Stitchy Stuff and Homecoming

Thank you so much for treading your way through my last post!!  I never thought people would make it through my rantings!  I can't believe some of the comments and emails I got on that one!  But being as most of us are moms, I know that we can all relate to those crazy moments where we want to slap someone, choke someone or lay ourselves under a bus.  It happens - it's part of the territory, right?  But it passed and all is well (at least until the next doctor's appointment in two weeks), and I'm not typing this with tire tracks across my body.  And of course, Catie opted for the new dress over the dress that caused so much freaking out!  Figures!

The Homecoming dance went well except for the fact that it rained cats, dogs and small children that day and night so we couldn't get pictures of the event outside with all the beautiful fall colors.  But here are a couple of the cute couple taken at Max's house where everyone met.  Catie had a wonderful time even with the boot and I think that it definitely was a time to remember.  They didn't go to any parties after as seems to be the norm these days (praise the heavens above), but opted to play X-box instead.  Gotta love them.

I didn't get the best pictures, but here are just a couple.  The pinning of the boutonniere - get a load of that tongue.  Reminds me of when she was so little sitting in the kitchen chair deep in concentration when coloring (when did you get so grown up?):

The boot doesn't look too bad, does it?  She decided not to decorate it as she felt there was enough bling on the bodice of the dress - probably a good choice.

And Catie acting the fool, as always.  Max has a look like, "Here she goes again!"

In other news around here - well not much - sad, but true.  I honestly don't know where time goes sometimes.  But once I got over my feelings of choking or doing someone bodily harm and felt that I could be trusted with sharp implements like scissors, needles, rotary cutters and the like, I accomplished a little bit on what seems to be the three never ending projects.  Are you getting bored of these yet?  But I'm having fun with all of them and haven't tossed them aside yet.  Not that I'm not dreaming of what comes next and having moments filled with thoughts of starting new things, but I'm actually restraining myself - for once!!

First up - the Cotton Club - three rows down, two to go:

Oops - I shot this picture from the wrong end and it looks like I've got upside down basket blocks.  Well you get the picture anyway.  I thought that I'd fly through these rows, but not the case.  Trying to put these rows together and then get them to match up where the red and brown meets the tan and pieced block is hard even on a good day.  Don't know what is up with that.

Charlotte is moving along at a slow pace.  Don't know what's up with that either.  Well, yes I do, I haven't been putting as much time into her as I would like too.  The only nights I seemed to get much done was during the Championship games and World Series games with our beloved Tigers!!  Unfortunately, they lost the first two games in the World Series against San Francisco, but I've stayed up until the bitter end.  Fingers crossed - there are more games to be played!!  And while watching the games I made it to the half way point on Charlotte (with the exception of the over one words - I need to be in the mood to have my eyes cross for half the night putting those in).

I love that couple in Eden:

In fact, I love working on entire this piece, but made a major boo-boo.  Am I fixing it - NOPE!!

It's the vase - it's levitating - and it's not suppose to.  Guess I've been out of school too long and no longer seem to be able to count!  When I got down to the bottom of the vase it wasn't sitting on the grass as charted.  BUT, would you have known that unless I told you?  Probably not (except for those of you who have stitched it), so this is my spin on being creative and making the piece my own.  Sounds good, doesn't it??  And Charlotte will never know, will she?  I just have to remember to do the vase on the other side of the tree the same way - better write a post it note so that I don't forget!

And then there are the baskets - the never ending baskets.  I managed to get a few finished up over the past few weeks - only 16 blocks - but better than nothing.  This tends to be my carry along project when I'm waiting on something - like doctors - so I don't get as many finished in a week that I had hoped to.

And all the blocks so far:

46 baskets out of......gulp..........about 300.......I guess I better get my you-know-what moving.  But there are more waiting in the wings.  I have about 40 baskets on backgrounds, probably 100 ironed onto fabric (maybe more) and some more waiting to be starched - it's quite a process, but so much fun:

I don't think I'll ever get sick of this quilt - I am just loving all the red fabrics!!

So that's about all that is going on around here.  I did manage to get out for one of my fall road trips this week and spent a wonderful time at a new quilt store and antiquing, but you know, I can't seem to get the pictures to come over from my phone to the computer.  Well, I can, but then I seem to be at a loss as to posting them on the blog.  I'll have to wait for one of the kids to be around to post them.  They've told me how to before, but you know.........must have lost some brain cells with my rage of a couple weeks ago!!  LOL  I'll save them for next time.

Again, thank you for all your wonderful comments.  I truly thought that you would get bogged down in a quagmire of words!  But I truly enjoyed reading each and every one of them.  And I see that I have some new followers!  Welcome!  So happy to "meet" you and I have enjoyed making my way around to see your blogs.  Always so much inspiration.

Well, the pork roast is in the crock pot,  blog post done and house clean (somewhat), so I think that I'm going to go sew.  I hope that everyone has a great weekend!!!

A Different Kind of Post (Mother Rage)

Okay, I just had to vent!  You don't have to read this if you don't want to.  But, the older I get the more crazed I become at the irresponsibility of businesses and doctors.  But, just so you can see something creative, I'll show you my second Cotton Club row almost put together.  I've been working on it today to calm myself down from all the stress of yesterday.  But see the block second from the bottom - well, it's set going the wrong way.  Am I changing it?  NOPE!  And just pretend I didn't say anything, okay?

So here goes the rant.  See this dress - beautiful dress right (it's really beautiful on)?  Well, getting this dress was an exhausting exercise.  This is DD's Homecoming dress.  Homecoming is two days away.  Why are we getting a Homecoming Dress three days before the event?  Well, this dress wasn't her first choice.  And here's the story.

About a month or so ago DD borrowed another dress from a friend.  She didn't want a new dress, she wanted to wear her friend's dress.  It looked darling on her and I'm thinking I don't have to buy a dress - score!!.  So I took it to the cleaners.  It was due back Friday.  I go in Friday and dress is not ready - hasn't been touched in all the time it's been sitting there.  They say that it has to be spot cleaned.  Please pick up Tuesday.  Okay, but why wasn't I called about this?  And why haven't you started on the dress???  No answers.  Just some mumbling.  I tell them that I have to have the dress on Tuesday.  If there is a problem please call me.

So yesterday I pull my body out of bed (I've been fighting some kind of stomach virus thing and just wanted to sleep in yesterday) and I run to do a couple errands - produce market for reinforcements for the troops and lunchmeat for DD because she hates school lunches.  I'm on a tight schedule that morning and my foot is tapping because I swear they could have sliced up a cow in the time it took to give me three packets of lunchmeat.  I run and collect other things, but I think that the senior citizen bus had their weekly drop off and I'm dodging people all over the place - it takes me forever .  Okay, I do the yoga calming breaths and just keep going!  The scanner acts up in the check-out line - more deep breaths!  I leave there - stop and fill up my gas tank (where I have to wait in line some more and take more breaths), and then drive to the dry cleaners only to be told that the dress can't be cleaned or even spot cleaned.  Okay, now I'm having trouble doing those cleansing breaths.  I'm starting to hyperventilate!!  WE'RE FOUR DAYS BEFORE HOMECOMING PEOPLE!!!  AND MAY I ASK WHY YOU DIDN'T CALL ME ABOUT THIS???  WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME THAT LAST WEEK???  IS YOUR PHONE BROKEN??? (yes, I actually said that).  I feel some kind of rage within me.  Mr. Dry Cleaner says he'll try washing it if I sign off on it.  I sign off, telling him I MUST have the dress like yesterday!!  He tells me to call at 4:00 and I'm back in the car (with thoughts of driving through his storefront), fly into the house and am tossing lunchmeat and produce in all directions in the refrigerator because I have to pick up DD for her foot doctor appointment like five minutes ago.

DD and I drive to the doctors and I tell her about the dress.  She starts freaking out.  And I'm freaking out watching her freak out!  This is her first real date - I want it to be perfect.  We get to the doctors where we promptly wait ONE AND ONE HALF HOURS!!!  We're both sitting there freaking out about the dress, mad at the doctor for taking so long and she's starving.  We decide she won't go back to school (for which she was happy) and we would get something to eat and try to calm ourselves down.  After waiting for ONE AND A HALF HOURS, I walk to the door, fling it open, take a step out and am ready to confront the first person that walks by the door with my teeth bared and an arthritic joint model in my hand (not really) only to just about knock the doctor to the floor.  Neither one of are pleased at this event.  There are no apologies on his part and I'm about ready to pick up one of those joint models and sock him with it (I must mention that I did pick it up a couple times and swung it around just to test the heft and weight while waiting for him in case I snapped and used it on someone).

Dr. Slower-than-Molasses shows us the MRI and it definitely indicates that DD has broken her foot.  Prognosis - 4 more weeks in the boot and crutches.  Her face falls because now she has to sport a boot for Homecoming.  Her assistant at school who carried her books had thrown her a "BOOT the BOOT" party for heaven's sake.  Tears form in her eyes.  We leave there both upset and are still freaking out about the dress.  And she's starving and I have a flipping headache.

We drive to a fast food place (no endorsements here because I HATE fast food) and the food calms her down.  The Mountain Dew she drinks sparks her back up and she's freaking about the dress again.  So, we drive to the nearest mall because, you know, if we don't find something, that darned friend's dress is going to disintegrate at the dry cleaners (law of averages, right?).  Now the closest mall - well, it's about a mile long if you go the whole circuit - which we do - because we can't find anything.  She's worn out - a mile on crutches is not a good thing, and my headache is about at maximum velocity.  Did I mention that this dress had to be either black, white or a combination of the two?  Because the other dress was black and white?  We found a lot of wonderful things in other colors, but her date had already ordered her corsage - they were going to be color coordinated - they had ideas as to how they wanted to look - so only black and white would do.  OY!

DD is disappointed and hesitantly asked if we can go to another store.  I basically want to lay in the parking lot and let someone run over me before I drive to another store - preferably one of the shuttle buses -  but I tell her okay as we really have no other choice, so we get in the car and start driving across town.  While on the way her friend that owns the original dress calls and while talking to Catie tells us that the store that we're driving to is closed.  OMG, OMG!!!  But there is one down Hall Road.  Well, Hall Road is like taking your life in your hands during rush hour.  But what are you going to do?

So we brave the traffic, get to the store, look all over and can't find anything.  But wait - mom is digging into this ridicuously stuffed rack of dresses and I find one.  DD screws up her nose.  I say PLEASE, TRY IT ON, PLEASE. (please try this dress on before I start overturning racks in here and completely embarrass you and get myself arrested for going on some kind of crazed rage).  She does, and she opens the dressing room door and there is a big smile on her face - brighter than the beads on the dress.  She loves it.  And I'm almost on my knees thanking the Gods above.  She looks so pretty.  We actually get 20% off the dress because I'm cranky, really cranky at this point because 1) no, they won't hold the dress and 2) no, the dress is not returnable!  I'm about ready to go for the poor clerk's throat.  Do we leave and hope Dress #1 made it through the cleaning process and if not, Dress #2 will be there tomorrow?  No, I'm not taking that chance, so I point out two beads that are loose - one hanging by a thread (which I can easily fix but you don't tell them that), they give me the discount and then we're out the door.

I'm both breathing a sigh of relief and girding my loins for the harrowing trip back home.  For the past six hours we've been on the go - we're tired and worn out.  But wait - then DD reminds me that it's Spirit Week all week at school and tomorrow is Yellow day and we have to go to Joanne's for yellow things and we need Bedazzle stuff  to spiff up her boot and......well, you get the picture.  Joanne's was basically in the same parking lot so I said yes.  She gets her things and while standing in the check out line I think that the whole ordeal caught up with us because she spotted a pair of those wax fangs in the checkout line at Joanne's and started laughing - laughing so hard that tears were coming to her eyes.  I asked her what was so funny, and when she could finally calm down she said that she wished that I had a pair of those at the doctors office.  She said that she had a vision of me baring those things when I opened the door and almost knocked the doctor over.  Well, we ended up laughing so much over that people were looking at us quite strangely, but it certainly relieved the stress and made the whole day kind of laughable.

I collapse in a chair later and wondered why I ever signed up for this mom thing.  While DD and DH are eating leftovers (I cooked way too much food the day before, thank goodness) and I'm eating a plain omelet and dry toast to make up for the bazillion calories I ingested with that fast food lunch, my headache finally eases, but I'm still kind of crazed over the doctor visit and the stupid dry cleaners not making a simple phone call.  But then after dinner DD puts the dress on to model it and everything is okay.  She looks beautiful, she's happy, and the boot doesn't look bad after all - kind of a cute fashion statement.  And I realize then why I signed up for the mom gig!  Seeing her smiling face in that black dress was worth every exhausting minute.  So I'm calm now.

But we see the doctor in a few weeks - I don't forget easily!  LOL  And of course, as luck would have it, we picked up Dress #1 the dress from the dry cleaners a short time ago and it came out perfect:

Now she doesn't know which one to wear.  I vote for the black and white, but both are cute on her.

So rant over.  We'll return to our regularly scheduled programming in a couple days.  I know that this isn't my normal post, but I thought that it would be fun to record this on my blog and look back on this time at some point- a big time in my daughter's life - and smile again about the whole thing.  A big thank you if you made it this far!  I'll post pictures of her all dressed up and made up next week.  I'll also have some more stitching and quilting things too.  But I just had to rant!!!

Gosh - Has It Almost Been a Month?

Yes, it has, and I guess it's time to make a post.  I have been so remiss the past few weeks in reading blogs and making comments and I apologize.  I think that now that summer is here (or almost here), I've been spending more time outside than I have inside.  So I've been a bad blogger.  But I do have a finish:

Martha Jones 1792

35 ct. Vintage Examplar

DMC Threads

(http://samplers-berlin.com)

I love how she came out and the colors.  What I didn't like were the tulips in the border.  For some reason they gave me headaches!  I love how the words "Paradife" and "difgrac'd" are spelled.  I've never seen that in a sampler - replacing an 's' with an 'f'.

I also liked that there were some different stitches in this piece - like the Algerian Eye baskets and the satin stitching.  There were a couple caveats in the chart though.  There were a couple colors called for that were never used - as far as I could tell.  The blue bird in the tree was suppose to be a different color, but as blue was called for in the list of threads, yet I never came across the symbol in the chart for it,  I made the bird blue.  There was also one other color called for that was never used - 407. Some of the symbols were also a little hard to differentiate also, but all in all, it was a fun stitch.

On the quilting side, I've managed to stay on top of the Cotton Club blocks, and finished up the six that I had sitting around.   Good thing too because the next month of blocks came today:

I love working on these blocks, and I think that I only have a couple more months and the quilt can be put together.

I've also been working on the Chippewa Nine Patch quilt here and there:  All the strips have been made into nine patch blocks:

And they're ready to be assembled into this - I only (yes, only) need 25 of them:

They'll all look a little different depending on how I put the individual nine patch blocks together.  I can't wait to get through these so that I can put the quilt together.  The rest of the fabric looks like this (sorry for the dark pic):

And last but not least, the Phebe quilt.  No, I really haven't started it, but I have traced out all the pieces:

Not the best picture - sorry.  But by my estimation, there are about 209 pieces in just the very center of this quilt.  You hear that Margaret and Cari????  OY!  I think that I've bitten off more than I should have with this.  Because after this, there is another border that is appliqued.  I don't know what the third month will bring, but I'm breaking out in beads of sweat just thinking about it!!

So that's what I've been up to the past month or so.  Part of the reason I haven't been parking my behind the computer so much is that last month I celebrated another birthday (thank you again to all you that remembered) and even though it wasn't a milestone (that's a couple years off), I just decided that I sit too much gazing into the wonderful world of the internet being enabled and getting myself into trouble.  So, I've been doing a lot of this:

Last week I walked 33 miles.

And a lot of this (until I blew out one of my tires):

And eating things like this - yum:

Salmon Fruit Salad w/Raspberry-Maple Vinaigrette

And I'm not going to make this into a cooking blog, but this dressing is wonderful and non-fat:

Raspberry-Maple Vinaigrette

1/2 cup raspberry vinegar

1/4 cup of maple syrup

1/4 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. fresh ground pepper

2 garlic cloves, minced

2 tsp. Worcestershire Sauce

1 Tbl. Dijon Mustard

Put it all in a lidded container and shake!  This stuff is great - low fat and big on taste - you don't need a lot!!

So that's what I've been up to and why I haven't been a good blogger.  I find that getting up and taking Bailey for his morning walk,  I don't feel like sitting down after and I then take off on my own either on foot or bike.  You can only cover so much distance or go so fast with a dog that likes to visit every mailbox in the neighborhood!  LOL  My son has also been getting me to do PX-90 with him.  We won't talk about that one!  I hope to goodness that he never makes a video of me doing it and puts it on YouTube.  I'd never be able to live it down.  So anyway, all of this is good for me, but not good for blogging obviously!  But I will get back to it and catch up with everyone.  There are some days - like today when it's going to be 95 - that unless its early morning or late evening, you don't want to be out in the heat.  So today it's catch up time.

Hope that everyone has a great week!  And thank you for all the wonderful comments that you leave.  I love hearing from everyone!

Framing, Quilting and Misc. Stuff (Lots of Pics)

Happy Sunday everyone!!  After a taste of winter last Friday (one of the few that we've seen), it's a beautiful sunny day here.  Makes you realize that Spring is just around the corner!!

It's been a busy couple of weeks around Chez Roman recently.  Nothing earth shattering, but more that while trying to recuperate from this vicious bug, I took it easy - a lot of sleeping and a lot of sewing!  I've been so tired with this!!  But, I'm feeling much better now (thank you to all that left comments)!!  I know that I'm not the only one that has been hit by some kind of malady recently.

First, I finally took Sun and Moon to be framed and had it back in three days!!  That's record service.  It was sitting around here collecting dust and then one day a coupon for 60% off plus an additional $10 came in the mail, so there was certainly no reason to let it continue to collect dust! (Note: there is some white thing on the right hand cherub.  It's not there in real life but just may be a reflection of something - it's very bright here today).

The frame is just a simple one and slightly distressed, but I thought that it was perfect for the piece:

I managed to get a little more done on Ann Rayner.  I just have a little bit more of the four sided alphabet and the Greek styled border underneath and I get to the good parts!!

Because I haven't had a ton of energy (although it's starting to return now - just wish I could get rid of the plugged head and coughing), I decided to tackle a couple quilting projects.  One is a quilt called the Cotton Club that I had been receiving as a BOM:

Every month a blogging friend, Julie would tell me how she was caught up with the current month's blocks, and I was just staring at mine.  So I took action and cranked those babies out:

All 25 done!  I'm all caught up!!!!  But what do I see - Oh no, a problem block?  Do you see it?  Look on the lower right hand side.

Obviously I got a little over zealous in my pursuit to get these blocks caught up and wasn't paying attention to detail.  It's been fixed now!

Then I worked on the Farmer's Wife Quilt a little bit more:

Three more rows almost put together.  You'll notice that one row is shy of being finished.  That's because I have to redo a couple blocks which seems a shame.  One of the blocks looks almost perfect except that if I sew it onto the next row there won't be points on the side:

There's about 56 pieces in this darned block, but if you notice, the points at the bottom will be completely cut off when I attach it to the sashing that is between the rows of blocks!  UGH!!!  So I'm going to redo it.  I've been putting it off, but I really need to bite the bullet.  I've love to have this quilt completely finished.

Now that I'm caught up with the Cotton Club and because working on the Farmer's Wife consistently drives me up the wall sometimes (meaning I still suffer from Crafter's ADD), I picked my next project.  I had put this kit together last year and then got caught up in other things, so this is the next quilting victim:

I've already started slicing and dicing the fabric and I can't wait to put the pedal to the medal and start cranking this baby out!  I'm anxious to have this one finished before the nicer weather gets here.  I don't tend to sew much once the weather breaks and starts to really warm up.

Recently, I came across sewing article that is very much dear to my heart in one of the boxes I've been going through.  It's a sewing kit - owned by a WWII veteran.  That veteran was my father.  He was a Canadian (at the time - he later became a US citizen) and in the Canadian Navy.  I tried to find a picture of him in uniform, but they're somewhere buried in a box that I haven't gone through yet.

I do think that it's rather funny - if you click on the picture to make it larger, you will notice that the bobbins of thread and the large spool of thread are all made in the USA.  I suppose that I thought that they would have been made by a Canadian or English company.  Perhaps these kits were supplied by the US.  I guess that would be a good thing to investigate one of these days.

And last but not least, Nicola recently asked for pics of Fur Babies sleeping.  I didn't get around to taking pictures in time for her contest, but realized that I haven't posted pics of my Fur Baby in quite a while, so here are just a few:

The lion that roared at bath time (don't tell him I posted this - I doubt that he would love pictures during his toilette splashed over the internet - to be viewed by a bunch of stitchers):

Such a cute face.  And what a pink nose!!  Poodles and poodle mixes have a tendency for their noses to turn pink in the colder weather.  And notice those long eye lashes!!

Bailey with Catie:

And sleeping next to my stitching chair on his favorite old bedspread.  He's such a sweetheart and my buddy.

I know that there is a lot of talk about the evil word verification thing going on.  I've jumped back and forth about taking it off.  I think that it's off now.  I had turned it off and within three hours I got a lot of silly Anonymous comments.  I thought that they were actually appearing in my Comments section on my blog so I turned it back on.  But then I realized that they are being sent to SPAM so I've turned it off again.  If you comment and notice that it's still on, let me know and I'll make sure that it's turned off.

That's it for me.  I hope that everyone has a wonderful week!!  And again, thank you for all your comments.  I really love hearing from you!!