Discoveries when cleaning

I went through a couple more boxes file cabinet today in my continued effort to get more organized and wow!   I had forgotten I had some of these things.  For instance, I don't EVER remember buying this booklet.

I might have to make that bag.  It's cute.

Other things (cross stitch) that I forgot I had are:

Of course I also found some family pictures.

Kermit Stanley Bromeland - my dad

Top picture - Edith Bromeland - my mom; bottom picture Kermit Bromeland (brother) and his wife Roberta Bromeland, seated is Phillip aka Tony Bromeland (brother) and Edith Bromeland (mother)

Top picture is Jessica and Jason Erlandson.  Jason is my nephew - my sister's son; bottom picture is all their kids

I also found a booklet from Pacific Rim for Hawaiian Quilts and I'm still finding stuff.  I can see a lot of things (none of the above) will be disposed of.

That's it for now.  I hope everybody has a great evening/day.

I must be sick - I've started cleaning my sewing room

I think I am sick because I have started to clean my sewing room.  That is something which is usually both a pain and a pleasure.  The pain continues throughout the cleaning process but the pleasure is usually after it is clean.  On the other hand, I usually have trouble finding things after I clean up!  I guess it must be what is called "mixed blessings". 

 See that clean area in front of the shoe shelves?  It is carpet.  Who knew!  It all started out with me going to Menard's and getting another shoe shelving unit.  I didn't get the right size though and the new one is one row shorter than what I had.  It will still work though.  That just means I can put some of the other containers on top of it.  I have another of the 15 shoe shelf but I haven't put it together yet.  I don't have room to put it where I want it yet.  I need to reorganize that section of the room.  I also ran out of steam.  I took the day off work and ended up working.  Just at home instead of in the office!

I was glad I was home since the post office delivered some things for me and they put it outside on the steps where it was almost impossible to get around without knocking it into the street.  I did manage to pick it up and here is what was inside.

Aren't they pretty?!

I also received some foam forms to help when I sit for long periods in my worn out chair at the computer.  LOL.  I'm not going to take a picture of that because I'm sure that you know what a square foam pillow square looks like.  I also ordered more needles for cross stitch but they should be delivered tomorrow (Wednesday).

That's it for this time.  Time for me to rest up a bit.  I stressed my legs and such with picking up things, moving things all around, etc.   My sciatica is laughing at me.  That's ok.  I won't let it stop me from doing things for long.  I have three weeks until my next massage so I can wait for that.  

I hope everybody has a great day/evening.

Post Birthday Recovvery

Whew!  I survived turning 63!  LOL.   This birthday was pretty good.  I had lots of good wishes and felt really special.

It actually started on Thursday.  I had brought in my favorite breakfast casserole.  I split the recipe so that I had one with meat and one without meat.  It was the first time I made it without meat and people seemed to like it a lot.  I will have to remember that for the future. 

Another co-worker brought in yummy blueberry muffins.  That wasn't all. Yet another co-worker gave me a gift certificate to Dollar Tree and that is one of my favorite places to go to.  She had also put in an add that said on Sunday there would be an extra 10% taken off all purchases.  SWEET!

I had a couple of pretty cards in the mail.  My sister in law sent me one with lots of flowers on it and butterflies.  It almost looked like the flowers that I received from another co-worker.

This was all on Thursday because on my birthday, Friday the 12th, I was at home.  I never used to take my birthday off so it felt a little strange but something I could get used to (grin).  Of course going out to eat with Connie was great.  We went to a Mandarin restaurant and, of course, over ate.

I didn't do much at all ON my birthday except eat and sleep.  I actually drifted off to sleep while watching TV and didn't wake up until 5 hours later!  Guess I must have needed it.  Saturday I went out for  french fries.  Yes you read that right.  French fries.  A long time ago, a friend and I used to go to a restaurant which served unlimited french fries.  We would order the fries and something to drink and sit and chat about life and such.  Every once in awhile I still do it but this time usually by myself.  It is good for catching up on journaling, etc.

I was going to use my free Jersey Mike's subway and drink but I slept through that.  Good thing that it is good for the month of July.

I won't go out today because my landlord called and she is having an overhead oven fan put in!  I've been waiting for this since before Christmas so today is the day.  That will be nice.  I've never had one before but they had promised me they would get me one and they did.

My birthday is extended all the way through until Monday.  I have Monday off work although I will be at the office until noon.  I have a 10 a.m. appointment with my TIAFF-CREF representative to make some more plans, understand the plans anyway, for my retirement in 2020.  I won't have enough money, of course, but then I've never had enough money.  I keep telling myself that I have all of this fabric and patterns and threads just waiting for me to retire and work with.  Then, at noon, Beth and I are going to the all you can eat Chinese Buffet.  She has never been there but I like it.  I also like their hibachi grill where you can pick out your meat and veggies and they will cook it for you while you wait. 

Sometime after I caught up on rest, I got the urge to work on some quilting.  It's hard for me to work on Quilting in the summertime.  I pulled out an UFO called Storm at Sea.  I've been starring at it for about 3 months but now I decided to sew together some of the rows. 

You can, perhaps, see the pattern better from my colored in master.

When I sewed the top row together, it seems to be a bit off.  Row 2 and 3 look like they will line up pretty much on point but row 1 is off.  I need to see how to fix that.  I might redo the row.  I will fix it before I start to put together the blocks for the other rows.  Slowly but surely it will move out of the UFO stage into the flimsie stage.  I like to separate those two stages since it makes me think I've made progress.  The flimsie stage, of course, means that the top is put together and ready to sandwhich before doing the quilting.

I also managed to do some more stitches on my mini owl cross stitch.  I have taken up a challenge to have 10,000 stitches done before Christmas.  I broke it down if I do 400 stitches each week I will make that challenge.  I'll post another picture of that later.  It's time for me to sign off the computer and get some other things done.

One of the things that I'm in the middle of doing is working on my new Happy Planner 2019-2020 planner.  I've changed up the size and bought some extender disks so now I have enough planners of different sizes to use for other projects as well.  I will try to take some pictures of them.  I have some large sized ones for recipes and crafting, a small one for every day notes and thoughts, and a middle sized one which is my everyday calendar.  I am thinking of splitting up my crafting one into types of crafts - quilting vs. cross stitch.  I might have enough disks and covers to even do a misc. one which would be for things that caught my eye but I haven't tried yet.

Oops.  Gotta really run now.  The smoke detector is going off.  Think it is from them installing the hood.  Catch ya'll later.

Happy Fourth of July

Happy Fourth of July!  It brings back lots of memories of getting bitten by mosquitoes during fireworks at night.  Sitting in the grass and not worrying about how to get out grass stains from your jeans (molasses works good), and drinking lemonade.  Also feeling grown up when we were allowed to go up to the concession stand and order a sandwich.  We were only allowed to do it once and only to get a BBQ pulled pork sandwich.  This was in the 60s so we were all about being independent (when Mom let us be independent that is).  

So, being the shy independent type person that I am (waits for laughter to die down), I decided to work on getting my journals organized a bit more.  This year I am trying something else and that is The Happy Planner system.  I am liking it a lot.  One reason would be because I can buy the basics and then create on my own.  I have not found a good crafting journal that works for me yet.  So this allows me to customize what I want. 

First of all I love the variety of covers that I can buy.  They are all interchangeable.  I bought a set of covers and can mix and match.  Some are plain and some have affirmative (happy) sayings on them.  These are what is called a disk bound planner.  You can buy different disks and create more journals which is what I did.  This journal is my quilting one.  The bright colors for the top remind me of all the wonderful colors in fabrics.

Since I knew this was going to be a customized journal, I bought their hole punch.  It allows me to pick my own paper or whatever to use.  That allowed me to put my projects in the journal and easily take them out when finished.

One example would be the cookie cutter sampler BOM.  I set up my beginning project page, complete with a picture of what it should look like finished, and will add each block afterwards.  There is room on my project page to add which blocks I have downloaded  and when in case I forget.

It also is nice to have the journals that lay flat.  I might have told you about my friend Janine who had to go into a nursing home.  She only has one leg and diabetic and passed out.  She went to the nursing home for rehab.  Once she was there, her sister (who had legal rights to do so) got rid of her cats, most of her belongings, and all but 2 projects that I quilted for her.  NOW Janine is getting better and feeling down in the dumps so I promised her some more  quilty stuff to cheer her up.  I am thinking of this.  She loves Halloween.  With this type of journal, I can easily lay out my new fabric next to the pattern to see how it looks.  I think the black and white fabric I picked up yesterday will work nice for part of it.  If nothing else for the binding.  We'll see.

But that is my new system this year.  We'll see how it goes.  Now...some pictures from Aunt Sassy's.  It's a nice bright place which is fun to visit.

I hope you enjoyed this post and wish one and all a terrific day!

Aunt Sassy's

I visited the new quilt shop in town today and, of course, spent money.  I figure it is either my birthday present to myself or a celebration that I received a raise in pay (thanks to the Union negotiations).  Either way I thought you might like to see the shop and what I got.  I took around 18 pictures so this post is only going to be what I bought.  :)

It's not a large shop but that is ok.  You don't get lost in it and don't get overwhelmed with too many selections to choose from.  Don't get me wrong.  There is a LOT to see and we all know how we can lose track of time when we look at fabric.  So what did I buy?

This first picture shows the three fabrics that I bought for $5/yard.  They are stacked on top of each other.  You see those little rolled up bundles on the left?  Those are cut from salvage to salvage and sold for 20 cents per inch.  The one on the left was marked 5 inches and I just unrolled it.  It is approximately 5 1/2" x 44".  It was only $1 and I will get lots of use out of it in my applique.  I'll post better pictures of the fabric in another post.  The fabric on the right is worth a closer look at.  That one wasn't on sale and was close to $13 a yard.

I couldn't resist this  panel fabric.  I'm not sure how I will finish it but for now I can hang it up and just look at it.

I also bought some patterns.  One of them, Labyrinth Walk, I've been wanting to make for quite awhile.  I'm now one step closer.  Don't hold your breath for me to make it though.  It has taken me years to just buy the pattern. It was $10 so that wasn't too bad, at least for this area, for a pattern.

On either side of it are two post card patterns.  It shows the picture of the pattern on one side and then on the other side are the instructions.  They were $2 each.

Hope you liked this little look.  I have more pictures of all the colorful fabric they had but I will start posting them tomorrow.


As always, have fun creating.

Can you believe it is July?

July sort of snuck up on me.  The year is almost half way done with and I'm not sure why I just now think of it.  It could be because July is my birthday month.  It could be because July starts the second half of the year, or it could even be that everybody is starting their "Christmas in July" sales.  With it being half way over with, I have to rethink what I want to get accomplished in 2019 as far as crafting goes.

There are a lot of possibilities including just working on what I have already started and turned into UFOs, start new things, or just say what the heck and throw my hands up and spin my wheels and get nothing done.  That last part is always a fall back option when the other two things don't work out.

I did get one or two UFOs done so that is a big accomplishment for me.  I also managed to get another test pattern done for The Quilt Pattern Magazine so I figure I've been more productive than normal.  Of course we won't take count of how many UFOs I still have in quilting AND cross stitch.

I did sign up for a cross stitch challenge.  It's to get 10,000 stitches in by December 24, 2019.  I missed out on the last challenge due to my sciatic problems so I hope to get this one done.  Now I just have to figure out which cross stitch pattern I want to work on.  The Mini Owl is a good choice.  I started that as my first Heaven and Earth Design (HAED).  10,000 would go a long way on that.  I do have another HAED that I started and would be good to do.  That one is more colorful.  I think I would work on the colorful one without the challenge since it is more colorful.  I don't need as much  incentive.  I broke down the 10,000 into how many stitches per week and it was around 400.  That is four blocks on my pattern.  I can do that.  I also have another, simpler, cross stitch that I want to work on.  It is a Happy Everything runner.  It has snowmen dressed in various holidays so the one picture will cover an entire year and, thus, cover all the major holidays of the year so I don't have to change it out.

We'll see.  Then there is quilting and UFOs.  Here is one UFO that I forgot about until I hung the piec up on my work bulletin board.

It looks complete doesn't it?  The UFO, I'm afraid to admit, is the binding.  It is just basted on with matching thread.  LOL.  I should take it home with me and finish it but perhaps next year.  I only hang it up for a couple of days each year.  No hurry, right?

As with most of you, I get distracted with new projects all the time.  That is probably why I have so many UFOs also.  I ordered from Shabby Fabrics a Baltimore Garden table runner.  Can't wait to get that fused on and started on stitching.

The other thing, which could easily be put in the UFO collection is my stamped cross stitched quilt blocks.

This came from Hobby Lobby on a sale.  There are 6 blocks in each package which measure around 16".  It only takes three colors, which is nice, and they say it takes 3 packages for a twin size bed.  The approximate quilt size before washing should be around 64" x 104".  I did manage to get three packages (under $4 each package) so I am working on them.  This first block is almost finished.  I have 4 small loops and the one curly section (you can see where I stopped) to do.  Not sure how it will get put together but one thing at a time.

Break time is over so I'll stop here.  I hope you have a wonderful day and for the US readers, a great Fourth of July.  Non US readers,  I hope you have a great day also.  :)

Until next time, keep stitch and creating.