U is for...

Up and posting photos again! Yes, I am a happy camper (to say the least) so what have I been doing?

We, my oldest daughter and I, have been making boa scarves for a Halloween swap over at MJF, ruoughly 14 of these.

I have also been working on the mini yoyo quilt and the normal cd yoyo quilt.

I have also been taking my oldest kid to school and taking care of the one that fell down the stairs and the one that got pink eye, who is also the oldest, while I wasn't posting pictures. I thought about taking a picture of her, the pink eye one, the first day of the infection. Can we say she looked like Quasimodo? Sad but true, but I didn't want to hurt her feelings by posting a picture of her that way, so I changed my mind.

I also made my block for quisic in the swap on flickr, the block of the month group. Since it is going to be mailed one day late, I also made next month's block for her, too, as an added bonus and apology. So she will get one Aug. block and one Sept. block.

T is for ....

Time to look at a new version of an old tried and true favorite: the Cathedral Windows quilt. Over at Hyena In Petticoats there is a tutorial, but it has a twist on the old favorite; it has batting in it. Check it out if you ever wanted to make this type of quilt. If you do make some, please add them to the flicker group about Cathedral Windows Quilts. You can also check out her old blog on paper string cloth.

S is for.....

September block of the month.

This upcoming month in the flickr group the block that will be swapped is the Disappearing Nine patch. Please feel free to check out the group and join in on the fun. You don't have to swap to be a member. If you are a great seamstress and don't need truing up, start with a 4-inch block. However, to get the desired block of 10 inches finished (10 1/2 unfinished), most people need truing up; so, start with 4 1/2 or 4 1/4 for fudge factor. I hope I can post photos soon; this is driving me a little crazy. I would suggest starting with 4 1/4; that is what I did. It's easy to do with little truing up but it is needed, truing that is.

This block is not mine; it is fairbanksfancygoods and she gave me permission to post this so you could see what the block looks like when done. Please check out her photos on flickr.

explore photos

explore photos as of Aug 26 2007, originally uploaded by sunshine's creations.

1. butterfly pillow, 2. suzyhomemakers mini quilt is done, 3. This block is made by clare, 4. 1st finished butterfly for curtain, 5. lt and dk pink tatting, 6. hex granny squares, 7. more antique tatting, 8. antique tatting,9. front, 10. redwork butterfly signature block, 11. style d, 12. layette set, 13. crazy daisies, 14. flower tutorial, 15. English Paper piecing tutorial, 16. bubble gum pink quilt #1,17. lazy daisy week 3, 18. back side dove, 19. felt snow man done, style:christmas colors

Created with fd's Flickr Toys.

R is for...

Rock-n groups on flicker that I am a member of but not admin.

Q is for ...

Quite cute little girls. We went to a picnic with friends last night and did Karaoke in the park. Here is our daughter and one of the other little girls singing their hearts out. Pretty funny because neither one can read, so as you can guess they where making up their own words to the second verse of twinkle twinkle little star. Since my computer is still not talking to my camera, this was actually emailed to me from one of our friends after the picnic; sorry for the poor quality, but cameras on phones are that way.

We played a barter game there where every one brings items to trade. As you can see, my daughter ended up as a Harry Potter Pirate; not sure what that is, but she was happy about it, because her shirt is Kim Possible. Maybe it is a Harry Possible Pirate or something like that. This is the butterfly girl that tried to fly down our stairs head over heals. Hard to tell, but she has a shiner on her left eye from the whole thing. However, as you can see, in typical 5-year-old fashion nothing keeps them down for long. Even if mom had to say more than a dozen times, "Slow down; don't run you might hurt yourself again." I think I am more worried than she is!

P is for....

Pictures, or in this case, no pictures! My computer is not talking to the memory card of my camera, so this might take a little bit before I can post pictures again.
If you are into the tatting challenge, here is a site with a few patterns and lovely examples of tatting.

O is for....

OOOOHHH!! so pretty. This is the rainbow that I saw on the 18th of this month while I was at my daughter's soccer practice. It was actually a double rainbow, but the other didn't show up well in the photos. In the next photo you can sort of see the second one right over the telephone pole, the right most pole, arching the same way as the predominate rainbow. A few of the girls on the team were worried about getting hit by lightening because of the clouds. Click here to see a big version of this photo to see if you can see it, too. Once in new picture, click on it again for even a bigger image and better view of rainbows. Leave me a comment if you can see it, too. the weird thing about the second rainbow is the colors looked reversed to me. I have never seen one like that -- have you? I did a little bit of research on the reverse rainbow and that is normal; go here near bottom of page to find out more.

O is also for OUCH........Sorry I didn't post this yesterday like I had planned, but my 5-year-old daughter fall down our stairs and I had to take her to the doctor. She had 3 vertebrae out in her neck, 2 in her upper back, and one in her lower back from the whole thing. The chiropractor adjusted her, and she felt much better. He said it was good she was only 5, because their bodies bend easier (little kids, that is) than adults; other wise he thinks her neck would have broken from hitting the stairs three times on the way down. She sort of cartwheeled her way down with out putting her hands out to brace herself, so she now has a slight case of whip lash. He said if she had broken it where she wrenched it, she might have been paralyzed from the fall. We think she hit her teeth together each time she hit the stairs, and now her teeth hurt. Luckily, her tongue didn't get caught between her teeth because that could have been real bad, too. Long story short, I am very grateful all she has is whiplash and not being paralyzed.

N is for...

antique tatting, originally uploaded by sunshine's creations.

Number Nine in 25 motif challenge.

This is a photo of one piece of tatting that is in a salesman tatting sampler that hangs in my front room c. 1900.
Look at that price: 55 cents a yard. Wow, wish I could buy it for that price now!

Pattern starting with chain on left:

ch1: ch 4 picot ch 8 picot chain 8 picot ( future join place safety pin here to find this spot easily later), chain four

r1: 9 picot term 1 (join 5th picot to starting point)

**ch2: chain 5ds

r2: 9 picot term 1

chain3: 5ds( future join here*), ch 4, picot (future join), ch 8, picot , ch 8, picot( future join), ch 4

3r: 9 picot term 1, form join on 5th picot to first future join* on chain3** repeat

Please look at photo to see where joins are.

My other items for this challenge are here.

I used antique crochet cotton for this. Now, I wish I had not because it is a little too floppy for my tastes. Maybe I will do #10 with this same pattern but with tatting thread.

M is for...

Motif #8 = finished

This is my edging, all done for #8 on to # 9 for the "25 motif challenge". This is just shy of 2 yards long. If you want to see the others I have done, go here.

Photos from salesman tatting sampler.
Pattern from the pink one; the blue and purple have a tiny bit different stitch count.

Explore Photos

explore photos, originally uploaded by sunshine's creations.

1. suzyhomemakers mini quilt is done, 2. This block is made by clare, 3. 1st finished butterfly for curtain, 4. lt and dk pink tatting, 5. hex granny squares, 6. more antique tatting, 7. antique tatting, 8. front,

9. redwork butterfly signature block, 10. style d, 11. layette set, 12. crazy daisies, 13. flower tutorial, 14. English Paper piecing tutorial, 15. bubble gum pink quilt #1, 16. lazy daisy week 3,

17. back side dove, 18. felt snow man done, style:christmas colors

Created with fd's Flickr Toys.

L is for...

Lovely sunrise and sunset views on the way to the campout and this morning from my tent.

This morning from my tent, around 5:30 I think.

In the car on our way to the campout; window open.

In the car on our way to campout; window closed.

K is for....

Kick the ball, a game of great fun for two little kids on a church camping trip. Last night we went with our church to a campout. It kept threatening to rain, but that didn't stop the fun of these two new friends.

We were not sure if we were going to wake up to a dripping wet tent or not. That didn't happen, but I didn't sleep well because three kids under the age of ten can do amazing things in their sleep to make mom and dad have no room in a tent.

Also at this camp ground was a humming bird feeder. Just an ordinary feeder that had somewhere between 8 and 14 birds hovering around it pretty much all the time this morning. I think I sat there for 30 minuets or more just watching them dance in the air.

I have seen lots of humming birds in my life as my Vavo has lots of feeders at her home. Hummingbirds are her favorite bird, but I have never seen this many at one time. WOW is all I can say. If you like hummers and want to talk about them check out this forum.

I tried to get them in photos, but I need to get better with the F stop to get any real good photos. Out of 50, I think I have 5 I really like; most just got deleted from the memory card. However, I never was able to get more than 8 in one photo; it was just amazing. When there are this many hummingbirds, it can be a very noisy affair because they were trying to claim territorial rights to the feeder. It was fun to watch.

J is for...

Juggling hexes. I have been working on another hex afghan. I purchased a lot of chenille yarn from a dollar store, and the colors actually go together very well . I purchased all they had and didn't get a choice in colors; there were about 30 skeins. So I figured, price wise, this is an inexpensive project. I may end up putting it in the butterfly room because my house colors are far from pastel, but that room is leaning toward pastel. I thought about making a ripple afghan but not really feeling like that at the moment. Also, since my other hex blanket that is in the works needs more colors and I wanted that to only be made using scrapes, it was put on hold till I produce more scraps (that is a funny sort of thing, producing scraps instead of an item). I saw this group on flickr "hexagon love" that was all about hexes, so I decided to draft yet another pattern for hexes, similar to the ones I see in the group. This will be the third hex pattern on this blog; check out links in this post to find the other two. Here are two versions of this pattern. One is for all one color; the other changes colors almost every row except last two.

Hook size is according to the yarn you use. It can be made with any size yarn or thread if you're using correct hook; see your package for details on hook sizes.

Pattern for single color:

Chain six sl st in first chain to form ring

Round 1: chain 4 (counts as double crochet and chain 1) dc, ch 1 around till you have 12 dc including turning chain. Slip stitch in top of turning chain and in next chain 1 space ( 12 dc and 12 ch)

Round2: chain 3 (counts as double crochet now and through out this piece)dc in same space chain 2. * 2 dc ,ch2 in every chain 1 space on previous row around* join with slip stitch to top of turning chain slip stitch across to next space. ( 24 dc, 24 ch)

Round3:chain 3 (counts as double crochet now and through out this piece)dc in same space twice more, chain 2. * 3 dc ,ch2 in every chain 2 space on previous row around* join with slip stitch to top of turning chain slip stitch across to next space. ( 36 dc, 24 ch)

Round 4. sc in space chain4 ,*sc in next sp chain 4 around* join with slip stitch to first sc, slip stitch into next sp. (12 sc, 48 sc)

round 5.chain 3 (counts as double crochet now and through out this piece)dc in same space three more, chain 1. * 4 dc ,ch3 ,4dc in next chain 4 space on previous row around, chain1 4dc in next chain 4 space ,chain 1*around join with slip stitch to top of turning chain cut and finish thread (60 dc, 12 ch1, 6 chain 3)


Multi color pattern:


Chain six sl st in first chain to form ring

Round 1: chain 4 (counts as double crochet and chain 1) dc, ch 1 around till you have 12 dc including turning chain. Slip stitch in top of turning chain cut and finish yarn ( 12 dc and 12 ch)

Round2: join into any space with slst. chain 3 (counts as double crochet now and through out this piece)dc in same space chain 2. * 2 dc ,ch2 in every chain 1 space on previous row around* join with slip stitch to top of turning chain slip stitch cut and finish yarn. ( 24 dc, 24 ch)

Round3: join into any space with slst. chain 3 (counts as double crochet now and through out this piece)dc in same space twice more, chain 2. * 3 dc ,ch2 in every chain 2 space on previous row around* join with slip stitch to top of turning chain cut and finish yarn. ( 36 dc, 24 ch)

Round 4. join into any space with slst. sc in space chain4 ,*sc in next sp chain 4 around* join with slip stitch to first sc, (12 sc, 48 sc) ( two options here you can cut and finish yarn and change color or continue on with same color by slip stitching into next sp.)

round 5( if you cut and finished thread on last round. do this join into any space with slst. if not then continue with part outside of this parenthesis) chain 3 (counts as double crochet now and through out this piece)dc in same space three more, chain 1. * 4 dc ,ch3 ,4dc in next chain 4 space on previous row around, chain1 4dc in next chain 4 space ,chain 1*around join with slip stitch to top of turning chain cut and finish thread (60 dc, 12 ch1, 6 chain 3)


Joining for either version is done on 5th round by a slip stitch instead of a chain between the four double crochets or a ch1, slip stitch ch 1 in the corners

You can also have the colors carry over and have two or three rows of the same color by doing a mixture of single color version with mixed color version.

Butterfly Pillow

butterfly pillow, originally uploaded by sunshine's creations.

This pillow is made out of fabric napkins that have been embroidered on the edges. I didn't do the embroidery, Leezard did; all I did was sew the napkins together, add the yoyo front and back, and stuff the pillow. I think it makes a cute decorative pillow for the bedroom. Still hand made, so to speak, even if someone else did the embroidery. I think it is sweet. Top photo is accurate to color of pillow bottom photo was taken at night and didn't come out well.

I is for...

Incredible morning sky. This is what our skyline looked like at 6:30 this morning; just beautiful.

H is for....

Hats, hats, and more hats. Check them out at my store Vintage Threads Inc.
Some are for a Halloween swap at MJF too.

G is for...

fall hat, originally uploaded by sunshine's creations.

Giddy with making hats at the moment. I am sort of on a kick at the moment of making fall-themed hats. I like the way they are coming out. Let me know what you think; I am sort of leaning toward they need some sort of embellishment like a flower or something like that. I have a few more made that I haven't taken pictures of yet; I will post them tomorrow.

F is for...

First day of school is around the corner so yep, you guessed it, Kindergarten shots. Not fun! She looks happy here; that was prior to the two shots in each leg (total of four) and a pricked finger for the 5-year old; then all three girls were told they ran out of one of the shots, so we would have to go back in one week for the follow-up shots. Not what a 5-year old wants to hear after she is shaking and trembling from the shock of four shots in her legs. She was a little trooper and only cried a little; she mainly just shook in place, poor thing. The above picture was before the shots; older sister was reading to her so she was content, then the shots happened.

E is for...

Excitement of a five year old. We, as most of you know, are working on decorating my five-year-old's bedroom, and a few people have sent gifts to help decorate it. Every time a box comes with a little butterfly, squeals of excitement ring through our home. We have a long way to go before the room is done because most of the things I am getting for it are being hand made and not store bought like the lady bug room was that is in our house. A lot of the gifts she has been given are store bought, so those she already gets to enjoy in her room. That is just great with me!

1. gift from alee, 2. gift from sister, 3. gift from cinnamongirl, 4. gift from sister, 5. gift from alee, 6. gift from her aunt, 7. gift from her sister, 8. gift from mommom, 9. gift from old neighbor

I am just curious; how long can a 5-year old stay excited over a half done room? I hope for a while anyway. This is my little butterfly girl wearing wings from Mommom over at MJF. Her favorite song to sit and play at the piano (kid playing, of course) is called, yep you guessed it, "Butterfly Girl," and yes, she is very happy to tell everyone she wrote it herself. It consists of her singing the words "Butterfly girl" over and over again as she hits keys on the upright for about 30 minuets. Then she goes around the house singing it for the next two or three hours; we are all so used to it we hardly notice it any more. When we do, we all usually end up in hysterical fits of laughter as the never ending song continues. So yes, we are encouraging this behavior by doing a butterfly girl bedroom. Why not? You are only young once, so you might as well have fun being young.

Nice Matters Award

I was given a "Nice Matters" award from NotQuiteJuneCleaver.
She gave me this, and now I think I am supposed to pass it on to five other blogs that are special to me in their kindness for helping people and just being a good blog. So here goes my list of people and blogs.

1. Penny over at Penny Sanford Porcelains
2. Betz iver at Betz White
3. over at eloominator; this is a new blog, but I love weave-it looms
   
4. Alicia Paulson over at Posy gets Cozy; you can also check out her store, too, it is real sweet
5. Eren Sanpedro over at "this Vintage Chica"
6. Moonstiches; I just loved her afghan, and she has a lovley site and seems very sweet
7. another lovely blog is Paint in my hair by Laura Gunn; she has a lovely store, too, with her paintings in it to check out as well
   

These are all very friend blogs who are willing to help their readers with their questions and are just great places to visit and look around. If you have been tagged, just copy the picture from above and paste it into your blog and pick 7 more people.

D is for....

Dolls, and lots of them. I have collected dolls since I was a little girl. My favorites are mimes and pirouette clowns. I have never been very found of hobo clowns, but I have a few of them because people have given them to me, but I much prefer the pantomime look. I also love raggedy dolls and Russian nesting dolls, too. I have other doll likes as well, such as miniature doll houses and paper dolls; I have lots of those. If you haven't figured it out by now, I have a few red cupboards in my house; three, to be exact. I love red along with black and white (white more as an accent color than a main color). There are a few more doll cupboards in the house, but those have the dolls in them that my children collect. Those cupboards are different colors than this one, one is blue, and one brown, but I will get them painted in time to either black or red or one of each.

Click on this picture to go to flicker page if you want to know about each individual doll and where it came from or from whom it came.

C is for....

China cupboard full of colored glass collection. I collect all kinds of china and glassware. This cupboard is full of ruby glass.

My Vavo and Tia's used this type of glassware a lot when I was a child and still do, so I got in the habit of collecting it from them. I really like this type of glass because it fits with so many holidays like the 4th of July, Valentines, Christmas, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Patriots' Day; a lot of holidays have the color red as one of their theme colors which makes this color very useful to me.

The bottom part that has closed wood doors is full of green glass and cobalt glass, too. I like it for the same reasons: green is good for Christmas and St. Patrick's Day and cobalt blue goes with any patriotic holiday.

B is for...

Box from Vavo.My Vavo has this habit of keeping a box under one of her china cupboards. As she gets things she thinks I might like she puts them in this box then mails it to me. She calls it her box of junk. So here is her junk today with lots of B words.

Upon opening the box I am greeted by this note:
"Sum my junk
This is what has been dropped
into the box up to date-
so to date today was the day to mail
hope those girls have fun
VaVo
(cute furniture) found for $1.00
8-01-07"

This arrived yesterday, Aug 7

The first thing I saw was this box. I know my grandmother well enough to know there wouldn't be any candy in it, just a box for me to decorate or keep things in. I opened the lid to reveal 3 little wood china cupboards. I love dolls and miniatures, so she knew we would like this at my house.

As you can see, she packs the box pretty full of stuff when she does this.

There where boxes of candles, cards, and watches. There where buckets made of tin that were full of balloons and a hand-painted wood block so I could finish spelling our family surname in blocks (she painted it for me special). There was even a bird house. You would think she had known I was going to start the ABC's when she mailed this.

The box just kept going: there were bottles, a bird broach, buttons, banner calenders (from my grandmother's old shop, her store name is on the bottom of it).

Even a walkie takie and another watch, lots and lots of stuff for the kids to play with.

As you can see there are green sling shot frogs and a cd to use for making yoyos, pinwheels, stickers, and lady bugs.

Lastly, an angel key ring and a bright pink bag.

A is for ...

Aunt Lydia's Rug Yarn. I have noticed a few blogs doing the encyclopedia meme (a few is an understatement to say the least). I should be on letter G as this is the 7th day of the month but I want to go through all the ABC's. I decided this would be fun to do too. I will do other posts too but I may try and fit them in this theme not sure yet on that and how it will work out.

This is one of those items that when I see it in a thrift store I just buy it. Not the new stuff that is some sort of acrylic but the old vintage stuff that is 75% Rayon and 25% cotton. I have this affinity towards natural fibers. It may be because I grew up on a farm and my extended family are cotton farmers or my great grandfather was a shepherd but what ever the reason I love natural fibers. I do use synthetic fibers but they are not the norm in my projects.

25 Motif challenge tatting #8 continued

#8 continuation, originally uploaded by sunshine's creations.

This item is still growing. It has reached 30 inches, and I plan on continuing until that ball of thread is all gone. If you are interested in joining the challenge, go here.

Back of mini yo-yo quilt

back of mini yo-yo quilt, originally uploaded by sunshine's creations.

I have been asked what the stitches look like. When a yo yo is small, close to that of a USA quarter, then I do about 6 stitches (pretty much in one spot) and travel with needle and thread inside the yo yo to the next spot to stitch. That saves a lot on starting and stopping of the thread.

On bigger yo yo's, I stitch as I do when doing English paper piecing joins. This makes for a join that is anywhere from 1/4 and inch long to about 1 inch long, the size of the yo yo determines how long this seam is. I also like to go over the seam two or three times because the openings in between the yo yos mean they get snagged and pulled more and the stitches are more likely to tear out. See below pictures for examples.

Progress on 500 mini yoyo quilt

progress on 500 mini yoyo quilt, originally uploaded by sunshine's creations.

This is about 1/3 of the way stitched together. I hope to have it done in the next few days. The bottom part of the photo is stitched. The rough edge at the bottom is where I didn't have enough yo-yos to make a row, so I will make a few and scatter them in that row.

There is a ruler laying across the quilt; I hoped it would show up better. The mini quilt now that it is stitched is 21 inches wide.