Bargains

Yesterday I went to a Christmas Boutique at a little church in Yosemite Lakes Park (YLP to locals). YLP is not actually in Yosemite, it is actually about 30 miles south of Yosemite's main gate. Homes in the area are on lots from 1 acre up to approx 5 acres.

Back to the boutique, it was the first of the season so I thought I'd check it out and I'm glad I did. Most of the items I saw were priced under $10.00. I bought 3 items and spent $18.00. The highest priced item that I bought was a little handmade basket for $8.00, then I bought a felt Angel for $6.00 and finally a wooden picture frame for $4.00. The boutique was scheduled to run from 9:00 to 2:00. I was there at 10:00am and items were selling quickly, I have a feeling they probably sold out.

Here is a picture of my bargins:

 

 

I can't believe that this Angel was priced at $6.00. The workmanship was great, she will go in my studio to keep me company.

 

 



 

 There are more boutiques next weekend. I will probably spend my Saturdays between now and Christmas checking them out.



Sierra Mountain Quilters Association

Last night I attended the Sierra Mountain Quilters (SQMA) monthly meeting. This meeting was much different from the Modern Quilt Guild, first of all they had officiers, but with a membership of over 100 they would need elected officiers. The meeting also had structure, first was a business meeting, then a show and tell and finally a small project.

I enjoyed myself, everyone was very welcoming. I think I enjoy the smaller Modern Quilt Guild better as it's easier to get to know people. However SQMA has smaller "circles" that meet one or two times during the month that I might enjoy. There were two listed in the newsletter that caught my eye, one was going to the beach for their November meeting and the other was going to lunch and shopping at the local quilt shop for their November meeting. Either of them fit with my interests, beach, lunch and shopping.

As you might expect there are some very talented quilters in the group and they are very proud to show their work.

 Here are pictures from last nights Show and Tell:

 

 

The quilt below was made for a new baby. The challenge for the quilter was the new Mom and Dad can't agree on the color of the nursery, gray or primary colors. Hopefully Mom will get her way with primary colors. The baby will love this quilt, the flowers are made from chenille, giving it even more softness.

 

 

 



Here is a very proud quilter showing her Fall wall hanging:

 



 

 

The piece below was made by a Quilter who works at the Tenaya Lodge in Yosemite. It is of the Headless Horseman in the big trees in Mariposa Grove. She put a glow stick in the pumpkin and used glow in the dark thread to give it special effects. 

 

 

 

This quilt was made by the same Quilter who did the Headless Horseman quilt. 

 

 

 

 

Here is a picture of my tablemates working on the project for the month:

 

 

 

It was a nice way to spend an evening.

 

 



 

 

 

Mom's Tea Bag Carrier challenge

In my studio enjoying music from my 50's Pandora Music Station. I love Pandora, if you haven't tried it you're missing out.

What is it? Pandora is FREE Internet Radio. You choose the type of music you want to listen to by choosing an Artist, Song or Composer and Pandora will create a radio station just for you. For instance I have a Michael Buble Radio Station. Pandora plays music similar to Buble. When a song starts playing I can give it a thumbs up and Pandora will continue to add more of that artist or type of song, if I give it a thumbs down the song stops playing and another song starts. Pandora will play music even if you don't give them "thumbs up-thumbs down" but by doing so you create a station that plays music you like. There are very few commericials. You can get more info at Pandora.com. (Sorry I got a little carried away, it's fun to share cool, free things with your friends).

My Mom drinks tea and has a paticular brand that she likes and carries with her in her purse. A few years ago her friend gave her a little tea bag carrier that she had found in Victoria BC. Prior to this Mom was carrying her tea bags in a ziplock. Mom mentioned that her carrier was wearing out and said that it looked like it would be easy to make. Since Mom doesn't sew the challenge of duplicating her much loved tea bag carrier came to me.

Here is the original well used and loved Tea Bag Carrier:

 

 

Sorry for the quality of the photos, my I-Phone let me down today.

 

Here is the inside:

 

 

 

Looks pretty straightforward so I figured out the dimensions:

 

 

 

Inserted the lining

 

 

Made the pockets

 

 

Folded in half

 

 

Then folded it in quarters and added the button:

 

 

The old and the new:

 



 











I think I met the challenge. Hope Mom likes it.

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween Everyone!

Roxy is the only one who dresses up at our house, and she is SO happy about it---NOT.

WARNING: DO NOT CONTINUE IF YOU HAVE A SQUEEMISH STOMACH.

Once a month our family meets for dinner. (This was a Christmas gift my kids gave to me and my Mom. My almost DIL, K came up with the idea and got my Sons, D2 and D3 and DIL M to agree with.) This month it was at D3's home, which was perfect since my DIL M LOVES Halloween. She did a great job with the menu.

First came our appetizer, chips and dare I say...vomit.

Dinner consisted of:

Scary Peppers:

They were tasty

Grubs, I will be adding this to my menu's in the near future, they were great.

And for dessert, worms in dirt:

Despite how it looks the food was delicious. It was the most fun I've had celebrating Halloween in a long time.

Thank you D3 and M for all you hard work, you did a great job.

My Mini

I once heard that you should buy a "cool" car just before you retire. Who am I not to take such wonderful advice? My cool car of choice was a bright blue Mini Cooper.

Mini's have always made me smile and this one is no exception. It is fun to drive and in my opinion much cooler than the Smart car or Fiat. (I can't decide if I like the looks of the Fiat or not, but they don't make me smile). Lucky me it also gets good gas mileage, except I have to use premium so it may not save as much gas money as I had planned.

You might think that the Mini is not a good fit for the mountains. It is almost perfect for the mountains it loves to climb the hills and go fast around the curves. However when it gets cold their is a warning light that comes on to tell me it's "feet" are cold. (Really it's just warning that the temp has dropped and the roads could be icy)

My Mini is an "S", sport model. The dealer was in the Bay Area so I got to drive it home, when we stopped for a break I told D that I think we're in trouble and better take it back because it does NOT like to go slow. I look at the speedometer and couldn't believe I was going 80. Speaking of the speedometer take a look at this:

Do you see that huge round thing in the middle of the dash? That is the speedometer! There is NO hiding your speed from your passenger. The Mini is a tattletale. When D is driving I try not to look.

Operating the Mini took a little getting use to. What should be switches or buttons are toggles:

 

 

Locating them the first couple of times was a challenge. the ones shown are below the speedometer and operate the door locks and windows. There are more located above the mirror. They operate the moon roof and I'm not sure what else.

 

I also didn't take into consideration that even though the Mini has a back seat it is pretty much a two person car. It's a hatchback so there isn't a trunk. It's not perfect but I do love it.

 

This is probably more than you ever wanted to know about a Mini so I'll end now.

 

 



Warning: Addictive Information below

If you are a crafter of any kind I have some cool websites to share with you. I want to be a responsible person so I'm warning you ahead of time these websites are highly addictive. Hours will slip away from you as you get inspired.

The patterns on each of these sites are free.

The first one is favecrafts.com: http://www.favecrafts.com/. This site has any type of craft you're looking for.

The next one is allfreesewing.com http://www.allfreesewing.com. It's title is self explanatory, anyting to do with sewing.

The last one is favequilts.com http://www.favequilts.com. Yep it's free quilt patterns.

You can use the search box on each of the sites to find what you're looking for. You can put in easy and or beginner and it will pull up patterns that will work for you.

You can also sign up for their newsletters but be warned you will receive a newsletter almost daily. It's nice at first but after a while you might want to unsubscribe from them.

Hope you have fun checking them out.

The purse is FINISHED!

Yesterday was my last Crazy Patch Pocket Purse class. Again the other members of the class had not finished their homework, but the teacher had put together step by step instructions on how to put together the purse so I had something to do while the others caught up.

I was moving right along until it came time to put the lining into the purse----it was about 3 inches too short---major issue. It turns out the instuctor had put the wrong measurements on the instructions. I was lucky that I had more of the lining fabric and was able to add 3 inches to the lining so it would work.

There was another glitch in the instructions that caused me and another classmate to have to take apart the bottom of the purse and redo it.

Needless to say no one finished their purse in class.

Today I finished it up, I put in the lining and did some top stitching--ta dah:

 

 

 

Here is a close up of the front pocket (it's hard to see the decorative stitches, but you can see the couching).

 



Here is the back of the purse:

 

 

Here is one of my classmates almost completed purse.

 

 

 This is the first time the teacher had taught this class and she doesn't think she'll teach it again. It is very labor intensive and she's going to come up with a different project that will teach the same techniques. Even though there were some glitches I did enjoy her teaching style.

 

 

 I learned the techniques I went to the class for and I finished the purse so I guess it was worth the time and frustration. It also built up my confidence. I figure if I could keep up in this class I can probably do okay in any class. Taking a class allows me to focus on one thing without any interuptions and meet some nice people. I'll probably take another class of some kind after the holidays.

 

Tomorrow I'm going to the Fresno Modern Quilters Guild meeting. I'm taking a leaf hotpad that I made for the fall themed item swap. I'm looking forward to it.