startitis strikes again!

Ah well, the title of this post says it all.  Sigh.  What's next, you ask?  Well, that's a good question!  Here's the first item I picked up. 

SDW Sampler from the Scarlet Letter

40ct mystery R&R fabric, vintagey

AVAS fibers

But I was having difficulty with this one.  The motifs are very huge.  And that double running area up at the top.  Hmmmmm.  Not happy with that.  

So I wandered off to the next item.

  Freelove Hazard from the Scarlet Letter

45ct Vintage Examplar

AVAS fibers

This one was going slowly, namely because my eyes have gotten progressively worse since the last time I stitched on 45ct fabric.  So I had to make a trip to get some new "reading" glasses, ie magnifiers.  (I wear them in front of my regular glasses, the ones with the bifocal type lenses in them.)  

 

I did make some progress eventually though.   But it's slow.  

I think startitis hits the worst when the boy child is on break at home from school.  It was his spring break last week.  Thus the startitis.  

Anyway, the boy child was back at school starting yesterday.  So of course, I started something else!

I have a million more of these strip sets to sew in order to make a million 9 patch blocks, which go into making 25 nine patches of 9 patch blocks, which go into making a quilt.  You can sort of see the pattern underneath the strip sets.  I'm looking forward to the setting blocks made out of this.

Ah such luscious, red gorgeousness!  I just hope I'm up to this quilt.  It's a big one!

I worked so long yesterday that I could feel my crotchety neck muscles seizing up.  So I have to take a break from the piecing today!  Don't want to end up in bed with a neck that doesn't work (which happened to me a couple of years ago.  Don't ask.).

Now for those of you who are lucky enough to have a sewing room to yourself, where you can spread out, leave your sewing machine and iron and all the pieces of your project all over the place without causing a mess to be tripped over by other family members, I have one thing to say.   Can you lend me your sewing room?   Pleeeeease???   I have my sewing machine on my ironing board (it's a Featherweight (the sewing machine is a Featherweight, not the ironing board)), along with the cutting board and ruler and rotary cutter, the iron, the strips to be sewn, the strip sets that have been sewn, etc etc.  The ironing board is tottering precariously at rest in front of the chest of drawers, in the hope that no one will need to get into said chest of drawers to get to their clothes.  Or if clothes are needed, the hope is that said ironing board will be moved safely aside to access the clothes and then moved safely back again.  Without dumping the Featherweight onto the floor.  See why I tend to not want to quilt?   Stitching is so much easier.  The project just stays on my table by my stitching chair.  I neeeed a sewing rooooom!!!!!!   Argh!!!!  

So I guess the family is going to be tripping over said tottering ironing board for a while.  This is a biiiig quilt.  lol!

On a different subject, a few days back, I was sitting minding my own business when all of a sudden there was this loud swishing noise followed by loud bumps of what sounded like a screen door.  I got freaked out -- who was trying to get into the house?  Or who HAD gotten into the house?!  Eeek!   I went to the back to investigate, but there was nothing and no one.  The noise continued though, so I followed my ears to the basement door.  How strange!  I looked down the stairs of the basement -- nothing, no one.  But then the noise happened again!  And there, in this strange space we have in our house opposite the basement door, was a bird.

Now I'm going to bore you all to death.  You see, our house used to be a summer house.  We live up the road from a lake, and all the houses around here used to be summer houses specifically built and geared toward that lake.  So our house has two back doors.  One of the back doors, the one with the strange space in it, has the back door, then a weird, very small enclosed porch area, then the screen/glass door.  The enclosed porch area was supposed to be used to knock off all the sand from the beach that is down at the lake.  Now you get the picture.  The poor bird had gotten trapped in this little enclosed space. 

As you can see, me being a meanie and wanting to save this experience for posterity (and for my blogging friends), I grabbed a picture before I did anything humane.  The pic was taken through the glass of the door, thus the quality.  Then I rushed outside (after putting some decent clothes on) and opened the screen/glass door and saw the poor thing fly away.  Whew!  He was just fine, no problem.  So my picture taking didn't do any harm.  

In other news, we had a nice, calm Easter.  No girl child since she had a conference to take care of at college/work.  No Easter egg dyeing for the first time since the kids were born.  But the boy child did get Easter candy, and there's some Easter candy waiting for the girl child when she makes her way home again.  The father type cooked a delicious meal as usual, and we were very content.  

Now it's back to school this week.  And the boy child is gearing up for his annual NYSSMA audition.  Ugh!   He's doing All State auditions for the first time this year (first year he's old enough).  And for the first time he has a piano accompaniment.  Which means trying to schedule rehearsals, etc etc etc.  Double ugh.  And NYSSMA is early this year by practically a month, which is not what is needed.   More time is needed, not less time!  Oh well.  

Sorry for all the wordiness.  Thanks for stopping by and saying hi.  I so enjoy being a part of the blogging, stitching community.  Sorry to have kept you all in suspense about what was next for me stitchingwise.  In case you're wondering, I think I'm going to concentrate on Freelove for a while.  :D