Henpecked

Machine embroidered "cross stitch" kitchen towels.

Get Real People

I guess this is a "Rant" type post. My blog probably isn't particularly interesting to most people. I started it as an easy way to upload pics so that family members could see what we were up to, without having to email them several times.

What you see is what you get here. The pictures, unless otherwise indicated, are all mine, taken by me. The pics are of whatever's going on in our lives right now, as are the comments. Again, not real interesting to most people. And I'm not trying to sell anything to anyone on this blog.

I love reading other people's blogs - they're like free online magazines (and I am a magazine-a-holic). I like the pictures, the "feel", and so on of my faves. I have a few that I regularly visit, some of which are linked to this blog.

(here's where I get my Rant on . . . )

One blog in particular that I visit has charming pictures and topics that I find interesting. I was in Tractor Supply (what? you don't shop at TSC??) perusing their books when I saw a picture on the cover of a book on keeping chickens that this blogger has on her blog. Some of her pics give credit to the source of the photo and some do not. This one in particular did not - I checked it again just now. Now, unless she wrote that book or provided photography for that book, then she basically "borrowed" someone else's picture and put it on her blog.

OK, so maybe I'm naive or slow, or both, but I finally realized that this particular blogger isn't blogging about her real life, but is merely using other people's images to lure unsuspecting people like me in, and then hope to make money on the links on her blog.

I guess there aren't any rules when it comes to blogging. Who says you have to be blogging about your actual life? I've come to realize that some people create an online persona that is not really close to their actual life at all. Maybe that is the life they really want or maybe that's just the life they want you to believe they lead. I guess that's fine if that's what you're all about, but using someone else's pictures to make it look like that is your life is just wrong.

Onion Harvest

Wow, check out the great onion crop! Marc planted about 400 onions and most of them made it. We've been using them and have sold some and we still have about 350 or so. We have white, yellow and red.

Marc has really big hands so they make these onions look average-sized.

But just look at the weight - 1-1/4 pounds!!! I think onion rings will be on the menu this weekend.

Muscadine Daiquiri's

I have quite a bit of grape juice in the freezer from last year and the grapes are getting ripe already again. We decide to try making a cocktail like a berry margarita, only with muscadine grape juice and rum, not tequila. Ok, so it was not really like a berry margarita, but it was still good. Muscarita??

Procrastinators Anonymous - Meeting Tomorrow

I enjoy sewing for Journey but as usual I procrastinate and find myself in a time crunch. Stephanie asked me to make Journey's Easter dress MONTHS beforehand, even gave me the pattern she wanted me to use and the color. The pattern was vintage and she wanted purple/lavender. Everything else was up to me. I couldn't decide exactly what I wanted to do, so I didn't do anything until the last minute.

The dress pattern is a simple design with puffed sleeves, and a slightly empire waist. The date of the pattern was 1968 I think. It was really easy to sew. One thing that was a surprise is how SHORT the finished dress turned out.

I made an overlay on the bodice to add a little interest. It ended up making the dress look like it was from the 40's. I did a similar effect on the sleeves. I added ric rac everywhere. The pattern didn't call for any piping, but it definitely needed it, so I added it to the waist and sleeve overlay.

I adapted a design in Sewing With Whimsy by Kerri Mecca. The design features a lattice effect along the hem of a sundress with ric-rac flowers scattered around. The instructions said to create the hem on tear or wash-away stabilizer, flat, then sew it to the dress. The lattice hem "floats" at the bottom of the skirt. I was worried that she would snag it on something so I stitched the lattice on the skirt, and didn't have it "float." It turned out cute.

The ric rac flowers were super easy to do, but time consuming. The design called for glass beads in the center of the flowers, but I used pearls. They turned out really cute. I bought ric rac locally and had to make do with the colors and sizes I could find. If I make these ric rac flowers again I think I will order some ric rac from Kerri Mecca's website.

I don't have a picture of Journey in her hat, but I used a 1940's hat pattern, shown below.

So . . . Journey's birthday is in December - Stephanie thinks I should start on it now.