New Year-New Start

As a new year is about to start, I thought I would start to try this blogging thing again. It has been a while. This last year has been an interesting one.

Right now our furnace is out. Only one room has heat. The rest of the house has dropped down into the 40's. Thank goodness for space heaters. We are currently camping out in our family room, waiting to find the right part to fix our heater. 

Our family tried our hand with foster care. What a road that was to travel. But the impact it was having on our kids was to negative to continue. 

Our son was diagnosed with ADHD and high functioning Autism. So that has been another interesting road to travel. We are learning how to help him succeed in his everyday life. Things are going well. He even does his homework without the breakdowns that we were dealing with. 

I am also homeschooling our oldest kid. It is a learning experience for both of us. 

Sad to say, I haven't been able to do as much quilting as I would have liked. My creativity has just not  been there. I am wanting to start new and really be able to dig into my brain and have some fun creating some beautiful happy quilts. 

Me and my drill

First off I am in no way associated with Rockwell tools nor do I have any great giveaway. I am just a girl who was tired of using her husbands big heavy hard to manage corded drill. So I played with a few at Lowes and really liked this one. There is a lot of torque in this little thing. You don't have to fight with the rounded thing on the front to switch bits, it uses bits with a hexagon bottom that chuck into the drill, or 3rill as its called. Screwdriver, drill and impact driver thing. Oh and it has this clutch thing that stops you from rounding out your screw heads. Something I am famous for with my hubby's drill. So this little beauty came home with me. I just hung a shelf on my sewing room wall and put together a slatted wood sign thing. (I am very into technical terms) I am smitten. 

I Hate Paper Piecing

There I said it, and I feel better now. I am working on a bee block for my "To Bee Orange and Aqua" group. There is no doubt that the block is beautiful and the finished quilt will be gorgeous, but I really do not love doing the paper piecing. I am not a precise quilter. I just do what I want with no real rules. Paper piecing is full of rules and having to do things in a very precise manor. I do think my head may burst from all the thinking that I am having to do.  This is not to say I will not paper piece. I do have 2 quilts in mind that I would love to make that are pieced in this way, but I really have to get myself jazzed up in order to start them. One day I will, but for now I just need to get through this block and get the dear thing in the mail back to the quilt maker.

Allergic to Winter

I think I'm allergic to winter. This is a sad thing because I love winter. A gloomy cloudy day is so happy to me. I love rain and a little bit of snow. Ice I'm not to fond of. But back to being allergic, I have had nothing but migraines and sinus pressure since the cold more winter like weather has rushed in. It makes it very hard to enjoy when it feels like my head my explode right off my neck. Not a pretty picture. I can't help but be a bit on the grumpy side.

I am working on a bag for a high school friend that said she wanted one. Granted today I haven't even made it into the sewing room. I have been folding and putting away the mountain of laundry that has piled up. I hate doing laundry. Its not so much the washing but the putting it away. But the bag is cute. Just a tote with a patchwork pocket in mostly greens.

I am also doing the swoon-along http://www.flickr.com/groups/1904864@N22/ I have no idea how many people the group is up to. It will be fun seeing how different one quilt will look in different fabrics. I still haven't picked out what I want to do mine in. I did do a test block in pink and grey. I think it will turn into a baby quilt for my friend. I thought I had till April for that wee baby quilt, but surprise, she had that sweet little baby girl 3 months early. Baby Olive is doing really really good for coming into the world at 26 weeks. Beautiful tiny little 2 lbs 7 oz (I think) baby.

No shop stuff this week. the house needs to much attention this week and my focus is off. Hope to back at creating fun stuff next week.

Maddie has been working on a quilt for her teacher and his wife who are expecting their first baby next month. She did the layout and the sewing herself. I helped with the cutting and some of the quilting. She rocked it too. This quilt turned out great!

Sick Week

Well this week did not go as planed. Sick, sick, sick around here. Not me but the kids, one right after another. Started with Lucas over the weekend and the first 2 days of the week. It his Wyatt on Tuesday and I just sent him back to school today. And Abbie started last night.I don't think I have slept all week. The Hubby person drives trucks and is gone 5 days at a time, so this has been all me. Then yesterday I slipped and fell on some big rocks in my front yard and binged myself up.

But I did get a few things done. I made that notebook cover and listed that little bag. I made the bag before Christmas but hadn't gotten around to listing it on etsy till this week. 

Next up is helping Madelyn finish up the quilt she is making for her teacher's soon to be born baby boy. She had done a great job on the quilt. 

As for my goals for this month, I will only get 2 things listed in my shop, my friend was having her baby in April had the baby yesterday, 3 months early. Baby is doing great and mama is also. 

I did good

So one of my goals for this month was list 3 new items in my etsy shop every week. So its Saturday and I added 3 new items. Yay for me. They are little things and didn't take to much time getting them together.

So in other news, Maddie started making a quilt for her teacher and his wife that are having their first baby next month. She is using the super cute rocket ship fabric from Prints Charming. And because she is doing this little project my very thoughtful Wyatt insisted that I make a quilt for the teacher he had last year who is also expecting a baby soon. 

So I dug out the super cute charm pack of Sherbet Pips by http://comfortstitching.typepad.co.uk/comfortstitching/ super cute fabric. Now that I started I want one for me. I may have to hunt down more of that fabric. I need to et this one quilted and wrapped up for him to take to her. He was so excited to come home from school and see that I had started it.

The January ToDo list

We will see if this help me to stay organized and inspired to get some stuff checked off my todo list. This and the fact that my sewing studio is almost complete and and is turning into a great work space, I should do well. So for this month...

• get some things made and added to my sad little etsy shop, the goal is 3 items a week finished and listed. Can be small and simple. 
• Get fabric picked out for a friend who is having a baby in April. (maybe I can get this made and sent before the baby comes unlike a year and a half later)
• Finish the quilt bee quilt that is on the longarm (It is giving me some trouble)
• gather fabrics and decide on a layout for quilt number two for a friends boys. (she is prego also so a baby quilt will happen too in the next few months)
• write my first tutorial for a fun little netbook holder I made before Christmas.

floors and umbrellas

What a weekend. The hubby person and I (but mostly the hubby, i fear power tools with sharp edges) put in most, (we ran out of wood floor) Wood floor in my sewing room. I would have to say that it is freaking awesome. I bought all the floor samples and leftover chunks of wood flooring from this very nice man in a little flooring store. So with the hubby home for a few days, (he drives a big truck and is gone a lot) We spent a few days putting in what floor we had. We got all but 3.5 feet x the length of the room done. I love it. Its a patchwork floor.
So now I am getting my room set up so maybe I can use it for its intended reason.
I also need a place to hid on days like today. Wyatt has his best friend over and nobody is getting along. So I am in hiding. Its a scary place in the living room. So I sit safely back here typing and cutting up and umbrella. Pictures will soon follow.

We are working hard at getting settled in our new house. I feel like I have been moving for a year and a half, so it is nice to find the end. Our house was built in 1955, it has old wood floor hidden under the carpets, so we are pulling them up one room at a time. So far my living room is set up, I still have some things to hang on the walls, but all in all it is good.

My sewing room is the place I am most excited about. It is a great space, 15 feet by 22 feet. Nice big room. The trouble is that it was stuck so far into the 1970's. Nasty wood paneling and shag carpeting. The carpet was the first thing to go, (sadly it has been sitting outside in the rain) and the paneling is primed and ready for paint. I just picked up my flooring, well most of it. I will soon have what I call my patchwork hardwood floor. I went to this super nice floor guy and asked if he would sell me whatever leftover wood he had. So he has spent the last few weeks digging out floor samples and leftovers for me. I have about every color wood floor you can find. He charged me less then what cheep fake wood flooring would have cost. It will be beautiful!
So soon I will be happily sewing away on the huge nameless Gammill quilter. Once I get the tension right and that stinking thread stops snapping on me. Grumble!
The Christmas stuff is out, the tree is lit and I hope that a few days a week I will remember to turn on our house lights.

Bad at this blog thing

I am so bad at this blog thing.
So here is what has been happening. We have a house, yay! It has been a long year and a half and I am very happy to say it is over and now we are on to new adventures. Like painting, I hate painting. I have a huge sewing room. So happy too because I also have an old Gammill long arm quilting machine that has come to live with me. It fits great in my sewing room. The room is a work in progress though. Lots of primer over 1970's wood paneling. But It will soon look great. I am trying to decide between a very bold aqua color or the grey I have in the rest of the house. The grey is warm and makes me happy but the aqua is bold and beautiful. Yup, still thinking on that one. So right now life is unpacking and painting. All I want to do is get sewing though. In a week or so I hope.

Reliving Life

So it is 1:30 in the morning. I should be sleeping but I'm not. I was sitting at my sewing machine working on a bag, (Birdie Sling by Amy Butler) and thinking. I am thinking about how my life has been this last year. I have had to deal with some stuff that I have never dealt with before. Some things like moving to a new state, well I have done that but this one was a little different because we have family here, My hubby loosing his job, months with no income, living on the little that was put back, living with family that I knew but not that well, and know now maybe too well, hubby going to school to drive very large trucks, getting a job that has him on the road 5 days a week. All in all it has been a busy and very trying year. I am very thankful that I don't have a tendency to be depressed because this year may have killed me if I did.

Last July we moved up to Oregon from our home in Santa Cruz, California. We came up here with big dreams and the hope of getting to know my dads side of the family. We had visited a few times in my childhood and a few times in adulthood. I truly have a loving family. But when we came up here we were thinking it would only be a few weeks living with family and then we would be finding a house of our own. My parents were selling their home in Santa Cruz and moving up to Oregon and had offered to put a down payment on a home for my little big family. The first offer they got, that was suppose to close a few days after we made it up here, it fell through. Not nice. So their house went back on the market and the waiting game began again. We lived with my grandparents for a few weeks. The time we spent there I felt no mater how hard I tried nothing I did to help them out was done right. Sad really. With my hubby taking a big pay cut we were trying to figure out what to do. My wonderful cousin and Aunt offered a room in their home till things were figured out. We spent a little over 4 months with them. We laughed a lot, had some hard times, my help was better excepted, (well so I thought) there. The company that my hubby worked for offered us a house on their property. So in January we moved out of my aunts and into what I called the 70's vomit house. It was a 40 minute drive to get the kids to school every day then a 40 minute drive home. It sucked but we had our own place for a bit. Rent was cheep and we were able to get a few things we wanted/needed. It felt good. Little did I know, the trouble was a brewing. Feelings were being hurt and noses disjointed. But at this time I didn't really know. So after a few months there my parents house finally sold and they moved up into our lovely house of vomit. They started a house hunt for them, we looked at a few houses for us, they found one and paid it in cash and thought they would use their instant equity for a downpayment for us. Hubby lost his job due to paperwork not being as it should have been. All of us, my crew and my parents and grandmother (mom's mom) moved into their new house that really isn't big enough for all of us but we are making it work. I found a house that was great but when we looked into making an offer we found out that my parents couldn't pull from their equity for 6 months. Well that was a shocker. But we are dealing with it. My dad was spending time visiting his sisters and parents, then coming home and telling me all the lovely thing that were being said about me. All kinds of trouble I had caused with out even knowing it. I hadn't helped enough, I should have payed for more things, didn't keep things as clean as I should, and sadly the list goes on and on. And keeps going on. Every time I think something has been worked out then back it all comes. When you ask but are never told of what is expected of you , you don't know. Then with everyone holding on to all kinds of crap that I had no idea about is making me crazy. So here I sit in a state that I would never have moved to if it wasn't full of family, and my family thinks I'm shit. I am stuck in a situation that I can in no way rectify. It is some fun stuff I tell you.

Thank mercy goodness I go with the flow really well. I will at some point in time have a house that will be all my own. I can then work on making this place feel like home. I may even see my family from time to time, I will try to be on my very best behavior, use my manors and perhaps hand out gobs of cash. But first I will have to find it, I somehow misplaced my gobs of cash. So sad. Just needed to boo hoo a bit. Now back to the regularly scheduled program.

A year

So we have been in Oregon for just a few days shy of a year. And wow what a year it has been. I have managed to live in 4 houses, only one of them rented, all others have been with family. I have made most of my family mad at me in one way or another, be it money related, or my big mouth, or them feeling that I am irresponsible in one way or another. All in all it has sucked. I am hanging in there in hopes of things getting better. We should be able to hunt for a house by November. I am really hoping that getting a place we can call our own will help us feel at home.

The hubby starts a new job this week. It will keep him on the road 5 or so days out of the week. Not great for the kids and I but it will help him stay out of all the family stuff that seems to follow me around. I feel sad dragging him to a place that is so full of negativity. I never thought San Antonio would remind me of good times. But it does. We had no money and I hated that city, but I didn't have the people troubles I do here. I see why being alone is an easier place for me. I pull away from human contact. All I do is rub people the wrong way. I guess I am having a bit of a woe is me day. They happen, not often, but they do.

I just need to sew something. Sewing always makes me feel better.

Got the sewing mojo back

I am sewing again

Oh yes I am sewing again.

I am finally feeling it.

I don't know if it had to do with taking care of a little one and 3 other kids or bad living situations. But the living thing still sucks, but I am sewing. I am thinking it is a sanity thing. My hubby lost his job and with that we lost the house we were living in. We lived on sight.

So I am working on way to many things at one time. A few quilts, a few pillows, some baby stuff, yay!

A New Year and A New Begining (I hope)

So another year has passed. I would say quickly, and it has been fast in some ways, but all in all it was not a fast going year.
In February we brought home out baby girl. I cannot believe it has almost been a year now. That is the one thing that has flown by so fast. Soon she will be toddling around. With her being my last baby I just want her to slow down a bit.
April Dave and I had our 10 year anniversary. And spent some time almost alone in Hawaii. We brought Abbie with us. But the other kiddo's stayed with Mamaw and Papa.
We moved from Santa Cruz to Medford OR. in August. We have spent a lot of time with family from my dad's side. and that brings us to now.
We will be moving into a rental house this weekend. It will be nice to see my stuff again and to be able to spread out a bit. We have lived in one room of my aunts house for the last few months. Poor her huh? But what I want the most is a good place to sew. It has been a long time. I have been able to do a few things but not to the degree my brain has been creating things. It is time to get them out of my head and onto fabric. I may blow up if I don't.
I hope this year hold some great things and happy times.

Wonky coins with tufted tweets

Wonky coins with tufted tweets
Originally uploaded by maddieandme1

I have a huge need to make things, to create. I am unhappy when I don't. Right now in the living situation I am in right now creating anything is hard. I am such a mess sewer. I can't make a mess here without making people crazy. Setting up and taking down, setting up and taking down. It makes it hard to find the time for all that is involved. I try, but it doesn't happen as much as I would like. I find myself feeling sad when I don't have something to make. There is no lack of ideas but a lack of my own space.
I was able to finish up this fun quilt for me. I love it so. The colors make me happy!

I did it again.

Life

Life is an interesting place for me right now. Not having our own place to live has led to some very interesting situations for me. I am not sure if I would be dealing with some of this stuff if things had worked out as we had expected when we started this trip we find ourselves on. We moved up here to Oregon in August. We thought it would be only a few weeks bumming off family. But the sale of my parents house fell through. They are still in Santa Cruz trying to sell a house in a really bad market and we are up here staying with family. I can not tell you how much I appreciate that they have made room for us here. there are a lot of us to make room for. But now that we are here and people have gotten a taste of my wonderful personality I have upset many people by just being me. I have come to the conclusion that I suck. But the funny thing is I am ok with sucking because that is who I am. I am very comfortable with myself. I know who I am and I feel like I am a good person but not a person many people like to be around for long bits of time. I love my family weather they understand me or not. I am sure there will be many more things I say or do that will upset or offend. Sad but true.

On a lighter note I have been able to do a little sewing. It is amazing how much I miss a good place to sew. I am a sad girl without sewing. I have Christmas coming I need to make gifts. Ack. I am working on a list of things I would like to make for people. I know I will not make it to everything thing but I will try.

I am finishing a quilt up for me. There are not many me quilts, but I love this one and knew it had to be mine the minute I saw the fabric. Mine mine mine. I will get a pic up when I finish.

opinions

opinions- Something we all have. Something that has brought me a bit of trouble. I am a firm believer in the fact that everyone has a right to their own opinion weather it is something you agree with or not. This should not take away the right to have one. Or express it if you see fit. I did this on facebook and offended a few people. Nothing new for me but then the nasty emails started flowing. So here I am having to stand up for myself and this right I have to an opinion. Free speech also. If you are going to take something personal that was just me expressing an opinion then maybe you just have a guilty conscience. There is nothing I can do about that. So I have been called nasty and immature and I have others monitoring my behavior. I am not a child, I think things through before I do them and I am quite willing to deal with the consequences of my actions. I admit when I am wrong and will apologise for any wrongdoings. In this case I do not believe I have done anything wrong. I will not stand back and be walked all over because of an opinion. So here I am expressing my opinion on opinions. Take it or leave it but here it is.

Transition

Transition, I really hate transition. Here we are in Oregon with no house. Staying with family. It is a really hard thing not having any space of your own. I want to sew. I want to set up a new sewing room. But nope not right now. I am in transition. With a hubby and 4 kiddos. School starts tomorrow. The kids are happy to be going back. I am happy that they are happy. Madelyn will be starting the 3rd grade. Wyatt will be a big 1st grader and Lucas will be going to my Aunts private kindergarten. Smaller classes will be good for him. With his mind for story telling this is a good place to start him. Less kids to distract. It will be down to just me and Abbie for 4 hours a day. I wonder what I can get done.
I will be making quilts for my Aunts classroom. They have a rest time and all get a blanket and stuffed animal to rest with. Her blankets needed to be updated so I will be making some fun quilts. I am happy to have a project. Limbo is not a good place for me. I want a house to curl up in and sew. My things out of storage.
So here is to the new adventures life takes us on and the patience to get through transition. I will be alright, life will go on and we will get a house. (I keep telling myself this, positive thinking works right?)