cushion for a cottage

A thank you gift for a generous hostess, who loaned us her lovely cottage for our vacation-

I'd intended to sew this up before we left and was going to leave it there for her to find when she arrived. The storms that knocked out our power before we left changed my plan.

The hankie was in my stash of vintage linens. Can you believe something so perfect was right here? I added a solid pink fabric and white piping from the stash as well.

After several attempts at putting the hankie on with monofilament thread and the machine, I gave up. The fabric was too delicate and it kept bunching up. I also wasn't happy with either a zig zag over the scallops or a straight line inside of them. The best solution was a simple whipstitch by hand with the monofilament. It's almost impossible to see how the hankie is attached and I was able to follow the scallops exactly.

Sadly, our hostess' time at the cottage is done for the summer. I think it might look cute on a screened-in suburban porch though.

cleopatra's table linens

Okay, not really Cleopatra. They were made for my friend, Norma. She's had the fabric for ages. It was given to her by an older aunt that worked for the state department and traveled the world collecting mementos of her adventures. This fabric was brought back from Egypt in the 70's.

Not sure what to do with it, she showed it to me on a visit to her home several months ago. We agreed that since Norma and her husband do a lot of entertaining, napkins and a table runner would certainly be put to use. With a runner and 10 napkins, they'd even be great for an outdoor buffet. The colors and print just say summer deck party to me.

Now I need to use this post as a reminder to go through my stash and make up some more cloth napkins to replace the ones we've recently worn out.

shedding a little light on my studio

I'm slowly working my way through the little projects down in my studio making it a more pleasant place to sew.

This fall, I tackled the space head on - moving most of the kids' toys to their rooms or getting rid of what no longer held their interest. Once that was done, a wall was repainted to a more neutral color from its previous jadite green. I'd had red accents down there as well which included several lampshades. They were fun, but cast a pink glow and made it difficult to work when I was trying to choose colors.

The new shades reflect the current neutral color palette.

(The lamp is from Land of Nod a few years ago.)

There are two vintage hobnail lamps sporting shades like this one.

(Natural linen covers the shade with black cotton twill covering where the linen ends and was glued inside the shade. The beaded fringe is from Tinsel Trading, but I couldn't find it on the current site. I bought it years ago.)

Someday I'll get around to finishing the space and put more pictures up here. Seems as soon as I get near done, I change my mind and start over.

the series

The Christmas decorations are put away, but I managed to snap a few photos of the other Beatrix Potter Christmas pillows I've made over the years before they were stored until next December.

This one was stitched on linen - with an uneven weave. A bit of a mistake in fabric choice. It would have been fine for a smaller piece, but I thought counting all those threads would make me insane before I finished. Note that all the others are done on aida cloth. The two I've yet to make will also be done on an evenweave fabric.

My favorite so far because of the pinafores. Animals in clothing. What's not to love?

A little harder to see (I had to take the photos in the evening), but all the shades of green look wonderful on this one.

While all the colors in each of the designs makes for a lot of work - the one I just finished had 30 colors, most of which were some shade of brown - I think they all capture her watercolor shading beautifully. Sadly, I could find no name on the pattern to give credit to the artist that translated each of these paintings to stitchery.

Merry Christmas

As promised - the cross stitch that I've been working on for far too long. All those weeks that I had nothing to post - this is why. Those of you needlewomen out there will understand the time involved in this. There have to be 100 hours of hand stitching in this pillow.

It's one of 4 that I've completed from A Beatrix Potter Christmas cross stitch book. Two more to go. I started it a few years ago and would just get overwhelmed and put it away for months and months. I pulled it out again in October when I was feeling too sick to work on my machine. (Nothing feels as nice as sitting under a quilt on the sofa with the tv on in the background, hot tea or coffee on the end table and some needlework in my lap when I'm getting over being ill.) I guess I'd gotten just far enough to see the light at the end of the tunnel. And it was a long tunnel - there are approximately 10,000 cross stitches in this. Knowing I was at least past the halfway point kept me going and I was determined to finish it up before the holiday this year.

Details - Done on ivory 16 count aida. It measures about 10" X 10". The fringe is chenille, but I don't remember where I bought it. Found it in the stash and I'm all about using what I have right now. Before sewing it into a pillow I backed the aida cloth with muslin.

Hope you all are having a lovely holiday!

mail's here!

I've been busy with a lot of elfin activity this week.

Trixie made some big leaps the past 6 months with learning to read and she's now very much into writing notes to all of us here at home. You might remember some mailboxes we made last Valentine's Day. They didn't survive terribly long, but were popular with the girls. For Christmas this year, I decided to make something a bit more lasting for Trixie.

Her official letter carrier bag:

The body is navy felted wool, originally sold as a "skirt length". The letters are wool felt with twill tape trim under them. The bag is bound with double fold bias tape and has a cotton webbing handle.

These are the mailboxes she'll deliver to. The grommets will hang on 3M hooks on our bedroom doors. They're all made of wool felt. I used a regular business envelope as a template, but enlarged it by one inch each way to accomodate larger mail. I also added two inches to the height of the flap so it could be folded over to make the portion that supports the grommets. "POST" was satin stiched on the machine and the the bottom portion of the envelope was glued together since I couldn't get it on the machine without sewing through all the layers.

The last part of the set is a cigar box filled with all the stuff we get sent from charities: greeting cards I'll never use, stationary, return address labels and Easter Seals to use as stamps. I even have some preaddressed return business envelopes from credit card companies in there and leftover envelopes from old boxes of valentines.

I think this mail will be far more fun to open than the usual bills.

resurfacing

Well that break was not supposed to go on for so long...

A lot happened around here in that time. A few days before my last post, I woke up with a sore throat. That disappeared and was replaced by complete exhaustion - just in time for the workers we had scheduled to come finish up some house projects.

While I slogged through the days, crown molding was added to most of the first floor.

Four closet doors were replaced by nicer, louvered ones. All of them needed to be painted. Do you know how long it takes to paint a louvered door? Far too long. I was feeling better by last weekend. Well enough to paint the doors, install the doorknobs and have a lovely time at Poppy's Halloween party.

(These lead to my closet, I won't bore you with pictures of all of them)

On Monday I woke up feeling great. I shouldn't have been so excited though. By lunchtime, I felt like an anvil was on my chest. Breathing was a chore and I got scared. Going to the ER frightened me even more because I was sure I'd catch something else just sitting there. A visit to the doctor the following day resulting in this:

It looks like I have virally induced asthma. The good news is that the rescue inhaler made a huge difference and I didn't have the flu (either kind), bronchitis or pneumonia.

I've got a few pictures in the draft file of things that were completed before I got hit with all this and hope to have a few more posts in the coming week. I have to excuse myself now, there's a lot of crown molding to be painted. (I'm not going to push it. I just want to get the foyer, which is not heated, done before this 60 degree weather disappears until spring.)

In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy the new details in the house and the ability to take a deep breath and yawn.

need a boost?

I suppose this could be a thrifty thursday post, but I was so anxious to have this ready to be used I can actually post it as a finished project!

Trixie has been too big for a high chair for a long time(she was also the kid that climbed out of it when I wasn't looking, making it an accident waiting to happen). I'd gotten rid of the portable booster we had for the other two when they didn't fit on previous dining chairs very well. For some reason, I never bought another one. Trixie would just kneel at mealtime(which she didn't seem to mind in the least) until a friend's son, came up with the idea of using one of their old car booster seats , so Trixie wouldn't have to kneel when we visited for lunch. (Adina, I still think that boy is a genius.) When we came home I pulled one of our extra boosters that I use for carpooling out of the garage and put it into service in the dining room.

Then I spotted this at the local thrift shop on Tuesday for $2.00.

Check out that harvest colored plaid vinyl - a blast from my past.

I know I had a chair like this growing up - not sure if the vinyl is a match, but the chair's design is. I'd have left the vinyl alone if it hadn't been worn through in several places. I needed to remove the metal arms to buff off a little rust with steel wool as well.

And now, with some oilcloth from the stash, it's good as new. Trixie says she much prefers the pink to the old colors.

(I'll post my score from thrifting with Poppy late next week. It'll be worth the wait.)

hand me down pillow

In a former life, this was a little pajama top of mine 40 some years ago. Ellie wore it not long after we brought her home. I stored it away carefully for Trixie, but when I pulled it out, the matching pants and the back of the top were horribly stained. No amount of soaking took it out(where on earth do those mystery stains come from?). It sat in my sewing room for a few years until I came up with a solution that didn't detract from all the beautiful work in the shirt.

I carefully removed the stitching that attached the front and back shirt panels (cutting through the sleeve at the top) and then appliqued the front to a matching piece of kona cotton in pink. (Edgestitching worked just fine for that.) The bottom of the sleeve was folded in on itself to give a nicer line at the side - I didn't want the sleeve to jut out too much from the body of the pillow.

Once that was done, I cut out around the top with a large seam allowance. That piece was put face down on another piece of pink cotton. Using the edgestitching from the applique as a guide (so the backing cotton was on the bottom as I sewed), I stitched around the entire piece leaving an opening on the bottom for turning and stuffing. Once stuffed, I just slipstiched the opening and was done.

I know this idea's been used for teeshirt pillows for ages, but it seems like a cute way to enjoy a favorite baby shirt if you aren't brave enough to cut it into pieces for a quilt or if it has great details like this one.

thrifty thursday

Phew, it's still Thursday in my time zone. Lost track of time today.

Just a quick picture of a vintage chenille bedspread I found last weekend. It's on Ellie's bed (made up by her too - note the large sheet wrinkle that's killing me now, though not enough to have retaken the picture).

It's a double or queen size which is why it goes to the floor on her twin, but it's in such great condition and has the perfect colors for her room. Her duvet gets too hot in the summer, so she'll enjoy this for a few more weeks before the weather turns. Next spring we'll have an alternative to her heavy bedding.

$20 seemed like a steal to me.

thrifty thursday

Something I DIDN'T get at the quilter's garage sale:

I did pick it up at another garage sale, though. The basket tin was bought at a flea market years ago.

The decal makes me so happy. (It's hard to see because the cabinet is kept in a little hallway off the kitchen that gets very little light.)

Buying it solved a storage dilemna in my kitchen. This house is about 80 years old and I love it, but it has a kitchen that's a "stand in one place and reach everything" size. Not really a problem for someone who hates to cook, like me, but it doesn't allow for many places to put things I need to have handy.

The cabinet is now my home office. It came with four shelves: two were original (they have the red edging) and two were newer. I added the shelf trim from Susie to the new one to give it a little charm.

And for Susie(who aked me to post more "helpful hints"), the tin is where I've stored my receipts for the past few years. Inside is a check organizer from a discount or office supply store. I cut the bottom and top flap off so that the files could expand to fill the space inside the tin. Each tab is labeled with a month. All the receipts I collect go in the proper file at the end of the day. When the calendar rolls over to the first of the month and I need to move to the next spot in the file, I pull out the receipts that are in there from the previous year. Most are garbage and get recycled. Those that need to be saved for warranty purposes are refiled upstairs with important papers. There are only a few of those a year. We aren't buying a lot of big ticket items all the time around here. I might have one or two that I think I should hold onto for another year - I'll just put it back in that month's slot. The following year it'll get pitched most likely. Receipts from charities get filed in the front of the organizer so Chris can grab them when it's tax time.

Tomorrow - news on the gardening front.

thrifty thursday

Look what my neighbor put out on the curb:



After a lot of sanding, priming, painting and decoupaging:

Trixie has a new dresser.

The paper was left over from her walls. (Disty in cowslip by Laura Ashley - pattern is about 8 or 9 years old at this point.) I'm extremely happy with how the pattern lined up on the drawers. I did it by using one piece for both drawers and lining up the edges that meet with the outside edges of the paper which are designed to match the repeats when they butt up against one another. That sounds totally confusing - if you need more information, email me. I used regular modge podge to affix the paper to the drawers and the side panels of the dresser. (Those are really hard to see in the second picture, but they're papered as well.) A few more coats of modge podge over the top of the paper will protect it as well. The paper also lines the drawers, but isn't glued down.

The knobs are the only thing I'm not sure about. I'd planned to use milk glass and repurpose some I had in the house, but Restoration Hardware has stopped carrying them and I didn't have enough on hand. These are glass and came from The Great Indoors. I ran to several stores this past weekend and these were the best of what I could find, unless I just go with painted white wooden knobs. I had originally thought I'd put tiny knobs on the top two drawers and then use a larger size on the bottom. Any thoughts?

These may be permanent though - when Trixie saw the dresser she was thrilled that it had "jewels" on it.

staircase redone, check

Look how lovely- beige commercial grade carpeting that came with the house. So did the stains about halfway up the steps, though I'm sure the kids have left their own marks.

What I found after ripping it out (there's just no chance of refinishing that mess)-

And now-

Aaaah. I still get a little charge every time I round the corner to go upstairs and see it in all its stripey glory.

The runners are from Dash and Albert. I ordered two 12' runners to make sure I'd have plenty to work with. The installation started at the bottom of the staircase. The first runner ended on a riser about 2/3 of the way up. The second runner overlaps that one and reached the top stair with about 5 feet to spare. I ran two rows of zig zag stitching where I wanted that one to end, then cut the excess off in the middle of the two rows of stitching. That end was folded under before I put in the final row of staples. I sewed some rug binding tape(looks just like twill tape, but wider and is a deep beige color) to the zig zagged edge of the remnant, folded it under to hide it and ran a straight stitch to hold it in place.

It's the right length for the kitchen. Bonus!

drapes hung, check

I'm working my way through a list of home projects that have been put off til spring.
I can finally check living and dining room drapes off the list.

It took nearly 6 years to make a decision. I went with a striped silk from Restoration Hardware in goldenrod. They're much closer to the wall color than they look in the photo. For several years I thought I should make them, but realized I was far too nervous about cutting the lengths properly. To me, that's the hardest part of long drapes.

That view out of the dining room window reminds me that I need to get working outside too. We really need a tree out there to block the view of beige siding. The joys of living next to new construction...

easter monday

No sewing, just a few pictures from our dinner yesterday.

The napkins are supposed to look like bunnies. The kids figured it out. Good enough for me.

Cupcakes for dessert. I'm not much of a cook - these were made from a box mix and I managed to nearly ruin that. I misread the amount of water needed and put in too much. However, with nothing to lose I threw in a little extra flour and sugar and no one was the wiser. I'm pretty pleased with the save.

If I were a good cook, I'd have toasted coconut for the bird nest on top. Instead, these have smashed miniwheats from the kids' cereal cabinet.

A few pictures from the hunt:

The girls are wearing their bo peep skirts and new sneakers. The general consensus this year was for a relaxed, casual get together. I think this is going to be our new tradition.