Stippling Woes

I gave it my best effort…2 hours worth of sewing, ripping out large amounts of stippling, playing with tensions, rinse and repeat.  I told myself to not be a perfectionist about stippling and I was pretty happy with my work until I peaked at the reverse side.  My tension was way out of whack! 

First, it was too tight on the back.  I used 2 different colors of thread which I shortly decided was a bad idea.  After adjusting the tension to what I thought worked well, at least on my scrap piece, I ended up with the thread being really loose on the back.  Grrr!  Needless to say after I tore it all out a total of three times, I ended up straight line quilting the table runner.

Any advice regarding tensions would be really helpful!  I think I’ll whip up some pot holders for practice.

In other non-quilty news, there is a lot of snow on the ground from the snow storms last week and the week before.  The supermarket was out of eggs this weekend due to the storms and there were signs posted in the produce section indicating prices would be increasing and that supplies would be low.  I’m a little nervous about it to say the least. 

A picture of our snow covered street the day after the last storm:

A perfect weekend

because:

~no snow!  I’m still looking at piles of the white stuff but at least it didn’t inconvenience my weekend.

~me and Hubby went to a Flyers game Friday night complete with Chickie and Pete’s crab fries and my new favorite beer Blue Moon!

~I spent an entire Saturday sewing.  I finished one project and am almost finished my happy campers quilt.  Pictures to come soon!

~I bought my first OttLite lamp at JoAnn’s Saturday (40% off!) while picking up some Navy Kona solid.  The light is awesome!

~my wonderful husband is making a surf and turf dinner for Valentine’s day.  He cooks amazing meals!

The Essence of Life

For Christmas, my extended family participated in a white elephant gift exchange.  My intention was to make my gift…it was a good intention.  I pieced a disappearing 9 patch table runner out of Essence by Deb Strain for Moda.  I was going to make coasters or buy a candle to go with it.  I only got as far as the piecing until work magically sent me off to central Pennsylvania for a few days. 

What really happened was I became  afraid…of stippling.  Silly, right?  I loved the pieced top and thought it would look amazing stippled…but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.  So there it sits, unfinished and calling out.  But now I have a problem…I have a baby quilt I want  to stipple so it looks like I’ll be tackling that table runner after all!  It’ll be great practice for a bigger project.

We have another major snowstorm on the way tonight.  Our third of over 20 inches in one year.  Craziness!  Maybe I’ll attempt some stippling between shoveling duty!

Merry Christmas!

Not that many people read this, but I apologize for my lack of blogging lately. Things get hectic around the holidays. All the baking, shopping, decorating leaves time for much else. I've backed 2 batches of choc cookies (recipe off of the Nestle choc package), 1 batch of press cookies (soon to be 2 because I can't stop eating them), 1 batch of snicker doodles for Hubby, and I've still got 2 batches of butterballs left to make (my family's favorite - it will NOT be Christmas without these), and 1 batch of peanut butter for Hubby (only if he finally goes Christmas shopping tonight). I picked up the cutest cookie tins this year but I will definitely plan ahead next year because they unfortunately cost more than I really wanted to spend. The cookie list is ever expanding which this year will include an extra large tin to my brother, his gf, and her kids, plus a little one for my neighbors next door. I still have to buy one last present, wrap everything, and pick up some treats for the dog.

This has unfortunately been a very expensive month for us. My car needed some work done, and the parts for my car are more expensive than the average car. Seriously, my tires cost $200 a piece, and I've replaced them all at this point!! Last week, one of the holy sh!t lights on my dash illuminated on the drive home from work. Rather than go home, I took it straight to the dealership. My alternator apparently died and from what the tech said I was lucky I made it that far. So $730 later, I have my car back...and that's just for the alternator and labor, I didn't need a new battery or alternator pulley (whatever the he!! that is). We dropped off Hubby's car this morning. He needs new brakes...hopefully that doesn't break the bank!

I hope to have another post before Christmas but if not,

I really tried

I was supposed to get organized for Christmas this weekend. I was supposed to get the decorations out of the attic, put up the lighted garland, even attempt to put lights up outside. I went shopping for lights, but found none. I know exactly what I'm looking for (me, picky?, no!) but haven't found the right lights yet. The rest of our decorations are (still) in the attic and I am a failure.

Saturday was (supposed to be) my decorating day, only it wasn't. I spent the day with Hubby's mom and our crazy dogs and went to visit Hubby and his dad working on the Christmas tree farm in the crazy, freezing cold. I forgot my camera to capture all of the picture perfect moments of the day. I met two beautiful dogs (and one really mean, yippy dog), picked out our Christmas tree, sat around the fire trying to keep warm, and stayed out of the way of the men at work.

In preparation for my Project 365 challenge, I've been carrying my camera everywhere. For some reason, I took the camera out of my purse and left it home on Saturday. Why? The world may never know. Part of it may be that I got up at 6:30am on my day off. So instead of pictures, you'll have to settle for the promise of pictures in the future. Promise!!