Wanty

Oh yes. I am wanty today - for furniture! I want astonishing, fantastic furniture, the kind that professional designers high on their chai tea pick out for "high-faluting" types of places.

First, there's this amazing sofa from the lobby of the The Crown Plaza in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It is actually pyramid shaped with three sides. This photo is looking straight at one of the benches. It would probably fill my living room top to bottom side to side, but what fun it would be to sit on. The lovely models, from left to right are: Teen Niece#1, Teen Daughter#2 and Teen Daughter#1.

Then, there is this amazing arm chair, half of a pair sitting in the atrium of the Embassy Suites in Moore, Oklahoma. The seat cushion is lime green leather, embossed with some sort of lizard/snake pattern. The back is bright purple irridescent leather, all shimmery and shiny in a pumped up grape kind of way. These chairs just scream "Take Me Home!". Sadly, they wouldn't fit in my handbag.

Finally, from the same Embassy Suite, are what I call the "Alice In Wonderland" chairs. Deep reddish brown leather, very narrow armchairs with these incredibly tall, flared backs. They would be PERFECT in my dining room, if it was about six feet wider and at least thirty feet long. I really tried to convince my husband that these chairs are so magnificent, so WORTHY of the ginormous home improvement project of enlarging that same dining room to accomodate eight of these chairs and the eighteen foot long table that I have yet to find.

He laughed. Out loud.

Saturday Travels

Today I drove my oldest daughter to Stephenville for state honor choir auditions. Just south of Interstate 20 is a little tiny town called Natty Flats. What makes Natty Flats so famous? The worlds largest rocking chair.

Really! It's official - a Guinness World Record!

Tutorial - REAL Turkish Corners

Christine M. over at Wardrobe Refashion posted a project involving "Faux Turkish Corners". That started me wondering, what the heck is a non-faux vrais Turkish Corner?

Googled it, found a picture and said "Ah-ha!" That's a pleated box corner, and my Mom taught me how to make them years and years ago! It was time to refresh my skills, and the dog bed needed refashioning, so I thought I'd make a tutorial on how to make a "Real Turkish Corner".

There's no before picture of the dog bed - trust me, it was disgustingly torn up, leaking cedar shavings all over the floor and ready for the trash bin. The only thing I salvaged was the zipper. The new dog bed came courtesy of a remnant from the decorator fabric shop, a large hunk of dark green heavy weight cotton twill that I snagged for a mere $4.00. I trimmed it even, stitched my "Real Turkish Corners" put in the salvaged zipper and filled the bed with cedar shavings. Max loves it.

Then, while I was on a roll, I decided to recover a raggedy pillow for Teen Daughter #2's room, again with "Real Turkish Corners".



Here's the Tutorial.

1. Cut two pieces of fabric the same size, one inch larger than your finished project, with squared corners. For example, if you're covering a 16" square pillow form, cut 2 - 17" square pieces of fabric.

2. Decide how deep you want the finished corner to be, from the top of the pillow to the bottom of the pillow. Divide that depth by 2 and add 1" for seam allowance. This is your marking depth. Measure the marking depth from each cut edge at the corner and make a mark. At each mark, draw a line perpendicular to the fabric edge that equals 1/2 the depth.

3. Fold the corner in half, right sides together, lining up your marked lines. Stitch along the line.

4. Open up the corner, line up the point with the seam you just made and press flat. Stitch 1/8" from the edge to hold the fold in place.

5. Repeat for all four corners on both pieces of fabric, eight total.

6. Place the two pieces of fabric right sides together, lining up the corner seam lines. Stitch around the entire piece with a 1/2" seam, leaving one side open for turning. Trim the corners if you wish.

7. Turn. Stuff as you please, and finish off the opening by either blind stitching or by adding a zipper.

Followup: some observant folks have indicated that these pictures are dark and difficult to follow. So Right! Here's a link to another online tutorial, with better pictures. Its' for an entire pillow, so the first two-thirds of it are dedicated to an applique technique. Scroll down towards the end to find the turkish corner pictures.

Another Turkish Corner Tutorial

Flashback Friday - The Toad Story

I've been sharing stories with Hillary over at The Other Mama. (Note - Hillary is adorable. I want to be her.) Anyhoo, we were sharing advice about how to clean crayon marks off of walls and out of dryers, and the Toad Tale was recalled.

Since I've already been tossing around ideas in my head to keep myslef diligent about posting to the blog ("Flashback Friday" is one of those ideas!) I'll dive right in and share a Moment in Parenting Four Fab Kids.

Ahem. The Toad Story in all Its Gory Detail....don't read if you're squeamish.


My youngest son has always had a propensity for stashing stuff in his pockets. From the time he was big enough to stuff those chubby little fingers into a pocket, his pockets have been an unending source of unusual things – sprockets, odd inkpen parts, legos, nuts, bolts, acorns, matchbox cars, pieces of string, contraband gum and candy, snacks for later, dogfood kibble, screwdrivers and wrenches, sunglasses, homework, spare shirts, balls, transformers, trading cards…all the trappings of little-boyhood. The fact that I thought cargo pants with those big patchy pockets were just too cute when he was little didn’t help with the pocket stuffing situation.

My youngest son also liked bugs and creepy crawlies, and tended to stuff THOSE in his pockets as well, regardless of their willingness to be carried along. I’ve found geckos, lizards, mice, snakes and innumerable unidentified insects in his pockets as I’ve prepped clothing for the wash cycle over the years. Three summers ago, there was toad in the cargo pocket, and I missed it on the way into the washing machine. Toads are definitely not wash and wear. The poor thing probably made it through the wash cycle, since we have a front loader that uses a minimum amount of water. The spin cycle, however, proved to be too much for his warty little self, and all his innards sort of came out his mouth. Gross. Youngest son and his older brother were amazed and impressed with the array of toad organs, and spent a long time examining them while I tried to be nonchalant, pretending that I was not actually allowing my sons to poke around in toad guts. (Honestly, how ofen do little boys get an opportunity to see the inside of a toad out side of high school biology lab?)

We buried Mr. Toad in the back yard, and I washed the clothes all over again.

Still Alive...

...barely. It's been eons since I've posted. Well, perhaps not an actual eon; not even a decade. It's been a mental eon, though.

Not long after the previous post, my office laid off several folks. It was a sad, sad event. The engineering firm I work for is wonderfully family oriented and truly vested in the lives of our employees. Each and every person who was let go was a friend, and we're all still reeling over the necessity of having to say goodbye. It's a sad fact, though, that the engineering consulting inudstry is closely tied to the overall economy of our communities. If citizens aren't spending money and property values are declining, tax revenues go down. When said citizens are busy paying down their own debts instead of buying bonds, city revenues decline. The design and construction of streets, utility infrastructre, and parks are funded by tax revenues and bonds. You can figure out the rest on your own.

Thankfully, I have a backlog of projects to keep myself, my designer and my technician employed through the fall of next year. We're starting to see other small signs of the economy improving, such as rising construction costs, increases in private development and more new schools being commissioned. I'm hopeful that we've bottomed out and are going to be okay by next year.

The week following the layoffs, swine flu reared it's ugly head in my household. Teen Daughter#2 is the one who got sick. We were fortunate that it wasn't that bad - just like the regular flu with a stomach virus tossed in for some extra fun. She slept for several days and I spent a lot of time disinfecting every washable surface in the house. I kept her isolated from the rest of the family the entire time she was sick, and one else in the house caught it. (Knock on Wood!)

Finally, it's just that time of year. I love, Love, LOVE fall - but it also means a gazillion things going on at church and school: fundraisers, Fall Festival, high school football games, voice auditions, mid term papers, family birthdays (we're all clustered between August and October!), college football, confirmation preparation, orthodontics needing to go on-come off, broken fingers, lost dogs, community garage sale, SAT exams, PSAT exams, and so on and so on.

Hubby is taking a day off next week, all the kids have the same day off of school and I'm going to play hooky from work. We're going to the Texas State Fair to enjoy the day together, eating corndogs, riding the ferris wheel and gawking at the new car show. It's going to be fun.

*sigh*...

It is STILL raining in our little piece of Texas, and I'm still loving it. I checked the calendar, and we are officially past the middle of September, and the grass is green verdant.

This late summer blessing has made me a bit homesick for Illinois, where we lived when I was in high school. We lived in O'Fallon, and had the most wonderful property there. Our backyard was huge, sloping down from the house to a little creek at the property line. I remember how lush the lawn was, with strong blades of grass that you could just sink your feet in. I recall how the sunlight would trickle down through the trees and sprinkle on the perennial beds below.

I like brown, and the harsh edges of sagebrush, yucca and prickly pear that decorate my yard now. There's a stark beauty to it. But oh, to have green grass in September. Every year.

Hurry Up Fall!

Blech....it's not quite fall, but summer is completely spent, and I'm completely discouraged disgusted with the entire process. Seriously - I'm fed up with being hot and sweaty. I'm ready for beef stew and other hot food, bread baking and sweaters. Summers are interminal down here in Texas, and it's enough to drive a woman insane.

On the bright side - it's raining! In fact, it has been raining steadily for three whole days. We've had more rain this weekend than we've seen all year, and it is blessedly, gloriously wonderful. Our trees are just gasping with relief as they pull themselves back from the brink of permanent dormancy, and the critters all seem happy and frolicsome. The possums and racoons have been sneaking into the garage. The kids think it's because they want to get out of the rain; personally, I think they're after the dogfood bin. Seriously - they leave the umbrellas alone, but scamper to tip over the bin and snatch kibble at every opportunity.