GREAT PUNCHNEEDLE

My dear friend Barb from SC whose beautiful embroidery work I showed a month or so ago - they were the 2 pics of thread painting from the Trish burr book that I had given her - told me she was sending me something in the mail and when it arrived there was this gorgeous small piece of punchneedle work that was done with only one thread like the rug I had recently purchased. She said she knew she wouldn't use it in anything and I could probably use it in my CQ. I had packed away all my squares and given myself a rest from it but immediately brought them all out to try and find a home for this piece. Unfortunately some squares are finished and others done to a point where I could not find a spot for it. I will in my next project.

I thought I had this figured out to post my writing under the picture but worked on the first one then when I added more pics they just went on top so I obviously haven't figured this out yet.

Sat. morning I went to the antique show in downtown Mt. Dora. They close off the streets and the dealers set up up and down the streets. I found there to be fewer real antiques dealers and more purse makers, jewellery makers, etc. I believe they did advertise it with arts & crafts also. I did a quick run around and did buy a couple of things but do not have pics taken yet. I left there and went to Renningers flea market as I needed fruit and veggies. I wandered around and did find quite a few small things. The one that delighted me was a small picture frame made out of the old celluloid with a curved glass front. The front is removeable so you can put your own pic in. For now I just left the photo in it from a magazine and put it on the front hall table with a few Easter items I had set out a week or so ago. There is also a pic of that. The next thing from the same man is a small about 4" jug with the cranberry colored glass on it. I have quite a few souvenier jugs and little holders with the names etched in the glass. One is the name Dorothy which was the name of my middle sister who passed away 3 years ago. I never called her Dorothy - always Do, Dodo or Dot. Another one of the pieces is a small jug with a complete cranberry top and it is etched "State Fair, Tampa, 1906, Daisy to Mother". I don't know why I like these old pieces so much but they mean far more to me then fancy jewellery or diamonds. I get such pleasure out of having them and looking at them.

Harv had his turn at the dermatologist today and he came home sporting 2 bandaids on his face and one under his arm. That one they just removed as it was irritating him and the other 2 took biopsies and will know in a week if they have to do anything more. He has a lot on his bald spot and they have a new to us treatment. They coat the area with an ointment then you wait 2 hours and they put you in front of a blue light that they leave on for a certain length of time. It is to do them all at once. He has already had many small ones taken off. This is a new treatment to us but this Dr. specializes in cancer patients only so hence all the fancy equipment. We both spent lots of time in the sun when young so are paying for it now. If we could only convince the younger generation of what the sun can do to us plus I just hate the thought of tanning beds. Cannot imagine doing that. Well have to go make like I am making dinner. I do have leftovers and something we both like so it will be easy.

It is amazing how I find myself reading one person's blog and she mentions another blog and I go there and it just goes on and on. Later I wonder where I am from where I started. Make any sense? Have you all done this also. Well Diane Knott of Diane's Musing is one where I will start and then go off on one of these tangents. A few weeks back she showed a bird she had won from a giveaway and gave the blog of the gal who created it. I went there and downloaded the pattern and yesterday and today I have not done much but play around. I thought the birds were really cute and so I made 2 of them. I now have some red paper drying on the cradboard to make some to look like cardinals (I hope).

I took a couple of pics. I made each bird in a different direction. Just depends on which way you lay the pattern down. I had a box of green and clear plastic leaves. I typed FLY and cut it out and pasted to the back of the clear leaf and tied it on the bottom. I got this idea from someone's elses blog. She made her Alice tags having words behind a large flat piece. I still look at those Alice tags and wonder at them.
Especially Karla making over 90 of them altogether. She came down sick after with a bug and I said no wonder. Imagine making 90 of those booklets and coloring the front of each page.

My head is feeling a little better today. I haven't taken any pain meds today but think I will before I go to bed. I didn't last night and had a very fitful sleep. Maybe because I just wasn't tired after my almost 11 hour drug induced sleep the night before.

I just looked at the pics and saw that I had forgot to add a smal bead for an eye. Wasn't on the pattern but I think they will look better with it.

FLEA MARKET

This past sunday was the 3rd. Sunday of the month when they have extra dealers at the antique end of the market. I went and there were a lot of dealers. I must have been there 3-4 hours. I picked up some goodies that I will show part of tonight.

The case with the blue lining I assume is a hankie case. It was on a table with a bunch of hankies and all were .50 cents and so was the case. I bought about a dozen and took a pic of a few. They will be cutters for cq. The one with the turquoise edging I bought for the edging alone. Will remove it and use it elsewhere. The brocade they are laying on is a beautiful light blue with cream and gold. There are about 3 or more yards of it and it was 1.00. Sometimes you just hit it right.

I have been off for a few days as I had to have a cancerous spot removed from my head right near the hairline in the middle of my head. They took a biopsy and determined it was cancer so had to go Mon. am and have more removed. After all was done I ended up with a very large T shaped cut right about 2" across the top of my forehead and about 2" into my head. I was on pain pills for Mon. & Tues and went back yesterday and had the dressing changed. Haven't counted the stitches but know it was a very hard place to stitch hence the large cut across. There is not much skin on our heads to draw together. Hopefully once this is healed my hair should come down and cover it. Otherwise I will be checking out Harv's baseball cap collection. That would be a pretty sight.

Just a fast post to tell you that I never heard back from Marcia who won the giveaway. When I hit her name it took me to blogger with no email and she did tell me she did not have a blog and was new to this. She might not have even remembered that she signed up. Therefore we had Cermak pull another name and this time it was Pam
Kellogg who I sure know how to reach. Pam I will get it to the post office one day this week.

Please visit Pam's etsy. Both Pam and her Mother have some great Easter things on their very inexpensive but very well made, as we would all expect from Pam, shop.

We are off to our son's vacation house in Orlando. He arrived yesterday and will be here until next Sat. Will post tomorrow night.

A in W Blog 4 and last one

Hi - before you read this please scroll down and read the first post. I did not know any other way to do this as blogger will only let me download 5 pics at a time. The whole story is below.

pic 1 - Mad Hatters hat and tea
pic 2 - back with rabbit
pic 3 - Alice and clock
pic 4 - back with rose
pic 5 - Karla's card with potion bottle tied on to it.

A in W blog 3

ist. pic back view of Pool of tears
2nd. pic - Alice.
3rd. pic - back view of Alice
4th. pic - Queen of Hearts
5th. pic - back view - Off w/your head

A in W blog 2

The 1st pic is Karla's card which has a little door that opens. Unfortunately the inside of the door was a little blurred but you get the picture.
The 2nd. is the back of Karla's card.
The 3rd.. is the front of the 1st. swap tag. Through the Looking Glass.
The 4th. is the back of the tag.
The 5th. is the 2nd. swap tag. Pool of tears.

ALICE IN WONDERLAND

In today's mail I received my Alice in wnderland swap book from Karla Nathan. Karla started this back in feb. and said 30 people was the limit. Well the requests kept coming and then there were over 60. More kept coming and she probably did not want to turn anyone away so she ended up somewhere between 80 and 90. Now all we had to do was send in 6 tags with the Alice theme and Karla made a card for each of us and ordered the small bottles for the potion. She decorated all the little bottles and when the cards started coming in she had to arrange them all and thread all 6 tags along with her cover tag on ribbon to form the book. The little bottle she bubble wrapped and shipped seperately from her card in case it would break.

I took a picture of the way she wrapped both items and wrapped them in Alice paper from an old book. Then she had to package and mail them. Karla Nathan is really the good Queen of Hearts.

I would also like to say that the quality of the tags was stupendous. So much time must have gone into making these and they sure show it. I spent a lot on mine but I did not know what I was doing as this was my first tag swap and first tags made. I will sure enjoy looking at these over and over and learning so much from them.

I am going to have to show the pictures in groups as blogger will not let me enter more then 5 at a time.

The first 2 pics are of the way she wrapped them - imagine doing this all those times.
The 3rd is a pic of the little potion bottle.
The 4th is all the cards together.
The 5th is the front of Karla's card. Notice the little door on the bottom.

I just talked to my daughter and she tells me it is a gorgeous day in Chicago. High 50's and sunny. The only trouble is they have been having 50's and lots of rain for the past couple of weeks and she said the daffodils are pokng up out of the ground. When things start coming up too early then the cold weather returns we have trouble. Good old Mother Nature.

I have no sewing pictures today but have some greenery to display. Awhile ago I said I was turning into my Mother and after last week I am turning into my MIL. She was not the least bit interested in gardening, anything outside but she did love her African Violets. She had them in a sunny but cool glassed in porch on the front of her house and they just thrived. She would pinch leaves and grow them into plants and give them away to who ever wanted them. She would also pinch a leaf from someone if they had one she didn't. Well last week at the flea market one of the plant fellows had African Violets 2.99 each. I bought 3. This is sort of dumb because we are leaving in about 6-7 weeks and have absolutely no way of getting them home in our crowded van. The ones I really wanted and have been looking for are the miniature violets. Someone had them at the end of April just as we were leaving and this year that lady is no longer there. Those I would hold on my lap all the way home if I could find them. Have any of you seen the miniatures?
So much space is taken up with the wheelchair re-habbing they do that we have a trunk about 1 foot deep. I will see if any of the full time gals down here want them. They would just die outside in the heat.

I have taken a pic of the tall terrarium with orchids and 2 of these and then I put one in the small lantern on the hall table. I also put a very small orchid under glass and a pretty ivy and flower bowl I put outside on the pedestal.

EARRING

Hi MaryAnne, Kathy and Sharon. That rick rack flower is one of the earrings I showed back a week or so. I just took the back off and sewed it down. They were screw on type earrings just glued to the flower. I still have one left that we can dissect sometime. I have not heard from Marcia yet about the prize. I have no way of contacting her as she does not have a blog and did not leave an email. When I hit her name it just bought up Blogger with no info. If she doesn't contact me by the weekend I will have Cermak pull another name. Hope you see this Marcia.

WINNER

Well Carmak The Magnificent put on his hat and did his flourish and out of the bowl he pulled a name and that was MARCIA. Please contact me Marcia with your address and I will be happy to send this to you.

To our youngest readers who don't remember Johnny Carson on the tonight show he used to put on a big turban and hold a paper up to his hat. Ed McMann would give hime the answer and he had to divine what the question had been. We make it easier here - he just pretends he has a turban and reaches into a bowl. Happy Sunday night to all.

CQ TRIANGLES

Well it finally stopped raining by the time I got up this morning. Hope that is it for awhile. Either feast or famine.

There was enough light that I took some pictures of the four triangles that will go in the middle of the wallhanging. I laid them out on a piece of black fabric but could not get a good pic of them that way. I even stod on a stool to get over them but there is one so you will get the idea. I had cut all my pieces down to the size I wanted and in this case the middle piece will be 14" instead of 20" like in the Piecemakers calender. It actually looks bigger but I measured 14" square. I took individual pics so hope you can get an idea. I did not stitch any thread embellishments on the triangles. I used only beads,sequins and pins picked up at the flea markets. I love making the sequin flowers that Jo in Australia showed us how to do. The pins on the black squares are not sewn down yet if they don't look exactly in the right place on the squares. I was still positioning them and will take the pin back off to sew down if there are places to sew. Otherwise will sew down a flat button and glue to the button.

Remember that tomorrow night I will draw a name from comments for the little giveaway.

STORMY WEATHER

Remember that oldies song wherein it rains all day long. Well that is us. It poured all night and all day until late afternoon. Both Harv and I had eye Dr. visits. Mine was for a sty on the eye that I went to see about 2 weeks or so ago. She gave me drops and I was bathing it and washing it 4 times a day and drops at bedtime. Well it is better but not gone completely and she wasn't very happy with it. She has now put me on some prednisone and antibiotic ointment to put in the eye at bedtime for 10 days and then we will see. Harv went just for a check-up as he didn't go last summer at home plus they take his eye insurance here where at home the opthamologist we have gone to for about 35 years doesn't so it makes sense to have someone here. He is like an old elephant - great memory (puts me to shame) and doesn't need glasses at his age. Can you believe it. Cataracts starting but very little. What a guy.

It was too dark again today to take pictures of the finished triangles but is supposed to be a beautiful sunny, high 70's weekend. Lets hope.

I have 2 pics I took of a very old punchneedle little piece with punchneedle done so fine it must have just used one thread. Thought you would enjoy seeing it. It would make a good box cover or a dollhouse rug. Found it at my usual fleamarket.

GIVEAWAY

I forgot to mention the giveaway in my post to-day. I have added a couple of small things to it. It would not be complete without a package of embroidery needles and I picked up a thumb pincushion at the quilt show. Who knows what else I will find before Sunday.

Tell others on your blog. It is not a very big giveaway but it is something. If you mention it on your blog I will give you 2 chances. Tell me if you do.

Hugs

FredaB

STORMY WEATHER

We have had quite a stormy day here in central Florida. Tornado warnings all around us but none have touched down thank goodness. This is when I miss the good old basement at home. If the sirens go it means one has been seen in our area and we head downstairs with our flashlights and radio in case. Here if it ever came to that we would head into our walk-in closet because it has no windows and cover our heads with pillows, etc.

I have finished the 4 triangles of the new wallhanging and was going to photograph them today in good light but that will have to wait for another day. When my daughter was down in Dec. visiting we had seen a bottle on a blog where she took a bottle and filled it with grape leaves and put a string of lights in there and then decorated the ouside. It was very nice so we got the bottle bug. We both found a nice one at one of the thrift shops but neither one got their bottle made. Hopefully next year. This started me looking at bottles with a new eye. I found a few very nice ones and put them out on display on my bakers rack in the sunroom. Two of them are particularly nice. One is with a bird and makers design on the front and was from Holland. Probably had a liqeur in it. The other was from Spain and has a women picking fruit from a loaded tree and dropping it in a basket. I thought I had an individual pic of it but apparently not. You may be able to see it well enough from the main pic. Since them I have found some smaller ones and last week at the flea market I found one in the shape of a maple leaf. I assume this was full of maple syrup at one time. It was a $1.00 at the flea market. I washed it and threw away the lid. I have to buy a assorted bag of corks and find one that fits it before I put it out. It is very pretty.

I will post the quilt pieces as soon as I can.

FIRST TAGS

I joined in a Alice In Wonderland swap with Karla Nathan and 70 some odd of her "friends". We are to each make 6 tags and Karla is making up a little book for each of us and we will get it back with 6 assorted tags. I just finished mine and took them to the post office today. Can you imagine poor Karla making all those books and swapping out cards. On top of that I just read in her post that she had that bad flu bug going around and was so dehydrated she had to go to the hospital and get intravenous liquids. Poor thing. I actually made 8 - one for me to add to the book and one to send to my daughter. I was lucky that I had picked up a bag of old watch parts at the flea market and was able to put a real clock face on each one. Some larger like the one you will see and some smaller - lady sized. I really had a nerve entering this because I had never made a tag before but I think they didn't turn out bad for the first time. As I said before I could really get into this paper thing except what do you do with it when finished. Of course that didn't stop me buying 2 books of paper today at JoAnns. Yes I was there again. They were 50% off and I just couldn't resist buying them. Just gorgeous papers to look at and to feel some of them. No magazines that I wanted. They hardly ever have the Somerset ones at our JoAnns. Maybe it is too small of a store. The manager said she just takes whatever they send and has no choice. I will have to go the larger one soon and see what they have. Here are more first tags.

If you can see it - the staple holding the small ribbon is bright green. My dear friend Pat Winter had sent me one of her wonderful presents with the little brooch and I noticed she had used green staples. Funny how something stands out to you. I Asked Pat
where she had found them and she said WalMart. Well off I went but they didn't have them down here. So this past Mon. when all my little gifts came in there was one from Pat with a box of green staples, 2 gorgeous hand dyed ribbons on those pretty, pretty cards she uses to wrap the ribbon and several silkies for me to use. She said WalMart didn't have them up there either but she found them at Office Max. So look around gals you might find some colored ones at Staples or other stores. If you ever see Purple ones let me know so I could buy them and send them to Pat.

Easy Gift

Our colder then normal weather continues here in Florida. It did hit 70 one day last week but then down again and more rain. Very unusual for winter here. I said I might as well be in Illinois until I thought about it. Here there is no snow - or not to speak of. Daytona Beach had some back in Jan. Kids actually built snowmen.

I have a nice little project that doesn't cost much and is easy. It is a needlecase made out of a small cocktail type napkin. Any small napkin - any shape would work also. I found a pack of 8 of these at a flea market in IL. and thought I had made and given them all away but found one left when cleaning out some drawers. Pays to clean out once in a while. Not too often mind. I embroidered small bouillion rosebuds on it in blue and then sewed some tiny buttons on what would be the front. I made a tassel out of the embroidery threads and used a piece of blue ribbon down the the middle.
I used what they call doctor's flannel in Australia for the inside layers. I bought some back with me and guard it jealously. Just cut one large round, 2 smaller rounds and pinked the edges. Sewed a row of chain stitch down the middle through all the layers to hold it together and that is what I covered up inside with the blue ribbon. I held the ribbon on with 2 small bouillion rosebuds.

I am also going to show you a picture of my well used one that I have had for about 10 years. They look fragile but hold up very well. I did not make mine but bought it from a friend who made a lot of them and was selling them through our friend Sharon's studio. She sold them for $12-15.00. They would make a good boutique item to sell or a gift for friends. Actually if you couldn't find the small cocktail napkins one could make one very easy with some batiste cotton or dupioni and add your own edging or lace.

I think I will use this one for a giveaway. Anyone interested in winning this needlebook just leave a comment on my blog and if you mention this on your blog I will give you another chance. Lets make the date March 14th. to pick a winner. Just looked at the calender and that is a Sunday and the start of daylight sevings time. Remember spring ahead. I will also add a few pretties to it depending on who wins it - CQ-er or not.