Creative Cock Block

two weeks ago my mom had hip replacement surgery.  this is indirectly related to the creative cock block.  the cock block comes in from the fact that for the past two weeks my MIL has been staying with us.  I am use to  having time after the baby goes to bed, that is mine to be creative and I have the house to my self cause hubby is at work.  Instead I have my MIL in the living room reading or playing video games.   It is hard to get everything out and start working on a project.  I did manage to get stuff out a couple times and got two blocks done but totally didn't get any admiration from her.  what did they suck or something.  more it is that I am disturbing the reading but still admire the blocks.

well tonight is crafty night.  my FIL came out and they took the bebekins camping so I have the house entirely to my self.  not even have the baby to wake up.  Not having the baby in the house is really weird.  she has spent nights at grandmas  but that has been one night and still weird.  and we have gone out of town and left her with the IL for a couple days but that hasn't involved me sitting at home with out bebekins squealing with delight.   

ok now time to be crafty 

crochet adventures

So in the last post I talked about learning to crochet and knit.  It all started cause my two year old learned how to open the dead bolt on the front door.  She learned how to open door knobs before that but as long and she couldn't go on walk about on her own, it wasn't too much of a big deal. There are several options for door knob covers and I am not a fan of the ugly plastic ones. I have friends that said ah yeah I can make you come crochet door knob covers.  I finally got tired of hounding them when bebe girl tried to follow me out the door as I left for work.    I went to the store,  I got some pretty yarn, I got some hooks and I sat down with you tube vids and figured it out.  have to love you tube they have videos for everything.  I make 4 door knob covers, figuring it was a good number of them to try.  I go over to my moms house and we put a couple on doors there we don't want the bebe going through.  10 minutes,  10 minutes I am telling you,  was all it took for the bebekins to figure out how to defeat the door knob covers.  if you pinch the door knob between your hand and you wrist and hang off the door knob the door opens.  Well that was the end of that for the attempt at crochet door knob covers.  I had to break down and go to the hardware store and get the plastic door knob covers.  It took bebekins about 4 hours to figure out how to defeat the plastic ones.   you stick you fingers in the openings and dangle off of the door knob cover and it pops right off.  Between keeping them on the doors every time she pulls them off and a tube of super glue to glue the halves together we are doing better.  so after her figureing out how to defeat the crochet door knob covers, I had yarn left over so what to do with the yarn.  find something else to make with it. crochet is pretty easy.  knitting a bit more challenging for me to pick up but I think I got it now.  just took some practice. and some diffrent yarn.  the first yarn, spa by naturally caron, is a fine weight yarn and heavily plyed so really easy to split your stiches and to keep you knitting even.  so I then tried cotton-ease by lion brand, have the back of a hooded bebe poncho knitted up for bebekins.  Cotton-ease much easier to work with initially while learning to knit.  I will go back to the spa yarn cause I love the feel of it and think it would make a wonderful knit top once I get some practice under my belt.

Bad Blogger

I have been a very very bad blogger, and I don't have a good excuse.  though it has been summer and hot and it is fun to watch the bebekins play in her wading pool or taker her swimming.  I also have been learning to knit and crochet and that on some levels is easier than breaking out the sewing machine and make a huge mess in the living room.  I have made a couple crochet bags.  they have turned out fairly well  this doesn't count the fact that I have unraveled several pieces I was not happy with..  I am making a little knit poncho for the bebekins.  the pattern is written for a 3t size.  and  I am looking at the fact that I have to go buy new shoes for the bebe girl half way through summer.   I went ahead and enlarged the pattern a big and hopefully come fall when she can use it, it will fit her.  bebekins is the youngest in her preschool class and the tallest in her class.  if the poncho comes out like I hope it will i may make two smaller ones for my niece and nephew for when the temperatures might one day drop below 100 degrees at mid day. my daughter has the most abysmal taste in yarn.  she likes the super soft and fluffy stuff like mohair or red hear butter cup of the fur yarn.  how the heck am I supposed to learn with it.  she will grab a skein while we are in the store and cuddle up with it like a stuffed animal.  or she will shake it to death and being thre responsible parent working on the you broke it your bought it philosphy the skein comes home with me and  I spend the hour untangeling it and balling it up.  while it is fun to play with the ball of yarn I need to work with it and that is hard.  I finally came up with a really really simple afghan pattern for the stupid mohair yarn.  and now that I am on ball 4 of the afghan and I will need something like 18-20.  yeah  it might end up a baby sized afghan when I get tired of it.  it is quite lovely so far and I have 10 skeins of yarn for it so it will end up that large at least.  last project I am working on with the yarn is a tank top for me.  I love the naturally caron spa yarn.  I love the reflectivity of it.  and the sock weightness of it.  I am not a big bulky yarn person.  but when you use a really fine yarn it takes that much longer to make said project.

that doesn't mean I haven't been sewing.  I finally found the binding for the bebekins quilt.  and got it sewn on  I still have to sew the hanging tube on the back down but we are making progress.  I have made several insulated lunch totes for the bebekins to take to preschool and the husband to take to work.  eventually I will get mine done as well.  Preschool has also been a big change in june.  she started preschool and it is a big transition for wee ones.  and cold after cold that she has brought home.  I made a lovely applique block carrier as well.  I had some problems with the binding on it, but I also learned putting binding on when you are really stressed you break alot of threads. Stash busted for carrier, used up alot of scraps.   I started a quilt for my husbands cousin son who was diagnosed with leukemia back in may.  I was doing really well on it  even after he started to have really really bad reactions to the chemo.  I have lost motivation to finish it when he died.  it is very very tragic to lose a 5 year old in such a terrible way.  I feel I need to finish the quilt and give it to the family. but it hard to work on it.

I guess in the end it is hard to blog about quilty goodness when I am not feeling quilty goodness.

though I am going to have to get some sewing mojo going.  I had my purse stolen this morning with the current block I am hand piecing. and my nook and the sewing project for bebegirls preschool and my quilting design note and and and like everything else important.  so items I need to make/redo to recover from this.  need a new purse.  need to find a pattern for a purse. preferably one that I don't have to order as it will be 7-10 business days till I get a new card.  I think I will stash bust for my new purse and I have a stash I might as well  use it.  then I need to make a new hand sewing carrying case.  so I can carry my thread and scissors and thread heaven and block pieces in it.  then I need to get more castle peeps for bebekins preschool project.  then after than I need to cut out new pieces for the block that was in my purse.  I can say this about my missing purse.  1) my cell phone wasn't in it.  2) my ipod wasn't in it.  3) my small lappy wasn't in it  they took the purse out of the car when I turned around to stop the bebe from running into traffic but left the laptop in its case sitting right next to it.

the BIG dilemma

so I took the quilt top I made for my niece out to the long arm quilter.  and they just called to say it is done.  so do I drive out at lunch taking a long lunch leaving my client to figure out how to not break the copy machine, do I leave work early to drive the 45 minutes from work to get to the quilt store before 5, or do I wait until tomorrow and go get it then.     ARRRRHHHHHHHHHHHHH, the choices.  I really really really want to see it that I am not sure if I can wait till tomorrow.

Slacking

so I have been slacking in writing posts.  I havn't been slacking as much on sewing.  May went by too fast then it was vacation time.

I finally got over the cold that my husband shared with me.  it was so not fun.  it took me like two weeks to get over.

I worked on alot of projects since my last post. worked on the scriffly quilt for my nephew.  worked on hand piecing the pinwheels.  and realized if I made the quilt 36 blocks instead of 25 it would be big enough to fit on my king sized bed.  which I really like that idea.  so I think that is what I will do.  but I have also toyed with the notion of making it 49 blocks and then we would have enough extra that my husband would have some quilt left over then I steal all of the blanket cause I am cold.  I currently have 13 block patterns for the 25.  12 blocks that have 2 of each one red and one blue and then the 13th is the center block with half red and half blue.  if I do 36 then I can do 3 blocks of each pattern. and 6 of the blocks with have 2blue and 1 red and the other 6 would be 2 reds and one blue.  if I go with 49 blocks I would do 4 sets of each blocks two reds and two blues.  Any of the ways I go.  I have 12 blocks done. and 4 of them are quilted.  As tonight is a quilting night I will probably work on quilting some more of the blocks as well as ironing the paper templates on the pieces for the next block.

My husband is a totally into anime. and our vacation was going to an anime convention.  He wanted a kick ass costume for it.  and we spent some time thinking about it and picked out a character. and while the fabric and I fought tooth and nail the whole time. I got a significant amount done before we left.  and I have a lot to learn about costuming. I learned alot at the convention about costuming and going to redo the costume for the next convention so it comes off better.

adventure in to crochet.  I never really learned to crochet or knit.  bebekins learned how to open doors knobs and deadbolts so we had to do something.  I had heard about crochet door knob covers to keep small children from opening doors.  so I went to joann got some lovely yarn and some hooks.  found some youtube videos and set about to learning.  I got some made and we put them on doors at grandmas.  It took bebekins something like 20 minutes to figure out how to defeat the crochet door knob covers.  Alas I gave up on the project and got plastic ones which are harder for her to defeat.  she has defeated one of them by popping it off but hasn't seemed to generalize.

Vacation report - we went picked up my sister in law and dropped the bebe off with grandparents and went to the anime convention.  it was hot we had a good time. the disaster happened at home while we were gone. so I had a lovely square 50 gallon reef aquarium.  it was three years old.  all the corals that were in there I grew to huge specimens from small frags.  I had a dinner plate size long tentical anemone.  it was a very healthy tank.  the heat wave hit while we were gone and it got way way to hot and at the same time the ventui on the protien skimmer clogged. and OMG the smell.  Think sulphur hot spring mixed with rotting fish left in the sun.  think salton sea during a fish kill in the summer.  think complete and total devistation.  I am pretty sure I have lost everything in the tank.  A couple of the corals may survive but I am giving them about 20% chance of survival.  water changes and time will tell if anything will survive.  three nearly 100% water changes last night and all the doors and windows open have made it so you can walk into the house and not gag.  another day of having the doors and windows open should clear up the remainder of the smell and running the micron carbon water polish should help clear up the remaining cloudyness on the reef tank so I can look at the sad devastated tank, and help it recover.

week in review

so the day after my inlaws leave last week my husband says I think I am developing allergies cause I feel like crap.  he is miserable for a couple days and sunday morning I wake up with that fell of I am coming down with something.  it sits there in my lungs for a couple days.  between my husband and the bebekins who catches it as well, they are up all night coughing and keeping me awake.  and in the end I am totally sick.  I took a day off work yesterday and didn't even have a chance to enjoy my sick day cause I spent most of the day asleep on the couch.  totally an upper respiratory cold and one that makes you feel unproprotianly miserable for how sick you actually are.

So despite all of this here is what I have been up to.  Friday night I finished the quilt top for a friends baby.  and I cut out the binding for the quilts I had long armed. I showed the quilt top to my mom and she looked at it and said wow that is bright I think I need sunglasses to look at it.

Here is a picture I took before I put the pieced border on and then another yellow border then a pink border.      I haven't felt like arguing with the baby over the big camera if I get it out to do some photography.  She thinks I should let her play with the dslr, and I don't think she should cause I don't want her to drop it and break it.  or even sticky up the buttons with her sticky little fingers.

Then saturday I packed grandma and the bebekins in the car and we drove up to Santa Fe to pick up the quilts from the long arm quilter.  the quilts came out wonderful.  I used flannel on the back of the pink quilt and some lovely green silk on the green quilt.   oh they are going to be lovely.  when I got home with them on Saturday I trimmed the quilts and squared them up.  I have the binding cut out and pressed for the pink quilt.   The goal for tonight is to get the binding sewn on pink quilt and then cut and press the binding for the green quilt.  I also have to sew a wall hanging strip on the back of both quilts when I do the binding.  Bebekins is going to use the pink one on her bed for a while but when she out grows the toddler bed I think it would make a nice wall hanging for her.  especially since the final goal is to make 4 matching quilts.  pink for spring, yellow for summer,  orange brown for fall and christmasy for winter.  and that way you can swap them out as wall hanging or bed blankets by season.  Sunday was mothers dad and my husband drew his hand on a sheet of paper and the bebekins hand over his.  it was very sweet.  then we went to lunch and had a good time with my bother and sister in law and my mom.  it was my brother and sister-in-laws first mothers day.  the twins were still in the hospital last Sunday so they were kinda sad having mothers day with out the bebes.  After lunch grandma took the bebekins to go play and my husband too me to see Iron Man 2.  we got there early and stuff and I went in to get seats cause it was a holiday and opening weekend and we had a whole bunch of friends come as well.  I am sitting in the theater hand piecing one of the block for the pinwheel sampler and one of our friends leans over me and tells my husband you don't take you wife out enough she is sewing in the movie theater.  my husband kinda shrugs and says she will sew where she wants to sew.  I point out that what else am I going to do to keep my hands busy while I wait for every one to show up.

I have spent at least 15 minutes every day hand piecing my pinwheel blocks. and it is going I am on block 5 now.  I am going to do the pinwheels as quilt as you go.  I spent some time this week laying out arrangement for the pinwheels and have a map for that.  and I picked out a quilt design to do the quilting.  and I have three lined up to quilt tonight after I do the binding on the other quilts.  granted this will all be if I can stay awake that long and not go to bed after I convert the babys bed to a toddler bed and get her down for the night.  did I mention she can vault over the railing now and let her self out of her room?  yeah that happened this morning.

Next month the husband and I are going to go to an anime convention in dallas, and he wants a costume for it.  and being creative I said I can help him make it.  and so he thinks about it and stuff and between the two of us come up with a fantastic idea for a costume.  so instead of doing my normal sewing day tuesday night I spend the evening designing his costume and figuring out the logistics of it.  If I am going to put the time and effort into the costume, it will be one that will win the costume competition, should he decided to enter it.  I think I all of the nuances to perfect the costume in my head.  I sent him off to the store with list of I need these things to start making the head and tomorrow I am going to make him go to the fabric store with me to pick out the minkee we need for the suit.  I decided minkee over heavier fur cause well it will be June and Dallas and my husband is already always hot and I really don't want him passing out from heat exhaustion.  and it will be modular so he can wear half the costume and shorts to get some cooling.

Exhaustion

Yesterday was the bebekins second birthday.  her birthday party was last Saturday.  and for her birthday my husbands parents have come out to visit.  it has been like a 4 day long birthday bash.  and I have been working and getting everything organized.  It is exhausting.  I could use I really nice nap right now.

Monday afternoon about 20 minutes after my boss left for Santa Fe the long arm quilter called to tell me my quilts are ready to be picked up.  I could have picked them up and filed the work documents at the same time.  alas  it is ok I will have to wait till Saturday, and she did call in the middle of the baby's portrait session so I wouldn't have wanted to miss that anyway.  I am excited they are done.  I still have to do the binding.  easy peasy I might be able to have the one done for grandmas mothers day present.  the babys can get done after that.

I have been keeping up on my may mayhem.  I have two seams left to piece the second block on the pinwheel sampler.  going to finish it tonnight and start on the next block tonnight.