StitchinByTheLake: 4/1/13

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

It's Still A Crazy Spring

Saturday was such a nice, warm day here. We have a garage that's a separate building (this house was built in 1975 when that was the norm) and it is, of course, not used as a garage but for storage. My husband has been a tad bit unhappy for a long time with all "my stuff" being in there and in his way. Right. It couldn't possibly be anything like this:

Or this:

Or all kinds of this:

Or a few of these:

Nope, none of those are in the way.

However, my off season clothes, canning jars and pressure cookers, Christmas decorations, etc. were taking up way too much of his space. :) So I just went out and bought myself one of these:

Mine isn't exactly like this one, but it's very similar. It has two windows so I can put some plants in there in the winter and it has a loft on three sides so I have tons and tons of room! It's 12' x 16' and I added shelves all along the back wall, a potting shelf in front of one window, a shelf with a formica top in front of the other window, a 6' table on one side and a shelf on the other side. All my Christmas decorations are now in red plastic tubs, my fall decorations are in green ones and my spring decorations are in blue ones - all in the loft. Canning jars and supplies as well as small appliances I don't use often are on two shelves. Off season clothes are all in clear tubs, labeled and on shelves. Old pictures, photo albums and old yearbooks are in tubs ready to be sorted and organized and doled out to my unsuspecting children this summer. :) I even took my boots and winter shoes out there - all labeled and in shoe boxes, of course!

Of course since I took all my winter clothes and shoes out on Saturday it was 40 degrees, rainy and windy today! That's spring in Arkansas.

(all pictures are from Google Images)

Monday, April 15, 2013

Spring Ramblings

A couple of years ago at our annual quilt guild retreat I made the background for this quilt top. The center is simply squares of varying colors of beige and cream. The half square triangles represent a garden gate. The solid piece on the left is the foundation piece of the gate and the triangles are the part that swings open...make sense?

When I got home from the retreat I cut out the wool flowers and got them fused on and occasionally since then I drag it out and add some blanket stitching to them. Finally a couple of weeks ago I got all those done and started on the stems, which are cotton instead of wool and are bias strips I made.

Last night I got the last stem sewn down! There's absolutely no reason for this to have taken this long to do except I so often get sidetracked by a beautiful piece of embroidery I just have to make right now, or a blog hop that's so cute that I can't resist, or by..... I bet that happens to you too. :)

I wanted the flowers to be simple enough to stand out against that background and I think this is going to do that. Now comes the hard part....how in the world am I going to quilt it? Oh my goodness, that's going to be a hard decision. Any ideas?

I've moved on to try to finish another top now...one that I've been working on longer than this one. Oh dear. I'm on the last of four sections of red work embroidery on Twas The Night Before Christmas. I think I might have been working on it four years. Or more. Probably more.

On another note it's spring in Arkansas. I take allergy shots every week but for the first time in years they didn't seem to help last week - I sneezed, coughed, wheezed, had watery eyes and a runny nose, and finally a sinus infection that just about kicked my behind. And since I'm working the most awful hours at school I couldn't stay at home and feel sorry for myself. I just went to school and made everyone else feel sorry for me. :) I blame it all on this stuff:

Well this stuff and the fact that the weekend before I got the leaf blower out and blew all the moldy leaves off the courtyard, carport and deck. Shouldn't have done that. On a positive note though, look what else is up...

Potatoes! Yes, those are potatoes in a pot. Do you think I might get enough for one helping of mashed potatoes? :)

Monday, April 8, 2013

April Showers

I know, I know.....you were expecting me to write something. :( It's spring, the children at school want to run and play, they think that just because it's warmer and warmer each day they should be allowed to wear less and less clothing each day, and we're testing. My boss took another job so instead of replacing him they made me the boss but left me doing my other job too so now I'm also the boss of me. Does that even make sense to anyone? I was the school counselor. Now I'm the Principal. (Who is always your pal, you know, in case anyone ever wonders about how to spell it correctly.) But I'm still the counselor too. So, I'm the boss of me. The very fact that I can even say all that means that I am most certainly losing it. After this week things will slow down at work. Well, things might slow down. And when they do you can be assured I will be back writing, stitching (if I can remember how to hold a needle), and reading blogs. I can hardly wait! Meanwhile, I'm attending baseball games, softball games, band concerts and choir concerts. I'm listening to the ones who didn't make the cheerleader squad cry, the ones who are just tired of school explain why they told the teacher to "go away," and questioning seniors about who they're bringing to the prom and why. I'm telling 8th graders that even though you are testing in the morning you are going to class in the afternoon and yes you must bring paper and pencil for that, comforting parents who don't understand why their 16 year old has turned temporarily into someone they don't know, and threatening to take away the hoody of the child who insists I should let him wear the hood up because he dyed his hair and it accidentally turned pink. I could use some prayers and positive thoughts ya'll!