We got Snow!!!

We finally got snow. It started last night!

This was this morning:

The kids were up early this morning. Alice was the first one out!

Followed by Gordon!

Natalie couldn’t join the fun – she has caught my cold!

Alice and Gordon had a blast.  When I got up this morning at 5am or so (my cold got me up early) it had begun sleeting. It has been sleeting all day, no more snow. But they made the best of it.

But we did not just have fun – we also had an injury. Alice came in to tell me she hit herself in the head with a broom and after tending to that she turn around to go back out. She is wearing boots that are a little too big for her so she tripped on the steps. Before I could catch her she went head first rolling down the stairs. Gordon is screaming, I am flying down the stairs at super speed and Alice isn’t moving. She is laying at the bottom of the garage stairs in a ball on the concrete floor. I am freaking out, Gordon is still screaming, the dogs are barking, I swoop Alice up and she is laughing, “I’m not hurt, I’m not hurt!”. Then the pain sets in and she realizes she is hurt. Luckily the snow hat, and her coat hat protected her head, but  her knees were not so lucky. She now has purple knees.

She rested for a bit, only so I could keep an eye on her, and then she was right back out the door to play some more.

I  have been off since Thursday morning. I have really enjoyed the break. If only I wasn’t sick I think I would have enjoyed it more. I actually was able to get into the quilt room and make a table runner. I cannot show the picture because it is for my Tea Buddy from a Flickr group I belong to. I will show a little piece of it. It was done in brights, which I typically don’t do, but I actually love it. My husband actually loves it too, I am dreading telling him it is not for us.

Well I’m off  - have a great day and enjoy the snow, sleet, or sunshine if you have it!

 

Happiness in the mail!

Today was a fabulous mail day. I received goodies from all around.  Check them out!!!

Two quilting magazines came, an order I had made in October – yes October 2009 finally came, the Stitches in Time book and some over-dyed fabric. And Sharon from Liberty Rose sent me the January and February blocks from her Calendar Girls BOM. I am so excited. The fabric was meant to be used for this BOM and they came on the same day!!!!

If my allergies weren’t acting up so bad I would trace them out. I can’t stop sneezing and sniffling. I have taken a Zyrtec, 2 Benadryl, Nasonex, Advair, and some other nose stuff. I am still going at it, have been since work last night.  Every now and then my allergies flair up and this happens, numerous Benadryl usually do the trick. Gordon has gymnastics tonight so when we get home I will pop about 2-3 Benadryl and I should be fine tomorrow. Right now though I will have to live with the headache, sneezing, itching, etc. I feel like someone through sand and itch powder in my eyes and on my face. I’m sure I look about as lovely as I feel since I haven’t been able to sleep today. I know whay-whay (that was whining if you couldn’t figure that out).

All for now, think I am going to try to wash my face again – maybe it will help!!!!

Have a great rest of the day!!!

Hope

Natalie has almost finished up her poetry project. Her topic was Hope. She did such a fantastic job reviewing the poems. It is unbelievable how much she has matured.  She wrote one of the poems herself. I absolutely love it and I am so proud of her. The poems she used were "Hope" is the thing with feathers by Emily Dickinson, Bird Of Hope by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, A Rainbow of Hope by Raymond A. Foss, What is hope.... by Vineet Bansal, Hope by Melvin T, Daffodils by William Wordsworth, Hope by Sri Chinmoy, What Hope Is By Michael Carlson, Begin Again by Susan Coolidge and finally her poem:

What Hope Is To Me

Hope is the stars at night

Hope is the thing that turns darkness into light

Hope is friends that stay together

Hope is love that lasts forever

Hope is still pure when we do bad on the charts

Hope is the happiness in our hearts

Hope is the thing that puts a smile on your face

Hope is the thing that has an equal pace

Hope is the real beauty in you

Hope is the thing that makes cows go moo!

by Natalie Helms January 2010

I love the ending, it is so us. We can be serious but only to a point. I say “we” because the whole family has that same trait. I am not sure if it is a good trait or not but it works for us.

Happy Australia Day!!!!

I hope my Australian friends have a great and thankful Australia Day!!

And speaking of Australia, when I got home from work this morning I was on a mission. A new block of the month to plan. Lots of cutting":

I went through tons of blue fabrics to find the right ones to start the new free BOM by  Cheryl Goss of Willowberry Designs “Under the Sea”. I came up with these fabrics. Each background will be a different fabric. I like the three fabrics underneath with them but since I don’t know what the finished quilt will look like I will have to wait to see if I can use them.So then it was to the embroidery floss. I grabbed only four of the many cases of embroidery floss I have, I needed some sort of limit. I picked out some DMC, then went with some COSMO and right now as it stands I have a mixture of the two. I also pulled a bunch of my bright fabrics to work on some of the projects I pulled from the magazines I was telling you about. I drew out a ton of patterns from about 6 magazines and have them ready to start - I just need to pick from the fabric.  I decided to make it a little simpler I was going to just pull a bunch of fabric I liked together and make things until I use it all.I know it seems like I have been hiding lately but I am still around. I have just been working  so much I can only spend a couple minutes in my craft room everyday. I go in there like a tornado with all these ideas in my head and have to get things together as they pop up! Craziness!!!!

My friend Sharon Stewart of Liberty Rose Patterns has a new block of the month. It’s the infamous “girls” as we all call them – they are wonderful!!! Here is a sneak peek, I know you cannot see much of it but if you go to her blog www.LibertyRosePatterns.blogspot.com you can see more!!

Another day has passed and it seems I have forgotten to go to bed. I need to get ready to go get the kids from school. Have a great day and have fun stitching, quilting or whatever makes you happy!!!

 

Look what I got!!!

I received a couple magazines I had ordered in the mail. I am so excited. They are the Stuffed Summer 2009 and Winter 2009 issues. They have the cutest little dolls in them.  I was going to include pictures from the magazine but then you wouldn’t want to get your own!! They are awesome!

Have not been crafting much lately. This working 40+ hours a week puts a toll on my old body and mind. I will be 40 this year, wow that is cool. I miss my sewing and stitching. I have not even been stitching at work.  I got off this morning and hoped I was going to be able to sleep but the kids are out of school for a “teacher workday” so that did not happen.  I had so many plans for today and tomorrow since they are my only days off but now that it is here I don’t feel like doing any of them.

Let’s see my chore list is something like this:

1. Clean the house from top to bottom, you cannot move the blinds without getting a face dusting. This is bad. There were days when one could run a white gloved finger along those things and it would come out clean – I would suggest not doing this unless you are looking for some “primmed-up” gloves.

2. Wash the Chihuahua’s Thelma and Louise. They stink like dogs. I guess my excuse for not doing it could be that they are dogs so why not let them stink like dogs.

3. Collect Alice’s room from around the house. Yes my little Alice, she is the only one who did not catch my “OCD Cleanliness Gene”, this may be because by the time she was born I was losing it, the gene I mean. We have “Littlest Pet Shop” villages in every room of the house, I feel like they are moving us out.

4. Clean up the craft/quilt room. I started on this one. I did vacuum and pick up the large pieces of fabric I had thrown around. I cannot work in a messy room.

5. Grocery store, pharmacy, pet store (dogs and guinea pigs need to eat too). Alice has a $3 coupon for Toys R’ Us she wants to use – that will not go very far in that store. I don’t care for it very much, way too over priced.

6. Natalie has a project due on Monday that we will probably work on all day tomorrow. She has to do a report (for lack of a better word) on 10 poems. The subject is “Hope”, must include bibliography page, be longer than 10 lines, a paragraph on why each one was chosen, a picture for each poem chosen, and a ton of other stuff. It was assigned last week but she has spent every night working on her science fair project (which turned out wonderful – she did it one the storm surge of Hurricanes – Daddy helped her with that one so I get this one).  We wanted so much for her to be in the gifted class so she would not be bored, well she is not bored.

I on the other hand struggled in school, it was very frustrating for me, major concentration issues (now you can understand the pharmacy visit :) She gets the smarts from the hubby. I thought maybe I would learn things while my children did that I didn’t get then. Not happening!!!

7. Work out. I finally started to work out and I did not yesterday so today it needs to happen. Enough talk about that one.

I was hoping typing this out would help me to get my mind organized and ready to get moving but my Stuffed magazines are sitting here beckoning me to make some of those cute little critters. There is one by Michelle Renee Bernard (http://www.yesterdaystrashart.com) called “Little Me” that is calling my name. I have so many thrifted sweaters and the like that would look so cute on her.

I do believe my ADD is shining through on this post. Hopefully, I will be able to get some of the things done. I have learned I am not super woman, nor will I ever be.  I have also  learned not to stress about these things, which is probably part of the problem. Maybe I need to stress a little so it will get done!

Janet’s Purse

So I finished up my best buddies purse this morning after work. I really like hers much better. Maybe it is the fabric. I also put in a hard bottom and I did sew her handles down. Much better looking.

It is funny how different the color looks in the two pictures. I used Jo Morton fabrics for the entire bag. She loves Jo Morton fabrics and she loves stars so I hope she likes it. Well she has already seen it and does like it but I hope she can find a use for it. If she can’t I have found one. It holds a 3 pound 12 1/2 year old Chihuahua very well. The 5 pound type are too fast to catch, so I am not sure if they would look good in it.

By the way. I wanted to mention the Valdani floss today. Here are my thoughts. I have used Valdani floss for about 5 years. The colors are fantastic for primitive projects especially and they are colorfast. The six-strand type is great for punch needle. I use my Valdani Pearl Cotton floss for embroidery, because the six-strand tends to break. And I know I am not the only one who agrees with that, I have heard it from others. I really like the variegated colors for the punch needle because it gives your project a little more life. But again, unless I need a specific color I will stick with the DMC. I have 2 bins full of Valdani Pearl cotton so I will still be using it for a while.

I think I am going to skip the sleeping today, who needs it anyway. Janet is coming over – she got new fabric – can’t wait to see it!!!  No work for two days – yippee!!!

Redwork Quilt Block 1

Redwork Quilt Block 1
Originally uploaded by stitchin.thyme

I have decided to do a redwork quilt. The finished blocks will be 12" square, I hope. I am also testing out a floss I have not used before. Bunnyhill Designs had some six-strand Cosmo floss on clearance a little while back so I bought one of each set. I am using 2 strands of #2241 for this quilt. I will have to say I am not that impressed with it. I don't see a big difference from just using DMC. I use an average length of about 16 inches or so and I am getting a lot of shredding and fraying and breaking. For the price I do not think I will buy it again. I have only used this one color so I am not sure if the other colors are the same.
I have so much embroidery floss and several different kinds. I thought I would give my thoughts (for what they are worth) on the different kinds I have. Tomorrow I can hopefully give a review of the Valdani Pearl Cotton. I will also mention the Valdani six-strand (which I am also not impressed with - and I will give you my reasons).
For now I must get some sleep because last night at work was a little difficult, I had a bad tension headache, but I managed to make it through the night.
Have a great day and try to get some stitching done!!!

Really?

Pablo's Bath
Originally uploaded by stitchin.thyme

I am using a picture Natalie took of our little Pablo getting a bath because I am bored at work (thats a funny one, eh?). I forgot my sewing - it's 4:20 in the morning and the mad rush of phone calls stopped about 2am, I am waiting for the 5 o'clockers to start calling soon. So yes, I am bored right now.

Anyway, I browsing the internet, only those trusted sites my employer allows of course, when I come across some fabric that has a price that just blows my mind.

In the search engine I type in "sale fabric. See, I have so much fabric I have vowed not to buy anymore unless it is 5 bucks or under, so I am only looking at the sale stuff. This particular fabric is listed "on sale" not just "for sale", so the seller is trying to say this is a cheaper price than what it was.

I am not going to disclose the fabric or designer or seller, mainly because I do not want the hoards of sewers, which apparently there are, looking for this fabric to come after me for the informtation I have.
Lord knows I could use the money I would charge them for the information though.

Okay so anyway I will tell you. This fabric was $39.00 for a yard of cotton fabric. That is correct I said thirty nine dollars. What? Come again? Is someone smoking crack before they are listing or looking for fabric?

Am I being too harsh? I like fabric, no, I love fabric. I have paid a pretty penny for some Japanese Daiwabo or import fabric before, but this is insane. It is like the Beanie Baby or Web Kinz craze. Except for one thing, Beanie Babies and Web Kinz, you can keep those. The fabric, unless you are making something for yourself, it is history, so long, farewell, it is gone. And how hard would it be to cut into that stuff, I have trouble cutting in to my pretty fabric anyway, it kills me. I cannot imagine trying to cut into that. I would have to get my husband, no that would be a bad idea, I would have to get my kids to cut it for me, but then I would be too scared they would mess up. I would have to hire another quilter, who I know is a great cutter to come over and cut it for me. Which would then even raise the price of the fabric more and I would have to hope she didn't want any of the fabric herself. Oh man, this is getting difficult.

I don't know maybe I am getting "old minded," maybe it is important to have that piece of fabric that everyone else wants but can't get. At this point in my life I would definately go with a maybe not, or maybe I can get just a fat 1/8?

We Love Pigs!!

Anyone who knows our family well knows we love pigs! So I played around and made Alice and Gordon some pigs to love. After they received them, Gordon decided his needed a sister. I made his sister (putting on the wrong color legs, of course) and Alice decided hers also needed a sister. I  made a bunny but she wasn’t as accepted as the pigs. Here they are: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also made two handbags using the Indygo Junction pattern “The Crestwood.”

I made them last week, I worked in my sewing room from 6pm to 6am. I was trying to finish the one up for my friend Janet but I never finished. I just need to sew the top band to the bottom and it is done. But I am bummed. I do not like the bags. Too frilly or something, I don’t know. I also need to sew the handles to the top band of mine. I used all black and gold Jo Morton fabrics for Janets. I did not take a picture of it yet but here is mine.

Since Saturday is my only full day off from work for a while we had a nice family day. We got the Wii Fit Plus today and I am excited about trying it out. The kids are doing it right now so I will have to wait my turn. For now, I am back to the sewing room. I think I am going to work on some Valentine’s Day things. Have a great night!

It has been a long time!

Alice the bride
Originally uploaded by stitchin.thyme

It has been a long time since I have blogged. I am very disappointed with myself. As you can see we had a wedding, just kidding!! The kids had fun one day trying on my wedding dress. Funny, even Gordon got in on it. They all looked gorgeous. They decided they wanted me to try it on, I did not want to

See, the hubby and I eloped, we were buying a house and were using my VA from the military and had to be married to use it, so we decided it wouldn't hurt if we just eloped and didn't tell anyone. Well all was good until I became pregnant with Natalie, and the hubbys family said no way, you have to be married in the Catholic Church before that baby comes.

So the kids did not know I was about 5-6 months pregnant when I wore this dress. I did not want to try it on because what if it was too small, oh scary. But they insisted, and I cannot refuse those 3 adorable faces. I tried it on. They were all excited, yelling "Mommy you can still wear it." I looked like I could be walking down the isle in it, it fit perfectly.

I wanted to cry, I am the same size I was when I was 6 months pregnant! Okay so this is not a New Years resolution, this needs to be done. I have a closet full of size 4 pants/jeans I cannot wear. I probably wont see those again but at least I want to fit in my big girl jeans.

I have decided to make some changes, which is going to be hard - here come the excuses . I will begin working out again. Should not be difficult right? Well I barely have time to sleep as it is now so I am going to have to get creative. I will let you know if any work. I do not like talking about loosing weight or getting in shape. Everyone always talks about it, it is boring in my opinion, so this will be all I say on the matter, except for maybe some updates, like whether I just went out and bought more clothes. Maybe I should just cut the dress up and put it in a quilt, that is my plan for it anyway, maybe being able to still fit in it will be my motivation to start the quilt!! heehee

UPDATE: Well the other two are jealous (I, on the other hand am not so I will leave mine out) they didn’t get their pictures posted so here they are:

Sweet Nostalgia Block 4

Sweet Nostalgia Block 4
Originally uploaded by stitchin.thyme

I have finally finished up the 4th block from Dorothy Baker's free BOM Sweet Nostalgia. There are some tiny stitches in this one but goodness, it does make it beautiful. I have so enjoyed stitching these blocks up, I can't wait for the next one. Dorothy is so very talented and I feel so blessed to be part of this block of the month group!!!