Cleaning and purging

In my basement I have a storage room and one wall of the storage room contains a table made by a previous owner.  It is very convenient for piling up stuff. 


There were many gift bags – more than I would ever use.

So I sorted them out, kept a few, and the rest will go to Goodwill.  A lot of other things got packed up for Goodwill also – puzzles and knick-knacks that have been packed away for over 10 years.  After packing those things for Goodwill, I had room for a pile of empty project storage boxes.

 
Unfortunately there are four other walls in this room that also need purging and cleaning.  Sometimes it seems unending – this cleaning and purging – but a little bit at a time is better than doing nothing.

UFO #12 completed

UFO #12 is completed -

My challenge was to make a small wall-hanging out of a completed piece of counted cross-stitch.  The piece is titled Witchy Witchy Winifrid by The Trilogy.  I put lavender chenille trim around the cross-stitch as a pop of color and then put a Fall leaf fabric as a framing border.  Simple, but finished.  I also added just a smidge of sparkly thread in the lavender part of the hat – which doesn’t show up in the picture.

Please see other UFO finishes on Judy’s blog.

Finished Shawl

Textured Shawl, Designer Linda Voss Plummer, pattern in the Winter 2011 issue of Knit Simple magazine, using Red Heart Boutique Midnight yarn (65% Acrylic/23% Wool/6% Metallic Polyester/6% Nylon.) Started March 10, 2012 and finished June 24, 2012.
Almost a full skein of leftover yarn is now being knit into a simple scarf.

To all those expert knitters out there who have helped me and who continue to help me along my knitting journey, Thank You. 

June Postcards

Penny is involved with Casting for Recovery and thus her adorable  fishy postcard…..

I’m eating an apple a day in hopes of keeping the doctor away……

And Lou Ann loves to break the rules (size wise) and sent this round Zentangle card….

She also issued a challenge by including another round, unfinished Zentangle to be completed.   I got out my Zentangle books – all two of them – and went to work.

Here is my attempt.  (My hands shake a little some times – old age – and some of the wiggly lines are not always intentional.)  It was fun to do though.

Thanks Penny and Lou Ann for exchanging cards with me each month. I sure look forward to the mail arriving!

Organized (paper crafts)

Before -

What a mess!

After -

Ah – so nice and neat.

Top shelf – scissors and punches, etc.

Next shelf – envelopes and cards

Third shelf down – rubber stamps and stamp pads

Fourth shelf down – glues, sparkle glues, etc.

Bottom shelf – small paper, stickers (in red notebook).

And in front of the cabinet – big paper and scraps

On the very top is my paper cutter, my CuttleBug plates in the plastic box, and in the pink plastic box are finished cards, with old Christmas cards in the cardboard mini suitcase.

I being organized.

(for Beth who asked about my shawl pattern……..your message was “non-reply” and your blog does not have email or contact information, so I hope you see this message.  The pattern is from the Winter 2011 issue of Knit Simple magazine, pattern titled Point Taken, textured triangle shawl, designer Linda Voss Plummer.)

Knitting update

The shawl that I am knitting was getting tighter and tighter on the needles.  Even though I was told that it would fit on 40” needles, I was tired of pushing and pulling on my knitting and dreaded the coming rows where I would be adding even more stitches.  

So I ordered 60” needles and they arrived today.  Aw………..so much better.

The shawl will have 325 stitches by the time I get to the last row, so knitting one row takes quite a while.  However, I really don’t mind the long rows now that the shawl is spread out on these nice long needles.

Tears in my eyes…..

With tears in my eyes I made the monumental decision to throw out my favorite walking shoes.  I have had these shoes for approximately four thousand years, give or take a few.  They are falling apart and do not convey that fashion forward look that is so much a part of me.  (cough, cough)






















































In my closet, back in the corner, tucked away where no one sees it, is a very dusty cardboard three-drawer container.  Many a night as I drift off to sleep I ponder “What is in that three-drawer container?”  Today I pulled it out, dust bunnies and all, and looked.

The top drawer contained shoulder pads.  Hmmm.  When did I last use these and when will I ever use them again?  The other drawers were empty.  I vacuumed up the dust bunnies and decided that this container might be useful at my card (paper crafts) area in the basement (Quilt Studio).


I’m in the mood to clean, purge, and organize.  I should forewarn Goodwill that I will be coming with a carload of stuff!!!

On The Needles

On the needles this Friday (see Judy’s link party) is the beginning of the sweater I am making from the class I took last Tuesday.  This sweater has cables, which I have never done before, and uses a chart for part of the instructions, which I have never used before.  Learning new things is fun – especially when it all went well.

Ribbing – done.  First pattern rows – done.  I’m on my way to a new sweater!

bags and purses

Tonight I am taking a knitting class and I think I am more excited about the bags I am carrying than I am about the class.

My “Princess” friends just sent me a Baggallini purse as a Diamond Jubilee gift (I’m declaring it the Perfect Purse) and my cousin gave me a wonderful 31 Bag that holds all my knitting projects and accessories. 

With all my stuff expertly arranged in my bags, I shall be the Queen of “contained” at the class.

More….

More blocks up on my thread-filled design wall.

It makes me happy to play with polka-dot fabric.  

Deadlines

Every month I have two deadlines.  An Artistic Trading Card group has a specific deadline each month and a Postcard Trading group has a “sometime during the month” deadline. 

Every month as I face these two deadlines I fight with myself over the argument as to whether my work is considered “art” or “craft” – art being more desirable/uppity and craft being more………..well, lowly.  Now where did I get that attitude and why can’t I make it go away? 

Here is a link to the ATC’s from last month.  Can you pick out my crafty one as opposed to the other artistic ones?  Probably not. 

And here is a picture of the postcards from last month….

Which one is mine????  All three could have been done by me as I am always trying to measure up or going on a diet, but the May Binding is mine because I had a stack of quilts to bind in May and those are pieces of leftover bindings .

So am I an artist or a crafter?  I think I will compromise and be a crafty artist. 

Time to go work on my deadlines for June.

Oops

Whenever I feel confident that I know what I am doing, it always surprises me that I can so easily mess up.  One wrong flip of the fabric and the block pattern does not work and ends up in the overflowing waste basket.

That’s what happened when I attempted the 3rd and 4th Anita’s Arrowhead blocks.  Oops.  So I got the instructions back out and followed them carefully to make one more block.  (3 done, 2 wasted, and ???? to go.)

The instructions work amazingly well when you follow them!

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Finished up some binding for my friend, Moe.  I hope she blogs about this quilt as the story is very interesting.

As for knitting, I am still working on a shawl that is getting rather tight on the needles because the rows are so long.  Will I make it to the end on these needles or will I have to give in and purchase the next longer size?