no monday HOW this week

Sorry!!!!!! Due to some big miscalculations on quantities of pieces, triangles that leaned right and not left or vice versa and the usual seams that are sewn wrong, pieces upside down etc, rippping, out, ripping out, I am WAY behind at completing a quilt top....................... will try to have 2 sets of new patterns for you next Monday......!! SORRY to all that are following along.  And an even bigger sorry to Keri who didn't get her quilt on time.

Hope you all had a fun Thanksgiving week.  I sewed pretty much non stop the last 10 days except for working my normal 40 and  a few hours of sleep per night.  I really enjoyed all the sewing even though I ended up having to cut  and sew more pieces, but I am so disappointed that I did not get it finished on time.     I did not do any sewing satuday evening or sunday evening..........we had Turkey Day on Sat pm and I took my GD#1 and her friend who had never been before the the ice arena to go skating Sunday PM, as a reward for vastly improving her grades.........my ankle is screamimg today (broke it in 3 places 30+ years ago).  I should not spend 3 hours on the ice the first time each season. I am old, I need to build up those muscles again, slowly, lol!  Back sewing machine and quilt top tonight.  It will be done this week!!!!  
Want to hear about one of usual "funny/klutzy" things I did since I blogged last??.......... I got ready for work last monday, let my daughter's cold-natured dog out since it was SUPPOSED to be warm all day, leaving the house with wet hair, rolled the window down, decided to open the sunroof (something I very rarely open) while I was driving to work to dry my hair faster.....it was about 70 degrees....I went to work in my window-less office for a couple of hours when I heard a funny noise.................could it be .................listening harder................yes it might be....................oh dear......it is.........beginning to RAIN...........crap, Amanda's poor dog is out in the rain ...............................   well it's pretty close to lunch, he won't die he'll just be wet and miserable for an hour or two.........so ............back to the paper work...........la da da dah working away.........thinking while I'm working Geez, now it's raining/POURING  hard, Jake(dog) is going to be mad oh, he'll be alright  (I eat lunch about 12:30)  and a little bit later the hard rain quit for the most part.  So at 12:30, I get up to go to lunch and go walk out to my car.  Temperature has changed and is cooler, as I was walking WAY out to the car (is a big lot) it began to sprinkle then all of a sudden rain........cold hard rain..........running to the car now I ran around the car and thought crap I left my window open, yanked the door open, jumped in and screamed AUUUUUUGGGHHHHHH,  as the water in the seats soaked my through jeans and back of my shirt quickly.................I LEFT THE SUNROOF OPEN TOO, the pouring rain streaming in....................... fortunately, I could still close the electric windows and sunroof window, SO, I not only went home to let the dog in, I had to change clothes completely and then went about soaking up the ponds, lakes and rivers in my jeep, good news....... the sticky coins in the cup holders aren't sticky anymore, and surprisingly enough the electric windows still work!!!!  For those of you who know me and the crap in my jeep well..........nothing in the piles of was ruined except for a 1.00 store coloring book as far as I can tell, although some things were quite wet.  LOL!!!!!
Am still laughing at that one.........remembered the dog but not the windows!!!  (you'd think one of the truck drivers that work here would have said something to me about rain and open windows.) 
Have about 3 weeks of blog posts to read through, not much computer time other than normal work.  Talk to you Monday if not before, got a lot of  sewing and ironing, then designing and stitching then maybe some blog reading to do between now and then.

Monday Mystery HOW #14 done

Okay, it was back to the drawing board. today(yesterday, Sunday)...........if you tried to make last week's template like I did Sunday afternoon , you found out that the shape you end up with is a straight sided cube, no pointy top & bottom not at all the shape I was going for. (glad I did it with paper first)  HOWever you can only use three of the 4 shapes (don't forget to allow the seam allowance if you decide to cut the 4th one off) and have a triangle shape similar to what I had in mind. but I wanted a 4 sided ornament, so I had to re-draw some of the lines.  And I still wanted birds, but decided some of you may want something else so I put poinsettias on one page and the birds on the other, so it's a 2-fer.

I am still not finished am going to add a tassel to the bottom, maybe with some beads.  Also am not happy about the lack of pointiness (spell check does not like that word, lol!) at the top and bottom next time will trim the interfacing to almost nothing at the top and bottom,  it was very bulky.  Also would like it more square, I may have overstuffed it, and it's fabric what can you say.  Here is what it looks like from the bottom, before I rinsed out the blue pen.. 

The top looks the same only the hanger sewn in the middle.  Here's what it looked like after stitching,

Solid blue are sewing lines dashed blue lines are cutting lines.  Now cut it like below before sewing points together leaving sides open for turning, notice they are not stitched either, you will do that after sewing side seam shut.

After you sew all the points to each other turn inside out and stuff.

Then whip or slip stitch shut, whichever you prefer. 

NOW do a small chain over the seam you just closed...........then bury the ends and clip.

Ta DAAAAA!!!! a neatly hidden seam! add a twisted cord hanger to top and a tassel to the bottom.

Here is the pattern for the birds

click here for the birdy PDF

Here is the one for poinsettias, put french knots in the middle.

click here for the poinsettia PDF

Sorry I've been so behind lately!!!  I'm pedaling as fast as I can but the bike seems to stay in low gear!!  Just so you know, there probably not be a HOW next Monday...........that gives me two weeks to get caught up, hahahahahahaha! Like that will happen this time of year. BUT you never know, sometimes things fall into place and I might have time for one???????????   Have fun playing with these. adapt, changes them whatever.........Cyndi

stuck on HOW, designs not flowing

An Elongated Hexagon x 4 or a 3-D ornament. I have what I want to do in mind just not what to put on it.  I really wanted the red bird in the pines on it but I already did that so now I am stuck.  I also have not had any time to work on it.  I've been mking hair accessories for GD#3 (2.5 yr old) since she and her cousin GD #2 (4 yr old) decided to play beauty shop Friday night..........complete with a haircut..........oh yes somewhere they found a pair of scissors........... here is Kylie's hair before...........with her long hair, she had her bangs pulled up in a top pony.  Her mom was trying to get them to out, they were almost long enough.

and here is after.......Anyone need a free 5 minute hair cut by a 4 yr old?  Check out Cami's new style,  it'll be awhile before she passes her state boards, lol!

notice Kylie's the lack of bangs.....will be a LONG time before these grow out

and the "layered cut"

and lack of symmetry, Poor Kylie, see the bald spot in front of her ear.  This picture was after Mandy (a friend) trimnmed the tails off the back to somewhat level it up to the sides.  So I've been making more flower clips, and hair bows like in a previous post, crocheting headbands and hats.  She is in a wedding in three weeks.......yikes!

   Back to the hexagon ornaments I wanted to do something scrolly, swirly or something like that in the peaks, but couldn't decide about the square part.  I know some are waiting very patiently but I am just putting the pattern out there...........keep in mind I only put this on paper.....................I have NOT tried to assemble this in fabric.......note: I decided after I did page one that I could lay them side by side and eliminate some seaming..............so if you want to experiment.........here they are first draft,, second draft is a 2 page PDF,  Also aftter sewing the diagonal seams shut was going to add a bit of stuffing to keep it full.  Then finish the last straight seam.  Note the two versions, I think you can choose to print page one or page two.  Use your own designs or choose some previous ones, like the red bird, lol!!  I hope you have fun............I promise there will be a completed ornament and pattern this coming monday Nov 15.  If you make any, send me pics or links to your blogs and I'll share them with everybody.  Sorry it's been a crazy weekend.

so have a good time if you want to play and creat your own otherwise wait till next monday!!  Cyndi

Monday HOW on a Tuesday

Sorry, I am WAAAAAY behind!!!!!!!!!!!

Not only am I late, this weeks' HOW's are not stitched either.................

So an extra one for my tardiness, really I just wanted to give you all three, lol!!! but I am sorry they are not stitched and that they are late.  Sock monkeys with ornaments, count them 3..........Stitch with a strand of dark brown and a strand of med/dark cream on the body parts, 2 strands med/dark cream for the lighter parts(hands, feet, tip of tail) and 2 strands red for his overall shorts.  I thought about using fabric fused with Steam-a-Seam Lite (or something similar) for the tree, star and glass ball.  Making loose strands of dangly beads for the balls on the tree.  If you want to do the applique and need "pieces/parts" to cut out, let me know.  I can deconstruct the directions and re-do.  I did these last minute this morning before work, I wasn't really thinking about the details so much, like providing the applique shapes.  I am so far behind I couldn't even get Monday HOW on Tuesday done until I had time to finish it at lunchtime............AUGHHHHHH!!  (is my Snoopy voice! and  @#^%&@$&^ from my  Woodstock voice!)  I think I need a couple of days off!! But a need a plan of attack so I don't waste any of it searching for what I need..... I need to make a list and sort through the piles of fabrics, thread, needles, patterns and pull out what I need for so my time off will be busy time not searching time.  I am a hoarder of fabrics, patterns and crafty supplies.  Lately ransacked storage boxes, sacks and unsorted piles of goodies have formed everywhere and I need to organize again, I have not created anything stitchy for over a week.  It's the Halloween hairbow's fault........ ;-o.

CLICK HERE FOR LINK TO GOOGLE DOCS FOR FREE PRINTABLE PDF OF HOW #13
  But read all the way to the bottom before you click there's there links to things at the bottom.  You may want to come back and click those.   GOOGLE DOCS has been a bugger lately and sometimes won't share.  So if you have problems, let me know and I'll email them to you tonight.  Pam..I will email you last week's tonight.......sorry about that.

Here's a sock monkey I put on a onesie several years ago, that onesie is now on a sock monkey.  ( I tea dyed the onesie so that it would be cream colored).  I also have this on a white tee and on a red tee for myself, only on the red tee I substituted blue jean overalls for the red.  Can't remember for sure what I did for his pompon on his hat, but I think I made it red but made my own 3-d fringe. 

 If you would like a free pattern for sock monkeys you can find it here.......................at Lenny Taylors - a copy of the original pattern for red heel sock monkeys and the directions. 

 If you need the socks they are Rockford red heel socks.  I buy them at our local Orschelns farm supply, but there are lots of places to get them.   People make them out of all kinds of socks though not just the red heel socks.  There are pattens for all sorts of animals too if you search around (free ones and books you can buy).

Here are some of the trick-or-treaters from my family, needless to say one ended up at the costume party, not trick or treating, but she had to have mom help with a sewing fix for the costume (she needed super dooper large shoulder pads added to her jacket, and they needed to be removable so that shoe could wear it to work in the normal way, lol!).

Cami as a purple ballerina and Makenna as a cowgirl since she found some girly cowboy boots at a bargain price!!  The pumpkins were rather sad, we carved them on Wednesday and it froze Friday morning, so they shrunk!

Cami again I couldn't get her to twirl, Makenna's second picture did not turn out she had her eyes closed. Sorry Makenna!
And look who was spotted in central Missouri  Saturday night, Lady Gaga.......

 You can't tell from this picture because she's slouched down, but at 5' 10" and with 3" heels I'm sure she towered over many a man at the party.  Her twin is only 5'7" and their older sis is 5'1".  I'm in the middle at 5' 2", their dad is 5'11" and their brother (the middle child, in age anyway) is 6' 4".  In real life she seemed to be all legs, hahahahaha!

Sarah as Lady Gaga. (she is my youngest daughter and loves Halloween).  She decorates her house and dresses up every year then goes somewhere.............no where to go ???????  Then she and her friends throw a Halloween party!!
This is last year.........................at the bar before the party.  The girls below are 28 and 25 in case you were wondering why I let my daughter go the the bar at a young age.

I think they were "The Judds" Sarah, as Naomi and her best friend Becky, as Winona.

The year before (election year) she went as Sarah Palin,  I couldn't find a picture of that. Imagine the girl on left in a dark suit and no-rim glasses like Ms. Palin.  That year I was supposed to partially de-stuff a LARGE stuffed moose as part of the her costume ( moose belonged to her nieces) and add "bloody guts" to it.  I did not "de-stuff".  I just used some off-white knee-hi hose lightly stuffed with small pieces of blue and red fleece and colored on them with a dark red marker here and there, then tacked them to the moose's stomach looking like guts hanging out.  Was kind of a cute gross not a yucky gross.  She was caught off guard the first couple of times at the party, when total strangers kept saying "Hi Sarah!" forgetting who she was in costume, lol!!!!  And the moose has been restored to it's former cuteness, no harm was done.  Although she warned the girls that it was possible it could have since you just never know what to expect you are at a partly drunk mixed political sides party during election year, the girls were okay with that.......they had many more stuffed animals to choose from!

Did you see my last post???? I WON a GO! cutter from AccuQuilt, (thank you again AccuQuilt!!  I can't wait till it comes..........now I want to order some dies and there are SOOOO many I want.  ugh decisions, decisions!!) Anyway........

Maybe you aren't aware of this but they give one away EVERY Friday on FACEBOOK which is where I won mine.  So if you have a Facebook page, you need to become AccuQuilt's Fan on their Facebook page and join in the fun.  ............lately they've been posting the answers to the Facebook Fun Friday questions on their community forum so you have to sign up for that too.   AND they have other giveaways if you go to their web page and sign up for their e-mail.  LOTS GO!ing on at Accuquilt, GO! quickly!! GO! Grab your chances to win!

Have fun and enjoy until we talk again!!  Cyndi