Forgotten bag & baby afghan

I was in Wal-Mart Saturday when a lady came up to me and said she didn't know my name but they had a purse that belonged to me at the bank downtown! Now that sounded strange! I knew I hadn't left my purse no where. I did recognize her face and knew I had seen her at this bank. But it has been months and months since I have been down to that bank. She said I had brought some rolled up coins in to be swapped for cash in the purse and the teller had forgotten to give it back to me. I asked her what it looked like and when she told me I knew immediately which bag it was. I told her I hadn't remembered seeing that bag in a while but hadn't thought much of it. I have so much sewing stuff stuck in every available nook and cranny that I would probably have never missed it! So I went down to the bank yesterday and pick up my bag! I am glad I did. I put a lot of work into sewing on all those buttons.

I also went up to visit with my cousin, Minnie Mae, on Saturday. She is actually my grandfather Dumas first cousin. So that would make her and me 3rd cousins. She is 85 years old and still does the most beautiful handwork. She does a lot of smocking and was working on a beautiful dress that she showed me. She has also crocheted lots of baby booties and had the cutest pair there. I really wanted the pattern, so she is gonna find it and mail it to me. She did let me borrow the pattern for the baby afghan below.

I decided to crochet it out of this pink yarn someone gave me. I am making it for a lady at church who is pregnant and due in late October. Below is the start of it. I started on it Sunday night and I guess it was kinda late and I was tired. I had a horrible time! I ripped out the first three rows about 3 or 4 times! I was about ready to just chunk it all in the trash! But I finally decided I was just too tired to work on it and put it up for the night. It is just really hard for me to just sit and not do some kind of handwork. But after I put it up I just sat and watched a little TV with the hubby before bedtime.

Here is a close-up of my stitches. I hope they look OK. I love the pineapple design. I have a whole book on pineapple doilies.

GIVEAWAY

I just love giveaways and here is another really nice one! Check out Polka Dots & Ric Rack for her 1 year anniversary giveaway!

Goldfish are finished! & cute little posie

I finally finished the four little goldfish bags I was working on! Yeah! So what do you think?
These are two pictures of them before I put the drawstrings in them:


Here are some pictures of them with the drawstrings:



This is a close up of one. I hope you like them!

This is a little posie I made from this tutorial on Pink Paper Peppermints blog. I put a tiny yo-yo in the center of mine with an old button.

Yesterday afternoon was a hoot! My kids did fine their first day of school. Tara had signed up to take this class, Agra-science. It is a class that is taught by a man and has all boys in it! But she and her best friend really like this teacher and so decided to take the class together. Well, she gets to school yesterday and discovers her friend is not in the class! So there she is in a class of nothing but boys! She had me calling the school counselor to try and get her put into another class. I haven't been able to get him on the phone but have left voice messages. I have known her schoolcounselor since I was a teenager. He is such a sweet man. I know he will get her placed in some other class as quick as he can! Kids!
Then I had a customer come into the store where I work at 4:29PM with two prescriptions to be filled. We close at 4:30PM. We have DME equipment at the store and so I had to fill the prescriptions. It was almost 5:00PM before I left the store and it had started to rain. I had to go to the drug store and pick up my dad's prescription and by the time I came out of there it was really pouring rain! Needless to say I was soaked to the skin! I went straight home and got in the shower! What an afternoon!

Little Fish & 5" Charm Squares

I had told you in an early post that I was working on some goldfish bags out of one of Kumiko Sudo's books. Below is the one I finished on Sunday. I just got a picture taken of it yesterday!



Here are four more fish bags I have been working on. It has taken me longer than I expected to get them done as I have been really busy lately at work. My boss doesn't mind if I do a little hand sewing when I am not busy. The past few days have been extremely busy, though. With it being the first of the school year I have a lot of cafeteria workers from the schools coming in to buy scrub uniforms. Also some of the school nurses buy uniforms from us. I am the only one who works in this store and so I have to do everything here from putting out the freight to waiting on the customers to cleaning. It is good to be busy, though. More customers means more profits for the owners! So that makes them happy and if they are happy then I am happy! I will post pictures of the finished fishies when I get them finished! I just think they are the cutest things!

Here is one more set of 5" fabric charm squares I received through the Craftster swap I am in. They are from almostexact. I love the butterfly fabrics the best! One day I want to make a quilt with all different kinds of butterfly fabric in it. So I am collecting different butterfly prints everywhere I go now. Don't you think that would be beautiful? Butterflies stand for happiness. I just love them!

School is in!

Got the kids off to school today! This is Tara's senior year and she is so excited. Poor thing caught a cold on Tuesday and was running a low fever last night. She seemed better today, but still all stuffed up. But she had to go to school on the first day. This is Keith's first year at the high school. He is starting the 9Th grade. He was a little nervous about finding his way around. Tara told him to just follow her! I had to go into the school to pick up something and was a little behind them in the hall. They were so cute with Tara in the lead and Keith following right behind her.

I saw one of my old teachers and stopped to talk a minute. I know that sounds strange that someone who taught me would still be teaching! I am 48 years old, after all. She taught me home-economics 32 years ago! She was very young at the time. In fact she was pregnant with twins at the time. Although, they did not know it was twins until the babies were born. That was way before ultrasounds and they could only detect one heartbeat. One of the babies was hiding behind the other. I even remember crocheting her a baby blanket. Anyway, Tara has her for one of her classes this year! I just love that. She was one of my favorite teachers and I just love her. She also taught my daughter, Amber, when she was in high school!

I think it was more emotional for me this year with the kids going to school then when they first started kindergarten! Just thinking about that my last two are both in high school and Tara will soon be out! The years have just flown by.

Every year since Amber, my oldest, first started first grade, I have taken pictures of my kids on the first day of school. Somehow I missed taking one of Amber when she started kindergarten. I think I got the idea from a friend after she had already started kindergarten. Anyway, today was no exception. I took three pictures of Keith and Tara. I liked the last one. Keith's smile in the first two was kinda fake. Tara said she liked her hair better in the first one! You be the judge and tell me what you think.

I have to tell this little story. You see, Keith and Amber have always been very shy. Well, Tara has too at times, but she reacts differently than Keith and Amber. So Yesterday Tara took Keith up to the high school to show him where his classes would be. They went into the office and Miss Patsy, who has worked there for years, looked at Keith and said "I see he got the tall genes in the family." Tara said Keith just stood there and looked at Miss Patsy, didn't smile and didn't say a word! So Miss Patsy says, "I see he got Amber's personality, too!" Tara said Keith still just stood there and never said a word and never smiled! I just died laughing when she told me this. Tara will at least smile if someone is talking to her or says something like that to her even if she is shy, but not my Keith and Amber! They are a hoot! But they are both so sweet and everybody loves them.

Notice the height difference between Keith and Tara. Now remember he is 14 and she is 17! I tell her he is her big little brother! I can't wait till they get home from school and call me and I see how their first day went.

More 5" Fabric Charms & stuff in the mail!

This past weekend was nice. The kids left on Friday for a church trip to Six Flags. The hubby took me out to eat at our local steak house on Friday night. Of course I spent all day Saturday grocery shopping, doing laundry, and cleaning! What fun! I did cut out a little goldfish bag Saturday night. It was out of my very first Kumkio Sudo book called Omiyage. I think this is my most favorite of all her books. I have made the most things out of it. I am planning to make a few more things and get my Etsy shop up and running again. I haven't put anything in it in forever and so right now there is nothing there. I got my goldfish finished last night and will post pictures of it after I take some. This particular goldfish will not be sold as I do not believe in making things on Sunday to sell.
The kids got back Sunday evening from their trip. They had a great time, but were tired. Tara felt like her head was still spinning from all the rides! Keith, who has been having some problems with his back hurting from time to time, said that his back was hurting. I figure it is from the long ride in the church van and from riding all those rides! So things are back to normal. Keith asked me when school started back and I said this Thursday. He just groaned!
I have received more of the 5" Fabric Charm Squares from the swap I am in over at Craftster. They are from bettflow, goatgoddess, and audrey1999. Below are the photos of them in no certain order.



In Friday's mail I received this little acorn bag that I won from Nicole over at craftapalooza. Isn't it the cutest thing? She did a great job crocheting it! She also included this cord with a cute little beaded girl on the end.

This is a close up of the lining. I love this fabric. It makes me think of the fairy tales I read as a child.

Here is a close up of the little girl. Her head looks to be polymer clay and her body is a paper bead. There is another beautiful bead on the other end of the cord.
Thank you so much Nicole for the great gifts!

In Saturday's mail I got this wonderful book from Miss Sandy over at Quill Cottage. It is called Our Family Treasury by Helen Steiner Rice. I have been a big fan of Helen Steiner Rice for years. She writes some of the most beautiful and inspiring poems I have ever read. Miss Sandy also sent me a pen to fill in the book with. Can't wait to get started on it! As most of you know I have really been into doing family research and this book is the perfect thing to write some of it down in. It will be a great keepsake for generations to come. Thank you so much Miss Sandy for thinking of me.

Pin Cushion from Tiny Patchwork Book

I am so glad to see Friday get here. It is a cloudy, rainy day today but that is fine with me. The store in which I work is small and has these huge glass windows on the front. The afternoon sun pours through these windows and even with the AC going non stop it still will be around 83 degrees in there before I leave in the afternoon. When it is cloudy and rainy it doesn't get as hot.
My kids are setting off today on a trip to Six Flags in Georgia with our church youth. I know they will have fun and it will be a quiet weekend at home for me. I had to ask my dad to drive them up to the church for me and drop them off as hubby just got off work at 6AM and is sleeping and I will be at work. You would have thought I asked him to take them all the way to Georgia! Now our church is less than a mile from our house. He has no problem driving to the barber to get his hair cut and it is located right across the street from the church! I told him all he has to do is drive up there and let the kids get out. He doesn't even have to turn off the motor or get out of the car. He said it would be right at the time he has to eat and take his medicine! I told him it would not hurt for him to eat and take the medicine 5 minutes later today. That's that OCD thing he has going on! He finally agreed to take them for me. What a hoot!

For the past few days I have been working on a new pin cushion. It is from the Tiny Patchwork book I got the other day. It did not have a wrist strap, but I put one on it. I thought it turned out rather nice. My daughter, Tara, is modeling it in the photos. She has such a small arm that it is nearly up to her elbow! Below are pictures of it. I am trying to think of what I want to make next. I think I want to make a couple things out of my Kumiko Sudo books. A lady called me yesterday and wants me to crochet her a couple pairs of baby bootees. She likes to keep them on hand for when a baby shower comes up. So I will probably get them done first.

Flower Pin Cushion:




Let me know what you think of my pin cushion and of Tara modeling it.