Rayen

It took another two weeks, but I finished embroidering another row of patchwork on the recycled linen quilt. I can never resist taking a pic of the back, as it's just as neat as the front of the quilt. I got stuck for a couple days on the center patchwork, and the feather-stitched circle I tried with the stitches changing direction with each new row. I felt as if I'd run out of ideas for the embroidery. Slow stitch is mindful, and once I stopped worrying and just let the serenity of the process calm me, new ideas started coming to me. To acknowledge the process I embroidered "Serenity is a state of mind" on the quilt. One more row of patchwork to embroider, and I'll be ready to bind the quilt.

My favorite person sent me this pic of the plein air painting she was doing down at the beach. Gorgeous.

First a quick update on Monday's calamities: We saved my drenched laptop, got a new dishwasher on sale (with free delivery, no less) and found a new compressor for our truck's a/c, which my guy can install himself because he is the greatest mechanic whoever lived. :) Onto my quilt flip: because this thrifted baby quilt is so cute and in such good shape I was tempted to use it just as a display piece, but I need it for something else I've wanted to make for a while (which will not require me to cut it up, either.) For the flip I needed to use just a king size pillow, and some big safety pins. I wrapped the baby quilt around the pillow, and pinned the edges together, tucking the safety pins inside to hold it in place. Now I have a custom-sized body pillow I can use when I nap on the couch. This will support my right arm, which is prone to bad bouts of elbow bursitis if I don't keep it elevated. Also, if I find a baby in need of a quilt, I can simply

On Monday I took a pic of this Chinese cookie fortune. I'd gotten it when we tried a new place for takeout (which was very good, just a bit pricey) and saved it because of the spelling mistake. Little did I know that it was the universe warning me that fifteen minutes later the calamity part would actually arrive, and my old theory that bad luck always comes in threes was proven right yet again. This is my laptop, or rather, this is my laptop after I took it apart to see if the glass of water I spilled on its keyboard that day soaked through to the battery. I flipped it over immediately, so only a couple drops got on the battery. My guy thinks if we let it dry out for 48 hours we might be able to save it. Two minutes after my guy and I finished taking apart my laptop to inspect and then set it up to dry out, I noticed that our nine-year-old dishwasher was still running -- four hours after I turned it on. The timer dial apparently stopped working, so we looked at gettin

Last month I decided to give diamond painting another go with the sunflower kit that came with my Goodwill thread lot. I wasn't thrilled about working with all that yellow in my face, but I thought since I'd only tried the craft once I should take another chance on it. This particular kit retails for over $15.00 new, too. It took about four days to complete the sunflower with the plastic diamonds, and I did work pretty slowly due to my stiff fingers. Since there weren't as many colors to deal with as was the case with the dragon I made the first time, it seemed a little easier. I also had a smaller area to cover than my first project. The only true annoyance this time was trying to keep the rolled canvas flat; I had to tape it down while I was working on it. Some of the beads have an irridescent coating that adds extra sparkle, which I thought was pretty. The yellow of the sunflower was mostly a cheddar shade that I don't mind so much. I found this

Summer is my favorite season, and as we enter the last weeks of it I'm usually a little sad. Fall is my least favorite time of the year, and leads into winter, which always ends up being holiday disasterfest in some form or another for me. This year, however, summer has been so filled with fun and joy I think it will carry me through the darker months. Life can be like a garden if you plant enough good ideas, love and kindness. A dear friend sent me some seeds last year, one of which grew into this delicious watermelon. I'll never forget the delight of seeing it grow, harvesting it, tasting it and sharing it with our neighbors. This is just one of the happy things that happened this summer. Taking off a week and a half to spend time with these two also made my summer bright. They filled my birthday with light. They fill me with light. I'm ready for whatever fall and winter bring now. :)

My $13.00 lot of thread was definitely worth what I paid for it; even used the thread alone is worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $100.00. The majority are polyester, but there are a few cotton, one viscose and a spool of invisible thread. Those nice Fiskar pinking shears retail for $44.99 new, and the Crayola thread pack runs around $6.99. Also, that little sunflower diamond art painting kit retails for $15.52 on Amazon (had no idea they were that expensive!) The vintage crochet hooks and metal bobbins are priceless, and went to the Notions Retirement Home, as just being able to preserve them is a treat for me. This one spool of Auifil retails for $6.99 new, which this one is. That seems insanely expensive to me but there you go. I'd put the value of the entire lot at somewhere around $250.00.

Today is supposedly the first day of fall, so it's time to get busy on my holiday projects. Although I'm finished thrifting fabric -- at least for a few years -- I needed some thread, which isn't getting any cheaper these days. What I was looking for was included in a seven pound craft lot that cost me $13.00 plus shipping. Let's unpack it and see what more I got. The original owner must have embroidered; there are two hoops, two small sharp scissors and a brand-new Crayola 24 skein thread pack. Some kits also came with the lot; a crewel that has already been started, a small beginner macrame (which I've never done) that is new, and a small diamond art kit. On the latter, I said I'd never do one again after that dragon I made, but if everything is in the kit I'll give it another go. The thread was perfect -- 77 clean, mostly full spools in white, black, blues, pastels and a few greens and reds. There were also some old fashioned metal bobbins

The third thrifted quilt kit I decided to work on last month was this crazy patchwork bundle. The pieced blocks looked fun (as did the fabric choices) but I didn't want to use everything for the project I had in mind. I put together the three blocks with some ivory strips, and then framed them with the strawberry and grape print to make a runner for my kitchen wall. For the backing I used a black/gray print that came in another fabric lot. I'm not much into black or dark fabrics these days, so I'm using them as backings. Here's the finished runner, hand-quilted with gold holographic Sulky, embroidered with a rainbow variegated cotton perle thread, and bound with a wide green binding leftover from another project.

I usually skip anything about psychological drama, as I've dealt with enough of that in real life. Actor Jing Boran playing the male lead in the Chinese romantic drama series Psychologist is who snagged my interest, as he's an interesting guy. He completely flips his persona in this long drama, and the female lead is equally as interesting to watch, but as for the rest . . . . we'll get to that, too. Here's the set up for the series: He Dun (Yang Zi), a psychologist with some major childhood trauma, loses her job as a crisis counselor and decides to start her own clinic. She meets up with Qian Kaiyi (Jing Boran), a broadcaster and former school classmate who wants to recruit her to work with him on a mental health radio show. He's fascinated by her, and doesn't know she had a secret crush on him in school (he also humiliated her back then, too.) Conflicts start popping up involving both clinic and radio show patients, a secretive new neighbor, He Dun&#

My computer stand is pretty small, so when I want to work on a paper copy of a manuscript I have to use a small folding table for it. My guy needed the one I had in my office for his projects, however, so I looked for a new one at the thrift stores, and found this slightly battered, dusty black beauty at Goodwill. One of the legs was slightly warped, and it had some dings on the top, but it seemed solid and stood steady. Also, it was only $3.99, which I thought was a good deal (new ones cost around $20.00.) My first task was to spray and wipe it down with some Lysol. It cleaned up nicely. I chose this thrifted quilt kit to use to make a pad for it. Using a Dresden fan patchwork design seemed like the way to go, too. The finished quilted pad and table. Ready for fall editing!

For my first quilt recycling project I decided to use this little doll quilt. It's about ten years old, made of scraps of different cotton, flannel and knit fabrics, and has no batting. It was also tied rather than quilted, which makes it easier to take apart. What I appreciated about this little piece was the softness of the fabrics, and the fact that they'd weathered plenty of use and laundering. My first task was to separate the quilt into its original components: top, backing, binding. I put the binding away for use in another project, discarded the old yarn ties, and grabbed two of those white cotton utility cloths that I'd washed to serve as my foundations. I pinned the top and backing with some scrap batting and the utility cloths, and grid-quilted both with an perle thread in an antique gold color. All the materials I'll be using in these projects are either thrifted, vintage or scrap. I used big stitches for the quilting, as I wanted a