Stitching Stuff for Week 20 of 2022

Things were supposed to have slowed down at work two weeks ago. They didn't.  It's been 6 weeks with lots of overtime and not a lot of time off.  That hasn't been very compatible with finding time to stitch. 

• 15 minute days/week 19 = 2/7 days
• 15 minute days/week 20 = 3/7 days
• 15 minute days/May = 5/14 days
• 15 minute days/2022 = 99/134 days
• Success rate = 73.88%

My goal for the year was to stitch at least 75% of the time, so I'm not doing so well on that front. I'm hoping this audit is THE project for the year and I won't have anything else that requires that much effort.

In addition to a busy work schedule, My Guy and I had been busy planning a graduation party for the Scientist in Training.  The SIT graduated with honors last weekend with BS degrees in chemistry, biochemistry and psychology.  

We had a great weekend celebrating with her school friends on Saturday, then with the rest of the family on Sunday.   Congratulations SIT!  Her next step?  Graduate school at Texas A&M.  We are debating if the SIT gets a name upgrade on the blog.  We've not come to a definite decision on that as yet.   

My apologies for not getting a post up last week. Unfortunately my allergies didn't respond well to the sudden warm up and high winds we had over the that weekend. I pretty much spent Sunday trying to cope with watery eyes, a sore throat and runny nose. I mostly just slept while everyone else partied.  Hopefully with the audit over and life getting mostly back to normal, there won't be any more interruptions to the regularly scheduled linky party. 

How have you been doing on finding time to stitch?

1. Gretchen 2. Colletta's Kitchen Sink 3. DonnaleeQ 4. Melisa- Pinker n' Punkin Quilting

5. Ivani 6. DawnyK week 19 7. DawnyK 8. Amanda

9. Quilting Gail 10. Andre at Quilting and Learning

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Slow Stitching and a Stash Report

It's been a slow and relaxing weekend.  On Saturday we attended the Tulsa Food Truck Festival.  That was a new experience.  Drama Teen and both ordered pork rib mac and cheese from the Mr. Nice Guys truck. 

It was yummy.  There's a lot of food there, neither of us finished our portions. 

There was some time for some slow stitching before we left and after we got home.  

I should turn the second corner on the binding for Allietare this afternoon.  I love the striped backing and Trudy's quilting looks as good on back as it does on the front.  Getting this project to finished quilt is this month's One Monthly Goal.  It's looking pretty promising that I'll make this month's commitment.  

This week's outgoing stash includes the binding.  Which is a good thing or I'd not have very much in the outgoing column. 

Used last week: 0.82 yards
Used year to date: 49.22 yards
Added year to date:  46.09 yards
Net used in 2016:  3.13 yards

In spite of a busy week and a one night with a nasty headache, I did manage to get into the sewing room every day this week. 

Days in the sewing room this week:  7 out of 7 days
Days in October:  15 out of 15 days
Days in 2016:  230 out of 289 days

After a bit of laundry this morning, I'll head back to the sewing room this afternoon.  Hopefully to make some more headway on that binding.  

Linking up Kathy's Quilts for Slow Stitching Sunday and with Patchwork Times for the Stash Report.  

2016 Rainbow Scrap Challenge - Getting Educated

The biggest accomplishment this week was surviving a full five days of work.  It's amazing how hard that is after having two weeks off.  Well, maybe that wasn't the biggest accomplishment this week.  Yesterday was Drama Teen's 17th birthday.  She didn't mention till Thursday night that she really wanted cookies and cream cupcakes from the bakery downtown. I had planned to do an ice cream cake, as that's been her favorite.  Thankfully the bakery had a few cookie and cream left when we went by at lunch yesterday.  She was happily surprised when dessert was served.  

Mom messed up by not having any candles in the house, but Drama Teen was happy to make do with a long fireplace match.  Hard to believe she's only got one more year of high school.  

With all the celebrating last night, there wasn't much time in the sewing room,  This year's Rainbow Scrap Challenge project is taking a bit of preparation before I can start sewing.  I finally got the patterns printed to size, selected the two Vintage Dresses to make this month, and picked out the fabrics. 

Vintage Dresses by Charise Randell

After looking at the minimal directions, I decided to educate myself a bit more about paper piecing.  The only project in my repertoire was really simple, nothing like these dresses.  There's a Craftsy class on paper piecing by Carol Doak in my library that I haven't had time to watch yet.  So I'm go to watch a bit of that before I get started on the piecing.  Hopefully that will save me some grief and unsewing down the road.  

That's all the rainbow scrap stitching I've managed this week.  You can find some pretty, blue scrappy projects linked up to Soscrappy. 

Back and Not Back

Hard to believe it's been 3 weeks plus since I last posted.  I'm hoping to get back to normal for at least a couple of weeks before the work madness starts up again.  There's been pretty much no progress at all in the sewing room since my last post.  Deadlines at work had me going in early and working late, so there wasn't any time to stitch.  

The reason for all the overtime was so I could take some vacation time.  I did take vacation, but still ended up working about half the first week we were gone.  That actually wasn't so bad because the first week of vacation was for Drama Teen.  She and I went to Florida so she could take part in a creative writing class. While she was in class, I was taking care of work stuff. 

The class was hosted by one of girls that DT met when she took an online creative writing class through Duke University back in the summer of 2012.  There were 6 of them from the class that got along so well, that they found a way to meet up online a couple of times a month (Yes, after 4 years, they still meet regularly).  Not all the girls were able to make the class, but she got to meet and spend time with two of the girls during this trip.  

It wasn't all work and no play.  Even I put up my paperwork and computer for a couple of days of fun in the sun. 

My tootsies made a few tentative steps into the ocean. DT went the total immersion approach.  

She had the best time hanging out with her writing buddies and playing in the ocean.  

That was week one of vacation.  From Florida, DT and I flew to Maine to meet up with My Guy for a family vacation.  I'm still going through all the pictures from that part of vacation.  I'll have some to share later this week when I hope to also have some stitching stuff to share as well.  I did find a few quilt shops in Maine.  Did I break my 6 month fabric fast? You'll have to read tomorrow's stash report to find out.  

I've been slowly catching up on everyone's blog.  As of this morning, I'm just a week behind.  I've been reading but not commenting on the older posts. Hopefully I'll be all caught up on that front  by the end of the weekend.  

Stash Report - Third Week of 2015

It's been a busy weekend.  Drama Teen and three of her friends celebrated their 16th birthdays together starting Friday night through a good part of Saturday.  All four have birthdays within a month of each other.  The first had her birthday just before Christmas, DT's was a week ago and the last two will turn 16 this week. DT had decided rather than cake that the girls would make brownie sundays to celebrate, but one of the mother's brought by a cake for the girls to share.      

They were all had a lot of fun claiming their part of the car.  Besides looking good, it was pretty tasty as well. 

With all the festivities, I didn't get much time in the sewing room this weekend so there's not much going on with the stash report.  

Used last week:  0.67 yards
Used in January: 1.77 yards

Though I'm not reporting incoming, nothing was added this week.  So I'm on the positive side of the stash busting equation.  I've been deleting all the fabric shop emails in hopes of staving off temptation.  I have lots of pretty fabrics in my stash and lots of UFOs that if finished will take care of some of that fabric.  So that's the focus this year.  I'm hoping to get in some quality stitching time this afternoon.  

I'm linking up with Patchwork Times.  Hop over there for more stash reports.  

2014 In Review: Accomplishments and Wishful Thinking

In some ways this year has gone really fast, but there are a few times where the year just seemed to drag.  The year was pretty uneventful till it reached late summer.  In the space of a about a month Drama Teen tore her ACL, then had surgery to repair it. The same day DT fell, we learned that My Guy's mother was terminally ill and we lost her just a few days after DT's surgery.  The holidays were hard this year as my MIL has always played such a big part in them.  As hard as it's been,  her loss reminded us just how precious time is with the rest of the family.  Drama Teen especially learned that lesson and made some significant changes in her approach to spending time with everyone, but especially with her remaining Grandma.  

There have been some bright spots this year as well.  Drama Teen passed her permit test and is learning to drive. 

The learning to drive is probably a brighter spot for DT than it is for us.  It will be nice not to have to jump through hoops and call in favors to get her from point A to point B for volleyball practice and such.  The brightest point in the driving situation for me is that she'll be driving my 11 year old Toyota, so Mom needs to find something else to drive. 

This came home with us on Monday (We were supposed to be just looking, not buying). But it wasn't red.  Our last two cars have been red, my only requirement was that it not be red (well that and that it have all wheel or 4 wheel drive).  My Guy really liked the way this one drove, so that decided it.  

I've also been reflecting on what got accomplished in the sewing room this year.  Quilting is a hobby, one I enjoy immensely, but this year I struggled to get myself into the sewing room.  Maybe I just needed a break this year.  I spent a lot of 2013 sewing on a deadline where I really had to be in the sewing room almost every day.  I was so flush with the victory of having finished 7 quilts in 2013 that when it came time to make goals for 2014, I probably fell victim to a lot of wishful thinking.  It makes for a bit of let down as I review what did get done this year.  

The Plan
1.  Finish 10 quits, 5 UFOs and 5 WIPs
2.  Start 8 quilts
3.  Add only 100 yards of fabric
4.  Use 75 yards of fabric

The Actual
1.  Finished 3 quilts, 2 UFOs and 1 WIP
2.  Started 5 quilts, only one from the list
3.  Added a lot more than 100 yards
4.  Used less than 35 yards

On the bright side, one of the quilts that was finished this year, Scrappy Stars, was the oldest one on the UFO list.  I haven't blogged about that finish yet as I put the final stitches in the binding, then promptly wrapped it up for my Mom.  And though I only started one of the quilts on my "to make list", I can look back and know why none of the others got started.  I'll be less ambitious this year and only add what I'm positive I'm going to start (that's easy as both relate to challenges). 

I added a lot more than 100 yards, but I have a more robust stash now. Of the 5 quilts started this year, there were 2 where all the fabrics were pulled completely from the stash.  That's better in past years where I've had to buy a background or accent fabric because my stash didn't have that color. So hopefully I'm set up this year to do a better job of using the stash and not adding to it as much.  

For the rest of this last day of 2014, laundry ranks as a "have to do".  Other than that, we have plans to go to the gym and get a slight jump on our exercise plans for 2015.  Drama Teen has a church party tonight. My Guy and I will probably watch the ball drop on TV, so there will probably be some slow stitching on tap for this evening.  

Have a happy and safe New Year's Eve.  

Stash Report - Week 42 of 2014

This is the last day of a four day weekend for me.  Drama Teen was out of school for fall break so I took a few days off to hang out with her.  Since My Guy was back in Montana, it was pretty much a girls weekend.  We hung out with my Mom and my niece, had a great time.  It was Krispy Kreme for breakfast yesterday morning.

Yum!  DT also met up with some cool dudes who were making sure the donuts were not haunted.

It's been 30 years since the movie Ghost Busters was released.  When I asked DT if she'd seen the movie she said no, she had seen them on an episode of Scooby Doo.  Sometimes that child really makes me feel old.  

We didn't get home till late last night, so I didn't get any stitching in yesterday.  Fortunately, I had done some stitching earlier in the week.  

Used last week:  1.59 yards
Used in October:  3.18 yards
Used year to date:  23.94 yards

Definitely a good week compared to most others this year.  My goal is to use 1.5 yards per week so I can claim at least 40 yards out of the stash by the end of the year.  

That's it for my report this week.  For more stash stuff, check out the posts on Patchwork Times. 

Sad News

It's been two weeks since I last posted, read a blog or even answered much email. For those who follow my blog routinely, you know that Drama Teen has been recovering from surgery to repair her ACL. That's been a rocky road for her, as function doesn't come back immediately.  It's hard to be young and unable to do such simple tasks such as getting on the bus after school.   

An even harder blow came on the 11th.  My slightly zany, much beloved mother-in-law passed away.  Her funeral was this last Thursday.  Though we all knew her diagnosis was terminal, none of us thought it would happen this quickly.  Everyone had anticipated at least one more holiday season with her. 

My MIL loved tulips, her spring beds always inspired a lot of photographs.  She loved photographs too, we spent a lot of time during our visits passing around everyone's photographs.  I'll miss those times the most.  

It will be awhile before we find a new balance, but we are all working on it.  I've missed seeing what everyone is up too.  I'm slowly catching up reading everyone's blogs, though I'm not commenting much on the older posts.  

On the Mend

Just a quick post about Drama Teen's status.  She had surgery this morning.  

This is before surgery.  Afterwards she just looked sleepier and grumpier.  She won't need crutches after the first couple of days, which was the best case situation.   It will still be 6 months before she can go back to playing volleyball, but that's better than the original diagnosis of a year.  She's sleeping off the effects of the anesthesia at the moment.   I'm sure she'll keep us hopping the rest of the weekend.  

Thank you for all the support, good wishes and prayers.  Have a great weekend. 

A Catch up Post

It's been one of those weeks.  If you want to read about the quilty stuff you can skip the rest of this paragraph and the next, if you like the drama, read on.  Two family emergencies and one rush project at work made for a pretty miserable week.  My Guy's wonderful mother was rushed to the emergency room on Monday.  They discovered a mass, which is inoperable and cancerous.  They did surgery to deal with some issues that were immediately life threatening.  She's now feeling a lot more comfortable and is in good spirits. My Guy left Friday morning to go see her.  

The plan was for Drama Teen and I to join My Guy on Saturday as she has volleyball practice and I needed to finish up a rush project at work.  That plan pretty much disintegrated when I picked DT up from volleyball practice on Friday.  DT texted that I needed to come in to talk to coach.  It wasn't the coach I had to talk to, it was the high school trainer.  DT took a bad fall during practice and over-extended her knee.  She was on crutches and hurting pretty badly.  So after an afternoon spent at the doctor's office, she has an MRI scheduled for this Thursday.  We won't know how bad the damage is to her knee until the doctor sees the results from that. She's supposed to stay off her feet and regularly ice the knee until then.  The rush project?  Well that was finally finished at about 8:30 PM on Friday.  

Here's the quilting updates that should have been written this week:

My something old this month is the same as it's been for several months, to finish up Jigsaw.  This month the blocks got finished, the rows sewn together and the borders were started.  

Jigsaw
pattern by Alyssa Clancy for Lehmann Quilting

Jigsaw may actually make it to a finished flimsy in August. I've just started on the the last round of borders.  For my something new, I learned how to work with fussy cuts in EQ.  I'm still working to come up with a quilt that uses a butterfly panel I bought a couple of months ago.  Here's the latest effort. 

Modified from Bird Watching
by Wendy Sheppard
 published in July/August  2014 issue of McCall's Quilting

This layout reminds me of stained glass.  The pattern is modified from a quilt in the July issue of McCall's Quilting magazine, Bird Watching by Wendy Sheppard.  This may well end up being my something new for this month.  I will probably play some with block placement and fabric colors, but I think this quilt needs to be made.

  

July wasn't a good month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, so I've been playing catch up with the red blocks.  All the blocks for the Scrap Challenge Sampler are in progress, but only 4 are finished. 

 Rainbow Scrap Challenge Sampler
By Angela Feldbush of Soscrappy

The scrappy butterfly block is also done. 

Scrappy Butterflies
Block is available in EQ 7 Block Library

This month's color is light green.  Since I don't have a lot of greens, I used pretty much all my green scraps I had when we were working with dark green. So I'm not sure what I'm going to do for this month.  

Finally, today is stash report day.  I actually have some stash going out with nothing coming in.  

Used last week:  1.36 yards
Added last week:  0 yards

Used in 2014:  11.99 yards
Added in 2014:  302.3 yards

Net stashed in 2014:  290.31 yards 

So for the first time in a long while the net stashed actually went down!  I definitely need a few more weeks of that.  

That catches me up on posts for the week and the month.  I'm linking up with:

Lynn over at Never Too Hot To Stitch
Angela over at Soscrappy
Judy over at Patchwork Times.  

Stash Report - Week 5 of 2014

I am so glad it's Sunday.  It's been one of those whirlwind weeks with lots of ups and downs.  Between the swim meet and Science Fair, we've not had a chance to catch our breath.  I judged the junior division in our district Science Fair on Friday and My Guy judged the senior division yesterday.  Drama Teen presented her project yesterday.  

She ended up with a second place finish in her division and was selected to go on to the State Science Fair next month.  She was in the last group announced, so she was sweating it.  Her goal was to get to go back to state.  

In spite of the busy week, I did get some stitching done, but most of it was hand work finishing off the binding on Mon Ami.  I finished that Friday night.  No stitching yesterday as we had so much going on.  This week's report is definitiely on the anemic side. 

Used last week:  0.11 yards
Added last week:  0 yards

Used for 2014:  2.47 yards
Added for 2014:  26. 5 yards

Net stashed for 2014:  24.03 yards

So not a lot of gains on the stash reduction front.  At least there was no fabric added this last week. I continue to delete the fabric shop emails to avoid temptation.  

That's it for my stash report this week.  Check out all the other stash reports posted over at Patchwork Times.  

Stash Report: January 26, 2014

It's not exactly been a quiet weekend around the Life in Pieces house.  Drama Teen has been madly working on her science fair project which is due this week.  So in addition to my normal mom duties, I'm her Excel and statistics consultant.  However, I did get to practice the normal mom duties of pressing her dress, acting as hair consultant and taking a few photos as she prepared for her first high school dance. 

Hard to believe the little tom boy who wanted nothing to do with dresses, dress up or anything "girly", would willing put on a formal and wear heels.  When she was 5 she proclaimed that she'd be wearing a tux to her prom because you couldn't have any fun in a dress.  They certainly grow up fast.  

On the sewing front, I did get a bit of stitching done while DT was off at her formal.  So there is a bit out this week.  

Used last week:  0.83 yards
Added last week:  0 yards

Used for 2014:  2.36 yards
Added for 2014:  26.5 yards

Net Stashed for 2014:  24.14 yards

Thankfully there was no new fabric in this week so I can start working towards being back in the black.  I have been diligently deleting all the emails from the on-line fabric companies to avoid any temptation.  So far that's been doing the trick.  Hopefully I can maintain my "no new fabric" path for awhile.  

I'm linking up with Patchwork Times for Stash Report Sunday, hop over there and check out the state of stashes from all over the world.  

A Day Off

As many know, I took a couple of days off work to stay home with the Drama Teen who had her wisdom teeth out Thursday.  Not the most glamorous use of vacation, but we figured we would at least get some rest, if not relaxation from staying home with a sleepy girl. Thursday was the day she needed the most babysitting, as she wasn't supposed to go anywhere without assistance   We kept her downstairs as the doctor warned us that stairs would be tricky that first day.   By Friday morning Drama Teen was almost back to normal, though still hurting just a bit.  

She doesn't look thrilled, but she is looking so much better than she did Thursday morning.   Her face is still a bit swollen but she's able to pull off her "really Mom" look again.   She discovered that she could manage marshmallows if she had luke warm "hot" chocolate to wash them down (the luke warm part was the doctor's orders).  It was cold and rainy in the afternoon, just right for luke warm "hot" chocolate.  (The luke warm part wasn't ideal, but she was determined to just deal with it).  She watched movies while I used my camera in an attempt to capture the rain drops on the kitchen window.  

The rain drops are kinda sparkly in this image.  Not really what I was after, but it conveys the mood pretty well.  

I've started a Scrappy Trip Around the World quilt, but wasn't thrilled with the first block.  Rather than make more, I took a step back trying to decide what I wanted to do with it.  So while DT and I were hanging out, I decided to play around with an idea to use just two colors of scraps using a third contrasting color as the  diagonal in each block.  I have a lot of yellow and purple scraps left over from my first yellow and purple scrap quilt, so I played with around with that thought and came up with this. 

It's just 9 blocks, but it gives me a sense of how that concept would work out.  I may go this way.  I just didn't like the completely scrappy version.  

This morning it's laundry and a bit of housework.  I'm hoping to get DT out and about a bit this afternoon.  Hopefully I can get into the sewing room and play some more with my scraps this evening.  

Stash Report - Week 40 of 2013

It's been a mixed bag of a weekend so far.  Yesterday all three of us woke up with sinus headaches.  After a dose of Tylenol we were all feeling well enough to jump in the car and head to Tulsa for My Guy's promised birthday lunch.  My Guy's favorite restaurant was closed for remodeling, which was a disappointment till he remembered there was a place on Cherry Street that he had seen in passing and wanted to try.  So we headed in that direction. He ordered the fried green tomatoes stuffed with crab.

I ended up with pork tacos.  

Drama Teen ordered lamb sliders.  Since she typically doesn't eat breakfast on the weekends until lunch time, she was so hungry that she dived right in, so no picture.  My Guy's not fond of cake, so he ordered the bread pudding with ice cream and caramel sauce as his "birthday cake".  

Oh I forgot to mention the bacon bits on the top.  Needless to say we were all pretty stuffed after all of that. After lunch we lucked into an art show and browsed that for a while.  We found a couple of Christmas presents (yes it is unfortunately that just about that time of year).  My Guy's headache came back full force, so we made one more quick stop and headed home.  All of us took naps when we got home and all felt better for it.  But My Guy got up this morning with what is now a full blown migraine headache.  So I'm being really quiet so he can sleep.

With all of our doings yesterday, not much stitching happened.  I did get some stitching done earlier in the week.  I'm now starting to complete the Log Cabin blocks for clue 7 on the Back to Square One quilt, so there is a little bit to report as going out. 

Used last week:  0.38 yards
Added last week:  0 yards

Used for 2013:  58.45 yards
Added for 2013:  157.83 yards

Net stashed for 2013:  99.38 yards

Even better, there was nothing in last week, so I'm still under my limit of 100 yards of stash added for the rest of 2013.  

That's it for my stash report.  Check out other reports over at Judy's Patchwork Times.