7 go-zin-ta 100 ought 4

"how hard do you want to work next week" .. that is what he asked me when he was at canton last ..
"why?" i asked ..
knowing what he meant was we would be working long hours and with a deadline ..
"we have a client who wants 104 pillows for the nutcracker show" ..
"100 and 4?" ..
"yeah, one of the designs they only want 4"...
"that's why we are in this, isn't it .. call sherry and get her input".. i said ..

104 pillows in 7 days .. we did it .. all 3 of us (rod didn't get to help until the 3rd day in).. working together .. we are so proud .. proud that we didn't have to farm out any of the work .. proud that the only casualties were pricked fingers and sore backs .. it felt good .. but i don't want to do it again .. not in 7 days .. would love to have another order like that, but not the deadline ..

so this is what 104 pillow shams look like ..


in case you ever wondered .. in case you ever have to guesstimate .. 3 people working long hours (sometimes until 10 or 11 at night) can manufacture 104 pillows in 7 days .. that's measuring, cutting, trimming, serging, washing, drying, pressing, printing, pinning, sewing, gathering, sewing, unpinning, serging, turning outside, washing, drying, inspecting, folding, stacking, counting, packing and finally shipping 104 pillows, 832 pieces of fabric in 7 days .. what a feat! ..and that doesn't even take into account the normal every day stuff that goes on in the lives of 3 grown adults with grandkids and other household responsibilities .. and we are all over 50 years old ..!!

old people rule!!

love ya'
troy

off to do some shopping ..

don't forget ...

don't forget.. this weekend is canton .. if you are in texas and have not made it to canton this year, now is the time to do it .. this weekend promises to be perfect canton shopping weather .. lows in the mid 40s and highs in the high 70s to lows 80s ... rod is doing canton by himself this month .. sherry and i stayed behind to continue working / sewing and creating ...

our booth is in arbor 2, spaces 217 & 218 ..


raggedy ann and andy .. i have never seen them in brown .. they are large .. at about 32" tall .. they are homemade .. cool .. i love their fall look ..


one of the new pillow designs we are offering .. Mr & Mrs ..


the Mrs to our Mr ..

hope you are having an exciting fall .. we have some new designs coming up for fall and winter .. and are working on some cool things for the spring ..

the house has gone on the back burner for now .. we are living there and working there .. but we are not too concerned about decorating or anything until we get finished with the december canton and back from our illinois trip .. since we will be gone for a week, we haven't moved anything of any real value into the house .. basically just kitchen stuff and bedroom and bathroom stuff .. and the sewing room ..

well, i am off to the sewing room .. have a beautiful day and weekend ..

love ya'
troy

mish mash dash

so much going on ..

canton last month was awesome .. so many people and the sales were brisk ..


the trailer loaded for canton ..

a pretty hand sewn cutter quilt we had for sale ...

chairs stacked with pillows we make in our sewing room ..

more pillows and slipcovers ...

after canton we started working on the house .. painting the rooms we felt were most important .. we painted and got the sewing room together so we could keep sewing ..



the sewing room before .. the room measures approximately 13ft by 17ft ..


rod spraying the first coat .. every room in the house is going to get a coat of country white while we decide what to paint the final coat ..


the room set with cutting counters and sewing machines ..i didn't get a good picture of the hardwood floors, but they turned out beautiful and all they needed was a good cleaning .. we used orange glo ..

i am starting a blog on the house .. the title is la maison a l'ouest .. the house on west .. i will be keeping a journal of sorts about the house .. check it out .. follow it if you like ... our plan is to take it and go step by step on projects and let you know what it cost us to do things the way we did them ..

here is a picture of the fireplace in the gathering room with it's first coat of country white ..



and here is the view from one of the master bedroom windows ..this room is upstairs directly above the sewing room .. it also measures approximately 13ft by 17ft .. i placed the bed so it faces this window and for the moment the bed is in the middle of the room .. this street reminds me of the street that deadends into the house in hope floats .. this street deadends into our house ..



enjoy the weekend and thank you for following me ..

love ya',
troy

the gathering room ..

since the house has two living spaces with fireplaces .. rod and i decided to make the lower living space a 'gathering room', at least that is what we are calling it .. this room will be anchored with our dining table and mismatched chairs with additional seating around the room for guests and visiting .. the entire room will get painted white .. the hardwood floors will be cleaned and waxed .. the fireplace will first be painted white and then over time, stripped down to the original wood and waxed ..follow me ..


this is the entrance to the room from the front hall ..


the fireplace .. it will be painted white for now .. eventually, it will be stripped and waxed ..


i scratched the paint on the tile of the fireplace revealing what i knew to be original green tile underneath .. eventually, all the paint will be removed from this to reveal the tile .. the same tile was used in front of the fireplace .. and i have a 5 gallon bucket full of these same color & style of tiles that i have carried around for the last 7 years .. how is that for fate?


rod says the current color of the fireplace surround is deep purple .. i see black .. love the detail of the mantle .. can't wait to see it white ..


i also scratched one of the columns of the fireplace .. at least 6 coats of old paint .. love the wood grain underneath ..


from across the room, near the kitchen .. any angle .. i love this fireplace ..


the entrance to the kitchen area is highlighted by built-in bookcases on either side of the entryway .. the original french doors for this entry are missing .. my plan is to wallpaper the back of each bookcase with some vintage small print wallpaper i have ..


i love the paneled detail of the entry into the kitchen area ..


this wall, once painted will be the perfect spot for our collection of blue bonnet paintings .. seated along the wall will be primitive wood benches for seating, books, plants and the like ..


there are two windows in this room ..they will eventually be replaced .. but for now, just cleaning them up .. between the windows i have a very large mirror that will rest against the wall with a daybed/cot in front of that facing into the room ..


jax and shooger, unsure of their new surroundings .. shooger absolutely HATES walking on the hardwood floors .. ( i took the measuring tape over this afternoon to measure the rooms and forgot to measure .. i will get the measurements of the rooms and add them to the posts later)

off to sew ... enjoy your evening ..

love ya'
troy

the stairway ..

i love the front stairway of the house .. i took loads of pics of the whole house .. so bear with me and i will share as we go along and i will tell you what i envision .. luckily, for the most part, rod and i are totally agreeing on the look of the house .. so it seems to be fate ..

did i mention how fated the house was .. we felt as if God winked at us .. the house was never listed with a realtor .. while house hunting, we drove by it twice and commented on how it needed someone to clean it up .. and how huge the lot was .. the owner listed the house once, on craigslist .. the week sister died .. and he never listed it again .. rod and i decided that what we needed was a duplex, so we could work on one side and live on the other .. we were thinking side by side duplexes .. anyway, i checked realtor.com ... the local papers .. barely missed out on a couple of cute ones .. decided to check craigslist and did a search on duplexes for sale .. it pulled this one up .. almost a month old .. the guy said he hadn't listed it with a realtor and needed to relist it on craiglist .. we were so afraid something would happen before we could close on it, so we stayed as quiet as church mice while we negotiated with him .. i was about to bust a gut the closer we got .. anyway, it is ours now and we are so excited ...

so .. here are pics of the stairway .. you enter the front door and the stairway is off to the right side a little with an entrance into the downstairs living room to the left ..

the stairway originally had carpet, but someone pulled the carpet up and instead of removing all the little carpet tacks, they just tacked down thin paneling over the stairs .. so we are going to work on removing that and removing the tacks and then sanding and waxing the stairs... the wood is pine .. we may leave the railings white and not strip them .. unsure yet .. but we are going to start off painting every room we can white or off white ..


there is a little closet with a 3/4 size paneled door under the stairway ..


love the simplicity of the railings, they remind me of a farmhouse ..


the landing at the top of the stairs will serve a bench well .. maybe a mirror above it to reflect the light ..


love the light that floods the stairwell .. i am thinking just sheer gauze type curtains .. if that ..


view from the top of the landing looking down into the 'foyer' .. ha! just realized we have a foy'yeah ..

there is also a cool stairway down the back side of the house leading from the upstairs kitchen ..

more later ..

love ya'
troy

a reason to work harder ..

as if we needed a reason to work longer hours - or as rod is fond of saying - working smarter -

today we bought a house .. it's a fixer upper .. brick colonial .. built in 1932 .. duplex .. 2 bedrooms 1 bath upstairs and 2 bedroom 1 bath downstairs .. each unit has a sweet little dining room and darling little kitchen .. the upstairs unit has a stairway down the back of the kitchen .. both units have nice old fireplace surrounds for gas heaters .. huge lot .. 93 ft by 200 ft .. big old trees .. an older part of town .. an old 3 car garage with a 1 bedroom garage apartment above ..

i am thinking .. french colonial farmhouse ...

the first thing is to get in and clean and paint .. and remove all the Christmas lights, wires and the satellite dish ..

more pics to come ..



view from the street ..


view from the back of the lot.. near the garage apartment .. looking to the street ..


view from an upstairs window looking across the street to a stately old home ..

well, there is no big front porch .. but there is lots of land for gorgeous landscaping ..

love ya'll

troy

overheard at the dallas flea ..

teen girl .. oh mom, mom .. look .. these are so cool .. they have these little cardboard things and when you hold them up to the light, you can see a picture ...






love ya'll .. enjoy the sunday ..

troy

sat - 9/11 - the dallas flea

saturday we will be at the dallas flea - 1409 South Lamar Dallas, TX 75215 - south side on Lamar -

it's a small - only around 40 vendors - but incredible market - juried show - great mix of wonderful creative stuff ..

the dallas flea

check it out - it opens at 9am and closes at 4pm - a one day show .. it's moves quicker than any show i have ever done .. come out to see us ..

love ya'
troy

canton aug /sept 2010 .. arbor 2, spaces 217 & 218

don't forget this coming weekend - also labor day weekend - is first monday canton .. we will be in arbor 2, spaces 217 & 218 ..i am going to be there with rod this month, so i would love to see all of you .. stop in and say hi ..

here are some pics of things we have been working on ..







lots to get done ..

lots to catch you up on when we get back from canton .. some exciting news on the horizon ..

love ya'
troy

a porch

it wasn't anything big or very southern, just a simple concrete slab of a front porch .. attached to a simple post war ranch style house .. but, we loved that front porch and it played a big part in a variety of activities that highlighted our childhood ..

foremost, that front porch signified 'home' .. home base .. safety .. protection .. and where we gathered to discuss the summer games scheduled for the day ..

our most popular summer game, we named 'pa-ting' (pah - ting) .. it involved one of us being 'it' or as we called them, 'pa-ting' .. their goal was to chase ( robot style ) the other participants in an effort to tag them with a baton ( an old twirling baton ) they carried .. and repeatedly say 'pa-ting, pa-ting, pa-ting' .. the other participants could run anywhere in the front yard they wanted except into the driveway or street .. mainly they had to stay on the grass .. the front porch was 'home base' .. and only one participant on home base at a time .. 'pa-ting' had to 'tag' 3 people to 'release themselves of the curse' .. the third person tagged would be the new 'pa-ting' .. and the game would go on ALL day ..

as i entered my pre-teens, we moved into a home on the outskirts of town that was more or less a farm .. it was a big old prairie style house with a huge southern style front porch and a big old barn .. we had horses, pigs, chickens, rabbits, goats and momma even raised doves .. we even had on old hoot owl in the barn and a raccoon in one of the sheds ..



the porch may have taken on a different shape and style, but it always stood for comfort, protection, safety .. home base ..

that old porch on the house on the hill .. as we came to call that home .. stood in at many bar-b-ques as a place where the kids always gathered on cots and roll-a-way beds to 'hunker down' for the evening .. whispering ghost stories to one another .. trying to stay awake to watch the sun come up .. the morning dew misting the sun dried sheets, cooling our sun burned legs and backs .. the comforting sound of fathers snoring, in their lawn chairs, under the trees of the side yard .. the smell of bacon frying and coffee brewing and fresh cantaloupe filling the morning air ..

i long for a place with a nice front porch ..

wishing you all a joy filled day ..

love, troy

about old barns ..

i loved teresa's post on old barns ...

it made me think of the big old barn we had on the property when i was just a teen ..

seems we always lived out in the country .. when this photo was taken, sister was married and living in hillsboro working as a nurse for grant buie hospital in hillsboro .. momma was pregnant with our baby brother kevin ..i am the one in the plaid pants .. my older brother wendal stands next to me .. in front is our middle sister, carra rebecca - becky and our baby sister, renee .. the barn held a lot of good and bad memories .. secrets .. daddy didn't like us playing in the barn .. but we always snuck off to play 'fort' or 'hide and seek' .. wendal and i discovered a stack of old records and spent the summer tossing them out into the field and using them as target practice .. it's where i smoked my first cigarette .. it was where i first participated in the fall ritual of hog killing - and my last time .. behind that old truck was a huge old fig tree .. momma loved figs and we would pick them for her to make preserves ..
i remember one time being in the hay loft of the barn when i was not supposed to and hearing momma and daddy calling my name ..we used to jump out the door of the hay loft and land in the soft dirt below .. one day i jumped .. barefoot and all .. and landed on a broken coke bottle .. slicing my foot just under my big toe and the toe next to it .. i was so scared that i would now have to tell them where i had been .. i was surprised that i did not get a whipping ..

anyway, i love this old barn ..

thank you, teresa for sharing and stirring memories ..

love ya'll
troy

about last month ..

i am on my way back.. it just seems like a long road .. thank you all for all the nice things you have said and the words of encouragement .. i apologize for neglecting you .. i know you understand that somewhere i just needed some time .. i knew a year ago that Sister was not long for this world .. her body had been fighting since she was 16 .. that's a long fight, especially when even the doctors can't tell you what exactly is wrong with you .. up until 2 weeks prior her doctors were all saying she was doing great, then it was as if one day she went to sleep and the next day they were saying her liver was shutting down .. they called it NASH .. from her diabetes and all the antibiotics she has/had taken throughout her life ..the massive amounts of painkillers .. at 16 she became addicted to morphine while hospitalized .. she was pulled from a horse and landed stomach first onto a tree stump .. she was hospitalized for 15 months in the late summer of 1969...our father was in the hospital with a heart attack and our mother had to ask friends to care for the remaining 4 of us (there were only 5 kids at that time - we grew to 6).. it's an odd feeling seeing your sisters face on a jar in the grocery store begging for money to help with hospital costs .. the whispers of well meaning neighbors .. "she's not expected to live" - "and her father is near death" .. she never was able to have children .. though she did adopt a son ..and after leaving the hospital she conquered her addiction to painkillers, though every trip to the hospital was a fight for her as the doctors ordered more and more painkillers in higher and higher doses .. finally the last 3 months of her life she said 'enough' .. i don't know where she found the strength, but she and her husband worked together and she was able to deal with her pain without drugs .. she was making weekly, often bi-weekly trips to the ER and she loved loudly telling the nurses and doctors .. do what you need to, but no narcotics ..
i could sit here and tell you what a wonderful loving sister she was.. how she had always just been 'Sister' - Aunt Sister, Sister Momma .. how she would pretend to not like children, but we all knew she loved children .. it was just the mask of the pain of not being able to give birth .. how when our parents passed, she would enjoy telling us she wasn't our mother, yet was always there with a stern warning of advice ..how every thanksgiving she would spend weeks preparing and planning a family get-to-gether and then after thanksgiving meal would proclaim she wasn't doing it again next year .. only to begin planning halloween night .. how she would open her home to anyone in need .. how she went to work as a cook at a boys ranch and became the confidant and mother confessor to boys who seemed to have lost their way .. and became momma joyce ..
because the last year she spent so much time in and out of the hospital, i have to remind myself daily that she really is gone .. she is not coming back .. i keep thinking i need to stop and go visit her or call her at the hospital .. i keep thinking she will be home tomorrow .. but she won't ..
i spent the last week spending the nights with her in the hospital .. the doctors had convinced her to accept the painkillers, as they would make her more comfortable .. so i sat with her and watched her sleep and texted postings to facebook for family on updates of her health .. and my thoughts ..

"fear of the sound of silence heard above the laughter and tears. the sharing of memories, the love of brothers and sisters .. family. for those who wonder, a new day begins much the same as the previous. prayers for Gods will and a peaceful journey. we love you, sister..."

"where you been? from the lips of a sleeper can jar the senses and chill the soul of a watcher when mumbled in the darkness of the unknown... peace to all the sleeptalkers and watchers... live the love..hold the light high.. smiles"

"conversations with sleep talkers. as if standing in the wings watching memories unfold. startling. raw. funny. filled with love and light. gifts from god. gratitude fills me. .... love for all."

"when the voices of the past whisper in your heart late in the night, sometimes the only thing you can do is listen.... i love you all"

"i already miss her so much .. the love and care for her has become such a routine .. a part of me .. not sure i can make it through this .. i miss her so much just putting one foot in front of the other seems an almost impossible feat .. what will i do?"


so i thought i was doing ok .. moving along .. getting by .. i was checking the tv for some lighthearted funny show .. and i come across a movie 'the invention of lying' with ricky gervais .. who i have always gotten a good laugh from .. so it's cute, it's fun and then .. boom .. there is a scene where he is talking to his mother, who is in a hospital dying ... and he begins to tell her what heaven is like .. and i feel a tear .. and then i can't stop crying .. every thing he tells his mother sounds like something i told sister in those last days .. and i feel rod holding me and feel this tremendous release of emotion .. knowing that everything is ok.. knowing that she is no longer in pain .. knowing that she is in the arms of God .. and knowing that i will see her again one day ..

'where you go when you die', from the invention of lying

i love you, all

troy