another auction, another purchase.....

Before the auction stuff, I wanted to show these. They are the most recent string blocks made. They are just to show that I did fill a bobbin and sew this week. I counted how many I have.

103. They finish at 4 inches.

I have a ways to go if I want to make a bed size quilt with them.

Now the auction things....

The chairs. 

If you ask tractor joe, he will say he was nuts to keep bidding.

But he did. I had told him to go as high as 20 dollars apiece. 

He said "what!??, they aren't worth 5 dollars." 

So he was shocked when they hit 80 in no time and the bidding continued!

Finally at 100.00 dollars the other bidder stalled, thought,

and shook her head NO!

I have that old farm table for a picnic table and these will be the chairs.

There were a couple old treadle sewing machines there and I thought having one might be fun. 

I learned to sew on one with my grandma. 

But once at the auction, I fell in love with an electric one instead.

This one. A Singer 15-90. I had no idea what the going rate for this would be. I said if it goes for 50 dollars we should get it for sure. 

And wouldn't you know there was one other person throwing out bids.

It did stall at 50...and we came close to getting it.

But, no, at the last second, our competition piped up and nodded her head yes.

Dang. 

We were at  90 dollars. The other bidder stalled. 

That is always a good sign.

Then she shook her head No! Yippie! It was ours.

We also bought the old croquet set. There wasn't too much interest in it. Crispy, who is home, was helping set up for the auction on Friday. While at the auction, a friend of his, told us Crispy thought it would be cool to have. He smiled when we brought it home.

Back to the machine.....

It was only after we got home that we discovered the power cord was missing!

Crap. 

It couldn't be plugged in and given a test run.

At least not with electricity.

I did learn how to thread it, put the bobbin in correctly, and how to change the stitch length.

I hand cranked out the stitching to play.

A new cord has been ordered. 

That gigantic foot thing is for ruffles. Odds are I won't use it much. But, it's always nice to have it, just in case I get in the mood for ruffles.

Hopefully the new cord will be here soon. 

Postcards...

Snow day again. This isn't funny any more. Spring starts this week.
Right.
Did up some postcards.
All my bobbins remain empty. Eventually I will fill some and sew some more.
This was too much fun today!

I didn't sew....

We did go shopping though. Bought some fabric and thread. So at least it was quilt related.
I might work on postcards today. My sister sent me this picture this morning. I thought it was funny.

block lotto split stars...

Dave is here. He is happy with this as it is. There is about two thirds of the top showing. It is a gloomy, rainy day. Not sure what to dig out next.

the plaid quilt.....

The hot-cross nine patch blocks from block lotto are a finished quilt.

I just call it the plaid quilt.

The white to make the blocks came from my cousin Gwen,

plus the blue fabric that is in the setting triangles.

Here we have tractor joe doing his best to be a quilt hanger. It seemed like the fastest and best way to take a picture. I wanted the whole thing showing.

Back to the blue fabric...it reminds me of men's underwear. She had given it to me years ago. I was never sure where or how to use it. 

Men's underwear and plaid just seem to go together, so it was perfect to use in the border.

So, this quilt will go to Gwen.

I know I run the risk of her sipping coffee as she reads this,

inhaling by the surprise,

and chocking on her coffee.

I plan on giving it to her daughter to take home with her when she is done with school for the year.

(she is attending Waldorf in Forest City, IA)

I need to really stress this point, that she take it with her back to New Mexico.

It would be awful if she ends up packing it up 

and 

it spends the summer in one of her tubs that will be stored here in the basement.

We, as in tractor joe and me, spent last weekend working on these.

They are cornices for his sisters house. We did them 20 or so years ago. She is redecorating and wanted them recovered with some new fabric.

The old fabric was a skinny red and cream stripe.

Her taste must not have changed to much. They are still red. But instead of lines, they now have circles or a flower patterned fabric. They took a little longer than we thought it would.

We are also officially retiring from window treatment projects.

The kitchen table is back to being a table for food again!

Well,

at least for now.

a silly postcard...

Mrs. Browndirt from Browndirtcottage commented a while back, 

something about how it was 70 degrees at her house. 

How nice.

So, I told her, she needs to be careful about what she says....

tractor joe and I could go buy some rusty camper and end up in her back yard for the winter.

So she said...."I will tell the neighbors you are our hillbilly cousins."

Our conversation went back and forth about hillbillies.

We, of course, aren't hillbillies. Everyone else is.

Well, maybe, both of us are part hillbilly.

Silliness.

That is why I made this card and sent it to her.

Making this card reminded me that I don't spend enough time cutting up magazines and making postcards. This was fun.

Test from phone

Took a picture of the snow from last Thursday night.