ATTEMPTS

I am still very slowly trying to get some arranging done in this apartment. Looking things over I came up with this one. The wood box, crystal bowl, doll and lamp were already on the chest, but the box was closed and the bowl empty. The wood box was a rummage sale find years ago. It looks like it might have been homemade.

As I was rutting around in a drawer of a different chest I ran across several doilies I had made over the years and totally forgot about. Two went on top of the headboard, and decided another one would look nice displayed as I did here.

Then I opened the drawer just below the top of this chest and saw the white pillow I had made. It could be used for a wedding ring pillow but that was not the original intent when I made it. I learned how to make these pillows in a class, but they were made with calico prints, which are really nice too. I just happened to have some of this satin in a fabric drawer, as well as the wide lace, so my mind started working and came up with this pillow.

The little beanie bear had been on a small shelf of the hutch top dresser for a long time. I thought it fit in the box too. The rag mop doll in the bowl was also on the dresser and thought she needed a new home. Those rag mop dolls were really popular a long time ago and crafters would make them from the larger real rag mops, but I never got into that. This one was also a gift.

The little standing doll with the straw hat is one I made. It is a room deodorizer cover. I can't think of the brand. Is it Renuzit? The doll is glued to the top of the container and just need to replace the bottom when the gel is used up. Right now she is sitting empty as I forget to buy a replacement.

I bought the lamp shade at a rummage sale. Someone had made it and it has designs cut into it the red layer of paper. There is white paper under the red.

I am not quite satisfied with the arrangement yet, but need to think about it some more, or find something else that is still in the closet.

TURNING A LEMON INTO LEMONADE

 This is the result of a tense day that I blogged about on May 4, 2017, title "A Tense Day" if you would like to go back and read it.

The tense day was the day my apartment had a safety inspection that is done once a year. My bed is in front of the only window in the bedroom as that is the only way we could make it all fit. The headboard was too high as at least one window in each bedroom can't be blocked by any furniture, 

 

and this bookcase headboard is too high.

The hallway is the only place I had room to put it. I thought I might have to sell it but decided it works well in the hall! Thankfully the hall is very wide and there was just enough room between the doors to put it.

The doors on the front, below the book shelf, drop down. I have always stored my extra sheets and blankets there, and now I can keep them there and not try to find another space for them. The same for the books. I don't have room on my other book shelves for more books so this works out well, too.

The framed pictures on the wall are my mom's baptism and confirmation certificates. They really made them BIG and elaborate in the early 1900's! The black box, which I featured in this blog here works nice here along with the doilies I ran across in a drawer that I had forgotten I had. The white ceramic is a tea light holder and has small holes in the design so the light comes through.

This may not be the prettiest arrangement. It came about in an odd way. A couple of years ago I was decluttering a closet that had craft supplies, including things needed for floral arranging along with leftover flowers from other projects that were just thrown into a big box with other stuff, or in plastic shopping bags. Very disorganized, to say the least! As I picked out the flowers I started putting them in the vase that was handy, just sticking them in without thinking about an arrangement. It was just a good place to hold them while I was sorting everything. When I got done, this is what it looked like and I decided it looked pretty good so just left it. And here it is to this day. And because I had to remove the headboard from the bed, I now have a place to display it again.

Now I have to decide what to put on the same shelf as the books. I need to dig around in the packed spare closet and see what might work, or take something that is displayed somewhere else and not working there.

Anyway, a big problem turned out making a very dull hallway look much nicer, I think. A rather tasty lemonade.

A LITTLE BIT OF SUMMER

 

This picture doesn't do this arrangement justice. It is something I put together many, many years ago, when I was working in the Ben Franklin store. The boss had a lady come in and show us how to do floral arrangements and this seemed to be her favorite style of arranging. I try to display this every summer. Oh. I just remembered that I always set a large conch shell next to it! I better see if I can find it in my totally cluttered spare closet. The shell has some of the same color as the flowers in the basket.

This is the way I have it displayed for now. When my husband was still living he had a square glass coffee table and I displayed those two things on top of a straw place mat on it. Now that I don't have that table and have moved, I need to find different ways to display my old favorites.

The picture on the wall is a numbered print of a painting done by a former pastor we had. He was a commercial artist before becoming a pastor and after several years went back to commercial art and this is a print of one of his works. I really liked it because it depicts an old farmplace that resembles the home I grew up in. There are a few milk cows and 2 horses in the pasture, just like we did. There is an old John Deere tractor just like Dad's, and what I learned how to drive with. And there is an oat field, complete with straw bundles set up in shocks, which I often helped with. I think I could still set up a shock.

This console was also my husband's. He had it in the basement and it was black with black/white marbled contact paper on top and on the front of the drawers. It looked pretty sad. I do hate the electric cords being so visible. Why didn't they make things with white cords? The clock is very old and was my parent's. The cord on that is so very long for some reason. I will have to work at trying to hide them better one of these days. Any suggestions?

DUCK, DUCK, GRAY DUCK

Did you play the game "Duck, Duck, Gray Duck" in grade school? Some say goose instead of gray duck according to Wikipedia. I do remember playing it. Wikipedia says it was played in Minnesota and is of Swedish origin. Well, we played it in Iowa too.

I don't really have a gray duck but I do have a very small collection of Mallard ducks that I started years ago. I am not really a collector of 'stuff' (recipes, yes!) so I didn't collect very many.

I didn't have very good luck taking pictures that day. So I tried again with the result below and still ended up cutting the top of the head off the fabric duck. My back was hurting at the time so didn't feel up to taking more  pictures. So deal with it! 😃

 It all started with this stuffed fabric duck. I and two friends went to a class to learn to make them. These two friends and I had annual craft sales in one of the lady's home for a few years. We each had our own type of work to sell and mine was always fabric or yarn creations.

Then I found a cross stitch pattern book with several Mallard pictures. I chose this one to make a pillow. I am so glad cross stitchers say to initial or 'sign' and add the date it was made because otherwise I would never remember. This one was done in 1984.

The next duck was found at a rummage sale a neighbor across the street had one year. There were two old wooden duck decoys.

One was much nicer than this one but they were asking $45 for it. I wanted it but not for that price! This one looks a little sad but I think it has a lot of character. And it was only $15. I love it.

This small figurine has beautiful detail. It was free! If any of you watched "Hour of Power" with Dr. Schuller many years ago, you might remember that he always had something they would give away, wanting a donation to keep the show on TV, of course, but the donation was not required to get the item. You just had to ask for one. And this is one of those.

I do have another duck but this could be any kind of duck, not a Mallard. I found this in a neat little antique/decor shop in another town several years ago. I apologize for the flash glare. Again, blame it on my back and not taking enough time to take better pictures.

The words in the frame say, " Be so happy that when other look at you they become happy, too."
Daughter Rhonda found that at a craft show in her town and it reminded her of when I was getting prepped for my hysterectomy. We were having so much fun while they did what they needed to do to get me ready. I joked with the nurses and other attendants and we all laughed so much. When each one would leave they would laugh and say we made their day.

One of the funniest things was when my daughter's phone started saying in a very loud, crazy voice, "Help me, I am stuck in your pocket and can't get out," over and over because she got a text. She had forgotten to turn the ringer off earlier. This happened when a nurse was listening to my heart and she said that was the first time a heart talked to her. We roared! I can only imagine what others outside my curtained cubicle thought of us. Here I was, having surgery for cancer, and there wasn't a sad eye in the room.

This shows the complete arrangement with the little duck. It is sitting on a wooden tray table. They make wonder, inexpensive end tables. I got mine at Walmart. They also have them in dark wood but I like the blond. It seems to 'disappear' and makes the area feel like there is more space. The picture on the wall is a counted cross stitch project I did several years ago.

This picture was taken a long time ago and yes, I still got the flash glare! When I had it framed I wanted it behind glass because my husband smoked and everything got stained from the smoke. I think you can see that I like a challenge with my needlework.

CHRISTMAS IN JULY

 When I wrote this draft it was still July! I can say that I did most of the work in July so maybe it still qualifies as Christmas in July. 😄 (oh no! Emojis in blogs!)
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Not long ago daughter Lisa saw an afghan on Pinterest and suggested she would like one. I had her order the yarn which was shipped to me and I recently finished it.

Christmas peppermints!

This was an interesting pattern to make and something I had never done before. The written instructions were not making sense to me, and I can usually follow any complex pattern, but I was able to find a YouTube tutorial showing how to do it. After watching that, I found the instructions simple and I don't think they could have been explained any better. It seems there were a lot of other crocheters who did not understand them either so I am not alone.

The back side of the afghan is also interesting and looks totally different from the front. The back side is shown at the top of the picture - the motifs that sort of look like spiderwebs or electric stove top coils in red.

The pattern also has instructions for a pillow that looks like a giant peppermint. I don't have that finished yet as I need to get a pillow form first. That is also done in a very different way than I have done before and I have done a lot of different things in over 60 years. You are never too old to learn new things.

I found the free pattern on the Red Heart website here -- http://www.redheart.com/free-patterns/peppermint-throw-and-pillow if you would like to try it. Once I got that pattern figured out it was quite simple so don't be afraid to try it.

Here is a picture of the sample I made with yarn I had on hand before the ordered yarn arrived. I think this pretty as well. There are many color combinations if you don't want a Christmas blanket.

 A single motif like this could be used as a potholder or a table pad to set a hot dish on, don't you think? But then I think I would put two together to make it thicker.

THAT'S LIFE

Life has gotten in the way a bit so haven't taken the time to take some more pictures, upload them and add to the posts I have written sans pictures. Give me a little more time and I will get them finished. See you soon.

UPDATE

Second cataract surgery was done June 15 and all went well. I now have 20/20 vision without glasses. Sometimes I can also read without glasses, but often need reading glasses, especially for smaller print. I can also work on computer without glasses. It seems strange since I started wearing glasses at age 10 and wore them every day, and for awhile I had contacts until my eyes got too dry. I still reach for glasses as soon as I get up in the morning!

The trick now, to keep those reading glasses handy in case I need them. I am NOT going to get one of those neck chains to hang the glasses around my neck! I often prop them on top of my head, but then forget they are there.

We are suffering with a very hot and very humid week so the AC is getting a workout. When the dew point gets into the 70's it is miserable so you won't find me outside unless absolutely necessary.

My sleep pattern is still very erratic and sleeping one to three hours at a time with long awake periods day and night. Sigh. And I still don't have much energy plus have lack of focus so not much is getting done around here. I do hope that changes soon now that all surgeries are over and I don't have so many medical appointments, because I have a long list of To-Do's.

I do have lots of ideas for blog posts so I need to sit here and work on them. So plan on seeing more to come!