Oh What Fun!

Okay, so you know how you eat all the cake and cookies the week before you know you are starting a new diet?  Because you know that  you won't be getting any after that day? And you really want to get them out of the house?

Well, I am preparing for my diet date.  A stash diet that is. Jan. 1 will start a no buy, use the stash, finish the UFO's personal challenge.

For quilting, this means that I will only purchase what I need to complete a project.  I will be making a list of all my UFO's (unfinished forgotten objects) that are stuffed folded up neatly on the shelf. I will be feeding the PIGS (projects in grocery sacks) so that they fatten up in to wonderfully completed quilts to go to new homes.  I have an obscene amount of PIGS.  Good thing I love ham so much. I did find a great deal on EQ7, quilt design software, over at the Quilt in a Day site so purchased it...on Thursday, it arrived Friday.  I was in total shock at the speed. I can't wait to load it and start playing with it.  Next week though, I am going to play with my AccuQuilt Go cutter and the new tumbler die I bought.  I purchased fabric today for a purple and grey quilt to made out of the tumblers for a gift for youngest son's girlfriend.  I do suspect however, that in the not to distant future she will become family.  Think, hope anyway, they are planning on waiting until they are both out of college.  They have been together for like five or six years already.  Also, purchased some iron on interfacing to use for the t-shirt quilt I plan to make out of youngest son's t-shirts I have collected.  Actually he collected them, kept them stuffed in his closet, I found them when he moved out.  So, figured if held on to them, I can make them in to some thing he can really hold on to.

Now, the "Stash Diet" as it deals with my newest fascination of counted cross stitch.  For this re-visited hobby, I call it that because years ago (many, many years ago) I enjoyed this particular craft.  But, like so many things in my life it was boxed up, put away, not to be thought of for far too long.  Well, in the process of sorting through boxes in the storage to unpack and place in the sewing room that was no longer needed for a bedroom for mom, I found some UFO's that had not been touched in at least 12 years or more.  I have developed a new determination to finish all unfinished works in my life.  Guess it is a by product of the loss of mom, dealing with all the final disposition of her things and such.  At any rate, there has opened up a new window of interest again after being closed up for far too long.  Getting rid of the musty part of old I guess.

So...as with the quilting, I am going on a diet with this area as well.  Problem is, I haven't really got the huge amount of stash to supply my addiction with the counted cross stitching as I do with my quilting. But, I am in for the game.  I have only one project in the works currently, that will be an ongoing project for some time it would seem.  I stitch very slow.  Don't know why I can create a quilt in a day, two at the most, completely finished, but it takes forever to make all those little x's of thread everywhere.  On the agenda for this new project, it will be a lot of organizing, just like with quilting. I already have planned which project I am starting first.  I am so tired of working on my current project, the nativity.  Once I tasted reality and swallowed the sad fact that I will not be able to finish it for this Christmas, I immediately placed it at the top of my "ongoing finish for 2013" list. 

To "prepare" for my  upcoming stash diet, I have gone on a little spending spree.  Not a lot, but I did buy the thread for my next project, but forgot the cloth.  I will have to remember to get some.  I am thinking that it would be much cheaper to buy some cloth by the yard.  I have a serger and can finish off the cut edges.  Maybe though, I will just have to buy the cloth as I go.  Not sure which would make more sense, money wise, at this point.  Any way, at this time, I am really concentrating on building up my thread stash.  Last week, I bought a thread of each color, sorted it and have it all inventoried.  At the moment however, I think I went a little overboard on bidding on Ebay.  I will only have a problem if I actually win them all.  However, I have budgeted for just such an occasion. At least I will have on hand all I need to work with, supply wise. As with the quilting, as of Jan. 1 there will be no more purchases of thread, charts, kits to just stuff find a place to store away.  I will only use what I have on hand.  Of course, it doesn't count if you have to buy a few threads to replace what you use up, or run out of before finishing the project.  Yep, that's the story...I'm sticking to it.

Oh this is going to be so much fun.  Wonder if I can stitch while on the treadmill, which I will be starting back on Jan. 1 as well. Well, exercise anyway, thinking of getting some hand weights and a ball for scrunches.  Will start simple.  Also need to get back on track with my food as well.

I have decided to re-organize my day a bit and starting on the first of the new year I plan to sew during the day.  Well...as much as I can around Mr. M and his needs that is. Cross stitch when everyone has gone to bed and it needs to be quieter.  By that I mean I won't disturb hubby who goes to bed at 8:30 each night.  I have to fit in menu planning in there somewhere as well. It seems to really run a lot smoother at meal time if I have planned it out a bit.  We eat out way too much, my fault, and since I am the largest instigator of it, I will be hardest to push for home meals.  It is better all around financially to plan out the meals and eat at home, emotionally I don't have to worry what is for dinner, and physically is much healthier for us as well.  Hubby eats out a big meal every day for lunch with his job.  Miss Zebra eats at school each day, she tries to make healthy choices but sometimes that is really hard with what the school offers up.  It makes sense to make the evening meal more nutritious for all of us.

Pulled some more items from mom's storage out today and brought them to the house to go through.  I finally got the furniture I want for the sewing room all in place, just need to clean it back up as every thing was just kind of piled here and there willy nilly to change out the pieces of furniture.

Cross over between these two crafts will be the crazy quilting projects.  They are both quilting and embroidery and they are embellished with all kinds of embroidery stitches and decorative pieces.  I have a box of my mom's clothes that I saved, her more favorite pieces and a sack of my dad's neck ties.  I will cut them up and make a crazy quilt for myself and my brother, just throw size, and then will make smaller pillow or lap size projects for each of the grand kids to have. This project will take a long time I am sure, but that is okay too.  This project will not go on any list, no deadlines, nothing but time to heal and remember.

The other craft that I enjoy, or hobby, but I just hate the word hobby because to me it conjures up time spent doing some project that is of no use to anyone.  When you say you have a craft, it sounds more artsy, more special.  Regardless, I also crochet.  Love the things I create, but like with cross stitch, am totally at a snail's pace with it.  I will never be able to understand how someone can sit there and tell me how relaxing, calming, crochet is.  I can only work so long, by that I mean not long at all, for I become a nervous irritable wreck.  So, because I have a weird sense of need to punish myself, I bought some this new yarn out to make a scarf for my oldest daughter, Mrs. C, the teacher.  You can crochet with it, but it has a net, much like the old fishnet hose, built in to it.  Apparently, it makes really great scarves because the yarn design naturally makes a spiral or ruffle.  I talked to a woman at the store that has used it quite a bit.  She knits though, will never be able to learn that, and she showed me a little of how to do it, but with wanting to crochet it she advised me to check out YouTube for videos on working with the stuff.  Mrs. C has already hinted that she would like one.  She finds things on Pinterest, then lets me know...in not so subtle hints...that I should make it for her.  She has a lot of misplaced confidence in her mother's abilities sometimes.  But hey, makes me try new things...once.  If you haven't looked around that site, you really should, it is amazing.  Make sure you lots of time when you do.

Well, it is late and I have written a book in this post.  Thank you for dropping buy and listening.  I have a year's worth of cleaning to get done tomorrow.  Hubby loves me so much he had to share his little bug with me.  I have been sick for a week or so.  So...nothing has really been done around the house because as you all know, only mom can do it.  And, even if she can't really hold her head up, is sneezing a storm, coughing up a lung, it will all be alright when ever she does get around to it.  Come back and visit soon.  Will be updating later in the week the nativity progress.  I kind of hit a sweet spot with some large areas of the same color to stitch.  Oh my stars, that doing three or nine stitches of a color at a time just kills.  I should just nickname the project Small, because, "you're killing me Smalls).

That being said, I am off to soak and then to bed.  Have a really full day waiting for me tomorrow.  Will see how much I can get done.  Have you finished your Christmas shopping?  I am about a fourth of the way done.  Need some online orders to arrive, then wrapped, and one more shopping trip with hubby and we will be finished.  I am so excited that we are heading to Texas to see family right after Christmas.  I will have to pull some photos off Facebook of Buddy, Mrs. C shelf elf.  If you haven't heard of this craze you really should look it up.  She is so creative in story ideas that I just eagerly anticipate reading each day's post about what he was up to during the night.