I Love Sizzix!

I know, this is just one of many posts that are written just because they get more entry points on a giveaway, but it is true - I do love my Big Shot!

I feel like I am late to the paper crafting world even though I have loved and have been playing with paper since I was a kid in the 1950's. I had NO idea, though, what was hidden to me. For some reason, when my husband retired several years ago, I decided to try to use up what I had in the craft room and only went to a craft store if I was out of something like glue. I wasn't really using much up, though. I needed direction!  That came in the form of my middle daughter when she brought over a mini album she had made. It was gorgeous! I had no idea that papers were being printed that were so beautiful - or that by going to YouTube, you could learn just about anything. I was familiar with YT but unless you see something, you have no idea what to look for!

 Fast forward a few years and I was getting over getting a hip replacement by shuffling around the neighborhood. I noticed that a friend was having a garage sale so we headed down there - me pushing a walker with a seat, just in case I needed to rest. That didn't turn out to be the real need. What I needed was to push home a big box full of paper goodies, including her original little Sizzix die-cutter - red with lever that pushed the little pad through the pressure spot and it weighed a ton! I also got three alphabets and some other dies and several well-worn punches that came back to life after some mostly-tender care. 

That was the beginning of my die cutting. I moved up to a Big Shot a few months later when I discovered larger embossing folders that didn't fit in the little machine. Oh, what fun! Today, my daughter brought over the Stampin' Up (made by Sizzix) Softly Falling Textured Impressions Embossing Folder that I added on to her last order. I can't wait to try it out. It looks like snow falling, getting thicker on one side.

Now to the best part: Scrapbook.com is having a give-away! Click on the link and it will take you there!

If you've ever daydreamed about trying out the Sizzix Big Shot Plus, this is the giveaway for you! The $2500 Ultimate Sizzix Designer-Bundle Giveaway is an an amazing chance for 5 winners to receive a $500 Big Shot Plus Starter Kit PLUS loads of accessories from designers Stephanie Barnard, Eileen Hull and Jen Long.More details here. So, drop everything you're doing--unless you're, say, holding a baby or a crystal vase--and enter this giveaway now for a chance to win big!

Working up to Journaling by 5s...

It seems that I am so frequently late to the party, but since I usually end up staying late, it works for me. I recently discovered Shannon Green's Journaling by 5s on YouTube. My primary focus in an "artist's journal" is usually something about the day - sketching and/or writing about something around me.  I also am addicted to the Artist's Journal Workshop (Artist's Journal Workshop blog and on Facebook).

Journaling by 5s is a completely different idea!

Journaling by 5s is down and dirty - get it done stuff! And it is dealing with "Art Journaling"... more experimental, often abstract and mixed media!  I have watched Journaling by 5s on YouTube... there is a playlist of over 200 videos on it and I've just begun. I've skipped some, just because they don't make as much sense to me as others do. Seeing what I like - and don't - is helping me to relax about it all a bit.

 I've discovered that I like the idea of not doing so much preplanning that there is no room for ooops and what happens when you are forced to compensate!!! Some have not planned ahead enough - and I can see their frustration.

I did a couple of minutes of practice video just to try getting the camera lined up - harder than I thought since when the camera is upside down, top and bottom are reversed... and I can't find the software I've used for editing video before that can fix that. I hate having to get new computers!!! I also realized that videotaping at night means I sound like I'm 90. I'm going to check in the morning to see if I sound any better. I only have the mike that is on the camera and that probably has something to do with it.

The first thing to prep is a 20 page journal. The suggestion is to use an easy to find composition book. I had two from the Dollar Tree so you know that they are priced right! They are made with 80 pages in them so the idea is to glue four pages together to make a single thick page. That should withstand some abuse.

Gluing is done! It took a few days - lots and lots of arm movement! I have a gadget - a 2 ¼” hand applicator - Rollataq - that is perfect for this. It puts out a very thin layer of glue, keeping the pages drier than a more generous application gives. I don't have a lot of wrinkles on the pages this way. On the other hand, some journals that have many wrinkles have the most wonderful texture!

The whole process, once the pages are glued, is done in 15 minute spurts! I have to do whatever that turn is to one side of twenty pages in 15 minutes - 45 seconds per page. That means that paint and whatever will be flying! I'm thinking a smock will be in order.

This is what the sessions are about:
Session 1-Background: Paint, Ink
Session 2-Texture: Collage, Recycle
Session 3-Pattern: Stamps, Stencils
Session 4-Focal Point: Words, Images
Session 5-Details: Pen, Pencil
I do have a lot of paint lined up, ready to go. I have some newer paints but I thought I would possibly use up some of these old jars. I know that I started buying them in the early 1980's. There are several with pointed spouts that are the oldest. I decided that putting them out in color-order would make it easier to pick and choose.

I've also been working on the cover. It was a solid red - not bad - but it was so plain!  I have put several layers of paint - mostly golds, varnish, glitter and embossing powder - and more paint and varnish on it - and accidentally peeled chunks off, adding more, oooopsing more off when I decided to press some waxed paper over it to embed the glitter. Ooops!

This is how it looks tonight. I added some scrapbooking paper that says Unlock the imagination - JUST what I am trying to do!  I also made a little label. I bought a First Class self-inking stamp decades ago - and it still works!!! I discovered that it is is not moisture-proof ink when I applied sealer to it. I still liked the First Class idea so I cut the piece of paper where I had tested it on I tore the ends on a tape dispenser to emulate those paper labels that they attached once you paid the postage. I added ink to the edges, scrunching up and inking the wrinkles to bring it into the realm of old.

I also added a lot of ink on the surface and edges, adding more glitter as I went. The last thing was to add a coat of varnish. I don't know what the inside will look like but I do like how it looks now!  Of course, there still is proof that it was just a red composition book on the back side. I wonder how much will cling to it by the time it is done!

Stay tuned to see what happens next!

Palette To Go!

Pretty colors

Today, I have been working on a very light little palette for sticking in my bag. You can never tell when you need to paint! This one was an eye-shadow set from the local Dollar Tree - making it a great price!  I have another that I got there a while back but the little pans were quite small - not really brush-sized. The pan areas in this one however, are much wider, making it possible to use a larger brush.

Emptied and washed out.

One problem with filling any watercolor palette is choosing which colors to add. This palette's arrangement made it easy to put a cool yellow, red and blue on one side and a warm yellow, red and blue on the other.

My quick-reference for the palette.

Making a color chart - and keeping handy - is important. I will need to make another that will be covered in plastic and stuck to the bottom.

When the paints are in a palette, remembering what color is which is often hard to do without testing them each time because they often look quite similar.

Choices!!! I have a lot of paint - I've been collecting it for decades.

There were still six empty spaces so I started thinking about the colors that would be convenient. I loved the old alizarin crimson but it proved to be fugitive but I think that Winsor & Newton's Brown Madder is a good substitute. I forget to use it in it went. I tested all of my purples (yes, I have a few) and then mixed the reds and blues I already had added to the palette and discovered that mixing one would be better. 

My testing sheet - inexpensive paper that has few other uses but is excellent for this. 

I wanted Daniel Smith's Transparent Permanent Orange because it is proving to be a great paint as has my old favorite DS Quinacridone Gold. Rich Green Gold is appealing as is Cobalt Teal, both Daniel Smith's. 

The mostly filled kit with a cheap brush for splattering.

I still have one space left. I set an empty-half pan in front of the palette for comparison. Half pans  are deeper but the eye-shadow slots would allow a bigger brush to make less of a mess.

I love to have some sparkle and often have some gold available but I also love to have some Lunar Black (Dan Smith) which can give some wonderful texture to other colors, too. For now, it is empty. I haven't decided if or which brush I will be trimming down to add in there. Because the lid is domed, it will hold thick things, as long as they don't roll off into the paints. For now, it is set aside for the paint to dry. There is nothing worse than having a palette of freshly added paints turn upside down in the bottom of a bag and you don't notice it before it has all mixed and dried after running all over everything.

I just scuffed up the inside of the lid with a fine, sponge sanding block to make the paint not bead up. It is foggy but works well. I also positively know that a waterbrush will not fit inside... It will have to be put in my kit.

Doubt and loosing focus...

It's for the one who doubts his every stroke and color choice,
the one who listens and learns well for a while
...and then looses focus or gets impatient...
and does something on his canvas that sends him into meltdown mode... — reading Paint Mojo - A Mixed-Media Workshop: Creative Layering Techniques for Personal Expression.

I got my copy this week - I have been fascinated by Traci's paintings for quite a while. I do admit that it isn't - or hasn't been 'my style' but at the same time, there is something about the multiple layers, the colors, peeking through to other layers that intrigues me. Looking through and maybe trying it all for myself, the idea has possibilities! Watercolors and acrylics?
http://artoftracyverdugo.blogspot.com/p/paintings.html

Altered book - in process...

I was surprised that I have not been adding to my one and only altered book for almost TWO years! I assumed it was last fall, when I got sick with sepsis in October, 2013 (a long story for another time), that it stopped, but, I was wrong! The last date was September 12, 2012.

That being said, I want to show what I did and, just maybe, get the ball of creativity rolling again.

I had been fascinated with altered books for quite a while, but needed to just jump in there and TRY it! I found a book - not the best binding for this but, I didn't like the philosophy of the author and wanted to make the volume worthwhile to me, somehow.

I started by removing every other page. Yes, you take a craft knife with a sharp blade and get in there and desecrate a book! This is truly the hardest part for me. I tend to get distracted by most printed material and cutting up a book just seems wrong. However, that is part of the process. I now have a stack of printed pages to used in some other project!

I had no idea of what to do next, so I opened the book, skipping a couple of pages and started pasting in paper. I journaled a bit and decorated it a bit and called it done!

Interesting - maybe, maybe not BUT it was done! I proceeded for several days, hiding out in my studio, pasting and painting and writing whatever connected to to what I had done.



Gesso on the pages, paint and then stenciled... and then I extended the page out and did it some more. I used copy paper for the extension and was surprised to discover that, after an application of gesso to both sides of the page, it is quite substantial. The lightweight paper adds much less bulk to the page than cardstock would.












On another page, I admonished myself to USE IT UP before buying any more supplies...

That didn't last too long.






In my hunt for supplies to use up, I tried absorbent grounds - liked that a lot!

The last page I finished was about what  have heard my Amsterdam cousin talk about many times... about awakening in the morning to the sound of the neighborhood lark. She lives on a canal and most birds don't make it their home - but the lark is faithful, even in the midst of water and cement.
  
A challenge to myself is to re-start this book's alterations. And, to complete at least one watercolor in the next week or so. I have been back working on getting my watercolor brain to wake up again - not as easy as I expected. Since I got sick, carrying a thought long enough to finish it has been even more of a problem for me than it ever has been before. Creativity is something that I never had a real problem with before but this kind of infection leaves you with all kinds of interesting challenges. There seems to be a strange disconnect between my thought process and what my hand does. If I don't really think about it much and just dip my brush in paint, my hand seems to know what to do. The challenge is to actually do it!

ps. If any of you want to see other photos of the book, The flickr page is at https://www.flickr.com/photos/79481680@N00/sets/72157631316606050/

Ice, Ice, Baby!

My M!

Oh, dear... I just discovered that I did not post this! That is not good at all! So, without further ado, may I present Mason!

A bit of a catch up! It is only February 9th and it has already been a very busy month!  On the very first day of the month, I became grandma for the 10th time - a sweet little boy! He is my youngest's first and he is beautiful!

I spent a few days traveling to the hospital, staying for hours, returning home, and coming back the next day for more!  He was able to go home on Monday and the forecasts began predicting SNOW on top of the chilly air we already had! I know, most of this country has had more than its fair share this winter, but it has been quite spring-like here in Portland.

A ferret looking for its home

On the fifth, the temps dropped - windchill of minus 1 F at night. The winds howled, steady at 10-15 mph, with frequent gusts up to 45 m.p.h. We also had a visitor... we didn't know what it was and by the time we discovered that it was a ferret, it was gone. It was quite friendly, but it really startled me. Poor thing. It was just looking for a handout and I ran! Good thing it has a very thick winter coat!

The next day, the snow started and with the wind still howling, the flakes were tiny and dry. More blew down the street than stayed in the yard. Someone must have a huge pile of snow.

Icy cold Anna's Humminbird

The Anna hummingbirds have been really cold - puffed up like a ball. Why they don't migrate is a good question, if you ask me. I have noticed that whenever there is icy weather, the female disappears. The male spent time in our porch, getting out of the wind by sitting on an empty bird feeder part of the time. Mr. R has been rotating the hummers' feeder to thaw every few hours. We discovered that also brought in ants who love the feeder, too. Those stinking ants are a favorite treat of hummers and chickadees but getting the frozen feeder covered and sealed to prevent them from taking over the house even more was very important.

Coming home from my walk...

We got several inches of snow - not the norm for Portland - the most we've had since 1993.  Yesterday, I walked around the block and on a side trip - about a mile altogether. This is almost home - the middle set of Douglas Fir on the left is ours.

Ice covered snow - Golden Desert Ash on the right

White, winter wonderland - and not one human footprint to be found. It has been a long time since kids lived here! Our son brought his kids over to sled on our slope a couple of years ago - not much snow but it was fun! This year, it wasn't easy to get around.

Ice on the Japanese Cherry...

 As it usually does here in Portland when we have a lot of cold air, last night we got freezing rain. It was just starting when I was almost home and got serious in a couple of hours. It is an amazing sight to see everything coated with a coat of ice. If you don't have to go anyplace and your power doesn't go out, it is beautiful!

Shooting through binoculars

Finally, my camera since 2006, a Canon IS-3S, seems to have finally given out. I have been forcing it to keep going by using very fresh batteries, but today, it has refused to start. The photo of the iced branches was taken with it today. It has 12x zoom - a 400mm lens equivalent - and has been delightful. It also has a flip-out screen on back, making it possible to take selfies with my grands for a long time!

For now, I have to compensate with the little Pentax we have. It is compact but only has 3x optical zoom, making it difficult to get the long shots.  Today, I tried putting the lens into the eye-piece of my little binoculars - and it wasn't too bad... not great, but it is interesting. The dried up hydrangea flowers are the same as on the right side of the Golden Desert Ash in the photo up the page a couple of shots.. It definitely had a vignetting effect. I put it on super-macro in order for it to focus on the lens. Very tedious trying to find a spot, but it is worth a shot!

Acanthus... twisty leaves

Acanthus leaves have been used in decoration for over two thousand years - and I love them - on carvings, paintings, old manuscripts - wherever they appear. I once tried growing the vine but it disappeared. I grew up with wooden plates and baskets from Norway that had been painted in Rosemaling/Rosemåling - rose painting. I found this photo on the web showing the stylized acanthus leaves - the blue and green scrolls on the wooden plate.

Rosemaling began during a period when Rococo was popular - vines decorated ornate mirrors and carvings in wealthy homes. Paint, however, was more affordable. The rosemaling scrolls and vines were the reason I started decorative painting back in the early 70's when it seemed that all of my friends were Tole Painting and I was at home with my first babe.

I wasn't fond of painting the mushrooms, apples and such that my friends made in class, and being a new mom and a student's wife, the budget allowed for either classes or books I bought books.  I hunted down wooden plates and plaques to decorate with scrolls, dots, and swirls in wonderfully smooth strokes of oil paint in traditional rosemaling. Before that, I spent hours practicing mixing paint and brushing stokes, swirls and comas on paper before I attempted my first strokes on an old piece of board. It wasn't long before I was painting on anything that didn't move - and my old bicycle's fenders that, when I traded it in for something with more than one speed, I got quite a bit more than I thought it was worth - just because of my stroke-work! I wish I had photos! I always wanted to cover my kitchen cupboards but that hasn't happened.

Eventually, my older two were in school and a friend was willing to trade babysitting - she watched my younger two and I started taking lessons. I wanted to learn new things! The problem was that in a room full of women painting with oils, turps and other thinners in a not-well-ventilated room was much different than just me painting at home and I developed severe headaches. I had to find other paint, as did most decorative painters. Acrylic craft paint was being introduced, pre-mixed in lots of little bottles. Instructions no longer told you how to mix the right color - you had to buy a bottle of each color indicated. Brushes were developed out of synthetic fibers that were inexpensive and tossed after a few months because the much coarser paint destroyed fine bristles. My Kolinsky sable and other good brushes were put away until many years later, I began painting with watercolors.

I later took calligraphy lessons and learned several hands - styles - and was once again fascinated with those viney acanthus leaves that often wound around decorated pages.  A few days ago, I came across a few resources for drawing acanthus and other ornamentals. You can buy various publications of it, but my preference was to download the free PDF of the Guide for drawing the acanthus, and every description of ornamental foliage.


The SCA - Society for Creative Anachronism- has the Gutenberg School of Scribes (GSS) which is a series of on-line instruction for making your own illuminated manuscripts.

However, the site that made me get out some graph paper and pencil was The Calligraphy Pen's Drawing Acanthus Leaves.

My attempts take a bit of erasure to look right and using a piece of tracing paper over my screen and copying them for my own helped me see where I was going wrong. 

I ended up printing out the sections I was using.

All of this led to getting out my calligraphy and fountain pens. Unfortunately, some were put away without a good cleaning so my hands are looking like a calligrapher's - stained with unmovable inks that reconstituted in my efforts. It is fun to see what I can still remember after a few years of absence!

Refreshing...

After not posting for a  l o n g  time, my tendency is to try to catch up. I start writing but it is not posted because it is never 'finished' - because that is an impossibility! So, this is a notice that I will not even try. But, from time to time, I will post some things that I am doing.

Pepto?

I'm taking a break from painting my dining room.
After all of the classes I've taken and books I've read on 'how to have a happy husband', I'm throwing it all (or at least the stuff that says his thoughts about how things should look and be around here are twice as important as mine are) OUT - and painting it PINK!.  "They" seem to like to tell you to make sure everything the little woman does passes approval of the big guy.  All of that accumulation of info brought me to a place where I didn't give myself permission to do what I would like around the house.
The past couple of years have resulted in two renewed bathrooms and some other things that have given  "Whatever YOU (meaning me) want!" a very new meaning to me.
I like it.
I have to get back to the Pepto - I mean pink - painting.  The ceiling and woodwork are white so it isn't ALL pink. :)
ps.  He really doesn't care; in fact, he likes it.  After I convinced him to wear a pink button-down shirt --- and he disovered that he liked it and even wore them to work,  I shouldn't have been at all concerned.

Knitting

A few days ago I finally pulled some knitting out that has been aging for a long time. I brought a sweater to work on the last time I went to New York to visit my husband's family. I didn't consider the quality of yarn, though. Although I had most of the body of the sweater done that summer, it wasn't going to be what I had planned. I bought some inexpensive Orlon - an acrylic yarn that was not the soft stuff we have now. It would be fine for a summer sweater, though. It is navy blue and I loved the color. I just gave up on it.

I didn't want to start over or throw it away, since I had spent so much time on it. I have looked at many navy blue sweaters in the past 20 plus years but always think that I 'have' one, if I could just finish it.

Recently, I decided that I need to finish some things. I haven't had a whole lot of energy so since I've been sitting, I needed to do something. I finished a pair of socks I had started last year. Of course the second one was much easier than the first. I had to rip out the toe-area on that first sock because of some miss-measuring. Now I have wiggle-room.

Next, I got out the yarn my youngest daughter wanted me to make into as scarf. I had made her one for her birthday that, in theory, would have been fun. I had seen a demo where the teacher laid out some dissoluble stabilizer, then sprayed it with a temporary adhesive. After this she layered yarns, threads and other fibers on this then topped it with another layer of stabilizer. This was then connected with row upon row of stitching - lots of rows both lengthwise and crosswise.

When I thought my effort was sufficiently 'woven', I rinsed the whole thing to remove the stabilizer and produce what should have been a lovely, soft and drapable scarf.
It was a sticky mess so I soaked it overnight. I put things in the water that were supposed to dissolve stubborn stabilizers... several times. At one point I pulled it out into shape, a chore in itself since it was still sticking to itself, hung it on a couple of plastic hangers and hung that out in a tree on one of the warmer days we had this summer. Stiff, stiff, stiff.

I continued for a couple of days to try to make this stuff behave. Thinking of how lovely it would be to get a beautiful scarf only to find that it was stiff, prickly and sticky, I kept trying. I finally decided that it would have to do because it was her birthday. Instead of softly draping, it was more like barbed netting. I tried to wrap it to compensate for what was inside but I was not successful. She graciously took it home after she tried to 'drape' it around her neck. We have since talked about it and I would still like to try washing it out some more - or make another one.

After this I realized that I needed to knit the scarf she originally wanted. It didn't take too long on size 15 needles and it is finished and she has it.

Finally, I restarted the sweater. I only needed to knit a couple more rows then knit the ribbing for the bottom of the body of the sweater. I forgot to change to a smaller sized needle for the ribbing, but I think it will be alright the way it is. I could rip it out....

I am almost finished with the first sleeve. I have a couple inches more to knit and then the ribbing. The second sleeve 'should' be much quicker. The pattern calls for using double-pointed needles (dpn), but the ones I own are aluminum and the stitches tended to slip off of it and cause a lot of re-working. I finally bought a small - 12" I think - circular needle which is small enough to do the entire sleeve. I will still have to use dpn for the cuff area but I have a set of bamboo dpn that behave much better. They are also a set of 5 instead of the 4 I was using. Five seems to be much easier to handle.

I haven't finished a sweater since I made a vest for my DH many years before this. It had a simple pattern to it that should have been attractive but, since we were in the poor-starving-student phase of our lives I didn't buy nice enough yarn so it was not really noticeable. I hope I have thoroughly learned my lesson here. I would love to do some fair isle and for all of the work that entails, it deserves to be made of nice stuff.

Back to Creativity

Back to Creativity. I've been sidetracked for a bit - we've been fixing up the house a bit. We redid the upstairs bathroom and hallway and are in the much and muddle of doing the same to the main bath.

I just thought I would say hi.

Lately I've been involved with "Craft for a Cause for Christ," a group of women at church that meets twice a month to knit, crochet, sew or whatever, in order to make things for an orphanage in Russia, Crisis Pregnancy Center, Chemo-Caps for a hospital and whatever else we can think of. Most of these women are extremely productive. I just keep chugging along. I finally have a cute baby hat finished but booties are driving me nuts. Getting the right pattern, crochet hook size and yarn combination is part of it; getting my hands to do what I need is the other thing.

We’ve been in the muddle of bathroom things again, this time the downstairs bath, so this past Tuesday I didn’t even try to go (beyond getting my purse ready to leave.) Instead, I went to Home Depot to buy more stuff to wire new outlets and lights in the bathroom. The tub was to go in on Thursday; the Sheetrock was scheduled to be hung today, Friday. I didn't have a choice - unless I didn't care if the electrical was finished in the bathroom.

Thursday was a sleep-doc appointment and we ended up at the Tigard Lowe's. After much too long, we picked out the lights and the adjustable switches for the lights over the sink and bathtub. After a long ride home (why do they call sitting still on a freeway "rush" hour?

Today, (Friday), the Sheetrock was hung. It is interesting to have a bunch of Hispanic guys, who were excellent workers by the way, doing what has needed doing for a long time. After one of them hung it in the bathroom and another worked on our bedroom ceiling, they all came back to tape. They asked if it would be alright if they could eat lunch in our bedroom. I said ‘yes,’ so they sat on the floor lined up against the wall, chattering and eating things that smelled delicious. All but one were related and they had another brother who has a food trailer where they bought lunch.

In the meantime, Andrea came over with the boys to pick me up to assist her on errands. I was still putting plastic over the hung clothes in the closet, so I wasn’t ready to leave for a bit. After checking out the progress, she went downstairs to take care of Christian and Brandon stayed upstairs with me in the closet. Normally, he cannot be easily contained but the semi-empty closet entertained him for quite some time. He enjoyed opening and closing the bi-fold closet door to peek at the crew. They enjoyed him, too, They decided that Brandon’s jabbering and sputtering was Spanish, not English, because they ‘knew’ he was saying grandma and grandpa in Spanish.

They were impressed with Christian, too. He is a , sweet baby - almost four months old already and hasn't stopped growing.

We now have the ceiling in our bedroom sheetrocked. We remodeled in 1987 but when I said I really wanted to raise the 7’2” ceiling while everything else was torn apart but I couldn’t make the right person see the need. He only did what he wanted to do. He was several inches shorter than Bob and didn't comprehend the problem. Instead, part – the new part – got sheetrock, the rest was left with the original ceiling - those little square accoustic tiles that never were set quite straight that glared down at me when I was in bed.

Right now, it is all smooth – and blended together. Quarter-inch sheetrock over the top of everything is just right. We knew there was blown-in insulation that would drop all over if we removed the ceiling tile. Keeping the tiles mean that there is more insulation, too.

Now, to get to bed - almost on the floor. The room is empty, the bed taken apart so we're kind-of camping. We could have camped downstairs, but the 'working' bathroom is upstairs. The floor is covered with heavy paper and is quite noisy so I put down as many little rugs as I could. We'll see how the night goes. They will be back in the morning to work on it so it needed to be kept simple for the night.

Wadda Mess - Upstairs Bathroom

Today, Monday, October 22, 2007, I’ve had a change of heart. I love HGTV. However, I've been amazed (and critical) to see how unprepared people are when they start a project . I had forgotten that, until you start ripping up and tearing down, you don’t really know what will work. I LOVE LOWES AND HOME DEPOT. Home Depot has the price but Lowes has a better selection. They both save me from even more driving to get stuff.

This a.m., I was off to Home Depot to get some primer and picked up sample tiles, knobs, and a vanity light. I wasn’t finished shopping but had to hurry home because I was watching two grandboys while my DD#1 went to see how the kidney stones were progressing. On that front, things look stuck so she thinks she will have more surgery/procedure. She is thinking, why wait another week, check it again and then schedule it. Getting it over now sounds good to her. She has a stent in which is like a heavy wire that keeps the uriter open for it to pass, which can be quite painful.

When I got home, the bathroom was bare. A friend is doing much of the work and he and Bob got a lot of exercise ripping, pulling and carrying it all out. Anyone wanna cracked toilet? Howsabout an ugly vanity?

The boys arrived and we had fun for about three hours. Zander, the older one, cried – sobbed - when his mom came. He wanted to stay longer. They haven’t been here much since Bob’s surgery since he gets so tired. They watched the guys across the street dump rocks into a retaining wall with a backhoe. Then they made their way upstairs to get a good look at our mess.

The discovery of the day: packed between two joists, was a stash of very old walnut shells that would do any varmint proud. That’s the very down side of an old house.

Dinner came and I went – to Lowe’s for more tile samples and the bathroom fan fit for a king we saw last week and then to GI Joes for a portable throne for night emergencies. Once I got the fan home, we decided that it was a bit over the top for a little bathroom so I get to retrace my steps in a few hours. I got gas on the way home - $3.05 and gallon for middle grade. Lovely.

Bob is frustrated that he gets so worn out. He hasn’t had much reserve energy since his prostate surgery a year and a half ago although he doesn't hesitate to do what exhausts much younger men. It takes the fun out of it for him to be so tired.

I think I’m just postponing the inevitable – going all the way downstairs to brush my teeth than back up to bed. Fortunately, I no longer sleepwalk to the bathroom like I did when I was a kid.

Kathleen, who thinks a tiny bathroom doesn’t need a fan that has a nightlight, a dual bulb light fixture, and a heater. It’s a bit crowded up there on the ceiling – especially when we will already have a ceiling light and a vanity light so I can see those wrinkles more clearly…

Little Lambie Pie

A Quilting We Will Go ---

One of my daughters is expecting her first babe in a few weeks. She hadn't been able to get it done yet so I took it home a few weeks ago to finish for her. She had gotten frustrated and after working on it, I found a few things to be frustrated about which relieved her a bit - it wasn't all her problem.


Getting those triangles sewn onto the corners of the lamb blocks was frustrating since there wasn't any way to line up the triangle

against another edge of fabric. One of the problems was that the pattern's seam allowance wasn't accurate. Urgh!

We progress.... The feet and muzzles are all stitched down and I am now ready to applique the fluffy lambs onto the background. I started thinking about the fluffy stuff and babes. I called my oldest and we decided that it should be all right. If I run my fingers through the fleece, it (the fluff) comes to the top of my fingers.

I am thinking of breaking away from the pattern a bit since the ears were supposed to be appliqued on the body. Using the fake-fur meant that the ears would flatten it a bit. I'm making them so they will not be stitched all the way around - they will only be attached at the top of the ear. It will be more dimensional that way, too.

It isn't a large quilt but it is a cutie. One of the lamb's fur is flying a different way which only looks like he has been leaping through the air.

The quilt is from Baby Quilts - Goof-Proof Instructions to SEW Three Beautiful Quilts by Ursula Michael.

Splitting My Personality

With the intent of keeping Creativity-Sidetracked a place to talk about creating and creativity and keep it more centered on that thought, I've started a more personal blog at Kat's How Do I Do. I am hoping this will give me more incentive to be more active on both blogs instead of questioning myself as to whether or not I should talk about more personal things here.

Since I enjoy being able to share what I'm doing, I do hope this will be an interesting place for you to return to see what is happening in my world.

Pillow Talk

My oldest granddaughter is five and the last time she was here I brought her up to my sewing room and embroidered her first initial. She picked the colors. During the process I discovered she loved blue and that her mom bought pink paint before asking what Nat wanted for her new bedroom.

So the N is blue with beige, gold and green around it.

I was left with the instruction to put “more of that gold” around it (she picked from several metallic shades) which I did. The next time I saw her, she asked for more blue.

Today we stitched the blue and added some pink ribbon stitched down with a heart stitch she picked out. I explained that it needs pink so it will look nice in her room and she thought that the pink looks good.

This is becoming a wonderful project. I had a chunk of my Andrea’s blue slip taffeta and she agreed it will be good on it. She also decided on a small, rectangular pillow form. I’m backing it with some rose upholstery velvet I have for some pillows for my living room. She thinks that will be great.

It is a great experience for both of us. I had been looking for the opportunity to do some one-on-one with my grandkids and this has been perfect. All of the grands are one year apart so when we see one, we see more. Her brothers were quite happy playing with toys while we did our thing.

Now I need to rinse out the stabilizer I used in the embroidery so I can go on to the next step.

Progress... of sorts

This has been a slowly progressing blog. I have been progressing, though. It has been 10 weeks since I broke my right arm. The doc is pleased with the amount of stuff he sees in the space where my humerus is growing together again. And I can almost get my arm stretched out straight without help but I will get fitted for a brace Thursday to make that happen faster. It will pressure my elbow to open straigh. I do hope it doesn’t take long but it does depend on how much I wear it and how much pressure I put on it.

I am also having a dye-injection MRI a week from today. My wrist just isn’t going back to normal so they are going go look. It takes half an hour to put the dye in, then another hour and fifteen minutes for the MRI. I want to know the results but I’m not sure I’m looking forward to the process.
I have been trying to be ‘creative’. I have been working on getting my sewing machine set up to do some quilting. The last quilt I made was for my Natalie – my first grandchild – and she will be 6 in December. I have four other grands and another expected in March and no quilts for them – at least none from me.

I would just like to be able to machine quilt without the strain to my shoulders and arms that I had before. Some of it has to do with the way the machine sits and I’m not sure what I can do about that. It sits on a sewing table my dad made from a hollow-core door decades ago – before I had children. There is an opening for my old sewing machine but my oldest has that now. My current machine needs a larger and deeper box. And it would be wonderful if it had a lift built in so it could be raised to sit at table height for machine embroidery, lowered so the bed of the machine was flat to the surface of the table or lowered completely out of the way, depending on what I was going to do.

I have picked up something called SewSlip (http://www.sewslip.com ) from Fabric Depot this week. It has a Teflon face and silicone backing. The Teflon lets the fabric slide around without dragging or catching on things and the silicone backing keeps the SewSlip from slipping. I would love to have a new gadget for my sewing machine that is supposed to make moving fabric around quite simple called a Fabric Mover. The price isn’t simple though so I’m hoping for good things with this SewSlip. You can even iron on the SewSlip. So they say….

That doesn’t mean that a quilt is anywhere on the horizon. I have too many problems with my right arm right now to strain it that much. I do want to do some practicing on some smaller projects though.

What I really need to do is to get my new Studio finished so I can move into it. Bob is busy with outside chores and fixing the ‘finally found’ leak in our roof is really next on MY list since rain WILL come again. So, putting the heat vent opening in and setting in the lower cabinets hasn’t happened yet. I need the place to do things. I need some flat surface. I need my cutting table to be exposed once again and, sooner than later, to have wrapping paper accessible. Birthdays and Christmas are a coming and they won’t be put off just because I can’t get to things.

Cabinets so close I could Touch them

Well, a most wonderful thing happened today. My son, my husband and my son-in-law lifted, toted, pushed, pulled and dragged cupboards from my front porch up to the current dump room which is in transition to become my new studio. I currently have a sewing/computer room – great luxury in itself; a studio – another luxury which seems to have and overwhelmed itself imploded, become unusable; and this dump room where anything that didn’t fit someplace else stayed.

Its most recent occupants, Toni and Chucky and their cat Coffee, have been gone for quite a while now and I think all of their stuff is also gone. While I worked on Andrea’s wedding last year – hemming the gown, making the veil and petticoat, sewing things seeped in. I then moved in all of the wrapping papers – quite a collection of paper, bags, boxes and ribbons. The last bunch of boxes from of dad’s things also landed in there.

This spring, Aaron asked where to get a dumpster. When I found what he was dumping was their old kitchen cabinets, I had a great money-saving idea. Bring them here and, with all of the experience he was gaining by installing new cabinets, he could even help reinstall his old ones. One thing leg to another. The cabinets were brought here under threat of rain and sat on the front porch for several months. My original plan was to have them installed before Bob’s surgery in the middle of June. I thought that I could be sorting and stowing during his recovery. Things happened and the pre-surgery install didn’t. Then I fell and broke my arm. Yuck.

Anyway, bless their hearts, Bob, Aaron and Chucky made the effort today and I’m well into having cupboards. Uppers are hung and some fiddling around to cut around a heat vent needs to be done before the base cabinets can be installed.

I think already we’re on Plan C as far as arranging the cabinets go. There is a plumbing access panel on one of the walls and we have decided in our great wisdom to not cover that. The space left is much smaller L-shape than anticipated. Originally, I was going to use the counter that included the spot for the sink which was to become my light box. We think that has been nixed since we think it won’t fit – as was the second high-cabinet since it would have covered the plumbing access. At this time I have one wall of cabinets plus one over-the-refrigerator cabinet on the adjoining space.

I am beginning to wonder what will fit inside all of those doors and drawers but I want to DO life and that means I need less of the in-case-of stuff. I think this makes me a first in my family. Not everyone is or was a packrat but some who started accumulating eventually got things packed in so tight there wasn’t much room for doing. I’m a wantin’ to be a doin’.

Another blog

I'm searching for the right blog spot. Since June, Bob had surgery for prostate cancer and I fell and broke my right arm. We got hooked on frequently updating just how we're doing using a medical page and now we want to be out of that and on with life. We are no longer in crisis mode although my arm begs to differ with that quite frequently.

In the mean time, our oldest is looking for a family blog but, being the independent that I am, I want a place where I can ramble. I tried Yahoo 360 but it doesn't seem to fit me. I hope this is easy to get to and to update.

Right now, though, I've been waiting for my pills to

make me sleepy

and have about given up. I guess it is time to just lay down and fake it.