Unmotivated

Last night after the whole ironing board fiasco, I finished my apron. I LOVE it. I topstitched all of the blue trim with a beautiful half daisy pattern and then sewed on the buttons and it looks awesome. I am going to wear it to work all week (we have to wear aprons there) and show it off. It's also my last week working at the quilt shop. :( Which means there are only three-ish weeks until I have to check in to my teaching job.

I have yet to start my kuspuk, which is bad news bears since I have my second class tomorrow and I am supposed to have the first four or so steps done. I don't know why I am so intimidated by this project. I think it has to do with the fact that I have never really sewed any clothing and I haven't had much luck working with patterns where you have to cut out pattern pieces. But I really need to start. I don't want to be as unprepared as I was for last class (I showed up without scissors, which are pretty important if you are going to cut fabric) or a pencil to trace my pattern with. AH! So I would like to be on my game tomorrow. We'll see. I have been cleaning the house to avoid facing the project. I really should get started.

Ironing Board Blues

So when we moved my ironing board didn't make it back to AK. Not sure why, since I wasn't there for the packing, but I was sans ironing board in my new house. Which makes quilting a bit difficult. So today I had a break down and had to buy an ironing board. I had seen the one I wanted at WalMart (ahhh...) but it was $45 so I decided to wait and go to Fred Meyer. So then I went to FM and they didn't have the extra wide boards. So I wound up going to WalMart and buying the one I wanted. Why was it so expensive you ask? Well, it is 22% wider than a normal ironing board and it has a rack on the side for the iron to sit on. AND as if that wasn't enough it has a rack on the bottom to stack things (not sure if that will be useful or not). The only downside was it took me about 7 minuets to figure out how to open it. There were no directions and even with my two college degrees, I had a bit of trouble. But I am back in business baby.

7/28 So this is embarrassing, but a bit funny. I realized that I misspelled minutes. I ALWAYS do that. For some reason I always put minuet, which is a ballet not a measure of time. When I was in college I actually had to put a sticky note on my computer screen with minutes spelled correctly and a picture of a clock so I would remember how to spell it. This is why I explain to students that spelling is important, and that I am not the best at it. I always ask that they politely correct me if there is a spelling mistake. I think it is important that students know that teachers are bad at things too. Like spelling...or reading directions....

Shrug me

Well, I finished my shrug. It is beautiful. And it FITS! I'm SO excited. I love it. I'm trying to decide if I want to add a closure to the front. I think a cute hook and eye piece would be nice, but I don't know. I don't really know where to find something like that, and I'm not sure my shrug needs it. I'm pretty proud of myself right now. I'm also excited that now I can start a new project. :)I will get pictures up of the shrug when my camera turns up again. I'm not sure where it ran off to.

Beer Brewing

So Weston and I received a beer brewing kit for our wedding. Since we moved to our new house he has been dying to brew his own beer. Fine. So Josh comes over tonight to brew beer with him and at first I was excited. I get to hang out with Josh and Weston and knit while they do something they enjoy. Perfect. Except then it started to smell. Not too bad at first. But then the smell kept growing. And I was forced to head to my room because it became overpowering. And now I'm in the bedroom with the door shut, widow open, and fan going at full blast and I can still smell it. I went into the kitchen to throw something away and almost puked. It is HORRIBLE. I hate it. I don't like beer, but this isn't even just a beer smell. I can't describe it, except to say that it is awful. If you have seen the Seinfeld episode with the smelly car, I feel like I am trapped in that.

On to more exciting news, I am almost done with my shrug. Had I not been chased to my room by that horrible smell, I might be done with it. But alas, the knitting was a casualty to the smell war and it is still in the living room. I also worked on organizing the sewing room a bit more today. Still not done, but it is getting there. I just hope the house smells normal in the morning.

Pictures of house

Bathroom. Has two sinks and a very large tub. Plus, the toilet flushes by pulling this thing on the top. Very strange, but I'm starting to like it.

Weston's gear closet. It is the third closet in our bedroom.

The bedroom. It has three closets and it is a lot bigger than the picture looks. It has a nook over in the other corner that could hold a small crib or something, if needed.

This is the kitchen. It finally has food in it after going food shopping yesterday. And pots and pans!

Wallet

This is a cute little wallet that is made with less than a fat quarter of fabric. It took a little bit to get together, but now that I have made one it will be very simple to make others. I plan on using mine to keep all of my reward cards in so that I have them all in one place and never have to go searching all over for them. These would also make great gifts because they are easy to make and use so little fabric.

Grocery Sack

I hate plastic bags. They are out of control. If you go to the store for a few groceries, sometimes you wind up with as many bags as groceries. And they just take up space. So I have moved to not getting bags as often as possible, and when I do need a bag I bring my own. So I was excited to take this class and learn how to make my own grocery sacks. I figure they would make great gift bags for Christmas and then they are reusable! I'm happy with how it turned out. The inside of the bottom leaves room for improvement. I will try to make it look a bit nicer on the next one. They are great to use up scraps, as it only takes four 18" squares.