Final Notes

After my purchases of the past two days, it appears that I am looking forward to another artful year in 2008.

C, Barker and I walked over to Utrecht, one of my favorite art eye candy stores, yesterday afternoon. We all love going there for various reasons: it is a pleasant walk down fashionable Peachtree Street; the clerks welcome Barker inside the store with open arms and lots of warm hugs and praise; and I get more help than I know what to do with while browsing the aisles.

Here are yesterdays' purchases:

I can't wait to go home and get busy playing with these little goodies!

This morning we purchased my Mom a cute little Jitterbug phone, so that she will be entering 2008 in style also.

Then we drove over to Virginia Highlands and stopped by what is now my all-time favorite knitting shop, Knitch:

The entrance is really cute, but unfortunately that young man decided to walk right in front of the metal sculpture as I was taking the picture. So, I googled Knitch and found Pixie Purls' blog, with these great pictures that she had taken of the shop entry.

(you can see inside shots of the shop if you go here)

I'm not allowing myself to purchase any more yarn until I complete my two present knitting projects, but I did purchase these two great books:

By then, our stomachs were telling us it was lunch time, so we stopped by this barbecue "joint":

C loves barbecue and considers himself pretty much an afficionado, and Fox Bros. is one place we hadn't had time to try out before today. I thought these two signs on the smoker were pretty clever:

Here was my lunch: shredded pork, onion rings and cole slaw:

YUMMMMM!

C enjoyed the beef brisket, collards, and pinto beans. I had a sampling of each, and liked them all too.

Last but not least, I must show you the book that my dear friend Bobbie gave me for Christmas. I am so excited about it:

When my buddy Diane became one of the premier subscribers to Cloth, Paper Scissors, I said, "No, I don't want another distraction"...........but I was wrong! Imagine that!!!! I LOVE each issue (and am now ordering the back issues!), and have become a huge Claudine Hellmuth fan.....so I adore the book! Thanks Bobbie, and thanks Diane, for leading me further into the wonderful field of art!

Hope you all have or have had a happy and safe New Years' Eve. We are staying in tonight and enjoying some light munchies, perhaps taking in a dvd, and getting to bed at a reasonable hour. I suppose that translates as being old...........and we are that!

PEACE

p.s. My friend Sheila has posted even more about our Boxing Day festivities, so if you want to see some really disgusting pics of moi, go here! But I'm warning you in advance, it won't be pretty!!

Boxing Day, Part Deux

I think there were over 50 pictures snapped last evening at our little Boxing Day celebration. I'm going to bore you with just a few more now, and then tomorrow we'll be on to fresh material.

Here are two very handsome guys: Bill and my son-in-law Dave:

And here's another handsome guy: Scott, and his lovely Goddaughter (who just happens to be my daughter):

More grazing over the groaning board:

My buddy Sue and our other buddy Durwood:

Thanks everyone for being such good sports........both those of you who attended and those of you who are viewers. It was a fun, fun party!

PEACE

Boxing Day...a bit late

Our "Boxing Day Do" was a lot of fun! I guess the perfect combination has a lot to do with good friends and good food....and maybe a bit of good wine. Folks began drifting in at about 3:30, and the last to leave departed at about 10:00. I'm not much of a party person, but I thoroughly enjoyed this bash...thanks to all of our good friends who helped to make it happen!

Barker was making the rounds early:



I left my camera out and it seems that several folks picked it up and snappped some pics! I'm delighted as I was a bit busy at first.


Here's Bobbie, in my little old kitchen, helping me out by assembling the salmon hor d'oeuvres:




C and his cousin Heather, discussing discussing politics or the price of oil these days:




Phew, we finally got dinner on the table....these folks thought I'd never get my act together! (Isn't Heather cute in her Froilicmeister hat!!!)

Folks just chillin:

There are two MARVELOUS dessert bakers in our crowd, and I am not shy about asking them to bring along a few of their delights:

I'm not sure that Bill and Bob were buying whatever it was that I was sellin':

We put Barker and Marley out on the patio while we were eating....needless to say, they both wanted IN in the worst way:

More chillin' after dinner:

I tacked the new kitchen plans up on the wall for everyone to inspect and add their comments...and then I turned my back on the plans:

Bill was demonstrating the proper technique to open a Christmas Cracker:

PEACE

Is it Saturday??????

I don't know about you, but these midweek holidays always throw me for a loop! But the calendar tells me it is Saturday December 29th 2007, so I will believe it and get on with life as I know it. And I guess I'd better get started, as we are having a few folks in later today as a post Boxing Day get together. We used to have family and a few friends over on Boxing Day because Christmas Day was just too hectic. Now, the celebration has become a moveable feast and much less formal. We invite a few friends and just enjoy one another's company over a few dishes and a bit of wine. Even I get to enjoy this kind of entertaining!

As I told you a week or so ago, our Wednesday night after dinner program at church had included some cooking and flower arranging. Yesterday was quite dismal and fairly rainy here, but late in the afternoon between the raindrops, I managed to go out and clip some foliage. We are blessed with some lovely greenery in our yard, and "reddery" too. I attempted to do as John had instructed in the flower arranging segment of the program, and I was quite impressed with my results:

Of course, the pic shows that the arrangement is a bit catty-wompus, but what did you expect from me? I surely did not want to disappoint you! HA!!! Anyway, I am fairly pleased and will not shy away from attempting this again sometime. The table runner is a beautiful linen and cotton one that my sister-in-law Molly gave me for Christmas. I do love it!

Remember all of the wonderful fabric and rusty relics that our friend Robin gave me a few weeks back? Well, I've been playing around with them in my spare time. Here is my first piece:

The light was not the best when I took the picture this morning, but you can get the general idea. I've been playing around with different photo transfer techniques and still haven't found the one that really suits me best. In this one, I've dyed a piece of organza with coffee, then ironed the organza to freezer paper and run it through my copier. The best part about this technique is that whenever the dyed organza gets warm, it smells like coffee!

Now I do need to go get my butt in gear as it is Saturday and guests will be arriving later in the day!!!

PEACE

One Gal's Trash

My friend Joani and her husband are building a lovely new home. I called her the other day to coordinate our gift exchange, and in the course of conversation she told me that she was in the middle of cleaning out her needlework. She said, "You wouldn't want any Perle Coton, would you?".............well, yeah, I would!! So, to make a long story short, I came home from church on Sunday morning to find this lovely box of goodies:

I collect chickens, so the chicken fabric is greatly appreciated. Next is some black linen fabric, and then under that is some leftover batting, which is perfect for little atcs.

Underneath the fabric I found all of these little baggies of silk embroidery floss:

Joani is a fabulous embroiderer and very neat...as you can see! I cannot imagine that she is giving up this part of her life, but she did ask me if she decided she needed something back, would I let her have it? Well, of course, darling!!!

Here we have more silk floss, Acid Mantle hand cream for those ugly winter cracks, beads, and wonderful Balger metallic fibers:

Spools of the smaller perle coton and more beads:

And more fabric, including Christmas stuff that I will make some of Kristin's table runners out of....perhaps even one for my dear friend Joani!!

So many of the fibers and fabrics that she gave me, were used in classes that we took together. We have been friends for over 25 years, our kids took gymnastics together before they were even in kindegarden for heaven's sakes! It was bittersweet to receive her box of goodies: the memories of good times together, but also the sadness that she is moving out of this part of her life that we shared. We're still very good friends....and I think she'll be calling me to borrow some of that linen and perle coton, what do you think?

Thank you all so very much!! I just happened to take a look at my counter last night after I had blogged, and saw that I was well over ther 10,000 mark! woohoo!!! You guys are the best!!!!

We've had a nice quiet day of puttering around the house. It's been cool and sort of overcast here. K called to say that D had taken Tucker back in to the Vet and many of his stitches had come out, so he had to be restitched. The Vet said that Tucker must remain quiet: no running, no jumping, etc. That is a mighty tough order for a puppy dog, so now he is on tranquilizers. My kids have had one traumatic year, and I am certainly hoping that 2008 will be better for them.

PEACE

Merry Christmas Part Deux

C gave me an awesome closeup lens for my digital camera for Christmas, so you must now indulge me a bit while I play around with it! I'm really excited about this new little piece of equipment.

Here is one of my handmade Christmas Cards for this year:

I carved a stamp using Picasso's wonderful Peace Dove as my guide, and then used fabric paints to stamp it on silk organza. I printed as many "peace" translations as I could find on card stock and then sewed the organza over the top. The edge of the organza is "finished" in gold luquitex. It was a lot of fun, and I learned a lot (repeating this process 100 times ought to help you learn something, right?) about stamping.

Can you guess what this is:

It is the tile on our livingroom floor. I love that tile and was pleased to see how the closeup lens worked on it.

Here is our darling grandpuppy Tucker in all his glory, Elizabethan collar, t-shirt and all:

And here is our other granddog, Marley, asleep in his bed with his newest toy resting securly under his head, so that neither Barker nor Tucker can snatch it away!

Here is Barker, one tired boy after an evening of frolics with his two nephews! One might also title this pic "And what big teeth you have GrandMa"!!

We spent a lovely day enjoying lively conversation and a sumptuous holiday feast of Standing Rib Roast, Yorkshire Pudding, Roasted Potatoes, Brussels Sprouts, and yummy Italian Cake with our dear friends Bobbie and her mother Jill, plus my mother. Now we are home resting up from all of the festivities!

MERRY CHRISTMAS

PEACE

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas 2007!

C, Barker and I last night at K & D's

D roasted a boneless leg of lamb for our main course and K had made a traditional Figgy Pudding for dessert....it was so good! MMMMMMMMMMM

PEACE

Holiday Festivities

Last week I received a phone call from a returning customer who wanted to order a jacket for her mother-in-law for Christmas. She knew precisely what she wanted, but I did not have a jacket in stock, so she tried to find a scarf that would suit on my website. There were two scarves that interested her, but she really wanted a jacket, because she had purchased one for herself earlier and just loves it. So I placed a rush order to Dharma and then dyed the jacket to her specifications, using the design elements (including Rayna's potato masher) and colors in the scarves that she liked as guidelines. The jacket will go out in the mail to her this morning and she will take it to her mother-in-law in Seattle next weekend. Here it is, appearing a bit more orange than in real life, due to the flash:

It was a very fun process for me: both figuring out exactly what she wanted and then doing the soy wax batiking and the dyeing. I can just loose myself in all of that for hours on end.

I snapped this picture in our diningroom yesterday:

It was our first sunny day since the window treatments were installed and we reaped their benefits: no sun in our eyes over lunch! woohoo!!! We can lower them just enough to block the sun and yet still take advantage of our view. Yes!!!

I served as Chalice Bearer at our home church in the morning, and then we left for Atlanta shortly after lunch, so as to enjoy the Christmas Lessons and Carols at the Cathedral of St. Philip. It was wonderful, as always.

Afterwards we headed down to K & D's for a bit of traditional Christmas cookie decorating. As you can see from the photo below, their puppy Tucker has some new garments:

Last week, while K was out running with "the boys", Tucker was attacked by two Pit Bulls, and K was bitten in her attempts to get her puppy out of the clutches of the PBs. Tucker had to have a bit of surgery to put his tummy back together, and he has two drains inserted right now. Poor little (well, not so little anymore) guy! Because of the bite that K received, the PB's are now quarantined.

When K was growing up, it was our tradition to make C's mother's Christmas cookies just before the big day. Apparently K really loves that tradition, so she invited us down to help decorate the ones that she and D had cut out on Saturday. Besides, I have the candy thermometer that is needed for making the icing! It's nice to see that K has taken over my former roll of "icer and bowl licker":

Hmmmmm, there seems to be an open bottle of wine in this picture....sure makes the decorating go a lot quicker than in the old days!

And here's poor little Tucker in his Elizabethan collar and t-shirt:

We went out for Mexican food at La Casita afterwards and drove by this funkily (is that a word?) decorated truck:

Thanks for dropping by. I am enjoying reading comments from so many new folks...I'm glad that you are delurking for the holidays!!! LOL I hope your lives are calm, your health is the best, and your holidays are merry!

PEACE