What is going on when I'm not busy sewing

Sun room cabinets

We just bought my MIL a trailer, in the 55+ park,

down the hill from us. As she has expressed a desire to nEver live through another Chicago winter!
Its a basic trailer nicely laid out with a sun room in the front, moving into the kitchen to the living room down a hall with, 2 bedrooms and a bath. A nice little cozy nest, for an 87+ year old lady, to putter in.
Close to shops/doctors and transit to get around or us to drive her and it puts her a mere mile away instead of the 2010, in case she needs us.

The trailer park is snuggled into a nice wooded space, with manicured walks between trailers and a waterfall! Very pretty and very clean. I've even met a few of the neighbors, in the process of cleaning up.  I think Mom will like it here.

*WARNING!* 

*RANT IN PROGRESS!*

Kitchen cleaning in progress

My youngest DD and I have spent the better part of 5 days cleaning the sucker out.

Bless her fuzzy little soul, for helping out with her step-grannies new place.

The husband/wife we bought the trailer from, seem to have never heard of the concept of cleaning under/around/behind things, or in fact to have ever moved anything TO clean.

DD#2 washing walls and a wood stove!

Not that they left much behind except a few things scattered in random drawers, which you would expect, the dirt on the walls, shelves and that old "cooked chicken" smell, in the fridge, which I didn't.
Owing to the assiduousness with which the wife sprayed fabreez EVERYWHERE.

I now understand why. *deep sigh*

How does one get rid of thAt smell?
That smelly, smell. That smells,.........smelly.

ugh. 

View from the hall

Though It took most of the day the Fridge is now clean and free of the crusted on dry "stuff" that was under/between the holders for the glass shelves. Yeccchhh!

Then there was the christmas wrapping paper and in one case, part of an old pick-nick cloth, with the fuzzy side elmers glued to the shelves!

The stovehood has been HOT GLUED o0! in places,
there is that expanding foamy stuff under both the kitchen and bathroom sinks

Oh! your taking the picture now? Really?

and the "new" shower surround has been repaired with caulk. o.0!

I expected a degree of deep cleaning was gong to be in order and a bit of things that need to be fixed, It is a 45 year old trailer after all.

But not having to scrub down the walls/ceiling of the cruft of years!

You know your in trouble, when the walls change color as you clean.
When the pine-sol your using makes runnels that are a different shade of grey from the one you are currently working on,  Eeeeew!

Did I mention they had 2 yappy dogs and a parakeet? No? Well they left us Something too in the way of a few feathers and enough dog hair,  dug so deep into the carpet and the rugs they left behind, to make another dog.

ThAnk goodness for the rug cleaner we got, years ago, to tackle the 20 year old carpeting in our own house!

Bedroom #1 small

I used 2 bottles of carpet cleaner on what amounts to 4 rooms of carpeting.
And I still have to vacuum one more time, to get rid of the dog balls left behind by the carpet cleaner.


This all amounts to what my Ex-hubbs used to call "Turkey-bird" engineering and has me muttering dire things under my breath.

All that being said, It's still a very nice trailer.

I would live in it.

Having had to clean a myriad of apartments in Chicago before moving into them this one was a 3. On a scale of, 1 being very clean to 5 being, OMG! fuck you people!

So all in al not too bad.

Sorry for the rant but I needed to vent,

Bedroom #2

or I'd explode all over someone who, probably won't deserve it.

This is when you start sizing up all the things you don't "get around to"at home and just how much does it bother you that you've never cleaned behind/around/under that?
I have come to the conclusion that other peoples dirt bothers me way more than mine

and Id rather sew.

And so it's christmas

hello all! and a happy holidays to you all!

I have decided this year, as I do almost every year, to forgo the mall crawl mind numbing sameness of the "traditional" shopping season and stay home making Christmas presents from parts bought at local businesses.

I hate this time of year, not for the reasons you think ( though there are those too!).

the rampant commercialism and ruining of this years thanksgiving peace, was the last straw in a growing list of grievances with the walmarts and targets of the world.

at this point I'd rather pay and extra dollar at my local store than go to any one of them for anything.




anyway, I put the tirade at the end of the post, for those who simply wish to enjoy the eyecandy without the vitriol.

 I have been working on these little beauties for a month now and have gotten it down to a science!

I can do 2 1/2 in a day if I put the radio on.

so far I have made 20 phew!

 obviously not all of them are here some have been sent off to their new homes.

I have also been working on and off on Uncle the Monks coat of arms. I am in, various shades of blue split-stitch hell, right now and will get pictures when there are any new developments because it looks the same as last time just more blue.

 the other projects I am currently ignoring in favor of the holidays are Skellie, my faerie project and the lace and pearls rr which we all decided to ignore for the holidays.

so you understand why I have been inordinately silent, there will be big news (for me anyway) in the new year, which I am currently obsessing over and will let you in on when it's all done.


and yes, here is the end of my aforementioned soapbox tirade.  I felt the need to unburden.


I'm not going to go on about corporate greed and their willing minions in congress, form the gist of this post I think you already know where I'm going and either agree or don't so I won't bore you here.

Except to say, I vehemently disagree with the way the season is being used, by all parties to fleece on of the hard earned and paltry scheckles we have left at the end of the year.
This includes the church, who lost my interest, with their treatment of the abused children and their adamant refusal to do the right thing in dealing with the priests.
then there's  congress who can't seem to get out of their own way to get anything done.
I didn't agree with the GOP before but at least they could get their jobs done.
Now it seems they revel in the fact that they don't do anything and are being paid quite well for it thankyou.
PTHHHH! if there is any justice in the Universe they will all be out on their collective hinies  in 2014 and 2016.

WTF??!    If any of us behaved that way at work we'd be fired tomorrow. why can't we apply the same metric to them? I could go on and have at length I will stop now.
grumble, grumble, fuss, fuss, fuss..............

what have I been doing?

well there's a story there.


 A little story.




I've been making purses.

 lots and lots of purses.

I've dubbed them Saddlebags.




 i road tested them on my 17 year old by making her a star wars themed purse.




she could put all her stuff in it

while she bopped around the city for the summer with friends.




 then it turned into a school bag that holds all the stuff that she doesn't want to get smooshed in her backpack.



 so it's been thrown around used as a pillow, sat on, thrown in the wash, dragged on the floor and generally beat up and tortured



 then she thought I would be able to sell them at the annual Christmas bazaar at school. so I set about making a few out of material I already had on hand.


 I made a promise to myself I was not going to buy more fabric for future projects I was never getting to, no matter how amazing the fabric was.


so I had a backlog of fabric to choose from




I sewed and sewed and eventually ended up with 35 fun and unique bags to sell at the bazaar.




I also took some of my cq stuff. I got lots of compliments and questions about CQ which are nice





I didn't sell any thing.






so now I have lots of Christmas presents and new items up in the ETSY store

and a rather cynical view of bazaars.

My Dear BF and a critter update

it was my dear BF's birthday lat week.
he hates it when I make a big fuss over it.
but it his BIRTHDAY I can't not make a fuss!
so this year I toned it down just a little.
I made him Tacos for dinner
and a german chocolate cake with lots of
coconut filling, heavy on the chocolate.

and I made him a present.
nothing big just a little thing to let him know, I'm glad he was born.
cause that's why we celebrate birthdays yes?


I used a batch of transistors that were lying around after a motherboard project of his and fiddled with them, added the heart key hole and placed it in a small shadow box.

then took some Fimo and made a heart box out of it  stamped it woth swirlies a clock face and some meaningful words and baked it as per instructions

added a fan motor a resist indicator and more transistors on the heart bead and glued it all on with E-6000 (I love that stuff!) there are pictures inside of us then and now, but they don't photograph well so I didn't include them here.

the heart fits inside the box and the box is small enough it fits inside your (his) pocket.
like I said just a little something.


the critter has made off with one of the candles off the candelabra in the organ room, this time I can't find it.
Hmmm. I think it's time to go nuclear on it's fuzzy butt!

sketchbook cover

I am starting on a new project today, having noticed my sketchbook is falling apart and I don't wasn't it to, I am making myself a cover for it.
most of the pattern comes from Cassie Barden's book "The New Handmade" I say most because I can never follow a pattern with out adding my own little flourishes or it's a short attention span I haven't decided which.

anyway I am at the stitching over the top stage .

In all this I have also decided to rearrange and refold my fabric stash, so there is a lot of unfolding ironing and refolding to do.
It also gets me in tune with what I have and how best to use it.

I'm trying not to buy any more fabric but I'm never quite as successful at resisting as I want to be.
I have, however, kept it to a minimum of 5-6 fat quartes at a time. god help me if there's a sale ;)!