Painting pumpkins…

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I helped Elanor paint pumpkins a few days ago. This was after we worked on a birthday cake for her mom and dad – they both had birthdays this week. And after we fixed the hole she cut in her shirt with scissors that morning. (We fused a star over it.)

Elanor had me draw outlines for the eyes, nose, and mouth on each pumpkin and then she did all the painting. We used acrylic tube paints (which is what I had on hand). There was some color mixing. She was after scary pumpkins and I think she nailed it!

Did you notice that I forgot to spread newspapers underneath the paint? Elanor did fine, but I managed to get paint on the table. It mostly came up!

Good ideas from dorm rooms…

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When I was catching up on some blog reading I read a post on designsponge that led me to a NY Times article. It’s an article about interior design on the cheap – done by college students. Click on the multimedia slideshow on the left side of the page to see the images. 


There are some really good ideas! I especially like the big polka dots on the wall in slide #7 (at left). I’ve been wanting to add some dots in my kitchen and this might actually get me moving.

You may need to register yourself with the NY Times to see this slide show. It doesn’t cost anything and it’s a very good site. I find a lot of interesting information on their site.

Drying clothes outside…

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I don’t know about you, but I hang a lot of my clothes to dry. The fabric looks better longer if it’s not in the dryer too often. I hang wet clothes on hangers on a rod in the utility room. When that’s full, I end up hanging clothes in the bathroom(s) on the shower curtain rod(s). I don’t have an outdoor clothesline. Why is that?


If you read about my studio re-model this summer, you may already know that I have a pretty small backyard. There is not a particularly good place for a clothesline. On special occasions I have been known to tie a rope up on the supports for the roof over the patio. I had a “special occasion” on Tuesday when I washed our pillows.

FYI — I washed the pillows because I realized they needed it. (Surely I am not the only person who doesn’t think to wash the bed pillows regularly.) Two of the pillows were filled with polyester and two with down. I washed them all, two at a time. I didn’t have tennis balls to put in the dryer with them, so I used 2 small wooden blocks. Boy, did that make a racket! They got mostly dry in the dryer, but needed more – forcing a “special occasion” clothesline outside.

Then I realized that I should really have a permanent clothesline. It’s the green thing to do. And clothes hung outside smell great! But where would I put it? Duh! I hang my clothes on hangers, on rods, to dry. I didn’t need a clothes line so much as I needed a clothes pole! 

I figured I could put up conduit (a pipe that electrical wires are put through) on the same patio roof supports from which I suspend my “special occasion” clotheslines. I bought two pieces of 3/4″ conduit and some U-shaped hardware to hold them onto the posts. I cut the pipes to the correct length and hung the pipes myself. Honestly it wasn’t hard at all. I spent less than $15 and it only took 1 1/2 hours.

You can see the clothes hanging on the pole on the far side of the patio. I put up two clothespoles, on opposite sides of the patio. 


I moved the clothes to the other side to take this photo. I figure I’ll want to keep our clothes out of the sun and I’ll use whichever side is in the shade.

As I sat back and admired my handiwork I got to wondering why it took me so long to come up with this solution. I wish I knew! We’ve been in this house for 14 years!!! Dang! Then I thought, OK, blog about it. So here you go – I hope this is helpful to some of you.

Karen, we need your address…

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This is to Karen O’Neil, the winner of the blog hop door prize. We need your actual address so that we can send the book, Piecing the Piece O’ Cake Way, to you. It’s possible that you have a spam blocker on your email that is keeping our emails to you from getting through. If you would email your addres to us at pieceocake@bresnan.net we’ll send the book.


To those of you who are not Karen: If we don’t hear from her in a reasonable amount of time, we’ll draw another name. So check back… the doorprize drawing may not be over!

On a related note: Linda and I did talk about the blocks I found when I cleaned up my spaces. Yes, we will be using them as future door prizes. We’ll spread out the fun, and give them away one at a time. We don’t know exactly when that will be – my guess is that we’ll start it up in the next 3-5 weeks. 

Tidying up…

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I had a little trouble focusing on work yesterday so I turned my attention to tidying up some spaces in the house that were starting to bother me.



It probably doesn’t look too bad here, but this armoire had become a catch-all for the stuff I didn’t want to put away. There are quilts folded on the top shelf that I hadn’t rolled and put up yet. There is the Elanor’s Picnic fabric that I’ve been using, and a variety of other “stuff”. The bottom drawer has yarn and knitting needles and the top drawer has toys and stuffed animals for the Elanor and Jack.


Here is 1/2 of the closet on the other side of the room. This is where I put fabric that is not off-the-bolt like silks, hand-dyes, 1930s scraps, and more. There’s a 3-drawer bin with quilting thread, and another bin with more yarn. You can see some quilt tops hanging above my suitcases.

The top shelf has clothes that I had hoped to fit into again some day. I decided to quit imagining that that day would ever come – I decided to pass them on to a friend of my daughter-in-law.  


Here is the armoire after tidying. This is better! The folded quilts are now rolled and put up on the top shelf of the closet. All the yarn is in bins, and the quilting thread is here now too. The stack on the right side of the middle shelf is where I keep some of my class “stuff” between trips. The bottom drawer is now Jack’s and the top drawer is Elanor’s. I’ll have to reorganize if/when I have more grandkids. 

The bottom shelf of the armoire has some baskets on it, but it’s uncommitted space. I like having room to grow.



The closet doesn’t look that much different, but it is. I cleaned out 2 bags of fabric for my daughter-in-law’s garage sale. The fabric on the shelves is not all mixed up together anymore – the silks are on one shelf, the hand-dyes on another, etc. You can see the quilts on the top shelf. The quilt tops and the suitcases are staying put where they are. 

In the photo below you can see the fabric on the other side of the closet. It’s still tidy from the last time I cleaned it out not that long ago.  



During all this closet tidying, I found some blocks that I have appliqued for different classes over the years. I’ve got to talk to Linda about it, but I think we might do some more blog door prizes with some of these blocks as prizes. What do you all think about that?

THE Jack Johnson…

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As I have mentioned before, my husband is on the faculty at Austin College, here in Sherman, Texas. He does his best to raise funds for breast cancer research. In fact, he’s one of the rare men who regularly shows up at the fund raising meetings on campus. As he says, many of his favorite people have breasts and curing breast cancer is important. You can see him here in the kilt he wore last spring to raise money.

I just got an email from Kim Snipes, also at AC, who is coordinating Austin College’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month (October). The principle fundraiser, benefiting both the Susan G. Komen Foundation and the American Cancer Society, will be a raffle in which the grand prize (see photos) was donated by her cousin, Jack Johnson – an autographed ukulele, songbook and cd. I had to check with her and, yes, her cousin really is THAT Jack Johnson! How did I not know that?


There is also a cd autographed by all the members of Asleep At The Wheel (Wayne, Kim’s husband, went to high school with the drummer) and a bunch of other prizes donated by local merchants. ANYONE can buy $1 raffle tickets. All you need to enter is to send a check made out to Austin College (write cancer raffle on memo line) to:
Cancer Raffle/Kim Snipes
Austin College
900 N Grand Ave Ste. 61541
Sherman TX 75090. 

Kim says she’ll be happy to fill out the raffle tickets for you and mail the prize to you should your ticket win. I can vouch for Kim – she’s not going to take your money on a shopping spree… she’s a breast cancer survivor who is doing her best to fund research. The drawing is October 30. I know I’m going to buy some tickets. How cool would it be to have a Jack Johnson ukelele!

Update, October 3 – Click here to go to the page on the Austin College site. The raffle is near the bottom, by the October 27 date.