Well with all my determination on blogging every day, life intervened and here I am...finally posting again. Thanks for all the comments on my Mom...she is doing better, she's at home, getting some therapy and coming back from her broken hip!

Thanksgiving was quiet around here...just the 4 of us and we've been trying to catch up on those little household things that get avoided on a regular basis! Now this week I've been catching up on WORK - I hate all of this stuff that cuts into my craft time!

However, just about the time I was feeling a complete lack of creative energy...look what I got in the mail from Pat Winter!:

I made a comment on how to make her fabulous little purses and she sent me a pattern and all this other fabulous stuff! Aren't I lucky?

Also on my Thankful list is a bunch of snow on the ground this morning (good thing my husband doesn't read this....he'd have a cow at that...he HATES snow!) but I'm finally beginning to feel "in the Holiday spirit" - Hooray! I love that!

Well I needed to "check in" and let you know I'm here and today (if I can get the house cleaned and a few other things), I intend to get busy on some projects...wish me luck!

Stumble It!

With all great intentions on the daily blogging, life intervened!

Unfortunately the bad is that my Mom broke her hip and is in the hospital. She had surgery last week and is home already recuperating. Unfortunately she had to miss Missy "C's" 6th birthday. We took all 4 girls (plus Matey Moo) out to a sports bar where they could be noisy, open gifts and eat HUGE HUGE HUGE chocolate desserts.

On the stitching front, I was able to make some progress on my seashell while waiting for my Mom's surgery...the builions really need help, but I guess that's the point of this...practice, practice, practice. I'm pretty sure by the time I get all of the rows together fairly tightly it won't looks so awkward.
OH! And on top of all of this, I spilled an ENTIRE diet coke directly on my laptop yesterday, so it goes in to be looked at today....eek! I feel like such an idiot! The good news is that we have computer insurance (that believe it or not protects from idiots who spill soda directly on their keyboards! So, with this lovely sunset, I'll head off to a day where I feel more calm and organized!
Stumble It!

Well I have missed a couple of days! Bad me! However, I'm back and blogging again! First, I want to thank Paula, the quilter for pointing out that the top wires on my serger push down...DUH! So, now my cover fits just fine! I might have spent the rest of my life with the cover teetering on top!

I loved the comment I got from Bibliotecaria about lack of inspiration on my post the other day. I took her advice and went and got a copy of this month's Fiber Arts magazine, I've been surfing and looking at different art and ideas.

Yi Ting Lee - I love the idea of pieces that look like they're in a rear view mirror of a car.
Chris Chiappetta - I love the picture in the magazine of "An Unidentified Man, above, worried about leaving his cat, which was hiding" (it's a really creative piece).

As well as dug out a few old projects that just had some 'boring" work to be done on them (I have a lot of these because I managed to leave a lot of the tedious jobs for last on several quilts/pieces). I also was surfing and came across Pat Winter's glorious pouch and so I might try something small (although at her level of detail, not quick) piece like this to finish and feel I've accomplished something.

Visual journals are hard for me. Much like written journals, I start all "gung ho" and then forget about them. I feel like they're a test....if I hate a sketch I want to rip it out. It's weird. Maybe this is part of my block or using one just isn't for me.....not sure.

Anyway, off to start my day and see what I can accomplish today! Stumble It!

I'm in a bad mood. I was just reading Sharon's tips (actually from another blog) about blog writing and it says to not get too personal, but frankly, that would make me not human. I just can't believe I waited two and a half hours in line to vote! What a screwed up system! Whew. Ok, I feel better having vented.

The good news is I made lots of new friends in line to vote - can you imagine 2 and a half hours! Luckily the kids were at school and I saw another Mom from the class passing me in time to get her to watch my kids for the 1/2 hour I was late to go get them!

Do you think the politicians can get me back 2 and a half hours of my life? Ok, it was worth it...maybe tomorrow it will be worth it! :-)

I have a project to get out this afternoon and NO OUTGOING EMAIL! EEEK! Oh, well, called the printer and it's ok...can wait until tomorrow.

I'm going to get my brazillian embroidery and start working on it. See, there's my "craft" content for today! :-) Actually I found several cool sites/people I want to blog about but I'm just too grumpy to do it. Stumble It!

I got my mending done....that was it. I have one more thing to fix (the kids stroller) and I should be caught up on stuff like that.

My goal this week is to be a bit more creative...this side of me is suffering a lot....what do all of you do when "life" gets in the way? Do you keep stuff to stitch on with you? I feel like I completely let this drop (out of apathy).

Happy Week Everyone! Stumble It!

That's my headline from today's work and I have to say that I got so depressed I didn't even mend the two things I needed to work on....TODAY! I will do it!

So, I bought a cover specifically for a serger and it doesn't accomodate the little wires that stand up.....is this normal? This is not my serger (it's all creme) but you get the idea. Aren't serger covers supposed to exist so that you don't have to unthread them? How do you all store your sergers?

Anyway, I can sew a little skirt on it...and the cover was only $2, but STILL!

I hope to have some progress to report today, all I can say now is I'm frustrated (doesn't take much, does it?) :-)

Labels: sewing

Stumble It!

I think about a year ago (or more) I was complaining about what to do with my children's "treasured" artwork. Here's the situation today - this is one week's artwork!
This is last year's artwork...waiting for me to take pictures - I put them all on a cdrom last year. which is an ok idea, but of course we haven't looked at it at all. I'm about to mail off a selection to relatives! (bwa, ha, ha!)

And the big stuff you can make wrapping paper out of! My good friend has a large binder for each kid per year and puts plastic sleeves...once a week (or month?) she goes through, they pick their favorites and put them into the book. Cool idea. Any other great ideas? Stumble It!

I finished my project (work project) and so this morning I'm off to my Friday morning craft group! I haven't been in 6 weeks! No wonder I'm uninspired! I'm going to go and chat and work on my Brazilian embroidery.

I was searching under "fiber art" on flickr for some inspiration and found this piece....if you click through, there is more explanation and i think it's fabulous! I followed her profile through and it's done by Laurie Dorrell at Moonwild Art. I think it's fantastic. I'm still searching for my personal expression....I need to marry what I'm learning in techniques with something that's truly me.

Her art is really interesting, but in looking at her site, I think this is one of her best pieces....I'd love to see more like it.

Ok, I'm off to put my blog where my mouth is and get working, but I may have to start out with inspiration and then be inspired! :-) Stumble It!

Thanks to Debra for the comment on my last post and for pointing me to NaBloPoMo! I needed a kick in the tushie! It's interesting when you start life as a stitching blog and it sort of evolves - my family (exteded here and in Australia) read this blog as well as neighborhood friends and then primarily people who stitch...crazy quilters, art quilters, embroiderers. Frankly it's a very very broad audience and I feel sometimes that I worry about neglecting one for the other.

Well, here's what I'm going to do...keep this as my creative outlet (or inspiration - which I need desperately right now) but I'm also not going to apologize for writing about life. I hate HUGE gaps in folks blogging because life intervenes...seems to me like it's your life and you can write about it, or whatever you need to write about.

We have just hit 176 members at Bloggers who Embellish. I've been a bit slow to approve folks but mostly because I have been being spammed with people joining (like icky "ringtone" blogs), so I tend to put it off a week and go through them all at once. I'm also going through and tossing out abandoned blogs (ones that haven't updated in more than 6 months) and any others that have dropped our logo - only those who look like they are perfectly capable of adding the logo link (ie, they have 50 on them!).

Well, just to prove that I still surf and catch cool stuff: I love Mimi Kirchner's Doll » big man- tourist 2 where the shirt has appliqued felt Hawaiian motif and I can't wait to try the
stained glass technique featured in cqmagonline - gosh! I could have used that with my grafitti quilt! And finally I found this page: Challenge 2006 Ballot - I'm amazed at how many of the quilt artists I know throught he blogosphere!

Ok, so here's a "cheer" to a November FULL of blog entries! (wish me luck!) Stumble It!