Let it Snow Let it Snow Let it Snow

It is suppose to snow this weekend so I thought I would help it along with sharing my Snowmen patterns. They are all from workbasket patterns. Enjoy and have a wonderful weekend.

~Bekah

He's making a list....

Checking it twice gonna find out who is naughty and nice ... This song has been in my head all day!! I even started singing it at the top of my lungs today when I came home (trust me not a pretty sound). Copper thought it was fun and was wanting to play so that was fun. I found these three santa patterns I hope you enjoy them. Hopefully this will help get the songs out of my head.

 ~Bekah

Dishcloths Galore!

This summer I was on a knitted dishcloth kick. I could not make enough of these little guys. I even joined a couple of swaps just to get more. They are a little like chips you can not just have one. I made a lot more than I have taken pictures of. I gave them all away to family and now they want more. They can not seem to get enough of them either. My favorite one is the penguin one.

It is an inside joke with T and I. Whenever we see a penguin he has to say look honey a penguin. When we lived over in Seattle and he was working out at Microsoft he traveled a lot and I was home alone a lot. I wrote a short story about a penguin and his adventures. (Do not ask about the story it was rotten but kept me occupied. I did not know about embroidery then so I was bored a lot). We had only been married a year and he thought I must love penguins so he was getting me penguin stuff and showing me penguin stuff all the time. I finally told him I do not like penguins that much and we laughed so hard it was so funny. So now he is like look honey a penguin. I do like penguins more now than then.

So what kinds of things can you not get enough of?

~Bekah

Tea Towel Tour - IIII

My group is finished. I asked for a 50's diner theme. They all did a wonderful job. It will be so much fun wearing this while I bake this Christmas.

If you would like a close-up look of the apron you can check them out on flickr. You should look make your way over to the gallery these ladies have all done a wonderful job.

Have a wonderful weekend.
~Bekah

Violent Produce

1. kitchen calamities apple orange, 2. kitchen calamities banana, 3. kitchen calamities onions, 4. kitchen calamities tomato, 5. Kitchen Calamities Towel Series, 6. TeaTowelMurder2

I was looking around for inspiration for Christmas presents when I happened to come upon these guys. Oh my goodness I could not keep from laughing. I knew that produce went bad but this bad. It is so opposite all the happy fruit we see maybe this is what goes on in the underbelly of produce.

If I could draw well I would make myself a little series of these guys. Thanks for the great laugh Kristen Mary and Snarkypants.

~Bekah

Where have I been?

It has been a long time since I have blogged and so much has happened. The Tea Towel Tour 4 is done the picture above is what I did on others towels and I will post my apron later this week. The gals did an outstanding job.

I have been embroidering lots of custom Christmas items for my shop. It has been a lot of fun. I plan on posting the patterns I used for the items this week. You might have noticed that my vintage embroidery blog is gone. It turns out that Vogart is under copyright so I had to take down all of my vogart patterns and then I only had 4 patterns on the blog so it seemed useless to keep a blog for those. Since, I have bought a huge box of workbasket patterns and will be posting a new pattern once a week on this blog. I hope you will all enjoy them.

I have been knitting a lot lately. I think it is the cold weather and the warm feel of the wool on my hands that keeps me knitting. I actually finished my first sock this last weekend. I was so excited that the whole way home after Thanksgiving I talked about my knitted sock and all the new socks I planned to make. I bored T to death but then again I have to hear about music stuff and all the new computer games so I am sure it was fair right? Well in my head it is fair and I am always right. hehe.

Here is where I get a little personal so stop reading if you like.
T and I have been trying to have kids for the last 10 years and have done several rounds of fertility treaments and they were unsuccessful. Since the hormones and stuff made me a crazy girl with mood swings all the time we stopped and decided to just try and if it happened it happened.

Then I turned 32 last year and I was like hey I am getting older and we either need to start treatments again or decide to adopt. So we decided to do one more round of fertility treatments and I went to our women's health clinic to see the fertility Dr. and he decided to do a surgery where they go up inside with a camera and see if my tubes are open and look around the uterus. Well it turns out I have the worst body parts ever and he punctured my uterus. They quickly scheduled another surgery two weeks later and the same thing happened. This time they were able to get the camera in and take out a tissue sample. They found out that I have uterine cancer.

The cancer is slow moving and totally contained in the uterus. That is a good thing. I am on medication that is suppose to help breakup the tissue inside. The Dr. knows I still want to have children so we are going this alternative route instead of the normal hysterectomy. The down side is that this medicine makes me so tired and gives me the worst cramps in all my life. On the upside we caught it early and I still might be able to have children. In six month (April) I will go back in to have a tissue sample taken to see if it is working.

I still plan to blog just not as often and I am still a crafting fool.

To leave on a better note here are some alien buttons I made. T loves aliens and big foot so he loves these buttons. Now just to figure out a big foot pattern. If you have one let me know.

Tea Towel Tour 4 - International

The 4th round of the Tea Towel Tour is beginning today. This time we are including 15 international residents and 15 domestic. Go sign-up right now you know you want to!!

Long time...

Wow where has the summer gone? The last few weeks have been very productive since I have been home from work recovering from a minor surgery and loving every minute of it. Come on all day to craft and not have to go to work and wishing I was home crafting.

I kind of wish now I finished my degree to be a teacher then I could be home all summer with T and craft all summer long. I guess it is never to late just have to decide if I want to go back to school. I did not enjoy it the first time but then again being a payroll clerk is very boring the same thing every week. Ok Ok enough of the boring stuff I know why you all come here to see what I have been working on. That is why I visit most of your blogs.

I did finish those embroidery buttons for Average Jane from the giveaway last month. Then I went on an embroidery button kick and made some mushrooms and some turtles. Embroidery buttons are so fun to make because they are fast and cute. I use the buttons kits you can buy at almost any craft store.

After the button frenzy I knit a beanie for my nephew. This was my first hat and color changes. I feel like I am actually getting the hang of this knitting thing. I have been enjoying it so much lately that I have been neglecting my other crafts.

I sometimes wish I could devote all my time to one craft but I tend to be obsessed then get burnt out and move on to the next one then get burnt out on that one and move on, then the cycle starts all over. I enjoy it all just wish I could devote all my time to one to get better at it.

I did get have a few questions on the pincushions and thought I would answer then here.
Are they are not heavy?
-No they are just filled with poly fiber fill.
Are those fabric covered buttons?
-Nope, I used regular buttons that I bought at Wal-Mart
Could you strap them to your wrist?
-Yes, I might steal that idea.
I hope these answer your questions if you need more clarification let me know.

What kind of projects have you all been doing this summer?
~Bekah

The winner is....

Average Jane Crafter congratulations. Please contact me with your address so I can send your package at the end of the week.

Because I can not post without a picture above is what I was doing this weekend. I was on a bit of a pincushion kick.
~Bekah

Who Are These Kids?

This is T and I, today is our 10th wedding anniversary. I can not even begin to describe how it feels to me married for 10 years a whole decade. We had only know each other less than six months and were actually engaged longer than we were dating. It all happened so fast and so has the last 10 years. He is the love of my life and my best friend. I love you T! (I know you read my blog)

So in honor of of this day I will be doing a giveaway. I will be giving away some of my vintage patterns and some embroidered button (I have not taken pictures of them yet) The only thing you have to do to enter is tell me your most romantic story. It does not even have to be your own. You have until the 5pm on July 5th to enter.
~B

Homemade Ice Cream

As a kid the start of Summer always started fresh cherries and homemade ice cream. When I grew up and moved away from home the first thing I had to buy was an ice cream maker. Every year my brother and I come up with new flavors and have a great time comparing notes on new ice cream flavors. Some years we even come up with the same ideas since we are a bit alike.

I do not think I could imagine a summer without the sound of a whirring ice cream maker on the porch and the slight taste of salt on the first scoop of ice cream and scraping the ice hard ice cream stuck on the bottom of the bucket. OOOhhh that sure brings me back. Seeing my mom mixing the sugar and eggs until they were frothy and then adding the milk and half & half. Dad would then put the ice cream mixture in the mixer and start the motor and 45 min to an hour later we were in ice cream heaven on a hot summer night.

Soon after I got married I found out that not every family makes ice cream all summer long. What, how could that be possible? So since then it has been my main job to make ice cream for his family every summer. One summer (2 years ago) I made 10 batches for T's family reunion and boy was I ever tired since I also made all the baked goods for breakfast and snacks, and decorated the sheet cake. That was my burn out summer and I have only made a few batches each summer but this year I think will be the year of wonderful ice cream. Wonder why? I will tell you why.

Friday at work we were closing early and I hear the door open and I was no I want to close early you can come back later and I turn around and there is my Father-in-Law and said he said hey do you still want that ice cream maker. I said you are not teasing me right? He said no you can have it if you want and I said yes of course would there be any other answer. T's parents have a Simac Ice Cream Maker. It is a self-contained maker, they bought it 20 years ago and have maybe used it 5 times. I have drooled over it for well almost the whole time we have been married so about 10 years. They have always been a bit out of my price range that I am willing to spend on a ice cream maker. After all the excitement, I quickly left and went out to thier house my FIL loaded up the machine I chatted for half and hour and then went to the store to buy all the ingredients. I have since made 3 batches of ice cream. Vanilla, Raspberry and Strawberry which I had one scoop of each and boxed up and took it over to my in-laws tonight for a thank you. So this summer will be my ice cream summer. I have wanted to experiment with new flavors and this is the perfect way. So be ready for my successes and all my flops.

~B

P.S. It makes wonderful frozen daiquiri. (drinking as I type)

The Cloud Has Lifted!

Thank you all for your great ideas on how to get out of my creative drought and it has worked. I feel more like myself again. It all started with embroidery buttons. I really do love making these little guys. Then after that I got two of my towels from my tea towel tour. That was a lot of fun and my favorite one was the turtle.

I have also been doing a lot of knitting. I really am getting quite addicted to it. Right now I am mostly making dishcloths because I joined two dishcloth swaps. I know I said I would not do that many swaps this year but they are so much fun and addictive to boot. We are going camping this weekend on the Washington Coast so I knitted myself a Calorimetry from Knitty it is normally always cold and rainy on Memorial Day Weekend in Washington. So I thought this would be the perfect thing to keep my head warm. You know what is turns out it can keep my whole head warm. That baby is big. I will not mind but if I ever do another one I think I will make is smaller.

I hope you all have a wonderful Memorial Day Weekend. If you do not celebrate Memorial Day have a good weekend anyway.

~B

New Toys

I know I said I was in a creative slump and I still kind of am but that never stops me from buying new things. Why is that?
I did figured out why I am in this slump. Work gets stressful beginning January 1st and ends on April 15th with a large party. So when I am stressed I tend to gravitate towards crafts and the creativity starts to flow. Now that April 15th is long gone work is back to normal and there is not as much stress. So now I have do not seem to have a reason to craft.

I have been slumping around since the 16th and now I am ready to get back on the band wagon. I do hop that posting my new toys and what I plan to do might give me the motivation to started.

Last weekend I went to a quilt store that I had not been to before and what do you think I found there? Did you guess? ....... Tea Towels sold by the yard. The woman who owns the store loves to embroider and said these are the best towels in all the world. They have a vintage look and feel to them with a slight yellow hue and hemmed on the sides but not the ends. I bought 1.5 yards so I can make 2 towels. As I was getting ready to buy the towels the biggest rick-rack I have ever seen. I have a sick love affair with rick-rack, I had to buy at least 4 yards.

Thanks to Susie I also bought another new toy. A bias tape maker. Hopefully no more burnt fingers. I really hope it works. Now to just decide where to start.

Have a great weekend everyone.
~B

Creativity Drought

1. Meadow Butterflies, 2. Crochet ring, 3. Kitchen Kitsch, Lancaster, 4. Elvis, Black and White, 5. Lucy-Pillow,

6. Felt Pincushions, 7. Embroidered ornament, 8. Betty Boop, 9. Jute Purse, 10. Whipped spiderweb, 11. Cherry Blossom Bag,

12. Babbette Blanket 13. Dragon

I have been in a creative slump lately. I have tried and tried to get out of the same old same old. So in an effort to get out of that slump I started going through some of my favorites on Flickr and thought I would share a few of the things that are starting to spark my creative fire. We will just have to see what will blossom.

What do you do when you are in a creative slump?

~B

Congratulations ...

Kerri! I hope you enjoy the towel and all the other goodies I am collecting and making.

Thank you all for you well wishes and coming out of lurking to post. Now that I know you are all there I hope to hear from you again.

~Bekah
Psst... looks like Kerri is doing a giveaway on her site you better go check it out

1 Year Anniversary - Giveaway

On Sunday it will be my one year anniversary of my blog so in honor of it, I am doing a giveaway.

Since everyone liked this towel so much I am giving it away along with some vintage patterns and possibly some extra little goodies like embroidered buttons.

So leave me a comment by Midnight, Tuesday, April 8, 2008 and I will enter you in the drawing. I will ship anywhere.

I am off to go camping and I hope to take lots of pictures while I freeze. Have a good weekend everyone.

~B

Hello World....

I have been so caught up with learning to knit that I have been ignoring embroidery. Feeling bad for all my hoops and floss because they look at me so longingly from across the room that I took pity on them and embroidered something.

Now I am hooked again! It must have been their evil plan all along. I seriously think I am addicted, I might need help. Embroidery is my drug. I sit there and stitch and just relax so much that I have fallen asleep. I normally wake up when I stab my finger *ouch*. I was getting bored a bit with embroidery because I was not challenging myself with new stitches so for my next project I had to do something new.

This one I posted on my vintage blog was just calling to me. I loved watching the Partridge Family re-runs as a kid. Who would not want to be in a family band and travel around on a techno-color bus? I sure did. What did you want to do when you where a kid?
~B

And the Winner is.......

The very talented Erin - rectangel. Congratulations! I hope you enjoy them.
I wish I could give you all something. I will be doing another give away next week since I will have been blogging for a year next week. So check back.

Since I hate posting without pictures. Here is a towel I made several weeks ago. I had been watching the Music Man and I could not help singing the song 76 trombones led the big parade.

~Bekah

My 50th Blog Post Giveaway

In honor of my 5oth post and my new ebay win I am giving away some embroidery patterns.

All you need to do it leave me a comment on this post and tell me why you like to embroider by Midnight on Friday, March 28. Then on Saturday I will draw a name ship on Monday.

If you live outside of the US go ahead and comment I will send to you. Please remember to leave your email otherwise I will not be able to get ahold of you.
~Bekah

Tagged.... Now you will know it all

Tea Towel Tour III

The wonderful g from doe-c-doe tagged me and now you will know things about me you probably did not want to know.

7 random things:

• I drink milk with my pizza.
• I went to a small Christian school, my graduating class size was ten. (I can always say I was in the top ten of my class)
• I do not clean my dishes every night.
• When I was younger I desperately wanted to play the guitar and be a folks singer. Turns out I do can not play guitar and I am not that good at singing either.
• I make up stupid songs and dance around the house. Just because it make me happy.
• I am addicted to podcasts
• I watch old movies while I embroider.

I am only tagging a couple of people because of the blogs I read have already been tagged.
Drewzel at Stitchy Britches
Daniel at Priceless Passtimes
~Bekah

Antique Store Find

Last Sunday I went to the antique store in hopes that the canister set I saw a few weeks ago was still there. I kept kicking myself for not buying it then and thought of all the reasons that I am glad I did not buy it. But..... I kept dreaming how wonderful they would look in my kitchen and all the things I would bake just to use these canisters. So after lots of "I should have bought those" (think of a whiney little girl) T is like go buy them.

So on Sunday off I went to the next town 20 miles (not to far) I went in and it took all my effort not to run to the basement and see if they were still there. Once I finally got finished pretending to look at other things. I went downstairs turned on the light (yes they leave the light off - gotta love small towns). I was the only one down there "hooray" and I made a bee-line straight to the canisters and yes they were still there. I squealed with delight and grabbed them just in case someone was really down there trying to take my find.

I loaded myself up with them and rounded the corner and guess what I saw. A cake saver that matched. Ooo I could not pass this up. Granted I already own four other cake savers. I can not help myslef I just love them. I was quite a site the owner even chuckled at me. Here I was carrying five canisters one large cake server and trying to turn off the light and make it to the front of the store with out dancing for joy. I put then on the counter and said "can I leave these here I still want to look around"?

What for I had no idea but I know I would find something, and I did find something else. A 1966 Better Homes and Garden Pies and Cakes cookbook. So I make my way back up front and it is all I can do to not to jump up and down and giggle. I mean I was in heaven. All these wonderful finds. The lady checks me out and say oh I will just give you the book if you tell me what you will make from it. So I looked at her and with all seriousness I said "I plan to make everything". So I walk out $18 lighter and the happiest girl in all the world.

So tell me what kind of things make you happy?

Cheers

~B

I Gave In

Yes, you heard me I gave in to the pull of selling things you make in hopes to finance your craft projects. The lure was to much and I did it.

Check it out if you like. I still plan to make more things for swaps and gifts than for the shop.
If you have a shop let me know about it. I always need new things to buy.

Have a great weekend all you crafy gals.
~B

Are You a Social Crafter?

After a lot of thinking this weekend I began to wonder. Do you have people you get together with and do your crafy things with?

I tend to do all my crafting alone and in the middle of the night. My friends around here are not to keen on any crafty things and the few (very few) do not want to get together. I do wish that there were people close to me that I could share things with and learn things from (not that I do not love you guys). More of a hey I am bored let's make something. I would love to hear what you do.
~B

Acts of Kindness

I have been awarded the Random Acts of Kindness award by drewzel and floresita. Thanks gals I you are truly the best.
I would like to give this award to two others.
doe-c-doe - She is so sweet to offer her patterns and let us see all her thrifty finds. She is so sweet to answer questions about her projects.
Pinky and Boo - She is always so sweet with comments and is now offering a few patterns on her site as well.

~B

Best Swap Ever!

I received from my 50's swap partner. Boy did I get spoiled and I am impressed at the quality of her work. She has done an amazing job. I received earrings, necklace, felted bag, and a knitted scarflette. When I got the package I ripped it open and squealed with joy and did my happy dance that all at once made by puppy jump up to see what all the comotion was about. She settled back down after seeing it was just me doign a happy dance again! (just imagine Elaine from Seinfeld and magnify it 100x that is how bad it is). So after all the dancing and squealing. I immediately put everything on and was sitting on the couch just enjoying my new stuff. So far I have to say this has been my best swap every. Thanks Lora.

Hope you all have a great weekend.
~B

50's Swap

I joined a 50's swap and just sent out. It was fun to try and figure out what to make so I decided I need to make an apron and it had to be reversible and if that was not enough I was going to make a quilted potholder. What!?! you might say. Yes, you read right. I always bite off more than I can chew. I stressed about it and put it off and worried about it but since send outs are tomorrow I decided I need to get this done so all Saturday night I was up until 4:00 am and then sleep for a few hours and managed to finish the potholder binding in the morning. I also made 2 crocheted dishcloths but did not take a picture of them and I sent her the cute elephant onesie for her baby to be. I sure hope she likes it all. I am always so nervous after sending things off in a swap.

Hope you all have a good week.
Cheers
~B

Tea Towel Tour 3

We are starting a new swap you might want to pop over and see about joining.
Tea Towel Tour 3

~B

Embroidery, Cookies, and Knitting Oh My!

Out of celebration for my first knitting project I thought cookies where in order (I might have just wanted cookie, but I will never tell). One year and a month after I took a knitting class I finished my first project. It is a scarf for me. Can you believe it? I am actually keeping something for myself.

I am so happy I love it and just want to tell everyone I meet that I knit this. Since I do not want everyone in this small town to think I am crazy I have restrained myself and decided to bake cookies to show my scarf how much I love it hence the hearts.

Now, I never said I was a great decorator. So this is about the best I will do on a work night and on the spur of the moment (ok probably with lots of planning this is still the best). They are a regular sugar cookie with cherry almond frosting.

I can not wait until tomorrow to eat them. I never eat sugar cookies on the day I make them I let the frosting harden a bit then I put them in my cake saver and let them sit there overnight and the next morning the softest cookies you have ever eaten. Tomorrow will not come soon enough.

I have been experimenting with onesies. I know I have done several and at one point I swore I would not do another one but, I was looking through all my blanks to embroider on and this popped out and I thought hey there has to be a way to actually make the onesie look finished. I am still not sure if I like this or if it looks finished. I am still in the not sure phase. What do you guys think? I have a couple of friends having babies this year so this will probably be a present for one of them if I like it.
Well off to bed I am babbling.

Cheers
~B

Snow!

Just had to share the snow. I love how my world turned white overnight. It is so beautiful much better than the cold gray we have been having.

~B

A hat for Julia

Julia asked me to make her a hat for her birthday next month and she sent me this picture.

After seeing the picture I hunted for a week and could not come up with a pattern either for free or to buy. So I was starting to sweat a bit since I said "sure Julia Aunt Bekah can make that for you" (before I actually saw it). Oh, the stupid things we do for our loved ones. Well after freaking out a bit T turns to me and is like you can figure it out I have faith in you (he is so sweet that way). So you be the judge and tell me if it makes the cut.

I made 5 motifs and then sewed it into a hat. It actually has been very fun. I did a lot of hit and miss several bad ones and several froggings and some just throwing out what I made but finally at least I think success. Pardon, the blue Yoga Booty Ballet ball it was the smallest one I could find in the house.

I am hoping to be more productive and doing things more in advance this year than last year. Right now I am off to a good start. I have finished this project two weeks early for her birthday and I already have half a knitted scarf done which is amazing since I knit slow and have only finished a knitted dishcloth and nothing else since I took a knitting class last January. The scarf is for me (how selfish is that).

What kind of goal in your crafting life have you made this year. I would love to hear about it.

~Cheers
B

Oh I Wish I Was......

You all know the song right well have you actually been to see the Weinermobile? I got to go see it this week it was actually in town and T and I went to go get our picture taken with it along with the rock. hmmm I do not think I have told you all about the famous ROCK! That is a long story and for another post but if you are curious here is a video you might enjoy. Yes, we made this all on our own. It is alright to laugh it is meant to be funny.



This is T and I with the Rock. After this picture we both got a Whistle. I know you are jealous but compose yourself I am sure it will come your way too. I have never seen the wienermobile before so I felt silly like a kid but I had tons of fun.

My life is not to exciting so the little things excite me. Hope you all have a great weekend.

~Cheers
B

New Project

Time has gotten away from me. The holidays are over and still feel like I am recovering from them. T and I decided that now that the holidays are over we need to get started on restoring the trailer we bought in September. We have so many plans and not enough time. Here is a better picture to give you an idea what we have to work with.

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed but I know we can do it. It has been nice to plan things together. We have bought a few paint samples because we plan to paint the outside in April and the inside as soon as it warms up a bit. If you can see in the pictures it is snowing right now so it might be awhile. I will keep you guys posted on our progress.

The most crazy thing is we drove 3 hrs one way to buy an original ice box for the trailer. By ice box I mean you buy a block of ice and put it in a tray to keep everything cold. We felt a little crazy but it was so worth it. It is turquoise to match the stove. We found some formica lament to redo the countertop and the table.

It is a 1966 Aladdin Travel Trailer it was manufactured in Hilsboro Oregon. We are searching for original ads and an owners manual if anyone knows anything about these I would love to talk to you. We can be contacted at our Aladdin Website.

Have a wonderful New year everyone.

Cheers
~B