No Albert Until Thursday...

Tessie and I are both in so much trouble! 

I went to my favorite Goodwill store this morning.

This is what I found.  No. Not Tessie.

All of the stuff around her.

It was a large bag of ribbon and trims for 6.99. With the "Little Old Lady Discount", It came out to around 5.50.  There was another smaller bag, but I didn't take it...

It looked to me like a lot of mini ribbons and trims. For that price, I was willing to take a chance...

I am SO glad that I did!!!

A lot of the little plastic bags, I recognized from mini shows back in the eighties. I was right!

As I unpacked everything, I wrote down the prices on the bags. To my surprise, by the time I finished, There was over 150.00 worth of trims and ribbons!!!

I took Each item out of it's bag and wound the ribbons and trims on separate cards.

As I was doing it, I kept thinking of the other bag that I saw. When I finished everything but Tessie's pile. I decided that I wanted that other bag. 

I went back to Goodwill and got it.  It was 2.30 more.  It had some more trims and some very nice antique lace.

I think by the time I finish Tessie's pile, I can safely estimate the total very close to $200.00 worth of trims, lace and braids.  

I have to go back now and finish untangling Tessie's mess. She can't seem to get out of there.  I just hope I don't have to cut her loose.  That would be a shame...

She is just going to have to tolerate the mess that she got herself into until I untangle her. 

Wish me luck! See you tomorrow.

Foggy Day In Tucson Town....

Oops! I am probably going to have a missed day as far as blogger goes, but I am still saying it is October 23rd. 

My excuse is, I fell asleep after we got home from the treatment today!

I took my lace making along and did get a lot of outlining done.  But, that's no excuse for falling asleep in the middle of the afternoon!

Now I am up and ready to go! LOL  And there is nowhere to go... Except for bed.

While we were gone, I think that Tessie and Zar had a party of sorts.  I found them relaxing on the couch with cookies and their favorite unnamed beverage.

Not a lick of work was done on her cottage.  Not even half a lick!

Tomorrow I will have to work twice as hard and crack the whip to get the Terrible Two to help out.

I'm sure that there will be a lot of objections. 

I have next week off from the treatments, so a lot better get done.  The following week will be a busy one, but I won't let this happen again, if I can help it.

See you tomorrow with a lot more done and not so late.  Sorry about that!

Not Dry Yet...

 I feel like I spend a LOT of time waiting for glue to dry.

I cut out all of the pieces for the toilet and sink between yesterday and this morning.  I channeled out the places where I wanted the false doors to be. 

I forgot the shelf in the sink.  I had better do that before everything dries!

These were much rougher to put together than the shelving unit.  That had gentile curves.  These did not.  Much more difficult to get them to stay in place...

Now that they are glued and taped, they aren't going anywhere for 24 hours.

So... To fill in the time, I am working on the lace collar.  I have almost finished the cording thread around the edges of each leaf and flower.

I am hoping to get that part finished today.  If I do, then I can go back to the fun part.  The actual lace.

I am going back now and try to finish the cording..

Please excuse me for now.  I will see you tomorrow.

Smelly Socks and Old Lace

Well. The socks aren't really smelly.  Yet...

The old lace isn't all that old.  I started this piece about 10 years ago.

I decided that it would be the perfect thing to work on while they were stocking me up with chemo. 

This is the third treatment and so far I am having fun and going on about my business as usual.

Anyway, I got three and a half leaves outlined.  I have to do that to the whole thing first. 

Then I work buttonhole stitches of various kinds inside the flowers and leaves.

As you can see.  It is business as usual.  I couldn't resist starting the filling stitches even before I got the outline ropes tacked down. That was at the beginning years ago...

There is a layer of brown paper, and under that is some batting and a backing of linen.  Those will be cut off and the lace will be a freestanding piece when finished.

I designed this as a collar a long time ago.  I was, at the time, wearing fancier clothes than I do now.

I will either wear it over a tee shirt or I will have to go out and get something to go with it.

When we got home I laid my bag on the bed...

Tessie found the socks that I was knitting whilst waiting. 

She crawled in this one an took a look at the finished one... Then she said, "You know that this would make a great sleeping bag for the Fantasy Forest cabin, don't you?"

I told her that I already have promised these to April for Christmas. 

She came back with, "I know where your yarn stash is and YOU know how to use it.  If you don't comply I am going to get the herd of deer and the two mooses that live in the workroom to come and have lunch... The cottage will be history! They love trees for lunch, and scrub brush, and flowers.... Then... "I want a big sleeping bag for me and a little one for Spike.  Now quit typing and get to work on my custom order!  Now! Now!  Right NOW!"  Then she started running for the picnic hamper in the bedroom that is home to my odd stash of unused yarn.

By the time I caught up she was inside.  Tossing yarn hither, thither and yon, to the furthest corners of the room...

She was grinding her teeth and mumbling.  The mumbling got louder and louder... Then it happened.  She lost her cool and screamed, "We NEED new Ya-Rn!!! And we need it NOW!"  Watching too much Willy Wonka will do that to a person...

I have a stash of Lion Brand Amazing yarn that she has never seen... I wonder if, I sneak it out to the car and go "shopping".  Complete with receipt. Never mind the date with a line through it and a new one written in... Will she believe it is new stuff???

I may as well go for it.  As they say, " In for a penny. In for a pound!".

When I was little I kept asking the question, "A pound of what?".  The grown ups just snickered....   I never did get the answer to that one... I am still wondering a pound of what... It can't be a coin from England.  Those don't weigh much at all...  I know.  We went to England to investigate a while ago... When I asked the question there, everybody snickered a lot in London too...

OK. I am off to plan a shopping trip for yarn in the morning...Wish me luck.

A pound of what????

See you tomorrow

Whatever's Left...

This pile is what I am taking to the Witches Wednesday... I will stand back and let them dive in.  I imagine that they will want most of it...

This is what is left.  I am wondering where the first pile came from. 

The two bins are still almost full!

As soon as I was finished, Tessie piled into the antique lace bin.

The pile that she is throwing hither and yon is mostly all antique collars and wristlets that people saved from old dresses.  They saved the good parts to be reused.

This piece is not in to good of shape, but it is one of my favorite items.

It is the only piece of silk bobbin lace that I have ever seen, for real and up close.

The person that made it had to be the best of the best in bobbin lace making. If you want to see what I mean, go to You Tube and put in bobbin lace making. It is NOT easy to do.

I have the bobbins, but I will never be this good!

This was a set. I imagine that the top piece was on the high neck of a turn of the last century dress and the bottom piece may have trimmed the yoke of the dress.

They definitely match and were together when I got them. 

They were in a bag of all kinds of antique lace. I will probably never try to restore or do anything with them, but I do like to look at them and marvel at the skill of the person that did them.

As for Tessie, she found a half round of some other very fine bobbin lace and some entre-deux.

I bought the entre-deux at the local SAS when it first opened.  They used to get lots of old lace and buttons.  I grabbed three hanks of the entre-deux when I saw it. It had the original tags on it and I suspect that they were imported before WW2.  Very old hand written tags.

There were three different patterns and I am so glad that I bought them.  I use them a lot in miniatures.

Tessie already has a couple of aprons with that on them.  I cut off the sides and just used the fancy part for wide lace.

It looks like Tessie is wanting more aprons... She only has around twenty right now... Not enough.

I'm not sure what she has in mind for the other piece.

I guess I had better go drag her out of the box before she destroys all of my hard work.  Rewinding lace isn't hard, but it is very time consuming... At least, now I won't have to do it for another twenty years... Hopefully.

See you tomorrow.