W.I.P.

Here is the progress so far on the latest piece of jewelry. I've pretty much decided that this is actually right side up, even though in the original plan this would have been upside down, but I like it better this way.

So you can see, I'm on the down hill side of this project!

And, I can report that the white sheep is once again all stitched and ready for turning. She has morphed into a suffolk (you know, those white sheep with black faces?), and I do like the contrast. Maybe it was meant for this one to have an identity crisis...after all, I used an alpaca/silk blend pile to make this one, and certainly the fiber conflicts are confusing her.

I spent a lot of time again yesterday working on taxes. Went to the local Borders and picked up a reference book put together by Ersnt and Young, an item which has stood me in good stead for years in getting this project done. The last couple of years I haven't induldged myself with this "security blanket" but this year I'll be doing a few more returns than I had the past few, so I thought a refresher course was a good plan. So now we're at the "plug the total numbers into the spread sheet from the detail spread sheet" stage. Tedious.

Today I will "reward" myself for being so diligent by allowing some time to work on a new design drawing I'm working on.







And another arc of the quilt is done too.

Yesterday morning we began the "un decorating". We always leave Christmas up until after January 6 for the Feast of the Kings, but now its time to put it all away. We hauled all the boxes out of the corner of the garage, and while we were at it, we pulled out a rug that we want to use after we replace the family room flooring (more about that later), and a box of punch bowls which we'll probably need for a wedding reception in August.

I put away the wreath from the front door so even if it takes us another week (and it probably will) we don't look too nuttsy from the street.

Today's excursions include a trip to the pharmacy and probably the gas station. I feel like a bear getting ready to hibernate, stocking up to hide out for the week end since the highs on those days are forecast to be in the SINGLE digits (that's less than 10 degrees, guys -- WAY too cold!!)

....we're off!

Now we know what frustration looks like...

In yesterday's blog, I said that the white sheep was sewed, turned and ready for joints.

Well, that's what happens when you assume.....this is the picture of frustration

After the sheep reached the aforementioned state, we decided that the white face just wasn't enough contrast, and would have to be reworked. And we do mean reWORKed! Each piece had to be turned inside out again, then all picked apart.

We're now in the restitching stage, I finished redoing all of the legs last night, and today I hope to get the face and the ears done....[sigh}...for all the "rip it, rip it" sounds, you would have thought I was working on a frog!!





I'm annoyed with the city.

In the entire time since the first of the 3 storms, we have not yet seen a snow plow.

Consequently, the storm drain in the cul de sac just down from our house is totally blocked with ice, and nothing can go down it.

These are pictures of what the street and sidewalks in front of our house look like. We had cleared the sidewalk after every storm, but now we have all this ice on the sidewalk again because the mail truck and the trash trucks drive through the snow pack/ice flow in the street and push it back up on the sidewalk.

Meantime, the snow is melting and running toward the storm drain but it is just making a huge, (cul de sac size!) puddle, that turns into ice every night and will become unbelievably dangerous when the next storm comes on Thursday.






Two more arcs done last night!



We need to go to the DMV today and get the handicap tag for the car. We got the forms from the doctor's office in the midst of the 2nd storm, and just haven't made it to the office to turn them in and get the tag. That should be fun. In the same area is a bookstore, where I'm going to look for a tax prep book to help guide me through my least favorite time of the year.

Time to get moving.

Taking stock of projects.....

Here it is, Monday morning, and its time to take stock of what stage each project is in.



This picture is the fish my DH is working on for the polar bear. He drew this on a piece of paper so I could "scale" it down on the computer. He will be putting it on to fabric so I can stitch and stuff it.

Progress on the critters:

small dog -- closed, ready for face
mouse -- DH is stitching
small wolf -- pinned and ready for machine stitching
flamingo -- stitched, ready for turning and legs
open mouth bear -- sewing complete, ready for turning
black sheep -- sewing complete, ready for turning
white sheep -- sewed and turned, ready for joints
open mouth polar bear -- closed, ready for face
horse (new design) -- pinned and ready for machine stitching
toucan -- laid out






The second grannie square is complete. My own variation on the theme.

Now its back to the knitting of squares. I have a new one on the needles.


I worked some more on the beaded piece. It is now almost half done.





Have 3 more arcs finished for the quilt.







Yesterday I made a trip to the fabric store and picked up some yellow fabrics to use for the ends of the arcs. Those will be easier to cut, just stack up a few layers and whack with the rotary cutter.

Today's projects include laundry and shipping off an animal I sold off my website -- the first one to actually be purchased on the spot there!

(It has generated special orders, but this was nice because I already have the animal in hand and can just ship it out the door.)

Time to get to it!

baby steps

One more little arc stitched.....

I did set up some more template pages on freezer paper, so sometime in the next few days, I'll be preparing some more fabric for stitching.




Progress continues on the beaded necklace. I have about 1/4 of the field beads in, and its looking pretty good. Still have had no real "inspiration" about the edging, and at this point I'm not even sure which direction will be "up" on the piece...(yes, I can hear the witch saying "all in good time, my pretty, all in good time"!)

I have about 2/3 of the other grannie square done too....these do go quicker than the knitting, but my hand is suffering for this little digression....

worked on taxes yesterday ... you can see my {whine} about that on my Random Thoughts blog


This is the original sketch I did back in May, 2004 when I was thinking about making this into a piece of jewelry.

That was before I decided that not all bead work needed to be worn, and now I'm thinking of something on a much grander scale than a little necklace.

This project has now made it to the "work in a folder" stage which is always the beginning of the actual making of these big projects.

Into the fray!!

new pin and other progress

I did this entire pin yesterday.

This is another in the series of small pins that I'm trying to get finished for our February show.

This one is only 1 1/8 inches across, the smallest of these yet, and I used that neat 2 bead edge again.

I'm chugging along on the necklace piece still. Its fun picking up the colors of the stone and echoing them in beads....and the primavera stone has lots of lovely colors to mess with -- blues, greens, yellows and oranges with the occasional off white and steel grey for contrast. I'm thinking I may do a 3 bead edge on this on since it will have fringes...we'll see

Yesterday I found again the pictures and sketches I did when we were in Atchison, KS, for a show in 2005. The section of downtown has the most amazing combination of architecture, and everytime I see those pictures, the idea returns to do a framed piece of beadwork. I'm thinking of doing the first step for such a project....gathering all the prints of the pictures and the sketch I made into a folder and perhaps starting a full size drawing. That show is the end of May....I wonder if I could have it done by then.....



Yes folks, its a Grannie Square! A very large Grannie Square -- 12 inches to be exact!

Those of you that know me well know I don't crochet much because it makes my right hand go numb, but I just could not resist the temptation to put these bits and pieces of yarn left from other things into one bright, colorful block.

There was enough odds and ends and pieces to do another grannie square, so I will work on that one too, then it will be back to knitting squares.

Sometimes you just have to do something totally different to kick start the creative juices.









I also finished 2 more arcs for the quilt! (My, I didn't realize how busy I was yesterday!) I had picked up a pack of fat quarters at Walmart when we went there, that had blue fabrics with prints of Tinkerbell, and 2 of the 4 fabrics will work for this quilt -- FUN!

We cleared about 6 inches of snow out of our driveway yesterday afternoon, and our timing was pretty good -- or we got lucky -- because shortly after that it quit snowing and hasn't snowed any more. That's all we're supposed to get for this storm, but they say another big one is coming next week -- about Thursday -- {groan!}

Time to get some tax stuff done!

Orange snow and new toys

Sunrise this morning was really odd.

For one thing, since it is once again snowing like crazy, there was really no "rise" to see, it just gradually gets less dark, but today in that twilight phase, everything had this very odd orange cast to it.

The picture doesn't really capture it since I was still in my pjs and socks and it was just too cold to even open the sliding glass door to take a picture, but it does show part of the the oddness.

There's something just wrong about orange snow!




One of the other things my DH got me for Christmas were some additional tips and cable for my knitting needles. The new tips are size 6, 8, 9, 10 and 11.

For years all I've had were the old standard straight needles in short and long versions, and a few specific size of the lovely flexy ones that I've bought on a "I need it for this project" basis.

Its kind of nice to actually be able to have the start of a set that will be much more flexible!

Now, the next project is to create a carrying case of some sort for these, with enough room to expand the set too.





And here they are, in all their adjusted glory, ready to be used again, and again, and again.

Now I've heard that my daughter has actually decided she'd like to have some of these for her swiffer, so I need to ask her to measure it for that custom fit!

Time to get moving on some projects.....

The good thing about time spent in the car

is that I get knitting and quilt pieces done!




We went to Denver yesterday for our monthly Costco run (two weeks late!) and I finished this afghan square.

I've now done two squares with this texture pattern, so the next one will be something different.




And I got three more arcs of the quilt finished too!





I must say that the freezer paper approach has worked much better than the original "draw around each piece" method.

While I was cooking dinner last night I got four more arcs ready to sew by ironing the pattern templates to the back of a new batch of fabrics. It will be interesting to see just how many times I can reuse those before they don't stick well enough to get through the construction of an arc.

Last night I started in on the new beaded piece, and its looking good.

Today we've got to get an oil change and make a couple of other shopping stops on the way back. I want to be sure we have enough "fluff" to fill all the new animals we're working on, and since we're supposed to get about 8 inches more snow Friday/Saturday, we may need to be able to keep busy for a couple of days before we can venture out again. The street in front of our house is turning into a large sheet of ice because the storm drain is still plugged up with ice, and there's no where for the melt off to go.

pin complete, the final swiffer research and more!

Well, I sat up until 10:30 last night working on this, and its now done!

This one measures 2 3/4 inches point to point on the "long" points and 2 1/2 inches point to point on the "short" points. That's not as much difference in length and I originally thought there would be, but it looks great I think.

It also tells me what changes I need to make on the next piece that I use this basic design idea for.

The next bead piece, however, will be one of the new designs for a smaller version of my collar necklaces.

Meantime, I'm also working on the designs for beading another egg -- a big one this time with an Easter Lilly on the front -- and of course I have to order beads for this one, and I want to have it done by March 31 for a show I'm doing that day (nothing like creating my own stress!)



The research is complete. These are the two swiffer covers after they have both been used and laundered.

And the findings of my research are:

1. Each pattern works equally well to pick up dirt, dog hair, pieces of Christmas ribbon, tracked in ice melt pellets, etc, etc

2. The lengthwise pattern (the one on the left) after use and laundering changed shape enough that I will have to adjust the ends to be able to use it again.

3. The widthwise pattern (the one on the right) changed very little in the process and is ready to go right back into service

So, my semi-scientific conclusion is that all future ones will be knit in the widthwise pattern. I may at some juncture try out using something other than cotton yarn, but not right away. I liked being able to throw these in the wash with the towels.

One other note on these. If you are a penny pincher like me and your "swiffer" is not a real swiffer (ie: some other brand), you will have to measure the pad of yours and adjust the size you knit accordingly.



The snow is slowly beginning to melt. We can actually see the top of the fence again!

When we were out yesterday, the streets were still very messy, a lot of snow piled up along the sides which in some places is blocking off storm drains and making for a hugh lake effect across the road. That of course causes splash back and since it was COLD last night, I'm sure there will be icy spots again. In fact, there will probably be ice on the roads for a while, as we're to get more snow on Friday...{sigh}

Today we're going to try to get to our closest Costco -- something we've needed to do since the week before Christmas

New things in a new year.....

I finished beading this sunburst pin last night, so today I can work on getting the backing done.

This piece went so fast that it seems like I must have worked on it in my sleep or something. I can say that I think the idea I was testing is going to work just fine on the next piece I use it on.





Back in the fall, we went to gem show, and one of the items we purchased was a tumbler with 2 jars. The idea here was for the DH to be able to polish up the silver pieces he's been making by tumbling them with steel shot (a process that works really well, BTW)

Anyway, he decided to see what would happen if he actually did some rocks in the other jar, and this picture is just a few of the ones that came out of the project.

I pulled these out of the group for possibly using in the Let The River Run piece because they are similar in thickness (except for the really little ones) to the other pieces I'm working with for that. I'm going to try to do some work on that piece between the other small projects that I'm doing.

Along with the beading, I've managed to get a lot of the machine work done on the new animals we're working on. So here's the status of those projects:

small dog -- ready for closing and finishing
mouse -- DH is working on (he's hand stitching this one)
small wolf -- cut out
flamingo -- some stitching complete
open mouth bear -- machine stitching complete, hand work in process
black sheep -- some stitching complete
white sheep -- ready for turning and jointing
open mouth polar bear -- machine stitching complete, hand work in process
toucan -- laid out

So, progress being made there! Most of these are still in the "work I have to do to get to the fun part" stage, which is why I don't work on them straight through.

Today I'm doing laundry -- from the looks of it, about twice as much as usual for a week -- oh well. And this week will begin the mandatory work on taxes at least half an hour every day (this sort of self discipline is the only way I can get them done!)

Best go shift another load from the washer to the dryer and start sorting tax stuff...

Welcome 2007!

Because our wonderful daughter gave us tickets to the Philharmonic, we did something quite unusual for New Year's Eve --- we went out --- and stayed awake to see in the new year!

We had no idea where the seats would be, and while my daughter didn't either, she must have picked them with inspiration because they were the ultimate brass player's parents "geek seats". Located on the mezzanine level (1 level above the stage) we were right above the cellos and the brass section. So close that I could look over the little railing and READ the music on the stand of the cello below me!

Now you who don't know me well won't get why this was so exciting.....I never got to play in the band. I had rheumatic fever and developed a heart murmur back in the days that they told you not to do anything strenous, so I wasn't allowed gym class (oh well) or band (oh NO!). So it was indeed a special treat for me to have a "bird's eye" view of all the inner workings of that magic world that all of our children got to be a part of.

And what a program it was! Titled "100 Years of Music America Loves Best", they began with Rodgers & Hammerstein's Oklahoma, followed next with songs by Dorsey and then the Glenn Miller American Patrol.

Next up was the featured vocalist (good, but I always think my daughter is better, and in this case, she is!) who sang two pieces, one of which was Arlen's Over the Rainbow (ok, another odd coincidence as this song ALWAYS reminds me of my daughter!) The vocalist also did All that Jazz from Chicago, and 2 other Kander/Ebb pieces in the second act.

Its clear that the conductor is at heart a brass player, as he featured a trumpet player that truly rivals Doc Severinson at hitting those HIGH! notes (and he holds them longer). He also had arranged a medly of Beatles songs (Yesterday, Hey Jude, Penny Lane) that allowed the trumpet player to show off his skills with the Bb trumpet, the piccolo trumpet and the flugal horn.

There were pieces with a jazz quartet that included a jazz flute (not often heard), an wonderful selection from Webber's Phantom of the Opera (here they tread on thin ice---box 5 was NOT kept empty), and an awesome performance by Lawrence Leighton Smith (the Music Director for the Philharmonic) of Gershwin's Concerto in F.

And of course there was traditional song for mignight --- done at midnight New York time --- complete with balloons and confetti dropping from a net in the ceiling.

It was truly worth the travel over still icy roads to get to this ----


This morning I took this picture of our neighbor's dog. Now if this looks a bit odd to you, it should. The dog is standing on a snow drift that is level with a 6 foot fence!

Our dog watched these proceedings, barked at the goings on, and timidly made an attempt at the drift in our back yard, but I called her back into the house -- call me the big chicken, but I'm afraid she'd either fall through the crust and we'd have to dig her out or she'd get hurt on the pickets at the top of the fence.

A TV station in Denver (CW2 for you in our area) runs a digital picture contest, so I sent this photo in. We'll see if they use it.

Today will be a pretty lazy day, working on bead pieces (I'm about half way through the sunburst brooch) stitching some animals and maybe doing a little work on changing some things on our website.

I'm sure tomorrow will start us in to the day to day commotion again, for today, may you all have PEACE!

Bracelet complete!

Yup, its done -- and before the new year!

I'm pleased with the way this one came out. The edging is a big improvement over past one I think.

And so its on to the next piece! I started doing the beading on a sunburst shape with a piece of tigereye in the center. Not sure yet if it will be a necklace or a brooch, but I'm thinking it will be a brooch. On this one I'm testing an idea that I hope to use on another cross piece I have in mind.....always learning!



Yesterday afternoon, the dog and the DH went out onto the patio and cleared off the snow that the wind hadn't taken care of.

The dog loves this activity. She grabs mouthfuls of snow and runs around the patio like she's foaming at the mouth.

(Maybe one of these days I'll actually READ the manual for my camera -- as opposed to just looking up what I need at the moment -- and figure out how to take video clips with it to put out here ---- or not)






This is the working drawing for the quilt design.

The center will be a monogram, and the rings around the outside are double wedding ring patterns.

You'll note the ticker above. This is what makes up the ticker:
96 arcs x 11 pieces each (1056 total)
192 squares or triangles for arc ends
96 "football" centers
96 circle centers
1 monogram block

1441 total


Last night I put together another arc using the new freezer paper method.....MUCH faster! And so here it is.....only 93 more arcs to go (and we'll let the ticker do the other math!)

Time to get moving.....

ok, I'm really tired of the snow already......

the storming goes on.....not so much that it continues to snow (although it has done some of that too) but the wind just howls and blows the stuff around.


So, here are today's early morning snow pictures (there's really no sunrise in this weather, just the dark gray going to lighter gray)

To the right, our front yard. Someone (we don't know who) came in the middle of the day yesterday and shovelled out our driveway for us, but as you can see, we'll have to do it again when the wind stops.



To the left here, the back yard of the house next to us....their fence has disappeared under that 6 foot drift of snow



And this one is our back yard, where our little windmill is nearly buried in snow, but is still spinning madly into the north wind.

Part of what is creating this lovely drifting is the open field behind us. Yesterday afternoon I could watch the wind picking up the snow in the field and swirl it up into the air over the top edge of the fence for it to be deposited on our side of the fence in that drift.



And this is the other corner of the front yard. There is about 2 foot of snow piled up under that little aspen tree (and over the sidewalk beyond it).

As I said, I'm really tired of the snow already, so can we please just STOP?!

The weather man says its the first time in recorded weather history that we have had two storms like this back to back....so why did I need to witness this history?




I am, however, working on projects!

These are the first 2 arcs of the 96 for the outside edge of the quilt for my daughter (that means there are only 94 arcs to go ----- wheeeee!) (okay, for those who don't know, that's a paraphrase of a lyric from Ragtime --- now go listen to that awesome soundtrack!)

These two were done in the old traditional way (draw the pattern on the back of the fabric, cut out and stitch) which took a long time to accomplish. Yesterday, I decided I would try a new approach, so I created a sheet of paper with 2 complete sets of the finished size pieces drawn on the page with a little space between them. Then I copied that page onto 2 precut sheets of freezer paper (isn't technology wonderful!).

After printing on the freezer paper, I cut out all the little templates -- enough for 4 arcs. Then I ironed all of the little templates (oh JOY!, I got to use my new iron, it was wonderful, no sputtering, no "its cold, its hot" phases) to the fabrics and now I have a little packet of fabrics all ready to go for the next sewing session.



I also finished all of the field beading for the bracelet. Last night I started putting it all together, but its not quite done, so no finished picture yet. I'm using the double bead edging I had discovered on the last pin I did, and it looks amazing, almost like a piece of metal braid had been attached to the edge.

Today I will finish it and start on another new piece.

Well, time's a wastin', so I'm off to have some breakfast and get back to the projects!