Saturday, December 31, 2005

I did it!!!!

I can't believe it. . . I got down to the wire and just on the last day of the month, last day of the year finished it! My office/crafting studio is finally cleaned and organized. (I still have eBay/Amazon stuff to sell, and a file pile to go through for 2005 files but that's normal for the end of every year!)


I'm talking about the fact that all of my yarn and fabrics and other supplies are organized, My floor and sewing table are clean and ready to go for a project, and if someone wanted to come into this room for something I wouldn't be embarrassed! I've conquered the room, and at the end of the month, I won! I'm liking this goal for a month thingie because it's much more attainable to reach success. It doesn't feel like a huge life change, but at the end of the month my goal is a habit after all that work through the month so whether or not I plan to, I continue with my goal. Plus it feels good to do it still. Now I just have to decide what the goal for next month will be?????
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My closet with the doors removed. Yarn by type, fabric also by type, wips bins, scrap yarn and scrap fabric bins. . . a collection of stationary and office supplies that I forgot I even had, scrapbooking supplies, my knitting machine, and of course my pink project bag!


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My sewing table with my embroidery machine, Sewing machine with it's recycled sweater cover, serger, cone thread and some embroidery and quilting threads, a million notions, some extra canning jars that may store future notions, quilting mat, folding chair and iron.

The other 2 walls are my bookcase and desk, I cleaned them up for the most part too, other than the eBay stuff and file pile mentioned above. I didn't think anyone really wanted to see a bookcase or a desk. . . if you've seen one, you've seen em'all! You'll just have to take my word for it that I've cleaned them!

I would eventually like to clear more and have less clutter in here. I guess as I ebay and file stuff that will happen naturally. I'm just tickled pink that the floor is clear, and that I can access my desk or chair without having to move something first!

Wednesday, December 28, 2005

I hated the last purse I made

And I really really needed a replacement. But I didn't have $$ to invest in any that I liked. I searched for a while for a deal but I couldn't find one that was worth my $$ so I decided to make my own. I had these batik quilt squares from an eBay auction from almost 2 years ago that I had not used. I wanted to make something spectacular from them but was unsure as to what that might be. I also had some brown mini cordaroy fabric left over from another project. After finding these while searching through my stash I decided I would patchwork the squares and then quilt them. I had so much fun making up the design for my quilting work. I've never done anything like this before and it was really fun. This is the finished product. I'm so much happier with this purse. I don't know who I was trying to fool by having an oversized purse. It just resulted in lots of stuff getting lost and lots of frustration on cold winter days in parkinglots searching for my keys. . . This bag has no pockets I planned it that way! I'm going to be making or buying a purse organizer so it's all good! As it is though all of my stuff fits perfectly so I doubt I would have any problems with anything getting lost. I guess that remains to be seen though.
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Monday, December 26, 2005

Christmas Day

Charmie and Mardie were overwhelmed to say the least.  They enjoyed lots of (too much) candy and of course all of their presents.  Their distended cheeks, drooling chins dripping with candy and how they are clutching these presents says it all to me. We had to pry them from their hands to get them to open the rest of their stuff and that continued on with each gift!  This CD and DVD were just stocking stuffers. . . they hadn't gotten to what was under the tree yet, lol.  To only be a child again!



Grandpa and Grandma Ray were with us for this gift exchange.  We later went over to my brother-in-law and sister's home for a Christmas Day meal with their family and gift exchange from my family!  Too bad I didn't have my camera to take pics of that feast and the mele' that ensued when 4 kids were tossing paper and packaging every which way.  This year's celebration of Christ's birth has been filled with family, fun, and fond memories.  It is a true blessing to share this time with each and every family member. 

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Christmas Eve Dinner

We had 2 holiday meals this year for Christmas.  This is the first.  At our home.  Everyone is in the picture except for me and Rocky's mom. . . We were both taking pictures.  We had a nice meal of Turkey, Duck and Ham with sides of Sweet Potato Cassarole, Stuffing, Green Bean Cassarole, Rolls, Cranberry Orange Rellish, and Mac-n-cheese.   Yum.  We did the meal potluck style so everyone contributed something.  To me that's really neat because everyone can do something that they are really great at.  Rocky and I decided to not try to undertake a Turducken this year, though we thought about it long and hard. 
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Namesakes

Here Charmie sits with Grandpa Charlie and Mardie is held by Grandpa Martin their namesakes. 
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Daddy's belts

Both boys love to play with Rocky's belts.  Here they are at the entry to my office.  They can go no further because there's a baby gate preventing them, but they wandered in with the belts and their diapers so I had to get a pic.
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With Grandma Manuel

Charmie and Mardie with Grandma.  I try to snag pics like this whenever I get a chance.  It's not often.  Neither boy likes to really be held for any period of time and when they do, they are so quick it's rare that I can get my camera in time before they jump down.  They had just gotten up from nap and needed some snuggle time with Grandma!  I think my mommy would agree it doesn't get ANY better than this!
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Stalking. . .

OK, I know that Stocking is the correct spelling but when your 2-1/2 year old is prancing around the house wearing on his head a stocking cap you knitted, his on one leg the Christmas stocking that you just knitted, and on the other his baby's first Christmas stocking all at once and nothing else but his training pants stalking is a pretty good descriptor!  It's even funnier that I came out of the kitchen and found him like this.  All of these items were put away in their respective homes.  He could get to them, but it's not like I had them gathered together or gave him any instruction!
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Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Mardie's stocking


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I just finished Mardie's stocking.  I just need to figure out what I'm going to do to personalize them. 

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

less than an hour hat

After making the stocking I started looking at the patterns I had for my knitting machine.  I found some that I want to try and one of them was this hat.  It took between 30 minutes to an hour.  I'm still learning on my machine.  This is only my 3rd project.  Rocky liked it and wants one.  I want to make one for each of my Ray boys.  I think this one will end up being Mardie's.  Though I intended it for Charmie, and followed the pattern, it's a little smaller than I wanted.  I will make his and Rocky's bigger.  I need to figure out a way to add ear flaps to this one so that I can tie it onto Mardie's head.  That's the only way he'll wear it.



Like some of the other times I've tried to get Charmie to model for me I had difficulty getting him to pose and be still.  Here he's taking a picture of me with his photo ring.  And in the other one he was turning to run away!
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Stocking full of inspiration

My crafty friends Jennifer and Christi have inspired me.  Jennifer made a beautiful hand quilted Christmas stocking for her son Mycah and is working on a second one for her daughter Trinity.  She recently started sewing and quilting and I've seen some of the garmets and housewares that she's made and they are awesome.  Especially for someone who just started. 



Likewise my friend Christi has wanted to branch out from recently starting sewing into needlecrafts and has picked up knitting.  I was exposed to crafting as a child so learning the concepts comes easy, but for someone who hasn't been exposed it's so impressive to me when they learn and start making things.  Christi found this tool called a Knifty Knitter that is like a loom for knitting.  She's been making hats and scarves and I think from what I've seen they are really cute. . .



All this creativity reminded me that I've been wanting to break out my knitting machine and get busy but haven't so I decided to search for Christmas stocking patterns and knit one for each of my sons.  They don't have stockings.  Last year they shared the "baby's first" stocking that had been up for each of them, but this is neither of their first Christmas so they needed a real stocking. 



Here's Charmie's, I'm still trying to decide how to personalize it.  I will be working on Mardie's probably tonight if I have the time.  I used wool blend yarn.  The stocking is over 2 feet long.  It will hold plenty of Christmas goodies!
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Monday, December 05, 2005

The most beautiful serge I ever did see

I have had some problems with my serger. Not that it's broken or anything. Not that I couldn't use it for finishing edges that I didn't want seen, but it was just really making ugly serges. The stitching was really loopy like I took my thread, unwound it from the spool, threw it on the cut edge and used my sewing machine to try to stitch it down. It was so loopy that when I opened the seam it would show the stitches like a set of railroad tracks. I was frustrated and fed up, but not worrying too much about fixing it due to the fact that I wasn't really trying to sew or serge anything important. A mend here and there. . . a hidden seam that was already sewn by my sewing machine and just needed to not ravel.
Well Saturday I got fed up. I mean I had 2 courses at college in tailoring and garment construction. I should be able to serge a pretty seam. I was honestly being lazy about it. I whipped out my little Janome book and turned to the pages describing the incorrect serge seams and how to correct them and lost my ability to read or discern differences. It was like being a preschooler all over again and looking at the screen as the song plays, "which of these things is not like the other, which of these things is not the same. . ." I was lost. After studying it for what seemed like hours and comparing it to my seam and not finding a good match I decided to pick the closest one and try to achieve perfection using that adjustment. I had to serge about 50-100 seams on scraps before I quit and we went to get our Christmas tree. It was not working. It seemed like no matter what I did it was not fixing the problem. I was really disturbed about it now, I mean what's a girl to do when she's done all that she can and the serger is still possessed?
Well in the afternoon my sister came over, and as I was explaining the problem, and showing her my proud pile of serged seams I looked and noticed that one of my threads was completely out of the guide for the lower looper! Hallelujah! In all of my concern over adjustments I neglected to just see if it was threaded properly in the first place.
I realized that the last time I rethreaded I just did a quick job of it and possibly missed some other steps so I retraced them all. . . made sure every tension was threaded through, every guide had yarn in it. etc.
And then voila! I produced as if it were magic the perfect serged seam. I felt like an idiot that it just took a few seconds of being careful to negate a whole morning's worth of work. But I had a beautiful seam!

Saturday, December 03, 2005

Our Christmas Tree Tradition

Rocky and I, mostly Rocky due to the fact that this wasn't in my family traditions from the past, but I have to put me too, because we are married and one. . . decided this year to start a new tradition for our family to go and pick our own Christmas tree with the boys. Since this is a new tradition for our family Rocky did the research and found Pinetop Tree Farm off Majolica road in Salisbury. We drove over and took a tractor/hay ride out to the tree groves and after walking around for a while we found this beaut. Our tree. It was the shape and size that we were looking for. It's an Eastern White Pine. It has long needles. This tree has a differnt look from the trees that I've seen as Christmas trees in the past. I'm used to the short needle variety. It's very soft and has a nice pine smell. Rocky and Charmie cut it down together. Then Rocky shook off the excess needles. We brought it home, set it up and dressed it with lights, garland, ornaments both old and new and even some home made cinnamon spice ones. We had a great day!
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Pinup girl

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Here's a pincushion doll I made tonight. I have no pincushion and really needed one. Though my pins don't roll due to their head shape they are a mess to pick up from a smooth surface. If I make another I'll give her a better skeleton, but she will work for now just fine.