Where did the time go!?!

Wow! I can't believe I haven't posted since January!  Sorry - no pictures today.  I have a bunch to post - just don't have time in the evenings to post them.  Then when I'm on my lunch break I pop in to see who is doing what and thing I need to post my pictures!  I have pictures of some things I bought when my two friends and I went to Ault's and then an antique store back in early March.  I have pictures of my progress on the City Village quilt - I've finished 5 blocks and have 7 more to go.  After that I'll do the embroidery on them.  I have pictures of our adventure to Gathered Treasures - my purchases there.  I'm going to try to get those posted soon! 

Like many of you - life has just been a whirlwind for me.  I come home from work exhausted and after being on a computer all day I just don't want to be on one at night but if I'm going to post pictures I'm going to have to get on!  :)

Went to Tennessee to visit my dad and rest of my family.  This is my second week back at work and my desk looks like I've been gone for six months!  So much to do!  Ugh. 

Sadly I haven't been doing much hooking.  Between the quilt blocks and working on my brother's afghan I'm pretty busy.  My plan is to have the blocks finished by the end of May and I'd like the afghan finished by May 14 so I can send it to my brother for his birthday.  After the end of May - whether I've completed the blocks or not, I'll need to put them away to start working on my Christmas gifts.  They're stitchery items so I need to get started (I have 30 I need to do).  The good news is that they aren't detailed stitchery so they should go quickly.  Then I'll need to decide if I want to make pillows out of them or frame them or what! 

Have a great week!

Planning on making a new quilt/wall hanging

This is a picture of the wall hanging that my friend, Sharon, and her daughter, Sarah, and I are planning to make.  I need to make mine smaller because the only place I can hang it is about 40 x 40 while this is 57 x 60.  We will do a block at a time.  We plan to meet this Thursday to have a "planning" session and then every other Thursday after that until we at least have the top completed.

This coming Saturday (2/4) my friends Stacy and Sharon and I are going to drive down to Ault's for wool, stop at an antique store along the way and maybe if time permits off to The Door Mouse in Bettsville Ohio for fabric.  :)

I've been very lazy lately - not real motivated to do much of anything.  I have my Saltbox rug sitting right beside my chair to work on but haven't done any work on it in two weeks.  I've just been cleaning and organizing my craft room and reading.  Sigh... I hope I break out of this rut soon!

Hope you all have a good week!

Char

Happy New Year 2012!

I hope everyone had a great holiday and safe New Year's eve!  We had a very quiet New Year's Eve and I loved it!  Friday, December 30 hubby and I went to see Transiberian Orchestra!  They are wonderful.  If you ever get a chance to see them - you must!  At least once in your life time!  The light show is phenomenal, the music is great, the atmosphere is charged!  For many years in my youth I took piano lessons and was pretty good - played at our church a few times when I was 8 years old and again when I was 12.  I found myself, for the first time in a long time, wishing I had kept up with those lessons and continued to learn.  If I were ever to have had a career in music this would be the type of music/band/orchestra I'd love to be in.

New Year's Day I started working on cleaning/organizing my craft room.  Decided to do it in sections.  After spending about 3 hours just clearing off my desk and finding a place for everything that was on my desk I came to the conclusion that I needed to downsize my crafts.  I went a little crazy and thought I could be Wonder Woman of the Craft world and took on jewelry making, card making, knitting, crocheting, cross stitch, crocheted rugs, locker rug hooking, primitive rug hooking, needle punch, rug punch, quilting,...I think you get the picture.  Any hoo, work gets in the way of being able to accomplish much with these crafts so I've decided what I need to do is buy some small plastic containers and go through my crafts - the ones I rarely do or don't do at all because I just don't have the time will be boxed up, labeled and put in the attic.  Once I retire (hopefully in 2 years) then I can pull them out and decide if I a) have time to hone my skills and/or b) if I really even want to.  I want to stick with the quilting, cross stitch, rug hooking and occasional crocheting for now.

So, it's back to work today which means I probably won't have time or energy to work any more in my craft room until this weekend.  By then I'll have my containers and can start de-cluttering even more!

I did start a rug hooking project - Salt Box houses (12 x 24) to hang above the door leading from the living room into the kitchen.  It looks fairly simple so I'm hoping it goes quickly.  I want to start hooking my Sunflower penny rug by March so I need to stay focused on the Salt Box rug/mat!

Sorry - no pictures - I still haven't gotten into the habit of taking pictures as I go along - that's one of the things I plan to try to get better at.

Thank you all for stopping by.  It's been a pleasure meeting each of you! 

Here's to a wonderful 2012!

Happy Belated Thanksgiving and an early Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

I've been very lax in blogging and as I've read your blogs I just don't know how you fit it all in.  I can't even say I've been so busy because so have all of you!  Anyhoo, I've done some things - sadly no rug hooking yet.  But I wanted to share with you some of the things I've done.  First we painted the hallway and living room of our house about two weeks before Thanksgiving.  I took some before and after pics.  My living room had previously been mostly light houses - well actually all light houses and I decided after viewing a lot your pictures that I liked the primitive/country look so I did not put back all my light houses. 

 Before - light blue

 Another before shot - light blue wall

 Now - a Colonial revival tan (sorry about the clutter around the sewing machine!)

A Christmas ornament I made for my staff - from a pattern idea in Create and Decorate.  In Create and Decorate the designed used buttons to make a hate and lace as the scarf.  I wanted a more rustic look so I did the homespun, no hate, and peppercorns for the eyes and mouth.  Everyone seemed to really like it when I gave it out yesterday.

I took a class at a local quilt shop in Vermilion, OH and made this lovely Santa wreath.  I loved it!  It was sooo easy to make.  I'll be making more for gifts next year!

I still want to take pictures of some of my purchases from earlier this fall, but my craft room is such a mess I'd be too embarassed to take pictures!  LOL!

Next weekend my daughter and her children are coming over so we can bake up a storm.  I need 8 dozen cookies for a cookie exchange at work, she needs cookies for them (there are 7 of them) as well as gifts.  I'll try to take pictures along the way!  I hope I maintain my sanity when it's all said and done!  LOL!  It should be fun.

I hope you're all staying warm and are not too overwhelmed with all that needs accomplished yet for the holidays.

Thanks for stopping by.  Leave a comment/let me know how you're doing!

Char

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

I hope you all have a wonderful day, don't eat to much chocolate, and don't get frightened out of your wits!

Things are finally settling down for me so pictures will be coming soon.  Pics of things I've purchased and the finished baby quilt.  Since I've finished the quilt I've started working on my Christmas crafts.  Not as far along as I'd like to be at this stage of the game, but at least I'm moving along with them!  I'll have to show you those after Christmas!  :) 

I've cut the wool from my one saltbox house mat that I'll be hanging over the doorway leading from the living room into the kitchen.  I want to paint my living room and hallway a beige color (it's currently very light blue).  Then I'll have hubby hang a shelf I bought in Amish country to hang small quilts or rug hooking projects on.

So, what about all of you?  What are you working on?  If you make gifts for family and friends - how many do you need to make?  (I need to make at least 24 - maybe 2 or 3 more!!!).

Thanks for stopping by! 

Introducing Juleigha Renee!

She was born October 11 at 5:05 p.m. by c-section (she was breech).  She weighst 7 lbs 5 oz and is 19/12 inches long.

 Just chilling waiting for the nurses to get done with all their things.

 Grandma (my daughter, Ginger) is in love already.  Juleigha doesn't like all the lights.

Dominic, her uncle, at 16 months old.  He's keeping me busy!

I'll write more later!

Better today!

Thanks to everyone for their sympathy when I whined the other day here on my blog!  My daughter told me this morning that the gas is to be turned on tomorrow and if everything goes well they'll be moving out tomorrow or Friday.

I promise I'll be posting pictures soon.  I've bought a few odds and ends over the past couple of months and just need to charge the camera, take pictures and then post. 

As the weather is getting cooler I'm starting to really get the urge to craft/hook/quilt - whatever comes to mind.  I do need to finish my granddaughter's baby's quilt and I need to get it done fairly soon!  She's due October 18!!!  Then I need to work on my Christmas crafts because that is approaching very quickly!  But I really want to work on a saltbox house hooked rug to hang above the doorway from the living room into the kitchen!  I read all your blogs and see you all doing so much.  How on earth do you find the time to fit it all in?  I must be doing something wrong because more days are spent not crafting than on crafting... :(

Happy crafting to all!

Thank you so much for stopping by.  Any tips on how you get so much crafting done will be truly appreciated!