Patchwork Quilt Designer

Visit this site to make your own patchwork quilt design. Upload a photo, and decide how difficult you want it to be and voila - a downloadable quilt design -- for you!

Here's mine:

 

Can you guess what I uploaded? lol


Well - I just had a shock. I have used up all of my (free) photo storage for blogger. Not that I knew I had a limit. I guess I can run all my photos through Photoshop to downsize them so I don't use up my 20mb of newly purchased yearly storage. Wow. Really.

Thanks to this post for helping me figure it out.

4-H Leaders

I have a friend who leads two 4-H groups; one for cooking and one for sewing.

This is what happens to your sewing notions as you teach young ladies how to sew:

" Hamming it up. "     
Sewing humor - - -  that's a ironing ham under the sewing samples
which are cunningly placed to look like clothing.

Voodoo Pins?

My sheep shearing friend asked - what's a sewing ham?
Seems so obvious - not.
A ham is rounded and usually has wool on one side and heavy cotton on the other. It's shaped to help press seams open - especially those that are rounded or cut on on the bias. The fabric on the ham helps absorb the heavy-duty steaming taking place. The steaming helps shape the seam.

Biplane Rocker

My sister from Minnesota came to visit Oregon a few weeks ago. She found this in the rubbish bin somewhere near her neighborhood. In what might be called a family trait, it was rescued.
She shipped it here where my dad painstakingly put it back together. Her boys helped with sanding and priming.

So this is when I got to see it.

My first reaction? I don't have little kids. And that is still a few years away.

My second reaction? Another unfinished project - because - the seat is broken. Whoever made it cut the seat grain with the fuselage instead of across. The seat split. The back of the seat is half gone as well. The split in the top wing has been repaired.

Third reaction? She intimated that painting the rocker similar to our plane's colors would be cool.

 The fourth reaction came about an hour later as I was driving out to see a friend. The thoughtfulness of coming across an  airplane gift is huge.
Yes- I painted some furniture for the bazaars and sold them and yes - it does take three coats of every color to get it to look right. And there is the upside and then you have to turn it over  and paint some more --so painting it can and will take several weeks. And I know all the guys at Canby Builders. They'd love to suggest the right wood to remake the seat and seat back.

The fifth reaction? How cool is this?

This would make a cool grandma toy. The tail piece moves as does the propeller.  Sure- it needs a little TLC but it will make some kid very very happy. She even took pictures before she took it apart. Painted originally in primary colors with the rocker part just varnished.

Rocket says he's up for supervising.

Thank you for the very cool airplane gift.

Labor Day Garage Sales

 Scored two DVD's for $1.50 each.

I might be one of the few who had not seen Night At The Museum.
I rectified that with a movie night on Saturday.

 I had been looking for a pneumatic stapler - I found this electric one instead. $5.
Pyrex for 50 cents.

 A big pile of quilt batting, purse-weight batting, fusible batting, etc. $5
This is the sale where I talked the guy into letting me have the Pyrex for 50 cents and a box of ink pens -for free.

When I spied this pile of batting - items I had recently had to buy 

at retail prices at Joann's. . .huge deal.

 This was from the estate sale nearby the Swan Island Dahlias.   A huge make-me-a-deal on Sewing patterns, books, notions, etc. I didn't take all of it but I made a huge dent in their stash. This was from a house that started off in life on a square foundation. A tiny house with kitchen, dining/living room, bedroom & bathroom.  All paid for when the couple married. As money was earned (& babies born), the house was added onto. The daughter running the sale started off in the bedroom off the kitchen, then moved to the next - further out, into the next - further out and ended up in the final fourth bedroom add-on. Each room exited into the next.

 This chenille bedspread was only $2.00. Difficult to resist. 

Every intention of cutting it up to re-purpose it into something else. Only problem? 

I have three of these already. Have I cut into them? no.

 A 12" pile of How-To-Sew Books with master patterns. Stretch -n-sew, Kwik-Sew, Simplicity. How to Sew Bathing suits, Lingerie, Bernina Serger Manual,  etc. 

This was a find - especially the Serger Manual.

Good haul. I think I might have spent just over $25.00

Surprise! Looking for an Estate Sale

Work interfered with my  plan to garage sale  Friday so after work today- before it got to be 90 thousand degrees, I set off on the hunt for sale addresses and extreme bargains.
Winding my way through the streets looking for neon signs, I stumbled into a tourist trap - in my hometown.
The Swan Island Dahlia Festival (and a biking thing).  Add in narrow roads and you can easily get trapped in a traffic nightmare.
Thanks to living here for over 25 years, I know my way around- AND I found my estate sale.
Picture heavy, as usual:

  

 

The Swan Island Dahlia Festival runs all this weekend. Well - you can go out there anytime. There's no admission, free parking, AND a stunning catalog order form that you wander the fields with --checking off your favorites. Sometime next Spring (possibly before you have paid off the visa bill) you will receive your dahlia tubers. With our late spring/summer season, I think you will see the dahlias blooming until late September (en masse)

 Dahlias come in all sizes and shapes -

from tiny quarter-sized blossoms to huge dinner-plate sizes.

Bigger-Than-My-Face Dahlias

(You could pop this off and)  Stick-It-On-Your-Nose Dahlia

Curly-Q Dahlia

An endless row of Curly-Q's

Spiky Sea Urchin Dahlias

Sunshine Water Lily Dahlia

Dinner-Size Lotus Blossom Dahlia

The-Next-Rain-We're-History Dahlia

Fluted Dahlia

At-Least-We-Have-Some-Foliage-To-Protect-Us-From-The-Rain 
Dinner Plate Dahlia

The Sun!-The Sun!   Dahlia

Attitude Dahlia

Pinwheel Dahlia

Looking-For-Airplanes Dahlia

Might-Be-My-Favorite Dahlia

Quarter-Size Dahlia

All names were made up by me - couldn't you tell?

Unfortunately, my rechargeable batteries drained themselves of power in the fields and I had no juice left to show off my estate sale prowess.

Now - if you want to learn a bit more about Dahlia farming - I stole this cool video from the Swan Island site just for you:

Tiny Blackberry Pies

I have been doing stuff on the computer lately and while I am computerizing I like to have the TV on in the background - literally - it's behind my computer chair. My ears perked up when they (?) mentioned Blackberry cobblers and pies which are so good this time of year.
I swiveled around to watch as the host put together individual Blackberry pies in small ramekins. My sister-in-law gave me some ramekins a few years back and they get a fair bit of use around here as the household size has diminished.
My ears stayed perked up because I had all the ingredients - except the blackberries and surely they would stock them at my grocery store. But no - I had to settle on frozen berries.

Anyway - you take a pre-made pie crust, unroll it and cut one in quarters. I only planned to make two so half of my pie crust went back in it's wrapper and back into the freezer.
You take the quarter pie crust and carefully fill a greased ramekin. Let the sides flop open for now.
Add your blackberries until level with the top- these juice - so don't overfill.

Sprinkle some sugar (1 tsp?) on top, add some orange zest and for a final touch add some Triple Sec or a little OJ.
Bring those floppy folds back over the center and tap down so it sits a tad rough looking.

Brush the tops with melted butter and sprinkle some coarse sugar on top (purely decorative).
I think I bought this bag of coarse sugar quite a few years ago. Either I am not baking enough or it is a really big bag of coarse sugar that takes a long time to use up. It does add a professional flair to your baked goods.

Anyway - throw these into a 350' oven for 35-45 minutes until the tops are browned lightly and the kitchen smells like warm blackberries.
Easy.
Tasty.



I  forgot to take a photo of the results but I think your imagination can get you there.
We've enjoyed these several times this season.

My Daughter Goes To Garage Sales Too

It the top half to a computer hutch. She plans to mosaic some tile to the top for a October wedding present for her friend. They wanted $25 but DD talked them down to $15. :)

It will make an excellent console table.

Photo taken without flash:

UPDATE: This garage sale table find - now looks like this!