Rayen

I got a lot done in December, starting with this holiday-themed bag that I made and filled with sugarfree treats for our brother-in-law, whom we visited at his assisted living facility for Christmas. He's 86 and still going strong. The back of the bag. We had such a good time talking about our younger years, when we would all get together to celebrate special occasions. It was a really nice day. I made some homemade furoshiki (with admittedly mixed results) for wrapping gifts sustainably. I mended this Calvin Klein sample shirt that I got in a lot of mendables from Fabscrap. The shirt is a man's but fits me perfectly, so I'm wearing it this winter. :) I mended and embellished an old crazy quilt patchwork block to make a top for this storage box. I cleaned and framed this vintage cross stitch Santa sampler that came in a thrifted lot of fabric. I also cleaned and then finished stitching this cross stitch sampler from the same lot. I...

To check and make sure I have enough cutter quilt pieces to use for next year's calendar project idea, I hauled out the bin and rifled through it. I think I have enough, but I also have some unusable, unremarkable patchwork pieces in my stash that would also serve. I took one piece of a presewn quilt that came in a thrifted lot of fabric and decided to try making one embroidered and beaded mini quilt in an evening. Rather than use this busy floral side, I decided to flip it over and use the blue underside. I let the idea come to me and just played with it. Here's the finished mini quilt, which took about 3 hours to make. This idea will take about twice as long as my crochet calendar mood blanket to make every day, and I probably won't have time enough every day to do all the embroidery and beading I did on this one. That's not discouraging to me; I want to do more quilting. My arthritis may become an issue, but then I can use the sewing machine ...

The 9lb. yarn lot with many colors I needed that I was able to thrift for a minimum bid arrived last month. Let's see if it was worth what I paid for it. There were 30 skeins and balls of yarn in pristine condition with no smell; a lot more than I thought I'd get when I bid on the lot (I had counted about 20 in the auction listing photo.) In keeping with my promise this year to thrift everything I can I needed some specific colors and weights of yarn for some holiday projects. That one jumbo skein of white and metallic spakled chenille might be enough for a wreath, and costs $7.44. It's a fun mix of bargain and expensive yarns. This striped Just Cotton costs only $1.25 per skein, and will be perfect to use for gift wrapping. The original owner bought this pricey Opus specialty yarn on sale; it runs $6.99 per skein. I've never worked with this type of yarn but I should have enough to make a winter hat for myself. I tracked down the price fo...

One reason I'm choosing to do mini quilts as my calendar project for 2025 is that I have all the materials I need to make them, like this vintage patchwork pillowcase. It's too fragile to be used for its original purpose, and repurposing it would give it a new life. The same goes for a lot of the Victorian-era crazy patchwork pieces I own that are shattering. This would make a couple of very cool foundations. Likewise I have an entire bin of vintage linens that includes about a hundred embroidered napkins. These would be perfect to repurpose for the project. I think the most comfortable size for me to work on in a single evening would be at the most 5" X 7". I don't know if I want to make my minis all the same size, either. Still mulling that over at the moment. I could not sew together 365 5" X 7" minis into a single quilt; it would end up being large enough to cover a couple of beds. I've also been questioning the wisdom of se...

I have been thinking long and hard about things I might do for my annual calendar project next year. While I have really enjoyed crocheting my daily mood blanket, which has made me more mindful of my emotions, I think one blanket is enough for someone who lives in a humid subtropical area. In 2023 I did my calendar scroll embroidery project, but my arthritis has gotten a lot worse, and I think my days of hand stitching anything are just about over now. I finally got my inspiration from 14carrot, one of my favorite sellers on Etsy, who makes these wonderful mini quilts out of old quilt pieces, bits of lace and embroidery as tags. I love her work, which always inspires me, and made me consider making my own mini quilts. Small, less ambitious daily projects are more my speed now, and if I can't hand sew I can always use my sewing machine. I might also draw or paint on my daily tags. Unless something more appealing comes to me before January 1st, I think this will be...

For the last two years my guy and I have thrown away all our previous traditions of celebrating Christmas when it's just the two of us. We've both devoted our entire lives to making other people happy during the holidays, and I have had nothing but horrible luck during mine , so we think we've earned it. This year we went wandering again, did a few interesting things, and ended up walking the beach at Daytona. It was cold, almost entirely deserted and quiet. The ocean was fairly rough but the sound of the waves crashing was music to my ears. At times I felt as if the world had turned into a giant opal. I took pics with my phone and sent them to my favorite person, who sent back pictures of her island where she was hiking with her boyfriend and his mother. We came across the Florida version of a snow man, which made us both laugh. Then we decided not to look for a place to eat dinner, came home and ate leftovers from Christmas Eve. Perfect end to what is u...

Merry Christmas to everyone who celebrates.

So that I'm not tempted to grumble about the holidays when they arrive, I thought I'd tell you a story today. I'm writing this post on November 4th, a couple of days after we joined the last work crew to clear tree debris from Hurricane Milton. Me, my guy, our next door neighbors and two other men from our neighborhood with a tractor and a dumpster-type trailer with a heavy duty truck came together to remove a tree that had fallen on our next door neighbors' property. It was a huge old oak that probably weighed several tons, and it was a definite hazard to anyone who went near it. They've tried for weeks to get a tree service out here to remove it but they're all backed up now for months. It took from 10:30 am to 4:00 pm for the six of us to chop up and haul out the debris. That pic up there is the pile of branches, wood and tree trunk pieces that we removed and placed for county pickup on a vacant lot; it's half a block long. It was heavy w...

My guy has a terrible time finding affordable shoes. He prefers to wear sneakers, and I was successful at thrifting a beautiful pair of Nikes for him at the end of summer. So I tried to do it again for his Christmas present, and eventually bid on and won a pair of Reebok sneakers. They don't have a mark on them, which suggests they were a display pair donated by the store. I looked up on the Reebok website the name of the sneakers from the box they came in, and besides finding out they were super nice, I learned that they retail for $83.99 . That made me extra happy, because I thrifted them for $13.00. :) Merry Christmas to my guy!

Let's see what I won from the latest round of things I wanted to thrift but only for the minimum price, like this 9 lb. yarn lot. One pound of yarn retails for $8 to $12, btw, so this could cost up to $108.00 new. I wanted to pay $9.99, and yep, I won the lot for that price without any challengers. Hooray for me! The blue Vera Bradley purse that I wanted for a special outfit went to: me! I got it for $9.99 with no challengers. It's a retired pattern which costs anywhere from $30.00 to $45.00 used. The 50 year old lavender wedding ring quilt sadly did not go to me. Bidding was quite heavy, and the final bid came in at $55.00, which is still a pretty nice price (just more than I wanted to pay.) I'm pretty happy that I won two out of the three lots; last time I didn't win any. The point is, you should only bid at auction what you're willing to pay, especially on thrifted items. You might not get what you want (and I'll show you pics when the two l...

To kick off December (and to get in some walking) my guy and I spent an afternoon in Winter Garden, which is all dressed up for the holidays. I love this little town, and how they go all out for Christmas. We'll definitely pay another visit before the end of the year. I stopped by Writer's Block and picked up two more blind dates with a book as a Christmas gift to myself (this because no one gives me books, my favorite things, for the holidays.) These will go in my stocking for Christmas morning. I wonder what they are . . . .