Shrink to fit

That would be wonderful wouldn't it?  Unfortunately, it doesn't work on backsides getting into jeans.  And sometimes I have an issue with linen.  More so on WDW than others, but never on my unbleached rough stuff.

 

First of all, I finished Kogut's Primitive Santa with all the changes I made.  I forgot to add the hat tassel and still may.  Stitching after the finish is not uncommon for me and it works pretty well.

 

 

But the problem I have (created by not using a hoop) is a wonky edge to the stretched out linen as you can see.  The top edge is cut even with the linen thread and the sides have a thread pulled.  I usually do this and then pin to the ironing board so it doesn't move when fusing the interfacing.  If the facing is fused to linen that isn't perfectly straight, the finish will be wonky as you know.  I was using a heavy washcloth beneath because of the buttons.

I measure across the top width and bottom to see if the measurement is the same, also do that top to bottom on corners.  This one is 3/8" off and I stretched and steamed the linen's top width as much as I could to gain that 3/8", but it reached its limit.  Nothing I did pulled the stretched out wider bottom into alignment.

 So the bottom width was not going to line up and that's OK.  I like to follow the linen's threads when machine sewing for a really nice edge but it's not always possible.  You can see how the missing thread line is out from the interfacing which is the correct width.  As for closing the bottom, I tried Aleene's Fabric Fusion and did not like it at all.  Tacky is much better.  The Fusion did not grab quick enough.

So that's it for Santas.  Still have to assemble the bell but the cross stitching is completed.  On to a heart or sampler.

 

Hope everyone's New Year's Eve was enjoyable.  Many like myself prefer to stay home and not much routine is changed.  Others like to celebrate. 

 

Sun is out melting the snow.  Maybe golf tomorrow!

 

Thanks for visiting.

 

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Same old same old

Hi folks.  We had our Eve dinner Tuesday and all was tasty except the smelts.  The clerk said they were lake smelts, but I think not.  The spine was very thick and sharp, taste was very fishy.  Not our usual lake variety.  Next time, frozen, not fresh, since they don't know the difference.

Carole came and was feeling pretty good, I had to cut her hair after everyone left (and I was tired!).  Today, she is in bed, coughing her short-haired head off.  Forecast for freezing rain followed by snow, which means ..... yep.  We have to go get her groceries, again before the weather hits.  This happens every year, all winter.  She's only been shopping once since Thanksgiving, and relies on Chris to "pick up a few things".  So once again the list was long.  I am definitely cancelling the manicotti and shells dinner for Friday.  I'm not having Mark attempt that driveway to pick her up and she is too sick to be around us.  I'm wondering how many of us will come down with the same thing.  She sounded OK yesterday but maybe medication was masking it.

Nit has been coming into the family room and making himself comfortable as long as I don't touch him.  But this is the carpet where Bud lays for Mark to scratch him. 

And this is Bud giving him a stink eye warning to move or get beat up.  "That's my spot, my carpet kid!  Move it!" 

Neither are wondering where mom and wife Missy is.  I found her for them.  In the little parlor where I keep my stitching supplies.  I got pretty close to her before she woke up and bolted.  Damn brats.

This is the bag of linens sitting next to her that I no longer want.  I don't know why.  Wrong count, wrong color, wrong mood, been around for years.  I just hope I don't reconsider and put them back in the drawer.  Books and other items are going too as they have been for a year!  I hate that I never seem to complete tasks, plans, projects.  Hope to change that in 2017.  Sure I will. 

 

Without anything else planned, I can work on the Santa and hopefully finish it.  Once I am away from a project, I rarely go back, but all I have to do is fill in.

Just heard about Debbie Reynolds.  Wasn't expecting that.  But no one expected a 60 year old to have a massive heart attack either.  This is why I bite my tongue, we just don't know from one day to the next how lives will change.  But if the person is a rotten name-calling vicious judgmental prick deliberately doing harm, I really don't care if my tongue slashes through to their bone.  Is that insensitive?

 

Be safe. 

Thanks for visiting

 

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Brown, bare, and bright

Here's the new LED tree out of the box.  My first totally bare tree.  Each limb has several branches that are movable and the brown is lightly flocked.  The LED lights are not as sparkly as the old ones, but actually quite nice in the warm white.  I think using it indoors with ornaments would be different, but I would love to have several glowing in the back yard or in the wooded areas. Haven't opened the twig one yet.  It doesn't have as many lights and looks more like a maple tree.  Who knows?  By next year, 2743 hot flashes from now, I may want a white one with multi colored lights and keep these in the attic.  But I've learned that if you like something, get it, you may never have the opportunity again.

 

 

I have to tell you what happened last week with the cookies.  You already know that my husband claims I am always right (or think I am).  After baking the snowball cookies, I put them in a container and placed with the others on the cold concrete floor in the garage.  It was really cold out but I didn't expect them to freeze.  The next day, Mark asked to test one so I brought in the container.  A few minutes later I asked how they were, and he answered, "frozen".  I barked that they can't be, not overnight in the garage.  He insisted.  To prove him wrong, I flipped the lid off and latched my fat crooked fingers onto the top cookie.  As I lifted that sugar coated ball from the container, the other four dozen came with it.  Firmly attached to one another in a frozen mass.  I felt like I was in an episode of Raymond.

The pressure to be right ALL the time is exhausting, so I appreciated the break.

 

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Brown wire trees

Hope you're relaxing today and still smiling from a wonderful time with family and friends on Christmas.  I went shopping.  Rarely do I visit Kraynak's (holiday decorations galore), especially the super crowded after Christmas sale.  But we stopped today and I am glad we did.  Years ago everyone had the tall white wire lighted trees for outdoors and they have become very difficult to find around here.  No longer the sparkly bulbs, everything is LED.  The old bulbs could be replaced in the cord after burn out, but not these. 

 Anyway, I saw those wire trees in brown which I preferred, about 10 years ago online but didn't buy them, haven't seen any old style lights since. But today, Kraynak's had the six foot tall, brown, with warm white LEDs which aren't that harsh bluish white.  Half price, bought two.  They had another primitive style also in brown, half price, bought one. Others in LED had tons of lights on the wire trees with clear flower shaped reflectors and they are so pretty, but not my style. 

So naturally, I sit here saying, so what?  Buy them anyway, they're beautiful!  Put them outside the kitchen window.  Will I go back tomorrow for more?  I hope not.  They also had the bristle feather tree in six foot for only $37.50 but the needles are a little longer than I like, and I don't need another.

 

Stopped in JCP for the big sale and $10 off $25 coupon, got Mark new underwear (BOGO) and myself a new coat.  I have coats.  They don't fit and may never again.  I hated to get the larger size but I can't keep kidding myself into believing I may lose enough to wear the older ones.  When I bought them, they were a little snug because at that time (back in the days of estrogen and jawlines) I expected to lose 10 pounds.  Why buy larger and give myself the leeway to gain even more?  Because I didn't realize that menopause encourages fat to stay, boogie down, party on, and losing becomes much more difficult.  How do you get party-goers to leave when they are having such a good time?  You give up and buy a bigger coat.  And panties.

 

Requests to switch the Italian and Polish dinners were honored so tomorrow I need to buy more kielbasa.  The links previously purchased are currently at a party and will probably stay for quite some time.

 

Enjoy the last week of the year.  Can't believe another one is over.

 

Thanks for visiting.

 

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Christmas Bells

The kitchen (never to be completely finished) won't see action until Tuesday.  By then we're hoping Carole will be better.  The Polish dinner for Eve, also postponed, will be next Friday or Saturday.  I don't want to freeze the kielbasa so we'll have it Sunday.  If there is any left.  I've been alternating snowball, kielbasa, nutroll, kielbasa, almond crescent, kielbasa, butterscotch crunch, kielbasa, bobalki, kielbasa.  You get the idea.

 

 

Someone has been taking liberty with house privileges.  Her coloring is like camouflage and sometimes I am looking right at her and don't realize it.

 

I said I probably wouldn't be back until after Christmas and I've shown up three times since.  Can't trust me.

 

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From four years ago

and still true for many of us today.

Carole has been sick, another incident with Chris this morning didn't help, and our dinners are on hold until the antibiotics kick in and she feels better.  Maybe by tomorrow, maybe not.

 

I finished the Christmas Bells free chart and will be attaching the bells this evening.

 

Merry Christmas to all.  Again.

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