Kerry'd Away

Dave’s Bag

Posted on February 7, 2017 by civilwarrose5

This is Dave.

Dave sits behind me in choir.

Dave had a hard time keeping his music organized.

My gift to Dave this Christmas was to organize his music into binders and page protectors. He loved it, but now he has a lot more to carry to practice. He said that I had to make a bag for him. So I did (eventually).

I used duck cloth for the bottom to make it sturdy. I looked around my sewing room for the manliest material that I own. I had some Star Trek material left over, but decided that I wanted to save that just in case Jay needs something made.

This isn’t the best, but it will work. My problem is that I jump into a project without thinking it all the way through. I guess that I need to watch my bag-making class again that I bought at Craftsy. That would probably be a good thing.

Hopefully Dave will like it and it will fit all of his music. If not, it’s back to the drawing board. Oh well. It was just enjoyable being able to spend some time in my sewing room again. I’ve missed it so much! A full time job really gets in the way of fun!

Also, here’s a sneak-peek at another project I’ve been working on:

Posted in Sewing | Tagged bag, Sewing | 2 Comments

Book Review: A Call to Mercy; Hearts to Love, Hands to Serve

Posted on February 7, 2017 by civilwarrose5

When I was growing up the model of perfect goodness was Mother Teresa. If anybody could be classified as holy and saintly, it was her. Before reading A Call to Mercy the only thing that I knew about Mother Teresa was that she was a very well-known nun in India. Since she was just canonized I decided that I wanted to know more about this woman.

To say that reading this book will humble you is an understatement. I often had to put it down because I was left feeling completely undeserving of even reading about Mother Teresa. This woman was the epitome of Christ on Earth. She saw the poor and downtrodden whom everybody else overlooked, and not only did she SEE them, but she touched them and showed them true kindness and love. I believe that was the most important part of her ministry, the ability to really see people when so many others had passed them by because they were a leper or an outcast of society.

Despite feeling that I could never come close to being as good and kind as Mother Teresa, I was left with an impression that was made upon me by this humble little woman. As compared to most of the people with whom she dealt, I have no complaints and want for nothing. Yet, there are times when I feel despondent or lose hope with how things are going. Living in such great conditions as I do, can you imagine how Mother Teresa must have felt? Yet she never seemed to lose hope or become jaded. When told that there was so much evil, corruption and nastiness in the world Mother Teresa responded, “I know very well there is corruption,… but I know also there is good! I prefer to see the good.” Let us all follow Mother Teresa’s example and try to see only the good.

The book is separated into parts based on the seven corporal and seven spiritual works of mercy. Each part starts with an introduction on Mother Teresa’s understanding of that particular corporal or spiritual work, which is followed by a section that is made up of quotes from her writings. The last section of each part consists of testimonies by those who were closest to her or who collaborated with her for many years. To finish up, each part ends with a section of questions for reflection and a prayer. Having the parts set up in this fashion made the book easier to read. Instead of reading a giant chapter you could break it up into sections more easily so that you could set the book down without feeling like you were right in the middle of a chapter. My favorite parts to read were the testimonies because you truly were able to see Mother Teresa in action. She was such a humble lady that I’m sure she wouldn’t want most of the stories to be told of her many kindnesses and acts of mercy.

I highly recommend this book to anybody who wants to get to know Mother Teresa much better, or who simply wants to do some soul searching. This book will definitely make you look at yourself in a different light. Perhaps it might even inspire you to go out and do some good today.

Disclaimer: I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

Posted in Blogging for Books, Book Review, books, Catholicism, Faith | Tagged Blogging for Books, Book Review, Catholicism, Mother Teresa | Leave a comment

Autumn Cross Project – 1-17-17

Posted on January 28, 2017 by civilwarrose5

I realize that today is not January 17th, but that’s when I took my last progress picture.

So, here where I was on Jan 2nd:

That was all stitched while I was off of work right after Christmas. Man, those were some good days!

Now that work is back in full swing and I’m back to working a ton of overtime I haven’t had nearly as much time to stitch. In fact, in the last week I think that I’ve maybe found an hour to stitch. *sigh*

Here is the progress as of Jan 17th:

That is the outer-most stretch of the arm.

Here’s the game that I play as I stitch these crosses: I don’t look at the finished picture at all so I have no idea what it is that I’m working on unless I can tell for sure from the pattern. So, the pumpkin and acorn I definitely knew what they were going to be as I stitched them. And the heads of wheat I could obviously tell due to the backstitching on the pattern. Those little circles, though? Were they berries? Are they the centers of flowers? Am I stitching a piece of Swiss cheese? One never can tell! That’s one of the many things that I enjoy about cross stitching; even though I know what it should look like at the end I often find myself trying to solve the mystery of what I’m stitching.

In other stitching news, I’ve been meaning to try my hand at sewing a project bag in which this can be stashed when I’m not working on it. As I was watching Flosstube I saw a version where it has a clear vinyl front so you can see your project in the bag. Also, Bob has decided that he prefers to sleep next to the heat vent by my cross stitch corner, so his fur tends to migrate and take up residence on my project. Not that I don’t love his specialty fibers appearing in my projects, but it would be nice to keep it to a minimum.

I also want to try my hand at making a grime guard for my Qsnap. If you search on Etsy you can find all kinds of them, but why buy one when you can easily make your own? I just have to find time to do it! A grime guard is kind of like one of those steering wheel covers that you can buy for your car; they are made of fabric with elastic on the edges so that it wraps around whatever you put it on. In this case you would wrap it around your Qsnap frame and then place all of your extra fabric in it, too. I want to use it as more of a fabric holder than keeping the grime away from my project. Again, I just have to find some time to make one! When I do I’ll definitely show you a picture.

Posted in cross stitch, Faith, Sewing | Tagged autumn cross, Cross, cross stitch, Faith, Sewing | Leave a comment

Egads! It’s a Spad! Part 12

Posted on January 19, 2017 by civilwarrose5

I’ve had people asking me, “Where’s Chad?? We miss him! Is he going to come out of hibernation soon?”

Well, Chad was involved in quite a little happening in the small village that we have in the basement. The townspeople were minding their own business when out of nowhere this Spad fuselage just landed smack-dab in the middle of town! The funny thing is that the wing saddle fell clear on the other side of town where the grass runway strip is going to go! It was chaos for quite a while.

You don’t believe me? Okay, fine… the boring story is that Chad was placed out of harm’s way while Jay worked on other projects. If you look closely in the background you can see him just hanging out:

Can you spot him? This was before he was actually placed on top of the train layout so that I wouldn’t trip over him. Poor Chad!

Now that Christmas is over and the majority of Jay’s projects are done he decided to turn his attention back to Chad.

I went downstairs and found that Chad’s parts were scattered about!

I looked over and saw this on the workbench:

Oooo! Chad is getting a silk suit made for him!

Nope. He’s getting his skin glued on! Chad is being glassed! I said gLassed… not gassed. After all, he’s electric! I think that he can even do the electric slide. He’s quite talented, you know.

So Chad’s parts were laying there, all covered in a filmy piece of fiberglass when the smoothing gel (aka Epoxy) was drizzled onto him.

Instead of the rose-scented gel like what I get when I get a pedicure this was just plain ol’ epoxy scent. I guess that Spad’s don’t want to smell like roses when they are dropping bombs. Who knew!

Then you want to make sure that you really rub the goo in really good. Don’t miss any spots because then everything will just feel a little off. You should have already exfoliated before you got to this step so that you don’t run across any rough patches.

This is also a really good time to use the gift cards that you get and know that you’re not ever going to use. “Gee, Aunt Sally, thanks for getting me the $15 gift card to The House of Gluten. I can’t wait to use it…*cough**cough*” Or, if you receive annoying ads in the mail that are plastic-like they work great, too. I think that most of ours come from the jewelry stores so in a few weeks you should be getting a fresh supply delivered to your house.

Once you have smoothed it all out you then get to let it cure. The oven helps with this, too. Pre-heat it to 350 degrees and then bake for 10-12 minutes or until the edges start to become golden brown. Wait, no… that’s not right. That’s part of the directions for chocolate chip cookies. I do know that Jay has been teasing about using my oven for curing. I’ve been working a lot of overtime so I guess that what I don’t know won’t hurt me.

Doesn’t this tail look kind of like a spanish lady with a scarf around her head? I can hear her singing now… she has such a rich voice. Beautiful.

The other thing that Jay worked on was the cockpit.

There it is. Yep. Not exciting, but at least now it’s trimmed nicely.

That’s all I’ve got for now. As the glassing continues I might take a few more pictures, but really… if you’ve seen glassing once then you’ve seen it plenty. Although let me throw in a little brag here: Jay used to make his own fiberglass fan housing units and he showed me how to do it once. Apparently I did a really fantastic job. I did such a good job that he lost all desire to make any more. Some people just don’t like competition. 🙂

Until next time…

Posted in A-1 Skyraider, EDF, RC Planes | Tagged A-1 Skyraider, RC Planes, Ziroli A-1 Skyraider, Ziroli Skyraider, Ziroli Spad | 1 Comment

Still So Busy…

Posted on January 17, 2017 by civilwarrose5

I have taken some pictures and I intend on posting about Chad the Spad soon. Plus I have some other posts that I want to write. However, work has been busy and my weekends seem to be taken up with all kinds of activity. It doesn’t leave much time for anything. In fact, I need to work on an article for our church newsletter that talks about the process of making the advent wreath stand. But I haven’t had time! I’m still doing all of the work for my department so I’m putting in lots of overtime. And no, I don’t get paid for it because I’m salaried.

Well, yesterday we were informed that we had to get our pictures taken for some stupid reason at work. I was in the middle of doing fifty things when the busy-body of our department told me that I had to go get my picture taken right now so that the lady could finish up the photo session. Well, here’s my picture:

It’s okay if you laughed out loud because I do every time I see it. Can you tell that I’m a bit peeved and the last thing I want to be doing is getting my picture taken? This is why I can’t lie… I can’t keep it off of my face.

So, even though I look like I want to punch somebody in the face (that’s exactly what I was thinking…) it made me laugh so I guess that is okay.

If you’re curious, I had two more days to get my picture taken. I had the lady re-take it this morning before I even looked at my email.

So, please bear with me as you wait for me to update my blog. When I’ve had days like this (the picture was taken at 11:00 yesterday morning!!) I get home and want to do absolutely nothing. Jay had to work 3rd shift, though, so I spent my evening cleaning up the kitchen. It badly needed it. Very badly.

Thank you for your understanding and patience!

Posted in Humor | Tagged Exhaustion, Humor | Leave a comment

Epiphany Concert and Exhaustion

Posted on January 10, 2017 by civilwarrose5

This past weekend we had an Epiphany concert at church. The choir sang songs of the season and we had a few solo singers who added to the festivities. The turn-out was smaller than we had hoped, but we had football play-off games happening on top of the fact that the weather was blowing a blizzard!

We were told to wear red, black or gold and to put on the glitz. Well, I don’t have a lot of red, but I can do glitz!

This jacket really isn’t very flattering as it sits on top of my ample endowment. I keep it, though, because it’s gold and glistens. You can’t tell, but I’m wearing the dress that I wore in my sister’s wedding, which has black sequins all over it. I think that this dress has been quite a good investment! My friend Patty helped me pick it out.

Patty sings alto with me in the choir. Both her and her husband, Dave, are wonderful people. Jay and I have truly been blessed to be able to call them friends.

As you can see, Dave was very excited about taking home some poinsettias. I didn’t grab any because I know the cats would chew on them.

I’ve been told that we did a great job. I sure hope so because my throat was all gravely the next day. Apparently I tried to push my voice too hard. When you are only one of four altos battling against the entire rest of the choir, it shouldn’t be a surprise.

Karen attended the concert and then provided me with the pictures for this post.

People were getting impatient with us because we were hogging the Christmas trees for our backdrop. Every time they thought we were done I was being told to stand with somebody else for another picture. The thing is that I don’t like my picture being taken (despite what my sister may claim!) because when I look at them all I see are my flaws. I’m sure that everybody does the same thing, right?

Sunday morning I was teasing Brandon, our choir director, that I’m going to drop out of choir this year so that I can join the Prayer Shawl Ministry. They meet at the same time as choir practice, so I can’t do both. He just laughed. Apparently I’ve teased him with that one too many times that he doesn’t believe me anymore.

I guess I will have to stop teasing him. As we were singing on Sunday I felt happy, fulfilled and full of the spirit. There’s something to be said about making beautiful harmony as a group. Music is part of who I am, even if I don’t always get the chance to sit down at the piano.

Epiphany is not only about the gifts that the Magi brought to Jesus, but also about the gifts that you bring as well. God has given you talent of some sort; use it! I can’t draw a stick-figure to save my life and I am not a social butterfly, but I can make music. So on this Epiphany I decided that no longer was I going to tease about quitting choir. I have been given a gift and so I will use it for His purposes. If that means singing in the choir to perhaps move somebody sitting in the pew on Sunday morning, then that’s what I’m going to do. I wouldn’t tease about throwing away one of the quilts that my mom made for me so why should I tease about keeping my music all to myself?

Besides, if I were to drop out of choir who would misbehave with Chrissy during practice??

And now, after all of that, Exhaustion… thy name is Kerry!

Posted in Faith, Music | Tagged Choir, Epiphany, Faith, music | Leave a comment

Project Linus Blanket #3

Posted on January 5, 2017 by civilwarrose5

I am calling this blanket Purple Irises

As I was crocheting with the variegated yarn it reminded me of the irises that I tore out of my rose garden this past spring.

I really enjoyed crocheting this blanket. I used a pattern called the Rustic Ripple. I think that the pattern’s finish dimensions were 48 x 60, but they were using a larger hook. I used an I hook and mine ended up being around 36.5 x 51. It actually seems to be a nice size for a child to use or haul around. Using guidance from posts on the Alottastitches blog, I determined that I’m using about one ounce of yarn per 3 rows. That at least gives me an idea of how much yarn, approximately, I will need for each blanket. Each color was made up of 8 rows, for a complete count of 88 rows for the full blanket. As a pianist, this is the perfect number. After all, there are 88 keys on a piano.

I have already started working on my fourth afghan. This one will be quite a bit brighter!

I want to leave you with a story that was related on my local chapter’s blog. A counselor at one of the local crime victim centers told the ladies dropping off blankets that one of the children who received a previous donation said that receiving a Project Linus blanket was like a magic cape that protected them.

Just that one sentence makes all of the time and effort spent crocheting a blanket more than worth it! Perhaps I’ll say some extra prayers over all blankets that I crochet from now on.

Posted in Blankets, Charity, Crochet, Project Linus | Tagged Blankets, Charity, Crochet, Project Linus | Leave a comment

Autumn Cross Project – 1-2-17

Posted on January 3, 2017 by civilwarrose5

Here I am, yet again, cross stitching another seasonal cross. I have two down, two more to go. First I stitched the Winter Cross.

Then I stitched the Summer Cross.

That leaves Spring and Autumn. I decided that I would start the Autumn cross because I’m not a big Autumn person. It’s the season that reminds me that winter is just around the corner. I was going to say that my allergies are pretty bad in the autumn due to everything dying, but if I’m completely honest my allergies are bad all year round. If it’s growing, dying, or thriving… I’m allergic to it.

Anyway, I thought that if I worked on the Spring Cross first that by the time I got around to the Autumn one I might find a zillion excuses not to do it. So, Autumn Cross it was.

To say that I wasn’t very excited about this cross is an understatement. If you know me, or you’ve followed my blog for very long, you know that I always over-analyze the picture. This one was no exception. The wheat tufts means that this cross isn’t gluten-free. *sigh* I know that I’m not eating them, but it still goes against my nature to have anything to do with them. The random Blue Jay feathers puzzle me as they are here year round. Plus, I’m not really sure what the red berries with orange leaves are, or the purple berries either. I was spoiled by the overly-floral winter and summer crosses because I’m disappointed that there only seems to be three flowers on here. Really? You could place two pumpkins on the cross but only one full mum? I guess that since the designer didn’t ask for my opinion I’ll just shut up about it.

I started this on December 26th and here is the progress that I made in the first week:

I actually did quite a bit. It helped that we were on shut-down last week so I spent Friday doing nothing but watching Flosstube and stitching. It’s been a LONG time since I’ve done nothing all day except stitch. Despite the fact that I’m not really ‘taken’ with this cross I am happy that the colors are a bit more vibrant in person. The picture on my pattern looks really washed out. Part of the reason might be due to the fact that the model was stitched on 14ct aida and I’m stitching mine on 32ct linen. If you’re not a stitcher it means that my stitches are smaller and a bit denser so the white background doesn’t show through the floss. Now that I’m back to work I’m not sure how much progress I will make each week, but at least I’m past the starting point!

If you’re wondering, Flosstube is a community on YouTube where cross stitchers are vlogging (video blogging… or video journaling). They talk about what they are stitching, projects that they want to stitch, anything else that catches their fancy, and of course you have to show off your recent purchases (or stash haul). Now, at first I thought this was dumb; who would want to sit and watch people showing off their cross stitched projects. Well, apparently I do. *sigh* I’m not proud of the fact, but I got sucked in. One woman who calls herself The Stash Queen started at least one new project every day of 2016 so now she has over 350 WIPs (Works In Progress)! I dislike the starting stage of a project, but she likes it so much that she’s doing it again this year. Yikes! Yes, she does work on her WIPs, but now that she has so many they won’t all be worked on nearly as regularly. She does a regular rotation where she stitches on a different WIP each day, in alphabetical order, but man that’s a lot of projects!! I’m a one-project-at-a-time kind of gal! There will be no Year of Starts for me!

The other stitching related thing that I did last week was this:

I framed my Love With A Capital L by Papillion Creations.

This has actually been finished for a few years, but due to it’s odd size I was having a hard time finding a ready-made frame for it. I wanted a white frame so that it wouldn’t take away from the stitched piece itself. It’s our wedding sampler (I Photoshopped out our last name), but you can see our initials and year of marriage. This was the only frame that I could find anywhere near the size that I needed. It was originally black, but I spray painted it white. Now all I have to do is find a place to hang it!

Posted in cross stitch, Faith | Tagged autumn cross, cross stitch, Flosstube, Love With A Capital L | Leave a comment

Happy New Year!

Posted on January 1, 2017 by civilwarrose5

I, for one, am glad to see 2016 in the rear view mirror. I know a lot of people who feel that way. It just seems like 2016 was extra hard. I sure hope that 2017 is a lot kinder to us!

To give it a quick send-off I thought that I would do a quick review of 2016. It didn’t feel like I had done a whole lot, but once I started looking it seems that we did.

Jay worked on his Spad for the first few months of the year

Then he started working on the train lay-out

Once good weather came about we were able to work on the shed

With that project done it was time to have some fun. So sets of corn hole boards (and bags) were made

At the end of August Jay had his gall bladder removed and five days later was enjoying the Air Show

In September we started the Advent wreath stand, and finished it up in November

Then after that it was time to work on Christmas gifts

That was mainly what Jay was involved in during the year. I took part in most of that, but I also had other things going on myself.

I taught myself (with the help of Craftsy and my mom) how to crochet. I made two shawls and two blankets for Project Linus

I didn’t get nearly as many dresses made as I would have liked for Dresses for Missions. I did the trimming on 12 dresses and made 6 of my own

Plus I stitched satin edging on four pieces of fleece and crocheted edging on 7 more pieces for a total of 11 blankets that were given to Dresses for Missions, too.

For the craft fair I made five purses and two aprons, not to mention the apron that I made as a Christmas gift

My biggest crafty accomplishment this year, though, was finishing my Summer Cross

I did a little bit of traveling this year, too. First my mom and I went down to my sister’s in North Carolina to help her do some painting

Then a little over a month later I accompanied my friend to Atlanta, GA so that she could watch her Braves play

Besides the Air Show we also attended a RC Airplane show, a train show, a sewing expo and a quilt show. We were busy!

Even though I don’t feel like I accomplished a lot this year, I guess that I was quite busy!

Here’s hoping that 2017 is good to everybody.

And as Yoda Bob would say…

Get this stupid hat off of my head!

Otherwise known as, “May the force be with you!”

Posted in Charity, Crafting, Crochet, Dresses for Missions, Sewing, Travel, Wood Work | Tagged Advent Wreath Stand, model trains, Sewing, Travel, Wood Working, Year End Review, Yoda Bob | Leave a comment

Handmade Gifts – 2016

Posted on December 29, 2016 by civilwarrose5

In a previous post I admitted that I hadn’t updated my blog because Jay and I had been working on projects that were going to be Christmas gifts. Now that they’ve been given I can show off what was given to our mothers.

We had received a catalog in the mail where you can get a bazillion different things personalized. As I was looking through it I asked Jay if he could make something similar to the item that I spied on a page for home decor. It was a wooden picture frame with a saying that was lit from behind with a bulb. Instead of a saying, though, I told Jay I thought it would be better with an actual picture.

He assembled the frames, I chose the pictures and printed them on velum, then he assembled them all together. This is what we came up with:

The picture isn’t the best because I had to get it wrapped and the lighting was all wrong, but you get the idea. This is a picture of Jay and his brother, Justin, on our wedding day. I think it’s one of the few pictures that have been taken of these two together as adults.

And when you plug it in…

Not bad.

So then I found a picture for my mom:

This is my mom and Chrissy. The picture is stamped with August 1985, so Chrissy was six when this was taken.

Sorry, this was the only angle that I could get a picture of this one lit up.

I think that they turned out pretty good. We might do a few things differently if we make any more, but I think that these two turned out nicely.

Not only did we give handmade gifts, but we also received a couple.

First, our friend Dave made this for us:

Isn’t it gorgeous? He did a really good job on it! I have decided that this is going to go on the wall beside my cross stitched Cross above the dresser in the living room.

Then my mom made these for me:

Two knitted dish cloths and two crocheted scrubbies. I’ve already used one of the dish cloths and the scrubbies are in reserve. I love using these!

Posted in CNC Router, Wood Work | Tagged crocheted scrubbies, knitted dish cloths, picture frames, Wood Work, wooden cross | 1 Comment