Blooming inside and out

My Walking with Walker Lady blog has been a mash up of my creative arts, Abby, and life. I've decided to go back to having Walker Lady be more life with Abby and chit chat. If you want to see my creative arts please go over to The Lazy Quilter Blog.

Last year I had a bunch of morning glory flowers on this trellis. This year, due to the insane heat, only a few vines made it far enough along to bloom. One bloom is better than none. 

Then there are the Devil's Lillies or Naked Ladies. They come out of nowhere, every fall! It is said that you should not touch them as you'll get a rash. I won't be bringing in a bouquet of these to the house.

  

Flowers make me happy. 

You know what else makes me happy? Being one step closer to having a decent smile again. 

I went in for a fitting for the new partial. It's very weird looking inside but the teeth are better than the hole in my smile, don't you think? It will be another TWO weeks until I get the final product. This was only for a fitting and to determine the coloring of the new teeth. This has been such a long long process.

I love Charlie Brown cartoons. When I saw this mockup one, I just had to share. No really, I HAD to! Gads I wish they'd legalize this plant.

WEIGHT WEIGHT, DON'T TELL ME!

Way back when I started this blog it was all about losing weight and I lost over 100 pounds in about one and a half years. I was a fanatic about the foods I ate and the exercise I did. After losing Ziva I lost the desire to carry on. My mojo went away. I slowly gained back almost all the weight I had lost. I got up to 267 pounds around Christmas last year (2021). The pandemic hadn't helped much either but mostly it was all on me. I just didn't care and I was in denial that it even mattered what I did.

I don't know what happened between Christmas and mid January, but my brain shifted. I stopped drinking wine or any other types of alcohol. I started walking. My mantra was that I would ONLY do what I was willing to do each day, pretty much for the rest of my life. When I started out, I found that I was only walking around 1000 steps PER DAY! That is not very much.

I set my first goal to try for 3000 steps per day. I dug out my old FitBit One and stuck it in my pocket. I also logged my food. I wasn't really calorie counting, just logging what I was eating. At the same time, I started working on my crafts harder. I picked up a stitch per day challenge for embroidery. I was working on challenge quilts and ideas for my quilt guild. I was crocheting a lot of things. As you also know, Abby came back into my life. 

It had taken eight years to gain all that weight back. Today, it's been a little over eight months since I made the walking commitment. I've lost 22 pounds. I don't know where this will end up. Right now I am not willing to make any other changes. I have kept my walking goal at 3500 steps per day for almost 150 days straight now. We shall see how this goes. 

ABBY

Thank you for visiting today!

Please leave a comment so I know someone reads this, besides me.

Therapy needed - go shopping!

I broke a tooth that held part of a bridge in my mouth.

I will be missing two teeth for a MONTH!

It doesn't hurt anymore but it sure did when they had to pull out the broken one.

So what does one do when feeling sorry for oneself? 

Why she goes therapy shopping, of course! 

I ONLY went to get some elastic to redo some waistbands on some slacks and a pair of jeans. 

Somehow NINE balls of yarn accidentally fell into my cart too.

I wonder how that happened?

This is the latest scarf pattern that I tested for a designer:

I laid out this donation quilt in preparation for pin basting:

Remember me talking about using those mini notebooks for quilt guild gifts? I used some blank address labels and printed "Thank you sew much" on them. I then put one on each notebook. I had gotten a bunch of stickers when I bought that elastic and added them to the covers too. I think these turned out kinda cute!

I also purchased some new floss for the embroidery project when I got my elastic.

See the water fountain on the left? I have now ripped it out and will start it over again with some different floss. It just wasn't looking right. I won't work on it anymore until I have done the water around it.

 
Now you see it . . . . . . . . . . . .now you don't!

This was another area that I experimented with, regarding water. 

Nope, that wasn't going to work either.

In this picture you can see the start of the new floss that I got.

 I am liking the water much better now:

Since I'm talking about embroidery I thought I'd mention some things about my embroidery frame. Because I am cheap frugal, it is mostly hand made. With a lot of help from my husband, bits and pieces were cobbled together to make a personalized frame for just this project. It has evolved over time and gets better and better!

The last thing I tried to improve upon was the side tension. I bought these plastic clips that worked somewhat until you tried to move them. Then they broke into pieces!!! Not good. My husband suggested binder clips. I said they wouldn't really hold the edges without slipping a lot. He said he'd rough up the parts that pinch the fabric so they'd work.

He brought the clips home but hadn't roughed them up yet. At the same time I was doing some research on embroidery stitches and came across a picture of a lady using an embroidery frame that had round dowels on the edges for stability. The idea popped into my head that I could use some chopsticks along with the binder clips and maybe that would work?

Guess what? IT DID!!! 

The chopstick is just sitting loose, under the fabric and the binder clips are around the fabric and the stick. 

I was amazed at how well it held the edges! I am a happy embroiderer again. 

Abby has had her ups and downs too. 

Life goes on...

Till next time, happy crafting, happy life!

A bit of it all and Abby too ~

 I'd been neglecting my embroidery project for over a month. Yes, I did get parts done but I was working so hard on the minstrels that the rest of it had fallen by the wayside. I'm trying to rectify that now. 

You can't see much of a change yet. I'm working on the water fountain. There are some silver strands in it that are hard to see. I think I need more white strands too.

I thought you might like to see the photo that inspired the minstrels. I'm also showing the full width of the piece. It's about 30" wide. There's a lot above this space too. Someday I will show you that again.

I finally finished this little fellow. He's supposed to be a Stegosaurus. He's about two inches tall.

He's now at his new home with his four year old guardian, Sam. 

He's hiding in that bag until Sam comes out to check the special delivery. Yes, that is a flying pig holding the bag. I like these neighbors of ours. I can't imagine why. hahaha

 As I left the studio this morning, this is what it looked like.

The two rows on the left are sewn together. The rest are works in progress.

I finished testing a few scarf patterns for a crochet designer:

I had a small item shipped to me last week. It came in this HUGE box with a label that says "HEAVY".

Inside was a bit of paper and the item. The item was flat and weighed a few ounces. I guess they didn't have smaller boxes. I want to believe the "HEAVY" sticker was on it as a joke by the shipping department.

I'm working on a few prizes for an upcoming contest in our quilt guild. I always feel bad when only one person wins the grand prize. I found this pack of small notebooks and made up some thank you stickers to put on each one of them. I will give one to each person who participated in the challenge. I think they will like the little token of appreciation. 

  

Last, but never least, Abby's here too:

PHEW!!! I did it again!

Till next time, happy crafting y'all!

Did I do that???

Let's start with Abby today: 

Do you get the pun? She's pretty silly isn't she?

Silliness is not new to this family. 

Below, on the left, is an autographed tee-shirt that our young man got this summer. It's from Clyde Clifford, the one and only host of Beaker Street, an old time rock and roll radio station from the 70's. Beaker Street was infamous for underground progressive rock and roll. 

It was heard from Cuba to Canada.

 Look it up sometime! They are still on the air!

On the right is a creature that I made when I was in my middle teens. 

It seemed appropriate to put it on the wall, next to something from that same era.

Cooking can be bad for your health. Some grease spattered and I got burned. 

Don't worry, it actually does not hurt but it sure looks like it should!!!

It was International Play on the Porch day last Saturday. 

The Mister participated, in spite of the heat!

Bobbi Plant is happy in her new home. She's making friends with the other plants.

I had a long day of errand running and was gone for three hours the other day.

When I came home, all three dogs velcroed themselves to me for the rest of the day.

It's a little hard to see Roxy. She's on the bottom, to the left.  Dex is to the right and Loki as at my feet. That's as close as the other two will allow him to be. Silly dogs.

It was cool enough to bake bread for supper a few nights ago.

YUM!

I've been working in the studio a lot this week.

These are all orphan blocks that I am working with.

The finished quilt will be very busy!

I have weights in my studio. They are for......exercising! Yes, exercising. 

They also are good at holding things down.

This weight was holding down a picture that I've clipped and glued to a small notebook.

I'm decorating a bunch of these for gifts for the quilt guild.

Yes, those are leaves under this purple dumbbell. 

I should be in good shape as much as I use these things!

I finished the top to the Swirleygig Quilt. Next I'll have to sandwich and quilt it.

Here's a blast from the past:

Yes, this is my Grandma's Flower Garden quilt that I started about 20 years ago!!! My table is eight feet long, so that gives you an idea of the size of this monster! 

I am finally going to finish it. I had some of the quilting done by hand but I am going to finish the quilting with my machine. I want to USE this quilt! It's been sitting around for years and years. If I wait till I can finish it by hand, it will never be finished. I am actually excited to think that I might be using this one, this winter, on our bed!

Last but not least. . . remember this?

Well, I think it is now finished!

Don't be surprised if I go back and tweak it here and there. For now though, I am moving on to other parts of the project. I have some ideas to use beads in one area!

Labor Day Weekend begins tomorrow for us. 

I hope you all enjoy it in some way too. I know we will! 

Till next time, happy crafting y'all!