A HARD JOB

I cleaned out the toy closet yesterday.  It was a very emotional day.  Ethan left his imprint on so many areas of my life....I am trying hard to remember the joys and laughter, not the loss.

There are only a few things left that were oldest sons which I will pack up and send to him!

All the rest went to the thrift store. 

 I was, and still am, emotionally spent.

 

PLANS

My 12"'frame is going to be cut down to 8' next week

 after my surgery.  Oh, what to do with the 4' of space

 added to my room! So, I needed to remove the detritus that collected around the quilting frame in the studio!

I was so happy to clear out the clutter in front of the storage bins so now I don't have to move a ton to get into one of the drawers!  I will have to rearrange these, too, since I won't have the same length to fit them under the 'new' frame!

But I do need to find a home for these things! 

 On top of the table are the painting supplies and under it 

are a serger, portable sewing machine and the easels!

I even emptied the design wall items.  Lena helped a lot today. 

 I will be trying to figure out how I am going to organize the room after the dust settles?  What fun!

As I was taking the last picture, I noted Lena's interest--

Nyki was stalking us! lol

Catching My Breath

                             

 Socks have been completed....

New socks have been started...

A new piece of wood is on the lathe

And some garage cleaning happened!

Today, I will be home all day-what a treat!

Nice and Bright!

 The king-sized quilt is off the frame and ready to be delivered!

There is room for my summer blooms as soon as those borders get attached!

This is the other thing that is keeping me occupied! 

I am cleaning all the grout between my floor tiles;  

the bathroom is done and this is the area by my front door. 

 I had forgotten the grout was white and not beige!

No scrubbing required-just a squirt of water, a sprinkle of cleanser

 and a few swipes with the toothbrush.  

After a few minutes, I wipe the whole thing down with a dampened microfiber towel 

and I have like-new tiled floors again! 

 It is lovely to perk the house for winter!  

(I always prefer to clean like this in the Fall knowing that I will be spending more time in the house;  Spring calls for open doors and heading outside instead of cleaning the house!)

Sorting.......

 The Lion Brand Suede scarf is off the loom........it is so squishy and soft!  66" x 4" with twisted fringe.

 And a new scarf is on the rigid heddle loom; this time I used some hand spun bamboo and soy silk  in the warp with a commercial weft of Silk Bamboo by Patons.

 I started out looking for something and couldn't find it but it sparked a big time clean out of lots of boxes of my craft/fabric that were in this, we aptly call the PG for the portable garage.  We put this up when we moved here 4 years ago because we had way too much stuff after moving from the big farm house with garage, barn, and storage shed!  I think we had just had an overload on the decision making trying to get rid of all of our belongings in an auction and moving.  It was a bit of a blur, too!  But anyway, I tackle a box a week usually but today I did some big time weeding out.

 I threw out and organized 14 boxes and took care of all the stuff I did decide to bring into the house! 

 For example, this box of corduroy was sorted and then cut into 6 1/2" squares so it can be a quilt instead of a big pile of fabric!

 Now it is going to be pieced up and put to good use instead of sitting in the box another year!

 I loaded up the men's suit samples top and began the quilting.  I am not using any batting, instead I have backed it with a large piece of polar fleece Marsel had given me during her big clean out a few months ago.

This is kind of quilting heavy but the pattern flows right along and looks kind of whimsical for this rather  unorthodox quilt!  I am ready for a good evening with my knitting-

I have loaded the last skein of yarn with all the beads for the final edging design for the Seasons of Life shawl.  This has worked up pretty quickly and I will be anxious to get it blocked out to see what I have-as it is all squished on the needles (I should have used a longer cable with the circulars but I didn't for some reason!)  Hope I finish it tonight.......