Saturday was another mask day.  I was busy.  I cut out about 75 to start with.  Friday only got 4 made.  Saturday I got 22 made.

Karl was a great help and we have the rest of them in progress.  After that, I’m putting myself on hold until the hospital the girls work at decides how many they need and who is making them.  I don’t want to make 300 and then don’t need them.  I’m off work and can always jump on the bandwagon again if they need more.  I’m finding I think in a good day I can make about 20ish.  I know some patterns are quicker..some are not.  This is what I can do with the pattern I’m using.

I did come up with a little short cut.  I am suppose to sew from the two top edges in.  I was having to stop and pin them all.  UGH.

That was slowing me down.  So..I came up with this plan.

I sandwich the pieces right side together.  I start sewing.  I marked two lines on my sewing guide (I have this Lori Holt one).  I sewed from the beginning edge until the fabric goes to that back Sharpie marker line.

I pick up the foot, and reposition like this… Continue reading →

I really didn’t think I would get any sewing done this week.  I had a busy weekend planned.  Buck and Lora’s kiddos were going to be coming on Saturday.  Kayla and Spencer were hosting baptism for Jasper on Sunday.  It was supposed to be one of those weekends that we needed the week to recover from the busyness of it.  In the end we decided to cancel it all.  The health fears going around with COVID-19 won out and we decided to go with the safe option.

That stinks for the Grandma in me but was awesome for the quilter/crafter in me.  (One of the many reasons I love having a hobby..there is always something to do)  Well I have a large stash so there will always be something to do.  Today I didn’t need to look very hard to find that at all.

On the top of my pile was this…

Jasper’s baby quilt.  This has been hanging over me for a long time.  Being I had a big chunk of time for sewing, I really wanted to concentrate on this project…

But..I did have big chunk of time so I really thought I could wrap up two projects.  I could leader and ender them right??

Earlier in the week in an effort to try to wrap a few things up, I started working on this quilt again….  This all started with a box of UFOs from blog reader Roxanna.  She had many of the pieces…I added on to what she had making the quilt bigger.

I had several rows sewn together and realized it wasn’t long enough.  I planned on donating this quilt for a fundraiser auction and those seem to go better if they are bed sized.  I wanted this to be single sized.  So I needed to add one more blog to each row along the bottom.

During nap time this week, I cut out more pieces and that evening I sewed them together to find that I had reversed them.  UGH.  So seam ripper time.  That happened the next day when I was sitting with Carver trying to get him to sleep at naptime.

I resewed them.  I didn’t have the quilt top all together so I stopped where I was and added the bottom row onto the main part that was sewn together.  Oh what great colors!!

After that, I added blocks to the columns that I already had sewn together.  I actually got Jasper’s top finished on Saturday and this top too.

Then it was ironing time.  I had a little helper.

I’ve been really working with her trying to get Rosie to pose and she is doing really good.  I love the picture below.

This next picture made me laugh…. Continue reading →

I had a great week.  The stars aligned this week that I would have only had two kids here on Thursday and two on Friday so I decided heck with it.  I was taking those days off.

I am so glad that I did.  I was swimming in to-do stuff, so deep it was starting to wear on me, so taking the time and catching up was exactly what I needed.  I did decide a couple things for sure….I am going to take time off more often.  It’s totally worth missing the money I would have gotten for taking care of the kids to have a better handle on things around here.  I find a HUGE peace of mind to being more on top of things.  With Kramer gone, more falls on my shoulders and it’s easier to get behind.  So a day off here and there is going to happen.  Actually a day off at least once a month is going to happen if not more often.

I told myself I could do whatever I wanted and only put a few things on my must do list.  I know me and knew I wanted to do a lot of cleaning and organizing and sorting…so that’s what I did most of the time and it was HEAVEN.

I think part of the reason I was getting overwhelmed was that there was just too much stuff to do.  I had a million little things to try to tackle once I got to the sewing room and one by one I tackled them.  There isn’t a lot to show.  I cleaned my African Violets up…I patched Karl’s pants.  I organized the cotton shirts and even deboned a few.  I put away all the leftover piece from projects.  I finished taking the borders off this project….

I so vividly remember starting to take the borders off of this.  I had put them on and hated it.  I decided to take them off.  On one of our trips to Lacrosse with Kramer’s cancer, I threw it in the truck and started taking the borders off.  Kramer was driving and I was doing what I could to stay busy.  I didn’t get all of the borders off.  I put them in quilt top with the partially removed borders in the back seat. The cancer started to be too much for Kramer to do any of the driving.  It was one of the last times he was able to drive to the clinic.  The quilt stayed in the back seat for some time and eventually made it way back to the sewing room and sat.  This weekend it was finally time to get those borders off.  Who knows when I’ll get to finishing it.  For now, at least that part is done.

I took my cross stitch stuff out of my sewing room and bought totes for it, reorganizing it all and I’ll now keep it in the garage.  I know that sounds like an odd place but with the way our house is situated, it’s perfect.

I pick up pieces at our thrift store all the time thinking the items will be good for mounting cross stitch pieces on.  Many of them are a 25 cents or 50 cents.  I paid up to $2 for some.  Before they were crammed into a box and I never used them as I had to dig to get what I wanted….now it’s organized and easily accessible.  I’m so happy.

Here are a couple of the totes….all labeled.

I have some more organizing to do with the shelving in the garage.  I ended up measuring and I can fit another set of shelving there so I ordered that and hopefully it will be here soon.  
I’ve learned in life that accessibility makes all the difference on whether I actually do something or not.  If I have to dig for something….I don’t do it.  It’s taken about 54 years of my life to learn that.

I hate pulling things out and then putting them back.  I don’t clean up the mess and I know that so I don’t even pull it all out to start with.  UGH.  So…everything has to fit on one layer…thus the new totes and shelving.

I so admired my husband’s mother.  There was a place for everything and everything was in that place.  She was so tidy…I aspire to be her.  I am determined that will have a specific place for everything or I’m getting rid of it!  Sadly, she didn’t pass on this wonderful trait to her son, my husband.  Kramer was so messy.

I got so many things done.  Seriously, I feel like a new person.  One would think that I likely didn’t get much sewing done.  I actually did get a few things done.

I finished this cross stitch piece….

…but ran into a little trouble.  Notice that space on the side of the basket?  Well there is supposed to be a rabbit charm to go there.  I have no charm.  I don’t know if my pattern didn’t come with one or I lost it.  Dang.  So now I am on the hunt for a rabbit charm.  I changed up the colors and like it a little better.  It will for sure look better in my house.

I actually finished this too but it’s tiny.

I ended up going on and started another stitchy piece too.  I didn’t get much more done on that.  I’ve been trying to make myself stop working at 9pm.  If I am sewing I can keep sewing but no blog writing or housework after 9pm.  That means I’ve been stitching a little more.

I set up a dog bed in the sewing room after I had all the things I could get up and off the floor away from Rosie, I loaded this quilt, shut the door to the room and Rosie let me machine quilt it.  Ahhhh…Maybe there is hope I can get back in the sewing room.

This is just a baby quilt so it didn’t take long.  Rosie was good though and I am ever so thankful for that.

I also got Jasper’s quilt out again with some determination that I was going to finish that.  He’s going to be 2 months old.  It’s time.  I think I’m over the frustration of the quilt directions being troublesome.

I probably should have buckled down over the weekend and finished it but it’s not what I needed for me most.  I really needed bigger chunks of time to get organized and caught up….Mentally I needed it.

The quilt will happen…This week I hope.

I had an amazing few days off.  I can’t begin to explain how much better I feel as a more and more things have fallen into place.  I hope it stays that way.