Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Productive!

...on many things but not the sewing room. I think I'm having a similar problem that Jen is having with packing up... I can't seem to unpack. Most of the time I sit here and stare at my shelves that need to be filled with books that are in the boxes right at my feet.

Last week I was talking to my Mother and she said she needed a grandbaby fix. My parents came up Saturday afternoon. Saturday evening Mom helped me organize some fabric. It was sooooo nice to see an area "clean". Sunday, Hubby wanted to work on the garage because since we've moved in he hasn't been able to get his truck into the garage. Little girl played very well in the driveway on the misc things we pulled out. Her favorite "toy" was my old couch from college. It's one of those foam couches that folds out to a mattress. The couch has since moved to her room with a new slipcover. In fact, she now wants to sleep on the couch rather than her new bed! Novelty hopefully will wear off soon. Along with the couch, many other boxes were moved into the house... my sewing room now has several more boxes to open... OMG. I just need another eye to pull me out of this mess that sees what I don't. The good news is now we can get Hubby's truck in the garage, with an inch to spare in the front and back! He removed the inside handles off of the garage door because it was too close for comfort.

In my last post I showed you my EQ rendering of the attic window project. Saturday was the class with Peg Bingham. So glad I took that class. She made a great change to my color selection...

This coming weekend will be a "sewcial" with one of the guilds so I hope to get this top completed.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Vacation days

Well, the plan to take 10 minutes a day hasn't worked. I've taken a vacation today and tomorrow to work on my room. So far, I've taken pictures of a couple projects and it's about 2:30 p.m. "What has she been doing?!" you say? I left the house about 8:30 a.m., got breakfast, and then drove to the Habitat for Humanity's Restore to see if I can find used cabinets for my room. They didn't have what I was looking for but it was fun to look around. They had a couple old (60's) sewing machines with tables.

After that, I walked around the mall. It was so nice to walk around without the stroller and not have to say "Let go please... Let go please..." I bought Little Girl a couple new PJ's and some cute jeans from Children's Place. Then I went to the book store and bought Diane Gaudynski's "Quilt Savvy." I've read good things about her book and I had some birthday money burning a hole in my pocket, so now I own it. :)

Okay, now on to the pictures. The first picture is of a few of the blocks that I made at a mystery quilt class with one of the guilds back in March. It was the first class I've taken and it was really fun. The directions were to pick a light, dark, and medium (suggestions were given) and do some pre-cuts. The pattern is called a Split 9 Patch. I love how the colors turned out. Once the room is together, the quilt will come together.


The next project is an Attic Window class being taught by Peg Bingham. Here are my fabric choices. Next is the EQ6 version of what it might to look like...



It might be a bit too much orange? What do you think? We'll see what Peg suggests.

Well, it's time to get working on the room... I'll share pics of the transformation... whenever it gets completed. :-p


Monday, May 12, 2008

Mother's Day

I hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day! My day started out with Hubby getting the little girl up, hearing some paper wrestling, and whispering. This only leads to something cute, seeing this little body carrying a bag about as big as her "Here Mommy!" she says. She hands me the card. It's a cute little card with birds that she colored "Pink and Orange Mommy!" The card went along with the present, it's an Oriole bird feeder. What? Yup, an Oriole bird feeder. Apparently Hubby was walking down the gardening aisle when she screamed for it. It's orange, she loves orange. It is now filled and sitting on the railing of our back deck waiting for a hanger.

Later at breakfast, she was being a bit of a handful. One of her little habits that drives me crazy is to have her foot up on the table, while she's eating. After several requests for "foot removal", Hubby looked at her and asked, "is this how today is going to go?" With this question, Little Girl tilted her head to think... "Ummm, I think so!" We bust out laughing. And she lived up to that comment for the day.

In the end, I wouldn't have had it any other way. I love being a mother.

Thursday, May 8, 2008

Quilting?

I know that I say that I'm a quilter but if you look at my blog, it really doesn't look like it. Since we've moved into our home in October, I've been trying to get myself motivated and get my sewing room together. Recently my friend Quilt Bug has been doing 10 minutes of quilting a day. Working along with that idea, I've taken upon myself to do 10 minutes of working on my sewing room a day. It's coming along well. My file cabinets are about 3/4 organized. There are now 2 new wall shelves up and occupied. I drew out plans for cabinets and a built-in L-shaped table. Even went to Lowe's and priced out everything that I would need in hopes of using the stimulus check (or at least my half) on the "remodel".

Last night my hopes were quickly dashed when I asked Hubby what he had in mind to do with the check. He quickly reminded me that we had a slow leak between our bathrooms that is in need of repair. Unfortunately, I don't think this check will cover all of the costs. :( Let's jump back to when we bought the house. The home inspector mentioned that there might be a leak but since the home was a flip and was vacant for a year prior, he couldn't find any immediate problem. So from the laundry room, which is under the two bathrooms, we've been watching a couple areas. From time to time there will be a wet spot on the floor but couldn't find a wet pipe to blame. About a month ago, after taking a shower, I went to change a load of laundry. While there, it happended... a stream of water came pouring out of the floor board above my head, not a pipe. That means that it's in the walls. UGH! Normally we would have a few extra scheckles to pay for something like this but we recently had all the windows (all but 3 were original to the house with no screens) and the interior garage door (no seal at all, 1/2" gap) replaced. If you noticed all the repair work on this "flip" house that we bought, you will also notice that we are learning that this flip was purely cosmetic. Well, they did replace the furnace and hot water tank....

Why do we buy expensive toys?

My friend sent me this video. It is too cute! If you don't laugh, something is really wrong with you. :)


Wednesday, May 7, 2008

"The Tinkler"

One of my girlfriends sent me this article. I was laughing so hard because we have one at work too. There are even signs posted "If you sprinkle when you tinkle, please be sweet and wipe the seat!" Even with the signs posted, nothing has changed. We all know who it is and can't wait for her to retire next year! LOL!

http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/personal/05/06/o.tinkler/index.html