Frustration

I've tried Safari, and Firefox, and Chrome and Blogger is equally difficult in each.  I am trying to change the order of items in my sidebars and the wheels just spin and spin and nothing happens.  

Sigh.  Any insights will be most welcome.  

Happy New Year 2024!

Time is flying and I'm not keeping up with it!  Too much to do, too little time.  Just one of the reasons I haven't blogged in quite a while.  No more excuses though.  As one of the Chookshed Stitchers I'm supposed to be a blogger.  Not fair if I don't!

I joined the 2024 Chookshed Challenge.  My deadline was before midnight, but oh well.  I'm here now.  I need to make a list of ten sewing related items I want to work on in 2024.  That seems easy enough, I sew almost every day!  I sewed up to midnight making myself a new purse.  Yesterday I made a wallet.  One of those projects I kept putting off but are finally done!

So.  My list.....

1.  Making curtains and appliance covers for my kitchen.  The fabric sits waiting to be used!

2.  I have a challenge quilt to finish.  It combines a churn dash challenge, the Molli Sparkles Cut It Up QAL, and the 2023 Cary Quilting Company Challenge, all of which I'm too late for.  But I'm not too late for getting this quilt in the quilt show.

3.  Also for the quilt show I've got to come up with something for the President's Challenge.

4.  My 2021 temperature quilt languishes without it's borders.

5.  I don't even remember how old my chicken quilt is.  Time to finish it.

6.  Quilting the redwork santa quilt....before another Christma goes by.

7.  Continue working on Bonnie Hunter's 2023 mystery quilt, Indigo Way.  I'm making all the components half size.  Nothing like making things difficult!

8.  Finish the Christmas tree skirt before next Christmas.

9.  Quilt the snowman panel before next Christmas.  And maybe before the quilt show!

10. Finish Omigosh.  It's almost there!

Some of these have deadlines, so I don't promise to work on them in the assigned month, but I'm gonna get them done!

Scary that this is just a drop in the UFO bucket, but hey, progress is progress.  

Happy New Year all!  

Accomplishing things

It's nice to accomplish something in the sewing room even if it's only mending.  The Snoopy flying his doghouse as the Starship Enterprise shirt was a bit snug.  I added wedges of shiny red and also trimmed the sleeves.

This shirt got wedges too.  The neck was too high as well so I cut it down and hemmed the edge with the coverstitch machine.

Jeans were also hemmed and holes repaired in shirts.  After lunch we all settled down for a Sunday afternoon snooze. They are all sound asleep and apparently comfortable. 😴

This afternoon I reviewed my DVD lessons on making ballroom dresses and got on with the first step.  Drafting the pattern for the leotard.  It made my brain tired!  The instructor absolutely

knows what he is talking about, but he has a strong Italian accent and I'm not sure he's the best at teaching in video format.  It's hard to find patterns and instruction without spending buckets of money so I appreciate his expertise and will press on.  

First draft of the front pinned on Betsy.  I think it may fit me!  How about that!!  😃

Time

Trying to find time to blog.  And what did I do?  I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to sort out the layout of the blog.  I wanted to add the Chookshed stitchers and also update the status of our dogs in the sidebars.  Grrrrrr.  I figured it out finally.  😏

Quilting:  Nada, nope, nothing.

Sewing:  Six more diaper covers for Piglet are done.  We were going through them too fast between laundry days.  They are pretty boring to sew, so it was fabulous to have the Chookshed Stitchers to chat with on Zoom while I got the job done.

Piglet sleeping soundly in her old age.

This is the diapering station by the back door.  Diaper covers, baby wipes, incontinence pads, scissors to cut the pads in half, and tape to close up the cut end.  Outside on the deck is a small trash can for the used pads.  It's a process.  

Family :  The local grandson has been tracked out of school for a few weeks and we have filled our time together with lunches out, lots of Minecraft on the computer, a visit to the Life and Science Museum in Durham, as well as the pool and the lake.

We particularly enjoyed the butterfly house at the museum.

Lots of life sized dinosaurs too!

Smashing day at Jordan Lake.

And our last lunch before he goes back to school on Monday.  New grade, new class!

We also had a few lunches with my mom.  I fixed this stuffed elephant for her and made "Ellie Phant" a pretty vest to surprise her.

Dance:  Still going to ballroom dance lessons regularly.  We enjoy it immensly!

With three of our instructors at the Tropicana party.

 

All of the partiers.  (Is that a word?)

 

We have "intensive" group classes a couple of times a month.  Kind of like aerobics with ballroom dance moves.  It certainly works up a sweat!

 

The Gatsby party.  It looks more like Halloween with the interesting lighting!

It's a good excuse to practice with the makeup and hair.  Especially the false eyelashes!

The Carolina Classic is coming up in October.  I've signed up for 14 heats. Two each of hustle, salsa, cha-cha, rumba, east coast swing, waltz, and foxtrot.  😳  Shoot me now. 😁

                                                 

With that in mind I've purchased a dressform and a six DVD set of lessons on making ballroom dresses.  I've expanded and padded out Betsy to resemble my shape (always a humbling experience) and I'm going to take a crack at making at least one of my dresses for October.  I need a smooth competition dress, latin competition dress, nightclub competition dress (don't know the theme yet), and something for a fancy dress dinner.  Yikes!

      

I also gave My Sandbox a good sort and clean!

More Sewing:  I'm still playing with garment sewing.  Some things work out better than others.  I'd had my eye on this pretty striped fabric for a while and finally ordered it from Olga's Closet to make Ellie and Mac's Oversize Tee pattern.  Nice and simple.  But nooooo, the fabric was so wonky I was tearing my hair out lining up the stripes.  It took me at least an hour to pull and shove and beg and pin it all into alignment.  😱

But I did it!!  The side seams are almost invisible.  😃

And I treated myself to some glittery sewing clips....because I could.  😊

Dogs:  The old ladies, Piglet and Maisy, are still hanging in.  They have their issues, but they and we deal with it ok.  June has been with us a year now, as of today actually!  I love her dearly, but she really needed a companion of her own ilk, and age.  Bowling over the older dogs trying to play with them was not going well.  So in came Holly.  The two of them are very much bulls in a china shop, but Holly is settling in fine and they really enjoy each other's company.  Unless they are trying to shove each other off the sofa trying to be the closest one snuggled up to The Tramp.  😄

I've sewn up two fleece sofa covers I can change and wash every week.  Holly and June are very good and only climb on this one piece of furniture.

Who can get closer to The Tramp?? 

Yes, Holly has her own laundry basket.  😁  We've also discovered, smooth and short coated though she is, the shedding is epic.  Thankfully she loves to be brushed, but I've had to put the Roomba vacs on double-time!  

Birds:  I'm thrilled to say the hummingbirds finally showed up and now I have to fill the feeder almost every second day.  We only have Ruby-throated hummers here.  The photo is a female and the short video is a male.

Misc:  Eldest Daughter, the Tramp, and I took the opportunity to go to an open house day at the Juniper Level Botanic Garden.  I hadn't been there before.  It was awfully hot and humid, but we are glad we went to see what it's all about.  Doesn't she make me look short!  😊

I'm still having fun with temporary hair color and sometimes it gets interesting.  I thought I'd try pink and blue.  I took one look at myself and thought OMG!  I look like a pink and blue skunk!  

So that's it.  I'm still fighting the fight with Blogger.  It hates me.  Many things technology related have been difficult lately.  We aren't in Mercury Retrograde so I have nothing to blame it on.  Oh well.  First world problem.  I need to get over myself.  😇😉