Here are some other hankies I found while on vacation!
This is one of my favorites, it looks like it was handmade.
This one is another fave, very delicate and thin also looks handmade.
Isn't this poppy hanky adorable? The flowers are raised too, and it also looks handmade.
Another find while on vacation! Aren't these glass buttons dreamy! I especially love the flower shaped ones! Oh and they are all a medium size just perfect for most crazy quilt blocks!
While on vacation I found a Dream Shop for Crazy Quilters or really any needleworker who love, love, loves vintage and antique sewing related things! I have to say if you are ever in the area it is a must stop little store. It's small and kind of hidden but worth finding! Click on the photo above to get the info on the shop "Stitches In Time Antiques".
Here is what I bought but I held myself back really! I was drooling over everything...drawers and drawers of LACE!!!!!! And buttons!!! And there was even some crazyquilting there too! Tons of antique buttons! Even tatting shuttles! Needless to say I wanted the whole shop! LOL
Here is a close up of four antique buttons I got. I just love the strawberry ones!
Here are other buttons I bought too.
I couldn't resist this wedding hanky, I love to collect them and this one is 3D!
On our way back home we made a road trip of our time and stopped at Antique Stores along the way. At one of our stops in Stockton there was a little shop called "Creative Crafters Vintage Nook". We stopped in and found that it is a gem, so if anyone is driving by Stockton you'll want to take a pit stop to this sweet shop! Click on the photo above to see all the info for the shop.
I found 2 tea cups I couldn't live without, some pretty buttons and an apron. The buttons were a scoop for a dollar!
The yellow tea cup is a Shelley! It's probably a newer (I think it's a 1945-1966) one but still, any Shelley is a find so we snatched it up at the affordable price it was! LOL
I also loved this one with the pretty green all over and yellow roses.
Here is the adorable apron I got! It's made by one of the crafters who sells in the shop.
Here is our Christmas 2008 photo! Don't you love it when your hair does something right! HAHA! We had a Youth Leader's Dinner tonight so we got to dress up and we had fun too!
Well anytime snow falls in the desert it is monumental! So when we woke up this morning and saw TONS of snow we had to go outside and play! Just yesterday our garden was blooming as normal we've not even had our first frost yet (very odd) so we knew something big would probably happen when it did hit. Still I would never have guessed it would have been this much snow!
We bundled up and went outside to take photos and build a snowman! Then we went for a walk and lucky for us we got to walk in all untrodden snow on our route!
Doesn't he look like the snowman from the movie Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer? I love his little chin that just happened to be there.
Cute eh? With a pile of snowballs at the ready for him too!
This year I made a tatted ornament for our tree so I wanted to make one with tatting for my traditional ornament exchange with my dear friend Wendy!
The pattern is #31 in the book Mini Tats in white size 10 DMC Cebelia thread. The beading is not a part of the tatting but separately sewn on. I glued using E6000 on small spots to attach the tatting to the ball and then took beading thread and needle with the tiny size 15 beads going along the picots. I used pearl white, clear, and gold beads along with some Czech crystal drop beads. I just love how it turned out!
Here is another Christmas Gift finished! This one I made from reclaimed fabric of dresses! One of the dresses I found was a patchwork design and I thought it perfect! I added a reclaimed wedding dress lace applique and a heart charm to the front of the bag.
Here is the back. The handles are just some trim!
Here is a close up of the reclaimed wedding lace applique with the heart charm that I hand sewed on.
I put up my Christmas tree with all my favorite decorations and my precious ones that my friends have made and some that I've made myself too! Click on the photo to see it better!
This year I made a snowflake for our tree! I used plain ol' white glue to stiffen, this one won't be an heirloom...just a for fun one! I'm planning on topping a little ball ornament with tatting for my yearly exchange with Wendy!
Well I was looking for ideas for embellished Christmas gifts when I saw these slippers at WalMart! I thought those are prime for anything I'd want so I grabbed 2 pair!
I wanted to do tatting so I looked in my Mini Tats book and worked up this pattern in a variegated Olympus thread.
I sewed on the tatting to the center of the bows and added gold crystal Czech beads.
I've finally finished the Parsley Towel in the set for my Dad's Christmas gift!
Well I better give you all an update before you start to worry! LOL
Well I thought I'd write a little post just to let everyone know what's been going on. I've just been terribly busy busy busy!!! We are leaving today for Gerard's hip surgery and will not be back until Wednesday night. It's way cool because of the new ways they do hip surgery are way better than they used to be, no cutting muscle! Dr. Dorr is one of the leading people for it too so it's way cool that he is doing the surgery. So Gerard will be walking right away, even doing stairs! Since we live so far away from the hospital we will be staying in a hotel the night before (tonight) and come home Wed. If you want to know more info here is the link to the Dorr Arthritis Institute.
Well, I've again decided to take on a personal project of tatting an edging for my clothing and I had the idea to edge a dark pink shirt that has bell sleeves at the cuffs...have I taken on too much...not sure but the cuffs are around 17 inches each! SO I calculated with size 80 thread in this simple ring and chain pattern that I will need about 60 repeats for one sleeve. In the photo you see is 20 repeats, I am marking every 10 with a piece of yellow thread (size 10). I've worked on it while in waiting rooms but my hands get mad at me quickly it seems. My hands seem to be extra sensitive to thread, the size 80 always feels like it is cutting my skin so I can only tat so long before being sore, but the larger threads are no better and rub me raw! Hate that! I love to tat and I wish it would just be comfortable to tat endlessly! LOL
Here is another Peacock Heart by Birgit Phelps for another birthday girl in our small group! I used a variegated purple DMC tatting thread, stiffened with white glue and a bail and chain attached!
My fellow leader Terri who we both lead our small group at Uturn (youth group), is having her birthday so I wanted to make her something special. She is not the jewelery type so a heart necklace wouldn't have been the most thoughtful. So I thought about what I could do and a bookmark for the books we use to teach lessons to our small group would be useful! So I searched for a sweet simple flower pattern and found this one. The pattern is not the best written pattern out there and I was confused while tatting it so I ended up with a "variation" that I repeated so it is continuous LOL! The thread I used was size 80, one a solid green DMC, and the variagated blue is Lady Shuttle Maker's "Helms Deep". I love that color way she made and the varigation is short and I love that it moves faster than the typical varigation!
I think she's gonna love it! Now I want one! LOL
I've had this stashed away in my "To Do Basket" as an idea for a crazy quilt gift for my Mother-In-Law. It is her only photo of her mother (the woman sitting) who died when she was born. So this photo is very special to her. I've been wanting to do this project for some time and today I got the motivation to do it! I will not use the glass in the final project just the frame.
Here is the pieced project! I used colors of gold and I want it to have an old fashioned feel to it. The lace at the top is antique that Jill gave to me! I think it adds to the feel of it!
I also used a print and put the words "the greatest of these is love" in just the right spot! The silkie was made from the old photo that I fixed in Photo Shop since it had a big crack in it before and then Pat Winter made it into the silkie for me!
Well this weekend sitting in a waiting room for 3 hours I finished up Sage! LOL I did stem stitch and then straight stitches for the whole motif and for the leaves and stem I used 1 strand of a green and 1 strand gray and put the two colors together to give the effect that sage gives. Sage kinda changes color from silvery to green so that was my solution to stitch it up as.
Click on the photos to see them closer up. Also the Parsley got stitched in in stem stitch but it wasn't me who did it! We had taken Stephanie (14) with us and she was waiting with me and as she watched me work on Sage she started to get curious (nothing else to do ya know her cell phone wasn't working aka no texting LOL) and she wanted to pull the needle through when I made stitches! LOL So I let her and then it started into more, she asked if she could try doing the stitch!!! So I let her, and then I asked her if she would like to work on one since I had Parsley with me and to my surprise she said yes!!! I didn't have a second hoop but I showed her how to hold it in her hand and stitch anyway. She finished up Parsley for me! After finishing she realized that she had some stitches that were looking funky and I told her they are okay that some tacking will put them back in place but she didn't want to do that (and in all fairness she had been working on it for at least an hour maybe longer) and wants me to do it. So I'll tack the spots that need tacking and finish up Parsley. It was fun to teach her though! LOL At one point after getting a new piece of thread I had told her she needed a knot at the end before she started and she exclaimed "there's too many rules" to which I replied "well if that's too many rules I don't know what to tell you, you can try and stitch witout a knot but this is what happens" and I took a stitch and pulled it though and as the end came right out I said "OH I can't make a stitch!!! There's no knot!!!" LOLLLLL Which sent her into a fit of giggles and having made my point she didn't fuss about the steps I was taking her though! LOL
All the girls at Uturn (youth group) just ooo and ahh over the heart necklaces, and since we started small groups me and the other leader for our small group decided to use them for birthday gifts for our girls along with a journal. This one is for a young lady who loves green! Our small group name is Love Out Loud with the verse 1Cor. 16:14 "Do everything in love." So the hearts are fitting gifts.
I've finally finished the Thyme towel now I have 2 more in the set to go! I started working on Sage, but it seems that I enjoy working on these towels in the car so every car trip I get a little more done! LOL
Since I wasn't feeling well on our actual anniversary (4 Sept.) we waited to do a getaway till I felt better. So this weekend we went up to Crestline and stayed at one of the best places we've found! It's a little place called North Shore Inn! We got upgraded (military discount) to a room with a fireplace and it was so fun! There was sparkling cider waiting in our room when we arrived too! We also shopped around the mountains the next day too! We started in Crestline, then went to Lake Arrowhead then onto Big Bear! It was great to get to drive around and stopping at shops we saw! Here's some of my finds!
The organic tea, tea cup, vintage jewelery, lace runners, and salt & pepper shakers were all from Crestline shops. The red handled sissors, fat quarter (butterfly made from flowers print) and the iron on pattern came from a shop nearing Lake Arrowhead. Lastly the beautiful tea pot and beads were found in Big Bear! And overall lots of window shopping was done! LOL
I started working on the Tea Towels in the car for my Dad's Christmas gift! I'm just using basic stem stitch, but I wish I had done the work in chain stitch. Maybe I'll do one of the others in chain stitching.
