And I am still picking out paper...
I haven't been sewing or even going into my sewing room lately.
I HAVE been going down to the mister's office  and eyeing all the shelving down there.
 He has been getting rid of magazines he has had for years!....
It took a bit of convincing him to let them go.  
 So ...out to the recycling every week, a magazines box goes!
  Don't worry, not anything worth anything, just trade magazines and manufacturing mags.
  Crap, he has stuff from when he went to a seminar, that is written in Chinese!..(it was a seminar soliciting businesses to relocate in China)...
 OUT!
 OUT!
 OUT!
 Out with it all...
Sooooo, I've been eyeing all that space....
For my paper crafts, punches, paints, inks and some of the grand daughters' craft stuff.
There are 2 book shelves and a large 3 section Ikea shelving unit down there.

 That huge desk he has will be nice to work on....such a large surface....lol!
It's not one of those cheap desks you get now but a large wooden desk from 35 or so years ago.  It's heavy, sturdy and made of solid wood....but not ornate,  just plain and functionable....with drawers and a lockable drawer! 

Oh, and that really comfy chair!!!!!

I have been picking out paper...and picking out paper............... and picking out paper.  It seems like it never ends.

It's a horrible job, especially on this spider web quilt.

I put most of the SW quilt together, then found the paper was really in the way.
Imagine having a queen sized piece of paper that you are trying to get through the sewing machine.
I decided, (when I couldn't keep the seams straight), that I would now remove it.
The big pieces came out okay.  Smaller pieces in the seams were harder ....the crumbs are a royal pain in the eyes.  I pick at those with tweezers.
So, of course, I have little bits of paper all over the house. 
I've been taking the quilt outside and giving it a shake once in awhile.  That helps...I am vacuuming my sewing room often, but still dragging little bits around.  I find them in the family room, living room....in the bedroom. 
No, it's not the cat, MissT playing with them.....she has been hiding on a heating vent for days now.

So now I have most of the paper out.

I decided to press the top, which I did and found a bit more paper.  The laid the top on my bed to see how it looked, and to judge the size.

The mister doesn't like a quilt or sheets and blankets to hang over the edge too much.  The last quilt I made I listened to him and made it shorter..
Hmmmm..
He's pigging the blankets and I am cold.  I barely have any over the edge.
So, I am not going to accommodate him,  I want it longer on the sides.
I had another row to sew on the quilt, which I've done now. ...and started picking out the paper from that row.  Half finished.  I am seeing an end to this quilt ...FINALLY.
I haven't decided yet if I will put this on the frame or not..either way it will be machine quilted.
And......
My Framer's Wife Sampler is calling me.
It wants to be finished too...hehehe.  I am more than half finished it
I sat down at the machine on the weekend to make some doll "backpacks and book bags" for Courtney and one of the patterns for FWS fell into my lap.
I have the same paper in the one, but I don't think it will be as bad to remove as the spider web quilt.
BUT, from now on, I am using the wash away paper.   I have some, there is lots on the market now, the price should be coming down, but, I don't care how expensive it is...it is a lot less work.  I would have been done by now if I didn't have to remove it...plus all the cleaning...gee ...who WANTS to vacuum....not me.  I keep it mostly to clean out the sewing machine!!  lol.  Besides, my time is worth the cost.
So, if you hear me say I will use "paper" again....hit me upside the head and remind me what a mess this was and how much I "LOVED" picking out the pieces.

I sit here, eating my lunch, a nice big salad of chicken, romaine, cucumber, red, yellow and orange pepper and sweet onion...or yeah...cherry tomatoes too, with a roasted red pepper dressing.  A delicious salad! and all the calories come from the dressing and chicken.
 I love it!
 It's been hard to get back to watching what I eat.
 Just getting the motivation is hard.
  and....
 January 21 is coming up fast. 
That is when most people abandon their diet resolutions.  I hope to keep at it and lose a few more pounds.
 I've already lost 5...but that can come back over night!
 Maybe blogging will help keep me on track.
 My sister and I usually do this together with varying degrees of success!  Along with, of course, our misters. 
Sitting at the sewing machine for hours doesn't help! LOL!  Sis will sit and draw for hours!
 Right now I have some cookies cooling, I made them for guild...I can smell them and they smell really good....but I am not going to touch them. (besides I drank all my tea and if I have more tea, I won't sleep)  I will have some sweeties at the meeting.
In the meantime, I need to go work on pulling out more paper.

Things have really changed around here.
I haven't blogged for a long time.  Or even sewn much for that matter.
I had one sister-in-law pass away from cancer.(the mister's sister).  In hindsight, I think she had ovarion cancer all along .  (they removed an 18 pound growth from her ovaries a couple of years ago, said it wasn't cancer and they got it all.)  and..  She never really felt better.
That put a damper on Christmas....the mister was in a bit of a funk and I didn't nag him about it.
On the bright side, my sister came back to Canada to live and is about 20 minutes away from me.
Where she lived before, she had spotty internet service, so we couldn't Skype, emails were iffy and phonecalls expensive.
But, now she is close and it's easier to keep in touch.
The mister and I are TRYING to lose weight.....lol...he put on weight through the holidays.  I didn't.  But now watching what we eat, he is losing faster than me...the bugger...We have been walking or trying to walk.  We have a snow storm just after Christmas and the side walks weren't cleared very well. 
I hurt my knee walking on the ice and snow...and overdoing it didn't help much.  But the weight is leaving .......(I still have a few little chocolate bars from hollowe'en! hehe)

I have been working on one paperpieced quilt (spiderweb).  I have been spending DAYS pulling out the paper.  GOSH! what a messy job.  From now on, I will not be using paper but a paper like wash away foundation instead.
I used paper in my farmer's wife sampler and I am dreading tearing that out.

cancer is a bitch ....a solelesss, mean bitch.
This Saturday , the mister's younger sister lost her battle with cancer.  she never had a chance....she was absolutely full of cancer.  bones. liver. lungs...she didn't even make it to her 60th birthday, which is next month....
This is the second sister-in-law I have lost to cancer.
Far too many of the mister's family is knocked to the ground with this disease.
A few from my own side of the family tree have been felled  by this horrible disease.  It makes me very sad...

Time to put up the Christmas lights...
The mister doesn't want to do the same old thing we always do.... a line of lights across the front of the house.   He wants to place them around the garage door this year.
I don't know...that means nails in the frame. I don't like that idea too much.
And I just bought all new hooks for the eaves trough! (big sigh).
We have a really big evergreen just beside the drive way...we could put the lights and decorations on that....or we could put lights on the deciduous trees we have.
I normally put curtain lights in the livingroom window, and the christmas tree is in the corner near the window.
As soon as I bring out the tree, MissT our cat, starts sitting and sleeping under it.
Last year I was still putting the lights on and I stepped on her..she was hiding under the tree....she wasn't happy that I didn't see her.
I have a tree that I bought at least 25 years ago.  I paid a lot of money for it at a boxing day sale at (now gone) White Rose.
 It still  looks great.  It has branches that look like branches, not wires wrapped in plastic.  I attach pine cones here and there to help fool the eye.
 The only thing missing is the scent...
And lights...I must put 700 lights on that tree.  But, it's a big tree....8 feet tall...with a base of 5-6 feet away from the wall.
When the grandkids were babies, I would cover the tree in toys.  Beanie babies, tiny teddies and tiny dolls.
Remember all the toys kids would get in a kids meal?....On the tree, tied with a ribbon.
So there was Grover, Cookiemonster, Kermit the frog, Miss Piggy...all sorts of kiddie stuff on the tree, including Wilie Coyote, Roadrunner, Shrek..Princesses and tiny little Cabbage Patch dolls, Tigger and Pooh.
If they wanted to play with the toy, that was fine, but we put it back when we were done playing with it.
Now,  the girls are past that...and we are trying for a more sophisticated looking tree.
I liked the toys....they were fun.

pin moor pin anchors

Have you discovered or heard of  "pin moor pin anchors"?
Leah Day(www.freemotionquilting.blogspot.ca) uses them all the time.

I made some ...
Mine look completely different, but then, I was using up scrap. 

This wasn't what I had planned to do.
I had planned on expanding my ring compartment in my jewellery box.

flexi-rods

 I went out to my nearest dollar store, he is an independent, not one of the big chains.  I wanted flexi- rods..I think that is what they are called, not perm rods... but those long foamy rods they use now for long hair.  I have curly hair, so I don't know about this sort of stuff....any way...he had them, I bought 2 packs..4 in a pack...only a few dollars.
I measured and cut and hot glued to some cardboard and made myself more ring roll for my rings.

Then I had these little pieces left over...about an inch long.


new ring roll

I threw them away....

I threw away the wires that were inside.

 I threw away the buttons that head the ends.

Then I tore a chunk out of my thumb on a pin....ouch!!!

I looked in garbage can and thought....hmmmmm.
 " I could cut up those and make some pin buddies"...
 I tried sticking a pin in them...and they didn't fall apart.
  It wasn't hard to insert the pin, but it didn't fall off either.


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The leftover rods were about an inch long with a hole down the centre, just a little too big and then there was that hole...I decided sideways was good enough.  I had enough width to insert the pin..so I cut them into slices.
The pieces that I have now are like Cheerios (a breakfast cereal)...a little doughnut with a small hole in the middle.
I took the second pac, took them apart and cut cut them all up.  Now a have a box full...enough, I hope...there are more curl rods at that dollar store if not.

Then, I thought....hmmm, and cut the shank off the button.  I could use both pieces for embellishment.


The wires I put back into the bag and as I was about to toss them, and I thought....
"Why not see what I could twist them into and embellish with them."

just a few
 

So I bent them (with small pliers) and shaped them...smashed and flattened them with a hammer..(and my finger)....lol!
Maybe,  just maybe ...I will put them on the ATC's (artists trading cards) I have to make for guild.  I coloured them with alcohol inks, then I took a drink can that I had cut up and tried to turn "coppery coloured" with heat and I used alcolhol inks on that.  I am gonna use that for my ATC's ...and I am going to work on them today!
After I clean up all the stuff on my table!

I still haven't really found my sewjo....
don't know why.............
I need to hem some pants that I bought MONTHS ago...
still haven't done them....and a pair for my son-in-law.
I put the right colour thread on my machine and turned it on....did some pinning ...tore my thumb......then did something else......hehehe...THE ABOVE!...
I haven't been idle....I've been playing with paper, trying to tidy and organise and reading a few book........
Tomorrow...I WILL turn on the machine , hem my pants, and sew some more.....if nothing stops me....