About that great start...

After being off to a great start, my finishes for August fell off.  We had 2 kids coming and going for a couple different events. Also the yard work needed a catch up.  Blah... I am starting to feel a little overwhelmed by all the house stuff that needs to be done.  DH says it doesn't NEED to be done, but things like trim and molding do simplify house work.  Sweeping is usually messier when one has the edge of the flooring to get the broom caught on.  And washing the window is tricky with exposed drywall.  It's all stupid little stuff, but it isn't getting done.  We are on year five, (FIVE!!!!) with a big hole in the rec room wall.  The reason? No one goes down there.  Except for EVERYONE.  It's where the tv is!!! So I've been puttering around trying to work on some these things, while also running the kids around and trying to work on my other projects.   Ok...deep breath.....

I started quilting S2's quilt, and was hoping to have it finished by now. Instead I wound up stripping paint off an old cabinet and prepping it for a new paint job.  I did finish two projects, thanks to their simplicity and portability. First was a scarf for D2.

She wanted it long and skinny. And with a lot of blue.  Thankfully, it finished off a few odds and ends of yarn for me.  After that was a shawl for me! YAY!

I'm not thrilled with it, since it's all scraps of acrylic yarn.  But I do love the colors and it'll keep me warm in the rec room we never use.  It's not quite as bright as the photo looks, the real colors are much more in natural/neutral color scheme. It also finished off some balls of yarn.

I also got the pincushion done for a friend.  She got a cute fabric that was from Western Washington Shop Hop a few years ago.  It has cute sayings all over it.  My favorite is "a clean house is a sign of a broken sewing machine."

She inherited some sewing notions from her MIL and Grandma to fill hers with.

School starts on Tuesday, Scouts the week after, and library club the week after.  We'll see what happens.

Great start for August!

After a few months of few to no finishes for OPAM, I might finally broken through that mental block.  This weekend, I finished 3 place mats and a pincushion.  I have a few projects lined up to finish, as well as some new small gift items I am finally getting around to.

Somewhere I didn't do the math for these. There are 6 of us in the family, and for some reason, I only made four.

The fourth one was finished months ago and is already put away with the Christmas decorations.  Maybe I ran out of fabric?  I don't remember.  And I have no idea what to do with it now, which is fine. I am pretty sure there some standard for crafter gifting involved here, LOL!

I have always wanted one of these, and I kept hoping DH would buy me one.  But after 10 years, I guess I just needed to make it myself.  Which is fine. But sometimes I don't want to DIY.  I know how to install a water heater too, but that doesn't mean I *want* to. So I grabbed a bunch of random novelty scraps, a used canning lid and sacrificed a rim and jar.  And giving up that jar and rim were kind of painful. I USE those. Fifty-two or more jars of jam every year.  Plus whatever else we decide to make. So he's buying me a case of the pretty green ones to use for canning to "make up."

Once we got the lid on, we realized this wasn't going to be usable for practical storage. DH gets those rims down tight.  So I stuffed it with my mothers, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers old sewing notions.

The thread was so old it broke, the zipper didn't work easily, and the snaps were missing parts.  But I loved that they were "family pieces."  And they weigh the jar down enough that it doesn't tip when I'm sticking pins in.

This week, I have a few more UFO's I'm working on, as well as another Mason jar pincushion for a friend who sews.  But that's it for now.  I think. :)