Design Wall Monday 2/18/2013

I just realized this is my first design wall of the new year. With the move and all I have just been very busy. But, alas my new design wall is put up.  It only took about 5 hours to do. It would have been a very easy task it I would have had dry wall up. Since I only have foundation walls down here in the basement on the outside walls it took along time, drilling into concrete is not a fun task, just ask my husband. But, the design wall is up in the hallway and is done. I do have to use pins to hold the blocks up, mainly because it is a hallway and with a teenager, a pre-teen, husband, cat and dog it is the easiest way to make sure my hard work does not move.

The new design wall.  This is 4 sections of sheathing/insulation, each section is 4x7. I thought it would be plenty big but....

Sylvia's Bridal Sampler, it is so long I put the first blocks on the ceiling.  Hubby thought it was quit interesting. There are more blocks hidden behind the bow tie blocks.

Dear Jane is starting to come together. It has been a bad word around here for quit a few months. I am just ready for it to be done. We have about 50 blocks left. So by the time we are done it will have been a little over 2 years that we have been working on it.  The scary thing....I am seriously considering doing another one....am I crazy or what.

I finally finished my bow tie blocks that I had been working on as leaders and enders. I know Bonnie Hunter and the crew finished awhile ago and moved onto spools but I just had too many left to do. But now these are ready to be sewn together and I already have started another leader and ender project. More on that later.

I tried to get the complete picture here but with the hallway not cooperating this was the best I could go. I sewed these into 9 patches and now have to sew them together. It is going to be a 9x7 setting I think or something crazy like that.

 

 

Now, I need an opinion. Should I find a border to put on it or just bind it. I am thinking of just binding it but then what color should I bind it. I don't have anymore of the cheddar. I thought about black and I also thought about scrappy.  What do you think?

 

Well that is what is on my Design Wall for this week and very well what will be up there for a while to come.  For more ideas head on over to Judy's.

 

Have a great day everyone,

Michelle

It's Starting to Come Together 2

I realized I forgot to post the few pictures of the quilt room since the move.

This hasn't seen a major improvement since the first pictures posted, other than more crap set in here.

This is walking in the door. I did get a new cover for my ironing board and had to shorten it since it didn't fit, but now have a smaller one next to the sewing machine.

This is walking in far enough to pass that weird hallway, see picture below. I have put my Koala table back together and now my room is much smaller. I don't know if it will stay like this but I have to much to do right now to move things around this week.

Here is the funky hallway.  I would really like to see if we need that little wall there. If I don't that may come down soon. It would give me some more room to play with moving my table around in there. If not I may be moving the stuff in the den area into this room and moving my sewing table out there. If I do that I can move the long arm into this room and then I would make the other bedroom a spare bedroom with extra stuff in there.  Who knows, it will probably be another 6 months to a year before I have everything figured out, maybe even longer.

 

I will be buying a nice sturdy long shelving unit to put in the "closet" in the sewing room. Right now it is just piled with my stuff that I haven't "gotten round to" and is an eye sore. I will get to that soon I hope it is just I need to sew, sew, sew.

 

Off to sew now, so have a great Sunday night.

 

Michelle

It's Starting To Come Together

Slowly but surely it is all starting to come together.  We have been in the house a 32 days and I am finally starting to get time to sew.  I still have a long way to go but that can be done a little bit at a time.

I took my Koala table apart because it didn't fit the way I wanted. After one night of sewing, two blocks, I now have the Koala table back together. I still may do some major rearranging although hubby doesn't know about it yet.

Living Room

Dining Room

Family room

Kitchen

My Bathroom

Living Room

Our Bedroom

Master Bathroom

 

Middle Son's Room - he was at a sleep over and little does he know he has to change his sheets when he gets home.

Youngest Sons bedroom...lol..couldn't wait for him to wake up

This is in the corner of the dining room. Holds all of the Tinkerbell's I used to collect. They are now so commercially found I no longer collect them.

 

 

I have 3 gallons of paint for both boys room's and my bathroom so that will be on the agenda for the next month or so, whenever I am caught up on sewing stuff...hmm..maybe they will never get painted.  I also have new curtains to hang in the family room. All the other curtains were left here from the previous owners and they are not my cup of tea so they will all be replaced eventually.

 

I am also hoping this summer to get the paint off the fireplace..but that is another subject all together.

 

I am off to sew before my Sylvia's class this afternoon.

 

I did get my new design wall up...stay tuned for Monday for the great unveiling.

 

Have a great Saturday everyone.

 

Michelle

 

Whatcha Reading

I am finally returning to a life of normalcy after the move, well almost anyway. I have been wanting to get back to blogging so here I am.

My whatcha reading for this week is a book I started Sunday and pretty much finished yesterday. My husband was laughing at me because I was sitting on the couch just "crying like a baby"...he just commented that I found another tear jerker to read. 

Kristin Hannah is one of my favorite authors. Although I must say I have to psyche myself up top read her books because 99% of the time I am in tears.

Home Front by Kristin Hannah was this weeks choice for me.




You can read about this book on the link above.

I can say that this book had a different perspective on being deployed to Iraq.  This came from a woman's view and her deployment and how it upset her family.

I would recommend this book to anyone that wants a serious cry...lol..just keep a box of Kleenex close by.

For more "Whatcha Reading" head on over to Judy's. I have started keeping a little list next to the computer to write down some interesting reads...only because I have so much time..

Have a wonderful day everyone.

Michelle

A Big Change

I can't believe I haven't posted since the new year. Well, actually I can. It has been really crazy here. With the way everything worked out I was unable to really start all of my New Year's ideas but I figure February will be just as good. At least I hope I will be ready to go by then.

Anyway, the big change in our life was that we finally bought our very first (and only) house. It was a whirlwind 6 weeks. We started looking mid December. By December 13 we put in and offer and we finally closed on the 14 January. Talk about quick. We were able to get everything moved in by the night of the 15th and actually slept in our new home.

I can say moving all of this fabric was not pleasant. I am still working my way through all of the boxes and have a minute by minute conversation with myself about all of this stuff. Let me tell you there is alot of this stuff too.

I used to have a living and dining room area for my quilting, well I did expand to other rooms but that is not the point. I now have a long arm room, a quilt room and a ton of storage space. I refuse to expand out of those areas so some tough love might be coming my way.

Here are some lovely pictures of the house in progress.

Hopefully by next week, since I have another week off of work, I will be ready to sew with just a few things left to do.

The long arm room..It is kind of a tight fit but that is ok. The closet (below) is to die for. Buy a couple more cubbies and I am all set. 

Long arm room closet.

Oh yeah! I thought I was getting the whole basement, which would include this room but for some reason hubby wanted a study. What could I say? Well, I thought about NO but figured that wouldn't go across very well.

Basement bathroom. I made this the boys bathroom so I wouldn't have them in mine any longer. It does mean the have to go down to shower and brush but my bathroom will no longer have the boy mess in it.

This is the view from my husbands study out. My computer is now down here and is taking a little to get used to.

This is the den area I guess you could call it. This is only a fraction of the boxes that were originally there. this was filled to the top.

My sewing room. The desk the TV is on is no longer there but I have plenty of room. Well, now that i took part of my sewing table apart to get it to fit.

A very weird hallway in the sewing room. The little wall on the right is not very wide and it just there. We think it is to hold some type of house things but who knows. I have since but some shelves on the left wall.

The other side of sewing room. The shelf on the wall now holds my Isacord threads, the futon (left here by previous owners) is out in the den, and my cutting table now resides there.

This little cubby is behind the door and held this bookshelf perfectly. I will be needing to get some of those precuts used soon. And those boxes on the bottom, just a small portion of my WIP"S or UFO's. I really do need to get busy.

This is a weird little room on the left as soon as you come downstairs. We put the boys computers in there, the cat box, and those shelves are going to hold office supplies and whatever else I can't find a home for.  How's that for organizing?

Another view of the den area. The bookshelves have been moved to another wall which now hold all of our movies, the long chest is now on the same wall and will hold some more of my stuff. The futon now resides on that wall temporarily.

 

 

These are just the downstairs photo's. Hopefully soon I can show completed pictures of the whole house and maybe get back to some cool quilty and knitty photos as well.

 

Have a blessed week everyone. I am off to unpack some more boxes.

 

Michelle

On The Needles 1/4/12

I finally have an on the needles post. Of course it looks like I was able to get a lot done but that is because my last post was probably a month ago.

I did finish my purple socks finally, they have even been washed and dried.

I also finished my red scarf.  I had originally bought this yarn to make some of the thicker beginner socks that I had been taught with. After, oh about 5 minutes of debating I realized I did like the sock weight or even sport weight better than the worsted weight so I had to decide on something else to do with this yarn. I used one skein to make the scarf and then since I bought two skeins, of course I figured a hat would be good out of the second skein. I am using the 7,8,9 pattern from Ravelry. I decided to do it with size 8 needles since that was the size I used for the scarf.  Let me tell you, after working with the smaller size 2.5 needles these feel like water hoses.

I also am, still, working on a sock. I was taught how to knit with the 4 dpns, but this pattern called for 5 and since I am still a novice and it was an easy, peasy sock I am following the instructions to the letter.  I have found that, so far, I do like using the extra needles. I don't get such a big gap when switching from one needle to another, which I get the other way no matter how tight I pull the first couple of stitches. I am sure I will get better as I go along. I sure hope I get brave enough to try some other patterns soon as well. At times it gets really boring using the same pattern over and over again.

I also bought a pattern to make a Kimono cardigan but that will have to wait awhile. I am really going to have to set some of this knitting aside to get some of these Dear Jane blocks appliqued but it is really hard to do....I also wish I was a speedy knitter but that isn't so.

I also received a lovely gift card from my Dear Jane students for Christmas.  So of course I went and bought some yarn, figured it would be easier to move than fabric.

I also finished a scarf for my mother, in that lovely ribbon twirly stuff but forgot to get a picture. Maybe I can make that my next weeks post.

I probably won't be able to post another needles Friday for awhile, well I could but it would probably be the exact same thing in the exact same spot, but I will be back.  I just have to move houses and get settled in first. Yarn is great...goes in buckets and is pretty light to move.  Fabric...well we won't go there.

For more on the needles head on over to Judy's. I so love going out and about on the various blogs to see what others are up to.  Although, it does add to my "want to do list".

Have a great day,

Michelle

Happy New Year

Happy New Year everyone.  I hope everyone had a safe and fun New Years Eve.  I didn't stay up too late since I have to work this morning.  Our big sale at work. At least it is a short day for me.

I have two completions for the New Year....wish I would be able to keep this pace for the year that is for sure.

I am teaching a new class, Year of Schnibbles. So I have to be ahead of the game.  I finished January a long, long time ago.

Full House - Jan

 

Plan C - February

I meandered all over with white thread. I was hoping you could see the quilting a little bit better. I had this top quilted in maybe 10 minutes.

Plan - C

Full picture or as full as I could get without hunting down a chair to stand on.

 

Doc - Close up. I was under a time constraint so this one was also meandered all over with a multi-gray thread. The charm pack is Quilting blocks.

 

Doc - March

Again I tried to get the complete picture.  One of these days maybe.

 

 

I did machine sew the binding down. I also added a sleeve and label to both of them. I just have to finish hand sewing those down and they are totally done done.

 

I have April Schnibbles top down as well but that one will have to wait awhile.

 

With my time and circumstances changing I have had to really work hard to get ahead.  Which in my case is really hard when I can barely keep up.

 

Dear Jane this month will only have 7 blocks. I guess it is not that bad since in the last 19 months I have never done less than the 10 required. I am hoping to get at least 7 done for the Feb meeting but that might be difficult.

 

I am lucky that I was ahead on Sylvia's Bridal Sampler so that one just needed the blocks picked out.  I am technically good to go until March.

 

So this week will be playing get ahead and all of my New Year wants for quilting and knitting will have to start March 1, but that is ok right...

 

 

Have a great day and hope to be back sooner rather than later.

 

 

Michelle