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.

what i did on my summer vacation and beyond

This is going to be a long post so fair warning.

i havent been sewing much but I have been busy.

 I now have pictures to go with the synopsis of last month.

I "fixed" the march block, I wasn't pleased with the big blank spot in the green on the bottom. I thought (at the time) it looked too bright so I added, what turned out to be a very fat hedgehog.                          Now, I'm not terribly pleased with the result but have it on good authority (Helen Thorkleson, I'm throwing you under the bus here) that he's adorable.                 Note to self #542.67 sew critters on a separate piece of felt then sew down.          I also added some greenish lace to extend the color upwards as it needed to travel a little. it doesn't look like it's stuck in that spot anymore and lets your eye travel into the block more.

 Here Is my lovely Dear daughter #2 with my mother both look rather pleased with themselves.
and no wonder Mara graduated with honors (one of them Presidential!)
and mom behaved herself even though  she had to endure an entire roman catholic church ceremony for the graduation sans commentary.

we are not religious and neither is my x husband but for whatever reason he felt it necessary to send DD#2 to a catholic all girls HS. I have pointed out a better use of that money would have been college but what are you going to do?
here we are at mom's house out front
before making the trip back to Seattle

my new "helpers" this is Violet. we decided to name her this, after the theory of black body radiation only being seen in the ultra-violet. As she is completely black this seemed appropriate

And here is Molly, her momma. Nothing special with he name its the one she came home with and she seems to like it just fine

old window

new window

 have I mentioned just how much I love my new windows?




 It's so lovely to be able to see clearly what is outside and not just a smeary blur




  also had to get busy with the garden as I missed most of my usual planting window in may.





 then there was buying a rental property  and getting that ready  for inhabitants




I also had another Witchy-Poo hat up my sleeve





 I still need to put it together but the hard part is done



the brim





 and the top



and since I was doing another hat





I could make a few more casket tops too




I still have to put those together too


 but I'm on it!

 sort of




christmas is right around the corner................

whats old is new

I call this block whats old is new, the reason for the name is this,

the bird on red silk is a part of the first (?) OK second)
cq block i ever made, as is the bit of stripey green and lavender under (in this case next to) it.

I had long ago chopped away at pieces of this block because it was not designed very well to begin with
but I couldn't get rid of that bird or the strip below it.
That part, at least looked like it belonged together.

and after almost 20 years of being shuffled from place to place being neglected and abused i finally figured out what to do with it.

make it into a whole new block! of course, duh!

anyway it's the perfect showcase for my fiddly fumbly beginning cq to my now cq. also the ribbon showed up one day in a package from my mom that was perfect for framing the seams.

so by now your wondering about the rest of this block.

SO! all along the top left hand side is a dragonfly out of dagger beads and bugles,

seam 1 a zigzag feather stitch with black lentils and lazy daisies and seam 2 a double herringbone with glass flower beads.

in the left bottom corner a red felt mushroom with a gnome peaking out from behind it.
to balance all that orange
I made a daisy chain curly-q in the upper right hand corner, added a few purple flower beads and a blue bird to balance the big blue patch at the bottom right
where I stuck a pink(ish) lace flower motif that I dyed myself and art deco-y looking satin stitched swirls and more lentils.
 whew!
now that I look at it I need to practice satin stitch more, those swirls are lumpy!

so anyway, old and new.

Happy mothers day!

To my Mom, who raised me as best she could all by herself.

thank you momma for teaching me there is more out there to learn every day and better things to do than sit at home.

Happy mothers day!

home again, home again, jiggity, jigg, jigg

so after 2 weeks in chicago, all the running around and planning before hand the running around visiting in indiana

and what-not while there, oh yeah and the getting married.
I got home to a cat who isn't at all happy to see me.
poor neglected baby!

Pictures are forthcoming and there is a vid one of my uncles shot on you tube here and here

now on to the thankyous and unpacking

I am feeling supremely unmotivated to do anything but sleep

secret revealed

See, I told you I had a good reason to be ignoring my cq!

I promise to have some pictures later.

and yes I know there is an extra l in celebrate! I didn't catch it when I ordered them.
and if you saw what kind of spelling mistakes I usually have, you be impressed that that's the only one that got by me! ha!

I am getting some champaign now......cheers!

heritage update - chicago

  It's still not done yet, it needs more.....stuff

so far I have favorite music halls and venues and restaurants. some of which are long gone now or closed and decaying ( shame-shame!_)

a map of the el lines.  I so miss the CTA!

Never thought I'd hear myself saying that!

Seattle could take a lessen or 30 from the CTA

I have part of the skyline and if you know who those two shady characters are, there's an APB out on them!

the harbor lighthouse, the only one in america with a red light.


our beloved (or not) 3000's

and this saucy girl!
she represents a few things for me,
1st shes an iconic chicago poster,
2nd she sort of represents the playboy club where my mom worked as a young and callow yout

but as you can see it needs more.

chicago is known as Urbs in Horto (City in a Garden) or more accurately, city of a thousand hidden gardens. there everywhere you just have to know where to look.
take an el ride for fun on the red, brown or green lines and you'll see what I mean. those lines are some of the oldest in the city and run down most alleys.
if you look down, you can see into peoples back yards and they have some of the best garden views!
So I need more flowers...everywhere stuck inbetween places you normally wouldn't look for them to be.

and seamtreatments I haven't done any yet and the block looks naked without them.
but I must think carefully about what, don't want to overwhelm the block either, hmm...