Summer is almost done.
We only have a few weeks left ....
The days are getting shorter.
The nights, much cooler.
Local fall fairs are starting.

We have had a pretty good summer.
The tomatoes have been tasty...I love tomatoes!
For some reason, green pepper don't do so well for me.
My neighbour's squash plants are invading our yard!  lol!
as long as they produce some squash for ME!

Not too hot, not too dry...
Then we had a couple of really cool weeks in August.
Overall, pretty good, in my opinion.

But, the girls don't want to go out to the pool anymore....they are tired (staying up too late) and getting bored.
I've suggested a few things to do, but they aren't interested.
Then, one afternoon, Hayley asked for a cutting mat and knife.
She had numerous rolls of duck tape in her back pack, I supplied a couple of rolls and I had a roll of double-sided tape...(I think it was carpet tape).
The two of them sat at the kitchen table for a few afternoons, playing with duck tape and knives.
Scary for me...I know how sharp xacto knives are.  I really don't think they realized how sharp they are.
They watched videos, checked Pinterest and made duck tape work for them. lol!
They created without incident, or blood letting.
In fact, they had quite a fun time making wallets, purses and covering binders.
The pics are just a small sampling of their artwork.

I've said this before, ....I am still tweaking my sewing room.
The set up isn't bad, but I still want to tweak...move stuff around...edit some of my stuff. Lol! not too much, though!
I find if I get rid of something, then I need it!, or could use it for an ATC or something!
Murphy's Law always applies!
At any rate, I am still working on that space.  I knew I would have to, and I am.
I've been in the sewing room, machine quilting, and I have been finding that some things need re-arranging.
I have been looking for the projects that I was working on....like my Farmer's Wife Sampler quilt blocks that I've finished and the patterns I have printed ready to sew.
Well, I found the tin that I had the finished blocks in.  It was under a project that Courtney was working !
A clock that I had propped up in the corner of the desk had fallen on top of the blocks and the tin lid was kitty-corner on top of that. Courtney's sewing on top of all of that.

the culprit

I picked the tin up and almost had a fit!

There, in the lid, on it's side, with the spout hanging over the contents of the tin, was my sewing machine oil bottle!
 On it's side and ..
OH!
MY!
GOSH!
D R I P P I N G !!!!
This bottle hasn't a top to close it....
so I keep a large headed pin in the hole of the spout!
Good thing I do!
It had dripped only a couple of drops.
But that is enough to ruin all my completed blocks if it dripped on them.
I carefully picked up the bottle and checked what was underneath it.....

THE CLOCK!


the clock that saved me

Only a few drops of oil escaped the bottle, the pin was still in place.
The glass face of the clock  had a couple of drops on it .
I thanked my lucky stars and wiped off the oil, got a "Command" hanger and hung my clock.
I moved that little bottle of misery oil to a different shelf...far..far away from my blocks, quilts, fabrics and projects!
There is a trick to get out oil spots that I have used...and it does work!
CHAULK! 
Ordinary sidewalk chaulk.  I have a whole (LARGE) box for the girls to use.  (they don't play anymore they tell me).
I have tried rubbing chaulk into grease spots on my clothes after cooking and splashing myself.  It does work. You have to keep rubbing the chaulk into the grease until it is all absorbed, then launder.
BUT!  I certainly don't have enough chaulk to fix all my blocks and absorb more than a half bottle of machine oil!

my shirt, no grease spots, thank you chaulk!

Boy it's been a while since I blogged...not that I have been overly busy.
So, the girls and I have all this dye, paint and all these shirts and pillowcases to work on.
 I prefer that we work outside, but the weather is threatening to rain, so we are going to have to work downstairs in the laundry room.
Courtney wants to tie dye her pillow case.


Hayley's pillowcase

Hayley wants to ombre dye hers.  At first she wanted to dye her pillowcase black ombre.  Then she changed her mind to blue.
Courtney has to spend some time wrapping spots on the pillowcase with elastics...which she did...
I kept telling her ..."More".... "Tighter"
She did!
When she finally had it wrapped and twisted enough, Mommy arrived.
She went out to greet her with the knotted up pillowcase on her head!..lol!!!
We all laughed our heads off!!
Next day, we got busy and got serious with the dyeing and painting.
Four bottles of dye and only 2 pillow cases.....actually just one pillowcase.


Courtney's pillowcase

I made up some blue dye from some I had from a while ago
Hmmmm....
That will waste much of the dye...
I have some fabric that I (tried to) dyed with Kool-Aid...(that really didn't work!) and some fabric that I dyed and really didn't like.
I gave them a few of those pieces to use as clean up rags
The girls worked on their pillowcases, then worked on painting their T-shirts.
They worked on their  shirt and pillow case  almost all afternoon, after they were done with the dye, I used up the rest over-dyeing my fabric.
No t-shirts for Poppa though, he didn't want anymore.
BUT...after we were finished ...Daddy said he wanted some!

Hayley really enjoyed her art camp.
She said the week just flied by.
She printed paper with ink and shaving cream.  (something that I wanted to try!)
She carved her own stamp from lino.  (another thing I wanted to try!)
Each day she came home happy and tired, excited with what she had done.
And, at the end of the week she had a journal to show off!
and
this week has just blown by..
A nice long weekend..
Not that it matters for the mister and me, we have 6 Saturdays and a Sunday in our week.  haha!
Nice getting used to that!
The grand daughters told me this year they didn't want to tie dye.
(Poppa didn't really want any more tie-dyed shirts!)
Then, they changed their minds.
 They wanted to dye pillowcases...
I bought some craft dye.....
then they wanted some fabric paint.
I bought fabric paint.
I thought there really wasn't enough dye, so I went out and bought some dylon dyes.
I was able to get them at half price with a discount card, so they ended up being cheaper than the craft dye.
WELL.......
We can't dye and paint just 2 pillowcases.
So....
We went out to a local T-shirt warehouse and bought some shirts, a white one and 4 coloured ones each.
We were going to embellish the coloured ones with iron-ons, and other stuff, but now
only Courtney wants to embellish a shirt, and only one shirt.

Courtney and I have been in the sewing room.
She wanted to sew some owl pillows.

using all those stitches

So, we looked on-line for patterns and ideas.
We quickly found something she wanted to make at  bubblesandbobbins.com and printed out a pattern.
Courtney looked through some of my fabrics and decided that she would make the first owl out of felt.
(I had some really neat printed felt for the eyes!)
She cut out her pattern, cut out her fabric, then sewed her little owl.
Next day she made another, but with cotton fabrics.
She took them home before I got any pics.
But the next day, she sewed again....she has been working on a panel for a while now.
It's a large crazy quilt Christmas stocking.  Two sides to it.  She's been trying out all the fancy stitches on my machine, all the different colour thread that I have.  She says it's like being in a store!  (I don't let her see my rayon or specialty threads, she would go nuts!)
It's been almost finished for a while.

all done

Today she decided it was time to finish it.
She worked on the last few rows of fancy stitches, trimmed all her threads and trimmed down the stocking halves while I set up the serger.
 She serged the edges together, then serged the top edge to finish it.
It turned out very nice and she plans on using it this coming Christmas.
Later, I went out to the local fabric shop, they are having a big sale right now. 
I thought that I would pick up some panels for her to work on. 
Do you think they had any???? 
 NO!
nothing!

the blue ones

I did pick up a cute pair of thread snips for her, I bought her the blue ones.
  I will put them on a lanyard for her so she doesn't misplace them.