Thursday, June 16, 2011

Kimono

I fell in love with this material months ago and knew it would be a kimono. I made it short for summer and think it's beautiful, but it's so hot I can't wear it at all. Just tossing it over my shoulder makes me pant. I think I'm going to try again with a thin cotton lining and no sleeves. So once this one is hemmed it's going to go in my sell pile.




I wonder why this mannequin doesn't have a name?

I really love this material and the way it lays. I think I'll have Deb model it, it looks much better on her. She says it's not hot at all. :)

If I kept this I'd put a draw string in the sleeve to pull it up so I could do things around the kitchen.

This is so my style. :)

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Xmas Book

I bought at least 7 panels of Xmas book material. I think I have 3 diffrent books.

I cut up a poor quality sheet we bought that no one would use and lined each page.

I think I'm going to use grommets to bind the book.

My sewing machine can't take the 3 pages into the machine. I'm hoping my next sewing machine will have a high foot throat (hope that's right) so I can just stick on a short foot and put through this really thick stuff.
I just love the pepperminty look of this book.


A quarter to help get the size.

Monday, June 13, 2011

May and June business




At the beginning of May I went out and snaps some pictures of my little garden. I wasn't too impressed with any of the plants growing upside down. The tomatoes on top were taking off and the couple of bean seeds I pushed in the soil.

I did consider it is Texas and it is hot so I've been watering almost daily.
Put some crook neck yellow squash in a bit late.


The peach tree Tim the bull tried to break and just leaned over is way too loaded.

Husband and I went back out and all the low pears were eaten by deer so the tree might survive the overload. We are pulling off any damaged pears as soon as we find them but it's hard to pull of the beautiful ones. :)

My husbands been busy splitting a couple of loads of wood we bought. We were down to nothing and we like to be prepared. Our house runs on only wood for heating.

My favorite wild flower is blossoming. Every time I try to move one of these it dies so I've just put a little fence around this one.
 Now it's mid June and we did a little shifting of my container garden. I've been pulling stink bugs off the squash and tossing them in rubbing alcohol. Poison just hasn't worked in the past even seven dust.

Happy Squash, the newest strawberry got eaten by a bird :( guess I need to cover this with some netting.

We pulled all the gardens up into the shade with the first one that seemed to be happiest. It's really helped but still the bottom plants are just not doing as well as the top.

The bell peppers are finally starting to grow now that they are in the shade.

My first squash of the season. It doesn't have many more days before I pluck it and do some sauteing.

First tomato in the new style garden.

The only tomatoes on a bottom plant.
I must admit I'm really enjoying the no kneeling gardening. I'm trying to decide if I want to get a second hand banquet table (one of the long ones) and turn it into a raised garden for next year. I could add more tomatoes and bell peppers. I'm sure I'll do the squash again in buckets. Now I just have to get hubby to put together a drip system for us. We have the pipe but not the gumption up to this point.

Saturday, June 4, 2011

3 Reasons to Blog

3 reasons to blog




Two years ago when I heard the word blog I felt confused. Now I’m addicted.



My 3 reasons for blogging are

1 I love to create, and sharing the creating makes it even more fun

2 I need a platform (another thing I didn’t even pretend to understand 2 years ago) for my writing. (platform = a form of self promotion)

3 I find I’m addicted to sharing my crafty work as much as my writing.



I have found myself encouraging others to start blogging recently.



Why you should blog

1 It’s an amazing feeling when you put your art, craft, or musings out for others to see.

2 Blogging opens you up for new friendships.

3 When you know you will be sharing your work causes you to try just a little bit harder to make your work better.




If you have something to say or even something to share jump in and join us. You might find yourself and your craft growing.








Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Empty

I cleaned my White Board off today.
My White Board is a tool I use to make notes I want to mull over in my mind. For Hostage it was full of quotes about "The Moore" a woman of great psychic powers. I needed to remember names from Afraid of Love 1 and 2 and also from New Life. One family had over 10 kids and remembering their names was just not happening so I threw them up on the board too.
This is what a slice of the board looked like when I was working on AOL 2 near the end.
Today I'm posting words to use instead of Move and Look. LOL AOL 1&2 were top heavy with those dull words. I'll keep them to the right over my keyboard so I can just glance up when I have 4 looks in one paragraph.


Hopefully soon it will be full of a new book. I have a large pad of paper (3'x4') that I've had hanging beside my bed for months now with notes about another Shape shifter book I've got about 30,000 words done on. I'm waiting on the spark to get back to it. I've got about 40 books that are what I think of as starts. They range in size from 25 words to half a book.

I read them often and if I have more words I add them, but often I'm just aggravated I can't read more when I get to the last word I've written. :) I know someday most will be books.
My I have written a book board. I need to add Hostage to this board. :)

I found I was forgetting just how much I've written so I made up a white board and put post it cards on it with the name of the book, the words written, if it was a series and the main characters. I'd eventually like it to include a pitch for each book.

Having the books so clear on my wall helped me feel like I'd accomplished something even if I've not sold anything yet.

I guess this is just a day to take stock and realize I need to get some of the real work done. I need a Proposal for each of those books and a synopsis. Writing the story is the fun part the rest of this is work I need to learn how to love.

If you made it this far thanks for listening.