I played Hooky!

Wednesday was my day off to go to the beach house - well we were supposed to head up tuesday night and spend the night up there but plans changed and we had to drive into boston wednesday morning. So we got up to the beach house around noon - but had a blast of course. The water was great, it was hot hot hot outside but not muggy at all.

Then I got talked into staying over wednesday night and spending thursday up there too.. ho hum... so I called work and finally around 1 got a hold of someone and it was no problem so I enjoyed the day. Thursday was really cool out - maybe just 70 degrees. But the water was very warm and my boyfriend bought some boogy boards (?sp) so we had a real blast.

I even made it home for my stitching night with my friend - I didn't get any stitching done but we talked a lot and I got my new stamp sets cut apart and assembled. Of course it makes me want to play with my stamps :)

I made it to work today though - through some really heavy traffic this morning. I think I will work a long day to miss afternoon traffic as best as I can and make up some time from yesterday.
Next week is my vacation week - I can't wait! We head down to NJ tomorrow!! We do come back mid week but I still have the whole week off to relax, quilt - and work on the website :(

I don't plan on blogging next week - at the earliest maybe next thursday but I"m sure I will put picks up when I do - hopefully of Legends, Ever So Little - Lions, and my new quilt which I really need to finish piecing!!! Alright - I must work - and eat some food :)

Ack - no internet yesterday at work .. at all!

It was a long day just waiting with nothing to do. I did a little stitching (one hour) and finished the word Magic on Legends. I will have to take a picture tonight maybe. I'm actually going to continue working on the border for a little while - the bottom border around Wisdom, so that I can line up the last dragon better.

Last night I worked on the website for a few hours - hit a problem, I can't upgrade between 3.5.x and 4.0.x at all - I will have to install 4.0.x and then figure out all the changes I have made and re-make those changes! This is a huge problem and I have to email the owner about this now.

Tomorrow I have the day off to go back up to the beach house! Actually we're going up tonight after the gym (yes I'm back to the gym now as of last night) :) Then we'll spend tomorrow on the beach all day and head back tomorrow night - then back to work for 2 days.

We spent all last weekend at the beach - it was great. Saturday the water was really cold but it was hot outside and we still had a blast. Sunday it was cool outside (I wore pants part of the day) but the water was warmer so we spent more time in the water. We really had a great time and it's so nice to wake up to the ocean right there.

4 more days until we head down to NJ/NYC! It's strange not working at all next week - I'm really looking forward to it, even though we get back Tuesday night, I don't have to work until the following monday, giving me lots of time to work on the website and quilt!

Well since the internet is back up I have tons to do :) And I'm hungry...

I made it to stitch :)

And I sure am glad, even though I didn't actually stitch much. I had a meeting late at work but I was able to leave by 6, I of course hit a TON of traffic but made it to stitch around 7. I worked on the Ever So Little - Lions which is coming along really slowly as I didn't do much stitching last night.

Back home I worked on the website more (yea for me) - getting the second update completely finished. We are now up to version 3.5.9 from 3.5.7. The goal is to go to 4.0.X and I think after 3.5.10 I can go to 4.0.0 and then I just have to figure out how high in 4.0 I want to go. I should do a bit of research on that today if I can.

Today I work only until 4 I think, skipping lunch, I don't have much to eat for lunch anyway, just cereal and I haven't been in the stitching mood so I don't need a break really. Then I need to go to walmart and the grocery store tonight to get things for this weekend. Then tomorrow morning I head up bright and early to meet up with my aunt and uncle to head over to their beach house. A weekend of no worries!

Well last night was extremely productive - I got nothing done :)

Not exactly true, I worked late again, getting home around 7, then I started cleaning, got about half of the apartment done. Then I put laundry in and started up another Alias episode while eating my mac n cheese (mmm mmm yummy). Of course that episode ended with a shocker and I just HAD to watch the next one, besides the laundry was now in the drier so I couldn't go to the gym yet anyway.

That episode ended with a bigger cliff hanger so now that the laundry was done I had no excuses - but I skipped the gym and watched the last episode on the disk (this is only disk 2 of season 2 but I'm still waiting for disk 3 which may come tomorrow).

I was really bad then - (not last night - I pretty much just went to bed), but today I looked up Season 2 spoilers and read a few episode guides so I could get an idea about what was going on. Probably shouldn't have done that, but I really wanted to know without waiting. I skimmed and read glimpses, nothing major. Doesn't really bother me to know what's going to happen in about what timeframe, the show is very good and will hold my attention no matter what. That is why I am considering buying season 1 even though I've already watched it all!

Tonight is supposed to be stitch night - but I have a late meeting that I have not yet gotten out of, but I am trying :) If I can't then I will just go home and work on the website as I didn't do that last night either! Wow it's almost lunch time already - I should probably get something done!

Well no quilting last night ... I had to work late so I missed my quilting thing. But I did work on the website last night which is a bonus, got the first update completely finished now, tonight I will start the second update after I run some tests to make sure the other update didn't break anything.

No quilting or stitching yesterday either. I spent my lunch break trying to clone my laptop harddrive to recover everything but it didn't work - it has some bad sectors and couldn't last the hour and a half it takes to clone it. So instead I just installed XP on the new harddrive and then all the other software I might need. Then I was able to boot up my old harddrive for short periods of time and I copied all my files to the network and then booted up on my new harddrive and copied them off the network. So i didn't end up losing any files, just some software programs I had installed. No biggie really, it should run fine this weekend for playing MOHAA at least and I'll keep the old hard drive around in case I think of something on it that I forgot to copy off.

So that disaster is over, I now have both computers working again and a new monitor for my desktop which is really great! It's so light I can move it wherever I want and I put in on the coffee table last night so I could sit more comfortable on the couch working on the website.

Tonight I have to clean the apartment - the cockroaches are back again - my landlord has "exterminated" twice but the people upstairs live like pigs and they just hide for a bit, there's no lack of food for them up there and when they get really bad I start to see them. This really P***es me off because I bleach down my counters and there really is NO FOOD out for them. I vacuum on a weekly basis but still I have to see them. Last night it was a really large one (we're not talking like in the movies but about an inch long which is TOOOO big). It wasn't running either, it was wierd, I sprayed it with bleach which usually does nothing, but it started walking sluggishly, i think it was trying to drop it's egg sack, so I "chased" it by spraying it with bleach into the sink, then ran the hot water so it went down the drain while I had the trash compactor on. I hope that ended it's life. I ran the hot water for while after that to be sure it didnt' come back up :)
I really can't wait to move, there is NO way I am staying here another year, unfortunately I'm stuck until the end of May with these stupid things and my landlord isn't bright enough to kick the people upstairs out even though they barely pay rent, leave garbage and food all over the place (throw cigarette butts over their porch onto mine), and they've flooded their bathroom twice which results in water coming through my diningroom fan and ruining whatever I have on my table (or ruining my chair like last time because it was puddled there). I hate this so much but what can I do but wait for the lease to be up and try to find another place that's priced similarly for the same space or more.

We have so much furniture now and the apartment is quite large that I couldnt' find an apartment last May that we could fit into... hopefully this coming april it will be easier. UCK i'm so grossed out thinking about these things.

Progress pics!

First, here's Legends Progress at 72 hours (approximately):

Click for a larger image. I changed the colors on the word Magic to be the next darker shades (930 and 931 instead of 931 and 932 I think), as my fabric hid the lighter blue completely.

And after 3 hours of piecing last night - here is where my Trip Around the World quilt is at (7 hours progress):

click for larger image

So last night I decided the quilt was more important than the website as I have my quilt get-together tonight and I wanted to bring my progress. So the website will wait until Wednesday. I spent most of the night cutting the rest of the tubes apart and sewing them together. Some of the rows were completely crooked but once they are together I don't think you can tell as much. This is 2 tubes of strips, so I have to sew one more tube together, I think I will cute the next one in half though and do two smaller ones seperately in the hopes that they come out straighter. This probably won't happen until next week some time though, I need another 2 evenings to get the whole diamond done then I need to add the borders still.

No gym last night which was bad, but I really wanted to finish this much. Tonight after my quilt thing I will definately go to the gym, and tomorrow I need to clean, work on the website and go to the gym, sounds manageable.
My new monitor came in - it looks good too and it's so light!! Now I just have to get rid of my 21" crt which weighs a ton :) And I have my livingroom end table back because the new monitor takes up a tiny space on it - makes the whole room look larger :) My harddrive also arrived so I"m going to go try ghosting that right now so maybe my laptop will be back to working this afternoon - keeping fingers crossed.

Oh - to answer Carol's question, we're not really doing much for vacation, I'm just taking the week off, we have a wedding in NJ on the 20th to attend, then we're going to NYC for 2 nights to see Phantom of the Opera and Blue Man Group and do some general sight seeing. Tuesday on the way back home we'll stop at Six Flags in CT and then visit my sister for dinner. That leaves Wednesday, THursday and Friday to just relax and get things done (work on the website) before my boyfriend starts school up again the following monday....

So... 7 more work days until vacation!!!

A very interesting weekend. But I will keep this short. (relatively)

Legends of the Dragons, I did not get a chance to work on it this weekend - but last week I finished backstitching the border around Magic. So today at lunch I hope to start the word "Magic". I've been winding the project floss for this onto bobbins and would like to get that done before I start on Wisdom anyway.

Amish Quilt (the new one) - I started the new quilt this weekend - Sunday to be exact, I ironed and cut strips then sewed two tubes together which took forever. I started cutting one tube apart and got about 9 strips done, they take a while to cut because my tubes don't fold in half exactly and i have to fuddle with them each cut to make sure they are cutting straight and I get squares instead of squewed squares.

Website - I started updating it yesterday, took a bit of work actually but finally got the update script to work and got the list of files that wouldn't update automatically (this is for the first update only, i think there are 5 or 6 updates total). I will get back to this tonight for a bit and then back to quilting again.

Saturday I went to my stamp party and bought my stamp stuff, it won't arrive until august 25th or so, hopefully by then I"ll be done with piecing my quilt and I can start making some stuff. Once I get my laptop harddrive ghosted (if it works) and I can access all my pictures again, I'm going to send a bunch to walmart to print out and make some scrapbook pages with them. Plus I'll get some beach pictures next week of my cousins.

This week is going to be a long week - I have a lot to get done and hopefully I can get out early on Friday (which means long days until friday).
Countdown - 2 weeks until vacation!!!

Aaaaaag! What a night!

Well I headed out after work - up to my uncle's to meet up with my boyfriend and just hang out for the night. He calls me a few minutes after I had left to tell me his car had died! He was at a truck stop in NH waiting for a tow truck. And our AAA had just run out at the end of July and I hadn't renewed yet (because I have to call to do it since we moved and it had to be tranferred)... needless to say I did the transfer today just in case now! But that didn't help last night.

So he thinks his waterpump went. So he had the car towed to my uncle's and we looked at it. It's leaking coolant all over and makes a noise so my uncle agreed that it's probably the pump. This is not an easy thing to replace on an Audi.. the whole front end must be taken off and the radiator and such disconnected. But he's decided to do it himself because it's about a 12 hour job for a mechanic which means it would cost 1000 in just labor, while he's at it he's going to change the timing belt too which he needs anyway.

That's a new process, he's going to start it next week after he gets the parts he's ordering tonight.

As for me - I just have to go back up tonight if I want to see him at all because he won't be back down until tomorrow. So I'll be going home and then back up to NH for the night then back home tomorrow for my stamp party :)

Almost time to go home - I'm leaving early today so I should pay attention to my conference call now so I can head out as soon as I'm done.

Another day - and I've been winding floss :)

I had a great dinner at my aunt's last night, steak, corn on the cob and green beans. It was really good. Then I drew out a plan for my new quilt based on the quilt she has hanging which is a Trip Around the World but they do something different with the colors and I like the effect so I'm going to mimic it with my own colors.

Then I wound floss. I didn't have many plastic bobbins left but I filled what I did have. I ordered 500 plastic bobbins on ebay yesterday, that should keep me busy for a while :) I also ordered another plastic case to hold floss and 2 small plastic cases to hold project floss which is the first thing I'm winding to make carrying my stuff easier. Eventually I will need probably 6 plastic cases total and I have 2 right now (actually I have 4 but 1 is for beads and another for kreiniks).

I also started reading "The Lord of the Flies" again (I read it in high school), but my boyfriend bought the hardcover edition of that and "Things Fall Apart" (also read in high school), because I wanted to read them over now that I'm a bit more mature and more likely to understand them. I'm looking forward to getting a few more classics in hard cover but our bookcase is full now so I shouldn't be going on a buying spree.

I've been spending a lot of money lately. I need to slow down my spending - but I have been working on the website which will help a lot when I get paid from that. If I get that up and running by the end of August and paid then I have no worries and if I stop spending now, some of that money will go towards christmas spending :)

Well enough about that - I'm playing with some software at work now and of course hitting more walls so now i'm reading the manual to see if that will help... back to fun stuff :)

Happy Dance Picture :)

There's the second Zebra

And Legends progress:

Click for larger image.

I finally got my camera software loaded onto my desktop so I could get these pictures off the camera. Then I spent the rest of the night working on the website which I'm happy to say is now working on my local machine so I can start upgrading it this weekend! I can't wait until that's done!!!!

No stitching last night, I worked until 9 then I watched "Alfie" while winding some floss (i'm slowly converting my stitch bow collection to regular bobbins because they will take less storage space and not get tangled while I'm stitching). We'll see how that goes - I have every dmc color plus duplicates so i'm not hopeful that this will get done anytime soon, plus I need to buy some more plastic bobbins and bobbin boxes.

I finally got the software at work that i'm trying to test out working so today I hope to test it out and have some results by the end of the day. Then tonight i go to my aunt's for dinner and maybe i'll get a little stitching done. For now -it's off to have fun with work :)

Uck - still no pictures it's been a long two days fighting with computers. With my laptop harddrive out I've been using my desktop at home. Well I was working on the website last night trying to get that to work locally on my machine at home and it was so close, and then I installed some things that have completely messed it up - completely, it won't open at all now! I was working on that until 10 last night and I finally gave up for the night. This came after a day at work fighting with a program that just wouldn't work for me.

So then I watched the last hour of The Sixth Sense (on tv), while finishing up the Ever So Little - Zebra - I know I really need some pictures but I didn't even boot my computer into windows last night, hopefully I will do that tonight.

At lunch today I hope to work on Legends for a bit, finally, it's been a while!
And today I've been wrestling with a new computer program that I just installed and I'm supposed to be evaluating but it's causing problems!

UGGGGGGG... just had to let that out.

Anyhow - I did a little shopping this morning and ordered a new laptop hard drive - 60GB (i had a 40), and it was only 80 dollars or so. Then I also ordered a flat panel 17" monitor for only 200 dollars and a DVD burner for my computer (another 40 dollars). So I spent a lot of money but all on good stuff and I can't wait to fix my laptop and play with my new monitor. Finally get rid of the 21" monitor that i have hogging half my livingroom!

That stuff might arrive by this weekend which would be really great but I can't ghost my hard drive until monday -well maybe i can, i might bring home the stuff for it and try it out on my desktop. Lots of fun stuff.

So tonight will be more working on the website, i'm going to try to uninstall a bunch of stuff then start over installing things. My original problem was getting the SSL cert stuff working but I seem to have messed up the php stuff, but if i can get it back to the point it was at before messing with it i'll be a happy camper! And I can start the upgrade process this weekend maybe.

Hopefully pics tomorrow...

August Goals:

1) Finish the word Magic and backstitch border around magic
2) Finish Ever So Little Zebra
3) Start/Finish Ever So Little Lions
4) Work on Blackwork Dragon
5) Start stitching Wisdom

6) Piece "Trip Around the World" Quilt (machine piece)
7) Piece Ohio Star #10 and #11
8) Quilt Cross Hatch Triangles 3 and 4, unbaste the rest

9) Work on website - start upgrade

Monday. And no pictures :( Ho hum. My laptop hard drive is dying. Rather slowly but still dying. I currently do not have it in my laptop at all in the hopes that if I buy a new one I can ghost this one and have an exact replica of it. So my laptop is not being used in windows at all which means I have no photo software to download pictures off my camera.

I do have another computer, my desktop computer which is dual boot (has windows and linux). So I will try to find my HP software and install it on my desktop tonight to get some pictures of my stitching progres... progress.... yes there is progress.

Let's see, I had friday off to take the GRE's, which didn't go too badly. Then I unwound the rest of friday watching Alias. My boyfriend got home and we watched the rest of Alias Season 1 and the movie The Usual Suspects. I really can't wait to watch season 2!!!

Saturday we drove back home to my parent's house, in the car I stitched on the second Ever So Little - Zebra that I started Thursday night at stitch night. The rest of Saturday I spent helping out my dad clean out the attic - and I think i'm paying for that (i'm allergic to dust horribly and that with the mold I think is making me sick.).

Saturday night I crashed around 10 and Sunday I slept in until 10 :) Then we headed home after lunch with a desk for the bedroom, my parents will get it back some time after I can afford to buy a new desk but for now this was going unused so I borrowed it :)

After getting that all set up and eating plenty of ice cream and other junk food I decided to work a bit more on my Ever So Little - Zebra, I now have only 1 and 1/2 stripes left to finish him, maybe i can finish him at lunch today... oh that reminds me - I must put up my goals for the month :)

Legends didn't get any attention, this month I hope to finish the border around Magic and the word Magic and start on Wisdom at some point but first my focus will be on my new quilt. And now I must check out how I did on my goals this month and set some new ones!

RECAP July Goals:

1) Finish Magic (including word Magic) [Magic finished but not word magic]
2) Work on Blackwork Dragon [worked a little on this]
3) Start and Finish Ever So Little - Chimps [started Zebra - almost done]
4) Start Stitcher's Hideaway piece in Sturbridge [started and finished!]

5) Quilt Purple Triangles of Amish Quilt [2 1/2 finished]
6) Finish piecing block 10 of ohio stars (ugggg) [Still NO]

7) Work on Website upgrade. [YES - almost up and running now!]

Finally, I opened up the practice exam for the GRE... and I got through 3 sections, or rather I skipped the first section and go through 2 other sections. Then my boyfriend got home and we had dinner.

Last night I worked till 6 again, which is nice in that there is less traffic but I sure am tired at the end of the day (I come in around 7/7:30 at the latest). I stopped by the grocery store and then cooked dinner - chicken parm with linguini. Yum. That was done about 8:30, my boyfriend got home at 8:40 and we ate. We then decided it was too hot in the livingroom to watch a movie so we moved to the air conditioned bedroom and I stitched while he continued reading Harry Potter (he keeps leaving it at the apartment during the week and then wishing he had it). By nine thirty I was falling asleep stitching so I put that away and went to sleep.

So I worked on Legends again, I'm getting a bit ahead now, I will not however start the 3rd dragon until Carol is ready to start it. I do however want to finish the border around magic and the word magic pretty soon. The border is now almost finished cross stitch wise, there is a ton of backstitching still to do. And now i'm almost out of my Waterlilies Storm Clouds floss which is what I'm using for the border. I still have the border around Wisdom that will need to be done so I think I will pick up some more floss tonight at stitch.

I plan on backstitching the border tonight and this weekend I think I will pick up Blackwork Dragon again, besides the time I will spend quilting and working on the website.

Ahh - lunch time, I think it's pizza for lunch again and maybe a bit of stitching!

My bookcase arrived!

Well no studying for the GRE's or cleaning happened last night. I got home and my bookcase was on the porch, unfortunately the box was damaged and that led to a few dents - which made me a little mad at first but the bookcase is so large that you don't really notice.

Then began the process of deciphering the directions and putting the bookcase together, this was tough. After about 2 hours I was starting on the second half and my hand was sore from the screw driver and hex wrench. Finally when I got the the mantel my hand was really bad and I started using packing stuff around the screw driver to easy my hand a bit.

Then came tightening all the large screws once it was standing (taller than i am by the way). This led to the hex wrench that came with the bookcase becoming completely stripped. I searched around and found my mini hex set, which had the right size but the wrench was so small it was really hard to tighten and this hurt my hand more (more packing stuff used). Finally everything was tight enough for me to feel like it was done. It was 10pm.

So then I started moving books, dusting bookcases and vacuuming behind them. Then began the process of putting books on the new shelves, I didn't really organize them as i had wanted but they have a bit of order. Once that bookcase was filled (yup the new bookcase is already full), i moved my good one into my bedroom and 3/4 of the way filled that (yup almost full). Then I moved the small cheap one i had in the bedroom to the hallway. Not sure yet what i'm doing with that, if it fits in my closet anywhere i may use it there.

So where did all this stuff come from??? Well I no longer have my boyfriend's law books underneath the coffee table and end tables. ALL books are on the bookcase. My bedroom bookcase holds my DMC stitchbow cases, and miscellaneous stuff that was on there before, some stitching, my jewelry boxes etc. That can definately be organized and more room created. I think my Stash of patterns will be moved out to my bedroom bookcase from the closet soon too which leaves more closet room for stamping stuff (and clothes). I do need to go through my clothes sometime soon as well and get rid of old stuff.

So that was my night, by 11 I had finished moving things around enough for me to feel done. The apartment however really needs to be cleaned now and my diningroom is full of boxes/packing stuff from the bookcases. So tonight my plan is to clean (vacuum) and take out the garbage in an orderly fashion. Then take a practice GRE. This should be manageable, i'd really like to fit in gym time too.

That leaves tomorrow to do a second GRE and go to the gym. Maybe get to work on the website but i'm not getting my hopes up. So today it's back to work, probably another long day since I have friday off, and i sure am hungry, i may be going out to get lunch today, i need some cash too, i wonder where the closest atm is...

A new Legends update - it's not much but I did work on this a tiny bit this weekend!
(click for larger image)
I'm just about to pick it up again for lunch today too, work on the border between Magic and Wisdom. I want to start the word Magic but I didn't bring the DMC colors for that with me to work. Plus I think i'm going to alter the colors to be a bit darker because my fabric is really really blue and I don't think they'll show up so well, i was worried about the purples on Majesty but they ended up looking fine.

This weekend I went to the fabric store and bought all the fabric needed for my new amish quilt, my boyfriend helped me pick out the fabrics so now I just need to wash them and start cutting. I do want to look through my small stash of fabrics to see if i have any that fit in better than the ones i bought as the selection wasn't great.

Saturday I went to stamp camp and had to order a few things with a discount we were given. We made two great cards and of course learned some new techniques that now I need to apply which means I need more supplies :) I also tried my hand at designing my own card last night with some of my favorite bug stamps.

well time for me to do some stitching!

I think I'm crazy...

I'm not sure how to start this posts, it's one of those days where there's a lot on my mind and it's all pouring out, and it definitely doesn't all make sense.

Okay - first. I was at my aunts, talking about quilts and how much I love my Amish quilt, which was inevitable seeing as I'm hand quilting each intricate design and each ones grows on me more. On top of that I really don't think I could finish the Amish quilt by it's deadline, I could if I quilted like I am this week but that means I get NO stitching time at all and I'm not liking that idea. So my mind started racing... could I make a different quilt for my boyfriend's sister, what if part of it was machine quilted (my aunt offered to help since that's new to me), and if I did that I could practice machine quilting on the small quilt I have waiting to be finished that I made with my aunt...

I resisted, thinking I could always make this quilt again for myself - but would I really?? Don't I want to work on something new, why would I do the same one again. Then I thought of a pattern that I really like and want to try making and my aunt has a quilt in this design (Amish quilt too), that she bought and I studied it and I love it. There's more piecing involved but it's strip piecing and the quilting (with the exception of the border) is all straight quilting which would be easy by machine.

The quilt is called Trip Around the World, you can see the idea here. I'm doing it in 2 colors (not sure what colors yet), each color will have one solid and then 3 or 4 prints that go from dark to med/light. The diamond will go from dark center (just one square), then light to dark to light and dark corners. The border will be made with the solid colors. This basically mimics the Amish quilt my aunt has and I will follow that quilting also.

Now the only problem is buying fabric, and figuring out what colors she would like. I'm excited to plan out a new quilt and the idea that I could get it done in a few months with machine quilting is just great. Plus I get to try a new technique!

I'm nervous still and not 100% convinced but I'm going to try the fabric shopping part, maybe I can borrow my mom's machine for a little while so I can start piecing it together next weekend. Once it's pieced I could use either my mom's or my aunt's machines and their expertise. Quilting the border is the only "hard" part I forsee and that's where the practice machine quilting comes in and I'll get to finish up some of my small quilts by practising. It's really a win win situation but I have to talk with my boyfriend to see how he feels about it and see if he can get her favorite colors or colors that will at least match her decor.

So I'm excited about this and the idea that I'll get to keep my amish quilt and not have a deadline on it so I'll enjoy it more is just overwhelming! Hmmm... can I really do this in time???

Half way there on the cross hatch triangles!!

That's as of lunch today, i got almost a half hour to quilt and finished the second triangle. Hopefully tonight I can find time and room to draw out the cross hatch on the third one and start it. I'm so psyched, maybe I can at least get 3 done this month!

Last night was horrible, I had no internet at all, I called comcast and they did something and it got the internet back on then I went to the gym and came home and it was off again! I reset my modem 5 times, leaving it unplugged for a few minutes some times. It still wouldn't come up, I called again and this time they didn't do anything, but I set up an appointment for someone to come check on Saturday since my boyfriend will be home then (I won't). And no internet the rest of the night.

So what did I do? Well I didn't get home from the gym and grocery shopping until 8 anyway, so I watched the 2 episodes of Alias that I had left (now i'm just waiting for disk 4 to arrive). And I worked a little on the Woven Butterfly from Stitcher's Hideaway. I'm still wrapping bars but I've at least made decent progress on that now. Then I read for a bit, add that to the time I read at the gym on the bike, I got a lot of reading done.
I'm reading Compulsion by Keith Ablow It's pretty good too :)
Next I am going to read The DaVinci Code Decoded. That should be interesting. Not sure what's after that but I'm sure it's one of the many books I just bought :)

Tonight I'm off to my aunt's, in about an hour actually. Work today (and yesterday) has been halting, running into annoying problems here and there, hopefully tomorrow is a much smoother day. Not sure what I'm going to work on for the last hour, not a lot of time to get started on something new, so maybe I'll just review some stuff. And off i go...

A Headache night!

Well I worked on the website last night, I should be happy because I got the database transferred but the site still didn't work locally, so as I was debugging it I got to a possible root cause and that's a missing directory that I went to download and kazaam my internet was down again. This is getting ridiculous! Everytime i need to use the internet it's out, i shouldn't be paying 40 a month for this kind of service. I will be calling comcast tonight i think.

Anyway, besides that I watched a lot of Alias which ended up giving me a headache (or it was using my monitor at home which kind of quivers, i need a new monitor at home). So I went to bed with a headache and of course woke up with one. Luckily with some tylenol it's very minimal right now and i'm in the lab to work and if i get a lot done this morning i will feel loads better than i did last night.

Let's see - I quilted at lunch yesterday, working on the second triangle of cross hatch. I hope to continue that work today at lunch. I will keep it with me tomorrow too and maybe quilt at my aunt's house. By thursday I will be really happy to just stitch so I may pick up Legends again finally for stitch Thursday night. This weekend is starting to get packed, going out friday night, stamping on saturday... and some where in there I will get to put together my new bookcases that should arrive friday!!!

Alright back to work!

Stitcher's Hideaway this weekend!

I drove out Friday morning and came home late Saturday night. It was a great weekend, with lots of stitching time and on Friday we got to see some of Sturbridge Village's antique needlework collection which was a real treat! I have really enjoyed both Stitcher's Hideaway events now and look forward to going to another sometime soon.

So Ellen Chester was our teacher and we had a project called "Call of the Sea". We only had 2 hours of class on Friday but Saturday we had another 6 hours of class time. I shopped a bit at the stores that set up and bought a few new patterns and some gingham fabric. I also shopped at Sturbridge's gift shop and bought some candles. So without further ado, here's some pictures.

Here's the first project, the front of the scissor case stitched Friday and finished Saturday:


And the second project is the ship, each sail is a different stitch. This was stitched saturday:


And the accessories that came with Call of the Sea. I bought the scissors and needlecase and the others came with the kit:


What I won as a door prize!!


The Butterfly designed by Sue, I have finished cutting and removing threads and I just started wrapping bars, the last step in the butterfly part is needleweaving the actual butterfly before stitching the border on the outside.


So the trip was great. Of course when I got home I went right to sleep :) Sunday my boyfriend and I went to barnes and noble and bought some books and decided we definately need a new bookcase so we shopped online when we got home and bought a double bookcase that's 5'4" tall with 5 shelves. We're hoping it arrives by next weekend and we can set it up. Then my current bookcase that my dad built me will move into my bedroom where we have a tiny one from walmart right now which we can then either get rid of or bring home to my parents if they could use it. I just can't wait to reorganise my books and fit all of my boyfriend's law school books on the shelves instead of under the coffee table!

So no progress on Legends. But I did quilt a bit last night and finished the first cross hatched triangle. I also started the second one and hope to work more on that at lunch today. We started season one of Alias last night, it's a tough show to stitch during, but after the first double episode I was able to quilt since I learned the character's voices better.

I don't think I'm going to finish all 4 triangles this month on my quilt, I do plan to at the very least finish 2, and then in August finish the other 2 and start the green border, that leaves the rest of the green border for September and the blue border in October. This is definately not enough time but I have decided that if I can't get the quilt to her by the wedding, maybe by Christmas will be okay??? I'm not giving up hope yet.

A really long night....

Well I watched my cousins last night, and at first it was great, I had them all in bed sleeping by 8, with no problems. Then my boyfriend and I watched Hitch and headed up to bed by 11. Then the baby woke up, I tried to let her fall back asleep but it wasn't happening, so finally I went in and layed her down again and she seemed okay for a bit. But soon after she was screaming and calling "mama" over and over. I finally had to go get her and I brought her downstairs after 15 minutes of rocking her and her not falling asleep, just crying. I changed her diaper and layed on the couch with her crying and me trying to sleep.

Finally the oldest woke up from the crying (what I was trying to prevent). That calmed her sister down a bit and I brought them up to their parents room and we all went to sleep on the bed. By now it's 1am. Finally I put the baby in the crib and she was fine. I picked the 5 yr old up to carry her to bed and I hear a little voice (it was the 3 year old - almost 4 - saying she was scared). So I brought them both into their room and layed in bed between them. Finally at 1:40 am I heard the door downstairs and I went to get up but the youngest was still awake and strapped to my arm. Luckily their mom came up to check on them and I was able to escape with her scooping up the 3 yr old.

2 minutes later I was out in my own bed, and awake by 6 :( I am exhausted to say the least, I haven't been up that late since new years and generally I get to sleep in later when I do stay up. It was a long night and I have a headache from the baby crying too. I can't wait to go home and it's not even 9 am.

So today I work until 4:30, we're going out to lunch because a coworker is leaving the company, today's his last day. Otherwise I would skip lunch and go home at 3:30 so I could take a nap. Then it's stitch night tonight, but it will be a short night for sure, I will go, maybe stitch a little on blackwork dragon or something (not sure I'm up for starting anything new, I will save that for next week). Then go home and pack for Stitcher's Hideway! (then sleep)

I will be gone all day friday and saturday for Stitcher's Hideaway in Sturbridge, probably wont' be online Sunday but I will have details on Monday and maybe i'll remember to take some pictures this time!

Well here's an updated picture from stitching on Legends last week. I was very good last night and stuck to my quilting as I had planned. I'm close to finishing the first triangle with cross hatch, more than halfway done now for sure (that leaves 3 more triangles to go!)

So here's a pic: (Sorry it's not clear - it's scanned in, if you click on the image it should come up clear -- larger)

That is about 63 hours of stitching time. I'm looking forward to making progress on the border, but I'm not sure when I'll have time to pick this guy up again. I think my quilt is going to be my lunch time piece next week too if I want any hope of making my monthly goal!

Tonight is my quilting get-together, unfortunately I have nothing more to show than my amish quilt again which isn't much farther. But I am looking forward to seeing what everyone else is working on. Maybe I'll quilt while we talk too - since it's just straight lines.

Well another busy day, but hopefully I can take a lunch break again today and quilt, I've been managing my time well and I can leave by 5 with a lunch break which means after a quick stop home I may even be on time tonight!

No pictures :( I hope tonight to get some, last night just wasn't a night to be on the computer. I had a lazy weekend.

Friday I finished going through my boxes of mementos and widdled it down to one hat box plus a box of pictures later to be scrapbooked (some of them anyway). Then I watched Hotel Rwanda and tried quilting but it was just one of those movies I had to pay attention to, and it sure is a sad movie. I may end up buying it now that I know how good it is.

Saturday my sister and her boyfriend and my uncle and 3 cousins (the young ones), came to visit, my uncle worked on my sister's car and we all played with the kids for a few hours, we had lunch and then we took them to the park down the road for an hour or so. It was a great time, sure was tiring though.

My boyfriend and I spent the rest of the evening watching movies, Mean Creek (that was a tough one to watch) and National Treasure which was okay. Again I tried to quilt but not much got done.

Sunday was a really unproductive day. I slept in late, we went for a walk (really really long walk), then we went and bought/rented some movies, picked up dinner and spent the rest of the evening vegging. We watched Lemony Snicket - wow that's a crazy movie, and then we played Civ Conquests on the computer for a few hours. The rest of the evening was tv movies and ice cream. I was pretty much laying down all day (after 3 anyway).

So no stitching at all... and hardly any quilting. I brought my quilt to work today though and stitched for a half hour during lunch. I realized I need to pick up the quilting pace big time so I'm sure my stitching is going to get neglected. Thursday at stitch night I hope to start the next Ever So Little, not sure when I'll have time for either of my dragons this week.

Tonight I will quilt and work on the website (hoping for a quick trip to Joann's too!), Tuesday is my quilt get-together, Wednesday I'm babysitting (the 3 little cousins), Thursday stitch night. Friday and Saturday - STITCHER'S HIDEAWAY!!!

I haven't even mentioned that coming up. It's in Sturbridge, so it's really close. I was looking at the schedule recently and it's packed full of events, I'm really looking forward to the idea of being in Sturbridge Village again, haven't been there since 8th grade on a field trip!

So next week I'll have a whole NEW project started but hopefully it won't distract me too much from what I'm already working on :)
It's going to be a crazy three days at work as well, today is already starting to get that way and I should be leaving in 3 hours - we'll see if that happens. I best get out to the closed area and see what I can do.

What a horrid world we live in. What is wrong with people?


No stitching last night at all. I started going through all my old mementos, saved in shoe boxes and stacked in my closet, I threw away a lot. All my old letters from girl friends gone now, some old journals and birthday cards. I saved pictures and special things, anything I may scrapbook as well. I still have a box with letters from old boyfriends that I haven't gone through, maybe I'll leave that.

So I have a ton of things to scrap book and I'm getting pretty excited about that, got out all my stuff. Tonight I will continue going through things (old sports things need to be thrown out or saved somehow). I may need a few more scrapbooks, I only have 1 empty one and I may do one that's sports, one that's friends (middleschool-highschool) and then one for current things (after highschool). So i need to buy 2 more scrapbooks.

My friend did come over last night, I made up some chicken parm and we talked for a bit. She left pretty early because she had a lot to unpack still and she had to get up early today. That's when I started pulling things out of my closet. I did widdle down enough to throw out 4 shoe boxes!

I'm not sure if my boyfriend is coming home tonight or tomorrow, that will really determine whether I start scrapbooking this stuff tonight or not.
Now it's time for some work. Going to be a long day I think but I"m not taking a real lunch break so I can leave by 4 hopefully!

Magic is finished - I finished backstitching him last night. I don't think I'll be ready to start Wisdom by the end of the month but definately sometime in August I will be starting him. That means possibly in the October/November time frame I could finish this piece... unless I'm spending ALL my free time quilting my amish quilt.

Amish quilt - I haven't even started the purple triangles for this month, hopefully tomorrow night that's what I will focus on.

And tonight is stitch night! If my friend is back from Maine and wants to come over that is. If not then I will work on the website and maybe quilt a bit.

What is in the air today?? My allergies are acting up (even itchy eyes) which is strange for the morning since I take my Allegra at night, usually the only time I get bad is around cats or late at night when my allegra is wearing off... why today???

Another day ... and it's wednesday - I get to go to my aunt's tonight ;)

Of course I completely forgot to bring Ohio Star 10 so there's no way that's getting pieced tonight, but maybe i'll cross stitch a bit. Speaking of cross stitch, it's lunch time and I haven't yet. Hopefully I will be back at my desk in 15 minutes or so and just have a late lunch stitching wise (12:45-1:30) or until I get interrupted as I was at noon.

Last night was a lazy night, I made dinner (tacos) and watched tv, then I got my linux computer up and running and finally online! That was a huge bonus, and I got mysql installed on it. Unfortunately the database I need to import is too large (3 MB) to import in a single file so I need to do each table individually. What I'm doing is getting the current website up and running locally and then upgrading it to the 4.0 version, that way I get it completely functional and tested and then I upload that to the live site. We'll see how long this takes, so far I'm just getting the site running which may be hard since my php version is too new for the site but first is the database.

So no stitching or quilting last night (a bit of a bummer) but I did do yoga. Tonight I will hopefully stitch a bit and tomorrow I will stitch if my friend comes over, otherwise I will work on the website and quilt. I don't have too much more backstitching on Magic to do now, I've finished his tail, hand, and bottom in general, all that's really left is his wings and neck I think. Then it's onto the border which I'm looking forward to now :)

Well - back to email :)

Halfway through 2005 - let's see how I'm doing on my goals:
2005 Goals for the YEAR:

Stitching:
1. Finish Winnie the Pooh for Robin YES
2. Start/Finish Precious Moments for Grace's quilt YES
3. Finish Herbal Sampler YES
4. Finish DD Wisdom (virtue series) Not yet
5. Finish Mystic Retreat piece by Jeanette Douglas YES
6. Start/Finish 2 pickle ornaments for aunt Not started yet
7. Make progress on piece for Ryan YES
8. Start a new project YES (Legends of the Dragons and Blackwork Dragon)
9. Finish It's Winter Saving for Winter time

Quilting:
1. Quilt and Bind Sampler Quilt Not yet
2. Make Amish quilt for boyfriend's sister Working on it
3. Finish Herb Quilt No progress yet
4. Make Pooh Wall hanging for Robin YES
5. Finish Teapot Quilt? No progress yet

I think my quilting goals are a bit ambitious as I'm hoping mostly to finish the Amish Quilt by November, that leaves only 1 1/2 months in the year to meet any other goals, probably I'll go back to my sampler quilt and continue on my ohio star quilt. The others will be next years' projects :)

All in all I'm not doing too badly for the year.

WIP Update!

Okay, I didn't work much on Legends :( He's still not finished, I think this is 30 minutes more of backstitching than the last picture but it's of the whole piece so I figured I'd update it anyway (at 61 hours):



And my new project :) Blackwork Dragon (at 5 hours):


Hmm.. not much stitching this weekend.. Thursday night I started Blackwork Dragon at my stitch night, I bought the fabric, I only had 28ct grey fabric and I was advised to use 32 at least since it's blackwork and there will be a lot of trailing threads. So I bought some fabric, it's not hand dyed, I think it's Wichelt but this is a simple piece and it's coming along quickly for sure. I'm using an overdyed WDW thread that isn't too variagated but it's a dark purple and I love it.

This weekend we had a BBQ up at my uncle's in NH complete with Fireworks Saturday night, it was a great day. Sunday my sister and her boyfriend came back to our apartment in the afternoon and we all went into boston for dinner and a movie. We saw Batman Begins - best movie in a long time, we all loved it!
Then back home my boyfriend and I watched Spanglish which was also a very good movie. Yesterday we watched Calendar girls which was really funny and a great story in general. Finally getting some stitching time yesterday I worked more on Blackwork Dragon.

This week is a bit odd since it's tuesday already, tonight I will set up my computer again and maybe get working ont he site. Other than that it's back to the amish quilt and Legends at lunch time.
Speaking of lunchtime - that's what it is now so I better pull it out and get backstitching on Magic :)

July Goals:

1) Finish Magic (including word Magic)
2) Work on Blackwork Dragon
3) Start and Finish Ever So Little - Chimps
4) Start Stitcher's Hideaway piece in Sturbridge

5) Quilt Purple Triangles of Amish Quilt
6) Finish piecing block 10 of ohio stars (ugggg)

7) Work on Website upgrade.

I hope Sturbridge doesn't mess up my quilting, i really need to get that done!

June Goal Wrapup:
1) Finish Quilting Green border on Amish Quilt [YES]
2) Piece Ohio Star block 10 [Started but not finished]
3) Embroider Fan block for raffle quilt [YES]
4) Piece 4 blocks for raffle quilt [YES]

5) Start/Finish Ever So Little - Gazelle [YES] and cut mats :)
6) Legends of the Dragons - stitch border and start Magic [YES - almost finished Magic!!]

7) Work on Website ~16 hours [no idea but i did work on it a bit - probably more like 10 hours]

NOT BAD!

Crazy day - no time to blog...

Yea I had an eventful morning, it started with me not being able to log onto my machine for an hour, finally got on my computer and it was time to head into the closed area. I worked in there till lunch, got some lunch then got interupted with more work. Now I'm back in the closed area to get back to what I was originally working on before lunch. My goal is to finish all that up by tomorrow afternoon!

Let's see - was I good last night and pieced my ohio star - NO. I did nothing last night, another day with no stitching. And no stitching at lunch today but I do hope to stitch tonight at stitch night where i may be starting....

BLACKWORK DRAGON!!! i think - i will get opinions tonight.
I think my comment thing is broken again - it's wierd because it works for me just fine, but usually Carol comments a bit more and I know she's had problems with my comments before so I'm sorry if it's broken again, feel free to email me:
ngroudas AT alum.rpi.edu
We'll see if that brings on more spam or not. I get only about 35 a day so that's not too bad :)

Okay - time to do my monthly wrap up!!

Guild last night. The last meeting of the summer. A new year begins in September, then October is our annual quilt show. Unfortunately I do not have a quilt to put in the show, if I make serious progress on the amish quilt this month (doubtful) i may put it on the list because I can always pull out later but I doubt i will have it done by the November deadline let alone October.

So no stitching last night. Guild went until 9 with auctions and I got a book, focusing a lot of techniques, and some solid green fabrics.
After guild I walked to my car with 2 other women that are also in my quilt group at the store once a month. They are also in the software field, both leads, we ended up talking for an hour. I finally got home at 10:30! Unfortunately I pretty much went right to bed after packing up a bit. I wanted to get up early today so I could leave early, I did get up earlier - and made it to work in time to leave by 3:15 to meet up with my aunt at the Quilted Crow where she works now.

So yesterday at lunch I did a little backstitching on Magic, I backstitched his tail. Today he won't get any attention as I'm not taking a lunch break and tomorrow I hope to start a new project as I said before. Still leaning towards Blackwork Dragon if I can find a thread color I like on my grey fabric.

Well I didn't have hot chocolate yet this morning and that's how i get my caffeine so I must go...

Decisions!

I went through my stash last night, I have a LOT of stuff!! Anyway, it's down to three projects, I need to pick one and start it possibly Thursday at stitch night. Here are the patterns:
-Blackwork Dragon
-Green Old Gardens - this chart is from Carol who recently finished stitching it.
-Dance of the Bumblebee

Then I went through my fabric to see if I had fabric that would work. I have a beautiful gray marble fabric that I could use for blackwork dragon, I just need to figure out the thread to use, which I can always buy Thursday.
For Green Old Gardens I have Bay Leaf Jobelan, it has a bit of a shimmer, I'm not sure if it will work for this or not, I would have to do a floss toss, I may rather go with an irish linen or something, which I can always get thursday.
For the bumblebee I have lots of choices, I've got it down to one that's similar to what it was stitched on for the model I think, kind of a yellow earth tone, a bit orangish.

I'm leaning towards Blackwork Dragon for now because the nature of the work is a bit different than anything I've done. Green Old Gardens is very close behind it though as it had a lot of fun stitches. The Bumblebee will probably get kitted up soon but I will wait I think until the next time want to start something, it's small so it's not as big a deal.

Opinions are welcome :)

On another note - after I went through my stash and baked some brownies for my guild tonight. I settled in to quilt. And....

I did it, I made my monthly goal on my amish quilt, finishing the green border! This weekend I will start the cross hatch in the purple triangles. I'm so happy. The only bad thing is that I quilted until 11 to get it done so I didn't do any yoga or go to the gym or anything. Tonight however I will go to the gym after my guild meeting.
Well a great night I do think and by Thursday I will have a new project to start. Another reason I'm leaning towards blackwork dragon is that i only need to worry about one color of thread to get together, Green Old Gardens I will have to gather a lot :)

Note: If the pictures look like old ones try refreshing the page, I often overwrite old pictures with the new ones instead of taking up space with old WIP photos.

Yea - more pictures and a day at the beach!

More stitching this weekend on Legends, a lot more than I had planned. The temperature last night was just too hot to take out my quilt and have that on my lap so I worked on Legends and here's the update. He won't get any more attention however until Thursday at the earliest, I'm very busy this week and tonight I need to work on my quilt a lot if i'm going to make my June Goals.

Here is Magic - with accumulated time of Legends at 60 hours:


And here's a picture of all three Ever So Littles with the double mat that I cut:


Let's see, a crazy weekend - Friday I had to go to the laundromat and do laundry, then we picked up some dinner and headed home to play some Medal of Honor online with my uncle. That was a fun night, which ended with me finishing the book that I was reading at 1:30 am.

Saturday we got up relatively early and went to the gym to run. Then we got ready and went to the beach, we didn't get to the beach last summer at all so I've really wanted to go and it was fun. We went in the water a few times, up to my waste and got a bit of a tan/burn too. We were only there about 2 hours max, we had to be back in time for my mom to arrive for dinner.

The rest of the evening was with family, my mom and brother and his girlfriend came over for dinner and I grilled up some steak while we tried to stay cool under fans. Made it without A/C :) My mom stayed the night so we watched a movie before bed and I read again, starting a new book of course.

Sunday was a lazy day, we spent 5 hours playing Civ on the computer, and after we ached so much from laying around we went to the gym to ride the bikes, then made dinner and I cut the inner mat for the Ever So Little piece. The outsides of the mats don't match exactly, I have to figure out how to get them to match, they were measured exactly but that part is cut with an exacto knife so it's trickier to hold close to the line than the mat cutter.

The rest of the evening we watched tv and I stitched on Legends, I did want to quilt but it was crazy hot and last night was a rough rough night sleeping for sure. Altogether I couldn't have gotten much sleep because I was awake almost every 10 minutes. Hopefully tonight will be better...

Hmmm... I just joined netflix. Supposedly there's a free month, and I can cancel before July 7th and pay nothing. I'm going to try it out, they will send the first 2 movies next monday and we'll see how it goes. No matter what i won't have the account for long because there just aren't that many movies I want to rent. I own a ton of movies and hope to buy more, any good ones that come out anyway but for now, with the summer I figure I could watch Alias from the beginning or something (never seen the show but i've been told i'll like it).

Anyone have netflix before? Opinions?

A mat is cut :) My first time cutting a mat, and I did one with 3 openings. It really came out pretty good too if I don't say so myself :)

Contrary to what I expected, we did get out of the linux course early again yesterday, about 3, so I was home by 3:30, and I decided to try my hand at cutting the mat, so first I set everything up and just tested out the cutting process to see how it worked. After I got the depth of the blad right and the concept down I went at the new board. It really didn't take long, I'd say about a half hour and it was done. I can definately do the next one within a half hour, that includes measurements I think since the measurements are easier using the cutter system for the outside ones. Once I get that cut I will take a picture of the animals in the windows of the mat. I haven't decided if I'm going to wash the piece before framing but I don't have a frame yet so i'm not too worried :)

After cutting my mat I went over to my stitch buddy's house for the evening for dinner and stitching. We did both :) I worked a little on Legends, starting the inner stitching on the second wing. Magic is really almost finished which is much more than I was expecting to get done this month. I hope to work on him at lunch today and maybe I'll have some time this weekend. But then there's the backstitching which I can't even think about yet, really I should be just quilting as I may not make my goal this month on the amish quilt!

I guess there's a heat wave coming this weekend. This is not good news because my mom is coming to visit us saturday night and we do not have a/c. I may have to go out and just get one because otherwise it will be a rough weekend.

Pictures coming monday :) Back to work...

Thursday.

My linux class is going well, today is the last day and tomorrow it's back to work, regular stuff. Traffic hasn't been that bad either. It's nice only having to drive every other day too (carpooling) :)

Carol's Legends progress is great, this SAL has been awesome, I don't think I'd have made nearly as much progress as I have if I didn't have someone to virtually stitch with. Especially as I get to the last dragon, the support will be great as TW's are scary for me. Maybe after this small dragon I will try one of the ones I have in my stash, like Celestial dragon :)

I have the itch... that I want to start a new project itch. Not a good thing as I should be really concentrating on my quilt which I did last night. I am almost done with the third green border piece, leaving one pumpkin seed and the 4th side until I can start the crosshatching in the purple triangles.

Anyhow - with Legends as my lunch time piece I was thinking I could fit in another piece... maybe :) Maybe just something small. I have some cute little patterns I really want to do, maybe one of those, like Dance of the Bumblebee (still waiting for my LNS to get me the Ladybug sister piece). Or maybe another small dragon, I have lots of freebies. Of course there are always WIPS, like my Wisdom dragon from the virtue series but I think it's time to start something new.

This will take some thought, maybe this weekend, we'll see how busy I am. I measured out the dimensions I need for my mat board to mat my 3 african animals together. I didn't start cutting the mat yet as that parts a bit scary but I'm ready to start it soon. I have large enough pieces that I could mess one up and still get 2 out of the rest, and I need two since I'm doing two of these as gifts for christmas.

Well breaks over, back to class ;)

Got out early today, a nice treat. I was home by 4 and watched Dreamcatcher while quilting on and off. Basically it was a movie night where I tried to quilt but I kept getting distracted.

I just finished up my yoga dvd again, it's a difficult workout for me, but so far I can do all the poses for the length of time required. And now I'm headed to bed to read for a while before drifting off to a relaxing sleep (hopefully) :)

And a quick note to self:
Tuesday: Amish Quilt - 2 hours
Ohio Star: 1/2 hour
Monday: Legends - 3 hours
Sunday: Legends 1/2 hour
Gazelle 1/2 hour (finished)

Pictures!

Here's mister Gazelle all finished up, the quickest of the three so far:


And an update to Legends, I ended up spending 3 hours on Magic tonight, good therapy but I have to be good and stick to quilting the rest of the week, November isn't far enough away and this quilt needs to be finished by then.
Anyhow - here's Magic:


A long day but definately different than just working. I am taking a Linux course for 4 days and days one and two are pretty much things I already know, I do work in Linux on a daily basis. But the third and forth days are Linux admin things that I'm sure I don't know so it's worth it in the end. No lunch break to stitch however :( Hopefully Friday at lunch I can pick up Legends again.

Well I must get to bed, I didn't eat much for dinner and if I don't go to sleep soon I'll give in and eat ice cream which is not the solution! Basically I'm up later than usual so I'm getting hungry again which is bad. I didn't make it to the gym today either, however I did do yoga for 45 minutes :) I bought 2 yoga dvd's, each has a 1 hour workout and there's a third in the series but I've never done yoga so I figured I'd start out with just the 2. So far I like it and hopefully tomorrow I will go to the gym and do some yoga!

Really off to bed now!

Pictures coming tonight. I'm in my linux course right now but I do plan on updating my Legends picture and the Gazelle being finished deserves a new picture :) I may even take a picture of that with the new mat board I bought for it if the colors come out alright.

Back to class :)

Congradulations to Carol - she just finished Fairy Flora which she started in January - amazing, it's such a large piece :)

I also have a happy dance today - nothing like Carol's, but I finished the Gazelle, which is the third animal so that whole piece is ready for framing now. I finished it today on my way to lunch and we stopped by ACMoore so I could buy mat board for it too. So my next project is to attempt to cut out the mat board, i have some practice pieces to try with and then I bought enough of these 2 colors to mat both this piece and the second one I will start stitching next month which is for my sister's boyfriend. It will have Chimps, Zebra (again), Lions.

These Ever So Little's I've been stitching are so fast, I'm actually still trying to get a hold of a few of them which are OOP now evidently, particularly I'd like to get the Turtle one if anyone has one and would like to trade or I can buy it from them, I will start my internet search for these shortly, I think Elephant and Giraffe are the other ones I don't have yet.
I have: Zebra, Tiger, Gazelle, Chimps and Lions.

Well it's been a weekend of playing video games with my boyfriend mostly - no stitching really, and I'm about to play some more CIV III Conquests - if we do stop at a decent time I'll probably pick up Legends a bit since it's been a while and I plan on mostly just quilting this week.

Carol: some times i forget to write everything in my blog - but last week we were preparing for our security inspection and that's what went well, I was really busy all week so i just forgot to elaborate.

This week I am taking a Linux course for 4 days in boston, I won't have my regular morning of blog reading/writing but I will see what I can do in the evenings. I won't be completely disconnected! Off to play Civ!

It's finally over.

And it didn't go too badly, not bad at all really, now we just wait about a week or so. Luckily I will be out of the office Mon-Thur next week taking a linux course with another co-worker. When I get back hopefully everything will be done and over with for sure :)

Anyhow. Stitch night last night. Man did I need that. I came to work early and stayed until after 5. No break at all. Then a long drive home through traffic, a quick stop home and I was still late to stitch night. But once I got there I had a great time, laughing and stitching and buying new charts :) I stitched more on my Gazelle, I'm very close to finishing that now so I may finish him up this weekend, maybe work on him at lunch today instead of Legends since I'm so close. And these animals always get tons of compliments, stitching in groups is so motivating, I love it :)

So what did I buy...
Well I bought the DMC i was missing (1 color for legends), and a strand of GAST that caught my eye... purple Iris I think it was called.
I got the chart I was waiting for:
Cookie Dragon

And completing my series by Twisted Threads, i now have the last two months I've been waiting for:
Mini-Gingham August Away
Mini-Gingham September Study

I'm not supposed to be buying stuff but it was so little and I really feel like I owe it to the store owner for opening up her shop to us for the evening, and I couldnt' just buy a skein of DMC! All in all I didn't spend that much and I won't buy any other stash this month. Technically I have been working on the website but currently I'm not, until after my linux course anyhow when I can start the upgrade since I finished everything else.

I will be buying more stamp stuff in August for sure, my friend is having another stamp party, but I won't spend as much as last time hopefully, I'd like to keep it around 100 instead of 200, we shall see for sure, maybe 130 or something. Yikes and I must not forget that I still need to pay for stitcher's hideaway.. I think it's time for me to take a peak at my bills and get them taken care of :)

Going to be another busy day. At least yesterday I got 15 minutes to eat my lunch, but no stitching time... probably none today either but it's stitch night so I will be breaking out the Gazelle tonight for sure!

Well gotta go already - things are happening. Oh and no stitching or quilting last night at all, just settled in and watched a movie with my aunt.

Update:

Well now it's 10am and there's no sign of our inspection person. They were supposed to be here at 9, and we're ready so for the last hour I've been back to doing my real work instead of what I've been doing all week (preparing for inspection).

We watched Bridget Jone's Diary (the second one) again last night, my aunt hadn't seen it and I really liked it so I wanted to watch it again. I couldn't get myself to work on my ohio stars though which is a bummer.

I've been thinking lately about sewing walls. I don't have a sewing room, or any extra space whatsoever really but I'm trying to figure out how I could make a sewing wall (just a piece of felt to put my blocks up on to organize them (specifically for the ohio star quilt which is small so we're not talking a lare wall or anything. I just need to buy the felt and find the space. I'm not thinking permanent, something I can tack up and then roll up when it's not needed.

Oh man the delay waiting for our inspection is horrible, i just want it over with. I'm so nervous, mostly because I've only been here a year and I have so much responsibility. Maybe if I do well I'll get a bigger raise (i'm up for my annual review which should include a raise and i'm waiting to hear anything about that). This is all new stuff to me, never having had a job for this long (being in school mostly), so we shall see...

It's going to be a busy day but at least it's cooled off.

And boy has it cooled off! I was cold last night after work (of course I was still wearing shorts). I drove into Brighton after work to get some computer parts we needed yesterday but today will have to do and then I went to my quilt get together (i was late having never driven to Brighten and getting a wee bit lost).

Anyhow, I got to show off my Amish quilt and see all the amazing quilts everyone else is working on. I bought some sashing fabric for my ohio star quilt, I couldn't find that perfect fabric for the triangles yet but I'm no where near ready on the quilt for it (still have 4 ohio stars to finish). I hopefully will be motivated enough tonight to work on it at my aunt's after dinner.

A little work on Legends at lunch yesterday was nice, finishing up some purples in his stomach. I've been putting off the blended colors but I really should do those probably. And I can not find one DMC color at all - luckily I have stitch night thursday and i'm sure i can get it there (i wouldn't normally buy it anyplace for more than 20cents but it is convenient and it's only one skein) and ACMoore just isn't happening anytime soon as far as I can tell with my crazy busy schedule... maybe joann's this weekend .. maybe..

Well i'm hungry and i have a horribly busy day that will probably turn into a late day too :( I must get a start on it...

Yesterday was a long day!

No lunch break like I had hoped at all - finally after 9 hours working in 84 degree temp (our a/c is broken in the office right now), i headed home.

I was home by 6 after stopping to pick up a pizza (a whole pizza for myself will last 3 meals so i'm good for lunch today and tomorrow). I watched the second Bridgette Jone's Diary - that was a great movie, I wouldn't mind owning those two movies some day, for now i just rented it (1 dollar at my library for a week). While I watched that I started embroidering the second block for my guild's raffle quilt.

Then at 8 since my show wasn't on yet (on at 9), i went to the gym - yea for me ;) I ran over a mile which was good and walked a bit. Then I headed back home to watch my show. After the premier of Summerland during which I FINISHED embroidering the block (it's the same japanese fan I embroidered last month), anyway, after that I pieced the 4 blocks for the raffle quilt by machine and then went to bed.

I feel like I accomplished so much last night and going to the gym was great. Today however I got up way late (40 minutes), but it's no biggie if i only work 7 hours today since I worked 9 yesterday, and if i end up missing lunch again I'll fit in 8 anyway. The only reason I have to leave today by 4:30 at the LATEST is because I'm giving someone a ride to the car dealership after work so he can get his car. It's on my way home so it's no big deal at all.

Then tonight is my quilting get together, I'm going to bring my Amish Quilt to show and tell and my ohio stars - since I have 9 done now. I may pick out the two fabrics that I need to finish that quilt too if I see anything I like, since I get a discount shopping on these get together nights.

I came prepared for a hot office today - i actually wore shorts. This is a rarety, as I'm one of those people that is always always cold! Last summer I wore jeans and long sleeves all summer but with the a/c broken yesterday I was sweating in capri's and a tanktop so today it's shorts. With my luck the a/c will be fixed today and i'll end up freezing but it's warm right now so i'm good so far :)

Progress:
Legends of the Dragons - at approximately 52 hours, here's Magic:



Here is my Gazelle progress at 2 hours:


What a HOT weekend - oh my! Not only hot but humid - yuck! Well it was a relaxing weekend at least. Saturday we went shopping, mostly to BJ's (where I always spend more money than I plan on) and then shoe shopping for some summery shoes.

The rest of the night was spent watching movies from the library and stitching when I could stand to have the light on (my light generates a lot of heat).

Sunday I worked on the website a bit and stitched and frogged some stitching (I messed up on Magic's tail and had to frog a bunch and restitch it :( )
I also worked on my Amish quilt a bit - getting 5 more pumpkin seeds done, there are 7 on a side but I can only fit 5 in my hoop at once so I finished those 5 and now I have to move my hoop to do the others to be halfway done with the border.

I completely forgot to piece together my raffle quilt blocks so i'm hoping to do that tonight and also to draw the embroidery design onto the fabric to start that for the raffle quilt. Tonight is my only night home to get stuff done. Tuesday I have my quilt gathering where I finally get to show off my Amish quilt. Wednesday I go to my aunt's where I will work on piecing my ohio star maybe. Thursday is stitch night and I will work on my Gazelle more. That leaves Legends to only be worked on at lunch time this week and hopefully this weekend I can work on my amish quilt more as I have a lot to do on it still.

I also have a movie to watch tonight hopefully after Summerland is on. I got the second Bridget Jone's Diary from the library and hope to watch that while either embroidering or quilting (or both).

Well I think this week will be a busy week and that's always good so I better get some work started, I am looking forward to stitching on Legends at lunch time though!

It's FRIDAY FRIDAY FRIDAY!!!

That means my boyfriend comes home tonight :) I can't wait to see him.

Besides that - I'm feeling better, thank you everyone for the good wishes. I have an annoying cough now but I'm clear headed and had no problem either staying up later last night or sleeping.

My stitching friend came over and we had dinner last night and worked on some cards she's making. Then we switched to stitching and watching Law and Order :) Always fun. I started the Ever So Little - Gazelle which I think is going to go faster than either of the other two as I finished the head and started the shoulders already besides backstitching. The best part about the Ever So Littles though is that there is hardly any backstitching so they really finish up quick. I look forward to getting this done and ironed so I can start experimenting with my mat cutting to get the perfect double mat for this, I will have to buy some new mat board in the right colors but i have plenty to practice with. Then I have until Christmas to get a frame for it, even if I have just a custom frame made and I do the stretching myself and stuff as now I've learned how to lace, it takes a while but definately doable.

So I will put away the Ever So Little until next thursday (stitch night) - hopefully i can resist him... and this weekend I will stick to quilting my amish quilt and maybe stitching on Legends a little to satisfy myself :) I like legends as my lunch project because I get to touch it almost every day - but today i am going out to lunch so no stitching break :(

I'm looking forward to another relaxing weekend, work on the website a bit, start the upgrade process if i can get my local server running the site - so far it's not looking good but maybe ... It's really a database problem i'm hitting right now, the permissions are wrong and they won't let me as a normal user edit the database, only as root and i don't know how to change that so the website can edit the database... linux... hmph!

I promise pictures on Monday, I will have a nice update of Legends - with my dragon Magic coming along, I started outlining his second wing now, I took one color and I'm just going through and stitching that color wherever it is called for, which gives a nice shape to the dragon but hopefully I won't mess up my counting!! I might start the sparkly part this weekend as that's hard to resist :) Also my Gazelle warrants a nice picture.

Well work calls, only 2 hours before lunch so i have to get my testing done, that will leave me the afternoon to write up my results. If I finish early i may even just leave early, but if i run late i have to stay late... oh the pain of it all!

Bagel Day - if I can eat one.

Well the cold is better still - but the sore throat is a bit worse, probably going to be a tough day for eating, but I have some fruit I can cut up and hopefully I won't irritate it further.

No stitching last night at all. I kinda figured that would happen with my cold. I got a tiny bit of stitching at lunch time done, sitting outside with a few coworkers, but not much.

It was hot yesterday - hot and muggy! We ate dinner around 7:30 and then tried to go for a walk, hoping to beat the storm, but about 1/4 mile down the road the storm hit big time and we were soaked (even with umbrellas which we definately knew to carry). The rest of the night I slept, mostly on the couch then after 11:40 up in bed. It was a long night but I think the sleep has been helping me big time.

Tonight hopefully is a stitch night. I need to get in touch with my friend and see if she wants to come over for dinner and stitching. I have chicken defrosting at home so I figured I'd make chicken parm or something simple, maybe chicken and rice. So hopefully tonight a little stitching will get done of some kind and at lunch today I'll add a bit more to Legends of the Dragons.

Well bagels haven't arrived yet and I'm not sure my throat will handle them anyway so I'm going to make some oatmeal up.

Feeling better.

Well last night was horrid, by the end of the day I was in pain (sinus/headache etc) and I just wanted to sleep. I went home and slept for about an hour - mostly in a delusional state of uncomfortableness and constant waking up. But finally at 6:30 I got back up and did some work on the website for 2 hours. that was tough on my head but it had to be done.

I had really wanted to get the apartment cleaned so even as sick as I was I cleaned, a bit anyway, cleaned the bathroom and kitchen and then vacuumed all the floors. I still need to do a better vacuum job to get the cielings and behind the couches etc, before my spider craze will be gone but this is much better.

Then I tried sleeping again. Didn't work out too well, I was still delusional and finally when my boyfriend called me at 11:30 (which I complained about but I wasn't actually sleeping when he called - just trying to sleep), anyway, I took Nyquil finally and then slept till 6 no problem, even fell back asleep after my alarm to make it in a little later than normal.

So today I still have a headache and some sinus pressure/congestion but I feel 80% better than yesterday and if I eat better today and sleep again tonight I should be fine tomorrow.

So no stitching last night, I worked on Legends of the Dragons at lunch time, made a bit of progress on his left wing. Today at lunch I hope to continue with Legends.

What am I up to stitching wise:
Well in the evenings from now on I'm going to work on the website mostly and quilt any free time I have.
At lunch I will work on Legends of the Dragons.
At my stitch nights (every thursday) I will work on my next Ever So Little (Gazelle), and work on that on the weekends until it's finished as well.
I need to embroider a block for my quilt guild still too - so this weekend I hope to start that and piece the other 4 blocks for the raffle quilt as well. The embroidery is due by the 28th but the 4 pieced blocks must be done by the 18th.

Now I've already eaten breakfast and I am going to get some work done this morning, even if I have to shut my office door (to block out the talking in the hallway) to do it!

Well now I definately have a cold. I thought I was getting it friday but getting 13 hours of sleep must have pushed it off until last night, I got home and it hit big time. I had a headache and sinus pain. This morning it was all a little worse and my throat hurts, so I took some tylenol cold and I just had a cup of tea (instead of my regular morning hot chocolate).

Besides that I did remain pretty productive last night. I touched the website a tad, and stitched a tad more while watching the end of The OC season I missed but had taped (last 4 episodes I think). So I made a little progress on Legends, started working on the left wing of Magic and the head. Then I picked up my quilt and finished the one green strip I had started so I'm 1/4 done with the first green border. I need to focus on this more than my stitching for a while if I plan on meeting my June goal of finishing the green and starting the cross hatch in purple.

Tonight I have to clean - really I have to. I haven't cleaned in a while and I'm seeing those little spiders (the ones that look like daddy long legs but smaller), in the corners. I'm horribly afraid of spiders so if I don't clean I'll start having nightmares or something. So I will start as soon as I get home tonight which shouldn't be too late, i've been getting to work early enough that I can leave before 4:30, that's with an hour stitching break too.

Tomorrow night I go to my uncle's, hopefully I will work on my ohio stars a bit, since I didn't last week. I'd like to get number 10 pieced so I have no reason to put off cutting out number 11,12, and 13. They are still not cut out!

Well my cold is getting to me, maybe this calls for two cups of red tea? I hate colds, maybe I should have just called in sick today and slept, but I wouldn't have slept and I have tons of work to do...

An Awesome weekend with some stitching too!!!

First, check out this progress on Legends, I pretty much finished the border around Majesty and just started Magic last night:


I quilted a little last night, I wanted to quilt more but it was too darn hot to hold a quilt in my lap with my light over my shoulder. I have a picture though of the center part quilted now:

The green border on the left is the one I started on and I have the top two pumpkin seeds done on that and most of the zig-zag is finished on that strip.

What a weekend! The weather was amazing! I don't remember much of Friday night, I was pretty out of it, I felt like I had a cold coming on so I cuddled up behind my boyfriend on the couch and went to sleep while he watched tv. Saturday we drove all the way back to NY (not city but upstate), to his bank to deposit his check, then back, we were home by 2:30 - that was 5 hours driving - which gave me about 4 hours stitching!! That was Legends progress right there.

We had the rest of Saturday to kill so we went to the library and got some movies to watch and some language tapes, with a commute for both of us this summer we thought we might try to learn Italian on tape at the same time. We'll see how it goes. I haven't started yet because I'm in the middle of a book right now but he is starting today.

Sunday we got up and went running (bonus), then we both worked, he brought home work and I worked on the website finishing up a bunch of tasks I had to do. Around 2 we were feeling like we accomplished a ton so we decided to go out to the park. It was 83 degrees or so, it was hot! We went to the local park and put down a blanket, he worked more and I stitched for a while and then read. Even got a bit of a tan on my shoulders.

What do you do after a hot day in the park?? We got ice cream :) I love warm weather. I spent the rest of the night relaxing, stitching a bit, quilting a bit. I would rate this weekend as excellent. The only thing that could have been better is not having to drive for 5 hours but what can you do??

3 little girls...

That's what my night consisted of. Oh boy! We had a good time, we started with dinner which was cereal (as per the mommy's instructions, i would have voted for something like chicken and rice - no milk to spill on my skirt that way). Anyway, all three sat at the table together and each ate their own cereal. Then it was time for bed. The youngest is now over 15 months so she is getting easier and after an hour and a half I got them all to bed. Actually the middle one (3 years) was the toughest, they've been going through a rough patch getting her to sleep lately, she likes to just lay and talk which wakes up her sisters!

Finally I got to spend some time with my boyfriend, which was real exciting considering we were both exhausted, so we watched Stigmata. Then we went to bed when my aunt and uncle got back from the movies. All in all i'd say it was an easy night and it's so cute in the morning when all three want hugs and kisses before i go to work (even the youngest now). What loving girls, my aunt and uncle must be doing something right!

It looks like tomorrow my boyfriend and I are going to drive back to NY for an hour, he needs to go to his bank. That's 5 hours in the car - maybe i can stitch the whole time??? At least for 2 hours I can stitch, I may drive a bit too. We are thinking about getting language tapes to listen to on the ride and then on our commutes. I generally listen to books on tape but while he has a commute this summer he wanted to learn a language and I'd like to learn along with him. So, he mentioned Spanish, i was thinking more along the lines of Italian since I definately want to go to Italy and Greece (a heritage thing), and Italy would be a great country to spend 3 weeks in, so much history there.

So i'll go to the library tonight and see what they have for language tapes/cds.

It's going to be a long day today - I've been at work a whole hour and I'm already yawning! I think I may need a nap!

A nice night out.

My cousin had her "last" soccer game last night, i say "last" that way because since they tied they are going on to the playoffs in some form or another, but technically the season is over. It was a good game, not a lot of interesting things going on since it was tied 1-1, both teams had a great offense and defense.

After that we went out to dinnr to celebrate my aunt's birthday. It was a really nice dinner in Groton. I pretty much passed out when we got back but I did manage to stay awake while my aunt opened presents.

I hope to stitch at lunch time today, at least for a half hour. That will be Legends. I'm looking at my blank calendar on the wall. I have 2 stitch nights this month that I can make it to, so I will work on the Ever So Little then and until that time I will stick to Legends and quilting my amish quilt.

Next week is the week that marks me having worked here for a whole year! I started on June 14th last year which is the 13th this year. I have an annual review that should be happening soon, my boss has a back log of the reviews because he's been really busy with a program, so i'm not sure when my review will happen but hopefully not too late. I would just like to get some feedback if i can.

Well it's bagel day and I think i better go get one!

I was very good last night! I worked on the website for 2 hours!

Really that was very good. It was my first night alone for the summer as my boyfriend is spending week nights up at my uncle's house since it's closer to his internship (otherwise he'd have to drive 140 miles a day). So I went home and ate dinner, watched a little tv and worked on the website while the last 2 episodes of Gilmore Girls were on. That was great too because I had missed them but I do have them saved to watch later (now I don't have to worry about it).

Still in the queue to watch are the 2 episodes of gilmore girls before the last 2. And the last 3 episodes of Summerland. Also the last 5 episodes of The OC. Maybe a few Tru Calling episodes too.

So no stitching. Tonight I am going to my aunt and uncle's for dinner, I am bringing my stitching, I will probably work on block 10 of my ohio stars.

Thursday night I head up to my other uncle's house which is where my boyfriend is and we'll babysit his 3 kids while they go out to dinner and a movie. I don't expect to get any type of stitching done that night, probably some tv watching and mostly sleeping :)

June Goals :) --is it June already!

1) Finish Quilting Green border on Amish Quilt
2) Piece Ohio Star block 10
3) Embroider Fan block for raffle quilt
4) Piece 4 blocks for raffle quilt

5) Start/Finish Ever So Little - Gazelle
6) Legends of the Dragons - stitch border and start Magic

7) Work on Website ~16 hours
(i know that's not a stitching goal but it will affect my stitching a lot), plus it causes a decrease in the number of stitching goals.

But I think I can make those goals, and more importantly if I follow those goals I will feel good about what I'm working on (working toward finishing the amish quilt and the ever so little's for christmas).