Crafty Corner

Stashbusting 2012 - Week 5

2012-01-29T16:23:00.000-05:00

Not a whole lot of sewing got done this week. Work is very busy and most nights I didn't get home until about 6pm (I get to work around 7:15am). Friday night I didn't get home until 6:30pm...yuck!

However, I did get some sewing done this week. I'm still working on the yellow/pink string block's for Bonnie Hunter's Orca Bay quilt. I've completely worked through this pile of strings and had to cut more.

This is the picture from last week, but I wanted to include it again for the type of blocks being made. These strings end up at 5.5" square, then you cut them on the diagonal, perpendicular to the lines of strings.

Since I did sew and had to cut more strings, I ended up using a little bit of stash. I'm purposely making this entire quilt from stash to see how it goes. Most of the fabrics are from a FQ pack that I received for Christmas last year, but I've had to throw in some other fabrics to supplement the amount of fabric. I think it will look really neat in the end...or at least I hope so!

Here's the numbers:
Added This Week:       0 yards
Added Year to Date:    0 yards
Used This Week:         0.84 yards
Used Year to Date:      4.52 yards
Net Year to Date:        -4.52 yards

I'm still in the black...although that won't last much longer. I am planning a quilt right now to fit as a wall hanging in our foyer. Since its a specific quilt (a lone star) and it needs specific colors, I'll be buying fabric in the next week or two. It will probably be around 8-9 yards of fabric just for the top. But at least I can say that I go all the way through January in the black. :-)

Stashbusting 2012 - Week 3 & 4

2012-01-22T10:18:00.000-05:00

I forgot to post my stash report for last week, so I get a somewhat "boosted" stash count for this week since its really two weeks. I have been doing some sewing, but not a ton. Work has been crazy busy. The amount of work we have should be done by 3 times the number of people we have, so its been hectic to say the least.

Among a few other projects, I've been slowing making progress on Bonnie Hunter's Orca Bay Mystery. Here's my pile of yellow and pink strings for step 4.

And a few string blocks made and cut...

I also put binding onto a small quilt that I had started last year. I'm not going to show pictures of it until I've washed all the marks out of it though.

So here are the numbers:

Added This Week:       0 yards
Added Year to Date:    0 yards
Used This Week:         1.89 yards
Used Year to Date:      3.68 yards
Net Year to Date:        -3.68 yards

* minus means I've used more than I've bought

First Real Snowfall

2012-01-13T09:09:00.000-05:00

Here we are in the middle of January and we're JUST starting to get snow. This year has been a very mild winter in upstate NY, which I have to say, I'm glad its been easy and mild. I'd rather have snow just starting now than already being under several feet of snow. My husband (a snowboard enthusiast) is not quite as happy.

We had our first real snowfall of the year yesterday and here's some pictures of the house. It was very pretty with the clean white snow everywhere. The guys hadn't come to plow the driveway yet, so the only thing to "mar" the snow was the tire tracks from my husband's car.

I like the red siding of the house even more with the snow surrounding the house. The only thing we have to figure out is a better way to keep our wood pile dry. On the left side of the porch, you can see our wood pile covered with snow. This is just a "temporary" wood pile for keeping it a little dryer and easier to get to when we're burning wood. To the right of the house (not in the picture) is our real wood pile that has LOTS of wood and is covered by a tarp.

Stashbusting 2012 - Week 2

2012-01-08T17:27:00.000-05:00

This is going to be a quick post since I'm in the middle of making dinner (roast pork, cinnamon apples, rice, and roasted broccoli), but I did get some sewing done this week. I finished up part 2 of Orca Bay from Bonnie Hunter. I'm very far behind most people, but I'm enjoying making the quilt and doing some things that I don't normally do. I also started on part 3 of Orca Bay, so I used fabric for both of those things..

Here are my numbers:
Added This Week:       0 yards
Added Year to Date:    0 yards
Used This Week:         0.39 yards
Used Year to Date:      1.86 yards
Net Year to Date:        -1.86 yards

Doing well...haven't bought anything yet and I may not have to this year. Most of the projects I have lined up are ones that I bought fabric for in years past.

Stashbusting 2012 - Week 1

2012-01-01T08:52:00.000-05:00

A new year...a new stash busting attempt. This year, I'm actually starting out on the good side. I used about 1.5 yards of fabric in the last week for Bonnie Hunter's Orca Bay Mystery quilt and since I haven't bought anything... :-) I'm in the black for once, which I'm sure will probably change.

Here's the stash numbers for 2012:
Added This Week:       0 yards
Added Year to Date:    0 yards
Used This Week:         1.47 yards
Used Year to Date:      1.47 yards
Net Year to Date:        -1.47 yards

* minus means I've used more than I've bought

Hopefully I can continue this trend for a little while.

Stashbusting 2011 - Week 52

2011-12-25T08:00:00.018-05:00

I think this is the last stash-busting report of the year, but I'm writing this early since Sunday is Christmas day.

I have been able to do some sewing the past few weeks and completed a project and almost completed step 1 of Bonnie Hunter's Orca Bay Mystery quilt.

Here's a table runner I recently completed:

And here's the progress on Orca Bay:

I have all 224 QSTs made at this point, although the picture above only shows 122 of them.

Here's the stash numbers for 2011:
Added This Week:       9.72 yards
Added Year to Date:    53.61 yards
Used This Week:         4.87 yards
Used Year to Date:      40.92 yards
Net Year to Date:        12.69 yards

I would almost be in the black for the year, but I bought fabric for the table runner and because it was on sale and the end of bolts...I bought more than I probably should have. ;-) Oh well...it all works well for stash next year.

Christmas Table Runner

2011-12-22T08:19:00.000-05:00

I decided to make a table runner for Christmas this year. Originally, I was going to make place mats, but Rich doesn't like place mats, so I changed things a bit and went with a table runner. This is my own design and I did the quilting with my Bernina (DSM).

Binding Tutorial - Perfect Corners

2011-12-20T13:01:00.000-05:00

Earlier this year, I took a quilting class (even though I already knew how to quilt and bind a quilt) and learned a new technique for getting the corners of binding JUST right. Hopefully the pictures and text will be good, as this is the first time I'm trying to do something like this.

First, you want to start out machine stitching your binding to the quilt top. The example I have below is for a double-fold binding where I cut the strips at 2.5" wide. My seam allowance is a little more than a 1/4" as I wanted the binding to be really full. However, this technique works for any size binding...any seam allowance (and no math involved).

So line up your raw edges of your fabric to the raw edge of the quilt and start stitching with the desired seam allowance.

As you get closer to the corner, you'll want to stop stitching to setup for stitching to the corner. Now, most binding tutorials have you measure from the corner back towards your needle and make a mark to define where to stop stitching. The distance from the corner is the width of your seam allowance. The way this technique works is that before you get to the corner, stop stitching. Take your folded binding and fold it straight up towards your walking foot. You'll want the folded edge of the binding at the edge of the corner of the quilt.

Next, while holding your binding folded upwards towards your walking foot, fold the binding again at a 45-degree angle towards the left. Take a look at the picture below. I've placed a pin in the folded section to help hold it in place while taking a photograph. You should be able to see the folded piece that makes the 45-degree angle.

Next, while holding the binding in place, start stitching again and stitch as close as you can to that 45-degree line. When I get within a stitch or two of the fold, I usually stop the foot pedal and I manually advance the machine with the hand-wheel. I haven't had the needle catch the fold yet, and I hope it never does! :-) The picture below will show how close I get to the folded section.

Because we stopped EXACTLY where the 45-degree angle was, we automatically stop at a distance that's the same as our seam allowance from the edge of the quilt. It works EVERY time. I've tried it with up to a 1/2" seam allowance and I still got a perfect corner.

Once you get to the folded section, lift up the pressure foot and let the folded piece go straight again. Back-stitch with your needle to secure the stitches and cut your threads.

Next, fold your binding upwards like the picture below. This is how you "normally" do the binding corner.

Once its folded upwards on the 45-degree angle, you can fold the binding straight down towards you. The raw edge of the binding should be lined up with the raw edge of the quilt. Here's a close-up of the corner. I usually use some straight pins to hold things in place until I start stitching.

Finally, start stitching again by placing your needle in at approximately the location where the 45-degree angled piece starts underneath. It doesn't matter if you're a little over it, but I've found that if I start stitching from the edge, it makes it hard to turn the binding when I hand-sew it to the back.

Hopefully this was easy enough to follow. If anyone does run into problems (or has questions), feel free to contact me.

Quilting Updates - Orca Bay

2011-12-20T08:58:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since I posted anything quilt-worthy. We've been busy with work and with getting the house settled in, plus with Christmas fast approaching, we've been spending quite a bit of time doing prep-work for Christmas (shopping, wrapping, cards, etc.).

I have been sewing a bit though. A few weeks ago, I posted here about joining a mystery quilt being run by Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville. I'm WAY behind the steps that are released, but I'm working away at step one. For step 1, I need 224 quarter square triangles (QSTs) that are at 2.5" square. When they are actually sewn into the quilt they will be a mere 2" in the overall design. These are TINY! :-)

Here's 122 of them sewn and trimmed to size:

Here's the first four I made. I wanted to make sure I was getting the size right before I did a whole bunch.

Here's about 30 more blocks ready to be sewn. These will end up with 60 QSTs once they are sewn and cut apart.

These piles are the next pairs of fabrics to make the QSTs. I think I have enough blocks to make the full 224 that I need. I'm not exactly sure since I was confident I had all of them the first time and ended up with only 122....exactly half. I think this set will put me close to the end. I may have to cut an few squares to get the full 224. Then on to step 2.

Human 101

2011-12-09T10:01:00.000-05:00

In the new house, we have one of these....

....a wood-burning fireplace.

Shortly after we moved in, we tried out the fireplace.....

....and failed Human 101. :-)

Rich had an awful time lighting the fire. Heck, we couldn't even get the stupid paper to light properly, how did we think the wood would catch fire. It eventually did catch, but it was a very smoky fire and all-in-all a poor fire. Precisely 2 hours after starting it...all the smoke detectors in the house went off. Argh!

After thinking about it a while, we thought maybe it was poor because it was a warm day out and maybe we didn't get a proper draft up the flue. So we decided to try another fire on a colder weekend.

Fire #2....decent fire, but still not great. We were able to light it up fairly well, but it was still smoky and 2 hours later, the smoke detectors went off.

Let me tell you....smoke detectors are VERY loud in a house where there's lots of hard surfaces and no rugs down yet because the sealer on the wood floors still needs to fully cure.

Fire #3....we finally got it right...I think we may have passed Human 101 this time. ;-)

We had called the fireplace store and they recommended lighting two pieces of newspaper right up by the flue first and get that heated up. It was amazing...as soon as the flue was warmed up, you could hear a roaring sound start and it was just all the air rushing up the flue. It would have scared the heck out of me if I didn't know it was going to do that.

This fire was very good and was a very hot fire. Definitely nice and toasty considering it was close to freezing outside. Plus, we were burning with cherry wood - yummy smells!

The only downside so far with the fireplace is that we've determined that every time the blower on the fireplace runs (yes, even though its a wood burning fireplace, it has a rheostat that turns on a fan to blow the hot air around the room), the smoke detectors go off. If we purposely leave the fan off, smoke detectors are quiet. We're having the fireplace guys come take a look at some point because its kind of irritating that we can't use the blower on the fireplace, but the fireplace itself is very nice and cozy.

I'll share some pictures when we get cleaned up a bit and get the Christmas tree up....hopefully this weekend.

Mystery Quilt

2011-12-06T14:50:00.000-05:00

Bonnie Hunter over at Quiltville is having another of her Mystery Quilts. This time its called Orca Bay based upon a recent trip to Alaska.

While I haven't ever done one of Bonnie's mysteries, they always intrigued me. Despite the fact that I don't really have a ton of time to quilt, I decided to try this mystery. I'm still working on part 1, but I'm excited about this quilt. Its a "smaller" one of Bonnie's designs, so maybe I'll actually finish it.

Most people are up to step 3 and while I have looked ahead a bit, up to step 3 its still just piecing individual blocks. If I see a step that starts to get into assembly, then I don't plan on looking at it.

So far on part 1, I have made 4 QSTs that are 2.5" square. I have the pieces cut to make the remaining 220 QSTs, and have half of them marked. I hope the string piecing in part 2 goes a little faster than part 1. QSTs always seem to take a while, especially when you have to mark the pieces twice because I don't have the companion or easy angle rulers that would make it faster.

I'll post some pictures later this week once I get a few more QSTs made.

All Moved In...

2011-11-30T08:01:00.000-05:00

We're pretty much all moved into the new house now. While there's still a lot of thing to do for unpacking and getting everything sorted out, we are officially living at the new house. The first week in the house was very "interesting" though.

When we did our walk-through on the 18th, we found out that the plumber moved the fridge to put the water line in, but wasn't careful and ended up scratching the hardwood floors. The builder found that unacceptable, so he wanted it fixed. The only problem was that you couldn't just blend that area...they had to re-sand and re-stain the entire kitchen AND dining room wood floors. Then they had to re-apply all 3 coats of poly. So on Saturday the 19th, we were able to move boxes into the basement, but we couldn't get to the kitchen, dining room or family rooms. They were also staining the handrails upstairs, so we couldn't go upstairs either....very frustrating.

However, by Monday morning, they had the floors re-stained and covered them with protective paper so the movers could put furniture into the family room. The movers were wonderful and did a great job with the furniture and with making sure they didn't damage anything in the house. It was really nice staying our first night in the house. The only problem was that the hardwood floor guy was supposed to show up Monday evening to do the 1st coat of poly....but he never showed. We finally went to bed around 9:30pm and were exhausted.

Unfortunately, we were woken up at 5:45am the next morning because the hardwood floor guy showed up. Even though the builder told him we were moving in, he didn't quite grasp the fact that we were actually going to be staying there. So by 6am Tuesday morning, we didn't have access to our kitchen again. Grrr! I was hoping to at least get some tea or coffee made that morning before people started showing up.

We ended up spending Tuesday night at Rich's parents because the smell of the poly was getting to us and its hard to stay in a house when you don't have access to food. The hardwood floor guy put all the final coats of poly down on Tuesday and Wednesday morning and we were finally able to get to the kitchen on Wednesday evening (around 9pm).

Since then, we've really enjoyed being in the house. There's a lot of work to do to get things unpacked, but its good to be in the house. There's still a few things left that the builder has to finish, but it isn't preventing us from being able to live in the house.

As soon as things are cleaned up a bit, I'll share some pictures. :-)

Almost there!!

2011-11-17T10:38:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow is the day!!!!

We're scheduled to close on the house at 1pm tomorrow. I haven't been over to the house this week with the exception of Monday evening. I'm trying real hard not to go over after work mainly because I kind of want to be surprised when everything is done on Friday.

Not everything will be 100% done tomorrow, but it will be enough that we can get the certificate of occupancy. The yard won't be seeded until next year as its too cold now to do it. Plus, the front doors need to be re-ordered and stained because they accidentally used the wrong stain on the doors the first time. They tried to strip it and re-stain, but the 2nd stain came out looking very blotchy. So we will get new doors in about 2-3 weeks time, but for now, we'll be able to move in with the existing doors.

One of the pendant lights over the island also won't be finished until next week. Its a low-voltage LED light and the transformer in it was bad. So we currently have 2 lights installed and the 3rd will get installed once the new transformer arrives.

The big plus is that all the appliances are installed...including the dishwasher! Our old house had a dishwasher, but our rental did not. After washing dishes by hand for the past 6 months, I can't wait to have that dishwasher back again! While washing dishes isn't too terribly hard and I don't mind doing it occasionally or washing pots/pans that don't go in a dishwasher, its terribly frustrating to have to hand wash EVERYTHING.

Let's see.... what else.... the sewing/quilting stuff is all packed up again. Everything is in boxes again and ready to move. It will take a while to unpack things, but I'm hoping that with my husband having to go to the doctor's one day next week that I'll have that day where I can unpack my quilting stuff. :-) I'll have an entire room dedicated to my sewing, which will be a first for me. There's nothing too awfully special about the room, just a standard bedroom, but its just for me! I was able to pick a very happy yellow color for the room. The builder even put in a dedicated line for the iron. :-) Our last place, while it was only built in 2004, had issues when the iron kicked on. The iron was a new one, but whenever it kicked on, the lights would dim in the room. Very frustrating. So I have a dedicated electrical line in the new room such that the lights won't be affected by the iron.

Anyway - only one more day and the house will be ours!! :-)

Stashbusting 2011 - Week 46

2011-11-13T19:49:00.000-05:00

Not a ton of quilting this week, but I did get the final borders onto a "Labyrinth" quilt. This quilt was made completely from stash. I'm also hoping the backing will be from stash, too.

When I make quilts, I also keep some 2.5" squares handy and make them into 16-patch blocks. I plan to make another queen-sized quilt out of the scraps. So far I have 56 blocks of 99 to make the middle section (before borders). Definitely well on my way... :-)

I won't have much sewing over the next two weeks as we close on our house and move-in in less than a week. I'm so excited about the new house and I'll post some new pictures once we get moved in. I want the pictures to be the "finished" look.

So here's my numbers:

Added This Week:       0 yards
Added Year to Date:    43.89 yards
Used This Week:         2.14 yards
Used Year to Date:      36.05 yards
Net Year to Date:        7.83 yards

Stashbusting 2011 - Week 44

2011-10-30T13:38:00.000-04:00

Thankfully the storm that was predicted to hit us hard ended up being a little easier. Places to the east of us in the mountains got hammered! The ski resorts will be happy though. :-)

We ended up with about 2 inches of the white stuff. This is a picture out my sewing "area" windows early this morning (around 8am). The snow was very pretty. At this point (1:30pm), the snow is pretty much gone. It will definitely be gone later this week since we're supposed to have several days at 50F.

I also got some sewing done. That's one good thing about storms...it makes us stay in and I don't feel guilty about spending an afternoon sewing. :-)

I was able to put two borders onto the Labyrinth quilt top. I still have one more border to go, so I'll have some more stash busted for next week. Here are my numbers:

Added This Week:       0 yards
Added Year to Date:    43.89 yards
Used This Week:         3.66 yards
Used Year to Date:      33.91 yards
Net Year to Date:        9.98 yards

So close to breaking even this year! Just another 10 yards!

Wait just one minute.....

2011-10-28T14:44:00.000-04:00

Its not even November yet and we've had 1.6" of snow on October 27th and we're forecast to get another 2-4" on October 29th!

I need to get my snow tires on ASAP! Who would have thought that we'd potentially get 6" of snow before Halloween. This is insane. I guess its going to be a snowy winter...too bad we will have a 700 ft driveway to clear. :-(

Snow!

2011-10-28T08:02:00.000-04:00

We actually did get some snow yesterday. This graphic from News 13 in Albany is as of 11pm last night. I think we actually got a little more than 1.0" in our area. I'm located a little bit above the 1 in the 1.0" and a little to the left of it. We probably had close to 2" of snow on the ground this morning.

I wasn't happy about having to scrape my car off either. At least I was able to find the scraper and my gloves this morning. I even started my car about 5 minutes before I actually was ready to leave...hoping that it would warm up enough that I wouldn't have to scrape. Not so...but it did help loosen up the ice on the windows.

For the 8 years I've been in Albany, this is the earliest I've seen it snow and actually stick. Usually we'll get some snow flakes in the air before Halloween, but nothing that actually accumulates on the ground.

We're also expecting another storm to come up the coast tomorrow and depending on its track, we could get even more snow. I have a feeling its going to be a snowy winter!

Four letter word in the forecast....

2011-10-26T08:32:00.000-04:00

Yuck....a big four letter word is in our forecast this week....

SNOW!!!!

We're located in one of the 1-3" ranges, but still....snow before October?

We've had enough rain this year...if this keeps up, its going to be a VERY snowy winter.

Recent Quilt Pattern Purchases

2011-10-25T15:39:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago, I received the latest and greatest catalog from Keepsake Quilting. It has a beautiful Block of the Month (BOM) program for a quilt pattern called "Taos". I loved the quilt! However, I didn't love the ideal of spending close to $300 on a BOM program. While the colors are fabulous, I just didn't want to spend that much on fabric when I know I could get the fabric cheaper at other locations. The problem was...the catalog only sold the BOM with the fabric. No pattern only option! :-(

So what's a girl to do?

Yay for the internet! I was able to find the designer for the pattern (Chris Hoover) and was able to contact her directly. She works with a quilt shop local to her and they were going to be selling her pattern by itself (no fabric with it). Yay! It took a few hours for them to update their online store, but update it they did and I know have my very own copy of the pattern.

Here's the pattern called "Taos" and if you're interested, please go to Gruber's Quilt Shop and you can purchase it there.

Of course, while I was on the site I couldn't help but notice a few other patterns. ;-) Since I was purchasing patterns anyway, I might as well get an extra or two since I was paying for shipping anyway. So the others I picked out are....

Blueberry Hill

Stacks3

Walden Woods

I'm thinking I should have also done this one...Texas Star, but I guess that will wait until next time.

So I have lots of quilt patterns to make (somehow that's never a problem), and not enough time to make the quilts...nor places to put them.

I won't be doing a ton of sewing over the next few weeks as its 3 weeks and 3 days to closing on the new house. I'm hoping to get a few projects semi-wrapped up in the next two weeks (finishing the flimsy for Labyrinth and pin basting the beginner sampler quilt I made earlier this year). After November 11th, I think the sewing is going to be on hiatus until we move, which is November 21st.

I'll still be doing some needlepoint, but it will take a little while to get the sewing room packed up and then unpacked once we get to the new house. Plus, there will be all the other unpacking to do, so it may be a while before I can get back to sewing. Hopefully I'll be able to get some done during December as it tends to help relieve stress for me.

Kids Toys for Sale

2011-10-21T11:24:00.000-04:00

To anyone who is interested, I have some kids blocks that are for sale. They are hand-made with flannel fabrics and washable stuffing. The larger blocks are approximately 3" and the smaller blocks are approximately 2". They are soft and easy for kids to grab and play with. They are also light enough that a small child can toss them without hurting anyone or anything. ;-)

For the three blocks (2 large and 1 small) I'm charging $7.

For the two blocks (both large) I'm charging $5.

If you are interested in them, please leave a comment with your email and I can contact you.

4 Weeks to Go!

2011-10-21T11:16:00.000-04:00

Exactly 4 weeks to go until we can move into our house. We're really psyched about it and can't wait. There's still a fair amount of work to do, but its mostly detail work. The granite countertops are getting cut this week and should be installed in the next week or two. The oak wood floors are supposed to get sanded and stained over the next few days. All the painting is done with the exception of the kitchen/family room. Lights have to be installed, but we're dropping those off this weekend, so they should be put in next week.

I can't wait to get moved in and settled. I'm sure it will take a while to get settled in there and to unpack items. Initially, we'll just need to unpack the necessities (clothes, toiletries, cooking items, dishes...sewing machine). The rest will slowly get unpacked as we get used to the house.

The other day I drove from work directly to the house and timed how long it would take. I was at rush hour and behind some slow vehicles and it only took 20 minutes to get from work to the house. That's less time than it takes to go from our rental to work! Its pretty much a straight shot, so it should be an easy drive.

On the quilting/sewing front, I haven't been able to get much time to quilt. I have the fabric cut and ready to be sewn into rows for the last two rows of the Labyrinth quilt, but I haven't had a chance to touch the fabric. I was able to press and trim up some HST's on Wednesday morning, but that's about it. I definitely need to get that finished up before the move as it will be easier to pack up a completed flimsy versus pieces of a top. I also need to pin baste a quilt top before the move. I'd like to pin baste it and then at least do the "in the ditch" quilting before the move, although that means I have to pretty much get it done in the next two weeks. I'm thinking that I may have to commandeer Sunday as a quilting day. :-)

Updates...

2011-10-18T11:31:00.000-04:00

After being in training (for work) for a week and sick last week, I was finally able to get back to the gym yesterday. I've been trying to go to the gym 4-5 times a week and I spent about 30-40 minutes on an elliptical or if I'm feeling really tired, I'll use a bike.

I was happy though when I stepped on the scale yesterday and found that I've lost a total of 5.5 pounds since I started going to the gym about a month ago. Its definitely going in the right direction...I just need to keep it going in that direction (especially with the holidays coming up).

The house is moving right along. There are a lot of things partially finished, but no real completions lately. I think the stonework around the fireplace will be finished up this week. Its about 1/2 done now, but they still have to place stone between the fireplace and mantle and then under the hearth. It should get finished up this week though.

We're still waiting for our flooring from the mill. At this point its been very frustrating with the guy who is drying and milling the wood as he was supposed to have it done about 3 weeks ago, and we still don't have it. Plus, the wood needs to sit in the house for at least a week before they can install it.

All the painting is done now, with the exception of final touch ups and painting the kitchen/family rooms. We also have electricity hooked up to the house...yay! Here's some pictures of the progress....

Master bath tile

Paint color in formal living room (the red behind is the dining room)

Stone work on the fireplace...yum! ;-)

We can't wait to see the place finished. We're still on-target for November 18th...so exactly 1 month to go!!!

Stashbusting 2011 - Week 43

2011-10-16T11:52:00.000-04:00

Its been another few weeks since I did a stash post, but I've actually done some sewing...some how. ;-)

I took a class last weekend for a pattern called Labyrinth by Debbie Maddy. I've modified the "super twin" size a bit as I don't really want a quilt to be 70 x 110". I've "cut off" the two and bottom two rows such that my quilt will end up being 70 x 90". Here's a picture of what I have so far....and its COMPLETELY from the stash! ;-)

I also went to the Empire QuiltFest yesterday. Its a local quilt show that is held every 2 years. I really should enter a quilt into it the next time they have it (2013). There were a ton of spectacular quilts and some not-so-spectacular. Overall, it was good to go see it and I have a lot of new ideas now.

By far, my favorite was a Hawaiian type quilt. It won 2nd place overall in the show and won the prize for super large applique. It was a king sized quilt that was all done by hand (applique and quilting). It was the quilter's own original pattern.

I took a ton of pictures at the show, but I'm not going to put them all in this post...since this is stash busting after all. :-)

So here's my numbers:

Added This Week:       0 yards
Added Year to Date:    43.89 yards
Used This Week:         1.76 yards
Used Year to Date:      30.25 yards
Net Year to Date:        13.64 yards

House Update - 14October2011

2011-10-14T13:24:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since I've done a house update post. Progress has been made!! :-)

Things were going slowly for a while there, but its definitely picking up now. Every day we go over to the house there's something new.

Last week they were able to finish the tile in the foyer. The picture is about 1.5 weeks old now, but the tile is all grouted and we have molding up everywhere in the foyer. They also cut in around the molding for paint such that they only have to go back through with rollers. We also have the handrail on the stairs now, so we don't have to worry about "falling" over the edge.

Our cabinets are all installed, too now. Here's one of the cabinet sections for the kitchen island. That's a 36" wide drawer and there's another 24" wide drawer next to it. Its in a dark chocolate color, which is different from the rest of the cabinets in the kitchen. I thought it would look nice to have the dark color for the island and then a somewhat lighter color for the rest of the kitchen.

Here's the rest of the kitchen cabinets. They have more installed now, but since it gets dark so early, I can really only get pictures of the cabinets on weekends when we can get there during the day.

Here are the cabinets in the master bath. Again, we went with dark chocolate in here. The tile and the counters are all lighter in color, so the dark wood will look nice in there.

These next pictures are from last night (October 13th). They started putting the stone up around the fireplace. The picture really doesn't do it justice. It looks REALLY good in person. Sometimes colors just don't show up well in the photos.

And now for paint! ;-)

The entire foyer isn't painted yet, but it will be the same color as the hallway upstairs. The color is a little darker than the sample, but we had them paint the entire hallway before doing the foyer so that we could see what it looks like. Its not as "mustardy" in real life as it shows in the picture. It has a bit more tan to the color than the photo shows.

The dining room is this lovely shade of red. It looks spectacular! Eventually, we will do molding boxes in white around the room, so it will break up the red a bit on the walls. However, there's enough white on the ceiling and in the tray that its not too dark in the room.

The room adjacent to the dining room is where we plan to put a pool table. Yes...its green and you see and red room right behind it. It doesn't look quite so "Christmasy" in person as it does in the picture. The green is a good shade of green, too. A little washed out by the flash, but its a very good, traditional green color.

This next one is the study. We went with a very traditional blue color, which will work really well in the room.

This next picture is the bedroom colors upstairs. It was supposed to be a little less yellow, but we're actually happy with it. It makes the trim molding really stand out and makes the rooms seem "happy".

I don't have a picture of the room that will be my sewing room because it doesn't have a light in it right now. I plan on taking some better pictures this weekend that will show the colors in natural light. The sewing room is much more yellow than the other bedrooms. Its a good yellow though...something you would find in nature. I always wanted my sewing room to be yellow and now that I'll actually have a room completely for me, I can have it yellow!

Its exciting at this point. I almost feel like a little kid saying "are we there yet??!!" but saying "are we done yet?!" I can't wait to move in and be in OUR house.

I may need some reminding of this when we have feet of snow and have a 700 foot long driveway! :-)

Stashbusting 2011 - Week 40

2011-10-02T17:07:00.000-04:00

Its been another few weeks since I posted for stash busting. I've been able to do a little bit of sewing here and there. Work and the new house have been taking up a lot of time lately, which is why I haven't posted often. I don't have any new pictures for this post, but there's some pictures of the house progress on other posts.

Added This Week:       0 yards
Added Year to Date:    43.89 yards
Used This Week:         3.16 yards
Used Year to Date:      28.5 yards
Net Year to Date:        15.39 yards

Hope everyone else has had lots of sewing time now that its fall and getting a bit cooler throughout most of the country.

House Update - 26September2011

2011-09-26T16:36:00.000-04:00

I haven't posted anything on the house in about 3 weeks or so. Mainly because the taping of the drywall was taking FOREVER! Or at least it seemed like forever. The guy did a great job and it looks awesome, but it was somewhat frustrating to visit the house and essentially see nothing happening. It takes a long time for one person to put 3 layers of spackle on all the seams in a ~3000 sq ft house!

The good news is...things are really picking up. There were lots of materials delivered at the end of last week including the fake stone for the fireplace, tile for the bathroom and foyer and the hardwood floors.

The hardwood floors are actually installed now in their un-finished state. They will be sanded in place and stained a rich brown color.

The foyer tile also looks really good. Here's a picture from the 2nd floor which makes it easier to see the pattern. Then there's another picture that's closer down so you can see the actual tile.

Finally, they started tiling the bathroom floor. I agree, it looks kind of boring in this picture, but in person it looks really nice. There's more color variation that you see on the tile in person than what the camera picks up.

We're hoping they'll finish up the foyer today and possibly start the shower tile. Its definitely moving along now.

We were able to take a walk through our builder's last house when it was about at this stage. It took them about 6 weeks to finish up everything else, so that puts us on track for finishing up 2nd week of November. Hopefully they stay on this track! :-)

Allergies....

2011-09-19T14:42:00.000-04:00

...are kicking my hind end today. They've been steadily getting worse over the past two days, but today, I feel like I've gotten hit in the head by a two-by-four. Usually, my allergies (or as my 3-year-old niece puts it...aller-jesus) aren't too bad. However, in the spring they are bad (due to flowering trees) and in the fall they get bad due to goldenrod, ragweed, etc. It will be at least another two weeks of this stuff being bad, so I'm not looking forward to it.

On a good note though....ITS FALL!!!

I love this time of year, despite the allergies. I love seeing the trees change colors and waking up to brisk, cool mornings. The days are still fairly warm, but the morning and evenings are nice and cool.

There's just under 2 months left until we're supposed to close on our house. I haven't posted pictures in a while, because, to be honest, there isn't anything exciting to show. Every time we walk into the house we say "what did they do today?" and neither of us can answer it. We know that the guy doing the drywall taping/sanding is working, but since its only one person, it goes VERY slowly. We've been told that once this guy is done, we'll see progress go forward again a lot faster.

We do have the stone in for around the fireplace along with the tile for the master bathroom, foyer and kitchen. They're all in palettes and in boxes, so there isn't anything to show there either. The hardwood is sitting in piles in the living room to get acclimated to the house before it gets installed. It has to sit for at least 2 weeks before they can do anything with it.

I'm hoping the guy with the drywall is done soon because then the paint goes on the walls. We've picked some pretty bold colors, but they are also very classic colors. Hopefully they will look really good. :-)

As soon as I have some decent pictures to show of the house, I'll post them.

Vacation! Wahoo!

2011-09-15T16:10:00.000-04:00

No...I'm not going on vacation any time soon. I have to wait until the first week of November for my next day off from work.

However, work did send out an email last night saying they're changing our benefits for 2012. Now, most people went ahead and deleted the email since most times when they make benefits changes...its not for the good! This time though, people were forwarding and re-reading the email and PDF file multiple times.

Policies are changing such that if you have 1-5 years of service, you get 3 weeks of vacation (versus 2). Between 5 and 15 years of service you get 4 weeks (it used to be at 5 years you got 3 weeks of vacation and then at 10 years you get 4 weeks). There were some other minor changes, but the big one was the vacation time. All of these changes are effective January 1st.

Luckily for me, not only would I get the 3 weeks of vacation starting January 1st because I have 1-5 years of experience, I hit my 5-year anniversary next year. :-) So I'll go from 2 weeks of vacation this year to 4 weeks next year. I'm liking the fact that I'll be doubling my vacation time.

Quilting classes 2012....here I come!

Stashbusting 2011 - Week 37

2011-09-11T15:50:00.000-04:00

Its been a few weeks since I posted a "stash busting" post, but I have done some sewing here and there.

First up, I've designed a "sampler" quilt in EQ. It uses a lot of traditional blocks and the first one is Storm at Sea. This is the first time I've tried to make one of these blocks along with a first at foundation piecing. While the points aren't EXACTLY perfect...they're pretty darn close. Or at least good enough for me on a first try at something.

Next up are some blocks for a scrappy quilt I'm making. Whenever I cut fabric for a quilt and I have excess left over, I just cut it into 2.5" squares. Then as I'm piecing for a quilt (or just want some mindless sewing) I can randomly grab 2.5" squares and sew them into 16-patch blocks. Once I have enough of these, I'll make a queen-sized quilt to fit our bed.

Finally, I have some little odd-n-ends type things I've been sewing. These "blocks" are made out of mostly flannel squares that I had given to me. They are 3.5" squares sewing into little cubes and stuffed with machine-washable fiberfill. They are very soft and squishy, and will make some good little gifts for babies.

So how did I do over the past few weeks?

Added This Week:       0 yards
Added Year to Date:    43.89 yards
Used This Week:         1.42 yards
Used Year to Date:      25.34 yards
Net Year to Date:        18.55 yards

My goal for the end of the year is to get to 50 yards used this year so I'm halfway there!

House Update - 06September2011

2011-09-06T13:21:00.000-04:00

Things have been moving forward on the house, even if I haven't been posting pictures here. ;-)

Most of the pictures are rather boring at this stage since they are framing and electrical details. Last week, the builder finish putting sheet-rock up throughout the house. I have a bunch of pictures, but Blogger doesn't always like it when I upload pictures and it seems to be giving me fits today. I'll have to try them again later.

Here's what we have right now though....

This picture is standing at the doorway of the mudroom and looking in towards the kitchen. (Ignore my husband on the right hand side of the picture. ;-) ).

This next picture is looking into the dining room.

This one is standing in the dining room and looking into the "formal" living room, which will actually be where we will eventually put a billiards table.

Sorry for the sideways picture here. I tried to turn it, but when it uploaded, Blogger put the picture back sideways....weird! So we actually have real stairs now. No handrail yet, but at least the stairs are there.

I'm hoping to get some better pictures later this week. We've also started picking out paint colors, so that will be fun to see the color go up on the walls. We trying to be relatively neutral for some areas...like the foyer, kitchen, family room and bedrooms. However, the rest of the rooms are going to be pretty bold colors. I guess we really got tired of having white walls in our last place and are willing to have someone else paint the bold colors to begin with. :-)

Enjoy the pictures!

Storm Pictures

2011-09-01T10:12:00.001-04:00

Here are some pictures from the storm.

This first one was taken around 10:30am on August 28th. This was across the street from our rental house and that's the tree that took out all our power...for 36 hours.

This is the "exit" of the culvert under the driveway at the new house. The water was exploding from the end of it because there was so much water trying to get through the "small" 18-inch pipe.

This is what it was doing on the entrance side of the culvert. Definitely a lot of water and there was so much that it couldn't all fit through the 18-inch pipe.

This is what the driveway actually looked like... Because there was so much water trying to get through the culvert and it wouldn't fit, we actually had a really fast moving stream going across the entire width of the driveway. Its hard to tell, but the water at the deepest spots was about 12" deep. We walked through the shallowest areas and it was still well over ankle-deep water.

Here's some of the damage to the trees. You can see a large poplar down in the front and then another one down way in the back. The middle tree (the one that's bent) is was a really nice maple. Unfortunately, a vine was tangled up between the poplar and maple, so when the poplar fell, it took the maple with it. We're still trying to figure out how to cut that bent maple. There's a ton of energy stored in that bent section, so we need to be very careful about it "springing" when its cut.

These downed trees are near our well. Thankfully they didn't hit the well. Just more trees to have to cut up at some point. We're not quite sure how to get them down as they are pinned into some other trees. We may need our neighbor's help since he has a large tractor that could probably pull the back end of the tree out from under itself such that the top section will fall.

This is just another view of the roots being pulled out from the trees near the well.

This picture is the "stream" that runs on the northern side of the property. It is usually just a trickle this time of year, but on Sunday it was raging. The actual bottom of the stream is about 2-3 feet below the top of the water in the picture.

These next pictures were taken on Monday, August 29th. This is the creek all the way in the back of our property. It was still flowing about 3 or 4 feet higher than normal, but you can tell that the water has gone down a lot compared to what it was.

In the first picture, you can see the reeds and plants that were essentially blown over by the force of the water. Everything is "smooched" down in the direction of water flow.

In this picture, you can see the debris that got piled up on the bank. It would have been cool to see the creek at its highest, but we didn't feel comfortable walking back through the woods to get there on Sunday. The winds were still blowing a bit and we really didn't want to have a tree come down on top of us.

Soon I'll have some updated pictures of the house. The siding on the outside is completely done and all the rooms have drywall up. We think that they are taping the inside early this week such that they can start on all the finishing work.

Ooof!

2011-08-31T11:07:00.000-04:00

Ooof! That's about all I can say about the past week or so. All last week, I was on a business trip to Bangor, Maine. While I don't mind going up there (or the 6 hour car ride), it just makes for a long week. We left Schenectady on Tuesday around 11:30am and didn't arrive in Bangor until 6:30pm. It was a good week of meetings, but a long week.

On Wednesday, I saw the weather reports and was concerned about my parents who were in Florida at the time. Hurricane Irene was, at that point, thinking of smacking Florida. Thankfully, my parents got home and didn't have to worry about the hurricane at all on their trip to Florida.

However, by late Thursday, Irene was aiming for North Caroline and the east coast. We drove back to Schenectady from Maine on Friday and it ended up taking a lot longer as there were a ton of people from the Boston area driving west to get away from the storm.

Saturday was spent putting all the outside stuff away in the garage (garbage cans, flower pots, chairs, etc) and we did some grocery shopping. I was able to find a few containers to store water in, and thank goodness that I did.

Late Saturday, the first bits of rain started to hit us. It didn't seem too bad though. Sunday morning...we had full downpours happening. The winds weren't too bad, but a lot of rain. Our power went out around 10am on Sunday morning. Shortly thereafter, a large tree came down across the road next to us and completely took out the power lines. So much for this being a "weak" storm. The winds were really picking up and all we could do is watch branches and trees come down and the roads fill up with water.

As the winds started to die down later in the day, we took a drive over to the new house to see how it had fared. Thankfully no damage to the house or well....however, we did lose about a dozen very large trees to the wind. The trees we lost were mainly due to large poplar trees, with very shallow roots, falling and taking out a bunch of other trees with them. But as I said...at least no permanent damage.

While we were at the lot, we did get cell phone messages that Rich's sister was out of power and they had 3-4" of water in their basement. We were able to borrow a generator for a few hours and pumped out her basement. They were lucky with only 3-4" of water...their neighbors had 3 feet of water in their basement.

Late Sunday evening, we got back home and had some yogurt and cereal for dinner. We were trying to eat some of the perishable goods in the fridge since we still didn't have power. Ultimately, our power wasn't restored until about 9pm on Monday evening...36 hours without electricity. We were definitely glad when it came back on.

The flooding in the area was unbelievable though. At one point on Monday, all the bridges over the Mohawk river were closed. There was no way to get from one side to the other. The police, however, did open up one bridge because it was insane that people couldn't get across the river. Thankfully, the major bridges on I-87 were reopened (they had closed due to a runaway barge with a 30 foot crane on it) so at least there were 2 bridges on that side of Albany and then one bridge on this side. What a crazy day!

Things are slowly getting back to normal for us, but for many others, they are still without power and some without homes due to the flooding. Its going to take some time for the community to rebound after this.

House Update - 19Aug

2011-08-19T12:50:00.000-04:00

I have more pictures, but blogger is not being happy about uploading them currently. There has been quite a bit of progress on the house over the week or so. Most of it is not really "blog worthy". All the electrical and plumbing rough-in is done, but it really doesn't look like much and its rather boring.

However, they did get more siding up on the house. I do have a picture of the entire front of the house, but since Blogger apparently didn't like it...all you get is the front of the main portion of the house. The "trim" over the windows will eventually be painted the same light tan as the rest of the trim around the windows. It just comes as white, so it looks "eh" right now.

They did finish all the siding on the back of the house. :-) They still have to finish the garage and the "eave" above the garage and the chimney, but you can really get the idea of what the back will look like. Houses are all kind of "blah" from the back, but it doesn't seem quite so "blah" with the red. Its really hard to believe that this is the first red house that our building is doing. It such a bold color that very few people are willing to do it. I guess we wanted to stand out. ;-)

We also have a fireplace now! Rich didn't want to move the cement board, which I can't blame him since that stuff is HEAVY, so you only get a partial picture of the fireplace. Its fully wood-burning (since we have 16 acres of trees...we might as well use them) and it will eventually have stone around it. There will also be a hearth at the bottom where you can actually sit and be near the fireplace.

This next one is hard to figure out what it is...but its a picture looking UP at the ceiling in the 2-story foyer. They finished all the sheet-rocking of the ceiling on the 2nd floor and have most of the master bedroom sheet-rocked. The first floor also has 1 room (dining room) with the ceiling installed. Most of the rooms have insulation, so I'm guessing that they will make good progress today in buttoning up the walls.

Its been exciting to see the house take shape. Now that they're starting to close in walls, I'm sure we'll be even more excited.

Our closing date isn't until the middle of November, but there's still a lot of work to do. They have to finish the walls, tape it all, spray-foam the master bedroom, final electrical, painting, floors, trim work, cabinets, hardware, and a bunch of other little things that just take time.

Hopefully we'll be moved in by Thanksgiving!

Stashbusting 2011 - Week 33

2011-08-14T15:03:00.000-04:00

Again, I haven't posted very often over the past few weeks. Check out my other recent posts to see what has been up....

However, I did get binding done on a quilt about 2 weeks ago and it hasn't been counted as a stash report yet. I also made another block for my scrappy quilt (16-patch blocks made up of 2" squares - finished size - and all the squares are from the various quilts I've made). I did also buy some FQ's...but they were on sale so its a good buy. ;-)

So here's the numbers for the past few weeks:
Added This Week:       6.25 yards
Added Year to Date:    43.89 yards
Used This Week:         0.47 yards
Used Year to Date:      23.92 yards
Net Year to Date:        19.97 yards

How did everyone else do?

Finished!

2011-08-12T08:20:00.001-04:00

Last night, after a final last push, I was able to finish the needlepoint that I've been working on for close to 3 years. Here's "Starry Night":

Its something like 20 wide x 15 high or something like that. I don't remember the number of stitches high and wide, but it came out to 70,500 stitches on the thing.

I also have some updated pictures on progress at the house. Our front doors have finally been delivered. They still need to be stained, but here's kind of what they will look like.

Here's a picture of the front corner of the garage completely finished. The color of the siding and trim is spectacular! We absolutely love it. I can't wait to see the rest of the house finished.

All the electrical will be done this weekend (supposedly) and the insulation starts on Monday. Then drywall starts on the 22nd. It will be exciting to see things closed in finally and have the rooms take more shape.

Health & Fitness

2011-08-11T08:58:00.000-04:00

I recently went to the doctor and the results were less than what I had wanted. Ultimately, I've been very stressed out and haven't exercised in God knows how long. I'm very badly out of shape and my heart rate isn't exactly what it should be. My goal over the next few months is to ACTUALLY start exercising more and to lose some weight.

I think once I start losing some weight from exercising, my heart rate should get better (along with my overall fitness level).

I've always found it difficult to motivate myself to exercise, so I'm hoping that by posting here, I may have more motivation to keep going. Its really odd since I used to be very physically fit. Even as recently as about 4 years ago I was pretty fit. I was going to the gym for at least an hour a day Monday through Thursday and then on Fridays we were going rock climbing at a local center. I was down to 126 lbs at the time and looked and felt great. I broken a bone in my foot in June 2007 and since then I've had a hard time getting myself back into exercising. Work has also been difficult, which really makes it such that I don't want to exercise at night.

I know a lot of these things are just excuses, but its hard to change how you think. I'm hoping that I can continue to motivate myself and keep the exercise going.

The goal for this week is to walk 30 minutes each day. I'll post on Sunday evening on how I did. ;-)

House Update - 15 July

2011-07-15T09:25:00.000-04:00

This is a relatively "picture-free" post. The builders finished up the roof and installed all the windows except the master bath. Here's what things look like now:

The only windows not installed are the master bath windows and that's just because they need to get the tub in through the window. Its possible to get the tub in through the doorways, but its just easier to lift it through the window with a crane...after all, its a cast iron tub!

We're supposed to have the electrical walk-through soon. I think this will be one of the hardest things to do. How do you decide where you want electrical outlets? You have to kind of know where you want things in the room to make sure you put outlets where you need/want them. Probably the only room that will be "easy" is the sewing room....just put lots of outlets on every wall. :-)

I probably won't have a lot of pictures of the house unless they put the siding on soon. As we get into doing the interior (dry-wall, etc) then I'll be able to show more of the insides. The pictures I have of the interior are a little hard to understand since you can "see through" the walls right now.

House Update - 12 July

2011-07-12T10:21:00.000-04:00

Before I jump into progress on the house yesterday, I wanted to share some pictures of the flowers at our rental. When we first moved into the rental, I was a little bummed out that I wasn't going to have a lot of flowers this summer. At our house in Scotia, we had lots of flowers and it was nice seeing them bloom all summer.

Earlier this spring though, I noticed that the woman who used to own the house we're renting had a few roses. I've tried to clear out the grass around the roses, but its a losing battle! However, over the past two weeks, I noticed some daylilies blooming next to the house. They were hidden by some sumac that was taking over the area, so when my parents were visiting last week, my mom and I tore out all the junk plants around the daylilies (including a very invasive sumac and american grape vine). In doing so, we've uncovered a ton of daylilies that are now clamoring for the sun. Every day I see a new color pop-up. Here's the colors so far:

This was the lily I first noticed since it was on the outside corner. This one spurred the tearing out of the rest of the junk in that corner. Its absolutely gorgeous!

So onto the house...

The framers/roofers finished the shingles on the main portion of the roof yesterday. The roof cap isn't in yet, but I'm hoping it will go on today to help keep water out of the house.

They also framed out the chimney on the back of the house. Even though the fireplace isn't in yet, the chimney is started and they have the materials for the flue.

The windows were also all delivered yesterday. I didn't upload any pictures of them since they're pretty boring sitting in their boxes. ;-) However, we have all the windows at the house including the sliding glass door for the back. I'm hoping the builder will get the windows installed today....next will come siding! :-)

House Update - 11 July

2011-07-11T12:57:00.001-04:00

I haven't posted in a while since I was on vacation last week. A much needed vacation I might add. :-)

Rich and I didn't really go anywhere for vacation, but it was enough not going into work every day. We spent some time with Rich's parents at Peck's Lake, some time with my parents at the rental house, shopping for house stuff, shopping for work clothes (we both needed them desperately) and spending time at the lot.

We saw quite a bit of progress last week. At the end of my last post, we had the first floor framed. Now we have the entire second floor framed, too. The roof decking is also installed and they even started putting shingles onto the roof. Here are some pictures from last week:

Family Room -- right side are windows, straight in the back is a fireplace (where its framed)

Roof trusses on the 2nd floor

Our builder even uses hurricane clips. While we don't get hurricanes very often in upstate NY, its nice to see that he's doing things really well to make sure we won't have any problems with high winds.

Picture from the back of the house with most of the trusses up. If you look over the right hand end of the house, it looks like there's a flat spot on the peak of the roof. They just hadn't put up the peak trusses yet.

All the roof trusses are up and the decking started. On the left hand side of the picture, you can see that the peak trusses are now up over the master bedroom.

View at the front of the house now that the roof decking is up.

Back of the house with the shingles started.

Today is another warm, sunny day out so we expect the framers to finish up with the roof today. I think our windows will probably go in soon, too. yay! I can't wait to see the siding go up on the house!

House Update - 30June

2011-07-01T09:06:00.001-04:00

I haven't posted anything about the house in the past two weeks, but there's definitely been progress. The last pictures I posted were here. We had the footings poured and the forms up for the walls. At this stage, they have completed:

Pouring walls and removing forms
Waterproofing and back-filling around the walls
Rough grading of the property
Basement-to-first floor joists installed
First floor completely framed!

I don't have all the possible pictures online to show, but here's a good synopsis of the progress on the house.

This is from Tuesday, June 26th.

This is from Wednesday, June 27th.

This is from Thursday, June 28th.

There has been quite a bit of progress in a short amount of time. Its quite exciting to see the walls being constructed and the house actually taking shape.

Stashbusting 2011 - Week 26

2011-06-26T15:35:00.001-04:00

I was able to do a little bit of sewing this week. Although I already counted this fabric as "used" from the quilt class earlier this year. We were taught needle-turn applique in class, which I did for a center heart section of applique and one leaf in the picture below. The other three leaves I tried using freezer paper and pressing the seams over the freezer paper ahead of time. I definitely liked this method better. It was much faster, too.

I also prepared backing fabric for my cousin's quilt. So that amounts to about 2.3 yards of fabric used! :-)

So here's the numbers for the past few weeks/months:
Added This Week:       0.0 yards
Added Year to Date:    37.64 yards
Used This Week:         2.3 yards
Used Year to Date:      23.45 yards
Net Year to Date:        14.19 yards

Stashbusting 2011 - Week 25

2011-06-19T08:36:00.000-04:00

Its been quite a while since I posted for stash busting. We've been really busy with moving and starting to build a new house. However, I have gotten some sewing done.

I made the quilt top for my cousin who is having a baby next month (her first). I also made a light-weight blanket (basically a quilt without any batting) for my niece. I had made a real quilt for her when she was born, but in the summer its just too warm for her. She wouldn't sleep with anything else though at night since it was made by Aunt Sarah. So a lightweight blanket was requested. I was able to make it completely out of my scraps from other baby quilts...and it looks very cute.

So here's the numbers for the past few weeks/months:
Added This Week:       0.0 yards
Added Year to Date:    37.64 yards
Used This Week:         4.35 yards
Used Year to Date:      21.01 yards
Net Year to Date:        16.63 yards

House Update - 16June

2011-06-16T09:44:00.000-04:00

I haven't posted in a while, but there's been quite a bit of progress on the lot. In the past week or two, not only did they finish digging the hole for the foundation, but all the footings were poured and the forms for the walls were installed.

Here is a picture from 15JUN with the forms installed.

We think that they will pour the walls today and then within a few days they'll be able to start back-filling around the foundation. We're pretty excited to see things start to come together. We had a bunch of rain earlier this week and thought that we would have another delay, but the workers kept working through it and have made a ton of progress this week.

I'll have lots more pictures as framing starts and the actual house starts to take shape. :-)

House Update - 07June

2011-06-07T21:24:00.000-04:00

A lot of progress has been made in the past week. It's surprising to see how much our lot has changed. Here's how it looked on June 1st. A lot of stumps pulled and the driveway partially finished.

One big 'ole pile o' stumps!

Here's how it looked on June 6th...just yesterday. The driveway is finished (the final coating of gravel doesn't go down until we're ready to close) and most of the stumps and wood are gone.

Here the lot is today - June 7th. We can actually drive our car right up to where the house is. Yay!

Here's the hole for the foundation! :-) Its not the whole thing, but its about 2/3rd of the foundation.

Since the equipment was there...I couldn't help but get up into it. ;-) Probably the only time I'll sit in the driver's seat of a bulldozer!

Exercise....

2011-06-02T08:48:00.000-04:00

I've been meaning to get more exercise lately. I've put on some weight over the past 2-3 years and its definitely past time to get rid of it! Now that we're in the "country", there are a ton of roads near us that are great for biking. Depending upon which direction I head out of our rental house, I can get a different type of workout.

South -- fairly flat, but with a few small hills
East/West - pretty flat, but some small, long distance rises
North -- LOTS of hills!

While out last weekend, we decided to get bikes. Below is the picture of my new bike. :-)

We had to order the bike for R. since they didn't have his size at the store. We were still able to get a sale price on it though.

So far, I've ridden pretty much every day since Saturday. I didn't ride on Monday since it was a really busy day with chores and stuff around the house and I didn't ride last night as I got home late from work and we needed to go look at the lot.

Tonight, I plan on a nice long ride. Its windy today, but its much cooler (the high is only 62). I think it will be good weather for a nice ride after work. :-)

House Update - 31MAY

2011-05-31T12:35:00.002-04:00

I think the torrential rain has finally stopped! If I remember correctly, in about 2 days we had almost 3 inches of rain. That's on top of a completely saturated environment due to previous rain and snow melt. Ridiculous!

At least its stopped and they started work on the lot. Some very important things arrived on our lot.

The backhoe that will be pulling all the stumps out!

Finally, the most important one....a Port-A-Potty.

Once the rain had stopped though, they were able to start digging. All the stumps are out along the 600 feet of driveway and they were even able to dig it out so its ready for gravel. The gravel is supposed to go in today and since its nice and warm and sunny, I have no doubt that it will happen. I think the guy operating the big backhoe will be pulling stumps from the house/yard area while the rest of the crew is laying the gravel.

Here are some pictures of the driveway looking away from the house (towards the road) and towards the house/yard.

We're pretty excited to see progress being made. It will be awesome once they start digging the hole for the foundation!

Rain, Rain...Go Away...

2011-05-23T12:56:00.000-04:00

We've had so much rain the past two weeks. It seems like it won't ever stop raining. I keep thinking of the little kid's song....

"Rain, rain, go away
Come again another day
Little Sarah wants to play."

Actually, its not the playing that I want to do...I want the digging to start! Due to the rain, our builder hasn't been able to start yet. He raring to go...as are we. Our property can actually handle the rain pretty well. Despite the copious amounts of rain (several inches), we had no standing water on the property. The dirt was just really wet. We could walk on it just fine and it was sturdy, but the builder knew his heavy equipment would have gotten stuck in the mud.

On Saturday, we only received a passing shower and Sunday it didn't rain at all. It hasn't rained today either, so hopefully they will be able to make some progress today. The guy that's pulling out all the stumps was going to give it a try today and hopefully not get stuck.

I'll have to drive by the lot tonight to see what sort of progress was made.

On a crafty note....no sewing on the machine. :-( I still haven't setup a sewing area, although my mother-in-law has volunteered to come help this Friday (taking the day off from work to have a 4-day weekend) and help clean our "storage" room in the rental so that I can put the sewing machine up in there. I have been doing a lot of needlepoint though. I've been able to make a ton of progress on Starry Night.

I'll try to get some pictures up here soon. ;-)

New House - Progress Being Made

2011-05-09T15:38:00.000-04:00

Last week, we met with our builder and signed the contract to build the new house (eek!). While we're really excited about it, we're both really scared, too, since there just so much to do in a short period of time. The good news is...the builder thinks it will take about 4-5 months to build, so we're looking to move in sometime between September and October. Our rental is month-to-month and the landlord is our builder's dad....so if we need to stay for 6 months, its not a problem.

A fair amount of my posts going forward for the next 6 months will probably be house related. I don't have a ton of time to sew (in fact my sewing machine hasn't been touched in over 3 weeks at this point), so I don't really have much to post about in that regard. I will have a "crafty" picture at the end of this post though.

The next few pictures are just some snap shots taken from approximately the same location on the lot. Its really odd to see the transformation so far.

The picture above is when we first bought the land in July 2010. Just about in the middle of the picture, there's a really light spot where the sun is hitting and there's a rock there. In the future pictures, you'll be able to see that rock pretty much all the time, so you'll be able to see what sort of changes went on. This first picture shows the land pretty much untouched with the exception of a small backhoe getting in there to dig a test-pit for the soil test.

This picture was from only a week later. The rock in the foreground...that's the same rock from the previous picture. We had taken the first week of July off in 2010 (with outrageously hot weather) and spent the mornings chopping down trees and moving brush. In just a week we made a ton of progress.

This one was from the middle of August 2010. I don't have a wide-angle picture of the lot, but you can see how much more open it is even at this point. From July to August, the only people clearing the lot were my husband, me and his dad. So with only three people, we made a ton of progress in just 5-6 weeks.

This one is from sometime in late October or early November. I'm pretty sure it was from October. Again, about 1/3 of the way up the picture, you can see the rock from the first pictures. At that stage, we had cleared pretty much everything we wanted to for the area our the house. We dropped a few more trees in the back to make the back yard a little bigger, but that's about it. Its pretty different from the first picture!

There wasn't too much to see at winter-time...except lots of snow, so this picture is from April 24th. Things are really starting to get green there now, but in April they were still pretty brown. Some of the trees had buds on them, but with the grey skies it was hard to see. If you look on the right side of the picture near the big tree, there's the rock! :-) The big wood chip pile is all our brush chipped up for us. The driveway will angle to the left (on the very left hand side of the picture) and the house will be basically straight ahead.

Our builder now has his construction sign up on the lot, and we're supposed to break ground this week! Here's hoping that everything is good!

Multi-tasking in Quilting

2011-05-05T08:50:00.000-04:00

Over on Jill's blog, she posted a question about whether we multi-task when quilting or if we do one project at a time.

I usually do multi-task when quilting. While I don't have 5 projects going at one time, like some other quilters, I usually have at least 2 going at once. I typically have my "focus" project where I spend most of my quilting time. This is usually a project where I have a deadline or its just something I really want to work on. In order to "force" myself to finish a project, I won't let myself start another project until this one is done.

However, at the same time of having my "focus" project going, I use 2.5" squares to start/stop my sewing for the "focus" project. These kind of follow Bonnie's "leaders and enders" philosophy. The 2.5" squares are going into a scrap quilt and I really like having this going because I don't have to think when I piece these. Some days when I can't really get my mind to focus on completely a project or following specific directions, I'll pick up a bunch of 2.5" squares and just sew those together. Here's a picture from a few months ago...I only had 9 "blocks" made... I now have over 25 blocks made.

I was surprised at how quickly I was able to make up a ton of blocks without even trying. I like having the somewhat "mindless" project to do while working on more complex projects.

I also always have a cross-stitch project on-going while I'm doing quilting. That way if I want to just watch TV or do some hand-work, I always have something I can do. Below is a picture of the project I have going right now.

This picture is from the end of March and I've now finished that "page" completely and I'm working on the last row of the pattern. I think overall, the picture is about 16" x 20" when its finished.

Ultimately, I try to set goals for myself in order to keep myself going on certain quilting projects. Sometimes I start a project and then get bored or frustrated with it and I try to find a "better" project. When I do find something that I REALLY want to make, I tell myself that I can start it once I get the previous project done. That way I look forward to finishing the current project so that I can start the next one. It tends to keep my UFO list pretty short.

Stashbusting 2011 - Week 17

2011-04-24T11:18:00.000-04:00

Not a whole lot of sewing going on the past few weeks. I actually haven't posted since Week 13, but I have done a little bit of sewing since then. We have finally moved from our house to the rental. It was an uneventful move, but a very tiring two days.   On Thursday, we moved all the boxes ourselves with the help of R's parents and one of my brothers and one of my sisters. Then Friday, the movers came to move all the furniture.

The old house is now ready for closing, which is scheduled for Wednesday. Its a little sad to leave the house since it was our first house, but on the upside, we're going to be able to start building soon.

So here's the stash report for the past few weeks:
Added This Week:       0.0 yards
Added Year to Date:    37.64 yards
Used This Week:         0.49 yards
Used Year to Date:      16.66 yards
Net Year to Date:        20.98 yards

Random Thoughts...

2011-04-14T13:03:00.000-04:00

Back in January, I was unfortunate enough to get called for Jury Duty. I was extremely glad after the 2nd day that I was dismissed (apparently they didn't want a woman engineer on the jury). I only had a few details of the case when jury selection was started. We knew what the charges were against the individual (the biggest being attempted murder for shooting a woman in the face), but we didn't know a lot of the details.

As I sat through jury selection, I honestly can't say whether I would have been able to give this guy a fair trial. The few details that came out were that he had shot a woman in the face....not once...but 4 times! While I don't understand why someone would shoot another person, I could see that maybe the face was an accident (doesn't make it any better that he shot the woman, but maybe he had really bad aim). However, 4 times! That's not an accident...that's intentional.

After I was dismissed, I went and read some more about the case. It was a 19-year-old who was infatuated with a 29-year-old woman. They both did drugs, and she was a dealer. He was jealous that she was spending time with other men and when she told him to go away, he decided to shoot her. The case came down to whether him shooting the woman was intent to kill or just to get back at her.

The jury ended up finding him not guilty on the murder charge, but guilty on everything else (assault, burglary, and weapons possession). The kid turned down a plea deal where he would get 9.5 years in prison...dumb kid. While I feel badly that the guy is going to prison for quite some time, I'd rather have him there than on the street. The judge recently sentenced him to 31 years in prison.

One of the weird things in the article was that the probation officer said that the suspect was "pleasant", but the judge's comments were that he wondered how a "pleasant" man nearly killed this woman. The defense attorney at the end tried to pin this all on the kid's upbringing...that he had a difficult upbringing and that's why he shot this woman. Its a load of baloney! If a person doesn't understand that shooting a person in the face is a bad thing...they DO NOT belong in society. It doesn't matter what sort of upbringing a person has, the way to resolve a problem is not to shoot the other person!

I'm definitely glad this guy is in prison and that he will be there for a long time. Now, if only I didn't have to pay the taxes to keep his sorry behind in jail.

Goals - Week 15

2011-04-12T13:12:00.001-04:00

Goals from Week 14:

Post pictures of quilt blocks from week 5 of class -- Does it count that I took the pictures? ;-)
Post pictures of needlepoint progress -- Again, took pictures, but haven't had time to download them from the camera to the computer
Post pictures of baby quilt for cousin -- Again, took pictures, but haven't had time to download them from the camera to the computer
Quilt commission quilt with fixed sewing machine -- COMPLETED!
Pack some more ;-) -- Completed

I've been doing pretty poorly with the goals lately. So much so that I'm tempted not to post any for this week. We've been fairly busy at home with preparing for the move. We've been able to throw out a lot of stuff along with packing up things that we won't readily use in the next few months (i.e. heavy winter sweaters). We have a large garbage bag full of items to donate along with about half a dozen pairs of shoes.

Goals for Week 15:

Put binding on commission quilt --
Complete hand applique on main heart block for quilt class quilt --
Start hand applique of one (or four) leaves for quilt class quilt --
Update stash reports --
Finish packing sewing stuff :-( --

Hopefully I'll do a little better this week than I have in the past few weeks....

Goals - Week 14

2011-04-08T10:39:00.000-04:00

I was bad earlier this week about not posting updates to Goals, Stash Busting and the quilt class. Its been a hectic week to say the least.

Goals from Week 13:
- Post pictures of quilt class blocks and Starry Night sewing. -- Posted quilt class blocks, but not the needlepoint. Its coming along fairly well though.
- Wash fabric for baby quilt -- I was able to wash the fabric on Monday or Tuesday evening. I also cut out everything and even started sewing a bit.
- Setup fixed sewing machine and quilt commission quilt -- Bust! The sewing machine was setup, but not fixed properly. Back to the sewing mechanic. I have it back again today (4/8), but I haven't put it on the frame yet to see if it will completely behave.
- Complete all 4 Flying Geese blocks for quilt class -- COMPLETE!!

So I did fairly well last week. The only items I didn't complete were items I couldn't (broken sewing machine) or I really didn't get around to (Starry Night needlepoint).

I'm not really sure where all the time went this week. Somehow its Friday already, which is usually a good thing. ;-)

Work has been a bear lately. Monday, Wednesday and Friday I have 7am meetings at work. Tuesday and Thursday I have 7:30am meetings. yuck! This means that every day during the week, I'm up at about 5:30am and out of the house by about 6:30am. I used to be able sleep until 6:30am. ;-(

A few of us at work have noticed things getting earlier and earlier in the morning. When I first started 4.5 years ago, it was rare to have a meeting before 8am. Now, 7:30am meetings are routine and meetings are being pushed earlier to 7am. Before I know it, 7am meetings will be routine and I'll be coming in at 6:30am for certain meetings.

The sad thing is...with the meetings being earlier and coming into work earlier...I'm still not leaving any earlier. I still leave around 5pm or 5:30pm in the evening. So the company is getting another hour out of me every day. I get paid for 40 hours per week, but I'm routinely working closer to 50 hours now, which pretty much stinks. It would be nice to get back to working "normal" hours again, but that probably won't happen for another 2 months or so.

Anyway - on the house front, we are closer to closing on selling our house. We are about 80% packed right now with the stuff that's unpacked being items that we use frequently or can't pack up yet (files). We're looking at a rental house again this weekend, so hopefully it will work out for us and we can start renting it soon in order to move some stuff over ahead of time (yay for renting from our builder's dad who is ultra-accommodating).

Goals for Week 14:

Post pictures of quilt blocks from week 5 of class --
Post pictures of needlepoint progress --
Post pictures of baby quilt for cousin --
Quilt commission quilt with fixed sewing machine --
Pack some more ;-) --

Hope everyone has a good weekend!

House Shopping

2011-04-06T13:07:00.000-04:00

Last week, Rich and I spent Friday off from work "shopping" for things for the new house. Its really insane how many different choices there are. Who would have thought something as simple as a toilet had so many options (color, tank type, bowl shape, height, style...)!

It was a very busy day, but I think we made some pretty good progress. While the choices aren't FINAL yet, we were able to make some decisions on:

toilets
bathroom faucets (for all baths)
kitchen faucet
kitchen sink
hardwood floors
molding
kitchen countertop
kitchen hardware (for cabinets)

So we did pretty well. For the bathroom faucets, our primary choice right now are these:

They are the same faucet, just different finishes. Depending upon the final counter-top choice for the different bathrooms, we'll pick either the stainless (1st picture) or the oiled bronze.

Its exciting to be making the choices now and to see the picture in our minds starting to come true. :-)

Quilting Motivation

2011-04-06T08:04:00.000-04:00

I was reading Jill's blog today where she was discussing different techniques of how to get, or stay, motivated while quilting. I do sometimes get frustrated like Libby and find it hard to sew.

Sometimes when I have no desire to sew, I'll kind of "force" myself to sew a few pieces for a scrap quilt. The scrap quilt I'm working on now is just random 2.5" squares throughout the entire thing, so I don't have to think at all. I find that I sometimes lose the desire to sew when I've been working a long time on a quilt that is tedious or requires a lot of though. Being able to just sew simple 2.5" squares lets my mind not think about what I'm doing and I can just relax and enjoy sewing.

I also make lists like Jill does. I have a "sewing priority" list where I put my projects with deadlines on the top and those without deadlines on the bottom. Each project gets 5 or 6 items to do on it. I usually break things down into very simple steps so that I feel like I'm accomplishing things. For a basic quilt, I'll have steps like: design quilt, determine fabric amounts, purchase fabric, wash & press fabric, cut fabric, sew blocks, press blocks, sew rows & press, sew rows into top, add borders, quilt, trim quilt, add binding by machine, hand stitch binding and photograph. That way even if all I do is buy the fabric, I can cross off something on the list.

I don't usually "treat" myself to things when I finish up a project. However, the "treat" that I do get is that I'm done with the project and I can add a new project to the list. Usually its a project that I've been wanting to do for a little while, but haven't allowed myself to start until I finish something I'm not as enthusiastic about. I find that if I have the motivation of starting a really fun project once I get the current one done, it keeps me sewing and finishing what I have started already. This way, it also keeps my UFOs to a minimum.

I definitely agree with keeping multiple projects going at one time though. However, the multiple projects have to vary in difficulty and there can only be 3 or 4 at most going at one time. I try to have one difficult project, then maybe two easy projects going. That way I can work on the difficult one for a while and when I get frustrated or annoyed, I can work on something easy.

I hope some of these tips help others who have a hard time being motivated or keeping motivated with quilting. I think all of us go through phases where you "lose your mojo" and just don't feel like sewing. When I truly don't feel like sewing, I'll do some needlepoint where I really can let my mind just wander and think about whatever it is that's bothering me.

Quilt Class - Week 4

2011-03-29T14:27:00.000-04:00

This past Sunday was week #4 for my quilting class. Its hard to believe that there's only 2 more classes left. I think I will miss going to class every Sunday. While its a little bit of a pain to pack up the sewing machine and take everything with me, its fun going and sewing/chatting with the other women.

So this past class we learned three different techniques on how to make Flying Geese blocks. The first two ways were traditional methods. One was cutting the triangles before hand and sewing all the pieces together. The second was cutting rectangles and squares and sewing the diagonal lines and trimming away the excess after the block is sewn.

The last method, which is more modern, uses a ruler by Eleanor Burns. Its a bit different, but you actually end up with flying geese blocks that are the correct size and it only requires sewing 4 seams in order to do it. Its a bit labor intensive with the final cutting and pressing seams open, but its definitely worth it.

I had made flying geese blocks a while ago using the traditional methods. See my post here. I ended up making lots more flying geese than I needed because half of them were the wrong size.

So here's the final blocks made with the flying geese from class:

The picture isn't great. I took it late last night in a room with a CFL light bulb (yuck!). Also, because the background fabric is close to the carpet color, I had to put my dark green sweater underneath the blocks so you could actually see them. Not all the points are perfect, but they are pretty darn close.

Goals - Week 13

2011-03-28T09:40:00.000-04:00

Last weeks progress...

Goals for week 12:
- Sew "Starry Night" needlepoint and photograph -- Done - Finished page 17 and photographed. I just have to post the new picture.
- Wash fabric for cousin's baby quilt -- Didn't complete.
- Clean up and pack extra fabric/quilting patterns. Organized and packed a whole bunch of fabric (didn't realize I had THAT much). I also cut up some of the excess small pieces into 2.5" squares for my scrap quilt.

Last week was another busy week. We found out our buyers are approved for their mortgage pending a bank appraisal (which happened on Friday...we'll find out early this week if we "passed") and pending verification of funds....from BRAZIL! These people are only putting down 3%...so like $5000 and the bank has to verify that they have enough funds in their various accounts, one of which is in Brazil. So they have to get a letter from the bank in Brazil and then have it translated because it will be in Portuguese. It won't stop the closing, but may delay it a bit.

I suppose the delay is good because we're still struggling with finding a place to live. We looked at one apartment complex this weekend and while their terms are really good (3 month minimum lease, no down payment, month-to-month leases after the initial lease, etc); the apartments themselves are really depressing and crummy. So we're still looking....

So Goals for Week 13 (lucky 13):
- Post pictures of quilt class blocks and Starry Night sewing. --
- Wash fabric for baby quilt --
- Setup fixed sewing machine and quilt commission quilt --
- Complete all 4 Flying Geese blocks for quilt class --

Hopefully I'll get most of these things done. ;-)

Stashbusting 2011 - Week 13

2011-03-28T09:31:00.001-04:00

This past week was somewhat productive. Not a lot of fabric used, but some. Mainly it was for the quilting class (0.65 yards) and for the scrappy quilt (0.42 yards).

My quilting machine did get fixed this week, but not until Saturday morning. Thankfully, it was just thread caught in the bobbin that had caused the timing to get off. That will teach me to use cheap Sulky thread instead of good quality thread. I was trying to get the quilt quilted, so I wasn't picky with my thread and didn't want to wait for Superior to ship. Serves me right...If I had just ordered the good thread and waited, I probably would have gotten the quilt done this past week anyway and wouldn't have broken the machine. oh well...live and learn.

I also ended up buying fabric last week. My cousin is having a baby this summer, so I picked out some nice, bright-colored fabric for the baby quilt. Damages....5.25 yards. There's 2 yards for background material and 13 fat quarters. I only need about half of each fat quarter, but I wanted to get a good variety of colors..so I'll have some left over for another project.

So here's the numbers for this week:
Added This Week:       5.25 yards
Added Year to Date:    37.64 yards
Used This Week:         1.11 yards
Used Year to Date:      16.17 yards
Net Year to Date:        21.47 yards

Still haven't used as much as I have bought. I find that I always buy about 1/4 yard extra for fabrics and then I count only what I actually use. So even when I buy fabric for a quilt and make the quilt, I still have added to the "stash". I have to really get moving on the scrap quilt to use up some of the excess! :-)

Quilt Class - Week 3

2011-03-22T13:48:00.001-04:00

This past week was the 3rd week of class. This week the main technique was strip piecing to create nine-patch blocks. I've never cared for strip piecing just because its so hard to get the entire length of the seam exactly straight. I always end up with little "wavies" in the seam...no matter how careful I am.

I think the reason I've had problems in the past was that my strip piecing used really long strip sets (full width of fabric). In class, we cut the strip in half, so it was only 22" long. This made it a bit easier and my seams didn't seam to waver as much.

Along with 4 nine-patch blocks, we had to make 4 friendship star blocks. I was able to complete all the blocks between time in class and a few hours at home on Sunday evening. I don't have pictures yet, but I plan to post some pictures later this evening.

As with the past few classes, I haven't really learned anything new, but its nice to get out of the house for a few hours and spend some time with other ladies who quilt. I'm enjoying the class and I think I may take another class there after we're done with this one....one a little bit more advanced. ;-)

Updated with picture

Goals - Week 12

2011-03-21T13:10:00.000-04:00

Last week's goals:

Goals for Week 11:
- Test quilting panto on "Tumbler" quilt -- Completed
- Make 4 pinwheel blocks for quilt class -- Completed
- Sew "Starry Night" needlepoint and photograph -- I did do some sewing, but no photos.
- Complete quilt top for commission quilt -- Completed piecing this, but not quilted yet.
- Purchase backing material for commission quilt --Completed

This past week was very productive. In less than a week, I got a complete quilt top made and ready for quilting. Unfortunately, I ended up breaking part of my MegaQuilter sewing machine, so its in the repair shop and I won't be able to do the quilting on the commission quilt until I have the sewing machine back.

We also passed our house inspection this week, including the radon tests. So now we just have to make sure the mortgage for the other people goes through. We've started packing up a few things at this point, but part of us doesn't want to get too far down the packing road and then have something fall through.

We also checked out a rental property. We've been having trouble finding a house rental because everyone wants at least a year lease, but we only need 6 months. We don't really want an apartment because it will mean storage for everything. However, an apartment may be the answer. The house we looked at belongs to our builder's dad. The layout is kind of wonky, but the biggest worry is that there is no central air and the place smells kind of musty/moldy. Since I have pretty bad allergies, we really don't know whether the place will bother me or not. If it does...it will be a VERY long 6 months.

Goals for week 12:
- Sew "Starry Night" needlepoint and photograph --
- Wash fabric for cousin's baby quilt --
- Clean up and pack extra fabric/quilting patterns.

Stashbusting 2011 - Week 12

2011-03-20T21:20:00.000-04:00

This week was a fairly productive week. I finished up a quilt top for a co-worker, but then I ended up buying backing material (1.75 yards). I get to count it as used though because its already washed, pressed and loaded onto my quilting frame.

Now...the quilt was going to be quilted this weekend, however I had a little "incident" with the MegaQuilter. So Friday I tested out a new pantograph on a practice quilt sandwich and everything was fine. I loaded the backing for the commission quilt and started stitching a straight guide line across the top of the backing and batting. About 15" in, I heard a pop and saw my needle was broken. I thought it was just a bad needle. So I put a new one in, went to pull up the bobbin thread, and the bobbin snapped the tip off the needle. When I opened it up and looked at the bobbin area, it was clear something was wrong.

I took the MegaQuilter into the local sewing repair shop, and they said that somehow either thread or a portion of the first broken needle got jammed between two parts of the bobbin race and threw the timing off horribly. Thankfully it can be fixed, but it could take 2 weeks to get the MegaQuilter back. So much for getting the quilt done this week. ;-(

Good news is that it can be fixed though.

So between the backing and prepping the binding for the commission quilt I ended up using some yardage this week. Here's the damage:

Added This Week:       1.75 yards
Added Year to Date:    32.39 yards
Used This Week:         2.22 yards
Used Year to Date:      15.05 yards
Net Year to Date:        17.33 yards

Flimsy!

2011-03-16T21:59:00.002-04:00

Yay! Finished up piecing the top for the commission quilt for my co-worker's daughter.

Goals - Week 11

2011-03-14T09:56:00.000-04:00

I didn't get a lot of my goals done from last week, but that's mainly because the goals had to change partway through the week.

Goals for Week 10:
- Finish quilting "Tumbler" quilt -- Didn't touch it last week
- Make 16 log cabin blocks for quilt class -- Completed!
- Sew "Starry Night" needlepoint and photograph -- Only a small amount of sewing done.
- Wash and prep backing for "Shine on Bayou Cane" -- Didn't touch it last week.

The main reason for the goals changing is that we accepted an offer on the house!!

Since we now have less than two months to find a new place to live, pack up and move, and actually sell the house, my goals have had to change.

We're not sure if I'll be able to setup my mid-arm machine at the rental, so I'm racing to try to get the commission quilt done in the next week so that I can get it on the mid-arm and quilted. I made progress on making the quilt top (go here for info) and its at least 50% done at this point. Due to the fact that I'm now rushing to get this top done, I had to cut back on pretty much everything else. I've decided that I'm just going to pack up "Shine on Bayou Cane" until after we move into the new house. I'm just not going to be able to get to quilting that thing anytime soon, so it will have to wait. The same thing goes for the "Tumbler" quilt. Even though its on the mid-arm right now, I'm only going to quilt two more rows to test out my self-made pantograph and then its being taken off for the commission quilt to go onto it. The "Tumbler" quilt will just have to wait until we move.

Goals for Week 11:
- Test quilting panto on "Tumbler" quilt --

- Make 4 pinwheel blocks for quilt class -- Completed!

- Sew "Starry Night" needlepoint and photograph --
- Complete quilt top for commission quilt --
- Purchase backing material for commission quilt --

I'm sure I'll make progress this week...mainly because I have to. ;-)

Quilting Class - Week 2

2011-03-14T09:04:00.001-04:00

Yesterday I had my 2nd class of the beginner's quilting class that I'm taking at a local quilt shop. (If you want info on class 1, its here.)

This week, we moved on to making half square triangles (HST) and making a pinwheel block. I've obviously made a lot of HST in my quilting time, so that wasn't anything new. However, the instructor did show me how to do the "pinwheel" thing with the seams on the back of the block. I've read how to do it a few times, but haven't figured out how to do it. Its amazing how easy something seems when someone actually shows you how to do it.

So here's the blocks we made this week. I got two of the blocks made in class, and then the remaining two I got finished up as soon as I got home.

Here's the little "pinwheel" of the seams on the back of the block.

Unlike last week where we only got 2 "logs" onto the 16 log cabin blocks in class and then had to make all 16 full blocks during the week, this week I only need to make the 4 pinwheel blocks. So I'm done! ;-)

They all measure up to 8.5" square, so they are spot on what they need to be. Its also nice knowing that I won't spend most of the week making blocks for this quilt.

Along with the pinwheel blocks above, below are the 16 log cabin blocks I made last week.

I still enjoy the class even though I definitely know a lot of the techniques already. The other students are already coming to me for questions when the instructor is tied up with someone else. So part of my class time is helping the other students, which I enjoy doing. I definitely have a good time at class, so that's what truly matters. :-)

Stashbusting 2011 - Week 11

2011-03-13T16:20:00.001-04:00

This week was a very productive week on the quilting front. I did have to add some fabric to the stash this week, but its for a commission quilt and will be used up fairly quickly (at least most of it).

I finished the log cabin blocks for my quilt class. Here they are laid out the pattern that they will be used.

I also used some fabric for the 2nd week of the quilt class to complete 4 pinwheel blocks. The instructor was also able to show me how to do the "twirl" thing with the seams on the back of the pinwheel blocks. I've wanted to do it, but never could quite figure it out.

I was also able to cut ALL the fabric for a commission quilt on Friday evening and got a whole bunch of square-in-square blocks done along with prepping the applique pieces for the child's name. The "requirements" of the quilt were that it was super soft & cuddly, used Dora and Diego in it somewhere, and that the child's name was on the quilt somehow. The left the design and fabric choices completely up to me. I'm not going to show the entire plan just yet, but I'll hopefully get the entire top done this week so there will probably be pictures next week.

So for me...I was actually able to use a lot of fabric this week, which is unusual. Here's the numbers:
Added This Week:       5.75 yards
Added Year to Date:    30.64 yards
Used This Week:         4.40 yards
Used Year to Date:      12.83 yards
Net Year to Date:        17.81 yards

I think I need to start making some more blocks for my scrappy quilt to use up some stash. ;-)

Quilting Class - Week 1

2011-03-07T12:55:00.001-05:00

On Sunday, I went to the first of six sessions for a beginner's quilting class at a local quilt shop. Throughout the course of the class, we'll be making blocks to complete the quilt below.

The basic techniques are taught in-class and then you finish the blocks up on your own at home. This first week, most of the time was spent going through how to straighten your fabric, press it, and cut the strips. The last hour of the class was spent actually sewing the center pieces of the log cabin blocks to the first strip to form the "logs" of the block (the two cream colored pieces next to the red square in the above picture).

By far, I was the most experienced quilter there. There was another woman who is probably in her 60s that has made some quilts, but nothing very recent. Most of the other women there (6 of us total) had either done no quilting or had just tried it once or twice without much success. Despite not really "learning" anything at the first class (it was all stuff I knew how to do), I had a good time. The instructor said that while there are 16 log cabin blocks, people just really have to make 4 of them in order to do the appliqued heart during week 4 or 5.

When I got home from class, I cut the remaining strips necessary to sew all of the log cabin blocks. The pieces are all set to go, I just have to start sewing them onto the blocks. It will be a bit tedious since you have to add one strip, then press, then add the next strip, and press, and so forth. There's a total of 12 "logs" that have to be added around the center square, so its 12 times of sewing and pressing on each block. Plus, to make sure it goes together correctly, you have to make sure everything is the proper size after each log is added.

These are the fabrics that I'm using for the quilt. The red is the accent fabric to match the red in the pattern picture above. Then I have 3 shades of blue that will replace the greens in the picture. Then I have three different creams/tans to use as my "lights".

I hope that I'll be able to get to putting the log cabin blocks together this week so that I can bring them to class completely finished. Plus, I'll then be able to share more pictures along with counting the fabric as stash used. ;-)

Goals - Week 10

2011-03-07T08:11:00.001-05:00

I didn't get nearly as much done last week as I thought I would. It was a hectic week with showings at the house and trying to determine if we were going to get an offer and whether we should stay with our current agent or not. Here's the progress from last week:

Goals for Week 9:
- Finish quilting "Tumbler" quilt -- This is about 1/2 quilted at this point. I've been playing around with my own pantograph design, so its taking a little longer to get it quilted. Plus, the woman who pieced this top did a pretty poor job and there are ripples everywhere and the top is SO not flat.
- Sew "Starry Night" needlepoint -- I was able to sew a bit on this. Its kind of my "go-to" project when I don't have a ton of time to do something. I can pick it up for 15 minutes or 1/2 hour and make some steady progress and it takes a whole of 2 minutes to put away.
- Wash and prep backing for "Shine on Bayou Cane" -- didn't do this at all, but I have the backing! ;-)
- Finish quilting "Purple Squared" -- didn't touch this one at all either

So what do I plan on doing this week???

Goals for Week 10:
- Finish quilting "Tumbler" quilt --
- Make 16 log cabin blocks for quilt class --
- Sew "Starry Night" needlepoint and photograph --
- Wash and prep backing for "Shine on Bayou Cane" --

I'm leaving "Purple Squared" off the list for now since I can quilt that on my regular sewing machine...which I will always have available.

House -- So on the house front, we did get an offer from a couple. Their initial offer was a complete low-ball offer of 20% less than our asking price. Considering the asking price is under $250k, that's a lot to take off the price of the house. We countered with dropping the price by $1,000. We've been going back and forth the past two days and we almost have them up to the price we want. Right now there's a $2000 difference between the prices. We really want to get them up to $240k, especially considering we put $2000 of custom wood blinds in the house that are staying with the house.

If we do accept the offer, we're going to end up having to rent somewhere, which is why I am pushing to get things onto the quilting frame and quilted. We're not sure where we will rent yet, but it may not have room for the frame to be setup. If not, then I won't be able to quilt anything (easily) until we move into the new house, which will be in the October/November time-frame. So I'm really pushing to try and get some things done so that I can keep the frame up as long as possible.

Stashbusting 2011 - Week 10

2011-03-07T07:40:00.001-05:00

My post is a little bit late, but better late than never, right? ;-)

I used a little bit of fabric this week when I went to my quilt class Sunday afternoon. Its not much, but its a little bit. All said and done, in class, I used 0.2 yards of fabric. I will be using more this week as I have to complete 16 log cabin blocks by next Sunday's class.

Added This Week:       0 yards
Added Year to Date:    24.9 yards
Used This Week:         0.2 yards
Used Year to Date:      8.43 yards
Net Year to Date:        16.47 yards

I plan on posting some pictures later this week, so for now..this is a picture-free post.

How did everyone else do?

Goals - Week 9

2011-02-28T20:55:00.001-05:00

Goals from Week 8:
- Sew 6 baby bibs -- Done!
- Sew 4 hours needlepoint "Starry Night" -- Done! Will post a picture soon.
- Load eBay "Tumbler" quilt onto frame -- Done. I even started quilting it, but only have one row done.
- Pick out panto for "Shine on Bayou Cane" -- :-( Didn't even look this week.

I think the biggest goal I have right now is actually to sell our house. We've been trying to sell for 2 years now and while at the beginning we were over-priced (with a bad real estate agent to boot), we have a very competitive price at this point but people are just afraid to do anything. We had two showings on Sunday. One was a couple who are relocating to this area, but need to sell their house before they would even entertain buying one here. The second showing was very promising. The wife had been to the house earlier in the week and loved it, so we had a 2nd showing for them with the husband being present.

The verdict at this point is that they may put in an offer tomorrow. What it is...we don't know...will they actually do it....another question mark. We've been here before where we've been told an offer is imminent, but nothing came in. We're trying not to get our hopes up, but we really want this to work so we can start building.

So goals for this upcoming week:

Goals for Week 9:
- Finish quilting "Tumbler" quilt --
- Sew "Starry Night" needlepoint --
- Wash and prep backing for "Shine on Bayou Cane" --
- Finish quilting "Purple Squared" --

Here's a snapshot of the partial quilting on "Purple Squared". The white on the quilt is Miracle Chalk that I haven't removed yet. The beauty of Miracle Chalk is that you don't have to wash it out. Just a steam iron and the chalk disappears. Love the stuff! ;-)

Stashbusting 2011 - Week 9

2011-02-27T14:59:00.001-05:00

I fell off the bandwagon a little bit this week. I had to buy fabric for a quilt top. Earlier this week I signed up for my first ever quilting class at a local quilt shop. I've been quilting for 4 years, but have never taken a class (just self-taught). I figured it would be good to take a class at some point and this one seemed to fit in my schedule really well. Here's the fabrics that I bought:

You'll have to wait to see what the top looks like though. ;-) It does have some things that I haven't tried yet (like curved piecing), so I'm hoping that I'll learn some things from this class.

I did end up using some stash this week though making some baby bibs. I used about 2/3rds of a yard to make 6 bibs. My MIL is taking them to a local co-op that sells people's hand-made items and I'm going to see if any of them sell. My co-worker who has a 2.5 year old said that they were better than the "cheap" things carried in stores and that the ones in the stores cost $6. Each bib cost me about $2, so the material cost is pretty cheap. I'm hoping these will sell and help fund future fabric purchases. ;-)

So overall, I'm still in the red. Hopefully my numbers will start to improve at some point! ;-)

Added This Week:       10.4 yards
Added Year to Date:    24.9 yards
Used This Week:         0.67 yards
Used Year to Date:      8.23 yards
Net Year to Date:        16.65 yards

Quilting Class

2011-02-24T11:48:00.001-05:00

I've finally done it....I've signed up for a quilting class. Despite quilting for 4 years now, I've never actually taken a class on quilting. A LQS (local quilt shop) is having a Beginning Quilt Making class starting March 6th and running on Sundays for 2 hours for a total of 6 weeks. A few things drew me to the class:

1. The quilt shop is a total of 5-10 minutes from our house...very convenient and they just expanded. ;-)

2. I thought I might meet some new quilters in the area who are also relatively new to quilting.

3. There are some techniques that they'll be doing that I haven't done yet. By the look of the quilt they plan to make as a sampler, there's some log cabin blocks, applique, and I think some piecing of fabric with curves, which I haven't tried to do yet. They'll also show how to put a hanging sleeve on the quilt, which I haven't done.

4. Aside from techniques I haven't done yet, they're going to go through some of the basics of cutting, pressing, getting that perfect 1/4" seam, etc. While I think I'm pretty good at that stuff, I think it would be useful to actually have someone show me how to do it and see if I'm doing something incorrectly.

Now that I've signed up for the course, I'm both excited and a little nervous. I'm a bit of a loner and don't gravitate toward "group" settings. I'm sure the people there will be very nice and friendly (almost all quilters are), but there's a little bit of a worry that I won't "connect" with anyone there. I'm probably over-thinking this, but I really hope that I'll enjoy the class and meet some people.

House Choices

2011-02-22T09:24:00.001-05:00

If you've read my blog over the past few months, you'll know that last summer Rich and I bought a piece of land about 10 miles from our current house location. We spent most of the summer/fall clearing trees and prepping the land for building a house. We're still trying to sell our current house, but we're slowing making some of the choices of what to put inside our home.

The biggest items we've looked at so far are the kitchen cabinets and the fireplace. We've picked out the style of the cabinets, but we just need to narrow down on the color of the wood. The front of the cabinets will be a cherry wood because we love the grain of the wood. We're debating between two medium brown colors where one is more of a brown and the other has more yellow tones in it. Either way...they will look nice.

The other item we've looked at is the fireplace. Below is the picture from the manufacturer's website. The fireplace can be used with either the doors closed (as shown in the picture) or you can open the doors and there's a decorative wire grill that fits into the opening. The fireplace is incredible to see in person. The kind of "cool" thing about the fireplace is that with the doors closed it is one of the most efficient fireplaces available. It burns so hotly that it burns not only the wood, but also all the gases and ash that gets near the top of the fireplace. That's why in the picture you see the orange flames much higher in the fireplace than normal fireplaces.

We saw the fireplace in action at the local dealer and its wonderful. Very warm and easy to use and the flames are absolutely spectacular.

Now we just have to get the current house to sell so that we can move forward with building the new house.

Goals - Week 8

2011-02-21T10:14:00.000-05:00

Last week I didn't post any goals, nor did I update goals from the previous week...mainly because I was sick as a dog last week. Thankfully I'm doing better now.

Rich came home from work last week and had talked with one of his co-workers who's wife started her own business. They suggested that if I wanted to try to start a business to make baby things that are easy and quick to make and that people always buy. The easiest things are burp cloths and bibs. My mother-in-law makes kids things and sells them at a local co-op, so I'm now making some bibs and I'm going to see if they sell. I figure if I can make something like that to get a business started, then I can graduate to other things on top of the easy bibs.

Goals from Week 6/7:
- Purchase backing material for "Shine on Bayou Cane" -- Completed
- Sew 4 hours needlepoint "Starry Night" -- Definitely completed
- Load eBay "Tumbler" quilt onto frame -- Didn't touch
- Pick out panto for "Shine on Bayou Cane" -- Didn't touch

Goals for Week 8:
- Sew 6 baby bibs --
- Sew 4 hours needlepoint "Starry Night" --
- Load eBay "Tumbler" quilt onto frame --
- Pick out panto for "Shine on Bayou Cane" --

Stashbusting 2011 - Week 8

2011-02-20T07:51:00.000-05:00

I didn't do a whole lot of sewing this week because I was very sick. I was home from work for 4 days this week with a really nasty cold.

However, I started feeling better on Friday and by Saturday I was able to get some sewing done. Mostly I did some quilting on a quilt, but I did make a 4.5" square cube out of some flannel scraps. I wanted to see how it would look and I'm considering making a bunch of different sized cubes for kids to play with. I also managed to cut out fabric for 4 baby bibs. I don't have any pictures right now, but I may have some later today.

I also ended up buying some fabric this week. I needed backing material for Shine on Bayou Cane, so I needed to buy 2.5 yards of material.

Here's the numbers:

Added This Week:       2.5 yards
Added Year to Date:    14.5 yards
Used This Week:         0.75 yards
Used Year to Date:      7.90 yards
Net Year to Date:        6.60 yards

How did everyone else do?

Stashbusting 2011 - Week 7

2011-02-13T17:51:00.000-05:00

This was a quiet week on the quilting front. I've been fighting a cold the past few days which makes me not want to do anything. I have spent some time working on my needlepoint since that's pretty easy and low-effort. Here's a picture from this afternoon:

Stash report:
Added This Week:       0 yards
Added Year to Date:    12 yards
Used This Week:         0 yards
Used Year to Date:      7.15 yards
Net Year to Date:        4.85 yards

Update....

2011-02-10T15:53:00.000-05:00

We were able to have the garage door people come out to the house on Wednesday to take a look at the garage. Rich said it took the guy a whole of 10 minutes to fix the garage door and it works like a charm now. The only reason the guy thought that the door would have come down would be because the little "eyes" were set really low to the ground. So if you're shorter than a cat, don't walk under our door closing or it won't see you. ;-)

The good news is that its fixed and it didn't take much to get it fixed, just a lot of hassle on Rich's part with having to call them and setup the appointment.

We plan on having Rich's car fixed sometime in the next few weeks. The only reason we don't know exactly when is because the turbo engine on the car has been acting up. Instead of smooth acceleration, it kind of jumps and as Rich puts it "the engine can't get out of its own way". The first time we took it to the garage, they couldn't duplicate the problem so they sent us home. It started doing it more and more often, so we took the car back.

The good news is...the could duplicate the problem. The bad news is that they have no idea what's causing it. They've called corporate Subaru to see if they know what it could be or how to diagnose it. Thankfully, the car is still under warranty. Plus, because we paid extra for the service warranty, they give us a loaner car to use throughout the time they have the car. A few weeks ago we were thinking that it was a waste of money for the service package, but now we're definitely glad we bought it. Ultimately, the car is under warranty so they need to fix it...or at least do something about it. Its frustrating right now because we're making payments on a car that we aren't able to drive because its broken. Also, at some point, probably about a 1-1.5 weeks from now, if the car isn't fixed we'll have to have a "no-so-nice" conversation with them regarding the car. If they can't fix it in under 2 weeks, then there's something really serious wrong with the car and its not worth the $25k we paid for it.

On the quilty front, tonight I find out if the sewing center has fixed my sewing machine. Its been skipping stitches with the BSR foot, but they haven't been able to duplicate it. They claim that they haven't had anyone with these problems on the 440QE, just on the 830. When I talked to corporate Bernina though, they say the problem is common to the BSR foot and not just to the 830 model. So I'm going to have to try to convince the sewing center to put the stronger spring on my machine anyway and check one of the clearances that the corporate tech told me about.

Other news.....

I've been feeling like I have a cold for about the past 3 or 4 months. While at first I thought it was just a cold, at this point, I'm sick and tired of it hanging around. I've also had a lot of problems with fatigue over the past few months. I'm typically the type of person that when I get home from work, I don't think twice about going around doing things or doing sewing in the evenings. The past few months, I've been lucky if I get dinner on the table before I fall asleep at night. I've been completely exhausted.

So I went to the doctor's yesterday. He thinks I may have a little bit of strep throat and a minor sinus infection. He also thinks that I may have developed indoor allergies (dust, etc) and that may be causing me to not feel well. However, he didn't like the fact that I was so fatigued. Even with the minor infections and possible allergies, I shouldn't be this tired all the time. So this morning I had to go and have a bunch of blood drawn (2 big tubes, 2 medium tubes and 2 small tubes -- a lot for someone who doesn't like needles). He's testing for thyroid problems, diabetes, kidney problems, lupus, celiak's and mono. Its basically to hopefully rule out a bunch of things by some relatively simple blood tests.

A large part of me is hoping everything comes back negative, but a small part says that if those all come back negative...what's making me so tired. If its not something physically wrong (like mono or thyroid), then it could very well be that I'm working too hard (at least that's what the doctor said). He sees lots of people from my place of work and he says that we all have similar problems: over-stressed and over-worked....and bad insurance. I just hope we figure out what it is so that I can move on and not be so exhausted all the time.

It will probably be a week before I find out, but in the meantime I'm back on allergy meds and I'm on antibiotics to take care of the sinus infection and possible strep.

Last Week....

2011-02-07T16:26:00.002-05:00

Last week was a pretty eventful week for us in Upstate NY. Right at the beginning of the week, we got smacked with two storms right on top of each other. The first storm high on Tuesday morning and dumped about 6" of new snow during the day. This wasn't a huge amount of snow, but for some reason the towns decided that it wasn't worth plowing, so the roads were an absolute disaster.

The second storm started early Wednesday morning (about 3am) and proceeded to dump another 5" of snow. It was supposed to be more, but the change-over to wintry mix and sleet happened earlier than the forecasters thought. So we ended up with less snow, but with a coating of junk on top of the snow. By Thursday, everything was cleaned up.

Unfortunately, Thursday was eventful for us anyway. With the additional snow (and lots of snow in the mountains), Rich decided to take Thursday off from work and go snowboarding. I was getting ready to come into work when he went to leave the house. About 2 minutes after he left the house, I heard a big bang in the garage. I couldn't imagine what had happened!

I pulled on a bathrobe and walked into the garage to find him getting back out of the car with this scared look on his face. Somehow, as he was pulling out of the garage, the automatic door decided to close...ON HIS CAR which is only 15 months old!

Rich had opened the door, walked to the end of the driveway to see if it needed to be shoveled, walked back in and started the car. As he pulled out, for some reason, the door decided to close and it didn't respond to the pressure of something underneath it. So the garage door dented the roof of the car, scraped it up a bunch and broke off the antennae. The door also came off the track at the bottom panel and the bottom panel was bent inward by about 3" at the bottom.

It was quite a shock and has been just a pain in the butt since then. We got a quote from the car dealer that it will be about $1000 to fix the car (expensive, but not awful). We're still waiting for the garage door people to come out to tell us how much that will cost.

The biggest problem at this point is the door. With good intentions, my father-in-law came up on Thursday to see if he could bend the door back in and fix it. Unfortunately, when he bent it back in, he had to take off one of the pulleys that keeps the door on track and in doing so, the chain that helps support the weight and keep the door balanced came off. With the chain off, the door is completely unbalanced and only Rich can open and close the door. I don't have the strength to open/close it with it being unbalanced and unsupported on one end. Its just a mess at this point.

Part of the reason of having a house is having a garage where you don't have to park your car outside and scrape it every morning. Plus, if we get the snow they're expecting us to get over the next day or so, I'll have to shovel out my car. Argh!

Anyway - enough of my ranting. Hopefully the forecasters will be wrong and we won't get much snow. ;-)

Goals - Week 6

2011-02-07T16:13:00.000-05:00

Sadly, last week as a pretty poor week in terms of completing goals. About the only things I did was sewed on Starry Night and had my mother-in-law take my sewing machine to be serviced.

Goals from Week 5:
- Sew 4 16-patch blocks -- Didn't touch
- Purchase backing material for "Shine on Bayou Cane" -- Didn't touch
- Sew 4 hours of needlepoint on "Starry Night" -- Completed
- Load eBay "Tumbler" quilt onto frame and play -- Didn't touch
- Take Bernice (the Bernina sewing machine) to the sewing center to be cleaned/fixed -- Completed

It just seemed a bit of a hectic week last week and I was exhausted all week...which I'll post more about later.

Goals for Week 6:
- Purchase backing material for "Shine on Bayou Cane" --
- Sew 4 hours needlepoint "Starry Night" --
- Load eBay "Tumbler" quilt onto frame --
- Pick out panto for "Shine on Bayou Cane" --

Hopefully I'll get a few things done this week. Soon, I plan on trying to add an exercise goal to the list. I really do need to exercise more, but I've had a really hard time getting myself motivated to exercise. After putting in 9-10 hour days at work, I'm left exhausted and the last thing I want to do is exercise, but I should do it. I'm thinking if I can't make myself go to the gym, maybe I can at least get myself to do something (like jump rope) at home for 15 minutes. At least its better than nothing...right?

Stashbusting 2011 - Week 6

2011-02-06T11:50:00.001-05:00

We're already done with January and into February now. This past week hasn't been nearly as productive as I had wanted, but with copious amounts of snow and work (and being sick) I didn't get a lot of quilting in. However, I did prepare a backing for the eBay quilt, so that counts as stash. ;-)

Here's pictures of the quilt again:

Stash report:
Added This Week:       0 yards
Added Year to Date:    12 yards
Used This Week:         2.5 yards
Used Year to Date:      7.15 yards
Net Year to Date:        4.85 yards

I've been REALLY good so far this year. Especially this weekend. The local quilt shop is having a big super bowl sale and even though I stopped at the store to drop my machine off for servicing, I didn't buy anything...mainly because I knew I'd have to report it here. ;-)

How Long Do you Wait...?

2011-02-03T12:23:00.000-05:00

So how long do you wait when you're at work and the power is down?

I only have "power" right now because I'm working off my laptop battery. The internet connection is still live here, but the battery will only last so long.

We've been without power for about 25 minutes now, so its starting to get a little cool in here. With it only being about 15F out, it will get cold in here pretty quickly!

I'm real tempted to pull the "college" rule...10 minutes and the professor hasn't shown up...so you leave.

Goals - Week 5

2011-01-31T10:27:00.000-05:00

I did alright with last weeks goals, but not quite as good as I had hoped for. We had a showing of the house mid-week, so that ate into a little time since one entire evening was spent cleaning the house.

Week 4 Goals:
- Sew 64 2.5" squares together for scrap quilt (total of 4 16-patch blocks) -- Completed
- Prepare backing material for eBay "Tumbler" quilt and load on quilt frame -- Partially Completed - not on frame yet
- Prepare backing material for "Shine on Bayou Cane" -- Didn't even touch
- Sew 4 hours of needlepoint on "Starry Night" -- Definitely did 4 hours of needlepoint. I should have the next page done soon.

So for this coming week, I have some slightly different goals....

Week 5 Goals:
- Sew 4 16-patch blocks --
- Purchase backing material for "Shine on Bayou Cane" --
- Sew 4 hours of needlepoint on "Starry Night" --
- Load eBay "Tumbler" quilt onto frame and play --
- Take Bernice (the Bernina sewing machine) to the sewing center to be cleaned/fixed --

I also finished a Jodi Picoult book this past week. I posted about it here. It was a good book, but came a little close to home.

I've started reading another Lynn Austin book called "Song of Redemption". This one is a little more religious than I typically read, but it will probably be good. If I keep at the pace I have been going, this book will be done in a week, too.

We're expecting to get more snow this week. In the past few weeks, we've gotten about one storm a week, although we were spared last week. The storms tend to hit on Wednesday and just cause the one day to be bad. However, this next one is a monster storm. We're supposed to start getting snow Tuesday morning and its not going to stop until Wednesday evening. Tuesday, they're expecting us to get about 3-8" during the day, which will be interesting since my car hates snow. I may have to leave work early Tuesday. Then Wednesday, we're supposed to get up to 16" of snow. If the forecast holds true, I will definitely have to work from home on Wednesday.

Hope everyone is having a good week so far.

Stashbusting 2011 - Week 5

2011-01-31T10:18:00.000-05:00

I'm a little late in publishing my stash report...but better late than never.

I don't have any pictures right now since this is a really quick post. I was able to finish up another set of blocks for my scrappy quilt and I also started quilting Purple Squared. Both of these used up some more stash. I used just over 0.4 yards for the scrappy quilt (I actually made 6 blocks this week) and I used about a yard for the back of Purple Squared (picture below is from when I finished the top last year).

Here's the numbers for this week:

Added This Week:       0 yards
Added Year to Date:    12 yards
Used This Week:         1.42 yards
Used Year to Date:      4.65 yards
Net Year to Date:        7.35 yards

Picture Perfect

2011-01-28T14:39:00.000-05:00

It seems that I'm into a book reading trend right now. I've finished 3 books in 3 weeks now....mainly because I'm reading during my lunchtime at work. It helps me to get my mind off work for 45 minutes and to not be looking at the computer screen.

The most recent book I finished was called "Picture Perfect" by Jodi Picoult. This was one of Jodi's earlier books in her career. It didn't have quite the punch and drama twists that her newer books have, but it was still very good. For some reason, which I'm not really sure why, this book seemed to hit closer to home than her books usually do. If you've read any of Jodi's books, they always tug at the heart strings and usually make you think very differently about the way the world can work.

This particular book is about a relationship that seems like its perfect in every way to the public. Its a story of a unknown anthropologist falling in love with a big movie star and becoming married. Their relationship starts out really well, but then every once in a while, the husband shows a streak of anger and violence. It starts with just a few shoves when he got angry, then the shoves turned to smacks and kicking. The wife would make excuses and the husband would always apologize once he realized what he had done.

While I have never been in that type of situation (thank, God), I can imagine how a woman could easily get into that type of situation. The wife loved her husband so much and knew that if she left him, she would cause him more pain and hurt, which she couldn't bring herself to do. Only when another person got involved did she actually get the courage to leave.

I'm not quite sure why this one seems to bother me a bit more than the others, but while it was a good read, it was also a little disturbing. I guess its because I could potentially see myself in that type of situation and not having the courage to leave. I know I never have to worry about being in that situation, which makes me grateful, but none the less, it was a slightly disturbing read.

Goals - Week 4

2011-01-24T11:35:00.000-05:00

I didn't do nearly as well this past week as I had planned. Mainly because life got busy and I ended up hurting my back last weekend. Having a sore back doesn't help with your goals when your goals involve cutting large pieces of fabric. Here's the goals from week 3:

Week 3 Goals:

- Sew 64 2.5" squares together for scrap quilt (total of 4 16-patch blocks) -- Completed
- Prepare backing material for "Shine on Bayou Cane" and load quilt on frame -- not even thought about
- Sew 4 hours of needlepoint on "Starry Night" -- 5+ hrs sewn.

I also ended up finishing the book I was reading by Lynn Austin. In just over a week, I read the entire novel called "Hidden Places". It was a quick read, but a good read.

Week 4 Goals:
- Sew 64 2.5" squares together for scrap quilt (total of 4 16-patch blocks) --
- Prepare backing material for eBay "Tumbler" quilt and load on quilt frame --
- Prepare backing material for "Shine on Bayou Cane" --
- Sew 4 hours of needlepoint on "Starry Night" --

I've also started another book. Now I'm reading "Picture Perfect" by Jodi Piccoult. I generally like her books, but this one is a little harder to read than normal. I think its one of her early books, so maybe that's why.

Hope everyone has a good week!

Stashbusting 2011 - Week 4

2011-01-23T08:02:00.000-05:00

No pictures this week. I was only able to squeeze in a little bit of sewing this week. The evenings were pretty hectic and I was really only able to sew part of Saturday afternoon. However, I did make 5 more blocks for my scrappy quilt. I also cut some more small pieces of fabric to add to the variety of fabrics in the scrappy quilt.

So my numbers are still improving:

Added This Week:       0 yards
Added Year to Date:    12 yards
Used This Week:         0.35 yards
Used Year to Date:      3.23 yards
Net Year to Date:        8.77 yards

How did everyone else do?

Goals - Week 3

2011-01-17T09:40:00.002-05:00

I did alright this past week on my goals. I didn't get as many 16-patch blocks done as I had wanted to, but I was close.

Week 2 Goals:
- Sew 64 2.5" squares together for scrap quilt (total of 4 16-patch blocks) -- completed 3 16-patch blocks, and 2 more are almost done.
- Add border #3 to "Shine on Bayou Cane" -- Completed!
- Sew 4 hours of needlepoint on "Starry Night" -- 6+ hours completed.

In fact, I was so good with "Starry Night" that I actually finished another page of the pattern.

The portion with the scattered stitches is page 16. So I now have 15 full pages complete. I think there's 2 more full pages on the row I'm working on along with a partial page on the far right. The bottom row of pages are only about 60% full, so the bottom row should go faster. At this rate though, I'm finishing 1 page per month, which means I still won't be done until October!

I also finished reading the 3rd book of the "Inheritance" series. The book is called "Brisingr". I'm always surprised at how well written these books are and the fact that the writer is only in his early 20s. I think I read somewhere that he wrote the first book, "Eragon", when he was only 16 or 17. It seems to be taking a long time for the 4th book to be finished up, but I'm sure it will be well worth it.

Week 3 Goals:

- Sew 64 2.5" squares together for scrap quilt (total of 4 16-patch blocks) --
- Prepare backing material for "Shine on Bayou Cane" and load quilt on frame --
- Sew 4 hours of needlepoint on "Starry Night" -- 3 hrs sewn as of 1/19

Stashbusting 2011 - Week 3

2011-01-16T08:39:00.000-05:00

I made more good progress this week on Shine on Bayou Cane and the scrap quilt. Both of these meant that I used more fabric this week - yay! ;-)

I actually finished the top for Shine on Bayou Cane. Its not quilted yet, but the top itself is done.

So I used some fabric for the last border on Shine on Bayou Cane and I also used some fabric this week making blocks for my scrappy quilt. Here are the blocks so far:

Here's the numbers for this week:
Added This Week:       0 yards
Added Year to Date:    12 yards
Used This Week:         1.53 yards
Used Year to Date:      2.88 yards
Net Year to Date:        9.12 yards

So far so good...just need to keep using the fabric! :-)

EBay Quilt Top

2011-01-14T08:20:00.000-05:00

I've always had trouble taking one of my own quilt tops and testing out new quilting techniques on it. There's something about putting all the effort into a top and then potentially messing it up because of bad quilting. However, there's only one way to get better at quilting...and that's to do it. So instead of using one of my own quilt tops, I purchased a 53x54 quilt top off eBay. With shipping, I paid less than $15 for the top shown below.

It looks like a cute and fun quilt top. I can add borders to it to make it a little bigger, but I could just leave it alone at 53x54. I may add a 6" border to it (of possibly 2 border to add up to 6 or 8") to make it about 60x60. I can use stash for both the border and the backing (yeah for stash busting) and since I didn't put a lot of time into making this myself, I'm hoping I'll have an easier time trying out something different for the quilt top. Time will tell.... ;-)

Goals - Week 2

2011-01-10T08:06:00.003-05:00

I think I did fairly well at completing my goals from last week. Here's a recap and what I accomplished:

Week 1 Goals:
- Sew 56 2.5" squares together for scrap quilt (avg. 8 per day) -- Completed sewing 96 squares together.
- Piece border #2 for "Shine on Bayou Cane" -- Completed and sewn onto the quilt.
- Sew 4 hours of needlepoint on "Starry Night" -- Definitely completed 4 hours, probably a little more.

I also finished reading the 2nd book in the "Inheritance" series by Christopher Paolini. The first book was "Eragon" (which was made into a horrible movie) and the second book was "Eldest". They are thick books, but are fun and quick reads. I definitely recommend reading the series.

So the goals for this coming week are pretty similar to last week.

Week 2 Goals:
- Sew 64 2.5" squares together for scrap quilt (total of 4 16-patch blocks) --
- Add border #3 to "Shine on Bayou Cane" --
- Sew 4 hours of needlepoint on "Starry Night" -- 3.5 hrs as of 12-JAN

Hopefully I'll be able to complete these this week, but considering I won't be able to play hooky with Jury Duty, I may not get as many 2.5" squares sewn as I would like. However, its still better than having to sit on a jury that was for an attempted murder case.

Stashbusting 2011 - Week 2

2011-01-09T08:26:00.000-05:00

This week was a good week for stash busting. I used a little over 1 yard of fabric for the borders on Judy's Shine on Bayou Cane pattern from her book Weekend Quilts. I really liked the quilt when she did it as a Quilt-for-an-Hour project, so I decided to do that one first when I got her book. I'm saving some pictures until I get the top completed.

I also used up some 2.5" squares this week (actually, a total of 80 of them) to start making 8" blocks for a scrappy quilt. My goal had been to use 56 of them this week (so it would be 1/4 yard), but I was able to get a bit of sewing done on Wednesday when I was released from Jury Duty and again yesterday. I hope I can keep it up and I'll blow through the 12 yards in no time. ;-)

Stash Report

Used this Week:           1.35 yards
Used Year to Date:       1.35 yards
Added this Week:        0.0 yards
Added Year to Date:   12.0 yards
Net Used for 2011:     -10.09 yards

Goals - Week 1

2011-01-03T12:46:00.002-05:00

Since I fell off the wagon a bit last year in respect to a lot of things, I'm going to try to keep weekly goals on here...and see how well I do. The goals will be simple and do-able things that I think I can actually accomplish in a week. Sometimes breaking things down into smaller pieces makes it easier to accomplish the tasks.

Week 1 Goals:
- Sew 56 2.5" squares together for scrap quilt (avg. 8 per day) -- 16 completed on 1/5
- Piece border #2 for "Shine on Bayou Cane" -- ~50% complete on 1/5
- Sew 4 hours of needlepoint on "Starry Night" -- 2.5 hrs complete on 1/6

I think I can accomplish those goals. If I do more than what's on the list, I'll update it next week with what was actually accomplished.

Stashbusting 2011 - Week 1

2011-01-01T22:22:00.001-05:00

The past few years, Judy Laquidara has had a stash-busting effort going on that she posts on her blog, Patchwork Times. Last year, I started out really well with reporting my efforts on using the fabric I have versus buying new fabric. Then things got hectic and I fell off the wagon. Not so much with buying fabric, but with reporting.

Overall, I did pretty well last year. The only fabric I bought (with the exception of one fat quarter sampler -- yikes 6 yards worth at the end of the year) was for specific quilts for new babies. I used up some of the fabric I had bought the previous year, which definitely helped with my numbers and kept me in the positive (stash used) for the majority of the year.

I'm hoping that in 2011, I'll be a little better at this and posting in general. The last 4 months of 2010 I just totally fell off the wagon when it came to blogging. Maybe with the start of the new year, things will go a little better from a blogging perspective.

So while my report is a few hours early (Saturday evening vs Sunday morning) here's the totals for week 1. This includes some fabric I received for Christmas, so I'm already starting in the hole a little.

The fabric I received were fat quarter samplers from Connecting Threads:


Flower Basket Sampler

Dark Solid Samplers

Stash Report

Used this Week:           0.0 yards
Used Year to Date:       0.0 yards
Added this Week:       12.0 yards
Added Year to Date:   12.0 yards
Net Used for 2011:     -12.0 yards

Since I got the Go! Cutter just before Christmas (present to myself courtesy of an award at work), I plan on cutting up some stash in the upcoming weeks to get it ready for using. I'm hoping the Go! will really help with cutting the excess fabric into usable bits and it will be a lot faster than hand-cutting it! ;-)

Happy Quilting!
Sarah

Merry Christmas...to me

2010-12-20T10:25:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago, I received an award at work for a project that I completed earlier this year. The project reduced our programming time on our components at our production facility by 50% and improved our drawing quality (I removed approximately 60% of the dimensions from a single type of drawing and we produced thousands of these drawings every year). After I received the award, I was able to transfer the amount to Amazon gift cards, so I bought myself a Christmas present....an Accuquilt Go! Cutter.

I haven't had a chance to take it out of the box yet, but I can't wait to try it out. Other quilters have said they love it and it speeds up their cutting time AND makes their quilts better since there is less variation in the piece parts of the quilt. Along with the cutter shown above, I was able to purchase some extra dies. I bought the 2.5" strip die, tumbler die, apple core die, and a die with multiple sized stars on it. The cutter also came with some dies, 2.5" square, some half-square triangle dies and a 4.5" square die.

I'm pretty psyched about trying it out, although I probably won't be able to open it up until after Christmas. I have to work through Wednesday morning this week and then I'll have to prepare for Christmas since we are hosting Rich's family at our house for Christmas day, then traveling to my parents to spend a few days with them for Christmas.

On other good notes, Rich and I went for a nice walk at our property on Saturday. The river in the back of the property was mostly frozen over, but there were areas where the water was flowing freely. Since the ground was pretty solid from the cold weather we've had, we even found our way through the "swampy" area to get back to the front of our property. It was really pretty out there and it was so quiet and relaxing. Hearing the water flow was amazing and that's all you could hear...no vehicles...no kids/people. We also saw lots of animal tracks. There were rabbits, chipmunks/mice, deer, a fox or something like that and turkey tracks. We think we may have seen coyote tracks, too, but we're not sure.

On Sunday, we did some Christmas shopping in the morning and were back at the house by lunchtime. At about 2:30, we got a call that someone wanted to see the house....at 3:30! So it was a mad scramble to clean up the house in less than an hour. We did as much as we could (put things away, cleaned up the kitchen, cleaned the bathrooms, swept the floor), but we didn't get the carpets vacuumed or cleaned the showers. The real estate agent apologized for the short notice and we explained the few areas we didn't clean (there were a few dishes in the sink because the dishwasher had just been run a little while before that). They didn't mind at all since we were so accommodating and letting them see the house on short notice. Ultimately, they liked the house (as the agent thought they would) and they are comparing it to a similar type house in Clifton Park. They are a little concerned about the taxes, but they are weighing it with the higher cost of a similar house in Clifton Park. Hopefully it will turn out well for us. :-)

Time.....

2010-12-14T10:55:00.000-05:00

This year has absolutely flown by! How did it get to be the middle of December???

I'm sorry to say that I haven't been very good at posting on here. I'm not sure if its a case where I've just been lazy or that I've felt like I have had nothing worthwhile to say. Maybe its a little bit of both.

Rich and I have been fairly busy the past few weeks trying to get ready for the holidays. Work always seems to get crazy this time of year because: 1) manufacturing wants to ship by the end of the year, 2) performance appraisals are due, 3) funding gets determined for next year and for programs that don't have funding next year, we have to finish everything this year. On top of the work stuff, there's all the preparation for the Holidays.

Christmas shopping is not one of my fortes and, to be honest, I'm kind of sick of it. I don't like all the commercialization of Christmas these days and just about everyone in my family can buy whatever they want or need, so it makes it difficult to find the good gift.

I think lately its just been a case where I feel truly overwhelmed by life. While sometimes it doesn't seem like we have much going on, somehow I always feel harried and rushed. I haven't had time to just relax and not worry about things. Even our trip to the Bahamas was stress-leaden.

Our first flight out of Albany to Charlotte was delayed in Albany due to a fuel leak. So the 50 minute layover we originally had dwindled down to less than 5 minutes. We had to run through the Charlotte airport and got to the next gate just as they were loading our zone. Then on that flight, I was lucky enough to be sitting next to a kid who sounded like he was trying to hack up a lung. We finally got to the Bahamas and picked a "short" line at customs. Well, it was definitely a poor choice. Every single person in front of us was going to the Bahamas on a work visa and there were problems with all of them. So it took us 1.5 hours to get through immigration.

Our actual stay at the Sandals resort was pretty good. We expected the food to be a little better than what it was, but the view and beach were perfect. Several nights we had trouble finding someplace to eat because only certain restaurants would be open and some you had to have reservations and they were booked solid. We didn't even end up eating at the French-styled restaurant because Rich ended up getting sick. We think he had some bad veal, but it kind of made the end of the trip not much fun. Most of the last full day we were there was spent in our room and not down at the beach. Then because he wasn't feeling well, the entire trip home was very stressful.

At this point, I've been stressed out for so long that my entire body hurts. Yesterday, I got to the point where I could barely move my head because my neck was so tense. I just can't wait for my vacation to start next week. Maybe I'll actually be able to relax over the holidays, although it won't happen until at least after Christmas day, since we're hosting Rich's family at our house for Christmas.

Anyway - enough griping.... Eventually I might get some more pictures on here, but I think for the time being, this may be a venting tool again. :-(

Long time.....

2010-11-30T15:56:00.000-05:00

So much for posting on a regular basis... :-( As typical, work and life got a little screwy so here it is the end of November and its the first time I'm posting in about a month!

Things have been VERY busy at work the past few weeks. Additionally, Rich and I went on vacation last week, so we spent a lot of extra time at work to make sure we didn't get too far behind when coming back from vacation.

Just where did we go???? The BAHAMAS! :-)

We had a great time, despite getting sick the last day from the food. The beach was absolutely fabulous and the drinks were plentiful. You could pretty much get anything to drink (including alcohol based drinks) from 11am until 3am. You could get yourself into a LOT of trouble. The food wasn't great, despite the place being all-inclusive. However, the convenience of having food and drink right there pretty much whenever you wanted it was good. We spent pretty much every day from 9:30am until 5pm on the beach or in the ocean. We made sure to use plenty of sunblock and sit under the umbrellas so we only got a little burned. If I actually tanned instead of burned, I'd have a great tan...but I have fair skin that only wants to burn.

I'll have some pictures posted soon from the trip (mostly just pictures of the beach). I also have some pictures of some quilty projects that I've been working on.

Books - The Hunger Games

2010-10-18T16:14:00.000-04:00

Earlier this month, I finished a book called The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Let me just say...this is a FANTASTIC book!

The story is based upon a futuristic world where there is a central Capital that acts as the governing body for 13 Districts. At one point in time, the Districts rebelled against the Capital and fought amongst themselves for various resources. As a means to end the fighting, the Capital took control and obliterated one of the districts...District 13. This was to prove a point to the remaining districts that the Capital was powerful and if they didn't do what the Capital said they, too, would be destroyed.

In order to "remind" the districts of the pointless fighting the Capital devised The Hunger Games. The whole point of the Hunger Games is for children from each district to be placed in an arena and fight to the death. The last one standing wins the Games for that year. Each year, the remaining 12 Districts would hold a reaping to select a single boy and a single girl from each district to participate in The Hunger Games. The names are selected from a bin where everyone in a certain age range are required to put their names in at least once. If your family was poor and didn't have enough to eat, you could put your name in more times in exchange for additional food/goods.

In this particular story, the focus is on a young girl name Katniss. Her father was killed in a mining accident has she has been illegally hunting with her friend, Gale, in order to provide food for Gale's family and for Katniss's mother and younger sister, Prim. Katniss has done everything she possibly can to provide for her family and has tried to keep her younger sister's name out of the reaping selection. In this fateful year, even though Katniss' name has been placed in the reaping multiple times, her younger sister, who's name is entered just once, was selected. Katniss did what an older sister does, and willingly took Prim's place in the reaping.

So now, Katniss is off to the Capital to join the other Tributes to fight to the death in the arena. She and her fellow Tribute from District 12, Peeta, don't know quite what to make of the Games. They know they are going to their deaths and yet they are unwilling to just give up and let the other Tributes, or the Capital, win.

This is truly an excellent book and its EXTREMELY hard to put down once you start reading it. I highly recommend picking it up from your local bookstore or library and setting aside a weekend to read it. ;-)

The Albatross Lives :-(

2010-10-10T19:50:00.000-04:00

We were all geared up for getting the contracts signed for selling the house....then got a call from the person who was going to buy the house. Not only did he find out Friday that his pension would be cut by 20%, but he also found out that his cancer was back. :-( We felt awful for the guy.

Obviously, they will not be buying the house, unless some other miracle comes along. They were worried that they were "messing" things up for us by not buying the house. We assured them that they were not messing anything up and all they should be concerned about is getting healthy. Hopefully the cancer will be treatable and isn't an aggressive form of cancer.

So.....anyone interested in a house? ;-)

It's Happening.....!

2010-10-08T12:37:00.000-04:00

After the abysmal attempts to sell our house with real estate agents, Rich and I put the house up for sale ourselves. A few weeks ago we got a call that someone was interested in the house. We did a showing for that person, and they came back with an offer. We weren't happen with the offer, so we countered and they said they had to think about it. On Wednesday, they called us back and gave us a better offer...

AND WE ACCEPTED!

So we are closing the deal on the house on October 21st. A little too soon for us to move out you think? :-) The new owners are going to rent us the house until May of next year, which is when our new home is supposed to be done.

We won't have to move out of our current house at all before moving into the next house, which is WAY more convenient. All in all, we're pretty darn lucky. The people came up a bit in price, not quite as much as we would have liked, but with the ability to rent the house until our new house is built....it was too good to pass up.

Keep your fingers crossed that all the final paperwork goes through properly. :-)

Weekend & Tea

2010-09-19T20:08:00.000-04:00

Last week was a very busy week for us. On Monday and Tuesday nights, we met one of my co-workers up at our lot to give him some wood. We thought he was just going to cut the wood that was already in the pile and take that away, but instead he wanted to help us drop a few trees and cut them up (in exchange for the wood). So we were up there cutting trees until 7:30 at night.

Then on Friday night, we met my manager up at the lot for more wood. He heats his entire house with wood, so he's up for "free" wood whenever he can get it. So we were up there again until 7:30 at night. Then Saturday morning, Rich and his dad went to the lot to cut down some trees and my co-worker AND manager went there, too, to get wood. They dropped a tree that we weren't sure how to drop, so at least that's down on the ground now.

As for me....on Saturday, instead of working on the lot, I had to do laundry and a bunch of errands because I'm traveling this week. I also met a great friend for tea on Saturday. We had a great time. We didn't spend as much time there as last time, but we were still there for 2 hours and had a bunch to talk about.

This week, I'm down near NYC for a training class for work. I'm hoping it will be good, but its a little nerve-wracking. Its not that the class will be hard....its just that I don't really like traveling. I like being home....plain and simple. I'm sure the week will go by quickly and then I'll be happy to be home again.

Another bit of good news.....we ended the contract with our real estate agent earlier this month and put the house up for sale by ourselves. We got a cheap "burner" phone at Walmart so that we didn't have to put our personal phone number up on the sign. We had 15 flyers taken in the past week or so, and this morning we actually got a call! Someone wants to come see the house tomorrow. Rich will show the house since I'm not home, but we're pretty excited. These people are retired and they have family in our area. Plus, they don't need to sell their house in order to buy our house....so no waiting! :-)

Anyway - I think I'm going to get ready for bed and read for a while. There's not much else to do here. Too bad I didn't think to bring some sewing with me to at least work on tonight.

Books - "A Woman's Place" by Lynn Austin

2010-08-30T13:07:00.000-04:00

Earlier this summer, I read a fantastic book by Lynn Austin. I've really gotten hooked on her books lately. While I'm not usually one to read Christian novels, Ms. Austin's writing has a great balance between telling the story and mixing in Christian principles without being "preachy". Here's the write-up for "A Woman's Place" from Amazon:

In an engrossing read, three-time Christy Award–winner Austin explores the lives of four women in smalltown Michigan during WWII. The unlikely quartet of heroines—a mouthy Italian, a farm girl desperate to go to college, a spinster schoolteacher who's inherited a fortune, and a bored housewife—meet and become fast friends when they take Rosie the Riveter jobs at a local factory. On one level, the novel is simply about the bonds that form among the principals, recalling Whitney Otto's How to Make an American Quilt and Lynne Hinton's Friendship Cake. But the subtext, as the title suggests, is about gender roles. Can and should women defy their husbands? What does the Bible say about wifely obedience? Such questions present themselves urgently to each of the four protagonists (and, one imagines, to many of Austin's female evangelical readers). Austin sprinkles some lovely images throughout—a newborn's fingernails "like drops of candle wax"—and a humorous depiction of inadvertently tipsy church ladies will have readers in stitches. All in all, Austin offers a very enjoyable journey to an earlier wartime America.
The entire storyline revolved around 4 women during WWII. As most people are aware, during WWII the majority of the US male population was sent to the front lines to fight, which left a huge hole in the US production environment. With all the men gone (and women not typically working outside the home), there were very few people left to work in the factories to make the supplies that the men on the front lines needed. The women of America stepped up to the plate and joined into industries that were always male dominated. The four women depicted in the novel have their own individual problems and worries at taking a job outside their home. It was definitely a good book to read.

I think part of the reason I was really drawn to this novel is the fact that even though we're 60+ years after WWII, we still have women fighting for our rights to work in a male dominated world. While women are definitely prevalent in the working society, there are still certain professions where there are very few of us. Engineering is definitely one of those fields.

Throughout college, I was one of maybe 2 females in my upper-level classes of 30 people. I learned to live in a male-oriented world, which has had its own affects on me. Even now as I hold a very good engineering position, I am the only female in our group of engineers and drafters. We have two females in our global sites, but I am the only female based here in the US. While most of the time it doesn't really bother me, there are times when I feel like the odd person out simply because everyone else is male. It does make things a little more "challenging".

All I can say is for the mothers out there with young daughters....encourage them to get into math and science. Teach them that just because an industry is mainly male doesn't mean that they can't do it! Set the foundation right when they are in grade school and middle school and they will do well in today's society.