From what I hear, everyone in America is freezing right now. Of course, here in Nashville, we rarely get real snow.  The weathermen promise us it will be here.  Schools close.  We all go out into the freezing awful weather and stock up on bread and batteries.  What is that about anyway?  I really don't do that, because I always have batteries.

But I did stock up on marshmallows and hot chocolate.  Bring on the snow, seriously!  I love the snow.  Snow means you get to play hooky (especially if you own your business and you are the lone employee).  Snow also means hot chocolate.

Sigh. We got about one eighth of a lousy inch of snow. BUT, I did have the hot chocolate.

So, I have this friend named Ivy.  Ivy is five. Ivy loves sugar.  She also loves plants and dogs and the color of sparkly pink.  She really is an interesting little girl, and I think she is a whole lot of fun.

Her mom and I had been talking about hot chocolate so I wrangled an invite up to their house yesterday.  Ivy was home, as it was a snow day.  A snow day with no snow. 

Anyway, I went up armed with some supplies which included marshmallows and a container of finely crushed peppermint candy.  I had a mission with Ivy's mom as well, but I will reveal that tomorrow. 

I wanted to show Ivy and her mom, Eden, how to make these peppermint covered marshmallow just improve the hot chocolate experience.

Now for a girl that really appreciates her sugar, there was some coaxing to be done.

 

 

Seems like I interrupted an imaginary trip to Forida.  She had a pink back-pack and a cool kinda of bear sleeping bag all ready for the trip, and I show up with marshmallows.  It was a bit of a let down. 

But then we started dipping the marshmallows in a glaze of water and powdered sugar.  Then we sprinkled the peppermint crumbles over the top and then all the glorious aroma of mint and pink began to take over her little sweet spirit.  She was coming around.

 

I had her in my clutches now!

One taste and she was hooked.  My neighbors may start to realize that I have this power.  You see, I took her mom some velvet and stamps and gave her a tiny taste of that too!  And, sure enough, today she was calling for more velvet!  They are powerless now!

Ivy has her mouth full of marshmallow.  She is trying to savor the moment.  But, I have to mess with her and ask her to whistle.  Come on Ivy.  Whistle!

You have to give a girl credit for trying.  Her mom tells me to whistle.  She isn't going to stand by and just watch this without having some fun.  But I practically spit mine right out.

Snow or no snow, this was worth it all.  At least we all got to play hooky and drink this!

It is spring, everything is in full bloom, my sale was extrememly successful and will take me three weeks to fulfill all the orders.  But sadly I am not jumping up and down.  I am just down.  I think someone must have hit me scare in the forhead with a brick.  I would confess to a hangover, but I gave up the sauce for Lent.  This is the second time since Lent began that I have felt just like I had a hangover.  I mean I have nausea, then the awful headache that renders me helpless, and then an insatiable urge for Krystal hamburgers.  This is probably more than you ever wanted to know, but now you know it and you may judge me harshly.  I even bought Krystal stock once. It bombed.  It was the first stock I ever bought.  

For those of you not in the south, Krystal are little square burgers, sometimes called drawer burgers.  They have moist yummy buns, lots of weird little onions and no nutritional value.  They also have the best Cokes ever! They may have a bit more soda that sugar and they can cure a hangover better than anything.  I only eat at Krystal when I have the "Boogy Woogie Flue" or its faux cousin, which I am suffering from right now.

Anyway, my strength is waining, and I cannot think anymore because it hurts.  I will work on orders this weekend.  For you youngsters out there, there is one thing I know is true. Only the good die young.  

I have all these good intentions to write THREE BLOGS every week, starting this week.  I thought it would be nice to start with how grateful I am with the world.  BUT, as I sit here waiting for some tech person to call me back, I am not feeling grateful at all.  I am actually torn about the entire subject.  You see I am grateful, most of the time for computers and printers and all the cool hi-tech stuff in my life.  But when it causes one teeny miniscule of inconvenience I not only forget about all the convenience I have had, and the bonus to all of the fast communications, but I get angry.  Seriously if I lose any time at all due to something I cannot figure out then I just blame it all on the machine in front of me and the unknown person that does not jump high enough or fast enough for me.  What in the world is wrong with me.

So while I sit and I wait, exercising a modicum of patience I will list some things I love and adore.  I am sorry not to have picture to make this little exercise more visual, but that would mean leaving the computer and then when I get my much anticipated email I would miss the golden opportunity to solve my problems! Actually I am uploading pictures as I wait, and wait and wait for help.

 So not in any particular order I am grateful every single day for dogs!

Especially for Ruby and Buster.  I love these two dogs, and because they cannot read I will even confess to a teeny bit more love for Ruby.  I have had her longer and she is just the sweetest mutt that was lost and forelorn in my alley about 10 years ago.

Ruby

 

  Buster

I love my mama.  She is just a dream to know and I am so lucky to have her close by.  We take trips to the ocean together.  We see each other all the time.  And in her old age she has decided to become much more liberal in her thinking.  Now that is just ducky in my opinion!  I love Mama!  

Mama and me 2008

I love my husband.  Brian is just as cute as a bug.  He can be a real bug too, but he has a heart of gold and I feel lucky to have found him.  He does not appreciate good food for some strange reason but he has exceptional taste in every other area. That is rare for a man.

Brian 2008

 

I love to play in the dirt.  That is evident from my earlier blogs.  I have some male genes I fear.  When it comes to shoes and how I like to get dirty I have some pretty masculine qualities.  But I love sparkly stuff and pretty clothes and jewelry, so I am still more girly.  I do not like to vacuum however.

I am so grateful that I am creative.  I just cannot imagine life any other way.  People say that I am a free spirit.  Now what in the Sam Hill does that mean anyway?  I also say what is on my mind to just about anyone.  I have tried to stiffle this, but it just did not work out for me.

 

Oh this one is really shallow  But I love love love my car.  It is so cute, and fun and I can hardly believe I own it.

  

Bringing home balloons after a party in my cute little car. Gave the balloons to the wide eyed little girl across the street.

Are these people ever going to get in touch with me so I can send out a newsletter?!?!?!?!?!?  I am not feeling grateful.  All the good thoughts above are just washing out with the tide. Pooh.

I am still grateful. So there.

 

This blog entry has been revised for making scraves specifically pacakged from Hot Potatoes.  Please print these out to refer to as you create your lovely piece.  You can modify these instructions to create your own scarf and change sizes of fabric to fit your own needs.

1. Fabric (velvet) for at least one side of the scarf-59" x 12".  If you snip the velvet at these diminsions and tear the velvet your fabric will be perfectly straight.  There is quite a bit of shedding and you might even want to do this outside.

2. A piece of burn-out velvet 60" x 13.".  Tear this velvet as mentioned above if necessary.  The diminsion can vary, but you want the burn out velvet to always be at least a half to an inch longer on both diminsions.  You can trim the excess later.

3.An iron for embossing.  Go the the bottom of Hot Potatoes home page and and see the little green rectangle.  Then click on velvet.  Here is a link directly to instructions as well http://www.hotpotatoes.com/velvet.asp

4 A spray bottle of water

5. 1/4 inch wide tacky tape (I sell that too) See other goodies.

6. About 25" of fringe

7. Low tack masking tape or painters tape

8.  Pins

9.  Scissors

10. Tthread

11.  Hot Potatoes rubber stamp of your choice

Tear the velvet in a 59" x 12" strip.  Cut or tear your backing fabric into another 60" x 13" strip.  Simply snip the fabric and tear.  Be brave, it works perfectly. Put the two pieces together an make sure the burn out velvet is slightly larger on all sides than the solid velvet.

 See link in item #3 above for embossing instructions.

Begin embossing. Typically I randomly emboss over my fabric, but in this example I made a pattern. I avoid making straight lines or trying to match designs perfectly.

Emboss all the velvet that you intend to use.

The next step is to pin the fringe to the right side of the embossed fabric.  Cut two pieces that are 1.5 inches shorter than the short end of the embossed velvet.  These two pieces will be about 10.5-11 inches long.  Pin them at the short ends of the scarf.  Make sure the fringe is facing in towards the length of the scarf.  You need to have about an inch of fabric at the end of each piece of fringe for making the seam.

Push the fringe in towards the center of the scarf and secure it with the blue painters tape.  This will insure that your fringe does not get caught in the seams.

Sew the fringe to the velvet.  Repeat on other end and remove the pins.  Leave the painters tape on the scarf for now.Lay the velvet out, right side up on your work surface. At this point, check one more time to insure the burn out piece of velvet is just slightly bigger on all four sides than the embossed velvet (just 1/4 inch  on all sides is sufficient)  Run the Tacky Tape on the very edge of one long side of embossed fabric (right side up)

TIP: secure one end of the tape to your work surface.  This makes it so much easier to remove the backing later.  Notice I have it secured to my mother's beautiful Duncan Fife table.  A girl has got to do what a girls gotta do!

Remove backing and overlap with another piece of tape along short edge.  All the while, the tape should be at the very edge of your fabric.  Remove backing and run tape down third edge wwhich would be a long side again.  Remove backing, overlap last section of tape to make all four edges of embossed velvet have tape at the very edge.  All backing of tape should now be removed.

Carefully smooth burn-out velvet, RIGHT SIDE DOWN, on top of embossed velvet. 

DO NOT sew through the tape.  The tape and you sewing machine needle are not friends.  The needle wil get all sticky and this is not good.  You may need to clean the needle and the plate from time to time.  I use a new needle every third scarf.

Sew the two short ends  I like to sew these two seams with the burn-out velvet side up.  I can see the seam where I sewed on the fringe and sew right on top of that seam.

Turn scarf over and sew one long seam.   One the final seam YOU MUST LEAVE A SIX INCH OPENING IN THE CENTER OF THE SEAM SO THAT YOU CAN TURN THE SCARF INSIDE OUT.  This is the last seam on the remaining long side of your scarf.

 

Turn the scarf right side out and check your fringe and just give a look to see the entire scarf. Remove blue tape that had secured the fringe.

Turn it inside out again and trim seams and clip corners.

Lightly mist this long seam and iron it open from the wrong side only.  This will make for a nice finished edge later.

Be sure the iron only goes in the seam allowance and not on the body of the scarf.  The iron will leave a print and you DO NOT want that to happern.

Trim edges closely and carelfully.

Turn it right side out again and use a chop stick or something similar the push into the corners for a neat turn out.

Sew up the 6" opening by hand.

Voila!

Pour yourself a glass of wine.  Put on your scarf and feel proud!

One final note: I do take my finished scarves to the dry cleaner and have the edges steamed. This give a final professional look to your lovely custom piece