Scrounging Around Goodwill

I love reading Kim's blog Threadheads Unite! She has such a sense of humor and I love reading about her Thrifty Thursdays. She always has such interesting finds!

Well, not that I plan to make this a weekly thing, but I got bitten by the Goodwill bug this past week, as well. I found a few very good things, too! My first finds I didn't get pictures of, but I found a really neat retro phone for my Mom's new apartment. She needs one that isn't cordless so it will still work if the power goes out, and this one fits the bill. It's a desk-top model, looks like those old chunky rotary phones with the receiver on top. It's black and I think it's great! If she doesn't like it, I do believe I'll just keep it for myself! hehe.

I also found a really neat wooden quilt hanger that will work great for mini quilts. It's got a 3-D bow made out of wood - very cool. Once I get it on the wall, I'll take a picture for you all.

I actually talked DH into checking out a couple of Goodwill's in the big city with me and I found these 2 treasures.

They are both counted cross-stitch - on linen - and for only $0.49 each!!! They aren't exactly my style, but I felt so sorry for them, I snatched them up without a second thought. I hate to think something I labored over would end up on a shelf in Goodwill with a sticker of $0.49 on it. I plan to open these up and see how well they are framed (no tape, please!) and fix if necessary. I want to find more appropriate frames for them, too.

A few other things made it home with me, but nothing very note-worthy. However, DH and I had a very enjoyable evening scrounging around the shelves to find treasures. Definitely something to try if you have nothing better to do with an evening :)

Quilting Update

Have you ever noticed that the closer you get to finishing something, the less you work on it? Maybe it's just me. I don't know. I do know that when I get close to finishing something, it sits and sits in my sewing room and stares balefully at me from across the way, wondering why I'm ignoring it. And you know what? I don't really know the answer to that. I think it has something to do with the fact that I enjoy the process of the work, more than the finished product. And if I finish something I love, then that means I can't enjoy the process on that particular project anymore. I know, crazy-talk.

Well, anyway, my green star quilt has been sitting with this much quilting to be done on it for over a month now. Yes, I know Christmas was fit in that month, but still, this is what, 10 minutes of work? Yeah, it should be done now - I could probably finish this bit faster than I can write this blog entry. But am I finishing it? Nope. And the really crazy part - the quilt still needs the borders quilted! So it won't even technically be finished when I finish this bit! Yeah, I know you can all say it - crazy. Oh well, I'm enjoying the ride :)

I have been spending quite a bit of time surfing the web for new free BOM patterns that are being posted now. I've found 3 that I'm gah-gah over. Beyond the Cherry Trees by Sentimental Stitches, Christmas Row by Row by Fat Cat Patterns (she does awesome BOM's!) and Simple Thymes by Angie's Bits 'n Pieces. I even started to pull fabrics for the Simple Thymes piece - but I need to go shopping for background fabrics - I don't have anything suitable on my shelves. Hmm, I should probably hunt through my unwashed fabrics first - I've got about 3 big tubs of that....

I have been spending a fair amount of time on a quilt I started about 2 years ago on my trip to Phoenix. This is the first wreath block, without the circles attached.

It's from the pattern Winter Dance by Piece 'O Cake Designs. I love their patterns, and own most of them. I was feeling like I needed to start a green and red quilt after Christmas settled down and realized I had one already started! So, I dug it out of the WIP pile and worked on it some more. Not much done yet - I'm only on the second wreath block now, but I never claimed to be a fast sewer ;)

Yes, the Circle Quilt is seeing some work time. This is a shot I took of Felix overseeing my work on tracing the sewing line on the circles. See, I decided that instead of using the Perfect Circle technique that Karen Kay Buckley made famous, I'd just needle-turn them like all the other applique I do. Of course, I haven't gotten any of these circles sewn on yet, but they're ready when I get to that point!

By the way, Felix thinks I'm doing a bang-up job - hehe.

New Cross Stitch Piece

Something else I received for Christmas this year were gift certificates to a cross-stitch store I love to shop at. They are in the same town as my DH's family, so I try to coordinate visits with them so I can fit in a shopping trip, too. So, I had some money to spend and I knew exactly what I wanted to get with it.

You see, DH spotted this lovely piece a while ago, and asked if I would stitch it for him. Since he doesn't ask for this very often, I try to accomodate him when I can. Plus, it helped that I liked the piece, too :) However, I needed a piece of fabric large enough to stitch it - 28" X 39" to be exact! It also calls for something like 25 skeins of black (who would have thunk that, with all the green in the picture) - and I prefer Anchor black over DMC. So, with those 2 items, I figured I was pretty close to my gift certificate amount.

I put in my order and spoke with a very lovely woman named Linda. She was very patient with me and we got everything worked out. I then told her that if there was anything left on the gift certificates after shipping costs were included, to just throw something in the bag and surprise me. Well, apparently that threw her for a loop, because when I called to thank her for this:

A very lovely stitch picker (which I don't have any of yet!), I was told that she labored over what to put in as my surprise. I think she did a fantastic job of choosing! I absolutely love this store and will recommend it to everyone I know that stitches. It's House of Stitches in LaPorte, IN.

So, I spent some time going through my floss drawer pulling the threads for my new project. Could you believe that of all the floss you see below, I was still missing 37 different colors? Yeah, I know, crazy.

Now, my next decision will be to grid the fabric or not. This is a large piece and I don't want to spend a lot of time frogging mistakes, but I'm not a big fan of gridding, either. Hmm...decisions, decisions...

Christmas Catchup

I know, I know, it's been forever since my last post. I can't even blame it on the new computer, as it's been running fantastically for a while now. I guess I'll have to blame my over-all sense of laziness over the holiday. I feel like I've been doing only what must be done and letting the rest go - which includes housework. I can't tell you how many times DH has pulled through and done those dishes for me. He's definitely a keeper.

Speaking of keeping DH, check out what he did for me for part of my Christmas present this year:

For those of you that might not know what this is at first glance, it's a quilt hanger that he made for me with his own 2 hands! I have a similar, smaller one that I bought from a quilt bee friend a couple of years ago hanging in our bedroom, and he decided to make a larger version for the huge empty wall in our dining room. I think it's great!

Here you can see it with a few of my Jim Shore pieces on the shelf on top, and my third quilt top I made about 10 years ago and it's still waiting to be quilted hanging off the hanger.

I think it's looks great! Thanks honey :)

He also got me a bell jar to add to my collection - I've filled it with buttons and a few of the pincushions I've made over the years.

There were a few other gifts - a couple of DVDs and a huge frying pan I've been wanting for a while. It was a good Christmas in that regard :)

We had everyone over for dinner on New Year's Day - as that was the only time my brother could get here from North Carolina. That was a noisy day! I am really not used to having 13 people in the house - 4 of which are children. But, no mishaps and it was a really special day.

Unfortunately, Boots, the kitty I introduced you to last, got sick just before Christmas. She stopped eating on Friday night and stopped drinking water on Sunday. Monday morning I asked my DSis to bring her to the vet's office for me (an adventure in itself). The vet did some bloodwork and started pumping fluids into her. They kept her overnight and started her on antibiotics. We picked her up the next day with a diagnosis of very early stages of kidney disease. It seems odd that she would stop eating with that diagnosis, but whatever. We've had her on soft food since then (boy, feeding time is becoming a dance with the other animals), and she seems to be doing much better. However, we are still paying that vet bill....next week we'll finally have it paid off - whew!

Oh yeah! I forgot to mention the craft show DH and I went to this Christmas! Our town puts together a craft show the first Saturday of December and we've never been to it. We've heard about it over the 8 years we've lived here, but never ventured out to it. Boy, what a mistake! They take over the local middle school (2 blocks from our house) and set up tables in the gym and all the hallways. We got there at 9:30 when they opened and spent 2 hours in there and I don't think we hit every table! And we weren't browsing slowly, either - DH can get impatient in crowded places, so I was doing my best to skim the tables quickly. We did get lucky, though.

I found 2 Jim Shore pieces for my collection - each under $10.00! We found a couple of stuffed animals for DNephew (which he loved!), gifts for DH's family and the best thing - a hand-turned pen made of deer antler! My brother absolutely loved it! It was right up his alley :)

Overall, a very successful holiday season was survived here. Always a relief in my book :)

Christmas Candy

I told you I'd write a post about our candy making session today - and so I shall. Of course, being the amateur blogger that I am, I forgot to take my camera along. But DBiL to the rescue! He was willing to loan me his and then emailed me the photos while I was still there so I could get this posted tonight! Awesome guy.

The blizzard has finally been wrangled under control by the local snow plows, so I was able to make it to Sis's house without incident. However, when I got there, the nephew was down for his afternoon nap (don't we all wish we still got to do that?), so we got to work pretty quickly. Mom, Sis and I had 6 pounds of chocolate to melt down and either mix things into it or coat things with. We started with my personal favorite, peanut butter balls (as seen below):

Mom immediately started work on her favorite, peanut clusters:

And I totally forgot to get a picture of Sis's work on the dipped pretzels...nummilicious!

Below you can see a shot of Mom getting ready to break apart the coconut she had coated all over the tin foil to make coconut bark. Can we say good?

(By the way, I told Mom I'd tell her if there were any eligible men out there - so if you're lurking out there, speak up! LOL)

Of course we had to have an official taste tester. And who better than the darling nephew when he woke up from his nap?? He kept asking for "nummies" all evening - I think they were a hit!

Below is the Mother Load of our work. We spent a little over 2 hours working on this and we figure we've got roughly 15 pounds of chocolate candy to enjoy over the various Christmas celebrations we'll be attending this year. Not too shabby!

We all had a great time today with much laughter and story-telling. And I got to see nephew's new favorite face. I secretly call it his Evil Face. Just don't tell him I said that!

I came home with those 3 little tubs you see in the picture above. I figure that will satisfy DH and my sweet teeth for at least a week or two ;) Oh shoot! I forgot to get some for the in-laws....well, I guess I'll have to make another trip down the road before Christmas to get that plate all set.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Snow Day!!

We have been under a blizzard warning since 1:00 yesterday afternoon. It's supposed to last until 4:00 this afternoon. We've got snow, wind, ice and more wind. Brrr, it's cold outside!!

DH and I piled in the car this morning to attempt our normal 45 minute commute to work, but after spending 20 minutes to get about 10 miles down the road, we decided to call it quits. Especially when the Interstate was covered with snow...we travel west to work, and it's always worse the closer you get to Lake Michigan. Lake effect snow and all that...

I'm back home now, in my pj's and fuzzy pink slippers and loving every minute of it! DH is out playing with his new snowblower, and looking to be loving that, too! Hehe, men are so weird sometimes. I'll stay inside, thank you very much!

I have one gift I'm planning to make this year for Christmas, although, if I don't get it done, it's not that big of a deal. My little niece certainly won't miss it for want of the amount of gifts she's getting from us. Yes, DH and I wen't a little crazy this year on the neices and nephews....well, crazy for us anyway. No, I think today I'll be spending more time with this little lovely..

I've been working on the quilting for this one for about 7 years now. It is the second quilt I ever pieced and it was supposed to go to DH when it was done. However, it's just too small for him. He likes long quilts or afghans over him when he's watching tv. So, I've asked DH to build me a quilt rack for our blank dining room wall, and I hope to have this quilt hanging up for Christmas. I doubt it will happen, though - I haven't even started the border yet! Oh well, it's a goal, and goals are a good thing right now.

Saturday I'm planning to go over to Sis's house and make our Christmas candy with her and Mom. DH has decided to opt out this year (so much for building a Christmas tradition). I'll try to remember to take the camera so I can post some pictures. It's always been a blast in years past, I hope we have a fun time again this year.

Ok, time to go wrap up in my quilt and stay warm!! Have a great day everyone!

How long has it been?

Wow - over a month! I didn't mean to stay away so long, but, well, you know how it goes.

I finally got my computer upstairs set up with wireless internet, so now I can surf and post anytime I want (no more waiting for DH to get off the computer downstairs). We're still working out the kinks up here, but we do have the basics.

I've been in a bit of a slump this week, not working on much of anything. Maybe I'm still recuperating from Thanksgiving. I know I'm about a week behind in getting my Christmas decorations up. I finally got the tree up Friday and decorated today. We usually have this all finished the day after Thanksgiving.

Well, this year, we hosted Thanksgiving here - we've hosted for the last 5 or 6 years I guess. Mom, sis, brother-in-law and nephew came over. It was small, but very nice. We had the usual turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet bread, homemade white bread, rolls, cranberry relish, Sis's green bean casserole, 7-layer salad, pink stuff (cottage cheese salad) and yams. All topped off with pumpkin pie and cherry cheesecake for dessert. It was wonderful. And the best part of the day? Sis wouldn't leave until all the dishes were washed! I think that was what I was most thankful for on Thanksgiving. Of course, having Mom in good health is a great blessing as well.

DH and I ventured out on Black Friday to attempt to get some deals at 2 area stores. We managed to snag the things we were hunting for, but whew! What an adventure! We were up by 3:30, and at the first store by 4:30. We picked up the one thing we wanted there - a wireless router - and were out the door by 5:15. Not too bad. We then crossed the street to stand in line at Menards with the other crazies, I mean shoppers. After watching many people cut in line, 3 right in front of us (and oh yeah, I went and spoke with them sharply. They will just have to live with the karma they are earning), we finally were able to enter the store. Talk about rude people! I had one little lady shoving me from behind when all I could see in front of me was a mass of people. I finally turned around and told her to stop shoving me, there was nowhere to go. She attempted to explain that she just HAD to get through, so I informed her there was "NOWHERE FOR YOU TO GO!" She finally backed off. Sheesh! But we were eventually victorious there, too, and were out of the store by 6:15. I do believe these were new records :)

We then went home and I went back to bed. DH proceeded to return the wireless router as it didn't work, thus losing the sale price (I made sure to inform him before I went back to bed that if it didn't work, he should hold onto it until they got more in stock and we would exchange it). Oh well...what can you do?

We got our first real snowstorm of the season this week. It came down so fast Thursday night that we woke up to 3 inches on the ground when we had grass the night before. When DH went out to clean off the car, about 10 minutes later he came back in announcing we weren't going to work that day. Yay! He said he couldn't clean off one side fast enough before the other side was covered again...no way was he going to try to navigate the roads when it was like that! So we had another long weekend this week and did I get anything done? Not really. I mean, I got the tree up, and some cleaning done, but nothing spectacular...nothing worthy of three days of free time. Oh well...

Oh! We did make it to the big craft show in our town yesterday. We were able to get gifts for about half of our family in one swoop! And, we found 2 Jim Shore figurines to add to my collection for a total of $10! It totally made my day :)

Well, that about gets you caught up for the last month or so...Sorry about no pictures this time, I'll work on that and see how the new computer likes them. Meanwhile, welcome to my 2nd follower! I can't see who you are just yet, but I see there are now 2 of you!

Erin walks away mumbling to herself about getting DH to get this computer up to par soon.