A Van Gogh Weekend

Let's start out by announcing the winner of my give-away last week regarding the Make Do and Mend post. The not-so-scientific approach of using a random generator resulted in having the husband pick a number from 1 to 14, and he chose a random number of "8".  The eighth post was from Ann at Tin and Sparkle.  I will be sending Ann the piece of needlepoint this week.  Yea Ann!

The prior three days were spent in Denver with friend Kathy and Ellen, her 11 year old daughter.  We visited the Van Gogh exhibit.  It was excellent.  Read all about it here. Fine art and painting are some of the things that I count as blessings. (Linking to Inspiration Avenue's weekly challenge of Count Your Blessings.)

This picture (1889) was the one I spent the most time examining because Van Gogh did not follow the rules, yet created a masterpiece.  Do you see what I mean? ( Hint: clouds)  Do you like the blues?

linking to Blue Monday

Niece Cindy was singing with the Sweet Adelines.  Her group had an international competition last week in Denver with over 4000 participants, and she seemed to be having a great time.  We had dinner and caught up on family.

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Then on to Kathy's activities: Ellen played a basketball game (her mom and I cheered), we shopped a bit, we had an outdoor iced tea at a local restaurant, we ate at the Olive Bargain (ok, Olive Garden) and Kathy hosted her sister's birthday party one evening.

One of Kathy's other four sisters (right in light blue) helped in the festivities.  The birthday girl is in dark blue and Ellen is in yellow. Kathy is in white on the left.

The color on the trees was absent on the drive between Grand Junction and Denver due to cold weather, but I will leave you with this lovely autumn picture.

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Yes, I am almost finished with the ottoman makeover and will post this week about its completion.

Easy Pumpkin Muffins

Want to make a batch of pumpkin muffins, stirred up in less time than it takes to read this post?  Why not?
Two ingredients and a few spices with no liquid...really. Plus they stay moist and freeze well.

Thanks to AllRecipes with the directions found here, they turned out tasty.  Ingredients: one packaged cake mix and one can pumpkin with extra pumpkin spices.  No liquid.

They were so pumpkin-y and moist.

One last picture.  My husband found this little mouse trying to scare the kids away last night and hung it up on the front door to discourage further varmints from trying to scurry in.

Here is to a great November!

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Make Do and Mend, and a Blue Monday Give-Away

"Make Do and Mend" is a phrase from World War II that was more commonly used in Great Britain during WWII.  Food and clothing were rationed after about 1940, and frugal living was a necessity.

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(This links with BLUE MONDAY bloggers because I love the blue banner! But wait, there's more!)

Did you have a grandmother or a great, or a great-great who saved string, reused aluminum foil and saved vegetable seeds from the past seasonal crops?  Of course, you say.  

One of my favorites messages about mending and reflecting on aspects not only referring to simply repairing clothes, but also speaking to the issue of healing spirits was written by Susan Kittredge, a pastor who read her message on NPR back in 2008.  Her entire story can be found here, and it is well worth the read.  She said, in part:

...I have come to relish the moments when I sit down and, somewhat clumsily, repair a torn shirt, hem a skirt, patch a pair of jeans, and I realize that I believe in mending. The solace and comfort I feel when I pick up my needle and thread clearly exceeds the mere rescue of a piece of clothing. It is a time to stop, a time to quit running around trying to make figurative ends meet; it is a chance to sew actual rips together. 

I can't stop the war in Iraq, I can't reverse global warming, I can't solve the problems of my community or the world, but I can mend things at hand. I can darn a pair of socks. 

Accomplishing small tasks, in this case saving something that might otherwise have been thrown away, is satisfying and, perhaps, even inspiring. Mending something is different from fixing it. Fixing it suggests that evidence of the problem will disappear. I see mending as a preservation of history and a proclamation of hope. When we mend broken relationships, we realize that we're better together than apart, and perhaps even stronger for the rip and the repair.

Now comes the part about cleaning and preserving needlepoint.

In this spirit of preserving, part of this past weekend was taken up in revamping a footstool I make twelve years ago with the ottoman top being made of a piece of needlepoint.  The best part?  The needlepoint is now about 100 years old.  Yes, really.  My great aunt made it in the early 1900's while living on her Texas farm.  It was under glass for many years, and was passed along to me.  I took the picture apart, discarded the frame and glass, and used it for that ottoman.  This is a picture I took several years ago of the needlepoint.

But...it had not been cleaned in all those 100 years until yesterday.  Granted, it was under glass for about 85 of those years, but for the past decade it has been used for feet, shoes and dogs to perch on.  Did I hear you say "yuck!"?

After scrub-a-dub-dubbing the ottoman skirt, sewing a seam on the bottom ruffle, ironing the fabric, re-adhering it back to the box base with staples, washing the needlepoint three times (you should have seen that dirty water in the first soaking!) and giving new trims, it is almost ready for use again.

The roses are much brighter.  All it is lacking is a knitted edge found here. I'm working fast and furiously on it.

NOW FOR THE GIVE AWAY

If you leave a comment on this post and tell me something about Mending and Making Do and what you have done to make do and mend (or just that you went to the NPR site and read Kittredge's post...again, the site can be accessed here), your name will be put into my give-away for a piece of needlepoint my mother made many years ago. I will pick a name and let you know the winner once I have completed the lace edging for the newly renovated ottoman.  Then I'll show a picture of the "mended" and cleaned ottoman and announce the winner once that edge is finished.  Comments will be collected through November 6, 2012.

Here is the lovely yellow needlepoint piece, still damp and being blocked, 13.5" x 13.5" that you can win:

It is so fun to win something, and I do hope you will leave a comment.  I just won a digital download from Kepanie yesterday that she posted on her blog Knitspiring Odyssey.  It is an e-book entitled Autumn 2012 Accessories  Thank you, Kepanie!

Also linking to Time Travel Thursday: