The Chaos Begins

I took these pictures of the living room back at the end of January. (We don't have a separate dining room in this house so this room does double duty)  

The floors don't look too bad in pictures but there were a lot of places that needed attention,

plus, that naked spot under the tv...

This just gives you an idea of how much stuff is in this one room.

Our original plan was to have the floor refinished. It can be done, but finding someone to do it proved to be all but impossible so we finally decided to just go with tile. 

Either way, the floor was going to have to be sanded down to get the shiny finish off. 

This means everything had to come out of this room.

Everything!

Where? Everywhere! This is my sewing/craft room.

I had to get everything I thought I might need out of the room before we started emptying the living room, which included anything I thought I might need for the get-away weekend because I wasn't getting back in there before then.

Guest room

Patio

and the bonus room upstairs. 

What you can't see in this picture is that there is a shelving unit with a television behind this one.

It was too tall to put on the shelf so we had to improvise with two end tables and then the coffee table slid underneath to hold the cable box and stuff.

It's kinda like sitting on the front row at the movies except you don't have to look up! There are two beds behind where we are sitting. 

This is basically our 'living room' for the duration.

I didn't get a picture of our bedroom - there were two small tables and a DVD cabinet in there.

and we have an empty room.

The Way it Was

 There has to be a better way to arrange photos than the way I'm doing it!

Anywho - lets go back to the beginning to see what has transpired over the past few years and how we ended up with a house in total chaos for the last month. 

When we bought this house, this 'entertainment center' was built into this spot. 

It measured 90 some-odd inches x 90 some-odd inches. If it wasn't totally square, it was close. It 24 inches deep and built to hold one of those huge tvs from the late 90's early 2000's. The shelf in the middle was added later to hold a more up-to-date tv. To me it was a big, dark hole. It needed to either be painted or come out. 

Since there wasn't room for a larger tv with the built-in in place, it came out! There are pictures of the process of getting it out but I lost them in the process of arranging them in this post and didn't go back and upload them again. Suffice to say it was quite a feat. It had to come out in four parts and all the screws were hidden. I think hubby ended up with just about every tool he owns in the house by the time it was out. This is what we were left with at that point.

Then kidlet #2, Pa and Tyler finished getting the paneling off the wall and figured out what would be need to be done before the next step.

He got his bigger tv

Then it was time to add shiplap to the wall. 

Notice the floor under where the built-in was. 

The rest of the living room is stained concrete and this was apparently put in place before they stained the floors because it was bare!

Got the shiplap done. 

Kidlet returned to help hang the tv

And we have a rug covering the bare concrete floor. 

This is how we ended 2021.

And this how we ended 2022.

Well over a year later, we still had a runner covering the bare floor.

It's going to get better - but first it's going to get really messy!

It's been a minute!

 If January drug on forever, February and March went by at warp speed!

We have some house projects going on (I'll show those in a different post) which has cut into my stitching time but I did make a little pillow for hubby for our 44th anniversary.

The chart is a freebie by Cathy Habermann, Hands on Design.

I made the little pillow using scraps from a quilt I made for hubby several years ago then appliqued a heart made from some wool felt I had in my stash.

With everything going on I still managed to go on a little get-a-way. It helps that it is planned (and paid for!) well in advance! Like I already have the dates for next year ahead of time. :)

I think we had about 36 ladies this year. There are only 40 spaces total, but I think there were some last minute cancellations. While I think it would be really fun to attend one of the big stitching events, and I'm not saying I won't ever try one of those,  this one is close to home so we can drive. (only 90 minutes for me) There were several new faces this year as some of the regulars have had to drop out for health reasons. While I'm not the youngest by far, I'm not the oldest either!

Every year the theme is different and this years theme was Samplers, Past and Present.

These are pictures of the finished models  - not pictures of my work.

There are always several different projects and this little pin pillow was the one we got on Friday night. Several people completely finished the stitching on this one before the weekend was over. I'm not one of those people. Some ladies stayed up really late stitching and finished Friday night - I only made it to midnight and I stitch really slow so...

I will show a picture of my project at the end of this post.

Saturday morning we got the pattern for this stitcher's roll.

All the elements are Texas related.

What the inside will look like.

Project number three was this cute stitcher's pouch. 

The last project was a little sampler that goes on top of an Altoids tin - I failed to get a photo of that one. 

We get everything to complete the projects except for the stuffing for the pin pillow. I think the model has walnut shells but I will probably use fiber fill in mine.

So how much of mine did I finish?

Told ya I stitch slow and this includes the few stitches I have done since I got home! 

I might have been running my mouth more than my needle. LOL

It's always fun to spend a weekend with a room full of women that share a love of needlework. 

Next post I will show you what has been cutting into my stitching time at home. 

Two for January!

Sneaking in a second post for January. 

Does January drag on forever or is it just me? Then February speeds by. 

 

Finished the stitching on this piece last week.

House of Blues an Browns by With Thy Needle and Thread.

I'm not sure about the fabric - it was packaged with the chart by the shop where I bought it. If it was the called for fabric, it's Fine Ariosa, 22 ct, cream. 

I did not use the called for colors - I changed to DMC, some of them I tried to match to the listed GAST but some, I just picked something I liked. (I used DMC 3752, 524, 869, 829, 451, 3011 & 3768) 

I think I may make it into a pillow but I will have to go fabric shopping. We will see.

The weather here is cold and miserable. We have had rain with some sleet. We are all the way up to 31 degrees right now. I'm staying inside and going to try to get some stitching in this afternoon. I guess I slept wrong last night and I've got a sore neck so we will see how much I actually get done.

On to February!

Happy New Year!

 I hope your year is off to a great start! 

I'm in the process of putting the Christmas decor away. I always love the box of handmade ornaments. There is a mixture of ones I made myself, gifts from friends and few my grandmother made. Because I'm bad about waiting until the last minute to finish them, there were no new ornaments this year. There are some that are stitched but I didn't get them fully finished before surgery. Maybe I will get them done before next Christmas!

I thought I would share a few pictures of our day

I am finally able to stitch a bit again. I can't go too long before my wrists get tired (no matter what it is I'm doing, they get tired and I don't have my grip strength back yet) but it feels good to get a few stitches in here and there. Maybe I will actually finish something soon!

Have a great weekend!

Merry Christmas!

 From our house to yours

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Mantels

This is the first house we have owned that has a fireplace (and we have two!)

2016

This was the first Christmas we were here and the first time I had a mantel to decorate.

I made do with things I already owned.

 

2017 

Basically the same as the year before.

2018

We had been using the same stockings since 1984. I had stitched the cuffs and my grandmother made the stockings. I had bought enough extra fabric to make another stocking so when kidlet number three came along, I just stitched another cuff and my grandmother made another stocking. Well, 34 years later our numbers had changed and the stockings were looking a bit worse for the wear so I decided we needed new stockings. I found these pretty cheap and bought extras. (I love the look of them though) These are only supposed to be temporary - I have dreams of stitching new stockings for everyone. I have patterns and fabric but have only completed the stitching on one so far.

2019

I added a couple of Santas (on each end) this year. Not much of a change but it worked. 

Still no cross stitched stockings.

2020

I finished and framed my French Alphabet Sampler in 2020 and didn't really like the red, lighted picture with it so I put it on the mantel outside and found a new one for inside. We also got new logs this year - I shoulda had them on for the photo but who knows what the temp was when I took this. I could have been running the a/c full force. 

2021

Changed things up last year! I bought new lamps that looked better with the sampler and started collecting trees as soon as they started putting them out - I had something in mind. I love the more simple look. I waited until a few days before Christmas to put out all the stockings 

2022

Kept the simple look from last year (the lights are there - just not showing up well) I added a couple of small trees right in the front but they don't show up much here either.

How do you like those stockings? There was a reason those stockings were cheap. They still looked good on the outside but we discovered on Christmas morning last year that the lining had disintegrated. That stuff got everywhere. Since I knew I couldn't get that many stockings stitched by this Christmas, I had the big idea to make some quilted ones. Well how many do you think I got done? That's what happens when you put things off. Since I have had surgery on both hands in the past 5 weeks, I don't think they are going to get done this year. I think we are going to have bags this year!

I didn't put out all my Christmas decor this year. With all that was going on it was just too much. I put up one of the smaller trees in the living room and just put my handmade ornaments on it. They are kept in a separate box so I didn't have to drag out a lot of boxes. I usually start the day after Thanksgiving and it usually takes me a week to get it all done. Well, that wasn't going to happen! I had everything I was going to do done before surgery last week. I had hubby pull a couple of totes from the garage and  I pulled out some of what was in the cedar chest but there was a lot of boxes I didn't even look in so there is a lot of stuff missing this year - but it's plenty festive! Hubby and DIL thought the fireman tree needed to be put up so they did that one last weekend - I had nothing to do with it - and I told them they had to take it down! LOL

I'm slow at getting things put back together after Thanksgiving but I'll get pictures when I get it done. I had it all clean before Thanksgiving but we had a houseful and with limited use of my hands it's still a bit messy, but I wouldn't have it any other way. The hands will get better and the house will get clean eventually. One day at a time!

Have a great weekend!