Still Cleaning! UGH!

Greg and I are still cleaning like maniacs - closets, drawers, under the sink, etc. There have been countless trips to Goodwill and countless bags of things thrown away. You know what happens when you clean out closets, drawers, and other places? It seems like the rest of your house gets messy. There is the odd thing here and there that needs to be dealt with. Even Jacob has gotten in the mood and is digging out cleaning his room! THAT is cause for celebration people!

So I still have not been doing any sewing or stitching and very little knitting. I did get this in the last couple of weeks though to help with my 1/4" seams (the ones that are 1/4"+). It's a Bernina #57 foot with the guide. I hope this helps as I've heard good things about it . I hope to get to try it out on Friday or Saturday.
I also had a chance earlier this month to work on my free motion quilting. This is a shell like pattern. It's doesn't look so bad in a thread that blends.

It's not so pretty in a contrasting color.

Here's another attempt in doing the swirls. A very small improvement.

When I tried the swirls before, I didn't post the contrasting tread photo. Here is the most recent one. I have such difficulty in getting the rounded shapes round. More practice needed!

Lesson Learned: Sometimes it's good to try and blend in!

Some progress on my plain vanilla sock. This is the only crafty thing I've been working on and not much of that has been going on. I do like the stitch definition this yarn has and I'm glad I elected to go with a plain sock.
I did get a chance today to start organizing my sewing room. I asked Greg to hold off on hanging shelves and putting together the 2 wall cabinets until I get a chance to work in the room and make sure the layout works. I think it's going to be fine but I want to be sure. In order to do that though, I have to get everything put away. I spent several hours doing that today and hope to make some more progress tomorrow and Friday. I've been looking for a stitching and knitting chair but so far have not found anything that really works.

Tomorrow, I'm taking a quick trip to Gainesville to see a friend from high school. Guess what her hobbies are? Yep, knitting, stitching and quilting! Years ago, out of all the places in the US our parents bought a second home within miles of each other (they don't know each other). It's been like that with us since 1978 when we met in Mr. Vance's Civics class. There have been times when we've drifted out of each other lives but we always seem to know when the other needs us and we always seem to pick up where we left off. I'm excited to spend some time with her tomorrow!

Several of you offered up help on changing my blog to a 3 column blog! Thank you! I have not had time to play with it but I will this weekend!

Happy Stitches!

My Husband Has a Problem

The past couple of days, I've been cleaning. Not just everyday cleaning but the stuff you do every now and then. First it was the garage, then it was the closet in my bathroom, then it was under the kitchen sick. I also scrubbed the grout in the bathroom with a toothbrush and SoftSoap with bleach (the grout was really buggin me) and cleaned the shower door with a razor - a razor really helps with the water spots. This morning it was the linen closet. It's not a big closet but bigger than most. I started by taking every single thing out of it. I counted 22 empty boxes in there courtesy of my husband! Telephone boxes, laptop box, a modem box, all sorts of stuff. Including the box for his shoe inserts from The Walking Company. Crazy Man! Why would we need to keep that box? There was even a sunglass box in there! I didn't take pictures because he thought I was nuts that I even counted them!

Yesterday, we celebrated Christmas with the boys as they were at their fathers for Christmas Day. We went and saw Sherlock Holmes, ate dinner out, and came back to open gifts and have dessert. It was great to spend time together just the 4 of us. Jacob's schedule is so different than everyones that it can be hard to get the 4 of us together at once.

Chris loved the big mirror we got him. It's the kind you lean against the wall.

On Christmas Day, I gave Greg the Noro Striped Scarf I made him that I have not posted about here. I think he reads my blog.

Noro Striped Scarf by Jared Flood (aka Brooklyn Tweed)
Ravely Link Here

Here's the 4 of us before the movies.
Can you tell Jacob just loves to get his picture taken?
The remote to the camera wasn't working so I had to set the timer and run!
Note to self: Time to head back to the gym!

Does anyone know an easy way to change my blog from 2 columns to 3? I'd like a sidebar on each side of my blog. I'd also like to be able to do it without messing up what is there already. I struggle with blog formatting. So many of the tutorials are greek to me! I've made a change or 2 already but it's been slooow going.

Do you set crafting goals each year? I've seen a lot of blogs with an ambitious lists of things they'd like to do in 2010. Does it help get things done? I'm thinking of setting some simple attainable goals for 2010 but still mulling it over. I don't like the feeling of having a deadline for something that should be fun. But then again, I do have some projects that I would like to finish and 2010 IS a whole year! I'd love to hear your thoughts on the subject.

Happy Stitches!

The Day After

In true Florida Christmas fashion, yesterday we had to to turn on the air conditioning. At 9:21 it was 76 degrees (I think that is 24 C) and very humid inside our house. (I need to remind Greg that the day of the week is wrong on the keypad). It seems like most years we are running the A/C at Christmas. One year, I'd love to experience a white Christmas!

I was happy to use my Christmas china. I love this stuff! It really makes the table look festive!

On today's agenda: cleaning out the garage!

It took 5 hours. Of pure misery. It took Greg longer because he made the trash run and the Goodwill run. We took EVERYTHING out of the garage and off the shelves and really edited what we put back in. We got rid of loads of stuff. Now Greg wants to clean out the attic! UGH!

I hope you had a safe and happy holiday!

Hodge Podge

As you know, I'm not responsible for my online purchases. There is usually a blog that "made me do it". I've been seeing ornaments across blog land. All those pretty pictures. So I ordered the JCS Christmas editions from 2004 to 2007. I already had 2008 and 2009. They're a great value. Where else can you get so many patterns for one low price? This was a cost effective purchase!

I've been missing having a sock on the needles so I cast on for one late Saturday. Plain vanilla. Mindless. Just perfect. I love red and I love the stitch definition that this yarn gives. Right now I don't have the brain cells for anything remotely complicated.

Last year, Greg and the boys and I went to see the Luminaries. While we had a great family time, the luminaries were a huge disappointment. This year Greg and I went to St. Augustine to ride the Holly Jolly Trolley around town with some of my coworkers and their families. It's wasn't a long ride but it was fun and downtown St. Augustine was beautiful. One evening I'd love to go there and go from pub to pub listening to all the live music.

I'm in Florida so the open air trolley really was not a problem. It messes with the hair though!

This is the Basilica. I've never paid too much attention to it but at night it is amazing!

Somehow our holiday preparations are getting done. We spent hours over the weekend wrapping up gifts after finishing up our shopping. I have 2 gifts that should be delivered this week and a very large gift for Chris to wrap and then I'll be pretty much done with all that except for stocking stuffers. I have an emergency hair appointment tomorrow - it is absolutely driving me crazy. Why does short hair seem to grow so fast? Especially once it starts (coughcough) to turn gray?

As you can tell, this post is all over the place. I think that is typical for me this time of year!

I'd like to thank all of you for this year of reading my blog, commenting, and getting to know me. I never expected that a blog would bring me friendships but it has. What a nice surprise! I've also learned so much from your blogs. Thank you for sharing your tips, tricks, lessons learned and your stories. It's been a pleasure to get to know YOU in 2009! I wish each of you a safe and happy holiday and new year!
Hugs,
Jackie

A Break from the Holiday Craziness

Today I took a break from work and a break from the holiday preparations. Instead, I went to my LQS and sewed. I packed enough projects to carry me through 2049. How many did I get to work on? Just one. I learned that I rot at stitching in the ditch. But that part is done. I sewed on the binding and at the very end I realized that I was sewing with too large of a seam allowance. I'll be picking that out next week. The good news is that I have a great chance of having a finished table runner for my 2010 Fall table!

I went from the quilt shop to my favorite yarn store. I had finished my Noni bag a few weeks ago and needed to sew on the strap. I did that. Then Randi discovered that I had hand sewn (with like 1,403,239 BLACK stitches) the handle to the BOTTOM of the bag. Unpicking that has been a nightmare, even with help (thanks Sharon!), and I think will take the amount of time to unpick it that took for the pyramids to be built. I am determined to get this done and the project felted by 2010.

You know, neither of those things spoiled my day! I had a great time and still feel like progress was made. What's an extra stitch or 2 in the grand scheme of things?

Stitching on Quakers and Quilts has been slow but still enjoyable. I'm thinking of starting another project soon. I'm not sure if that will be a restart to LHN Neighborhood or something completely new. The fabric won't be here for what I really wanted to start next. I know Kerrie is starting a new stitching project on Christmas Day and Melody (I think) is starting something on New Years. I had not heard of a tradition of starting a new project on a particular day each year. It's kind of interesting! I'd love to hear if you have a similar tradition!

I also need to figure out what to do with this lovely stuff that somehow found it's way home with me. 1120 yards of fingering weight yarn. Do I really need another big knitting project? Seriously?

I can already tell that my list of things I want to do during my last week of vacation is totally unrealistic.

I'm looking forward to every single minute of it!