Butter and cheese. They make everything okay.
I seem to have focused my last few days on cooking and cleaning. I attempted to sew up a bag yesterday but my thread must have been old because it kept breaking. Well at first I thought the bobbin timing was off or something. I almost had a panic attack. All I could think was "I just bought this! There's no way I already broke it". So I got up and walked away from the machine for a few hours. Did a few searches online and decided to just try changing the thread out. Well what do you know? It worked just fine. Now I'm scared to even try another thread. Hopefully I'll get over that soon enough.
So other than that I just cooked yesterday. Breakfast to be exact. I didn't get any full shots of said breakfast because right at the end I dropped and lost half of the baked little yukon gold potatoes as I pulled them from the oven. I was sad. I looooove potatoes. Baked, roasted, fried.. just give me some potatoes already!
The reason behind breakfast?
Which caused all of this...
Back to the biscuit business.
I found recently a new blog that I spent the better part of a day reading. shutterbean - and if you love food and stuff, you should go check her out. She had posted the recipe for Ina Gartens , otherwise known as Barefoot Contessa, Buttermilk Cheddar Biscuits and I had to make them. Though mine are not as neatly cut as hers and maybe a tad over cooked, they were still delicious. If I decide to make these again I think I may add more cheese and leave off the sea salt from the top. I love salt and all, I just didn't like it on these biscuits.
Tomorrow - I have something marinating in the fridge from one of Ree Drummonds recipes (Pioneer Woman) and some no knead bread working its magic. Yum yum yummy.
Ignore the mountain dew and horrible quality photo. It's late.
It's seriously my bad habit, the mt dew that is, that I need to kick and those are my last 3 cans. My kitchen is small. Not a joke. The sink is just out of the picture with maybe a foot of counter space then the stove with about 8 inches of counter space on the other side of that. Then.. the back door. Earlier tonight we finally replaced the under the counter light and I don't think anything could have made me happier right at that moment. Well maybe some ice cream. I can negotiate. I just grabbed the camera at that point in the middle of cleaning and snapped a quick shot. Night time shots in the kitchen are horrible in my little house. Not that the daytime photos get much better. At least I have light! No more cooking/prepping under dark cabinets.
So it's 11:59 pm at this exact moment that I write this very sentence. Didn't do a whole lot today. I didn't sleep very well last night. Had a doctors appointment this morning. We had lunch at our favorite mexican combination plate place then came home. Had a nap and stuff. Naps are good.
Then dinner happened.
I am really trying not to spend a lot of money and the man gave in anyways when I said I wanted this little Italian place from down the street. What was I thinking? Three times we have been there now. First time was horrible. Second time was great. Third time was horrible. I have groceries stocked up. I will be cooking from now on. I need support! Convenience food is way too convenient. I suppose that is why it is called "convenience food" to begin with though.
After my so called dinner.. I had the urge to "tidy" up the kitchen. It started with sweeping and two hours later ended up with my other half ordering me to sit down and get off my feet. He's taller. He's bigger. He can pick me up. I had to stop.
I guess its for my own good.
So it's day five maternity leave for me. I'm so excited. I wanted to blog and take pictures for the last several weeks but they were so rough for me that I thought my posts would just come off extremely grouchy. Work was a little too stressful those last few days. To the point that I was breaking down and crying quite a few times before I even made it home. I'm proud to say that I have yet to have any sort of meltdown since being on leave and that makes me and baby way too happy.
Of course a lot has went on in the time that I wasn't posting. As you can see up there I started piecing my baby quilt. I even sewed it together. I just need to cut and sew the sashing on and on with the quilting! Other than that.. not much crafting I'm afraid. Like I said before, work was way too stressful. I had a lot planned that I wanted to make and create before I popped this baby out. Don't think it's going to happen and I'm not going to even try rushing to get any of it done.
That's something I've learned over the last five days. Slow it down. I've been peddling through life so quickly that years have went by and I have nothing to show or remember them by. I've rushed and stressed over this and that and everything else that I really never took the time to stop and smell the roses so to speak. So.. I'm going to fix that. I'm going to try not to freak over the small things. I'm not going to stress if the house isn't perfectly clean or something doesn't get done. I'm not going to break down if I'm running 5 minutes late for work. I'm going to take the time to cook more and enjoy the time I have with the people that I love. It's the people and things that you love and make you happy that really matter and count. I'm going to beat this into my head (not literally of course) until I get it. To hell with everything that ever made me stress, freak out, and break down.
Okay! Sorry for the bantering. Want to see the quilt top pieced?
I love love love how the light coming into the window lights all the blocks up like little jewels. You can click on it to see the larger version that shows the blocks a bit more clearly. I'm so proud of myself with this too. After actually sewing the blocks together and trimming (I did trim it better after taking this picture) I wasn't too stressed about any wonkiness or crooked lines. Can't you guess I probably had a meltdown stressing over the fact that this is my first larger piece of quilted anything and I wanted it to be perfect. Well it's not. I can deal with that. I'm ready to finish this but the fact that I really don't know how I want to quilt it has slowed me down to a complete stop. Hopefully something will inspire me over the next few days and I'll get it finished in no time.
I did this little bit on 1/4 inch gingham that I picked up over the weekend. I have been wanting to try this type of embroidery for quite a while now. Please don't mind the non ironing I did of this fabric before I decided to snaps some pictures of it. Just haven't been feeling very well today. This pregnancy is kicking my rear, literally.
Ok back to the embroidery. It was actually pretty enjoyable. I have planned in my head over and over again to make curtains of some sort for my kitchen. Of course it's only been in the 'planning' stages for oh.. a year at least. One of the options I was considering was gingham with some sort of chicken scratch as a border. Though I'm not sure I could do three sets of these now and actually finish them in a decent amount of time.
Again with the wrinkly fabric. Sorry. I love how the texture takes on a life of itself though. Maybe I'll try a set of curtains and see how far I can get. Not in red. Red was the only one in 1/4 inch I could find the other day.
Not today though. Sounds like I'm procrastinating again huh? Not really. I just need to relax and I think I'm going to browse around blog land and just be a vegetable the rest of the afternoon.
On day two of baby quilt making back in January, my dearly beloved (yeah, not really) sewing machine finally kicked the bucket. I have not once in my life actually owned what I now call a "real" sewing machine. We had previously in the week been talking about taking the plunge to buy a new machine. I guess when it broke it was a sign to take that plunge.
I started doing a lot of research on-line and had admired Bernina machines before. I went to the closest dealer almost an hour away and had a ball trying out the different machines. I seriously felt like a kid in a candy store and I'm sure I looked just as giddy and silly to the customers with my ohs and ahhs over different things. Needless to say I was excited.
Then another week passed.
Mind you I'm going absolutely insane after work when all I wanted to do was sew and I couldn't. Funny how things like that work, you don't want to do it until you can't. Then finally the day came when I could go back to the dealer and pick out the lovely I was taking home.
And here she is in all her glory straight out the box and set up on my sewing table. Please ignore the walls. I rent currently and I'm stuck with the white washed, not very photogenic, fake wood paneled walls. Okay back to my new love. I decided on the Activa line and had wanted to originally get the 220 model. I settled for the 210 model after seriously debating with myself on if I would actually use all the embroidery stitches. I wouldn't. I just could not justify the extra $200 at the time for the stitches and the hands free system. Which I have to say the hands free system almost made me throw down the extra cash. Then I started thinking that it's something I've never used before anyways, I won't miss it.
Moral of this story for other folks: If you have the money to spend on a good sewing machine and you're planning on sewing as a hobby or more - Do it. Don't short change your machine. I can not tell you how amazing the difference is between a quality machine and a $100 craft store or walmart machine. It's completely different. I think had I started out on this type of sewing machine the first time around, I may have done a lot more sewing in the past 3 years. It's been hard to keep me off of it the last few days.
Except for tonight. Tonight I'm going to curl up on the couch and try a little chicken scratch embroidery. I can not wait to see how this turns out.
Happy Valentines Day!
I made this stack of crochet hearts a few weeks ago with intentions of making a garland to decorate with. Did that happen? Nope. Always next year, right? Yep.
The pattern for the hearts can be found on Bella Dia's blog here. I used Sugar'n cream cotton yarn in red and pink. These are actually pretty fun and quick to whip up while being lazy watching tv.
It starting snowing here in the state around 4pm yesterday while we were gone off shopping in the next town over. I couldn't believe it. I mean I could, but you know what I mean. They (the news) had been calling for snow for the last few days but I still wasn't sure it was going to actually happen.
This is the other half of the baby maker trying to show just how much snow we had. Which... well was a lot. Considering at midnight he was outside trying to build a snowman in pj pants and a t-shirt. Giving up only because he was cold. We woke up way too early for not having to be at work just to run outside and see the white stuff before the sun came out and took it all away.
Now half a day later it's about half melted leaving behind dirty mud puddles. It's been fun, but I'm not sure I could stand to have the stuff around for weeks at a time.
Well december came and went and now it looks like I'm about to let january slide right on by as well. Work was crazy busy during the holidays. So between working and trying to get some rest in afterward each day, I didn't have much time for anything else. Now that things are slowing down and I'm coming up on my 8 month mark.. I've got to get ready for this baby! Last week I cleaned out my sewing room (sniff sniff). I'm down to a corner, but I'll take it. I have a wardrobe and cloths for my baby girl and thats about it. I really need to fix that.
A few months ago I decided I wanted to make a quilt for her. I picked out this stack of reproductions from my stash. Then I went and spent way too many hours on flickr and various websites searching for some sort of inspiration on what sort of pattern I wanted to use. I fell completely in love with the double hourglass quilts I found. So I settled in for using lovely little handmades tutorial found here.
Thats my first block right up there. Yay! I think I may have forgotten that this is my first quilt as well. Other than a small simple table thingy I gave my mom two years ago. I believe I'm going to make it roughly crib size, maybe a tad larger so that I can use the quilt longer. I worked on the blocks a bit today. Though I only have completed 9 so far. I have another stack of 18 half ready. It took me several tries but I think I got over being nervous chain piecing. Otherwise I could probably have competed more blocks today... I'm just slow. I'll post more pictures when I get a bit more done and actually have something to show. As for right now, I'm going to prop up some swollen feet and cuddle my lovely bottle of tums.
Over the summer I finally finished a knitting project that I have worked on for a while. It wasn't even a complicated project, just a scarf. More on that one another day. After the last few months of having no energy to do anything but work and sleep, I decided to look for a quick knit for myself. So a few hours cruising around over on Ravelry - I came up with Bella's Mittens (also found here). A few balls of Rowan Classic Cashsoft chunky later and I was settled in last week for some knitting.
Now.. I really do enjoy knitting cables so I enjoyed the pattern. My ultimate problem was because of my own laziness. I didn't do a swatch. I figured "hey! its a mitten.". Um.. yeah. I took the picture when I was halfway with the first mitten. I finished that one shortly afterword and proudly slid/crammed/squeezed my hand into it. I had knit up the perfect mitten for say... a 10 year old. But I was proud and couldn't get annoyed with my own laziness so I frogged it. I do plan to start over on a larger needle (and a swatch!)
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