Well that's not how I saw this going... on a Slow Sunday...

Hello... so how are all of you doing?  It is 2 weeks into a new year and I have to say that for me, things that have happened are not how I saw it going... and oh I hope this is not an omen for the total year...I'm trying to convince myself that I'm packing all the bad stuff into January and when it is over things will be better... now don't jump to conclusions, no one has died, but lots of things are just off... 

first, I steeled myself to go back to the dentist and as I expected  more of those root canaled/crowned teeth from 30 year ago are infected and will need to be extracted... argghhhh... I went to see a no-fear dentist that can do the IV sedation which increases the cost of this but I don't think I can do it any other way... It's been a week and still waiting on a response from the insurance company as to how much they will pay and how much I will be out of pocket. 

then a routine furnace check up ended up being a new furnace and humidifier purchase... arggghh...now the old furnace was 16 years old (I looked up the average life span of a furnace 16-20years). It could have been repaired but the cost of parts alone was 50% of the price of a new furnace and it was no sure thing that all the parts could be obtained. Soooooo... I had them put in a new furnace. I knew this would be coming eventually. I bought the house 8 years ago "AS IS"... I know the roof is only about 7 years old (I figured that out looking at the county auditor's website aerial  pictures.)   Next BIG item is probably the AC unit.  Not gonna think about that now Scarlett. 

the company I have my cell phone with got bought up and then sent new SIM cards to put in the phone.  I knew this would be some kind of problem and it was. I have 4 phones on the account. The first phone the transfer went easily, the second phone...my phone... was a fiasco that ended up with a loooong phone call with a person who was not US based who I had a lot of trouble understanding and had to have her repeat everything. And if I hadn't had my son and his phone right there I would have had to take it to a TMobile store to be fixed. In the end  the phone works but I lost some text messages...annoying.

and as I sat down to write this post my laptop just turned itself off.... poof... it is plugged in so it shouldn't be the battery but all I have is a black screen. Luckily I do have a back up laptop and that's what I'm using now. My son had a problem with his laptop about 2 weeks ago. It stopped connecting to the internet. He never could figure out how to fix it but after about 48 hours it worked again.  I'm hoping that might be the case for mine. If not I'll take it to some repair place on Monday.  All of these devices I'm talking about are inexpensive chromebooks and up to this time we've never had problems with them.

I went for my 5 week cut and color on Thursday... I've been going to the same stylist for years as it is hard to find someone who knows what they are doing with curly hair. She does a great job on my color and I should have learned this by now, I shouldn't talk to her while she's cutting my hair. She just keeps snipping and snipping and snipping and this time it is way shorter than I wanted... I know, I know it will grow out but right now it looks like a bubble cut Barbie from 1963... back then I had a platinum blonde one so I know what I'm talking about.... anyway just more annoyance...

As for doing crafty stuff...well that "not how I saw this going" also applies ... I spent a day tidying up my sewing area and vacuuming ... always improves things... I got 3 quilts bound... yeah... 2 more are waiting... and I decided to revisit the Momo quilt I started last March... this project never even got its own plastic bin... it was a just a pile on the top of the IKEA cart... so the pattern I was using was Fat Quarter Shuffle from Cluck Cluck Sew....sorry for the grainy picture ... you can find the pattern here.

Now I knew it would be a busy quilt but I like busy so I thought it would be fine.... and it is in a small dose with quiet fabrics but not as a full size bed quilt with fabrics that are all screaming  "LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME"... you can see the evidence here when I had half of the quilt on the design wall... 

There is no place for your eye to take a break... these blocks desperately needed some quiet space...I was determined to do something with them as I had made 54 of them... 54 BIG 10 x 14 " blocks... so I took them off the wall and looked to see what I had in my stash that I could use... I'm really trying to sew with what I already own this year... I found 3 yards of a creamy white with a fuzzy polka dot (and I know you can't see that in the pictures)  and this is what I came up with...

And here are some of the individual blocks... I like this pattern because there are some LARGE scale prints and this shows them off...

Okay this I can live with... it isn't real exciting but it is pleasant and after it is quilted and washed it will be a nice quilt... but I still had over 30 blocks left over, soooooooo... I went back to the pattern and put together a throw version... this hasn't been sewn together yet...

Not too bad in a smaller format. I had purposely not included the blocks that had a big splotch of the light fabrics in the first re-do as I didn't want them to bleed into those BIG cream white blocks, so all of them are in this top.  I'm going to get these sewn together and put a back together and take the two tops to Delinda this week... she has a finished quilt waiting for me and I like to have something to drop off when I go and pick up. 

As for decorating I do have my snowmen out... here's some of my displays... not much of any new stuff so I challenged myself to not put everything where it was last year...  I was about 50% successful in that challenge, but some stuff like that big snowman cookie jar only fit in one place...

Lots of cute stuff but it needs a cross stitched piece... gotta work on that...

Some cute Prairie Schooler snowmen...

the monthly piece from Hands on Designs... I'm so glad I stitched the entire year of these ... I enjoy changing them out and making a little vignette with them each month. 

Today we are celebrating my older son's 37th birthday... how did he get to be that old??? He has requested a meal of spaghetti and meatballs and I will be bringing them to his house at 4pm... I remember the day he was born was bitterly cold... so cold that they let me stay at the hospital an extra day ... so cold that the doctor on the floor didn't go home for 48 hours because his car in the parking garage was frozen and he couldn't get anyone to come and get it started... weather isn't that bad today... cold and a chance of a bit of snow... fingers crossed we have a mild winter... 

Well I hope things are starting out well for all of you... sorry to be a downer at the beginning of this post ... lets see where I am in 2 weeks... I have been enjoying sewing a lot even if the quilts are turning out exactly as I thought they would. I have a bunch of Debbie Mumm fabrics cut into  2.5" squares and ready to be assembled into 4 patches.  I have a plan for a new quilt for my younger son and I want to start a Spring quilt with yellow tulips for my living room wall in March... I've been knitting almost everyday... doing socks cause they are mindless and using just one skein of an Opal yarn... pretty stripes and again mindless... cross stitched here and there but having a hard time focusing ... worked on the Red Bird Sampler by WTN&T but had to change several of the floss colors... not sure I like my substitutions... put it aside and got out O Joyous Day by BBD... had more done than I remembered... think I'll stick with this for a while and get it done. 

I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts and spend some time seeing what others are up to.  I'm sending all of you positive thoughts that 2022 is going to be a much better year for all of us!!!

happy stitching-

carol fun