Hubby and I hung the door this morning. Here is a pic of the door in contrast to the floor which I also painted 2 years ago...hahahha I know it takes time to get in the mood. lol

Glazing The Door

I use about 1 cup of commercial glaze (faux finish at home depot) and added just enough orange acrylic paint to get a tint. I then brushed it on the door in the same sequence as when I painted it. I let it dry about 20 minutes (while I glazed the door frame). I then mixed some burgundy acrylic with water to ink consistency and fly specked (dip the brush in mixture and flick the brush to get off excess paint and then flek on door) the entire door. Then the same with burnt sienna. Let dry, hang tomorrow...



Close up of fly specks...



Update on Triangle tango...this is the right side so far.



Close up of the top. I have no clue where the rest of the stuff goes hahahhaha...oh I'll go back to it soon and figure it out. I believe the other side is done the opposite so that there is no point. In other word, where the point is here at the bottom, it switches to the top on the other side and the shoulder becomes the bottom. So you have one chopped off side and one pointed side. It says to start in the back. I can't do that. So here is one front, now I'll knit another one just like it and make that one the back left. Then instead of following the instruction for the other side. I'll just repeat this same side only reversing (mirror image) and make two of those..One front and one back. Then figure out the sleeves..oh lord, these instructions are from hunger hahhahaha....

I found this real hot yarn at Joann's ...on sale, 2.19 I think. it's called crayon.



And that dark one besides the crayon ..here is a better pic...

Glazed Door

So you want to make a pretty door? here are some easy steps into that little venture. First get the retired hubby to help you take the door down. Well it's just two pins really. De-dust and sandpaper roughly, just a lick and a promise. De-dust again. I mixed sort of a flesh color (americana bottled acrylics). I added some sealer to the paint and started painting the six pannels in the middle of the door first. It's important to go with the grain of the wood. Just slush the paint on quickly into all the crevices (with the 1.00 brush from Michaels) and then lightly blend the paint with brush with the grain. Some of the paint will get outside the pannels, just go ahead lightly bush that paint with the grain. Here is the door with the pannels painted. Make sure to pick off the few hairs that fall from the cheap brush lol.





Here is the door all basecoated. Now while that is drying in the sun (most beautiful sunny day in Longwood Fl today, I'm in front of the garage). I went inside and basecoated the door frame and baseboards, oh this is in my shower, a real small deal. Now back outside and I applied the second coat to the door the same way as the first coat. I always put on two nice coats.



Doesn't it look pretty? it won't be that color once the glaze goes on though.

While I was in the painting mood and needing a little cupboard to put my yarn in and I have just the place for it in my bedroom. Well one of my bedrooms. Hubby and I sleep in all the rooms lol. One is for winter and one for summer. I took some white-lightning (sealer for decorative art, also one can do a pickled look with it). I added some burgundy to it to get a color that I call a ho pink (for lack of a better word lol). I sealed the entire cupboard with it. The little cupboard is custome made out of pine, has three shelves and a little drawer, real cute.

The door and the top of the cupboard I just put the plain white lightning ...as the door will have scene on it. Now the all these will cure for 24 hours. At which time I will glaze the door and put the basecoat on the outside of the little cupboard, which will be a wine color. In the inside back of the cupboard I will glue victorian calendar pictures later. I will post pictures as I do more to the projects.

My Orange Cake. All the oranges in my yard were calling for an orange cake and I've been thinking about it so much lately so last night it happened. Now I have to totally control and ration myself.

3 sticks of butter, 1 box of brown suger (1pound), 6 eggs, 1 1/2 cup of fresh orange juice, 3 tabl of orange rind, 3 cups of sifted flour, 3 tabl of cointreau. 1 cup of orange juice and about 1 cup of chocolate chips/macadamia nuts mix. Also 1 cup of brown sugar extra for the sauce, 3 tbl cointreau.

Beat the suger and butter until kinda soft. Then keep adding the orange juice and beating until it's fluffy. Add the eggs, two at a time and beat slightly. Add the sifted flour and fold in, add grated rind and cointreau. Add the chips and fold in. Drop some chips all over the cake. Bake at 350 for 1 hour or until done. I used an angel pan and line the bottom with wax paper and covered the top of the cake with foil loosely. Meanwhile cook the the rest of the brown suger and juice for 5 minutes, add the cointreau. After cake has cooled a bit, poke holes in the top and pour the sauce. Let it rest a bit. Turn the cake onto a plate and pour the other half of the sauce on the bottom, which will be the top of the cake. the cake comes out sorta like a pudding cake. Delicious!! This shows the top of the cake before I turned it over and still on the middle of the tube pan. After pouring the sauce on the bottom, you turn it back to this side. I didn't bother.

Since I missed so many days I thought I'd better post some more right away. I don't know what's happening with my post but when I came back tonight my whole post was missing. It's a good thing I had save it as a draft too and was able to publish it again...all those pictures hmmmm....

Well anyway, I decided to take a break from those clams and clean out my bins while looking for more colorways for my clam quilt. I threw out a lot of junk, organized the bins. I now know where everything is again lol. I found some real cool stuff. Remember when you could buy a bed spread or table cloth to embroider? Well a friend had bought several kits and gave me one years ago. Well I figured I wasn't going to do all that stitching so I began to paint it. It is 85% done. I must finish it and quilt it in a verigated thread. It will be lovely....







Then I found some painted quilt blocks...here is a victorian boy...


A folk art couple...just need to finish the hair.


And lots of odds and ends blocks. I will put all the odd blocks together and make a wierd quilt...here is attic windows...all done on the machine.

Ohhhh I have been so involved with my purchases from my gift cards. I have burned out three of them at 250.00 a crack. Boy! was that fun hahhahahah. I ordered several knitting books and have been reading those and some quilting books and this very neat software (e-bay) that can take any picture and make it banner size if you want ...that has yet to arrive. Well one the books was a "Kaffe Fassett"..I love him..he is coloratic like me. Well he had this Clamshell quilt in his book (K.F. Museum Quilts). He has a copy of the muesum quilt and one he made with his fabric line (georgous) except for the workmanship. I know it's a difficult quilt to make and he must have been on a timeline for the book and he must have had someone make it...oh I'm rambling.

Anyway, I don't think I have ever seen the Clamshell done machine wise. I would never touch it...too much hand sewing. Well I kept going back to that quilt. There must be a way says I. Needless to say, I went to bed at 5 am. I did three work-ups. On the sewing machine of course, I used the template in the book first and it was a bear to get this far. I knew there was something wrong with the template but at that time in morning it didn't register.

Ok, then I thought..there must be an easier way. I opened up Block Base in my computer and searched for clamshells. I found two. Ahhhh, you can print them any size, now that's the ticket! The bigger the better? I did the one where you can see the tail of the previous row extending down into the next row..sorta like when you have a space between your front teeth?




Then I did the other one and this one has a pointed tail, like the one in the book. By this time I really had the hang of it and found the error on the original template. The seam allowance needed to be extended another 1/8 of an inch...picky, picky but it makes a difference. Mind you, all this on the sewing machine. I am so impressed with myself, I hug myself lol. In order to succeed with this pattern ..one has to have a lot of patience..but after sewing 35 of them together, I find it's is very doable. Now I dont' know which one I like the best...help!!!

There is fabric everywhere....these are decorative samples from the home decorating line. I have at least three bins worth..they are great for when I need to practice on blocks before going to my stash. ..never- the - less...these still turn into beautiful quilts. I waste nothing.




Then I went back to the orginal small clam and added another row with the new template and it went a lot easier.

The clam shell are made in a diamond shape and there are 49 clams (the original small size) in each diamond. I see he has about 6 diamonds and the half ones for the sides and tri's...oh boy!! but if I do the big ones? well let me poll you. Which one do you like the best. Which one looks the best or shows off the design the best. I also just read in the book that he and a student worked on it it and she did a great job of ironing out the kinks lol...he said it wasn't quilter quality....it looks good if you didn't look too close. I think the student did well for a quilt like this.

To top the day off ...Deco American sent me a huge box of all the latest fabric craze stuff...fashion beads, writers, new paint ..all fabric related (I'm still one of their helping artists)...I get to try all the new stuff. I will definately do something fun with them soon.

It's a gloomy, grey, wet and rainy day today. I finished cooking some soy chicken breast and all in one veggie....potatoes, carrots, celery and peas all cooked in very little water and seasoning and butter added. The chicken breast I had frozen and seasoned....I sliced it and stir fried in very little olive oil and then add the soy...delicious....





Oh and then half of my book order came. The knitting books for me to learn. I will get in my bed directly to read them....I ordered them from ..amazon.com ..so much cheaper and no postage. Dazzling Knit, Modular Knit, Modular Magic and The knitters handy book of patterns by Ann Budd. The last book will probably be the favorite with the mittins and cap and easy things. ...and the book is spiral bound, nice.



I ordered four quilting books from ...overstock.com..wow! great prices and hardly any shipping...oh I think there is no shipping on this eigher..good deal..this one that came is all about circle quilting..called Circle Play and I had bought a special circle tool to make circles when I bought "Circle Around". I have another book to get to go along with these call "Wedgeworks"..now do you see why I don't have time to do any designing? These women are keeping me busy hahhahahaha

Oh, when I get ready to do my circle thing. I have ordered this neat gaget called the curve master to make perfect curves. I already have their zip and bind and stitch in the ditch tool...they are wonderful if you quilt a lot. With the zip binder set you no longer have to pin and with the stitch in the ditch..it does it perfectly with the guides and stuff..

I hope my neighbors don't hate me too much. Yesterday and half of today the woodcutters were here and they took out 5 trees. Hubby was so sad. He had planted two of those trees, 30 years ago. We had gone in the woods behind us (then) and rooted them up as babies. These were pine trees and the roots were breaking the sewer lines in our side of the yard and lifting up the street. After one big sewer bill we had decided to cut them down. Here's hubby so sad...oh he'll get over it.

Another pic of the damage and the other half is in the back. Son came by and said his friend will get most of it for his bonn fire and party in the woods...well that worked out. It was much cheaper doing it this way in fact a few thousand. I bargain real good hahahaha.....


Well now that all the main things are done around here that I have to supervise hahah...and I've gotten the fabric fusing and fabric painting out of my system. Its now time to finish a UFO. The Orange Peel by Karen Stone has been waiting. I had started it some months before I discovered Melody and everything went up in the air hahahaha. Anyway, I did have a very good start with it so it won't be long before you see a new project.

By this time you must all realize that I don't do any designing or teaching or puplishing anymore. At this stage of my life, I have adoped the attitude....if I see something that strikes my fancy...I go do it. The work has all been done. All I have to do is read and have fun. My stuff sells no matter who's idea it is hahahhaha....ain't I bad? That's not to say the design bug won't bite. It's just to say I'll do it when it does. Isn't retirement great?

Oh oH, do you know what I found out years ago? I found out that your best customers are your friends. yep!! That's because I have always had this motto...."busines is business"..(I learned that from my grandmother, who was a merchant. I used to work in the little grocery store that she raised us up on. ) I do my arithmatic and put a price on the item or in my price book. Anyone who comes by can look in the book or on the item and decide if they can afford it without telling anyone.

Mrs. Mel's Book

Mrs. Mel asks, "Where is my book?" she then goes on to say she has a free on line book that one can read and download anything for free. Sounds too good right? Well surprise! it's good and it's free lol. I didn't go to blogbinders. I just downloaded what I wanted and edited in word printed the pages on magazine quality paper and hole punched and put the pages in a 3 ring binder.

I enlarged the tulips and slipped it into the front plastic of the binder...behold!




This is the inside front cover. In the pocket on the left are extra pattern pieces and on the right is the latest lesson of today.


Inside the binder I have several lessons or information all seperated by a pink sheet. I will have to get some tabs. Here is the fushia lesson..


Here is another lesson in dyeing pastels...I even add the lovely colorful chairs and just things that I like of hers.



This is the inside back cover. I have the patterns in the pocket. There are quite a few lessons in there. A good reference to have at the tip of your finger just in case you are dyeing, fusing, or whatever.

What do you do with left over meat sauce? You make pizza of course. I make a real herby dough. I put italian seasoning, sweet basil, oragano, salt, black pepper, sea salt (that's the only salt I use) red italian pepper seeds. And here we rolled out the dough. Here you can see the herbs in the dough.
I made three. I know the boy is going to smell the pizza and coming to get his. Here are two ready to go in. I bake most everything that doesn't require a pan on my stone tingies. So now I have to wait 20 minutes to get a stone to put number 3 on.
Ahhhh look at these yummies.

And a close up.....

I had some of everything left. A little dough, some sauce etc. I had some summer sausage from the gift basket which I cut up. I rolled out the left over dough. I oiled some foil with olive oil..put the circle of dough in...sprinkled it with parmasean cheese, piled the rest of the sauce and sausage and topped it with mozz. cheese and wrapped it up in the foil and baked for 20 min. Then opened the foil to let it brown...OMG, it was delicous!!!
I promptly named that puppy, "pizza calzon" and I have lots more sausage and can make quick sauce if I have to hahahahha...

I hate making salads but I love to eat them. I was so longing for a salad today and have not taken the required time to teach the newly retired hubby how to make it yet. He did clean up the mess I made though.

I used three kinds of lettuce, romaine and two other soft ones (not iceberg)...I took some of each (washed) put in spinner, spun and flung it in a bowl. I have a little chopper and into that little chopper I fung one at a time and in turn, you gussed it, flung them with the lettuce. ..and they were...2 apples, 3 stalks of celery, one entire cuke, 1 and 1/2 slices of pineapple left over from my garden of pines, 2 carrots, a bit of sweet onion, 3 very large navel oranges from my orchard of 5 orange trees, (I cut them in 4, trim off the fronts, cut underneath each wedge, chop chop in three and yeh, fling..juice too). some crumbly white cheese my jewish friend gave. I don't know what it's called but it's so good..a few walnuts crumbled...(notice: no tomatoes! I refuse to pay top dollar for bad quality)..Then I made the dressing (I do not buy prepared dressing) olive oil and wine venigar and some italian seasoning a tiny bit of brown sugar...The salad was delicious. I made enough for two days, maybe three.

Tonight I watched Master Piece Theatre while knitting (I have taken to that habit suddenly hmmmm). This episode is in six parts called ...Blight House...ohhhh I did enjoy the first episode...can't wait for next week (I hate that).

I made some eggnog biscuits the other day...I made biscuits and just put the eggnog instead of milk in it, thats all lol...hey it could happen and they were good ..eating one right now ....

Getting ready to quilt two of the Melody patterns. Here the backing is attached....




I have put two of them on. I just pinned the tops and bottoms to the backing...



Here is the cornflower one is all quilted and some fashion fabric beads have been applied with a palette knife.



A close-up view...


Another view....click on pic to see a larger picture....


I have also been working on my triangle tango sweater and I finally understand here is what I have done so far....


Another view. This is my cheap 1.84 a skein yarn from Joann's (red heart). I'm just practicing at the moment and then I will use my expensive yarn that I got cheap on the web. This is really fun. I really don't have that much experience as a knitter...so I'm real happy with what I'm doing so far. I have done 10 triangles and working on the 11th. I will make it a bit longer though. It really goes fast.

Today is what I would call a "Winnie the Pooh" day. It is blustery!!! A good day to quilt, create or whatever.

I have so busy lately, I haven't had time to blog much but I'll be back shortly. I somehow lost my cookies to my blog and couldn't get on but I figured it out lol. My pc was running slow so I decided to clean up and thus deleted all the cookies lol. Well every now and then you have to get rid of old stuff true? Today I will be quilting the Melody quilts and one for a customer so another busy day ahead. I will post pic later on.

Oh, here is the little green sweater I finished and Molly is modeling. Today is a good day for it. This is the second Item I have knitted. The Triangle Tango coat of many colors is next. The yarn is coming in....

Wheeeeee....I finished the Melody's tulips. I started where I left off yersterday around 2.00 pm and finished 11.30 pm. I did the first tulip just like the pattern and then the me came in hahahhaha....I gotta do it my way. Melody wont' care. Here is the progression earlier as I worked. I can see where the red meets the purple is going to do something. I just don't know right now. I can feel it ..but I don't get it yet.



Here I got some more done. groundwork etc.



Here it is all done. Remember where the red met the purple on flower number 4 in the foreground? I need to adjust and extend the red shape...I knew it!! I added some fru, fru and confetti and basically kept the tulips down to three parts, except for the first one. I am real happy with it.



Here are all three Melody patterns. By Jove, I think I got it now!!!! I will take my time and decide how to quilt them on the long arm. I will probably use a verigated thread. I will post a pic of all three when I'm done with the quilting and binding etc...I really enjoyed doing these. As you can see, I did them one after the other. Not ususal for me lol. I used hand dyed fabric purchased from Melody. The only hand painted pieces are the sky pieces on the left in the tulip pattern. Those are from my stash that I painted.