Wish I Had A "Before" Photo

While at an cool antique mall out of town, I happened to find this little cabinet. I'd been wanting additional bathroom storage and this fit the bill, size-wise. Otherwise, it was a little beat-up looking. Big deal, nobody's going to actually see it, right? A previous owner had painted the outside of it a dreary maroon color and left the drawers the original (I think) wood grain. After looking at it a while in it's new abode, a little light bulb popped on over my head. Wouldn't this look so cute painted white? With some nice little ceramic drawer pulls? Since Mark is the furniture painter in the family, he got all crafty with it and TA-DA!, now we have this sweet little cabinet that fits in ever so nicely in the bathroom. Oh, and just to be technically correct about furniture painters in the family, I just remembered that Matt is too! Check this out.

I also have a new finish of my own to share. This is "Black Cats' Halloween" by Waxing Moon Designs. It was fun to stitch and easy, considering I used only black floss. My plan is to have it framed by Halloween. It would be fun to decorate a black frame in a Halloween theme. We'll see. My, how crafty we've been.

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A Finish!

I'm happy to say that I finished the Pledge Of Allegiance flag that I've been working on. Everyone who sees this thinks that it's some combination of complicated stitches, but it's just good old cross stitch. Well, and some backstitching. But complicated it is not. I'll be keeping this one.

Now I'm on to some Halloween stitching. I don't do a whole lot of Halloween stitching, but I found one with a vintage-looking cat that I couldn't resist. I'll post photos when I get a little more done.

What I've Been Up To, Stitching-Wise

The thing about having a knee injury is that you're limited in the things you can do. Anything that involves going low to the ground or high up isn't going to happen. So there go my plans for straightening out those pesky low chaotic kitchen cabinets or painting the room that we swear was last painted by drunken chimps. No gym time either.

So all of this gave me more time for stitching, which was actually a very good thing. I also started working at The Stitch Store, and that causes, what? Inspiration? Temptation? Yes. Talk about a kid in a candy store. All I know is that I've been doing a lot more stitching lately.

Here's my current project, I Pledge Allegiance, by Bask Designs.

I'm currently working on the last red stripe and then have to stitch the words of the pledge around the flag. Very cool.

And finally, two of my earlier 2010 finishes, Little Ballerinas and Princess Parade by Country Cottage Needleworks. I stitched these
for my nieces' newly redone bedroom.

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More craftiness will be coming soon.

My Crafty Roots

I've decided to change my blog to include the other crafts, aside from cross-stitch, that I like to do. And some that other people do too. So here is the relaunch of my totally revamped blog.

Crafting is something I've been involved in as far back as I can remember. As a child, I loved to color, draw and paint, and a new box of crayons was always cause for celebration. When I got older, my mom let me use her paint-on tube paints to color designs onto pillowcases. I doubt if they make these things anymore. It was a chemical-smelling product in a tube and you drew over a transfer. It probably wouldn't sound so interesting to many people, but it was truly fun to my crafty little self. And what about the paint-by-number sets which didn't look good no matter who did them. Didn't matter, it was lots of fun!

Later on, Mom taught me to actually cross stitch and do crewel embroidery on the pillowcase transfers. That's what started my love for cross-stitch and the world of floss and fabric. Soon I got into sewing and someone gave me a bunch of Barbie clothes patterns. My Auntie Helen was a avid seamstress and she'd pack up her remnants for me. I'd gladly trek all four blocks to her house for a bag of doll clothes fabric. And no sewing machine for me! I was probably about eight years old, so all sewing was done by hand. I remember making Skipper a really cute black and white print summer dress and Barbie was decked out in a thoroughly mod Palazzo pants sleeveless jumpsuit outfit. I ended up making lots of clothes for my dolls, using my tiny hand stitches and plenty of sew-on snaps. I was about 10 when I finally got to learn to use the sewing machine. As a teenager, I became pretty good at sewing clothes for myself, sometimes choosing patterns that were way beyond the scope of my knowledge just to see what I could learn.

There were other crafty adventures too: Crochet -- stylish drawstring purses! And beading -- who can forget those fun beaded choker necklaces we made in the early 70's? And all you needed was a little tube of beads and some elastic cord. We decorated blown-out eggs with sequins and glitter for our Easter egg tree, and when Christmas came around, we stuck pins full of beads and sequins into styrofoam balls for ornaments. One Easter I was totally enthralled with making little Easter baskets out of plastic butter containers and pipe cleaners. It seems like I was always doing something.

As I look back, I realize how much these early craft projects influenced the kind of crafts I do today. I also can't ever remember being bored as a kid. I'm glad that my mom encouraged the artistic sides of both my sister and me. Sheila shared many of my craft endeavors, and then some.

In future posts I'll be talking about my current crafty adventures, along with those of other crafters. I plan to include lots of photos and other info about my projects. So stay tuned. I think this is going to be fun!

The Best Kind Of Summer Camp

When I was in the sixth or seventh grade, the one thing I really wanted to do was to go to Camp Lawrence. If I remember correctly, this was a week-long Catholic summer camp for elementary and middle school age kids. For some reason, going to camp was the big thing that year. Everyone was going. My friends and I started making lists of the things we needed to take. All of our enthusiasm didn't make any difference to my parents though, or to the parents of many of my friends. It was a no-go. So my equally deprived best friend and I spent camp week at home, making hippie love bead necklaces, riding our bikes, and being annoying.

Well, the good kind of karma struck when I found out about Camp Iwannastitch, which is held at my favorite cross stitch shop, The Dogwood Patch. The store itself is located in Hiawassee, GA, with mountains and Lake Chatuge in view. What a beautiful setting for a relaxing, stress-free weekend!

My sister, Sheila, and I booked our camp spots with the expectation that it would be as wonderful as last year's and we were not disappointed! Armed with our stitching and supplies, we made the trip through the winding roads of the North Georgia Mountains. We arrived on Friday afternoon to greetings from the store owner, Terrie, and our fellow campers. The store was stocked with fabulous charts, floss, fabric and supplies, plus chocolate in the form of candy and brownies. Terrie and her husband, Kenneth, are great hosts and always made sure we had everything we needed. Who could ask for anything more?

So from Friday afternoon until Sunday afternoon, we stitched, ate (the food was good too), shopped, played games, had some great conversation and then stitched some more. Some people might be confused as to how this could be fun. They wonder how we can derive pleasure from "just sitting around and stitching for that many days". One of the other campers summed it up best when she said that you would only understand if you were a stitcher.

I finally finished Leaping Cat and started Little Ballerinas by Country Cottage Needleworks while at Camp Iwannastitch. It was a good feeling finishing something because I haven't been stitching all that much lately. I think I got a stitching jump-start! Now I'm excited to keep going with my current project.

None of us left until we absolutely had to on Sunday. We finished up our shopping and said goodbye to Scooter, Terrie's newest kitten. We said our sad goodbyes to Terrie and our fellow campers, who we all consider to be new friends. There was also an agreement made to attend camp together next year! It will look a little different next time because Terrie is moving her store to Buford, GA. It's new name will be The Stitch Store. I will definitely be back!

So They Loaded Up The Truck And They Moved To Berk-e-ley

I had never received so many astonished looks than when I told people that yes, we were going to drive to Berkeley, CA to move Matt to grad school. Then after we got back, people were more inclined to tell us that we were nuts when we told them that we had done the drive in 3 days. From Atlanta to Berkeley. And, no, we didn't break any land speed records in the process.

What we found was that driving on I-40 is not an interesting trip, even though I had never visited most of the states we drove through. I'm sure that all of these states have their lovely views, exciting cities and interesting attractions. We just didn't get to see them.

We saw some weird stuff though. Near Conway, AR is Toad Suck Park. We saw the sign for this sometime late in the afternoon during the first day, just when we were starting to get punchy. My traveling companions laughed in merriment, while I wondered why they would give what was probably a perfectly nice park such a revolting name. Later in the day, we met a very nice Starbucks lady in Little Rock who told us that she used to live in the city we just moved to. Small world!

Amarillo, TX boasts The Big Texan, which describes itself as a steak ranch. The big draw here is that they'll give you your meal free if you order the 72 oz. (that's four and a half pounds, for all of the mathematically challenged) steak and eat all of it. And all of the sides that come with it. Oh yeah, one more thing, you have to finish it in ONE HOUR! Neither Mark nor Matt was up to the challenge, so we travelled on.

One place along our route that I would have liked to visit is The Freshwater Pearl Museum. It sounds wonderful -- a guided tour, lunch and a jewelry showroom! I was driving at the time and was soooo tempted to pull off the highway, but I decided to save it for another time. It's not too far away from home.

By day three we were in the desert and it got seriously hot. Yes, our car thermometer said 105 degrees. We were somewhere in California when this picture was taken. The desert is pretty fascinating at first (Look! A cactus!), but after about 10 hours you find yourself wishing for the cool, green mountains of North Georgia.

And another bit of interesting info? When you enter California, you have to go through California Customs! Ha Ha! They actually stop your car and ask if you have any fresh fruits, vegetables or plants. We had none of the above, so we didn't get to find out what would happen if you did. Would they confiscate your apple?

You can only imagine how happy we were to arrive in Berkeley on Sunday night. It truly looks like Matt's kind of place to live. I predict that he'll be happy and successful there. Even though we'll miss him, both Mark and I are glad that he found a good place to live and learn for the next 5 (?) years.

We'll be visiting the beautiful San Francisco Bay area again for sure, but next time we'll be flying the friendly skies.

Cats On The Move

While we're all a bit stressed out about this move, I can't help but worry about our three feline companions. Everything I've read tells me that moving is highly stressful for cats especially. Dogs do a much better job at getting used to their new surroundings. But we have cats and we better start looking forward to that extra challenge.

There are so many websites and articles devoted to moving with your cat and getting him acclimated to his new environment. One website tells me not to pack in front of the cats. A former neighbor of ours used to travel a lot. Whenever she brought out her suitcase, one of her cats barfed on it. Now that's a statement. Another article says that seeing the rooms in their familiar house empty can make cats feel unstable. We've emptied out rooms before to clean carpets and the cats seemed to think it was great fun! What an adventure!

I already know that our three - Cosmo, Ozzy and Moxie - are going to hate the travel part. Luckily we'll only have to drive for an hour or so to get to the new house, but none of them have ever ridden this long in a car. Well, that I know of. And they all HATE riding in cars, although to varying degrees.

Cosmo: REALLY, REALLY hates cars.
Ozzy: REALLY hates cars.
Moxie: Kind of doesn't like riding in cars.

We've decided that we are going to divide the cats up and take one each. I'll take Moxie!! Oh yeah, one website tells us not to put your cat in the back of the moving van. What? Someone would do that? Another says to play classical music when you're transporting the kitties. Hmmmm. Yet another advises us cat movers to ignore their howling while in the car. Uh huh.

One of my favorite pieces of advice is to communicate with your cat on a regular basis and include him in your plans. Also you're supposed to "send your cat thought pictures of your new home". This was a gem. But I might do it.

My biggest concern is getting our three kitty friends used to our new home. From what I've read, this can be extremely tricky. Many of the articles I've read offer very good advice about confining the cats to one room in the new house where they can just chill out. This will be their room for a while so it needs to have everything in it to make them comfy, like their litter box, food, blankets and toys. OK, we can do that. Then after a few days you can start to keep the door open. There are also products that can help to calm your cat. One is an actual plug-in thing that you put in their room. Who knew?

The thing that scares me the most is that this acclimation period can take up to six weeks!

I'll keep you posted.