Amaryllis Watch 2019

I thought about waiting a full month for posting the progress, but these things are growing like CRAZY!  This is last year's amaryllis on January 9th.

This year's plant on the same date.

I've been moving them around since we've had some very gray days so as to ensure they get enough sunlight.  Looks like I might be doing something right!

They are doing great-this was a photo from yesterday and I can't wait to see how the flowers look and I'll be getting out the taller stakes out soon.

Tiny Moment Tuesday

Channeling my inner 3 year old with real cheese toast and apples for breakfast.  Ignore the jumbo coffee cup!

Sometimes Monday

finds me reflecting on time well spent.  Last weekend was a long weekend for me and it got started with a 3pm dismissal from work.  What a great way to end a Friday and start the weekend.  Steve and I had plans with Karen, Ron and Polly that evening, so we met for dinner at a new for me restaurant Local on North and then we went to a theatre production that was a play on the screenplay writing of Gone with the Wind.  The food, company and the play were fantastic.  Saturday included a visit with my Mom, and while the weather was crummy we enjoyed a delicious quiche [thank you Costco] and 2 very cheesy movies on the Hallmark channel - I had time for get some knitting done while she worked on her embroidery.  Simple, easy and no make up required!  Sunday Kim and I were able to get together for lunch an more catching up.  We met up at a restaurant that has been transformed over the years; it was a Burger Chef back in our day.  If you click on the links you can tell that the building hasn't changed at all.  I also got a chance to see her very cute home which I have clocked at 1/2 mile door to door!  Monday my friend Brenda came over, I have't seen her since August and this was also the first time she has had a chance to see our new place.  It was great catching up with her and I know with her daughter getting ready to graduate from college in just a couple months she is going to be very busy.  Sophie and I managed an exploratory walk on Monday, and then come Tuesday work proved to be pretty hectic, and since I had to take a day and a half off for doctor appointments I ended up working over the weekend so as not to get too far behind-this is not the time of year for that!

 This weekend I managed to begin cutting the fabrics for my very hungry caterpriller quilt.  I'm doing much better with my cutting, but did manage to mess up on a couple strips, but I think I can get those sorted without too much trouble.

Sophie and I walked on Saturday and Kim joined us on Sunday and we had a great time reminiscing about where our early years were spent.  We should have taken a selfie in front of our old elementary school-next time!  We stopped at Roswell Provisions for a quick breakfast and since this isn't a real restaurant Sophie could come inside!  We will definitely make this place a regular stop on our weekend walks.  It feels very satisfying to balance out time spent with family, friends, outside and getting things done.  With the pending inclement weather I find myself with an unexpected day off-mmmm I wonder what I can get accomplished!

Crafting Plans 2019

Here's a aerial view of my sewing plans.  I managed to collect a couple kits several years ago, so I plan to start with those since I already have the fabrics.  I have learned that my best approach to quilting should be like my knitting-find a pattern first [except sock yarn] and go from there.  I am much more successful tackling projects this way.  Brenda is coming over next week, so I hope to she'll be able to help me with a few things.  She's been quilting and sewing for a long time, and has even designed some patterns, as well as, design work for Jacquelynne Steves -she is so very talented!

Plans include:
1. A Very Hungry Caterpillar quilt-I have just over half of the required fabrics and I did an on-line order for the rest and hopefully that will arrive by next week.
2. I found a skirt pattern I had bought a long time ago.  I hope Brenda will help measure me and between her and Mary I think I should be able to make at least 3 of these skirts.  Perfect for warm weather.
3.  A Christmas Tree Wall hanging
4. A table topper for my kitchen table [the red poppy fabric]
5. A small quilt using the jelly roll fabric
6. A larger quilt using the green and yellow fabric-I had all the fabric required for this quilt.-it's just a matter of starting it.  I have another complete kit in my stash that I'll save for another time.
7.  Another Christmas project using a panel and coordinating fabrics that I bought forever-ago.

I've also got a cross-stitch project I want to do-it requires a linen fabric, but I can't see the holes very well so I'm going to start over and use Aida 14 count and see how that goes.

I'm inspired by Carole's post about small seasonal goals, so while my list may seem exhaustive I think if I work on things slowly and with purpose I'll be able to get these projects to the point I want them by the end of the year and hopefully sprinkle in other small projects here and there.  I figure if I have my plan, materials, and tools that's half the battle.  I'm going to start by cutting the pieces I need for each project, label them and keep them handy so I can pick up a project and make progress depending on how much time.  One thing I really need to do is to improve my cutting skills.  Once my  new mat arrives I'll begin that process.  I can take the cutting to work as we have several long tables that'll make this job a lot easier.

I would dearly love to deplete my knitting and fabric stash substantially this year, and have completed projects as an end result.  I need to stick with projects that are at my skill level [maaayyyybe a little bit of stretching of those skills] as I'd rather do a few projects that are great than a bunch that are okay, or I'm not really happy with-so we'll see how all that goes-stay tuned

Weekending Times 2

I had ever intention of blogging about last weekend, well last weekend-then this week was upon me and now it is Sunday evening.  I am very pleased that much has been accomplished here at Maison Sheffield in the last 9 days and that it wasn't all work and no play.  I took 2.5 days off from work which would explain my ability to get so much done.  I made 4 trips to our storage unit between Sunday and Thursday as I've been determined to get it cleared out.  I am happy to report that all that is left in the unit is a table saw, a dining room table/chairs/china cabinet, 3 curios/cabinets a piano bench, a grandfather clock, and my great-grandmother's rocking chair.  Unfortunately, I think we are going to have to part with the curios/cabinets as the space we have in the house needs to be reserved for functional furniture-well really just one piece-this one from West Elm I'm hoping we'll add so we have more storage and serving area.  We have decided where the clock and piano bench will go, but nothing so far for the rocking chair.  I also managed to unpack ALL THE BOOKS that I've had in storage and while I got rid of quite a few in our moves the ones remaining have sentimental value-maybe I should mention ALL THE PHOTO ALBUMS that I have as well.  Needless to say those aren't going anywhere.  My next approach is to sort through things that were PJ's-that's going to be a tough chore, but will need to be done [in due time], and Andrew's childhood stuff needs to be organized too.  I want to have things arranged so that it will be easy for him when he decides what he wants to keep.  We have to space to store it so I'm not worried about it leaving the house anytime soon.  We got our swords and Italian pottery plates out as well, and so we're hoping those get put up soon.  That's worth another blog post as these items are hundreds of years old and I know once they are on the wall that'll mean we are settled/settled in our new digs.  Also, the swords require some thought and engineering so it's not a job you rush through. 

How about this fire?! Since we have an old school fireplace I don't ask for one of these unless the weather really calls for it which it did on Saturday!  We plan to hang the swords over the mantle-and photo of their installation will definitely make it on the blog.

As I said the last several days have not been all work, oh no, on Wednesday I went to the High Museum with Polly, Mary and Karen and saw a new to me artist and it was quite the experience.  Since Mary did a great job I'll take the easy route and link to her blog post ;-).  I honestly will never look at polka dots the same way again! 

On Thursday I had to make a quick trip to help my Mom and decided to go to the Frederick Remington Exhibit at the Booth Museum in [little bitty] Cartersville, Ga.  I'm so glad I did, I wish they'd have allowed no-flash photography, but alas I only have my memories.  I learned so much about this artist and I'd love to go visit his museum/home in NY-road trip anyone?!  This museum is truly a hidden gem.  Also on display [temporarily] were photographs by Bob Kolbrener and landscape paintings by Scott Christensen and Quang Ho.  I need to keep this museum on my radar so I don't have to rush to see the next exhibit.

Today I had plans to FINALLY sit down at my sewing machine and work on the quilting portion of the the only quilt that has a finished top and backing.  I've decided that the other quilt tops that I've done will be quilted by someone with better skills than I have as they are large and I don't do well with them.  They are neatly folded waiting for me to get backing, batting and schedule a time to drop them off with a quilter I learned about nearby. 

But alas----when I went to do a little practicing to make sure the machine was in working order I discovered that the feed dogs aren't doing their job?! Ugh!  I reached out to my friend Brenda who guided me by text and phone on what might be the problem, but to no avail Helga is going to have to go to the shop.  The last time my machine was serviced was in 2014-what?!  To be fair I've used it very little since then, but I need to make sure she gets in more frequently to be serviced.  I spent the rest of the afternoon organizing my sewing/quilting books and patterns.  Many of these books have been in storage and I'm so glad I have them out now for reference.  I did go through many of the kits and such that I've collected and I have a quilting game plan for this year.  I'll feature those plans in a separate blog post.  I'm feeling very inspired and since I have so many friends who are happy to guide me along I think my sewing/quilting for 2019 is going to be very satisfying.

On an unrelated topic-here's the yarn that Andrew gave me for Christmas-lovely sock yarn from Dragonfly Fibers he got at the LYS Looped Yarns in DC which we visited when I went up there last year-[Pajamas (L) and Big Apple (R)]-what a good lad!  Now to decide what to knit with these. . .

As the weekend comes to a close I'm looking forward to another glass of wine, some on-line shopping and hopefully another episode of Outlander-nearly done with the current season.  Jamie has certainly grown on me- Claire is starting to, but I'm not sure about Brianna-we shall see.  Here's to another good week of good things.

Hello 2019 and Hello to a very old friend

I got an unusual text early Monday morning basically asking me to confirm my identify by someone claiming to be an "old friend".  Needless to say I was a bit suspicious.  I responded that they had the correct person and then wanted to confirm where I lived- hmmm now it was getting more suspicious and the text-er wanted to stop by if I was free?!  Problem with that was that Steve and I were getting ready to leave for a party, so I asked him how I should respond.  Do I say we're not going to be home in case this was a scam?  I had the person confirm "Kim's" last name from when I knew her, and then it was like OMG turns out it was my friend from elementary school.  So plans were made for her to come by the house today, and we did a LOT of catching up. 

We haven't been in touch for at least 25 years, and it was great seeing her again.  I dug out some old photos and apparently we were in the same 1st, 2nd and 4th  grade classes.  I moved from Roswell about half way into my 4th grade year.  I've tried to find Kim's whereabouts over the years, but last time I saw here she had married a naval guy and I had helped her move to Maryland, but couldn't remember her last name.  I also couldn't remember the names of her parents or siblings and even the high school's Facebook page did not provide any information.  It would appear that we both like to cycle and making things.  She was always a great sewer and crafty-probably from her Girl Scout days, and her Mom was very accomplished as well.  We still have a ton in common and since she lives less than a 1/2 mile away; we're hoping to see each other more often.  I think this was the perfect way to start the new year- new starts and a new/old friend.

 This is us in 1977-"nice" outfit amiright?! I was rocking the bob look before it was a fashionable, and yes, my hair was actually very red-ish when I was a kid.  So my transition to a red head is not that far off.

So here we are almost 42 years later and I'm so looking forward to nurturing this relationship.