Basic floral

All but the first of these I made for the cooler. The first was a special order, and the person had this arrangement in mind. It is over 2 1/2 feet tall, just doesn't look like it in the photo. I forgot to take pictures of the cooler arrangements before I put them in the cooler. So, these have their price tags on them which I usually put on the arrangement after the photo because I think it is sort of tacky in photos. OH well, I am tacky today.
Special order:

Cooler:

I have pictures

So two USB ports and a memory card reader all went bad at the same time. It is a good thing the computer has 4 more USB ports; It's just harder to access the two on top and the two on the back of the machine. But, hey, I don't care. I have pictures again!

Arrangements for the cooler:

Arrangement for an anniversary:

Arrangment for a funeral:

grrrr...

Nope, there isn't a bear in my blog, just me mad at my computer. It doesn't want to talk to my memory card all of a sudden. It did this a few months ago, too. Sometimes I think computers get cranky, if that is possible. If not, at least I get cranky when they do this to me. Sorry no pretty flowers from yesterday; they are sitting in my camera and will post after I figure out how to get them off of my camera and on to my computer.

New bobbins

I just got these in the mail this week all the way from the UK. I helped a nice lady identify some lace. As a thank you, she sent me these bobbins. I could not be more thrilled! They are all so lovely. These are Midland spangled English bobbins. She even sent them already spangled. I am just so excited I can't even explain it. These are used in making bobbin lace; they hold the thread before it is crossed and twisted together, a sort of weaving.

Annamarie

I can't get a hold of you for some reason; my emails keep getting returned. Please email me your address so I can mail you an apron. I also have a few questions for you. Thanks. I will delete this post after I get an email from you; thanks

Another work day = flowers

It was a real busy day today, so i didn't get time to take pictures of all the flowers I did that I liked because there were two weddings. I only took a photo of one piece, the other had eight bouquets and not one photo of those. Bummer. But I still got a few photos here and there.

This first one I really like, thus three photos. Funny, when I put it in the front cooler to sell I didn't realize that I had placed it in the spots where the cooler's fan blows. I walked past a little while later and the butterfly was wigging; had to take a double take -- the fan was making it move. I thought that was funny and I liked it to. So, yep, I left it there to wiggle.

I like the vase on this one and the white flowers. White flowers are my favorite of all flowers.

I sort of like this, but I'm not totally happy with it mainly because the pain this arrangement caused my wrists. By the time I got to this one, my wrist was killing me. Now because I have to use my left hand as my right it is now hurting because it isn't use to it. My coordination went way down, and I even had a hard time just holding the flowers without dropping them by this time of the day.

Just curious -- do people like or dislike me posting flowers? I want to document this part of my life because it is always so fleeting. I make it and it is either for sale or already sold, and then it is gone in one or two days or in 1 hour to be delivered. My family, kids, never get to see what I make, so I mainly post this for them but thought others might like it, too.

Floral

Here are some of today's floral. I decided to take pictures of some of the smaller arrangements I made today.

Part 4: Russian nesting Doll

These belong to my youngest daughter, the butterfly girl. She owns 5.

Set of 5, all about reptiles.

Set of five, all frog princes' littlest even has a Lilly pad.

Traditional set of 5.

Another traditional set of 5.

This one has seen better days; this is a grandmother's set. Meaning everyone lives in the main piece, not inside each other. Halloween theme, of course.

Orange, pumpkin, tomatoes, and berries

So, today was another day off so we made the girl's big pin cushions. I made a large orange, my oldest made a pumpkin, and the youngest two made hot-pink velvet tomatoes.

My oldest and myself have already put ours to use. The other girls, I am sure, will load theirs up soon with supplies. I made the youngest two's for them and they stuffed them, but my oldest made hers. For a first try, I think it came out pretty good.

Part 3: Russian Nesting Dolls

These belong to my middle daughter; she owns 8 sets.

Her Halloween set is in the best shape, but still has issues; 11 pieces.

Strawberry set (I think this is adorable) 5 pieces.

Wood burning and gold set; five pieces.

Traditional set; five peices.

Traditional set; five pieces.

School set; five pieces.

Bear family set; five pieces.

Mermaid set; five pieces.

My View This Morning

This was the view when I came out of my bedroom this morning. I know, silly. But it didn't look real to me; more like a painting, so I just had to take a photo. This is the arched window in my family room, the window is on the second story of the back of the house. I love looking at it from the bedroom, family room and foyer because all you can see are the heavens -- sort of peaceful. If you are on the top of the landing looking out, you can see the whole valley around us. Fun the two views from one window.

Berries, Beads, Sequins

So, I had Monday off of work and my daughters wanted to make something with Mom. We had gone to a quilt fair last week (I was bad; forgot to take pictures even though I had my camera). Anyway, at the quilt fair there was a garage sale and a free table; the girls grabbed all kinds of little scraps from the free table.

This is where the story begins. They have been pestering me, in a good way, to figure out what to make with those fabric scraps. Then Saturday they went to a church activity with their Pai, and one daughter came home from the festivities with a small bag of wood shavings (something about digging through wood shavings to find candy). I was at work so not sure what happened at the activity. So, add this to the pile of stuff they want to craft with.

Scraps of fabric and wood shavings, to me, equal berries. So we got to cutting out 12 berries and inners (yes this hurts my wrist, but the girls were having fun). I sewed them on the sewing machine, then the middle daughter stuffed and the oldest daughter and myself sewed the tops closed. This was easy for her because it was just like closing a yo yo, which she has made tons of. Then we got out my sizzixx and some green antique wool and a flower dye cut and cut tops for these.

Next, I handed the oldest two a jar of sequins and said they could embellish the berries. The youngest thought she was too young to do this, although we asked if she wanted to. She said "no" and proceeded to tell the oldest just how she wanted her three berries to look in the end. I used beads instead of sequins on my velvet berry; I liked my other two left alone because the upholstery fabric was cool as is.

I printed the pattern for the berries off of Martha, but I didn't even read the instructions; after all, berries are easy to make. Make a muslin liner, stuff and close, then make an outer shell and place liner in it and close. Attach greens and hanger and embellish; done.

Now each daughter has three berries for needles and is started on her way to having her own sewing kit. We will have to work on this more this summer. Next up, tomato pin cushion.

Want to use emery you can find it here in 50 lb lots and what is emery.

Part 2: Russian Nesting Dolls

Back to posting the Russian nesting dolls in my house for my MIL. This set of dolls belongs to my oldest daughter. She owns 4 sets.

She also has a Halloween set that has seen better days. These came damaged, but my kids still love them.

traditional set of 5

Russian nesting dolls with a Japanese Kokeshi theme: the Father carries the two sons and the mother carries two daughters. Bad photos, yikes!! We have a real Kokeshi doll in our house, too.

Set of nine traditional:

Romanian Lace a few links

For those who are interested, here are a few links:

• elena's needle arts
• lacis museum slide show
• margit's point lace
• refalo
• angela's book
• sylvia's book video and kits
• lace fairy
• buy pre made cord if you don't crochet partway down page
  
• lace magazine some of their editions have this lace in them they tell what is in each one
• video tutorial
• diagram tutorial of cord (side note, I never could follow these because they don't show the over and under hook of the cord)
• piecework magazine with a pattern and instructions on how to make a Romanian lace butterfly
• stuff on this blog about romanian lace
  

Lace pieces pictured are in my home; just thought you would like some eye candy, not just links.

7 types of lace... I think only 4

In the comment section on this post on this blog someone said there are 7 types of lace:

1. knitting
2. crochet
3. weaving
4. bobbin lace
5. tatting
6. hairpin lace
7. needle lace

I think the person was confused, because a lot of these are in the same four categories. Which is my opinion. She seemed to be naming laces, of which there are way more than seven, like hundreds! Looks like she was trying to name techniques and didn't succeed, the lace fairy has 5 techniques on her site but in looking at them, her last one is a combination of multiple other techniques so it would still break down into these four categories. Some laces can incorporate more than one of the techniques. That is why, once you learn one lace, it is easy to learn another as they may share similar techniques.

1. loop lace = knitting, crochet, hairpin lace, Romanian, oya...
2. knotted lace = tatting and netting, American Macramé, oya...
3. woven lace = bobbin lace is a sort of weaving, battenburg and other tape laces, teneriffe....
4. needle lace = Romanian, teneriffe, battenberg, oya , beading...

OK, I do:
hairpin, needle, crochet, tatting, teneriffe lace, bobbin lace, Romanian, macramé, hand loom weaving, polka spider web lace, nanduti, battenberg/battenburg lace, oya, beading etc..... the list goes on and on.

I pretty much do some in each category.

Trying to learn knitting and weaving.

What laces do you make?

Flowers

Even with my wrist hurt, I still have to work to pay bills. So this is some floral I did in the last few days. Don't ask me why, but they are all sort of similar in style, weird. I did a lot more -- I just take pictures of my favorites. Funny, out of all the arrangements I made this week, I take photos of similar style arrangements. In the background, you can tell we have remodeled the back room of our store. Nice wall of glass; never be near it during an earthquake -- scary.

Took two of this one; could not decide which photo I liked better, so you get to see both.