Doodles and More Doodles

So, continuing with my series of doodles from my long-lost-but-recently-found sketch books, I'll shall now post just a few of my silly Goddess Luna doodles. 
These were done during long church meetings...and let me clarify here.  I always pay attention at the meetings.  The doodling while the meetings go on, just keep my fingers busy.   Most of my doodling was done during the Administrative Council meetings simply because we were always sitting at tables. I always enjoyed those meetings so I had no trouble paying attention.

I remember the time that I was supposed to be the secretary keeping the minutes at our Pastor/Parish committee meetings.  I had soooo much trouble keeping notes because I had to write instead of doodle.  I finally told the chairman that I just was not cut out to be a secretary.  I resigned from that duty so that the chairman didn't fire me.  :) 

I had a whole series of goddess sketches. It seems odd that I was doing this during a Christian church meeting, but keep in mind, this is completely tongue-in-cheek and NOT something that I did because I worship Greek gods and goddesses. 

Imagine, if you will, that we have a goddess who provides her silken threads of hair to use for all of our stitching needs.  Meet our Goddess of Thread, ThimbleLuna.

  Next, how wonderful would it be to have a goddess who cleaned our bathroom for us. 

Meet our Goddess of the Bathroom, LavatoryLuna:

 

That's all for now!   :)  

 

Be Kind 

  Happy Day!

Easter Blessing!

So busy getting ready for the big family Easter dinner tomorrow.  I felt the need to take a break and do something else besides cleaning and baking.  With the heavenly smell of a chocolate peanut butter cheesecake in the oven, I'll type out the amusements that go on in my head.

First of all, I have to STRONGLY encourage everyone to do some Spring cleaning, especially if you've lost something years ago.  Even though you've long ago giving up the search, Spring cleaning brings it to you!  Like magic, your missing treasured things appear!

My Spring cleaning made my lost sketch books reappear and look what was inside my sketch book!

My Hippo wedding couple with their little ring bearer!

 Anytime I have a church meeting, or any meeting, I doodle.  I've always doodled, even back in school, I had pages and pages of my notebook filled with school notes and doodles. 
This was something that I did back in 94 during a particularly long Ad Council meeting at church.
It doesn't matter if it's the agenda for the meeting, I'll doodle on anything in front of me that is paper. 
This turned out to be a bit more than my usual doodle but I'm so happy that my Hippo wedding couple have been found. 

So, I've lost two of my most treasured tablecloths.  I've seemingly looked everywhere for them, but even with the spring cleaning, they unfortunately haven't magically appeared. 
But my old sketch books have just made me so so happy, the missing tablecloths distress is eased.  I know they will turn up eventually.  Probably just like the sketch books; when I'm not looking for them. 
When I found the sketchbooks, I immediately sat down and went through them, page by page, over and over again, at least a half dozen times.  I don't remember most of the things I drew but some of them ...well, I'm just so incredibly happy that they are back in my life. 
I've found that the older I get, it's just the simple things in life that make me the happiest. 

I also found a long lost leather thimble.  I actually had two of them go missing, but finding one is just fine with me. 
Simple things.  Blessings indeed.

I have a couple new designs that will be ready once this Easter stuff is over.  One in particular, I'm really really excited about. 
No, it's not a design of a hippo wedding party.  :)

May your home be filled with Easter happiness tomorrow!  Happy Easter!  

More Treasured Gifts! 1953 Chevy

I stitched this to give to my hubby for Christmas a few years ago....

This turned out to be an even harder task to create than the 56 Chevy that I made for my brother-in-law. (see the post before/below this one for the story of Mark's 56 Chevy)

My husband's '53 Chevy has been in his family since...well, since 1953.  It used to belong to his uncle and then his uncle passed it on to my hubby way back when he was just a teen.

It still runs well, but my husband had/has it stored away during the winter.  Unfortunately, winter is when I needed to see it so that I could sketch it and draft the pattern.  

I didn't want my husband to know what I was going to do, so I would sneak down to his garage and try to uncover his car enough to get glimpses of the car details.  He has this car stored in the very back corner of his very big garage.  It's covered and has lots of other equipment surrounding it.  I had to take pictures of small sections of the car and then compare it to the few online pictures of that model year.

The one error in design is the tires.  They need to be big white-wall tires.  I will fix that....someday.  I can't be faulted with that though since hubby had so much stuff surrounding that darn car, it was impossible to see those tires!  :)

So, just as I did Mark's 56 Bel Air Chevy, I sketched the car to the size that I wanted the wall-hanging.  Then I had the daunting task of drafting the pattern for it.  

I had some shiney silver vinyl that I wanted to use for the chrome on the bumpers, the hubcaps and that little side panel by the back tire.  Once I had it stitched on though, I ripped it all back out because it just didn't blend well with the wool.  The silver/grey wool worked better.

My fav feature about this car is again, the door handles and lock, stitched with metallic threads, but also that radio antennae.    

One other thing I should add...my husband had just retired when I made this so he was home most of the time.  I had limited time during the day to make this.  

So, I would wait until he went to bed at night to work on it.  I sometimes stayed up until the wee hours of the morning stitching because once I get going on a big project like this, it's really difficult for me to shut down.

I've lots more projects from the past to show, but that's it for now.

So much sadness today with the bombings in Belgium. 

Prayers for those have been personally affected by this horror.

I've found that being kind to those who are hateful can make a difference.

 I'm afraid that kindness to those who are evil would make no difference. 

"My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness"  ~ Dalai Lama

A Treasured Gift

This is a very special gift that I made 3 years ago for a very special guy.

My brother-in-law, Mark.

I'm finding it very difficult to write the story behind this gift because Mark passed away back in September of 2014. Gosh, he is really missed.

My sister, Carol, (casserole Carol) was planning to give her husband a surprise 60th birthday party.
Since there would be a lot of people there, I knew that most presents would be either his favorite Guinness, or his favorite Jameson Irish whiskey.  (being Irish, he loved his whiskey and oh, do I have stories about THAT!)
The problem is, what do you give a 60 year old guy who is confined to a wheelchair and not in the best of health?
After much thinking, my husband and I realized that his 56 Chevy was probably one of his most prized possessions and I needed to commemorate that car for him!

I texted my niece, Steph, and asked her to go outside and take a few pictures of her dad's car.  The car was in pretty bad condition, and sitting under a carport with a lot of other things pushed up around it. It was difficult for her, but she managed to get some pictures so that I could get a better idea of the details, (two door, white sidewalls, chrome, etc)
Then I went online and did some searching to find a good picture of the 1956 BelAir Chevy. It's a popular car so the pictures were fairly easy to find.

Once I had a good picture, I sketched the car in the size that I wanted to make the wall-hanging.  That was the easy part.
The hard part was drafting the pattern for it.  It was to a point that I thought of giving up..it was overwhelmingly difficult.  The trick is to put the project aside for a little while and then come back to it, fresh.
Once the pattern was drafted, I dyed the wool to get the good yellow.  The rest of the wool was mill dyed so that was easily on hand.
The stitching part was so much fun.  I really enjoyed that challenge.  Then seeing it all come together with every single stitch was incredibly rewarding. I kept calling my husband over to gleefully show him the results of my newest stitched detail.

For the chrome stitching, I used silver metallic thread.  The little chrome door handle and the french knot below it for the lock is my favorite feature.  So cute.

I researched and found a "Chevy" font online to use for the lettering.  I printed the letters in the correct size and then traced the letters onto the wool for embroidering.  The little BelAir stitching on the side of the car took some time since that metallic thread was so difficult to use.

This took a tremendous amount of time but I thoroughly enjoyed every single stitch of it.  And the reaction from Mark when he opened it was just the best possible reaction one could give when opening a gift.  There was no doubt that he loved that gift.
Mark had Carol hang the wall hanging on the wall right by their front door so that he could see it from his recliner in the living room.
Mark is sorely missed.

"It's so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone." ~ John Steinbeck

Spring (cleaning) Is Here!

"It was one  of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold:  when it is summer in the light,  and winter in the shade."  ~Charles Dickens

No, this isn't a new pattern design. It's something I made years and years ago.

I've been so productive these past few days and simply because the weather has been so nice.

Spring cleaning is what it's called.  Redding up (that's a Pittsburgh term for cleaning) my office space,  vacuuming behind the furniture and generally getting rid of the clutter, are just some of my accomplishments.  It's a really good feeling and it makes me happy when I see the clean results. I'm hoping to finish by the end of this week so that I can plan for our Easter family time.

I do have some new designs all stitched up and ready for pattern printing.  I'm so very very pleased with their results.  I'm going to wait a bit for their release until after Easter so that I can enjoy my Spring cleaning efforts.

March and April have always been a slower time for my business ...I'm pretty sure it's because everyone, just like me, is outside enjoying the beauty of Spring.  I take advantage of this slower time to "catch up"with everything that I've put aside because the business was just too busy.

In the meantime, I'd love to show off some of my treasured things that I've given as gifts to very special people in my life.
This is the wall hanging that I made for my grandson.

 Fang is a beagle and my grandson named him after one of the character's dog in the Harry Potter books.
Fang certainly doesn't live up to his ferocious name.  He's a gentle, loving soul.  Although, I have to say, if you aren't guarding the hamburger in your hand very closely, he will make it disappear so fast that you'll wonder if it was ever in your hand!  :)  I still laugh when I think of the look on my grandson's face after his hamburger disappeared from his hand. 
To make this, I took a picture of Fang .....

Then I drew/sketched him to the size I wanted to make for the wall-hanging and drafted the pattern for it.  I hand-dyed the wool to get that mottled brown color to match his fur.  I even held the dyed wool up to Fang just to make sure the color was perfect.
I found a special "Harry Potter" font and cut the letters to resemble that.  My grandson has always loved Harry Potter.  He's 9 now but even back when he was 3, his mom was reading the books with/to him so I knew he would recognize that special letter font.
For the circle dog tag, On one side I stitched, "I love Kaiden" and on the reverse side, I stitched "Kaiden loves me".
I attached a dowel rod to the top and have a dog collar chain attached to that for hanging.
I made this for him 3 years ago and it's hanging in his bedroom.
If think if I were to make it again, I'd make his snout just a little longer.  I made him look more like he did as a puppy rather than a full-grown 8 year old dog.  Even so, my grandson loves it and that's all that matters.  :)

I'll have more treasured gift pictures to share in a few days.....cars.  I do old cars.

"Do it for joy and you can do it forever"  ~ Stephen King 

Thank you for reading and have a wonderfully Happy Day!