Repurposing An Old Quilt

Hello again my dear friends.

What does one do when you have a quilt

that has been much loved but no longer

able to fix?

I had such a quilt that was 30% messed up.

I decided to re-purpose it into something else.  

I drew a candy cane template.

Started cutting that quilt up,

along with some quilt batting

plus warm & natural batting. 

Placing the three in layers,

with the warm & natural on the bottom

I pinned all around and then hand stitched,

stuffing as I went along.

With this vintage quilt, I decided to use

vintage pins in my vintage tomato pin holder.

This was the Valdani I was using.

A thief decided to get into it on my table one night.

This is what I found on the floor in the morning.

Am pretty sure Shadow knocked it off the table,

but unsure if he or Tundra decided to turn

 it into this mess.

Neither one would confess to it.

I ended up having to straighten it up 

before I could continue to stitch.

I sewed a hanger to the back to hang.

This is what the back looks like.

As you can see, there is some minor damage to this one.

Each one I created, I tried to cut with as little damage

as I could, but I think a bit just gives it more character.

What do you think?

More are for sale in our gift shop right now.

In other news,

this is the progress on my little bird. 

(I may get it completed before Christmas)

Am loving this little stitch piece.

Also please pray for my FIL.

He was in serious accident on Monday.

He remains in the ER with a brain bleed,

broken left hand and wrist plus broken ribs.

With his COPD, he was already having a hard

time breathing, but now it is worse with his

broken ribs.

The doctors are unsure how to proceed

with fixing his hand as he may not

wake up if they put him under for surgery.

Bob thinks they should just try and put a cast

on it and call it a day.

Of course he wants to go home....

because he cannot smoke in the hospital.

He does not care about anything else

right now, except for getting his fix in.

I cannot judge as I do not smoke.

but one would think if the doctors

say quit smoking and you will live longer.

you would quit. He did not.

Bob does not feel sorry for him in that respect.

Am just glad we do not smoke.

I will be headed up to see my mom today

after work.

Will take her out for dinner and spend some 

quality time with her.

She will come down next week for Thanksgiving.

Bob is going all in on finishing

the beams in our back room.

Fingers crossed it will be done next week. 

Am itching to decorate it for Christmas.

I did start on the tree since it was already in there.

The rest of my home is already done,

except for the kitchen, which I plan on doing

tomorrow when I get back from my moms.

I want to be able to enjoy the season longer.

Have you started putting out your Christmas decor?

Old Quilt Blessings To All!

Janice

Santa's Friends

Hello friends,

As we get into the Christmas season,

here are Santa's friends that actually 

I created in July. 

 

It's been many many years that I have

created an elf and thus I decided to do one

this year.

This jolly elf is made from grunged up green flannel. 

His hat from Christmas fabric and the brim 

again from that antique coverlet.

His scarf is a flannel plaid and he also sports

a rusty jingle bell.

Then I thought, you cannot have an elf

without Rudolf.

He is made from grunged up Onasburg.

His nose from leftovers of Bob's shirt

Which I made the Santa's from..

(use up what I can)

He is sporting a wreath around his neck

with greens, rusty bells and red striped ribbon.

I had so much fun hand sewing these together.

I simply love hand sewing.

It takes more time, but I can sit and relax,

watch tv and stitch away...

and yes soon I will be stitching 

next to our new fireplace.

In other news,

I got a screw in the sidewall of my rear tire.

They cannot patch, so a new one has to be put on.

Waiting for them to call for me to go in.

The joy of owning a car.

Kathy in Ozarks blog asked me what type

of electric heater we have for our new fireplace. 

It is a Duraflame from Lowes.

I forgot to mention it has a remote,

and the flames can be raised or lowered.

Plus we have the crackling sound of a real fire

if we choose.

Electric space heaters have come along way.

My daughter Michele accepted the first job interview.

She starts next Monday.

Thank you again for all the well wishes.

Well have to get to work.

Hope everyone has a wonderful week.

Friend Blessings To All!

Janice

Sneak Peeks

 Good day friends!

Today I wanted to show you a couple

of sneak peeks.

First up is one of the three patterns

I have been stitching on.

This cross stitch pattern is by

Scattered Seed Samplers

"Little Pear Tree" Pinkeep.

I want to turn it into a Christmas ornament.

(if I get it finished in time)

I purchased these floss drops to make my

stitching more fancy.

Am using all the called for DMC threads except

for the portion of blue hearts.

I changed mine to an orange.

Am stitching this on 36 ct Tycho Edinberg linen

by Picture This Plus.

My next sneak peek is our new fireplace hearth. 

This is our new electric heater.

The bricks Bob used and the 1800 year 

old wood he used for the trim all around.

(just to keep the bricks in place)

We did not want to cut a hole in our wood floor,

just in case after we are gone if someone

did not like this, they could remove easily. 

What it looks like lit up.

I did not want to show the whole fireplace

yet as Bob has all of his tools on top.

plus on the floor.

Getting to the finish line now....

In other news my daughter got the job from

her first interview, but also had a second interview

with the second place.

(which also will pay $3 more per hour than the 1st one )

The second interview she was told they would

 let her know by week's end if she has the job.

I told her to wait until Friday late

and if no word, accept the first offer.

Yesterday our day here in Michigan

started out with freezing rain, then it snowed,

then back to rain. What a trifecta of weather.

Then in the middle of the night 

we had thunderstorms roll in.

How crazy is that?

We also had a freighter which grounded in the river.

It was sideways in the river, therefore all

of the other freighters had to anchor.

It took almost 12 hours and two tugs to free it.

One year we had a freighter lose its steering

and almost hit our dock.

That was not fun at all.

Because of it traffic was backed up

 with folks talking pictures. 

Even all of the local news stations were here filming.

I will never forget that freighter named

Agawa Canyon...alas it has since been scrapped.

Heigh Ho

Heigh Ho

It's off to work I go. 

Sneak Peek Blessings To All!

Janice

Jolly Ole Elf

With November here,

its time for me to start digging out

my Christmas decor and start planning 

what will go up or not.

Some will think I am crazy....

but I do like to enjoy Christmas as much as I can.

I will have my

 Thanksgiving CupboardScape up though.

 

This is the the jolly ole elf I made.

I took one of Bob's old painted up red shirt,

and salvaged what I could to make him.

His face and hands are Onasburg.

I had a little bit of this coverlet piece left.

So I used it for the brim of his hat.

I tied a rusty bell to the end of his hat,

with some faux greens and bakers twine.

I also gave him a belt of more twine and bells.

His hat was a checked fabric.

All grungied up in a coffee stain bath.

His beard is real lambs wool I stitched on.

All hand sewn for a more prim look.

Available now at our store while supplies last.

In other news,

my daughter felt her interview went well.

They will let her know this week

after they interview a few others if she has the job or not.

She has another phone interview with  CPA firm

this week. She decided to keep the job search up until

she gets hired by someone.

Thank you to everyone for wishing her the best.

With the nice weather we had last week,

Bob was able to finish the hearth for our fireplace

in the back room.

We were going to purchase some brick,

but we forgot we had some left from our real

fireplace chimney replacement, 

which we did years ago.

We decided it was a no brainer to use those.

It looks great.

Once he finishes the beams, I can finish

up putting things back where they belong.

We re both thrilled at how it is turning out.

Am so thankful to have my very own handyman.

I lost another cousin last week.

He was only 62 and died in his sleep.

That makes 2 this year, but no where near

the loss that Robin (Cranky Crow) has had this year.

My hooking has taken back stage to stitching.

I purchased this huge Halloween pattern.

I told Bob if I stitched one block a month,

it would be done for next Halloween.

Not even finished with one block yet.

This might take 2 years to finish...

or more. UGH

Well off to make breakfast.

Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend.

Jolly Elf Blessings To All!

Janice

Christmas Socks

Hello friends!

The next few posts or more I will

show you my Christmas goodies I had been

 working on for the store.

I learned how to crochet facing my maternal gramma.

Since I was a leftie this was the perfect way for me to learn.

I eventually learned how to read a pattern,

however it was she who taught me the basics,

and I am so grateful as a 12 year old she had 

the patience to teach me.

I set up to full size trees this year for the store.

These red/ white and red/green

went on one tree.

White this pink/white

and green/white went on another one.

Then call me crazy but I did this color for

 my own Christmas tree.

It is my unconventional prim tree,

where i like to use browns, gold, blue and yes

orange.

The orange yarn in this one has some blue in it.

The variegated cream has orange, tan and browns.

It was leftover yarn from my pumpkins

I crocheted, so it will look perfect for my tree.

In other news,

the guy who owns the large Victorian mansion

owns a construction company.

He brings in a lift crane to place all of 

the skeletons on the house.

Last year he only had 3 on the house.

This year he had 9.

I do not know if the house is haunted though,

but would love to tour the inside.

We also went by there last night to see

if he had it lit up.

OMG did he ever.

Plus you could hear 

the Halloween music from the road.

On top of that there must have been at least

75-100 people standing in line on the sidewalk

and inside the cemetery part.

He must give out pretty good candy

for folks to stand in line 

for what would seem a long time. 

I really do not have lots of things.

However what I do have gets stored in all

of my cupboards, laundry room and closet. 

What does not fit in there

 goes in totes and stored in our garage.

Say a little prayer for my daughter.

he has a job interview on Friday with 

another company in which both the pay

and benefits will be better than the job she just lost.

My granddaughter Mikayla

was dressed as a clown for Halloween...

but her colors were all black and white.

A creepy clown for sure.

Well have to get to work.

Hope everyone enjoyed their Halloween.

We had snow flurries off nd on yesterday.

Stocking Blessings To All!

Janice

October CupboardScape

Hello my spooky friends!

 Here you are,

dressed up for the night.

You knock and knock hoping for a fright.

Instead I am dressed up too,

I give you a fright.

When I yell BOO!

By Emma Walsh         

This was my Halloween CupboardScape 

for this October.

Hope you enjoyed it.

Remember last year when I posted the huge

skeletons on this Victorian 3 story mansion.

Well he did it again.

Only this year he added a surrey 

with the fringe on top.

Another antique carriage.

The entire front yard was

decorated like a cemetery, however

I was parked in a spot 

where you are not suppose to stop.

I quickly took as many pics as I could.

In other news,

I am currently working on three cross stitch

patterns. Hoping to get one completed

before Christmas as I want to make it into

and ornament for my tree. Will see if I finish.

The other two are kinda big, so not sure 

when they will get finished.

Am gung ho at the moment, and hopefully

I wont get bored....but who knows.

Am taking another "ME" day today.

I need to do laundry big time and do more cleaning

that was neglected for awhile.

I will stitch some more in between and hook tomorrow.

Bob has not worked on our back room in weeks.

Hopefully it will be completed by Christmas.

He took woodworking in high school.

When his dad retired, they started working

on fixer upper houses for his dad's cousin.

Before fixer uppers were all over tv.

Bob would work his job during the day,

and then go over at night & weekends to work on a house.

He also worked for his cousin who is a mason

by trade so he knows how to brick and tile too.

It helps when he can do these things and we dont

 have to hire out.

Well off to do something.

Hope everyone has a great weekend.

Happy Halloween Blessings To All!

Janice