Getting close to Christmas. The Craft Fair is just a week and a half away! I made some really cute snowmen out of wood and painted them white, then made hats, noses, eyes and corncob pipes (thank you children for making the pipes for me!) out of Fimo, last to go on then are the scarf  and pipe cleaner arms. They are cute. See pictures when I post them. I also made aprons to sell. 2 different types of boy aprons. A couple aprons in a green John Deer fabric  a couple in a brown Deer fabric. They are cute! Look for pictures in a later post. I also have a brown camouflage print for the men out there that need an apron. women's and girls will be in Christmas materials. My significant other has made several teddy beat rocking chairs. Oh so cute! I hope folks just snap them up! Look for pictures in a new post.

Are you ready for the holidays? I have not even started thinking of Christmas Shopping!

Happy Today! It is Wednesday August 7, 2013

Weather is chilling down. What happened to summer? Fall starting in August?

Spent the weekend entertaining one of my nieces, who is up visiting her Mom. Picked her up Friday afternoon and dropped her off Sunday afternoon. We went to the thrift store to find dress up dresses. Ended up with one gown and a skirt. She also picked out a piece of  fabric for an apron. Saturday we had sewing lessons. She was so into sewing, she stayed at the machine for hours! She made barbie clothes and doll aprons. Her mom has a machine, but I don't think she has access to one at her fathers house. I can see her as a really great sewist later in life!

Finished several flannel baby blankets. Need to mail them off,. all started sewing some checkered fabric strips together. not sure what I'll make. Will likely cut them down and in some way reassemble, I'm sure I will have more later. ;-)

Making plans to be in Saint Paul for the Making Strides event in October. Someone very close to me is organizing it and it should be an amazing day! I am very proud of that someone!

Grand Baby #2 is due first week in October. Getting really excited! Can't wait!

How you have a wonderful Saint Powered week!

Another week has begun. Why does time go by so quickly?!

I have plans to start making aprons for the Christmas craft sale this year. I am looking at more "male" type fabrics. John Deer is one among several that I will make the aprons. I hope they sell this year. In the past couple years we haven't sold much of anything, but that went for my fellow crafters too.

I plan to make BBQ aprons for the men in my life. My own patterns, tie neck and wrap around ties at the waist. I will post a tutorial or something when I start making them.

I am making the grand daughter a princess outfit. I found some pretty, shiny, pink fabric. Also a baby blue of the same type and I found a 10 yard bit of the same type of fabric at a thrift store. I hope is looks good for her. she loves to play dress ups!

I also have a dress up dress cut out for her. It is from a yard of red sequence fabric. I will line it so she doesn't get itchy from the main fabric. I'll post pictures when complete.

I also have curtains for our daughters bedroom in the queue. They should be a quick project, I just need to get started on them!

The garden is producing tons of peppers. I haven't gotten a tomato out of the garden yet. The plants are huge and look healthy, just no blossoms. My plants on the deck (in pots) have produced a couple tomatoes, but for the number of plants I planted, I should be wallowing in ripe tomatoes! I want fresh salsa!

Not much more is happening out this way. I'm going to enjoy the summer weather this week, maybe walk to the museums at lunch. Its a shame working so close and not getting a chance to enjoy. I need to make more of an effort! Oh the Botanical Gardens has the titan arum (Amorphophallus titanum) in bloom. It is referred to as the corpse flower because of its vile smell. It is supposed to be one of the larges flowers. I might walk over to see it, but I certainly do not want to smell it!

Have yourselves a Saint Powered week.

Hello!

Not much blogging time lately.  Been busy with creating stuff!

The garden is producing peppers like crazy now – yippee!  I am drying the peppers several times a week now.  I have had a couple tomatoes ripen on the vine from the plants on my deck.  It is nice to go out and pick one right before cutting it to go into a salad or other part of dinner.  Can anyone else taste the sun in a tomato grown outside?  I can!  Yummy!

I have watermelon growing all over the floor of my garden.  Some of the vines have little watermelons!  I hope the rabbits, deer, and turtles only eat their fair share, that way I will get some too.  I plant plenty for all of us!

The blueberry bushes and the thorn-less blackberries did not produce much this year.  We moved them to my garden area and planted them along the fence.  The other fruit trees (cherry, nectarine, plum, and apple) bloomed wonderfully this year, but something(s) stole the fruit before it got very big.  L The grape plants and the crab apple trees are full of fruit.  I am looking forward to grape jelly, crabapple jelly, and hot pepper crab apple and hot pepper grape jellies.  Yummy.  I discovered last year that if you use splenda, or another alternative sweetener, the jelly does not clarify!  Much to my shock – I had Ugly Jelly!  Well that did not stop folks from buying it at the craft fairs.  I labeled it “Ugly Jelly” and folks bought it.  I guess it helped that we had samples (and they were yummy!)

My goof-ball saint loves the shaved down hair on his feathers and underside.  He also stays so neat and clean.  He is quite the personality now that everyone is home.  He always wants to go with me when I leave.  Unfortunately, I cannot take him to work with me.  I wish I had a job like that, where he could join me occasionally.

The Grand baby is growing up too quickly!  Birthday # 3 is at the end of the summer.  We are expecting Grand baby #2 shortly after the big birthday of #1!  Oh, we are so excited!  I have been sewing blankets and stuff for the new baby.  I am also sewing similar size stuff for #1 to play with while Mommy is changing baby #2.  Also doing the same for the mommy’s sister in-laws that are also expecting around the same time.  The cousins will get similar things that #1 gets.  Should make everyone happy and useful!

I have at least four men’s aprons I need to make in the next couple of weeks.  And maybe I’ll fit in time for a few more for the in-laws too.  As usual, no patterns here, just a general idea of what I want them to look like and away I go!

That is all from now.  I hope you have a Saint Powered Day!

I've been out of the blogging mood for a while now and decided to kick myself into gear! Spring is AWESOME! So far the magnolia, the jonquils, lilac, crab apple, peach, cherry and apple trees have bloomed. The irises are up with buds and the blueberries are in bloom. I planned the veggie garden last weekend (oh so late!) and it rained a gentle rain for 2 days after.  I still have a few seeds to plant and should finish up this weekend.

On the creative side, I made a couple of receiving blankets and a matching changing pad for one of our kids friends baby shower. They were tickled with them!

Last Saturday a friend and I spent the afternoon at our corporate offices creating quilts for project Kid Comfort coordinated by the YMCA for the children of deployed service members. They were very organized. They had all of the blocks and such pre-cut, and family photos and the child's name all printed on photo material. Those became blocks in the quilts. They backed the quilts with fleece instead of using batting. It really worked out well. The only decisions we had to make were to pick out the quilt fabric (all pieces in a Ziploc for boy or girl) and the backing fleece. It was fun! I hope the two little brothers enjoy the quilts and think of their sailor daddy.

Our big Saint has continued to enjoy my telework days! He is such a velcro-saint, has to be with me all of the time, touching, leaning, goobering, LOL! Did you know Saints were the first version of Velcro?  gotta love the big goober!

Exciting news! We are having another grandchild!!!! yipppeee! We are thrilled for the kids and our grand daughter. We wish they lived closer but golly they have a beautiful home and such nice family close by them. This winter was really rough for them, they had FEET of snow on the ground all the way through the end of April. My girl is like me and must have sunshine!

Wow!  The days and weeks have flown by since the holidays!  Work is great and keeps me busy.

What I have been doing:
For Christmas, I gave all of my co-workers aprons.  For the 2 guys I made BBQ aprons with pockets.  (Pattern to follow) and for the ladies, I made cute aprons.  (Patterns to follow)  A cool dozen aprons, all my own patterns.

I made a pillowcase for our Grand Daughter.  She latched onto a piece of fabric, so I made her the pillowcase!

My youngest son's "23" quilt is cut out.  I made the half-square triangles using the X and + method - they were sooo easy!

I cut out a dozen flannel baby blankets.  I am going to use the remaining fabric for a flanel quilt or two. 

I have organized my fabric and notions, and gave my sister (in-law) a bunch of fabric, patterns, thread, and notions.  My mom's stash of fabric, patterns, thread, and notions is slightly less now, I would have sent more, but I was afraid I would scare her if I send too much!

I spent the Valentine’s Day weekend with hubby.  It was lots of fun!  We toured the Iowa with my brother's family and my cousin and her infant son.  On Sunday, we had lunch with our nephew and his new girl friend.  The best time was just spending a couple of days with hubby!

Things starting soon...
The 23 quilt piecing.
Another quilt for the grand baby.  Something pink with princesses.  And coordinating sheets and pillowcases.
A skirt for me.
Baby blankets - does it seem like everyone is having babies?  Maybe I will do some burp clothes and coordinating changing pads.
Aprons for my guys.  I will perfect the pattern, post pictures, and maybe do a tutorial.
I bought a couple of 100% wool sweaters at the local thrift store and felted them.  I think I will make a purse and a couple zipper bags out of them.
I am thinking hard about the garden lay out for this year.  I thought I would start stuff indoors, but maybe not.  I know that snow peas will go in the garden soon.  The compost is ready to roto-till.
I need to order a coupe yards of mulch.  All of the flowerbeds are in dire need of refreshing.
Dig up and replant my mutant irises.  I started out with irises of varying colors, which are all now white.  I did not think they would change color from the color they were breed to be, but there must be something about the soil that turned them all white.  Oh well, I had mutant irises in Colorado too, they would bloom in late summer.  I read somewhere in the past year or so that you can buy certain strains that will bloom later in the season.  The Colorado ones were not hybrids - they were some from my mom's garden that bloomed in late spring, hers still did, but mine bloomed much later.

That is all for now.