Fast forward to March!

This is supposed to be my slow time of year.  Not even close.  We got back from New Zealand and I feel like I haven't stopped.

WARNING!  The rest of this blog is a symptom of the total chaos in my house at the moment....  random, disconnected and, well, you get the idea.


We had St. Patrick's Day.

 Now we are ready for Easter.

We've had nights at the symphony, been to a musical, bridal shower, meetings for upcoming high school freshmen, my daughter was home for spring break, my son was out for spring break the following week (no, I get absolutely nothing done when they are home) we are planning for a different bridal shower and I have more projects started than even I can deal with.  We have had plumbers at the house for over a week, the gas shut off in the middle of the night because of a screw up by said plumbers, a carpet company out to repair a different screw up by said plumbers.....and we bought a new car.  I strained my achilles tendon while doing all the painting and am supposed to stay off of it until it is better.  Yeah, that's not happening.  The next few months aren't looking any better. Well, hopefully, we are done with the plumbers.

My daughter's school was doing Shrek the musical and I had promised to help with the costumes so as soon as I got back I spent a few mornings helping in the costume shop.  That was a lot of fun.  I wasn't in charge or responsible for designing anything, I just sewed.The big bonus for me was I learned to use a serger! I've always wanted to use one but hadn't had the opportunity. I was so enthused I bought one.  (grin)    

While I was in New Zealand, I saw my sister in law's new Handi-Quilter.  I couldn't even bring myself to ask about it because I wanted a quilting machine so much.  Yes, yes, I was absolutely green with envy.  When I was looking at sergers I also checked out the quilting machines but they were out of my range for now.  Plus, Raewyn has been machine quilting for a while and is quite acomplished.  I am just starting out and really couldn't justify the purchase.  I did find a sewing/quilting machine with an extended throat that was in my price range and it will be big enough for wall quilts and other small projects.  So, yeah, you guessed it.  I bought it.  And what have I done with these two wonderful new machines?

Incentive!

Yep, they are still in their boxes in my living room.  The two bags are full of serger thread. Well, they were on sale for about a dollar a cone.  Couldn't pass that up.  Sigh..... I have to    HAVE to get my sewing loft organized before pulling these out.  My awesome husband put brand new shelves in the closet so now I just have to get up there and get it organized.  I had been sewing in the spare bedroom but my husband moved his office down there.  He said he would have more room but I have a suspicion that part of the reason was to force me to get my crap together and organize my space, LOL.  Can't blame him for that.

When we travel, one of our favorite things is going to galleries and craft shops.  We always pick up a new print or something from a local artist. We can't afford all of the prints we find plus we are running out of wall space so we buy cards when we can find them.  Sometimes I frame them, other times they just need something else.  I bought some cards from an artist I know here in Nashville, Janet Lee Janet Lee's Etsy Shop.  I fell in love with these and wanted to hang them as a group but I didn't want traditional frames.  I bought some awesome scrapbook paper for my paper roses and decided that it would look great with the bird prints. Alan (my fabulously talented and accommodating husband) cut 2 squares for each print out of some scrap thin plywood we had. One square was the exact size of the print, the other about and inch and a half larger. I painted all the edges, decoupaged the scrapbook paper to the large squares and the prints on the smaller squares, then glued the small squares to the top of the larger ones. I love how they turned out!  And they are so light that I can use velcro to hang them on the wall.  

I'm heading to my parents house tomorrow and I'm taking my little people blocks to work on.  I've been choosing all the fabrics and getting the background fabric ready but I haven't sewn a thing on them since I got back in February.  I've been trying not repeat fabrics so I do a lot of digging through my wonderfully organized piles. Not. 

Sandie's version of organized chaos. It's all in one pile.

I need to give a shout out to my often mentioned sister in law, Raewyn.  She is so talented I'm always amazed at her projects but she outdid herself this past Christmas.  She made the most adorable "Pop" monkeys for all of the grandkids. She took her father's socks, his favorite sweater, and his pin collection and made each kid a one-of-a-kind memory of their grandfather.  Here are our two youngest with theirs.  (The coordinated outfits of my children is completely accidental.  Couldn't get them to do this if I had tried)

They are so proud of these!

The monkeys have decided they like to ride on the bike.

Happy monkeys!

We had a few warm Spring-like days and I planted seeds.  Unfortunately, I forgot to label them.  I'm hoping we can identify them before it is time to actually plant them in the garden.  No, I don't know what I was thinking when I did that.

Mystery seedlings!

Last but not least, my new car!  

I love it!

Well, I have to get ready for my trip tomorrow and there are soooo many things to do around here so I'm off!

As always, thanks for stopping by!

Sandie