Thursday, October 30, 2008

One of our treasures is this lovely cross stitched sampler my mother made to commemorate our wedding day. I was saddened when, several years ago, I discovered a large mildew stain on it. Finally, Sarah took it to some friends of hers who had a product that took care of the problem. I then had a new mat cut for it (what a fiasco that was!), and at long last, I put the whole thing back together earlier this week and hung it in its place over the bed, which you can see in the last picture. It's great to have it back where it belongs.


Wednesday, October 29, 2008

(Mostly) Cleaned!

As I mentioned earlier this month, I have been cleaning and sorting through a lot of STUFF in the craft room. I finally have the table/counter cleared off so that it can be used again! I know it doesn't look that way in the pictures, but my sewing area (the sewing machine and serger closest to the 90 degree angle) and the stamping area really are usable. Now to do some creating!

I've been working on and off on Christmas Blessings. I've made some progress since I last shared a picture on October 1. That green border just about drove me batty! Maybe I'll actually finish it in time to hang on the tree . . .

Happy Fall

This is a placemat I picked up at Kohl's. I thought it too nice to put on the table only to have food spilled on it, so I sewed a couple of small curtain rings to the back so I could hang it. It's on the coat closet door.

Monday, October 20, 2008

Award

My dear friend, Jamie, shared this award with me. Thanks for thinking of me!

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Cleaning, Crafting, and Chemo

There's not much crafting going on here. I haven't felt like doing much of anything since we found out at the beginning of the month that the chemo regimen that Phil has been on since April didn't work. He's been on a drug holiday since his last treatment at the end of September; we see the doctor on the 28th and will find out what he's thinking about the next line of treatment.

We discovered last weekend that we have a serious problem in our master bedroom closet: the clips that hold the Closet Maid shelving to the wall are pulling out of the wall! So much for their attached toggle "bolts." For now, we've dealt with the problem until we can find a more permanent solution, but this got me started on taking a hard look at my clothes collection (I think that's the proper word) and weeding out things. I haven't finished, but I've already moved on to the craft room, which I could hardly walk in because of everything I threw in there when we had company a couple of weeks ago! I've made progress, taking piles of patterns back to the basement where I store them, as well as properly folding and storing fabric remnants. I've also gone through my file cabinet, tossing most of what was in there; old papers, saving the ones that are blank on one side for scrap, and recycling the rest, and now I'm going through old magazines, tearing out useful ideas. Phil jokingly said that the garbage people are going to charge us extra for all the recycling we'll have this week!

Anyone wanna come and help?

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Outdoor Happenings

When the remains of Hurricane Ike blew through here last month, the small tree in front of our house blew down. As it turns out, the tree had been eaten by a beetle (or so we surmise), and at the point where it broke, there was not much holding it together. We wanted another tree, so after some initial research, Phil and I stopped at several places that sell trees after one of his chemo appointments. We eventually settled on a Kwanzan Cherry, which was delivered last week. Bless his heart, despite his fatigue and lack of stamina, Phil dug the hole for it, and Monday we got it planted.
Grace got the front porch decorated for fall. Didn't she do a nice job?

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Christmas Blessings

This is Christmas Blessings by Milady's Needle, from the JCS Christmas Ornaments 2007 magazine. I'm a slow stitcher, so it's taking me a while, but I'm enjoying this project. Although the original pattern calls for stitching 2/1 with Needlepoint Inc. Silk on 40-count linen. I am using my favorite antique white 28-count Monaco evenweave with DMC floss. I will finish it as a flat-fold ornament as detailed in the magazine.