old, new and oddments

stitching has begun on the filigree piece

the two silver diamonds are actually metal filigree pieces and they are attached in the corners by using a size 15 seed bead as a "stop" on the thread through the holes in the corners

once that was done, I've started stitching beads around them

and then on the right hand side I've started working a row of beading around the glass filigree piece

working over the lame surface is interesting -- it stretches a little bit, so I have to be careful about not getting the piece out of "square"

the fabric I've been quilting is all finished

and here is the first piece for the Cricut cover -- a rectangle that has bias binding on three of the four sides, all ready for the next step

which I hope to do today

doing the quilting was a good refresher for the machine quilting skills




while the DH has been recovering from his shoulder replacement I've been in charge of cooking

last night's entree was a chicken

prior to putting it in the oven, I wanted to drain as much of the liquid out of the inside as I could

somehow this just struck me as "photo worthy"

it makes me laugh -- sort of the legend of sleepy hollow from the kitchen

(oh, and a quite tasty bird it was too -- keeping it simple -- salt and pepper on the outside, roast for half the cooking time resting on the breast side, roll it over and roast breast side up for the other half)



and one final oddment for the morning

at Christmas I knit for my daughter a winged monkey -

complete with vest and hat (he has chenille sticks in the arms and legs which make it easy to pose him)

she already had the sign

yesterday she sent me this picture which was taken in her cubicle at work

I hear she gets a lot of comments about this

this makes me smile too

have a good Saturday, I'm off to work in the studio!

wherein I become a bigger geek

this, boys and girls, is my newly acquire, looooonnnnngg awaited new phone

I can not BEGIN to tell you how wonderful it is to be able to actually stay INSIDE my house to talk on the phone -- the old one had taken on some, well, "idiot-syncrasies" (as in making me feel like an idiot!)

our initial problem was simply the logistics of getting me, my old phone and my daughter into the cell phone store -- not an easy task when we live at opposite ends of the state!

so, there was a phone call made to our service provider, putting me "officially" on the account (never mind that the payment every month actually comes out of MY bank account), with an appropriate password (yes, something I can remember!!), and yesterday afternoon I walked into the store and picked out my new phone!!

Notice, its a lovely shade of deep red -- burgandy? plum? -- anyway, something OTHER than gray

it has "features" (and yes that is a good thing/bad thing!)

things like a camera (which I have learned how to take and save a picture with, just not how to send it anywhere -- yet)

and optional GPS navigator (which would have been mightily handy when we were lost in Dallas a couple of years ago) in which I can enter the address I want to go to and it will TALK me through the directions

it has other "bells and whistles" too, but I haven't begun to figure those out yet

oh yeah, I haven't yet figured out how to use the alarm clock on it either -- which was a minor annoyance when I left the house this morning for my walk (I usually set the alarm for 30 minutes when I leave so I know how I'm doing for time) -- but I plan to figure that one out TODAY!!

In the end, after my mail in rebate comes, the phone will have cost me $0.00 -- yup, that's zero, zilch, zip, nada, bubkus, nothing -- as in FREE! Gotta love those upgrade points!!

So, I'm happy -- if confused -- but its all good

another "what is it?"

Yup, another one of these strange items came off the needles last night

The pile is growing

what is it?

















This is why I make my daughter a sweater every Christmas!

(I also make pjs -- at least some of the clothes in her house are made in the U.S.A.!!)


















And this just speaks to my strange sense of humor --

got to love that raveled sheep!!


Things are slowy returning to what resembles "normal" around here -- the van got emptied and the tent, etc., put away.

Back to working on jewelry and bears and quilts and knitting!!