We had some sun!!!

We had some beautiful weather this week, so I spent a great deal of time outdoors.  Most of the garden beds are weeded, the trellis is up for beans, the rotted out stairs along the side of the house are gone, and the yard bins are full of ivy.  Random fact of the day: English Ivy is a non-native invasive species and can be found on the noxious weeds lists of both Washington and Oregon.  And I have ivy growing everywhere!!!  But I did manage to get a bunch of roots dug out, so that should help. I do wish we lived out of town though, so I could burn them.  The city doesn't want it in the yard debris, and I don't want it in my compost.  We have a brilliant plan in our locale where they charge you to pick up yard waste and then you can buy the "compost material" that they make from the yard waste.  GRRR!  I'll continue with my own compost pile, thank you.   Anyways.....the only sewing I got done this week where some more stars.  These follow a red/white/blue theme. Oh, and two "normal" stars.  15 total.  I am going to have to come up with something to do with these sooner instead of later.

I am quite happy to say that expect for a few other sets of stars that are cut, I have NO MORE r/w/b fabric in my house!!!  Now, I think this means that I should get new fabric, but that does seem to defeat the purpose of the whole exercise.  

***Update: Over the last few months, we have seen a huge amount of image searches for Tuck Everlasting dioramas.  After the amount of work D2 put in on hers, and knowing that she did not do searches to get ideas, I have decided to remove the photo. I am glad people liked it, but I would hate to see it used as a shortcut for someone else's assignment (cheating?). Thank you for understanding.***

Also, D2's Tuck Everlasting diorama came home from school. She got a "B" on it.  

It is the scene where they are breaking Mae out of jail.  She is pretty happy with it, and would love to do more projects like this at school!  

Well, I have no idea what the weather will be like this week, but I have a quilt to finish and beans and peas to plant, so SOMETHING should get done. 

Having a schedule!

As much as I make light of being a scheduling flake (and I am!) I have discovered the having ONE thing in the week that is CEMENTED on the calender does a lot for my sanity. And sure, my husband and kids think that making sure to get a blog entry done on a Monday morning isn't really a "real" priority. But I have found that I have gotten more, other things done during the week. And my hubby really likes it when he doesn't have to cook because I forgot about dinner.  So maybe it is a "silly" thing to do, but as long as dinner is in the oven by 5, it's all good. Oh, and everyone likes that fact that I have finished things!  I have to finish things before I can post about finishing them! :)

This week the one and only finished item is......a piano bench cover!

This poor thing sat in a box of school photos (?) for a couple of years.  I have a lot of those kinds of projects to finish.  We have had the piano since we moved into the house, and although it is so out of tune that the piano man said it was a waste to repair it, we still love it.  It is an antique upright that was used in the armory my dad worked at most of my childhood.  The armory had been a firehouse (back when there were stables for the fire horses), and a bar in previous years (like the early 1900's).  My sister and I had tons of fun on the ramp that the bartenders rolled the barrels up and down. (There were no bartenders or barrels by the time Daddy was stationed there)  What a piece of history!  In our rec room!  But we have kids that love to tinkle (and bang) on the piano, and some of them insist on carrying a pocket knife, bottle openers, and/or duct tape in their back pocket.  So I thought this would be some protection for the bench.  I used a 2.5 inch thimble block and just cut a huge pile of them out of scraps and did really big stipple quilting all over.  I added elastic to keep it on the bench.  I think with out that, it would be on the floor as cats and kids messed with the piano.

These are this week's star blocks.  I only wanted to get 4 a week done, but I used these as leaders and enders for the bench cover, so I finished quite a few .  And a huge pile of some started that I hope to finish up this week.  AND there is finally a (small) difference in the scrap bin.  Three, count 'em 3!, 1.5 gallon ziplock backs of fabric are GONE!!!  Well, used anyways.  And I got a "fun thing" for being so diligent and resourceful....a obelisk for the garden!  It will look gorgeous when the beans start coming up and winding around it.  If we ever get planting weather!

I have no idea what I am working on this week.  I have some ideas and some unfinished projects, nothing really pulling at me to finish it.  We'll see....maybe something will come to me as I gear up for spring cleaning!

Last week...

Last week my sewing machine was acting up.  I still have no idea what the problem was.  The tension was normal, the needles were new, and I broke 3. In ONE day.  So. After spending a couple of days just fuming over it and my inability to figure it out, I tried again.  And broke several more needles.  Saturday came, and it worked. I guess God wanted me working on other stuff last week. Anyhow, I finished the class project with a card game basket like the one you can see here. Of course, I had it all wrapped up and out the door before I got a picture of it, but it is literally the exact same as the one in the previous post that I had done.  And the checkerboard quilt fits inside perfectly!  my other finished items include these little guys:

Some more coffee wraps for the school bazaar.  When I get 20 done, I'll find something else to make, but these are cute, and quick, and, most important for a fundraiser, sold really well last year!

I also got 4 more star blocks done out of the scrap basket. And still no visible decrease in the amount of fabric stuffed into the basket!

I am not much of a "brights" person, but I can't get over how cool the black ones are!  I have decided that they will be sorted by background while they wait for a project.  Now I'll need to get a  pretty box for them too! 

My plans for this week include more star blocks (duh!), finish appliqueing Christmas quilt, and more bazaar items.  And maybe get some more yard work done.

A sense of accomplishment...

Oh does this weeks finished list have a an awesome finish!!! Long ago (really, about 2.5 years) I started an I SPY quilt for S2.  He was in kinder, so it's a huge chunk of his lifetime, and he wanted one so badly, and I had plenty of novelty fabrics to use up. And he came everyday and asked if I had worked on it.  For days and weeks, the answer was yes.  And then life got in the way. And last night, as he went with Daddy to pick up S1 from youth group, I sat on the sofa, stitching away at the binding.  The look on his little face when he came in and it was all finished and laid out on the floor for him to see!  he bundled it up and walked around the house for an hour with it!  The only reason he finally put it down was that he was NOT taking into the bath with him!  So, here it is below:

The I SPY fabric came from several sources, including a local Stash Dash Kids' Dash (the kids get 6" squares at each store), my fabric stash, and a few specially selected from the store on various trips. S2 picked out the fabric for the alternate squares and sashing.  He is really big into outer space right now!

I also finished a quilted checkerboard for the school's annual auction.  Another parent is going to cut checkers out of branch, and I may have enough crap fabric to make another basket like I had done for the teachers to keep the parts in. We'll see! This weekend I also finished some CrossStitcher kits I had started and never finished.  I love embroidery of any sort, but seldom have the time to work on it.  And I am so addicted these magazines!  I love the designs in them, and all the ideas for making them special.  Of the three house ornaments, I am keeping the ecru ones, and giving the red to the school bazaar.  Unless my best friends dibs it.  She loves real red.  I also finished this cute little pincushion.  So I have pulled all my pins from old pincushion and sent it on it's way and now have this little lovely sitting on my shelf.  It's a bit smaller than my old one, so I may have to make another one.  A good reason to make on the teacup pincushions. :)

And last of all, my scrap stash project!  These little stars are NOT using up as much as I'd like, but that just means I'll have more in the end! I am not a huge pink fan, but I love how the black and pink one turned out.  I have been trying to figure out how get more black in the scrap bin, but haven't come up with any GOOD ideas yet.  Running to the fabric store to buy fat quarters to stick in the scrap bin brand new just seems to defeat the purpose.  If I can continue with 4 a week, I might not see the scrap pile may not get bigger, and MAYBE get smaller.  Hubby dearest said maybe I should make the stars as I finish other projects, but where's the fun in that?  These are for when I don't have anything to do!

I have no major project plans for this week, which is  nice change from the last month! I still have a ton of meetings, but my daily schedule can be a little less hectic!  I am hoping to get some drywall hung by this weekend, but we'll have to see how that goes.