Sewing and Beyond with Mary Anne Ciccotelli

I am thankful for little miracles that happen in my life.

This past week I have been thinking about my Patriarchal Blessings. In fact a couple of days ago I started looking for it because I had not read it in a LONG time. I thought that it was in the front cover of my journal (which I don’t use very ofter). I have looked for my blessing before, but to no avail. Well the same was true this time. I found a couple of journals, but no Patriarchal Blessings inside the cover. I started wondering what I was going to have to do to get a copy of it from the church headquarters in Salt Lake City. I was not looking forward to this process.

On Friday I received a call from a neighbor saying that see looked up in the attic and saw that we had some stuff on her half of the attic. Our homes have a common center walls, but there is not wall in the attic. We have lived in this home for over 10 years. I think this is probably the first time she has been in attic. In fact, one day I opened the door to the attic and I saw daylight, a man was up on the roof taking the old shingles off the roof and replacing our neighbors side of the roof. He apologized for making such a mess on our stuff but said that our neighbor had told him that she did not have access to the attic so he did not need to worry about covering the attic up with plastic to minamize the mess. About a year or so after that we had a bunch of empty boxes (from computers, stero, pots and pans, and big stuff like that). Tom and I decided that we would just put the boxes over on her side. On Friday I received a call from our neighbor say that she had gone to put some stuff up in the attic, but saw that we had some stuff on her side and asked if we would move it.

So, you guessed it, on one of the coldest days in five years Tom and I were up on the attic breaking down those boxes and moving anything that we had put on her side.

While doing this, I opened one box just to see what was in it and there was an old journal of mine. And, just like I had remembered, there was a copy of my Patriarchal Blessing. Thank you Heavenly Father for opening the way for me to find this.

This also reminded me of another miracle that I had in the attic around Thanksgiving time. A couple of weeks prior to Thanksgiving Autumn had called and asked if I had any fabric from her “Cow Blanket” that I had made her when she was born. This was over five years ago. I did not remember seeing any of the fabric around and told her I didn’t think that I had any left. But on Thanksgiving week-end I was up in the attic doing some organizing and I decided to combine two smaller boxes of flannel into one bigger box, and there were the scraps from her cow blanket. I was so excited. Emily and I decided that I would just make up the small blanket and PJs for her doll and give them to her on Christmas.

Here she is opening her present and starting to get an idea of what it might be. Can it really be the cow fabric that Grandma said was all gone?

Autumn with her much loved and used cow blanket and baby Atticus (her doll) in the cow PJs and matching blanket.

Does Heavenly Father watch over me and bless me, YES!

On the last week of sewing classes before the Christmas break I offer a holiday project for the students to make. I play Christmas music and we just kind of have a party. Yesterday I almost forgot about all of this. It was almost time for class to start and I hadn’t made any of the preparations. Luckily I had time to put up the tree and had all the supplies I needed. Here is the tree that I put in my studio. Before I married Tom the girls and I lived in Maryland and we had a sewing room in our townhouse. One year we decided that we needed a tree in there also (it wasn’t enough to have a tree in the living room and one in the family room) and it should be decorated with sewing notions. I made the tree skirt and we made the decorations. (I am not sure how I got done all the things I did when I had two young daughters and was working full-time – I think that part of it was that I would go without alot of sleep at times. As you can see, I have struggled with moderation in things for a LONG time.)

Here is the angle made from a pair of scissors.

Thimble and bobbin used for oranments. Also the tape measures garland.

What would a sewing Christmas tree be without a hem guage ornaments.

We can’t forgot the thread…………..

or the tomato pin cushion.

And the chalk marking pencil.

What fun memories – working with my daughters

to design and make decorations for this tree.

I entered my Turkey quilt in this contest.



It’s voting time! Pick your favorite small project and large project and cast your vote. Voting will close November 28, 2008.


You can click on each of the project titles below the picture to view the full-sized photo or you can view all of the entries on one page.

Only a couple of days left to vote.

In April I purchased an I-pod and with the help of my daughters I have discovered the world of audio books. The first couple of books I listened to were in the Harry Potter series and then they suggested the Twilight series and I have been very obsessed. It has taken me a while to really get it right with copying the cds to my I-pod. With Twlight I missed copying one of the cds. When I told Emily where I was in the book she said it was one of the most important parts of the book – DON’T SKIP IT. I put it on Hold again and waited, and waited until I was able to check it out from the Library again. Once I received it I was on my merry way. I also got to the top of list for the 3rd and 4th books from the series, but was still waiting for the 2nd book in the series

The secenery pictures are from our visit to Alaska. Reminds me of how the country side was described in Twlight. Finally, the 2nd book arrived at the library just before Emily and Jennie returned home. So I waited for a couple of days to start listening to New Moon. On Sept. 25 I took Autumn down to Delaware to met up with her Grandpa from Maryalnd. I wasn’t going to listen on the way down, but she became absorded in movies on the mini DVD player, so I decided that I could start listeningt to New Moon. Having this book made it alot easier to dropped her off with her Grandpa. I just kept listening and listening the rest of that day and all day Friday. In fact, when we got home from working in the Manhattan temple and went to bed I just kept thinking about the book. I was almost finished so I got up and finished listening to the book.
At the beginning of the week I started listening to the next book in the series. I think Tom is beginning to think that the ear pieces are attached to my head and don’t come off. (But, I do make sure to take them off when I go to bed.) I finsihed Eclipse during the week and decided that I should wait until Monday (today) to start listening to the 4th book.

But………… I also thought that I should get it on my I-pod so I would be ready to start listening on Monday morning. As I was copying the CDs to my I-tunes library I gave into the temptation to see how the book starts and you guessed it, I just kept listening and listening. I have a couple of chapters to listen to this morning and will be all done.
So, Tom just left for work so I am off to listen to the end of Breaking Dawn.

Yesterday morning I realized that I had just posted my 97th post and started wondering if this number included the drafts or not. (FYI – this does included the drafts, so I am not really quite that high because I had a few posts that I never finished. So you anxious readers will have to wait just alittle longer to see what I have in store for my 100th post.) When reviewing my drafts I remember that I had never completed this post from June which was in response to where Jennie tagged me (and I bet she thinks I forgot – which I kind of did). Anyway here goes –

1. What was I doing 10 years ago?

Tom and I were married in June of 1998. We were suppose to close on our home the week before we were married. But, the renters who were living in the house at the time would not move out. So we spent the summer living in the attic of Tom’s parent’s home in the Bronx. There was no A/C, it was a very hot summer and there was only a single bed. It was a pretty interesting Summer. During part of August we did house sit for someone that lived in Scarsdale and they had A/C. I was working at a mortgage broker in Greenwich, CT. As it turned out, it was a great opportunity to gt to know Tom’s father because he passed away at the end of August that Summer. That trial really did end up being a hugh blessing in my life.

2. Five Snacks I Enjoy

Healthy or not – here goes:
1. chcoolate
2. potato chips
3. apples w/cheese
4. cookies
5. ice cream

3. Five Things On My To Do List Today:
1. Private adult sewing class
2. Do wash to prepare for our trip to Alaska
3. Charge all the batteries for our toys (i-pod, camera, mini DVD player, etc)
4. Piece three blocks for the Generation Unites quilt so I can do the embrodiery work on them on the plane.
5. Hang flyes for Children’s sewing classes and do the follow-up billing for the summer camps.

4. Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
*Hire someone to clean my house regularly.
*Make arrangements with a private jet company to have a retainer with them so that my family can fly any time they want. That way when Autumn’s wants to come and see Grandma she doesn’t have to wait so long.
*Consider moving to a larger house so that Tom could have a giant train room. This home would also have to include a great studio for me (but I do love my studio now).

5. Five jobs that I have had.

1. Children’s sewing teacher
2. Quilting teacher and lecturer.
3. Mortgage banking industry
A. Assistant underwriter
B. Lock-in coordinator
C. Loan processor
4. Receptionist
5. Organized and hosted Japanses teenage tour groups This included arranging for host families, teaching English as a Second Language classes and acting a tour guide for their stay in Colorado.

6. Five of my bad habits.

1. Eating just to be eating
2. Buying fabric just because it is a good deal.
3. Thinking I can get more done in a day than is possible.
4. Not staying on contact with Friends and family members as much as I would like.
5. Queen of the last minute!

7. Four places I have lived

1. New York
2. Maryland
3. Colorado
4. Utah
5. Oregon
6. Idaho (whoops that is six)

8. Five People I Want to Get to Know Better: A nice way of saying “Tag. You’re it!”
1. Teri
2. Renee
3. Deanna
4. Christy
5. Lurkers of this blog (please let me know if you do respond so I can read your responses.)

9. 6 Random Things:

1. I went to Japan for 6 weeks on an exchange program between my 7th and 8th grades of school. The part of Japan I was staying in had polluted water so they had to cook our fish. One week-end we went to see Mt. Fuji (which I never saw because of all the clouds) and while at a restaurant they brought out this pink slimmy looking stuff. I asked the Uncle (who spoke perfect English) if this was raw fish – his response was “When in Roman do as the Romans”, so I ate the raw fish.

2. I have made both my wedding dresses and both Emily and Jennie’s wedding dresses. Also, for a friend who called me on Monday and asked if I could help her out because the person that was going to make her dress could not do it. There was one catch – the wedding was on Saturday. Needless to say, I spent most of the week sewing wedding dress.

3. I have yet to dye my hair (this includes even when I was a teenager), but I do color by eyebrows.

4. This year I will trun 50 years old. I am busy working on finishing my UFO (unfinished objects (or quilts) for the big 50 1/2 birthday party in June 2009 where we are going to hang all my quilts and have a great afternoon. I will look forward to seeing you all there.

5. When I was five years old my father came home from the farm and told my mom that the migrants workers had left a dog with her puppies. My mom said definately not. But the next day my Dad took me to work with him and home came the puppies. It was a very hot day and on the way home we stopped by the canal and dipped each puppy in the water before going home.

6. Tom and I met over the internet. I was living in the DC area at the time. When he contacted me through LDSsingles.com and said that he loved the outdoors and camping and he lived in New York City I thought this was kind of a strange combination. But after living in New York for 10 years I understand it now.