New Moon: TUSAL time

Stitchers in the blogosphere are an amazing bunch.  I see photos of projects that I can only dream of doing someday.  They are gorgeous works of art.  Then there's TUSAL day.  The day we proudly show our garbage.  Here is mine:

TUSAL stands for "Totally Useless Stitch ALong" and is sponsored by Daffycat.  Each month, stitchers save up the orts (thread ends) from projects and take a picture.

This year I am saving my orts each month in a clear plastic ornament.  It's quite a colorful collection now, but I'm not sure if they will look interesting on a Christmas tree or not.  I might just empty them out at the end of the year and start over.  It is fun to see them lined up on my windowsill.  Some months were definitely more productive than others.  It's late now and I don't have good light, so I'll take a picture of the whole collection next month.

So behold my beautiful garbage!  If you're not a stitcher, I'll understand if you're shaking your head.

Hattie Hedgehog

How adorable is this?  The fifth in the series of free advent animal patterns from Brookes Books Publishing.

I think I'm going to finish each of these into an ornament, and rig up some kind of garland to display them all.  Since the patterns are coming out once a month, I still have plenty of time to figure it out.

And here is my jar of 2014 scraps to date.  It never looks like much, but it's a big wide jar and it represents a lot of stitching hours.  I'm posting this as part of Daffycat's "TUSAL" (totally useless stitchalong).

I've become an instagram addict.  So many wonderful creative photos from all over the world.  Of course this has led me to new projects I want to start.  There are just never enough hours in the day.  You can find me on instagram at http://instagram.com/threeundertwo. 

Drama Girl got her class schedule and textbook list.  It includes this book, "Buffy and the Heroine's Journey: Vampire Slayer as Feminine Chosen One"
: 
She can never accuse me of not adequately preparing her for her higher education.  Also?  I really want to go to college with her.  But I take consolation in the fact that being a grownup means I never have to take calculus again.

End of January

This new month of the new year has flown by, so this little flying fairy I made is very appropriate.  She's my January finish for the Smalls Stitchalong.  I'm well underway on my small February piece, which will be an ornament for Christmas.

I failed completely to have a finish for my Lovely Year of Finishes!  Next month I hope to do better.

I did contribute to my scrap jar for Daffycat's Totally Useless Stitchalong.  I saved the papers from a handful of floss I purchased, and there is some wool mixed in with the floss from a needlepoint project I've been working on.  I'll post pictures on Tuesday.

The kids all went to the high school Winter formal last week.  I didn't get pictures of the girls but I did get a quick not-so-great picture of Jungle Boy with his cute girlfriend.

I'm still in denial that everybody's growing up, but I do think he's a handsome young man.  I treasure the interesting conversations we have.  He is thoughtful and philosophical and can be very interesting to talk with. 

Since the twins had to take a "practice" Preliminary SAT (PPSAT?), they are already starting to get mail from colleges.  Just as the mail for Drama girl is finally starting to taper off.  Our dining table often looks like a high school guidance office.  I tell the kids to look at each one so they can start to figure out what they might want in a college.  I can't believe this whole cycle is starting up again.  I'm finding everything about this process stressful. There will be a day in the not-to-distant future when I will have three kids in college. 

I call it...new sewing room day.

New Goals for 2014

 

This year I'm joining in "A Lovely Year of Finishes" hosted by Shanna of Fiber of All Sorts and Melissa of Sew Bittersweet Designs.  The plan is to post one goal a month, and then check back at the end of the month to see the finished result.  

I'm going to try to keep my goals rather small, while I work on some larger projects at the same time.  I still have a stack of quilt tops that need to be basted and finished.

January goal:  Baby quilt for a friend.  She just had a little boy.  It's been a while since I've made a baby quilt so this will be fun.  Not sure what fabrics I might have in my stash that will work.

December was so busy with parties and performances and this:

that not a lot of crafting got done.  That's my goose Christmas dinner.  It was all divine.  I'm still exhausted from all the preparation that went into the holiday.

Here are the three bookmarks I made for my kids:

Drama Girl got a dragon.

Wasabi Girl got a treble clef.

Jungle Boy got this nod to his love of video games.  Notice that it's being used in a big fat book though.  Everyone got books for Christmas and they've spent a good part of vacation reading them.  That makes me happy.  You can find links to these patterns on my Pinterest boards.

I'm also going to try to keep up with Daffycat's Totally Useless Stitchalong.  Each month we show the snippets of threads we've saved from our projects.  This was due on the 1st, so I'm late, but I do have some threads to show from some work yesterday.

That was hours of work.  I hope to finish the piece today and show it to you.  It's pretty cute.  Which brings me to my next Stitchalong:

The 2014 Smalls Stitchalong is hosted by Stitching Lotus.  Very easy - one small project a month.

We still have Christmas up around here.  The season was over so quickly this year that I'm still enjoying the last bit of it.  The poor tree needs to go soon though.  Probably a project for Sunday.

I hope your New Year brings new exciting goals and projects.  Now that I've finished that epic Santa's Village from last year I feel like I can tackle anything. 

Totally Useless

Today is a new moon so it's also time for the first check-in of the year for the Totally Useless Stitch Along.  This is the internet sewing bee where instead of showing our amazing progress on our projects, we show the little thread ends that we've saved up for the month as we worked on projects.  I've started a new jar for this year, and even though I've been stitching away like crazy, it barely shows.

I didn't even show the whole jar because the pile looks so puny at the bottom there.  The Totally Useless Stitch Along (TUSAL for short) is hosted by Daffycat.

I got a new camera that I'm having fun playing with.  My old camera was just giving me sadder and sadder results.  This one has more features than I will learn to use in a month, but so far I'm really happy with what I've figured out.  Every time I get it out and start clicking Hestia comes to investigate, so I have a lot of pictures of her.

She looks sort of mad in that picture, but it's hard to get a cat to look right at the camera and not blink. 

Hope you're doing something totally useless today.  It's good for the soul.

TUSAL update

Here is my update for the TUSAL ("totally useless stitchalong) hosted by Daffycat.  These are my orts for January.  I think I'll do what others are doing and empty these into a bigger jar and use this one again for February.

Does this make me a hoarder?  I confess I sometimes watch that show through Netflix and it's fascinating,  maybe because I worked with people with mental illness.  I just want to get them some help.  And I really want them to throw out their junk.

At least I acknowledge my sewing clippings are useless.  And I will throw them out.  Drama Girl wanted to save the big collection from last year but she forgot about it and I tossed them.  I think some people put them out in the spring for birds to use to build nests.  That must make for some colorful nests.

Hope you're having a great weekend.  It's not too late to link up to Finished for Friday!

Ort Report

This is my 2010 jar of orts.  An ort is the little scrap of thread left on the end of the needle when you finish stitching.  It's a term that means "scrap".  Also in my jar are extra little beads, bands from floss, and a lot of used dull needles.

It's so fun to look at the strata and think of all the projects I completed last year.  That pile of scraps represents a lot of hours of work.

It's time to empty it out and start again.  If you want to play along, sign up with Daffycat.