My sewing machine will be humming today.

 My January Dining Room Table Centerpiece

     This centerpiece is made up from a few things I bought from a favorite country store. 


    They have a small shop at my favorite flea market in Leesport, PA
   The small tray they are sitting on was bought for just 50 cents from an outdoor vendor there, and I painted it to go with....

TIME TO GET BACK TO QUILTING

Over the past couple of weeks I have been working on getting some projects ready for machine quilting.  The two that I will be starting on today and for over the weekend are fairly simple ones.
One is a small table cover, the other a runner.

Here are pictures of the finished piecing part.

This first one is made using fabric from a collection from Connecting Threads.   (A great online quilting shop.) Just click on the name to go to their website.  The name of this collection was Circle of Friends.
I checked there today and they are already pretty much sold out of alot  of the fabric.  It really is beautful stuff though the camera doesn't do it full justice.
  

 

 This second one also suffers in looks from my camera.  Don't know why.  The four larger corner squares will have flowers, leaves and stems appliqued on as part of the quilting process.

It is a pattern from "This n That" pattern company called Prairie Star.  I was using what I had in my various collections of "charm" pieces and didn't have any gold like the pattern showed so used lighter colors instead.  In case you don't know "charms" are 5 inch squares often cold in coordinated groups.

I admit to using this pattern to "use up" some of my stash.  Although it doesn't show well here for some reason in person it is great.  (sigh.....)

 

You can see that I have the pieces pinned with my fancy topped pins.  That is why there are little specks of color all over that don't really look like they belong on the items.

By next weekend I hope they are done and the binding will be ready to go on.

Think I can do it?

A Fresh Start to 2013

Happy Tea Cup Tuesday.  Not a real blog post on Tea Cups but I am going to show one pretty one just to keep with the theme.

This is a Royal Albert Tea Cup set called Angela.  It is one of my very favorites.  I have this in my personal collection.

One of my favorite things at this time of year is to open a new, unwritten in, Journal!  All those pages just waiting for inspiration! 

I love January, always have, even in the depths of winter when we lived in Maine.  It was the one month in the year when I didn't USUALLY have outside commitments and could usually get to do some projects or things I had been putting off.

This new year and January in particular has been presenting a few challenges including JURY DUTY so I have to admit to being being behind in even thinking about Tea Cups and other fun stuff.

For the past two weeks I have been working on sewing projects that were neglected and art projects that had taken a back seat to the holidays. Things I really wanted to finish. And now,  at the moment I am caught up,  Just in time for the Jury Duty to take over my life for a bit... or not.... today I find out more about what it will entail this time.  I have only served one other time and that was when I lived back in Maine, in another life.....


I am hopeful to get back on track for Teacup Tuesday, next week.  I will have a weekend in the antique shop to take pictures and get something written.

But in the meantime I wanted to at least say hello and tell you what I have planned otherwise.

A few months ago I started subscribing to Folk Magazine.  It is a wonderful magazine filled with things I love ..country things, simpler things.  Just click on the magazine cover to learn more about it.

They have started a journaling challenge, for every Monday of the year and they have a blog that will do the same.  I decided perhaps I can join in, at least for awhile.  If you want to visit their blog you can learn about that too.  Click here!

This weeks challenge is "What Goals do You Hope to Achieve This Year?"
I generally know better,  after all the years that I have lived,  than to make the broad statements like more exercise, get organized, etc.  Mostly my goal this year is just to live the year productively and joyfully.  Should not be too hard to do.....

My three areas of interest and therefore things I often blog about are Tea Cups, paper and book crafting, and Quilting.  They will continue.  We have plans for a Nascar race or two, a couple of Blue Grass festivals and many trips to Flea Markets.  Lots of good stuff to blog about.

The Teacup Tuesdays will continue on Tuesday, the Folk Magazine Challenge on Mondays and on Friday I will try to talk about quilting or crafting.  And trips we take on other days or included in one of the above topics.  We shall just have to see how long those plans last.


Thanks for visiting today. And be sure to come back next week. And after you finish up your visit here be sure to check out the other tea parties in which I am taking part. 

 http://artfulaffirmations.blogspot.com 

http://www.marthasfavorites.com/

                                                          
                                                              Rose Chintz Cottage

                                                 http://bernideensteatimeblog.blogspot.com/

http://antiquesandteacups.blogspot.com/

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

A Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all my readers.

Not much today since I seem to be very busy out in my shop and here are home.

I thought I would share a few of the tea time items I found that were quite "of the season" when we went to visit a  group shop called Black Diamond Antique Mall south of us, in Frackville, PA. We were there just a couple of weeks ago.

I will begin with the Santa Display in one booth.

 You can buy "new" Santas and other Christmas items but the vintage ones just have so much more character.

 Here was a pretty little sugar and creamer set.

 And a basket to be filled with candy or treats.

 A miniature pitcher and bowl set maybe just for display.

And finally a plate and some mugs.  Just look around at the antique shops next time you happen by and see what you can find.

  
Next time I have an entry for Tea Time it will be the New Year.  No telling what I will find.
 

Thanks for stopping by.

 

Be sure to visit the other tea parties after you end your visit here.

  

http://www.marthasfavorites.com/

or http://artfulaffirmations.blogspot.com

                                                          

  Rose Chintz Cottage

                                              http://bernideensteatimeblog.blogspot.com/

http://antiquesandteacups.blogspot.com/

Third Tea Cup Tuesday in December

 Christmas is approaching!  Hope you are all getting ready.  I seem to be perpetually behind.

But I did find a pretty tea cup and saucer to feature today.
It is by Royal Stafford, one I don't see too often.

 This one has a pretty flower inside.  Interestingly enough there isn't really any decoration on the outside of the tea cup.

I am showing it on my dining room table with the Christmas centerpiece.
Also you can see a pin cushion I recently made (from a pattern in the latest Create and Decorate magazine.)  I enjoy making things like this out of felt and using embroidery.
I also made the napkin. (actually I made 8 of them but am only showing the one.

 Here is the mark.  Evidently this company has been around a long time.

And to end this blog note today I am showing a picture of some of my primitive snowmen.  They do add to the festivities I think.  I have more too in other areas of the house.

Thanks for visiting today. And be sure to come back next week.  I know it is Christmas but I will try to put together a Christmas tea scene.  I have been taking pictures here and there of things I own.
Hope you will stop by.
And after you finish up your visit here be sure to check out the other tea parties in which I am taking part. 

 http://artfulaffirmations.blogspot.com 

http://www.marthasfavorites.com/

                                                          
                                                              Rose Chintz Cottage

                                                 http://bernideensteatimeblog.blogspot.com/

http://antiquesandteacups.blogspot.com/

Second Teacup Tuesday in December

Welcome to my Tea Cup Tuesday entry for the second Tuesday in December.

Just a quick visit today to show you the other cup and saucer I got when I was at the Regional Market in Syracuse.  (over the Thanksgiving weekend.)
It is also loaded with gold on the edges.

 I like the way the gold goes around the floral edging so that it makes it stand out but doesn't seem to over power it.

And I always like it when they put the flower inside the cup as well!

 Here is the mark.  As you can see it doesn't give the pattern a name.  It is from Tuscan Bone China.
But I like the idea of calling it something like "FloraGold."

Things will be busy here for awhile but I hope to be able to continue to show tea cups each week. 

Thanks for stopping by.
 
Be sure to visit the other tea parties after you end your visit here.
  

http://www.marthasfavorites.com/

or http://artfulaffirmations.blogspot.com

                                                          
                                                              Rose Chintz Cottage

                                                 http://bernideensteatimeblog.blogspot.com/

http://antiquesandteacups.blogspot.com/

December tea time

December is here.  What a quick year this has been.

To begin the month I really must show off the December Royal Albert Tea Cup and saucer!

I have this cup and saucer set because it is one of the birthday months at our house!  It shows the Christmas Rose, which is a very pretty white rose.

 And here is the mark.  It shows it is part of the flower of the month series.

After you visit my post today be sure to check out  these other tea posts.

http://www.marthasfavorites.com/

or http://artfulaffirmations.blogspot.com

                                                          
                                                              Rose Chintz Cottage

                                                 http://bernideensteatimeblog.blogspot.com/

http://antiquesandteacups.blogspot.com/

An art Journal from FULL TILT BOOGIE

Here is the other art journal I made as a part of Mary Ann Moss's Full Tilt Boogie Class.
This was a bit different from the one I showed you last Sunday but not too different.  Just using up more "precious" supplies!  It is easy, I have found,  to hoard those supplies for the perfect project.  Thankfully Mary Ann Moss keeps coming up with more ways to entice me to use them.


This is an old ledger book I found at a flea market.  I covered the front and back cover, but left showing the upper and lower corners because I liked the look.

In this view you see the signatures. They are sew together as I did in the other journal.

For the many signatures I used up scrapbook paper and also some of the pages from this old ledger.  It makes it more interesting I think to have a mixture of papers to look at as you page through.

This book was used on a trip I took a couple of summers ago.  I broke it up into sections and included pictures, souvenirs, and commentary on the trip.  The ledger papers made good spaces for writing while the decorative papers were good backgrounds for the pictures.  One thing that I have learned about my self while doing this is that the more variety of pages the better I like it.

I am not going to show any of the layouts because most show friends who might not like to have themselves shown here.  But you can probably get an idea.  Or  better still, take one of Mary Ann Mosses classes.  They are inspiring and will encourage you to come up with your own style.

I probably won't have anything to show for this new class until sometime in January.

If you find yourself interested in these classes visit Mary Ann's blog to learn more and how to sign up.        http://dispatchfromla.typepad.com/dispatch_from_la/    There are links on her pages to each of her various classes.  And no she is not paying me to do this.  I just love her classes so much and want to share the info.