Anticipation

Have you ever gotten to the point where you are stitching a piece and dreaming about what to stitch next?  Have you gotten down to the last stitches and started auditioning the next piece to stitch as you are putting those last stitches in?  Poor Freelove was an experience like that for me.  As I was stitching the last leafy motif in the bottom right hand corner, I started putting pics up on my computer of each Scarlet Letter piece I was thinking of stitching.  As each was considered for a while, I was feeling that anticipation of starting a new project.  But none of the pieces was totally grabbing me, and I felt I needed that kind of enthusiasm to get me going.  Finally I thought of -- 

But hey, I'm getting ahead of myself here.  I did get those last stitches put into Freelove Hazard.  Here she is.

Freelove Hazard by the Scarlet Letter

45ct Vintage Examplar

AVAS fibers

I must mention that the blue I used wasn't the blue called for on the chart.  It was the blue that was sent to me so I used it.  I must say I like the brightness of it.  I also used a different red for the border around Freelove's age.  I used a brighter red since that was what was used in the picture and I liked that bright red.  Not sure why the bright red wasn't charted.

 

Ok, now back to the story at hand.  As I was putting those last stitches into Freelove, I thought about the fact that I really wanted to stitch more A&E samplers.  And I also decided that even though huge samplers always take such a long time to stitch, I have so many huge samplers I really really want to stitch.  So I started thinking about huge A&E samplers.  And came up with this.

Ah yes!  The lovely Jane Atkinson, from the Scarlet Letter.  Sigh.  I'd forgotten exactly what the border looked like, and looking at it anew, I realized it really didn't look that terrible to stitch.  :D   And I started drooling all over the gorgeous reds in the piece.  So last stitches taken in Freelove, I immediately jumped up with great enthusiasm and pulled Jane from my stash.  I didn't even mind having to audition fabrics for her (which I usually hate).   I was happily stitching away on Jane by the evening.

Jane Atkinson by the Scarlett Letter

40ct Sugared Coffee by Sassy's Fabrics

AVAS fibers

Not much done, but I'm a happy camper!  I think I needed some enthusiasm for what I was stitching.  I'm hoping the enthusiasm stays!

In the past few weeks, I've won a few prizes from other lovely blogging ladies.  One hasn't arrived yet, but the other two are shown here.  First, from Barbara of Mainely Stitching, I won this chart.

 

I love Mary Garry, so I was thrilled to win!  Thanks, Barbara!

Next, I won the quilt prize from Jackie's blog, Jackie's Stitches.  

As you can see, I won a charm pack of the Blessings line from Brannock and Patek -- which I love!   And also a lovely pattern for using charms, which is perfect!  Thank you, Jackie!

Finally, Sherry of Blog It is having a chart giveaway, so go on over and visit her blog.

In other news, the dreaded NYSSMA audition is over and done with.   Found the audition location with no problems and the boy child had plenty of time to warm up and get all psyched for the big audition.  We think the audition went well.  The boy child's piece sounded wonderful and his pianist was great.  There may have been a stumble or two in the scales and the sight reading, but hopefully not majorly so.  And the nice thing -- for once, the adjudicator was friendly, happy, and seemed to be enjoying the whole process.  I'm hoping that means he's not one of those tough judges.  lol!   

Of course, the best part of NYSSMA being done for the boy child is ----   no practicing for a whole week!!  :D   He didn't have lessons this past weekend because of a mock AP exam, so nothing to practice!  He deserves the rest, that's for sure!  And truth to tell, after NYSSMA is over, his teacher usually goes easy on him for a few weeks anyway.  Yay!   We should get the scores back from his audition in a week or two.  From that we might be able to guess whether he made All State or Area All State or nothing at all.  We won't know for sure until the fall -- which is when the actual announcements are made.  Fingers crossed!  

Thanks for stopping by and saying hi.  I hope you have a great week!

I love me some Freelove

Not much to post about this time around.  Just some progress pictures of Freelove Hazard.

Freelove Hazard by the Scarlet Letter

45ct Vintage Examplar

AVAS fibers

It may look like the bird and the two side flowers/leaves on top have no color, but it's a light pink that's hard to see in the picture.

 

Haven't gotten anymore quilting done for two reasons.  One, that little neck problem I mentioned last time.  I didn't want to aggravate it and it felt aggravated.  So I gave the quilting a break to recover. 

Second, I found a cozy space for my quilting stuff.  Yay!  (That's not the reason I haven't done any sewing.  I'll come to that, I promise.)   Loretta, my old friend from way back when, asked why I wasn't using the large, spacious dining table in our back room to set up my sewing.  Well, old friend, you haven't seen our large, spacious dining table, nor the back room, for quite a while!  lol!  The dining table has (still has for that matter) large piles of mail, magazines, etc from my beloved father type all over it.  And there are extra pieces of furniture back there that used to not be there in the old days.  But I decided that Loretta was right -- there would be lots of space back there for my little Featherweight and my ironing board if I just did a bit of work.  So I did!  I cleared enough space in the back room and the dining table so that I could set things up and not have to worry about moving it all every time we eat.  Yay!  

(If you look closely, you can see some of the piles of mail etc from cute father types still on the table.)

Why can't I sew away then, you ask?  Well, reason number two, besides reason number one (the neck), is that the back room gets cold.  We actually shut it up in late fall, winter and early spring so that the heater won't have to work overtime.  (We have another dining table in the livingroom for the winter season.)  And the weather has cooled off again so the back room is shut off for part of the day until it warms up.  So that's the other reason I haven't been sewing.  But reason number one is the main reason.  :D  Also reason number 3 -- feeling overwhelmed by the number of 9 patch blocks I have to tackle.  lol!   I've been thinking that maybe I should make one of the simpler quilts on my list first and sew my strip sets once in a while in the meantime.  We'll see.

In other news, remember how I told you that the girl child is  a last minute kinda girl?  Well, she proved it yet again.  Friday afternoon around 2:30, she emailed (didn't call, just emailed) asking if it would be ok if she came home that evening.  She said she would probably be home by 10pm.  Talk about short notice!  So home she came for the weekend.  It was nice seeing her again, especially since she'd missed out on Easter.  We even got to go see Alice in Wonderland, although not in 3D.  Which was fine by me, personally.   She's back at college again now.  Not much longer till she'll be home for the summer!

The boy child had his rehearsal with the pianist Friday evening in preparation for his NYSSMA All State audition.  I think both he and I were pleasantly surprised with how well it went.  I'm feeling much better about his chances for doing well now come this Friday.  And I think both the boy child and I are looking forward to NYSSMA being over and done with.  Just one last push to the finish and then we can relax!  I did find out something I hadn't known.  If you make All State, not only do you do the All State concert.  You also do the Area All State concert, which the boy child did last fall.  So two concerts!  I haven't mentioned this to the boy child.  I'm hoping at this point that he makes Area All State and not even thinking about All State!  

Finally, head on over to Edgar's blog.  If you do,  you can enter his 3 year blogoversary giveaway.  I always love reading Edgar's blog, Blacksheep's Bit of the Web.   

Thanks for stopping by and saying hi!  I hope you all have a great week!

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