heylucy

help please

I really hate asking for help, but I'm desperate. What is the great tragedy, you may be asking yourself? I have over 4 years of back issues of Marie Claire Idées magazine. I've been faithfully going to the bookstore at the start of each season and getting the new issue. But suddenly there are no more copies to be found at any of the five very large bookstores I have been visiting over the last month or so. I have been stalking the magazine stands, and I never saw the summer 2006 issue. Is there anyone out there that would be willing to check their local B&N or Border's? I would gladly pay large sums of money and/or swap a pirate's booty worth of loot for it. Plus, you would have my undying gratitude. I mean, four years! How can I live if my collection is missing an issue? How I ask?

Sigh. I guess I'll have to finally go subscribe.

happy friday

I know this has been linked in a lot of blogs already, but I thought I'd continue to spread the joy. I dare you to watch this and not smile. I don't think it's possible.

monsters and other scary things

I added Lou to the shop today.

Lou has several older siblings in various homes across the country. Lou herself actually traveled to Ohio for Plush Rush. Her big sister Olive went home with somebody, but Lou flew back to California and has been hanging out with me. I have plans to work on a few more monsters this weekend.

When I was adding Lou to etsy I realized that I hadn't connected my Paypal account to my etsy account. Doh. I hope no one wanted to order something with Paypal. It's all fixed now, luckily.

I've really enjoyed reading other bloggers talking about Pure Style, and living simply. I am slowly trying to simplify and pare down. One of the things I hope to do by making and selling things is to use up all the Stuff I have. I feel so weighed down. But it's not easy to let go of things I might need someday. I live in a very small house, we don't have a garage, but we have a little shed and a tiny guesthouse. Lately it seems like whenever we want to find something we look everywhere, moving piles, making messes and shifting junk around. I don't like the feeling that my stuff is such a controlling part of my life. So I am letting go. And it's hard.

I listed my piano on Craig's list yesterday. It's 30 years old, and my grandfather bought it for me when I was young. I took piano lessons for four years as a child, and never really had the touch. I could play, but I wasn't anything special. So someone is coming to look at the piano on Saturday morning, and they might just take it with them. I never play it, I never will. I can only do so many things in the hours I have each day. Our living room is way too small for a piano. I know it is the right thing to sell it cheap so some other person can use and enjoy it, but it's still going to be hard to let it go. Could somebody please reassure me that I'm doing the right thing?

grand opening

I guess we can call this a lower-case grand opening. I've listed a few things on etsy, and have a little more to add and a couple other items underway and to be added over the next week or two. Please visit the shop here. I may try to take some new pictures of my glittery letters I'll be selling, they didn't come out very well. They really are much cuter in real life (and at only $6, which includes domestic shipping, quite a bargain :o):

I made lots of these last Christmas and used them as gift tags. I don't know if anyone is still enjoying their gifts, but absolutely all of my gift recipients have their initials displayed somewhere, and they look at them every day.

One project that I finished up, but that is not for sale is this:

It's a little craft/garden apron form my niece, so she can keep her tools and seed packets handy if she helps her mom in the garden. I'm working on one for her mom too. I think I like it, it's hard to know if it's really as cute as it could be without being able to put it on her. I hope she likes it.

blue and orange

The sofa cushions aren't all finished, but you get the idea:

I think it looks good. This room is going to be seriously colorful and fun. I hope it will flow well with the rest of the house. This is going to be one of those very long, bit by bit projects. I was already going that direction, but the addition of the orange pillow just confirmed it, I think.

I want to give one more recommendation for this stitchery kit. The instructions were very easy to follow, I think you could be a beginner and not have a lot of trouble learning how to embroider using one of these kits (I did choose the most difficult one, there are some other very cute ones that would be even easier). The linen fabric is really lovely, and you get a piece for the pillow back too, the pattern markings were very crisp and clear, and colors of the wool yarn were just perfect. What are you waiting for? Go get one!

In between all my stitching and sewing, I carved some tiny rubber stamps:

I thought they would be fun for stamping ribbon for tying up gifts.

I've been working on some other things too, and I'm going to be opening up my etsy shop sometime this weekend. I'm calling it my "Save up for a plane ticket to China" fund, although after the last couple months of vet bills, car repairs, new washing machines and various other unexpected expenses, it could just be considered a "Get all the bills paid so I stop having anxiety attacks about the finances" fund. Either way, I have some fun stuff to sell, and I hope you will visit and spread the word, I would really, really appreciate it!

tender fingers

I can't stop embroidering:

Only two flowers to go, but I think I am going to take a break and re-cover the sofa cushions so it will be all ready for it's new pillow. My fingers are a little sore, they need a rest.

I've also started another little project, which I need to finish up on my sewing machine:

This is going to be a little something for my niece. She loves airplanes.

I'm on a roll, there should be a whole lot more to see tomorrow!

don't be crewel

Sorry for the terrible pun. I couldn't help it.

The post office wasn't hatin' yesterday:

And I sat right down last night with my remote control and got started. This is just like coloring in a coloring book, only with yarn instead of crayons. These colors are so fun. The linen is really lovely, and the color is just perfect. I'm not quite sure how to photograph orange, it's a little off in my picture, in reality it's a little deeper, not so sherbet-y looking. And there is even a piece of lime green linen for the back of the pillow. Now I'm really going to have to recover the cushions on my living room settle, I have the perfect deep periwinkle Susan Sargent print just waiting to be used for this project, and my orange pillow will look great on there.

Of course, then I have to tear down the hideous wallpaper and repaint the living room, make slipcovers for the two wingchairs and figure out what to do with the piano, which doesn't really fit in our little room, find a new cabinet or stand for the television so I can get rid of the slightly unstable Ikea armoire and get the wood burning stove fixed or replaced, because at this point, a cozy fire will be just perfect in our cute little living room. I'll also need some art for the walls, I'm thinking about maybe a small wall quilt, or maybe a wall full of small quilts. Oh, and curtains, I have to figure out some window treatments, I have no idea what to do there...

All because of an orange pillow.

a series of completely unrelated paragraphs

I think my post office hates me. No sign of an embroidery kit yet. Once it took 5 days for me to get a Netflix movie, which was sent from Santa Ana. I think sometimes they hang out in the back at the post office, and when they get tired of stuffing the mail in our little boxes, or the clock says "5:00" they just quit.

So, I'll have to talk about other things. I have some bento box catching up to do. Yesterday's lunch was not pretty. In fact, it looks kind of gross, but it was very delicious.
It's Beef Bourginan, a thick slice of bread, cherries and a little banana. Yes, I did buy baby bananas just because they are so cute and fit nicely in my lunchbox. My Beef Bourginan was a little tempermental. I decided it would really be better to eat hot, and, not wanting to risk throwing my bento box in the microwave I put it on a paper plate to heat it up. It exploded all over the microwave, so I had to clean up that mess. It got much runnier after I heated it up, and as I was carrying it back to my desk I dribbled it all over myself. It was still good, though. Just a little dangerous.

Today I can't wait for lunch because I have this:

These are going to be lettuce bundles with grilled, shredded chicken, noodles with peanut sauce, scallions, carrots and peanuts. I thought I had a cucumber, but alas, there was no cucumber to be found in the vegetable drawer. I have extra peanut sauce and some strawberries too.

The other day my sister shared her stack of books next to her bed, so I thought I would do the same:

I've made it through a good bit of these the last few weeks, and several are actually part of our family book club. Yes, I am a little behind on mailing them on. Oops. I try to keep track of all the books I read in a little journal I have, but I often forget to jot them down in there, and then it disappears for awhile and I find it again and I try to catch up, but it doesn't always work. I'm trying this out, to see if I remember to enter them there. It has all kinds of nifty little features, like a 5-star rating system and a place to write reviews. I didn't realize that the reviews were made public, so I just wrote a few lines to remind myself what I liked and didn't like about the books I've added. My reviews seem kind of lame compared to the others, I mean, they're not really reviews at all. So don't read them, okay? I think you can see my books here.

Anyway, I thought it would be fun to see other peoples bedside stacks, so spread the word, take a picture of your stack, and leave a link in the comments. Tell everyone you know! That doesn't sound dirty, does it? Show us your stack!

When I fast-forward through commercials on my Tivo, I always hold my breath. Does anyone else do this? I have no idea why. I have to force myself to breathe when I hit that fast-forward button.

linen, wool, silk and cotton

I always take a knitting break at some point during the summer. I guess it's partly the heat and partly a need to re-charge the knitting batteries. But now I have a bunch of summer shows saved on my Tivo, so I need something to do while I watch TV in the evening. I'm finding myself drawn back to needlework projects. I've done some cross stitch in the past, and a little needlepoint (although I never actually finished a needlepoint project, unlike my sister-I wish she had picture of her needlepoint, it's really quite beautiful and amazing). I especially love samplers. I don't know why that is, just something about the alphabet all stitched up in pretty colors and a showcase of various stitches all lined up just so really appeals to my asthetic. I have a Shepherd's Bush sampler I made 10 or 12 years ago. I've never managed to frame it, I should do that. I loved making it, and the pale colors are so pretty and soothing, and I don't think it's too cutesy like a lot of cross stitch can be. Plus there are some other interesting techniques in there as well. I think the bottom section qualifies as hardanger, doesn't it?

I've done a very little bit of regular embroidery, and some ribbon embroidery. I think I'm going to try out both again, for my TV viewing projects this month. I ordered this fun kit from Kristin Nicholas:

I was also lucky enough to get one of Hilary's Stitchettes. I also dug out that pretty piece of pale green linen you can see on the right in the pictures above. I think I might use it for something like the monograms or samplers seen here. I love the red with the natural linen, but wouldn't they also be pretty as sort of tone-on-tone pieces? Maybe my green linen with white floss? I think I might try it out.

Linen, wool, silk and cotton. Those are some of my favorite words!