Another Jacket

Over Christmas break I started another jacket. I have been working on it in January and while I was at the beach this past weekend visiting Mom and Dad, I completed it.

 It looks impressive and I must say it is but I also must say it was much easier than I thought it would be. It started out as a basic sweatshirt I purchased at Wal-Mart. I then cut it up the middle, took off the ribbing at the neck and waist and split it up the side.  I then reshaped the sides and bottom so it wasn't just a boxy top.  I attached the bias binding at the neck, front opening and bottom.  Then I had all sorts of fun creating the flowers and appliqueing them on.   The applique was what I thought would be so difficult, but upon discovering a Teflon applique sheet, all the scary and difficult flew out the window. The Teflon sheet made it very simple to assemble and apply the flowers and then I just had to stitch around all of them.  It sounds more difficult than it really is.  Yea, it took some time but I was having fun creating it so the time just flew by.  When I got to the beach I attached all the buttons.  I chose to put snaps on instead of make button holes and risk messing a button hole up. Since I have had my new machine I have not messed up a button hole but I still hold my breath each time I start one because they were always more difficult in the past.  I am really happy with the final product. 

Hippy Chicken

The story starts in 1968. Growing up Mom always made or gave each of us girls a Christmas tree ornament.  When we got married and left home we took all our ornaments with us. I have most of mine and they always go on the tree. Some of them did not survive the test of time but some of them have. This one did.

As my children were growing up they were generally fascinated with the old ornaments.........until they became teenagers.  At that point Ryan started making fun of some of my ornaments, especially this one.  He would ask me if we were really going to put this ugly bird on the tree. I always said yes but it usually ended up on a less prominent area where it went unnoticed.
Now that it is just Patrick and I decorating the tree, nobody is there to make fun of my bird, but we always reminisce about how Ryan made fun of it. A few years ago we started calling it "hippy chicken".
A few months ago, while perusing through pinterest I saw a lot of beautiful felt ornaments and decided I wanted to make some. So while I was visiting with Mom and Dad I decided to get creative. Here is the first one I made and I am really happy with the end result.

Patrick mentioned that he wanted a cardinal so this one is his.

There are other pretty ones I want to make but I was surprised at how long they actually took to complete so I will have to see how many more I can really make....in my spare time.
Ryan might get a replacement. I'm sure Sharee would appreciate it.

Moving from Phoenix

The journey started on Friday the 9th when Patrick and Sharee's father, Roger, flew to Phoenix that  afternoon. They all went to dinner Friday night and then Saturday morning everyone helped finish packing and started loading up the truck. (Sorry the first 2 pictures are so fuzzy)

By Saturday evening they had everything loaded into the rental truck and were quite pleased that they got everything in one truck.  They had reserved 2 trucks so this allowed them to return one rental truck and one tow dolly which helps them save about $1500 plus the cost of gas to drive it across the country. They drove the accord and the civic making it a caravan of three.

They spent Saturday night in a hotel because they had emptied the apartment and had no where to sleep.  After breakfast Sunday they finished loading small stuff and hit the road.

They had pretty skies for Sunday driving.  I guess they planned to snack on avocado's when they finished ripening in that windowsill. 

They were glad to make it through New Mexico and into Texas.  They drove too late into the night and stopped about Odessa, about 6 hours west of Dallas.

Monday brought its own adventures.  As they had driven so late into the night on Sunday they woke up late after not sleeping well. They were grouchy and had a hard time getting on the road.  Winds were against them so they drove slowly. At one point they discovered a nail in a tire and had to deal with that before it made the tire flat.  They also felt the need to tie down the truck (that was in tow) more securely as the roads were bumpy and it "bounced" a lot.  Due to fatigue they decided to only drive 6 hours that day and they stopped east of Dallas, had dinner and retired early.  Dispensing ambien to everyone ensured they had a good nights sleep. They went to bed praying that Tuesday's travels would be better. 

Tuesday everyone woke up well rested and ready to tackle the day. They were on the road by 8AM and made multiple stops to check tire pressure, stretch legs and gas up.  They celebrated when they crossed over the Mississippi River in the mid-afternoon. 

By Tuesday night they had made it to just outside of Birmingham Alabama.  They were aiming to make Wednesday a shorter day so they could arrive and still unload the truck some. 

Wednesday was a long day and did not start out too well. On the general walk around inspection in the morning, a flat tire was discovered on the trailer hauling the truck. 

                           

They filled it with 2 cans of "fix-a-flat" and were on their way. They were able to get on the road by 8AM.  Birmingham to Morganton is an 8 hour car drive but a much longer drive with a moving van etc.  They arrived in Morganton around 6 PM.  All were exhausted so they parked the truck and let out a big sigh of relief, hugged, parted ways with plans to regroup on Thursday morning to unpack the truck.

On Thursday morning all regrouped to unpack the truck and distribute its contents. Pat's shop started out empty where  the tractor is usually parked. 

It soon filed with boxes and furniture as the things they didn't need ready access to could be safely stored here.

Before long, the space was packed and the rest was loaded on trucks and trailers and sent over to Roger and Wanda's. By the end of the day, all was safely in its new storage space ...... until the next move.

Bayleigh Is 3

Bayleigh is 3.  Here she is on her birthday eating raspberries which she has stuck on her fingers.  She thought that was great fun.  Her party was a few days later and she celebrated with a party of course.

In her "Frozen" dress. Such a princess

Hello Kitty cake

Blowing out the candles

Opening a few gifts.  Once she got these mittens she had to wear them to open the rest of her gifts which made it a little bit difficult.

She had a big day

Vacation In Our Shops

Since we had time off over the holidays we got to spend time in our shops. Pat in the wood shop and Lisa in the sewing shop.  Here are a few of the projects Patrick completed over the course of the week.

 A cabinet to hold his nail gun and nails along with a rail to hold a few of his clamps.  Previously these nails and gun had been in a bucket and the nails were getting all broken up.  This gets them up and safe now.  He is slowly getting to "a place for everything and everything in its place".  Yeah!!!

 This cabinet holds all his gun cleaning chemicals and reloading supplies.  He wanted a safe place so the kids could not get hurt.  This has a lock and so he also put the tractor key in it to keep it safe and out of view.  Both of these cabinets were built entirely of scraps from the garage cabinet that was recently constructed.  So this helped clean up the leftovers from that project and organize gun stuff; an added benefit.

 This was a fun project that Patrick has been working on,  off and on for a few months.  It is a powder horn made out of a bison horn.  It came in raw shape; all dull, grey and rough.  He has scraped it smooth and polished it out. He made the top and bottom plugs from scrap walnut that came from Uncle Tim's Home Depot and are attached with some brass nails.  He then had to figure out how to display it.  He played around with some metal as a stand but was unhappy with it so he went to wood scraps.  He ended up using more walnut to make this display stand. He is very happy with the result and I think it looks pretty on display near the front door.

And here is a project for his honey.  I requested a thread and bobbin holder/organizer.  I saw this on Pinterest and so together we went to the shop and recreated it to fit my space. It fills that wall nicely and everything is now more organized. I previously had some generic thread holders but my color collection had outgrown the rack.  Now I have some room to grow.  Thanks dear.

And here is what I have been working on in my shop for the past bit.  The first is a project I picked up at a sewing/quilting show I attended last January with three girl friends.  Yeah, we were a little busy last year so I couldn't get to it till this winter.  It was a lot of fun and turned out great.

This green jacket I made because I found this fabric and fell in love with it.  I found a jacket pattern when I was at the coast in September.  I started working on it and was half way thru when I realized it was not going to fit.  Big time bummer.  It had a few techniques which were new to me so all was not lost as I learned a few things in making this jacket.  In the end I think it will fit my mom so it is going to the beach with me when I go for a visit in a few weeks.  I feel confident that it will fit her as she is smaller thru the shoulders than I am.

 An finally, in keeping with our reuse and recycle theme, I made a plastic grocery bag holder out of an old pair of pants that were worn out.  This freed up my garden basket which always seemed to be filled with walmart/grocery bags when we were heading out to the farmer's market. This takes care of that problem quite nicely I think.  All I had to do was hem up a casing in the top so I could thread an old shoe string through it to draw it up.  As this is the leg of the pants, it was already cuffed at the bottom so I just threaded through some elastic and called it done. It hangs in my pantry nicely.  Anyone need one?  I have another leg to the old pants.

And so I don't sit idle....... I already started another project and have two in the conception stage.  But you will just have to wait and see that in the future.  I am off to a good start in the new year.

Asheville's Dough

We got to spend one day of our vacation in Asheville.  We did a bit of shopping and also went out to eat, something that is unique to us.  We went to a restaurant called "dough" as we wanted to check it out as they serve breakfast and lunch in addition to  teaching fun classes, something Sharee is interested in doing when she moves back. They had display racks of beautiful breads, pastries, and a variety of side dishes you could purchase to take home.  It was a really neat place.

Here is our lunch.  We each got a bowl of soup and then split a sandwich. 

 Pat's shrimp and corn chowder

Lisa's cream of broccoli and cheddar

Here is the classroom at Dough.

I see a fun time in our future.