Bad bad computer

OK so I have not posted in awhile; it is my computers fault. It has this mind-of-its-own thing happening lately and wouldn't let me see anything. The screen worked just fine; just no images could be seen, and I mean none. My desktop didn't even show up -- just a fuzzy, bluish sort of color -- so my husband finally got 10 minuets and fixed it for me. Not his fault; he is so busy with work. The bummer was I had two actual days off work last week, which I never get, and I wanted to post the last two parts of my tutorial and no computer to do it on. So what did I do? Pay bills, run errands, and clean house (maybe that was a good thing bBecause with the job/commute and all that goes with it I just haven't had any time to do basic cleaning). So me and the three little ones surprised dad with a clean house. How sad is that, that something like that can be a surprise and a nice thing. Like I said, no time. I hung a few pictures that have been leaning against walls since we moved in one year ago.

Something else I discovered when my computer was working again (if you don't keep track of the blogs you read with bloglines this will mean nothing to you) I found out while I wasn't able to post a thing that all the blogs I read posted over 700, yep 700 and some posts, that bloglines saved for me to read, well at least look at the pretty pictures as that was way too much stuff to read; yikes!

Also during my disappearance I went to my MIL's house to pick up some aprons that had belonged to Great-Grandma Harbaugh (30 + of them). They are not mine; they are just on loan. I will post about them more later. Trust me, you want to see them if you like aprons; such a variety of vintage and antique aprons.

Here is what is left to do

As you can see, lots of boxes and lots of fabric and supplies are all over my sewing room. Biggest mess is on top of that table where I work on projects. Like I said, it is nearest to the door which makes it a dumping ground. All the fabric on the table is 100% cotton; the fabric behind the door is 100% Pendleton wool mill ends. I use it, the wool, to make rugs and other such things. This isn't stripped yet because I have about ten boxes of wool (the size of the green and blue totes in this picture) stored in my garage that is all ready to make a rug. For those who are waiting for the rest of the rug tutorial, the next installment or two will be on Saturday. I hope you have all your fabric washed and stripped, ready to sew and braid. If you click on the picture, it will take you to flickr where there are all kinds of notes on this picture.

Progress on Studio

I have the studio about 3/4 ths of the way straight. Too bad the last 1/4 is the worst part because that is my table where I work on most projects. It is also the closest to the door, meaning the easiest to dump things on, too. The sewing table, kids art area, and the light table are pretty much straitened up. The room is about 12 feet by 23 feet, so it is actually a pretty good-size room. Too bad the ceilings are pitched, or I could stack my boxes taller and have more floor space; oh well, better than what it was in the last house. The rug on the floor in this room used to be in the front room at my old house, now it is in my sewing room. Less traffic and less likely to get mud on it now, which is good because I don't think I will make another that big in the near future.

Studio Room

My life has been so busy lately that my studio has become a dumping ground for half-done projects instead of a workable room. I have been working on getting it back into shape. See the vacuum in the back of the photo. I have lots of projects I have to get done right now, like my tutorial on making a rug and finishing that afghan repair; both need lots of room and the room is big but not when it is messy. It may not look like it from this photo, but it is an improvement. All those boxes you see are full of fabric, thread, lace, ribbon and so on. This is, of course, only half of the room; the other half I am still working on straightening.

Hair today gone tomorrow

On Saturday I talked about how long all three of my daughters' hair was. Also how I wanted to make Kanzashi for them. I still do, just one will have to be on clips instead of combs or hair pins now.

Because, as of today, one of them no longer has long hair. She had the longest out of all three; it was below her waist, and she was starting to sit on it. It was getting a little annoying for her and hard for her to keep the knots out, with winter static and all. So we removed it (a good 18-24 inches original length, removed over 12 inches in length; look in the mirror in the right photo you can see the haircut is half done), so her hair is just above her shoulders, now. Sorry, I didn't feel good this weekend and didn't get that bathroom cleaned -- dirty mirror, oops. She is also embarrassed by this photo because this is her pajama shirt, and she never shows her shoulders unless she is in a bathing suit. It is only on her because I am cutting her hair, otherwise no photo would ever be taken with her dressed this way.

The last time I cut her hair I made the doll shown to the left. Yes that is real hair from my daughter on the doll. So now I have this stack of freshly washed and dried clean hair again, trying to figure out if I should make something again.

The reason is, last time I did something with it because that was her first haircut. Well, this is only her second one, and she is ten. Each haircut represents roughly half her life. So I am taking suggestions as to what to do. Currently, the hair is just resting in a metal tin 'till I figure out what to do with it. Photo at left taken in my old home. The room was being rewired; those are not live wires on that wall.

X is for ...

X-tra yoyos made into a yoyo runner. Started on Sept 2; finished on September 3. You can also see one of my hex afghans underway, next to the bench in the yellow basket. I also made the braided rug you see in the bottom of the photo.

I had a bag of yoyos from swaps, and ones I made that were just collecting, and it seemed like they were spawning in that bag. They were not being used, so yesterday I decided I would make a runner out of them to use who knows where. I may add to it at a later time, or I may not. There is a diamond pattern in this mini quilt that is a cluster of four different hues in the same color family. These are laid out more as I would hexagons and not yoyos, but it makes a pretty close solid piece of cloth. I'm wishing I had done this with my daughter's blanket. Instead of having each yoyo only touch four other yoyos, here they touch six others. It would have made a stronger blanket for a kid, but since that started out as a table topper, I didn't know it would end up a blanket.

I had a hay fever sinus headache yesterday; that is what started this project. I wanted something to do that was quick and that wouldn't involve being outside at all.

R is for...

Rock-n groups on flicker that I am a member of but not admin.

E is for...

Excitement of a five year old. We, as most of you know, are working on decorating my five-year-old's bedroom, and a few people have sent gifts to help decorate it. Every time a box comes with a little butterfly, squeals of excitement ring through our home. We have a long way to go before the room is done because most of the things I am getting for it are being hand made and not store bought like the lady bug room was that is in our house. A lot of the gifts she has been given are store bought, so those she already gets to enjoy in her room. That is just great with me!

1. gift from alee, 2. gift from sister, 3. gift from cinnamongirl, 4. gift from sister, 5. gift from alee, 6. gift from her aunt, 7. gift from her sister, 8. gift from mommom, 9. gift from old neighbor

I am just curious; how long can a 5-year old stay excited over a half done room? I hope for a while anyway. This is my little butterfly girl wearing wings from Mommom over at MJF. Her favorite song to sit and play at the piano (kid playing, of course) is called, yep you guessed it, "Butterfly Girl," and yes, she is very happy to tell everyone she wrote it herself. It consists of her singing the words "Butterfly girl" over and over again as she hits keys on the upright for about 30 minuets. Then she goes around the house singing it for the next two or three hours; we are all so used to it we hardly notice it any more. When we do, we all usually end up in hysterical fits of laughter as the never ending song continues. So yes, we are encouraging this behavior by doing a butterfly girl bedroom. Why not? You are only young once, so you might as well have fun being young.

D is for....

Dolls, and lots of them. I have collected dolls since I was a little girl. My favorites are mimes and pirouette clowns. I have never been very found of hobo clowns, but I have a few of them because people have given them to me, but I much prefer the pantomime look. I also love raggedy dolls and Russian nesting dolls, too. I have other doll likes as well, such as miniature doll houses and paper dolls; I have lots of those. If you haven't figured it out by now, I have a few red cupboards in my house; three, to be exact. I love red along with black and white (white more as an accent color than a main color). There are a few more doll cupboards in the house, but those have the dolls in them that my children collect. Those cupboards are different colors than this one, one is blue, and one brown, but I will get them painted in time to either black or red or one of each.

Click on this picture to go to flicker page if you want to know about each individual doll and where it came from or from whom it came.

C is for....

China cupboard full of colored glass collection. I collect all kinds of china and glassware. This cupboard is full of ruby glass.

My Vavo and Tia's used this type of glassware a lot when I was a child and still do, so I got in the habit of collecting it from them. I really like this type of glass because it fits with so many holidays like the 4th of July, Valentines, Christmas, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Patriots' Day; a lot of holidays have the color red as one of their theme colors which makes this color very useful to me.

The bottom part that has closed wood doors is full of green glass and cobalt glass, too. I like it for the same reasons: green is good for Christmas and St. Patrick's Day and cobalt blue goes with any patriotic holiday.

This is supposed to be summer

1. kitchen window, 2. porch,
3. this is suppsoed to be my porch not a wave pool,
4. Hard Summer Rain

I grew up in a desert area in California. I have yet to get used to the high deserts of Utah. When we have a down fall like this in the middle of July, I get so confused. It's lovely to watch, but isn't this the wrong time of year? The house is so dark for summer at 3:00 in the afternoon it feels like winter or fall. These are actually color photos; that is how dark it is today. I have a party planned for Saturday in this wave pool of a porch. Please don't let it rain on that day because I was going to put three tables on the porch for people to sit and eat at with a canopy over it. It won't work this way, and the only other place to put everyone is in the walk-out basement of the house. It's not a bad area -- it is nice and roomy, spacious with lots of light and unfinished, yikes!

4 yards 4 inches

I finished my #7 item for the 25 motif tatting challenge, and ended up with 4 yards and 4 inches of this lace. I finished it yesterday while sitting in a class on how to teach kids to quilt. My three daughters (i.e. kids) were in the class with me. So, now I guess I am on to #8; I just haven't figured out what that is, yet.


This braided rug I made a long time ago. Since I was sitting on the floor to take the picture of the tatting, I thought I would get a close up picture of the braids on this rug.

This used to be the rug in my old sewing room at my old home. It almost never got walked on because you couldn't walk into that room, it was so crowded. Now it is one of three rugs in my family room. It took about 3 weeks to make and is 6 feet by 8 1/2 feet. Seen in bottom right of photo on this post.

Sunrise/hexes/25 motif challenge

This is the view I had yesterday morning from my back porch. It was such a red sunrise this picture doesn't do it justice at all.

The hexes seem to be reproducing on their own this weekend. If you want to make your own, the pattern is here.

I have been working on the 25 motif challenge over the move to our new house. I have achieved getting this pattern up to about 3 yards with 2 1/2 bobbins full of pale pink yet to go. I will keep tatting with this until I run out of the light pink. I know I have way more dark pink that light, so that will just go towards another tatted edging. This is my #7 item for the challenge. You can see other challenge items by going here. I am still working on 1, 5 and 6, but I am not able to find them at the moment due to the move. When I do find them, I will get back to work on them, too.

I am still alive I promise!!!

I wasn't planning on having such a long leave of absence from my blog. Qwest, our Internet DSL service provider, is to thank for that glitch. They messed up our connection for over nine days during our move. But it is fixed now, and all seems to be working well. As for all the emails about my back, it is well and made it through the move (with help from my chiro). Life is still a mess of boxes and such, but it is getting closer to looking like a normal life again.

This is one corner of our home that is sort of straight at the moment. I collect white iron stone and other white dishes. These were all found at thrift stores except the rooster; my sister gave it to me. I think she found it junking, too. The round balls are from Lillian Vernon; not old at all, but I like them.

The green velvet chair is a circa 1880's from the Eastlake furniture company. I have two of these; in the future I would like to get more Eastlake furniture. I love the carved details on them.

Those who have read this blog know my favorite colors are black, red and white. Yep, this has two of my faves in it.

With the move and all, I haven't been able to make much lately. I hope that changes in the near future because we are in our home, and my sister-in-law and her family are situated in our old home. So, I think life should slow a little bit and let me get back to making things.

At Play Not Far Away

Taking a break from packing while I cooked dinner; the family went to the park just past our backyard boundaries to go play.

I am taking the photos from our back deck. I know I gave birth to three little girls, but I swear I have the biggest boy in the world. Which is great; it makes it so much more fun for the kids to have a Pai who wants to play and have fun instead of being a bump on a log. I always call him the human jungle gym. If he isn't climbing something, then the kids are probably climbing on him and attacking him. It was good for them to have a break and do something fun.

Sunlight and shadows

This picture sort of sums up our mornings right now. The sun is so bright through our family room windows that you need sunglasses on and a hat to function in that room. The good thing is the view from that window shows you the whole Salt Lake Valley; it's very pretty at night to see all the twinkling lights. This is a picture from our new home -- not everything is in its place yet, but it is getting there. In time we will cover those windows; we're still moving.

We have about 20%-30% of our stuff left to move; the goal is to do that Saturday. The only yucky part is that it is lots of china, china cupboards, and an armoir that are left to move, and everything is very heavy. I have already been to the chiropractor twice during this move and will go again tonight. I'm not complaining; the house we are moving into is lovely. We will need to put a yard in, but I think it will be a nice place. One big plus is thatI have a sewing room that might actually be big enough to have me and my supplies in it at the same time. The way my day goes right now: wake up at 5:00 a.m., un-box, un-box and un-box even more till 10:00 a.m. Load all empty boxes into car and drive roughly 25 miles to old home and box up items from 10:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.; go home, bring boxes in and un-box till roughly midnight. Then start all over again in the morning at 5:00 or 6:00 (if I am lucky that I can sleep in that late).

Our computer is at our old home because phone service isn't hooked up yet at the new home. So, sorry my posts are very sporadic at the moment.

Still Packing

The boxes to the right now line what used to be a very wide hall and is no more.

Well, it is amazing how much stuff a family can own. Then you have to move it and take it from its normal spot; the house just gets messier and messier and harder to function in, but yet you still have to pack more. On top of that, two nights ago in my sleep somehow I tossed the right side of my back out -- so much fun, packing. Not!!!

It is kind of weird the way all the stuff just sort of starts to collect in one room after it has been unloaded of books, toys, and what not. The nice thing is, my kids are trying to be helpful; not really succeeding -- more under foot than anything -- but they are trying so hard; it is sweet.

The move will be worth it in the end. The kids will have their own rooms, and I will have a bigger sewing room in the hopes of keeping everything in it to a major extent and not have it hidden all over the house. At the moment, trying to make a project is like hide and seek trying to remember where I put the supplies.

Don't forget to sign up for my blogiversary give away in a few weeks; the link is also to the right on the side bar if the one in this post shouldn't work for some reason. Sign up closes the night of July 3rd. As soon as the comments hit 100, I will be adding another mini quilt; this next one is a yoyo quilt. So tell your friends, the more the merrier.

WIP/ Danger Zone/ QUARANTINE

I forgot it was Friday and I was supposed to post a WIP! Well, I started this before Thanksgiving -- putting all the stuff in my sewing room in clear plastic boxes so I could see what was in each box. I was straightening my sewing room, too; it got put on hold right after Thanksgiving because of sick kids and holiday stuff. Now I am back to the project and have sick kids again. The joke at our house is, you never want to be in this room during an earth quake or no one will ever find you under the fallen boxes. All I have left is to clean off the remaining stuff on the table area, which is stuff that was in the wrong boxes when the boxes where opaque. This room has ceilings that are eight feet tall and every wall is filled to the ceiling with boxes.

My other WIP is this cute little girl, trying to get her well. If you notice, her skin is pink and her face is a little swollen. This is my daughter who has scarlet fever and those are some of her symptoms. She was being real good and smiling for me.