Reliving My Childhood

It's a very lazy Sunday here at the Resort.  We skipped church due to my sleeping in (daylight savings time, I hate you!), and so enjoyed a leisurely breakfast of eggs Benedict. That was followed by a relaxing time on the sofa with a good book, followed by, amazingly, a nap!  I told you it's a very lazy Sunday.

Meanwhile, in my last post I said I'd be back in a day or so and here I am.  I'm trying to do better with this poor blog. And so, what do I have to share?  Dolls.  Dolls? Yes, dolls.  I love dolls. Always have. As a girl, I got a new doll every Christmas, with one notable year where I ended up with three. I loved them one and all.  My best friend, Kathy, and I spent many hours of our growing up years playing with dolls.  

Most of my childhood dolls are long gone, but about twenty years ago, I discovered that there were some amazing dolls being made.  The Tonner doll company was making a 14" Betsy McCall doll that was adorable. I still had my original 8" Betsy and some of her clothes, so I felt an immediate need for the new one.  Kind of a big sister, so to speak, for my little one.  And the American Girl dolls!  I needed one of those, too!  I put them on Christmas lists and my sweetheart bought both for me. Over the next few years, several more dolls found their way to our house.  I even bought a stash to share with future granddaughters, but as we have four grandsons, they were eventually shared with a friend.

Over my teaching years my doll collection was sadly ignored, but recently I've been inspired by my longtime dolly buddy Kathy, and I'm again playing.  

I think I'm done adding any dolls to my group (I don't want to have too many to love, like the matchbox car story), but I'm interested in doing some sewing for them.  Not too many outfits, just enough for seasons, special occasions, and fun times as the mood strikes.  

When we bought this house almost eighteen years ago, there were two sets of shelves in the basement family room, complete with glass doors.  My dolls live in one and Dan's collection of Nutcrackers live in the other.   

Here are my girls starting with the top shelf:

They are, left to right, back row,  American Girl Samantha, now being reinvented as me in the fifties, a porcelain doll I bought in Levenworth, Washington, Tonner's 14" Betsy McCall, and Rose, a Magic Attic doll. Front row:  Mary Englebreit's Ann Estelle and her friend Sophie, and my tiny Betsy McCall.

This shelf features dolls I have created to match characters from a book series and a movie.  On the left is a Just Pretend doll I remade into Amelia Peabody, famed egyptologist from the turn of the last century, from the book series by Elizabeth Peters.  On the right is Eve Tozer (another Just Pretend doll), from the Tom Selleck movie, High Road to China.  The wonderful accessories were obtained when the internet doll store, iDolls, went out of business.  

And last, here is the bottom shelf.  The little doll in the desk was purchased in Boise at a toy store. She has a sweet face and one eye that doesn't work quite right.  I just couldn't leave her behind, never to be loved.  The center doll is a Heidi Ott doll I've named Amalia after my Norwegian grandfather's mother.  I had fun making this outfit for her.  The doll on the right is another porcelain one my son and daughter-in-law brought back from Germany.  

So there you have it.  I still play dolls.  Actually, what I really do is dress dolls, with plans to make more clothes to dress them in.  It's fun and it keeps me out of trouble. (However, my love of shoes has carried over to the dolls, and there are many adorable ones just waiting to be purchased!!!)

A Little More Stitchin'

Last May, after my dad got out of the hospital for the third time in a month, my brother and I were finally able to talk him and mom into moving from their home of almost sixty years to an apartment in a retirement center.  Clearly they were no longer going to be able to take care of a house and yard. The center is a lovely place and they were able to get a very nice apartment overlooking the creek my dad had often fished in as a child.  In fact, it was just about two blocks away from the house he was born in.  

One of the first things I wanted to do was to bring down a banner to hang in the main hallway outside their front door.  When I was teaching the embroidery class at the local quilt shop, I developed a pattern for a 9" x 27" banner with a large embroidery design featured at the top.  I had an extra patriotic one which worked for the summer, and then I took down a fall one.  I made a new one for Christmas just before Dad died, and then lost my mojo.  

I decided this week that I must, must, must get that Christmas one down and pondered what to make. Here I must admit that spring is not my season so I don't have many ideas, but I looked through my designs and then perused my fabrics.  I think it was divine intervention, but I found fabrics, four in all, that blended well, including one with tulips.  I had looked at a tulip design earlier, and voila, it all came together!  I think Mom is going to love it!

Here's some closeups of the design.  I was able to match the colors to the tulips in the outer strips of fabric.

Every time I look at this little project, it makes me smile. Those pink tulips are just so springy!  And spring is something that has been very elusive so far this year. In fact, we had seven new inches of snow just last week. It's all gone now, but the days are just dark and, well, gloomy. The one exception was yesterday when we actually saw the sun.  I felt energized!! Today, not so much.

Well, I did have something else I was going to share, but I think this is long enough, so stay tuned for another post in a day or so!  

I Keep Tryin'!

However in the world has it been almost a month since I posted? Is the world just spinning faster and faster?  

So, I'm going to attempt to do some more catching up on sewing room projects. Sometime in January, I saw that Craftsy was having a blowout sale and I succumbed to temptation. And it was a good thing! I ordered quite a bit of fabric, all of it Moda except for a pack of Tonga Treats, and I got it all for half price or less. Score!! I ordered mostly soft florals for more baby quilts since I used up every scrap I had of that type of fabric to make the quilts I wrote about last time. Here's a couple of glimpses of my loot:

I actually ordered several coordinated packs which had differing amounts of the selected fabrics varying in length from 1/3 yard to a yard, and one large 4-yard pack. The Tonga Treats will go into a stash of fabrics I'm compiling so that I can do some of Edyta Sitar's designs. I'm not normally a batik fabric person, but she mixes them with regular cotton fabrics and I love the look. Some day!

Here, as promised are the two boy quilts I have ready to give to our local crisis pregnancy centeer.

The smaller one on the left is made from scraps of the bigger one with a few fat quarters added in! Finding fabrics for boys is proving hard to do, but I will be on the lookout!

Winter . . . and Quilts

It's more than a day or two later, but I am back!  

This has been quite the winter here in our little corner of the world. We have had snow on the ground for at least two months. A lot of snow. The piles on the edges of our driveway are high and rock solid, and as Dan says, we'll be able to keep our sodas cool on the 4th of July!! We got a few more inches today although rain is forecast for tomorrow with threats of flooding.  Because the ground is frozen and covered with snow, there's no place for the rain to sink in. 

Meanwhile, although I thought I might get down to my sewing room today, I didn't. I had Bible study this morning followed by a haircut this afternoon, and then Dan was in a cleaning mood, so we attacked the floors on the upper level with dustmop, broom, and vacuum. 

I mentioned in my last post that I'd been working on some quilts over the last six months, so I'll share a couple of them today. I think I've mentioned that I make baby blankets for a local ministry to women who have crisis pregnancies. I've made fleece blankets and flannel receiving blankets in the past, but lately I've been making quilts. I think I shared this first one in the piecing stage, but here's the finished product:

I really like how it turned out. My success with this "use up my scraps and fat quarters" project inspired me to use another Accuquilt die, the tumbler block. I truly used every pink scrap I had to make this next one.

As I finished the piecing of the top, I decided to spice it up a bit by adding the ruffles to each end. I used my ruffler attachment to make them and it was quick work. I think they add just the right touch.

I had one other baby quilt in my closet that I'd made several years ago and so I was able to take three quilts to the center just before Christmas. I finished a boy quilt recently and have another on the quilting machine. I'll share those another time.

Hello There

I know. It's been a very long time since I've checked in. Life sometimes gets in the way and as it does, the writing muse (as my friend Kathy would say) disappears. Last April and May, my dad who turned 93 on May 4, began to fail. We made it through the summer and I managed to peck away here once in a while, but by September, things began to go badly and we lost him the day after Thanksgiving. He was one of a kind and I'm so proud to have been his daughter.  

Here are a few pictures from his life:

With his mother, circa 1935

Smokejumper, summer of 1946

Circa 1985

With Bruder Bear and me circa 2010

Life goes on, however, and I guess it's time I get back in the swing of things. I have been getting some quilting done and I'll share pictures in a day or so.  It's been great therapy.  

Quilting...

I finished piecing the top of the pink and yellow quilt last week.  And here I have to admit to an error in my last post about it.  The block pattern is not shoo fly, but churn dash.  They are somewhat similar and will use that to justify my mistake. :-)

For a quilt that started out as a couple of test blocks, I love how it turned out.  I essentially used all the pink and yellow fat quarters I possessed (obviously they're not colors I use much) and then was stumped as to where to go next.  I kept pawing through my stash and came up with the green (it has tiny polka dots which are indiscernible in the photo) for the sashing and had enough of the small pink check left to cut inch and a half cornerstones.  The border really had me stumped until I found a yellow remnant from a long-ago quilt that was just enough. It's very feminine and I think it will make a lovely baby quilt.  

I'm in the process of putting it on my handi-quilter frame and hope to start stitching later today.  ♥  

Kitchen Stuff

At the risk of geeking out in my kitchen, I have to say there's a new power couple in there.  Now I love my KitchenAid stand mixer, and my ancient old bread machine is still dearly loved. My Cuisinart food processor rocks, but two recent additions are currently starring in a number of productions.  

I wrote last year about getting my InstantPot electic pressure cooker.  I'm still amazed by it.  Mostly, I love that it's fix and forget, enabling me to go about other cooking without keeping an eye out on it. My second favorite thing about it is being able to make yogurt.  I still can't believe I can do it! 

My sweetie has been working, working and working, and been out of town many nights, leaving me alone with my computer. My long time friend, Kathy, gives herself rewards when her husband is out of town. As a joke a month or more ago, I told Dan I was going to buy a Vitamix blender and start drinking smoothies. He just rolled his eyes and said, "Go for it!"  Well, somehow, the more I said it, the more it took root in my mind.  (Hmm, there's a lesson there!) I checked around town but found only the usual suspects, no Vitamixes.  

I read reviews, blog posts, recipes, etc, in an attempt to tamp down my interest, but it only served to make me more interested.  The downside seemed to be price. They are not cheap.  But then I discovered that Amazon had refurbished ones which came with a full warranty and required quite a bit less money.  The reviews were excellent. Finally, one day I clicked "buy now with one click" and two days later a huge box arrived on my front porch.  (You knew that was coming, didn't you?)

So here they are, the new power couple in my kitchen:

I just used both to make the most amazing roasted red pepper hummus (recipe from Pressure Perfect by Lorna Sass).  I cooked the chick peas (garbanzos) from dry to ready-to-go in just an hour, start to finish, and then made the hummus in the Vitamix.  Yes, I even roasted my own red pepper (a first) on our grill.  I made the tahini a couple of weeks ago in the Vitamix.  Tahini is muy expensive and I could never bring myself to buy a container of it, but my favorite grocery store has a huge bulk section and sesame seeds are very reasonable.  I'll have this blender paid for in no time!  

Oh yeah--and I'm drinking smoothies too!  ♥