Friday, January 13, 2012

Coolest Clothes Pins EVER! And some bitties, of course....

 When we were in FL at cousin Joan and Charlie's house, Joan was hanging laundry on the line using these really cool wooden pins.  (I get such a feeling of nostalgia when I see a clothesline, I just love them.)  They had a metal clip on the side which means you never have to worry about cleaning off the actual line itself or having it transfer black lines to your clean laundry.  I tried to find some on Ebay but had no luck, not knowing their brand name, I looked many times and never found any. So I was thinking that we could make some like them and Joannie kindly mailed me one to copy.  She didn't have too many, so I knew this was a big favor!  Well, they are really clever and special and much nicer than the clips you can buy today, as you'll see in the close up shots. 

Anyway, I lucked out and found some on Etsy!  And then I found more in an antiques place, online, so I got a package for Joan and 1 for me to share with the Mumster.  Woot!



 This clips over the line.  Bring it inside every night with the clean, dry clothes and it should last you forever!


This is one of  Joan's old clips next to a modern day one.  See the amazing woodwork involved and how much heavier the spring is?  Not to mention the very cool metal clip on the side.....


  This is a shopping COUP!  I just love when a search has a happy ending!  A box of 12 plus her loaner are on the way to Joan and now I have another little gift for the Mumster, too.  I gave her some plastic bird shaped clips for her birthday, they are fun and cute and silly.


 On to the bitties- this month had 3 themes- red/white on point, Valentine's and Retro Toys.
I made red/white cats, they came out pretty cute.  I let the printed text fabric do most of the work for me this time.  By carefully placing the head fabric, it made them pretty interesting.  I kept Sweet Pea for me.  :)


 The Valentine block was fun.  I stitched "Be Mine" in most of the hearts.  One special one for my buddy, Kimmie, whom I love to tease. 


 Retro toys- I started out making a paddle ball toy, then I made a huge mistake.


 I made myself one of these and showed it to the man.  He LOVED it and insisted that I make 11 more, one for everyone in the group.  Argggh!  Men!  Well, he flattered me so hard, I fell for it.  I'm not calling him by name so as not to set off any copyright alarms, I saw where one blogger had to remove her felt guy because of a threatening letter from the company.  Boo hiss.  Anyway, he came out cute.  I gave him different colored glasses just to give the girls a choice.  Blue and green were the most popular. 


 So everyone in the Retro Toy group is getting 2 blocks from me this time. 


I made 48 blocks this month, I didn't make any extras for side swaps, I felt rather over-extended as it was.  :)
So?  Who all hangs laundry outside when the weather is nice?  I need a new line as a heavy snow killed my last one.  I drape things on the verandah, so if anyone drives down our drive, they'll really think we're hillbillies!  :)