SUNDAY NIGHT

Good Evening, everyone,

Sunday night and it's sooo quiet tonight. I love Sundays, not only because it's church day for 
most people, there's always been something so
special about Sunday for me since I was little.
The mister is home for the day finally. It was a
long day for him at the job site. The doctor wants
so many awesome things done to the house, it
never seems to end for Mr. Glen Oaks. He doesn't
have time anymore to make furniture for me here
at home; I really miss that. My wish list has cob-
webs it's been so long.
I did a little of this and a little of that today. Some
sewing, some clay work and some enlarging and
tracing of patterns. I forgot all about my enlarging
machine. Mr. Glen Oaks came home and saw me
working with the one square to one inch enlarging
and he asked me why I wasn't using the machine.
Duh, I don't know, I had completely forgotten about
it. Do you girls/guys ever do that, have soo much
stuff you don't remember some of it?
The new survey on Patternmart is out. The free
pattern is a snowman called "Long John" by Michelle Allen of Raggedy Pants pattern design.
It's cute. I downloaded mine. I have about 3 years'
worth of free downloads that I've never touched!
That's ok, good to have variety, right?
It's still not very cold here yet. I suppose that's a
good thing. Saving oil and all. The first snow  is
always exciting, though. My mother and sister are
still wearing shorts! It gets cold in the part of
South Carolina where they are, but I don't believe it ever snows.
I bought some more paint and fabric at JoAnn's on
Friday for my Izannah Walker project. I'm making one for Sis, too, so I wanted to have a lot of choices of small prints. Don't forget, there's a sale going on
there, Christmas prints 50% off. I bought muslin and tiny calicos from the quilting fabrics.
I love the ones I bought from Brenda Gervais at
With Thy Needle and Thread off of her website.
They are the teeniest little prints, so sweet. They are from Windham Fabrics and some are from 
The Coverlet Collection, 1820-1850.  So Sweet!
I just started using Fray Check on all of my cut ends of fabric and cross stitch linens. What a huge
helper it is.
On Saturday, I found the tiniest, old crochet lace and it's going to be perfect for the Izannah dresses.
I'm trying to use old fabrics as much as I can. The
dress material, unfortunately, will be new but I
can't find any old dress fabrics. My antiquing gel
from Gail Wilson will do the trick making it look
very vintage. She has a marvelous supply of all
things for your doll making. Especially if you like to make old looking dollies.
I hope everyone enjoys their Sunday nite and I hope you also have a wonderful week.
Take care of yourselves,
Susan

Note To Self: Do Not Paint Around A Cat

Hi, Primmies,
I have started a Christmas project tonight. I am making a Santa Sculpture from paper clay and papermache. It stands on a little teensie papermache
round box and is so darn cute I can't stand it!
I started painting the little box (another note to self: don't do this again at
Twelve-thirty in the morning) and learned the hard way to dust and vacuum the craft room before painting, and put away all kitties.
Of course I dropped the little box and when I picked it up, yep, kitty hair all over the wet paint. Ugh, just wiped it off and started over.
Here's the little guy all finished from the Better Homes and Gardens website:

Photo Copyright Meredith Corp.,bhg.com

This will be my first paper clay project. I want to get warmed up before  I make an Izannah Walker doll. They aren't as easy as they look to be to sculpt the little faces. 

Paper clay and Modge Podge are so expensive so I've found lots of websites with home made recipes to make them both. I'm trying a paper clay recipe later today (I need Mr. Carpenter's linseed oil and it's at the job site). I can't wait to see if they come out the same as the store bought.

There are basically two different ways to make the paper clay, with and without tissue paper soaked and squeezed out, and some other things I can't quite remember right now. But I've bookmarked the sites and if anyone is interested I'll look for them and give you the links.

I have a package of paper clay from the store and I'm trying that first, and want to keep some to compare with my home made stuff.

See, if I stuck to ONE thing at a time, these things wouldn't happen to me,

like a furball in my wet paint!

Take care of yourselves,

Susan

Greetings

Hello, everyone. I'm sending an early greeting in case our power goes out tomorrow. I'm not anticipating anything major from the hurricane but we are supposed to have high winds that they say may cause some damage, power outages and downed trees. This storm is one year to the exact day of last year's storm when we lost our roof and car. I think all of the questionable trees have fallen on the house already so we should be o.k. tonight! Gotta joke about it, what else can you do? Hubba is home today so I'm not scared!?!
Out in the craft room I've uncovered my Izannah Walker patterns from Gail Wilson and Dixie Redmond's Izannah Walker E-Book on how to make an Izzy. I've got my paperclay, my fabrics (Civil War reproductions), paints and all the other goodies. I'm planning on following Izannah's patented method of how she made her dolls using the pressed fabric and glue in a mold that I made. The first Izzy is going to my big Sis (shhhh!she doesn't know).
I'm so excited! I'm also very happy about the fact that
I managed to decorate for the Autumn/Thanksgiving season since I'm feeling so much better after the latest procedure on my back.
They can use radio frequency waves to "deaden" the nerves that cause pain in the back and the legs. It's called "nerve ablation" and they did 5 sensory nerves to my left leg. It worked! I felt the pain disappear immediately. The procedure is no joke, though. Fifteen needle holes, they go in the same as for the injections. The spine is on a magnified computer screen and they can see where the needle is going. The doctor zapped the certain affected nerves about 3 times, of course I asked for sedation. I'm no fool. You are in and out in a couple of hours, just wake up from a nice nap!
It was tough to recuperate from, but they give you extra pain medicine. It really didn't help so I stopped taking it, ice bags were doing more good. The pain from the site (and my left cheek for some reason) went away 3 weeks from the date of procedure. It was well worth the discomfort. My sister says it sounds awful and she won't have it done. Sis doesn't like to think about needles.
So, the house looks cheery inside and out, my bittersweet crop came in so much better this year. It's gorgeous and I think the cold snaps we had did it. It also made the leaves fall off of our trees early this year, so that's good in case we get an early snow fall.
I'm easing my way around blog land. I still have a lot of pain in my back; until the next nerve ablation I'll still be going slowly on the computer and sewing time. I was able to browse for quite a while and noticed that a lot of bloggers seem to be taking a "break".
I'll be slowly reading, commenting and writing more very soon, I hope. I miss everyone so much, and I want to thank the ladies who have been emailing me to check on me and say "hello". It's always nice to have people who care. The healing power it brings is enormous.
I hope everyone who was and is in the path of the hurricane is safe and well. Take care of yourselves.
Susan

Stitchin’ a little Halloween mischief « Create & Decorate: The Blog

Stitchin’ a little Halloween mischief « Create & Decorate: The Blog:

'via Blog this'

How Are You Spending Your Monday?

Good Morning, Everybody!
     How are you spending your day today?  The Mister is doing some custom work on location today for a customer and I'm doing

laundry : ) Yay... it's going to be hot today so I don't mind being in the cool of the basement. My sweetheart had the air conditioners installed in May for me and I'm still having the hot flashes from jolly Ms. Menopause.  I'm hoping they stop in the next year or two. My sister went through the same thing and hers lasted for quite a few years so I figure it's genetic. Another un-enthusiastic 'Yay'....
    I want to say a huge "Thank You" to all of the new followers that have joined the blog in the past few weeks, and to my long-time buddies that have stuck with me during my absence.
I'm really happy that you're following along and I hope that you enjoy reading along with me.
    I picked up the Polly Daggett sampler and did some work this morning because I couldn't sleep. I also started playing with my rug hook and the box of woolie worms I won from Lauren of Rugs and Pugs. I really like hooking! When I get the hang of it I'll work a real pattern for a ruglet. But, that's after the sampler is finished.
    I got my new copy of Create and Decorate and there's another great prim rag doll; the last issue had one, too.  It's the same artist that designed the prim Rabbit that I made for my Giveaway that Sheila of Seasons of Thy Heart won.  Her dolls are really large and easy to make and very primitive.
    I received my order from Brenda of With Thy Needle and Thread. Oooh, the fabrics are gorgeous. And, they are tiny prints just perfect for some lucky doll's dresses and to back a pin keep, pillow tucks and huswif needlebooks.
And, I have some vintage seam tape in a beautiful oyster shade, and the teeniest rusty jingle bells, smaller than a pea! They'll make a cute necklace or teeny eyes or buttons for snow people.
    I never seem to start early enough for the coming seasons. I know that most crafters have already started making Fall and Christmas goodies. I told myself last year that I would get started in the summer for Christmas items and so far I'm still on Spring!
Oh, well. I move at a snail's pace and I'm okay with that. No choice, really!
    I've got lots of birds visiting the water fountain for their daily drinks. I love looking out of the kitchen windows when I'm at the sink and watching them all flutter in and out of the trees and land at the water and peek in the windows at me. They are very curious to see what I'm doing, too.
The kitties love it, especially when the squirrels drop by. They have a never ending supply of acorns to munch from all of our oak trees and I'm glad for that.
    I'll leave you with this sweet picture of our mouser Biggie passed out after a busy night of hunting in workshop:

Ahh, geeze...turn the light out, will you?

Hugs,
Susan