The calm before the storm

It is a beautiful sunny day here in southwest France. The snow has melted and the hills are a wonderful array of greens and browns across my windows. I am curled up on the couch in front of the fireplace stitching away the afternoon. Today is a peaceful day. We had planned to have the New Years Eve party here again this year but plans changed and now it is at someone else's house nearby. Deep...

Good Music, Good Wine & Good Fun

A christmas eve celebration...with much music and wine and a christmas table full of cheer but best of all SNOW...SNOW...SNOW!!! Also here are lil sis's window clingy's sucessfully installed...and the one I made her last year... and last but not least...the beginnings of my new shoe *^_^*...

Hibernating

Hello all, I hope you are all enjoying a nice holiday. The christmas celebrations are over here. My MIL whipped up a stupendous feast for Christmas day and we had many family members over to help us celebrate. Then yesterday we spent the day recouperating and what would happen but SNOW! Lots of it, great big giant flakes tumbling down from the sky. It was so wonderful to watch. IT has been a long...

Holidays

I am here in beautiful Moirax celebrating the season with my husband's family, my family now. We have had much fun and good times. Lil sis and I made ornaments yesterday. I brought the polystyrene balls, paper napkins, glitter and glue with me when I came down. We sat at the table and cut napkins into little pieces.... applied them to the balls with glue, added...

Running Myself in Circles

Good Morning Everyone! I have been running around like a chicken with her head off this morning. Trying to finish up last minute christmas gifts and pack. Making myself a small sewing kit and really in a quandry as to what I want to include in said kit. I will be gone for two weeks and I want to make sure I take enough with me to keep me occupied...and not just my paisley project in case my hands...

Cold feet, warm belly ^_^

Today is another gloomy day, one that makes me want to curl up on the couch with my cashmere blanket and a hot cup of cocoa. One thing I really love at Christmas time is a good cup of hot peppermint cocoa. Well, I have to admit I dont think there are too many French people that drink peppermint cocoa. In fact I think there are a LOT of things we Americans eat that they think a little odd....

More experiments with color

Today I am working on a new dye bath. I wanted a deep rich red so I used two teaspoons of magenta and 1/2 teaspoon of black. Unfortunately from how it looks so far I will get a bordeaux color. Not that I dont love bordeaux, I do, just not quite what I was going for. I wanted it a little less purple. I think I will need to add a bit of yellow to rectify this. I have so much to learn about dyeing and...

Fairy steps...

Yesterday was a successful day with my new glasses picked out and ordered. With any luck I will have them before the new year. It will be so nice to not constantly strain my eyes. We postponed our chimichanga meal until today as we forgot half the ingredients when we stopped at the store. We did have guest over last night and enjoyed spending some time with them. Today I made 22 chimichangas....

Busy, busy, busy!

Good Morning Everyone! Today is going to be a very busy day for me but I wanted to take the time quickly this morning to post a pic of my ongoing paisley project. We finally had some decent light yesterday afternoon so I quickly took a snap of it. Thats about all I got done on that project. I simply had to not work on it at all yesterday as my hands were screaming at me.I did get started on my little...

Hands in too many pots...

Today I am all in a flurry. I have many ideas flitting around my head and tugging in all directions. My paisley piece has made my hands scream in protest. I have suffered for years from what one doctor called "Inflammatory joint disease" but haven't really had a bad flare up since I moved to France until this week. I think all that satin stitching is telling on me *grin* I was able to get a bit more...

Let the sun shine in!

It was a very cold day today but we still had some nice sun this afternoon. I took a few shots of the piece I am working on right now that I am beginning to think would make a great flap for a messenger type bag. Its bold and bright and I'm really liking how the colors are looking together. I also took a shot of my two new pieces I just dyed. I like them both. The red really saved the piece that...

Befuddled

I have no exciting pictures to show you (or boring ones for that matter). It was too dark and dreary to take any today. I promise I will try to catch a shot tomorrow if the sun peeps out. I have two more paisley to join my first and I really like how they are looking. I am stumped as to what this is going to be though. I had planned on making a pleated purse with this piece and I wanted an allover...

Pretty Paisley

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Bugs galore....

Seems my hubby has brought me home another bug. Just when I thought I was getting better, I am down again. I won't complain too much though. This time at least I still feel up to stitching. I have been working on my second crazy quilt purse and it's almost done. I think I like it better than the first one but I doubt I will make another one of these. I love the way they look but I dont want to turn...

Pathways

Late night stitchingblazing a trail of coloracross the landscape of denims...a patchwork gard...

Ragbag

I really had fun working on this project. It just popped into my head and omce I started on it I couldn't put it down. I like how it looks so far but I can't decide if I want to go any further on it. D thinks I should outline the star with some trim I have and I think it looks O.K. with it but I didn't just HAVE to do it. If you know what I mean... I think I will look at it for a few days to see...

Recuperation

Just a quick note to say...I am recovering. Slowly but surely. I knew I was feeling better when this idea popped into my head today. For the first time in days my hands picked up my scissors. I will survive...

Grumpy bunny longs for sunny beaches....

This is my favorite photo I have ever taken. Its old, bent and worn but still chereished. I have taken many more photos that I'm sure other people would say were much better than this one. I love the expression in this one though. The carefree spirit and triumphant feeling it speaks to me. Ah to be so young and free again eh? I am a bit grumpy today. Woke up with a scratchy throat and a sniffly...

Raggedy

5456 strips...It's been a bit of a hectic week here. We arrived back from Moirax Sunday evening, then to bed, then to class the next day. As soon as I arrived home from class Monday, D informed me that he had a job interview the next morning and we had to rush out to buy him an overcoat and dress shirt. Then to bed, then class the next day....My test was today so I spent yesterday studying and then...

La Mandigote

My husband grew up in the tiny village Moirax in France, born and raised there. It is a quaint little village set atop a hill just outside of Agen. The main and ONLY attraction was L'église Sainte-Marie de Moirax, an almost 1000 yr old church whose construction began in 1080. A gorgeous structure to say the least. Well move over, we now have a new attraction in town "La Mandigote". La Mandigote...