My heart is sad today. Our oldest and her partner left Monday afternoon to spend the rest of their vacation with his family. I guess I was too busy yesterday to think about not seeing her again for another whole year.
I spent yesterday washing sheets and towels and straightening the house. I’d forgotten how much laundry and housework 5 (+1) can create in just a few days.
We’ve also spent the last couple of days using up all the leftovers in the fridge. Just to give you an idea of the food that was served over the weekend:
Thursday night we had Zweibelkuchen.
Friday night was perogies, cabbage rolls and Holubtsi (Ukrainian cabbage rolls.) Dave and I made both kinds of cabbage rolls earlier in the week and froze them. The perogies were made on a huge perogy making day last winter.
Saturday night, Dave cooked a big pork roast on the rotisserie on the bbq. I’d made potato salad Friday night to go with it and the kids “tested” it off and on all day Saturday to make sure it wasn’t poisoned… lol.
While the girls and I checked out fabric shops, Dave taught our oldest’s partner how to make cake donuts.
And by special request, I made a Mustache Cake like the one I made Dave for Father’s Day. (Photo tutorial coming soon.)
Sunday morning, I made two large Crustless Quiches.
Not only is my heart sad today but I’m exhausted. Don’t get me wrong, I loved having everyone home (even all the cooking and cleaning that goes with it) but as an introvert not having any alone time for that long drains my energy reserves and now I need to take time to recharge.
For today, I’ve decided I’m not going to do any of the things on my sewing/crafting to-do list until after I’ve done some just for the fun of it sewing.
I’ve decide to play around putting these free July Shop Hop Blocks together.
Once I have those all pieced, I’ll go back to working on my to-do list which includes finishing the Seeds of Friendship bolster cover.
Despite everyone’s confidence that I’d have it done in time for oldest daughter’s arrival, all of the sudden my machine started skipping stitches while I was fmqing the hearts and loops. By the time I figured out what was wrong, it was time to put my sewing machine, cutting table, etc away so that I could turn my sewing room/office into a second guest bedroom for our middle daughter to sleep in.
But the good news is that I learned something important for future projects. I discovered that while my Singer 15-91 will sew and straight-line quilt with Coats and Clark thread, it doesn’t not like for free motion quilting. For some reason, as I’m fmqing, the thread gets tighter and tighter in the upper tension disc. After I switched to Gutterman thread as the upper thread, I was able to finish the hearts and loops with no more skipped stitches.
I’m off now to go recharge my reserves!
10 Comments
Penny
August 1, 2015 8:13 amThat bolster cover is GORGEOUS!!!!
RobinLovesQuilting
July 31, 2015 10:18 pmSkipped stitches when FMQing are the worst! It’s a bummer you didn’t have time to fix the stuff you’d already done (although I guess it did save you some picking stitches out, maybe?), but I’m glad switching threads solved the problem for you; when it happened to me, I had to have my machine serviced to get it working right again.
Gina
July 30, 2015 3:20 amI’m glad you survived. I need alone time as well, something I’m grateful my family understand and give me. It’s strange how our machines react to thread. My machine doesn’t like Aurifil thread no matter what I do.
Keep busy and you’ll find a year will fly by. Sending hugs xxxx
Mary Anne
July 29, 2015 6:20 pmOh how I understand how difficult it is to say goodbye to your children. Our youngest son and his wife moved across the country three years ago and I’ve only seen them twice since then. It’s so hard and I miss them so much. We had high hopes of flying out this summer but the air fares are too high and we can’t afford to go for another year. I don’t know what I would do without being able to see them on Skype. They are trying to have a family and it will break my heart a little further when we have a grandbaby out there that I can’t hold. Thank goodness for our creative pursuits because they help take our minds off the separation.
Susan
July 29, 2015 5:37 pmI’m like you. I need alone time. I tend to get like the tension on your 15-91 if I don’t have it! I think you are doing just what you needed to do. There’s always a price to pay for extreme fun. =)
Doris McCarty
July 29, 2015 5:08 pmOh, my, I’m the same way. I have to have my alone time. It does recharge me for some strange reason.
Mary
July 29, 2015 3:54 pmIt’s always hard to have them leave knowing it will be so long before you see them again. It sounds like you had a fabulous time with them during their visit. Love the cake!!!
Rachel
July 29, 2015 2:52 pmI suspect a lot of stitchers are introverts who need time alone to recharge!
Sarah
July 29, 2015 2:52 pmSounds like you did have a good visit – enjoy your alone time again:) I just got home from a busy vacation and have hesitated to get back into my quilting projects. I did get one of the shop hop blocks as well – we were in Guelph and I went to the Greenwood Quiltery. Beautiful store! I think your bolster is coming along beautifully – good thing you found out about the thread issue and turned it into a positive:)
Christine B.
July 29, 2015 2:12 pmHello Sue! It is always difficult when family leave again but, you sound as though you all had a great time! Have fun with your new projects and enjoy some down time! 🙂 x
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