It's the last day of 2012! and Christmas Placemats!

Today is the last day of 2012.  Can you believe it?  The years fly by so fast.

Snow day
We had snow on Christmas day - another unbelievable.

It started snowing around 4pm and snowed for several hours.  It had been in the 60's the day before but Texas weather changes at the drop of a hat.

Here's my son playing in the snow.

Placemats
Before Christmas I made some candy stripe placemats to match my new candy stripe table runner.  The placemats are reversible, though I only used the red and white striped side.  The red and white fabric came from the dissected table runner I mentioned in the previous post.  The other fabric is fabric from my stash.
Here is my mostly decorated table set for our Christmas meal.

 

 

 I got these cool square white plates at the Just a Dollar for $1 each.  Sweet!!

 Pics of the placemat backs.  Very festive!  Also, these could be used for several other holidays such as Valentine's Day, Independence Day, Memorial Day.  They are multiuse :)

 

 

I'm thinking about offering placemats in my etsy shop.  Maybe I'll start a whole kitchen theme since I already have aprons.

Have you been getting any crafting done during the holidays?  What have you been working on?

I hope everyone has a Happy New Years Eve and New Years Day!  Happy 2013!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all!

It's been a long time since I blogged but I'm going to try to catch up on my life in the coming weeks.  I don't like to ramble on and complain about life's crummy stuff but I wanted to share what's been going on in the hopes that someone who has or is experiencing the same thing might comment or give me some insight.

I've been having health problems for about the past 4 years.  However, the last year and a half, they have increased exponentially.  They have prevented me from blogging, sewing, cleaning my house, acting like a normal person, going outside, ----- you get the picture.  It's not been pretty.

But anyhoo, I've finally been diagnosed.  Fibromyalgia and Lupus.  Actually, my official diagnosis is Fibromyalgia and an unspecified connective tissue auto immune disease such as Lupus.  But since I'm being treated for Lupus, I'm just going to call it that.
It has made me feel craptacular 24/7 for the past year and a half.  But finally having a diagnosis and being able to learn about the diseases and read forum posts about what others are going through, makes me feel less alone.  It makes me feel less like I'm going crazy.  Less like I'm just a big ol'
 lazy slug who can't do anything.  Less like a burden.

I'm trying to keep a positive attitude although it's hard.  I'm trying to leave my house at least once a week to do something - even if it's just wander through Macy's or the mall.  I joined a sewing club at a local quilt shop.  Just anything to make me feel more normal.  I'm not to the point where I can start volunteering on a regular basis at my son's school again though, which makes me sad.

If anyone who is reading this blog has these same issues and would like to share with me how you cope or how someone you know copes, please email me or leave a comment.  I'd love to hear from you.

I have been able to do some crafting lately - due to some new meds that seem to be helping.  I have lots to share starting with a Christmas Candy Cane table runner that I've made.

It started with a red and white striped table runner that my MIL and I had done for a special thingy at her church.  I helped her decorate the table last year for it.  She didn't want to keep the runner and gave it to me.  I decided to dissect it and make a runner that was more to my liking.  So, I cut it up into pieces - enough for 6 striped placemats and a pieced runner.

 

 I added more cool fabrics pieces to make it a pieced runner.

 

I sewed the pieces together and ironed them flat and whatnot.

 

And voila', this is what it looked like before I quilted it.

 

 

I quilted it with some in-the-ditch decorative stitches that looked like snowflakes.  I'm still a newbie at quilting and boy is it harder than I thought - and I already thought it was hard!!

 

 

On my table, a red and white candy cane Christmas.

 

 

One of the mistakes I made was in using craft batting.  I thought I was out of cotton batting, so I used craft batting which is very fluffy, like fiberfill.  Then of course, I found my cotton batting.  I think the craft batting is going to go in the Goodwill box I've started.  I realllllllllly don't like the way it looks.

 

That's all for now.  I'm going to try to make more posts but keep them short - because I have a LOT to say. :)

New Embroidery Sewing Machine

I have wanted an emboidery sewing maching for awhile now. 

Of course, the good ones cost thousands of dollars and I just don't have that.  BUT, Brother makes a "beginners model" so to speak.  It's the SE-400 Embroidery and Sewing machine.  I got it off Amazon.com.  They had the best price.  Plus, there were over a hundred reviews and almost all of them were good.  The people just went on and on about how much they loved it.  I stared at it for months before actually working up the nerve to buy it.

It certainly is alot different from my Janome.  For one thing, it takes forever to wind a bobbin.  You have to do it really carefully and follow all these steps.  But once you get it all done and threaded and it startes embroidering something, it's awesome!  I'm still learning how to use it and what it's limits are.  But I'm having fun with it for now.

Do you have a machine that does embroidery?  What kind and how do you like it?

Bonus:  Here's a pic of my giant 6 foot son on his first day of 8th grade.  You can't see his mustache very well in the picture but apparently, it was dark enough for his science teacher to tell him he had to shave.  He had already shaved the scruffy whiskers on the rest of his face.  Sigh!  He's only 13 - why does he have to shave?  Why is he growing up so fast?  Sigh.

Learning to Paper Piece

A few weeks ago, I took a class at one of our local sewing centers, Sharman's.  It was a class to learn how to machine paper piece.  To be honest, before I took the class, I wasn't too sure what that was.  I googled it before class but that didn't really help.

We had a great teacher.  She used the book "Show Me How to Paper Piece" by Carol Doak.  The first time she explained the process, I was completely lost but after a couple of minutes of following her directions, I realized that this is the best thing ever!  I love doing it.  It's so cool, not that hard and the end results look like you really spent oodles of time on it when maybe you just spent 30 minutes.  I love things that make hard things easy.  Also, you don't have to cut pieces of fabric exactly the size you need.  You can just cut pieces that are big enough and then trim them later.

Since taking this class, I watched a video online of someone paper piecing, and she was cutting each piece of fabric precisely the size she would need.  It involved  measuring and rotary cutting and was just a big obsessive compulsive deal.  It almost made me cry.  Why would anyone do it such a hard way when you can just randomly cut the fabric into shapes that are big enough and then trim?  I'm even saving pieces I've trimmed that are large enough to reuse.

 This is the heart I paper pieced.  Then I made it into a little pillow Christmas ornament by sewing a back on it and stuffing it.  You could also sew several of these together to make a real pillow or even a quilt.  The pattern can be enlarged so that if you're making a quilt, you don't have to make so many tiny hearts.

 This is the second heart that I started working on in class.   I'm since finished it but haven't stuff it yet.

This is what the pattern looks like.  You actually sew the little pieces of fabric on the paper, following the lines.  Each area is numbered (1,2,3, etc) according to where you put the next piece of fabric.  At the end, you just rip the paper off.

I have since ordered myself a big ol' pattern book that has 365 patterns in it. :)

Taco Bake - a recipe

We don't eat alot of meat at my house.  Therefore, I don't buy alot of meat.  I buy chicken that they slice for me in the deli for sandwiches and I buy those packages of precooked bacon that I sometimes put on my sandwiches but that's about it.

However, when you have a ginourmous 13 year old growing boy who is a total carnivore, you have to start rethinking things when you go to the grocery store.  It's been very hard for me because frankly, I'm not even sure what all the cuts of beef are.

I do know how to buy ground beef though and I've been making alot of tacos.  But tacos get old after awhile.  So, I've been trying to come up with something else to make.
And while standing in the taco shell aisle at the grocery store, it came to me.  Taco Bake.  I was actually looking at this box of some kind of taco bake stuff and thinking that it looked good in the picture when I decided, "hey, I can make my own taco bake."  SO, I did.

My Taco Bake Casserole Recipe:

1 lb. of ground beef  (I use the 96% lean kind)
1 package of taco seasoning
amount of water needed as stated on the back of the taco seasoning package
1 onion
flour tortillas
cheddar cheese or the mexican cheese mixtures or a combination of the two
fresh cherry tomatoes from the plants in the backyard  (or whatever kind they have at the grocery)

I browned the ground beef and added the chopped onion until it was cooked (see through).  Then I added the taco seasoning and water and let it simmer for a bit.

I started layering the stuff in the pan.  First the meat mixture and then a layer of tortillas, then cheese - repeat until all the meat is gone.  Then I topped it off with more cheese and tomatoes.

I made some of that Rotel dip to go along because our arteries weren't being clogged enough.

And I have to say, it was simple but it was really good.  Both my husband and son liked it and we even ate the leftovers.

Tonight, I'm making some kind of steak that I've been marinating since yesterday.  Pray for me.

Say Hello to Bob

Say Hello to my new friend Bob.

Bob likes to eat nuts on the ground around the tree that is outside my sewing room window.  I love watching him and he seems to like watching me too.  He hangs out on the branches staring at me and letting me take his picture.
I left some pecans for him but it took him two days to find them and the bird who lives in the tree also, had already eaten most of them.  The bird is really mean and he hates Bob.

Bob is my new boyfriend.  Isn't  he sweet?  :)

And now for crafting news.
Here are some Christmas stockings that I'm almost finished with - I'm sewing the last button on now.  I want to start listing them today.

These particular stockings are made with Moda Flurry fabric and Riley Blake Christmas Candy Rolie Polie.  I will also have available Moda's Ready Set Snow and a very limited supply of Moda's 12 Days of Christmas.
I'm going to have a very limited supply of Christmas stockings this year because they are very labor intensive to make.  There are about a million pieces to each stocking.
So, if you want to get in a custom order, or you know someone who does, get your order in early.

My next post will be about this great sewing class I took last week to learn machine paper piecing.  It was awesome!

Summer Vacation

Well, would you look at that, July is almost over.  Where did it go?  Why does time fly by so fast when you're old and decrepit?

We went to Galveston, Texas this year for summer vacation.  We haven't been there since before Hurricane Rita.  My husband wanted to go to Disney (of course) but my son and I have decided to be Disney free for awhile. 

I've always loved Galveston and I've never understand the bad rap it's gotten.  People always say the beaches are dirty, the water is dirty, etc.  And what I want to know is, have they been to California?  Because ICK!!!!  They have dirty beaches, dirty and COLD water and the whole place is dirty.  Even the airport stinks (LAX not Orange County).  And I mean it literally stinks.  You always see pics of celebrities walking through LAX trying to look all glamorous and I just wonder, can't they smell it?  Is their nose clogged?  Because it has a nasty, moldy, old funk that just needs to be torn down and rebuilt.

Anyhoo, back to my story.  Galveston doesn't have the pristine beaches and blue water of South Padre, that's true.  But it's still a great place to vacation.  There are some really good restaurants and they manage to have that small town feel.  While we were there, during July 4th week, they had this great "hometown" parade down the sea wall and then fireworks over the gulf.  It was awesome - and free.  We ate lots of good food, hung out on the beach (until my son got a sunburn and then he didn't want to do anything), played putt putt golf, and wondered around the Strand.  Really, I could have just sat out on our balcony for the entire trip as long as someone was bringing me food and drinks.  We stayed at the San Luis which is my favorite because it's right on the beach and you really can't have a bad room.  We were on the 11th floor though which is great because you're up high enough not to have  your view obstructed but you can still hear the music from the pool.

Here are some pics:

 Husband is on the left and my giant 13 year old is on the right.

 Views from my glorious balcony.
Wish I was still there.

 More balcony views.

 The pool and water slide/grotto area.  My only complaint was that I wish they had more shade areas for those of us who didn't want to burn to death.

 Why did I think it was a good idea for him to bring his computer? 

 Here we are playing putt putt.  My son has a weird expression on his face because he chews  on the springs attached to his braces.  So it looks like he's chewing on his face or something.

My sweet husband who puts up with me.

It was a good vacation.