New Old Sewing Machine

I am ready to go now. I am so excited, my Mother-in-law gave me her old Singer sewing machine. They are such workhorses. Weather has been wonderful and it is supposed to be cool the next few days so I am looking forward to staying in and sewing. Until then...

















I have signed up for "The Great Big Stitched Postcard Swap being done by Beth Nicholls on her blog at aspecialjourneyofmyown.blogspot.com. I have my idea in my head and I hope to set at my new old sewing machine tomorrow and sew. I will add a picture when I am done. Come see.

Getting ready for Winter

It has been a while since I wrote but I have been settling in for the winter months here. Fall weather has set in and the evenings have been wonderful. I know this sounds crazy but my husband and I were wishing for a rainy weekend to set around the house. Hasn't happened yet but I know it will soon enough. Our old bed has gotten a new paint job probably for the last time and it looks so nice and clean. This bed my husband built for me before we were married some 30 years ago. The corner posts are made from cyclone fence posts and he made the rest himself. It is so heavy I can't move it so where it is set up it stays. I have a trip to make this week but when I get back I am going to make new curtains (using old quilts) for the bedroom too. I have my idea in my head I just hope I can make it work and it looks ok.

I am working on setting up my sewing room. Shelves, tack board, thread holder, ribbon holder, etc. I want to make it as organized as I can to help me put all my "stuff" out in front of me for inspiration and ease for projects to come. I know it is a "job in progress" to get it just right and I am looking forward to that too. I love organizing.

Soon it will be bird hunting season and the kids will be here on the weekends so I will be cooking and cleaning but laughing and loving every minute of it. Warm homemade bread, pots of soup, chili, chicken and dumplings, yummmm. And then the holidays...so looking forward to them this year.

New life adventure to begin!

Almost Home Texas again...with lots of things running around in my head. At long last, plans that we have been making for retirement are going to be put into action. Time to organize, sort, hang, and get ready for my pursuit of happiness in my art projects. I have been reading the latest Where Women Create magazine looking for jumping off points for my work stations and everything I have seen is swimming in my head so i have decided to start a list of items/projects/dreams to work from or inspire for to stay on track and what better place to wish from then my blog. Any ideas you want to share I would love to hear them and hopefully I will be able to keep you up to date over the next year with pictures too.

...sewing space in ks house
...paint/paper space in ks house
...jewelry space in ks house
...take Lexy for a walk everyday I can
...join a photo group and enter a photo challenge this winter
...finish at least 1 quilt I have already started by next spring
...recipe book for my niece
...1 photo book organized and ordered a month
...make Christmas gifts for my freinds and family this year
...make my Christmas cards this year and actually mail them this year too
...make a ribbon holder
...make a thread holder
...have an artist date with my husband each week
...visit every junk/thrift store near our home in ks that we can manage
...reconnect our love of exploring every nook and cranny of a junk store
...lace, lace, lace, make a lace book
...quilt, quilt, quilt

Bare with me here...it is a wish list

...inspiration board for my sewing space in ks
...paint and wallpaper (large floral) in my jewelry space in ks
...button embroidery picture
...work on repairs to my grandmother's crazy quilt
...scarfs from sewn flowers, felted pinwheels, old hankies
...need more old jars for sewing notions
...quote a week to a friend
...more, more, more vintage material
...list old papers and pics on easy
...stamp/paint buttons
...be more free with my color!
...material bib necklace for my girls
...skirts,skirts, skirts
...1 assemblage piece this winter
...hang all my pics
...use an old window to frame pics in a group
...1 set of earrings and a necklace made from my metalsmithing class
...black background/silver and gold leaf paper drawing
...make chandelier for my painting space in kc
...license plate(s) pic
...mud boots for ks
..........ok I quit for today. I will be dreaming about all these things tonight!

I have a lot to do in the next month to get me ready to go back to KS for hunting season, pack, prepare for sale on etsy, clean my house in TX. I have been looking forward to this for so long I am so excited but it is going to be some work and fun to get both my houses ready so that I my things in both places as I travel back and forth. Wish me luck!!!

Talk to you all soon.

...
mt

Brooklyn Library Sketchbook Project

Hello everyone from Kansas. We have been at our home in Kansas for the last month so I have been busy with some of my projects. It has been hot outside but it has kept me inside busy setting up a new sewing room for myself getting ready for wintertime. I hope to be able to maybe finish a quilt this winter that I started years ago.

But I really wanted to tell you about the Brooklyn Library Sketchbook Project I heard about from another blogger. It is so neat!!! You receive a blank sketchbook from the library and send back a full sketchbook that you have made and it becomes a part of the library's catalog of books. They will tour the books before they return to the library to remain so that anyone can check them out. Such a neat thing to be a part of...check out their website and all about it from the button on the right side.

Talk to you soon.

Gathered and Sown

Dear Friends, Just a little post to introduce you to my beautiful niece's (and her friend)etsy shop called Gathered and Sown. It is a shop of fun bags and other accessories that are hand made and wonderfully done. I have one myself and I get so many compliments. Please check it out. More soon!

Buzy Summer

Hello Everyone,

It has been a long time and I have so much to tell you. So have a seat and stay a while. Well first the e-course I took from Kelly Rae Roberts on making a creative business is over and I am still soaking up all the information she shared in her course. I would love to think that I can keep up with her standards and I am going to work hard to accomplish my goals, share my thoughts honestly with others, be more open to the wonderful artist community out there, and start my Esty Shop. I have a list a mile long but it is a good list and I am looking forward to it. Starting with making my blog an enjoyable space for others to visit. As Kelly Rae would say, come in to my kitchen and set awhile. I have always lived in the country and have never had close neighbors so I am looking forward to having good fiends stop by and chat for a while. Be sure to leave me your side of the conversation so we can get to know each other. I will put on some tea and we will have a nice visit, so stop often. I love company!

My daughter and I took our first vacation together since she has grown into a wonderful Mother and Woman. We had a blast! We drove from Kansas across beautiful Colorada into Utah. We talked and sang and laughed for 2 days. And then the fun started again when we made it to The Art Nest Retreat put on by Julie Collings and Candice Elton. They are the best! If you ever have a chance to go to one of their retreats I would highly recommend it. The whole experience is so nuturing. They cook and cuddle you the whole time. And this time we were high in the mountains of Utah in a beautiful log home and we had special visitors, a momma moose and her 2 babies. It was beautiful. I will have pictures to share when I learn how to add pictures to my posts. I had visited a previous retreat they did and I wanted my daughter to know the same experience in her life.

Ruth Rae, an awesome altered mix media fabric designer, showed us her way with fabric legacy books. She is amazing. My daughter had not sit at a sewing machine since she was in the 6th grade and she fell in love all over again. It was so neat to watch her have so much fun sewing again. And Stephanie Lee, found object jewelery designer, found her way into our hearts with a simple but really cool book cover that is never ending. The book covers (front and back) are tied together with ribbon so your pages can be added as you want. I loved that idea because I never have all my stuff together at once anyway. And she also spent time with us about journaling. I had always wanted to write or journal but always had an excuse to start. She gave us nice hints to help us get started on our own. My Mother wrote a journal for over 12 years and I take them out once in a while and read through a few pages. She is gone now but it helps me feel like she is still very close to me. We had a wonderful time in our week of travel and it was nice to get closer to my daughter again.

Now that my traveling is over for the summer and it is so hot in Texas that all my work outside is done in the first hour in the morning, I am taking a box of family momentos each day and sorting through years of living with my Grandfather and Grandmother, and Uncle, and my Mother that has been gone for over 24 years now. Being the only girl with 3 brothers, I seem to have gathered the family treasures to deal with. I don't really mind, it is fun and sometimes sad to go through their lives in boxes. But it is also amazing how much I have learned about them too. These are the items I mentioned in my earlier post about sharing items with others. I will be posting soon about my Esty Shop.

I am addicted to art magazines, I admit it. I can look, look, look, wish, wish, and wish...but I talk about making art but I can make more excuses than art it seems. So...I am giving my self a challenge to take a magazine and start from the beginning and do each project that is showed in that magazine. Mixed Media Artists are so giving of their art and I want to show my appreciation to them by using what they have shared so graciously. So I will be sharing pictures with you as I finish a project.

Which brings up another subject, pictures. I will be loading pictures to my flickr account this week too so that I can share my life through pictures with you too.

Well if I haven't run you off by now, I will say so long for a while but please come back soon. I will have lots to talk about always and hope you will too.

Have a good Monday.

Debbie

I'm so Excited!

May 30th I am beginning my first e-course done by Kelly Rae Roberts. The course is going to be full of information to make your business grow. I am looking toward retirement to be able to do what I want to do and I think I have what I am looking for. My husband and I have been in antiques for 20 years and I love the small things that get left in the bottom of the drawers when you clean out an old dresser or little treasures that you find in dresser bowls or in the bottom of boxes in your bottom drawer. You know, the little trinkets that a penny or nickel would buy with a piece of gum. All the little things in life that mean so much for the moment as they are held in your hand or put in your pocket and then washed. All the little things that we remember having but don't remember what happened to them. These are the things that I like to collect and I want to do something with them. I want to be able to share them with others. I have to because I can't do something with everything I have and I want them to have another life.

So I am hoping through this wonderful class that Kelley Rae is offering I can find a way to share my ideas and love of these little things.

This is going to be such a wonderful way to take a class. You can pick a quiet time to read and absorb the material and yet have plenty of time to ask questions and then read everyone else's questions too.

Class is still open but it starts May 30th so hurry if you are interested. Go to www.kellyraeroberts.com and look under e-courses. Kelly Rae is great!



And I am starting to gather and pack for The Art Nest in June. It will be here in no time. My daughter and I will be driving from Texas to Utah. I think the trip will be so fun too. I will take lots of pics to show everyone what we did.

Until another time...

Another Month is gone.

Here we are in May already. I am just about done with my job and will be fully retired soon...yea!!! I have a busy summer planned. Next month my daughter and I are going to Utah for the Art Retreat with Julie and Candice. I am so excited about taking a class with Ruth Rae and Stephanie Lee and working with my sewing machine again. I made all my daughter's clothes before she started school but that was almost 35 years ago. WOW! I can't believe it. Then I helped my girls sew when they were in Blue Birds and home economics classes in jr high school. Hand sewing has been my passion more than anything over the years. I love to quilt, embroidery, cross-stitch, anything with a needle and in my lap but I have also missed the machine. I have a feeling a new machine is in my future, ha. I hope to have pictures of the class when I get back to put on my site.

July we are on our way to travel the East Coast. I want to go to Maine and eat lobster, New York and see Niagra Falls and everywhere in between. So I will have lots of pictures to share with everyone when I get back.

It has been so nice to spend time in my home, cleaning, organizing, and going through lots of things I have collected along my pathway. I still have boxes from 5 years ago when I cleaned out my father's home to go through. But now I have all the time I want to do what I want. Enjoy whatever you are planning for your summer and please come back and see me. I want to tell you everything.

Happy Birthday to Me

Well, I'm not sure that this is my favorite birthday but getting close to 59 1/2 is one milestone I don't mind...retirement here I come. I am ready to play now. My husband, family, and art are going to be my full time job, in that order, from now on.

I am starting out with a trip to Utah with my daughter to the Art Nest in June. They treat you like a queen while you are there. I cannot believe that my daughter has an interest in art now. She was never interested in any of my "crafty things" until now and I am excited to take this trip with her. Then my husband and I are planning a trip to Nova Scotia this summer. This is part of the country I have always wanted to see.

I just had a wonderful visit with my cousin and her husband. I saw her for the first time last year and they came back again this year. We have just become so connected after all these years. Now we are planning a cruise together for next March. It is so nice to have family. Family is special!!

I have an easy day planned tomorrow for myself to paint and spend time with my favorite friend, Lexy, my black lab. She loves my company. Wishing everyone happy days until next time....

April already

I can't believe it is April already but it sure is nice to see Spring come at last. My brother and wife has been here for a nice visit and the weather has been perfect. We have been able to sit outside each evening on the patio with our wine and a snack. We went to The Oasis in Austin last night and it was a perfect night too, beautiful weather and Lake Travis was full, the boats were out, margaritas and food were great! Great time with family that are good friends too.

Thinking now of my list of "wanta do's" Now that the weather is nice I want to start my foundation mosaic, I have flowers to plant, I have my walkway to finish to my greenhouse, and I want to start painting my outbuildings. I will take pictures during my projects so that I am sure to keep it going.

I have 3 outbuildings to clean out and I want to get my cellar cleaned out so that I can paint down there this summer when it is hot outside but cool in the cellar. I am so excited about retiring and having time to do all the projects I want to work on.

So for tonight I can have good dreams about playing with my home again.

Good night to all and Happy Easter.