Bitties and Calendar panel....

 Gosh, it's been a long time.  I haven't done much of anything lately but I have read a lot of books this winter!  Nothing exciting enough to recommend, but they kept me entertained while I huddled around the wood stove during our long cold spells.

I did sew a little- the bitty theme was "sewing" so I made this for group 1, a sewing bird, it's an antique gizmo also referred to as a 3rd hand.  The beak opens up in a real metal one and pinches onto your fabric, while the base clamps to your table.  This gives you a 3rd hand, basically.  Google it if you want to see a real one.  :)

 For group 2, I made a cat stealing fabric off the cutting mat.  

This has happened to me several times!

 I owed Kimmie a block so I made her a scarecrow for her Oz theme and 

thought he turned out pretty well.  

 Next up was the laundry theme- I made tiny little feedsack clothespin bags and hung them from a piece of rattail cording with 2 tiny clothespins.

 As you can see, it's March (banner above) and I made these 8 bitties for the new panel. These bitties came from all over the world, UK, Brazil, US, etc. 

 And this is the event tag for St. Patrick's Day on the 17th.

 Other than that, there's not much going on around here.  It's a warm sunny day today, in the 70's, but dropping down to freezing tonight and maybe a few snow flurries.  Spring can take it's time, I'd rather have a long, cool spring than jump right into summer!

Oh, and I joined a group on Facebook for decluttering the house, so I've been having lots of fun going thru things and getting rid of junk and donating good stuff to the doggie store!  That's time-consuming but rewarding!  I love simplifying the house.  Still have lots to do, but I have really pared down my clothing and the kitchen junk. It's like Spring Cleaning, only different.  That'll be later, after all the extra stuff is gone!

Rearranging in more ways than one....

 So since I really hated for the perpetual calendar/bitty block project to end, I came up with a way to show off a few more of them every month.  :)  I made an accompanying piece to hang next to it, and finished some of the extra Halloween bitties that didn't make it into the small banner on the top.  I love this, I get to look at 8-10 more fun bitties every month.  I just sewed them together with a single piece of batting in the center of the sandwich and then finished the edges by couching on a piece of rattail cording. 

 I also made an event tag for the holiday and surrounded it with a few of my cute Halloween pins that were given to me by a friend.

Now I'm pulling out bitties for November/Fall/Thanksgiving to finish.  I had to order different colors of rattail cording, my bright ones weren't going to work at all.  Gosh, I love Etsy, you can find almost anything there.

And I've been a little busy reorganizing the craft/guest room.  I bought this handsome walnut chest for a SONG at an indoor flea market and with some strong man-help, got it up 2 flights of stairs to the hall between the 2 rooms.  I then moved 2 other chests that I had into the hall so I have a line of them now and a place for some much needed lamps.  Those drawers are all filled with sewing/crafting/quilting supplies (except for one that holds extra towels and soap for the guest bath which is right across from the chests) and it's very nice looking and much better than the old metal shelving unit and all the stuff that accumulated next to it.  Love this so much!  I was trying to get built in cabinets there in that hall, but this is even better. 

It was fun rearranging, I don't get to do that much in this little house, so I had a great time. 

 

The cats all like it, too.  The youngest one thinks it's great fun to stand up and smack at that little drape while he hides behind it.  They just love it when you move stuff around, it's so exciting for them.  

So that's what I've been up to.  Hope you're having a nice autumn, too!

The Perpetual Project- :)

 Long time, no blog!  Life's been a little busy around here lately, my mom is not doing very well, she's 92 and having major issues so I've been spending a lot of time over there helping out my dad, and trying to help her.  She's had appointments and exams and an MRI and a neuro-psychological exam.  Still waiting to see the neurologist, but the preliminary diagnosis is Alzheimer's, but maybe with Parkinson's thrown in.  Home Health Care is doing a great job by sending over therapists to help us learn how to deal with the physical issues and troubles with swallowing, weakness, etc.  It's very heartbreaking to see her going thru all this and it's exhausting for all of us.  Needless to say, free time has dwindled away so while it seems like there isn't too much to show off right now, I haven't blogged in so long, that there turns out to be quite a bit.  

Here's the newest big project, I started this a couple of months ago- a perpetual  calendar using some of my precious bitty blocks from the group I'm in on Flickr, The Bitty Block Committee.  I made one big background piece and then made a monthly banner for each month and an extra one for birthdays.

 This is how I'll denote special days, with a wire embellishment.  I need to add some beads to it!

 I had so much fun with 2 girlfriends when I was with them last, going thru all the bitties I have accumulated and picking out 5 for each month's banner.  We were up til about 2 AM going thru them over and over, then willowing the bunches down, it was wonderful seeing all the bitties together like that, I have hundreds and hundreds of them, and I broke up a lot of sets but it's worth it. 

I'll make a new post soon to show you what else I've been working on in my sparse free time.  I received a great package in a swap called FLiRTS- Fab Little Random Treasures Swap, where we pick a difficulty level and then choose 5 things from that level that we might like to receive, then our partner picks one thing and makes it- I SCORED big time and got a great tote bag, I'll show you soon!  Can't tell or show you what I made yet, as it's still in transit.  

Anyway, I hope you like my calendar!  I have it hanging in my office near the computer and I love looking at it.  It's an original design, I kind of made it up as I went along and built it from the inside out, to fit the banners.  Big thanks to all my fellow Bitty Blockheads, I couldn't have made this without them!