Wednesday, October 20, 2010

JENNIFER'S WEDDING

I have just come back from my niece Jennifer's wedding, in Michigan.  My sister and I drove out there from New York, missing the big nor'easter last weekend, and had beautiful weather the whole time we were in MI.  Of course the bride is lovely.  Here she is being escorted to the altar by my brother, her father



She was preceded by the flower girl, my great-niece Madeline, who didn't quite understand her function, and needed help from her father:



The ceremony was outside, as you can see, under a tent, on a farm in Ann Arbor called Cobblehill Farm.  There was a petting zoo with a friendly goat, a horse and assorted chickens and roosters, who didn't interfere at all with the wedding.  Afterward the vows



there was the reception line.  Don't you love her dress and the bouquet?  Perfect for fall.  And the headpiece is from another etsian!




That handsome lucky young man is her new husband, back from Iraq for a whole year.  They live in Hawaii now, where he is stationed.  He just looks too young to be an officer in the US Army!



Ah, what a lovely day it was, and a wonderful party!

Friday, October 1, 2010

MOVING OUT

Due to circumstance beyond my control, like losing my job in Feb 2009, I need to sell my apartment.  I plan to move back to Michigan, where I was brought up and my parents still live.  I am moving to MI because of my parents, and because the rents there are in-line with the maintainance charges I currently pay on my studio apartment in NY.  After doing research, I discovered I can rent a nice 1 bedroom apt in a complex with a pool, gym, community space, laundry facilities, etc. etc. and so forth.  Sounds really good, and when I go to MI for my niece's wedding in a couple of weeks, I plan to stay and look at these places that seem so good on the internet.  We shall see what we shall see...

Meanwhile, my realtor inspected my current space and said "Do you have any storage facilities?"  Hint, hint...your place is TOO CLUTTERED!!!!  Like I didn't know that already.  Time to do some housecleaning and get this stuff out of here!!!!  I have bolts of fabric in everycorner.  Let's just look at three of them:

This is my bedroom corner:




I have a small dressing room.  These are the left and right corners of that space:




I love these fabrics.  In the immediate picture above, you see the yellow and white flower material?  Custom Designs by Nancy (my other shop) has a fabulous commission to make center table toppers for a woman's wedding this spring, and I will be using this stuff, and hopefully some binding tape from ShastaCreations.  Otherwise, if you see something you like, let me know and I'll tell you all about it!


Thankfully I saved the sleeves all this material came in, so I put all those bolts into sleeves and cleaned out those corners.  Hooray!






In case you're wondering about the paintings on the walls, my great-grandmother and my grandmother were both artists.  My grandmother did paintings of everyone, and when she died we each got our own pictures.  I also took one of my great-grandmother's paintings, too.


This is me as a teenager, about 13 or 14 years old:



This is my baby picture:



And this is the picture by my great-grandmother Irene:



And this is what all those bolts look like now!  Time to get these into storage for the duration!