Living Room

The first room I worked on was the living room. As you walk in you'll find a very cozy family room. The picture on the wall was made from a present tag my brother attached to his gift to my daughter a few years ago. I thought it was perfect for a painting. The backgammon game was a kit I put together for my brother who taught me to play. The Christmas tree I made from scratch and I am not totally happy with it but it'll do for now. Presents are piling up with so many people celebrating together. The baby walker is for my children when they were babies they had one very similar. There's a Loto ticket on top of the tv for my dad who likes to play the quick pick. The massive tv is a nod to my childhood and we have pictures of my brothers laying on the floor watching it.. There will be a scene of Charlie's Brown Christmas on it eventually as my brothers used to watch it each year. In the corner is White Christmas album. There are many reasons for this besides that I love albums. 1) Bing Crosby is one of my favorite singers. 2) After I discovered him for myself I found out later that my grandmother,  who had by then passed on and I hadn't gotten to know well, was enameled with him. So much so she nicknamed my uncle Bing.  Always felt that gave me a connection to her I didn't have before 3) The first time I watched the movie I was spending a month one summer with my brother and sister in law. She had me watch it while we painted ceramics and it is one of my favorite memories. The sewing/crochet chair is for my mom who loved to crochet as I was growing up and the sewing for myself. We crocheted many blankets together. Of course there is a glass of lemonade at the ready as anyone who knows me knows I am addicted to Koolaid Lemonade. I will be making pillows for the glider rocker. My mom has always loved having one. There are still many tiny details I want to add to this room such as an area rug, more yarn in the basket, a project in progress in the craft chair, and wall shelves for Christmas statues and decorations. That completes the tour of the living room for now, on to the dining room.

2 years later...

Where to start?  My last post I hoped to not have a huge space between posts. I guess I shouldn't have said that because it has been two years since I posted here. So much has happened. A quick summary of my life since then will catch you up. Both my kids are now in school and doing great. I changed jobs after 8years and am now an accounting specialist and am enjoying it. I no longer dread going to work and I am not so angry and unhappy. I hadn't realize how my unhappiness with my jobenvironment  was leaking over into my home life till I changed jobs. We have moved two times. The first was back in with my parents while we saved and searched for a home to buy. We found one in November 2015 that was being built and we were fortunate enough to be able to purchase it and move in February of 2016. Two story home with seperate rooms for my kids and a craft room with walkin closet for me. I lost one of my fur babies right before the move. He was a beautiful 9year old Red Point Siamese and it was a complete shock. Ok, all caught up. With the new space and after everything had calmed down I have gotten back to my miniatures. My larger House of Memories has the first two floors  completed and are just having accessories added as I find or make them. The attic needs the trim and lights installed and will be done. As blogger is giving me fits upoading pictures I will be doing a post for each room. That way I can talk about them in detail too.

Lots of stitching

It's been a very long time since I last posted. I haven't done any miniatures lately, although j did get some furniture for Christmas for my large dollhouse, but mostly I have been cross stitching. I finished 3 felt stockings before Christmas and almost got a 4th done. Besides those I have also gotten 3/4 of the way done on my daughter's afghan and worked a lot on my cross stitching. I have multiple projects on the go in the cross stitching department and have a loose rotation of working on whichever one is the loudest. Here is where I am at on these as of this morning.

Pansies is working up fast. I have a very small portion of the chart left that will fill in the vase and one flower and leaves at the bottom.

This is Boreas by John Waterhouse, a Heaven and Earth Design Pattern. I have lost count how many times I have started this one. This one is for my husband.

This one I hope to finish and hang in my office at work. It is titled Hit Any Key by Randall Spangler, another Heaven and Earth Design pattern.

I finished the first page of 12 dancing princesses. HAED, I absolutely love these patterns. I have another one I will be starting called Mini Kathleen and Summer by Hannah Lynn HAED. This one struck a chord with me and I will be stitching it with my daughter in mind. I have two projects that I am fighting becoming UFOs, Moonlit Waters and a SODA pattern that I started as a match to the one I finished of my kids. MoonLit Waters I still love but I have been unmotivated to work on it. The other one I haven't worked in in months, so I dragged out yesterday and put in about 20 or so stitches before setting it aside.

And finally, the embroidered phoenix. An Anchor freestyle embroidery kit that my husband got me for Christmas two years ago. This works up quick. In fact I have most of the stump done and the first section of the tail feathers completed but apparently forgot to take an updated photo. It only took me a few days to do this.

On an non stitchy or craft topic I bought myself a 19" TV for my bedroom so I now have my own TV to watch while stitching. Much better than fighting for the living room. As a birthday gift my parents bought me plugin speakers for it and a bluray player with built in wifi so I have access to all my favorites like Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Vudu and YouTube. He speakers are amazing, makes the sound so much better than the TV. I think my setup is now the best in the house. Plus my kids can come sit on the bed and play board games while I stitch. Very cozy. 

Another birthday present to me was a trip alone to Phoenix to spend the weekend with my sister-in-law. It was wonderful. Full of laughs and stitching and shopping. I had my very first professional pedicure and I now know what the draw is. That was relaxing. I also made my first trip to the Attic Needlework shop in Mesa. I have wanted to go for about 2 years now and finally had the opportunity. Oh my! It exceeded my expectations. We ended up spending hours there and I could have stayed all day. In fact we ended up at the checkout counter 11 minutes after their closing time. We didn't realize how late it had gotten and they were kind enough not to remind us of their closing time. I will be going back with a large allowance. So many wonderful things to see and patterns to buy. I bought quite a few things but I didn't take pictures to share yet. Untill next time, let's hope it's not as long a wait.

Cross stitching

I have been working on my cross stitch project and trying to be good about finishing it before Christmas. However, lately I have been needing something for myself alone so I dug through my stash and found a Mar/Apr 1989 cross stitch magazine that had patterns for a set of the 12 days of Chtistmas ornaments. I have always loved this Christmas carol in ornament form and decided it is about time I started them. Here is the first day of the partridge in a pear tree, only half way done due to a misread symbol. The first try had the partridge looking like it had chicken pox. 

If it hadn't been for that incorrect color used originally this little guy would be almost finished. I am doing them on 14ct aida, mainly because I have a lot of that and want to use it up. There are supposed to be little hearts on either side of the main design. I am contemplating skipping those. I'm not sure I really like them. We'll see.

A 1950's housewife

 I finally found an inexpensive season one dvd set of the Donna Reed Show. I am ecstatic! I have been on the hunt for this for a while now but it seemed to be out of print. When I had found any for sale they were $60 to over $200! Outrageous! But on a whim I  checked  eBay and  found a used but very good condition complete season 1 for a whopping $35 including shipping! Needless to say I snatched that baby up. I don't have any of the other seasons but this is the best place to start I think. I have seen episodes online and just lived this show.

The other night I ordered season 4 of I Love Lucy. I have the first 3 and am almost finished watching season 1 and have loved it. When I was little I couldn't stand this show. Her cry was like nails on a chalkboard to me. For some strange reason (maybe it was the less than $10 a season price tag) I decided to give it another shot. I am so glad I did. Elora has climbed up beside me to watch, too. She likes Lucy but doesn't know her name. She refers to her as the mustache lady after an episode that Lucy glues a beard and mustache to her face to get Ricky to shave his, and then she can't get it off. She laughed so hard over that, it was great. 

No progress pictures this time, haven't had time. Tonight was meet the teacher night and Aidan got to meet his first grade teacher. He is super excited about his first day tomorrow. I can't wait to hear how it goes.

End of summer blues

 I have been somewhat quiet lately. The end of summer is fast approaching and my son will be starting first grade this year. Both kids are growing up so fast I feel like I am missing a lot of it. Elora is already excitedly talking about kindergarten next year. I'll have to take that day off definitly! LOL. 

I have been keeping myself busy working on multiple projects. The biggest one was re-organizing and cleaning out my craft closet. That took awhile but it is done and looks sooo much better. I know where everything is and I have made a huge downsize from the previous craft room to a craft closet. I also cleared off and around my craft table, and set my sewing machine up in it so it can actually be used without wresting it from it's storage spot. There is still my bookshelf to tackle and my plastic storage drawers of ceramics to weed through. It feels good to get rid of things I am never going to use or do. Makes me able to breath better.

Not the clearest picture but is the best I can do, ignore the shoes. This happens to also be my clothing closet, all on the other side of the closet. Also, on the side you can't see are three large dollhouse kits. 2 are House that Jack built kits, Cheryl's place and KottonKandy. There is also a large plastic tub full of felt kits and about six small plastic rectangle boxes with scrap fabrics, glues and foam brushes. I have taken all magazines and books not associated with an in progress project and moved them to the office so I can go through them all at the same time.

The other projects I am working on: I am attempting to finish some UFOs, mainly the ones I want done before Christmas this year. I dragged out Pansies cross stitch and have been working on that each night. I also have Elora's plastic canvas Calico Critter house in easy reach to work on when I am not in the living room. 

I got a little further on the bottom right corner last night. This is a very easy and relaxing project.

In the meantime I have put aside my quilt blocks untill I have finished these. I have fully enjoyed piecing these blocks together (the little I have done) and have already picked out my next quilt. I never start small and simple so my full on learning quilt will be a Dear Jane. What a challenge that will be. I have the software in the mail and will begin playing with colors soon. I already ordered a 12 yard bolt of fabric for background fabric. Fingers crossed that will be enough.

Quilting

I took the plunge and started quilting. I have been wanting to learn for years and the other day I decided it was time. I have been working on some embroidered blocks for a twin size quilt for my daughter but I wanted a practice quilt first. Using the book Jelly Roll Samplers I started the classic sampler quilt. I tried using my sewing machine but I have never felt comfortable with it so hand piecing and hand quilting it will be for me. 

There are a lot of things I learned from this first block, and there is room for improvement but I really love how it came out.

And I have already cut the pieces and sewn the half square triangles together for the second block, it's already to be put together.

I did the first block over the weekend. Last night I sewed the last  5 of the half square triangles together for the second block. Already my stitches are becoming more uniform and tiny, I am very pleased with the results and by hand is definitly relaxing.