Snow Day #2

This was Atlanta traffic yesterday morning, most of these people are still trying to get home from the night before.  Glad I was home!!!!  My poor Sister in Law was stuck in traffic for 18 hours. 

I was not as productive today as yesterday, I did some sewing but got sidetracked.  I started looking for a piece of fabric that I know I have and couldn't find it.  That lead to cleaning in the sewing room.  I have to admit over the last couple of months I have let things pile up too much.  It is definitely time for a cleaning.  This is one of my scrap bins, I decided to go through it and start using Bonnie Hunter's method of cutting scraps into strips and squares.  I made a little bit of progress.  I even threw out the scraps that were just too small to use and some that I know I will never ever use.  In between pressing and cutting I did some other cleaning.  I think I made a bigger mess that it was before and I still haven't found the fabric I was looking for. 

Snow Day

Yes, everything goes crazy in Atlanta when it snows.  It really isn't the snow it is more a problem with the ice.  Yesterday was wild, there are three major interstates going through Atlanta, plus everyone decided to go home early and it created awful traffic.  Some students had to spend the night at schools,  glad I made it home and didn't have to stay at school overnight with kids.  I got a lot and I do mean a lot done today.  Before I hit the sewing room I went outside to check out the birdfeeder.  We have some beautiful cardinals that I tried to catch at the bird feeder but no luck. 

Bottle tree in the snow.

I finally got my Yellow Brick Road Swap sewn together.  I love this quilt can't wait to get it quilted.  I am trying to decide it I want to put borders on it or not.  What do  you think?  This is the swap that we did last year out of shirtings.  I made mine bigger since I had some extra fabric, I was lucky and found some backing fabric at Sweet Home during their going out of business sale a few weeks ago. 

Photos don't do this quilt justice. 

Working on UFO's

I am finally over the flu, I think, still have some sniffles and coughs, but feel much better.  I decided to look at my UFO list and see where I should get started to reduce this list this year.  I decided to start with Christmas Reel.  This is a Lisa Bongean pattern that was in a quilt magazine a couple of years ago, I think it was Fons and Porter.  I fell in love with it and ordered the same fabric that she had used. There are only nine blocks, really large blocks they are 20 1/2 inches square. When I dug this out of its box I had four of the nine squares finished.  I was pleasantly surprised, I didn't remember doing that many.  I only have five more blocks to go, plus the sawtooth border.  It is my goal to finish this one before I start on an more hand projects, since the blocks are applique I can work on it at night while watching TV with my DH. 

Lots of Reading this weekend

 

Flu germs are still floating around my house, I am finally feeling better, however; DH now has the flu and bronchitis.  I had huge plans for this weekend, since we are out of school on Monday, looks like most of my plans will stay just that--- plans.  I have done a lot of reading this last week and weekend.  I just finished Jennifer Chiverini's new book, Mrs. Lincoln's Rival.  I really enjoy her quilting series and enjoyed Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker.  This one not so much.  I never could really get into it.  I wanted to get to know the characters and why they were such rivals.  Mrs. Chiverini definitely does her research, and does a great job of transporting you to the Civil War era, maybe too much so.  I wanted to know more  Kate Sprague, but by the time I finished the book, I didn't really know anything more than at the beginning of the book.  It was also never made clear why she and Mrs. Lincoln were such great rivals.  I have to admit that by the end of the book I was skimming some of the pages just to finish. 

 

Before starting Mrs. Lincoln's Rival I read Sycamore row by John Grisham.  I have read all of his books and have liked some better than others.  This was one of the better ones.  It was more like his first novels, a true page turner.  Couldn't put this one down.  Would definitely recommend this one over Mrs. Lincoln's Rival.  Happy reading!!

The Flu is no Fun

Having the flu is definitely no fun.  (especially when you got your flu shot and didn't think you would get it.  I hadn't been feeling good for  a few days, then on Sunday my temp went up to 103.  I could not get warm, I had two flannel quilts and a regular quilt plus the heating pad and was still cold.  On Monday I went to the doctor and heard the dreaded words flu.  I felt better so I decided to go to work today, that lasted until lunch time then I had to call it a day and come home.  Hope I can make a full day of it tomorrow.

Having the flu has also put a damper on my sewing room cleaning.  I even thought up a new project; an off white table runner with different shades of pink and red hearts.  I don't know if I can get it finished in the next month but I am going to try. 

New Look

As I said in my post yesterday my blog was definitely overdue for a new look, well I have started on it, still have some things to  change. While looking at everything on my blog, I stared for a long time at last years UFO list.  I only finished two quilts on my list from last year.  Wow, that is pretty bad!! I have got to get some of these UFO's out of the sewing room.  While thinking about that it was perfect timing that I received the new issue of The Quilt Life.  I have cut back on the magazines that I subscribe to but this is one I still get and I had an epiphany while reading one of the articles about UFO's.  The author was talking about her huge stack of UFO's and how she hated going in her sewing room because of all of the half finished projects.  I can definitely feel her pain!!  She made the comment that she wasn't even excited about the quilts anymore and that she wanted to go out, buy fabric, come home and make a quilt while she was still excited about the fabric.  (I put this in my words, but it is basically what she said).  She decided to go through all of her projects and make three stacks, the ones she would definitely make (finish), the maybe pile and the definitely not stack.  The definitely not stack was given away or repurposed.  The  definitely finish stack was completed and the maybe stack was either completed, repurposed or given away.  I think this is what I need to do.  It was been a while since I got really excited about a quilt.  Before the end of January my goal is to go through my sewing room and make three stacks, hopefully this will enable me to get some of those UFO's finished or out of  my house.  Wish me luck. 

Good neighbors, plus a boat load of wool

Joe and I have been in our house for 16 years, and it that time we have been blessed with the best neighbors that a person could have.  Our subdivision was built in the early 60's and many people on our street have lived here since the houses were built.  Unfortunately over the last few years many of our neighbors have passed away.  Last year the lady next door died after a long illness,  her husband was devastated but finally seems to be coming around.  A few days ago I took him his overdue Christmas present ( I always bake him something), while visiting with him he told me he had something for me, he disappeared for a few minutes and came back with this beautiful coat.  The picture does not do it justice.  It had belong to his wife and she only wore it one time.  It is in perfect shape, original buttons, and mink collar.  On his wife it was a full length  coat on me it is knee length.  It is a perfect vintage find, the only thing I had to do is resew one  of the buttons.  He will definitely get lots more baked goods for this.


While admiring  my new coat I have been oh so busy dyeing wool.  I just finished dyeing 30 yards to be shipped to California tomorrow.  I absolutely love to dye wool but it is cutting into my sewing time.  I have almost finished the Yellow Brick Road that I stacked last week.  I have also decided that my blog is long overdue for a makeover, but that will have to wait for another day.

BRRRR!!!

This morning the official temperature in  Atlanta was 8 degrees, at our house it was 5 degrees.  Thank goodness there was no school today.  It was cold. Now I know it is a lot colder in many parts of the US this week, but for Atlanta, 8 degrees is really really cold.  I desperately needed today to get caught up on my wool dyeing.  I know I just had two weeks off, but with the holidays I just didn't get as much done as I wanted to.  I also just got two really big orders of wool that I needed to work on.  One order is complete and the other is started. 

I did decide to do some things just for me this afternoon.  I am working on my first original design in wool, I am doing it in two different color ways, one is traditional red and white the other is magneta and turquoise.  What do you think?   I like it, not traditional Christmas colors but pretty.  Yes, I said Christmas I am working on this for Christmas of 2014. 

Here is another look at the "new creation".

In addition to this, I managed to finish all of the blocks for the Yellow Brick Road trade that we did last year.  I put it on the design wall and got it stacked and ready to sew.   It has been so long since I stacked a quilt I had to think about it for a while before I could remember how to do it.  Can't wait to finish it.  I bought the backing last week at Sweet Home's going out of business sale.  Hope everyone is keeping warm.

Focus

My word of the year for 2014 is FOCUS.  I don't really know where this word came from, I had already told my DH that my word of the year was going to be SIMPLIFY.  I had intended to blog about it last night but football got in the way and when I woke up this morning I had a new word for the year.  After thinking about it, FOCUS is probably a better word for me.  I do need to  simplify things in a big way, but I think by Focusing on things I can simplify things.  There are several things that I need to focus on.  Here is a quick list:

1. My self  ( I always put everything else above myself)
2. My DH  (sometimes I forget how important he is to me)
3.  My wool business, I really want to focus on this, this year and step it up a notch.
4.  My house, it definitely needs some work
5.  My family, I need to visit my mom more, along with  my niece and her family.
6.  My quilting, I didn't get a lot of quilting done in 2013 and I need to step it up in 2014
7.  My friends, I can't say enough about my friends and how supportive they are.  I need to be there for them.

I could go on, but I think if I focus on these 7 things my life will be all the better for it.  What is your word for the year.

Happy New Year

Wishing everyone a happy and safe New Year.