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July 2007

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Ouch!

Okay, before I tell you about my great weekend thrifting/antiquing I have to tell you about my little accident.  Last night I was obviously not thinking clearly.  Pete was in the spare room and had a new dress shirt in his hands.  I asked him what he was doing and he started to say something about ironing.  I figured he had just gone in the room and the iron WAS NOT ON YET -- and I grabbed it.  See there is all this muck on it from my crafting and I wanted to let him know we should try to clean it or scrape it off before he ironed his new shirt.  At any rate, my thumb hit full force on the bottom of the VERY HOT iron -- I immediately dropped it (thankfully not hurting anyone else, or hurting myself even more) -- and  I spent the rest of the night with my hand in a bowl of ice water and then held above my head (if I lowered it it burned and throbbed).  Today it is much better -- luckily it was the inside (palm side?) of the thumb where the skin is thicker. 

Man, I feel stupid.

Jeanette_glass

Okay, on to the thrifting!!  Maddie and I go to garage sales every Friday morning.  It's a fun new ritual that has yielded quite a few treasures.  We can always find her a book or two for some change -- which makes her happy -- and I usually find something fun before the day is out.  This Friday I found a complete set of Jeanette Glass ice cream dishes!  There are 4 milkshake/soda glasses, 4 banana split dishes and 4 footed sundae cups.  (The sundae cups have been getting a major workout since I made homemade ice cream earlier this week so they are all in the dishwasher right now and not in the photo.)  And the cool thing is that all 12 dishes were purchased for only $4!!  I love garage sales!

Sandwich_7_07

Then Saturday was Sandwich Antique Fair -- and as any thrifter/antiquer in the Chicago area will tell you, this is a great place!  We try to get there at least twice a year.  You can find everything from furniture to dishes and just about anything else you can think of (or not even imagine!)  Many dealers specialize which is also nice.  There are some vendors that we go back to again and again.

I found a couple of bargains.  First was the basket full of wooden spools -- I snapped it up for $10.  Besides little thread spools, there are larger bobbins and itty bitty silk spools.  I'm going to have fun putting my trims on some of these and doing something crafty with the rest.  I also got that nice pile of fabric for only $2.  I couldn't resist the folk-ish print at the top, or the nice green/red/gold print below it -- plus there are lots of other pieces and scraps too. 

Other than that, I'm trying to finish Book 6 and I'm getting close!  By this weekend I might be able to start on the final book.  The rest of my time has been taken up with the work -- the new Fall & Winter rubber stamps are already coming out -- and the charity golf outing in my Dad's name.  July is always crazy busy! 

Saturday, July 21, 2007

It's Here!!

Hp_book_7
The UPS man just brought me HP Book 7, but sadly I have not finished Book 5 yet! (I was so sleepy last night that I just couldn't do it!) Which means I still have Book 6 to read. So don't go giving any secrets away -- this means YOU! (I read *so* many blogs -- like 400 or something -- and I'm so scared that I'll hear a secret before I get a chance to read the book!)

Monday, July 16, 2007

Possible Felting this Week

Noro_scrap_sophie

I have actually been knitting -- here's proof! On a recent mini-vacation (family reunion actually) I knit this Sophie from Noro Kureyon scraps on the car ride. I've only made Sophie's out of Cascade 220, so I'm looking forward to throwing this one in the wash to see how it will come out.

Bigger_booga_wip

I've also been working on the "Bigger Booga Bag" for a while now. As you can see, I stalled out on the i-cord. This week's goal is to finish it up and write up the pattern so that I can make another one (to test the pattern) and get it published -- finally.

I also have a big project that I'm contemplating. More on that when I have something finalized. It's kind of a big undertaking, so I want to make sure I'm prepared to make the time commitment before I go ahead with it.

Oh and I'm only about halfway through Book 5 -- will I make it in time for Book 7? It doesn't look good.

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Quick Quilt

Quick_strip_quilt_in_progress

Last week I washed a ton of my quilting fabric -- like 4 loads of it.  So over the weekend I had a lot of fabric to play with.  My goal was to make a quick, easy quilt top without using any pattern.  I separated out the pinks and blues and started cutting up strips.  The darkest were cut in 5 1/2" strips, mediums in 4 1/2" strips and lights in 2 1/2" strips.   After that I just started randomly sewing strips of the same width together.  It was very convenient that our bedroom floor is huge because I quickly outgrew the floor of the sewing (/writing/spare bed) room. 

After I arranged them how I wanted them -- making sure that no seams met anywhere by adding a bit to one end of a strip here and there -- I ironed the strips and started sewing them together -- taking 4 at a time and sewing 2 sets of two together and then sewing these to each other.  At the end I sewed the sets of 4 strips to each other and was all finished before dinner! 

Quick_strip_quilt_top

I just need to find a backing and get this pinned and quilted.  Maddie has her eye on it -- flattering me by telling me how beautiful it is -- so I think it will probably go to her.  After all, if you know me and my color preferences (think autumn) you know that this would go absolutely no where in my house other than Maddie's room.  wish me luck quilting this monster on my little Pfaff!

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Meat & chocolate

I just tried a bacon chocolate bar -- yes, meat & chocolate?!? Read more about it at my Chocolate Blog.

My Man

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