a single sheet

a little while ago, ok two years ago,

i purchased a fat quarter set of vintage sheets.

 i wanted to make a quilt. something simple, light weight and good for spring and summer. maybe a quilt to be used on a picnic or just spread on the grass to look at the stars.

fast forward to two garage sale-ing weekends ago

when i found this twin flat sheet. i'm not sure what it is about linens and me, but whenever i go to a garage sale i am always drawn to them. i found this single solitary sheet and thought well you can never have two many sheets. right? i mean sheets, especially flat sheets can be handy for soooo many things. they can be used to make quick tents, or the walls for forts. they can be used to make a fun and funky skirt, a light and breezy nightie or pajama bottoms. see there are so many uses for sheets.  have i rationalized my crazy preoccupation with sheets yet? (crickets chirping) moving right along.....

i brought home this solitary sheet and put it with it's other brethren in the already packed linen closet. then on sunday i suddenly had an urge to get out the vintage sheet fat quarter set. as soon as i saw them i thought of that sheet, low and behold, a perfect pairing. the colors are great together. 

 i realize my photography skills are somewhat lacking. (crickets chirping) again. ok they're horrible. but you get the idea of these fabrics compatibility.

you might notice that i added a plain ivory fabric, it's the one at the bottom. i used an vintage pillow case and cut it up to match the size blocks i am going to use. i am going to do some vintage embroidery designs on these ivory pieces of fabric. 

 i've picked out these three designs.

and this will be the floss palette. 

all in all not a bad project inspiration from one single bed sheet.

Cheers!

soft in the head about halloween

i'm not sure why but halloween is my favorite holiday. nope not christmas, nor easter, thanksgiving is so-so. i'm not sure if it's the implied possibility of magic happening, or the concept of being able to fly around on a broom. maybe it's the true beginning of fall for me. the corn mazes. the apple picking. the ability to start baking yummy things because the weather has cooled. i don't like the gruesome, ugly, commercialized concept of slasher movies and horror flicks bit of halloween. i'll pass on that stuff.

i mentioned in the last post that i saw these lovely and amazing beauties on flickr. they inspired me to create my own felt skullies bunting to display with my other halloweeny things. i finished the last one tonight. i thought i would show you the collective group before i sew them onto the vintage black ric rac i found recently.

the color is a little wonky in the photo because the skull on the bottom here, that sort of looks gray is actually a lovely pistachio color. i used glow in the dark embroidery thread on it. i'm not sure if it will really glow that much since i only used two strands. i'll have to let you know. i'm rather partial to the red, black and white ones. they seemed the easier to do. isn't that odd?

i am going to be sewing these to the ric rac after i complete this post. i'll watch one of my "fall" movies, bell, book and candle, one of my favorite movies (i seem to have several). kim novak, jimmy stewart, elsa lanchester, hermione gingold, ernie kovaks and jack lemmon. kim wears a beautiful red velvet dress that at first glance looks black. it's simple in shape and form, but the color simply captivates me every time i see this movie.

off i go to start stitching.

cheers!

i'm done

this post is about the fact that i finished my entry for the embroidereading contest. i'm not wholly sure how i feel about what i created. i did discover that i don't like embroidering words that much. or at least not the font i chose. i loved it at first but....then after a while.....yeah not so much. hopefully i won't embarrass myself in entering the contest. but if i do no one will be able to tell (sigh of relief).

i'm also almost done with our two youngest. they are being complete buggers! doing everything between whining, if you tell them they can not have anymore of something, to down right screeching and crying if i tell them no. at least that is what the smallest one is doing. the middle one is making a valiant attempt at trying to figure out new ways to manipulate us into doing what he wants. he used to be a great one for crying at the drop of  a hat. but now it's not working anymore since he's almost 5. so now he's trying to find a new trick. the only time they do not fuss, fight, whine, argue, cry, or act complete blighters is when i sit and do nothing or "wait" on them. no one else, just me. (sigh) i know i'm going to sound like an absolute horrid mum, but i don't want to "wait" on them and do nothing all day. with the children i have helped raise these two are by far the most labour intensive. my mum helpfully suggests it's just a phase they are going through. gosh i sure hope so. because if it's not a phase i'm going to seriously look into advertising two lightly used children for sale. cheap! 


cheers!

pant, pant, pant....

here i am! i'm here. (pant, pant, pant) geez it's hot! i'm melting, slowly. some one turn the thermostat down now please.

i have been s-l-o-w-l-y working on some embroidery. i have been trying to complete some dolls for our two young boys, but this heat just zaps all my creativity. i also have this pattern to complete for the two young ones for christmas. you know when i stop melting and in my free time.

of course, now i have gone and stuck my foot in it, figuratively speaking that is. i stepped up and said i would enter this contest. luckily i have until september to complete my entry. i have a poem in mind. i don't think i'll embroider the whole poem, just a stanza from it. i just have to find the book that contains it (grin). the funny thing is, i'm not entering the contest to win necessarily. i liked the idea of the project and wanted to participate. which if you knew anything about me, you would know i'm not a "joiner". never really have been. so for me to speak up and say i would enter a little creation in this, seems even odd to me.

in one of my previous posts i mentioned a digi-camera that my husband found for me at a garage sale. well after fiddling with it for the better part of the afternoon i discovered that my laptop, mimi, and it are not on talking terms. i connect the two together via the usb cable and then mimi turns her back on the poor, dear digi-camera and gives it the cold shoulder. the digi-camera tried to introduce itself and make nice but mimi would not have it. (she can be a wee bit stubborn). so i figure what i'm gonna have to do is go old school. i'm gonna have to take photos and then take the memory card to one of those nifty photo kiosks at a store and transfer the photos to a disk. then sneak those photos on to mimi. (shhhh, just don't let her know where the photos came from.) then i can share them with you all.

cheers!

mu-who?

hello my lovelies!

hopefully everyone is enjoying their day, or evening which ever might be the time of day for you.

i was poking around the internet and stumbled across this, muju. this is a close up of the center. isn't that amazing felt work. doesn't it just inspire you to get your felt out and start cutting. making intricate designs of layered colors? well???? or is it just me (blush).

i also found it rather ironic that the artist are currently residing in Cornwall. since our family has been deeply engrossed in watching the series Doc Martin on netflix. if you haven't ever watched this series i will warn you now and tell you it's highly addictive. after i got home from work one morning this week my husband told me that it was all my fault for showing him this show. he had ended up staying up all night watching several episodes.

and because of how the town looks in the show, my husband is walking around telling our oldest son that he wants to move to Cornwall, England (grin). he has also suggested that we move to Canada, become Canadian citizens so that we can go to England without passports.  of course i'm not sure how we are supposed to move to Cornwall, let alone to Canada and then England when we don't even have the funds to move to the western side of this bleedin' state. (sorry for the cursing).

but i digress (as usual). i just thought the muju creations were fun and original. so poke around the site and see if you don't get inspired. i'm off to try and do some embroidery work.

**update**
my husband went back to a garage sale to try and pick up an ostrich egg that we saw earlier. the eggs were all gone but he brought home a surprise for me instead. a digital camera. it's low mega pixels, like 1.3, but it might work better than the camera shy cell phone. i will just need to make sure the two of them don't meet and have a chat over a cuppa. wish me luck and now i'm off to play with my new camera.....(grin)
cheers!