I can’t believe how quickly these little guys stitched up – considering I started them back in 2003! I just did 4 of them, taking about a week each! They are officially done now and I have to decide how to finish them into a quilt and also what on earth to work on next??? These were perfect as travel projects!
A picture of all of them finished together :
I’ve been working on the dragons exclusively now that Celtic Banner is done! Love and Trust are now done. Just 1 more to go and it will be quilt time.
Peace is the last one to do!
This past week I finally finished up a very large piece called Celtic Banner by Butternut Road. I used a ‘green’ conversion so it’s not in the original browns but was inspired by one we saw finished in this color way in a store that no longer exists. In 2006 my best friend and I both purchased this piece and selected matching Yellow fabric (32 Ct Belfast in Ray of Light). We started it when we took a vacation to Maine together on August 3, 2006. Some history can be read on this post : Celtic Banner 2011
Most of this piece was stitched when we were together over the years (mostly on trips to Maine). This year was the first since my kids were born that we picked it up again during a recent visit. We decided we should just finish it up now that we had picked it up again and a month later – it’s done!
Top half :
Bottom Half : 
It’s great to have such a large piece finished after so long. To truly finish it though it needs to be hangable – so I need to figure out how I want to finish it off. I’m sure that will be a project of its own.
No house work this weekend because we went to NYC for my xmas gift! Ryan got us a hotel and tickets to see Wicked! We left Saturday morning when Mark and Suzanne came over to watch the girls for the weekend (THANK YOU!). Poor Bella of course ended up with a nasty cold but is already doing much better this morning so we missed the worst of it (sorry Grandma!).
We drove down to Poughkeepsie and took the train into the city. I stitched on my travel project (dragons!) on the train rides which was an extra bonus. We had a hotel right on Central Park with a view of the park and we went to see Wicked! I’ve seen Wicked before but it was Ryan’s first time and he really enjoyed it plus our seats were amazing!
Sunday sleeping in was maybe the best part and then I stitched on the train ride back. Driving back from Poughkeepsie was horrible in the snow – stressful in the car with front wheel drive. I missed having all wheel drive for sure but Ryan did all the hard part and I kept my head down and stitched. I ended up finishing up my Patience dragon so I have 9 dragons ready for the dragon quilt – 3 more to go!
Some pictures – more stitching since there was no house work this weekend!
It’s been a few years since I’ve made any real time to do much stitching. I’ve quilted on and off over the last few years but I’ve decided to get back into cross stitch as well this year. I’m going to document my crafts here as well as house projects.
In January my Aunt gave me a quilt she and I had pieced back in 2011 and I had left mine at her house unfinished. I took the last week in January and put the final border on it, then hand quilted and put on the binding. Finishing up the Japanese Diamonds quilt (Japanese and homespun fabrics).
I’ve been going through boxes of cross stitch and quilts and patterns, trying to organize and find projects I have. I found this piece called the Shepherd’s Bush purse that I stitched back in 2009. It’s beaded and I always loved the soft color pallete. So today I turned it into the purse with some fabric from my stash and a little sewing then hand stitching. Cute and can go in my bin of finished stitchery now!
Hopefully soon I’ll be able to show the other piece I’m stitching – started about 2005 and hopefully to be finished soon!
Since we used the front livingroom I thought I’d share the picture from Christmas Eve…
This is a very late post but generally I like to have my sewing projects on here along with house projects. So I’ll do a quick recap. No house work has been going on, Ryan has been working every free second he has including all weekend every weekend 🙁 This means I’m on Alex duty and with the teething lately (molars!), her naps haven’t always been great so I’ve been focusing on things that are easy to quit when she wakes.
What have we done ? Well first up was Halloween, I made her costume this year, she was a purple owl. She LOVED it. She loved the costume, loved trick-or-treating and just overall had a blast. She walked down and back up the street carrying her bucket and chatting with the neighbors. The idea of picking out candy and then getting to eat some at the end of the night – wow. It was fun.
After Halloween Alex and I went down to Aimee and Jason’s for the weekend (Aimee’s birthday) and the kids all got dressed in their costumes. We had a great weekend playing, Alex loved playing with all of Jason’s toys (I got a ton of great xmas gift ideas out of it for Alex 🙂 ).
The last 2 weekends we’ve been home. We started going to myGym on Saturday mornings and Alex loves it. We love it because she’s happy and gets tired out enough for a great Saturday nap 🙂 I need to come up with a Sunday morning activity to do the same! In the afternoons we hit up the park and do some daddy snuggles while he works (usually a xmas movie is on). We started introducing xmas concept to Alex and so far ‘Santa’ and ‘Ho ho ho’ are fun ones.
Alex’s favorite toys right now are trains so we spend a lot of time playing with Thomas and friends 🙂
And this weekend I finally finished the top to Alex’s wall hanging for her bedroom. I set up my sewing room in my diningroom and Alex sat at the table and colored while I cut and ironed. After Alex went to bed I put the top together and I am looking forward to hand quilting it!
Hopefully we’ll have a house update next week, this weekend we plan to tile!
Sorry for the lack of posting, we were up till about midnight every night Wed, Thur, Fri with working on the kitchen and birthday party prep. I’ll try to recap how the rest of the week went.
Wednesday I finished filling nail holes and caulking the installed trim. Then I stripped the last 4 rosettes. When Ryan got home he put up the last bit of door trim and baseboards (caps haven’t gone in yet though).
Next up we got the backsplash finished (tiling) and this time I got to help so I did some cutting and some installing – it was just the top half of the one wall left to do so it went pretty quickly.
Thursday was recycling metal day (2 trips to recycle stuff in the yard -old pipes etc) and i lost count how many trips to the dump. Ryan did all that while I cleaned the upstairs of the house and started on the downstairs. In the afternoon and evening we got the fridge installed which was NOT easy!
But totally worth it! I ended the night Thursday by sealing the floor grout right before bed. It was one hour and was exhausting at 11pm but no worries for the party now!
Friday was more cleanup, Ryan installed the toe kicks, I installed the dishwasher (finally screwed in!), Ryan grouted the backsplash and installed the window apron so the window looks trimmed out now. I started the tool room cleanup and by 9pm the diningroom and livingroom were cleaned up for the party.
So we got enough done on the kitchen that we could enjoy the party! By 9pm I was able to start baking the cake and cupcakes for the party and my sister arrived shortly after and helped with all the party preparation (thank goodness, I would have gone crazy trying to do it all). One more late night but Saturday went off without a hitch thanks to the hard work of everyone. No one tripped over a saw or loose nail (thank goodness) and we had a TON of people stuffed into our mostly unfinished house 🙂
Here’s a view of one of the unfinished areas we used for the party – livingroom diningroom where most of the adults hung out – this is after cleaning but pre-decorations:
I’m so glad it’s over. Now we can just relax and finish up the kitchen (painting and crown molding left) and get started upstairs on the bathroom!
Well this weekend did not go as planned, that’s for sure. The one thing that did go as planned was getting the plumbing in the kitchen done thanks to Jason. Well mostly done, we still need to hook up the freezer/ice maker and install a pot filler. But the sink and dishwasher are all hooked up to the new pex!
We also got both the pendant lights installed and the center kitchen light. The outlets are all installed (using a GFCI double pole breaker instead of GFCI outlets). The cabinets are slowly getting filled up and the kitchen is being used!
What didn’t go as planned was that we all got sick this weekend and missed out on Groudas family christmas. Alex got a stomach bug Thursday and had to be picked up from daycare. Ryan caught it friday night and I got it on saturday. Saturday was a really bad day, Ryan passed out most of the day, me mostly passed out and Alex still fighting her bug so extremely cranky and fussy. We are all on the mend finally and I took today off to keep Alex home since she was still sick yesterday (she can’t go to daycare until she’s healthy for 24 hours).
Alex is eating food today and holding it all down (I’ve been sticking with plain dry food). Tomorrow she’ll be back at daycare and it’s finally back to work for me, besides a short week last week it’s been a long time since I was at work!
Well unfortunately Christmas week was fraught with sickness. Alex got a nasty cold and passed it along to us. Christmas morning she awoke with a pink/swollen/crusty eye – fun stuff. So I did’t get any great xmas day photos 🙂
Wednesday and Thursday we kept alex home (ryan had to work) anyhow, and Alex and I just relaxed trying to get better. Friday she seemed much better so I took her to daycare and got much worse myself with a fever. Saturday we were hoping we’d all feel better, but no such luck and by saturday night it was clear that alex was coming down with something else (ear infection?). So sunday we took her over to the doctor and yup, double ear infection.
We had the plumber coming Monday morning to install the gas line for the stove so Sunday night we got the wiring ready for the stove and hood. Then we spent the whole evening installing the hood after getting the first 2 upper cabinets in!
On Monday we finally all felt better, although I still have a cough (asthma) and Ryan is still not 100%, Alex was good so we took her to daycare and enjoyed our day off working on the kitchen.
At 2:30pm our neighbor stopped over to help out a bit since I had to pick up Alex at 3:30pm, so we ended up getting the rest of the upper cabinets installed and progress on the fridge wall of cabinets! Then today, Alex and I relaxed with Sarah and Ryan finished up the fridge cabinets! All cabinets are now installed! This was actually planned, we are very excited!
There is quite a bit happening still… tomorrow the counters are being installed! Friday Jason is going to do the plumbing so we’ll have a kitchen sink again! Just in time for all the family to come out for Groudas Christmas.
Once the counters are in I can start filling the lower cabinets. We have handles and knobs to install and doors to straighten still but the cabinets are in so it feels like a real kitchen! Next on the list is to buy tile for the floor and backsplash. We still have all the moldings to install too. Lots to do but it feels so close to done 🙂
