Monday Morning & Pincushion

It was nice to have a long weekend. I did get all my laundry done on Friday and then went and did my grocery shopping. My dad thought it was terrible that I was going grocery shopping on Friday. He said "but it's not Saturday". He is at the point that everything has to be done at the exact same time everyday or on the exact same day of the week every week. Some days it will make you crazy. If he always does something at a certain time and something interfers with it he gets so upset. I took Tara to meet a friend with whom she went to a family bar-b-que'. I did cook a nice late lunch of bar-b-que' chicken and all the trimmings. I cooked the chicken in the oven with bar-b-que' sauce. It was very good! We didn't go to the fireworks show after all. No one was really interested. Hubby was tired still after having worked a 12 hour shift all night Thursday night and he had to get up at 4:30 AM Saturday morning to do a 12 hour day shift. It was fine with me. I just sat and crocheted all evening on one of Aunt Vivian's tablecloths. Saturday I got a later start than I intended. I couldn't seem to wake up. I am a person who dreams all night long and therefore I don't feel rested in the mornings. This was the case Saturday morning. I did get some things organized in our bedroom and then I started sewing. I made several little pouches to use in my purse to hold things and I made a nice larger pouch to hold a book of mine. I also make this great pincushion. I had seen one similar to it on Sunshine Yellow's blog (http://sunshineyellow-stitches.blogspot.com/) and had to make one. The fabric in the middle that is tan, green and pink is some left over from a pair of pants my mama started making me when I was about 10 years old! She never finished them! That was how my mama was, she didn't do much sewing. But she did some beautiful embroidery. So I guess you could say the fabric is vintage! It is 38 years old. I just love it! The picture below shows the top of my pincushion. I learned to make the little flower on top over at Polka Dot Pineapple's blog (http://mousechirpy-polkadotpineapple.blogspot.com/). I love all the stuff she makes! It is really inspiring! As you can see, I haven't put all my pins in my pin cushion yet, but I will.

Happy 4th of July & a giveaway

Hi everybody,
Hope you all have a great 4th of July! Hop on over to Sharon's blog and join in on the give away!
http://redgeraniumcottage.typepad.com/my_weblog/

Large Hussif

I am so glad it is Thursday and tomorrow is July 4Th as the store where I work is closed tomorrow! So it will be a long weekend. We don't plan to do anything special for the 4Th. We may go see the city's fireworks show. It will just be nice to be off and have some time to sew. Quite a while back I had cut out a lot of 3-1/2 inch squares out of some of my scrap fabric and I had some extras left over from the memory quilt I had made my niece. So I started sewing them into rows and putting the rows together. As usual I never finished the quilt top. The other day I put this little table in my bedroom and these past few days when my husband is working I have been sewing some more of the squares together. He will be working all day Saturday and I plan to work on it then. I have also started crocheting on the blue, round tablecloth that my Aunt Vivian gave me that she hadn't finished. So I really don't have any pictures to show you now of new stuff. I will take some pictures of my scrappy squares quilt this weekend to post. Below are some pictures of a sewing Hussif I made a little while back.
This picture is of the front. The photo transfer on the front is of me at the age of 7. I am dressed as a green fairy for a Rumpelstiltskin play I was in at school. This is one of my favorite pictures. I have a wall hanging I made from it. The dog standing so nicely in the background was my brother's dog, Charms. This is the end view of my Hussif. I put Ribbon closures with snaps on them. I sewed buttons to the outside of the snaps as decoration.
This is right when you open it. I hand embroidered all the pockets.
This is the full inside view of it opened.
This is the full outside view of it opened.
This is a close up of some of the inside. The round crocheted thing is a pin cushion.
This is more closeups of the inside. The left side is a needle book and the small pockets on the right are for small containers of needles I have.
This is the back. I got the cat from a dresser scarf my mama embroidered many years ago. I just thought it was so cute!
These pictures show my hussif empty except for the scissors and thread bobbins. I now have it full, but don't take it with me much as it is heavy. It is convenient at home as everything is close at hand. I have a smaller hussif I made to carry with me and will show you that one in another post.
Hope you all have a great 4Th of July!
Blessings,
Diane

"I Remember Laura" Blog-a-thon, Herilooms and Treasures.....

I don't have too many things in my family that have been passed down. I have a few small trinkets that belonged to both of my grandmothers and a pipe that was my grandfathers. I do have lots of things that belonged to my mother. Below is a picture of my niece, Lacey, born in 1996, wearing a christening gown I made for her. I learned after I had given it to my brother and his wife that my sister-in-laws family have a christening gown that has been passed down in their family. I told my sister-in-law that if she would rather have Lacey wear it that would be fine. But, my sister-in-law's mother told her she should let Lacey wear the one I made and start a new tradition in her own family of passing it down. So Lacey was the first to wear it in what I hope will be a long line of babies who wear it. I hand crocheted it, the bonnet, matching booties, and the blanket behind her. I lined the dress with white batiste.


 

Friday at Last!

I am so glad it is Friday! It has really been a long week. My daughter, Amber, came up to my work and had lunch with me Tuesday and Wednesday which was nice. She went back to Louisiana yesterday and I miss her already. I have been helping with Vacation Bible School at our church and last night as I drove up to my house I saw Amber's red truck was not there. Of course it wouldn't be because she had gone back to Louisiana. But it really made me miss her and just as I was pulling into the drive she called me on my cell phone! Talk about telepathic! She had just gotten off work and she always calls me when she gets off work to tell me goodnight. She knows I go to bed early. I don't know when she will home again.
At least I have my daughter, Tara, at home. This is her last summer before senior year. So it won't be long before she will be heading off to college. I sure am going to miss her, too. She and I love watching Lifetime movies together. Some Saturdays, when her dad is working the day shift, she and I will sit on my bed and watch Lifetime movies all day! It is such good mother, daughter time. My son, Keith, has 4 more years of school. But he is not into the movies I like, of course! I guess we all have to face the fact that our kids grow up and leave home. It just makes you kinda sad. Amber and Tara were going through old photos the other night and I would look at my kids baby pictures and wish they were still little babies and toddlers again! Oh well, we can't turn back time.
Keith went on a church trip to the beach this morning. I just realized they were suppose to bring snacks and drinks so we ran to the store on the way to pick him up some. I was so worried about him not having enough to eat. He said "Mama, calm down. I will be fine. Daddy gave me some money." I looked at all 6 feet of him and said "yes, I know you will be fine. It is just a mother's place to worry. I just want to be sure you have enough to eat." He is 14, 6 foot tall and about 200 pounds. I don't think he would starve. But you know mama's will always worry about their children. And I will worry about him until he is home safe and sound this afternoon!

Tara

fMy daughter, Tara, was looking at my blog last night and saw that I do not have a picture of her on here. She told me I needed to put a picture of her on here. So here it is. This is my beautiful daughter, Tara and her prom date, Steven, before they left for the prom in April. Let me explain who Steven is. He is not her boyfriend. He is just a friend. Steven had a crush on Tara forever it seemed like, but she only liked him as a friend. Several months before the prom she agreed to go with him only as friends. Since they made the date and before the prom Steven started going out with another girl. So his girlfriend went to the prom with Steven's best friend who is also a friend of Tara's! Sounds confusing, doesn't it! Also at the time of the prom Tara had a boyfriend who lived in another state!
I think Tara is a very beautiful girl. Not only on the outside but the inside also. She is such a sweet, compassionate girl. She will be a senior this year and after she graduates she plans to go to college to be a Special Education teacher. She worked with the mentally challanged kids at her school last fall every day during her 4th period class and really loved it. Those kids loved her. They still run up to give her hugs if they see her on the school campus. I really think she will a great teacher for these kids with the kind and compassionate heart she has. I love you, Tara! You're gonna be a great teacher!

Treasures from Aunt Vivian & Sassy

In my last post I told you about all the crochet thread that Aunt Vivian gave me. Now I am going to show you some of the projects that she was working on and hadn't finished that she gave me. First is this gorgeous round blue tablecloth! I am going to try and finish it. Even though she crochets left handed and so her stitches are going in the opposite direction mine will be, I think if I just unravel enough so that I start at a new row and go forward it will work. Here is a gorgeous white tablecloth made by the same pattern as the blue. Aunt Vivian has a retangle table, but she told me that she really wanted a big round table. I have a round table and when I finish these they will look beautiful on it!
This is an oblong tablecloth she gave me. I found the pattern in one of the books she gave me and I believe all it need is the edging crocheted around it and it will be finished!
The next two pictures are piles of doilys she had started and never finished! Most of them are fine like they are and I am just going to block them and use them!

This is a beautiful Christmas doily she was working on. It just needs one row of red edging around it to finish it! I am going to get it finished to use this Christmas.
There were several small doilys like this one in there. I think she may have been going to make more and put them together for a bigger project. I think they will be great for some of the memory projects I make. I already have one in mind with pictures of Aunt Vivian on it and some of her crochet work!
I just loved this crocheted flower she made!
This is a quilt Aunt Vivian gave me that she had been working on. There are 10 squares, so I will make the quilt with 9 of the squares. She has completely hand quilted almost 8 of the squares. She has a little left on one square and then two squares are not quilted at all. I can't wait to finish them and get this quilt put together. I don't have any quilts or any hand work from anyone in my family except some of my mother's embroidery. It means so much to me that my aunt gave me these things.
My aunt's daughter, Sassy, gave me the ribbon and lace below. She does a lot of sewing. She makes a lot of things for her grandkids and some clothes for herself. She also does machine embroidery and hand smocking. She is trying to get me into smocking. That is one thing I have never done and I plan to try it.
Sassy also gave Amber and me the fabric below. Amber loves the bike fabric on the right and plans to use it in a quilt.
I bought this fabric. Don't know what I am going to do with it, but just loved it!
I, also bought this fabric, Saturday. We went to a couple fabric stores and the book store before going to Aunt Vivian's. I have to go to these places while I am there since it is 70 miles to Mobile and we have no fabric stores here.
The next two pictures are of fabric I bought. Don't know what I am going to do with any of it, but I'll add it to my stash and find something to do with it!
Aren't the colors so pretty? The camera does not do them justice! I just love fabric!