Lemon Tree Tales

Happy Birthday to me!

Today I turned 42 .. wow that's pretty unbelievable but there you go. You're only the age you feel but I have to say that at times I'm feeling it. For example my eyes are just not the same .. I never used to have problems seeing fine detail work but now I'm having troubles. I'm guessing that it's probably time for a trip to the optometrist to see if I need bifocals. On the flip side there are times when I feel as silly as a young girl so it all balances out.

To celebrate today my husband sent me this fabulous birthday flower cake! It's so cute, whimsical and very much me. I love it but that's not a surprise because my husband knows me pretty well. I love you babe!

Then I treated myself to a trip to a cool quilt/bead shop courtesy of my in-laws. Very fun indeed! My mom knew that I needed a new pair of fabric scissors and gave me money for that. Fortunately JoAnn's had a 40% coupon, but sadly they were out of all Ginghers. A trip to the LQS and I found exactly the perfect pair - plus the saleslady was sweet and honored the JoAnn's coupon! Isn't that grand?!

My dining table also has some gorgeous red roses that my dad sent. On top of all that I've had the most wonderful birthday wishes emails from friends and from facebook friends and telephone calls from family. What a nice feeling! 

Finally I decided that it was high time to change the look of the blog. After all it's been a little over four years since I started it and this design has been in place for close to three years. For everyone reading on Google Reader and other feeds you'll have to click over and let me know what you think. I still like my lemonhead girls so I've made a button for the bottom right sidebar. Wave hi to them!

Painted Lady

Today's painting party was so much fun. Laurie, Valerie and Daisy came over to my house to play dolls. We all worked on different projects but the main thing was to hang out together while doing it. Steve was a good sport all day long even though we were a bit loud in the family room. 

I'm not entirely thrilled with how I painted the head but I think that she'll look much better as soon as she gets hair. The torso turned out fantastic! It's a mix of a turquoise with a metallic green blotted with a bit of raw sienna. It just needs some bits of lace, ribbon etc to finish that bit off. The lips and eyes are shiny after a layer of Crystal Lacquer.

I'm just playing with the placement of her limbs. She's not quite right yet but she does have a bit of a personality. 

I forgot to say that the Box came back from the body shop last Thursday ... no more crunched door and it's all shiny and waxed too. It's oh so nice to be driving it again. Woo-whoo!

Ready for paint

I put on the paperclay but I wasn't very careful with it. I've heard that it's good to wash down the edges with water before letting it dry? I'll have to try that next time and get a better sanding on it. Oh well, we'll just make this work.

Then I glued on the fabric overlay. One of my cotton t-shirts gladly sacrificed itself for the cause. It was a nice thin 95%/5% cotton/spandex blend. I almost wanted to keep it at its ghostly wrapped self but finally cut down the excess fabric.

And finally her she is after two coats of white gesso ..

Remember that I didn't sculpt the face mask .. it was made by Susie McMahon and was included with the pattern. Okay, now I'm ready for tomorrow's face painting party.

In the Doll Surgery Today ..

.. we have a face awaiting its fabric overlay mask and a terribly scarred neck that just needs a wee bit of paperclay to smooth it over ..

.. arms that need to be attached ..

.. and this poor little doll is only a pile of fabrics that will eventually become an Asterique doll ..

.. just another day at the Lemon Tree Doll Surgery.

Finished French Braid Top

I finished the last mitered seam yesterday morning. All six of those seams had to be hand sewn to insure that all three border fabrics aligned properly. I don't think it takes that much longer than sewing it by machine and it is more precise. We were constrained by the length of the hand-dyed stripe batik. Therefore the two straight/angle seams on either end. If we had made the braids just a wee bit narrower I would have had enough of the border length to do a proper miter towards the points. But since the border is so busy I don't think that it shows that much.

Now working with bias is a pain - there are some air bubbles that need to be gently steamed and pressed away. Hopefully all will look great once the quilting is done. I dropped this off to Amy's house so she can get the back pieced and pinned to the batting. Yay, another obligation has been completed. Now I can get back to work on the doll WIP.

French Braid Trying out Borders

After Sunday's quilting bee it was decided that I should complete the top (sew on the borders) to the French Braid table runner quilt. Then I can hand it off to someone else to quilt and bind. Amy was nice enough to come over Monday morning and help out. We cut out the three border fabrics. The large striped border is this fantastic piece of African hand batik. Isn't it wonderful?! It's the inspiration for all the colors in the braid. I'm hand mitering the corners. Of course it's not perfect 90 degree angles so I'll end up having to trim the ends a bit. Also, after seeing how large this was getting we decided to trim the wide band by about two inches. I'm getting close to the finish point on this.

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Now the reason why I didn't finish this yesterday evening is because of a little mishap with the Box (my Scion). Someone didn't see me when she was backing up and hit my door in the parking lot. So now I'm trying to follow up with getting it fixed. Poor car! What's even more frustrating is that I didn't find the supply that I needed when I was at Michael's. So the trip was a bust in more ways than one.

Next Doll WIP

Now that I finished my knit hat and sewed my part of the auction table runner I'm on to the next WIP ... it's a doll by Susie McMahon. The head is hers that I'll cover with fabric and then paint. It should be fun!

Square bag for a little girl

On Saturday I went to Miss J's 6th birthday party. Yikes, it's amazing how quickly time goes by. I could have sworn that she was just a little baby a minute ago. I wasn't sure what we should get for her present. Luckily Steve came to the rescue and said that I should make a pretty purse with a strap - all girls like purses with a strap. I quickly chose some fabrics from the stash (gotta love having a fabric stash!) and decided to make "the box bag" designed by Square Rose. (It was a pattern that I bought two years ago at the PIQF in Santa Clara.) It was a quick and easy bag to make. Oh, and the reaction that the birthday girl had was priceless - she smiled and then ran over and gave me a hug when she learned that I had made it just for her! Yep, Steve's idea was spot on - smart man!

French Braid Progress

My quilting bee is making a French Braid table runner/wall-hanging for the Spring auction. I volunteered to sew the actual braids before passing it along to the next person for borders. It was all sewn and then I just wasn't too pleased with the innermost braid fabric. It popped way too much.

No matter what it just wasn't the right value. This is turning out to be mostly darks and mediums and that fabric was too light. Of course it's still a gorgeous fairy frost by itself. So off to the local quilt shop to find an alternative.

Ah-ha! This is more like it.

Out came the seam ripper and then I replaced those pesky light strips with the new fabric. Much, much better. Of course now it's time to determine the ending triangles before we can get to the borders. The final border will be this lovely hand-dyed batik that inspired all the colors we chose.

Hopefully I can get this out in the sunshine to take a better picture. The fabrics are really quite yummy together. Not the colors of my house but it just needs to speak to that one special person who will bid on it at the auction.

My first knit hat!

Yay, it's finished thanks to Floribunda who sent me some black yarn so that I could knit those last rows. I love it! It's that perfect mix of goofiness which is sometimes me, lots of green - one of my favorite colors to wear, and it's warm! Just in time for racing season which starts now.

EDIT: Oops, I totally forgot to mention that this is Saartje's Noro hat pattern but I didn't use Noro yarn.