Royal Trip

Tomorrow's the big day!

This is the place--Westminster Abbey. We visited London back in 2004, a little too early for the Royal wedding, but a whirlwind, fun two days. We had been living in Germany for two years and we were so happy to hear English spoken--albeit in a funny accent. :-) 

These crowds at Buckingham Palace are here for a changing of the guards.

I'm thinking tea and cakes (apple juice and muffins) are in order for the early (4am) morning tomorrow. :-)

Redwork Project Bag

Another project bag. This time with a redworked girl with flowers. I found the pattern online, but I don't know where. Someone had uploaded an old neddlework book that had this image, a little boy as well as some other things. If you recognize this, please let me know. 

I started this back in January and got very sidetracked by the furniture painting which turned everything upside down and backwards. I didn't spot my sewing machine until just a week or so ago.

Royal Ring

You could say that some of us have the fever--the royal mania.

Em made this replica royal engagement ring last night.

She saw a TV commercial selling a replica ring and said "I can make one".

Ahhh, music to my ears!!  :-)

I found a velvet ring box for her and look how elegant it turned out.

Em wants to know if she can get up at 4am (here in the US) on Friday to see the wedding activities.

She will be joining me of course--I'm driving my family crazy watching all the coverage of the royals. :-)

Lovely Hutch and Stuff

I finally got my hutch painted and filled with many lovelies.

Dibs and dabs 

It was a lot of fun to get my fabric all out of storage boxes.

It seemed to take me a long time to get this room back together again.

A rainbow of colors.

Chocolate, It's Good For You!

Little chocolate felt bunny for Easter. 

These are mini-clothespins in the picture.

Click on the pattern and it should come up larger so you can print it out.

Have fun!!

Happy, Happy Easter!!

I Heart My Fence

Ta Da!

My new fence!!!

This is how it began two weeks ago.

Then we progressed to the pickets and the painting of each and every one.

And now, it needs seeds and plants. :-)

The Bleeding Heart plant is a gift from my sister.

She divided hers, so now I'll have one growing here next to the fence in the sun.

Tulips and Painting

I bought these tulips from a garden store when I just couldn't wait for spring, mumbling my mantra about Spring COMING. Well, spring has sprung, we have had a full bloom of crocus, forsythia, daffodils, and now tulips. I have been painting a ton in the last weeks. It started with painting of two big shelf/cupboard combos for my fabric and other stuff--not quite done. Then outside we have painted a few items. One was an old broken down garage shelf thing that was trash=picked. We scraped it down, added an upper shelf, painted it and voila, a garden bench.

Jeweled Steed

Isn't this old carousel cool!

It has been restored and is protected from the elements. This carousel was built in 1914 by the Mangels-Illions company and was once a part of the largest amusement park in the United States in the day. More pictures of this beautiful ride can be found HERE.

Pretty Posy

I potted up some pansies yesterday.

We had a lovely warm day and I enjoyed some knitting time on the front porch.

Has it Sprung??

A little color in our neck of the woods.

A Purse Fit for Royalty

Mousie is stepping out.

Little purse for mousie. The pattern came from the book "Knit Your Own Royal Wedding" by Fiona Goble. I am not prepared to knit an entire royal family as of yet, but I couldn't resist this book. Easily can be used to make simpler, less regal dolls.  With clothes!! :-)

Aren't you tempted???

Ribbons......

Organizing my ribbons......

I have tried different methods in the past. Most of the time they have been thrown into a clear plastic bin--quite messy and hard to sort through.

Once, I tried to mount the ribbon spools on metal rods attached to the wall. That won't work where I am now because I don't have the wall space.

This time around I am trying plastic bags organized by theme in a plastic bin. I took the time to remove all the cardboard spools and wrapped the ribbon with a clear rubberband or a strip of paper (taped closed).

I was unhappy to find that some ribbon had been slightly damaged by sticky tape holding it to the spool so I'm glad I got rid of the spools.

I thought about splitting the ribbon up in bags by color but I tried to think of how I look for ribbon for a project and decided that I usually look for a specific theme first.

Themes:

Floral,

 Geometric,

 Velvet,

 Lace,

 Grosgrain,

 Satin,

 Gingham,

 Dots,

 Stripes,

 Utility (such as bias tape),

 and Novelty

Ric Rac is in a jar all by itself

What ribbons do you hoard?? :-)

Eat Your Carrots!

A yummy carrot cake.

Thanks to Amy of Angry Chicken who led me to a Martha Stewart recipe for carrot cake with a light icing.

I am not a huge fan of heavy cream cheese icing so this was perfect.

I made the glaze with a touch of lemon extract (from Williams and Sonoma) and it was delish!

What month is it?

That's right it's March and anything can happen.

The frost might not be on the pumpkins, but the snow is on the birdhouse. 

This snow better stop soon, pretty tho it is. 

Spring IS coming, Spring IS coming...... (how long do I have to wait???)

Just 'cause

Cherry pie to celebrate spring break.

This pie is fresh from the oven and still bubbling.

New mantra: "Spring IS coming, Spring IS coming"!

repeat after me......

A Little Spring

Felt chocolate bunnies popping up.

Lovely little tulips.

We have to protect them from below freezing temps at night with a milk container cover.

Pickets

Don't go nuts on me..spring is not this far along here, yet....this is from last April when I was looking around at fences in a nearby town. This one has such charm. Later in the summer a little basket was hung from the entrance gate with flowers planted in it.

Another picket type

and another

This is a dream fence...wrought iron curleques!!! Isn't it yummy?

Ichimatsu

A little ichimatsu (friendship doll) to stitch as my thoughts are with the Japanese people whose strength, endurance and civilized behavior is so admirable in these horrible days.

Please stitch along with me if you want.

I am planning to stitch the finished work (a redwork square) to the front of a little work bag. 

To grab the image above, click on it, copy to your hard drive, and print the image.

Then use a window as a light box to lightly pencil the picture onto a piece of fabric.

I like to use a sharp pencil because it is a thinner line than the water soluble pen.

I don't see the pencil line when I'm done because the red thread covers it well.

The flower on the blouse and the mouth are to be worked in a lazy daisy stitch so be careful penciling that in.

The buttons on the blouse are french knots so just make a pencil dot there instead of the round circle.

Spring Clean-up

Masses of fabric waiting for a home.

Here is part of cupboard that I'm painting up to keep the fabric in.

Forsythia Blooming Inside

Here is a lovely sign of spring. I cheated mother nature a tad tho by forcing the forsythia blooms inside. As you can see through the window we have a snow/ice cover again. But our chipmunk has popped out of his winter nest and was nosing around the birdfeeders yesterday. The little knitted hearts hanging at the window are a gift from Meg last year.

Doll's House

Isn't this dollhouse cute? I like all the do-it-yourself ideas and the peg wooden dolls. Has anybody seen the booklet that seems to have been offered about the Doll's House?

Blooms and Boots

Rochester Witch Hazel in bloom! It looks like curls of colored coconut doesn't it?

Lots of wet mud as the snow is gone (for now). And I've got mucking-about boots now!

Man oh man do I love polka dots!

 

I found my troll paper dolls! I have had the outside cover in a different place and thought that I had thrown out the dolls long ago. Well, I was happy to find that I had not.

Now, I would like to find the make-it book with patterns for Richard Scarry dolls that I had when Em was small. Did I throw it out??? No idea....

Valentines

                                 Sweet valentines from circa 1974 (Hallmark)

Spring is not long off. I can feel it coming!!! We came home after dark last night to find a skunk eating the sunflower shells below our bird feeder 5 ft from our bedroom window. Lucky for us it was only interested in eating and not spraying. :-)

                       Happy Valentines Day!!