I'm the voluptuous one in the middle

Lately I have been dreaming of the sea.  I want to feel the salt air in my lungs and the sand shifting under my feather light body.  I want to spread out a blanket and set up a chair under a big pink umbrella.  I want to sip on ice cold Diet Pepsi and complain that the sand is getting into my stitching bag.  I want to hear the gulls complaining that I won't share my Pringles with them.  I want to gossip with my bosom chums about the latest projects we need to purchase.  I want to bemoan the fact the sun is so bright that I need my sunglasses.  I want to giggle about the silliness of our latest adventure.  Yes my congenial friends I want to be taken away to the sea.

 

You may be asking why, why would a girlish girl with a perfect life want to be somewhere else.  Well it is all Ms. Tanya Marie Anderson's fault, yes the Sampler Girl designer.  She tempted me with a sale on her darling designs by daring to slip an e-mail into my box.  Shame on her and how could I resist?  How could any Jane Austen fan resist "By the Ocean with Jane Austen"?  And then there was "Gertie Sells Yarn by the Seashore".  Not to be left behind was her cute Halloween design "Out Flying".  Because my finances were in short supply I decided to forgo her new design booklet "Mermaid Booklet".  I shed a tear as I vowed in one month to purchase it so we would never have to part again... 

I can't wait to start a new project but I will contain myself even though I want to stitch Gertie and Jane for my necessary room...no dearest ones, girlish girls have no bathrooms, only necessary rooms.  Just like girlish girls do not sweat, they glisten.

I indeed have been making progress on Princess Wiggle Wiggle's birth sampler.  I have to finish her name and then the crown at the top and the right blue bird and I can start on something else.  This one has the 2 different colors of green hand-dyed floss.  At first I was not happy and swore I could tell a huge difference but as the rest is stitched it isn't noticeable.  I won't tell you which part of the vine is with a different brand but let me know what you think.

 

My next UFO to tackle will be the above design.  It really is darling, a French designer.  This is being stitched on Color Bloom 32count in Enchanted Night.  It is cute and look forward to getting started on a "Sea" design.

And I have a weeks vacation coming up soon.  One of the things I would like to accomplish is making a slip cover for my love seat in the front room.  I found this denim fabric at the Thrift shop...11 yards of 60" width for $6.60!  I don't know if you see the pattern well in the photo but it is a throw cover with gathered corners.  I want to make a throw but then make cushion covers so it will stay in place better.  If I have enough fabric I would like to make a padding for the arms too.  I will wash the fabric first to remove the starch and shrink it.  I am so excited about doing this and will definitely share the finished product with you.

Pears are ripe and for the picking!  I brought some home from work and the above pears came from Brother 1's pear tree.  The Professor has commented on how sweet they are.  I may pare some up to freeze for pear bread or pear cobbler...yum!

 

Oh yes, I found a great Spanish rice recipe and my Prince loves it.  I put the recipe up on my other blog, The Lilac Thicket Cooks.  The link is up on the right.

 

The time has come for this girl to sign off.  I am going to fix me a bagel with some Nutella...yum!  May all your Thickets be blessed and your adventures delightful!



 

Time for an Underwear Finish Dance

I am just so excited, yes dear friends, there is a finish in the Lilac Thicket!  "I Love You", a UFO started over a year and a half ago was completed as I watched some programs I recorded!  My work of art is washed and pressed!  I even recalled seeing some fabric in my stash that is perfect to finish it with.  I am thinking a tuck pillow or a heart shaped stuffed door hanger...what do ya'll think?  Any suggestions?  I think I probably will work on finishing it next weekend.

So onto the Lizzie Kate piece and as I look at it I see it isn't a very big piece so only the crown and the right swirl with bird along with Princess Wiggle Wiggle's name remain.  There is one fly in the ointment. I chose different colors then the pattern called for. I didn't write the names down which isn't a problem because the skeins are in the bag, except that the green was a Six Strand Sweet hand-dyed. They are no longer in business and I used all but a length that is in the needle dangling from the fabric.  The floss tag is missing so I don't know what the name is.  That means trying to match it up with something else.  I suppose the worst that can happen is I have to pull the left green swirl out and start over with another color...rats!

Well if one finish is a roll, I am on a roll and I feel good about it.  I enjoyed stitching which is something that hasn't happened in a while.  Life is sweet within the Lilac Thicket this evening.  Time to embarrass my husband by doing an Underwear Finish Dance for the neighbors in my front room window!  I think the dance song will be..."hot stitcher, check it and see, her needle temp is 103"!

Waving at the neighbors!

No you haven't stumbled into the wrong place, I did a bit of a face lift to the Lilac Thicket.  I updated the room with some appropriately girlish wallpaper and changed the color scheme to a different shade of pink.

I had a rough week at work as I told you about in the last post and barely hung on like a parched wanderer finally finding the desert oasis until my weekend started at 3:30pm yesterday! 

Wednesday evening I came home to dinner and a lovely bunch of flowers.  Aren't they sweet?  I tell you I did pick the right man this time.  I wouldn't trade my Caribbean Prince for all the Reese's Peanut Butter Cups in the whole world!  Even when he gets his nasty dirty fingerprints all over my laptop! Now ladies, that is saying something!

Last Friday the Professor and I made our round at our favorite Thrift Shop.  He gets mad at me when I tell people how much I pay for our fabulous finds.  I guess he wants folks to think we buy full price or something.  I just get excited about the nice little things we get that make our lives a little more robust on our meager earnings.  I think it might inspire people to realize new is not sophisticated, you can have a nice home or wardrobe at a fraction of the bucks.

Each of these pieces of fabric are 2 yards a piece and they were each $1.20, which is 60¢ a yard.

This pair of pillowcases...$1.00!! I think they are lovely!

This doily....$1.00! It will go in our living room which is blue! I need to place it under my lovely vase of flowers!



At work we have the plants changed every 2 weeks and they then give them away in a raffle instead of throwing them out.  I won, I won!  These are the ones that I really wanted to win too! I felt like I won a million dollars!

 

And the doctor crabbed at me about drinking too much Diet Pepsi, can you imagine?  I was NOT happy with him at all!  Drink more water...can you spell "Y-U-C-K"! So my Crazy Cat Carol gave me one of those little drink flavoring packets and it was good!  So now I have a selection.  I don't really care for the Lime Margarita one, I love the Peach Ice Tea one.  $1.87 for the Great Value at Wal-Mart.  The Lipton brand was $2.83 and I had coupons which brought it down to 2.23.  Okay, I am still drinking Diet Pepsi but only one or two a day, the rest is the water!

Okay, don't faint but there is stitching going on here in the Lilac Thicket.  I picked a UFO which happens to be a free design whose designer I can't remember or find at the moment.  It is on Navy Blue 28ct Lugana with Crescent Colors floss in "Cupid".  I love the red.  I figure I should have it finished by the end of the weekend.

When I finish the "I Love You", I want to start on this Lizzie Kate design "Happily Ever After" for my g-g niece Princess Wiggle Wiggle.  Yes, I would like to finish it before she can legally drink liquor!  Let's see...a fast calculation is 18 years to finish it, it will be a tight schedule, but if I buckle down I think it is doable!

Yes I am waving good bye and I would like to leave you with a visual.  I need to get to the laundry mat and so I have been hand washing snickers and hanging them outside to dry.  I go to retrieve them from the patio 2 nights ago and the Professor startled me as I didn't know he followed me out, "What are you doing?"  With raised snickers I wave them to the north, then the east and finally the south, "I am giving the neighbors one final good look!".  One never knows what they will see as they look out their back window towards the Lilac Thicket.

God Bless!

Frump Week

I just wanted to post a little something as I am in the middle of "Frump Week" here in the Lilac Thicket.  I am hardly recognizable without the make up and cute hair accoutrement's.  I am just worn slick, it's probably the heat.

My dear Brother 2 and my dear Professor wired up my dragging air diverter on my car on Sunday.  A prim and proper girl should never let her parts hang out of her bottom for all the world to see, should she!

My dear sister and I did a good job of teaching our dear darling great great niece to play with her grapes at the dinner table, by popping one in our mouth and holding it with our lips so it is sticking half way out of one's mouth.  It was grand fun and it aggravated the elders at the table.  My sister in law told us we were going to choke to death and it wasn't fun to grab a child hang it upside down and beat the crap out of it to dislodge the food that was causing the choking.  That inspired me...

The next time I see a bratty child in Wal-Mart I will grab them, hang them up side down and beat the crap out of them..."Yes sir officer...he was choking...honest!"  Next time you hear from me I may be in jail.  Do they allow cute hair in jail?

Men in little white coats are stalking me....

And They're coming to take me away Ha Ha
They're coming to take me away ho ho he he ha ha
To the funny farm where life is beautiful all the time and I'll be happy to see those nice men in their clean white coats
They're coming to take me away Ha Ha
To the happy home with trees and flowers and chirping birds and basket weavers who sit and smile and twiddle thier thumbs and toes
They're coming to take me away Ha Ha Ha

OK, I am just going to say it...I have a hoarding, cluttered, creative mind.  Day and night I am making plans for things I want to create.  It's distracting and it's a sickness.  At work, I think about the clothing I want to sew and the elements like the ruffles, ribbons, buttons, beading, puffed sleeves, gathered waist and fancy threads.  In my dreams... I awake from a dream with positive wonder and the bizarre ideas I must remember.  When I look at the thrift shop I see inspiration everywhere, from flowers, to patterns on china, to jewelry, crocheted doilies and even the clothing other women are wearing.  To me the world is one huge idea catalog!  My home is littered with things I have purchased and forgotten.  When I rediscover them I think, what did I buy this for?  Or I buy something and store it away, only to buy it again!


Let's not even talk about the Internet and all of these wonderful bloggers who actually are creative and finish what they start!  Oh my gosh, my computer files are full of ideas I have borrowed and recipes that I would love to try!  What is the matter with me?  Give me something to stop this madness, this sickness, this terminal epidemic I am being tortured with!


So as an example of how cluttered my mind is, look at the above picture.  It is my old kitchen table that was moved to my happy room.  See the clutter, OK, it's some of my jewelry, I sit down there in the morning to get ready for work and fuss with my face (make-up) and futz around with what earrings and bracelets to wear.  Plus the Professor likes to stack crap on there that he deems mine that he finds on the sofa, dining room table or in the mail box.  We won't mention he has a lair filled with his crap behind the sofa table where I get to trip over it when I want to open or close the drapes, oh no, my stuff can't sit in the front room but his can...okay, that was a vent.  My table is cluttered and chaotic and is the perfect metaphor for my mind.

So this morning I straightened it all up and we can identify a couple of elements of my sickness. Buttons!  I love buttons!  The buttons in the above picture were rescued at the thrift shop.  They will go in my button box.  I love having cute hair, in fact at work if I don't have a cute element in my hair, I disappoint.  I made the above hair combs with net flowers from the wedding aisle at Hobby Lobby.  Now the pin...

Isn't it darling?  It is an angel made out of a spoon and clip on earrings.  Honestly, I bought these from someone, I don't remember who but I gave them as gifts and I forgot I had this until I found a box BEHIND my dresser!  Sickness!!!!!!!!!

Now the aforementioned cute hair sickness.   I love flowers and ribbons and such for my hair.  I have bought a few but they can be expensive so I have made many.  When I would come home from work they would be strewn about the Professor's pristine home cluttering up his decor of early American rat hole in the corner behind the sofa table....so I claimed a dog leash and hung it on the wall and clipped all my beautiful hair accessories to it. But to take this mental illness to a new level...

lovely plastic flower pin bought at the Thrift Shop was begging to be converted into hair bling!  Yes it's a bit heavier and gives me a headache but it is perfect in my hair and what girly girl wouldn't mind a headache, it's so little to pay for thrilling tresses to delight all!

Now here is a look at an ongoing compulsion.  My top that I want to design, well this morning I lined them all up the fabric I want to use on the back of the love seat.  I draped some rescued lace from the thrift shop on top of them. The fabric second from the left, the brownish rose colored fabric I want to be the semi fitting bodice.  The  rest in the picture above and below, I want to make a panel from each for the body of the blouse.

See the cream colored fabric with the little roses which is second from the right?  It's a bed sheet, I have two of them that were gleaned at the Thrift Shop for 2 dolla' each, they are full size!  Yes, inspiration everywhere my friends.  Let's not mention the yards and yards of lace I have from the Thrift Shop.  I want to take a different length of each and lay it down over where the panels meet on the body.  Yes, I do get closer every day to actually making this designer piece and maybe in 8 years I will actually have it finished!  I am sick, sick, sick!

Now for another example of madness, like you need to hear one as I am sure you all have the inkling of the level of my illness, is the dress I bought for 5 dolla at the Thrift Shop yesterday.  The fabric is sheer, the skirt is approximately 2 full yards.  The bodice has a cute pin tuck front.  I want to use the pin tuck front with the buttons to create a small hand bag.  The skirt I want to make a strapless top, with elastic casing at the bust and I think a ruffle, like a Goddess dress, but just a blouse!  I am shrieking here with the possibilities...someone stop me quick before I hurt myself!

See...even the objects on my desk are surprised at my lunacy!  God Bless and may all your obsessions be just as delicious as mine here in the folds of the Lilac Thicket.

Who 'dat?

It has been a long, hot and dry summer here in the Lilac Thicket.  I have been away from the blog for quite a while.  There is no one reason for my absence, other then life. 


The Professor did a wonderful thing a few weeks ago, he bought me beautiful flowers.  He had walked up to our Farmer's Market and brought home vegetables, homemade bread and a bunch of flowers that included gladiolas, Gerber daisies and a lovely stem of this lacy looking green fern.  I have the pictures now to enjoy as the flowers dried up.

The secluded Thickets all over are parched and brown.  Many trees are dropping their leaves and the farmer's crops are bad.  I found life in pictures of various flowers I have come across, like these knock out roses in Independence.

Our family has spent way too much time at our local hospital.  Brother 2 had his appendix rupture as the surgeon was removing them and then they couldn't stop his bleeding.  He ended going home for a couple of days and returning with a horrible huge abscess from tummy to back.  14 days in the hospital!  It was not fun for any of us, but he is going back to work on Monday.  Praise the Lord!

Mom ended up in the hospital this past Sunday when she couldn't breath.  She did the right thing by going to the emergency room.  She did the wrong thing by not calling any of us until the next morning.  She went home late on Monday with lots of medication to treat her severe bronchitis. 


On a lovely note she had the prettiest Hydrangea bush.  They were spectacularly colored blooms.

Last month down the street was a hibiscus bush with blooms as big as my face!  I had never seen those flowers with such huge blooms.  Of course I needed pictures.

This is a lovely bar stool that the Professor and I bought at the Thrift Shop for three dolla'!  I love it.


My schedule at work has changed and I am now off on Fridays and Saturdays so we miss the Monday half price sales.  That being said, the Thrift Shop is still my favorite place to haunt.

I fell in love with this lovely swing for sale up at my favorite HyVee.  Being a poor soul, I could only sit on it and ponder all the joy and peace I could enjoy resting in it at the Lilac Thicket.  It was gone the next day and I hoped someone had thoughtfully dropped it off at the Lilac Thicket, but alas...no!

I had mentioned in a post some months back that I had broke out the sewing machine.  I had made a really cute sun dress but it is too small and I became discouraged.  I have the dress hanging in the closet for the day when I lose enough weight to wear it.  I did start my inspiration book with a lovely pink blingy journal someone gave me.

I am filling it with swatches of some of the fabric in my stash and ideas of...

girlishly delicious elements and designs I like for my future creative endeavors.  I love ruffles and flowers!

Inspired by a t-shirt I saw being worn by a woman on television, I want to create my own blouse with fabric I have pulled in my own collection.  I envision a camisole style with a strip of one fabric around the bust and  then strips of different prints as the body.  I would like to overlay different lace pieces I have where the seams of the strips lay, down the entire seam.  I want a collar like this:

The tutorial is here: http://www.rufflesandstuff.com/2010/07/gardens-at-dusk-tank-tutorial.html

It has been too hot to do much cooking or baking.  Our little Thicket is only about 850 square feet so it quickly heats up.  It isn't too hot though to collect yummy sounding recipes.  I found a wonderful sale of locally grown zucchini which I shredded and froze for wonderful future bread.

I have been feeling super for the past couple of months.  I have lost some weight and I have been taking green coffee beans, just 2 with each meal and I have been losing weight even though I haven't changed what I eat.  The girls at work are doing this and some have lost and some haven't.  It was worth a try and it seems to be working for me.  I have a doctor appointment Monday so I will find out just how much I lost since March.

Mom gave me her tread mill.  I wanted it to walk, it really isn't like walking down the street, it is harder, I must be doing something wrong.


Well my dearest readers that is what is happening here, just simple life! Stay happy, Stay Blessed!  God Bless!