~The merriest of Christmas to you and your's~

Mark and Angela

Winter storms are hitting so many areas, I thought this postcard covered it all! The girl has snow falling but is carrying an umbrella. :o) Hope everyone is safe and warm. We are having sunshine most days and I so appreciate it. Tuesday was the worst day this week and of course the day I was mucking about. I have been working on gifties hit and miss. Completed 3 today. One more very important one to complete, it is started though. Also finishing up a short chemo round. Last treatment is next week, so Merry Christmas to me! Is it too early to be making cookies for Christmas? I thought maybe so, but hear of others doing it now. We have many tins to put them in, but didnt want them to go stale and yucky. My goal this weekend is to make some candy for Mark to share at work and us to take about with us. I know the candy will be fine, but still wondering about the cookies. If anything is to be made, it must be by Monday night. Tuesday is "yucky day". And the rest of the week will be pretty much shot. Appreciate any thoughts on this. My Christmas card supplies are sitting here looking at me. I honestly think I will set them aside for next year. Had high hopes of making some cute scrapbooky looking ones, but just didnt make it. At this late date, I am thinking a hug and kiss to all those in the family and an email to everyone else! :o)

No peeking allowed! LOL All of my friends and family are "peekers". I cannot post my current projects since I am wearing an elf hat these days. They are all smart girlies and would start talking amongest themselves. I can only imagine the chatter. :o So I am taking pics to post after the holidays! Do you have "peekers" in your lives too? How do you hide your projects and keep your secrets? I am always hiding things when we think we hear car doors slam. I always want to give the gift as sooooon as it is completed. Just cannot wait til the occassion! Good thing I am being last minute this year or I would probably have nothing to give. Even Mark is making presents this year. If you had looked at my blog yesterday or today, well it had been hacked or something! I have no idea what that was on it. And it made my page all wonky to boot! Changed my passwords and reported it. Sheesh!

I love buttons. And sure hope the person receiving this pillow does also. The center is a ecru wool star. I stitched it down with pearl cotton and then overlapped the offwhite buttons all around. Sewed them on with the same pearl cotton, knotting every other button "just in case". I worked out of my scrap stash for the scrappy block. The finished pillow is 10-inches. I was asked how I painted the snowman spoons. First I bent them. If they are going to break, I want to know BEFORE I paint them! Using acrylic paints I basecoated 2 light coats. Gave them a mist of acrylic sealer to hold the paint on. Then completed the painting. Gave them a nice full coat of acrylic sealer to finish them. You can purchase spoons of all sizes, singly at dollar stores. The ones I used were mismatched, antique silver ones. But the new ones paint up nice also. I have painted folkart scenes on these also and they come out pretty cute. Here is a closeup of the snowmen.

Here is the quilted scrappy square in square mini.

Holiday photographs of the house. The grapevine tree is ususally in my playhouse aka studio. We opted this year to bring it as our Christmas tree in leu of a "real" tree. Mark said he would decorate it and promised to use only a few favorites. Well, all I can say is he has alot of favorites! The lights barely show on it cause it is so full of ornies! But he did it and well pleased with his handiwork. The tabletop tree has my painted spoons. The little ones are vintage ice cream spoons. Prob a crime to paint them, but I did it anways. The larger ones are mismatched silver spoons I found along the way to paint on. I would like to find a few more and paint St. Nicks on them. The paper mache boxes are my Christmas gift from Michelle last year. It has turned very cold here but no snow. Mark hung lights outside and about froze. I havent sewn or crafted for a few days, but will get into it this week. I finished my square in the square mini and a couple other projects last week. The hand quilted on the wall hanging about did my poor thumb in! It is still and gnarly and swollen. I am getting old it is a fact. We posted new swaps at Backporch Friends. Scrap Bag Swap and a Pincushion Exchange. You must be a member of the yahoo group to play. More swaps are in the works for 2007.

Mound of minis? Or just a mess of scraps? Could be one of those "glass half full, half empty" scenarios. LOL Depends on the day and my mood. Right now, it is a "mound of minis". I sorted them out after the pics into piles of sorts. I know many store them by colors, themes and so on. I keep my 30's stash, which is very very small separate, other than that they all go into my big ole bag. The wall hanging in the background in a special gift from my Backporch Friends girls. They presented this to me at our very first Retreat! I love it. It is hanging over my cutting table. Oh and I just noticed, it is a "square in a square block" like the mini I worked on tonight. How funny! I am so nuts, the plan was to make the middle round of the block the red and the outer the medium value. Didn't even notice I hadn't did it that way until I was sewing the very last block! LOL Four inch blocks. So not very mini. Have fabrics pulled out for tomorrow's project, scrappy blues and tans, 4-inch baskets. I am going to make a second one from THOSE scraps that is 2-inch baskets. Could these be Christmas presents? Hmmm...I am not telling! Here is a pic of tonights top. Will quilt several at one time. Seems easier to piece several and then do the quilting. Make one mess with the scraps and then I can clean up and move on to the quilting. I love to sew on binding, it is my very favorite part.

Ach, changed my margin widths and now some of my previous pics and text are wonky. The future ones will be fine though. Oh well, doesnt bother me enough to go in and change everything. LOL Crazy talk! Hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving. We had good food and even better visiting with the family. I havent done much of anything, nothing crafty/quilty wise at all! We did get a bit of cleaning done and a bit of decorating done. This year we are just using our 5 1/2-ft grapevine tree for the Christmas tree. It got a bath and new lights strung on it. Looks pretty like this, but we will wag out my favorite primitive and country ornies for it. In my playhouse I put my Charlie Brown pencil tree with ornies from this past Backporch Friends Retreat. Had to give my playhouse a lil bit of a going over also. That dryer dust makes a film of "baby powder" so quickly. The only downfall of having the washer /dryer out there. Our weather is crazy warm! Was in the upper 70's today with lots of sunshine. Not our ususal cold end of November at all. Off to catch up on emails.

Free pattern as promised. St. Nicholas in redwork. Go to my website The Country Cellar and scroll to the bottom of the page. Click on the thumbnail for the printable pattern. A lil' something to start the Christmas Season. Enjoy.

Happy Thanksgiving! We are blessed.

Well eBay is buzzing along. I am tickled with what I have sold. The Bleuette ladies have been especially good to me. Hope to keep steadily adding each week. Have been down with a horrible, after chemo headache this week. Today was especially dreadful! Thank God for meds and a soft bed. And 3 kitties that cuddle with me. I just couldnt lay in the bed another minute though and got on the pc to see what was what. I was sad to have missed 2 birthday parties today though. Everyone knew I had to feel bad to miss out on family time AND good food! LOL So now I am restless and changing the blog colors once again. I will be posting a free stitchery pattern soon, so be on the lookyloo for that.

"Opportunity is missed by most because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."

Thomas Alva Edison

A Message from the Mgmt...

Not enough tummy rubbing has been occurring at this establishment. Please work on this. Remember...you can be replaced.
Lydia, Micah and Gracie

"The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty." Sir Winston Churchill

Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow them.
Louisa May Alcott

I love to collect and create things that remind me of memories. This box I just placed in eBay. I made the shoe. Made several after I got the knack of them. At first they were quite the lil buggers!
Maribeth is also on eBay. She is a pancake style doll with a oil pencil face. Her hair is needle felted dark brown wool. Course she had to have her own crazy quilt pillow. The eBay listing shows her boots. They are one of my favorite parts for some reason. Painted them dark brown instead of the traditional black. Added shading and "buttons". This week I am working on doll dresses. Also working in some Christmas elf time hopefully!

Good day for traveling. Sunny and cool and good company (my sister Deb). We didn't go too far, but to a fabric shop, Craft Town Fabrics in Salem. While there I made my "fun money" purchase. I had wanted a lil iron to keep at my sewing table for pressing minis and such. Found this one from Darice that was perfect for my needs, $9.99. (They remind me of bunnies in the group photo.) I own a blue one now. So yay for me. Picked up a couple of fqs for my stash and I was a totally happy girl.

Long couple of weeks, but we are getting through them. Just completed my 4th chemo treatment. Yay for that. Have been thinking of Christmas gifties. My mom loves dolls, but not my "uglies". Yep that is what she calls my prim dolls. So I thought this would be a doll about both of us. LOL I had Marcella and Raggedy Ann in mind.
I also completed a Hitty mini crazy quilt for eBay. I added our eBay link to the sidebar menu.
I do love my minis. Want to work on some paper art also. Collages, ATC, bag books, altered books....I have so many ideas in my poor head. Everyone else is just as bad I know

Pincushions and tea cozies are the crafts of the past few days. The chicken pincushion is made from homespun. I painted the features and added a wool star. It has a round bottom so seems to "set" well. Sorry, couldnt resist! LOL The tea cozies are foundation pieced crazy quilt style, onto muslin from my scrap stash. Each are lined. Scrap stash quandry. The more I use, the more I have. It only seems to grow instead of diminish. The larger scraps just turn themselves into smaller scraps. I am thinking to host a one-on-one scrap swap on Backporch Friends. Envelope for envelope, all you can stuff. It would be like minded quilters who want to change up their scraps a bit. Hmmmm...I think I need to post this to the group!

More of my minis and my dollies, Claire and Louisa. These are minis I made for my aunts this spring. They all do handwork and I knew they would appreciate the time in them. All of Daddy's sisters do needlework or quilt. While my Mom can sew and did when we were kids, I think I get my creative side from Daddy. We girls grew up and still say, Daddy can make anything. And he can!

My mindless mini is done. It turned out 6 x 8-inches. The blocks are 1 1/2-inches. Wasn't thrilled with the applique, turned out a bit bigger than I planned. It is small, but not prob small enough. But you know, it is done. LOL Actually it is square, I didnt have it on the scanner bed very even. Whenever I want something to just "do" without thinking, I like to either make minis or crochet. This weekend it was mini. I have sorted through scraps into 3 piles of light, med and dark. My those mediums have me puzzled. Very hard for me to decide for some reason. We are having major rain. So much for those sunny skies last week. If it was all snow, we would be having a blizzard!

Gorgeous autumn days here in southern Indiana. This is a close up of one of my garden mums. The monarch butterfly I was trying to snap, flew off just at the last second. I love mums, they are so hardy through these frosty nights. The trees should pop with their colors this coming week. More autumn pics then! My latest projects have been finishing up orders for reproduction pincushions. Course I didn't think to take pictures before I delivered them. Will be making more though and will do it then, IF I can remember.

Here are pics of my studio better known as my playhouse. I like having all my favorites around me. Since I enjoy seeing where everyone else plays, I thought you might like to see where I do.
Angela

I have my traveling Hitty completed. She stands 6 1/2", is made of muslin and then hand painted by me. Her traveling duds are from Gail Wilson Designs. It is actually a Basic Doll outfit, not a Hitty pattern. Both the dress and apron just needed shortened a bit. I still wanted it to be long though. The painting is done with acrylics over a gesso basecoat. A Minwax antique/sealer in oak was applied in a one-step application. Am pleased that she will stand on her own, means her legs are on straight and stuffed firmly. Doesnt always happen for me! Only after her photos were taken did she tell me her name....Hitty Anne, with an e of course. I can tell she has been reading my Anne of Green Gable books whilst I wasnt' looking. Now she will only need a few more items made for her travels (a cape, a quilt and her journal) to Victoria BC.
Angela

Left to right--Me, (adopted sis)Michelle, Mom, (sis)Penny, (sis)Debbie, (dh) Mark, Daddy and (Deb's dh)David. This is a pic of our family (minus the kids) on Wed. night at the local chinese restaurant. Michelle left this morning to go back to Victoria and this was her "going home" supper. We had a wonderful long visit. Just never long enough. :o( We are making our lil girl plans for March though!
Back to working on Hitty.

So here we go.
Everyone says I should blog. Actually I have wanted to for a long time. Just needed the kick in the skirt to get movin' on it. Thank you Penny and Michelle.
We just completed our 6th quilting retreat on Backporch Friends. What an amazing time of sharing and friendship. My quilting forum is the best group of ladies! Talented in quilting AND friendship. We laughed so much at each other and ourselves. Laughter is definitely the best medicine. I felt sorry for all that had the long homeward trek. And those who had to go back to work the next day. I was totally pooped out! But definitely worth it. Quilters are the best kinda friends.
My next project list is a long one. Have orders for patterns and finished sewies. Make curtains for Michelle's remodeled room. Do a bit of movin' about here in the house. Have a dollie group round robin to sew for. A fiber show on the 21st. And start chemo next week.My project for tonight is a new Hitty doll to go visit Michelle in Victoria BC. She will accompany Maggie Mae (on left) on her journey home. Laurel would love to go, but the other girls would be too homesick for their big sister.

be blessed, Angela