Weekend Stitching

It's amazing how fast time rolls by when one isn't paying attention.  I didn't stitch on Crabby All Year last week, so no update on it for now.  (I'm filling in a big area of gray which doesn't hold my attention for very long...)  I finished up Mr. Wiseman 3 for the freestanding nativity.  He's very sparkly!

Two more wisemen and the Holy family are left to stitch up.  I'm already trying to figure out what my next church project is going to be.  Probably another Nativity.

I got a few hours of stitching in on Christmas Eve Fun.  Mostly in the trees there on the left, and the kid's jacket there in the middle.  Lots of color changes and trying to figure out what I'm going to do next.

And lastly, with Mom's help, I got the borders sewn on to my Charm Pack & Stars quilt top.  Maybe next weekend I'll be able to get it on Mom's long arm sewing machine and get it quilted up.  I want to buy a cute flannel to go on the back of it.  You can see the purple stars better in this picture.  Outside light is really the best, isn't it.

I had a few other non-stitching adventures last week, too.  The most important thing that I learned had to do with snow...

On Friday we got a late spring, heavy, wet, snowfall.  When I left Grandma's house to go to the gym, my arms were full with my gym bag, computer, purse, and what-not.  I figured that I could just throw all my stuff into the trunk of the car and then go ahead and scrape off the car.  Everything went well until it was time to close the lid of the trunk... And then two inches of heavy wet snow slid off the trunk lid and back window into the trunk and all over my stuff.  Argh!!!  I got to use my bare hands to get as much of the snow out of my trunk as I could before heading off to the gym.  By the time I got to my parents house, I pretty much had a cold cold puddle swishing around in the trunk of my car.  Bummer.  But, Hey!!! Lesson learned.  Never open the trunk to the car when covered with snow.

Weekend Stitching

Since I was mostly sewing, not a lot of stitching happened.  I did put in a few stitches on Christmas Eve Fun and here it is.

The new stitches are mostly white and peach and light purples/blue.  And I've got another bad picture.  I really need to learn how to have more patience when doing these.  Instead of the one shot and good enough.

Since I finished reading The Fellowship of the Rings, I decided to watch the movie version on Sunday as I was shredding up my last box of stuff.  Since the shredder makes a lot of noise, I turned on the subtitles and partially read the movie as well.  I enjoyed it, so much so that I put in the Two Towers when Fellowship was done with, and the subtitles went back on.  By the time I was done with the first disc of Two Towers, I was done with my shredding.  And in went disc two and I kept the subtitles on.  (I think I've grown fond of reading my TV thanks to the time spent at the gym.)  Good thing I did, too.  I think it's more aptly titled Mumbleship of the Rings.  Good grief, did anyone know how to enunciate?

Since I was watching, I threw in the last movie too.  I started around noon and finished up around midnight.  I will say that I did take time to get dinner made, and popcorn, and spent an hour on skype chatting with my sister.  I didn't feel like I'd spent the day in idleness since I did get a lot of work done on the shredding project.  One last defense is that I've never watched them back to back to back, and I think the last time I watched any of the movies was five or so years ago.

Other things I noticed as I was watching, was that I can't tell Merry and Pippin apart and why does it seem like everyone has a cleft chin?  Was that a requirement during casting?  When the movies first came out I learned a lot about how things were done since I love the behind the scenes sort of stuff.  I'd catch myself thinking, model, styrofoam blocks, shot in a squash court, Andy ripped Sean's wig off in an earlier take of this scene, only 20 or so actors and the rest is computer generated, and so on and so forth.  I need to stop learning about how things are made so I can more easily enjoy movies.  Maybe that's why I love the basic romantic comedy.  There's usually not much on the way of fight scenes, car chases, or special effects for me to ponder over and figure out how they did that.

Alright, enough rambling about movies and LotR.  I think it's time to work on Crabby All Year.

Weekend Sewing

Big HELLO! to my new followers!

Sometimes I sew.  Not often, but sometimes.  This is a project that uses three charm packs plus four fat quarters for the star bits.  It is about twin size, and I need to add the borders to it.  But that requires help from Mom.  I'll take it home next weekend and ask her to help. (Does the picture enlarge when you click on it?  I've always wondered that.)

I learned that I have serious problems when it comes to triangles.  Though you can't see it in the photo, none of my points match up.  Also the line choice doesn't have a lot of contrast, so it's hard to see where the stars actually are. (Here's a hint, they are purple with green for the non star bits.)  However, I love the line and therefore love my little quilt.  I saw some super cute flannel at a quilt store a few weeks ago.  It was pink with line drawn, cartoony, elephants on it.  Adorable!  I want to put that on the back of this.  Cozy.  Then I'll quilt it up on Mom's big 'ole long arm machine.  I wonder if she has a fun flower pantograph pattern... At least, I think that's what it's called.

I think I have enough fabric of this line stashed away for another quilt.  One that will be queen sized.  Oh, the fabric line is Eden by Moda.  I think they've quit making it.  For the queen sized quilt, I'll be making 90 blocks that are a 9 patch, and 80 blocks that are a friendship star.  More triangles on that star.  Hopefully my triangle skillz will improve.

I'm so confused about the date.  I keep thinking that it is Sunday night when it's really Saturday night.  I came back up from my parents house a day early to get the spare tv's off to their new home.  I keep thinking that I'll be off to Grandma's in the morning to take care of her during the day.  Not so, I've got all of Sunday to do whatever. 

I think next week will be the last week of shredding old paperwork and filing the keep stuff.  I just have one bankers box sized pile to go through.  After that, I guess we start packing up the knick-knacks and depersonalizing the space.  I'll have to start making a list of the next batch of big pieces that need to find new homes.  (A pair of end tables, and old church pew, a wooden plant stand w/ drawer, maybe the daybed in the loft, the consul table behind the sofa, a four drawer tall dresser...) There will also be a list of knick-knack stuff that needs to find a new home. (Any Partylite collectors our there?  I've got a plethora of Global Fusion pieces.)  I need to learn how to sell stuff on e-bay.  And e-bay terrifies me. (Don't ask.)

The thing is, there just isn't that much storage space at my parents house (except for the garage, and I know that Dad doesn't want to park his car out of the garage.)  It's nice that they are willing to take me in. Again. I kinda though this would be my forever home when I moved in five years ago.  Cursed economy.

Wee Bit 'o Me Wednesday

Alright, it's Wednesday again, and that means it's time for:

1) Scruffy or clean shaven?

Uh… I don’t understand the question.

2) What’s your favorite sundae topping?

Caramel!

3) Do you own slippers?

I have two pair.  One for my house, and one for my parents house.

4) Did you ever have a tree house?

No, but we had good imagination and built ‘houses’ in the back yard with leftover bits of pvc pipe.

5) How you do relieve stress?

Usually with exercise, but when I’m bad, I eat.

6) What’s your favorite Dr. Seuss book?

I don’t think I have one.  There are many I’ve read, and many that I haven’t.  One doesn’t really stand out in my mind.

7) Have you ever taken dance classes?

Yes.  At BYU and again at SUU.  I was the girl who never had a dance partner.

8) Which do you use more: the thesaurus or the dictionary?

Hmm…  tough call as I don’t really use either.  I used the thesaurus more when I used to write more than I do now.

9) What’s your favorite form of exercise?

I like the elliptical machine.  Less stress for my knees and I can move faster on it than a treadmill.

10) What’s the longest you’ve ever waited in line?

Hmm… I don’t have a real idea… probably in like for a ride at an amusement park, but I don’t have any idea how long that would have been.  Oooh, there was that time when my roommates and I at BYU got in line at noon for a midnight showing of Monty Pythons search for the Holy Grail.  There was probably something much better I could have been doing with my time…

Midweek Crabby Update

We'll start with a picture of Crabby All Year.  I've given it lots of time this week, and I'm worried that I won't get this block done, this week.  I must be one of the slow stitchers.  There is so much fill around the tax form and I'm tired of the blue-grey color already.  Bah Humbug! 

Sorry about the non excellent photo.  I just put it down on the sofa here and took the picture.  Tonight is stitchy-crafty night with some of my girlfriends.  I'm going to take this along to work on.

Here's something I'm more excited about.  I received my fabric for Lizzie*Kate's Halloween Rules from Sassy's Fabbys on Monday.  Lauren was so sweet to write a note that said both of the fabrics were dyed in the same lot, but the opalescent fabric dyed darker.  Here they are side by side:

I love love love love love how the opalescent fabric took the color and wish the non opalescent fabric looked the same... But not enough to bother sending it back for a re-dye.  The non opalescent fabric is for a mini halloween rules that I think I'll stitch up for my SIL's for their 2012 Christmas present.  The opalescent fabric is for my full version.  I've been debating on whether to let the SIL's decide on which rules they want, or just choose for them.  Maybe if I let them choose it'll add variety to the project when I start working on it.  Here's a bigger bit of the opalescent fabric, just 'cause I like it so very much.  The color here is a bit more grey than the fabric actually is.

I picked up a copy of Healthy Cooking magazine by the folks at Taste of Home the other day.  On the cover is a picture of bacon chicken alfredo.  It looks soooo yummy.  I need to split up the batch of chili I made the other day into individual portions and freeze them so I have room in the fridge for leftovers.  I'm feeling inspired again to try to cook something new.  I do hope it turns out better than the gnocci experiment!

I don't know about you, but I'm having the darnedest time adjusting to daylight savings time.  This spring forward thing is just not my friend.  It'll be about 2 in the afternoon and I'm ready for a nap.  We had a storm roll in last night, and the wind shook the house and rattled the bathroom vents.  I didn't get much sleep for the noise.  I got up in the middle of it an went downstairs into the craft room, puttered around putting things away and fondling stash.  It feels like a day to read and not so much stitch.  I'm pretty sure the frog will pay a visit if I try to stitch today on four hours of sleep.

Speaking of reading, I finished up The Fellowship of the Rings last night before I tried to get some sleep.  Maybe I'll get the dvd's of the movie out and give it a watch when I sit down to do the next bit of shredding/sorting/filing on the house clean-out.

Oh hey... It's Wednesday, isn't it. I guess I'll wander over to Leigh Ashely and get the Wee bit 'o me questions and answers up.

Crabby and Weekend stitching update.

I finished up the third block for Crabby All Year right on time.  I didn't get to start on the fourth block, so I've got lots to do on it this week.  This week is Stitchy-Crafty Night, so I can take it with me and stitch a bit more on it on Wednesday.  It's looking quite nice thus far:

I'll save the buttons to sew on at the very end of the project.  They get too much in the way of the hoop.

As per usual, I headed for my parents house Friday afternoon.  Along the way I stopped off at the bank and then had my car serviced.  It was time to change the oil and rotate the tires.  Spa day for the car.  No one was home when I got there.  They'd all gone to a wedding of a cousin down in Arizona.  I wished I'd been able to go, as I love seeing Mom's side of the family, plus there's an awesome cross stitch shop about 5 miles from Grandma and Grandpa's house.

I got a little sidetracked and didn't even get Christmas Eve Fun out to work on!  I didn't touch it at all!  I did put in a couple of hours on Wiseman 3 on Sunday.  He's now got his cape partially on, a beard, a face and hands.  It might take a week or two more to get him done.  Sooooooo many beads and color changes.  Here he is:

On Saturday, I noticed that my neighbors were in the process of moving out.  They had a good job opportunity come up several hours south of here and mom and kids had been splitting time between here and there.  So I got out my Mom's baking stuff and made a batch of chocolate chip cookies for them.  I figured everyone would appreciate a bit of a snack after all the moving, carrying, hauling, and packing.  I did change up the cookies a bit.  Instead of putting in chocolate chips, I chopped up some of those new Reese's mini peanut butter cups.  You can find them in the candy aisle and not the baking aisle.  The cookies turned out very good and were well received.  Next time I bake them with the pb cups, I'll cut down on the salt that I add to the dough.  The cookies were a bit too salty, but not enough to dissuade you from eatting a dozen in a sitting.  I kept 6 and gave the rest to the neighbors.  I didn't even bother to take a picture.

Sunday after church, I packed up and headed back to my house.  Once there, I started a batch of chili from the recipe I posted in February.  It turned out yummy.  I also baked a few cornbread muffins from a Jiffy mix.  Those are pretty good for 47 cents a box.  While the chili cooked, I worked a bit on getting the house ready to sell.  I packed up a tv and a dvd/vcr player to give to a friend who can use them.  The other tv will wait until my friend and hubby come to pick them up.  It's just too big for me to handle all on my own.  I'll be left with one tv, and that is plenty.

My house is in an awful, awful state right now.  Shredded bit of paper in drifts on the floor (where they fell when I was trying to empty the shredder into a garbage bag), Christmas stuff that is partially still up and partially put away, and boxes for my knick-knacks to be put away.  Basically my closets are empty and what was in the closet is strewn about the house.  It's depressing, really.  I spend the one or two hours a day I have there trying to get things organized.  I think I might need some help with that mess.  Any volunteers?

My silly way to motivate me to keep on the exercise/eat right path worked out well the first week.  I met my goal of  exercising 5 days a week and eating right 7 days a week.  I even exercised a sixth day!  Too keep track of my 'earnings' I made a fake account in my Quicken and added 'money' as I earn it.  Yes, I'm a crazy past accountant.  To add to the crazy, I found my chart that details the mileage to walk from Hobbiton to Rivendell.  Yes, I'm a bit of a Lord of the Rings geek.  I enjoyed the movies, and love the books.  So I made up a nice chart in Excel so I can track my mileage better.  I am now walking through the woods on my way to Old Man Willow and Tom Bombadills house. (Since I'm reading the books right now too... The fellowship has just come out of Moria.)  If I had time, maybe I'll dig my copy of the movies out and give them a watch when I get to the end of the first of the books.  Maybe.

Wee Bit 'o Me Wednesday

1) What color is your kitchen?

It’s yellow, just like the rest of the house, with white appliances.  I’m so far behind the times in that I don’t like black or stainless steel appliances.

2) Do you have a good luck charm?

I don’t.

3) Do you prefer to write with a pen or pencil?

A pen.  A purple pen if I’m really lucky to have one around.

4) Can you use chopsticks?

I can, so long as the object isn’t slippery or round.  I’d say I’m an advanced novice.

5) Do you prefer baths or showers?

Showers for getting clean, baths for relaxing.

6) What is your favorite salad dressing?

Good old classic Ranch Dressing.  But it has to be the right one, I don’t like the taste of some of them.

7) Can you sing the alphabet backwards?

No.  Why would I want to?

8) Do you have any allergies?

Most plant pollens plus dogs and cats.  No serious allergies that pose a threat to life, though.

9) Crunchy or creamy peanut butter?

Creamy peanut better.  I’ve had the peanuts in  crunchy peanut butter go rancid because I don’t eat it that often.

10) Have you ever hitch hiked?

No.  And (knock on wood) I never will.

That was fun!

Weekend Stitching

I worked pretty good on Christmas Eve Fun this past weekend.  I'm now onto the lower half of the pattern!  Yaaaay!  Unfortunately there are tons of color changes.  I think I spend almost as much time staring at the pattern trying to decide what color to stitch on next as I do actual stitching.  Here it is:

I also put a few more stitches in on Mr. Wiseman 3.  It was mostly beads, and that goes much slower than regular stitching.  I only work on this for an hour or two on sunday while at church.  This week I ended up with a few little girls sitting around me watching as I put the beads on.  They were cute and I was amused by the questions they asked.  I've thought about teaching them how to stitch with some simple patterns.  Maybe I'll continue to think on it a little bit.  Anyway, here's Wiseman 3:

I know this has nothing to do with stitching, but I think I've finally come up with a non-food reward system for meeting my daily calorie intake and exercise goals.  Two things, actually.  If I meet my goals I get an addition to my cross stitch budget for the month (yay!) or I get to buy something I want at Target. (Have I mentioned that I love Target?)  I'm thinking of something in the $5 range a week to make reaching the goal worth while.

I'm working most evenings on getting all my old paperwork and bills either shredded or filed.  The first in many steps to getting the house ready to sell.  This is major in that it will eventually clear out the corner of my dining room where I had stacked some bankers boxes and just threw mail and paid bills into.  As I go through stuff I'm amazed at the amount of junk mail that I never bothered to open or throw out when it came in the house.  Think how much better it would have been if I'd just delt with the junk mail when it first came into the house!

We got a pretty good snow storm last night.  About six inches over night.  I was down to the gym for a session with my trainer when it started snowing.  When I left the gym an hour and a half later I got to scrape 2 inches of snow off of my car.  Ugh.  I didn't have any gloves so my hands were good and cold by the time I got in the car and was ready to roll.  Next up, it was a typical snow commute home.  Very very slow with a handful of idiots going too fast thrown in.  It can be a bit stressful driving in those conditions and I was looking very much to getting home and having some dinner.  It took about an hour and a half to go those 25 miles from the gym to get home.  And when I did... some one was parked in my assigned covered spot!  Are you kidding me!?  I must admit that as this point I was very very angry.  Snow, commute, more snow, stress... and some one has parked in my spot.  So I had to park out in the uncovered visitor parking, with it still snowing.  I left them a note: "In the future, please refrain from parking in my assigned spot.  Thanks."  They left a few hours later (I kept checking) and then I got to dig my car out from it's snow blanket again and move it to my spot. Grrrrr.

Okay, whine off.  I'm going to work on Crabby All Year now. (Yay!)

Crabby Update

As promised last night, here is an update to my Crabby All Year project.  My goal this week was to get the second square done and as you can see I'm well on my way to getting next weeks square done.  I should put the computer down and work a few minutes on stitching instead of that darn Farmville game.

Looking pretty good, if I do say so myself!

TUSAL - Mar 4, 2011

This months interpritation of a TUSAL Jar is titled: TUSAL with Christmas Cactus and African Violets.

Amazingly enough, those african violets are about the only plants in the house I can keep alive.  The cactus is a recent addition, so we have yet to see how I do with it.

I'm really pleased with the progress I've made with shredding my old documents.  I haven't been able to do much on it the past couple of days as I had to get groceries last night, and tonight I stayed late with Grandma so my Aunt could attend the funeral of a dear friend of hers.  I have also found a home for both the 19" and 27" old school tv's and a dvd/vcr player.  Yaaaaaay!  Now I just need to dig the boxes for the tv's out and get them packed up for transport to their new home... and that will involve some major digging in the closet under the stairs.

And somewhere along the line I totally forgot about a Wee bit 'o me on Wednesday.  Oops.  I think I was occupied with stitching on Crabby All Year.  I'll have to remember to get an update of it for tomorrow.

Crabby Progress

I've been putting in some serious time on this piece.  Now that it's higher up in rotation I'm feeling pretty good about getting it down in time for Christmas.  The goal is to complete a block a week, and as you can see, I'm well on my way to getting the block for this week done.

For my stash budget for March, I bought the linen to stitch L*K's Halloween Rules from Sassy's Fabbys.  I was having a hard time trying to decide what order to go about buying the stuff and decided to buy the patterns last.  That way I can start right in on it as soon as I get the patterns, no waiting for another month to order flosses or fabric or what not.  I ordered a little extra fabric so I can stitch the top border portion for my SIL's for next Christmas. (Planning too far ahead, maybe?)

In other, random goings on, it's come time to get my house on the market.  Therefore it's time to get my house ready for market.  (Can there possibly be a worst time to put a house on the market??) I've been shredding a lot of old old old bills and papers and such.  Partially because I don't want to move them again, and partially because I need the closet space that they have been taking up for storing stuff I need to keep.  I'm hoping next week, or so, to get all my pretty knick-knacks put away.  I'm starting to make a list in my mind of things I need to send to charity, or maybe sell, or give away.  Is anyone in need of a couple of old school tube tv's (Two 27 inches, One 19 inches.), a pair of bar stools, a small 1940's era night stand, and perhaps a treadmill?  Locals only! I'm not shipping tv's around the world!  I'm sad to say that my stash is small enough to need no clear out... Or maybe that's a good thing!