Redecorating Tidbits

It's almost the weekend!  Yippee!  I thought I would give those of you who haven"t seen it yet, a peek at the doily I made Teresa.  She has much better photos on her blog on my sidebar.  Her pictures show where she's placed it on her baby grand piano.  I'm glad she likes it.  It's about 30 inches across.

Here's a closer picture.  I'm not very good at blocking and I pressed it after I took these pictures but it gives you a idea of how it looks.  The doily used size 80 thread.  That was the first time I used thread that small to crochet with.

When in Portland last week, Mandy & I ran into Michaels while the guys waited with Piper in the truck.  These were my finds.  I had a 40% off coupon for the yarn.  It's a HUGE one pound ball of baby yarn.  The tin was 70% off and will hold tape, paper, pens, etc. in the trailer.  It's much easier to find things if they are all organized and in one place.  I love tins for things like this.

While visiting Portland we made a trip to IKEA.  I bought two pillow inserts and then there are several dozen pillow covers to choose from for only $5.00 each.  These were my choice.

And here they are on the pillow inserts.  A total of $11.99 per pillow.  That's not bad at all and when I get tired of the covers I can always get two more for a very inexpensive price.  I needed new throw pillows for the sofa and loveseat.  I think I'll get a couple of more on the next visit.

Then, as we passed through the kitchenware section, this grill pan caught my eye.  I get so tired of lugging the electric grill upstairs from the big pantry in the basement where I keep the small electric appliances and big pots,  I use it several times a week all winter long.  This will work well at the trailer this summer too.

The handle folds in for storage and out for cooking.  I've used it twice already and I really like it.

And this was the main objective in going to IKEA.  The curtains I had up were about 20 years old.  They had come from our old house when we built this one.  Last fall when I washed them, I had to sew up several hems and I was afraid they wouldn't survive another washing.  The new drapes are of a heavy canvas or similar cloth.  There are rings in the tops that thread onto the new curtain rod, also from IKEA.  I washed and dried them in hot water and a hot dryer to try to shrink them a bit.  I still had to hem them about 4 inches.  IKEA drapes are all very long-I think these were 95 inches.  If you need curtains and have access to an IKEA I highly recommend them for cost.  I bought all of my goodies, pillows, covers, grill pan, curtain rod, drapes and an insulated lunch bag for Piper for right around $100.00.  For a window this size, 108 inches wide, just the drapes would normally be more than that at most stores.

Drapes closed.

Drapes open!  I do like these curtains so far.  They keep the drafts out much better than the old curtains did.

Gracie gave me the most lovely book of baby knitting patterns while we visited.  Isn't this a sweet picture?  The patterns are also complete cuteness.

Spring is here!  Even if it is snowing all around us in the mountains tonight.  (NOOOOOOO!  I wanted to start camping soon.)  So I cut a branch off of our flowering pear tree outside and hung my tiny little Easter eggs on it.  The branch kept tipping the vase over so I filled it with birdseed and it worked very well.

A closer view of the little eggs.

Real organic eggs from Teresa's chickens.  Look at that cute little 1/2 dozen egg carton.  Perfect for egg gifting.  I have had one of these eggs for breakfast every morning this week.  Yum!

Knitted eggs on the coffee table.  Don't try eating these.  :-)

Sophie's Daddy had his second brain surgery in less than a week today, so she came to stay with me for the day.  We had a great time cuddling and knitting together.  I had a touch of the stomach flu today so I didn't get too much accomplished.  Larry is doing very well tonight and may go home tomorrow!  He had a device much like a pacemaker inserted into his chest with wires to his brain to control his essential tremors.  They had gotten so bad that he had a hard time holding a fork to eat along with many other aspects of daily living  The tremors are gone already!  That is such a miracle and will improve his quality of life so much.

Sophie is so used to visiting Chloe and I that she jumped up onto my lap and went right to sleep.

Okay, I'm off to bed and praying that I'll feel better tomorrow morning when I wake up..  I don't know why I always seem to catch these annoying bugs.  Ick!

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend my friends.

Many Blessings to you all,

Betsy

Girls Lunch, Portland and Home!

WARNING! This is a picture laden post.  I apologize in advance.  I have even more but I'll save them for another post.  :-)

This is the reason Grandpa and I were in a hurry to get to Portland.  Mandy sent this picture to us as we were driving Friday morning.  She had just told Piper that Grandpa and Grandma would be there soon.  We actually left our house about 5:30 a.m.

For those of you that read Teresa and Gracies blog, here is "their" mountain, Mt. Hood from about 230 miles away.

A little closer. I magnified it and the picture became blurry.  Sorry about that!

I took this one around The Dalles, Oregon which was closer yet.  Isn't it just gorgeous?

Driving along through the Columbia Gorge.  It's lots easier to get some pictures when someone else is driving.  :-)

We were an hour early for lunch, so Hubby dropped me off at Gracie's house and she drove us to the Red Lobster restaurant where both Taci and Teresa arrived at the same time as we did.  Great timing.  We had a very patient waiter who took pictures with all of our cameras.  Except Gracie's.  Her battery died.  Oh well, we're good at sharing.  :-)  I adore these ladies and our time together.  We weren't even planning gifts for each other, (except the doily I made Teresa), and we had presents anyway.  I brought everyone a skein of Hobby Lobby's I Love This Yarn cotton in springy colors of blue.  Taci gave us project bags and Teresa brought us eggs from her chickens.

Do you see the doily I made Teresa?  She has some really great pictures of it on her piano if you would like to check out her blog on my sidebar.  Do you see the glass ball on the doily in the middle of the picture?  Teresa gave me one of her prize Japanese fishing floats for making the doily.  I have been trying to find one for years when we've been at the coast with no luck and Teresa knew it.  Wasn't it sweet of her to give me one of hers?  There is a better picture of the float later in the blog.

Here is sweet Gracie checkinng out her yarn.  She was a little hidden in the above picture.

Just look at all of the goodies.  I also took Taci a baby sweater, hat and socks along with some extra hats for her Mom in Brazil who works with an orphanage there.  You can see them in the left of the picture.

Here's the beautiful float joining ny collection of birds.  I'm still trying to decide it's permanent home.

Yummy!  I have only been to Red Lobster once before, years ago.  This was my delicious lunch.  Shrimp, fresh green beans and salad.

Here we are.  Back to Piper.  She had a great time covering Chloe up an patting her back saying, "night, night".  Chloe was so good but doesn't her expressions look a bit like Eyeore in Winnie the Pooh?  Woe is me....I'm so sad.

Grandpa and Piper reading a book in the backseat of Brad's truck.  We're on our way to IKEA.

Mandy and I were supposed to go to a craft night when I was in Portland last time.  It was canceled because of all the snow, so they delivered all the materials to us to make on our own.  That's just what we did on Saturday.  I think if we do this again we would use smaller nails rather than the ones that were provided to us.  Mandy made a pair of birds sitting on a clothesline.

Here they are together.  Mine is the dove.  Not bad, but we both agree they would look MUCH better with smaller nails.  We were able to make these while sitting outside on the patio in the sunshine.

Chloe and Polly had a great time running and playing in the yard.  The grass is so green here.  Ours in Spokane is still brown with some green tinges!

Brad was having fun playing ball with Piper and the dogs.  :-)

Ooooh!  Not sure what she saw, but I loved this expression.

We spent an hour or so at the park two blocks from Mandy & Brad's house.  This is Pipers first time down the slide with Mommy.  She loved it.

Swinging with Daddy.  They were holding hands while swinging.  I was a little too late snapping the picture.  Can you see that smile?  She loves her Daddy big time.

Grandpa and Mommy taking a break.

Pretty posies at the house.

On our way home yesterday I got this great picture of Mt. St. Helens.  For those of you that don't know.  Mt. St. Helen's erupted in 1980 and it's beautiful peak became this flat top.

Here's Mt. Hood as we were leaving Portland.

Spokane is on the edge of what is called the high desert.  Here we're leaving the desert behind and coming up to the valley that Spokanne lies in .  You can see the evergreen trees beginning to appear out of the desert floor.

Boulders lying here and there hint at the mountains to come.

Mt. Spokane.  "My" mountain that I can see from our windows and deck.  Sorry about the cars and roads.  It's hard to get a good picture at 70 miles an hour.

Heading down from the upper plateau down into the Spokane valley.  That's downtown Spokane.

Home!  We sure packed a lot into two days!  We were exhausted when we got home last night.  Next post will have pictures of my IKEA purchases.

I hope I didn't bore you too much.  It was the prettiest weekend since last summer and we had beautiful drives both going to Portland and driving home.  We spent lots of time outside and played a lot.  I can't believe how much Piper changed in the short time since I was there last month.  She's talking lots more and so sweet.  I miss her already.

Have a lovely day my friends.

Blessings,

Betsy

Sewing Fun

After seeing all of your spring flowers I had to go get some of my own.  There is absolutely nothing blooming around here, so I made a trip to Michaels where I had seen this cute little pitcher on sale for 50% off when I was there on Saturday searching for yarn.  Sunday I got an email with an extra 20% off all regular or sale priced items.  I flew there and found just one of these little pitchers was left for the final price of $4.99!  It's so cute and was orginally priced at $19.99 so I think I got a bargain.  I don't usually buy much for me, but I was drawn to this little pitcher when I first saw it at it's original price and I've been hoping for a big sale before they were gone.  It's about 9 inches high and perfect for these daisy's isn't it?

Next up is a picture Mandy sent of Miss Piper enjoying her corned beef, cabbage, potatoes and carrots on St. Patrick's day.  She REALLY liked the corned beef.  Mandy said she ate every single morsel of it.  It's not a very flattering picture, but you can tell she's scooping that beef in!

Yesterday I spent the afternoon piecing more nine patch quilt blocks.  Now quilting isn't my "thing," so don't look too closely.  These are all of my scraps of cotton fabric from when I've made different dresses, quilts, etc.  I can't stand to waste the small pieces so I kept it all.  Then over the past few months when I had a spare minute or two I would cut out 4 inch blocks.  Do you see the sweet pincushion Taci made for me?

Then they were sewn into nine patch squares.

This is the view from my sewing machine.  Not bad, huh?

These were some of the squares I came up with.  Purely random grabbing fabric and sewing them together.

I had also cut out squares of fabric for the backing, so the next step was to make quilt "sandwiches."  This is so you can quilt "as you go."  You quilt each square and then when they are all done, you sew them together.  I've never done this before but thought it would be a great idea to have these to work on throughout the summer while at the lake.  No sewing machine required.

I have some in a tote bag to take with me when traveling or at the lake, along with my quilting thread and "betweens" needles.

Here's a view of more blocks.  I have 37 done in all.  I ran out of backing fabric but have lots more four inch squares.  I really don't care how long it takes me to finish this quilt.  Maybe years.  It just makes me feel good not to have wasted all of the fabric.

I made this baby blanket yesterday and Sunday evening.  Really.  It's size 13 needles and chunky baby yarn.  It was done before I knew it!   It's about 36 inches square, done in the Granny's Dishcloth pattern.  So simple and easy. And the yarn is so soft.  It was given to me last year by a lady in our church who was moving into a nursing home and didn't crochet anymore.  I love gifts like that!  This will go to the hospital in the next batch of goodies.

You ladies had such nice comments on my last post.  Really I'm nothing special and I know each of you do things for others too.  I enjoy helping others and giving my handmade things away to people I know who either need or appreciate them. 

I'm so looking forward to meeting the girls on Friday for lunch.  Hubby is going along on this trip and dropping me off at the restaurant and Gracie is taking me to Mandy's.  He doesn't think he would enjoy our chatting as much as we do!  :-)  I am seriously married to a saint.  I adore that man!  We've been married 36 years in September and I adore him more today than when we married each other.

Have a lovely, lovely day my friends.

Blessings,

Betsy