House pictures

Here's pictures of the house we have a contract on. Hopefully everything will go through & we'll be moving the end of January. Here we have the kitchen, living room fireplace, downstairs bar area & big backyard.





Nifty double oven. It also has a bay window for a breakfast table that is just out of the picture. Aso on the other side of the kitchen is a small desk space will a roll top cabinet.




Total of 3 bedrooms & 2 1/2 baths. The rec room in the basement will probably be changing some since we really don't need the bar. The yard is great! There's plenty of room for playing, gardening & a swing set for the kids. Em of course piped in with "and a pool!" but the neighbors have a pool, so I think we'll be making friends with them instead. :-)

Keep fingers crossed for us!

One finished, one progressed

Finished the girl's coat. Hand sewn button holes, sleeve hems & bottom hem. Go me.

Made progress on Mariah. Left front is done. Working on the right front, I have about 3 more cables to finish before the bottom ribbing is done, then on to stockinette for the remainder. Once the right front is done, time to tackle the yoke & put all the pieces together. Picture is still on the camera & I'm too tired to go after it right now. Maybe tomorrow.

Looked at another house today, this one is pretty interesting. It will need some work, but it's a 5 bedroom, 3 bath, so I think it will be worth it in the long run. We'll know something more by the end of the week.

I need Buttons!

The coat is together. I am pleased with everything but the hem. I sewed the hem on the machine, so it has some funny puckering that I'm not sure if I can correct without hand sewing it. For the moment, I am considering it nearly finished. Off to Jo-Ann's tomorrow to find some buttons, get those on & the button holes made, and it will be done!

Coat progress

Sewing is almost instant gratification. You have pieces, you sit down to the machine, spend 30 minutes to an hour, and you have something. (As long as it's not terribly complicated or has LOTS of pieces. So, an hour or so last night, and hour tonight, I have this:

Emily's Coat

Since nothing else seems to be coming together. House fell through, sweater languishing in my knitting bag, etc. I started a new project last night. The fabric has been in my stash for a year or so, project in mind, but no pattern & no guts to forge ahead. Luckily, most fabric shops have been running pattern sales recently, so I picked up a McCall's pattern for a girl's fleece coat. It's in progress with modifications. Mainly, it will have 2 layers, at least. I have a nifty corderoy for the outside, and the lining will be fleece.



Last night, I did the fabric yoga after the kids went to bed. Cleaned out the living room floor, got the cutting mat out, & laid out all my pieces. Twice. I was up till midnight, but it was good. I got everything but the interfacing cut. (And the hat, but I'm not convinced I'm going to make that yet.)

Tonight, the sewing started. The fleece lining is together!!!



Asked Em to try it on & see how it fit. It's a bit big, but that fleece is stretching like a maniac. I'm glad I got the corderoy to give it some structure.



I started sewing the corderoy together, then realized, oops, I need to put interfacing on the front edges. Time to rip back, get my interfacing cut & tomorrow night I will sew some more!

Progress

Sleeves on my sweater were finished yesterday. Started the back.

Checked out the new Target, it's all shiny. I like it.

Talked to the real estate agent. The house we like could take another 4-5 months before it's processed for sale. :(

Laundry didn't happen. Maybe later. There's always tomorrow. Or the next day.

Goals for Monday

Since our daycare provider chooses the one holiday no employer recognizes any more for their mandatory full staff training day, I've taken tomorrow off. Em will be at school, so Nora & I will pal around all day.

I will finish the second sleeve of my Mariah sweater. Once that sleeve is done, I will cast on for the body parts.

I will check out the new Target here. I shall be gleeful as I drive past Wally-World to the new Target to do my shopping.

I shall do some laundry. Maybe I'll even fold & put away some laundry also. If I get extremely ambitious, I will pack away summer clothes. Summer seems so far away now. We went from shorts & t-shirts weather to long pants, sweatshirts, jackets, etc lightening fast, it seems.

I will contact my real estate agent & at least get updates on all the homes we are somewhat interested in, even if we don't go looking at any others.

I think that's probably enough to keep me busy tomorrow.

Mariah Progress

The Mariah sweater is coming along nicely (for me). Sleeve 1 is done, sleeve 2 is about 1/3 of the way done & getting easier.

I have Plans

Since my birthday was kind of a bust, tomorrow I hope to finish up the first sleeve of Mariah, start the second sleeve & perhaps do a bit of sewing. Lunch will be at the Realtor's writing a back-up contract for the house with the pool & hot tub. You can see pictures in my Flickr feed. Then I hope to head out to a friend's for some needed horse time.

Weekend fun

This weekend we visited my folks & found out Columbus had landed in Grafton, IL. Actually, the Columbus replica ships were scheduled to be in Alton, IL, but due to the Corps lowering the water level, they had to dock in Grafton instead. Sunday we took the kids up through Portage d'Sioux and crossed the river on the Grafton Ferry (3 times total) to see the ships.

Dad was going to sail up to Grafton from Portage to meet up for dinner, but only got up to the mouth of the Illinois River & decided there was too much activity to tie up at Grafton. He headed back to Portage & we crossed the river again to pick him up for dinner. Dinner was at the Fin Inn. That was pretty cool. They have huge aquariums with native fish & others for your dining entertainment. Here's what we saw in the waiting room:



After a short wait, we got a table with an aquarium with these enormous catfish & gar.

One Finished object, one Work In Progress found & picked up

First, the finished object: Cross Stitched Rose



And now: The work in progress. Cross stitched wolfhound. This one was hard to work on after we put Bran to sleep, but I really would like to finish it.

The Search is On

We're looking for a house. Fed up with apartment life, cramped spaces, only 1 bathroom. Two weekends ago, we looked at 3 in our area. At first showing, one really stood out. It was investor owned, had new carpet, linoleum, fresh paint. Halfway decent yard: some level some slope. Two bathrooms. We were ready to put an offer on it today, took a look at it again. Found water damage & mold in the basement behind the bathroom. Numerous patches in the ceiling & walls of basement. The dishwasher was old, even though the stove & fridge looked nice. It also went under contract yesterday. Looked at another, similar lay out, better maintained, also under contract, but available for back-up contracts. Found some leaks there too. :( But they'd recently replaced the water heater, it was an older couple & they probably hadn't gotten around to repairing drywall damage to the utility room. The back yard sucked. It was about as wide as the house, and sloped steeply up in the back, inviting more water to run off into the basement windows. Looked at one more that popped up last night. Big house, lower price, same area we've been looking in, we were hopeful. It was a forclosure, stating that it needed repairs & updates. What they forgot to mention was that it needed interior walls & new flooring, and outlets, and power, and lights, and....walls! So, we're still looking. Maybe someday we'll find a house.

A whole 'nother kinda pain

So, living the poor college student family for several years, having 2 babies, etc has played havoc on my teeth. Now we have good insurance, we're working on getting back into shape. I started the long list of work yesterday with having an impacted wisdom tooth out. Ouch (understatement of the year). Now I'm at home feeling sorry for myself, hoping the pain medications will at least knock me out for a while. In the event that they don't, maybe I'll take a bit to work on some unfinished projects. This one is sooooo close. The actual picture is done, I just have to outline all the petals & other details. The fiddly work where I usually get bogged down. I'm trying really hard not to put it down & forget about it though, since I mean it to be a gift for my mother in law. Her birthday is today, maybe if I'm good I'll get it done in time to gift it this weekend when we take the Girl down for her birthday.

Adventures

Too many things going on, irons in the fire, wishes, wants, needs to be met. This has been a sort of stressful week. I'm hoping that by blogging again I can get more projects done & write about them here. Current projects: Cross stitch rose, birthday party for kids (eek), birthday shopping for kids (double eek), house cleaning, house hunting, car researching, a sweater I started quite some time ago that only has 2/3 of one sleeve done, and who knows what I've forgotten.