The on going saga......and Merry Christmas

I haven't posted for awhile as I've been busy doing nothing in particular sewing wise.

We are putting our house on the market in the spring. The real estate agents are still banging on the door with potential buyers but they will just have to wait til we are ready :)

Down sizing after living in the same house for 40 plus years is a bit overwhelming. What to keep...what to give away...what to toss out.

We knew that we wanted to move for various reasons. We were a bit stressed because the timing of selling the house and finding a new place to buy. I can't tell you how many houses/condos I have viewed online. I have a very patient real estate agent :) We aren't even sure what we want. A condo or a house. We just know that we want to move closer to the rest of our family.

After a lot of thought and discussion we made a decision. We are in the process of moving in January to an apartment that is in the area we eventually want to live. Now we can take our time looking for a new place. Also it's a test run to see if condo living is for us.

We are about 5 minutes from the retirement residence that my brother lives in. It will be nice to see him more often and give him help when he needs it. Like tech support for his computer :)

And, more important than that we will will be about 10 minutes if even that from my grandkids.

Anyway it will be a new adventure for sure.

I want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas!!!!!... and I'll talk to you in the New Year 2020 !!!!!

Take care:)

Winter is coming????........................Winter is here!!!!!

Way too early though. Taken early this morning by my husband.

Take care :)

Humour.......

Happy Living

Winter is not here yet....

But with the cold weather we had the first week of September you'd wonder. Brrrr. There was even mention....not by me I might add....of turning on the heat...no kidding. But then our weather is unpredictable.

Here are some visitors to our garden this week on their way south. My son took these pics when he noticed that there were a lot of Monarch butterflies around our stonecrop plants.

On the creative front I've been working on an EPP square that I altered awhile back. I took out the middle and inserted an embroidered nest from another project.

The seams on this square were a bit iffy so I though rather than junk it I'd do a bit of embroidery. Here is how it ended up.

  I think it needs something else in the nest area but I'll leave it for now.

 Take care :)

Ribbon Madness.......

.......well not quite. But ribbon fun...yes!

I was a given a gift card for Indigo-Chapters at Christmas time. I finally got around to using it and bought myself "How To Make 100 Ribbon Embellishments". Someone mentioned it on another blog and I thought it looked interesting.

Amazon has pics of the inside of the book if your're interested.

 
So I tried out an embellishment called "Rosebud Trim". Here it is placed on a CQ square I'm starting. I don't know yet if I'll use it on this block.

My attempt actually looks like the picture in the book....LOL Honest. Maybe not as neat but for a first attempt I'm pretty chuffed. There are some really lovely embellishments. I can see a lot of ribbons in my future.

Take care :)

A Finish.........

My boudoir rag doll is done.The pattern and face template are by Gabriele Cardy.

I wanted to dress her all in black but of course I really didn't have enough of the right weight of fabric All I had was much too heavy for a doll. I made a resolution not to buy any fabric this year as I have lots. So I really looked hard at my stash and I did manage to find a couple of small bits. For her blouse I ended up using a piece of silk skirt lining that I had. Her skirt is a small bit of fine man made linen.

I made her bodice by using a strip of my lining fabric, hemming the edge and then gathering it. Worked great and showed her cleavage which to me is an intrinsic part of this boudoir doll.
I used the sleeve pattern from the book and one of the two skirt patterns offered. It was supposed to be four panels but I only had enough fabric to make it two. Oh well. Typical.

I painted the boot part black with some black paint that I bought totally by accident. I was in a rush one day and picked up what I thought was black acrylic paint. Ha! It was gloss enamel. Serendipity I guess. I've since used it a few times to make "leather" looking shoes/boots.

Next she needed a big hat. I used the pattern in the book and embellished it with lace and ribbon. I also added a wee bit of black marabou. Voila!

I was going to call her the Winsome Widow of Whiskey Wells. But I think she would rather be called Rose Marie. She has a whole background story in my imagination. She definitely is "The Widow" with a mysterious past looking for a new husband no doubt.

Take care :)

WIP

The temperature today was about 29 C with a humidex of 39C. HOT!

Then it started to rain in buckets. When the rain stopped for a few minutes the water steamed off the asphalt road. I decided that it was a good day to stay inside with the air conditioning on....and sew:) .

I made a start on the rag doll. Body, arms and legs. Tomorrow I will stuff her and give her some boots. I'm going to paint them on. I'm thinking black but I also like the idea of red boots. It all depends on what I find in my stash for her clothing.

Take care :)

A Rag Doll with a difference........

Lucky me!!!!

I was recently given a pattern book for some very unique rag dolls. Along with the pattern book I was also given two screen printed faces. One is called the Boudoir Doll and the other is called the Story Book Doll. They are really high quality and beautifully done.

These rag dolls have lots of personality:) The torso construction is pretty unique as well. Inside there are 10 face templates that you can trace onto fabric yourself to make other types of dolls or you can purchase one of the screen printed faces. There are also actual size patterns for the doll clothes as well. Lots of possibilities.

The designer is Gabriel Cardy who is a fellow Canadian. Strangely enough there doesn't seem to be a lot of Canadian cloth doll makers out there. If there are they are pretty silent as far as social media is concerned.

Gabriel does have an Etsy store if anyone is interested.....https://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/GCardyDesigns. She is also on Facebook. You can do a search for G Cardy Designs to find her.

I'm going to make the Boudoir doll first. I can think of about a dozen ways I could dress her. The Storybook doll reminds me of Alice in Wonderland but she has a lot of potential for other different ideas.

I'll post a pic of my finished doll. Stay tuned :)

Four months old already........

My wee grandson and his family are visiting Ireland at the moment. His sister has made him a "card" for each of his monthly birthdays :)

I haven't asked them yet how he was on the plane. Hopefully he slept all the way. Ha! Ha!

Take care :)

So true......

TUSAL for April......

Well it's time for TUSAL. To learn more about TUSAL go here to Daffycat's blog. 

 Here is my ORT jar. Not too much change. A few extra orts since last month.

A bit of a dull day today for taking pictures. We are expecting rain which is much preferable to snow. Mother Nature can't seem to make up her mind weather wise here.

Take care:)

Smile :)

Prairie dog that loves cheese.....I love his fat little body....LOL

WIP Wednesday.....

I haven't been doing much crafting recently. Mostly sorting stuff to give away or throw away in my attempts to downsize for our eventual house move. It really is shocking what you can accumulate in 40 years. The things I have found that I didn't even know we owned...LOL Oh well:) Also isn't it amazing that when you put something at the bottom of the driveway it disappears. Magic. I'm so happy when that happens. Someone has found a use for what I have to let go.

The reason we are moving is to be closer to these two......Megan and her new brother Benjamin. A sweet little boy born in February. 

Despite all this I have done a wee bit of sewing.....

I had originally made a little bird nest of fibers on a CQ block. Then I decided I didn't like the fabrics that I had used so it went in to my "maybe later" pile.

I was sorting out stuff the other day and found the block again and I thought what a shame. So a wee bit of recycling was done and the nest was incorporated into the middle of an EPP block I had made some time ago.

It was an EPP block I made when I was learning how to do the technique. I wasn't too adept in joining the pieces and you can see my stitches. Now I can cover them up with some CQ seam treatments. Bonus!!

So it'll be EPP meets CQ :)

Take care.

TUSAL and a finish......

Well it's time for TUSAL. To learn more about TUSAL go here to Daffycat's blog. 

Here is my ORT jar.....

I finished my button wall hanging. I used practically every button in my odd button jar. Some of them are very old and some not so much. I filled in the spaces with French knots using up those extra longer ORTs. Waste not want not. I wasn't fussy about perfection in my knots so don't look too close.....:)

I used a really old 12 inch embroidery hoop. It's about 40 plus years old. I very rarely do anything requiring one this size so at least it's being used. I almost tossed it out so now I'm glad I didn't.

I faffed about with a bow etc at the top join but so far I haven't decided what to do.

Click on the picture to get a bigger view.

I wrapped the inner hoop with thin tape and then I sewed the background fabric to that while it was still taut in the hoop. Then I glued the loose fabric to the tape...see pic. After that I glued the outside hoop to the inner hoop. The fabric made a good bond for the glue. A bit of overkill maybe but I wanted to make sure it stayed in place. This sucker is not going to fall apart....LOL

Actually the back is interesting with all my zigs and zags. I put a thin layer of glue all over the back to make sure none of my finishing knots come apart. I might cover the back with something???? Not sure.

Button overload.....

Take care:)

TUSAL.......

Well it's time for TUSAL. To learn more about TUSAL go here to Daffycat's blog. 

Here's my ORT jar.....a few threads. Better than last month.

The thing in the background is a little project to use up all my odd and old buttons that I know I will never use. Some were given to me by a retired co-worker way back in the 1980's and some are from my mum. I can't throw them out. So a bit of wall art for my sewing room is in the process of being created. It's not my original idea. I saw it on Pinterest and it appealed to me.

Take care:)

Winter finally came.....

We've been so lucky this winter with not too much snow. However, it had to happen...it's winter in Canada after all :)

This is what the top of our car looked like yesterday morning.

Right now it's -17 C with a wind chill of -28C. I think I'll just stay inside.

Take care:)

A Finish....

We've had problems with our telephone line since about January 8th. We only found out that we had no land line when my son phoned my husband's cell phone to tell us. So of course the internet was down most of the time. It came back maybe two times? I gave up bothering to check. We finally got service back on January 16th. No explanation was offered by Bell Canada as to what the issue was.

I will admit that I was going through serious withdrawal....LOL.  I did listen to some audio books to keep myself amused while I finally finished a doll I started ages ago.

Queen Beetrix.

Take care:

TUSAL and the New Moons of earth....not Jupiter.......:)

Well it's time for TUSAL. To learn more about TUSAL go here to Daffycat's blog. 

I apologize as I was doing TUSAL incorrectly last year. I started out okay I think....sigh. Even though I was using the New Moon dates I was telling you about the Full Moons. Arrrggh.

Then as if that wasn't bad enough the new 2019 freebie calendar I was given has the moon phases incorrect. So you know what that means. I would have been doing it wrong YET AGAIN!!!!!!! See January 5, 2019...Full Moon? Should be New Moon!!! Sheesh.

I received the calendar from a very prestigious real estate company. On the back it has a statement that covers the makers for incorrect information so I can't even complain. It also states that "Seasonal dates and lunar phases are based on GMT/UTC." I don't know what planet they live on?

Any way I am now sorted:)

I have this to go by now and I have added the correct NEW MOON dates to my side bar.

Here is my TUSAL jar with it's new label...empty. But, I have plans to fill it up.

Take care :)