Saturday, June 30, 2007

Saturday.....

This is my oldest son's "MOM PUT THE DAMN CAMERA AWAY" face...I see it often...in the background is the bus station...can you guess what time it is? Let me tell you the story...indulge me for the moment...

We put our oldest on the bus at 3:00 this morning bound for Iowa...I think it is harder as they get older and start leaving. Of course he is young enough that this is a great adventure--it is scary as hell to me....but hopefully things work out, or he gains some life experience that doesn't harm him, just makes him wiser....and makes him realize Mom and Dad may know something after all. It started off a little bumpy because when we went to pick up the tickets at the bus station, I insisted on looking at them to check they were correct....We picked up the tickets on June 29 at 3:50 PM---the departure time/date on the ticket was 1:55 PM(!!) on the 29th! I pointed that out to Brandon and we went back in...the clerk was a little confused as to why it was wrong until I pointed out the time on the departure was an hour before the tickets were issued...I'm not sure why the system didn't kick that back, but it was a good thing I insisted on looking....I would have been going OKIE on their rears at 3:00 AM!! For those of you that don't know what that is---trust me, you don't want to be on the receiving end of that....it ain't pretty....At any rate, I'm standing there as the bus is loading trying not to cry and be one of those hysterical ladies that you really only see in the movies....so I took a couple pictures instead.


The twins are having to start learning some of his chores, so let's see how that goes.


I spent part of the night getting my quilt ready to machine quilt and then sat down to do free motion quilting. There is quite a bit more to free motion stippling than meets the eye. It looks easy---it is hard getting the uniform but unplanned look! Thankfully this is my first quilt and people will cut me some slack on it. I keep telling myself that this is a first quilt and I will improve with experience. I can tell you that I will probably NOT attempt to machine quilt anything larger that a full size quilt by myself. I will send it out to be long armed....I also realized the lighting in our kitchen is not even remotely adequate for working on a quilt. I am going to set up a quilting table in Brandon's room (that is going to be converted to the guest room). There is more space and the lighting is much better.


It has rained pretty consistently for the past three days, today started out drizzling, then cleared up...I was kind of sad about that--I really like the rain. I am one of those people that would have been really well adjusted in Oregon or one of the states where it rains all the time. I love it....It looks like it will stop raining for the day and just be warm (which means humid---not a good day to make divinity)...But the good side to that is it will probably save my carpet. Muddy feet and paws abound in this house.

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Rain, Rain...


It is 7:30 a.m and it has been raining off and on all night and for most of the day yesterday. That's OK because I love rain. We've had quite a bit of rain lately, which is unusual for this time of year. Thankfully there was a small break when we moved..


Sue and I have almost finished OUR FIRST QUILT....We had gotten a little burned out from marathon quilting session to get it pieced, so there has been a little break in between piecing and the sewing of the layers. After last night we have decided that we both need more experience with the machine quilting part. My stitching in the ditch is not the smoothest. I am seriously looking at invisible thread next time. But since this was a first quilt, it was good to see the fact that I had problems staying in the ditch....not really, that's my self pep talk.....This week I will continue with some more stitching in the squares (free motion) and then we will tackle binding. Sue's quilt is a nice subdued flannel in blues and muted creams. Mine is.....NOT. Our pattern is called "confetti", although I've seen it called a couple other names too, and mine has about every bright color possible. It doesn't look bright in the picture, but trust me---it is. The binding is going to be either red, blue or purple...not sure yet....Doesn't son looked thrilled to be standing out in the rain holding my quilt? NOT!

Monday, June 25, 2007

Chillin'










I'm just hanging out and enjoying the quiet that is MY house right now. Hubby has taken one of the twins to baseball and the others are scattered throughout. I am sitting here listening to the new Maroon 5 album...it is quite good and has a great beat to knit to. Here is a link for a sampling of their new and past album. Both are really good...which surprises my kids that I like this...http://music.aol.com/artist/maroon-5/529962/main...I have a pretty diverse taste in music--just about everything is good except rap. I don't understand that stuff....

I am contemplating ordering some blackberry bushes to put in the back yard. If I do it this summer, then we will have blackberries for next summer....Blackberry-peach jam...yummmm. There is a peach orchard down the street that I usually buy peaches for eating and jam. Two years ago I found a u-pick blackberry farm and made blackberry peach jam..It was soooo good!The only problem was the blackberries were really expensive. I figure if I have a half a dozen bushes of a high producing variety, that's be awesome!! Our yard is smaller than the previous house, so these will have to be bushes that double as foliage/landscaping. I found a thorn less variety that is looking really good... I'm excited about finally having room to can a ton of jams this year. I love making jams. I usually give them for Christmas gifts too but haven't had the space to spread out and can in the past two years. This year, LOOK OUT!

Sunday, June 24, 2007

Quilting

I found the most comforting quilting web-site at http://www.coveredporches.blogspot.com/ . Take a look. Doesn't it just make you want to invade her house and live there forever? Even if you don't quilt, you can look at it an just sigh...along with knitting and quilting, blog surfing is another passion of mine.
On the home front, we FINALLY got the bunk beds put together for the twins. Hubby and I went out furniture shopping and bought the mattresses for them, so at least their room is coming together. We got to look at other stuff for the house too, so it was a pretty productive day. I am looking forward to finally having the house put together! It is so disorganized right now. We don't have enough furniture so that is our ingoing project. Oldest son is due to move to Iowa in a couple weeks, and we will be furnishing his room as a guest/quilting room. It will take quite a few months to get all that we need for the entire house. My "goal" is to focus on one room at a time, starting with the ones seen by people the most and the ones most used by family.....

Friday Night Wichita KIP


Here are pictures from the Friday night Knit in Public sock class. I finally got to go! Yeah! I met new people that I hadn't met before and got to see Connie, one of my favorite knitters and the teacher for this class. There were a couple other ladies there, but my camera has an attitude and I didn't get the pictures. I have no pictures of my sock since I didn't quite get the hang of it and frogged it. However, I will be starting over and getting caught up to where the others are in time for the second class on Thursday. I'm not so sure I'm sold on the socks on circ needles business, but at least I can try. The other picture is of two bags----HANDBAGS (!!) knit by the two ladies that are modeling them. Kudos and credit to both of them!
It was good to go! I have been absent from that group for WAY TOO LONG!

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Flashing my stuff!





I was going to post these pictures with my earlier post, but dear oldest child can't seem to remember to hook the camera up on the charger....here is a very small cross-section of the fabric I have planned for quilts. The skull and dragon fabric will be part of two quilts requested by oldest. They are neat in a strange sort of way...I have threatened to back it with care bear fabric to even out the karma....the rest are from my stash. As you can see, my taste varies wildly. And this isn't even half of the fabric...we won't go into the yarn yet....that is scary!

Thursday meanderings....

It has been an interesting week. We learned that the flooding on the back patio area was due to some fancy "rigging job" someone did in an attempt to prevent from having to clean the area under the sump pump out annually...the plumber found the problem quickly after snaking the outside drains and then coming in to look at the sump pump..I can't even describe the creativity involved in the original fix, but suffice it to say, after removing literally a foot of silt from the basement sump pump area with a shop vac, it now drains as it is supposed to. The sloping hill issue is going to be corrected this weekend, which will prevent the washout silt. That and a diversion of the drain pipe will alleviate the problem. We are learning little by little....This weekend we get to go out there and fix all the issues. I am ready to get it cleaned up--we've had quite a bite of rain, which equals quite a bit of standing water, which in turn left quite a good degree of silt. I am having visions of pots of petunias, begonias and ferns being sprinkled around that area liberally!

I have the sock knitting class tomorrow--I am psyched! It is on circulars. I have done soooo little knitting in the past year that it is pretty shameful. I am working on an area in our reading room where I can have a stash of yarn handy whenever I am in the mood. Since everything is still packed in boxes, it can be a challenge to find the yarn I need! I'm working on that...slowly but surely. I guess I have been more of an armchair knitter. And I have really become entranced with quilting. That would greatly amuse the high school home ec teacher that tried to teach me how to sew....

I finally went over to the junior college and signed up for two classes in the fall. Since oldest is going to Iowa to live, we will not have to pay his tuition for a year. That's how long it takes to establish residency..... we just can't swing out of state tuition. We'll pay for it once he gets in state rates...as my friend says "if it lasts that long".... I was in favor of them just visiting each other a couple times and figuring out the rest once they met face to face....they met over the Internet and are going to move in together...as a parent, that is scary. I know you can meet someone face to face and they still turn out to be scary-crazy (it's not like I don't actively work the cases like that when I do the domestic violence docket), but.......

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

I haven't disappearred, I promise...

It has been a rough month in our household. We completed the move, have started getting things arranged (notice I said started), and I get sick....figures. Luckily I have plenty of sick days built up, so using two days was not a huge chunk..However, being gone does not mean the workload goes away. I figure I will be up to my eyeballs tomorrow and Friday.

It feels really weird being in a larger home. Once I feel better, I am going to start working on some wall quilts. There is a lot of blank wall space in this house that I must compulsively fill up...

Our knitting group is having another sock class this Friday. I am really looking forward to it since they teach the toe up method. The lady that teaches it is a sock maker extraordinaire! She taught the class once before but I wasn't able to get to it. I am excited. Toe up seems to be a good way to do socks since you can adjust the length of the foot before it's off the needles.

I'd better sign off for now, but I'm sending warm wishes your direction.

Friday, June 15, 2007

A little move is good for the soul....

Hell on the body, but good for the soul....I am finding a ton of books I "was going to read", projects I was going to finish, yarn I was going to knit and of course a fabric stash of epic proportions. WHERE was all this stuff hiding?

I have more than enough to keep me and half the neighborhood busy. I found a ton (probably literally) of old Red Heart yarn from my "learn to crochet" days. I am going to donate part of it and them use a larger portion for some charity afghans. I know some people refuse to knit or crochet with red heart, but for projects such as baby blankets and afghans for homeless shelters that are going to get a lot of love and use, it can't be beat. It can be abused in any way and still washes up great. I should know, my kids still have some of their blankies from 11 years ago that were made with the stuff.

It feels really weird to have this much space. We have more than doubled our living space and it feels really good. I'm sure it will feel better when all the boxes are unpacked, but that may take a while. I plan to get motivated this weekend while cute man is putting the kids' bunk bed together. We have to find a futon mattress this weekend also, so there will be a shopping trip to the furniture store. It's strange that some of the furniture from the old house that seemed soooo big there, feels like it is in miniature at this house. I guess everything changes with the context of it's surroundings.

Cute man and I are planning a get away at the end of July. He won a scuba diving class when we were at the Cessna open house and there is a "field trip" for the second course at Beaver Lake in Arkansas. Non diving spouses can tag along for a small fee, so I am going too. It is pretty close to Eureka Springs--which is my favorite place! I plan to bring yarn, needles and fabric and just craft away while everyone else is diving. I take a beginning applique class at a local quilt shop on the Thursday before we leave, so that will be something to bring along.

I guess I'd better head off and get ready for work. It's Friday so I have lots of loose ends to tie up. I will post pictures of the new house this weekend.

Good coffee and warm wishes to you and yours!

Sunday, June 10, 2007

I'm BAAAACK!

To say this has been an adventure would be putting it mildly! I have already told everyone at work if I EVER say I want to move again, PLEASE push me out the 5th floor window. It would be more humane and much less painful.....We finally got the old house cleaned and completely empty. I can't believe we got 5 people in that space! I am still in purge mode though. We moved an awful lot of stuff that I think I can actually do without, so the donation box is getting really full. The only thing left is to get the rose bush from the side of the yard, then we are officially done with that house....It still feels weird after 11 years. As a matter of fact, I had went to the grocery store with one of my sons, then proceeded to pull into our old driveway and shut the car off. My son finally said "Um, Mom, we moved...." Hey, if you are going to mess up, do it in front of your kids.....
I will post a longer entry tomorrow. I just wanted to check in and let everyone know I survived....

Friday, June 01, 2007

The Big Day

Tomorrow is the big moving day! Yikes, it seems like it took forever, then came quickly. I am really ready to get into a bigger place though.

One good thing about moving is that you find things that amaze and amuse (and sometimes horrify) you! I found the pattern for the Legacy sock! And this time I put in in the bag with the sock project. Once we move I will make copies of the pattern and put the original in my pattern binder (like it should have been)...I've also found books that have I have started reading and got misplaced. I figure I have enough "to read" books to last quite a while. Not that I am going to quit buying books...have to help support writers, you know!

After work today I am running by the machine shop to pick up one of my Singer Featherweights. I wanted to get it completely checked out before I use it. I am also looking for a sewing cabinet table to put on the other side of our bed. We have an empty one on Hubbie's side. It is taller than a regular bedside stand, which I like, so we are getting another. They had a couple at the machine shop. Some were empty, some had vintage machines in them for not much more than the empty ones. I'm eyeing one that has a stool and comes with a vintage (late 1930's) Singer model 66. It is electric, not treadle, and the owner of the shop has put a knee petal conversion on it so you use either the foot pedal or knee petal. He said it sews great. The older Singer machines were real workhorses. For piecing quilts, I just need a straight stitch, nothing fancy. I use my digital machines for actual machine quilting the sandwiched quilt.

I realized a couple days ago that we really have a lot of furniture we are going to have to buy! After living in a small house for so long, we really don't have enough to furnish the new house as far as seating! Yikes!

I probably won't be posting for a few days due to the move, but I'm sending warm wishes your way until I'm back online.