Disclaimer: heavy quilting content and possible over explaining in today’s post.

Taking classes in anything helps get me inspired and motivated. After taking Heather Thomas’  “Quick Color Theory Class” at the Golden Quilt Company, I was hooked and wanted to learn more. I was also looking forward to the challenge of completing one project per month for 13 months, I certainly have never finished so many things in so short a time before. The prospect was also mildly terrifying.

The first project was neutrals. This project was due in October, so right away I started thinking about fall things, and spooky things. I knew I wanted to try to do something representational, rather than a traditional quilt pattern. I flirted with the idea of a raven (Nevermore!) but I thought that would be more detail than I was ready for. And then I thought of bats, probably because my husband’s cousin encounters bats at work, and does not care for them at all, and posts about this on Facebook. I think the original idea for bats silhouetted against a lighter background came from here http://www.dana-made-it.com/2010/10/bats.html. MADE (http://www.dana-made-it.com/) is a very cool website with all kinds of neat tutorials.

Photo used by permission, http://www.dana-made-it.com/2010/10/bats.html.

I started thinking about a moon, with scary bats in front of it. And what else is spooky, how about …. corn? Children of The Corn, being lost in a corn field, hmmmmmm. So then I went looking for pictures of scary corn on the internet. And I found one that I liked, I would cite the source but of course now I can’t find where it came from.

And some pictures of bats.

And then I started fooling around with the picture in Adobe Illustrator, because I knew I wanted the quilt to have more than just black and white (we were actually required to use 12(?), I think, different fabrics.) And I made the moon bigger because it just looked cool that way.

And without bats.

I was able to print these out on 11 x 17 paper and cut up the leaves to use as patterns. I am not much of a free hander so this was a way I could do something representational.

Here are a few pictures of the piece in process. I originally had it on a darker solid black background, but I went for the gray, because it was more interesting. (Sorry these pics are so small, I (alarmingly) can’t find the original files….they have to be somewhere.

I had several more leaves cut out, and then I decided there were too many. Good choice, I think.

Here it is almost in its final form.

I had that one leaf hanging over the edge on purpose, to “break the plane” of the rectangle, but I did fray it so it wasn’t such a straight edge. I was also thinking about dry brushing some craters onto the moon, but I think the mottled pattern of the fabric suggests craters just fine.

It was amazing, in our class of 20-some women, the difference in pieces created. There were quilts, jackets, art quilts, beading, a doll, it was amazing. Heather’s suggestion for mine was that I should add some “sky lines” quilting in the background. I was very happy with how it turned out. Things I would do differently: I would add some embroidery stabilizer, because in some places I was quilting very heavily, and that started to bunch up the fabric.

Of course, I haven’t done that quilting yet, because I had to get going on the next project, plus working on several OTHER projects that weren’t for the class……

The next theme, for November, was Monochromatic – take one color and use its variations. Now, you have to be really careful, and take along your book and color wheel, because when you are looking for GREEN, you can’t be using yellow-green or blue-green. I still managed to buy a whole bunch of yellow-green. I was brainstorming various ideas for this piece, and looking at the internets and Pinterest, and I was thinking of either doing something with half square triangles (HST) or something like this piece that I saw on http://crazymomquilts.blogspot.com/2011/09/half-way-done.html. (Please click on link to see, since I don’t like to re-post photos without permission) I had bookmarked crazymomquilts.blogspot.com because several of my friends were participating in a quiltalong that she was hosting.

Well, that night I had a dream that I did a quilt like Crazymomquilts, and all in greens, it was like bamboo. So obviously, since I had dreamed about it, that was what it had to be.

But it couldn’t be JUST bamboo, that wouldn’t be very interesting. Her quilt was interesting because it had many different colors and background colors, and I was only going to  use green. So I wanted something with the bamboo. I asked the great hive mind that is Facebook, and my friends came up with everything from pandas to dragons, and that is what made me think of dragonflies.

This block was much harder to put together than I thought it would be. It was hard to get the proportions right, and hard to sew back together after making the “wonky” cuts so the bamboo would be tilted.

So I made 8 blocks, and I slapped that dragonfly up there (painstakingly made out of a bunch of different fabrics), and I didn’t like it, the proportions weren’t right.

So I went back to the great Facebook hive mind, and asked everyone to vote on option A, all 8 blocks,

option B, four blocks,

or option C, three blocks.

I eventually settled on option C, and then put a border around it, which I thought really helped it.

I was very happy with the quilting in the border, not quite perfect yet, but I thought I came up with a cool design.

I also beaded the dragon fly which was a huge pain in the a** and then I wasn’t sure if I liked it or not, and I added some beads to some of the joins in the bamboo.

I was still working on clipping threads and sewing on a few more beads the day off the class of course.

So off to class, and part of the class is that you stand up with your project and talk about how you made it, how you chose the colors and design, what difficulties you had, whether you liked it or not, and what you might do differently. So, I think you can imagine from reading my blog HOW DETAILED of an explanation I can give, I am sure some of them wish they had a buzzer to cut me off. Anyway, I got good comments on it, and then the teacher came up front (everybody always says OOOOOOOOOH when she heads up front, because she is usually about to turn your project 45° or 90° or do something with pins and transform it into something slightly different but better, especially in the design sense.)

So, this is what she did:

She converted my wide borders back into just a binding, which she said, correctly, makes it look more modern, more “arty” than “quilty” and emphasizes the dragonfly. She said the wide borders compete too much with the dragonfly. (and that if I wanted to keep the borders, I should add 2 more dragonflies, NO WAY). I DO like it this way, and I like the beads on it WAY better with the narrow border. It is just pinned back for now, so is a little rumply. Plus, I have 5 orphan bamboo blocks that need to find a home. So, of course, I haven’t fixed the border yet, because I am working on the NEXT project for class. Which is complimentary colors.

I chose red and green, partially because I had just purchased a bunch of green fabric, and used less than one tenth of it to make my dragonfly piece, so I started brainstorming things that are red and green but NOT Christmassy. Again, the internets and Pinterest are VERY HELPFUL for this. Just searching on “red and green” brought up all kinds of ideas. And then I would brainstorm more on my commute. My original thought was “rhubarb” but I think rhubarb has limited applications in where I would hang it in my house. And then I thought of red poppies with green leaves – I have always loved poppies, my Grandma had bright orange poppies growing out in front of her house. So, poppies it was, but of course I didn’t want it to be representational poppies, I wanted stylized poppies. Or, I wanted to do something with New York Beauty blocks. I am not sure which came first, the chicken or the egg……I took some inspiration from Laura’s Sewing Studio, which has New York Beauty blocks digitized and turned into embroidery, but they have assembled them into flowers, so I could see that it was possible, but my flowers are going to be much more bizarre.

I was inspired to make New York Beauty blocks by a design I saw (probably on Pinterest at first) for the Cinco De Mayo Quilt by Karen Stone, that is a quilt with WILD colors, and I have it on my list for Someday. I already have the book and I sit and drool a little bit over the pictures…..google “Cinco De Mayo Quilt” on Google Images to see some BRIGHT examples.

I am WAY behind on the poppies because of Christmas sewing, and I already missed our class because I had a work conflict that evening. So I am trying to get the poppies AND the next project done by our January class (since I haven’t actually STARTED the next project, this should be interesting….)

Just thought I would do an update on the various projects I am working on right now. I apparently have the attention span of a gnat and am easily distracted by whatever project I want to do next. Rest assured, these are not ALL of the projects I am currently in the middle of, just the ones that are currently “live.” There are approximately twice as many that are on the back burner. Uh huh. Several of which I have probably forgotten about altogether. I try to keep a list on the wall but I am not responsible enough to maintain that list. If I ignore some of them, maybe the Brownies or fairies will come and finish them for me.

Just finished: Dear Niece age 6’s Christmas afghan. She grew out of her baby afghan, but was still sleeping with it until this fall. She likes Barbie and pink. I had several false starts on this afghan, trying a couple of internet free patterns and nearly tearing my hair out as a result. I have had really good luck with Leisure Arts afghan patterns, so I picked up “Birthstone Afghans” at JoAnn Fabric, and picked out “May” as one that looked like it was long enough to cover a 6 year old and crochet up quickly. I did it in Caron’s Simply Soft. It did go together quickly, especially after I figured out that I was doing the pattern at the end of the row wrong, and I fixed that, and the afghan quit getting smaller with each row. (Maybe it isn’t the patterns, maybe it is me. Nah.) This was supposed to have fringe but I don’t do fringe, and I don’t think it holds up well on a kid’s afghan that is going to get washed often, so I just put a shell border around it and said I was done.

I had to weave in many additional ends because Leo the evil cat bit my yarn in half several times while I was working on this. When will I learn, it is not enough to put it in a bag, bury that bag under a pillow, etc.? Must be locked in a closet! Or it is not safe from the yarn vampire! Here is the bad kitty himself.

Look how offended he looks.

Note cat butt in picture, of course. They own the house.

And, given the chance, we move right in.

This is part of a New York Beauty block, foundation pieced, that I am working on for my Color Class with Heather Thomas. (http://www.wildheatherdesigns.com/) (http://heatherthomasblog.blogspot.com/) Does this look not quite right to you? Like maybe it is flaring? That is because I left out one arc. Following directions, yeah, not one of my strong points.

This is the block, corrected, with parts of two other blocks. These are supposed to be symbolizing a stylized poppy, but I am waaaaaay behind in getting these done for my class. I actually already missed this month’s class because of a work conflict, and now I really should have this project done, in addition to a project for next month. By the first week of January. Can you hear me laughing from where you are? See: Christmas afghan above, and Christmas pillow below.  I got my New York Beauty foundation patterns at: http://imageevent.com/donnarie/newyorkbeautyblockpatterns

http://www2.fiskars.com/Activities/Crafting/Project-Gallery/Sewing-and-Quilting/Yo-Yo-Pillow  This is going to be a pillow for my youngest niece, about 7 mos, for her room. Her mom sent me a paint swatch and some fabrics. This isn’t the final arrangement of yo-yos yet. I need a night when I can concentrate to put them together and then lay them out in a semblance of a straight grid. When my sister in law so obligingly bookmarks things on Pinterest, and then sends me fabric, how easy can she make it? I did not buy any buttons. These are all from my button collection, which is but a very small part of my mother’s button collection.

When my first niece was born 12 years ago (oy vey), I started a tradition by making her a crocheted baby afghan, a pieced quilt, and an embroidered quilt. The more nieces and nephews I get, the longer it takes me to get these done. Youngest niece has her crocheted afghan and that is it. 2nd youngest niece still hasn’t received her embroidered quilt, and she just turned 4. I am going to have to turn hers into a twin size. And I better get it done before she is too old to appreciate bunnies. But of course I started in on the next niece’s pieced quilt because I am a project magpie (ooooooh, bright shiny new project, let’s start that.)

This is youngest niece’s pieced quilt, all the blocks are done:

I will post about this pattern when I have it all put together and the borders sewn on. Because that book is upstairs and I am too lazy to run up there right now.

I am also working on one pair of socks right now, not counting the ones that are almost done but that I am pretty sure I am going to abandon because I don’t really like them. We will see.

These are a pattern out of “Sensational Knitted Socks.” In an effort to improve my sock knitting, I am trying to make one pair of socks for each pattern in the book. At the rate I am going I will be 99 before I am done.

One of these is at the point where I need to start decreasing the toe, and the other one is close. I will bring these along to my Knit Knight tomorrow night and may get to the decrease point on the 2nd one. It is not always a good idea to start decreasing at Knit Knight, because I have to pay attention to do that, and paying attention while we are knitting and visiting and laughing is not always possible. So I will also take along a new project, which will be made with a Sophie’s Toes Magic Ball (http://www.etsy.com/shop/emilyparson) (http://whatsthatgonnabe.blogspot.com/2007/11/magic-ball.html) that my friend Cathy (http://www.catwithcats.com/) gave me. I do not yet know WHICH project I am going to make with this, but hopefully I will have decided by tomorrow night. Maybe I should also take along my shrug which requires no thought to knit whatsoever.

Thoughts on the Magic Ball: These make cool shawls but I am not a shawl person. I might make the Chevron Scarf from “Last Minute Knitted Gifts” by Joelle Hoverson, which I have made several times but always in worsted yarn and never for myself to keep. OR maybe find something new in “Sock Yarn One-Skein Wonders.” You never know. Ooooooo, look, a bright shiny new project……

I get a catalog called “Bits and Pieces.” They have interesting puzzles and games, I have no idea how I got on this mailing list, and one of their offerings stopped me cold. I posted it on my Facebook page, and the comments that ensued made the puzzle twice as funny. If you need a white elephant gift, or want to send a subtle message to someone, this puzzle is still available.

http://www.bitsandpieces.com/whose-turn-is-it%3F-outhouse-300-large-piece-shaped-jigsaw-puzzle/p/45727/

And the comment stream:

Tell me one thing that is not just WRONG WRONG WRONG with this.

Well, you certainly don’t need the plunger in an outhouse!

You mean other than you made me look at this?

It answers the question of whether or not bears sh** in the woods.

My personal opinion is that “fun-filled” “outhouse” and “puzzle” do not belong together in ANY situation. And yes, what is that raccoon doing with that plunger? That one bear who is already IN the outhouse looks like he is picking up the skunk to use as toilet paper.

Besides, everyone knows that moose are better plungers than racoons. Duh.

And it is aparently not only unisex, but also unispecies. That is just unforgivable.

well yes, he needs to use the skunk for toilet paper – the owl is hoarding his!

The bear in the outhouse also looks really disgusted. Can’t he get just five minutes to himself?!?!!

Yes, I was going to say that … where is the privacy?

‎Cyndi Frailing Nelson, since you “liked” this post, does that mean you want me to get you this puzzle for Christmas?

Not only no privacy, but he has a squirrel standing on his head! And the opossum was obviously making rude personal comments.

Well of course he needs to pick up the skunk as tp because the owl is holding the real roll hostage on top of the outhouse.

And why does the owl look so drunk? It’s using the TP roll to keep itself upright.

The owl looks drunk and or hungover, perhaps THAT is why he needs all the toilet paper.

You know that skunk’s asking the owl, “really? You don’t have a square to spare?!?!”

_______________

We spent many hours as kids doing puzzles, since we had only 3 TV channels (and we didn’t even have color TV until I was 9??? or so) although I do think I remember I preferred a good book or a rousing game of Life or Go For Broke. Or Monopoly, with unlimited borrowing from the bank. Puzzles were one of the default gifts of choice at the Spring Creek School gift exchange, I remember one with kittens. Puzzles or paint-by-numbers, which I was spectacularly bad at. Oh, if I could find one of those, I would scan it in. We had one HUGE on that was a Caterpillar (dirt mover) that my Dad must have gotten from the Cat dealer (or maybe at an auction). That one was up on the card table for a LONG time as we put it together. My mom has a large collection of puzzles, all that she had plans to do in her retirement, or do and then give away, once she determined if all the pieces were there. Needless to say, there is a big box of puzzles that are still undone, as she has had other priorities.

So what did you do as a kid for entertainment before 148 channels of cable or satellite, and the internet?

Please note: DH stands for Dear Husband. I need a better nickname for him than that for the blog purposes. Suggestions?

***

DH: “I think you need to use more swear words in your blog, make it more colorful.”

ME: “I can’t do that, my aunt reads this.”

****

DH was saying something about how nothing that I do really surprises him. After knowing each other for 20 years and being married for 17 years, apparently he is over that.

I said, “Did the fire surprise you?”

DH, “No, not really. It startled me, but it didn’t surprise me.”

*****

Me to my dad, about Thanksgiving, “I haven’t set a turkey on fire yet.”

Dad: “There’s still time.”

*****

Me to my mom: “Before you hear from Aunt C., I have a blog now.”

Mom: “Haven’t you always had a blog?”

Me “No.”

Mom: “How is a blog different from email or Facebook?”

Me: “Anyone can see it.”

Mom: “Uh-oh.”

******

Another decorating idea that DH seems inclined to thwart (other than my shell bathroom idea which I am sure will grow on him if I keep talking about it):   A whole wall of cuckoo clocks. How awesome would that be? I have already told Mom that I want their cuckoo clock in the will. (I don’t think that will be a problem, I think cuckoo clocks are outside of my sis-in-law’s decorating ideas.) I have one cuckoo clock that came from my Grandma’s house, but it doesn’t cuckoo, it play music when you wind it up. And, we can’t have it running because MaryAnne likes to play with the weight, and I don’t want to come home and find the clock on the floor. Or the clock on the floor with the cat under it. It is a very charming clock, with a homey scene behind glass, and this mysterious red and white object, which I think might be a bread oven from my extensive googling.

Cuckoo clock. It also has a heart shaped tick tock. As a child, I remember being fascinated with this clock.

My Uncle N. brought it back from Germany, and he was OK with me having it after Grandma passed away.

See this charming little home scene? Those are postcards pasted onto the back of the windows.

There is a little tiny light bulb in the light fixture that used to light up. Dad tried to fix it and then the Russian clock repair shop that cleaned and repaired the clock tried to fix it. If Dad can’t fix it, nobody can fix it. It was probably because of the assorted grandkids, including me, playing with it, that it doesn’t light up.

The mysterious red and white????? It reminds me of Humpty Dumpty but I don’t think that is what it is.

Bed, cuckoo clock, chair.

Table and chairs and fiddle and bad reflection from our light fixture.

I started it up when I was taking pictures. MaryAnne was IMMEDIATELY VERY interested. Sigh. Guess I won’t be running that until she is more middle-aged. This is her, looking at it intently.

Four posts into my wordpress experience, and I have lost my 1st post. I thought, I hit “publish,” I have no idea what I really clicked on.

I informed my brother that unless I got some ideas for Christmas presents from his daughters, DN 12 and DN 10, they were going to get this:

They have a 6 year old brother, I am sure they all need to be more hopped up on sugar. Plus, DN 10 already has a Sno Cone maker, this way they could corner the market on sweet treats being sold by cute children from sidewalk stands.

DN 12 send me PICTURES of 5 books she would like. I find that highly ironic. One of them is “Git-R-Done” by Larry the Cable Guy. I am not sure what to think of that. Apparently she has eclectic taste like I did as a kid, which makes me both happy and concerned. No one tried to censor my voracious reading as a kid, and I turned out fine. Mostly.

Still sick. Was only barely human this morning by virtue of Aleve and Nyquil. Didn’t want to go to work and contaminate my co-workers any more than I probably already did yesterday. And, it was also snowing and the wind was blowing, so that was extra incentive to stay home. Of course, I ended up working from home a couple of hours, after the new IT guy got the server at work fixed so we were finally getting our email after 2 days, and fixed the firewall so I was ALLOWED to log on from home.

About noon I thought I was feeling pretty good and then I totally crashed from 12:30 to 1:30 so I guess not.

Was working on the Christmas afghan for DN (Dear Niece) #4, thought it would be safe from the cat monster if I put it all back in my work bag with the yarn on the bottom, oh no, that rotten cat knocked the bag over, dragged the whole afghan out to get to the yarn, and bit the yarn in half. Brat. That took me out of the crocheting mood pretty fast, but I did measure and discover I am on the last row I have to do before I do the edging. Of course, it wants me to put 82 stitch markers in the last row, I don’t have 82 stitch markers, let alone the nice clippy ones you would need to get it out of the crochet later. Don’t they understand the Glenderella “guestimating” technique?

There was no way I was going out to the freezer in the garage to get anything for dinner, so that meant leftover ham from the freezer in the house. Did make steak fries in the oven because that is what my somewhat still weirded out, slightly nauseated stomach wanted.

Meanwhile, we are watching some show on the Cooking Channel about a food truck that makes cupcakes, and DH says, “Why are we watching this, it is making me hungry?” And I promptly went upstairs to make a cake. Hot fudge cake, the kind that makes its own hot fudge sauce on the bottom. With vanilla ice cream over it, that is just what my sore throat needs. I attempted the “cake in a mug-microwave” version of this last week, and let me tell you, you want to stay away from that. Could not be called a cake in any sense of the word.

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/hot-fudge-cake/detail.aspx

Although this recipe is not written for people who do not read ahead, and someone may have dumped in 6 T. of cocoa in the batter, rather than 2 T. in the batter and 4 T. in the hot water mixture, so we will see how that turns out. It can’t possibly be worse that the ‘sludge in a mug.’

As I mentioned in my post the other night, I would love to re-do the guest bathroom in “retro kitsch sea shell.” My DH is less than enthused about this idea. So as we were flipping through channels trying to find something on TV, I asked him, “Would you rather watch ‘Dial M for Murder’ or let me redecorate the bathroom in shells?” And his answer was “Do you have a gun?”, which isn’t exactly an answer but I guess I get his point.

My ideas for the bathroom include:

I am pretty sure I could get a shell lamp like that back from my sister-in-law, since I gave her one just like that when we were exchanging “ugly gifts” each Christmas. Maybe I shouldn’t tell her how much they are going for on Ebay……And then maybe one of those shell wind chimes, hmmmmm. This could be a really memorable bathroom, I am just saying. Although I am generally against adding things that I would have to dust, so that may not be in favor of the wind chimes.

Random photo of my life:

This is not what happens when you try to hide someone you have stabbed in your suitcase, this is what happens when you have a bottle of cough syrup that comes open in your suitcase. Needless to say, that was the last of that suitcase.

This pretty much sums up today:

DH: What did you have in this bucket?

ME: Nothing.

DH: Well, MaryAnne is sitting in it now. Oh….is that a barf bucket?

ME: Yeah….

So, I came home from work early feeling nauseous. Don’t know if it is what DH had the other night, or the leftover Mexican food for lunch. But I am watching TV and carefully avoiding all food commercials. I will NOT be watching Man Vs. Food tonight. Also seem to be catching a cold, took Mucinex before I went to bed last night and consequently was awake from 3:30 to 4:30, need to remember not to do that again. MaryAnne assumed I was awake for the sole purpose of throwing her little pink ball for her.

Adding to the productivity at work was the fact that we had no internet or email all day, preventing me from sending things out that should have gone out.

Along with the antiques I brought home, my mother-in-law gave me some makeup bags and Clinique things she got through “gift with purchase.” I will always accept makeup bags because they make good knitting bags. I will always accept cleansers and moisturizers because I am cheap. So I got up this morning to find one of the smaller makeup bags in the hallway, and when I saw it later, Leo was all snuggled up to it. He occasionally adopts an object (usually small but sometimes a bath towel) and drags it around the house. We refer to them as his “babies.” Slightly incongrous because he is a large 16 pound Maine Coon cat, but he is also afraid of visitors.

Gratuitous cat pictures:

Leo and MaryAnne. MA might be a little bigger than that now, but not much.

This will be a blog about my life: cats, knitting, quilting, crocheting, cooking, and other random crafting. I almost named it “Angel of Destruction” after a friend called me that on Facebook after I nearly burned down my kitchen, and also had my Crockpot AND my food processor die within a few weeks of each other. Well, the Crockpot’s handle disintegrated on its own. The food processor, I may have had something to do with. But that was because of a design flaw, because it stuck when I tried to open it and consequently broke off the little thingy that tells it it that it is safe to operate.

Another hobby I enjoy is thrifting and antiquing. An update on recent antiquing: We returned to my husband’s hometown near Sioux Falls, SD, for Thanksgiving, and instead of going to the mall and Target with my sisters-in-law, of course I went to yarn stores and antique stores. After the two “nice” antique stores, I told the owner at the the 2nd store that her store was very nice but that I wanted to go to a junky antique store, one that had piles, one that would have glow in the dark Virgin Marys that I collect (the lady at the first, VERY nice antique store burst out into hysterical laughter when I told her what I was looking for.) She recommended I drive out to Hartford and go to Aunt-T’s-Ques Wayside Shoppe. And let me tell you, it was a junkatorium. Well, he had nice stuff, but also a lot of random stuff, and very closely packed together. Just my kind of place. He had a lineup of about 10 meat grinders all attached to one shelf that were very impressive. Only one glow in the dark Virgin Mary, however, but they are hard to find, that is why I enjoy collecting them. He was pretty sure he had another one but couldn’t find it. I gave him my card with instructions to email me if he found it, we will see if he can hold onto the card.

At the first antique store in Sioux Falls, Belsnickel, I got some vintage jewelry for my niece’s Christmas present (she likes to play dress up with jewelry) – 3 necklaces and 3 pairs of clip on earrings, and than at the junkatorium, I found a small jewelry box for them. I showed great willpower and DID not purchase the truly frightening Poodle/Bulldog TV lamp that I immediately was attracted to, or the lovely shell bouquet (thinking of re-doing the guest bathroom in “shell” decorations, haven’t shared that idea with the husband yet….wait, I just did, I showed him a nice shell lamp on Ebay and he says “absolutely not.”). The lamp was similar to this one, only I do believe it was a bulldog rather than a pug. (Thanks to http://www.tvlamps.net/index.html for the picture) 

If you think this is scary you should see it with the eyes glowing.

I have no pictures of the jewelry and box because I boxed them up and left them with my mother in law. (She likes to wrap, is going to wrap them for me, that way we won’t have to mail them back and forth…)

This is the very fine wooden purse I got at Lost Marbles Antiques in Sioux Falls, which is a very nice shop. I also got a nice gold and black rhinestone necklace there (next pic.)

And there is the glow in the dark Virgin Mary (looks like she used to be part of a larger plaque), swizzle sticks (I had something I needed to swizzle the other day) and necklace. Close up of the Virgin Mary:

After seeing a large glow in the dark Virgin of Guadalupe at a cool little tchotchke shop in Austin (which a co-worker TALKED ME OUT OF BUYING, I still can’t believe it), I decided I should collect them. I have one Lady of Guadalupe (smaller, about 9 inches, the big one was about 14 inches) and one very modern looking one. And I am on the hunt for more. My husband thinks this is kind of weird (he is the one that is Catholic) but he has learned to not be surprised by any of my hobbies.

And the very cool picture I got to hang on the wall. I am on a poppies kick lately, probably because there is a lot of poppy fabric out there right now. When I saw this print from the 40s, (and still bright as the day it was made), I decided if I didn’t buy it I would regret it and end up driving back out the Hartford to get it anyway. Plus, this is the exact color of the poppies that grew in front of my Grandma’s house as I was growing up. Buying this picture caused us to have to pay to check another piece of luggage.

We didn’t HAVE another piece of luggage along, so we created one.

Nice, huh? We used up all of DH’s parents’ duct tape. And a couple of other kinds of tape. But it made it through the flight just fine. AND it was searched by the TSA, even after the guy asked me what was in it, and I said “A poppy picture, a glow in the dark Virgin Mary, swizzle sticks, a wooden purse, a necklace, popcorn (a story for another day) and a pair of shoes.” You would think that would be enough of an explanation. They did tape it back together quite satisfactorily.