Busy in Millinocket

stay cool tips for a power outage

Some thoughts for staying cool in a power outage.
Before an outage hits stock up the freezer with bottles and containers of water & milk for cold cereal. Stock up the empty spaces in the fridge with water, that should help the fridge stay cooler, longer during a power outage. Buy powdered drink mixes and have them on hand. Powdered milk isn't going to go bad. Ollie always told me that if you don't open the fridge much during a power outage that the food will stay cool enough to be safe to eat for at least 24 hours.
Take a bottle of ice with you everywhere you go in a heatwave, instead of warm water to drink , for a little while anyway, you'll have ice water. I recommend placing the bottle of ice on the inside of your arm where blood gets drawn to cool off the blood circulating through your body. Kind of like a heatwave shiatsu thingy or something. Heck, you might want to start freezing bottles of water or other beverages to make some extra money during a heatwave/power outage. You can always put the ice from the freezer in the fridge to keep the food cooler when the extra water stored in there has warmed up too much. And pray, pray, pray that someone develops a chain of spas to cool people off and revive them.

CQ / the sequel

I have to add a few more strips and embroider them too and then I'll be ready for sandwiching all the layers together and probably using buttons to tie them all together and hold the panels in place. Do you ever feel as though the only time you are working is when you are outside of the studio?

Crazy quilt or just plain crazy quilter/ you decide..........

 It seems like every time someone passes away in my life, that I make a quilt to heal from it with. I put a small knitted purse inside of the container that holds the quilt. It had a few candles in it so the scent that it carried was very strong and now whenever I put the quilt on my lap to work on it, I can smell the candles that are long gone. I can see the finish line with this quilt. Not too much longer and it will be done. It's been a meditation on patience and life. A mending of my spirit.  I'm in the home stretch and it's been a pleasant journey so I think that I will continue to do crazy quilts for awhile and see what happens.

Some of my work

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Happy Easter

When I was growing up we always made two large batches of eggs for Easter. One was for the store bought egg dye and another pot full of white eggs with onion skins thrown into the water to turn them a wonderful almost chocolate brown.  

Keeping Busy

Found this junktiquing and I don't have the before photo>rats but these are the after photos. It was a dark brown before the yellow paint was applied > many layers of yellow paint and I'm not done with the legs yet. I wasn't sure what to do until Ollie suggested a bouquet of flowers for the top. Not quite happy with the way the leaves and stems came out but hey for $12 in materials, I think that it was well worth my time. 

Progress

Two more panels and maybe some embroidery and I will be ready to start sewing the top together. I'm thinking of using stripes to go lengthwise inbetween the panels.

Favorite Christmas present

This was given to me by my friend Valerie this year. I call him the good spirit and have him hanging up on the door to one of my studios. You can find Valerie at plainandpractical.com. on typepad. She had a little note attached to him that said that out of all of the different things that she makes , these little people are the only ones that she finds herself talking to. It reminds me of an angel that my father made for me when I was very ill. I also think that they would be nice made into larger pieces for the outdoors out of sturdier stuff. I would love to have one in my garden. She has two larger ones that she wants to give me but I think they belong in a library along with a description of her process for making them. At any rate I'm very fortunate to have her as my friend. Although I haven't figured out how to link to her site yet. How about you? Did anyone give you something very special this year?

Staying warm doesn't have to be expensive.

The wind outside is whipping all of the snow off of the rooftops and trees. I'm waiting for the snow to settle in one spot before shoveling off the back deck. So here's some dress warm tips for those who might need it. Looks like a sand storm out there. To shovel snow I don't dress up like the Michelin Man. I would sweat too much. Lately I've been wearing my husbands old wool Irish fisherman's sweater with a cotton long sleeve shirt underneath and that is easy to move in and breathes and wool keeps you warm even if it gets wet. I never wear that thermal crap anymore. Its' a crock, don't buy it. Although the 100% cotton isn't so bad, I prefer the leggings with spandex and long sleeve cotton tops from the thrift store for underneath skirts and jeans. Fleece pants are awesome. I have three pairs of shearling boots. And a pair of Baffins that I picked up with the tags still on them for five bucks at the recycling place. The Canadians know how to deal with cold. I don't even need a thin pair of socks with any of my boots except to avoid blisters. With a warm hat you may not even need gloves except when it gets down into the single digits. If you can't get a good pair of boots , invest in wool socks even if they itch a little. If they get wet your feet will still be warm. Why suffer?

more experiments in upcycling

This was just plain fun to put together using all the bits and pieces that I collect.  My experiments are still not polished enough for me though and I look forward to developing them more. The piece on the right is a work in progress, embroidered with silk thread.

old fashioned scrap quilt

I figure that about 80% of this quilt's fabric was rescued from the arts & crafts aisle at the recycling center. Washed and ironed and ready to go, alot of small scraps that lend themselves nicely to being cut into thin strips. This is the easiest kind of quilt for me to make. Very little is wasted.