Progress!

I haven't been posting much, but a lot has been going on lately both crafty and otherwise. Just to get everyone up to speed.

1. I GOT A JOB! It's not my dream job, but there are definitely some positives... like getting a paycheck, and in a few months - health insurance. It's just a front office job, and pays less than what I was making before... but it should be far less stressful too. I like my coworkers (actually worked with one of them before) and everyone seems really well organized and helpful. So that's a good thing.


2. I found an apartment! Again, it's not quite my dream apartment, but it's in an awesome location. I'll be walking distance from the grocery store, the mall, and the MAX train. There's also a bus stop directly in front of my apartment that will drop me off directly in front of my new job in less than 30 minutes. I'll get to move in next weekend. Then comes the fun, but expensive, part where I buy all new furniture etc.

So things are feeling a bit more stable and less terrifying, but it's still going to take some time to get well settled. Next up will be looking into grad-school programs.

In crafty-news, I have been quilting a lot and knitting a little bit. I finished the embroidery on my Funky Floral quilt.It's not super fancy, but this square was a bit boring compared to the other center squares, so at least this adds a little something. Oh, and obviously I've finished the top & have started quilting it. I did a few lines of 'stitch in the ditch', and am planning to echo the square frames with quilting. It's a bit of a pain to try to get the body of the quilt through my relatively small sewing machine... but it can be done.


There are a couple other projects in the works, and I'll post on those soon. I bought a cheap new camera to replace the one that got messed up in Vietnam... but I'm really unhappy with the quality... I guess you get what you pay for. Now that I have a job, I'm going to take the good camera in for repairs, so that hopefully you'll get pretty pictures soon!

This is how UFOs happen

I decided to do a little embroidery on one of the blocks of the quilt I'm making. I sketched it out and did some basic back-stitching in a couple different colors. But it wasn't quite enough, so I decided to add a bit of this and that... and to do an outline in white. In looking for my white floss I found about four skeins of ecru and only half a skein of white. It occurred to me to go with the ecru, but no... I decided that only white would do.

And *naturally* it ran out about halfway through.

Back in the days of car-ownership this would have been no big deal, just drive out to a craft store and pick up some new floss. But now that I'm totally reliant on public transportation I've got to figure out a craft store along a bus route... which is tough because they're all out towards the suburbs. And even tougher on Sundays when the buses come about once every half hour. I went to a Fred Meyer nearby - they have yarn & some other crafty things but no floss. So yesterday I was out of luck. I was seriously tempted to just set the whole thing aside and start a new project... but I knew as soon as I did that I'd never remember to get floss and the top would languish for ages as a UFO.

Today I went on a near epic quest to find embroidery floss...and learned that the two likely shops downtown are closed on Monday. I continued on busing & walking through the dark and stormy night only to find that the yarn shop right down the street happens to carry a very small selection of embroidery floss. Success!

Now I just need to finish up the embroidery, finish sewing together the top, then figure out how I'm supposed to quilt this whole thing. Gah quilts always take about 10 times longer than I think they're going to.

In other news, I'm still working a temp job. It's so boring I kinda want to bash my skull in more often than not, but the pay is decent. I went on about a million interviews last week... okay five... but it felt like more than that. I have another sit down tomorrow and I am really hoping that I get a job offer soon. I have about the sweetest situation I could imagine right now, but I won't feel right until I'm on my own two feet.

FO Wednesday

I haven't been knitting much since the Hat Attack... but I have done a little crafting.

Here's my second attempt at iron-on embroidery. I'm not thrilled with it. I added the big flower and thought I would do something a little different with it... but now it looks a bit too different. Oh well. I still don't know exactly what these will end up on... but that's okay - for now they're just pretty.

Giving Grandma her props

I've commented before on how I've turned into my mother, but it seems her mother's genes are expressing themselves as well. Lately I've really gotten into crosswords and various other word puzzles... this is something my grandma was totally into when she was older & more or less home bound. I've started out with one of those multi-puzzle books and got really into the Acrostics (kinda like a crossword... but not really). Then I got a little book of NYT "Light & Easy" Crosswords. The only ones I can finish quickly & consistently are by Peter Gordon...with the rest of the so called 'easy puzzles' I get about 90% done then have to cheat to finish up the rest of the puzzle. I've learned a lot about Mt. Etna though..... what was my point again? Oh yeah, my grandma!

Grandma was a seamstress by trade (I have not yet inherited those skills!) but also quilted and cross-stitched. Most of her handwork was not spectacular, but practical and serviceable. Here is an apron she made and embellished with cross-stitch.

I went through a heavy cross-stitch phase in junior high & high school... culminating in this sampler I made to celebrate my sister's wedding my freshman year in college.

After finishing this one, I started an even more impressive pattern to honor my college graduation... I gave myself nearly 4 years to do it. I never even finished the border.

Anyway, I'm not so much into cross-stitch anymore, but I am getting back into needlework. Here's my second attempt at embroidery.

The flowers are from the same template I used earlier on a bag... but I filled in the petals with what I now know is called seed-stitch, and gave the leaves some veins. And then I added the little birdie from the same template package (lots of flowers & cute animals). I'm pretty impressed with this little picture, although I have no idea what I'm going to put it on. I think I'll save it up for a quilt (if I ever get back into quilting that is!!)

I was so impressed in fact that I went out and bought a white canvas apron and the book Sublime Stitching... which unfortunately claims not to be my "grandma's embroidery." While I understand this simple means she's updated the styles and patterns for current tastes, there's nothing wrong with my grandma's work! Anyway, stay tuned for more needlework.