Plaids are back!

TRENDS ON TUESDAY

Here are a few more upcoming styles to look for on your friends and neighbors that may appeal to you:  
Booties, or ankle boots with skirts and not just with pants. oversize sweaters, huge or plaid wool scarves, shawls with fringe or ponchos, longer pendant necklaces with tassels, vests (not the oversized men's style in tapestry of the 80's) puffy and denim vests. See Four Basics to Have In your Wardrobe from KSL's Studio Five.  I have also pinned several updated styles on my Pinterest Page under Style.

And PLAID shirts and dresses. shawls or accessories.  I love plaids!!  Last time plaid made a quick appearance I missed it totally,  bought fabric and it sits still. I love plaid!! The style is large plaid and screaming large buffalo check.  Luckily, I have a cedar chest full of Pendleton Wool plaids of all sizes that I collected while working for House of Fabrics years ago.

I brought out all the plaid fabrics in my cedar chest and laid them out on the bed to check them out.  Here is the selection.  

 The top row is mostly Pendleton Wool ($30 per yard even in the 80's).  The bottom row are other woolens of various quality.  

Some are famous Tartan plaid styles, but I would have to look them up;  I have forgotten the names.






I dug out some wool clothing, too. I think they are basics as well as trendy now.  I made this skirt last winter, but it is just a bit too tight.  It is a Vogue pattern.  

Tip:  Vogue and Butterick patterns are always tighter than Simplicity and McCall.  Cut a size larger than you would wear in the other patterns and/or check the actual measurements on the pattern to determine your size.

 

These two outfits will pass for plaids today, I think, because they are basic styles.  The jacket would look good with a black skirt or slacks, and a longer sweater hanging below the hemline.  For me to wear them, the skirts would need to be cut off at the top and brought up for the waist to fit.  I was a lot lighter when I made them.  Not sure it is worth the work, but I do love them.  They are a rather long midi length, and will look good with boots and sweaters this year. 

Plaid styles are so basic they can slip into most new trends without sticking out as '80s or '90s, but the most popular color in plaid this year is red, and  black and white buffalo checks.  (Somewhere I saw that black will be the new Pantone Color of the Year in 2016???  Need to ask the Wiz.) Always keep most of your wardrobe in basic styles with a few trend extremes.  That is the safe way to stay current, but not have an outrageous or too pricey clothes expenditure,

HAPPY DRESSING

BLOG'nGRAM

Winter on the Way

Looks like we are in for a change in weather this week.  I was hoping for a long Indian Summer after the snow and frost of last week, but nature has other ideas.



It will be cold today for my last day of Fall final clean-up of the yard and garden and chickens.  We may have a few more warmer Mondays, my outdoors day, but nothing is certain.  I must do what I can today to batten down the hatches for winter.  There is still outdoor furniture to store and chicken coop to clean--my favorite (kinda like cleaning bathrooms).

I still have Swiss chard and kale outside

to harvest.  Kale may be good for another week.

 I plan to freeze the chard and use it for a spinach substitute.  It is a bit stronger flavored, but the color is good.

Rainbow Chard--red and yellow

  It is time for earthy soups like Deep Woods Soup from Cooking Light Magazine.  Or Olive Garden's Tuscan Soup,  Zuppa Toscana.  Yum. 

 Note (later): The day did not go completely as planned.  I picked all the chard in the front porch planters, but did not go back out to work.  The weather was just too cold and wet.  The temperature was 36 degrees when I got back from my doctor appointment so I traded jobs for a later and hopefully warmer day.

We had Zuppa Toscana for dinner (many recipes available online and on Pinterest) and Red Lobster-like Cheddar Biscuits. I use the Supreme Biscuit recipe from my later edition Better Homes and Garden Cookbook with my own changes and additions.  I will feature them later because I don't have a picture of the finished product.

HAPPY FALL



BLOG'nGRAM

Prayer for Sunday

I love this song:

Be Still My Soul

Be still, my soul: The Lord is on thy side;

With patience bear thy cross of grief or pain.

Leave to thy God to order and provide;

In ev'ry change he faithful will remain.

Be still, my soul: thy best, thy heav'nly Friend

Thru thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

Be still, my soul:  Thy God doth undertake

To guide the future as he has the past.

Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;

All now mysterious shall be bright at last; 

Be still, my soul:  The waves and winds still know

His voice who ruled them while he dwelt below.

Be still, my soul:   The hour is hast'ning on

When we shall be forever with the Lord,

When disappointment, grief and fear are gone, 

Sorrow forgot, love's purest joys restored.  

Be still, my soul:  When change and tears are past,

All safe and blessed we shall meet at last.

Text:  Katharine von Schlegel,+

Music:  Jean Sibelius, copyright, 1933

My heart goes out to my friend, Liberty Cameron, who's mother passed away.  May the Lord bless her with strength to weather the duties she is now called to take care of and the future days of sorrow.  I love you, Liberty.

HAPPY SUNDAY


BLOG'nGRAM

A Sew and Sew Saturday

Saturday is a special day.  Today it is the changing of the month since I was in Maryland at the first part of the month.  I have been distributing my one Xerox paper box full of November decorations.  Not so much as the two totes and one paper box of Halloween stuff.  I cannot use too much of that one because they are colored and styled for black and ghouls and goblins.

Here is my Bombay chest with the HOF cornucopia and ceramic pumpkin from the ceramic shop a few dozen years ago.  I still have the pilgrims, too. I plan to make a leaf banner from the fall leaves I have been collecting for the mantle and will show that soon, and a new wreath for the door--today, hopefully.

My main activity today is sewing up some new pillow covers for the fall and a new brown skirt with fabric from my stash.  You don't work for the fabric store for several years without amassing a bit of fabric. That is more like a six or eight tote storage.  I really want to sew some of it.

Catch up photographs:

I brought in a lot of houseplants that were lounging around outside before my trip.  Many are still out--job for a Monday.  I purchased a nice pot holder this summer for this moving indoors project. 

It now houses my herbs and my pineapple plant in the sun of the South window.  It smells so good to bump up against the Rosemary and Thyme when cleaning around the area.  I also have a pot full of ginger that is filling up with roots to eat.  The leaves smell so fragrant when they are rubbed, too.  Oh, I love herbs.

I brought in the more tender houseplants.  One is my Jade Plant.  Two springs ago I potted up all my houseplants that had been neglected for several years because of my mission.  I brought them in last winter and then back on the front porch for the summer. My Jade plant grew a lot in that time and looked quite pretty.  Then this Spring when I put it out a bit too soon, it got pretty sagged and sunburned.  See my blog on July 11, 2015 poor neglected Jade plant. 

                                     

When I brought it in this Fall, the improvement shows.

Also, before I left I dried some of the Asian Pears.  I had five bowls full, dried four in two batches in my food dryer.  They are as sweet as candy.  Yum!

Above are three of the bowl of pear-apples and below is  one load of dried fruit.  I have a large food dryer with nine trays and that holds a lot of fruit.  The problem is my husband can eat a trayful without batting an eye.  I try to gently remind him how many whole pears he is eating and he will get a tummy ache if he fills up on water.  It is an age old concern so I usually hoard it until it is about a decade old.  

Halloween bits and pieces:

I have a linen closet full of colorful towel sets and odds and ends.  I decorate for the season as much as possible.  My orange towels are a wimpy soft color and not a great POP for Halloween so this year I decided to use the grey ones and duded them up with ribbon for a festive look.

As a parting farewell to Halloween we had a fun trunk-or-treat evening and decorated up the back with my pillows and another piece of "candy corn" fleece to use for something fun next year.

We had a surprise visit from the headless horseman and that was a great hit.  He was followed around by Laura Woolston on a motorcycle so we knew the probable identity of our mystery ghoul.

HAPPY SATURDAY

BLOG'nGRAM

All that was October

 I would like to finish up October before I begin moving forward.  I had a lot of October stuff that I wanted to post, but my time was taken up with personal things and vacations.  I neglected my blog.

HALLOWEEN:
     

Attempted Selfie

Halloween Pillow Covers:

I had some remnants of Halloween printed fleece and decided to cover my sofa pillows;  one is black with ghosts and the other is crazy yellow.   There was a little more fabric so I made some small pillows, too, that fit the leftover fabric.    
They all have velcro openings so they can be stored easily in the Halloween totes and I can make other covers for other seasons.


I have lots of pillow forms from my days clerking and store managing at House of Fabrics.  The small 12 x 12 is supposed to be a gift and the narrow one I filled with a used pillow that I brought home from the mission and washed up. [See link on washing pillows: washday whites on February 2, 2015.] I cut one of these former Walmart pillows in half and sewed it closed then used it as my filler for the narrow yellow pillow.  Voila--recycle, reuse, repurpose.

Crazy Yellow pillow cover with velcro

This was a last minute project I threw together just before Halloween.  I have more to make next year.  See next October.

Halloween Jewelry (a small sample):

Gravestone Bones from Fusion Beads.com

Nightmare Before Christmas Tree Earrrings and Black Swirl Necklace

Fang You Very Much Necklace from Fusion Beads.com

Pumpkin Earrings

Swarovski Skull Earrings

Dare to Scare Bracelet from Fusion Beads.com

Dare to Scare Bracelet from Fusion Beads.com

Halloween Wreath:

And finally, my Halloween Wreath that was hurriedly put together from my grape vines late in the summer

fresh grape vine wreath

when I was supposed to be picking elderberries.  Dan spray- painted it black for me and I hung some Halloween stuff on it quickly including one of my necklaces--Halloween Bones.

Remember my little spiders, kids?

It was not that impressive, but it is all mine.  Perhaps I can fix it up more next year.  I love the black leaves on it, but they keep falling off.  Oh, well.

That is all the pix I took, but there was so much more.  It is all put away now.  See  you next OCTOBER. 

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

BLOG'nGRAM

Friendly Friday

It is time to make some new goals for my blog.  I have perused a lot of Blogging 101 websites and the two things that I fall down on are 1) setting aside a time each day to work on it and  2) creating an area of focus,  a brand, a voice and tying it all together for my readers.  Since I have no aspirations to make money, or become well known, I don't need a 'brand' necessarily, but my voice is all my own.  I love to write and my blog is my writing persona.  This is me with all my 'curves and edges', all my ups and downs and sideways.  I wish to focus on "life--the view from over here"--which is west of the Mississippi, the Missouri, the Ohio, the Susquehanna, the Colorado and south of the Snake and the Columbia Rivers.  That just about covers my audience.  

I thought I would throw in a little chocolate to sweeten up my blog: The Hersey Chocolate Factory in Hershey, PA.  We visited here last week and got our chocolate fix for the week.   (I am supposed to add interest to my blog with pix and less writing.  I am not a photographer, so some may seem a little lame, but my husband used this excuse to buy a fancy camera to help me out.  Nice of him since I never use it and wouldn't know how.)

LIFE is a big subject and if I narrow it down I won't get to write about any old thing that crosses my mind.  I still have a few brain cells left after all these years and writing gives them exercise to stave off oldtimers disease.  I rest my case.  Following is optional.

I have noticed that blogging is a bit narcissistic.  I have never read one that is not in the first person voice, and about all kinds of personal stuff.  I can do that.  You can spot a novice writer by the first person tense in their writing.  I don't care for it most of the time in novels unless the writing is strong enough to carry it out, but it is a dead give away that the writer is newish.  It is easier to write in first person.

Novels are one thing; blogs are another.  This is like an essay--I say.  It is all personal.  Sometimes it is tedious or annoying when it sounds like a diary entry.  I don't alway need to know about running to the store unless it is pertinent to the post.  Sooo, I will try to keep my diary and my journal separate even though this is a journal of sorts.  My goal is to share the wisdom of age.  I have a lot of that (age that is), and try to entertain with my not always subtle humor.

That said,  I am dealing with some serious health issues and writing helps me think about you instead of me.  What would you like to hear?  What can I say to build friendship with you?  What can I share from my days on earth that might be interesting or informative?  This is my focus.

HAPPY BLOGGING

BLOG'nGRAM