Indulge Your Shelf

Dennis has been at his new job for about a month, and seems happy so far.  I'm getting back to feeling normal, despite missing Paul Simon, and we are even thinking about adopting a little friend for Art Garfunkel sometime.  Maybe. For the most part, I'm staying away from thrift shops and estate sales, but every now and then I "treat" myself to trip.  One Sunday there was a great-looking estate sale near our gym, so after we worked out I convinced my husband to stop by.  That was where I found this fabulous horse poster! From an annual festival in Spain, this is a commemorative poster from 1974.  There is one created and sold each year, and they are collectible.  I just could not get over the horses!  And the colors! And this beautiful work of art is an original hand stitched tapestry from around the same era.  Hard to see in the photo, but it is carefully framed in these beautiful pieces of walnut.  I wish it was signed!  I just...

Paul Simon didn't return home as usual one Friday morning in August.  As it had been a full moon, and the weather was unusually warm, I didn't worry too much at first.  He was the wanderer, and enjoyed being in and out of the house on warm nights. When he was missing for more than two days, we began to look for him in earnest.  We asked around the neighborhood, filed a lost cat report with the humane society, put up flyers; and I began posting religiously on many lost pets pages everywhere -- on social media, Craigslist, etc. -- and spent all of my free time looking up posts.  I went twice to the animal shelter to look at cats that were not Paul, and kept track of another cat that a neighbor was spotting that also turned out not to be Paul.  I went outside every hour or so and called for him.  He was wearing a collar and was micro-chipped, so we were hopeful we could locate him. We were so worried.  Everyone I talked to had an idea about what had...

I spent some time making some tags, to clear my head.  I enjoyed it so much, and it worked wonders.  I started by sewing together some fabric and paper scraps into tags.  That was a few days ago, and then last night I started embellishing them. There was not theme -- unless "use whatever I have at arms reach" can be considered a theme!  Besides vintage ephemera, I used new flowers and scrapbook embellishments that I've had for quite some time. Even just looking at them now makes me sigh in satisfaction and happiness!  I think my favorites are the ones that I used vintage photographs in.  How about you? Besides that, I'm working on this fabric collage.  Here it is just pinned together; so far I've stitched some edges and details, but it's long from finished. I also made this simple embellished runner, using new printed fabric, trim and then some vintage lace and crochet.  It was a gift for a friend, and she liked it!...

Wow, how quickly did June pass by?  We hadn't had a real vacation in a while, so Dennis and I decided to celebrate year 28 anniversary with a trip to the beach.  But, unlike our last tropical vacation, I wasn't in the mood for just beach...so we chose Charleston, South Carolina.  I'd never been there but I knew there was a lot of history and culture, besides the beaches.  It ended up being the most wonderful trip! The beaches did not disappoint, and we lucked into the most wonderful weather that week!  Even though it was VERY humid and felt hotter than we were comfortable with, the locals told us it is normally much worse at that time.  So we were happy!  The beach we went to most was Folly, but we also visited Edisto and Isle of Palms.  All of them were amazing and the water was perfect for swimming! We stayed at an Air bnb (our first time doing that) and it was a wonderful experience.  Hunter Hall Lodge  was a historical, older ...

I enjoyed myself at the Modern Stitching class I took last month; it was the only one I got to attend at the Colorado Springs Art & Soul Retreat.  Taught by Ruth Chandler, it followed her book on the same subject. There were only four of us in the class, which went on for two nights, 3 hours each evening.  We were working on a book of stitches, which I've always wanted to do, and we went stitch by stitch through a whole bunch of them.  I already knew many, but it had been a while since I'd done them. We weren't able to complete the entire book in class, and I am looking forward to finishing it on my own.  It was so relaxing to learn from Ruth... and I got a lot of inspiration for using some of the stitches in the future on my fabric collages!  I never know how to go about with "free style"-ing stitches, but Ruth had tons of examples for us to admire: She had some beautiful, high quality threads and fibers for us to try; I fell in love wi...