Happiness and Thankfullness

Happy Thanksgiving. So I'm a little late, what else is new?! I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. Ours was good, different because it's the first one I've had away from home, but still good. We misjudged the freeway traffic to get to Phoenix and took a roundabout longer way to get there, but we got there and home safely and that's most important.

I've been sewing lately! Woo hoo! I've made 5 bags in the last month, sold 3, possibly 4, and kept the last one for myself. It was too cute to put into the selling pile.

On my trip back home a couple weeks ago, Mom, Peanut and I went shopping. Fabric and craft shopping of course because neither of us have enough fabric or sewing do-dads. I bought a cuddly quilt kit for Peanut and sewed it together this weekend. Total time was about 5 hours, including having to chase him away from the ironing board and keep him occupied playing with his toys and not my sewing chair. It turned out EXCELLENT! I love the corduroy on it but remembered why I don't sew with it after the first seam. It's a little more difficult than I'm used to. And, Peanut got a huge smile on his face when I gave it to him. He kept trying to grab the cowboys and cowgirls in the middle with his little pincher fingers.
Since I finished Peanut's cuddly quilt this afternoon, I had time after Peanut went to bed to keep on sewing. I whipped this up for a friend who's expecting a baby boy soon. I'll throw the backing in it tomorrow and he'll have his own cuddly quilt waiting for him to get here. The dark blue is a small plaid - not sure why my camera didn't pick that up better. Total time so far, 90 minutes! One of my personal best. Toot Toot on my own horn.
One of the most precious things my mom taught me when I was 5 or 6 was to sew. I remember making lots of barbie clothes, then bigger baby clothes, and then finally, my own clothes. I remember being a little girl and going to the fabric store and watching Mom touch fabric as she looked around. Always touching and petting bolts of fabric as she walked by, and now I do this too. If you don't sew or quilt, I don't think you understand this subconscience touching. It's like it's programmed into our brains that our hands must touch fabric of any kind, anywhere we are. The love of sewing, of cutting pieces of perfectly good fabric up, pinning it together, and then sewing into another creation is such a huge part of who I am that I could never repay Mom for instilling it into my soul. So, this Thanksgiving weekend, I give thanks once again to my Mom for being such a great influence in my life and for being my best friend.

And for my last photo, pure Happiness.


TTFN ~ Crystal

Almost...there...

Only 4 more days til Crystal and Elliot get back from visiting up north in Vancouver. Thats going to be the longest 4 days ever!!!!! I miss them way more than I can possibly describe in words, and I cant wait to go pick them up Monday at the airport, wonder how many land speed records I'll break on the way up there?

It's been pretty lonely and boring around here with out them. The cat was entertaining for awhile, now shes just annoying. Into everything and anything she can be.

I've managed to keep myself pretty busy while they've been gone. Haven't had a lot of new jobs come rolling in, but thats ok, it will pick up. I've had a couple different adjusters tell me its the start of the busy season now, so thats a good thing for me. Over the last week seems like all I've seen on the freeway are moving trucks coming into town. Several taking the Tangerine road exit here by our house and heading out into Oro Valley...its kinda like the Lake Oswego of Tucson for you portland metro area folk. Lots of big houses, lots of snooty people...and alot of new houses for all these old and rich people to move into :) GO OLD RICH PEOPLE!!!

I've had 4 tables and a chair in the garage for weeks now trying to get them finished and taken back to some customers. 2 of the items are for shipping claims, the other 3 items are from being at a shippers house, having them like my work, and then asking me if I can refinish a piece of furniture for them...well duh, of $ course $ I $ can $ silly $. :) For the right price, I will do just about anything, aside from wearing a skirt that is....panty hose ok, but no skirts.

One of the items was a Herman Miller Chair that started out with some huge scratches on the seat. At first I was leary on trying the repair cause the scratches were across the grain and those are hard to get rid of, but, all turned out well in the end. Here are some before and after pic's of the chair.





And now the after pic's.



The other item I finished today was an old hutch. The before pic isn't that great as I forgot to take a picture of the entire top. There were way more scratches on the top than these pics show, but you get the idea.


The after pic has some weird spots that showed up on it, not sure what that is, but still, the effective point is made, they are done.




I have 3 more tables to do, one of them has been sanded and stained, the other has been sanded. Tomorrow I'll get the other one stained, then the 2 of them will be ready for lacquer. The 3rd table is all done too, just needs a coat of wax on top of it and its ready to go back to the customer too. I'll get some pix of all those posted as soon as I'm done. I'm off to get some chow then its bed time. Have to get up early tomorrow and go take back this jerks speaker covers that I had to recover with new speaker fabric. He better be happy or he's going to look awfully funny with them crammed up his bum!