Garden Growing

It is definitely starting to be spring here in Upstate NY.  All the trees have buds now and the flowers are just starting to come up.

We did lose a fair number of poppies and some cone flowers, but we'll find something to replace those this year.


Above is the start of one of our Lupines.  Its just starting to poke through the mulch.


This is also another Lupine just starting.



This is our most healthy Lupine.  These pictures were from about 2 weeks ago, so its even bigger now.


This is one of our phlox starting to come up.  I think its going to be very happy this year.


And the other phlox.


This is a campanula starting to come up.


And of other campanula.


And finally one of our clematis.  Its a climber that grows on old wood, so we don't ever have to trim it.


Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Back from Paris

This is going to be a quick post as I have about a million things to do after getting back from our trip to Paris, France. 

The trip went well and we didn't have any problems with our flights.  Getting from the airport to our hotel in Colombes, France was a little interesting as our cab driver decided to take us on a mini-tour of the slums of Paris.  We were pretty sure he was trying to drive the tab up, but thankfully we had GPS on our phones and instructed him to get back on the highway and head in the correct direction.

The first day (Wednesdsay), we were absolutely exhausted.  Neither of us really slept on the plane, so we were glad to get to our hotel and just take a nap.  We piddled around the hotel that first day to figure out what we wanted to do and where we could go.  On Thursday, my husband went to his meetings while I did some work from the hotel room.  I was trying not to burn too many vacation days.

Thursday evening we moved to our other hotel in the Latin Quarter of Paris.  It was a great hotel and the staff was very helpful.  We then spent the next two days wandering around Paris and visiting the usual sites (the Louvre, Notre Dame, Musee D'Orsay, Eiffel Tower, etc.).  We had a great time.

On Sunday, we were up before the crack of dawn (4am Paris time), and were picked up by our cab taxi at 6am to head to the airport.  I headed back to the US, while my husband continued on to Germany.  The flight back was long and I was definitely glad to be back on US soil.  I didn't actually get home until 8pm NY time, so it made for a very long day.

I'll be sure to download my pictures and start sharing them over the next few days!

Au Revoir, Paris!

Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Oui! Oui!

I've been a little lax in blogging lately.  We've been very busy with work and preparing for our upcoming trip.  My husband has a conference to go to and I'm tagging along because... well.... its in Paris, France!
 

Since his work is paying for his flight and hotel, it doesn't take much for us to pay for my flight and food.  How often do you get a chance to go to Paris anyway?!

So my blogging this week will also be a little lax.  I may be able to post from Paris, but we'll see how much time I have.  There will definitely be a lot of pictures shared after I return.  :-)

Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Patience is the Name of the Game

There are times when I am the most impatient person in the world.  Standing in line at the store.... waiting for quilting fabric to arrive :-) ...

But then there are also the times when I can't believe I have the patience to do the things that I do.  I've done cross-stitch since I was about 14 or 15.  I got into it when my older sister (11 years older) was doing it and showed me the great pictures she was working on.  It also happened to be that I picked it up during summer break one year when it was rainy and dreary the entire summer.  I needed SOMETHING to do!

My latest project is a picture of Monet's Water Lilies (at least one of them).  I've been working on it for over a year now and the early prediction was that it would take 6 years to complete!  Yikes!  I need to get moving some more on it to make sure I keep up at the 6 year pace as I've been falling behind.

Here's what it looked like on February 9th:


And here it is as of yesterday (April 4th):


There's definite progress being made, but not nearly as fast as I would like.  I'm trying to hold off on doing the blue for the bridge until I get more of the green done.  On the back, the threads cross over the unstitched areas, so the blue stitches will help anchor the longer thread lengths across the back.  I try not to make the traveling spaces too large, but I also don't want to start and stop a million times.  So sometimes I'll also take a few extra loops on the back to help anchor the longer travel lengths. 

I'll have to take a picture of the back sometime.  My husband said he was tempted to ask me to make one of these twice so that we could frame them next to each other... one with the front showing and one with the back showing.  Sometimes the backs are as much a piece of art as the fronts!


Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Mother Nature Messing with Us

Personally, I think Mother Nature is just messing with us.  :-) 

Saturday it was 53F in upstate NY...today... I woke up to this.... SNOW!!



And more snow!


While I am most definitely a northerner and don't mind the snow, I start to get a little annoyed when its April and we have snow.  There wasn't even a hint of snow in the forecast yesterday!

We had about 1/8" to 1/4" of snow on the ground this morning.  I'm convinced that all the local towns took their plows off and put the salt machines away because the roads were the worst all winter.  Ice everywhere and lots of accidents on the drive in this morning.

We're having off-and-on flurries all day and we're at about 35F.  The good thing is that at least the snow won't stick around for very long.  The forecast for Thursday... 53 again. ;-)


Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Make-A-List Monday

I realized today as I was starting to write this post that I never actually wrote down what I had wanted to accomplish last week!  Maybe that's a good thing as I didn't get as much done as I would have liked. ;-)

The week was busy and went by quickly, but I was able to do a bit of work in the sewing room.

I posted here about some fabric organization ideas. I've had a few people say they have also tried this and liked them.  These are the boards that I used and are good quality. 

 

And this is what it looks like with some fat quarters wrapped around them.

If you want to get yourself a set, they can be found here:

In other news, its been a busy week and we're getting ready for our trip to Paris next week.  A week from tomorrow, we will be heading out for our flights to Paris, France!  Its going to be a fun trip! :-)

So here's my list for this upcoming week:
1. Organize more fat quarters and leftover fabrics onto boards.
2. Quilt straight lines on Lone Star.
3. Post pictures of needlepoint progress.

Hope everyone has a great week!

Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Lone Star Quilting

I've been slowly making progress on the Lone Star quilt.  At this stage, I'm quilting in the ditch again around the Lone Star in the middle of the quilt.  I thought about doing something free-motion, but didn't like any of the options that I had tried.  I really want the center to just stand on its own, so I think stitching in the ditch will highlight that.

I'm using a dark blue variegated thread for the ditch quilting along with a dark blue Bottom Line thread in the bobbin.  The back of the quilt will look interesting once its done.

The cross-hatched lines from the ditch quilting will really show.  There's also a dark blue border outside the star that will be quilted using the same dark blue threads, so there will be something visually interesting on the back of the quilt, too.

There's a small amount of color bleeding on the back of the quilt from washing out the blue marks, but I think once I give it a good through wash, it should be OK.  I'll put a bunch of color-catchers into the wash with the quilt and it should pull all that excess dye out.  I'll just have to check it VERY carefully before I stick it into the dryer.

I hope everyone has a great Easter!


Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Fabric Storage

A few weeks ago, Karen was folding up and organizing some of her pieces of fabric to make sure it stayed up on its shelves better.  I was able to give her a tip that I picked up somewhere along the road for a good way to store fabric.

These comic book boards are very stiff cardboard and they are acid-free so they won't harm the fabric.  This pack of 100 I bought through Amazon for less than $20.

What you can do is take your fabric and fold it to be the height of the boards (about 10").  For the fat quarters that I was folding, I folded the FQ such that I had a piece that was 18" x 10".  Then lay the comic book board across the folded fabric and start folding the fabric around the board similar to how bolts of fabric are rolled.  I use a pin to secure the free end so that its easier when I pull the folded fabric out from my bookshelf.

I've been able to put up to about 3 yards of fabric on a single comic book board.

Here's a bunch of fabrics and fat quarters I already have folded:

I was also able to fold this stack of fat quarters onto boards last night while watching TV.  These are all nice and neat and ready to go onto my bookshelf.

One of the great things about this is that the fabric will standup on the shelf thanks to the comic book board and it makes it very easy to see what colors you have.

Anything smaller than a fat quarter I typically cut up into usable pieces for scrap quilts.  Those pieces I put into plastic bins for future use.

Does anyone have any other good ideas for fabric storage??


Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations