September 25, 2011

I'm a lucky girl!

I finally feel like I am turning the corner on the backlog of work and civic obligations and almost feel like I can catch a breath.  This is in part because I turned in my resignation for 6 of the 7 officers/committees I cover in one organization.   Problem is, it started small and evolved into a time- suck-the-life-out-of-you monster.  I was the one that implemented the website, the email, the facebook accounts, so I became the one who managed them.   Any one by themselves is not a big deal, but add to it Membership Chair, Grant Writer, managing mailings, Secretary and Treasurer and it is time to share the wealth.   I tendered my resignation for January 1, 2012......I think that was decent notice and now the ball is in their court to step up and take on a task.......so I am lucky because I see light at the end of the tunnel and it is not the oncoming train!  Don't they know they have been creeping into my creative time?
I guess maybe I have a 'cattitude"!

I perfect stitch for my daughter!

On another front I am lucky because I won not one but two charts this week!  First from June at Butterfly Wings I got this cutie-patudie.   I was her 75th follower.  Check out her blog.....her followers are growing every day.   Second, I won this one from Tracey at I Stitch Therefore I am.














I am heading off to retreat this week and have been looking forward to it all summer.   Four days at the shore with a bunch of fellow stitchers and a cross stitch store connected to the hotel... what more could a gal ask for??    I took a tour through my stash pile to pick out something new to start..... I always reward myself with a new start on this weekend and I think I will choose Drawn Threads Random Thoughts.   I have wanted to work on this one for quite some time......what's one more in the lost list of WIP's?


Yesterday I took a Danish Whitework class and I think I have a new love.   Wow, I love the symentry, I love the look and I particularly love how easy it is.     I definitely will be taking this on retreat with me to work on. 


And to make me four times a lucky girl, I picked up a book I had started earlier in the summer.  With all the OT  I haven't read in forever!   This book is special since I know the author.  And that is really him dressed in his regalia on the cover of the book.

Truly a rambling rant of a post.......

September 18, 2011

Men have it easy!

Mr. W. and I went to a wedding this weekend.   There were 5 flower girls and 5 bridesmaids and 5 groomsmen and ONLY 3 little boys. BIG BIG wedding party.    The little ones were so adorable and the bride looked radiant and happy.   But on to us....apparently Mr. W.  forgot about the length of a catholic wedding.  I know the whole up and down thing and it is long, but the priest kept stopping and telling everyone to come up and take pictures. "We are now going to stop the ceremony for a few minutes ......Photo Op everyone".   Not once but several times. Not that a wedding has to be stuffy but there seemed there was little sanctity to the ceremony. There were a lot of people just exiting the church randomly and re-entering too during the ceremony. Just strange. It was a tiny, old church with creaky floors and creaky pews.   Noisy with all thoses ups and downs and shifting of the weight and ins and outs. 

After the wedding there was a two hour lapse between the ceremony and the reception and we went back to our room because we were getting a taxi from the hotel to the reception.  It was 8 miles and $21 later, a ride from hell......sitcom funny ride from hell..... but more of that later on...   

But I need to go back to the Thursday, I tried on all my dresses Thursday night and the purple one, even though I tried it on in the strore - now looked like a maternity dress, so I decided on the turquoise and purple dress. One problem, the security tag was still on the jacket.  Fortunately I took the day off on Friday to handle a drs.' appt., run errands and to pack. 

I head to Boscovs to return the purple dress and get the tag off the jacket of the other dress. Now I need jewelry since what I was wearing with the purple dress will not go with the turquiose and purple dress.  I liked what I got the first time in reds and purples, I get the same thing  in turquoise and purples. (Note to self - should have taken the red jewelry back and saved a future trip to Boscov's.)

Since I am at the department store,  I decide I should get myself real pantyhose. What an episode this was. I realize from the size chart I wear not an A, B or C but I wear FG! Must mean Fat and Grande for my size. So I can't decide what to get - off black, suntan.......I get one of each but here is the tricky part, I have to get  two different brands because FG in black doesn't come in the one brand and the Suntan doesn't come in the other brand which means in those I wear a P2. It's all good. I get one of each and I am off........

Fast forward to the hotel and getting dressed, I choose the off black to wear and thank heavens Mr. W. was outside having a cigarette. I bought a body shaper/minimizer thing to help smooth everything and keep all my jiggling parts from being out there free and jiggling.   I thought I was going to have to jump off the bed and into the pantyhose and tummy (ass/hips) body smoother controller thing. I was tugging and pulling and grunting. I can only get the pantyhose up so high on my waist and I am afraid to pull too hard for fear of putting a nail right through the $$$ pantyhose. But it is all good and I eventually get all my emmenseness in. I've broken a sweat but I am ready to take out my hot rollers and do my hair.  First thing I notice with this body minimizer thingie, I can't feel my dress against my body and I have no idea if it has ridden up, or if I tucked the hem of the dress in my underwear or what.

In the effort to streamline my packing, I made the decision I don't need a brush or hair dryer or a ton of hair products. I knew that once I take my hair out of my hot rollers, I will used my tried and true method  to turn my head upside down and spray everything with hairspray, wait a few seconds flip my head and hair up and I only need to run my finger threw the big soft curls and I'm golden. Right? WRONGO! The little purse size hairspray in my travel bag was like the kind of stuff the kids use to spike their hair straight up. (Another note to self - get a different brand of travel size hairspray.)  My hair was not moving, it was not the bouncy curls I was looking for. It is STIFF   Really stand up straight STIFF.  Drat!  Mr. W. has come and gone and is waiting in the parking lot to drive to the church.  I pulled and tugged a bit and worked it out to a somewhat normal look. Later, sitting in the church I had the  foreboding that it might spring back into the stiff spiked look!

After the ceremony, we are standing outside the church and I smooth my hands over my dress to make sure it is covering my minimized behind and I feel  a definite binding around my middle.......it is the top of the pantyhose.  I decide when we go back to the room that I will try the other pantyhose. Good thing Mr. W. goes outside for another  smoke and good thing we had over an hour to kill because I went through the whole jumping up and down thing to get into the pantyhose and body shaper thing-a-ma-jig!

So now for the taxi ride from hell.    Taxi pulls up and Mr. W. even opens and closes the door for me.   Taxi driver, Little Anthony, I learn, tells me Mr. W. needs to get in the same side I did because the other door doesn't work.  So I notice the window is open and I slide over and tell W. he needs to go around to the other side.   OK, my driver is from America Samoa and his hair fills up the whole driver's side front of the car.   Really.    The headliner is falling down, the pleather seats are cracked (Please don't get a run in the pantyhose!!!  I don't know if I can jump up and down again and go through all that again.)  I am trying to put on my seat belt but can't find the receiver end of the seatbelt. I am digging in the seat and decide at some point to risk being a projectile if we crash because that is the safer choice between that and sticking my hand in between the bottom and the back of the seat. I am sitting there like a goofball with the seatbelt across me and holding it with my right hand.....like what is that going to accomplish?  and all this is before we even move. Now Little Anthony, who is not little,  starts to drive, and the car moves a bit and THEN the gears shift with a thud.   The gears continue to do the delayed shift  and bang over the course of the ride.   Little Anthony tells us proudly he has 411,000 miles on his car.  Never would have guessed.     So, now we chug out of the hotel complex, I figure I should put the window up and it doesn't work.   I am sitting half leaning/half sitting to keep the humid wind from blowing what remains of my hairdo into a freakshow look.  Mr. W. is looking at me like what is your problem all leaning over and kind of belted.   I felt like the Lucy half of Ethel and Lucy!

In to the reception and of course one man notices I changed pantyhose (and I am still asking myself why/how he noticed)  and you know what that leads to.......what did you two do back at the room. OMG! I couldn't deny it because he wouldn't believe it and neither would any of the others standing there eating the butlered  hors' doeuves (sp??) Mr. W. was oblivious to all of it and just smiled not even knowing why he smiled. I never laughed to myself so much....thinking if this guy only knew what went on at the hotel room all his fantasies about me would quickly be dashed.  He surely would prefer celibacy from that point on. 

Good times people, good times. 

We were home mid-day Saturday and Mr. W.  cut the grass and I did some yardwork and we both took naps. I think it was because he was up past his bedtime and I was exhausted from jumping off the bed into undergarments!     I can't imagine what Linda Carter went through to get into the Wonder Woman outfit she wore. 

Today, I went to the Philly Expo to the quilt show with my sister. We had a nice time, laughing and giggling. It was her first time and she was overwhelmed. I got some gadgety type things.   Met Deb Tucker and Patricia Pepe - who both were awesome and who both gave fabulous demonstrations.   Now I am thinking I should have gotten Deb Tucker's wing-tool too.  We left bright and early this morning, stopped for breakfast and then hit the show.   We made a day of it and now I need another nap.

September 11, 2011

Red-White-Blue

What more appropriate day to post my progress on my quilt.   This was my son's quilt from when he was 5 or 6 years old.   When he bought a queensize bed some years ago, he asked me to remake it large enough to accommodate his larger bed.   I agreed but somewhere along the line this baby got shoved to the back of the closet.   I had managed to dis-assemble it from its backing and to remove the binding before storing is away.   Considering I didn't know what I was doing when I first assembled it, that I didn't know anything about rotary cutters, that I used a sheet to back it, used a Snoopy comforter as batting and tied in random locations with DMC floss instead of quilting, it was a thing of beauty and a feeling of accomplishment when I finished in the 80's.........so fast forward to present day, with better skills, more knowledge and an awesome machine, I am finally taking on the task of  making this larger.  

 The original quilt was the 4 x 4 squares - which I am seeing that I didn't exactly line up too smartly. I am in the process of adding borders to make it larger. I put the timer on and allowed myself only an hour and a half of sewing time this afternoon or heaven knows I'd be in my sewing room until the sunset tonight. I still need to add the darker blue on the top and bottom, I have another small border of the beige with blue stars and lastly, I am going to finishing with a binding of the darker blue. Please ignor the grass/weeds that need cutting.
   Here in the northeast after all the rain, our grass needs cutting over night!   On my list for the quilt show at Oaks/Philly Expo Center is to pick up the batting and a backing fabric!   Let's hope I stick to my shopping list and don't go crazy/overboard with purchases.  I am all for trying to help the economy but I am only one person!

September 10, 2011

God Bless America







Did you know

there is a National Sewing Machine Day and it is today!   Check out Lelia over at Stitches of Life.  She got this information from the Holiday Insights webpage.

Sewing Machine Day celebrates a very important invention ----- the sewing machine. The first sewing machines were made in France in the 1830s. It wasn't until 1846, that they were patented in the U.S. What a great invention. Prior to it's creation, clothes items were sewn together by hand...stitch by stitch.


Take a mental inventory of your friends, do they have a sewing machine? Chance are, the answer is no.  I hope you have a sewing machine and I hope you enjoy using it.  If you don't sew, consider picking up sewing as a hobby.   It is just another facet of our creativity.  Now join in; there are classes to be taken and fabric to be bought and stash to be enhanced.

~~~~~~ I have two machines - a Janome and a Husquvarna.   Each daughter has at least one machine and one daughter I know has two...they each may have two...  It is good to learn it is not a lost art.~~~~~~~

September 7, 2011

Rolling, rolling, rolling....

Keep that scroll frame rolling.....
I am happy to report progress on my LHS - Heart of America. Using the scroll frame is great and makes me anxious to roll the bars and advance the fabric. I am thinking I need to pick out a nice sampler to work on with this set up. What fun that would be to be able to roll through the bands.


  Our Labor Day weekend was low-key so I managed to sneak in stitching time on this as well as some work on a quilt for my son - more on that in the next post.     For now a quick pix, a quick few stitches and it is off to work to wrap up the remaining data requests at work......whhhheeeeee!

September 1, 2011

Itching to be Stitching

Been doing a bit of stitching.  I guess my mojo was just taking a little break.    Here is the progress on one  of my 2011 Crazy Challenges - LHS Heart of America.  


I am glad I decided to use my scroll frame and have been waiting to 'roll' it up a bit.
  Also, doing work on Lizzle Kate's Aged to Perfection.   This is my 'travel' piece.  I carry it to work for a few lunchtime stitches.  Sorry for the wrinkly parts.

 I need to check on Susan to see if she has gotten ahead of me.  We will have to compare progress at our next monthly meeting.  These two projects represent #11 and #12 works in the crazy 15.  The projects I have left are the LARGER ones and am having my doubts I will finish the original 15......I WILL finish 15 projects in 2011, just not the 15 from last January......and there you go, Stitching ADD strikes again.  I  need to getting needle and thread to fabric and cross off at least one before my Retreat in OCMD at the end of the month.......man am I looking forward to that!  I don't care if it will be October 1st, it will be stitching, it will be the beach, it will be with girl friends!  Let the count down begin....