So Summer Begins

This week is the first week of my boys' summer vacation. Why is the first week of a new schedule so difficult? Why does it seem to suck the very life out of you? These are my kids. I live with them every day but when school is out it takes me two weeks to get used to the all day noise(a.k.a. whining "I'm bored"). Why is it so difficult for me to get into some kind of rythmn when they're home? Well, I'll tell you why. They are relentless! From 8a.m. until they finally pass out in their beds all I hear is, "fix this, the computer won't load this website, the cable box isn't working, can we go to the beach, can we go to the mall", it's a neverending non-stop request by all three of them to be entertained, more often than not in three different directions.

Truthfully, I shouldn't whine about having to take the 10 yr old to the beach every morning. Life could be much worse. While I was sitting there yesterday morning, watching no less than 10 dolphins put on a show, I started thinking that my priorities needed an adjustment. My 10 yr old won't be my 10 yr old much longer. He's eventually going to be my 15 yr old and not want to spend time with mom. Why do I care if the laundry is done, if the dishwasher has been loaded, if it's been four days since I last vacuumed, if I should be home cooking the chicken for the Chicken and Noodles I planned to make for dinner(we ended up having pizza-shocker-no?). Why in the big scheme of things, in a world literally going to hell, do I care about anything other than sitting on the beach hanging out with my youngest son, the one who still kind of likes me? Nothing in the world is more important than that. Those hours are important. They should be treasured. So my attitude is adjusted and I'm taking it one day, ok, one hour at a time.

Very little stitching has been accomplished over the last few weeks but below you can see a scan of my minimal progress on Houses of Hawk Run Hollow's House #2. I would love, love, love to have this block completed by the end of the weekend but I don't see it happening.
Yesterday when I gave in and took the three whiners to the Mall I worked on Samsarah's I'll Always Be Wildflower while sitting in the food court waiting for them to decide they were finally bored with what the mall had to offer. This project was started last summer and worked on while I spent the night at the Dallas/Ft.Worth airport-I'll never do the standby thing again. I haven't touched it since that weekend. This summer it will be my going places project. No pics because middle son has sucked the life out of every battery in the house doing his skateboarding videos for his My Space site. I've told him when I replace the batteries in my camera he isn't to touch it again. It's a pricey little number(by my standards) that I waited several years to finally get my hands on(the Nikon part not necessarily this version of the camera). His performance art can be filmed just as well with the duct taped HP camera. What? I'm mean? Well I found my Nikon Coolpix 7600 sitting on the front porch railing the other night. I freaked!

I have my mother's crocheted afghan pretty much finished, I should have taken the time to sew the blocks together by now but I hate that part! I really need to get it done this weekend.

I've got an embroidery jones going at the moment and want to find some cool pirate/sea/mermaid designs either as ready to purchase transfers(yep I know about Sublime Stitching) or have the spousal unit draw off some things onto muslin blocks for me so that I can start embroidering blocks for an eventual quilt. I go through this occaisionally(ok, every hour of every day) once I browse craftster.org. There are so many creative people over there and I can spend hours looking at the pictures and writing down ideas of my own for future projects. Until I get my designs gathered up I'm going to practice on some dish towels. I've never done any decorative embroidery and the stitches have me a bit intimidated. For the most part I think I can get by on the running stitch and the stem stitch and the satin stitch. Not sure what I'm going to do when I get to the nasty French knot. Since these will be quilt blocks instead of towels I can use beads instead of knots but for the tea towels, I need to suck it up and learn after 30+ years how to do a stupid French knot.

Summer Projects

My project list keeps getting longer and longer. I hope to start TW's Tropical Dream soon(I've misplaced the chart), TW's Castles by the Sea, and TW's Mermaid. One of these will be a new start next Monday. I want to get back to work on TW's Fantasy Triptyche and Tradewinds. Somehow I will work out some kind of TW Monday rotation for these projects and maybe finish a couple in this life time. After Labor Day I want to start TW's Fortunate Traveller.

My current WIP are:

Carriage House Samplings' Houses of Hawk Run Hollow

Liberty Sampler

When I finish HOHRH I will start working on Goode Huswife's With My Needle. I have a few stitches in this project but not a lot.

When I finish Liberty Sampler I will add Mirabilia's Lady of the Flag to the mix. I am close to the halfway mark on this project.

My most recent new start is Abbey Lane's California Wine Sampler. Once Wildflower is completed this will be my carry along project.

I have so many projects piled up in the "already started project basket" that I seriously want to give some long time UFOs much needed attention. Of course I have a few new starts lined up but haven't purchased the charts yet so will hold off mentioning them for the time being.

I have my pirate/mermaid/sea themed embroidery quilt project running around my brain sending me into creative insanity land, and I want to restart DS#1's Ohio Star quilt. I found some great fabric at the new LQS. I want to start sketching out all three boys' "Story of my Life" quilts. I plan to do a mix of applique and pieced blocks, probaby appropriate cross stitched blocks too all related to where they were born, where we've lived over the years, school blocks for the schools they attended, blocks to represent their sports interests and hobbies, blocks to represent family, you get the idea. Then the back will be pictures I print out on to fabric and will piece those together to created the back of the quilts. These quilts are very long term and I have no intention of completing them any time in the near future but I want to get a design idea for each quilt and start looking for blocks to incorporate into each quilt. I'm not a quilter. I'm a wannabe. I wish I could embrace quilting the way I love cross stitch but cross stitch is my passion, quilting is just a different way to express myself. I'm not good at it, all my sewing and piecing is by hand(think primitive). But I love coming up with ideas for quilts. I don't know why I love that so much but I do. I think the embroidered quilt is going to be the most fun.

Has anyone out there been following a lot of the freeze paper stencil projects going on in Blogland such as, angry chicken: little elf shirt or Flickr: freezer paper stencils? I definitely want to do some shirts in the next couple of weeks. Have a few designs running around my brain.

Yep, lots of creative ideas and projects planned for the summer. I need about 24 more hours every day to do everything I want to do.