Polka Dots Are Back for Pink Saturday 9/12/09

Welcome to Pink Saturday. To view all the participants, go visit Beverly at How Sweet The Sound and surf around. I promise you'll see lots of pink!
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I've been asked to teach a class to a few women in my church ward on apron making on a "homemaking" saturday soon. I wondered why. I'm not especially into this activity but I figure it's "service" to teach them, but it's not so much "how" to sew—I'm assuming if they attend the class they should already know pretty much how to sew—but the "design" of aprons. Many you see can be boring. I don't do "boring" much; I like pizzazz much, much better!

So I've spent the last several days cutting out fabrics to form aprons. So far I've cut out 8 different aprons. I use several different kinds of fabric but they are usually (okay, always!) girly and froufrou-y and in colors I like because if I don't sell them, I keep them or give them away as presents or on my blog as "giveaways."

As you can see polka dot make up a few of them. I'm partial to polka dots, checks, stripes and roses fabric in them. For a couple of years now I've not been able to find much in the way of polka dots but this year there are a lot of them. I was so excited I bought yards and yards of red, black and pink polka dots. (I think I'm starting to sound like Lawrence Welk here. Polka?!) Anyway, here are a sampling of the ones I've cut out so far.

I absolutely love cutting them out; it's just relaxing to me to figure out which fabric goes with which other fabric.

Trims are another thing I do a lot of. I like "fluff and foof" in them. Ribbon roses, lace, little trims, buttons.

I do NOT use colors I don't like. Orange is my least favorite color. (Maybe that's why I'm not into fall colors much.) If I don't sell it then I get to keep them and I don't have orange in my house. Okay, okay, there might be a pumpkin or a blouse with a fragment of orange but that's it. And on some people it looks fabulous—NOT ME. Orange affects me negatively. Don't know why—just do not feel good around it.

The straps haven't been cut out yet and I usually use scraps for these so there may be 4 or 5 different kinds of fabric in one apron. One I made had 11 different kinds of fabric. I'll never part with that apron. I love it. Of course, when I die, my daughter will probably sell it on eBay for 1¢ with free shipping!

See that one in the middle? That top fabric is Paris Bebe and the bottom is an expensive "embroidered" silky type fabric. I think it'll be the most gorgeous one when they are all finished.

Some of these have the french look about them. Only one in the pile has the same fabric on top and bottom but the pockets will be different. I like to visualize as I go along after selecting the fabric.

But every single one of them, while pretty, is also functional. "Form follows function" in my book. They need to do the duty for which they were made and an apron by definition protects our clothing from spills and with that in mind, every single one of them is washable.

Oh, and there will be a giveaway with one of these being the prize. It'll happen soon. I'm almost at my 700th post and that will be the "giveaway post" so stay tuned to win one of them.

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Tutorial for Your Commenting on Blogger

I wish to bring something up that is very important and most of you probably don't think about or maybe not even know about.

When you leave a comment and the person you are leaving the coment for is notified it is usually a "noreply-comment@blogger.com" with your own name in the address field. Sometimes there is a question for me and I have to seek out your blog to answer it. While going to your blog is not a problem as I love visiting your blogs and leaving comments I'd prefer to respond to some things privately and if your email address isn't there I can't do that. So here is what you can do to assure that if you'd like. I'm putting this in my tutorial on the right hand sidebar if you care to go there. It's a pretty basic and easy tutorial for those who wish to learn about blogging. The blogs are ever changing though so I keep updating it as concerns appear or are asked of me to explain to someone. This is only if you want to, but trust me, it is much easier to reply to someone when their email address shows up. I have several emails so this is not a problem for me. Do as you wish though. Plus I want to give Jodie at JodieLejeuneblogspot credit for bringing this up. Thank you, Jodie!

To remedy this situation do this:

Go to your settings in blogger. See screenshot below:

Go to your settings. It can be done by clicking on New Post from your blog and the screen below will show up. (I've blotted out privacy things that might jeopardize my security.) AND you will have to enlarge these screenshots if you want to view them properly.

Screenshot #16:

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Go to your Settings in blogger. Then go to Comments. See pix below. A continuation of that site is below on Screenshot #18 as I could not get it all on one screenshot.

Screenshot #17:

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Put your address where it says "Comment Moderation" and Email address. Be sure and click "SAVE SETTINGS" at the bottom of the page and you are all set.

Screenshot #18

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Lunch with the Chicks at Cafe de Coco #3

A few close ups for you. I love that little wire pot holder.

And this antique wire egg basket.

This is beside that little dressing table in the entry that looks very Parisienne, but it says "I love New York"........hmmmmm, kinda strange I think.

But wait! Aaaaah, here's the french one!!

Another dress form above my budget limit! Sigh........

This picture of a shoe reminds me of Gail McCormack's new paintings. Hers are definitely prettier though. And we all KNOW how I feel about birdhouses.

The ceiling was very dramatic in the main area of the shop. They draped lovely fabric over the lights there to soften the effect. Really pretty.

Darling little hand towel with a froufrou kinda dress.

And this bench?!?! Ooooh, how I would love that for my front porch. You do realize the front porch is NOT finished, right? More on that down the line though.

Another dining area. They had 4 or 5 different small private dining areas there and I quite like that. There was a place in Oakland, California, that a friend and I usually dined at called The Pewter House and each dining table was secluded with walls around it. Lunch would usually take us 3 hours because we just sat and talked while we ate.

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Apologies and A Lesson Learned

I'll start this tale with some lovely photos for you to view since the story itself might be boring but there is a need to tell you what happened. Also I need you to email me with your blog address if you were on my list on the blog. I can add the ones from my Google Reader but they are not necessarily the same. So if you want me to put your blog on here, let me know and I'll check it against my other list. I need to get busy on it soon.

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First of all, I need to apologize for not keeping up with the blogs I love and check each and every day. Also for Pink Saturday and not visiting the participants, especially the ones who visit me. But life can throw you curve balls and we can do some really stupid things sometimes! ME......for instance.

This is why we have used Apple Macs for about 25 years now.

On 8/29/09 the new OSX came out: Snow Leopard, OSX or 10.6 to be exact. I ran to the MacLife store in Boise to buy it for $29.99 and came home and installed it. That same day I received my new HP Printer all-in-one and installed it. It didn't work properly and I called HP and asked for help. That sweet woman stayed on the line with me for about 2 hours and doing numerous tweaks and fixes and nothing got the printer to work correctly. She checked with her higher-ups and they said the drivers weren't up-to-date yet since Apple released Snow Leopard about 4 or 5 weeks early. So since I wanted to use my new super-duper faster printer and scanner, I went back and installed OSX 10.5 or just plain Leopard instead of Snow Leopard (SL).

Here's where I need to eat a bit of humble pie for telling friends and my ebay groups and anyone that will listen to this ol' lady to THINK before you do anything with your computer. When I re-installed Leopard, everything was as it would be when you reinstall any new Operating System or get a new computer: pretty much nothing personal on there or as I should say: zip, nada, nothing but the original OS just waiting for you to add your email accounts, PhotoShop, Office for Mac, photos, personal things, etc. But.............

I also subscribe to Carbonite because you just never know when something will happen. I also have an external HD. I also have Time Machine—exclusive to Apple Macs. So I wasn't too worried. But as luck would have it, all this transpired on a weekend (doesn't everything significant in your life to do with "business" happen on a friday night at 5:01 PM?!?! It usually does for me. I also have a laptop which I try to sync with my desktop since we travel with our laptops and I've learned from experience I want them both to have all the same things on them. So I'm pretty much covered. Except for my photos on iPhoto. They may not be on both computers.

So monday morning, 8/31/09 I'm on the phone with Apple getting their help. They came to the rescue magnificently. I always, always get a representative who is kind, considerate, patient, understands exactly what I need and walks me through it and then gives me their name and phone number and extension AND their work email to call them back or email if need be. I've tried it and they are back with me in just a matter of hours but they guarantee to be back within 24 hours. I've read where they rank #1 in customer service and they absolutely do with me!

Then monday afternoon I was back on with Apple again. They were on the line with me for a total of about 5-6 hours over the course of friday, saturday and monday and just shined magnificently. They never kept sending me to someone else. THEY did the trolling if they needed to get extra help.I'm going right to the bottom line here.

My Mac is restored to exactly what it was and what was on there. I've had to do a lot of reloading of the applications/programs such as PhotoShop, Office for Mac, iLife and Quicken (let me say here that the Quicken rep. was a true gentlemen also!) gave me a code to go in and download Quicken 2007 again for free. I wasn't charged a penny for any of this, not a penny! Just the hardest working reps at each place I went. It's been frustrating because I messed up by not properly taking off the new OSX and going back to the last version. But even Carbonite (whose help I didn't need after all because my Mac did it ALL!) was astounding in helping me. Now, I ask you, when in the world do other reps give you their number and extension and email to let them know how things are??? I am astounded with their help in this trial I've put myself through.

All this was going on as I was preparing to head out for our last camping trip of the year. Squeeeeeal!! All done for this year anyway. I'm still getting my blog back in order because during all this (my stupid button was on overdrive here, chicks!) I inadvertently was going to try a different template but while working in a browser that I don't usually work in I hit "save" and just about passed out when I saw that it went ahead and changed my blog template. But because I saved a copy of my template on my computer I could put it back in BUT things went a bit wacky then. Some of my widgets didn't appear, ones that did appear were different graphics/photos from the "title" of the sidebar gadget and it wiped out my blogroll. Yes, I can rebuild it and will but first things first. Hubby's desire to drag me off to the "wilds of Idaho" outweighed pretty much everything else at that point. Plus while doing all this I had 2 new molars crowned and was experiencing pain since the temporaries were put on 8/9/09. Could life get any more hectic? I don't even want to know!!!!

White Wednesday 9/8/09

When we traveled to Ireland many years ago we stayed in thatched cottages sometimes rather than the hotels. I love the ambiance of the cottages much more. This is how the Irish live: thatched cottages, linens and lace in almost every single window and sparkling clean windows even in the rain!

I use white lace lavishly around my home. This is NOT a picture of my home but similar to things I do.

Lace over pitchers to keep the flying insects out is a beautiful way to fend them off.

Not only white lace but white bows acting as "hangers." I've even used hubby's old ties to look like a hanger for a picture.

And, of course, mantels covered in exquisite antique vintage lace.

An easy-to-make clothes hanger skirt is also a luxury.

A lovely window vignette.

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