Renewal. Inside and out. :-)

Spring seems to be coming despite the prediction by Sir Walter Wally on Groundhog Day. Of course I could be speaking too soon, but in the meantime we are enjoying gorgeous weather. It's supposed to be in the mid-seventies on Friday! :-D

I couldn't resist taking a picture before breakfast on Sunday.

I have a nice comfortable sewing corner in the living room.

Made even nicer by the view.  Of course it always seems we sit in the living room in the evenings when it's just a big blank black window.  Sigh.

This evening while we watched our hour of TV, Maisy claimed a spot on The Tramp's lap.  Apparently his lap goes all the way down to his toes!  Too funny.  She's an awfully short dog to have such a long stretch.

She's also amusing to watch at mealtimes.  She's the original stomach on four short legs.   The dogs have to sit quietly and wait until I say they can eat.  While the other two watch me closely, Maisy watches her food closely.  Every few moments an eyebrow will twitch as she checks to see if I'm still there.  Nutty dog!

On the sewing front, this evening was the second cutting of the acrylic.  The first acrylic sheet cracked while being cut, so The Tramp adjusted his strategy.  And we have a winner!  You will also notice the lamps are no longer sagging.  Yay!

Sigh.  It's a thing of beauty.

Masterful work with power tools by The Tramp and a whole lot of sanding by me, to get the edges nice and smooth.  Wonderful!  I have charity quilts to finish before tomorrow night.  :-)

Slosh, slosh, slosh....

Today The Tramp and I took a trip to the outlet mall.  Yes, that huge monument is the sign for the mall....which we missed as we drove by the first time.  It's big enough you'd think it would be obvious wouldn't you.  But...we missed it.  And on the way back I missed my Kodak moment.  Easy to do in a moving vehicle don'tcha know.

But we're glad we missed the turn because we found this!

Yep.  A diner, y'all!  Not quite up to Jersey diner standards but all in all a nice place, with nice people, and nice food.

I tried to get a picture as we went by, but again....the moving vehicle thing.  It had comfortable booths, diner decor and neato curved glass block windows in the corners.

After we got home this afternoon it was Ivy's turn for a walk.  As I came back 'round the pond the late day sun made the willow tree look like Midas had touched it.  An obvious Kodak moment.  And this time no moving vehicle...just a moving Ivy.  :-)  The geese always have a hissy fit when we walk past them.  And the pair of mergansers always swim quickly away.  They are quite small and I can never get close enough for a decent photo...especially with a cell phone.  They must swim miles and miles a day just avoiding the everyday activity around the pond.

Ivy has a backpack too.  It's a different brand than Ngaire's and it fit her badly.  So last night I tucked and sewed to shorten it quite a bit and today it's much better.  She's carrying water bottles too.  It's pretty funny as she sloshes along on her walk.  We were thinking of putting sand in the bottles instead....but then what fun would that be?

Ok.  I smiled for the camera.  Can I go inside now???

A very ADD day

I spent most of today showing the ADD side of myself (send The Tramp a sympathy card), flitting from one thing to another and mostly forgetting whether I was coming or going.  The Tramp was home today and in spite of my being so ridiculously unfocused, between us we got a few things done.  Home Depot was visited.  Light bulbs were replaced in the ceiling of the master bath.  (it was getting pretty dark in there)  The droopy sewing lamps are fixed. (yay!)  The old sewing table is listed on craigslist and waiting in the garage for a new owner.  (carrying it downstairs nearly killed me/us) While The Tramp slept in this morning, I enthusiastically baked what turned out to be not-so-nice sticky buns which of course had to drip butter and sugar all over my oven.  (urgh)  I also baked, or rather,  nearly burned a loaf of bread (a lesson in why you shouldn't ignore your timer), which turned out to be very good anyway!  (something had to go right today)  We also made an attempt to cut the acrylic for the new sewing table but it split and I will get another piece of acrylic tomorrow.  (good practice, lessons learned and the outcome will be better next time)

Yesterday I made up a batch of butterscotch oatmeal cookies for The Tramp. (yum!)  I had put aside about 20 in a plastic bag for him to take to work and share, and Maisy the Weird, Maisy the Strange, Maisy the What-Am-I-Going-To-Do-With-You-Dog! snitched the bag off the kitchen counter and ate the whole darned thing!  So of course today was punctuated by her need to go out....often.  I guess we're fortunate she doesn't seem to want to eat Charlie.  Actually, I suspect she's in more danger than Charlie is!  LOL

I was pleased to finally receive my new iron from The Vermont Country Store.  This is the second one as the first one came dented.  It's hard to imagine how it would not end up dented when it comes (in it's own box) thrown into a shipping box with one piece of packing paper.  I returned it and asked for a replacement and could they please pack it more carefully the second time around.  HA!  This one was packed the same way.  The inner box was a bit smashed but this time the iron was intact.  And it works!  I really wanted it because it's a no-steam iron and doesn't have any holes in the soleplate to catch on and wrinkle up squares and triangles etc.  I will however, think twice about ordering from The Vermont Country Store again, so I hope it lasts.

This evening I actually did a little sewing.  I've been meaning to try this tutorial for a shopping bag for quite a while.  I congratulate the writer/designer for such clearly written instructions.  Embarking on something new after 10 pm on an ADD day isn't necessarily very smart but I'm very happy with the result.  The bag is fashioned after a plastic shopping bag and I think her method of construction is quite clever.

Fun!  I'll have to make more of them....though not necessarily this late at night.  :-)

Fortunate daughter

Today I am the most fortunate of daughters.  Why, you ask? 

Yes indeed.  That's the air lift on a Horn of America Quilter's Dream sewing Table. And it's in my sewing room.  WOW!!!!!  Mom has decided to sell her new Janome Horizon Memory Craft 7700QCP (any takers?) and go back to using the old Singer 201-2.

The Singer has been living at my house for a number of years and I had obtained the proper vintage Spinet cabinet for it.  The same sort of cabinet it was in when I was a child.  So Mom has given me her Horn of America table and I've given back the Singer.  Seems a fair trade, don't you think?  ;-)

Look at all that quilting space.  Swoon!  I took the wheels off one of my Ikea drawer units and lo and behold, it fits perfectly underneath!  Like it was made for it.  So....as evidenced by the wrenches in the first photo, I've been been crawling around underneath the cabinet this afternoon trying to adjust the lift to fit my Juki.  Yikes!  They don't make it easy, the instructions are pretty sketchy.  It took quite a while to get it right..... and I have the dents in my forehead and a lump on the back of my head to prove it.  Sheesh.

I also ran out and bought two task lamps for the table and as you can see, one of them is even finding the light bulb too heavy.  It's almost impossible not to strip the adjustments.  Sigh.  I'll see what The Tramp can do for me or I guess I'll just have to take it back.  I'm not sure what I'd use instead.  We also bought a piece of clear acrylic and are going to try to cut the insert for the top ourselves.  The operative word being "try."  :-)

Mom's birthday was last week and I made her a silly and cute little birdie angel pin keep. 

Last year I had made one of Mimi Kirschner's Tiny World pin cushions for her.  That teacup is one of a set Mom has had for as long as I can remember.  One day I noticed that one cup was sitting in her china cabinet in two pieces!  We have no idea how it broke just sitting there.  But a little china glue and it was perfect for a Tiny World.  Hmmmmm.  That tree all wrong.  I think I need to make a different one.

And lastly, we received a new picture of grand #4.  I still say she looks like her mother.  :-D

Mojo?

My sewing mojo seems to be back. Today I finished an Amy Butler Nappy Bag and I really enjoyed it! I don't know exactly what's been holding me back but it seems to be mostly gone. Wow. I just realize it's been since last January when we were de-cluttering to put the other house on the market. That kind of stuff just takes the wind out of your sails I guess. Anyway, the bag came out just fine and now I can have fun filling it with baby goodies. :-)

The other is kitchen mojo.  Darned if I know why I'm choosing to spend large chunks of time in the kitchen.  Weird.  Really weird.  But I did it again today.  I could have been doing so many other things but I wrestled with flour and peanut butter, rolling pin and cookie cutter to make treats for the dogs.

WEIRD.

A finish!

I wish it was a sewing finish....but at least it is a sewing room finish!  The Tramp and I worked hard all weekend and I worked all day yesterday and the room...and house...is mostly put back in order after the carpet installation.  THANK GOODNESS!  Everything is out of the bathroom.  Yay!  Well....except one Singer.  :-)

Before I trash the room again I had to take some pictures.  I've moved things around a bit.  The Juki is now over in the corner and the ironing surface in the middle of the room.  Much nicer.

The machines are draped with fabrics I intend to make into covers.  The walls in here are a very pale green and the accent color is developing to be purple.  :-)

My desk is now half the size.  Much better!  I still have to find a better method of hanging those curtains and put up colorful valances.  Goodness!  Right now they just look like rags....and they're not!

The Tramp put up a strip for my ribbons.  It'll take years and years for me to have a nice display like my mom had in her sewing room.....if I'm lucky.  We also cobbled together two small bookcases to make a tall one.  It's full!  What am I going to do???  There are so many more books to buy!

I love this strange blue Ikea computer desk next to my machine.  I have an ironing surface on top, I can pull out a cutting surface and I can store things like my serger and my leaders and enders underneath.

The Bernina is also waiting for a cover.

 The design wall is back up on the wall.

The ironing surface is an Ikea sideboard.  I painted it a funky purple a few years ago but the back was nothing to look at.  So since I have to sit there and look at it, I covered the back with some Flavia fabric I bought at WalMart before they stopped carrying fabric.  (sigh)  I also recovered the top with clean white canvas a la Sharon Schamber.  I know it won't stay clean very long, just like the one by my machine, but that's ok.

These two Ikea cabinets under my cutting table are wonderful and a good deal cheaper than the Horn of America version.  Also, we lucked out and got them for half price! One has sewing items in it and one is all my office stuff.

I rearranged all my bookshelves and now my binders full of info and patterns are so much easier to access.  :-)

The Tramp likes to tell everyone I allow him one corner.  And I do!

So after all that work, today I planned to do nothing but sew.  But of course there were so many things I had to do "first."  SIGH.  I ended up spending the bulk of the day in the kitchen.  I'm not a kitchen person.  At all.  So I'm figuring the kitchen in this house is turning out to be a pretty good little kitchen if I'm willing to spend so much time in it.  LOL

I cooked the milk for yogurt.

Stewed the chicken for dog stew.

Boned the chicken and added all the other ingredients.

And stored it all away after it cooled.

I also used up the mushy bananas for some banana bread.  You can see above, it came out a little brown around the edges.  But I had to do that to get the center of it cooked. 

And a lentil tomato stew went into the slow cooker.

We won't discuss the number of dirty pots and dishes I generated.  Birds seem to love the sound of running water.  Charlie thought it was all great fun and sang and screeched and talked and played with great gusto.  (especially the screeching...I'm not sure he likes NPR)  Funnily enough, while I was doing all this cooking, I was listening to the Diane Rehm show and it was all about the new dietary guidelines.  Quite interesting.

Of course the dogs were underfoot too.  They know when I'm cooking for them.  Finally this afternoon I started quilting a charity quilt, but the table the Juki is on is too high and I have to wait for The Tramp to get home and help me adjust it.  So I took Ngaire out for a brisk walk.  We are weighing her down with water bottles in her backpack to give her some much needed exercise.  Cesar says to give a working dog like a German Shepard a job to do.  So I sure hope she likes her job.  :-)

Do you think they are liking the new carpet?  Sigh....I'm going to have to vacuum again.