Weekend

Hello blog reader, and Happy Vaentine's Day. Thanks for coming back.

Things are slowing down a bit at work, and I have the weekend off - the first of the year. To celebrate, I let myself wake up without an alarm clock. Let my body tell me how much sleep it needs. It appears that I need 12 hours of sleep! It was very refreshing.

Then I got up and started thinking about all the things I wanted to do. Cleaning is high on the list, as is making the ATCs for the birthday swap. Return some unread library books. While the library is open, for a change. Maybe make a quilt or two. Just kidding about that one. I'm not that out of it.

Then I remembered, that I have a lot of work to do for my other job.

I guess I don't have the weekend free after all. That's all right, it is fun, and I get to make my own schedule.

Hope yours is a good one.

Lamp

Before Christmas, my mother asked me what I wanted. I couldn't think of a thing, having recently splurged at the office supply and drug stores. But I knew I had to be prepared, so when my sister called, I gave her a big list. I figured she could choose among the items, and share the rest of the ideas with the others, or simply leave them for me. So I was very happily surprised when she had gotten me almost everything on my list. That snow shovel has come in very handy lately.

She has gotten new carpeting recently, and is rearranging her furniture to redecorate her house. I went over to see it, and lo and behold she had gotten me the remaining item on my list - a lamp for my nightstand. My bedroom has been the only room in the house that was never officially decorated when I moved in. Sure I had purchased bedroom furniture, but I am still using the curtains that the former owner had in there. The rest of the stuff in there is for practicality - I needed storage space for the quilting supplies, and my daughter was no longer using a particular shelf, so it moved into my room. The bedroom tends to be the last room I clean when I am cleaning, and since it serves as storage for the quilting supplies, it tends to get quite cluttered, and dusty.

The lamp in my room was an old desk lamp that is an ugly battleship gray. It is also a desk lamp that takes up a lot of space. The fluorescent light has recently not been turning off properly. I would reach over to push the button to turn it on, and before my hand even touches anything, the light will start flickering.

I made the switch, and that little table lamp has transformed my room. It was chosen to match the furniture. The lighting is soft and pretty. So I am cleaning out my room, and doing my own little remodel. It is going to be a slow process - 15 minutes a day probably, but the nightstand and the corner look really nice. The downstairs areas are having to wait so hopefully the visitors can get the clean vibe from the bedroom and look at the downstairs accordingly!

New Block of the Month

Beth Ferrier has designed a new quilt for this year's block of the month program. This year's is called Now and Forever.

Even if you don't want to make the whole quilt - it always has piecing and applique - I still recommend that you make the blocks using her directions. You'll learn new nifty ways to make the blocks and hopefully you can incorporate her techniques into other quilts that you make. Each block is available until the 15th of the month, and then the next block is up. So be sure to download it every month. If you miss downloading a month, you can substitute another block or purchase the old one from Beth.

I've done a couple of her quilts - Moondance and Lillibet's Garden. They are both wonderful quilts, even though I haven't finished them yet. I'm slow on the applique parts.

Hello!

I'm still alive and well and wondering what I got myself into when taking this job. There are long hours, and the pace is fast, but I've been told that it does slow down eventually.

This morning, while I was still in bed, I made myself a list of things I needed to do - laundry, dishes, putting plastic up on the windows, etc. This job has been expensive for me - the plastic is not up on the windows and we had several storms and below zero weather already. About $25 of my CVS Care Bucks expired, and I have been eating out a bunch, because I haven't had any time to go grocery shopping. If I do this job again next year, I will have a bigger wardrobe to start so I don't have to do laundry as often, and I will go on a big grocery shopping expedition beforehand. I might have to sleep all week before, so I have a reserve of sleep. :)

Anyway, I eventually dragged myself out of bed and got ready for the day. I made the coffee and turned on the computer while I was waiting for it to brew. There was an email from my LQS talking about the SuperBowl sale. I had known about it earlier, but I had forgotten. I quickly called my Mom and the two of us trekked off to the shop. Well it isn't a long trek, since the shop is in the neighborhood. She had never been there. It was crowded, but we got to look at lots of beautiful quilts and touch lots of wonderful fabric. I didn't buy much - the kit I wanted she wanted too so I let her have it, even though I bought the book.

It was really nice to be able to do something fun for a change. Now I guess I have to rush around doing my chores and get ready for the next workweek!

Hurry Up and Rest

I was able to schedule a day off today. The plan was to take College Girl to school, but she wanted to go yesterday. So we woke up early Saturday and trekked her off to school before work.


Today I am trying to relax, and catch up on all the housework that has been waiting for me. I have a big stack of library books I checked out that keep coming due, but I have no time to even look through them. I think I should probably return them all at one time, and get them later so I don't have to worry about late fees.



And it snowed again, so I have more shoveling to do.

Last week, my other job called. The one I work at during the spring and the fall. The prep work for the spring project starts this week. I'm sure it is a crazy move, but I said yes. I'll have to work it in with all my free time. LOL

I know this post sounds awful stressed, but it is a good stress. I am enjoying what I am doing so far, and I do enjoy the other job as well. And I especially like having money to pay the big bills that are coming in, especially my VISA bill from my free-after-rebate splurges during the holidays.


And my week hasn't been completely non-quilty. I won these fat quarters over at Carolyn's Ohio Quilter's Journey. Thank you so much Carolyn. They are so bright and cheery. I'm going to leave them out so I can look at them, and imagine the fun I will have quilting in the summer.

Working

I've been working on a new job lately. It is another temporary / seasonal assignment. I'm brand new and I am in charge of an office. Last week, I was there from the time the office was opened to the time it was closed. Came home, went to bed, went back to work again. All week. There are three other employees. One of them just found out she is pregnant and isn't feeling well. She took a sick day. The other one has family issues, and wasn't able to attend any of the training, or the makeup training. I had to try to train her in between all the regular work. She also took a sick day. The other one has prearranged commitments that keep her from working two days every week.

This week, I am getting four new employees. Yeah, I guess we might have been short staffed last week!

I'm not sure how I'm going to handle all my new found free time if / when I get it. I know the laundry and dust bunnies, and the bed, and quilting will all be competing for precious minutes.

Crazy Orange

Bear Picnic wanted to see a closeup of the quilt I had on the door. I'm happy to show you. It is no longer on the door, but it is on the wall in the bathroom. One day I am going to make a quilt for the kitchen too. My goal is to have at least one quilt in every room and hallway! The background is pieced in alternating colors.




The circles are appliqued on, and I did a chain stitch using crochet thread around each of the circles, thinking I might be able to make the circles look rounder. I wasn't successful in that attempt, and don't think the embellishment actually added anything, but since it didn't take anything away, I'm not taking it out. It has the lovely checkerboard border that I always like. Overall, it isn't my favorite work, but I do like it and it was fun to make.



Just to show that I wasn't showing this to get away from showing quilting progress, I made three crazy blocks over the New Year holiday. There were lots of hard decisions to make. I started out with the simple oranges that came as a kit, the same ones I used for the pumpkins - but they looked too similar to me. The inspiration quilt was mostly orange with some yellow highlights. I added other oranges to make it more interesting, which includes fabrics that I am told are African. It's the fabric that has black and green in it. Both of the pieces I used are different parts of the same fabric. The other African fabric is the orange with the shiny gold in it. I used a very small piece in this block so you'll have to look at the closeup if you want to see it. I got some from a quilt show, and have been trying to think of good uses for them. I also added shiny metallic fabric, and a velvety one. The yellow fabric with the flowers is an old dress of my mother's. That dress or fabric was actually purchased in Africa. I also added black as an accent - I hope I don't regret that. Since I wasn't using scraps, I had to decide what size and shape to cut each fabric. I'm having fun with it.