I know it's been awhile...

since I've actually blogged about anything of consequence.  My friend, Tom, asked me why and I replied, "The mully grubs."  Isn't that a great expression?  I mean, I thought it was some kind of big-assed Texas bug when my friend, Linda, wrote about cleaning until the mully grubs were gone, but it really just means being down in the dumps - a blue funk as it were.  Sometimes I'm like Mr. Monk, bogged down in the OCD details of obsessing over perfection, or the lack thereof.  For the past couple of months, my whole house looks like each room has had some sort of minor explosion; I start a project, get distracted and move on to something else.  Well, I am happy to report that today something finally got done!

Tom and Al came by to do their monthly sales tax report, drop off their bookkeeping paperwork for October and put up the living room curtain rod.  You know - the one Richard and I puzzled over, cursing the engineer who designed it, until I realized after he left that the decorative ends of the rod unscrewed...  Duh!  They also brought me a case of Greek yogurt and a can of pumpkin from their morning trip to Costco, but I digress...

It didn't take long - since they know what they are doing.  You can see Al supervising the finishing touches once the rod was up and the valance was in place.  There was great gnashing of teeth and more than a few expletives deleted in the sewing room last night as I sewed the wrong edges together and had to rip it apart and start over.  I've been dithering over this thing for a month, worrying about ruining the cheap daybed quilt I bought to turn into this fabulous window treatment!

Of course, there's always too much light when you don't need it - 

but you get the picture. 

You can see that the valance matches the quilted throw and pillow on the chair - and it doesn't clash too badly with the lamp.  Thank you, guys - thank you so much!

I love it when a plan comes together.

I am really happy with the fabric and the wall color coordination - and it was really a happy accident.  Like most of the really good things in life.

Progress...

Just finished cutting the fabric for my bedroom window valance.  Finally!  And do you know why I was procrastinating?  It's such a stupid reason - I was afraid that this was the sort of fabric that it's hard to tell the right side from the wrong side.  Duh - look at it!  I finally unfolded it this morning (why didn't I just have a look at the bedskirt is beyond me) and it's printed checks rather than woven.  See, it's all just another symptom of my fear of success - but that's another story.  I bought two yards of sixty-inch fabric, so I cut it in half the long way and I'm going to stitch the ends together to make a 120-inch self-lined valance.  I'm using a wide pocket rod, so I'm leaving a couple of inches at the top for a ruffled effect.  I have a client coming by at one or I'd be in the bedroom stitching this fabulous window treatment up!  I am going to get it done tonight and hopefully get both the bedroom and office valances and rods hung next week - film at eleven.  One of these days.  Soon.

I had forgotten...

how dang much fabric I have!  I had washed all of it before putting it away for two reasons: it was stinky from being in storage and I have finally gotten on the pre-washing bandwagon.  I've been ironing for two days!  I had sorted out the fabric for the living room pillows days ago and then I lost my incentive just looking at the ironing board.  It's my own fault.  I tell you, I am getting to be a cheapskate in my old age.  No - I didn't buy a new ironing board.  I had one of those small ones, so when I was at WalMart, I got this cheap wooden TV tray table for $8 - cheaper than the ironing board - and figured I would just put my little portable ironing board on top of it when I needed to use it and then I could use the table for other stuff as needed.  It was a good plan - but what a pain in the butt.  I ironed the valance I made for the bathroom and by the time I was done, I wanted to throw the table and the ironing board out the window.  The ironing board kept slipping off the table - it was a very trying half hour or so.  The cheap iron, however, works great!  Yesterday, I broke down and ironed more of the fabric I had washed to put away and succeeded in not losing my temper.  Then inspiration struck!  I taped the ironing board to the little table and I ironed this big pile of fabric for my pillow cover project and then some.  It's not like I iron that often, but I like it.  It is actually relaxing and somehow strangely satisfying.  I know, I'm weird.  

As you can see, I still have more fabric to iron and put away - and my assistant is a big help!

ME Monday...

This is a Longaberger Medium Boardwalk basket.  Sort of plain and boring on its own, huh?  Never fear - Mary Engelbreit to the rescue!

Better, right?  I had started making seasonal liners for the purse: Christmas, Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day - you get the picture.  Then those months like May roll around with no holidays - enter my stash of ME fabric.

The black liner is pretty all-purpose, but I made one out of LHFF, a teapot print, a cherry print, the houses and flowers on the red background and LHFF for Halloween.  Too cute!  I have some ME Christmas fabric and some scotty dog print - don't you think I need liners in those patterns, too?

P.S.  Don't forget to check out more ME Monday over at CherryChick!

Sunday project...

Remember those pillow covers that didn't look so great in the living room after all?  Pink just can't make brown leather girly, but it can brighten up a sad little screened porch.  I made a cushion for the seat of my old oak bench with some matching fabric, made some new pillow forms for the covers - and voila! - a place to sit outside.  I need to find some sort of little table for the corner there - I have a Mary Engelbreit plant stand, but it's too cute where it is in the bathroom.  The space also needs a weather-proof area rug.  I'll keep pondering...  Did you know that it's cheaper to buy two $2.50 bed pillows from WalMart and turn them each into two pillows than it is to buy ready-made pillow forms - or even a bag of fiber fill?  Just a thrifty tip...

I had to engineer a way to keep my silk ginkgo tree upright - the wind keeps blowing it over.  The last straw was when it broke my pretty green Smith & Hawken pot (on sale for $5 at Target a couple of years ago - I got two green ones and a red one).  I'm going to switch the broken pot out for the other good green one and then flip the broken one over - broken side to the wall - and use it as a stand for my vintage look fan ($12 on sale at WalMart).  And - time to start rotating my ME flags by season - I have a whole bunch of them!  Unfortunately, when I took these photos it had clouded up to rain - that's summer in Florida for you. More screened porch updates this weekend, hopefully!

Busy as a bee...

I have had a really productive day today.  I realized that I haven't done any meaningful work since June 1 when I started packing up the office to move.  Not a good thing - the pile of work didn't get any smaller.  I've been working, working, working since about 6:30 this morning on one thing or another.  I unearthed my little project card holder and updated my to-do list.  Isn't it a cute thing?  I had a new client no-show, but it gave me a chance to do invoices and receivable for another client.  I put away more stuff from the office and filled up two more bags for Goodwill.  And two bags of trash!  I am hoping to finish up tomorrow and be back to my efficient and cheerful self.  Hee hee!

Yesterday, Ariela and Marco came to put the shelves in the lanai storage closet.  Maria and Spikey came, too.  Well, Marco mostly put the shelves up; we visited and laughed at Spikey playing with Aggie and ate chips and dip.  When Marco was finished and Ariela inspected his work, we made turkey & swiss panini sandwiches for lunch.  Then we had birthday cake and ice cream to celebrate Ariela's birthday of last week and watched Shutter Island.  We were all full as ticks and it's a wonder we didn't all fall asleep watching the movie.  It was good, but you really have to pay attention or you miss something crucial.  I think I'll have to watch it again when Aggie isn't being mauled by a three-year-old.  Maria originally wanted to go up to the pool and swim, but after walking up to the clubhouse to check it out, she decided it was too busy and too dang hot out anyway.  Maria was just fourteen in May and she wants to volunteer somewhere this summer, but every place I've checked with says she's too young.  We've decided that she's going to come over one day a week and I'm going to teach her to sew.  She's taking a sewing class at school this coming fall and she wants to be ahead of the game.  She'll probably have a fit when I make her practice sewing straight lines on notebook paper!  I found an easy pattern for pajama pants that I thought would make a good first project.  I know I have some lightweight flannel with coffee cups on it that will be really cute.  Ariela says that will be perfect because Maria loves to lounge and drink coffee.

Yo-yos!

I love the kind that spin on a string, too - but aren't these yo-yo flowers great?  I have an age-old pillow made of flour sack fabric yo-yos that was my grandmother's - it's one of my greatest treasures.  I think that these are the cutest idea I've seen in a while!  Makes me want to stitch some up...

Serious cuteness...

You know how when you start a new business you have all sorts of ideas - most of which never come to fruition?  Well, I was going to have shirts with my beehive logo on them.  One thing led to another and things didn't start out as well as I had hoped and these lovely shirts languished in my store room for almost two years.  I had all but forgotten about the idea when one of my favorite clients who has a consignment shop told me that she got a new embroidery machine.  The aha! moment arrived at last...  I asked her if she would be interested in doing a beehive logo for me - this was last fall, mind you - and she said to let her play around and see what she could come up with.  When she dropped her tax stuff off last month, I gave her the shirts and I have been waiting with anticipation for the finished product.  And look!  They're here!  Aren't the beehive and bees just the cutest thing?  She had to create the design from several different pictures and digitize it, but I think they look absolutely wonderful.  She said it was a great learning experience; she had always thought that creating her own design would be too hard, but she was proud of the results, too.  It looks great on the purple, doesn't it?

This shirt is actually that sort of pukey-green I like, but it's hard to tell.  Maybe it's more of a sage green.

The pink is very pale - even more so next to the purple.  I think she did a wonderful job - even if I am only going to get to wear them to the office until July.  It's not like I'm going to change my logo after I'm working from home.  And it goes with the Busy Bee Cards theme, too.

Mary Engelbreit is right...

arts and crafts do keep you sane. I only wish I hadn't put my sewing machine in storage! It's my grandmother's ancient black head Singer and it may be old - but it works great. Tim got me a serger one year for Christmas and I like it, but there's nothing like Grandma's trusty, well-used and very loved Singer. During the mad rush and confusion of moving, I decided that there was no room in the apartment or the office for my sewing stuff, so I packed it all up and it's miles away inside a seriously (and perilously) packed ten by ten storage unit. I hung on to a small amount of cross-stitch stuff - but that's it. And anyone who sews will understand this: I'm in the mood to sew. There's just something about creating something from a pile of fabric and thread that is both relaxing and satisfying. Sure, I like to make cards and cross-stitch, but sewing is the first real craft I ever learned and nothing else quite measures up. I was never much into making clothes - I could never master a set-in sleeve or lining anything, but I have made probably hundreds of Christmas ornaments, bermuda bag covers and quilted pillows over the years. I made all the window treatments in our house. I even went through a doll-making phase: Holly Hobbie (I'm showing my age!), Raggedy Ann and Andy... One of the first things my grandmother turned me loose on (after I mastered sewing straight lines on notebook paper) was Barbie doll clothes. At first I followed the patterns, but after while I was like a ten-year-old Barbie designer with a spring and fall line of evening and casual wear made from scraps left over from Grandma's projects, complete with beaded trim and braided frog closures on the jackets. Maybe that's why I could never make people clothes - I was used to working on a much smaller scale! Anyhow, I was thinking this morning about how it felt like a great day to sew something - but I don't even have a spool of thread!