Pictures come monday...

Well yesterday was a much needed day. I spent hours listening to an audiobook (Jodi Piccoult's Tenth Circle) and stitching on Barnabee. I've gotten the center garden on part III finished and all I have left is the roses, the last saying and the last honeycomb row. I'm very excited that this piece will be finished pretty soon. I'll scan in a pic on monday.

Then we went out to dinner with a friend of my fiance's last night and we watched "You, Me and Dupree" which i thought was pretty funny. Today I'm just getting to work on the website now and I'm going over to my friends' for stitch at 5pm. Tomorrow I'll most certainly have to work on the site more but we'll see how it goes today.

I also talked to my mom and she's going to start quilting her baby quilt this weekend. I need to get mine done by next Saturday so I can give it to her to take back home in case the babies are born soon. So hopefully tomorrow I can square away some machine quilting time!

Well - website time!

Sick day (for real) and March Goals Recap:

Well today I took a real sick day - no computer, no logging on to work (except to make sure nothing crazy is going on of course). We delivered our document last night so the deadline passed and considering I felt horrible this morning I decided to stay home and stay away from the computer and tv for a whole day.

The tv part is no problem, i have an audio book going and I'm stitching away on little Barnabee! What a happy day. I did a little cleaning and picking up too so the day is not wasted and tomorrow is the weekend! I can't wait, I will work work work on the website and I will stitch with friends. Sunday I will quilt.. oh what fun!

And now - how did I do on my goals this month:
1) Finish Part II of Barnabee and start Part III - YES
2) Finish Leanne's block 6 YES
3) Piece Leanne's block 9 nope not yet
4) Start applique on Leanne's block 7 YES - finished applique!
5) Finish all half stitching on Peaceful Silhouette nope - for some reason i want to finish Barnabee first now
6) Make baby quilt for mom's friend - Almost completed, border quilting and binding are all that's left!

Sick day - kind of, not really...

Well I tried to stay home sick today but ended up working a full day anyway, just from home is all. But the sleeping in helped immensely and I'm on DayQuil now so I'm feeling okay and I'm going to stitch for a bit - been almost 2 weeks since i did any cross stitch.. so I'm pulling out Barnabee to see what kind of progress I can make on part III finally!

And my friends are getting together for stitch saturday night - i can't wait! I'd like to bring barnabee to that probably.

I'm going to keep work as a light day tomorrow if i can, so I can come home and relax. Then saturday I'll work on the website all day until going to stitch. Sunday I'll try to finish the website and then I need to finish the baby quilt! I will need the coming week to add the binding! man time has flown by on that!

i hurt all over....

yup that's right - i got sick - a really nasty cold that comes with horrible pain (even aleve isn't helping) and did we make our deadline yesterday - NOPE..

so i'm at work, trying to help us deliver today or tomorrow. If it's tomorrow I won't be involved so i have to do everything today - i'm taking a sick day tomorrow... i need to sleep!

Almost over ...

I can tell because last night I got to read for an hour before bedtime! I finished working a little after 9pm for a change.. oh how nice! And tonight should be even sooner!

My car is in the shop to get the timing belt changed. It will cost a LOT but then my car can go another 80K which will be another ~5-6 years! So today all the stress should be lifted (car and work) and tonight I plan on ... dare i say it... stitching?!

Now to get back to the grind - 3pm is our deadline!

Nap Time...

That's what happened to me today. So I ended up staying over at my uncle's last night. We slept on the pull out couch. I didn't go to bed until about midnight and unfortunatly at 6:45 I heard pitter patter and *wispers*. Two of them (the oldest and youngest) were up and about. They kept running in, looking over the couch to see if we were sleeping and then running off into the other room. The oldest keeping the youngest quiet the whole time and berading her for asking "why" too much - it was cute - but it was also 6:45 on a sunday morning!

Finally by 7:30 they couldn't hold off anymore and I had 3 little munchkins jumping on me and giggling. By 8 I had given up trying to fall back asleep and we left around 9.

The day was going well, I got some work done, then we went out for a late lunch and some shopping. Came back and I was so stuffed from lunch that I fell asleep for 3 hours! I'm sure not getting enough sleep last night was part of it. But since 6 I've been back online trying to get all my work done. I was hoping for some me time later tonight but it won't happen. At least I got out to Linens N Things (I had a gift card) and got some fun kitchen stuff....
I got :
-a small metal strainer, good for getting the yuckies out of drippings on a roast.
-A really nice baster with a cleaning brush
-Meat thermometer - digital, with a wire so you stick it in and the the wire can run outside of the oven to the digital reader and alert you when the meat hits the right temp
-Can opener
I guess I'm in the mood for cooking a roast of some sorts :) It was fun though. I also got a new mattress pad. I promised myself when I got a new mattress 3 years ago that the cheap 20 dollar mattress pad would get replaced by something better in a few years. That time is now and I can't wait to put it on tonight! My cheap one doesn't stay on anymore, the mesh has ripped in the corners.

Wow this is long - i'm just stalling. Back to work. Look out for crazy stitching later this week! I hope!

Stitching deprived...

That's how I'm feeling. I didn't realize it had been so long (since last monday night and that was just quilting at the machine) - but I was catching up on blogs and all the stitching going on made me realize how much I miss it. It will be a short while longer before I get to stitch though - soon hopefully but a few more days.

Babysitting went just fine today. Of course there were ups and downs (there are 3 of them) but the day went pretty smoothly and no one got hurt (most importantly not me). I haven't figured out if I'm staying over or just going home tonight - it's already 8pm (the kids are being put to bed).

Tomorrow will be work work work. I want to work on the website and I have regular work to get done as well. Maybe if I'm lucky and manage my time well I can do a little something for myself at some point. But Tuesday is my work deadline so after catching up on sleep, by thursday and friday I should be stitching again - especially if I take a day off work to just relax. Plus I need to get that baby quilt done still!

Of course the stress of the past 2 weeks is hitting me pretty hard now that I've taken a day away from it all. It will be very hard to get myself to actually get out of bed tomorrow. :(

Well just popping on quick, I know I'm usually better about blogging but work has been insane - beyond insane. Last monday night was the last time I did anything besides work or sleep! It's almost over though - next tuesday should be the last day of this craziness.

Tues, Wed and last night I worked till midnight (luckily from home after 7pm). Tonight will be another late night but tomorrow is a day off - well from work anyway - instead I'll be going up and babysitting the 3 little monsters cousins. A whole day with them, then an evening with my aunt, uncle and fiance.

Then sunday it's back to the grind, I need to work and i need to work on the website as best I can so that next weekend I can finish that. It does look like I may be taking off at least next friday for free (due to all my overtime). That will be a much needed day of sleep! 6 hours is just not enough for me - i really need 8 a night!

Quilting :)

When I got home last night (after dinner), I managed to spend another hour at the sewing machine. I finished the quilting in the center of the quilt! Now all i have is the border quilting and binding. I haven't figured out what i'm going to do for the border quilting so I've mocked something up to send to my mom - opinions welcome here too of course :)

What's in red is what is quilted (I colored over the pink so ignore that), what's in white are possible options for the border.
1) (top) Triangles and diamonds - my preference, something different than the rest of the quilt but still straight lines.
2) (right) Continued Cross hatch - a simple choice, a little hard on the machine quilting in that it's not really continuous but it will run off the edge and when the binding is added those parts will be reinforced.
3) (bottom) Diamonds - Continuous but I would have to figure out a 1/4 inch along each edge to estimate where the binding will end. Could easily cut off points.
4) (left) Mimicing a pattern in the border fabric. I've never done free-style - this would still be using the quilting foot so it may very well come out as it looks above where i was wrestling with a paint brush in paint :)

Ideas welcome!

No other stitching last night, we finished up the second season of 4400 and loved it, unfortunately i have to wait until May for the third season to come out :(

As Promised - Barnabee Pic:

That's progress from Thursday and Friday night last week (making up for missing last week). Part II is complete and the border (minus the backstitched line and beads is also complete for Part III). I think 3 more weeks on this and it will be done for sure.

What a great weekend (i think I mentioned this) - quick recap:

Spent friday night working late then stitched for a few hours on Barnabee! Saturday I worked on Leanne's Quilt block 7 doing the applique while watching P&P. Sunday I worked on the website for a good 6 hours or so and then started quilting the baby quilt!

Tonight I will hopefully quilt the rest of the center of the baby quilt and start planning the border. I may have to add the binding before quilting the border so planning might be all I do. Maybe I'll add the binding tomorrow.

And this week I'm pulling Peaceful Silhouette back out - I need to start making progress on that again! Once the baby quilt is done this will be my focus until it's finished. Then I can finally start some new piece!!

Weekend wrap-up:
1. Work on website - YES - spent over 6 hours on it!
2. Start quilting baby quilt by machine YUP!
3. Start appliqué of block 7 Finished appliqué, started embroidery!
4. out for dinner and bowling (7 year anniversary on sunday!) Nope -watched P&P instead

What a great weekend, I worked a lot more than I would have liked but I got the feeling of accomplishment from all the work I did do.

Website work went well, I have a long list of what's left but it's broken down so it's maybe a day or two of work and all time dependent, so hopefully next sunday I will be just wrapping things up!

Started quilting the baby quilt about an hour ago - did quite a bit. I think I can finish the center quilting tomorrow night even and then I just have to measure out the border quilting :) I need to send this picture to my mom with the quilting lines drawn out so she knows what i'm doing and we can stay in sync.
The red is what i've quilted so far, the pink is my plan. Then I'll do the big square (in ditch by border), and then figure out the border stuff. I think that should be enough without having to also outline the pinwheel squares.

Now for one more episode of 4400 (season 2) and a little more embroidery maybe. I never did pull out peaceful silhouette last night - but it will surely come out this week when i get bored with block 7!

Quick weekend update ...

I managed to finish Part II of Barnabee last night - I'll post a picture on monday. Today I've been working on Leanne's Quilt block 7 - I finished the appliqué and started the embroidery but I've gotten tired of it so I may be switching to Peaceful Silhouette, it's been a while.

It's been a wonderful day, I didn't work on the website (I've put that off until tomorrow) and we spent the whole day relaxing, did a little shopping, went out for a late lunch, and now we're watching Pride & Prejudice (the A&E version)... a perfect day - what a way to celebrate our 7th anniversary :)

Working from Home and Stitch night..

Well with the expected bad weather today and with working until 11pm last night (after 9 that is) I decided to work from home today. I get more work done (less interuptions) and I miss the drive which is at least 1 1/2 hours of the day - worse if there's snow. Unfortunately I'll still be working pretty late tonight (probably 8 or 9) but at least I can take it easy this morning (slow start) having stayed up late.

Last night I did got to stitch for 2 hours - had dinner with friends and pulled out Barnabee. The problem with stitch is that I need to work on something where I don't need the pattern, so I stuck to the border, finishing it for Part II and making good border progress on Part III. Tonight I'll work on the actual bands and my goal is to finish part II. I'll post a picture monday morning.

Oh so much to do this weekend:
1. Work on website - get it near completion! (goal is to finish it next weekend)
2. Start quilting baby quilt by machine
3. Start applique of block 7
4. out for dinner and bowling (7 year anniversary on sunday!)

Okay it doesn't look like a lot but for a weekend it is especially the website stuff, that will take a while!

A late night - well i worked until 7pm, went and had dinner with my aunt and uncle (and cousin), then I logged on and worked until 10pm. But I got it all done and checked in and now I have 40 more minutes before the CPR training we have today to get anything else done :) Actually i have this afternoon too so i'm not stressing but still.

So I did not start the applique and i'm thinking it won't happen at stitch tonight, it's not the easy type of stitching that i can bring some place, so i'll have to check through all my stitching projects and pick something else to bring, maybe Barnabee so I can work on the border a bit or something.

Well off to water a plant and then review some things :)

Block 6 Finished!!!


Somehow I managed to finish this block last night - all I had to do was the two small squares off to the right. I worked a bit at the dentist at lunch time and then finished it up while baking pies last night.

It was a long night - I got home after 7, went for a run outside again (warmer than monday night!), then baked two pies - unfortunately i really packed in the pumpkin (3/4 batch) and it took almost 2 hours to bake! It came out around 10 to 11.. yikes, that was close!

So it was a late night but I got a lot done and tonight I go to my aunt's house, I hope to start the applique on block 6 which I'll continue tomorrow at stitch. Friday will be barnabee night, and to make up for last week probably a bit on saturday for barnabee as well. I'd like to finish part II and get a good start on part III.

A little stitching - no picture yet.

I'm almost done with Leanne's house Block 6 - so very close. I will try to finish it tonight and take a picture. Then wednesday i can start on the applique to block 7! Wow only 3 more blocks to go!

I didn't get a lot done last night, I got home late, we went for a run (still light out - love that early time change!) - then I settled in and worked on the block while watching the Prestige (which I loved). I couldn't stitch much because I had to pay a little bit of attention (I kept getting lost).

Unfortunately I stayed up until 11 reading and didn't get up until almost 8am! (now i'm hating the time change :) ) So it's a late day in to work - but i planned on working late anyway - I'll be running in the dark tonight :(

Anyway - hopefully a picture tomorrow and it looks like the quilting of the baby quilt won't start until friday...

Quilting weekend!!
My mom and I made the quilts for the twins - all that's left is to machine quilt them. Here's mine:
And the one my mom made:
It was a lot of fun. We got the pinwheels finished saturday night and a start on the flying geese blocks. Then sunday we finished it all up. I got back home around 5 so my fiance and I went out to dinner and then settled in for the night around 8 - a nice headache had started so I pretty much just zonked out.

Poor Barnabee -- unfortunately I did not get to him last friday because we went out for the night (and I worked late). So there's nothing to show there, I'll post a picture of him after I get to work on him this week - probably friday, maybe thursday.

And now of course the quilting bug has hit. I haven't set up my quilting station at home to start machine quilting but I'm going to do that tonight. I'd like to set little goals each night, like stitch in the ditch of the main diagonals tonight to get started. Then the stitching of the diamonds from the center out another night (one diamond in each pinwheel). Then the zig zag in the flying geese another night. And lastly the border zig zags which I have to measure and draw out first. My goal is to be finished by March 25th, put the binding on and finish attaching the binding before the weekend of the 31st so I can maybe work on another quilt :)

Pictures monday - i promise...

I did go to stitch last night and I worked on Leanne's House block 6 - finally. I finished about half of the embroidery that I have left. I think I can finish this block next weekend and then start on the next.

And speaking of Leanne's House, block 8 arrived so now I have all 9 blocks! Next month I get the borders as my last installment. I'm not going to sign up for another block of the month right away (but i want to) only because we'll be moving at the end of May and it's easier to wait until after we move to sign up but I've already got it narrowed down. I've done so well actually completing these blocks that I think I will keep up with another as well. Maybe one with more applique and less embroidery??

Still have the quilting bug - I can't wait for this weekend to start - going to be a semi late day at work though and then tonight we're going out bowling!!! Yipee - a night out with my sweetie!

Getting the quilting bug...

Well with my cross stitch going so well (having made so much progress on Peaceful Silhouette and Barnabee)... what happens.. of course I get interested in quilting again. I really really want to make a new quilt. Of course I get to make one this weekend - a baby quilt in batiks.

Why did this happen? Well my mom mentioned that she wanted me to pick out a quilt pattern for her and my grandmother to make me for my wedding (which isn't until the summer 2008 but a bed quilt takes a long while!). So I started browsing the quilts - and there's so many I really want to make! I found one that I love but it doesn't have a pattern so I'll have to mimic it and re-design it myself. I can't wait!

But I must remind myself that I need to finish one of the many quilts I have started already - need to get my quilting needle going and work on my amish quilt or my sampler quilt and finish them up!

But I did place an order with some new fun gadgets (rulers and such) so now I'm looking forward to getting those things! Since I can't cut my batiks tomorrow night (i still have to wash them), maybe I'll pull out one of my quilts and get working on it (which means I have to find all my supplies!).

Saturday after the birthday party my mom and I will start the baby quilts (they're for twins). So monday I will have a picture of a hopefully pieced top I made and then I'll machine quilt it - hopefully by Easter when I see my mom again. Is it friday night yet??? :)

Tonight is stitch night - i'm bringing Leanne's Quilt to work on (still haven't touched it). Last night was a computer night all night long, still fiddling with Vista. Looking forward to the night off tonight though!

Good Work Day..
I'm having a very good work day, making a lot of progress on things and I may not finish tomorrow but I will definitely finish by Friday which I think will be great. I'm just about to pass my last hurtle and then it's just finishing the documentation and code after that (once the concepts are done).

Last night again I did not stitch - because my new computer came! I haven't decided if I'm sticking with Vista yet or not. Unfortunately I can not VPN into work which is a very big strike against using it for now. And I can't get my Codecs to work to watch dvds on my laptop but I'm slowly working on it. I'm sure I'll play with it some more at my uncle's house tonight. Right now I have it retrieving the files I backed up onto my work computer from my crashed computer so I can have all my personal files back.

Oh and I played a little Zelda last night - I beat the second dungeon!!

Zelda night :) - no stitching.

Well last night I had to go grocery shopping and then cook all the diet food for the week. That went fine, was done around 7:30 or 8 I think. Then I played about an hour of zelda - beating the mini boss in the Goron dungeon (second dungeon). I'm up to about 12 hours into the game now.

Then I finished the book I was reading (a mini book really) before going to bed so no stitching at all. Tonight I'm hoping to have my new laptop so there will be some computer playing going on, probably no stitching. Wednesday at my aunt's I hope to break out my Leanne's quilt block 6 and maybe make some progress.. we'll see!

Barnabee Update...


This weekend was a family weekend. I didn't get to stitch Friday night as I'd hoped because we ended up out shopping until 9 just about and we bought a new Wii game - Elebits which I stayed up playing until about 1am. Saturday my family all came over, we played Wii, we played cards, we ate lots of food. It was another late night (till 1:30am). Sunday after saying goodbye to the last of the family still around, we decided to stay in and watch shows and stitch. So I got a few hours in on Barnabee while watching the rest of season 1 of the 4400 and Arrested Development.

I adapted the bunny band just a bit. When I purchased the chart I purchased the chart packs for Part I and III but not Part II for two reasons. Firstly I generally don't mind roosters but this one was a little oddly colored as far as roosters go for me and secondly I had decided to stitch on 32ct and I thought the rooster charm was too large when you increased the count since it's already a large charm. So I modified the row a bit so I don't have to worry about a charm at all for that section.

That was my night - unfortunately all that stitching started bothering my neck and i ended up with a tension headache that I now still have. I need just a few more hours of sleep :(

Surprise last night...

I came home last night to find my fiance had been cleaning for a good part of the day! I was in utter shock! I mean really cleaning, organizing things, going through piles of paperwork, cleaning the kitchen (scrubbing the stove!) Everything. And he wasn't stopping. So I got right to work cleaning the bathroom (scrubbing the shower) and that's all I had to do last night.

All that's left is to dust and vacuum and he swears to me he's doing that today. No big deal if he does or not because that will take about an hour and I've decided to work from home today with the yucky weather so I don't have all that time lost to driving.

No stitching last night though, I wasn't feeling well after dinner and just worked until about 10 before going to bed. I'm borrowing a laptop from work and evidently having a computer again means I'm on email all night and getting things done for people real time (we have a california office so 9pm is only 6pm for them and they are still working).

Progress pics on Monday as i'm sure i'll be able to pick up Barnabee tonight and maybe Peaceful Silhouette on Sunday!

Goal met - just updated...

Well I was going to have my March goal for Peaceful Silhouette to be to to finish all the light stitching (sky and upper part of water) but I finished that last night as you can see above. All I have left is the darker stitching in the bottom right. I hope this month to finish all that if not the whole piece - I am really psyched with this piece lately and really loving it! Even with all that tweeding :)

So last night I stitched through 3 episodes of Gilmore Girls (saved on DVR at my aunt's) before heading off to bed. I also got some reading done for work so it was a very productive night.

Tonight I have to clean clean clean - no stitching :( But the more cleaning I do tonight the less I'll have to do tomorrow night and maybe i can get some stitching done since tomorrow is Barnabee night!

March Goals (i've been lax on goals, i'm getting back into it now :) )

1) Finish Part II of Barnabee and start Part III
2) Finish Leanne's block 6
3) Piece Leanne's block 9
4) Start applique on Leanne's block 7
5) Finish all half stitching on Peaceful Silhouette
6) Make baby quilt for mom's friend

I think that's enough for March, we'll see how it goes :) I'd like to have Peaceful Silhouette finished in April and Barnabee as well. Then it will be a month of starting new pieces!