A long overdue update.

Well Hello blog readers!   I know that I have not updated since 2014 but I hope to rectify that.  So, let's get started.


In July of 2014, I moved from Beaverton Oregon to Vancouver Washington with my boyfriend, now fiance.   I went from a 600 foot apartment to a 1100 foot apartment.  What a difference.  It feels like a cozy home now instead of an apartment..   I had set up my craft room in the spare room but found I wasn't doing my crafting in there.  Found myself working on projects in the living room and at the dining room table so we changed the arrangement where my things are in our bedroom and the spare has become the "Man-Cave".  It actually is working better then I imaged.

I still work in Beaverton so my commute is now at least an hour and the drive home has been 2 hours some days which has cut down on my crafting, but i am finding in this new apartment I am doing more then ever before.

I plan on future blog posts on update on each craft but I will touch on a bit here.

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I am still quilting and have kind of gone crazy and have found some great buys on vint
age machines and I am up to 9 sewing machines.  I am going to gather all the names, take photos  and I am going to blog about them.  I am currently waiting to hear on a pink machine i found on Craig's List.  Oh my,  10 machines..

I recently received a huge fabric haul from a sad source.  One of my best friends lost their mother in September.  He and the family offered me a chance to go through her fabric and other crafts as they were clearing out her Craft room.  On the first visit I brought home about 30 yards or more of fabric.   On the second trip I have about 6 medium totes of fabric.  I  don't know how much that is as i still want to go through and fold it up.    While there I also picked up crochet needles and a bunch of knitting needles.  I also found a really cool needlepoint with an old fashioned Singer.    Also she had a cross stitch in progress of Winnie the Pooh that i am going to finish.  It's very simple and I love it's simplicity.
I haven't really completed any quilts but i have been going though my UFO's and completing them into tops. Many on my Singer 301A.  One day i just did 44 string blocks out of 30's prints.

I have always wanted to Crochet.  I have tried on and off in the last couple of years but it has never stuck.  When i was house sitting during my friends mother's funeral i tried again with some cotton yard i found in her craft room.   It stuck.   I am now working on two blankets.  The first is a ripple quilt using Attic's 24 pattern.   I  am about 3rd of the way through it. Below is an older photo.  I am on row 24 now.   I am doing it  using Sugar 'n Cream in all colors I can find plus a few from my stash.   I have also been stuck by another pattern. I want to learn other stitches then the double or single crochet.   It is the As We Go Stripey blanket, you can find the pattern here.

Another obsession I have developed is watching YouTube videos on Knitting, Crochet and FlossTube.  Not too many quilt ones out that but I hope that changes soon but of course I am following Quilt-Cam by Bonnie Hunger and FiberCast by Lynn and the new The Stitch TV show.    I am loving all of these.   It has really inspired me.   I first started watching videos on saving money and i slowly have moved over to the craft side.     A few of my favorites craft ones  are  FreakishLemon, TurboKnitter and so many more.  Watch a few.  They are good to stitch by.

Lately i have been obsessed with Chris Stapleton who i discovered on the CMA show.  I have been listening to his Pandora channel non stop.   Something about his voice.

I haven't been reading much or even listening to books on CD.  I am not sure why but it's not holding my interest much.

Another thing that has been taking up a lot of my time is Toastmasters.  I joined through work about 4 years ago. I have worked through by first level speeches and leadership workbooks and now can add CC and CL after my name.   For the  2015/2016 year I have been appointed the 93 Area Director.  I am struggling some weeks but I am learning and I am pushing myself out of my comfort zone.  I am also working on my bronze level in Speeches and Leadership.    I recently went to visit one of my clubs that is filmed and broadcast on a local public access station.   Here is photo of the board they use.

Well till next time

Dottie!!!!

Dreaming

“Don’t dream your life, live your dreams” ~ Anonymous

I found this quote last year and I was going to use it in a post but i never did.  This weekend was both a balance for everyday life and dreaming.
I accomplished a lot of  of errands and checking things off my list this weekend. .    During a break on Friday I wrote down a list of things i wanted to get done over the weekend and for the long term.  I won’t bother you with the long term ideas.  Some of them were spurred by the books below, some where just thinking of things that needed to be done.
A few of the errands and projects were:
- change bed.  - oh my gosh i fluffed up my feather cushion and my 3 coverings and it now feels like heaven
- get knee highs.. – i like to sometimes dress up for work and i haven’t had any knee highs for a while and I miss the dressing up.
-return pop bottles.  I didn’t get this done.  There is a whole stack in the garage.  This will have to wait for another weekend.
- Bennet House Cross stitch – write down all the thread I still need.  I bought my self a Christmas present but the shop did not have all the thread I needed.  I needed to write down what i did have versus what I needed so i could stop by one day after work as it’s closer to work then home.
- buy a couple cheap pair of flip-flops.    Do you know how hard this is to do in the middle of January when you don’t want to go all over town and you don’t want to spend over 2 dollars a pair.    Its for a function at work and I found some at the dollar store that will just have to do   Tomorrow is National Feet day per my coworkers so we are are using that day  to tie in with the concept of Word of the Year.   We are giving all our coworkers paper cutouts of  flip flops to put down a word or “feat” they want to accomplish at work or in their personal life.  We thought we would get a live pair of flip-flops to pass out to the team leads to use as recognition when someone on their team accomplishes a grand “feat" in their department.
Well tonight I feel very accomplished.  I got  almost everything checked off my to do list.  I didn’t start any of the long term goals. but i have a plan in mind to get them done.
But the heading was about dreaming.  I did a lot of that this weekend to.   Both in sleep ‘:-)  and in day dreaming.
I have been in the mode of  reading of self help books lately.  Wait let’s not use those words.  I think exploring new ways of thinking is a better phrasing.  I needed something to be adding creativity and light to the gray days  of January.  The ones I have been reading are.
 







 












  
When I read these books I of course take them with a grain of salt.  I try to get a feel for the things they are saying.  They all have a common thread it seems.   Being positive and believing in what you want.   In fact they are very old ideas but it’s always refreshing to think of the ideas in new light. The Books  give me  new ways of how to apply the ideas to my own life.  The hindsight these books have brought have helped me realize this actions have been occurring in my life  and I hope to continue to use them as I strive to grow every day. I can honestly say that I have seen  awesome results of putting the  ideas into motion in my life in the past two years and even in bits and pieces from years before that.
Dreams..  This is where I started this post.  I dream all the time.  I dream of how i want to decorate, how i want to quilt, to design fabric.   How i want to live in a beautiful old house by the water.  How I want to travel.  How I want to have a delicious Italian dinner in Italy surrounded by Italians and savoring the food.     I dream of what I want  to be when i grow up.  I dream all the time.  I dream in color when i sleep and i dream while sitting in freeway traffic.   I dream when i write and when i sitting quiely working on stitching.
Another thing the books talk about is live your dreams. Work toward your dreams.    I am striving to do it this year.  I am always reminded about the lady who always saves her “pretty” things for a special occasion and when she died her children found things still tucked away and not used for years because daily life wasn’t special enough.    I want to take things out and use them. Both physical things and my dreams.   Every day is special and we are special and we should celebrate every day by using our “pretty” things.
P.S.   while out running errands this weekend I found this.   Doesn’t it bring joy?

Sorry I have been gone so long.....

Did you wonder what happened? I just got unmotivated. I was house sitting and posting daily felt more like a job then a creative movement, I got behind and then I just stopped. I have been in an uncreative state for a while as I was working lot's of overtime but it has settled down. What a wonderful thing it is only working 40 hours a week is again.

Lot's has happened since January.

I got hired on at the company I have been temping for. I start on Monday. I am making the most money I have ever made since 2001. For some people it's not enough but for me it's a nice treat and an accomplishment. I have either been unemployed or working a temp job with no benefits for two years. I will have to get use to being paid only twice a month now. That will be odd and will have to reshift how I pay bills.  At my prior job i got paid every other Friday. It was like that for almost 7 years.

I have decided to buy every color in the DMC embroidery line. I have about 1/3. It is so fun looking at all the colors in my plastic thread holders. I will take a photo and post my collection but here is a sneak peek of one i found on the Internet.

In looking for the above photo I stumbled across this awesome craft idea...


What else?


I want to decorate. It's a combination of a romantic country, shabby chic, lots of flowers and wood and white and color and soft lines with strong lines ... They say the more you put it out in the atmosphere the more you will get it. These are a few of the looks I love.

I am taking a class on fondant and gum paste at my local Michael's. It's beyond fun. It's awesome. I made a beautiful rose. I took photos so I will post soon.

Won't be so long between posts!!!!

A rollercoster of emotions......

Having one of those weekends.
 My temp job ended on Friday night. It ended over a month early.  I knew in my mind the end was coming for the temp job but when it actually happened I am surprised on my response. I didn't even react this emotionally in June when I got laid off from my real job. Part of it was probably a delayed response to that one. I still have friends who are still temping in the job  and all I could was think of  what I did wrong... but in my heart I know it was done for business reasons and low call volume.  Sat I just felt empty. I remember laying on my bed and just staring at my dresser just not thinking of anything. Life seemed so empty. I just laid there and then vegged all evening. As I said before I felt lost and this just hit me hard. I couldn't sleep very well last night either. I kept waking up. Today I though I was better but today it came out as sadness.

I talked to my mom about my situation and she gave me some advice. This advice made me think.. what do I want? I still don't know.. I don't even know if I want to go after what we talked about because that might be settling and I want to choose what I do for a job this time (or choose the best I can). It was good advice but I can't decide if it's good for me.

I came into my room and I just started to cry. I called my boyfriend and he just listened. We eventually were able to just talk and I was laughing..a good thing.. and then I found myself crying again. During it.. I came to realize it was just a reaction in releasing emotions. I needed to let the emptiness pour out. When I got done talking with him I felt lighter. For all the doubts when we are apart .. the frustrations that happen on my end to the status of it. ... his concern and scared to hurt the kids on his end.... he can heal me. He supports and cares. I love that about him. I should tell him that more often. Just hearing his voice can soothe that. I never knew that about boyfriends until the last two. They have been awesome men who have given me so much. Real relationships. Real partnerships. I am been very privileged to have both men care about me so much.

Working on a another project.

I am feeling so creative lately. I love it. I am also trying something new. Rather than putting things off I am working on them when I am inspired. So I am having many projects going at once rather than just one. It is helping me get through all of them faster. Odd but true. I don't get bored so easy and I get motivated to work on all of it instead of do nothing. So today I brought a different project to work on - that I actually kind of started in July but got sidetracked as I wasn't sitting at a table doing it but on my bed watching a movie.

There is a side note to my project today. Over the last 5 years or so, in my act to become more creative ,I have fallen in love with certain magazines and I would buy them every month to fill my creative and dreaming fix. The number I buy each month has been dwindling as different magazines are closing. Magazines like Home Companion, Cottage Living, Country Living, and a few others. I still can get Victoria and Romantic Home. I always buy Quilters Newsletter and assorted quilting ones that catch my eye. Another one i am grieving is Mark Lipinski leaving Quilters Home. I can't find their latest version where he is not part of it. I am curious and just want to see it. Victoria- that has inspired me in the literature world and has introduced me to some wonderful writers and artists i.e. Tasha Tutor, Alexandra Stoddard and Madeleine L'Engle to name a few.

Well let me tell you the stacks keep falling over I have collected so many because I don't like giving them away. I am running out of room. I had to par down as they were collecting dust and I wasn't looking at them like i thought i would. I didn't want to get rid of them because they inspired me. I decided to do an idea that my friend David J. told me about. Make a "Dream Book" or and "Idea Notebook" full of my influences as that I could look through for decorating and quilting ideas and anything else I wanted to be inspired for. I first determined that there were a few magazines that I still wanted to hang on to. Like my quilting magazines, Home Companion, Victoria and I think Romantic Home. I divided them up earlier this year. The others were the ones I was going to go through and cut out pages or photos or whatever tickled my fancy and glue them into the book and then recycle them.

When I was at Freddy's one day I got Strathmore Sketch book. that is 100 pages thick and 9 x 12. It is heavier than basic notebook paper and it's perfect to glue magazine paper to.

In July when I started the project I thought if I could just do about 4 a day or at least 4 a week, I could get through the "get rid of stack". Well when I sat down on my bed the first day to work on it, the flow wasn't there and I didn't get as much done as I had hoped. At the end of the movie, I put all my cutting into a hanging folder and filed them away till the next time and I figured out what I was going to do.

This past week I have just haven't been able to get the project off my mind so guess what I pulled out this morning. Yes you are right. My cuttings, my sketch book, a glue stick and about 6 more magazines. I sat here for 4 hours putting the cuttings on to the pages. Time has whizzed by. I plan now to cut from 3 more magazines and try to glue them in.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Holiday Season and thanks for reading.

A new direction....

Hi,
Well - news has happened this week.
On Monday the 22nd I was laid off. I walked in to work, signed in on the computer and was starting to start my morning review when my boss came and said we needed to go talk with the bigger boss. They brought me in and gave me the news. I was OK with it. I knew that when the time came it would be me.I had made my peace with the possibility and turned it into a positive spin.
When we heard of layoffs in the branches we always thought it might happened to us and i determined it would likely be me. For a couple of reasons, one - i didn't have any extra jobs over and above(but we won't go there) , two i just got my degree and who knows if i would have stayed, three i have no family to support, four i am one of the lowest on the seniority pole. Also i have a hard time making drama about problems or promoting my self. I just think that the job i do should say enough. And the few times i have tried to promote myself notice is not taken. With the economy - the department had to cut expenses and in our department that is people. We have cut everything else.
But it is going to be just fine. I have a positive attitude. I had been praying what i should do job wise after i graduated. I didn't know. Well i got my answer. lol
So i am now going to have an interesting summer. Hopefully employed but i am going to take advantage of it creatively. Wait for more posts on that.
Dottie