Organizing a yard sale

Let's face it, I am not a yard sale person. I have been know to occasionally go into a thrift store but not on a regular basis. I just don't want more STUFF. I'm overstuffed. And to that effect, I am holding a yard sale next month. O my, what a lot of work in 90 + degree heat this is. I have two staging areas: the garage for the larger items and the guest room for the clothes and breakables. Some things are too valuable for a yard sale so I will possibly put them up for bid on eBay. Has anyone done this? How were your results?

I'm telling you this so you know what is occupying my time at the moment. There is so much stuff now in my house that any creativity is squelched because of the chaos. I cannot work or create in chaos or clutter.

If you come to visit you will need to find some other place to lay your head since the guest room is occupied.

Thank you

Thank you to all my friends who have left messages of condolences. It is very much appreciated.

Eulogy

Pauline Hermetet

December 1915 - July 2011

The quote on the little brown, removable book: I have flown because you gave me wings.


Inside the little brown booklet is a letter: Dear Aunt Pauline, I wanted you to know of my admiration of you. As a child, you encouraged me to read, just as you, yourself, read as a child. As a young woman, you taught me through example how grace and creativity blend to a whole. Unfortunately for me, the elegance part hasn't stuck. This small book lightly traces your life from childhood, through high school and college, and the war years at Boeing. I have tried to portray your love of music and fiber in a fashion that you would appreciate -- that of one needlewoman to another. Than you for being a profound influence in my life. Your loving niece, Paula

Pauline was the oldest daughter of three and grew up in Colorado among a loving family.  She was a third generation pioneer descendent.

She loved music and had a beautiful soprano singing voice and accompanied herself on the piano. One day in her later years, she stopped singing and never sang another note. Even she didn't know why. 

As part of the Greatest Generation, Pauline worked at Boeing as a drafts person during World War II. After the war, she returned to Colorado where she grew up as a child.

 

Her love of books encouraged creativity and dreaming. She taught school in a one room school house in Moffet, Colorado, and later went on to teach and be a school secretary in the Denver School District.

She graduated High School during the Great Depression in the 1930s. In her spare time, she embroidered flower quilt blocks printed in the local paper. She said it was to keep her hands busy and to stay out of trouble.

She was an extraordinary needlewoman who designed her own patterns and she specialized in embroidery and needlepoint.

Elegance is an Attitude. This describes Pauline perfectly. She was soft spoken and never had a bad word to say about anyone. 

She loved tulips and so the book ends with a flower to echo the flower that has now faded away.

Notes on techniques in the book:
The white bow in the corner echoes the white bow in her hair.
The music 'box' is actual printed sheet music. The applique was inspired by a photo of Auntie taken in the 1940's.
The hole in the page lines up with the eye on the next page. Gears are CitraSolv transfer, the faint plane is stenciled and the rest is stamped.
Pockets support the fabric tags with their Dymo label printed words
Graduation picture transferred onto fabric. Word embossed onto velvet.

May D&F Tower transferred onto fabric, silk ribbon embroidery, sequin and bead embellished, embroidery on crazy quilt block.

Rubber stamping in fabric background, words printed directly onto fabric background and college photo transferred onto silk then fused onto background, 3D flower petals.
This tulip is thread painted. A small inkjet transfer of a recent photo is nestled into a postage stamp frame on the last page of the book.

Summer Knitting

I have been doing a bit of Summer Knitting in an effort to bust the sock yarn stash. I pulled all the self-striping yarn and put it in a basket near my spot in the living room. With self-striping yarn, one doesn't need to get fancy, just let the yarn do the work. The first pair of socks were knit with an afterthought heel from Melody Johnson @ Fibermania. It does give a different look to the sock, doesn't it?

I am not happy with the second pair of socks at all. No sir-ee. I changed NOTHING from one sock to the other and look at what the pink does on each sock.I wonder if the colors were a bit longer on one of the skeins. But done is done so I am not ripping it out.

And then there is this lovely! I used sock yarn to knit up this smoke ring/cowl scarf in a feather and fan pattern. These scarves are so wonderful to wear as they stay on like a necklace.

Bye Bye Skunk

Gone! 

We are not sure which idea worked  because we did it in this order:

1. Filled in one of two of the entrances to the den.
2. Lightly scattered moth balls* around the filled in entrance and side of the garden shed
3. Lightly scattered moth balls* around two other sides of the garden shed leaving only the open den entrance free.
4. Lots of movement, noise and lights around the shed.

Yesterday at dusk, I scattered flour around the den entrance to see if a critter came or went. This morning there were NO tracks at all. Yipee! And most importantly, no smell. So today, we will fill in the entrance, scatter some more moth balls* and put down some chicken wire.

And then I get to do damage control in the garden (what garden?) thanks to 8 days of daily torrential downpours that included hail.

* Remember a little bit of moth balls goes a long, long way.

Obnoxious neighbors

I did not take this photo I found it on a free photo site, but the little critters are cute, right? That is until a family of four moves in under your garden shed. *sigh*

I have done some research on how to evict them and the one I like the best, and which I think will WORK the best, will have to wait until dry weather. You see, Colorado is right in the midst of it's yearly monsoonal flow: heavy thunderstorms and rain almost daily. The technique for encouraging those critters to move on? Well, sprinkle some flour outside the entrances to the den and then after dark check for footprints leaving the hole(s). Once the skunks have departed for the night (they are nocturnal animals) fill the holes. I want to not only fill the holes back up but then wrap the foundation and out about one foot with chicken wire.

Wish us luck!

Remodel

Several weeks ago, I checked out when some of my accounts expire. Specifically, my photo storage accounts. And while I was doing that I also checked on the capacity I had. Hmmm.... I have three different online photo storage accounts: one is free and I pay for two. One of the paid accounts is close to capacity while the other has unlimited. To get more storage on the first one I would, of course, have to pay more and that is not going to happen. In a penny pinching effort, I have decided to cancel the one account, but I need to move the (blog) photos from it into the other two accounts. So while I am doing that, I am going to do a bit of file management: all the knitted, quilting and Wordless Wednesday photos will go into the flickr account. The other photos will be in Picassa (blogger). If you read archive posts like I do, please be patient. The photos are being shuffled around and will return eventually. It is a slow process because I have to do it post by post. In the meantime, all the photos in new posts will be where they should be.

Wordless Wednesday - Road

Happy Independence Day!

We flew the flag when camping in the Medicine Bow National Forest this past holiday weekend. The weather was horrible on Thursday: wind and rain, rain, rain. The only saving grace on Thursday was that the wind blew the mosquitoes away. Friday, Saturday and Sunday were absolutely gorgeous even with the mosquitoes. We camp with four other couples and we share meals which resulted in me gaining 2.6 pounds over 4 days even with the daily walks at 9,000 foot altitude! I need to get back on track with the diet. Hope you all have had a wonderful weekend.