Happy Mothers's Day

to all you mother's out there! To all the others I say HAPPY DAY!!!!

This is what I was surprised with from my oldest son yesterday! As I was making dessert this morning I noticed the card:  there was a spool of thread, flowers, buttons, and candy to the side of the writing…all my favorites!

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Tomorrow Lar and I will be taking out windows to be rebuilt. The center silhouette is supposed to be the founder of Williamsport.

 Hopefully I do not break it as my helper broke Jesus’ face on a church repair. (This was after the customer said “Please do not break Jesus.” I had to repaint a new face and told the customer I did. He said it was fine because you couldn’t even tell it was replaced.)

 

I have one OPAM so far for this month. A new wallet! Do you think I needed one?:

 

 

 
 
 
 
  

I don’t usually carry a purse or bag with me…go figure, I make them, just don’t carry them…

This little wallet fits great in my back pants pocket and  I don’t have to dig for it in a bag.

 

I am getting to sew more because I was not put on the schedule at work, even though others are. It seems the people they want to 'get rid' of were not scheduled for graduation week and I am one of those people. Do you think they are trying to tell me something? Little did I know of this saying until the beginning of my last month working: The squeaky wheel gets the grease. It is also the first to be replaced. Now they tell me, just because I asked for new pans so the omelets wouldn't stick, and complained about people not doing their job, etc. I will not find out until the end of May if I go back to work in Aug. so I might as well take advantage of the time off.

 

My friend asked me to alter her daughter’s prom dress. I had to take 5 inches in on the back to make it extra snug (the mother didn’t like this dress because it is strapless and is afraid it will fall down in front). I also had to take it up 5 inches.

 

 

I had to go to JoAnn’s to match the thread. I also needed a new silicon pressing cloth (I can not find my other 2). Because they were having a huge sale I just had to look around and saw the scissors were half price. I bought a pack of these months ago and really like them (for being cheap, $3.70 they work great!) so I picked up another pack.

 

Now back to my fable. The back fix was easy after I figured out to take both layers apart and remove the extra fabric. The hem was totally a full on pain! I found out I have a lot of practicing to do when it comes to rolled hems and the foot would only let me do a straight stitch. Because I wanted the same look as the original, I started to do a locking stitch. Well, my machine loved this fabric so much it would ‘eat’ it. I had to cut it out of my throat plate 2 times before I finally thought: stabilizer! Worked like a charm!



dissolving stabilizer

 


side stitching is original, top is hem



 

Thank goodness I did not have to alter Doodles’ dress, WHEW!!!:

 

This is one of my favorite desserts and was the one I was making when I spotted the card:

Fluffy Tapioca Cream

Mix:

3Tbls. Tapioca, 3 Tbls. Sugar, 2 cups milk, and 1 egg yolk in a medium saucepan. Let stand 5 minutes.

Beat:

1 egg white until foamy, gradually adding 3 Tbls. Sugar until soft peaks form.

Cook:

Milk mixture until it comes to a full boil.

Remove:

From heat quickly stirring into egg whites until well blended. 

Stir:

In 1 tsp. vanilla

Cool and enjoy.

This recipe is on the back of the ‘Kraft Minute Tapioca’ box.

 

Have a great week!

D.G. L

 

Amazing

 

how the chapters in our lives change.

It has been what seems like a long time since I posted. I will not try to bore you with all the things that I have been up to, hopefully just a semi quick recap.

Easter came and went. Was upset we didn’t get to go to church because Lar was sick and wasn’t having company to use this:



I finally closed the shop last Sunday and moved just a few things to the house:

Organ was there (haha)

Before I started shampooing the carpet at the shop (because I had to wait till 1:30 to pick up the shampooer) my friend and I went to see the ‘Dear Jane’s’ exhibit at the local Taber Museum in Williamsport. This group of women (one of which is a local designer Judith Youngman) started by getting together and quilting much like my BS group! I was able to get so much inspiration from these ladies. The cradle in the picture is dated 1850.

so we can do this one with the 'scraps'

Think we are starting with this one







 

Woolie



Minis

In cradle.

 

 

 

 



I like the red one at top.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So in order last weekend: I went to a quilt show, started shampooing carpet, got up Sun. and finished shampooing carpet, than last minute Lar wanted to go to an Indian artifact speech.

 

 

WHAT no sewing again?!?

 It was very uninteresting because the speaker could not give a comprehensive speech. The only saving grace to this time was afterward we got to go through the Montoursville Museum. I was pleasantly surprised by:

 

I was able to finish the 'Stars and Stripes' quilt that our BS group made ‘kits’ of at our 2011 fall quilt retreat. We went to Verna’s and bought all the fabric to piece the top for 6 ‘kits’. Came back to Mel’s and spent the rest of the day cutting and packaging. I think I am the third one to finish. I quilted this on my home machine and sewed 13 stars in the quilting. I didn't notice until it was finished that when I took a picture that I do not like that bottom piece of fabric. Next time I will try and look through my view finder before I sew it together to see if everything is where it is supposed to be.

Oh well, no one will notice it driving past my house looking in the window going 60mpg.

 

 

When I start my pineapple quilt I am thinking of sewing pineapples in the quilting. What do you all think?

Lar went to the spring Carlisle spring car show and came home with this toy:

See the little red and blue lighter thingy in the left top corner? It's a baby drone.

 

 

 

 

 

 



I have one more week of work before I am off for about 2 months. Since I have literally had no time to clean for a very long time I decided to start my house cleaning. I started with the ‘recipe’ cupboard which took 4 hours! (I didn’t expect that amount of time) I went through all the recipes I had ripped out of magazines, newspapers, hand scribbled ones from friends, etc. and looked at the dates. (Sorry no before picture, still ashamed of what the mess that came out of the cupboard looks like.) I had magazines that were not reopened since I got them from 2002! (Yes I did some cleaning since 2002) I sorted everything making piles of to recycle, to file, and to try.

All came out of cupboard, what a shame.
 
 

 

4 hours later!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I did try a ham and pasta recipe I found in the 'to try' pile which I altered a bit because Lar can’t eat garlic or onions:

To the cooked pasta (I used penne) I sautéed ham, tomatoes, peas, basil, lemon juice, and capers. It was so good I will definitely be making this again!

 

Are you tired of your bananas ripening before your ready to eat them? I was tired of freezing my bananas because they ripened so fast and saw this on www.somewhatsimple.com. ‘How to keep bananas fresh.’  I tried it and it does work. If you can’t eat a bunch of bananas when you buy them, break apart and wrap the ‘stem part’ with plastic wrap. The bananas stay longer!

Have a great week!

D.G. L

Happy Easter!

 

 

Wishing you all a Happy Blessed Easter!

D.G. L



Chicken Dinner!

Winner, Winner!

I won 2 fabulous prizes in the Grow Your Blog (which was so much fun.. you should consider doing it next year).
This was hosted by Vickie of  2Bags Full: http://vicki-2bagsfull.blogspot.com/

What a wonderful goodie holding caddy from Thearica@crazyquiltingsupplies.com.

And these will definitely come in handy from Nanette from Australia!

 

http://stitchandsow-homeandgarden.blogspot.com.  I was thrilled with this because I know how expensive fabric is from Australia. When I was there years ago I paid around $32.00 a yard!

 

So much has transpired since last posting.
I am still moving.

Notice the not so happy helpers getting a load together for the dump? It is a sin all I threw away. Word of warning: If you are starting a business or have one, do not get things with the thought of ‘someday I will use this to make that’…it never happened in my world and now I am either throwing or giving it away. Have you ever moved hundreds of pieces of glass????

 I went crazy and ordered some thread from Superior. They are discontinuing a thread line and the price was right so I got a few:

Later all I will have to do is move hundreds of spools of thread!!!

This also came in the mail.

 

What a surprise to see my son on the cover of a calendar! (He’s the one on the left.) I am so proud of him!

In between packing to move Lar wanted to go skiing so we went the last day of winter. I was glad he talked me into it because I did have fun.



I was also able to finish 3 table toppers/runners to keep up with my OPAM.

 

I started them last year as a ‘teach’ for our quilt guild. (Remember I had volunteered to be quilt show chair but resigned due to a few not wanting to have the show changed from the way they wanted it run….)

Anyway, I was teaching all 2 members the 'quilt as you go' technique so they could

1. Learn the technique and 2. Donate one project to be sold in our ‘Quilter’s Corner’.

I figure I would just keep these and use them or sell them. I am not donating anything!

This is just a few of the happenings since the last post. I am  still working on moving the studio into storage, still bidding on jobs being very selective as to what I am bidding on, and still working full time. This is leaving very little time to sew. Talk about stress!

Until next post have a great week!

D.G.L

 

Have the hiccups? Bite into a lemon slice or if you don’t have a lemon, drink a spoon of  ‘Real Lemon’ juice. Your hiccups will go away!

 

Do you hear...

what I hear??? Oh no not Christmas, it's close to Easter so it should be Alleluia!

Remember this?:

The lamp I received as a gift eons ago, the lamp that got broken through all the moves I made over those eons, is finished!!! (Again, do you hear???)

 

I also fixed the very first piece I made all by my self after taking the beginner stained glass class. I took the class to learn how to put above lamp together and became a 'glassaholic'!

 



 

 There were 2 broken leaves. Thankfully my sister-in-law didn't like doing stained glass and gave me all her glass 30+ years ago that I kept and I was able to match the original glass.

Notice the bumpy petal...it's upside down!

 

Also you can not tell but there is no glass around the flowers and leaves because I did not know how to fit them in....now I can fit 4 pieces of glass on a dime at one time!

 

Must tell you what Lar just had to do the other day..

The local frozen yogurt shop started carrying Lar's favorite brand of locally made ice cream and they were giving a free scoop to those who signed up on line. So we got in the car:

 

  

ordered at the shop:

 

 

 And no, they are not both mine - one is Lar's. In fact I gave him half of mine...I'm not real big on ice cream:

It was just too cold to enjoy it.

Hopefully I will be able to get some sewing done this week.
I started packing up the studio and have the guys coming next Sat. to help me move stuff to storage so I'm not sure how much sewing I will get to. I found so much junk while packing up!

 
Is it just me or did you already know something I learned this week??
Peppers are male and female!

  While I was chopping them this week, I checked it out and it seems true!

Have a great week.
D.G. L