When in doubt add a flower

"Hey, Jo! What are you doing?"  Mo shouted and made me cringe. "You are staring at that computer screen for hours!"
Over and over again, I had been reading through these lovely comments on Lucy, the lady-chair and hadn't even noticed her arrival.
"I feel a little bit lost" I said, "because I want to say 'thank you' to all those people and don't know, how to do it properly. I always fear to sound pathetic when trying to express my feelings in English."
"Then try it in your mother tongue instead!" was Mo's conclusion, which made perfect sense to me.
I wrote down:

Liebe Leser aus aller Welt,

wir waren sehr überrascht über die vielen freundlichen Kommentare zu Lucy, dem Damensessel, und freuen uns wie wahnsinnig darüber! Ein dickes fettes Dankeschön an Euch alle, Ihr seid absolute Spitze!

I sighed with relief and Mo gave me a gentle slap on my back. "Can we get productive again, then?" she said, pointing at an old lamp, that I had painted recently but which was still lacking a lampshade make-over. 

Moments later, I was examining  our pool of vintage fabrics and everything went quite well until Mo decided, like in so many cases, that there was still something missing. 

"You  are right! It's got a lampshade now, but it isn't finished yet" I admitted carelessly.

"Fortunately we can make use of Mo's up-cycling rule No. 1" Mo replied with confidence.

"Which is?" I asked.

"When in doubt, add a flower!" she smiled and one second later, the so-called muse was gone.

I started crocheting and added some flowers to the lower ribbon of the lamp shade, which seemed to me fairly sensible at that time.

 

Then, as a logical consequence, I begun to add some flowers to the lampshade itself.

 

I didn't notice, the crochet flower virus was having a good grip on me, again. So things were getting out of control soon.

I had pinned half a flower shop to the lampshade before I got aware of what I was doing here. I surveyed my deed with a vague feeling. Was it good? Bad? Fine? Ugly? I didn't know. I was stuck. Fortunately I hadn't sewn most of the flowers to the lampshade, yet. I could still take them off again. I needed an advice, but where was Mo? All I could do, was to put some of her little furniture below the lamp, in hopes of luring her out.

As I'm writing this, I am still waiting for her, to take a seat and give me a hint.

What do you think, she will say?

Have a great time!
Yours Jo (and Mo)

Finished that project

Three days ago, I was weaving in ends for hours, when Mo jumped on my shoulder, out of nowhere and unexpected as usual. "Uh, tidying away ends, isn't that tedious?" she whispered and gave my earlobe a pinch. 

"Tedious, why? No! It's like meditation to me" I lied in my sweetest voice and went on sewing. 

"I see!" she answered briefly and was gone the next moment.

The next day, I was still busy with my large eyed yarn needle, Mo poked me in the back: "Hey Jo, still in deep contemplation?" she shouted. "Come one, let's take a break. Live is short, there is so much more we could do!" 

"Thank you, but I can't. I have to finish this first!" I answered and tried to look energetic whilst feeling quite worn out.

"So, you're not interested in me helping you with your little novel?"

I stopped amazed "You really want to help me with that?"

"Just kidding! You know, novels are not my business" she laughed.

"Then you better leave me alone" I mumbled and off the so-called muse went.

Yesterday night, the very moment I had tidied away the last yarn end, she reappeared.

"Yay, Mo! I did it!" I said pointing on the hexagon covered chair.

Mo wagged her head "If you asked me, something is missing. It is such a cute old chair, we should pay a little more attention. Maybe some flowers?"

"OK, then flowers" I sighed and reached for my crochet hooks.

Today I sewed on the flowers and was very pleased with myself, because I had finished that project.

"What do you think?" I asked Mo.

"Sweet!" she answered. "It reminds me of a wedding cake in disguise.

Fortunately Safran the cat isn't as critic as Mo. He said, it would be just perfect for him. A bed, a scratcher and, with all the tassels, a wonderful drill ground. What a cutie!

A happy, sunny weekend to all of you!

xxx
Mo and me

P.s.: The hexagon pattern is by the wonderful Attic24.

A teeny weeny project

"Jo? What's wrong with you? You're looking like a seeped cropping a cotton coaster" Mo said to me today.
"That's because of the blog!" I answered feeling uncomfortable. "I would like to show just one finished project but everything is only work in progress"
Mo shook her little head in disbelief and laughed: "What are you worrying about? You just need a teeny weeny new project and one thing will lead to another!"
"Oh please, not another venture, right now!" I cried out but Mo wasn't listening.
"Positively, buttons are the answer to your problem" she grinned. "You always wanted to cover some buttons with fabric, don't you? And recently we do have a lot of vintage fabric scraps!"
"That's far too fiddly for me, I guess!" I opposed but Mo commanded: "Let's find out!

Well, what shall I say. With the help of this great tutorial by CraftPudding a new addiction was born. I covered button after button. To my surprise it was incredible fun, fast and not fiddly at all! I was very happy, for now I was able to show a finished teeny-weeny project to the whole wide web world.

But my relief shouldn't last long, certainly. After I  had covered a bunch of buttons Mo smiled at me: "Jo, can you remember the project, we could not finish, because we were lacking nice buttons?"
I took a deep breath and felt my good mood fading: "Oh, that project!"
"Now, we can get it done!" giggled Mo and I just nodded, because, it's always the same: One project leads to another. I reached for a sewing needle and began sewing some buttons to that project.

Here is a preview of that project:

I promise, I'll show you the rest, after I've managed to hide thousands of loose ends, one fine day!

Have a nice time, what ever big or small project you might be engaged with!

Sun Bathing

Mo wanted me to add some more paint to these chairs today...

 
... but it's really hot and everyone is lazy...

... so I was sun bathing instead!

Have a wonderful & sunny week-end!

About naming

This is only my third post and I'm already in troubles. How come? Well, I was in a perfectly good mood until Mo showed up this morning and asked: "Do you know what the difference is between you and the people of Ikea?"

"Eh?"

"They manage to give their stuff proper names!" said Mo and curled a strand of her long white hair around her index finger.

"But I do give names to anything around" I replied puzzled. "Mrs. Schmitt the new cabinet, Wiesbaden the dining table, Wilbur the couch. What more could one want?"

"A little thoughtful research in advance in spite of spontaneous and loudly proclaiming a name to the whole wide web world!" she complaint.

"Eh?"

"You neglected blogging rule number one: Always ask doc Google before you name your blog!"

My heart sank and I asked: "What's wrong with the name?"

"Nothing but the fact that Mo and me is the title of a movie, a documentary, already!" whispered Mo.

"I didn't knew!" I replied weak.

"Can you imagine the crowds of disappointed cineastes when they mistakenly come ashore our little place?"

I turned white thinking about cease-and-desist orders by legions of lawyers. "How embarrassing! Mo, what are we going to do now?" Mo shrug her shoulders with a very clueless, ingenuous expression.

"Come on, you call yourself a muse! So please give me an idea!" I begged. 

"We could rename it. Say, About Mo and Jo, for example" she said.

"I wanted to leave my name out actually. Besides, we have two official readers already. What will they think?"

"We might ask them. Fortunately Blogger comes with built in demographic power. We could run a poll!" Mo grinned.

"That's ridiculous, isn't it?" sighed me. 

"Do you have a better idea then?" she asked carefully.

Bud I hadn't.

So, please help us making a decision! You'll find the poll formular at the very end of the page.


Edit: The poll is closed and since most participants voted to leave the name as it is, we decided not to change it. 

Just to show something more pleasant, I want to introduce you to one of Mrs. Schmitt's daughters in smurf blue:

Till next time
yours Mo and Jo

Let's move to China

This morning, Mo asked: "What are we going to do today?"
"Well, I have to bake a cheese cake and I'm going to clean the house. My man's sister and her family will visit us tomorrow."
"Uh!" cried Mo, "this hysteric pre-visitor house cleaning is a strange habit. Besides, the house looks very cosy right now, covered with all the fabric scraps. Can't we do something more fun?"
"No" I replied.
"In China you would be thought of as very rude!" Mo talked back to me. "That is to say, in China it is believed to be impolite if you give your guests the feeling that they somehow could disturb the tidiness of the host's home. The guests would feel uncomfortable."
"So, what am I supposed to do now?" I asked, knowing Mo wouldn't surrender anyhow.
"Well, we could decorate the deer antler lamp for instance" she said. And this is what we did with the help of a crochet hook, wooden beads and some felted bird garlands:

Afterwards Mo was satisfied and vanished. I started to bake the cake:

Then I put away lots of fabric shreds, in case of our visitors would like to take a seat somewhere.

At last, I run out of time for deep cleansing, because I had to fetch my son from kindergarten. I promised myself, I would mop the floors in the evening. But this was before I got this amazing email by Folly & Glee , telling me, that Mo & Me was featured by her. I spend the evening browsing that wonderful site. Especially I fell in love with her patch work lampshades like this. The most stunning one is made of cut out vintage wallpaper!
Maybe I'll mop the floors towmorrow - or I'm going to move to China. However, when Mo shows up again, I have to tell her, how very delighted I am with her idea to start blogging.

About starting something new

Today, Mo said to me: "Let's start something new!", and I replied: "Not again, we're constantly starting something new, but rarely get things done, once we've started! Some days ago we've started patch working, for example, and as you can see, I'm still busy with that!"

 "I guess, today we should start something that doesn't need to be finished at all", was Mo's conclusion and then she added: "What about a blog?"
"A blog? At the internet?"
"No, under the kitchen sink! “ she grinned.
"But, why?” I asked and turned off the sewing machine. Mo made a very big gesture for someone who is only about 10 cm small and shouted: "Because you love blogs, you spend a lot of time reading them! You should have your own!"
"I don't think people will be interested in my stuff. Nobody is going to read it."
Mo smiled. "That doesn't matter! We are going to visit it every now and then our selves. It will be great to browse through all the things we've started."

I raised my eyebrows and mumbled: "Maybe it will remind us, to finish them, too?"
"You are so negative! You are always looking for the hair in the soup! This is why you never get things done!" said Mo. Irony always makes her angry.
"Let's say, you want a blog and I'm supposed to write it? Is it that, what you are talking about?"
"Well, I can't write it! You know perfectly well that my English is bad and I can't handle the keyboard!" she argued."My English isn't good neither!", I added for consideration.
Mo happily shrugged her little shoulders: "Never mind. You've said it yourself; nobody is going to read it!"
"Ok!" I resigned, "Why not? Let's try."
And then, in spite of proceeding with stitching together this vintage patchwork wall cover, I took up the camera and made some pictures to document our constant starting process.

As for the patch work, it actually started recently with Mrs. Schmitt.

When I painted her, I found a little quotation behind her drawers. It was a coast estimation for a day trip to the zoo. The offer included the bus trip, coffee, some cake and was adressed to Mrs. Schmitt. Now she watches over some creatures of my animal collection and we all hope strongly, this will keep her from thinking about visiting the zoo by herself. Mo suggested to give her a colerful inner life by the use of vintage fabrics, just to be on the safe side.