Back from vacation in TX..... Pincushion swap received!

 I received my pincushion package the other day, it was chock full of goodies from my partner Carol,aka mamacjt at Flickr!  Look at all this loot!  2 fabulous pincushions- a big prince of a frog named Frank and a beautiful wristlet flower pincushion along with some decorative pins that look like cakes and desserts. Also, a box of Jelly Bellies that are drink flavored, and a bunch of prom queen stuff, since Carol was worried that I felt left out because I never went to an actual prom.  Aw, isn't she sweet?  She even wrote a fairy tale about it.  She sent me a Prom Queen sash and a tiara, cool! And of course, the Prom King, Frank.  LOL  The Fairy Tale is a hoot to read and it's very clever.  It incorporates the names of so many Flickr friends, it's just wonderful.

Frank is a chunky fellow, he has a wonderful feel to him and he's gigantic!

Thanks so much for being a fun swap partner, Carol!

Now on to vacation stuff-

(to see this better, click on the link below)

While in TX, my friends took me to a fun quilt shop called The Nimble Thimble, in Tyler.  As I was waiting to have some fabric cut, a lady came in with a really pretty quilt top that she had made for her granddaughter.  This is the pattern she started with, above.   It's called the  "You Are Everything" quilt and it's from Lizzie B Cre8tive.  We all just loved it- my friends came over to see what was going on- one was reading a book on her iPad and the other had her Kindle Fire, they don't sew or quilt, but they enable me to buy more fabric and patterns by cheerfully driving me there, coming inside, carrying bolts, offering suggestions, etc.  I just love those 2 ladies!  Lisa and Jennifer, you rock!

Anyway, the lady needed a backing and binding and I'm happy to say that we all got to be involved in that process and I think we guided her nicely.  :)  She really appreciated the help.  And when we saw her block in the bottom corner that had a red pig and said "the sooey to my Razorback", that struck up a whole new conversation because her granddaughter and I both live in Arkansas.  So this quilt can be personalized!  I want to make a sarcastic one, with things like "you are the thorn in my side" or "the pain in my ass", "the shark in my ocean", "the salt in my wound", "the knife in my back", etc.  LOL  Hey, I could make it for my Flickr buddy Kimmie! 

I had a wonderful time in TX at my friends Jennifer and Charles' house.  Our friend Lisa came up, too, from southern Louisiana with her little puppy, Charlie and he was just a delight.  He really entertained us and made us laugh even more than we already would.  He was so full of beans and he was FAST, running in circles, digging in some freshly turned dirt, getting filthy in the process.  Turned out, some fish carcasses had been buried in that garden and he was on the hunt for fish bones.  When told, my husband said he had a future as a cadaver dog!  lol  That was so funny.  Charlie is a terrier of some sort and weighs about 10 pounds.  I can just picture him working next to the big dogs!

Now I'm home and on a crusade to clean our house, it really needs a thorough deep-cleaning as we have company coming soon and we also need it just because I'm tired of looking anywhere in the house and seeing a mess.  So I'll be busy doing that, until I can't stand it anymore.  This is what I get for going and staying in immaculate houses!  

We went to our friends Blakeley and Sylvia's Open House at their shop, Wilson & Wilson Folk Art Co. in Eureka Springs a couple of weeks ago, and we got these 2 wonderful blackbirds!  They look great on our mantle along with all their other animals.  I just love their work!  These are an early birthday present from my sweet husband.  We got a cardinal last year that is to die for.

 And these are the pincushions I made for our swap- a trash can with a removable lid and storage inside, and a "cardboard" box for pins.  Inside the lid is a removable tape measure.  The trash can is my own pattern, I made it up as I went along.  It's made from felted wool and Timtex.  The box is cotton fabric, stuffed with ground walnut shells.

 I also made the snail from a Vanilla House pattern and shrunk it way down to be pincushion size.  Partner liked the trash can more, though, so I get to keep the snail! 

Our clematis (2 plants) is blooming wonderfully this year!

Have a great weekend everybody!  Thanks for plowing thru all the photos, I should blog more often and make these posts shorter, sorry about that.  I just never feel like I have much to say so I put it off until I suddenly have too much!

I have the nicest friends, they send me amazing things they've made....

 For the pincushion swap, my friend Jo , who lives in Scotland, made me the most amazing treasure chest!  I didn't know that she was making this for me, but I was very hopeful when I saw her sketch and the plan and then in really short order, the pincushion in progress!  This lady doesn't mess around, she gets an idea and just goes with it!  I was getting more and more excited about it when she threw out some info that had me convinced that this was NOT for me, after all, and I was so disappointed.  So imagine my thrill when I opened a box and found this pincushion inside! As you can see, I like pirate things, another friend made me this quilt last year.

The pincushion even came with it's own map!  It's stitched and burned and is just adorable.  Jo also included some great pieces of fabric, parrot pins and mini teacup pincushion, too.  WHAT a fabulous package, I am over the moon with it all!

 Look at all the booty in the treasure chest!  And there's a felt needle holder, too.  It's got it all.  The workmanship is amazing, all the handstitching, just so time-consuming and I am so flattered that she did all this for ME!  Wow.  What a nice, talented lady Jo is!  Thank you so much, Jo!

 I also received a wonderful mug rug in our swap, from my friend Sudi-Laura.  She and I have made things for each other before, placemats, so we are a good match, too.  I love this mug rug, all the colors of the rainbow, which everyone knows I love and my nickname and a great black and white binding along with perfect sewing- another big hit!  Thank you, Sudi-Laura, aka isaacsmama!

 And, I am so spoiled- 2 of my swappy friends sent me mug rugs just because I had admired them so loudly!  Spiced Coffee sent me one that commemorates the Chinese New Year and the Year of the Rabbit.  Isn't it great?  I have in on my desk, it looks wonderful in the office.  See how it goes with the rug (that needs to be vacuumed)?  Perfect!  I love it, and she sent me more of the cool fabric and some hula girl fabric, too!  I feel so rich!  Look at the embroidered bun-bun!

 And, I received this from my buddy, Kimmie- because I threatened to cry if it didn't come to me!  lol  (That worked great, I'll use that line again!)  Seriously, Kimmie and I goof around a lot together on Flickr, pretending that we don't like each other, but I think it's obvious now- she can't help it, she loves me.  :)    She also sent me a great snap bag and a cool, bright tin full of stick-on shapes, very fun package to open! 

I just have to say that I appreciate everything that people send to me, I'm just not very good at blogging about it in a timely fashion!  I have more to show, too, something I can drink copious amounts of wine out of!  :)  I'll save that for another day, though.  Thanks to all my swappy buddies, you're all so good to me and I know it!

Castle Teacup Pincushion, for swap....

I was lucky enough to get a really fun partner in the Scrappy Pincushion Swap at Flickr.  I decided to make her a castle in a teacup.  :)   I had a teacup pattern that I got from Jodie at Vintage Ric Rac and used that as a starting point.  I drew this sketch for inspiration and everyone seemed to think I should go for it, so I did. 

After a couple of blunders which I won't subject you to here, but can be seen in my Flickr photostream (think pornographic!  eek)  this is what I ended up with.  Wisteria Castle.

The roof comes off and so does the tower, so you could actually put it back together like this short, stubby version.  :)

Under the false floor are small polished stones to give it weight and stability. Please note the manacles on the dungeon wall!  See the tiny lock on the door? 

Find the tiny key under the tiny mat!  The door flips down over the moat, but that's purely decorative.

Details of the wisteria on the castle tower.

The flag needed a Coat of Arms.  :)

And EVERY castle needs a faerie princess, right?  She is a pin-topper.

I hope you like it, I had so much fun making it.  The castle tower is a heavy cardboard tube and I wrapped the fabric around it and sewed it down, then glued the excess at the top and bottom into the tube.  I made a puffy bit for the actual pincushion part and glued that into the tube from underneath.  I got some great advice from a fellow Flickrer when I botched my first roof attempt and with her help, I am 100% happy with the new roof and the whole thing, actually.  I wanted to keep this, very badly, but the horrible kittens had their eyes on it and I knew it would be safer in some other household. 

Hellooooo, Gravey!

Pincushion Swap- what I made and sent....

Here is the whole package that I sent to my friend Ruth in the Scrappy Pincushion Swap. I was so lucky to get her as my partner to make for because as soon I saw that I got her, I knew I was going to make something that had a Wizard of Oz theme to it. She is a big fan of Wizard of Oz and that made it so easy for me! The problem was in the sneak peeks- I could only show small bits of the house, I couldn't show the yellow brick road, or the legs or the witch's hat pin (it's on the back) or any of that dead-giveaway stuff! If Ruth had seen any of that, she's have KNOWN it was for her, as it was she seemed very confidant that she was getting it. (Of course, Ruth sparted darn near every quilt in the DQS9 round, too, so maybe she just likes everything!) LOL

Because I wanted to show it off a bit and also because it is so much fun teasing certain people, I enlisted the help of her "twin", QuiltinKimmie in a prank. Kimmie is a huge Oz fan, too, so this could work! I pretended to send the pincushion to Kimmie and I emailed her photos to post to her Flickrstream as if she had gotten it in the mail. Because Ruthie was a swap mama in that swap, I knew that she had access to info that would show that Kimmie and I shouldn't have been partnered up, so we had to get 2 of the swap mamas involved in our cover up and a few friends were in on the prank, too.

(Ruth took the following outstanding photos, after she actually got it.)


Ruthie fell for it- hook, line and sinker! Yay! While she didn't get as crabby as I had hoped, Kimmie assured me that that is just because Ruth is a fine, kind lady, not a big crybaby like me. lol




You can make out the top of the hat pin in this one....



Kimmie posted photos like this bad one below- decoy photos to make Ruth think that she wasn't getting this pincushion and we hoped that she would be jealous and pouty. :) I even wrote a card to Kimmie, so it would look really authentic and on the up-and-up. *snork* The black and red fabrics weren't actually part of the swap, they just look like something Kimmie would have gotten from a real partner. So, on Saturday Kimmie posted that she rec'd all this. On Monday, it actually showed up at Ruth's house, 2 days before her birthday, she was 29. Again. :) So Ruth really only "suffered" for 48 hours.


The pincushion sits in a green oatmeal glass custard cup and all the felt is wool. The yellow brick road is embroidered and everything is handstitched. I made the witch's legs by taking skinny chenille stems and wrapping them with embroidery floss, red for the shoes and black/white for the stockings. Then I dipped the shoes in white glue and red glitter, let that dry and then varnished them so the glitter wouldn't ever come off. By indenting the base of the pincushion with a needle and thread in the middle, it made the perfect place for the legs to nestle in. The pins were made with plastic beads and I thought they added a bit of Munchkinland weirdness to it. The little bushes are unraveled perle cotton and fray check, on a pin. For a size reference, the posts holding up the porch are toothpicks, cut way down.

I also made her a Dorothy faerie and sent her a pink chair pincushion that I had made a long time ago. Ruth was making something similar and I wanted her to see this style, too.

This was a fun pincushion to make because I knew my partner would appreciate it and love it, it's just so HER. And big thanks to Kimmie for all her help in pranking Ruth, she sold the story like a professional actress!

Cats, dogs, pincushion swap- fun and games at the zoo!

The cats and kitten are settling in. Nosey Parker is enjoying playing with Gravey, mostly in the morning and then right before bedtime. They get pretty wound up! The baby is putting on weight and seems very happy here. She gets to go outside for about an hour every afternoon and I follow her around to keep tabs on her. She needs to learn where she lives, how to get in, how to climb a tree, etc. I hate this part, but there's no way to keep a cat in all the time here, with us opening the doors a thousand times a day for the dogs. So she needs to wise up, as much as I hate it.

Yesterday, she and NP chased a green walnut around on the driveway until they were both exhausted.

After playtime is over- a nap is a must. And it's usually right where I need to be at the time, too.

Somebody figured out that the safety net is great for playing and napping in. She feels so funny, all waffled up like that.

Beeswax would just like to pretend that this is all a bad dream. lol He doesn't like his routine altered at all. But he fits great in the rolly-ball toy!

Quigley, the puppy, is driving me insane. She has no manners and Jim has had company for several days and she's acting out. I had to take her down to the floor yesterday to calm her, she was shrieking and leaping about like an insane dog and was just out of control. She spends a lot of time on her 2 back legs, standing up and leaping on people, I hate that. I did that Alpha dog thing on her and it helped for a bit, may need to do it a few more times, though. She has the attention span of a gnat, unless there's food involved and then she's very determined and obnoxious.

I'm hoping that Jim can drum some manners into her during the next week, I'm heading to TX to visit a friend and he will be in total charge of the zoo.

Swap-wise- I received a lovely pincushion with a bonus mug rug and fabric and thread and Chenille It from my friend, Nannette/Nanotchka over at Flickr. What a great swap! She made me a mug rug kind of by accident, lol, and then decided to make me the pincushion to match. I just love all of it, the fish pincushion has a 3D fin that is actually a needle case! VERY COOL! Thank you so much, Nannette! I love it all and really appreciate it. She also made me a card with a bird on it, this is such a keeper of a card!

Next post I'll show you what I sent my pincushion partner. :) She's already gotten it and seems to like it.

Yesterday was a fun day..... and thank you all....

Let me start first by saying thank you to everyone for all the sweet

condolences on the loss of our dog, Paisley. It's been a week now and
we're getting used to the fact that she's gone but it still feels weird
without her in our lives. It was so kind of you all to respond and offer your sympathies, I tried to thank you all personally but wasn't able
to for some of the anon or "no-reply" peeps.
Please just know that I appreciated every single one of them.

Now, to yesterday- the mail lady brought 2 packages to the house! One was a quilt book I had ordered thru Ebay, saving over $10, which I liked. It's "Greetings from Tucsadelphia" by Lizzie B. Cre8tive. It's got lots of fun applique patterns in it and even a recipe or 2. But the other box- well, let's just say "WOWEE WOW WOW", shall we? It came all the way from Buenos Aires, Argentina from a friend named Sandy. I didn't know it, but she had my name in a scrappy pincushion swap over at Flickr! I made and sent the turtle, remember? I thought that was cute. Sandy taught me all about CUTE with a capital C!

This is what I found when I opened the biggest package in the box- a little white cat in a pink bikini and a rainbow colored pincushion with a velcro dot in the middle. Interesting, yes? Wonder what that velcro is for?

OH! It's to attach it to the next largest piece in the box, turned out to be a tree trunk on a piece of sand!

Now, tell the truth- is this not the cutest thing EVER????? Sandy made me a little miniature Nosey Parker Goes to Florida pincushion set! It's a rainbow palm tree on a bit of beach! Un-freakin'-believable. She even has her own little towel which doubles as a needle case. Sandy made this up all on her own, she had no pattern and she had to work it out so that it was sturdy and would support the tree top and built it an underwire frame and everything. This was no easy feat! I am so totally impressed. And grateful!

She also sent me some fabulous Kaffe Fassett fabric, 3D rainbow stickers and a lovely handmade, custom card with a long hand-written note about how this came to fruition. You wouldn't believe how giddy and happy I was- I needed this morale boost- it showed me what a lovely friend Sandy is to me and what a kind and dear lady she must be, to go to all this trouble for me! AND- I got what has to be the best pincushion in the entire swap.

For size perspective, you can see the real NP checking out her newest competition. The little fabric NP is quite tiny and so dear! I just love this and keep pinching myself because it's so dreamy. I love things with pieces parts, I adore things that are rainbow colored and I love all things tropical. And of course, I love Nosey Parker to bits, so you tie them all together into one package and I damn near fainted!


I tried to stay busy last week, to distract myself and I ended up finishing 2 little quilts.

No bees, no honey..... No work, no money..... that's a saying from somewhere, don't know where, but I like it. :) It's also the name of this little quilt.

It measures about 12" square and is for me and the other one, below, is for the Doll Quilt Swap. It's about 24" x 16". It's called a spiderweb quilt.


The recipient's name is blocked out so she can't accidentally find out that it's for her before it arrives in her mailbox in about another month.


And what's a spiderweb quilt without a spider? :) Don't freak, it's rubber and squishy and fun to squeeze. This spider is my friend, he eats scary snakes!

I also finished up 9 more sewing caddies and they're all in my Etsy shop. And I made 9 cat collars, but that was no big deal. Murphy and Parker both lost one this week, those rotten kids.

So this week has been better than last week. Thank you all again, very much, for the kindness you've shown me.

Amanita meets a fellow....

I'm participating in a pincushion swap and this is what I chose to make for my secret partner. I used a pattern by Heather Bailey. My husband named her Amanita Muscaria, after a poisonous mushroom. I hope my partnerperson likes her and gives her a good home. She's a little shy and doesn't make new friends easily, as evidenced by a recent incident in our woods.

Amanita stumbled across a funny little man while out exercising- The Blueberry Man. He was a little startled and scampered up a tree to get to a safe place where the veggie-saurus couldn't get to him.

The view was good from up there, though.

It took a little smooth talking, but he eventually came down and made friends with Amanita.

And they lived happily ever after, until The Blueberry Man's head shriveled up and fell off. Then she ditched him for some younger stud. The End.

(I bought gallons of blueberries today, and when I spotted this one with the 2 eyes, I knew I had to take advantage of it. Pretty cool, huh, the alien eyes?)

I'm realizing why I like quilting best...

I used to sew for a shop in town, I made dolls and models for the patterns and fabric that she sold. It was fun at first but it became a monster job, one where I would start sewing at 6 AM, take a 30 minute break for lunch, sew until 4, start dinner, do YESTERDAY'S dishes, feed us, and then sit on the sofa and turn and stuff doll body parts until bedtime. Actually, my husband would do the turning and then throw body parts at me to be stuffed. lol Then, I would spend the next day assembling the dolls and dressing them and kitting them out in all their stuff. I would probably make between 10 and 20 dolls a week, and those dolls got more and more complicated and eventually, even the dolls had dolls.

Living 25 miles from the nearest craft shop meant that I also spent a lot of time either searching for or making all the little doo-dads that went with them. I was making angels, snowmen, scarecrows, crows, turkeys, Santas, reindeer, witches, bunnies- the whole gamut. I wish I had taken more photos of the things I had made, but I didn't think to.

As an example, I made many of these big Liberty dolls from this pattern- in fact, I accidentally plugged my bathtub drain because I was soaking sisal in the tub to relax it so I could make her extremely awkward hair. WHAT A MESSY PAIN! And dangerous, too, I had hot glue burns all over me, ever drip hot glue on your thigh? lol Anyway, I quit that job after about 7 years, working 6 days a week at home to keep up with the demand and the other day I worked at the shop. Finally I couldn't take it anymore, the fun was gone, so I quit. After I quit, the demand for dolls fell off anyway, so I guess my timing was pretty good.

So my sewing tapered WAY off, I don't think I used my machine much at all for a couple of years after that, until I got over it, I was really burned out. Then I started making things and selling them in my Etsy shop and I rediscovered my love for sewing.

I buy a fair amount of fabric from the new Bernina shop nearby and teach an occasional class there, usually for a bag or something like that. Somehow, and I don't know how this happened, I got roped into making some pincushions that look like cake. I now remember why I quit that other job!!!!!


What a pain in the butt! A lot of little pieces and I actually had to write notes to myself so I wouldn't get them all scrambled up. Interfacing, Timtex, ground walnut shells, stuffing, hot glue (because I cheated and didn't want to handsew those roses down) ricrac, changing thread colors 20 times, OMG! These aren't very good photos, because I don't really care about these things, but they took way too much time to make and I griped and grumbled thru every stinkin' minute of them. They turned out pretty cute, though, especially compared to the one I saw that someone else had made and was collapsing! I have to say, my fingers don't seem to be as nimble as they used to be and I found myself fumbling around a bit which I don't rememberbeing a problem in the past. Old age? Gosh, I hope not!

These are patterns by Cindy Taylor Oates and are very well written.

On a better, less whiny note, I did manage to make up 4 pair of no-no bands for a friend to send to a group called Operation Smile, where they use these to help during the healing process after children undergo surgery for cleft palates. Tongue depressors go into those slots and they make soft casts to keep the kids from touching their new face.


I can honestly say that this was probably the first time I've bought kid fabric to use for an actual kid! :) Usually I make myself something out of it.

I hope you all have a great day and only have to make the things that YOU want to, today!