Rudolph, the Christmas pillow

Time to make more pillows! I know, me and the pillows right?

This time it's Rudolph

One hour baskets

 A got a little bee in my bonnet to organize my IKEA raskog carts. It required sewing 12 !!! one hour baskets.

Aside from all those bulky batting scraps in the bottom one the baskets are super tidy now. Man, it did take a long time though. LOL

If you make these  I prefer fusible fleece interfacing in the handles and flex foam one sided fusible for the baskets. I tried a few different interfacings and the flex foam is definitely the nicest result. The baskets are sturdy and smooth and hold their shape no matter what is in the them.

Autumnal

 Grant still LOVES yardwork.

Sam still loves all things outdoors. She asks me to take a picture of every single leaf in the yard. LOL

I have had to have an ungodly amount of dental work this year and it leaves me with crippling jaw pain. I was laying on the couch after the last round and needed to keep grant quiet so we worked on spelling with cheezits. He was SUPER proud of himself for managing to spell this! "Mom I spelled I said go!"

A featherweight for me!

One  morning at the flea I walked past a whiteboard that said PORTABLE SINGER $50. It was crossed through and marked SOLD. I died! I have been hunting and hunting for a featherweight for a good four years now. I am not sure that was a featherweight, but there was a chance it was.

I mentioned this to one of my dealer friends when I saw him later that morning. He said "oh, a 221? I used to sell all those to this one guy. He still has a lot of them even though he doesn't sell them anymore. I can get you one."

I died again! Are you kidding?  Welllll that was sometime in August. While the price was a good price, it wasn't $50, so I needed some time to save up the money. Then we had the money saved and it took a whole month to finally get hooked up with it. When he didn't have it again yesterday he sent me directly to the guys house (a 90 year old man) to get it ourselves.

And we did just that!

I am waiting on some motor grease so I can grease that before I drive it. It runs, I did run it before I bought it. Last night I spent an hour cleaning and oiling it.

But eeeeee! At long last she joins the fleet.

What shall I call her?

Flea market Sunday

Man, 11 days huh?  I have been in a funk.  Just sitting here on the couch doing nothing really. It's been really grey this whole month. And cold. And crazy with 10 different doctor appointments (not done yet with those!). 

The Christmas at the flea is REALLY kicking into high gear. I admire a lot, but don't buy a lot.

 I did snatch up this box of ornaments which has a few really special ones in it.

 I waivered and waffled on this FOREVER. It's GORGEOUS but the shape is just so impractical. You can't really hang it up, no one is ever going to finish a huge star...but ultimately I decided I could sell  it of I wanted to, but I could never get it back if I left it. For some reason the close up is way down below. It is indeed fab.

 Postage stamps always call to me too.

 The morning light is no good for photos.

 I have one of these already, but they are just so charming that I bought it. I saw some very special tiny putz houses too, but they were too pricy to justify.

 Those are old German santas with clay faces. I have nothing like them so they were a yes please! There is a tree in that box above that works perfectly for them (they are missing their trees and belts). Now I need one more tree. That little putz house there has a water wheel. I have never seen one like that before. Most of the spokes are broken off though, but it was $1.

 Easter chicks in party hats!

Close up of the star.

I've been listening to Christmas music and watching all the  movies already. I am in LOVE with straight no chaser, Jack loves Pentatonix. What else do you love?

Fall decor

 I woke up the other morning and found these two on the couch like these. They are peas in a pod. Although they fight like cats and dogs. A lot. Every day.

 I tried a few new fall decorating things this year. Not pictured is the foyer tree - which is the same. I put all my golden yellow quilts on the quilt ladder.

 And I put some golden colored aprons on the other ladder. Aprons certainly say thanksgiving to me!

 Because this little piecing of fencing is new, this is new also. It's quite the handy spot for my holiday postcards. Since my old holder broke a few years back I had not been using them.

And the mantle is mostly the same I think, except I was really not in the mood so I just started piling stuff up there.

pillow all the things, the fall version

 When I put up the fall stuff this week I dug around in the closet and realized I'd only made two fall pillows last year. Rather than stick the Christmas ones on I just made two more.  This owl was a feedsack scrap I recently acquired. Rather than just hoard it I cut into and made a cute pillow. These are simple pillows, but I wanted to showcase the centers.

I bought this candlewick piece dirt cheap on Facebook before we went on vacation. I almost forgot it! I whipped it up into a quick pillow too, again just showcasing the center.

Quilts for others

 My dad drives for the Amish in his little town.  This often means driving people to doctors and hospitals.  He had been driving a young boy who had cancer who passed away earlier this year. I volunteered to make a quilt for his mother.  This turned out to be quite the project for a million reasons, but I am happy to have it done.

 It was a real challenge to figure out what to do with a TON of huge (and differently sized blocks). It was a real make it work project, that's for sure. I'm not entirely happy with the end product either.

I do like the happy accident of the different colored blues on this side though.

So, I really think that's about all I have to say about that.

Flea Market Sunday, the Florida version

We live in Florida for two years in the early 2000s. I fondly remember getting my real collecting start there. Hunting ornaments and quilts and tablecloths. Buying some of my most loved pieces of furniture that we still live with every day.  I was excited to be on the hunt there again.  And hunt I did. Or try to anyway. We hit two flea markets and probably ten thrifts. I came home with just a teensy bit to show for it. Maybe thrifting has changed there, maybe I am just very used to my haunts at home now, maybe it just wasn't enough time...

So, what did I buy?

 It's kind of awesome to find this set in it's original box. (The box lid is down lower.)

 These eggs were priced pretty high in the thrift but at that point I was getting desperate.

 I actually bought the quilt blocks in Metropolis, Illinois. The day we drove through taking the kids to see superman there were about a hundred yard sales! I stopped at so many and only bought the quilt blocks. The yellow is a super sweet child's smock which is on my ladder right now with the rest of my thanksgiving stuff.

 That big elf and his tongue kill me. This was all I bought at a flea market that used to be my FAVORITE. I used to buy gobs and gobs of stuff there, including a huge amount of ornaments.

 The goodwill we hit was AMAZING. It was so, so, so clean. And so organized. And everything was priced. It was really like a store, except way better because junk! Our goodwills here are overpriced, dark, dirty things in comparison. I bought these two feather trees in there. (And loads of other stuff, but useful stuff like jackets and a front door wreath and sand pails. Ha.)

The ornament box.

I am happy to be back to my usual haunts except this is a pretty slow time of year around here too. :)

Semi handmade halloween this year

Since we went to Florida for 8 days right before Halloween I had to have the Halloween costumes ready to go before we left. It was quite the crunch there for awhile.

 Grant wanted to be a spider with RED EYES. He cared about nothing other than the RED EYES. I made a quick hat and hot glued some big googly eyes on it and stuck him on a costume we have had kicking around since Jack was little.

 Sammi wanted to be a mouse. Her favorite book Is about a mouse, so she is all mice, all the time.  I had a picture of myself around 4 or 5 years old wearing a mouse costume, so I loosely based hers on that.

 The hat is from the Wild Things book. I love that book for dress up clothes for Sam.

 Jack is reusing a medieval day costume from school last year.

We only had 8 !!! trick or treaters come to the door last night. It was so sad.

Onward and upward now towards the holidays!