A Sister’s Love

Last week I shared the wreath I made for my sister, Helen. Today I want to share the beautiful gift she gave to me a few years ago. Yes, it’s the church below. Yes, it’s beautiful, but the story behind it is even more beautiful.

When I was a little girl, my mother had a beautiful plastic church with plastic stained glass windows. It was a music box that played “Silent Night.” I loved that church, and I would sit for hours playing with it. My mom died when I was eight years old. Many of her Christmas decorations were packed away, some never to be seen again. I always wondered what happened to the beautiful church that played “Silent Night.” Every year all my family and friends would hear about that church. Then a few years ago, my sister insisted that she visit me  before Christmas day. She arrived with a large gift bag. Inside the bag was The Church! When I opened up the gift, not yet knowing her story of love behind it, I said, “You’ve had Mommy’s church all these years?” No, she didn’t have the church, but she had great love for her little sister. She told me that she had gone onto ebay to see if she could find a church like the one our mother had. Not only did she find one, but she found two and . . . are you ready for this? When she called the seller she discovered that the seller lived in her town! She drove right over, looked at the churches and purchased, FOR ME, the one that looked the most like my mom’s. She couldn’t wait to give it to me.  This beautiful little plastic church that plays “Silent Night” sits in my studio and never gets put away. Every time I look at it I know how much I am loved.

Thank you, Beverly, for hosting Pink Saturday! http://howsweetthesound.typepad.com/
Thank you, Debbie, for hosting Debbie's Newbie Party! http://debbie-debbiedoos.blogspot.com/
If you haven’t already done so. I encourage you to visit Ann’s blog. http://tinandsparkle.blogspot.com/
Happy New Year!

The Wreath

 

It all started with this snowball ornament. My sister and I were shopping in August when we came upon this snowball ornament in a little shop. My sister fell in love with his face. It made her smile a great big smile, but she didn’t buy it.

 

I went back the next day and bought  three of them. I originally intended to give them to her as is, but that was much too boring. So, I came up with the idea to create a wreath for her.

 

 

My daughter came up with the idea to add the berries, and my cousin came up with the idea to add the baby’s breath.

 

My sister’s best friend made the bow.

 

And the silver and gold glass beads belonged to my mother. I strung them on wire.

 

The completed creation made for my sister by four women who love her dearly and, of course, a special remembrance of our mom weaved in.

A wreath truly made with love.

Pink Saturday, December 10

Happy Pink Saturday! Thank you, Beverly @ www.howsweetthesound.typepad.com
Last week I visited http://minepinkcurt.blogspot.com/. The talented creator of this beautiful blog had a picture of the most delicious looking pink snowflake cookies. I wanted to make a cup of tea and have one.
This week I want to share some beautiful pink glass beads.

These beads belonged to my mom.

Along with these beads. They were strung on old fashioned string and my mom hung them on her silver Christmas tree. Mom passed away in 1967 and these beads were put in a box and forgotten about. I came across them several years ago. I unstrung  them and began to make ornaments for my siblings with them. When my brother opened his box he looked at the ornaments and said to his wife, "These are my mother's beads."

This year I am creating a wreath for one of my sisters.

I was in Michaels yesterday looking for some embellishments when I came upon some very pretty Christmas beads. I was blessed with inspiration to use some of my mother’s glass beads on my sister’s wreath. I am going to string them and then weave them into the wreath. I will post a picture when it is done.
Happy Pink Saturday Holidays!
Love,
Terry

Pink Saturday

Beverly, at www.howsweetthesound.typepad.com, hosts Pink Saturday, where bloggers can share with the blogging community. Beverly, this is my first Pink Saturday post. I hope I am doing this right.

Yesterday, I had a mammography. We have a wonderful Breast Center in my area of NJ. It is called The Collins Pavilion at Chilton Memorial Hospital. The people who work there are so kind and caring. They make the entire experience so comfortable. To make us all feel relaxed and comfortable they provide: coffee, tea, computers, T.V., cozy robes, and the most caring workers in the world. I am very thankful to be able to get my mammography at The Collins Pavilion.

This tree was in the waiting room. When I saw it I thought, “I need to share this on Pink Saturday.” Ladies, if you are overdue for your mammography, please call and make an appointment right now. Take care of yourselves.

Remember This Photo

 

Remember this photo?

I posted it a while ago – August 29th. Well it was the beginning of a special project. I love to knit and felt. I love turning my knitting into felting. I buy beautiful roving for knitting on a website: www.livingfelt.com. Well, Marie Spaulding, the owner of Living Felt, began a project called the Peace Felt project. The Peace Felt project was to spread unconditional love and acceptance. All one had to do was sign up. Marie did the rest. She assigned, to each of us, a person to send our piece to and a person to who would send us a piece. The date to send our final product was September 29. What we created was up to us as long as it was 25% felt. We were off and felting, all 300 of us. The piece above  was knitted using Lion Brand Fisherman’s Wool. After I knit it I threw it in the wash and felted it. Voila! The felted front for my project.

Next I sewed the blue fabric on as the backing. That was after my wonderful husband cleaned and oiled my machine because it hadn’t been used in a while.

 

The next step was to needle felt the design. I used cookie cutters to help me with the design.

The final step was to stuff the pillow with fiberfill and sew up the last seam. Then I took lots of pictures, went down to the UPS Store and sent it off to my Peace Felt recipient in California.  I will definitely join the Peace Felt project again next year. Thank you, Marie Spaulding!

I Am Blessed!

I am blessed to be a teacher. Two of my passions are reading and writing, and I get to spread this passion to others. I love my job! When so many are without a job right now, I am thankful for mine. Thank You, God, for blessing me with fulfilling work. Thank You, God, for choosing me to be a teacher.

Image link: http://www.teachersdesk.org/title.jpg

Zucchini Cupcakes

Shannon, one of my daughters, made this absolutely delicious cupcake today – zucchini cupcakes with caramel frosting.  So delicious her dad ate four of them, and he is not a big sweet eater, especially if it is not chocolate. Thank You, God, for Shannon. Thank You for blessing Shannon with the talent and love for baking. Thank You for these amazing cupcakes.

I Just Downloaded Windows Live Writer!

 Hurricane Irene caused me to delay downloading this. Yay! I finally did!
Look what I can do: I love these! And this is just the beginning. I can’t wait to play.

My Summer Work

I love the summer! Lots of time to knit and felt!

 I used Lion Brand Yarn to make this shawl. 

This is a tooth fairy pillow. The daisy is the pocket to put the tooth in. I knit felted the pillow and needle felted the daisy.

This is another tooth fairy pillow. Here too, I knit felted the pillow and needle felted the star.

They were a gift for my twin grandniece and grandnephew. 

This is a secret. I will blog the process of this work. Stay tuned. 

I Won Cookies!

This summer I chose to participate in a blog party hosted by Karen Valentine at www.mydesertcottage.blogspot.com.

The party was called "Where Bloggers Create."

I have met some amazing, talented, generous people with gorgeous blogs and studios.

One of the wonderful blogs that I visited was 

www.vicki-2bagsfull.blogspot.com.

At Vicki's blog I read about her gorgeous knitted nests. I left a comment, and I won these  cookies. The cookies are pecan blueberry buttercream cookies. The beautiful cross cookie was a bonus. You can't see it in the photo, but it has a tiny pink rose bud on it.

These cookies arrived in 100% perfect shape. Not one broken cookie. 

Vicki ordered them from her friend Lori. 

 These cookies are for sharing. So immediately after their arrival and I took some photos, I made some tea and shared them with my family and friends. Our home is always full of family and friends. 

Thank you, Vicki! 

Slice of Life: Jury Duty

Tuesday, July 26, I had jury duty. I was not very happy when I received the notice in the mail. As a matter of fact, I put a great deal of effort into thinking of ways to get out of it. However, since I did not have a reasonable excuse,  the evening before I was to report, I called to see if my number had been pulled. The recording said, "All jurors with numbers 0001 to 0236 must report tomorrow morning." I was  number 0227.

I left my home on a gorgeous Tuesday morning to drive the thirty-five minutes to my county courthouse. The recording the night before, besides confirming that I needed to go, told me where to park. I went to the parking deck, and there was an entire section reserved for jurors. Nice! The courthouse was a short walk up the hill from the parking deck, and along with 235 other prospective jurors, I stood on line to go through security. Once inside we were put into a "Juror Selection" room. There we found comfortable seating, televisions, coffee, tea, wireless internet, an outside patio for the smokers, a couple of old telephone booths for privacy for a cell phone call, (cell phones were allowed) and bathrooms. I was impressed!  So I grabbed a cup of coffee, which was quite good, pulled out my knitting, and settled in for what I expected to be a very long day.

Two hours later, my name was called, along with about 49 others, to report to a courtroom for jury selection questioning. An extremely fit employee walked us the good quarter of a mile up and down staircases and down long corridors to Judge R's courtroom. It was an exceptionally long hike.  Once inside the courtroom, the case was explained to us and the jury selection questioning process began. Gone were the televisions, coffee, tea, wireless internet, an outside patio for smokers, and the use of cell phones. The most difficult part for me was that I had to sit there, for several hours, without being allowed to knit. So much good knitting time right down the drain. 

We broke for lunch shortly after noon, and resumed promptly an hour later. The number of prospective jurors was dwindling with each hour. Jurors were being dismissed for a variety of reasons: financial hardship, knowing someone involved in the case, having been involved in a similar case, needing to care for a child or adult family member, or one of the lawyers simply did not want that juror. There was also a procedure called "side bar," and many prospective jurors were excused at the side bar with reasons never known to the rest of us. 

The clock was approaching 4 P.M. There were six prospective jurors whose names had yet to be called for questioning. I was one of those six. We were beginning to believe that we were going to have to return the next day when the lawyers accepted the eight jurors presently sitting in the jury box. Yay! The judge told the remaining six of us that we were excused. He also told us that our day there fulfilled our jury duty obligation, and that we could not be called again for three years! Yay! Yay! Yay!

I arrived back home ten hours after I had left that day. I was exhausted, but I was also in awe of the entire process. My thoughts about jury duty had changed significantly. It was a positive experience, one that I will not think about "getting out of" the next time. When called again, I will proudly fulfill my obligation as a citizen of the United States of America.

 I wonder who won that case . . .

Where Bloggers Create

 Thank you, Karen for hosting such a wonderful event!

Hi! Welcome to my studio!

My studio used to be our dining room, but since it was only used once a year I started to take it over. Last summer,  my husband asked me if I would like the room to be my own - no more dining room. Of course I said, "YES!" So, he moved the dining room table out and set up two eight foot tables for me, and then I began to get settled in. Come have a look!

This is a view of my room from our kitchen. As you can see I have lots of natural light.

This is the only piece of my dining room set that remained in the room. The storage at the bottom of this hutch is too wonderful!

This used to be my mother-in-laws chandelier. I added the glass beads and lampshades. The shades did not come with the fringe. I added that.

My wine and cocktail nook. The picture on the front of the fridge is a Where Women Create inspirational quote of the week. It says, "I make cocktails ... not dinner."

My yarn stash and goodies. This shelf is wonderful. Each shelf can be disconnected and the entire piece can be reconfigured. Makes it real easy to put almost anywhere in the room.

My chair. It used to belong to my sister. I was the lucky receiver when she decided to redecorate. I have my morning coffee here every morning and write my Morning Pages. I read here, write here, knit here, and nap here.

My bag tree. My father-in-law made us beautiful coat racks that hang on the wall for our mud room, so I took the old coat tree. It works really well for my bags. I purchased the beautiful knitted bag at the Vogue Knitting Expo in NY. An event every knitter must attend. 

My neighbor put this table out for the garbage. I promptly conviscated it. It needs a bit of TLC, but I love it. I love the shape, and if you look closely you can see that it easily fits right under my work table. I pull it out when I need it and tuck it away when I don't.

My inspiration board, calendar, and multi-functional white board hang right within my reach. My wonderful husband hung them all securely for me. I tend to hang everything with push pins.

My husband purchased this dress form for me for my birthday a few years ago. I love it! You can also see that there are some adirondack chairs right outside the sliding doors of my studio. Wonderful to sip an  evening glass of wine and knit.

I purchased this bag at Target. It holds an amazing amount of projects. I am definitely a multi-tasker when it comes to knitting. I usually have at least three or four projects going on at the same time.

My stash once again. I love my stash!



I love my rolling carts. They fit perfectly under my table, and they hold tons of stuff. I still have room in them for more. Yay!

Here's an idea I used in my classroom. I duct taped, across the top, two rolling carts together. I then placed a board across them making an instant rolling table. 

I love to knit shawls. A friend of mine received an academy award for some camera work, and she wore this shawl to the awards. I was very excited!

I knitted this shawl to go over my dress for my nephew's wedding. I knitted for five hours in the car as we drove to Washington, D.C.  However, the temperature reached well into the nineties, so the shawl was never needed.

This is my muse. I crocheted her years ago when my children were little, and I would sit at the lake with them all day. I got a lot of knitting and crocheting done in those days.

This is Dory and Bernie. They can sometimes make knitting very difficult.

I thought I would leave you with a smile. This is an ornament that I needle felted.



I hope you enjoyed touring my studio. I love working in my room. I lose all sense of time and can easily work for hours upon hours in there. Sometimes I even forget to eat.

Thank you for taking the time to visit my studio.
Have a wonderful day!

Love,

Terry