A Work in Progress

The house is decorated, the cards are sent and the gifts are wrapped.  Holiday parties have been attended and pollyanna exchanges have been fun.  Two trips to the airport and one to the train station have been made to welcome home our middle son  from Baton Rouge, our daughter from a semester abroad in Edinburgh, and our oldest from New York.  Food shopping is done and menus are planned, thanks to the help of my husband who really enjoys that sort of thing more than I do.   We even had a brief celebration last night for our daughter's 21st birthday (actually on 12-21-12 when the world didn't come to an end) after she arrived from the airport.  All that's left is to deliver gifts to three of our neighbors, and to make the above stitching into an ornament.  I stitched three of these this year, one for each of the kids, as has been my tradition.  Of course, every year I promise myself that I will do the finishing before the first of ...

Around 9:00 this morning, I was outside an elementary school supervising our students' arrival.  I noticed that a car had stopped in the street and a parent was letting her kindergarten child get out and walk between parked cars to get to the sidewalk.  I approached the car and asked the woman to park her car and let our crossing guard take the child across the street.  I reminded her that we are always trying to keep our children safe.  I hope that mother gave her daughter an extra hug this evening.  Parents of twenty children in Conneticut will never have that chance again.

While cruising the blogs recently, I ran across mention of Nicola's Scarlet Letter Year challenge.  I have exactly one Scarlet Letter kit, Scottish Band, in my stash and it's been there since the beginning of time.  Well, maybe, not that long, but certainly since the start of the millenium.  In fact, it's been there so long that I raided the kit for silks I needed for another project.  I think this challenge is just what I need to get stitching on this project.  Wish me luck!

I'll bet that post title will cause some internet searchers to be surprised when pictures of my blocks of the month come up.  In spite of not sewing a whole lot in the last month, I have done a few more in the Fat Quarter Shop Mystery Designer BOM.  These are (mostly) fun, especially that top block where I constructed the center by piecing strips and then cutting it down to size.  And it worked!!  I'm still new enough to quilting that I'm sometimes amazed by what I can produce, with matching seams and everything.  This quilt has a long way to go as it has a large center piece and then stars in the sashing.  I'm not rushing it and just enjoying the journey. Speaking of not rushing things, remember the Thimbleberries quilt border ?  I'm still plugging away on it.  I sewed one strip of 27 half-square triangles together and came up an inch short.  I tried adjusting seams and couldn't get it to come out correctly.  So I employed my ...

     I've been back at work for seven or eight weeks now and am once again discovering how much that interferes with sewing time.  Work has been busy as I adjust to two new schools, but this past week, I felt as if my head was above water.  At least I wasn't running through lists of things I needed to do through my head every night. This fall, though, it's not just work that is taking up my time.  I've been going to physical therapy in the evenings to relieve the lower back and shoulder pain I've had for six months.  Sometimes the treatments and the exercises have caused the pain to spike for a day or two and I usually don't feel like sewing when I get home from the appointments.  I'm happy to say I've gotten a lot of relief and will probably be finished with therapy next week.  Speaking of time consuming, we bought a new car.  Thank goodness I only do this every 8-10 years as it's not a quick process.  I lov...

I'm enjoying a leisurely morning.  I've finished a book (The Thread of Truth by Marie Bostwick) and gone to the gym (spin class--never gets easier no matter how many time I do it).  Everyone else in the house had a late night and all are sleeping in, allowing me a few more moments before I need to get ready to go to the mall with my daughter.  She's headed off to Scotland at the end of the week and doesn't think the winter coat she bought two weeks ago will be warm enough.  So we need to look again.  Today is our designated packing day.  Remember I'm a genius at packing so we will be sure to get the maximum amount into those suitcases for my little clotheshorse.  (She inherited that trait from my husband.  I'm a jeans and T-shirt person myself.  Buying clothes just doesn't compare to acquiring books and needlework stash.) Last week I endured four days of inservice at school.  It's great to be back and see everyone, but it r...

Move along, there's nothing (much) to see here.  Stitching went by the wayside this month as during the first half I was preparing to move my son and during the second half I was racing around getting ready to go back to work.  Some of that was fun as it included lunch with friends and a fabric shopping trip in Lancaster County.  And then there was the part that was actual work--interviewing for a new therapist in our department, attending a conference on billing and doing an evaluation.  My district has four days of teacher inservice this week and the kids start on Tuesday.  I'm already bringing work home in an effort to keep up!  Funny thing is, though, that I find I actually stitch more when I'm on a schedule.  Hopefully, I'll have more to show in September, but for now, this is all you get.  Some progress on Quaker Christmas I picked up Elizabeth Rush again on my birthday.  Those over-one letters have been stitched, frogged and re-s...