Inspired Clean Out

Sorting my fabric stash to make tote bags earlier this fall inspired me to dig deeper into my fabrics to sort and clean out. I gathered four boxes of fabrics from the garage, two piles from the studio, and two stacks from a bedroom drawer. Spread around the floor, they looked like this:

A donation pile formed on one corner of the bed, while a pile for more potential tote bags formed on the floor (lower left corner). With a large trash bag for useless scraps handy, I soon had the keepers re-sorted back into the boxes. I still have four boxes of fabric, but no more piles in drawers or the studio. The doantions pile; mostly knits, silkies, and rayons too soft for tote bags.

Fall is Here

The weatherman predicted a cold front moving in today, and he was right. It's time to put away our summery decorations and bring out the fall color.

The mantle is decked out in sage green candles accented with autumn leaves...
borrowed from the trees up the street.

Next on the list: rip out the tomato plants, sweep the leaves off the patio and front porch, change the summer bedding to cozy comforters, and bake a pumpkin pie with the little pie pumpkin I got free at Publix the other day.

Tote Bag Work Day

One dozen ladies met at church on Saturday to make more tote bags for toiletries for the residents of the county abused women's shelter. Using donated fabrics, we stitched up 39 bags! We still have many more cut and ready to sew; we'll be planning more work days in the months to come.Each bag takes 1/2 yard each of two different fabrics. Of the 30 bags pictured, I donated 15 1/2 yards of the fabric. I was happy to donate it to a good cause; it was time to clear the five large boxes of fabric out of my garage.

A New Centerpiece

I was looking for a new area rug this morning when I found this bargain on the clearance table.Then I added the candle to my cart and the total doubled. At home, I peeled the papers off my onions and scattered them around the candle. It's the centerpiece on our dining room table now.

It looks terrific with tiny gold Christmas balls too. I can hardly wait for December!

I Appreciate Free, But This?

A month or two ago I signed up for a free offer I saw on a blog: email Cedarlane and they will send a coupon for a free frozen entree. Free sounds good to me. Coupon in hand, I chose the Eggplant Parmesan at my local Publix. A couple of weeks ago I almost prepared it for dinner one night when I was alone, but I noticed the box said "serves 2", so I ate leftovers that night and saved the frozen entree for a night when the Professor and I would be dining alone.

Tonight was that night. We both thought the dish looked yummy from the picture, but when I opened the box and pulled out a tiny tray, we both burst out laughing. I seemed to be enough main dish for one small, not hungry person. We split the eggplant in half and added mixed veggies and cottage cheese to our plates. And it proved to be adequate to curb the hunger pangs for about 5 minutes.
How did it taste? We both rate it mediocre. There wasn't anything wrong with it, but we both much prefer homemade to this. In all seriousness, if we need a quick supper in the future we will stick with our longstanding plan, which is to run over to Kroger for a rotisserie chicken.

We ate homemade pancakes for dessert.

Work In Progress

I can't take credit for this project ~ this is Greta's work in progress. She is decorating an adorable little table and chairs set for a young birthday girl we know. Mom bought the dark brown set at a flea market, sanded it, repaired it, and painted it white. Then she turned it over to Greta for the decorative painting. The birthday girl likes yellow and foof!Project complete: A close-up of the chair detail.

Tote Bag Work Party

Twelve or so ladies from church got together Thursday night to stitch up tote bags for the clients of the abused womens shelter. To an outsider it might have looked confusing, but we really did develop a procedure. First the cutting ladies arranged the pattern pieces to best advantage on the donated fabrics and cut the pieces out. Then the ironing ladies folded and pressed the strap pieces. Next to them the sewing ladies stitched the seams. Between pressing straps, the ironing ladies pressed open the seams and marked the box bottoms. The sewing ladies received the bags back to stitch, turn, and top stitch. A final pressing, and the bags went to the toiletries girl who bagged up the toiletries and popped them in the new tote bags. We had so much fun!