Chat – Page 39 – Thimbleanna

One Down, One to Go

11 Comments / July 18, 2008 February 18, 2011 / Chat

Wow, that was fun! Thanks for all your great comments on sewing machines. I had a great time reading what everyone had to say. As suspected, people who sew are very passionate about their machines!

It’s kid moving weekend here in ThimbleannaLand. Both boys decided they needed to move on the same weekend — guess it’s good to get it done all at once. We moved TheFirstChild and SweetiePie into a cute two bedroom apartment yesterday. It’s going to be just perfect for them and I can’t wait to see it all finished — you know, with pictures hung and clothes all over the floor! (Ok, SweetiePie, you know I’m kidding LOL!) SweetiePie was so sweet and let me set up the kitchen which was great fun for me. By the time they had the truck unloaded, I had the shelves all lined and the first of the boxes unpacked. All those wonderful wedding gifts fit just right and it looked so cute with some pretty cake plates and bowls displayed on top of the cabinets.

Anyway, they’re moved now and tomorrow we take TheSecondChild back to school. His computer center job for the school year can use him this summer, so there’s no use having him hang out at home being bored, right? So, with all this moving, not much inspiring happening around here.

I have, however, been the lucky recipient of a few cool items. A very clever handcrafted, personalized pad of paper made by Sweet Melly:

This was supposed to be the weekend that I was going on a quilty trip with my quilty peeps, but the kid-moves canceled all that. I was SO disappointed, and while moping around, it occurred to me that we’d be driving right by Clementine’s, so I’m going to drop by in the morning and I’ll be lucky enough to meet Melly. Woohoo — I’m so excited!Â I’m hoping she might reveal a few paper pad secrets during our visit too. It’s so cute and I just love it!

I also received the “consolation” prize during Cassie‘s recent pin cushion giveaway:

Some “consolation”, huh? These hot pads are adorable!!! I just love them and they’re perfect. I would show you the condition of my current hot pads just to prove how much I need new ones, but you’d slap your hands over your face screaming “My eyes, My eyes!!!”

Look at the binding on these hot pads:

The binding job is incredible and I’m hereby, publicly begging Cassie to show us how this is done. For the life of me, I can’t get bindings done by machine straight stitch to be even on both sides. I either have to sew one side by machine and then hand stitch the other side, or use a zigzag stitch which hides the imperfections of my binding. Maybe if if you go to Cassie‘s blog and leave her a comment too (you should run over there anyway, she’s got an adorable new chaise lounge that she recycled), she’d tell us how she gets these perfect corners and straight stitching on both sides. Please, Cassie, Puhhhh-leeeeezzzzzz?????

I’m a bit behind on reading your blogs and with the move this weekend, it will be a few more days, so I’ll catch up with you all during my move recovery when all my muscles are sore and the only thing I’ll be able to do is sit in front of my computer. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy your weekend!

XOXO,
Anna

Sewing Machine Poker

41 Comments / July 14, 2008 February 18, 2011 / Chat, Sewing

A few days ago, Nanette posted about her Bernina sewing machine and she mentioned that if she didn’t have a Bernina, she’d have a Pfaff. Now, if you know me very well, you know two things: a) when I discover little tidbits about you, I’m known to tease you incessantly (ahem, mashed potato Kim) and b) I’m a die-hard Viking fan. Much to TheSecondChild’s dismay, I’m not talking about the Minnesota Vikings. I’m talking Viking sewing machines which totally slipped under poor Nanette’s radar.

So, Nanette, I see your Bernina, and I’ll raise you a Viking! And since we’re on the blogger playground, all our quilty peeps will probably pound me to a pulp! Quilters are Bernina-Lovers. They go together like Fred and Ginger; like peanut butter and jelly; like needle and thread. What’s up with that? I blame this on PKM‘s celebrity, Alex, and on quilter word-of-mouth.

Not me though. My heart belongs to Husqvarna Viking. (Notice I didn’t say Singer Viking Pfaff. Or Pfaff Viking Singer. Or whatever they’re calling themselves. We’re not happy about this little indiscretion one little bit, so let’s not talk about it, ok?) This is the Viking I learned to sew on — the grandmother of my current baby Hester.

When I was a little girl, BigDaddy came home one day with this then top-of-the-line Viking. MeMum didn’t even know how to sew. She said this beauty sat in a corner for a year before she even touched it. She had no interest in sewing, but she finally took a sewing class and learned how to sew. They gave it to me when I left for college — what a workhorse of a machine It has gears so you can slow the speed down for heavy-duty sewing. One day I even sewed through the leather backing on an old penny loafer shoe! All these years I’ve thanked MeMum for introducing sewing to me, but maybe I should really be thanking BigDaddy. I mean, what if he’d never come home with that fabulous machine in the first place?

Here is Hester’s mother.

As young newlyweds, we lived in Germany where Husqvarna Viking sewing machines sold for about 1/2 of what they cost in the U.S. (that was back when the U.S. dollar was at an all-time high against other currencies.) It was a deal that was just too good to pass up — I think this was Viking’s first computerized model and I was star-struck.

And here is Hester’s newest little niece.

Just born last week, she lives at MyDadLovesMeBestSister’s house and will be used to teach my cute cupcake niece how to sew. This looks to be a great little machine for a beginning sewer, and of course, I’m excited that they chose a Viking — keeping it all in the family.

Now remember, I’m the shy little girl with braids over in the corner of the playground so don’t hit me too hard. Maybe some of you will come and play with me? ;-) And whatever you sew with, I hope you’re lucky enough to have a love affair with your machine(s) like I do!

XOXO,
Anna

P.S.1 Thanks for all your fabulous comments on Aunt Annie’s Awesome Sweet Rolls! Rowan asked a great question that others of you might be wondering — how much is a package of dry yeast? One package of dry yeast = a scant 2 1/2 teaspoons of dry yeast.

P.S.2 The fabulous Miss Melly has found a fun new obsession. This is my blog on Wordle. Go play and have fun!

Beehives

36 Comments / June 11, 2008 February 18, 2011 / Chat

Oh, thank you so much for all the wonderful comments on my friendship quilt! I had such fun reading through them all. You do know that all the credit goes to the quilty peeps don’t you? Jewels, Junie and Gurney are the best quilty peeps ever. (Well, there’s that little noblog flaw, but we’ll let that slip.) I’m especially excited that a few of you have e-mailed me to say that you’ve already talked to your quilty peeps and you’re going to do a similar block exchange. You won’t regret it — it’s SO fun! Among the comments was one from Sarah — when she saw the beehive block she asked if I’d seen the June Martha Stewart Living magazine with the beehive on the cover. (Photo from Martha’s site where you can find the recipe for this cake.)

Yes, indeedy I did — I love that beehive cake! In my true Martha wannabe fashion, I made a beehive cake and blogged about it last year on my old blog. Now that I see the two pictures together, I’m noticing that my pan isn’t exactly the same as Martha’s.

And drat. Her pan is cuter. And my cake’s not professionally photographed. But it’s ok, ’cause she got the idea from me. ‘Cause I blogged about it first. Right? She read my blog and decided to put a beehive cake on her cover. Right? Sure. Let’s go with that story ’cause it’s way more fun LOL! Also, Sarah mentioned that Martha didn’t say where to get the pan and I told her Williams Sonoma, but I noticed the web site says the pan is from nordicware.com. I think Martha’s cheating a bit on her source, ’cause the beehive pan at the Nordicware site is the same pan as mine, not the cute pan that Martha used with the ropey coils. Oh well.

Hey, one more quick thing … there’s a new blog on the block (with a few more to be outed soon!) A reader from way back is finally blogging. I always called her MSN Judy, but I had the name wrong, she’s Brocante and Etc. And she’s such a devoted reader, she even named her cat after me LOL!!! (Ok, just kidding, but like the Martha story it sounds good!) So, run over there and welcome sweet Judy to blogland.

Yipee — it’s humpday — bring on the weekend!

XOXO,
Anna

Could This Be An Apparition?

28 Comments / June 4, 2008 February 18, 2011 / Chat

Ho. Lee. Cow. Could this be a new post here? I’m holding my breath!

It’s been about a week since my webhost moved my account to a new server. Can you spell GIANT HASSLE? It was one problem after another and night after night of fun with tech support. And can I say those guys need better manuals? Half the time I figured the problem out myself. That whole backwards listing of my posts problem was solved thanks to other bloggers who go to forums and post when they’re having problems. I took their suggestions back to my webhost and then they had an aha moment. So. Enough said…hopefully this will be it until they decide to do another upgrade. Which will hopefully be never.

Anyhoo, Scruff is a little miffed that his letter to Sirius and Cassie got lost in the shuffle.

It’s gone. Poof. Nowhere to be found. Along with all of the comments left by some of you lovelies. During that phase, my comments weren’t being forwarded to my e-mail so there’s no record of them there either. I managed to catch a few of your comments while they were still up, but I know that I missed some of them, ’cause I could see that the comment count was up, but it wouldn’t let me click on them. So…sorry for all the hassle! I’ve also managed to read some of your posts but I haven’t been commenting in the last day or two because of those of you who typically reply to your comments — since my e-mail was down, I didn’t want you to have to deal with bounced messages.

In the meantime, other things have been happening here at Thimbleannaland, but I’ll keep it short tonight — it’s way past my bedtime. Look what appeared in our backyard yesterday:

We’ve been here for 9 years, and I’ve never seen deer in our back yard. Poor little thing, I think he’s an orphan. He came running through looking for his mama. He’s a tiny little thing, certainly not any bigger than the German Shepherds that we used to have. At the time, we thought maybe mowers in the neighborhood had separated him from mama, but I’m thinking he’s probably been orphaned. I sure hope some deer mama adopted him last night.

Well…off to bed. Hopefully this post will still be here tomorrow. Thanks for all your patience!!!

XOXO,
Anna

Three Things

12 Comments / May 27, 2008 February 18, 2011 / Chat, Sewing

One: Thanks for all of your roof sympathy. Among the great e-mails, I actually did get some advice for making a 15 year roof last 16 years and for those of you who may also soon be needing a new roof, I thought I’d share:

Just consulted with the TJBMOTH (TheJukeBoxManoftheHouse). I had him take a look at the curling roof picture on your blog. He said that the way to make 15 year shingles last for 16 years is to go to Home Depot and purchase one of those blue tarps. Also buy a tall ladder while you are there. … Have TheManoftheHouse help you place the ladder at the side of the house. Have him hold the ladder so you don’t fall off. Make sure he has the camera with him so he can take a picture of you nailing the blue tarp to the roof so you can place it on your blog. In one year (after tuition hell is over), you can hire a roofing contractor to replace your curled roof and then you can finally remove the blue tarp that your neighbors have complained about all year.

Thanks for the laugh TJBMOTH — you’re awesome and I heart you!

Two: After a wonderful honeymoon, the newlyweds came home late Sunday night. To welcome them home, we had a family get together yesterday and watched them open gifts. I included this pillow I made to go with the wedding quilt that didn’t make it in time for the wedding (it’s hard to tell how big it is — the pillow form is 12″ x 16″):

Three: Erin gave me a no-pressure tag which I thought looked fun.

1. What was I doing 10 years ago today? We were living in Minneapolis and spending most of our time re-doing a 60’s style house. It was lots of fun and a great learning experience. That house was butt-ugly, but boy they sure knew how to build houses then. All the walls had two layers of sheetrock (wonder what they were thinking) and we replaced the roof for the first time — it was 32 years old — which the roofer said was a testament to how solidly the house had been built.

2. What five items are on my “to do” list for the day? Well, the day is over, but here’s what was on my list:

1- Fly to NJ (again!)
2- Work on two socks on one circ while flying (yay!)
3- Call a certain someone and admit I was wrong in a discussion we had a few months ago (sorry!)
4- Catch up on blogs in hotel room (not even close!)
5- Figure out where I’ve misplaced my expense credit card (gulp!)

3. What are my favorite snacks? Holy Cow. Do we want to be here all night? How ’bout Twinkies, Ding Dongs, Cracker Jacks, Cupcakes, Cookies, Almonds, Fruit with fruit dip, M & M’s, ….. hey…I have fruit in there!

4. What would I do if I were a billionaire? Probably pretty much what I’m doing now. Well, except that I definitely wouldn’t have a job and I’d travel more. I’d just enjoy staying at home. Homemaking. And “Do Good Works.”

5. What are the places I have lived? Logan, UT; Ogden, UT; Lancaster, CA; Dayton, OH; Manti, UT; Orem, UT; Huntsville, AL; Lawton, OK; Hanau, Germany; Ft. Wayne, IN; Minneapolis, MN

6. Who are some people you would like to know more about? Nanette took the words right out of my mouth. My ancestors.

Ok, Four things: Shame on me for not posting yesterday, on Memorial Day in the US. I managed last year, but I didn’t touch the computer on Sunday or Monday. Thanks to several of you who did post.

XOXO,
Anna