Rayen

Our Meyer lemon tree, loaded with fruit. You might remember how sad I was last Christmas when I mentioned we'd lost our lemon, grapefruit and orange trees to citrus greening disease. My guy stopped watering and fertilizing them, and we faced the unhappy job of digging them up and burning them. Only we got busy and my guy kept putting it off, as he was hoping a treatment would be developed that we could use to try to save them. Our white grapefruit tree, also loaded with fruit. While we were busy, all the signs of citrus greening gradually disappeared. The trees thrived. The orange tree put out dozens of flowers for the first time in years. By the middle of summer all three trees had lots of fruit on them. Our Valencia orange tree, likewise loaded with tons of fruit (the most out of all three trees.) My guy did more research, and it's possible that what we thought was citrus greening was a reaction to him over-fertilizing and over-watering. It could also be an

Last month when I got out a pack of 5" squares I promised myself I could keep if I made something out of them this summer (I like to keep promises to myself) I spread out all the squares to have a look at the colors and prints. I realized right away they weren't exactly my cup of tea anymore; I've been gravitating toward solids and hand-dyed art cloth for a long time now. I think I bought the pack at a quilt show back in 2008, and the line is probably out of print now -- all the more reason to make something out of it. This is how an idea comes to life: I play with the fabric, look at it and rearrange it. With the recent flare-up my hands haven't been too steady, so I knew I wanted to keep the cutting to the bare minimum. I also wanted to use as many of the squares as possible in one piece. So I turned everything en pointe, fiddled with the placements and then sewed it together on the machine. I focused on matching up and sewing the seams as perfectly as

I knew when I was diagnosed with arthritis at 28 that the time I had to use my hands was limited. I had already given up a lot of dreams because of my condition. After two surgeries left my dominant hand basically useless all I had left was one. I lost painting, knitting and a lot of other abilities. Thirty years after that I made do with one hand (and got pretty good at it, frankly) arthritis invaded my working hand, ultimately leaving me with three fingers I could use. I was cheerful about it. Three fingers are better than none. I got thirty-five years of limited use out of my hands, and I am grateful. Most people with my condition aren't that lucky. I think sewing, quilting and my other creative endeavors have helped me hang onto as much use of my working hand as I could. Now the painful truth is I've finally run out of time, and I'm rapidly losing what use I have left. My fingers are stiff as little boards, the joints swollen and painful. Gripping a

I bid on a small lot of yarn, as it had a few colors I needed for a holiday project. I had a couple of challengers but in the end I won it for a little under my maximum bid. It arrived last month beautifully packaged in a very nice floral storage box. It came with an unfinished knitting project, ten expensive skeins of yarn in mint condition, some wool roving, very nice scissors, a collection of jumbo knitting needles, patterns and even some buttons. Everything is in excellent condition with no smell; the roving is absolutely gorgeous (I've always wanted to try working with that, and now here's my chance.) The Sugar N' Cream cotton yarn skeins are worth $3.00 each, and the Buttercream Alpaca skeins are $11.00 each; just those ten skeins of yarn are worth over $70.00. That's why I'm comfortable with pricing this lot for resale at $100.00. I paid $13.54 for everything. Savings: $86.46.

I bid on a couple of jewelry lots over the summer, and ended up winning a small collection of Napier pices. Let's see what I got for my minimum bid. For those not in the know, the Napier Co. has been in the costume jewelry business for a long time (since 1878, in fact.) They're the avant guard of fashion jewelry, and make everything. They also do it so well that they're highly collectible. My mother had a couple of their pieces. The bracelets in this lot are especially pretty. Napier's designs are quite distinctive. What caught my eye about this lot was that it included Napier's iconic silver-plated Clam Shell Charm Bracelet, which was designed by Eugene Bertolli. It debuted in the 1950's and was reissued in 1982. It currently sells for $200.00 in used condition on Poshmark and almost $400.00 with the matching earrings on Etsy (I didn't know all this off the top of my head; I looked it up.) I was surprised to see that one shell h

To finish my memory lap quilt made out of my old t-shirts last month I decided to use some thrifted binding I had on hand versus buying new. It's off white, and pure white would have been a better match. Still, the backing was a thrifted sheet, the batting was thrifted and the embroidery threads were all vintage, so it just felt like the right choice. Once I sewed it on I thought it worked fine, and the quilt was complete. The quilt turned out much prettier than I expected it would; the embroidery was a big help. It also feels like me to me. The back. I learned something from every stage of this project, and while I'm not in a rush to make another quilt out of t-shirts, it was definitely interesting. Detail of the backing, darkened to show the stitching. I surprised myself by making this quilt; I didn't think I had it in me. Now I think I have one more large quilt left in me for this year (which will be the kit.)

This is going to be a weird post, I'll tell you that up front. After watching the romantic dramedy Crash Landing on You some years ago and seeing Kim Soo Hyun (one of the highest paid actors in Asia, aka the King of Endorsements) make a cameo with long hair and wearing a green track suit, in which he acted like someone mentally challenged, I never got that scene out of my head. Although I was pretty sure it was a cultural reference that flew right over my head, the casting was just bizarre. In the west it would be like having Chris Evans play the autistic character role in Rain Man . Anyway, fast forward to this summer, when Viki.com added a film called Secretly Greatly that featured Kim Soo Hyn with long hair, wearing a green track suit and looking like a mentally challenged person again. I had to know what he was playing, so I watched the movie. And, well, I might be more confused than I was before I did. The beginning of the movie starts like an over-the-top Asian

This is what the recycled t-shirt throw looked like with a quarter of the embroidery done. It was slow going until I finally got the hang of how to embroider old cotton knit: Carefully. Slowly. Don't try to unpick stitches, either! Ha. I also trimmed and evened out the sides where I needed a little more fabric (my guy donated one of his old t-shirts to the cause.)

I should have enough time this year to make one more large quilt, so back in July I went through my kits box and took out the two biggest that I have on hand. Both are really pretty. The Arcadia kit is for a big quilt (maybe full or queen); the Wave kit is for a lap quilt. Since I'm more likely to finish a lap quilt I decided to go with the Wave kit. I'll start this at the end of September.

When I started embroidering my recycled t-shirt throw I considered stopping as I was making holes in the cotton knit by trying to bury knots and pull the thread through in certain places. Fortunately I got the hang of it fairly quickly. Burying knots is fine from the back side, and I just need to be gentler when I tug on the thread. I'm going with random feather stitching in four different colors of perle thread, and just stitching enough to keep the batting from shifting and bunching in the future.

This is me putting the last quilting stitch in the throw made of my old t-shirts back in July. Because I used big stitches it didn't take long to quilt each block; altogether I stitched on it every night for ten days. I learned many things from this project as well (lesson number one: never make anything to be quilted out of old cotton knit.) There is a little embroidery I have planned for it, and a couple of fixes I need to do to the sides. Although the sheet I thrifted as the backing had a label that said it was 100% cotton, it has a very weird feel to it, almost like a poly-cotton blend (maybe the label is a lie.) It doesn't self-heal well, so every puncture my quilting needle and safety pins made still show. Anyway. Next up will be the embroidery/fix work, and then I'll be able to bind and finish it.

I've only ever owned one pair of sneakers at a time, but thanks to thrifting I now have four pair: New Balance, two pair of Skechers and Reebok. I'm also walking so much these days I'm wearing out the New Balance (also the first pair of shoes I ever thrifted.) I decided to thrift one more for a minimum bid, and won these Fila walking sneakers with tags in the original box. The box has a pricetag of $59.99 from Kohl's; on the other side it was marked down to $29.99. Inside the box I found the original owner's receipt from 2018. The shoes came with tags and the store stuffing still in the toes so they were never worn. They're in remarkably pristine condition, too, and are made partly of mesh to allow air to circulate while you walk. I paid $9.99 for them. The new sneakers are very similar to my favorite Skechers, which I wear when we go out walking, so I expect I'll get a lot of use out of them.

I have an idea for a beaded Christmas tree project, for which I'd need more pearls. So I bid on a small jewelry lot for the minimum and won it. I don't need as many pearls for this idea, so this is roughly about half what I got last year for my little pearl trees project. All of the pieces came in wearable condition, and all the earrings were in pairs. Everything was in much better condition than I'd imagined, too. The lot included a nice variety of bracelets, some of which I'm going to save and wear. I was a little blown away by the crystal pieces. One of the necklaces is in mint condition, and from the quality of the crystal I'd guess is worth at least $50.00. The watches may just need batteries. Anyway, I'd estimate the lot is probably worth about $200.00 resale; I paid $8.99 for everything. Can't get that kind of bargain at the craft store.

You remember my embroidery scroll calendar project from 2023, yes? I've been looking all year for a box or bag to hold and preserve it. As my guy and I have been walking a lot of antique malls I thought I might find something at one of them. And I did back in July -- a silk-lined laquered wooden box in mint condition that perfectly fit my scroll. The fact that it was vintage and I got it for less than ten bucks was a nice bonus. Going to need a much bigger box for this year's calendar project, ha. Actually I'm going to display this one on a bed or a quilt rack.