I know, a bit scary, haven't blogged in awhile and then 2 posts in one week!

This past week I have been having a crisis in faith, well, let's rephrase that to be, in the past few months I have been building up to a crisis in faith, and in the past week I crashed, hugely!

Living with my son's health issues has been a huge challenge. It is so hard to sit back and feel so powerless, and furthermore, to have not been able to "fix" the one thing I need to fix in his life, and mine. And, although I have my issues with my ex, I know he is just as heart broken as I am, possibly more so, as I was a good parent and have few regrets, whereas he wasn't a parent at all. He truly regrets it now, but then again isn't hindsight always 20/20? And I have been feeling incredibly alone. Yes, I have a male friend, and there is a relationship going on, but it really doesn't seem to be working out the way I hoped it would, and I am feeling that although I truly care for him, he isn't "that guy". I could be wrong, my negative feelings could just be part and parcel of everything else going on right now. This is one of those things that only time will tell.

While I am not walking around fully optimistic about things I did get a little refresher course in faith. God has a plan for me, for my life. I will not alway be this alone feeling. I went to bed praying for two things. I usually only pray for peace in my soul, but last night I prayed that God show me his plan, that I needed the comfort another human can give me.

Have a lovely day!

Baby blanket addiction

I kept putting off posting on my blog, because I wanted to finish "one more" quilt. Turns out this has been somewhat addictive for me! I still have 4 more in the trunk of my car, but it is raining out (again) and I would rather they stay dry.
This is crocheted with a baby yarn, and is crib sized. The picture is a bit fuzzy as I didn't have my glasses on.
This is the first "rag quilt" I completed. I don't have alot of floor space so this really worked out well for me, I just put the batting between the 2 fabrics and sew around them.

Three flannel recieving blankets..

A girl's flannel rag quilt, crib sized.

Boys cotton print rag quilt, also crib sized. The colors don't look right in the photo, it is blue and green, not sure why it looks purple and pink.

Girls cotton rag quilt, again crib sized.

Recieving blanket or light crib blanket, one side is cotton flannel other is "Winnie the Pooh" print

Flannel "outdoorsy" toddler sized quilt. This was originally cut to make to make a quilt for my ex, but....I also don't remeber specifically what my plans were so I ended up just doing this stripe pattern. It is also backed with a plaid flannel. making it nice and cozy.

In the trunk of my car I have 2 red crochet crib sized blankies, I used a double strand of yarn to make them extra thick, I also have a twin sized crochet blanket done the same way, and the red blanket I had shown in a previous post, but added some blue trim around the edges.
So, in addition to the other blankets I have posted about, the ones in my car, and these, I have completed 16 in all. And, no, I am not done. I just decided that I had to post before I did "one more"!!!

The funny thing is that I had a two fold reason for doing this, and one being to use up my stash!!!! Ha that isn't gonna happen. I end up going on line or to the quilt store because I actually do need something (a solid to fill in, thread, needles, whatever) and I see something ever so cute, and LOL I end up buying that too! My other reason: keeping children warm, that is very important, and it is nice when you don't have alot of money, to have something nice.

I have to get in touch w/ Rachel now about shipping these things!!

Have a sparkly day!

I have been living in this apartment for one year yesterday! It has become my home, and I feel that.


When Cody got sick shortly after I moved here, this became my "safe haven" from the rest of the world. More so after my room mate moved out as I was no longer dealing with her issues.


At various points I have made semi attempts to decorate in here, but time, and exhaustion, and money have all been an issue. And it isn't that they are just going to suddenly stop being an issue, however, I am getting a chunk of change from some money we will finally be receiving that has been owed to us for awhile. Out of my share I am using a most of it for a down payment on a better car, and I am also being given a bit extra for a new dining room table and a chair that I have wanted forever from ikea! That makes me happy! In the interim I have been picking up odds and ends, some decorative and some usefully decorative, that I plan to start, well, planning how I am going to use them! I have ideas! Last night, my youngest son went through a pile of frames and catalogued them, as they are going to his school for the art and photography department. It was very tempting to just say "No, stop, I want that, and I want that..." but I walked away! I had thought about selling them on ebay or etsy, but again time is really a factor. Plus, to be honest the whole feedback thing on ebay stresses me right the heck out. (I once had a priority mail package take 3 weeks to get to Pennsylvania, fortunately the buyer was understanding and I had put delivery confirmation on it etc) Still!!!


Getting rid of the frames, and using up alot of my fabric stash, as well as sharing some of it with a friend is helping me make some room in my life, and my spare bedroom. And in my head!



I am also making some room for this little bit of love that will be coming to live with me next week! Isn't she sweet? Her name is Flopsy and she is a little lover!

My work week has been stressful with a new POS system going in. Half the stuff doesn't scan properly and others come up grossly off priced! Tech support is lax, and it gets frustrating. Most of my customers are very patient and sympthetic! To top that off, the steel wall on my front drivers side tire broke Monday afternoon, and I sat in Shaws parking lot for 2 hours waiting to be rescued! My spare/donut tire was flat, and I didn't have a jack. (Good time to find that out!!)

I am thinking that is about it for this chicky! Have a lovely evening!

Learning about Contentment

I set the bar for myself pretty high. I know I do. In part, because now that I am on my own, I can't "fail". For me though it is more than that, I don't want to just not fail, I want to succeed. I don't neccasarily mean from a financial point, I actually mean all around. I want things to be GOOD! I want my apartment to be neat, I want to be organized, I want to not squeak through the month, (with money) and I want to have it all together! When I set out to work on a project, I want to get it done in a timely manner. Things along those lines.

Last nite I was able to leave work an hour early. I had plans!!!! I was going to machine quilt, possibly sew on another one and watch a little tv, clean the fish bowl, hang some pictures. This is what I actually accomplished..I got the fish bowl clean!

Other than that, I spent alot of my evening UNSEWING some machine quilting I had done. Yuppers that is about all I had gotten done! Productive huh? This morning I woke up a bit annoyed with myself that I didn't get all I had wanted to accomplish done, and since I am not going into work until noon, decided that I could get it done this morning. My voice of reason decided to kick in and that was when I realized I was pushing myself too much, and just needed to slow down a bit.

Hence learning about contentment. I need to realize that I can only do so much, and when I push myself to do more than I can do, I accomplish less. Too much pressure for me. I need to learn to sit down, take a deep breath and say, this is good, this is enough. Then I can move on. Tough lesson. Especially for women since we are suppose to be able to "do it all".

Anyway, the fish bowl is really nice and clean!

Happy day!

Gearing up.....

for spinster hood!!..That is what I felt like I was doing yesterday! I went to Coventry to hang out with Cody, while I was there I did my laundry (which I hung on the clothesline) and I knitted on some trim for an item I made. I came home in the early evening and took a nap. Woke up, opened up a can of soup, worked on a crochet project and watch tv. It was when I was opening up the can of soup it occurred to me that there are days my life seems a bit old maid-ish! Ha!

That being said I look around my living room and it is a bit on the messy side! I have a cutting board on the floor as well as some quilt squares stacked next to that, a box with some yarn for a blanket I am crocheting and an empty laundry basket. Good thing I got up early this morning so now I can take care of it!

I WAS going to post a photo of some yummy yarns I had bought to make some baby gifts and a scarf for my mom, and another project I have in mind, but, apparently it is lost somewhere in this mess!!

Guess just a short post for now, If I find my camera later I will add photos!

Edited a wee bit here....It did and has occurred to me that I could make my quilts lessy fussy cut and just use "big squares" for the Mt. Baby blankets and get more achieved faster...and with the same end results! Which..ahem..I think I will do..considering that cutting is my least favorite part of quilting!!!

Have a productive and fulfilling day!

Pretties

This is a sweet little cake my friend Meagan made me for Easter. We were suppose to take a cake decorating class together but I was unable to for financial reasons..well at least I am still reaping some of the rewards! It tasted as yummy as it looks! These pretty little pair of pillows I made for my nieces uses eyelash yarn, and another called tutu. I asked the youngest of the 2 girls what I should do with what I was knitting, a purse or a pillow, and she said she LOVES pillows! My local job lot store has these yarns for about 1.00 a skein, and while they have no practical purpose, they do knit up some cute scarves and well..pillows! Youngest niece was also the recipient of the fuzzy light blue scarf I made/showed in an older post. I have requests from the girls to make more! (And I have more yarn, after all I can't pass up a buck a skein)

This quilt is not pretty. It caused me a great deal of misery in fact. I had this "brilliant idea" to machine quilt around the square/rectangles..which just made things kinda lumpy in spots. It was suppose to be a cheater quilt, sew the 2 John Deere pieces of fabric together and quilt them and viola a quilt is made. Instead, it taunted me, and mocked me, and made me feel guilty when I tried to sew other things. So, I took the bull by the horns and finished the durn thing over the weekend! While I will admit to not being proud of my work, it will serve its purpose. It is my 3rd finish for Mt. Baby Blankets. Now I can work on one that I think I will enjoy doing ever so much more! My plan is to get 5 or 6 quilts done before mailing them off to keep my postage costs down, as I am limited income wise.

This project, as well as a couple others I am working on have helped me cut down a bit on my stash. Considering I have been "collecting" fabric for almost 15 years, the amount I have isn't overly unreasonable. But the amount of sewing I wasn't doing was in no way keeping up with the fabric buying! LOL. I really haven't purchased more fabric recently either, with the exception of some solids to back the quilts with. Good for me. I also have a friend that I plan to share some of my fabric with, and give it to a good home.

I also have another story here, about knitting. My mother, who does not knit, taught me how to knit when I was about 10. She knew the basics but could never manage to keep the yarn on the needles etc..so she stuck with crocheting. I picked up more knitting lessons from my grandmother but what I knew I knew by watching, I never had any real direction or instruction. And noone used patterns, you just did this, until you got to this point, then you did that. So, there were things I could knit and things I wanted to, but when I tried to read the direction they meant absolutely nothing to me. A bunch of random letters...and Lord knows I kept trying. Recently though I found 2 things that made a tremendous difference. The first being the book "Knitting for Dummies". This explained alot of the stitches and what the abbreviations meant. But even better is this website http://www.blogger.com/www.purlbee.com they have the worlds most AWESOME tutorials, and not just for knitting! They show excellent photos of many knitting stitches being done, and as I am a visual learner this worked totally for me. The best thing was after going over some of the tutorials, I had an "AHA" moment, and now I can actually read many knitting patterns, which thrills me to no end! Most of the things I do, I am pretty much self taught, I am not at all artistic, but enjoy making things with my hands, and feel a good deal of personal satisfaction when I have completed a project. And I give alot of what I make away, for me it is more in the doing than the having.

I suppose I must get ready for work now, but this post is long overdue (mainly due to the ugly quilt, as it was, ahem, slowing me down!!)

Have a lovely day!!

Ta..Da..

A Ta DA...moment for me!!!Done, pretty self explanatory!