FROM START TO FINISH IN AN EVENING -- ALMOST - and - I'M OFFICIALLY ON THE MARKET

The lady that helps me clean my house loved the dress that I made Avery. Told me she had a four year old grand daughter too and she'd love a dress like that. Soooo I looked through my stash and found this cute piece of material and tonight before I went out to eat supper with friends, I cut out the pattern. Then when I got home at eight I used my serger and sewed it up - decided to take pictures and realized I didn't sew on the pockets before gathering the skirt and attaching it. Well, I almost finished it and in the true fashion of procrastination, I'll put the pocket sewing off until tomorrow (if they weren't already made, I wouldn't bother with them) and I'll do the hem and handwork too and be totally finished so I can give it to Lucy on Friday. Here are some pictures





























I officially put my house on the market as of today. Got a sign and everything. Because those of you who usually read my blog have seen my house at its worst, I thought you'd enjoy a glimpse of it at its best. So, take a peek.

DONE and DONE

Here are pics of the finished Easter Dresses and some of the other pretties I've spent time with the last few days.

LIFE SUPPORT, SELLING HOUSES AND TOTAL RELAXATION

Sometimes when I'm working with gathering threads, whatever I'm working on looks like someone who's hooked up to life support with wires threads sticking out everywhere. I'll be clipping threads on these for awhile. But, the machine work is all finished unless I add one more button hole to the pink dress. Just a bunch of handwork to do. Woo Hoo! At least I can work on that at school when there's nothing happening in the lab.




























-Finish embroidery
-Press and sew sleeve facings
-Press and sew hems
-Sew on buttons


Tomorrow a realtor is supposed to call me -- she was at a continuing ed class today. I'm hoping to get her to come by and discuss what I'd like to do about the house. We will see.

I was this relaxed for awhile today --




















I had a massage and I was asleep before it was over. It was great!

I got this look after about the fourth picture. Guess he didn't appreciate my preserving his relaxed pose for posterity.

SNEAK PEEK AT NEW BABY NEAL QUILT

I think I mentioned that I wanted to make an all pink and white quilt for the new baby neal girl who will be arriving in June. Well, the best laid plans .....
I fell in love with these very pretty shades of pink, green, blue, whatever this color is -- I LOVE it. Believe it or not it really isn't blue -- it's kind of a turquoise on turquoise and turquoise with white and a white on white. One will be 8 inch blocks and a 3 inch border, one will be 1 inch sashing between the blocks and one will be the backing. All three will be used in the binding. Of course all of the above can be changed at the whim of the sewer(pronounced sower -- not "sue-er" I think it's late for me to be blogging)-- and,the sewer -- that would be me :)



















Here is a sample of what you might see on some of the blocks -- not in red but a thread matching the pink, green, blue, whatever that color is. (Don't know why the pics are so yellow) Remember this is just a sampling --- I'll be doing 24 of these and have more than that to choose from. My favorite that will definitely be included --- think Charlton Heston and water -- lots of water.







I won't start on this till after Easter probably so you'll have to wait til then for some updates.

ONE TIRED GRAMS IS SLEEPING AT HOME TONIGHT!

Got home from Nashville around 5 pm as I had stopped in Jackson, TN and walked through Ross' Dress for Less, Kohls, and Hobby Lobby -- but that's another story.

The two Easter Dresses are almost too short so I'm having to add to the length of both. I cut the extra fabric for that tonight. I'm soing a white inset and then more of the pink/blue below that. I think it will turn out ok. I'm going to try and get all the machine sewing finished on the dresses tomorrow.l Then I'll be able to do some quilting and embroidery the rest of the week.

Here are a couple of pictures from the trip -- I'm too tired to put them in chronological order.

MY BABY IS 28; A WII STORY AND SOME EMBROIDERY PROGRESS

Happy Birthday Brian!! Can't believe you are 28. Makes me feel soooooo young!! Hope you had the awesome day you deserve.


If you have kids and/or a WII this you've got to read this. It's a very funny story and not a long one at that.

http://memoriesoncloverlane.blogspot.com/

I've completed all the circles and some of the flowers on the two Easter dresses I'm making. I think the flowers will be a nice touch. You'll have to excuse the wrinkles. The dresses have been stuffed in my school bag so I can work on them during spare minutes between classes.





































I need to get my suitcase packed for my big weekend trip to Nashvegas. I'm ready for a dose of kids and grands. Plus there's a big bday party at the Rainforest on Friday night. Woo Hoo!!

FINALLY

Finally the log cabin quilt is totally finished and in the washer. I've been doing some hand sewing this week. Working on finishing the binding on this quilt and the label. 

I also made the label (by machine to be attached by hand) for the red (mostly) quilt I'll be quilting and hopefully bind next week while on spring break. Maybe I'll even get the yellow brick road quilt sandwiched and started quilting -- I plan to pick up some batting while in Nashvegas this weekend. I have a list of things to get. Now I can't even run to Wally World for elastic or pins or batting because all that stuff has been removed. One more reason to be glad I'm moving closer to fabric stores. 

I've been thinking about a lot of the finals I've been going through related to retirement. My last Thanksgiving break -- check. Last first day of school -- check. Last Christmas Break -- check. Last first, second and third nine weeks - check (as of this Friday). Coming up -- last spring break, last state testing week, last classroom inventory, last sixth grade exhibition, and last last day of school.  I've enjoyed and am looking forward to each of them.  I love the job - still look forward to it every day but I'm soooo ready for some new challenges.  Scared too but I guess that comes with the territory.

IKEA IDEA

Here is a site that shows lots of uses for IKEA products other than the intended. Some look pretty good. Might spark ideas for using NON IKEA things too.

http://ikeahacker.blogspot.com/

I HAD A GIVEAWAY AND I WON!!!

Not really. I did finally get around to making myself a thread catcher. I made it a little differently. Instead of making a "sandbag" to weight it down, I just made a wide piece that's probably about 12 inches long so I can either lay it under the machine and the machine will hold it in place or when using my portable table, I can actually tie it to the lift underneath to hold it in place. Anyway it will work fine for me and I didn't have to go out looking for sand or a substitute of sorts.
































Other than that, today was a pretty slow day. I went to the grocery store and visited with in-laws and was kind of lazy.