Great button round up!!!

This panel of small pockets was originally meant to hold earrings but it has my inventory system for buttons for years.  And it has worked great as they are easily accessible and I can also easily see what I am out of.  Since I haven't painted buttons for months the pockets are mostly empty... and since I want to eventually close out the Etsy button site I started to really look at the current inventory...

I loved painting the buttons but not so fond of the following steps.. spraying with sealer,  scanning, formatting for Esty, writing descriptions, etc.,,and the buttons themselves are done in stages  and I have many in various stages of completion as I painted as the mood moved me..  I had to be in the mood to paint or I either just sat there staring at a button or I messed it up.


It hard to see but this little tray has buttons with the image sketched in pencil ready to paint.

I have several trays where the buttons, like these robins, are finished but waiting for several layers of sealer.  I like to do that when the humidity is low so the sealer hardens properly.







On my little painting table I have a lot of buttons in various stages....more robins almost done and others images I was having a problem with and just quit until a day I was calm and relaxed to start again.  This happens often with cats and pansies...

Near the computer I have lots of little trays and I try to put a sticky note what needs to be done with each tray.  Some just need to be signed, others need to be scanned and formattted, others are scanned and formatted and need to be entered on Etsy, and some trays have all of the above and just need to be bagged and inventoried.



And there are little bags of buttons with no  note and I can't remember what the heck needs to be done.










And finally I found a basket and a shoe box left from  retreats  I attended   and the buttons are still  on cards.  I nave been approached to give a slide program this fall on painting buttons and also want to have a booth at the Idaho Button Society's convention in the spring to sell remaining inventory so I won't remove these buttons from the cards just yet.

So the great button round up begins....................................

It's in the bags!!

Tuesday was senior day(30% discount) at my favorite thrift stores and my thriftin' friend and I made our rounds of our favorite stores and finished with lunch...

As usual I had a list and did pretty well.  High on the list were two-part frames in  the smaller 3X5" size.  These are not that easy to find so finding two was great... Didn't find a medium sized bread board in good condition.

A new bag for winter was high on the list... As long as I can remember I have ALWAYS carried a purse and a sewing bag,  Any overflow from the purse went into the sewing bag.  Since I don't carry a sewing bag anymore, I've had a terrible time finding the perfect purse. If everything fit the bag it is too large  and heavy.


I found this brand-new one for $3.99 and the retail tags were still on it.  This is not uncommon at a change of season when retailers clean out before the new stock.
When Coldwater Creek had its catalog store just north of us we'd see a lot of their unsold stock in thrift stores at the change of season.  Unfortunately they are no longer there and it was my favorite brand.








But this one has all the things I like..at least three interior sections and two outside pockets.  I should be able to keep everything organized which I love. 









I definitely wasn't looking for a purse for next summer but found this which was also new and too good to pass up.









It also has three middle sections and three outside pockets as well.  I had one very similar cloth purse that I carried this summer.  I loved it but it was just too small.  This one will be perfect.  So I can take "purse" off my list for a good long while.




What I did also buy that I absolutely did not need (and was NOT on my list) was this tote that is totally encrusted with beads.  I have a granddaughter who will love it though...

A word or two about my dear  Morris who is now approaching 9 years of age.  Besides being a foodie, his  goal is to get as many tummy rubs as possible into every day.  As I type he assumes this "tarty" pose across my feet.. He then makes a squeaky noise just in case I hadn't noticed him.  He spends a good part of the day in this position where anyone moving from room to room can stop for a tummy rub or two...and we do!!! It is possible to type with one hand and rub his tummy with the other hand.

Techniques to handle awkward little corners

Note:When looking through past posts I noticed I have over 120 tagged as tips, technique, tutorials, etc.  I've decided to do a fine tuning on some of them for two reasons...first so they are easier to understand and second to allow me to travel down memory lane through many of my favorite crazy-quilting projects.

 

Techniques to handle awkward little corners (2014)

 

When you are piecing a block you quite often end up with an awkward  corner really too small for a motif treatment..  And this block is a good example except that it has four such corners.  I could put a little motif in each corner but that would not help the problem. 

 

I have a bag of tricks for just this very thing...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.  I try to bring the patch into block by moving some of its color and adding something that makes the shape less defined.  This time I chose flowers the same shade as the block and moved some down onto the purple along with some foliage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. For the upper right corner I chose something bold to attach to it to make it work as a larger unit.  Notice how it overlaps the seams to help include the small patch into the block as a whole.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. Another option is bring some element from the block down into that patch and it just disappears..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4. Sometimes rather than make a small patch seem larger I divide and conquer to make it smaller... With two or more pieces of trim you can downsize a patch.  On fact it becomes so small it hardly seems like a patch at all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So now there is some variation in the four small corners which were so similar in size and they all have their own personality..

 

5. Another technique I use often and could have used here is to add a coordinating trim (usually ribbon) to make a block larger.    In this case I could have added a wide purple ribbon to the little purple corner patch which would have doubled its size and made the turquoise  patch smaller.   I use this technique often...

And now the tail...  I didn't want to mark on top of the block so I turned it over and sketched a tail.  I already had the peacock body in place so positioning it was no problem.  Then I did quick basting stitches over my lines.

Then I could turn it back over and embroider over my basting stitches.  I use this technique over and over and over again and have long meant to write a proper tutorial on it... Mary Corbet had an article recently on transferring designs and working from the back wasn't mentioned so I am determined to get a tutorial worked up and send it to her....

So I used all the colors in the block in the peacock tail and carried it right down into the pesky little corner patch!!!!!

A real motivator!!!

The invitation in the mail was a real boost to my spirits but those who follow the blog know how I love a good saying, proverb or, in this case, a cartoon.  This was on Facebook yesterday and I made several copies and they are taped to doors, mirros etc. I just LOVE this one....... a real motivator!!!

No Pity Party Allowed.....

When the kids left on Sunday I have to admit that I was exhausted... totally and as I went to bed I was thinking...."I can't do things like this any more! I'm too old!!!  What was I thinking when I planned all that.  The next time someone comes to eat here I'm opening a can of soup...  Would someone even care????  I'm too old.. I'm too old. " and I buried myself under the covers having a pity party....

The very next day I received a 2004 invitation in the mail from a friend.  As much as I love fancy dinner parties I used to love having a "proper" tea party.. usually for 12-20 ladies and usually a couple a year...one for daffodils and another when the roses were in bloom.
Inside it read in part:

You're invited to High Tea

 at Gerry Krueger's

 to celebrate the return

of the daffodils. 

If you have

something yellow, wear it.

My friend found the invitation as she was downsizing and sent it back to me to thank me for  a happy memory.  First I was touched that she had kept the invitation for 14 years and second I was touched she took the time to write a note and send it to me.  So I'm wrong...people do remember and care.  And when I'm dead and gone Sydney will remember the lovely dinner this weekend....  And maybe next spring I should have another daffodil tea....this time for charity and have someone help...!!!!!

The menu was also on the invitation... It would be fun to use it again and simplify it just a bit maybe.... what do you think!!!