What did you do today?

I've had a lovely, quiet day today with nothing to do but sew. It's been SO NICE!!! Sheila took Windflowers home this weekend to stitch on it (we're going to "tag team" it!) and I was left with nothing to do but make something for myself!!!! Heaven forbid!!! I decided to make a stitchery for the new house... kind of my version of a "champagne bottle" christening! I got a readymade frame and glued mother of pearl buttons all over it. I added silver lined beads in all the glue-y voids between the buttons. They'll tarnish quickly and will turn kind of gray...pretty! The picture shows them above but the glue isn't dry yet so I wasn't able to turn it upside down & knock off excess beads. I'll do it tomorrow.

The bottom is randomly pieced and the band above the piecing is going to have a saying made with letters/words cut from old books (don't worry... they'll be color copies!) that will say "This house was built with a needle and thread" (Because it WAS! But that's a story for another day!)I'm going to thread an old needle with floss and sew it to the band somewhere. I haven't sewn on the rickrack and old lace pieces yet. I'm going to wait until the top portion has been embroidered so that I don't scrunch it up with my hoop. I'm thinking of attaching the wide lace though and stitching right over it. I'm going to do branches coming up around the square in the center and sew wool leaves to them & maybe a few buttons.

The square in the center will have a frame appliqued around it.... think I'll applique something in the two full squares in the bottom pieced area too.... we'll see. I'm going to draw a little pen & ink sketch of my house to stick in the center of the square at the top of the lace. I scanned in the inside cover of an old piece of sheet music & I think I'll do the drawing on a copy of it... it's all water spotted and aged.... COOL!! I think I'll do a couple of little dresden plates to put up in the top outer area too, kind of layered with the embroidery & lace. I'm going to try to do the handwork tonight... I'll show you what I've come up with tomorrow!

Oh! Brenda wanted to know what to hang with painted clothespins! Well.... just about anything that you can get them around! I hang ornaments, copies of old postcards, old linens for curtains, use them as paper clips, clip cards, letters & photos to an old gate here in the studio...... the ends of garlands........tags to presents.........OH!!!! I should show you how to make little candle holders for the tree!!!! (not lit of course! HA!!) A couple of years ago I scanned in tons of old family photos & used my photo program to make them black & white (they were mostly in color) and then printed them off in sepia tones. I used scalloped scissors to cut edges around them like old photos and clipped them to the tree.... TONS of them... tried to find every old Christmas or snow picture I could. It turned out really, well... I'd get teary eyed every time I looked at it! Of course..... that's coming from someone who gets all choked up when they start running those coffee commercials where the son comes home & surprises his mom... or those new crescent roll ads where all they do is click their heels together and you just know it means "there's no place like home"..... Ooooooooh..... here I go! Can't see the screen because that's all it takes to get me going!!!! See you tomorrow! xox Meg