I'm a Hoarder!

It dawned on me that the end of March marks the end of our first quarter of Competition Year Two (if you can call this competition).

I've been teaching Middle to use the sewing machine and making Smallest a poodle skirt for a dance that she'll be doing, so I've done some sewing that I need to report.

It took about an hour for the skirt, then I've worked about an hour on the petticoat so far, and about two hours on Middle's shirt. She lost interest, so now I'm finishing it. We cut it out together and put most of the top together before she had better things to do.

So I'll go with 4 hours.

7 hours total.

And a happy birthday to you, Leetle Seester!

Margie

Strike that, reverse it

I spent the last week grumbling over that square I'd made badly, so I took out the last three seams and redid them. Much improved. I also did one other square. My bad sewing last week made me sufficiently nervous that I sewed really slowly, because all that took me an hour. I had plans to sew more than that, but all this yummy salsa I've been eating all weekend is numbing my brain...

2.25 hours for me!

Catherine

2011: Return to sewing mountain

Finally I have done some sewing. With no particular inspiration, I went back to my quilt, and sewed three squares up in an hour. Except, one of the new ones is pretty uneven - see? I have to think about whether it might even get the axe (or the seam-ripper). How many am I supposed to be making again?? Anyway, I've got 4 more squares ready to go, so hopefully that won't take another month to get to.

Also, a very small amount of hoarding: I spent 15 minutes working on my crochet creature during the Superbowl, and a few minutes the day before that helping someone (who shall henceforth be called 'my evil twin') learn how to knit. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I had some secret tips to pass on!

1.25 hours for me!

Catherine

Woven bracelets

Well...

During Christmas break, I didn't do any knitting, but I "helped" the girls with some woven bracelets they had gotten a while back. Not sure just how long I spent on it, but it was at least three hours. Nice, mindless work. And the girls love the results.

I'll have to get pictures shortly.

3 hours for me! (are we doing this again?)

Margie

All hail the winner!

Which is you, in case that wasn't clear. I had excellent intentions this week, but didn't get any farther. And I don't have big plans for today, as I can't overcome a 9.5 hour deficit. I'll save up my sewing energy for tomorrow to get a good start on the next round!

I am very pleased you did as well as you did, so our fourth competition wasn't entirely pathetic. :D

Let me know what kind of salsa you want!
Catherine

More time...

Well, it turns out you can't write blog text on an iPhone.

We were up visiting my sister-in-law and her family after Christmas, which is always fun. Her house is the polar opposite of mine. She gets twitchy (by her own admission) if anything is left on counters or just around the house, so her house is always ready for a photo shoot for Good Housekeeping. Mine is not. Our house looks like three kids and a disorganized mom live in it, which we do.

Anyhow, we left on Tuesday to head off to see the Alamo because The Boy wanted to. Tuesday morning I was picking up all our things and noticed that the blanket adored by my niece was in bad shape. It's a crochet blanket and it was starting to unravel. It gets washed a lot by my S-I-L, so after looking at it, it seems to be on the verge of disintegration after only about 5 years.

It occurred to me that I could fix the big tear across the blanket pretty easily. I had brought crochet hooks with me on the off chance that I finished the sweater, so while it took longer than I thought, I corrected the tear and started on the big hole in the middle that my S-I-L had tried to sew up with thread.

Darling fussed at me because he was ready to go, so I didn't finish the big hole, but oh well.

In the car on the way to San Antonio, I got another 2 hours on the sweater in. I finished increasing the sleeves, so now I just have to get them to 8 inches long.

We went to the Alamo Wednesday morning, with all the Oklahoma State fans there for the bowl game. I think The Boy was expecting more, after learning about it in Texas History. After an hour or so, they were all ready to go. Darling had suggested that we go to Natural Bridge Caverns, but the kiddos were all so wiped out from the time with their cousins that they voted to go straight home. So another 2.5 hours in the car for me.

I have a meeting at the house with an organizer this morning. I am most excited. She's going to look around and see what she thinks we need to do, and then apparently there will be another meeting where she implements her plan. Sounds good to me.

5 hours for me, 14.5 hours total.

Hopefully Catherine has to work a lot today and tomorrow...

Margie

Baby it's cold outside!

I finally got home last night from an extensive trip to discover... it's suddenly very, very cold in my town! I do not approve. But, the snow is pretty.

I fortunately had a nice smooth plane flight, which gave me some time to work on my newest little creature. I think this one might be surprisingly normal, though we'll see. I think the person next to me (who was knitting, by the way) might have thought it was a sock, but it is not. That's the only hint I'll give you for now! I can also tell you that it was inspired by my Mom, and some cute magazines she had, though that's not much of a clue. Oh, and that it's crochet and not knitting, which is a welcome change of pace.

2.25 hours, 5 hours total for me. Watch out, seester!

Catherine