So Close!

All that is left to Frederick is the ground that he walks on.  :-)  Oh and the date and my initials.  I think this will be my first finish of the year.  I sure hope it happens this week!  I'd love to start on something different.  I have a stack of around 10 WIPs that I want to finish before I start something totally new and I have a ton of wool kits that I also want to start.  But none of that can happen until I finish up this bird. 

Nothing big happening at the house.  Over the weekend I worked at a ton of little things.  I installed the closet organizer in my bedroom.  That took the better part of Saturday.  I was so careful in what I picked out but I still have too many clothes that need to be in there for the size of the closet.  That's the problem with these 50 year old houses - never enough closet space!  I think I need to look into buying a chest of drawers for the bedroom.  I only own a dresser with a mirror.  I did have a plan years and years ago to buy more to the set but Ethan Allen where I purchased my furniture discontinued the line I was buying.  Now I can't find anything to match it.  So I guess I need to start to look for something that complements it rather than matches it.  I still need to purchase the new doorknobs for the door and the bathroom door and paint my switch plate covers - maybe next weekend.  I also started working on my lawns. The front lawn is about 50% weeds so put down a weedkiller and I'll de-thatch and put down seed in a couple of weeks.  The backyard is also mostly weeds but because of the dogs I can't put down any chemicals.  So I spent around three hours pulling dandelions - I'm about 25% done with that job.  I'll be at it all summer for sure!  There are also a ton of old flower beds all on the perimeter of the backyard.  I can't stand such regulated plantings and three of the four hardly had anything left in them so I pulled two out.  It was pretty easy - I just had to pick up the bricks outlining the beds and turn them over and plant new grass seed.  At this point I'd rather mow them than find money to replant them. 

So again my weekend wasn't very restful.  I wonder if that will ever happen again?  A weekend where I don't have a ton of work to do.  Maybe someday.  :-)

a tiny quilt

I got a little more finished on Frederick.  I've been working from home the past couple of days so I haven't been stitching but this one is getting close.  

I Sunday I didn't feel like stitching and I haven't started my next big project yet so I pieced this little quilt.  It's only 11 inches by 11 inches.  I love how it turned out.  I plan on buying a little quilt rack to hang it on.  I'll machine quilt it with an overall stipple pattern.  Maybe over the coming weekend.

I had my new furnace and HVAC system installed yesterday and today.  I asked that they only remove the equipment from my utility room yesterday so I could do a little work on the room.  This is what I started with.

And this is what I did.  I put down a new sub floor and a laminate floor plus the baseboard trim.  It will be a lot easier to clean now. 

It's chilly in the house - a cold morning and they are still here working on the furnace - come on heat!

border - check!

I finished up the border on Frederick yesterday. I don't know about you but when I finished the boarder of a piece I always feel like I've made real progress. Not much left now!

On the house front - new HVAC system coming on Monday! Yeah!

The room is done and so am I :-)

Frederick is coming along nicely now that I'm stitching to and from work. It helps that is finally light in the mornings and I don't seem to get as sleepy on the train. A good solid week of rides and one or two nights I could have this one put to bed. That would be sweet.

On Saturday I finished up most of my bedroom and moved in! I started this project the last weekend in February with the clearing of the room. It's been hard work but I love how it finished up. There are some details outstanding. I still need to purchase a closet organizer and install it. I'm hoping I have the cash for that next week. All the light switches and plugs need covers and those will need to be painted because I like them to match the wall color. I ordered a rug last week and it should be in next week and I need to decorate the walls. It's pretty empty right now. I found a nice tv cabinet that's fits the style of my furniture really well and I'll be looking to purchase that as soon as the rug is paid for. Then of course I need to start working on the bathroom - it was also gutted and so far it's only had it's window trimmed and the room painted. I have to purchase everything from flooring to wainscoting to toilet and sink.

My little reading spot. I want to purchase an electrified oil lamp for the side table and I need some sort of foot stool if I want to really get comfy.

My king size bed fits perfect and I have lots of flexibility in the room to change things around as I see fit. That's Isibeal climbing on the bed. Even though she can totally just jump on the bed, she has always used the stairs I have for the pugs. :-) She goes down that way too. :-) I need to find an option of that ugly black light I have clamped to the headboard but I'm not sure what yet.

Just a few minutes later - this is why I don't bother to make my bed most days. Isebeal likes to make a nest of whatever quilt on have on the bed. :-)

Since I finished up most of the work on Saturday, on Sunday I took the four dogs to the local off-leash dog park for a nice three mile romp. It's the most fun place in the world (at least from the packs perspective). I can't keep Isebeal out of the water but she has so much fun I don't even try. In fact the pugs think she is having so much fun they usually join her when it's warmer. It's funny to see the lab in the water with two pugs trailing behind her (yes only two - Aoife won't go near the water unless I drop her in). Here is Isebeal fetching her ball.

She doesn't get just a little damp - it's full on wet. She even holds her breath to dunk her head under the water.

Hopefully this will be the start of more regular visits to the park. I start on the total re-do of my HVAC system I'm hoping by the end of the week but my participation in that should be limited to the new sub floor floor and tile I want to put down before the new furnace and water heater goes in. Then a couple of weeks off before more full blown home improvement. Oh I'll still putter (still have all those things to finish in my bedroom and bath) but I need a break. Both me and my pocketbook are really tired. :-) Then I'll start work on my sewing room and outside deck! The sewing room is going to get the same treatment as my bedroom and a bit more as money allows starting with installing the new hardwood floor and replacing all the trim work. Plus I'm looking to do some built ins with a window seat along one of the walls. It only takes time and money. :-)

stitching?

I've actually found some time over the past few days to do a little stitching. I'm finding that progress is not only slow on this front but also on my bedroom. The task of re-painting the entire room is turning out to be a major buzz kill and I haven't taken a step in the room in three days so it's doubtful it will be ready to move into this weekend. And I still don't have the light fixtures installed as I can't find anyone to help me (all capable family members too busy right now) and I can't afford an electrician to come in this week to do it. sigh.

In what might turn out to be another stupid move on my part (only time will tell), I signed up for the Cabinet of Curiosities class over at Thistle Threads. I missed the first sign up as it was around the Thanksgiving/Christmas time frame and I just couldn't swing the down payment. I did add myself to the wait list a month or so ago and Tracey had a couple of openings as well as the ability to expand the class to 25 more people. I'm so worried that I don't have the skill to pull something like this off. And it's a multi year (three in total I think) and huge financial obligation to boot. But I so want to do it! So I scrapped up the money required to join and I'm in. I already know I'm interested in the more expensive casket - the double - way more than the flat top version. That also means an extra 18 month class. So currently if I want to complete this the way it should be I'm already in for $7,000 or so. And this is before I purchase all the little accessories that make is really super cool and purchase extra supplies. That's how much I'm spending on my furnace. Or a butt load of windows. And the question still needs to be asked, do I have the skill to pull it off? I'm still struggling to complete the Floral Glove I started two years ago.

Only time will tell. :-)

edited later to add: $7,000 is a bit high, I figured it again and it is around $2,400 for the two 18 month classes (which include most of the items needed to construct the casket, lots of silks and at least five projects to help teach what needed to stitch the parts of the casket properly) and $3,000 -/+ 20% for the casket itself. So that's $6,000 for the two classes and the casket if the casket comes in at the high end. But there will be added goodies that are being commissioned to go inside the casket. That will add up. :-) I want it all. :-)

still at it!

Believe it or not, I'm still working on my bedroom. I thought for sure I'd be in last weekend. But the trim work took my brother 12 hours to complete on Friday and then I spent the rest of the weekend doing the caulking and wood putty work. I still have a butt load left as I took off a few hours to hang out with family yesterday. And now I still have to repaint. My brother didn't notice that there was a right side and a wrong side to some of the trim pieces that I had painted at night during the work week and put them on primed side out. Grrr. I even told him to be careful but he said he never heard me. :-) Men! So now not only do I need to paint over the putty holes but I need to paint about a quarter of the trim totally again from the start. But I love how it turned out. So maybe this weekend I can move in. After I'm done with the painting I just need the lights installed in the ceiling and I still need to buy some window shades. Not sure yet what I want and they need to be cheap because I've spent a load on the room and I'm out of money.

I didn't have a work surface for my brother to put his miter saw on so we improvised. That's Isabelle's crate with a closet door over it. Worked great!

Speaking of Isabelle, she hated all the noise my brother was making and sat outside all day. Finally she just curled up in a ball and went to sleep. The pugs on the other hand, didn't care a bit about the noise and dust and kept coming in to visit. I finally had to kick them out of the room because they were so underfoot.

Enjoy the week!

almost move in time

I've been super busy! My drywaller came back last Monday and was finished up with the room last Wednesday. That put me pretty much under the gun as my brother said he only had Thursday to help with my floor. So I got home from work on Wednesday and painted the ceiling. I figured I could do the walls over the weekend after the floor was down. The floor was a tough one and my brother has experience with every sort of floor. He expected to be done by lunchtime. It was lunchtime before we started to really make progress. But I think all the hard work was so worth it! I LOVE my new floor and I can't wait to start on the next room.

As stated above, I painted the walls on Saturday. This is the first room I'm not 100% happy with. I really like the top color but I'm very unsure about the bottom color. And I can't put my finger on why I don't like it. This is a crappy photo but you get the drift. I'm putting in a chair rail in a cream color and I won't make my mind up about the bottom color until I'm finished with all the trim.

This is the style of trim I have picked out for the entire house. Only the top piece of moulding is sorta expensive at $3.19 a foot. Everything else is just primed pine stock. I'm going to do a crown moulding but I'm looking for a very simple one in the new plastics / foams they have out. My walls are so out of plumb and having something very flexible will make that job go so much easier.

Lastly I painted the half bath that is attached to the master. I went with a spa sort of color. I'm going to put in wainscoting to the bottom of the window so there won't be much of the aqua showing when it's all said and done. But before I do that I have to put down the new tile floor and buy the pedestal sink so I can get that measured before I do the wainscoting. I'll work on this bit by bit until summer. I think it will look great with cream trims and aqua color.

Since I felt like I wasn't working hard enough I put into process my new furnace, A/C unit and all new duct work for the system. I'll just move in the bedroom and clean everything up and I'll start making messes again. The room the furnace is in needs work. The subfloor has to be replaced and it still needs to be painted behind where the furnace is located as I couldn't get to it last summer. So I'm hoping my HVAC guy will pull the unit on a Friday and not come back until Monday. That will give me the entire weekend to fix the floor, put down a ceramic tile and paint it.

Tired yet? :-)

While there are still a million and one things I want to do this year on the house and yard, I'm thinking I'm done with the big ticket items for the year. I'd love to find the money to waterproof and insulate my crawlspace but that's another $4,000. That will be tough to find. But my floors were so cold over the winter I hate to go another with cold feet. The new furnace will help as I'll be able to afford to heat the place warmer next year (my current furnace is running at about 40% efficiency) because the new one is 93% efficient. That will be sweet. But it would be sweet to have warm feet also. ;-)

MIA Drywaller

Before I chat about my house whoas, this is what I've been up to. Quilting! I have also been stitching some but I forgot to pop Freddie into my bag this morning so I could not take a photo of the progress. Above is a quilt top I started a couple of weeks ago. The center is a cheater panel and my sister and I though we could use it to practice centering stored motifs from the computerized long-arm quilter. The rest of it was a snap. I'm more used to smaller blocks and this one zoomed along.

I did this cute little quilt top yesterday. It's smallish, maybe three feet by two feet. It will look nice on my dining room table. I'll most likely to do an allover quilted pattern on it.

And here is the last quilt top I finished up over the weekend. It's a Twister pattern and I have to say I love the fabric hate the quilt pattern. This is the only sort of quilt my sister does these days. Quick, easy and quick. :-) I generally don't like to do quilts that don't offer up some sort of challenge but I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I used Fa, La, La, La by French General. French General is making my favorite quilting fabrics these days. When I was finished I was really glad I didn't buy all the Twister books and templates and just borrowed them. The finished quilt will look nice however on my couch at Christmas time or maybe even on the table if I quilt it small enough and use a very thin batting.

Now onto the house trouble. My drywaller said on March 18th that he would be finished with the drywalling, taping and priming by last Thursday (the 22nd). I haven't seen him since that day. I seem to recall him saying he was going on vacation this week so I'm assuming he is out of town until next week. How irresponsible of him. I don't have much recall however as my brother in law hired him and is paying the bill. I'm so pissed because I scrambled like crazy over the past week to get everything in place for me to paint the room over the past weekend and put down the new sub floor because I bought this:

550 square feet of the sexist 5 inch wide, hand scraped hardwood floor in the universe. I bought enough for half of my house - I'm going to start to save for the other half. I got it at Lumber Liquidators and they have had this floor for years now so I know I'll be able to get more next year. I bought enough this time to do all my bedrooms and hallway and still have some left over so I can mix it into what I'll buy next year as I'm sure the die lots will change a bit.

But the biggest disappointment of not having my bedroom ready to paint last weekend is my brother said he would teach me how to lay the floor this week while he is on vacation - we were planning on Thursday. But the time the room is ready for the floor (first weekend in April hopefully) my brother will be back at work so I don't know now when the floor will go down. I'm handy but I really want to have guidance for the first room I do. And I need all his power tools. :-) I bought the floor nailer already - I didn't know anyone who owned one and they are $35.00 bucks a day to rent from Home Depot. I found a new one on eBay for $100.00. So I'm ahead and I can sell it when I'm done with the entire house sometime next year.

I'm so bummed. I was planning on moving into my bedroom this coming weekend and now I'll have to wait for who knows how long. The house is a mess with everything that got pulled out of the bedroom and there 550 square feet of flooring in my living room. Plus all the light fixtures, cans of paint and window treatments that I had to buy. And not to mention the dust from all the work being done. I dust and vacuum and it just seems to get dirty right away again.

tired

Here is the contents of my bedroom and half bath. When the guy who is doing the work said we needed a garbage bin I didn't believe him. Sure am glad I listened now! It's full!

I'm so glad I didn't listen to the people who were saying I didn't need to do this. The smell of mold and mildew in the bin is unreal. The smell would have never left the house. And we discovered I had NO insulation in the room! I'm sure it's the same throughout the house. New dry wall next. My guys aren't coming back until Thursday but they should be done by mid-next week. I'm going to pick out hardwood floors this week sometime. I'd like to buy enough for all three bedrooms and hall as I want the entire house to match. So hopefully by the first weekend in April I'll be done with the walls and floor and then I can move onto the painting and trim work. I'm going to ignore the bathroom for the present time. I want to get in the bedroom first and then work on the bath when time allows. I have the tile already as I purchased enough when I bought the tile for my main bath last fall. The plan is to put in a new pedestal sink and new matching toilet with a six foot high white/cream wainscoting throughout. It's going to look great and I'm so happy I've finally started.

My other project over the weekend.

I should have taken a before photo because this doesn't start to show how much work I did. This is what I call the wayback. It's an area of my yard behind the garage and shed. Last spring in order for FHA to approve my mortgage I had to do a ton of repairs on a house I didn't even own. I took the chance and as you know it worked out - I got the house. One of the tasks was repairing the stockade fence that surrounded the property. However when I got there to do the work it was obvious that the fence could not be repaired as it was falling down. I got permission from the owner and FHA to just remove the fence rather than spend money to try to fix it (it would have been replacing rather than fixing). It was in such bad shape that it only took about an hour to remove 60/70 feet (I left one side up as it wasn't in such bad shape and we replaced boards and such). But I didn't want to take the time or spent the money to have it removed so I put all the sections and the 4x4 supports in the wayback planning to deal with it at another point in time. So fast forward nine months of not being to particular when I put all my lawn detritus and trash back there. Well the weather so nice this past weekend I figured it was finally "another point in time". :-) And I also thought I have that big old bin in the front of the house that will never be filled so why not start the work and put the fencing in the bin? Well it was obvious within an hour of the demo starting in the house that there would be no room in the bin for all the sections of fencing so I had to break it down. So 12 or so hours later the sections of fencing are all broken down in to pieces that can be burned or tossed little by little into the trash (I can burn wood where I live). But I'm going to try to get as many of the support 4x4s into the bin still. There should be room for most of them. Of course I have to get them from the back all the way to the front. And I only have the bin for seven more days. That two or three posts a day. :-) So after two days of solid sawing, breaking, ripping and raking I got back a huge area of lawn. So the plan is to get rid of as much as I can so I can plant grass in April and maybe put in some raised veggie beds.

It was only until much later Sunday evening that it occurred to me that I could have paid someone to haul all the stuff away. I did a little a research on Angie's List and figured it would have only cost me around $100 to $120 bucks. Bummer - I would totally have paid the price - and it would be done. But I know have that knowledge for the next big (read huge and impossible for me) task in the backyard. Taking down the shed. It's attached to the back of the garage and it's 10 x 20 feet. I'll never use it and I just want it gone as I want the lawn back. But it's a real room with a shingled roof, wood siding and electricity. I'm estimating at least $1,200.

Ouch.

a finished bird

Frederick has a head and finished body! While not totally pleased with his progress I did manage to stitch at least six hours over the past week. Which is pretty good these days. I'd like to get in at least double that amount. Maybe soon. :-)

This is the first quilt finished with the long arm machine! I've had this top around for several years now and it's finally complete. It's a Ricky Tims' design from a book called Convergence Quilts. I went through a phase a couple of years ago where I felt I needed to do stuff out of my comfort zone. And everything about this is out of my comfort zone! The style, the colors, everything! I had to do a freehand meander since the autobot on the long arm isn't working. My sister had to take a few parts in for service so no more quilting for a couple of weeks. Hopefully we will be able to get some of the advanced functions working at that point. Her long arm is a totally automated machine. We should be able to just select a quilt design and tell the machine to go. While I want to learn how to do it all freehand, until that time comes it will be nice must to hit go and watch it work. :-) Since I have a backlog of at least 20 tops and my sister has about the same amount, I'm looking forward to getting caught up. All for the price of batting and thread. No more paying someone else to finish my work! And I'll have total control which is the number one thing I hated about sending my quilt top to be finished by someone else. While I really liked the work my quilters did, not having any say in what they did was frustrating.

Have a great weekend! I'm finally starting on the bedroom tomorrow. Yeah! Now I need to find an extra thousand dollars for my hardwood floor. :-( That's going to be tough right now.

lots of projects

I've been making good progress on Frederick. Thanks for all the comments regarding putting both pieces on the same linen. I wasn't sure it was a right way to go but I'm happy with it. I didn't even notice that both birds are facing the same way. I'll have to put something nice next to them for them to look at. :-)

Last weekend I started all sorts of little projects. Here is my first penny ever! I'm making a small penny rug for my table. It's going to be fun and quick. I want to make one for Easter also so this dark colored one might take a back seat if I manage to get some pastel colored wool in the next couple of weeks. I also started a quilt top and it's almost finished. But I'll post the finis rather than an in progress shot. Just a couple of hours to go on it before it's complete. It will be one of the first that I put on my sister's long arm.

Finally a shoot of my amaryllis! I put this baby into water in November and it's finally blooming! I had no idea they took so long.

Until next time!

really glad it's Friday

I've started work on Frederick proper. Progress is still much slower than I want but at least it's progressing forward. I'm pulled in so many directions right now it's crazy. I've starting tearing up my bedroom, on this past Wednesday I attended a long arm quilting class to learn how to use my sister's machine and she wants me to start finishing a million tops and tomorrow Isibeal restarts agility training. I don't have nearly enough time in the day. It's hard to pick and choose.

This weekend though will be about agility, home repair and quilting. Doubt I get any stitching in at all.

time to destroy!

I can almost tell Frederick is a bird. :-) Hopefully by the end of the week I'll have at least his outline in place. I'm finally feeling better - on Friday I got out of bed and knew I was going to live. I ended up being sick for more than two weeks. Isabelle is very happy because that means her trips to the dog park are happening again with some frequency. The pugs are sad because now they can't lay all over me all day long.

I'm finally in a position to start work on my bedroom! Below is the first picture of the fruits of my labor. It took the entire weekend to sort, toss and move around to other parts of my house / garage everything that landed in the bedroom since I moved in last September. I should have taken a before photo. The floor was so full I had a path to get around. I'll start the "official" demo on the 3rd of March when I have help but I'll start doing some little stuff before then - like taking apart the closet and starting demo on the bathroom. The goal is to have me sleeping in the room by the end of April. Very doable if I don't find a ton wrong with the walls once they are taken down. Cross your fingers for me that this will be fairly simple. I know I have a bit of a leak on the roof in a corner - hopefully it will be an easy fix. And I can't replace the windows yet because I want to do the entire house at the same time I replace the siding and that can't happen until I can get a home equity loan. Maybe this year, maybe next year. :-)

out and down for the count

So much for the new plan! I've been sick as all get out for almost two weeks now. It started simply enough with the flu two Wednesdays ago and then progressed to a sinus infection. The flue was bad enough but the sinus infection put me on my back. Oh my I've been miserable. So not a lot of stitching or sewing has been done at my house.

Here is my progress on Frederick. Not much and not nearly what I was hoping for. I did find some time however where I felt reasonably well to sew and I got my kitchen and dining room valances finished. And I love how they look! The brick gimp really set them off like I was hoping.

I love how the two look together. Really ties the two rooms together. I have a ton of red and cream French General quilt fabric and I'm going to make some table runners. I still need to move the three pictures on the wall over a bit but I'm waiting until I have help. I don't want to fix more holes than I need to. :-)

I have fabric for the two living room windows. Right now there are just sheers on them and I'm really tired of people walking or driving by at night being able to see all the way in. It's not my favorite but it was free. My sister hit a huge sale at Hobby Lobby and scored 16 yards for $7.00 a yard. The stuff was originally $36.99. It's a floral on a mostly reddish brick background but a tad "fancier" than I like. But the price was right and I'll have more than enough to do floor to ceiling drapes. I might or might not be able to replace those windows this year and I've got to have something in the meantime. It's ok enough for right now. I still need to pick up the lining and I'm working on ideas for a matching valance. Something much more simple I think for the living room.

Thanks for stopping by!

Step three - Scott Lee

Last night I picked up Scott Lee, a counted needlepoint by the late Jean Hilton. I haven't worked on this since August of 2010! Not sure why I put it down never to be seen until now because I really enjoy counted needlepoint. I think it was of course because of all the "have to" needlepoint I was doing at the time. Then this just got pushed to the background. I also found the note attached to it saying "don't forget to pay Kelly for the chart"! Sorry for being such a schmuck Kelly. But I totally forgot. I'll made good asap. :-)

Anyway the photo is of the completed part three. Hopefully this week I'll start and complete part four. It's another round of smyrnas in a lighter color inside the round I just finished. Not my favorite stitch but they always like nice when completed. This needlepoint has to be done at home because it's huge! Way to large to tote onto the train.

good housy weekend

I didn't get as much done on Frederick as I was hoping because I spent most of the weekend on doing stuff for the house. I like to get at least one thing done every weekend. This weekend it was all about curtains for the kitchen and dinning room. The rooms are next to each other in my open floor house. And they both have sliding glass doors. I really debated for months on what to do because I don't like the wide vertical blinds that most people use but couldn't figure out another plan. I usually go to a big box hardware store at least at some point every weekend see what I can buy on sale (since I still need one of everything) and Saturday I went to my local Lowe's. I found some really nice shears in a warm cream color that have a contrasting plaid strip on them. I only bought one set for the dining room but when I got them up I could not believe how nice they looked. The light is as bright but so much softer. So I went back and bought four more panels for the kitchen. Then I figured I might as well work on the valances I have been planning on sewing since I moved it. So five hours later (and one more trip to the hardware store for rods) I had one slider almost finished. It still needs the brick colored gimp that I had to order online but I'm so happy with how they turned out. I'm going to raise the rod a couple of inches - I don't want to see the top of the shears. The valance is a toile in a reddish brick color on cream with a cream lining. I used Simplicity 5696. Perfect for my house.

On Sunday morning I met up with a friend at an off leash dog park about three miles from my house. It was too cold for the pugs (around 27 and snowing) but perfect for Isibeal. My friend has three big dogs and the newly formed pack ran around for an hour or so. She was wiped! Hardly stirred all day. :-)

It's much warmer today (45 right now!) and I'm working from home so I took my pack back to the park for my lunch hour. All you can hear now in the house is the sounds of pugs snoring. :-)

day three into the plan

and I'm still stitching! I've managed to stitch everyday which kinda is the long term goal. And I'm enjoying it. I was getting into bad routine where I was just channel surfing all evening long. And I really don't even like what's on TV! This is much better. And I've been stitching on the train and not sleeping. I sure can feel that though, I'm much more tired during the day but I'm sure I'll get used to it again.

a new plan

I've picked up Frederick again from Carriage House Samplings (do they have a new blog or website? I still have the jewelery one bookmarked with no new stitchy stuff on it). I started him in May of 2010. Wow. I'm almost regretting putting Frederick and Frederika on the same piece of linen. Only time will tell how it will look finished. I'll have to make the same adjustment I made on Frederika on the top row of the bottom border. It was designed to be folkartie off by one row but that sort of thing drives me crazy so I fixed it - this one is off also and I'll have to adjust it too. I'll also need to decide if I should make the boxes inside the border the same as Frederika. There is a slight difference in the colors - I'm not sure if it would look better in the same color style or have it different as charted.


I've also come up with a stitching plan for the time being. I looked back over my past two years of finishes and tried to figure out why my stitching came to an abrupt halt. It was a combination of a couple of things but mostly two - my bought my house and second I noticed a real drop off in stitching hours as soon as I started working on my families Christmas gifts for 2010. I don't do so well when I "have" to do something. I think I totally lost focus when I was faced with months of "have" to do. I did take breaks between each one but they were short and in the end I almost didn't finish the gifts I had started to drag my feet so much. So I'm hoping the new plan will get me back in the groove. I haven't purchased much new stuff in over a year now. But rather than go shopping for new and improved I'm going to shop my stash. I have dozens and dozens of charts, hundreds of skeins of floss and more linen than I can count. Plus at least a dozen plus (I didn't even count) of started or totally kitted projects.


So here it goes - I'm going to work on a random WIP until it's finished. Or if I get totally bored and really am faced with not stitching or moving away from boredom for a while by stitching something different, pick up a kitted project that requires no new purchases. But I'm going to try not to start something kitted until I get at least two or three WIPs finished. That's the plan away. :-)


I've made a change to my blog - all part of the new plan. I'm planning on putting a nice photo mosaic on the top banner but so far I've been struggling with getting it to look right.


Last weekend was the first anniversary of meeting Isibeal. I can't believe it's been a year! And we are still trying to figure out our relationship. Both of us think we are in charge! We are restarting agility in a month. We lost so much time with my move and her being in a cast for two months. We are basically back to the beginning. The other in my class are already starting to trial. We most likely won't until late fall/early winter. That is if all goes well.
Here she is the day I picked her up from O'Hare on behalf of my sister.


And her beautiful self last weekend.

Joy finis

Joy - design by Blackbird Designs

recommended silk floss and linen

I finished up Joy last night. And tossed Frederic in my bag for the train this week. As in the past couple of months, stitching on the train is hard because all I want to do is sleep! Maybe I need vitamins. I never used to have this trouble. :-)

Nothing new on the home front. Just working on the house with my limited time and resources. I'm hoping for a nice income tax check to at least help me get my bedroom redone started. I've been finding time to quilt on the weekends and I have several tops completed to share in the next week. I'm loving the French General lines and completed two tops while on vacation over Christmas. I purchased the latest and it's on my table ready to be cut up.

I finally registered Isabelle with the AKC - her official name is: Isibeal Siofra. In Gaelic I've read that siofra means changeling. It really fits. :-)

Have a great week!

finis finis finis!

Those of you who have been reading my blog for over a year have seen these needlepoints before. But now they are finally finished!


My family has a tradition of taking turns making each other plus the parents a gift each year for Christmas. Last year was my year and I needlepointed designs from Laura J. Perin. The plan had been for me to have my box maker make me a flattish square box about 3 inches deep to fit each piece. But time got away from me and I never got the boxes ordered so I had to give my gifts with the promise of a box to come in the following year. My oldest brother who is a carpenter of course heard me say this and after Christmas came over to look at the box that was the original inspiration for my idea. My five sided dower box that I put a Quarter design in the year before. He told me he wanted to do the boxes for his year (this Christmas) and I told him my idea and showed him the photo of what I was thinking. He asked to take my dower box so he could check out how it was made and left. I knew he was making progress as he mentioned it a couple of times during the year but didn't think to ask to see the boxes. Three weeks ago he showed up at my door with five boxes. Five dower boxes. Five boxes that didn't fit any of the needlepoints.


In total guy fashion he didn't hear a word I said. He just duplicated the five sided dower box five times. Leaving me to figure out how to make my needlepoints not suck in them.

I decided I had to have mats cut for them but knew right away the finished product would look like the needlepoint and boxes had no real relationship to each other. And it would be my needlepoint and not the box that would suffer most. So I emailed Jill Rensel in desperation knowing if anyone would turn a sow's ear into silk it would be her. And she pretty much pulled off a Christmas miracle. I think they look great and they two piece look like they belong together.