes that I wear to work, too!

Would you look at these two! Keith was looking blah and I said I was gonna post this picture and tell people he was sad cause there was no school! hahaha Amber decided to try and match his look. Actually they were both excited about the snow! Keith was just really tired after staying up really late.

This I took while looking outside the window where I work.

This is a band I made for an old watch of mine. I had gotten this watch years ago. It is a Pillsbury Doughboy watch. It had the cutest band with the Doughboy on it but it broke. I had the watch in a box for years. Then a few weeks ago I found it and decided to crochet a band for it. There is a button on it that you can push and the Doughboy will tell you the time and giggle. I just love it!

Here is an overall view of my watch!

This is the first crocheted necklace I have ever made! I made it to wear for Valentines Day. I think it turned out very well. The pictures are not that great as I took them with my computer.

It was a great Valentines Day. We went to church and just relaxed the rest of the day. My kind of day!

My 50th Birthday!

2010-01-27T20:43:00.000-06:00

This new way of uploading pictures threw me for a loop, but I really like it! It will just take getting used to.

It is hard for me to believe it is my 50th birthday today! I really don't feel that old!

Hubby baked me a birthday cake and iced it! Here is a picture of him icing it. This is the first time he has ever baked me a cake!

Here I am with the cake. Notice the 0 in the 50?! I always save all the number candles. For some reason we did not have an 0 so I used a round M&M candle I had. It worked and was cute!

Here is a picture of me and my daddy.

Here is a picture of Hubby and me.

Here I am in my Minnesota t-shirt. My very best friend in the whole world sent it to me. She moved to Minnesota a year and a half ago and I sure miss her! If she were here we would be going to eat at our favorite Mexican restaurant. Since she is not here she sent me the money so that hubby and I could go! Is that not sweet or what?!!!

We had pot luck supper at church tonight. Made for a fantastic birthday dinner! My dear friend, Debra, brought me a cake! And everyone sang Happy Birthday!

Before we left for church my brother called me and sang Happy Birthday to me!

It has truely been a fantastic birthday! Thank you to everyone for the birthday wishes!

I am still alive!

2010-01-19T13:25:00.002-06:00

I imagine everyone must think something has happened to me since it has been over 2 months since my last post! I don't really have any reason for not posting other then I have just been lazy. I seem to spend more time reading other's blogs then working on my own! I hope to rectify that starting now!

The past two months have gone OK, I guess. Thanksgiving was nice. My nephew and his friend came and my daughter invited a friend of hers. So we had more people at the house then we usually do. It was a very nice day with lots of good food, cooked by yours truly, of course! Christmas was another story all together. I just could not seem to get into the Christmas spirit at all. It was my mama's favorite holiday and I really miss her something horrible during this time of year. So needless to say I was very, very depressed for several weeks. It took everything in me to have a Christmas for my children. I was just glad when it was all over. I know the true meaning of Christmas is to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ and I kept reminding myself of that and praying. Maybe next year will be better.

In November our high school football team went to the State Playoffs in Tuscaloosa, Alabama at the University of Alabama. Although our team did not win it was a great honor and privilege for them to get that far. It was the first time in 30 years that our high school football team has made it to State! I think half our town went to Tuscaloosa to watch them play and root them on! Of course my husband and I went too as our son is on the team.

Here is a picture of my son, Keith, with the awards he got for going to State. They just had the awards ceremony last night. I am so proud of him! He also went to the alter at church this past Sunday to make a profession of faith and will be Baptized soon! How much prouder can a mom get?!

This is a picture of me and my husband, taken January 1st on our anniversary! Notice how much more gray hair I have than him! He only has a few on the sides and in his mustache! I am probably gonna wind up white headed like my dad's side of the family!
Although I have not made any blog posts I have still been crocheting. Below is a goldfish that I crocheted for my daughter, Amber. He is made out of orange nylon thread with gold in it. I love the way he turned out! This is the third goldfish I have made. The other two are in this post also. They are all three different sizes because of the different threads used.

This is a ring I crocheted. You might be wondering what I crocheted around. Well, it is a marble! I just love it! My kids think it is a hoot!

I have also been crocheting lots and lots of flowers and butterflies! I love them! I am working on a purse to sew them onto. I have also crocheted a watchband and sewn flowers on it. I keep forgetting to take pictures of it. I will get some taken and posted.
This is a cute little bag I made for a lady.

This is my large goldfish I crocheted. He is crocheted using Peaches and Cream thread.
This is another bag I made myself to carry my thread in. It looked like I was crocheting a doily as I was making it. I just love it!
This is a little Kokeshia doll key fob I made. I have not decided what keys to use it with yet. I just love to look at her!
This is a case I made for my camera. Notice the flowers and butterfly I have sewn onto it!
These next two pictures are backwards. This is the back side of my baby doll wearing the crocheted outfit I made her.
Here is the front side of my baby doll. I have had her for about 40 years. I think she looks so cute in her new outfit!
These are a couple snowflakes and a Santa that I crocheted.
Here are more of my flowers!
Here is my smallest goldfish! He is made using size 10 crochet thread! He was the first one I made.

This is a cute little birdy I crocheted. I found the pattern on Attic 24's blog and although she had used larger sized thread to crochet him, I used size 10 crochet cotton. He is so tiny and cute!
This is just a cute little Kokeshia doll I crocheted.
I have also still been crocheting baby booties and hats and bonnets and jackets to sell. Be sure and check out my etsy shop. Hopefully soon I will have more items in there.
I hope there is still some out there who will read my blog. I am going to try and do better this year and post more often.
Hope you all have a very Blessed afternoon!
Diane

Two Little Boys

2009-11-16T07:02:00.004-06:00

This is a short post this morning, but I just had to post this picture. I went over to my great Aunt Doodle's house Saturday and she let me borrow some old photos to make copies of. This was one of them. It was a very small photo. Probably less then 2" so I wasn't sure how it was going to copy. It copied fantastic!
The little boys in the picture are (left) my daddy, (right) his brother, Ivy (aka: Uncle Junior). This was in about 1936. Daddy said he was about 5 and Uncle Junior was 6.
Their dad had taken them to a carnival that was in town. Notice the kind of angry look on my dad's face. He said they made him take his gumball out of his mouth to have the picture taken and he didn't want to. He then said he wondered where the gumball was. I told him to look in his hand! I had wondered what he had in his hand when I first saw the picture! I just think this is the most adorable picture!

Fall Festival

2009-11-09T06:51:00.005-06:00

This past Saturday my town had it's annual Fall Festival. They have crafts, food, antique cars, lumber jack contest, games for the kids, and music. It is an all day event. A friend of mine and I had a booth in it this year. This is the first year I have been in it in years!

Below is a picture of me and the baby booties, hats, and bonnets I had for sale.
Here is a close up of my booties and hats.
This is a picture of my two Christening sets I had for sell. I sold both of them to a lady who goes to my church. Her daughter-in-law is having a baby girl in late February.
In the upper part of this picture you see some ribbons that my friend made. She embroidered the different school logos on them. Also there is a bonnet I crocheted. In the lower part of the picture are some little Japanese bags I made to sell.
These are some scrub tops and little pajamas my friend made.
These are some pillowcase dresses my friend made.
Here are some jumpers, diaper bags, blankets, bonnets and little slips my friend made.
This is one side of our booth. It is my friends canopy and "Sew On & Sew Forth" is what she calls her business.
We did not sell very much stuff, but we had a really good time seeing and talking to lots of friends that we don't normally see very often. The crowds just weren't very big. In the past few years the fair that comes to town yearly has been coming the week of the Fall Festival and a lot of people go to it. I really wish they would schedule it in October like they used too!

Amber and Keith spent the day with me at the festival. Keith actually sold a pair of baby booties for me! I had gone to get us something to eat and left him in charge. He said a lady told him she did not have any babies. He told her they make great gifts and so she bought a pair! I was so proud of him!

12 Days of Christmas Ornaments

2009-11-05T22:03:00.003-06:00

I am looking for a pattern for some ornaments. This is not just any old pattern. But a very old one. When I was 16 (some 33 years ago!) my then sister-in-law and I made there 12 Days of Christmas Ornaments out of paper. They were the neatest things! The paper was pleated and some of the ornaments used Styrofoam balls in them. I don't know where I got the pattern. I am thinking it must have been in a magazine as I was always buying Good Housekeeping, Woman's Day, and any other magazine that had Christmas crafts in it during the Christmas Season. Needless to say I no longer have the pattern. I so bad want to find this pattern and make these ornaments again. I have done a search on the Internet for it, but have not been able to find it. Does anyone remember seeing this pattern? If anyone out there has seen it and knows where I can get it please let me know!

Fire Prevention Week

2009-10-08T06:56:00.004-05:00

I had to put this picture up of my son with his Mohawk haircut! Several of the football players were having the coach cut their hair like this and he called me and asked me if he could do it. I told him yes. But he has to grow it back normal after football season!
I think I have mentioned the fact that this is his first year to play football. He is on the Varsity team and the Junior Varsity team. He does not get to play very much during the Varsity games but this past Monday at the Junior Varsity game he got to play the whole game! He did really good and I was so proud of him! He was one happy boy when he got home!

Sunday I went over to visit with a friend of mine. She has the neatest dog. He is huge, but just like a big baby. He loves to be petted. He had the lightest blue eyes I have ever seen! I just had to take his picture. My friend's son is sitting on the swing with him.
This has been Fire Prevention week in my town. On Wednesday of this week they always have a parade. I can still remember watching this parade as a very little girl. This year I just sat in the store where I worked and watched it go by. It was so hot outside I did not want to be out there. Not to mention the loud noise of all those fire trucks! I used to stand out there and watch it with my little children, but they are all grown now and so I don't have to be outside anymore.

See the little children right outside my window? They kept looking in the window at me and waving at me. They were so cute. Notice the little red fireman's hat the little boy has on. I can remember getting one of these every year when I was a little girl. I loved it!
There were firetrucks in that parade of every shape and size! They came from every town around! Even one as far away as 60 miles! Sure glad there weren't any fires yesterday!

I did not get a good picture of this, but there was Raggedy Ann, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck and a Dalmatian puppy with this go-cart.
This policeman had the street running along beside my store blocked off.
These guys were from a Military School.
Here's the hook and ladder from our neighboring town.
The horses are always a part of every parade in Jackson!
And last but not least is Smokey the Bear!
It was nice to sit in my nice cool store and watch the parade!

Crochet

2009-09-28T06:58:00.005-05:00

It is so strange how I go through these phases. Sometimes I will be in a fabric mode and make lots of quilts and other little things out of fabric and want to buy lots of fabric. Then other times I might be in an embroidery mood and want to do nothing but embroidery. Right now is my crochet mood. I have been crocheting for several months now. Whenever I go anywhere I am always wanting to look at the crochet thread and yarn. Fabric holds no interest for me right now. Isn't that odd?! Maybe I am just odd. Before you know it I will be in a mood to do something else and put down the crochet for a while.

I have really been enjoying the crochet, though. I have found some blogs where the ladies do gorgeous crochet! They are not American and although some of them I can translate the language on it is still hard to understand some of what they say or the patterns they post. But I have been able to look at the pictures of some things and figure out what different words in the pattern mean.

Here is a picture of the latest pair of booties I have crocheted.
This is a sachet that I got off one of the blogs I was telling you about. I just love it!
Here's a side picture of the sachet.
This is a little bracelet I made using purple and gold, our school colors here.
I am going to put some crocheted flowers on this bracelet.
This is a coaster.
Not really sure what this is. I think it kinda looks like leaves and will probably put a crochet flower in the middle of it.
This is a rose I crocheted out of size 20 thread. I just love the size it turned out.
This is a purple rose I crocheted out of size 10 thread. The color in the picture is not it's true color. The picture does not do it justice.
And here is a little loopy daisy.
I have lots more crocheted flowers and I need to take group pictures of them and post them.

Right now I am crocheting on a baby hat, booties, and sweater that a lady ordered. I hope to finish it this week.

Everything else here is going good. My son's football team has won every game they have played so far. They have played 5 games. Last Friday was the big game against our rivals across the river. Every year it is a big event. The stands were packed and it was so hot I was about to melt! We were so excited we won. It was the first time we have beat them in four years. We have a new coach this year and he has really done a lot with the team. I am not a football person at all. I am not a sports person at all. But I have enjoyed going to these games and am finally learning some about football. I still don't understand the downs thing. My husband has tried to explain it to me, but it just doesn't make sense. At least I have learned how to tell which team has the ball!

I sang in church again yesterday. I was more nervous this time then the last time. I think it is because my husband was there. Last time he was not there. This song also had more low notes and since I am high soprano and my mouth was really dry I kinda had a problem with that. Still after church everyone came up and told me how beautiful I sang. It sure made me feel good. But I sing for the glory of God and I know to Him it is perfect no matter how bad I think it is.

It is another Monday morning and I feel so sleepy. I could have just stayed in the bed. But, alas, I have to get my son to school and go to work. Ugh! I hope you all have a great day and week!
Diane

Good Monday Morning!

2009-09-21T06:47:00.007-05:00

I hope everyone is having a great Monday Morning! I did not want to get out of bed this morning, but once I did I am up and ready to go. Things here have been pretty much the same. I know I lead such a dull life compared to most bloggers. I just take care of kids, go to work, take care of the house, take care of my dad, go to church, and do handwork, of course. As I've said before I have been crocheting a lot lately. I'm making baby booties and such to sell in our annual fall craft show. Below are a few pair of booties I have finished recently.
This one is a Christmas T-Strap:
This one is just a plain white one that will work for either a boy or girl:
These are done in antique white:
These are some of my favorites! Christmas booties:
This is actually made from a 1946 pot holder pattern. But I decided not to make it into a pot holder. I just use it as a doily on my dresser.
Remember a while back I put this picture of my great uncle, James Frank Dumas, on my blog? I have been trying forever it seems to get his military records and find out exactly what happened to him. He lungs got messed up in the Navy and he died just 8 months after being discharged from the Navy. He was only 23 when he died. Well, I finally got his records. They did not tell me what happened to him, but at least they tell me what ships he was on. I am sending off to get his medical records now. I don't know if I will be able to get them as they say most medical records over 50 years old no longer exist. And it has been over 60 years since he got out of the Navy.
I went up to visit my great Aunt Doodle (his sister) yesterday and take her a copy of the records. She enlightened me a little more about him. In his records it shows where he was put into the hospital twice not long after joining the Navy. This was a puzzle. The length of the hospital stays were pretty long. Well, when I told my aunt she told me that he had gotten the mumps and chicken pox not long after joining the Navy. So that explains those hospital stays. I am determined to find out exactly what happened to him in the Navy to cause the damage to his lungs. I just need to find out more information about the ships he was on. If anyone knows how I can find out information about the Merchant ships that the Armed Guards were on please let me know.

Has anyone ever gotten an email from this site, SeoBlogReviews.com wanting to pay you to do review of different websites on your blog? I got one today and just don't know whether they are legitimate or not.

I am off to get my stuff together to leave and take my son to school and then go to work. Hope you all have a great Day!!!
Diane

Football, Football, Football & Baby Booties, of course!

2009-09-05T15:27:00.006-05:00

I uploaded these pictures on Saturday, but never got around to making a post with them. Below is a picture of my handsome son. How do you all like his Mohawk? Crazy, ain't it?! He called me from football practice almost two weeks ago and asked me if he could have a Mohawk. He said several of the football players were doing it, so I said OK. One of the coaches cut it. It's just a football thing and will be gone before long.
So far I have been to all of Keith's football games. Hubby hasn't gotten to go to them all because of work. Last Friday night we drove about an hour and a half to sit in the rain for nearly three hours to watch the game and Keith never even got to play! This is Keith's first year and so he does not get to play a whole lot. Monday afternoon when I picked him up from practice he informed me that he had a football game on Tuesday night. He told me that he will be playing on the Junior Varsity team as well as the Varsity team. So we had to go to the game last night. The good thing about Junior Varsity is they don't play as long of a game and Keith got to play more since it is younger kids on there. We were happy about that and he did really well. Of course he was happy about that, too! Keith is a good size for a football player at 6'1" and 195 pounds. He will get better as he goes and get to play more at the Varsity games. He weight 220 pounds when he started football this past spring. He has really trimmed up and looks good!

Tara is in college now and doing good. She came home yesterday for a dentist appointment and so we got to see her for a little while. It was nice. I sure miss my baby girl!

I have still been crocheting baby booties. Below is my latest pair. What do you think of them? I have a little crocheted wreath pin that I wear at Christmas. I made it several years ago. One day I was sitting here thinking that a pair of booties with tiny wreaths on them would be so cute. I think they really turned out nice. Every year our town has a Fall Festival on the first Saturday in November. My friend usually has a booth in it. I asked her if she wanted to share a booth this year and slit the cost and she said yes. So that is what we are doing. I have been working like mad to get booties and other things crocheted. I also have my booties in my ETSY Store. So check them out!
Other then football and crocheting and work not much else is going on. I'm hoping to get my computer looked at here shortly. It has been really slow and acting really weird. It also keeps uninstalling my printer, which makes me insane when I want to print something and my printer is not there! I sure hope this guy can do something with it! I've only had it 7 months!

Well, I am off to take Keith to school and go to work! Have a great and blessed day everyone!
Diane

Keith starts 10th grade and Tara starts College!

2009-08-17T19:46:00.006-05:00

Here is my handsome some son, Keith! He started the 10Th grade on Aug. 10Th. Ever since my oldest daughter started kindergarten I have taken a picture of my kids every year on the first day of school. It started out with only Amber in the picture. Then the pictures were of Amber and Tara. Finally the pictures were of Amber, Tara, and Keith. Then when Amber went off to college the pictures were only of Tara and Keith. This is the first year that the picture was only of Keith. Doesn't he look sad not to have his sisters in the picture with him? It's sad to think I only have two more years of taking pictures of him the first day of school and then he will be in college:(
Aug. 15th was Tara's moving day to college. Below is a picture of her getting in her car for the trip. Amber rode with her and Keith and I went in my car. We had both cars loaded down with her stuff! We got to the college and got the cars unloaded. We were so glad that big, strong Keith was with us! Tara's room is on the 2ND floor and Keith carried all the heavy stuff up to her room for us. Then we all went shopping for some things she needed and some groceries for her. Her room is an efficiency apartment and so she can cook in there. That is good. It will save her money.
Here she is sitting on her bed. Her roommate is a girl that she has been friends with for about 7 or 8 years. Can you believe they got the exact same comforters for their beds without knowing that the other was getting that one! We could not believe it. So their beds matched which I think is nice.
It was really hard to leave her there. I cried coming home. I really miss her so much. She is only a little over an hour away so will be home often. She says she is coming home this weekend. I just miss having her here every day. I cried a lot yesterday, too. I am doing better today although I have cried a little.

I have to tell you what she did last night. You have to understand that Tara has no sense of direction whatsoever. I printed her out a map and highlighted the way to Wal-Mart. Now all she had to do was leave campus, turn right on the road that runs along the campus, go up a couple miles to this other road, turn left, go a few blocks and there is Wal-Mart. Still I was worried about her going there in the dark for the first time without me. She called me about 9pm last night and told me that she and her friend were going to Wal-Mart. I asked her if she knew how to get there and she said she thought so and her friend said she knew. In just a little while she called me and said they could not find Wal-Mart and almost didn't find there way back to the dorm! I had to laugh. I told her she should have taken the map I made for her. She told me she could not read the map and drive! I told her that her friend could read the map while Tara drove! I am worried about her driving home by herself this Friday. I know she can make it once she gets on this certain highway as it is a straight shot from there. It is just getting her out of the city and to that highway that worries me! Of course the map I gave her shows her the way to go, but who knows if she can read it and follow it. I did not have time to go over it with her before we left her as the guy she is dating came to the school to take her out.

She was really nervous about getting to her classes today, but she did just fine. I told her she would get the hang of it soon.

Sunday Amber and I spent the day getting a lot of her stuff moved into Tara's room. She still has more stuff to get moved in there, but it is nice to get her out of the den. Our den was overflowing with her stuff. And I know she was tired of pulling out the hide-a-bed every night and having to make it up. Plus the frame on that thing was falling apart and hard on her back. When Tara comes home she will sleep in the bedroom with Amber.

Crochet & Trip

2009-08-12T19:59:00.003-05:00

I have still been working on crocheting baby booties. Below is a pair I finished up today for a baby boy.
This is cute little pink and white pair for that sweet little baby girl in someones life.
Be sure and check out my ETSY Store to see all my booties and bonnets!

My dad and I went to Meridian this past weekend to visit relatives. My cousin had called and told me that my dad's younger brother, who lives in Miami, Florida, had came up with his son to visit. My dad and him have not seen each other in over a year and I have not seen him nor my aunt and cousins in over a year. I was so excited to go! My dad was really worried about going as he has dementia and can't stand to be out of his little world. But I finally convinced him that it would only be for one night and I would take everything he needed with us. So I packed up all his juices, crackers, bananas and everything else and we went. He really seemed to enjoy himself while we were there.

I had a blast! It was so fun being with my cousins again. We all grew up more like brothers and sisters as we were over at each other's houses all the time while growing up.

Below is a picture of my cousin Sandra, myself, my Aunt Rachel, and my cousin Janet. Sandra and Janet were born on the same day exactly one year part. Sandra is 4 years older then me and Janet is 5 years older then me. My Aunt Rachel does not look so good as her health is not good at all. But I tell you we couldn't slow her down! She insisted in helping cook and can that woman cook! We ate so good that day. Sadly the day after we left she fell and fractured her shoulder. I just feel like crying. She is like my second mama. I just love her so much.
This is a picture of my dad, my Aunt Rachel, and my Uncle Goat (Jerry), who is my dad's brother.

Here is Uncle Goat, his son Darrell, and my Daddy.
Here is my cousin Darrell and me. Darrell is exactly 2 months older then me. When we were really little we did everything together. I learned to walk before Darrell and my mama used to tell me that we would be under the table and I would be walking and telling Darrell, " 'm on, Darrell". Which means come on Darrell. She said I taught him to walk! I used to have to cut his paper for him too as he had such bony fingers that he couldn't hold the scissors. Him and me still laugh about all this!
This is a little pouch I made to wear on my arm and keep my ball of crochet thread in so I can carry it with me and crochet where ever I go.
I love to use it at work.
Close up of my little crocheted bag.
Saturday is the big day. My baby, Tara, moves to college! How sad I am going to be. I will tell you all about it after we get her moved in.

Dolls & Booties

2009-08-04T19:29:00.004-05:00

Things around here have been busy! My daughter, Tara, is getting ready to move to the dorm in a week and a half. She has been working at Wal-Mart part time and hates to quit her job. She loves making money! Hopefully she can get on at the Wal-Mart close to her college. My daughter, Amber, is still working at Wal-Mart and will begin her college classes in a couple weeks. My son, Keith, has been having football practice everyday and boy has he been tired! I sure felt for him today as it was 94 degrees out while he was at practice.

At work I have been getting the store I work in ready for the accreditation man to come and look at it and OK it. We have to have these accreditation's done once a year since we are a medical equipment dealer. The man came today and I was so happy when he told me my store looked pretty and he could not find anything wrong with it!

In between all this going on with all of us my daughter, Amber, and me have still been crocheting. She found these dolls on flickr that she just loved. They are modeled after the Blythe dolls. When she showed them to me I feel in love with them too. So we decided to make them together. As a mother-daughter project. I have been crocheting for 40 years and so am much faster then Amber. I have finished my doll and made two sets of underclothes for her. I am in the process of making a dress for her. These dolls were designed by Beth over at ByHook,ByHand blog. You can also check out her photos on flickr. She has a free pattern for the dolls, which she calls "Free Spirit Amigurumi Dolls". Beth has a fantastic tutorial for these dolls on her blog and some picture tutorials for them on her flickr. I hope you will all check out her sites!

Here is the doll I made. I had a hard time deciding on her name. I wanted something that sounded like a Southern Belle. I guess this might because Amber and I were watching "Gone With The Wind" while we were working on them one night and that has always been my all time favorite movie! So I finally decided on Annabelle. What do you think?
I made her corset and panties using a pattern provided by Beth, but adding my own twist to it.

This is a close-up of her face and clothes. My face is nowhere as good as Beth's. But then she has made a lot more dolls then me. Her work is fantastic!
Here is another outfit I made for her. Once again I used Beth's pattern and added a couple things of my own.
This is a picture of an old baby doll that I got out of my cedar chest last weekend. She is about 40 years old. I crocheted her the clothes about 35 years ago. They still look pretty good, don't you think?
Here is my old baby and Annabelle. Amber says my old baby needs some new hair! At least I hadn't cut it all off like I did some of my dolls!
These are some new booties I have made. The first pair of Alabama booties I made I did not put the "A" on, but then I got the idea to put it on this pair and I think it really adds something. I am still making booties and bonnets and such to sell and hope you all will check out my ETSY store. Remember I can make any booties in any color you want. I have other styles, too, that I am trying to get made and put in my store. As soon as I am finished with Annabelle's dress I am going to be making lots more booties and bonnets and bibs and such! So stay tuned!

TGIF

2009-07-24T07:43:00.003-05:00

Hi Everybody! Thought I would post and let everyone know I am still here. I don't want to go so long between post any more. I don't have any pictures to put on here today nor do I have the time. Got to get to work in a few minutes.

I am still crocheting like mad and my hands and wrists are starting to feel the effects. They are hurting me a lot. Especially my left wrist. You would think I could get a wrist brace for it seeing as how I work in a Medical Supply place, but we don't have the kind I want. I am going to look in some catalogs today and see if I can order one.

I am looking forward to the weekend. I will be doing the same old things as always but it is just nice to be off work!

I hope you all have been looking at my ETSY store and telling all your friends about it! I sure appreciate it!

I hope you all have a great and Blessed Day,
Diane

Finally another post

2009-07-19T17:00:00.005-05:00

I guess everyone is wondering where I have been. I've been here, just haven't posted. I've just been lazy, I guess. I have been really busy crocheting, as you can see from the pictures below. I have been making lots of baby bonnets and booties. I just love making them. I am hoping I can sell them. I am in the process of putting them in my ETSY store. I hope you all will look at them. I don't have but a few put in the store right now. But I will have all the ones below in there soon. If you would like a pair please let me know. All my booties are $10.00 a pair and my bonnets are $20.00 a piece. The shipping on one item is $3.00 in the USA and $4.50 on two items. I don't know yet how much it would be to ship international, but will find out if someone from overseas wants anything.
Other then crocheting I have just been doing the usual stuff. You know, working, cleaning house, doing laundry, shopping and so on.
I did go with my daughter, Tara, last week for her orientation at the college she will be attending this fall. It went really well and we enjoyed the time together. I sure am gonna miss her when she leaves for college. At least she will only be an hour and 15 minutes away so we can go see her more often and she can come home more often.
My niece is still here. She has been spending the summer with us. She'll be going back to Louisiana at the first of August. It will sure be quieter in our house when she goes home and Tara goes to college.
I don't know if I mentioned that Tara has been working part time at Wal-Mart. Amber works there, also. I used to work there 8 years ago. Wouldn't it be a hoot if I still worked there? Amber has enrolled for classes again at the Community College here for the fall. So that is a good thing.
I am still working on my family tree and we have found out a little more information about my great great great great grandfather, Thomas C. Dumas. So that is nice. Hopefully soon I will be able to have some more research done to try and discover who his parents were.
I am going to try my best to update my blog more often. I think I just kinda got into a slump. I have been reading everyone else's blogs, though. But my best friend keeps telling me I need to do a post on mine. So I am trying to catch up today.
Amber has been crocheting a lot herself lately. She is working on a round afghan and getting pretty far along on it. She is also making up some hexagons in lots of different colors to one day crochet together into an afghan.
Amber and I took a trip to Mobile a few weeks ago just to go to Hobby Lobby and purchase yarn! She got worsted weight yarn and I got size 10 crochet cotton thread for my bonnets and booties. We only have Wal-Mart here to buy thread and yarn at and they don't have a very large variety to choose from.
The bonnet above is one I designed myself. I am so proud of it! I have always been good at following patterns, but not designing things myself. I want to try and do that more.
The pink booties above are sold to a lady. But if anyone would like a pair like it, I would be more than happy to make you a pair!
I love this little sandal pattern. In the pattern they sewed a silk rose on it and I have done some like that. But I discovered this little crocheted flower pattern and thought it would look cute on the sandals and it does.
I like to switch up the patterns some and add different cuffs on them and little flowers and such on them.
The above booties are the colors form Auburn University - Orange and blue
My friend, Mrs. Anderson, gave me the little train buttons that are on the above booties. I think they are so cute on them.
I hope that I have caught you all up on everything happening in my life right now. I will strive to do better in the future about blogging.

Sorry I have not posted in awhile!

2009-06-15T08:53:00.002-05:00

I know it has been awhile since my last post. It's hard around here for me to get on the Internet with so many kids always wanting to be on! We have this long cable and it gets passed around from room to room. My son plays games on his x-box with other people on the Internet in his room. One of my daughters gets on her new laptop in her room and my other daughter gets on her laptop in the den. So I have to try and squeeze in there every once in a while on my laptop! I know I can type my post from work, which is what I am doing now. But I have to download pictures to my post from my laptop at home. When I go back to Mobile in July for my daughters college orientation I am going to go to Best Buy and look for something that will allow us to plug several cords into the modem at the same time so that more then one person at a time can be on the Internet. My brother says I should just get wireless. That is a thought.

Speaking of my brother. He finally got to come home for a visit. It had been a year and a half since he had been home. But he lives 10 hours away and owns his own restaurant and has a family of his own so he has just not had the time. He and his son came. His wife was on a vacation with her friend and his daughter had gone out of town to visit friends. It was a nice visit and we so enjoyed him being here. It just went way too fast. I made him a good old home cooked Southern meal on Saturday and he just kept thanking me and thanking me. He ate two big plate fulls! Now that's the kind of eating I like to see when I spend hours cooking! I made him one of his favorite meals that our mama used to cook us when we were young. Fried chicken, homemade mashed potatoes, homemade gravy, homemade broccoli and cheese casserole and we had some home grown snap beans that Amber had cooked. The only thing not made from scratch were the biscuits. I used to always make him homemade biscuits when we were young. He has actually gotten me out of bed when I was a teenager to go make him some biscuits. Of course I wouldn't be asleep, I would just be reading. But I decided to just go with the frozen ones since they taste like homemade anyway. He said that was fine with him. I had also made him a Coca-Cola cake. I have been making these cakes for him since I was 16. It is his favorite cake! He was so happy I made one for him. Can you tell that I have always spoiled my brother? Yep! I have. Ever since I was a little bitty girl I have done stuff for him. He is two years older then me. My mama once said that she used to have to get onto me to make me stop doing every thing he wanted me to do. I just waited on him hand and foot. I have just always loved my brothers and wanted to do stuff for them.

Here is a picture of me and my brother. I really hated it when he had to leave. He is the only brother I have left, as our other two brother's died at young ages, and I really miss him.

Here is a picture of me, our Dad, and my brother, Freddy. Well, we call him Freddy, but now that he is in business and all everyone calls him Fred. Daddy puts on his pajamas early every night so he had already put them on by the time I decided to take pictures.
This is my brother's son, Nick, and my son, Keith. Nick just really took to Keith and wanted to do stuff with him all the time. So Keith had layed down on the floor to play his game and Nick layed down on top of him! The little dog in front of them is Darcey, Freddy's dog.
Here is Keith, Amber, and Nick. Notice Amber's haircut? She got her hair all cut off and it really looks cute.
While Freddy was here he took Daddy to Daddy's brother's furniture store to get a new recliner. He said Daddy tried out all the recliners and this is the one that fit him the best so this is the one they got! It sure is better then his old one. That old thing was over 20 years old and just falling apart!
This past Thursday was my niece, Rheanna's, 16th birthday! So we had cake! She had a good birthday and got several presents. I think I mentioned in an earlier post that Rheanna is spending the summer with us.
Here is a picture of Tara & Rheanna with her birthday cake. I baked it and Keith iced it. Keith is my official cake icer! He is getting really good at it.

I have been crocheting a lot of booties and bonnets lately to sell. Well, maybe not a lot. I am trying to get a lot made but it seems I'm not getting very far. Guess I am getting old! I plan to put them in my ETSY shop soon!
Here is one pair I made. I just love the green and pink together. In case anyone wants to know I am selling my booties for $10.00 a pair plus shipping cost. I will be selling my bonnets for $20.00 plus shipping. Well, most of them will be that price. There maybe a couple that all more intricate that will cost a little more.

Here is another pair I have made. I just love the turquoise color too! I have a bonnet to match these but have not gotten a picture of it yet.

I have ordered a lot of new colors of threads so I can make lots of different colors booties and bonnets. Here the only place I have to buy crochet thread is at Wal-Mart and they just don't have hardly any colors at all. I can hardly wait for my new threads to arrive! I hope everyone will check out my ETSY page when I get these all on there. I will put a link on my blog once I have that done.

Updates on life

2009-05-27T06:54:00.005-05:00

It has been another busy weekend! First my son Keith had his very first football game on Friday! It was a spring scrimmage. The game was scheduled for 6pm but got moved up to 4:30pm as there was really bad thunderstorms coming in. It was also being played an hour away from where we live. I hated to miss it but I was at work. Then one of the ladies in our home office, which is 15 miles from my store, called and said that my boss was coming down to watch the store for me so I could go to Keith's game. I couldn't believe it. I don't even know how they found out the time had been changed! I was so happy! So as soon as he got to my store I jumped in my car and went and got Tara and her friend and headed out. Hubby had gone to Louisiana on Thursday to pick up our niece so she can spend a few weeks with us and was coming back through where the games was at just about the time it was starting so they stopped there. It worked out perfect! Keith got to play and we were so proud of him!

Keith is number 74!
Saturday morning Tara graduated! Yep she finally made it! We are so proud of her! Here she is!
Here is Me, Tara, and Hubby! I hate the way there is always a glare on my glasses! I really have got to get some glare resistant glasses.
Here is Keith, Tara, our niece Rheanna, and Amber!
And of course here is Tiffanie & Tara! Tiffanie is Tara's best friend!
Normally the graduation is held out on the football field but it had to be held inside due to rain. It was actually held in the auditorium. Then everyone went into the gym to take pictures.

Monday was Memorial Day, of course. But it was also Hubby's 52ND birthday! Keith helped me bake the cake and he iced it. We always have lots of these number candles at home but for some reason could not find a 2 so Keith came up with the idea of just using two 1's. So it looks like Hubby is 511 years old! We got a laugh out of that one!
I know it seems like I never post anything that I am making on here anymore. That's probably because I really have not been making a whole lot of anything. I seemed to have gotten into a funk and just had been reading a lot. Then I decided to make a few baby bonnets and booties. And now I am working on this crocheted afghan for my friend's grand baby that is coming in the fall. I really like the way you make the strips and then kinda lace them together with these chain loops on the sides of them.
It called for making it out of worsted weight yarn. But since all they had at Wal-Mart seemed so rough I am using Baby Sport weight yarn. This means it is turning out smaller then it should be so I am adding extra stripes to it.
That is about all that is going on right now in my life. Today is Keith's last day of school and I am glad of that! It means I will get to sleep a little later each morning! Hope you all have a great and Blessed Day,
Diane

We've been busy!

2009-05-19T07:15:00.003-05:00

What a morning! I forgot to set my alarm clock last night and was late getting up this morning! I can't believe I did that. I have never forgotten to set it! I hate getting up late, it just seems to make my day screwy all day long!

Last week I did a post about Tara's 18Th birthday. Well, here are pictures of the car she got. I ran to Wal-Mart the morning of her birthday and got some helium balloons and tied them to the inside door handles on her car. She was so thrilled! You should have seen me out there with the wind blowing trying to hang onto these balloons and get them tied! But it was worth it! After all she will only ever have one 18Th birthday!

Here is a picture of her cake.
Here is a picture of my dad and Tara.
We just had cake with only us there. Then we went to church. The next night was Thursday and the Awards Ceremony at school. Tara got over 20 thousand dollars worth of scholarships. she won the Presidential Scholarship for $10,000 to the school she will be attending in the fall. She also won a $4,000 scholarship from the company where her father works. The other scholarship was for the local community college here in town so she will not be able to use that one. She also won the President's Education Award and was in the group of Seniors who has maintained a straight "A" average all through high school. She also received her gold Honor Society cords which she will wear to graduation. We are so proud of her!
Friday night we had to go to Memory Night at school. This is where they tell things the kids have done through out their years of school. The kids themselves submit things and this teacher reads them. Tara submitted a story from when she was in 4Th grade. Let me tell you about it. It is really cute.
They had just built a new school right down the hill from the elementary school. They finished it just a few weeks after school had already started for the year and so the 4Th graders had to move from the elementary school to the new school. As you can see from the pictures of Tara she is a small petite girl. In the 4Th grade she was very small and tiny. So all the kids had to put all their books and stuff into their backpacks and walk down the hill towards the school. Poor little Tara's backpack was so heavy for her little body that she just fell over backwards! These two boys came along and picked up Tara and then one of them picked up her backpack and carried on down the hill and to the school for her! She called me here at work to tell me all about it when she got home. She just couldn't get over how that boy had carried her back pack for her. It was so nice of him.
Then they have a last will and testament where they can leave things to other students who will still be going to high school there. Tara left her brother, Keith, her love and good luck through his remaining years at high school. Then they showed pictures of the seniors. It was really neat. They did this slide show and first a baby picture would come up and then a picture of the kid today would come up beside it and their name. Some babies you could tell right off who they were while others you didn't have a clue. They also had random snapshots that the kids had given them to use scattered throughout the slide show. It was really nice. I know the kids all enjoyed it.
Sunday at church they had Senior recognition and gave the Seniors in our church a really nice Bible. I told Tara she better take hers to college with her and read it often! I sure hope she takes that advise!
This Saturday Tara will be graduating from High School. I know I will cry. I just can't believe my kids are growing up so fast. I look at them and wonder where did the years go. They just pass too quickly. I will miss Tara so much when she goes away to college. At least she will be close enough that we can go visit her more often then we could Amber when she was in Louisiana. Of course, knowing Tara she will have lots of friends and always be doing stuff with them and not have much time for anything else.

Tara is 18!!!

2009-05-13T06:56:00.005-05:00

My beautiful daughter, Tara, turns 18 today! It is hard to believe. She started out just a tiny little baby and has turned into a beautiful, sweet young woman.

This is the first picture we had taken of her at the age of 6 weeks.
This is the day of her baby dedication at church. My Mama is holding her and her big sister Amber is sitting beside them. Amber was so proud of her little baby sister.
All of Tara's crib stuff had lambs on it. I made the bumper pads, diaper stacker and stuff myself. Here she is with one of the lambs she got as a gift. I just loved the little dress she had on. My Uncle and Aunt gave it to her.
Here she is at 2 years old holding her newborn cousin, Rheanna. This is one of her favorite pictures. She always loved babies!
Can you tell which is the dolls and which is the babies? Tara of course is in the middle and her baby brother, Keith, is on the far left.
Here she is at the beach. She loves the beach!
Doesn't she look darling in her camouflage hat? She is just like her Dad's mother in that she loves to have her picture taken!
And here is my beauty now! She was really hoping to get the braces off this month, but the dentist told her yesterday it would be a couple more months. But she did get a car for her birthday so that perked her right up! I haven't taken a picture of her with it yet. But I will and post it later.
Have a great day, Tara! We love you very much!

Mother's Day and Planting Flowers

2009-05-11T07:28:00.005-05:00

I hope you all had a great Mother's Day. Mine was nice. My children all went together and bought me a book I wanted. It is by Debbie Macomber and is called "Summer On Blossom Street". I love her books and have all the ones in the Blossom Street series. I was pretty depressed most of the weekend. I suffer from depression and Mother's Day weekend is a bad one for me now that my Mama is gone. I really missed her a lot this weekend and seemed to be in tears a lot. Then at church this man read a poem in memory of every ones mothers who have gone on to Heaven and I just sat there and cried. I am still in a depressed frame of mind this morning and can't seem to get much done. Sorry for telling you how depressed I am. Sometimes you just have to get it out.

Amber and I did get something nice accomplished on Saturday afternoon after she got home from work. We planted some banana peppers and some flowers. Amber likes banana peppers and she really wanted to grow some. She remembers how my Mama used to grow them in flower pots and pickle them. Mama grew all kinds of peppers and pickled them cause my Daddy liked them. We still have several jars of them.

Here is Amber getting ready to put dirt in her pots!

Here she is holding up her banana pepper plants!
Here she is mixing up her soil. We were talking about my Mama and how she would love to be there and helping Amber and Amber told me not to start crying again! It sure was hard.
Here she is fooling around and acting like she is gonna eat the potting soil.
These are called Moon Flowers. A lady who works with Amber gave them to her. I can't wait to see what they look like when they get bigger. I have never heard of them.
See who was watching us to be sure we did everything right? Yep, it's Amber's cat Apollo!
Here are Amber's banana peppers after we finished and a little flower that I had bought Saturday and planted. It is called a Hypoestes. I just thought the colors of it were so pretty.
Here is a close up of it. Isn't it lovely!
Miss Molly didn't much care about our plants. She was too busy taking a nap!
After we finished with the plants Amber and I walked across the street and was looking around and she found a few blackberries. So she picked them. There weren't many. I can remember when I was young my Mama would make me and my brothers go up the street with her and help her pick blackberries. There were millions of them! She would make jelly. I can still picture her in my mind squeezing the juice out of those berries using an old t-shirt! Here hands would be purple for days! She would give us some of the berries in milk with sugar in them. They were so good! There were a lot of plum trees where the blackberries were and we would pick plums, too. Boy, those were the days!

Tara's School Play

2009-05-01T07:18:00.004-05:00

We went and saw Tara in her school play last night. The play was "The Sound Of Music". She played the part of Brigitta, one of the 7 children. It was a pretty good play, but long. The costume and set changes make it long. The sound system at the high school is terrible. While you could hear some players really well, others you could barely hear at all. Tara had a microphone as she had several lines in the play so we were able to hear her really good. I did not realize all the lines she had. I think she did really good. Of course, being her mother, I am sure I am prejudice!
Here is a picture that Keith took of her in her uniform costume before the play began.

She is the second from the left in this picture. They were singing. Sorry it is so dark, but the auditorium was dark and my camera is not designed to take good pictures in the dark.
This is the ball scene. Tara is in the middle of the stage. See the two girls in the middle. She is the one on the left.
Here she sits supposedly reading a book. Her character was suppose to always be reading.
This is the last scene at the festival where the Von Trapp family is singing. Tara is front left. I had to make her the cape she is wearing at the spur of the moment. So I just bought some cheap fabric from Wal-Mart, cut it into a half circle, cut out a neck, hemmed it all around and put on a couple hooks in the front. The whole thing only cost me $3.00!
This was Tara's last play at the high school. I am so proud of her! She will be graduating in 22 days and she turns 18 in 12 days! My baby is grown up! It is so hard to believe! Time seems to have flown!

Grosgrain: Art Nest Pincushion Ring GIVEAWAY!!!!

2009-04-28T10:51:00.001-05:00

Grosgrain: Art Nest Pincushion Ring GIVEAWAY!!!!

Birthdays

2009-04-28T07:29:00.006-05:00

Yesterday was my brother, George's, birthday. He would have been 55 years old. I have talked about him before on my blog but some of you may not remember. He died when he was only 13. I was only 7 when George died and so I don't remember a lot about him. He was the only one of us 4 children who had blue eyes and red hair like our father.
I love this picture of him and his dog!

This was the last school picture taken of him before he died. My parents did not get the pictures back till after George died and his eyes were half closed in them. The pictures were black and white. They took them to this photography studio in town and the man there made this picture from it with George's eyes open. His hair was more auburn then it looks in this picture.
My cousin tells me that George was a cut up. That he liked to make jokes and act silly. I do remember that he was very talented with his hands and one time made me a little wooden table and a chair for my doll and he made her some clothes! Now how many 13 year old brothers would do that? I thought a lot about George yesterday. Wondering what he would be like if he were alive today. Thinking that on that last birthday he had when he turned 13 he must have been so happy to finally be a teenager. For those wondering George was accidentally shot by our cousin in a hunting accident. George wasn't going hunting but our cousin and oldest brother were. It was a very sad tragedy.
Today is my Aunt Rachel's birthday. Below is a picture of her and my Mama. Weren't they both beautiful? Aunt Rachel was always like a second mama to us. We stayed at her house a lot. When my bother George died we stayed there for a week. She is one special lady! I don't get to see her very often now. She and my uncle divorced when I was young and she moved back to her hometown where her family were. But I think about her a lot and miss her. Her health is not good at all now. I hope to go see her again soon. When my Mama died Aunt Rachel came and made her famous Banana Pudding. I thought my male cousins were gonna get in a fight over it! It was all so funny. My Uncle Goat (real name Jerry) who is my Aunt Rachel's ex-husband and my dad's younger brother got him a bowl of banana pudding before he even got his lunch! He and my aunt are still very close even though he is remarried. This has made it good for their kids and grand kids and great grand kids! I just love Aunt Rachel so much and wish her a great Birthday!!!
I told you about the trouble I was having getting my great uncle's military records in my last post. Well, I have since talked to a lady with the National Archives in Maryland. In Maryland they have the deck logs and muster rolls of the naval ships. She could not believe that the Archives in St. Louis wanted so much for a copy of his military records. In fact she thought I must have gotten ahold of an independent company who charges to get the records for you. But I gave her the web address and she agreed that it was the right address. So she told me to fill out a new request form and just request his DD214 which is his discharge paper and that it should list the ship he was on that sunk. She said it should not cost anything for just this one piece of paper. So I filled it out and faxed it in. I am now waiting to hear back from them. You just really have to keep on pushing to find out information you want!

Great Uncle's Military Records

2009-04-22T17:11:00.002-05:00

This is my great uncle, James Frank Dumas. Wasn't he a handsome man. Unfortunately he died very young at the age of 23 in 1946. He was on a ship that was sunk during WWII and he developed some kind of infection in his lungs from being in the water for so long. He died not too long after he came home from the war.
Several of my family members and me have been trying to find out what the name of the ship was that he was on. The people who are still alive when Frank came home from the service were so young that they don't remember much about his service in the Navy and they definitely don't know what the name of the ship was.

Through a researcher I found out about a website where they will look up peoples military records for you. I sent them all Frank's information and have waited for a couple months for the information. I received a phone call from the National Personnel Records Center, which is the website I mentioned earlier. The man on the phone told me that since my great uncle had been discharged from the Navy over 60 years ago his records are in the archives and it will cost me $65.00 for a copy of them! I was blown away! I told him I could not afford that and that really all I wanted to know was the name of the ship he was on that sunk during WWII. He couldn't tell me that information. I feel like I have hit a brick wall!

Does anyone out there know where I can find a list of ships and their crews that were sunk during WWII free of charge? Please let me know if you do! I would so greatly appreciate it!

Giveaway!

2009-04-22T17:10:00.002-05:00

Amanda over at Amanda's Musings is celebrating her 200th post and her 1 year blogaversary with a giveaway! Hop on over and check out her blog!

My Mama's Birthday

2009-04-17T07:36:00.003-05:00

Today is my beautiful Mama's birthday. She would have been 76 years old today. God took her home to be with him and my two brothers three and a half years ago and I still miss her so very much.

This is a picture of her when she was young holding a young cousin of hers.

This is my Mama and me in about 1967 with a new puppy I had gotten.
Here is my beautiful Mama in 1983. I just love this picture.
This is my children's favorite picture. My mama with a BB gun and her hair in rollers! She had came over to my house for me to roll her hair for her. I always rolled her hair for her. Once she actually let me cut her hair! Boy was she brave! When I got through her hair was only about 2 inches long all over her head! I laugh every time I think about it! I was probably 23 or so at the time. There is no way I would let one of my kids cut my hair. My Mama was something else!
Here she is on her birthday, with my kids, a year before she died. I wanted to post the birthday pictures taken the year she died but they weren't on my computer and I did not have time to find them and scan them in this morning.
My Mama was a wonderful person. She had problems over the years with prescription drug abuse, but then I can understand that in a way. She had lost two sons and that took it's toll on her. But no one ever has or ever will love me the way my Mama loved me. She was a very kind and sweet person and people still tell me this today and how much they miss her. Even though I miss her terribly I am glad she is at home with God and her sons that she grieved for for so many years. I love you Mama!

I'm BACK

2009-04-14T07:02:00.004-05:00

I'm back! Most of you didn't even know I was gone, did you? The truth is I wasn't gone because I wanted to be. I have been very sick. After everyone in the house went through this flu stuff I had to go and catch it! I was sure hoping it would pass me by. I am not the type to get sick. I might get a head cold or sinus problems now and then, but I always can keep going with those. This time I was flat on my back for 4 days straight! Then I couldn't do much over the weekend as I was still not feeling strong enough. I had to miss 4 days of work. The last time I was that sick was 15 years ago when I had the flu when I was pregnant. I can tell you now, I certainly did not like being sick! The worst part was that last Thursday was Tara's senior prom and I had planned to take off the day and go to the hairdressers with her and help her get ready and all. Well, needless to say I spent the day in the bed and she went by herself to have her hair done. I did go sit on the front porch while they took pictures of her and her date.

Here is a lovely picture of her. We managed to find this dress in Mobile. I had to cut several inches off the bottom and then I had to rework part of the bodice for her. I think it looked lovely on her.
Look at this beautiful face! Notice the earrings she has on. Those are some I have had for almost 30 years that I dug out of my jewelry box for her. I didn't think she would want to wear them as they are so old, but she loved them!

Here she is with her date, Bird. Actually his name is Daniel, but everyone calls him Bird. I think the sun was shining a little too bright on them.
Here is Tara and her two friends, Abby and Tiffanie.
I think Tara had a great time at her prom!

I did manage go sing in our Easter Cantata on Saturday night and Sunday morning. There were a few times when I felt like I might pass out, but I managed to make it through. I had promised God if He would just make me well I would sing. Singing in a Cantata takes a lot out of you. I used to love singing in them and could just whiz through. Now my throat and mouth stay so dry that I feel like I am struggling to sing and my feet go numb from the standing and my legs will start cramping on me. Not to mention that I got so light headed. I just don't know if I can sing in anymore of them. I love to sing. But one or two songs at a time is all I can manage anymore.

I was glad I was able to return to work yesterday. I know the ladies in our home office were glad to. They were having to take turns going to stay in my store and getting behind in their work.

I hope to start work on another Alabama quilt soon. This lady who wants one is paying me a little a month for one. Also, a friend gave me the name of a lady who wants one. I have to yet call her. So I will be busy in the near future appliqueing quilt blocks!

Well, got to get up from here and head to work! Hope you all had a great Easter and have a great day today!

Win a Sewing Machine!

2009-04-01T11:39:00.003-06:00

Go here to learn how to win a sewing machine!

Quiet Sunday

2009-03-29T11:19:00.005-06:00

It's been a nice quiet day so far today. Hubby is sleeping as he worked from 6pm last night to 6am this morning. Keith is still asleep. The poor thing has had a severe case of the flu this past week. He has been running a high fever, had an extremely sore throat, and all the other symptoms that go along with the flu. What is so sad is the kids have been out of school for Spring Break and he has had to spend his in the bed sick. His fever is gone now, but he still has a bad cough and he says his throat is still a little sore, but last night I could tell he is feeling much better. He got on the scale and he has lost almost 10 pounds this week!

Poor Tara has had a severe sinus infections with some flu symptoms thrown in there. So it has been a bummer of a Spring Break for her, too. She has always had problems with her sinuses and suffers from infections quiet often. It is the time of year of sinus problems. All the flowers are in bloom and the pollen is all over the place! My car has been looking yellow instead of cherry! At least it stormed for a couple days and washed some of the pollen away.

Then on Friday, Amber started complaining with a sore throat and running a low fever! So I ran and got her some flu medicine after work on Friday. She hasn't felt too good all weekend, but she doesn't seem to be getting any sicker. This is a good thing as she starts her new job at Wal-Mart on Tuesday!

I just think God hubby and me have not gotten sick. It was also good that hubby was on his 7 off from work last week and able to take care of Keith and Tara for me during the day while I was at work.

Now that I've told you about all the sickness in my house I will show you some lovely pictures of the flowers in bloom here. I love it when Spring arrives and all the flowers start to bloom.

This is a picture of the Wisteria that grows over my neighbors fence. I love Wisteria.
They have such a beautiful color and they smell so sweet. When I was younger I used to have an artificial wisteria blossom that I wore in my hair sometimes. I used to love to wear flowers in my hair when I was a senior in high school and a few years after high school. I probably still would wear them sometimes but hubby would probably tell me they looked strange!
These next pictures are ones that hubby's sister took. She came from Arizona last weekend to visit. She was staying in Pensacola with some relatives and they all drove up here on Sunday afternoon to visit hubby and the kids and a lot of their relatives that live about 40 or 50 miles from here. I didn't get to go with them up to the country to visit relatives as they went on Monday when I was at work. But my sister-in-law took lots of pictures and hubby downloaded them onto my computer. When I saw these beautiful ones I just knew I had to put them on my blog. I have been meaning to take pictures of some more of the flowers around here. But just haven't taken the time.

These first two pictures are close ups of Dogwood blossoms. The dogwood trees around here have been simply beautiful! We were coming home from church a couple Sunday's ago and talking about how beautiful they were as we were going past several trees.

This is creek that runs behind hubby's uncles home. Isn't it beautiful?! My kids have been fishing in that creek many times.
I'm not sure where this street is. It could be in Pensacola. But I just love the way the trees go over the streets. Our two main streets here in Jackson used to be like this but they cut the trees back because of the power lines. It makes me sad.
I think this is beautiful with the Dogwood tree, Azaleas, and other flowers and the old house.
Here are some huge Azalea bushes. We have tons of beautiful Azalea bushes around here.

And I just love this butterfly on this Honeysuckle bush! Is it not fantastic! The smell of honeysuckles is divine! This is a bush like my mother used to have. There will be wild ones blooming soon across the road from my house and they are yellow. When they bloom you can step out the door and smell the sweet scent of them! I just love it!
That is all the pictures I have today. Hopefully I will have more to share soon. Right now I think I am going to get off this computer, as my upper back is hurting so badly sitting in this chair. I think I will go finish reading my book since hubby is sleeping. It is called "Rebecca's Reward" by Laurine Snelling. I just love her books!

Calamity Kim's Giveaway

2009-03-26T06:41:00.003-06:00

Calamity Kim is having a giveaway! Pop on over and see all the fantastic stuff she is giving away!

Silly Cat on Shelf

2009-03-24T17:44:00.004-06:00

Do you see this cat behind the candle stick? This is Molly, our youngest cat. doesn't she look nice and peaceful?
Amber discovered her here and called me to come in and look. I just laughed and laughed.
Here she is looking at me as if to say "What are you looking at?"
Here is a long shot to show you just what she was laying on! These are the shelves in our den! My dad kept saying he didn't know how she got up there without knocking something off. Amber kept saying she has gotten up there lots of times.
Notice the plates on the wall above the shelves. Those belonged to my Mama. They go all the way around the top of the den walls and the kitchen walls. For as long as I can remember my Mama collected plates from different states and countries. She never was able to get a plate from all 50 states. Some of the places she visited but most plates were given to her by family and friends who had visited different places and a few different countries. Quiet awhile before she died she asked me if I was gonna get rid of her plate collection when she died. I told her I would never get rid of her plates. Maybe a few of her candle holders but not her plates. See just a few years before she died she started collecting candle holders. She got most of them from yard sales. She had candle holders on just about every inch of space in her house! And I did get rid of a lot of them. But I kept a few special ones. I do love her plates though.

New Purse

2009-03-24T17:00:00.001-06:00

Although the bag I made and showed in a previous post turned out beautiful, it was just too big for an everyday purse. So I decided to save it and use it for a tote bag when needed. Sunday afternoon I made this purse. I had bought this fabric on a trip to Mobile at Joann's there. I loved the large flowers on it. I thought it would be perfect for a purse. Hubby agreed with me. I showed him the flowered fabric and the fabric for the lining and the fabric for the pockets. I happened to have the last two fabrics in my stash.
Here is a picture of the whole purse. The lighting is not great. I think it is too bright or something. It does not do justice to the colors in the fabrics.
Here is a close-up of the front of the bag. I put an outside pocket on it. I love to have a large outside pocket to hold papers.

This is the back of the bag. I think it would have been really beautiful if I had taken the time to outline the flowers and veins in the flowers with embroidery floss, but I was in a hurry to get it made so I could use it on Monday.
Here is the inside lining and pockets. As you can see it is already full of stuff! I have lots of little pouches in it that I keep certain things in, like my pictures, check book, address book, stamps, etc. I just like to keep everything nice and neat. I also put a zipper in this purse as I am bad about letting my purse fall off my car seat and everything spills out of it. I had a really hard time with the zipper. I really don't like putting in zippers. I broke two sewing machine needles on it!
I really am happy with the way my purse turned out. It is just the right size!

Moving a house

2009-03-17T05:00:00.001-06:00

Saturday was a week ago Amber and I were at a yard sale down town and we saw people removing the roof from an old house there. This house has been down town for longer then I have been alive. I could remember seeing an old man sitting on the porch for years but for a couple years I haven't seen him anymore. I told Amber that they must either be tearing the house down or maybe getting it ready to move. I didn't think they would be removing the roof like they were just tearing it down.

Then Wednesday I was sitting there at work and saw these two police cars moving slowly up the street. I was wondering what was going on and then I saw half of the old house going by. I jumped up and grabbed my camera out of my purse to take pictures. Now these pictures are not in order.
This first picture is the half they moved on Thursday.
This is a close-up of that half as it passed right in front of my store. You can see the light fixture still hanging down.
This is the half they moved on Wednesday. By the time I got my camera to get a picture it was already past my store.
And here is part of the roof that they moved on Thursday.
I was sad to see this old house leaving from downtown. I wondered where they were taking it too. Then when I got our local paper on Thursday there was an article on the front page about it. You can read the article below. It seems this house was over 100 years old. The man who owned it had at one time had a grocery store downtown. I have heard people talk about that store before but don't remember it. The house needed a lot of work done to it, but the old man never did any to it and to look at him you would have thought he was dirt poor. But the article said he had a moderate fortune when he died in 2006 and since he was a bachelor it was split among his family and some other places. I am assuming they were charities or something. The paper also said the house was being taken to Whatley, which is only about 20 miles from here, and being restored by a couple. I am happy the house will be redone and it will probably be on more land then it was on downtown I'm sure.

I was taping this article into a book of mine and I wrote that it was beside the old post office and across from the old police station. It seems a lot of stuff has moved away from downtown in the past several years. Now the police station is still downtown. But they built a nice new one on the other end of town. The post office, however, built a new building about a mile or more from the old one.

When I was young I used to ride my bike to town and I could go to the post office, get an ice cream cone, go to the 5 & 10 cent store, go by the grocery store, and go see a movie if I wanted all right there in the downtown section. Now I can't do any of those things. All those places are gone. People have built new stores further out. Our town has grown over the years and there are many more businesses then when I was young, but they are spreading out to the Highway and along the Highway. I miss the things that were once downtown. The movie theater is still there but they don't show movies anymore. Sometimes they have plays and such there. I guess that is progress, but it is a sad progress sometimes. There are quite a few empty stores downtown now. I ride through there occasionally just to look. I really don't have much reason to go downtown anymore as there are no stores down there I need to go to. How sad is that?

Cleaning out my closet

2009-03-14T13:44:00.004-06:00

Last Sunday I decided to clean out my closet some. Here is a picture of some of the stuff on my bed that I took out of my closet to organize. I tell people that I would rather spend my money on fabric then clothes so my closet is mostly filled with fabric, trims, and other sewing supplies.
This is part of the top shelf of before.
This is the other side of the top shelf before.
This is my tool box which is full of sewing tools and supplies!
Here is the side of my closet with my tool box in it after I reorganized it. Some people may say it doesn't look much different, but to me it is! Things are easier to get to now. I really need a sewing room with lots of shelves to put all this stuff on and then it would be even easier to get to stuff!
Here is the other side of my closet after I organized it. Notice my few clothes. Half of the are the scrubs I wear to work.
The totes under my clothes all have fabric in them. My clothes end about even with the door frame. There is about a two foot beyond my clothes to the right and there are totes stacked from floor up to the shelf there.
I found this beauty in my closet. It is my mother's portable typewriter. I remember my mama typing quite often on it when I was young.
I don't know exactly how old it is, but I would guess at least 35 or 40 years old. I just love it! It is in excellent condition and still in it's original case.

New Bag Made

2009-03-14T09:05:00.004-06:00

I saw this great pattern for a bag over at Freda's Hive blog. I thought to myself that this would be a great purse for me. So I ordered the pattern. Nanette's bags looked so lovely and so easy to make. I figured I could make one in no time. Now you need to remember that I have no sewing room. I do all of my fabric cutting on my bed and then I have to bring this little table in my bedroom and put my machine on it to sew. That is why I don't like to do much machine sewing. It is such a pain in the neck moving everything around and I can only do this when hubby is working. So I got the pattern, then got my fabrics out and while hubby was working nights I cut out my bag and sewed it up. Well, let me tell you! That machine quilting just about got the better of me! I guess I just don't know how to do it right! It was a hot night here and by the time I got through with the machine quilting I thought I was going to have a melt down! So please don't look too close at my quilting! I think I must have been doing something wrong. Surely it shouldn't have been that hard!
Here is my finished bag.
I wanted to use this bag for a purse and I am but it is really a little big. I did box the bottom and I guess maybe I should go back and rip out the bottom and cut it off some, but I just don't know if I am up to it. I think I will just use it as it is for now and think about it. I might make a smaller purse later and then use this one as just a tote bag. I love the design and I love the colors I choose.

Here is a close up of the back of the bag. Please don't look closely at the machine quilting. I'm afraid my lines aren't too straight! I don't know why these words are underling! I don't know what to do to stop it!
This is my favorite part! The button! I love cherry fabric! And this fabric made the perfect button!
This is one of the inside pockets. I made my pockets larger then Nannette did hers as I love pockets in my bags. I like all my stuff to be in pockets and be organized. Of course there are not enough pockets for everything, but I can put my papers and stuff that would get all messed up in my purse in these.
These are the pockets on the other side of the bag.
This little pocket looks funky, but it is in the side of the bag where the two sides join together. It holds my pens. I just hate for my pens to be loose in my purse! Is anyone else out there as crazy as I am about this? I know my best friend is reading this and rolling her eyes! She already thinks I am too nuts with some of my organization! But I love her anyway!
I have a couple more things to post about but that will have to wait till later as I have got to get to the grocery store!

I Won!

2009-03-09T18:00:00.007-06:00

I was one of the winners of Carrie P. over at A Passion for Applique's birthday giveaway! My prize arrived in the mail today! Look at the great goodies I won!
This great heart pincushion!
The lovely Checkerboard Bouquet to applique'!
These beautiful charm fabrics!
And these lovely tan fabrics for the background on the applique!
It was so kind of Carrie to have such a great giveaway! Thank you Carrie for lovely goodies!

Selvage Giveaway!

2009-03-09T06:17:00.001-06:00

Lissa over at ModaLissa is having a great giveaway! She is giving away selvage! Hop on over there and check it out!

Prom Dress for Sale

2009-03-08T17:42:00.006-06:00

Does anyone know anyone who needs a larger size prom dress? I have had Amber's prom dress in my closet ever since she wore it to prom. It has only been worn that one time and I really need to get it out of my closet! I paid almost $300.00 for it and would be willing to part with it for $75.00 plus postage. It is a size 22. Amber only wore a size 18 but you always have to get a larger size in these kind of dresses.
Here is a picture of Amber wearing it. I have a larger professional picture of her in it that I can scan and post if anyone wants to see it.
This is a picture I took of the dress hanging on my door.
This is a close-up of the bodice.
If anyone knows anyone who would like this dress please let me know! I sure would appreciate it!

2009-03-07T17:40:00.006-06:00

I've been told it has been a while since I last posted. My best friend mentioned yesterday that I had not posted in a while and wanted to know what was up with that! It's nice to know she reads my blog.

We did have a big event happen this past week. My son, Keith, who turned 15 in February, got his learners permit! So now everywhere I go Keith wants to drive me! Friday after I got off work he drove me to Wal-Mart. He had a little problem with the parking. He pulled into a space just fine, but he wanted to go straight on through into the next space so that he would have to back up when we went to leave. The problem was there was a shopping cart in the way so he pulled over to the next space. Well, they left the car totally crooked. I was trying to instruct him on how to back up and get the car straight, but it wasn't working very good. So he finally turned off the motor and said this would do! Can you tell from the photos that he is in 4 different parking spaces?! I just died laughing! We just left it that way since we weren't going to be in the store but a few minutes. Other then the parking he seems to be doing pretty good.
Keith did tell me that he likes driving with me in the passenger seat better then his dad or Amber because I don't yell at him! This made me feel good. I told him that I keep reminding myself that he is just learning to drive and to stay calm. There are times when I am pushing on my imaginary brake harder then he is on his real one!
This morning Amber and I went to a few yard sales. I found this really cute little girl vase. Isn't she just adorable? I only paid 50 cents for her and she is in excellent condition.
Here is a side view where you can see the vase part. I want to make a pincushion out of her. When I showed her to Tara, she asked me how I could make a pincushion out of something hard! I had to explain to her that I would put some batting and fabric in the pot part!
This is the piece of embroidery I have been working on. I know it looks kinda strange right now, but it will all come together once I finish it.
This is the original drawing that my brother, Keith, did with a pencil. I plan to do black in the lighter colored parts. I want to use it in a panel for the side of a purse. Well, that is my plans now. But who knows, that could change!
I sure hope it turns out like I want it to. Well, I have to go back out and check my laundry. It seems that's all I do on Saturday afternoons!

A Messy Road

2009-02-26T18:16:00.005-06:00

They are repaving the street in front of where I work! Ugh! It has been a mess trying to go anywhere on that street! Luckily in order to go home I can go down the side street by my store and not have to go on this street since I live on the same side of town as my store is on. But this is the main street in our town and so has really messed people up.
Here they are paving right in front of my store.
Look at this steam roller! Now wouldn't you like to have that to iron out that big piece of wrinkled fabric?!
I sure will be glad when they get done with all this paving. This morning I went up to Hardee's to get a biscuit before work and didn't think I would ever get back down this road! Unfortunately Hardee's is located on this road so I had no choice but to drive on it.