Hi

I know its been awhile. I'll try to do better now that things have calmed a bit.

My last show of the year is done. It was good not great, with working out of the house I didn't have as much inventory as past years, but it will help our family come Christmas Gift time.

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I got a fun surprise in the hen house the other day.

That little one, upper right, is way greener than the picture shows.

I believe it is from one of my new chicks. She is a Hamburg/Americauna mix, one of our May babies. You can see how happy it makes the egg in the middle.

We are having a gift exchange at the artist group. It's supposed to be small and homemade, I wanted to try some new techniques so i figured I'd would kill 2 birds. I made this little lunch bag using all scraps. Scrap lunch sack? I used this stuff called Insulbright for the batting. It is supposed to retain the cold or heat and is washable. I hope the recipient likes it.

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Thats about it, I'd better get ready for work. No jammie pants there. Dang!

A new me!

I'm working on some new bags for my biggest show of the year.

She is inspiring me to dye my hair pink and maybe eat less.

Then again, maybe not.

Celebrity Endorsement

I went to my local quilt shop over the weekend and got some new fabrics to inspire me to sew some new things. Did you know I love fabrics? Well I do.

I finished a new bag this morning and as usual, I hang new things on my entertainment center for my family to notice. Sometimes it can take days for them to notice but in their defence, our living room is very messy.

I noticed Kelly Rippa was wearing a matching dress!

Oh lookie, she noticed too!

I think she likes it!

The Kelly Bag is now in my etsy shop.

Raindrops are falling on my bags.

With all my shows coming up, I put myself on a working schedule that I am trying my best to stick with.

This rain has not been much of a problem since I work in the basement. But since I am trying to take pics of my work, I need good lighting, FROM THE SUN. And my schedule says today is picture day.

So the fashion model and I went out to do the best we could. These four are what I've been working on this week.

The fashion model and I weren't alone for long.

Curiosity isn't just for cats.

I see you back there.

Oh geez.

I'm not known for my photo skills anyway. I frequently get on line customers informing me how much better my bags look in person. I still try anyway.

Luckily we missed the raindrops and no bags got wet in the making of this post.

I finished a quilt

I was having suffering from sewers block at the tail end of winter. Needed to make something other than bags and was itching to make a quilt. The plan is to try to sell it at one of my summer shows.

I made this quilt top, or bottom in March. (its reversible)

Here is the other top, or bottom, before quilting.

Some of the fabric has sea creatures on it so I quilted it with watery swirls.

Here is the top or bottom all washed and puckery.

I love the puckery.

I finished binding it on mothers day.

Speaking of Mothers Day, the guys went to get Chinese take out while the girl and I made egg drop soup, hot tea and set the table for out Mothers Day lunch.

I know that was forever ago, but this pic was on the camera when I down loaded the pics and I couldn't resist.

Thank you for all the birthday wishes to my girl.

She likes to decorate her own cake, she got her cake decor skills from me.

all work and no (well some) play

I noticed I only had 5 posts on my poor neglected blog this month. With this one its 6, wahoo!
What have I been up to? Well thanks for asking.

I got that job I was shooting for back in January. They originally wanted 10 bags, then 15, now 20! I am thankful they chose me and grateful for the work.

I am also grateful hubby is the bread winner, I'm just the breadcrumb winner but this makes my crumbs a little more substantial.

I also needed to finish a bag for the Circle of Art auction. They need it by Friday so I'm squeaking in just in time.

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It hasn't been all work. On Fridays, the boy has soccer so I dropped him off and went fishing.

I have been chomping at the bit to re-stock our pond. It's worse than we thought, all the little fish are gone too.

I caught this small large mouth. Ok, that sentence makes sense to fishing people.

(hubbys hands, mine aren't that large)

I'm not sure what exactly this one is, it looks like a bluegill but has a very large mouth. Sort of like a rock bass but it doesn't have the red eye. I caught a couple more that were smaller but beggars cant be choosers right?

I had to go back and pick up the boy, so while I was away I let the girl use my pole and tackle.

AND THIS IS WHAT SHE CAUGHT!! The little shit.

A 22 1/2" striped bass. I guess the important thing is that we are slowly stocking the pond back up, not important which one of us does the catching. It sure would have been fun to reel this one in though. She was grinning from ear to ear when I showed back up. That's my girl!

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Speaking of the girl, you all know how she likes to take my camera and surprise me with photos.

Here is just a couple of the dozens she took of her troll doll collection.




Cute little baby troll.

Well thats my quick little update. I'll try to do better next month.

I need a break!

I have had the respiratory bug that has been going around for the past week. Sore throat, nasty cough, off and on fever.

Yesterday our furnace went out. We are out of firewood. Luckily the weather isn't so bad and I have a little space heater that has been keeping us close to 60*. I also have a man, you know I married him for his looks, but he is handy too and thinks he can fix it with a $56 part. I love him! We just have to wait it out for the part to arrive. A good excuse to bake and keep that oven on.

Speaking of baking, I usually bake bread with the easy bread recipe, but today I figured I could use a hand and got out the old bread machine.

So after hours of hearing it whirring, then smelling fresh bread baking, it beeped!

This is what it looks like when you forget to add the yeast.

This is what it looks like after you spend 10 minutes scraping it out of the pan.

Oh what the hell, I spread on the butter and ate some anyway.

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Oh and my helpful farm dog rolled in something. Nice.

I have been in a sewing funk lately, but have been plugging away. Last week I finished the other slipcover for the chairs in my den.

Yesterday I made some more dog food bag bags.

In different sizes.

Today I was feeling slightly better or less puny so I whipped on my garden gloves...

...and got sewing.

(when you free motion quilt, they help make guiding the fabric easier)

I made these two little pillows. Can you tell which one doesn't have the bottom stitched up yet?



Of all the pillows I've made and sold guess how many I have? ZERO. I am keeping one of these, they are just making me so happy!

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Last week I went on a road trip with my Mom, Step dad and Sister down to Toledo. On the way back, my sis and I were in the back of their little PT Cruiser, my Step dad makes a U-Turn to show us this sign he caught out of the corner of his eye.

What the???

I have nothing more to say.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

I have exactly 52 minutes to be at my MILs for our Christmas celebration. I had to make time to send out good Christmas wishes to you all.

The only way I had time to post this was to DELEGATE! I normally don't, not that I'm a control freak, maybe sometimes, but I have a hard time asking for help. Not this year.

The kids decorated cookies, helped bake and clean. Hubby is doing dishes as I type, guaranteed nookie later me thinks.

I even had the girl take pictures of the things I made as gifts, before SHE wrapped them.

My niece wanted jammies and a matching pair for her American Girl doll.

$1.75 in flannel, a pack of boys white t-shirts, added a simple applique,

I couldn't find any newborn size t-shirts so I bought a tiny onesie, cut and hemmed the bottom, added a matching applique as the big one. So for less than $10, I have a gift she actually requested.

I made pillows for all the moms. Stepmom requested a "Hi Chick" pillow, my mom has Guineas and they had little ones this year, so I winged a Guinea Mom and baby pillow. My MIL just got a pillow declaring our love. The artist in me wasn't very creative at 7:00am.

Tomorrow we have a morning Christmas at my Dads, and we are hosting an afternoon party with my Mom . I have much more food to prepare and now I have 41 minutes till the party so I'd better go.

Oh yea, Great Grampa got out of the hospital this morning (he'd fallen) and he will be there tonight!

Sending love to you all,

Merry Christmas!

Sewing my tooshie off

Well not literally.

I get nervous before a show, especially one I haven't done before. I have that jittery, sweaty armpit feeling. The good thing is, jittery means energy. The bad thing is I have sweaty armpits.

Here's what I've been working on.

I made a fun funky chicken bag.

Yep, the chicken is a pocket.

A couple of green patchworks.

I sold out of my skull bags at the last show....

so I made a few more.

Now you may be asking yourself what is a rapidly approaching middle age, bordering frumpy, farm lovin gal is doing making skull bags.

I got a skull remnant and chopped off the heads, it's like playing paper dolls except with fabric and they sell. Plus they are fun to make.

I also found this cub scout shirt at the thrift shop, so I made another bag.

This fabric was from the line of Anna Maria Horner fat quarters I bought in October. http://annamariahorner.blogspot.com/ I couldn't bear to chop it up so I just quilted the flower and used more of her fabric for the bottom and back. I pieced the tote handles and used...

Linda Lum Debono fabric that she sent me last month, thanks again Linda, http://lindalumdebono.blogspot.com/, for the lining inside. I added my label and it's ready to go.

Now I like the bags I make, otherwise I wouldn't be able to make them. Sometimes though I end up making a bag, intending on selling it and I just can't. I WANT TO KEEP THIS ONE! It is speaking to me.

It also goes with the scarf I made last year.

This is bad, I NEED to sell things, not keep them.

Money vs. New Bag, hmmm.

The kids may end up with an imaginary Christmas this year.

Thanksgiving Stuff

I hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving. I'm a kid of divorce so I'm used to traveling from house to house, toss in a husband and his family, well you can guess that holidays are never spent in one place or very relaxing. I'm used to it so no big.

We had Thanksgiving breakfast at my sisters house for my Mom, she is only 2 miles down the road and my kids love it there. For my Dad, around the corner at 2:00 for lunch/dinner, linner?

Cooking was easy for me, pie crusts for quiche and bread started for home made rolls the night before, then up early to finish it all.

Saturday was at my MIL's for another linner. My Hubbie and Son had Hockey at night, so that was only a few hours spent there.

My MIL had a birthday on Wednesday so of course I had no gift to bring on Saturday morning. You guessed it, the queen of all things last minute had to run downstairs to the sweat shop and come up with something.

So I made her an art quilt. My MIL happens to be the Queen Mother of her Red Hat group so her snow lady needed a red hat with purple gloves. I know this picture is at a weird angle because I was trying to get the light from the window and not shade it too much with my giant head.

My MIL is also the queen of shopping, so I have to get creative and come up with things she doesn't already have. She really liked it.

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My last craft show if the year is this Friday night, http://sites.salineschools.com/users/olsonb/,

so if you don't hear from me much this week, it isn't cause I don't love you. ;-)

Weekend Funnies

We were invited to a bonfire party Saturday night by some good friends of ours. There is usually costumes worn by the hostess and kids (men are lame). Being that Halloween is 2 weeks away, and I am a huge procrastinator, which means we wont have costumes until Halloween Eve, or day. :-~

They were predicting a cold night, so Saturday after soccer I got a wild hair to make warm and funky hats.

I had the kids draw out their ideas.

This became...

...this.

We were calling it a brain sucker.

This became...

...this.

Such a cute "Bat Girl".

I winged mine and got Mad Cow.

The kids helped cutting out the parts to theirs and I made the boy sew on his own buttons.

We stayed warm and our hats got a lot of attention.

Chicken News.

There was a line for the porch pot.

Umm, not really enough room for two.

My girl has a website and she adopted a pup.
You can feed it dog biscuits, she got it flying which I thought was HYSTERICAL!

Strange things crack me up,
see what you think.

Is it just me?