Sewing and Beyond with Mary Anne Ciccotelli

I have actually done something creative in the kitchen.

The Pelham Quilters monthly meeting was Monday evening. A couple of hours prior to the meeting I remembered that I was suppose to bring refreshments. Since I had classes to teach, I was really glad that I had purchased a couple of brownie mixes last trip to the grocery store. I had also purchased this magazine with all these fun Halloween food ideas. I am not sure why I buy this type of magazines, except I like to LOOK at the pictures. Well, I pulled out my magazine and found this fun idea.I think this was alot more exciting than just plain brownies.

The magazine said to make the spiders out of gum drops. Needles to say, I don’t keep gum drops around just waiting for the perfect project. So, the pom pom and chenille stems came to the rescure.

First off – I apologize to those that may of had a hard time in finding me or couldn’t find me for a few days. I am in the process of having my website professionally designed and I switched newyorkquitler.com to anothe hosting company so I could use it for my new webiste/blog combo………but in the mean time newyorkquilter.com takes you no where!!!! UGH!!!!! Anyway, the direct address to my blog (for the next few days) is: http://maryanneciccotelli.blogspot.com/

Thank you for taking the time to share your opinion on naming my Turkey Quilt.

Ann-Christin suggested Jittery Turkey (which received 9 of the 12 votes).

Rose-Marie in Sweden is the winner from those that voted.

Please send me your snail mail address and I will mail you the pattern in November when it is finalized. If you didn’t win, the pattern will be available on my website to purchase.

I thought that I had a few more weeks before our love seat arrived, but they called and wanted to deliver it on Saturday. After I finish the Generations Unite quilt our quilt for our bedroom will be one of my next projects. So many projects and so little time. We put this recliner/love seat in our bedroom so now we have a comfy place to watch our new TV. Tom and I watched “Happy Feet” on Saturday night to try out our new set-up. It was very nice. Much better than our other set-up. I think we are going to really enjoy this.

I wish that I had a before picture, but I don’t. I have been cleaning off my desk and finding things on there that I know have been for over a year. (This is pretty scary!) I did a really good job and didn’t just shuffle the papers from one pile to another. But, since I don’t have a before picture, maybe the recycle bin next to the desk will give you an idea of some of the stuff that I was able to get rid of.

Last night was the last time this bed will ever be slept on. Today our new beds (guest room and our bedroom) are going to be delivered. This morning as Tom was getting ready for work he just wondered what stories this bed could tell if it could talk. I started wondering and reflected on the history this bed and where it had been.

June 1977 – Salem, Idaho: My grandparents celebrate there 50th Wedding anniversary. That evening they go to bed (in separate bedrooms). During the night they are both awake at the same time and sit at the kitchen table and talk about what a wonderful celebration it had been and then both go back to bed. The next morning my grandma had passed away very peacefully in this bed.

Four months later, my Grandpa died. Even though my grandparents had bickered and fought, I guess they could not live without one another. Their home was emptied and my mother got my Grandma’s bedroom furniture. Since all my siblings were settled in their homes I was given this furniture to use when I had a home.

Summer 1983 – Rexburg, Idaho: we (Russ, Mary Anne and Emily (4 months old)) move to Rexburg for the summer to work for my father. We lived in one of the college housing apartments that my parents owned. Since there were only single bed in these apartments we used the bed from my Grandmother’s bedroom set.

Fall 1983 – Provo, Utah: We move back to Provo for Russ to start Law School at BYU. We decide to leave the bedroom furniture stored at my parents in Rexburg, Idaho and just use the beds until we are more settled.

Fall 1985 – We move to a small one bedroom home in south Provo. I answer the business phone for a handyman (who owns the house) as payment for our rent. Emily’s bed is set-up at the back of the living room and my grandmother’s bed is set-up in the only bedroom. Jennie is born March of 2006 while living here.

Fall 1986 – Littleton, Colorado: Russ gets a job with a law firm in Denver, Colorado. We rent a home here. While living in this home I went to a garage sale and purchased a full-size bed for $3.00 to have for our guests.

Spring 1987 – Highlands Ranch, Colorado: We purchase a brand new home on Ridgeglen Way. My parents come for a visit and drive the pick-up so they can bring the bedroom furniture with them. My father also builds my living room furniture during that visit.

Summer 1991 – Rockville, Maryland (townhouse): Russ has decided that he wants a divorce but we decide that I should move to Maryland (he is now working for the IRS as a tax attorney) so he can help raise the girls. He takes the $3.00 garage sale bed and I take my Grandmother’s bed.

Summer 1992 – Rockville, Maryalnd (townhouse): The owner of the townhouse that we were living in decides to sell it, so the girls and I move to a townhouse about 1/2 block away.

Summer 1993 – Gaithersburg, Maryland: I purchase a brand new townhouse. The girls and I watch it being built and are excited when we can finally move in. The bed and bedroom set look wonderful in the large master bedroom (with its LARGE bath tub in the master bathroom).

Summer 1998 – Bronx, New York: Tom and I are married on June 20. The week after our wedding we load our (me and girls) belongings into a rental truck and headed up to New York. Since the renters in the house that we were buying would not move out we had to put our belongs into storage. Tom and I lived in the attic of his parents home where there was only a twin size bed. The girls spent most of the summer in Utah, Idaho and Maryland.

August 1998 – Pelham, New York (our bedroom): The renters are about to be evicted so they move out and we are able to move into our home. Because of the limited amount of drawers in my Grandmother’s bedroom furniture we opt to let Emily use it in her bedroom but Tom and I use the full-size bed in our bedroom.

February 2009 – Pelham, New York (small bedroom): We moved the full-size bed into this bedroom to enable us to paint our bedroom more easily. The bed is reunited with the bedroom furniture and headboard.

This bed has served it purpose and is passed its time of usefulness.

On Saturday Tom and I went to the paint store and I was reminded of how differently our minds work. While looking at paint chips for our bedroom I was busy comparing colors and he started to comment on the names of the paint colors. I hadn’t even thought to look at the names, the color is what I was concentrating on. Tom wanted to do something alittle darker than we usually do in our home, so I kind of let him have more say in the color. He actually liked the name “algonquin trail”, reminds him of scouting here in New York. He thought it would be fun to tell the boys while camping that is bedroom was painted with “algonquin trail” (this color was actually a darker color than the one we purchased). I told him that I thought that it would be too dark, so we went with up one to the next color – “sherwood tan”. I was still alittle unsure of this color, but was willing to give it a try. Therefore, we only purchased one gallon and I would return for a second gallon when the color was determined to be what we wanted.

Well, I put alittle on and this color is really dark also! We decided that it was to dark. So now we are going with “sea urchin” (two lighter than the color that we purchased).

Anyone need a gallon of “sherwood tan” paint?

Here is a before and after of a window and my closet door:

Before and after of the ceiling:

Today I am planning on doing the second coat on the ceiling and wood. Tommorow I will be ready to paint the walls.

This morning I worked on doing prework on the baseboards and wood in the room. The enrichment class at noon kind of cut into my painting schedule. After my enrichment class I stopped by the paint store and bought the needed supplies. Taught my three children’s sewing classes and had dinner. Then I painted the first coat on the walls. One more coat and then on to the fun stuff – sponging the walls. I bet you can hardly wait to see what color I am going to use. Maybe the sponging will be done tommorow night after my sewing classes. I think the hold up to finishing this room is going to be the carpet we orded on Tuesday. It is suppose to take 2 weeks.