People are funny.

One of the cultural differences I noticed after our move down here is the common courtesy practiced by just about everyone. I always thought people were pretty nice back in New Jersey but they just don't hold a candle to southerners.

Case in point - shopping carts. In New Jersey (and the parts of New York we frequented) there was never a place to put your shopping cart when you finish packing your car. The common practice was to leave it between the parked cars or worse, behind the next car so that person couldn't pull out until they dealt with the abandoned cart. (I admit to having words with a few individuals in the past.) :-)

Now in North Carolina, not only does just about every store provide corrals for their carts, people use them! It's the rare individual who abandons a shopping cart. Doesn't matter what the person looks like, how you might profile them, even the most unlikely seeming folks walk their empty carts to a corral or back to the front of the store. And teach their children to do it too!

That said....this is what happens when the store doesn't keep up!


Seriously! There's about a car-length of carts sticking out there. As I searched for walked to my car people just kept adding cart after cart. (I guess the courtesy factor doesn't translate to finding another corral?) The parking lots at Walmart are very spacious (and they provide plenty of cart corrals unlike some stores I could name) but these carts were more than halfway across the roadway. As I got into my car and buckled up, I watched shoppers add to the line of carts, drivers maneuver around them without even a pause, and was even more amazed at the driver who squeezed his pickup truck into the space opposite the carts like it was the only vacant spot.


People are funny.

Origin of Doll

On Saturday lucky me got to attend a Judi Ward doll designing workshop. Wow.


This is the one I wish was mine. I bought the class but have never made the doll! Now I just have to!


At the workshop we learned to make patterns from existing dolls. Very cool.


This is what I came home with. Pretty good actually. Just her toes are awful! :-)


And at this angle she reminds me of The Ascent of Man / Origin of Species progressions. LOL


(Arrrggghh. Don't look at those toes!) Hair, a face and clothing should do her wonders. To say nothing of shoes!!!

Double Delight

I've been working (finally) on last New Year's Bonnie Hunter mystery, Double Delight. I've been chugging away at it in the evenings.

Soooo many pieces!


But it's nice to see it coming alive on my design wall. :-)


Slowly. Sigh....

The dumb part is that I've done IT again. What is IT? IT is not finishing a project in a timely fashion and not being able to get more of the yardage I bought for it. This time around it's the brown and gold which I'd love to have for the borders. The brown is Moda's Bistro in Espresso Steam and the gold I can't find anywhere. I did find a little bit of the Espresso courtesy of the bit of selvage on the almost-yard I still have and the wonderful helpful staff at Wish Upon A Quilt. I just wish they still had some in the store!

But at least having the name makes it so much easier to search online! And I found 7/8 of a yard! I doubt it's enough but at least it's something. The gold is turning out to be impossible and I'll just have to find something else. I just have to keep reminding myself it's a scrap quilt anyway! :-D

Happy New Year!

Hello again. I've been lazy lazy lazy about blogging. :-) But the holidays are over and now I can feel like I have a little more time to sit at my computer.

So.... who can resist a grandchild saying, "CHEESE!"


Or one with a runny nose and a smile. :-)
In a quiet holiday moment I whipped up this little cell phone pouch. Cute! (A Fig Tree pattern)

In November I took a Happy Villages workshop with Karen Eckmeier. A lovely lovely lady. This is my Fairy Tale Village.


I couldn't resist buying her Accidental Landscapes book as well. I made three as Christmas presents. I made this one of Cape Cod Bay for Mom and Dad. I did a bit of browsing online for appropriate photos and came up with this view of Cape Cod Bay at low tide. The ship on the horizon is a depiction of the Liberty ship, SS James Longstreet. It was "planted" there in 1944 as a target ship and has since disintegrated and is no longer visible. I remember hearing the nighttime bombing as a child. My brother says he remembers going to the beach to watch.


These two are New Zealand scenes for The Tramp. The first one is sheep on the Canterbury plains with the Southern Alps in the distance. The sheep are little tiny balls of batting. What a struggle it was to get them looking even vaguely realistic!


This one is of a friend of The Tramp flying his glider over the Southern Alps near Omarama. We have a large framed version of the original photograph in our living room. It must have been an exciting moment for both the photographer and the pilot!


This evening I couldn't resist a few photos of the sky. I almost missed the moment in the few seconds it took to get the camera.

Another Jelly Bag

Laurel Burch fabrics. Cute! :-)

Ewwwwww!

Along with the cutsie country decor and the overpriced kitschy items in the attached store, Cracker Barrel has slow service and the worst food. Two visits is twice too many for me. This time my sandwich stunk of rancid oil. The butter for the little dry corn muffin wasn't much better. A couple of bites left a nasty greasy coating in my mouth. *shudder* Like Olestra. Remember Olestra? Ewwwww.

I scraped out and ate my sandwich filling (a skimpy amount of lumpy chicken salad in a runny dressing) and left the rest of my meal, all the time wondering how many hours until the stomach pains would start. I wondered at all the people around me eating away happily. How could they be not as grossed out as I was??? I'm not that picky. I guess I could have made a fuss, but to what end? The darned places are always crowded...heaven knows why. It was better to just pay and leave, never to darken Cracker Barrel doors again.

So how was your day? :-)

A finish!

It seems I never get anything finished...sigh. So I'm trying really hard to motor through some of my stack of UFOs and just get some stuff done. This Jelly Bag came out great (Bunny Hill Designs). And it's for ME! Nice for a change. :-)

RFLOL

If Bud Abbott and Lou Costello were alive today, their infamous sketch, 'Who's on First?' might have turned out something like this:

COSTELLO CALLS TO BUY A COMPUTER FROM ABBOTT
You have to be old enough to remember Abbott and Costello, and too old to REALLY understand computers, to fully appreciate this. For those of us who sometimes get flustered by our computers, please read on...

ABBOTT: Super Duper computer store. Can I help you?

COSTELLO: Thanks I'm setting up an office in my den and I'm thinking about buying a computer.

ABBOTT: Mac?

COSTELLO: No, the name's Lou.

ABBOTT: Your computer?

COSTELLO: I don't own a computer. I want to buy one.

ABBOTT: Mac?

COSTELLO: I told you, my name's Lou.

ABBOTT: What about Windows?

COSTELLO: Why? Will it get stuffy in here?

ABBOTT: Do you want a computer with Windows?

COSTELLO: I don't know.. What will I see when I look at the windows?

ABBOTT: Wallpaper.

COSTELLO: Never mind the windows. I need a computer and software.

ABBOTT: Software for Windows?

COSTELLO: No. On the computer! I need something I can use to write proposals, track expenses and run my business. What do you have?

ABBOTT: Office.

COSTELLO: Yeah, for my office. Can you recommend anything?

ABBOTT: I just did.

COSTELLO: You just did what?

ABBOTT: Recommend something.

COSTELLO: You recommended something?

ABBOTT: Yes.

COSTELLO: For my office?

ABBOTT: Yes.

COSTELLO: OK, what did you recommend for my office?

ABBOTT: Office.

COSTELLO: Yes, for my office!

ABBOTT: I recommend Office with Windows.

COSTELLO: I already have an office with windows! OK, let's just say I'm sitting at my computer and I want to type a proposal. What do I need?

ABBOTT: Word.

COSTELLO: What word?

ABBOTT: Word in Office.

COSTELLO: The only word in office is office.

ABBOTT: The Word in Office for Windows.

COSTELLO: Which word in office for windows?

ABBOTT: The Word you get when you click the blue 'W'.

COSTELLO: I'm going to click your blue 'w' if you don't start with some straight answers. What about financial bookkeeping? You have anything I can track my money with?

ABBOTT: Money.

COSTELLO: That's right. What do you have?

ABBOTT: Money.

COSTELLO: I need money to track my money?

ABBOTT: It comes bundled with your computer.

COSTELLO: What's bundled with my computer?

ABBOTT: Money.

COSTELLO: Money comes with my computer?

ABBOTT: Yes. No extra charge.

COSTELLO: I get a bundle of money with my computer? How much?

ABBOTT: One copy.

COSTELLO: Isn't it illegal to copy money?

ABBOTT: Microsoft gave us a license to copy Money.

COSTELLO: They can give you a license to copy money?

ABBOTT: Why not? THEY OWN IT!

(A few days later)

ABBOTT: Super Duper computer store. Can I help you?

COSTELLO: How do I turn my computer off?

ABBOTT: Click on 'START'.............



Too funny.

Tiny Worlds and smelly dogs

OH MY! I have no idea what the dogs got into today. I think they must have rolled in it as well as eaten it. The smell was so strong when I let them back inside it almost made my eyes water! Barn? Fertilizer? Death? I've searched the yard and can't find anything. Whatever it is, it smells GROSS!

But! I persevered in the sewing room despite the stench and made my first "Tiny World" pin cushion. I've been collecting tea cups from the thrift stores, along with wool sweaters for the stuffing, and bought wool felt for the house and grounds. FUN! ...and cute. I can't wait to do another. The pattern is by Mimi Kirchner.

Tales From Under the Sewing Table

Hi there! My name is Maisy.


I've been living in The Sandbox since April and I'm a big girl now. I weigh 30 lbs even though I was supposed to be a lap dog. The Tramp mentions it often. :-p


In fact, Miss Katie calls me Piggy. She says I look like a piglet rooting for truffles. I don't think so, do you? My tail isn't nearly curly enough!


And I don't dig holes like Ivy does. I'd much rather sneak through the fences and prune the wisteria and garden plants. Miss Katie says she can't figure out why I don't yank the evil Bermuda grass out of the flower beds while I'm at it. Heh.


I'm in deep doo-doo today....sigh. I always am. Miss Katie is pretty peeved about her fave wool pincushion.


Pins are great to chew on!

Poop. I also don't know why everyone was so upset when I chewed through the wire of one of the sewing machine foot pedals. I mean, aren't there enough other sewing machines around here? I was just keeping quiet and busy. Ok...sigh. I didn't know it was the new sewing machine. Oh.... Well.... I guess I chewed up a couple of lamp cords and speaker wires too.

But I'm cute! Really!

Psst.... Don't tell them about the teeth marks on the vacuum cleaner cords.

Miss Katie says her blogging mojo may have come back......whatever mojo is. Groan! I guess I'll have to learn to pose as nicely as Ivy and Ngaire so there aren't any more Piggy pictures! Miss Katie also says if I don't destroy any more of her sewing equipment there may be some quilt pictures coming soon too. :-p


Have a happy, muddy day!