Am I still here???

My life has gone on hyperdrive since my birthday last month. I've now become the official back-up babysitter for my sister's 2 boys. Which is taking up a fairly good amount of time. And Kendrick has hit the stage where he is testing to see how far he can get away with things..and he doesn't seem to like his little brother, so there is a LOT of hitting going on. Good thing Grayson is so laid back about it. Anyway, life is very full with this new responsibility - and I've only watched them 5 days out of the last 3 weeks - wow, it seems like it's been a lot more than that! LOL

I've also discovered the fabric/clothesline bowls craze that was going around a year ago or so. Man these things are addictive!! I made a couple for my mom and sis for Mother's Day and am now trying to build up a small stash of them to offer for sale at the yard sale we're planning to have this weekend. I currently have 3 made - hopefully at least 2 more will join the party.

I also spent today painting the living room with DH. Talk about hard work!! I was in charge of trimming the ceiling and baseboards so DH could follow with the roller....which meant I was up and down the ladder alllllll day. And did I mention we have 10 foot ceilings in our house? That's a long way up!!! The first time I went up the ladder this morning I thought I was going to have a panic attack (I have issues with heights) and DH would have to to the ceiling bits. But I finally conquered my fears and didn't look back. We now have a lovely green living room and we even got 2 coats on in one day!! All the neighbors were impressed (yes, we had to show it off to someone!).

Let's see....oh yes, I'm also working on a surprise gift for Mom for her birthday in July. I had some blue and cream log cabin blocks floating around my sewing room for years. I had originally bought the fabric to make a log cabin quilt for my little brother and his first wife. He's now on to his second wife and I never managed to finish the quilt. In fact, I only had 6 blocks made. So I got this bright idea to round out the number of blocks to 8, and sew them in 2 rows of 4 blocks to make a tablerunner. I'm going to cut the corners off to make the ends pointy and am in the process of hand quilting it now. I'm about 2/3 of the way finished with that and am still on schedule to get it to her by her birthday. And I repurposed the blue and cream fabrics to make my pineapple quilt.

I've also been working on my pink and brown Candied Hexagons quilt blocks. I've got 3 rows of blocks completed and on my design wall. I'm waiting until I get all the blocks pieced before I decide on an actual layout. In the meantime, I'm placing them in position the same way the quilt I'm following for the pattern has the blocks placed. I'll rearrange to make the colors flow right once they're all made.

I was able to get my grandmother's sewing machine fixed recently, too. Apparently the ceramic plate in the foot pedal had cracked, which made the entire machine not usable. The local quilt shop's father (a retired electrician) replaced the foot pedal for me for only the cost of the pedal. How awesome was that!

I've had another interview since my birthday rejection. And they didn't want me this time, either. My mom and sis think I need to dye my hair. I went gray really early - first one found in high school, major additions in college. I'm really starting to think they might be right...sigh...

Now that I have access to my blogger account again (I was locked out for a week or so) I hope I'll keep up with somewhat regular posts....but we'll see.

It's My Birthday..

And I'm another year older. I'd like to think I'm a little bit wiser, too, but really, who knows? I don't dare ask DH - I don't know what he'd say in response. I'm not sure I want to know! LOL

It was a very nice birthday - as birthdays go. It started with a phone call from the out-laws...a very pleasant call it was, too. Then DH took me out to dinner at my favorite restaurant with my Sister, BiL and 2 nephews. We followed that up with a visit to my Mom's house for cake and ice cream...and visiting. At about 8:00 we decided to head home and I found lots of wonderful birthday wishes on facebook and in the mailbox.

Although I did find a rejection letter in the mailbox for my latest job interview....oh well.

I can definitely say this was one birthday I enjoyed. Thank you DH and family for making it such a nice one.

Lots and Lots of Green..

I've been caught in the cross-stitch fever this past couple of months. To be specific, the Teresa Wentzler cross-stitch fever. You know I stitched her Unicorn piece throughout the last fall, followed by a quick stich of hers - You Were Hatched.. Now I'm working on her Woodland Faerie piece. You can see the entire design here.

I'm really enjoying it. Lots of green to combat all the white snow outside my window. Here is a pic of where I was on Friday last week (2/26/11).

The top section of this picture constitutes 1/6 of the overall design. Let me tell you, that flowery border section is not fun! It's the most fiddly bits of stitching I've ever done. But it is so worth it in the end.

Of all the different greens you see in this shot, you wouldn't expect me to be coming up short on any one of them. However, I'm currently 1 strand of floss away from needing a new skein of 522. I can't believe I went through an entire skein of that already! Yeesh! Good thing green is my neutral ;)

I'm hoping I'll be able to get all the 'boring' green bits done before the snows disappear for the year. Then I'll have all the interesting animals and flowers on the bottom of the design to work on throughout the spring...we'll see how successful I am. Especially considering spring and summer seem to be my season to work on quilts....I know, I'm crazy. Winter is supposed to be quilting season! Who knows...

Another Happy Dance

I finished another Teresa Wentzler design last week. This is called You Were Hatched... and was a limited release in 2000. Unfortunately, I missed it back then, but thanks to a wonderful online friend that loaned the chart to me, I was able to stitch one for myself :)

I started this on 1/16/11 and finished it on 1/27/11. I plan to finish it as an ornament for our tree next Christmas. I stitched it on a scrap of hand dyed linen I found in my fabric drawer. I am NOT a fan of linen after this project. It wasn't so much the different size fabric threads that bothered me, but the lack of oomph in the fabric. I had to really watch my tension while stitching on it to make sure I didn't distort the fabric.

We are finally dug out of the blizzard of 2011. DH, The Insane Gardener and I spent about 8 hours total digging out our driveway, our elderly neighbors driveway and a few neighbors sidewalks. In fact, DH is back out there again cleaning up what the road crews just threw back onto the sidewalks....the neighbors all call DH the crazy snowman. In fact, a couple of them are blaming the blizzard on him, as he just loves playing with his snowblower so much...too funny :)

An Honest to Goodness Happy Dance!

I haven't had a happy dance in so long, I'm not sure I remember how it goes!




I finished Teresa Wentzler's Unicorn this week and I just love it! It's a very muted piece in terms of color, especially since it's on a black fabric. I expected it to "pop" more than it does. It just goes to show you that Teresa knows what she's doing ;)

DH helped me with the photography this time, I hope it's better than my attempts have been.

It's Been A While - Again...

I know it's been a while since my last post. The only excuse I have this time is the Holidays...they just fill up the calendar so quickly!

But I have been working on something in between all the Christmas events. I've gotten Teresa Wentzler's Unicorn to the point where I can start working on the unicorn itself! I left the unicorn for last as an incentive for me to get it finished. I got the entire lower right-hand side of the piece done in the last 2 weeks.

The picture is a bit blurry, but I'm not the photographer in the house, that's my excuse and I'm sticking with it.


The next shot is of my cousin Jennifer opening gifts with my nephew Grayson. He is 6 months old in this picture and it appears he isn't very impressed with his gift! LOL Maybe next year will be a better year for him.. (He did go home with some toys, don't worry)...

This next shot is one of my other nephew Kendrick at Thanksgiving this year. He is 2 1/2 years old and this is the first time he had seen Rudolph and he was enthralled :) Oh, and those socks? Kendrick's absolute favorite thing that day. He insisted that he wear them all day - and they had to be OUTSIDE his pants, so he could see them, of course!

This last shot I took last night. I had to include it as it is just so cute. The men in my life, sacked out and snoring together. DH doesn't know I took this picture, and Felix was so tired, he didn't even turn his head at the flash. I think it is just waaaay too cute.

I realize I haven't been posting very much lately. Things in the personal world have been a little crazy for me lately, and I seem to be going for days without working on any of my projects. Thankfully, the personal world has settled down a bit and I've been able to focus on the Christmas season.

DH and I have become friendly with a couple of new neighbors that moved into our neighborhood this past fall. One is a stay at home mom with 2 little ones and a husband that works away from home all week. The other is a young couple that are seriously into horses.

We've had the young couple over for dinner a couple of times, as well as gone out to their parent's farm to watch them train their horses. I'm really considering taking riding lessons. I've loved horses since I was a teenager (what teenage girl doesn't love horses?) but have never had the opportunity to be near them. There is even the possibility of my being able to work on the farm to pay for the lessons. How awesome - considering I don't have a job yet! I've been putting it off a little bit, as I'm learning that I'm very nervous around the huge beasts. I'm used to Pips and our 4 kitties....if they step on you or kick you, it's not a big deal! The plan is for me to continue to go out there with our new friends and get comfortable with the horses, then start working sometime in the spring or summer. And then the riding lessons start :) Yay!!

Ok, I should make this stitching related in some way...I've told you that I've been trying to teach myself how to knit while I'm on this work 'vacation'....I think I'm doing pretty well :) I found a pattern for a circular afghan in a book in the library - One skein Wonders, I think - and thought it would make a lovely tree skirt. Only problem was, I had never used dpn's. I didn't even own any. So, I haunted Etsy for a couple of days, coerced DH into letting me buy a set and waited for them to show up in the mail. When they finally did, I took off. And ripped it out. And started again. And ripped it out. And started again. This is how far I've gotten on the third attempt.

I'm a little further along in the pattern than this picture shows now - and things are going along much smoother than they did in the beginning. This has actually become my go-to project when I'm watching something on TV that DH likes and I don't....I don't think it'll be finished before this year's season is over, but I'm pretty sure I'll have it done before winter is over. My only concern now is if the circular needles are long enough. I'm starting to cram stitches around it and I'm only at the half-way point...eek!

Another thing I made recently is a new pincushion. I like these little cushions for use when I'm stitching in front of the TV. They work great when I'm working on my english paper piecing projects. I gave away my last one to a young girl that wanted to learn how to sew at our quilt bee last month, so I spent a couple of evenings getting a new one made up for me. This one is about twice as big as my last one, but I like that size - you can't lose it down the side of the chair when it's bigger!

The front...

The back...

The last thing I wanted to show you is this little working wall I put together a couple of months ago. I've got a large design wall that takes up an entire wall in my sewing room, but I wanted a small one near my sewing machine, somehow I thought that would be more convenient.

DH had some odd insulation bits in the garage, so I absconded with one about the size I wanted and took it upstairs. I wrapped it in a piece of fabric I had and pinned the edges down. Then I took a few pieces of heavy duty double-sided tape and stuck it to the wall. It's working out pretty well!

And here you can see it in my sewing corner. It's pretty convenient.

Again, I'm sorry I've been so absent lately. I'm hoping things will settle down with the new year and get more normal. We'll see...