This is who I am

It hasn’t been all fun and games

Posted on March 2, 2013 by Terri | 2 comments

But before I get to that I want to share some visual “fun.”

Jo Morton’s Alexandria

Jo Morton’s Sweet Emelie

In addition to cutting and fondling the above fabrics I’ve been trying to make up for lost time in straightening and reorganizing my craft room. Before I started back in this round I grabbed a new spiral bound notebook and made notes of what I had going on in here. So as I have been sorting, organizing and putting things away, I have been writing them down first. I’m so bad about out of sight, out of mind. I still have quite a few things in the writing down department but I’m determined to get myself organized this year. I will say I’m beginning to wonder if I’m ever going to be happy with my room since as I put things away I find I want to change where I’ve been keeping some stuff. 🙄

Before:

After:

You can see the top of my work table now! This is where I was before I stopped to take a break this morning. I am going to use that magazine holder for my very few quilting magazines. The wood under the notebook is going to be a new “table top” surface for my two Rubbermaid containers you’ll see in another photo, and the fabric is going to be used to cover 2 new ironing surfaces for me. Under that you can see some brown paper gift bags that I have been using to organize my quilting projects. They hang very nicely on a towel hanger on the back of my door or sit nicely on a shelf.

You can see I still have plastic shoeboxes stacked up by the window. They’ll be moved once I get my bookcase straightened out.

Before (under my work table):

After (look at all that leg room!):

Before (The STACK):

I think this was the most physically demanding part of straightening up and I had to ask Mister to help a bit. It’s been reduced to almost half that size and moved to another room. I’ve started going through it a few minutes a day and organizing into used/not used and hopefully it will start showing up for sale very soon.

After:

The two pieces of wood (which you can see to the left of the magazine holder) are going on top of the Rubbermaid containers and I’ll cover that with muslin. The stitching in the containers are WIPS/kitted items that are waiting their turn (yep, they’re on a list) and since I don’t need to get in them very often I can make them useful. I’m going to put some of those Command sticky hook things on the trashcan so I can reuse plastic grocery shopping bags as liners. This will make me take the trash out more often 😉

Now, to set up my machine and start piecing!

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Posted in Abbygale's Scraps, Quilting, Studio

March is National Craft Month

Posted on March 1, 2013 by Terri | Comments Off

Did you know March is National Craft Month? I didn’t until today. I received a newsletter from a beading company I buy supplies from. This sent me on a search to see if it was just a ploy to get me to buy something, but it’s true! I found some interesting ideas on how to celebrate.

One of my favorite “crafting” comments was to “finish something you’ve already started.” This actually cracks me up. Who among us “crafters” has something that’s not already finished? 😉

It was a nice visit last night over Mexican food and stitching. I think I stitched a total of 20 minutes. I just couldn’t get into it. Might be because I haven’t been there in a while and I needed to catch up with what has been going on, plus there were several new things to see, or maybe because as I was walking out the door at home Mister handed me a box from the postman that contained more fabric and I wanted to open the box and play with it. 🙂 Half yard cuts of Jo Morton’s Sweet Emelie line. So, now in addition to the Crimson Bouquet I’m working with for Abbygayle’s Scraps, I have Sweet Emelie and Alexandria. What? I haven’t mentioned Alexandria? Oops 😉 I need to get some fabric washed and ironed. Afterall, I’m hoping to add some blue to my stash when I get to the LQS later this month.

I spent this morning cutting 2 inch squares and then cutting half of them into triangles. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll start sewing them back together. Unless Mister comes up with something that needs to be done. He bought me a new mirror for our powder room downstairs. Now he’s hot to trot to pull the old one down, patch holes, paint and hang this one. There’s goes my free time on the weekend. He better not try to cut into my sitting in the sunshine time on Sunday!

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Posted in Abbygale's Scraps, JMLW2013, Renovations

Coloring outside my comfort zone

Posted on February 28, 2013 by Terri | 1 comment

Wow, the last day of February is finally here. Normally I’m wondering where the month went, but I know what I’ve been doing almost every moment of February and it’s made the month (and actually, the year) go by rather slowly.

My goals for this past week were very simple. Cut fabric and start walking. After going back over what the “walk” expert told me this past week, I changed my goal from walking every day, to every other day, based on his advice. I have done that. Okay, it was only Monday that I started, but I walked Monday and Wednesday and Wednesday I increased the distance. I’m going to be increasing it again tomorrow. I thought it would take me longer to go farther, but I’m actually feeling okay afterwards and not coughing during. The weather has been perfect for walking as well.

Speaking of weather, we are expecting 80’s this weekend so I am hoping to spend some time beside the pool! 😀

Now to my subject title. Earlier this month I posted on one of my quilting email groups about how hard it is for me to include colors such as “poison green,” “mourning purple,” and “cheddar” and asked if it was hard for others as well. (It’s always nice to know you’re not alone in such things and it was great to see so many like-minded quilters.) I set a goal for myself to include such color, however bright, in my JMLW quilts. I started playing with my fabrics this morning and this is what I’ve come up with so far. In for a penny, in for a pound, I cut it before I could change my mind and back out 😉

Click to increase size
Red binding, turquoise borders, cheddar cornerstones

As you can tell by the photo I’m going a teeny bit different from the original. What do you think?

The smaller squares and triangles will be included in the center. They are 2 inches to give you an idea how small the finished blocks will be.

Wish I could spend more time on Abbygayle but I have a few things to do before I leave the house this afternoon for open stitch-in at Attic. But before that happens, I get to meet up with Cheryl, Annette, and hopefully Karen, for some yummy Mexican food. Cheryl is in Phoenix for a work conference and she’s getting to meet up with us while she’s here. Squeee!

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Posted in Abbygale's Scraps, JMLW2013, Quilting

My first scraps

Posted on February 27, 2013 by Terri | 1 comment

I’ve been quilting off and on for more than 15 years but really took a more dedicated interest in it this past year with Mister’s retirement and buying a house with my own craft room. Before that I never kept any of my scraps since I didn’t have the room to store them.

Since it’s Wednesday and I’m sharing what’s on my worktable, I’ll show you the fabric I cut yesterday for a 6×6″ charm square swap I’m participating in. I have always loved the 1800-era reproduction fabrics and this swap is all about them! I’ve cut 40 squares of the same fabric and I’ll receive 40 squares back of different fabrics. I cannot wait to see what I get. Unfortunately, I’ll have to wait until April since the deadline to get our charms to our hostess is the end of March.

This is one from Jo Morton’s Spice Chest fabric line. Sing!

Here are my lovely squares (and new scraps) after cutting. The squares on the far left bottom still need to be squared up since I cut them off the fold of the fabric. The stack on the far right contains my 41 swap charms.

The next thing on the cutting mat is this:

18 FQs from Jo Morton’s Crimson Bouquet and 10 FQs from her Toasty collections. These lovelies will be cut later today for JMLW Abbygale’s Scraps. The turq on the far right is what I’m going to use as the backing and I’ll probably use one of the reds for the binding.

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Posted in Abbygale's Scraps, Charm Swap, JMLW2013, Quilting

Are you a beginner quilter?

Posted on February 26, 2013 by Terri | Comments Off

Or would you like to learn? I have a new link in the right hand side of my blog. It’s a virtual quilting bee being given by designer Amy Smart (whose fabrics make me smile). This is not the first time she’s given instruction and she’s sharing links back to old posts of hers. While I’m probably no longer a beginner, I have enjoyed following her posts to remind me of little tricks we sometimes forget to make quilting easier. Check it out 😀

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Posted in Quilting

Back to our regularly scheduled program!

Posted on February 25, 2013 by Terri | Comments Off

Surprise! Or maybe I should say, be careful what you say. In my last post on February 1 (yikes!), the last thing I said was that I would be back to let you know what type of trouble I had been into. Well……get ready for a long, picture-free catch up post.

Sunday night, February 3, I came down with the norovirus, and it wasn’t pretty. It was rather easy to rule it out as food poisoning since Mister and I ate the exact same things all day long (Super Bowl Sunday). I can say that I have never been more frightened in all of my life about being sick. At one point I thought I was on the way to the emergency room, since I was throwing up so violently my nose was bleeding, and I managed to separate my ribs under my right arm. Scary stuff! I couldn’t eat any food for a couple of days and drank as much Gatorade as I could that first two days. It took me the better part of a week to be able to take a shower and dry my hair without breaking out in a sweat from the activity.

We had excellent seat tickets to The Who concert that Wednesday night and Mister ended up getting valet parking next to our gate so I wouldn’t have to walk far. I was also on an aisle seat in case I felt the need to get out of there in a hurry but it was all good and while I was tired by the end of the evening and slept extra late the next morning it was “adventure” free.

Then, of course, I got sick again. This time it was a head and chest cold that would not go away. Naturally I had to cough and feel like I was going to split open since I was still somewhat recovering from my ribs hurting. I was worried it was trying to turn into bronchitis. Yesterday was the first day in a long time that I haven’t coughed.

Other than that the other trouble I’ve been up to is putting away what I purchased at the Quilt Fair (where I probably caught that nasty virus), I’ve cleaned up more in my room, started sorting through what I’m going to sell, and attended my first Jo Morton Little Women Club meeting at 3 Dudes Quilting.

Let me share the funny about that!

I live very far south of Phoenix and our weather was unbelievably freaky last Wednesday. Knowing we were in for some heavy rain and I knew I lived at least an hour away from the shop I left the house at 8:15 so I could get there when the shop opened at 9:30 to look around — new shop to me. The people and instructor in the class were SO friendly and it was obvious that several of them have been quilting together in classes for a long time (some even just got back from a cruise). They made me feel like one of them. The instructor put the first “block” of the quilt on the board and I knew immediately something was off. While she kept talking about how she chose her colors and about the finer points of making the block I pulled my phone out and looked up the flyer online and duh, I was in the wrong class! LOL I’m such an airhead! LOL My class didn’t start until 1….not 10! I quickly packed up said a hasty “oops, I’m in the wrong class” and tried to leave. They tried to talk me into staying but I told them I had errands to run. I called Mister when I got in the parking lot and told him what happened and he told me to occupy myself in this part of the state since the weather was so nasty. While I was out I grabbed some lunch and discovered that it was snowing in my part of the state. It NEVER snows in my part of the state! Anyway, when I went back to class I talked to the instructor, we both got another laugh out of me, and then I settled in for the correct class. I was there all of about 30 minutes getting instruction and then I went fabric shopping. I guess all clubs start with the same quilt? Abbygale? (I’ve since learned from Jo Morton that the instructions are sent to the shops in alphabetical order so most shops just keep them in that order when they give the classes.) I decided that I wanted to use the opportunity of taking these classes to get myself out of my comfort zone with fabric colors so I’m using Crimson Bouquet and Toasty (that I bought at the Quilt Fair) for my quilt. I think I’m really going to like this group. It’s a different feel from the other classes I took last year.

Mister and I went to the Arizona Matsuri Saturday. It was for his Asian Studies course he’s taking for a cultural studies requirement to graduate. It was so nice. I could have stayed and listened to the Taiko drummers all day. We ate there, and I will admit I was nervous about doing so. I have become an almost OCD hand washer/sanitizer, and I don’t like eating with something a stranger has touched, since being sick. Anyway, we also went to the Bonsai exhibit. Mister has said many a time that he wanted to try it, but I think now we’re ready. We brought back several beautiful Bonsai pottery pieces from Japan and have been using them for regular houseplants and various other decorative pieces, but now we’re going to start using them what they were created for. I’m excited. Another new hobby! 😀

After the festival we stopped by Road Runner Sports and I had myself fitted for a new pair of walking shoes. It’s expensive, but I’d rather pay it out in cash than have trouble with plantar fasciitis like I have in the past. I tried them out this morning for a short, brisk walk in our 39 degree weather. I’m planning on walking every weekday morning, then quilting for an hour afterward as a reward. We’ll see how that goes.

So, that’s where I’ve been! Hopefully this finds me back blogging again more regularly.

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Posted in Abbygale's Scraps, Health, JMLW2013, Quilting

Gift Away Winner

Posted on February 1, 2013 by Terri | 1 comment

I wanted to post this before February 1 gets away from me. Mister and I are celebrating the first anniversary of his retiring from the Marine Corps so I asked him to choose a number between 1 and 20. Very scientific, I know, but I can’t figure out how to get the random number generator thingy to show up in my post. So, Peg (aka pegsplace) you win! Please email me so I can get some info from you.

I’ll be back, probably Sunday, to share what kind of trouble I’ve been into the past couple of weeks.

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Posted in Giveaway

So that’s where they went!

Posted on January 30, 2013 by Terri | 2 comments

I found this on facebook this past week. It was originally posted by Oh My Crafts on their facebook page, and it defines my battle with the craft room.

Bit by bit the craft room is getting cleared. Some of the things I’ve lost in there (that I’ve discovered this week): 5 bottles of nail polish, a Father’s Day card, 6 skeins of DMC that I’m now pulling my hair out trying to remember what I pulled them for, my 20% coupon to Bath & Body Works that I dumped my purse out looking for yesterday while I was at the mall, the timer I use to keep myself focused on cleaning my worktable for 15 minutes each day (this one was really helpful!), and the top of my worktable!

Don’t get too excited.

I’m cheating.

Remember what my worktable looked like?

Well I cleared off the cutting table, moved it into my guest room, and started organzing stuff from my worktable either on to it, or in its forever home. Now my worktable looks like this:

~~(oops, I seem to be having image problems 🙁 – I’ll try to update this photo later)~~

and my cutting table looks like this (in the guest room):

Everything on the cutting table is nice and neat, and pretty much how it needs to be, except put away. The two zipper bags in front will have the contents put in a wooden magazine holder and added to this loverly collection:

You can see the new magazine holders in the bottom right side of the above photo.

~~Now, for the life of me I cannot find the post, but someone~~ MaryK was influenced by my cleaning up my worktable and posted photos of her own space on her blog this week. ~~I wish you would comment about it here and~~ I wish there were more than the two of us brave enough ~~willing~~ to do this. Misery loves company 😉

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Posted in Life

Oh, the joy

Posted on January 28, 2013 by Terri | 4 comments

of getting back into a routine! I have had the hardest time. Ugh! So, I started over instead of picking up where I left off. That seems to have helped some.

I’m spending a little time here and there in my craft room so while it might not be a huge difference, there will be some improvement to share on Wednesday of what my worktable is looking like. I need to get my rear in gear and get my sewing machine set back up. I’ve received my first monthly mini from Temecula Quilt Co., and I don’t want to fall behind since the first Jo Morton Little Women at 3 Dudes Quilting is starting later this month.

Also this month is a Button Show and a Quilt Show/Craft Fair and I know I’m going to be adding stuff to my room that will need a home. Gotta get organized!

It took the two of us but the ActiveX Control doohicky that was broke is broke no more. I went to my resident “expert” and he followed the same directions I did, but when he went through them again, he noticed in one of my drop-down boxes something that was (or was not) checked off. Fixed! Yay! This new minor crises did, however, cause me to have to learn some of the Google Chrome stuff. I haven’t decided if I’m happy about that or not, yet.

Last week’s nice weather turned into quite a bit of rain over the weekend. Tonight we’ll be back to falling temps. I don’t know how much more my poor yard can handle 🙁 We have started tomatoes and borage in the house and this weekend we planted the little seedlings into their own pots. Last year we were able to put out rather early, but this year the cold seems to be holding in longer. We’ll see. Mister is the garden guy and it’s his “toy.”

Friday’s out and about with Mister was very successful. The car repair place is exactly across the street from my local needlework shop. After we dropped his car off we took my new Shiny in for her first oil change. We were barely there long enough to drink a cup of coffee! Next was off to campus and I ended up sitting in the car for the almost-hour his class lasted and catching up on some emails via my phone and reading a bit on my Kindle Fire. I also figure out how to save the longitude/latitude of my current location on my car’s GPS and rename it to something pithy 😉 Oh the joys and convenience of modern technology when there’s time to waste. I now have a Karen’s Korner and Annette’s Acre saved. Bwahahaha.

So after that we headed over for some lunch then to the art store for supplies he needs, then back to get his car, then home. We were gone for the better part of the day and the puppies were so happy to see us. Mister decided he wanted to try the local Chinese eatery we discovered by accident and it had the best food we had had in forever. Including some of the Chinese we had while living in Japan (yep, there’s a difference).

Before I forget, don’t forget to reply on this thread if you’re interested in my gift away for the Grow Your Blog project. I’ll be contacting the winner on or about the 1st for size information.

Now, to today’s Monday Musing:

Do you have a favorite quote that you return to again and again? What is it, and why does it move you?

I keep this one where I can see it every morning when I sit down for my first cup of coffee and read the news. It reminds me that today is a new day with which to make my life worth watching. It is by Emerson:

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

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Posted in Giveaway

I bet you’re wondering…

Posted on January 24, 2013 by Terri | 3 comments

…now why don’t she write? (brownie points if you know where that’s from.)

What happened to Wednesday? I managed to tick a few things off my to-do list, but not near as many as I thought I would. Getting back into a routine is always hard for me and between getting off of it over the holidays, and then last weekend’s trip, I’m struggling more than usual. While I think I’m completely over whatever ailment I had I have now caught a case of the lazies or the I-don’t-wannas.

I did manage to get the kitchen back in order and the laundry started, among other things, but I never made it into my craft room yesterday, other than to fight with my laptop, so no new progress photo to share.

I don’t know what I’ve done but for some reason my ActiveX Control doohicky is not working on Explorer. I’ve “googled” and followed written and video direction and it still won’t work. I’m using Chrome for now but I can’t access any of my bookmarks and this old bird doesn’t like change — at all!

Mister had class all day/evening so he wasn’t there to fix it so I soothed my frustration somewhat by stitching more on And The Sinned while finishing off the first season of Eureka and starting on the second season and setting my timer between episodes and working on the house (and probably muttering about the computer the whole time).

The weather here was unbelievably wonderful yesterday so I left the slider open while I was downstairs and the puppies were in and out so much they wore themselves (and the birds they chased off) out.

Mister only has 1 class this afternoon. I’m supposed to head to Attic for open stitch night but I haven’t decided whether or not to go. I haven’t seen him very much since last Thursday and it might be nice to have a night on the couch with him and the puppies catching up on the DVR.

Tomorrow is the first Friday that I’ll be accompanying Mister to campus. We’ve scheduled to get his Beemer worked on (a strut or something is leaking) and My Shiny gets her first oil change. I’ll probably read while he’s in class and whatever else we do will be decided later.

Gotta get off this contraption and get something accomplished!