Breakfast, whoa

Wow. I'd forgotten how much these kids eat. Well, I know how much they eat 'cause I've seen it recently but I've seen the food already prepared. I forgot how much you have to fix to feed 'em!

Got up, started making breakfast. I cooked a pound of bacon, I scrambled 9 large eggs all together. I fixed the rest of my Krusteez pancake mix and it made 6 5" round pancakes. Several cups of milk and juice. It's gone. I didn't even get a pancake (but I got bacon, by golly!). Artemas isn't even awake yet so it was only (hehe) Diantha, Veronica, Josiah, Jeremiah and Tony. Artemas stayed up all night apparently, watching Resident Evil movies. So he missed breakfast. When he gets up, dude can make himself a ham sandwich.

While I was making breakfast I finished loading and ran the dishwasher because I forgot to last night, so we had hardly any plates and no silverware. Thankfully, back in July I bought too much plastic ware for Jeremiah's birthday and Tony found the leftover up in the cubboard.

My hero!

Eager procrastination

I did it. I couldn't help myself. I couldn't hold off any longer. I started my Weird and Ugly Challenge project for the N2Quilting yahoo group I am on. It's not due until April and I have a ton of things to do before Christmas that need to be done BY Christmas but no. Here I sit, with no self control eagerly ignoring everything else I need to do.

Which at the moment is quite a bit. My kitchen needs to be cleaned before I can start making dinner in an hour or so. I have a strange man coming to my house in the same amount of time to look at the weight bench my husband is selling. Did I mention that I have 3 extra kids right now too? HAHA, I have them doing my chores so I can be creative. I made Diantha unload the dishwasher. I'm making Veronica help me with laundry. It's chore enough to keep Josiah and Jeremiah from fighting. Did I mention today I'm doing laundry and I have my living room strewn with the stuff? It's down to 3 billion pieces of baby clothes and socks. At least I got all my undies off the couch, so when the aforementioned strange man shows up he doesn't see a Victoria's Secret spread.

I think I may have finally rearranged the Ugly Quilt as much as can be done. I've been obsessively moving a piece here, a piece there, for about 6 hours. Everytime I walk past the spare bedroom. When Mom dropped the kids off I showed her my progress. She said it was better and then SHE obsessively rearranged some pieces. Wonder where I get it? Tony walked passed the room while we were at it and flippantly said, "Anal." Smart alek.

Oh no an ugly quilt

What do I do? Oh no, it's an ugly quilt. I needed a quilt for someone for Christmas and needed to make it from my stash. So in a blur of ambition over the weeekend I pieced 4,000 half square triangles and 4-patches. I cut, I ironed, a drew diagonals and straight lines to sew by, I sewed and cut, ironed, sewed, cut and iron..whew.

This morning my husband wanted to list his weightbench on the Craigslist so I needed to straighten up our spare bedroom, ie weightroom where my design wall is. While I was at it I put all the pieces to this quilt up on the design wall and ...

It is ugly. Ugly, ugly, ugly. I looked at it, Tony came in the room, and I said, "Oh no." He says, "Sew together the pieces, finish it and it will look better. Promise." I hope, I hope. What do I do if it doesn't look better? I'm uppa creek! Back to square one, only now my stash has been cut into 5" charms. Crap! It does look a LOT better in the photos than it does in real life, which would be perfect if I were giving someone a PHOTO of a quilt for Christmas. (sigh)

Might as well press on and hope it looks better when it's done. Crap.

But I can't do that right now anyway... have to go rescue Hannah, who just hit herself in the face with a cement mixer...

Another quilty day

So here we are at Mom's again. Jeremiah has been trying miserably not to get any more bumps and bruises, though he is unsucessful as he now has a knot on his forehead. (sigh) Tony is bundled up in Ralphie's Big Fat Camo Snowsuit and has been for hours while he's crawled around under the house with Dad, running plumbing lines to the new water heater. We did find out his snow-suit isn't waterproof when Artemas flushed the toilet. The things you learn, huh?
Hannah has been good and so far has survived being passed and forth without Betsy hurting her. A major feat indeed. I sold 2 bags this afternoon for which I am so thankful and excited, now to do some more Christmas shopping!!

I have managed to get quite a bit of progress done on the jewel box quilt I started yesterday while my hands have been realitively Hannah-free. I got all of the rest of the HSTs and 4patches made, ironed and squared to 4.5". Then I pieced a 4-patch and HST together to make half blocks until I ran out of components. 96 of them (I will end up with 48 blocks). I've managed to only run out of bobbin thread once. The sewing machine gods must be busy screwing with other people today. Shh...don't draw their attention.

Mom is digging through piles of yarn, sweaters, felted bits as I type, looking for my wonderful, beautiful handspun yarn. We laid it on her kitchen table on Tuesday to show my Grandmom and no one has seen it since. I hope Grandmom didn't take it back to New Jersey with her!! If we find it I can spend the rest of my time here sitting around knitting it with a black eye-lash yarn, some yarn I made from cut up fabric and some fun fur yarn. It's going to be killer. I can't wait to start!

I am going to go sit around watching Jeff Dunham on comedy central while helping control the masses. 12 people in the house with the water turned off. No bathrooms. Well, bathrooms but no water to flush the toilets. We've already used up our "one flush" you get after you turn the water off--that's how we found out Tony's snow suit wasn't waterproof. Oops.

Yay quilting!

I ACTUALLY got some quilting done today! Not working on bags, not knitting, not THINKING about quilting or bags or knitting but honest to God quilting done.

I took the kids to Mom's along with my sewing machine, rotary cutter, sewing scissors, half my stash, a 3 yard roll of quilt batting, a pile of juvey flannels and I handed Hannah to Veronica when I got there. Jeremiah went to play with Josiah and I spread out my stuff and worked on quilting! I got about 100 5" charms cut and paired with neutral colored 5" charms in either 4-patch units or HSTs. Need to iron all of those now that I'm home. I'm going to make a Jewel Box pattern with them which means I get to square up 4,000 4.5" components. (sigh) I got 46 7" squares of the flannels cut out--sorry, actually got 92 flannel squares cut out and 46 5" squares of cotton batting and I made 46 flannel sandwhiches for Hannah's shaggy quilt for Christmas. I think I need to pick up some more flannels, since that won't be crib sized if I sewed them all together now but it's a great start!

My Christmas-gift-giving list is off and running again! I am working toward a goal! I am MAKING progress! I am exhausted.

Jeremiah hit his leg on something at walmart a week ago, giving himself a nasty bruise that is still slightly swollen. He's hit it 3 more times since then, once very badly tonight and now it is really swollen. Poor baby fell asleep with an ice bag on it. I don't think it's broken since he has all his motor skills and can wiggle all his toes and his foot, but it is still very sore and he is very sad. Tony is bringing home some children's Motrin to see if that will help with the pain any. Other than that, I don't know what to do. Or rather, I don't think there is anything else I can do.

If Mom can find my handspun yarn I did (grin), tomorrow I'd like to start knitting with it since I've gotten such a good start on these two quilts. LOL! Or maybe I should have some self control and finish the quilts?

I did get one thing listed on Etsy today: the Mule Barf Scarf! It is purple and a pink/orange/blue/green yarn that reminds me of that Jello-salad stuff that is featured at all church picnics. We used to call it Mule Barf, and somehow the name fits the scarf!

Free Giveaway - Little Hippy Bag

I've been making "Little Princess" bags for my nieces out of fun and bright fabrics for Christmas, and in a flash of inspiration have made a "Little Hippy" bag from batik fabrics that I thought I'd offer as a giveaway!

The Bag:

This particular bag is approx. 7 1/2" wide by 8" tall. It fastens shut with a button and tab. It has a cellphone/ipod/whatever pocket on the back (pictured with a cell phone in it, the cell phone is not included in the giveaway!). Inside it has a tall thin pocket suited to DPNs or pens and a wider, shorter pocket suited to rolls of quarters or a folded knitting pattern. The double pointed needles also don't come with the bag, thanks! It is outline quilted and 100% machine washable. It has a shorter strap on it, 36"--long enough to make it a sock knitting bag if worn on the should but also suited for any young girls on your gift giving list! The lining acutally fits correctly in the bag, I'm not sure what is going on with it in this picture.

The Rules:

One entry per person. To enter you must visit my etsy shop (you don't have to be a registered etsy user) Hamncheezr. Then leave a comment here on my blog telling me what your favorite item is, and a very brief explanation of why. I am interested in the feedback! Also leave in your comment your name and e-mail address in a non-harvestable form ( me at server dot com ).

Pretty simple, huh? If you give me a plug on your own blog (for instance, "Des is giving away a bag, go see!") and the link, you'll be rewarded with an extra entry. Contest runs Nov. 15th thru Dec. 1st! Winner chosen at random!

Winner will be notified by Dec. 2nd, and if not heard back from by Dec. 7th another winner will be chosen!

Yo-yo's, mini-bags and stir crazy

Today was one of those days. I didn't even get dressed. Hannah fussed in her sleep all night last night, and squirmed and wanted to nurse for 2 minutes, then fussed and squirmed some more. Jeremiah had a bad dream about 4:30, got in bed with us and cried, squirmed and kicked his legs til about 7. I was ready to have a nervous breakdown before the sun was up. *sigh* Tony took Hannah for me at 9 and let me sleep til 11, which was ALMOST enough sleep.

I had started working on some yo-yo ornaments last night and got the yo-yo's finished this morning. Need to get some lace and ribbon to finish them, and when I do I'll post a pictorial on how I make them. They are pretty neat, and aside from the use of a glue gun would be a great project for kids. I'm making 10 ornaments so I made 20 yo-yo's and hotglued an antique button in the center of each over the seam.

I finished the two "mini-bags" I've been working on. "Little Hippy Sock Knitting Bag" is what I'm going with. They are just like my regular batik quilted bags only they are 7 1/2"x 8" and have a long, thin pocket on the inside for a set of DPNs as well as a regular pocket on the inside (for a pattern, maybe?) and a pocket on the outside for a cell phone or something (short pair of scissors?). I am going to try to get at least one of them listed on etsy tomorrow. Since they are smaller I was going to charge less, but with all the pockets and stuff they are just as much work as the larger bags! Have to think on this some more.

I am stir crazy tonight. Hannah has fussed and squirmed and not slept all day. Jeremiah has made every high-pitched repeatative noise he can think of today. If I hold Hannah, she's happy. If I set her down, she cries, screams, spits, raspberries unhappily. I'm amazed I got the bags done at all because I worked on them 3 minutes at a time, all day long. Which means I got nothing else done around my house. Did I mention I didn't get dressed? I am such a slob. I called Tony when he got off at 10:30 and told him I didn't think I could stand another MINUTE of any type of child or child noise or I was going to go insane. I told him I needed SOMETHING chocolate and it would be better for him if he brought some home. Otherwise I was going to go to walmart, by myself. He got home at 11:30 but he brought so much junk food you'd think we had the munchees. He brought me the biggest Mr Goodbar I've ever seen, along with chocolate doughnuts, chocolate chip cookies, potato chips, corn chips, iced oatmeal cookies, a pecan pie and a can of mountain dew. I love him, he cannot be sent to the store for a snack. So now I can be chubby and a slob, LOL!

Tomorrow, I hope I have more patience. I want to spend more time WITH my kids instead of being annoyed by them. I want to read to Jeremiah instead of telling him to go play quietly in his room. But please, Lord, can I PLEASE get a good night's sleep first?

An encouraging word

Psalms 86:1-7

Hear, O Lord, and answer me, for I am needy.
Guard my life, for I am devoted to you. You are my God;
save your servant who trusts in you.
Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I call to you all day long.
Bring joy to your servant, for to you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
You are forgiving and good, O Lord, abounding in love to all who call to you.

More handspun

Wow it was a busy weekend! Not so much for me I guess, since I just kind of hung around Mom's house while Tony played in the dirt underneath with the plumbing, LOL! I did, however, spin around 200 yards of yarn on Mom's homemade low-whorl drop spindle!! She had bought a bunch of "batt crazies" from a seller on etsy with the mindset that she'd spin in here and there and after Christmas start knitting herself a moebius wrap. Well, I got all the batt that she had left spun! Haha!

Once they were spun we had to soak them to set the spin and then hung them from her shower rod to dry. The 1st and 3rd yarn pictured on the right are from those crazy batts, the middle yarn is one from a batt she bought for me that was a lucious black merino with an incredible neon blue bamboo stripe in it. I got 54yds yarn from the 3oz of batt. I can't wait to play with it some more!

Here are the pics of Mom's finished yarn. She did one skein all by herself, one she did half, I did half and the other I did entirely by myself! Can you guess which one is which? HA! Thought not... that is going to make one beautiful wrap, I am SO jealous!

Off to Mom's to visit with Grandmom and Uncle John who are in from NJ (or PA, I can never remember...) More tidbits later!

Ho Hum

Well I haven't gotten a lot accomplished over the last couple days. I did get the three quilted bags I was working on finished, which is nice because I can cross a couple more people off my Christmas list. I have a custom order for one I can start working on now.

We found out this evening that my husband is getting a rather severe pay cut at work. We keep telling ourselves that we'll be alright, but I am kind of depressed about it, but then I get depressed about everything, LOL! Supposedly it's only until January but we've not gotten that in writing, so who knows. Tony is looking through the classifieds for a second, part-time/weekend job. I asked him if he wants me to get my job back at Kmart in the mornings but he said, "No. You are too tired all the time already just taking care of the kids, I don't know if you could work on top of it." I don't know how I feel about that. I know we will be alright, because I have seen the Lord provide for my family time and time again, but it is still a sharp blow and a bummer.

I did FINALLY get those churn dash blocks swapped out. The deadline for them was last Friday but I was starting to get sick and just haven't had the energy to do it until now. I am itching to lay out all my blocks on my design wall! I have 2 plastic, flannel backed table clothes tacked side by side with the flannel out and it is wonderful! Fabric/quilt blocks stick to it with no problem and I can lay out quilts and decide where blocks go without having to crawl around on the floor. It is so much easier on my back!

We're going up to Mom's tomorrow so Tony can crawl around under her house and work on plumbing, I guess. I'm going to take a couple knitting projects with me. I've been working on 2 scarves, one to use up yarn left over from the scarf/hat set I made my niece for Christmas and the other is a speculation, maybe for my sister for Christmas. I will have to wait until I get it done to see if it "looks like" her. Maybe I'll try spinning some more at Mom's. :-) I tried a little tonight for about a minute, but we preoccupied and had my mind on other things so couldn't get any rythem going, so I didn't do very well. I want to try spinning some fabric too. Might as well RUN before I can walk, LOL!

My babies are asleep and even though my brother Josiah is spending the night and doing things to annoy me (like needing waffles at quarter til 1AM, breaking the butter knife, etc) I am going to turn him over to Tony, take a half a sleeping pill and try to get some rest.

Phillippians 4:19--And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.

Phillippians 4:7--and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

Handspun yarn!

I got my weird and ugly fabric for the challenge on the N2Quilting yahoo list I'm on and I just LOVE it. I have something "un-quilty" in mind to do with it, but not until after Christmas! I have too much to do until then, although as I type this I am looking at it and it is calling to me, begging to be cut up and played with. I don't know if I'll be able to resist.


I did get a little bit of sewing done yesterday. I am making some quilted bags for the little girls on my list and I got the fronts and backs pieced for all three bags, just need to quilt them and make the lining and straps. I probably could have gotten more done but Mom and the kids came over last night and she brought a 4oz batt to spin into yarn, along with her drop spindle. I got a wild notion that I wanted to try it and ended up spinning all but about 10 feet of the yarn!

I am pretty proud of it, even if it's pretty bad, LoL!
It looked alright last night before we soaked and hung it. It is still wet this morning but looks like it has less twist to the yarn and is slightly fuzzier than might be desired. Knit on bigger needles it'll look pretty cool though.


Mom had these codswold (sp?) locks, big long curly chunks of sheep hair she'd dyed very black that she wanted spun here and there into the yarn, sticking out a little bit. I put 6-8 pieces in there but this morning it looks like they all came out of the twist whist it hung overnight. Don't know what we're going to do about that. Maybe just be gentle and knit them into whatever she knits with it.

I also worked a little on a hat for my niece Maisie to go with the scarf I knitted for her on Sunday (another Christmas present). I got about 2 1/2" done and ran out of yarn! Double crap! That yarn was on sale and there wasn't any more at that store, so I'll have to try a couple others this week. Otherwise maybe she gets a headband and scarf for Christmas, LOL!

I am very disheartened about the way our elections turned out, and that is making me depressed and tired feeling. It's not an issue of race, I don't know why so many people made it out to be that. Hurray for a black president, it doesn't bother me at all. The thing that bothers me is the man. I don't think Obama will make a good president. I think he's too inexperienced and I think he's a little anti-American what with saying we don't actually need an army, wanting to pull funding from our National Guard and such.

I am accepting of other's religions to but this country was founded on Christianity and as such we've always been sworn in to anything on the Bible. Every senator, congressman, president, witness under oat, etc, they all place their hands on the Bible. Obama refused to do this and chose the Koran! But he says he's not Muslim--what is this then? If he's Muslim, okay, but don't lie about it, you know? Believe what you believe and stand for that instead of changing to get votes. *sigh* I will be in prayer for our country.

Christmas, here I come!

I am aggressively attacking Christmas. Or rather, gifts we need to give people. I tried to start Christmas shopping in July and Tony wouldn't let me. So today when I told him we're about half done and he said, "Thank GOD otherwise, we'd probably be out of luck" I got to say, "This is why I tried to start in July" and I stuck out my tongue. Mature, right? I knew you'd think so.

I started and finished a scarf for my niece Maisie. I have some of the yarn left, enough to make a hat out of but I need Mom to make me a set of her "obscene" needles that she sells on Etsy. In other words, I need about a size 13-15 double-pointed needles to do the hat. Oh well, that can wait a couple days.

I've also been working on a second hat for my niece Aubree. My sister in law asked me to knit her one because she has a pretty big head and she's been having to wear her daddy's hat. I figured I'd knit a couple, because they are quick and kids always manage to lose one. I finished one on Wed night that is just plain, white with little spots of pink and blue in it. I'm working on another tonight that (I HOPE!!!) will look like a cupcake when I'm done! I don't have a pattern for this, I'm kind of just making it up as I go along. I'm getting to use a circular needle instead of regular DPNs, which is new to me. I've never used one before and it is a little awkward. Don't know what I'll do when I start decreasing, might have to put it back on my DPNs.

Tony was off this weekend, which was wonderful. I'm a little under the weather and very tired, so it has been nice to lay around in the evenings and let him play with the kids.

I would try to post a picture of Maisie's scarf, but my camera batteries died and I don't have any more AA batteries. Might have to wait until Friday. Guess I should get back to knitting, I'm on a roll now and I'm loathe to stop, LOL!