Busy! Busy! Busy!

The past month has yet again absolutely flown by.  Its amazing how each year time seems to go by even faster than the last.  I'm not quite sure how that happens, but somehow we're into July already and I barely feel like summer started.

I've been keeping busy lately with a lot of things.  Work (as usual) keeps me busy during the week from about 7:30am until about 6pm.  However, over the past two months, I've taken up running three times a week.  Last fall, I kind of got kicked in the butt to do something about my weight (about 20-25 lbs over what I should have been).  I purchased a Fitbit Flex and have loved having it.  It seems silly, but it keeps me accountable for actually getting up and moving more.

The first few months, I paid attention to how much I was walking and changed my eating habits slightly (no more bagels for breakfast).  By November, I had lost the 20 lbs I wanted to lose.  I've continued with the exercise and become more fit.  I'm still trying to get the last 5 lbs or so (I would really like to be down to 125 lbs again), but I'll get there eventually.

I walked a 5k with my sister a few weeks ago and plan on running (or at least partially running) one in the next two weeks.  I'm definitely more fit than I was and am glad that I've lost the weight and can now run more easily.



My garden has also taken off in the past month.  My lupines were beautiful while they were blooming.  I now have orange coneflowers up as well as some lavender.  My phlox should be blooming shortly.



My clematis are also going like crazy.  I have purple, pink and white flowers all over the place.  I definitely need to get an updated picture of it.

Last but not least, I also had a client contact me for quilting her quilt last month.  I finished it up and sent it back to her and will share some pictures here, but that is for another post since I have some nice photos to show.  She did a great job with her embroidery and I made sure that my quilting didn't detract from the embroidered blocks at all.

Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Garden Update

The garden this year has been doing surprisingly well, despite not having a lot of rain this spring.  All of my plants survived our cold and snowy winter and are coming along very well.  In fact, I think they are doing better this year than in the past simply due to having to "hibernate" longer.

The columbine is doing very well this year.  They are always my first ones to flower and its so nice to see that first pop of color after a long dreary winter.


This year I also decided to do some annuals in my planters on the porch.  I skipped it last year and missed out on the color.  This year I have a good mix of white, purple, pink and yellow to brighten things up.




For my birthday this spring, I received two garden "ornaments".  The first is this birdbath that is shaped like a flower.  The extra color in the garden is nice and the small birds seem to like it.  I've even seen a hummingbird at it.


The other ornament was this glass ball with a metal moon around it.  It gives a little bit of sparkle to the garden with the metallic shine.  The glass ball also glows slightly in the evening as it starts to get dark.  Its a nice addition to the garden.


Another view of my columbine as well as silver mound.  The silver mound are very happy.  They started out as two plants, which I split last fall and I now have four sections of very healthy and happy plants.  I have to give them haircuts once in a while to keep them from getting out of control, but I like their compact shape and the bit of simple green they add to the garden.


The picture below is from about 2 weeks ago.  I had purchase some new small ground cover plants to go in front of the clematis.  The clematis is only just starting to take off in the photo.  Now it has blooms all over it and the green is at least halfway up the trellis.



I hope everyone is enjoying their spring and early summer.  Before we know it, it will be hot and humid and we'll be asking for it to be fall!  ;c)

Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Updates

It has been pretty crazy busy around here lately.  I realized the other day that is has been a while since my last post...again.  At the beginning of May, I had a business trip to visit my team located in Mexico.

The city, Queretaro, is a very pretty city and is quite old.  It is a large city, too with over 1 million people in it.

I didn't take a lot of pictures while there, but did take a few.  The photo below is of the hillside above the city.  We were driving back to work from lunch and passed by some areas that were yet to be developed.  They had some rain the week before, so things were greener than normal as the area is typically very desert-like.


This is one of the areas in downtown Queretaro.  The city has lots of little plazas where people can congregate and just relax.


I thought this fountain was cute with the dogs on it.  I have no idea what it was for...but it looked cute.




One of the nights we went out to dinner was a local steak restaurant.  They brought over this huge platter of pieces of meat that we could pick out.  Since we were still full from lunch, we just ordered three of the steaks (the two bottom on the right, and the one on the left) and shared them.


Steaks all cooked.... yum!


And you can't go to Mexico without a few souvenirs.  :c)  I picked up some Don Julio (very good tequila) and mezcal, which is similar to tequila but distilled differently.  It has a smoky taste to it and is a lot stronger than the tequila.  I personally prefer the Don Julio... could drink that stuff all day.  The mezcal.... I have to be in the right mood for it.


I also picked up a traditional doll that is specific only to Queretaro.  I got this for my 6 (almost 7) year old niece.  Its a cute doll and was pretty easy to find...even in the non-tourist areas.



On a more local note, summer has arrived in upstate NY.  When I got back from my trip, it was just as warm in NY as it was in Mexico.  We haven't had a lot of rain though, so at this point, most people's yards are brown and crunchy.  I've only been watering the delicate garden plants (i.e. new this year).  The rest can fend for themselves.

I'll share some updated pictures of the garden soon.



Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Spring!

It is finally here!! :c)

We had our first truly nice weekend weather-wise this past weekend.  We had one day last week, but both Saturday and Sunday were nice here.  Much of the nice weather has been spent raking the yard to remove the dead grass....definitely not one of my favorite spring-time chores.  I'm sore from all the raking.  Half of the yard was done two weekends ago and the rest of it was done this past weekend.

However, my plants are starting to grow and its really nice to see some green! One of the "weaker" lupine plants below.  For some reason it is struggling a little in its current home, so I may decide to move it later this summer if it continues to struggle.


I have some silver mound that I split last fall and now have four plants.  They are all a bit smaller, but will definitely grow a bit this year.  You can keep trimming them all year to keep them nice and tidy, so they provide a nice accent to the garden.


My clematis are starting to show signs of life as well.


You do have to look closely to see some of the green...but its there.


I think these two plants are called columbine.  They were a bit over-crowded last year, so I did some re-arranging in the fall to try to give them some more space this year.  Hopefully it will help and make them happier.


These ones are campanula.  They produce very pretty purple flowers...and lots of them.  These were also moved last year as they were crowded in with the columbine.


These next two are my happiest lupines.  They have more stalks than I can count right now, so they are definitely in a happy place.  I can't wait to see how many flowers I get out of these guys this year.


So this next picture is a bit odd.  You all know that I do quilting (or at least attempt to do it when I can find the time to get into my sewing room).  Aside from taking care of the garden, I also help split the wood we use to heat the house in the winter.  I started splitting wood last fall when I was going through a stressful time at work and I've found that I absolutely love it.  It is a great workout and is amazing at stress relief.  Beating on a big hunk of wood is very satisfying!  :c)

Since my husband also splits the wood, there were times last fall that we would both want to split, but we only had one axe.  So one of us would have to find something else to do, or just stand there and pick up the wood pieces.  I decided to fix that this year and put a new axe on my birthday list.  Its the same length as the old one, but is a tad bit lighter and had great reviews on Amazon.


I didn't get a chance to test it out this weekend since we spent all of Sunday raking (Saturday was spent doing some family stuff).  I'm hoping to be able to test it out this coming weekend and see how it splits.  The reviews on Amazon said that it was really easy to split wood with the axe and has plenty of power to it such that you can actually get through the larger logs.

I do expect to get some quilting in this week as the next three days have nothing but rain in the forecast.  Hopefully I'll have something to share later this week.

Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Spring has Sprung...sort of

Spring has been a bit delayed this year in the northeast, so I've been enjoying seeing a lot of pictures from fellow quilters who are a bit further south and have their spring in full-swing.  I was sewing the other weekend (gasp - I know...it's been a while) and was able to capture this picture out my sewing room window:


Just a small amount of snow left and at this point there isn't any snow in the backyard.  We do still have some piles in certain areas that are shady and had a thick snow-cover, but most of it is gone.  We had two days last week where we were near 60 degrees, and two days later we had a bit more snow.  Crazy!

I have been doing a mix of quilting on the Mariner's Compass quilt and also sewing some blocks for a BOM that I picked up last year.  I need the break from quilting, so its nice to do some piecing and applique between my quilting sessions.  I do it all on the same machine, so I typically wait until I finish up a bobbin for quilting and then I'll switch to piecing/appliquing something for a day or two, then load a new bobbin for quilting and do some more on the Compass quilt.

Here's the BOM that I've been slowing working on.  This is the 2nd block that I've completed out of 6.


And here's the progress on the 2nd corner of the Mariner's Compass quilt.  Not much started yet, but its started and I'll continuing filling in around the quilt.


As I mentioned in my last post, we did have a big purchase earlier this winter.  Every year or so for the past 3 years we have toyed with the idea of buying a grand piano (or baby grand).  We both play and have been "limping" along on a digital piano.  The digital was very nice and has lasted us over 10 years of playing.  It was very handy for when we did a lot of moving around the first few years out of college.  Now that we're settled into our dream home, we wanted to get an actual piano.

Just before Christmas we had started looking around and didn't initially find anything that we liked (or liked and wanted to spend the money on).  We eventually found a local used piano dealer and fell in love with a piano he had.  It took us several weeks of trying out pianos and making sure it was definitely the one we wanted.  Then it took another 4-6 weeks for him to prep the piano and for the weather to clear up enough for it to be delivered.

And here she is!!!!


It is a beautiful piano... with how it sounds, how it plays and how it looks.  It is a Steinway piano (we weren't initially looking for a Steinway in particular, but this piano had the touch and sound we wanted).  The difference in this piano from other Steinway pianos is that it is a German made Steinway piano.


The piano was made in Hamburg, Germany in 1937.  It has been certified by Steinway in NYC that it is in fact a 1937 piano from Hamburg and that everything in it is original to the factory there.  No one knows how it came to be in the US, but it did... and we are glad that it did.

We love having it in the house and we play about 2 hours every night and more so on the weekends.  It truly is a special piano and we're so happy to have it.  The one and only downside is that I tend to play it more and it is taking away some of my quilting time.  :c)

Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Crazy....

That one word pretty much sums things up for the past few weeks.  This post is a non-picture post unfortunately, so if you're here for pictures... you can bypass this post.  :c)

The first 3 months of every year is crazy for me at work due to it being appraisal time for the 25 individuals who work for me.  It takes a lot of effort and time to initially write up all the appraisals (i.e. performance evaluations) and it takes even longer to have the discussions with 25 people.

Each year I somewhat forget how emotionally taxing it is to get through the reviews.  I try really hard to make sure the reviews are accurate, which doesn't always make people happy.  By the time I get home from work, I'm completely exhausted from the day, which means I haven't been doing a lot of sewing or quilting lately.  I have been doing some and will be able to share some pictures soon.

The other bit of "news" is that we purchased a piano a few weeks ago.  Both  my husband and I play and we've used a digital piano for several years, but finally decided that we wanted a real piano ago.  I will definitely show a picture of it when I get one taken.  :c)  Its a used Steinway piano with a wonderful sound/touch as well as a bit of history and mystery surrounding it.

I hope everyone has been surviving the last bit of winter the country seems to be having.  I'm hopeful that it will finally feel like spring soon here in the northeast.  We've had a long, cold winter and it will be wonderful to have some spring-like temperatures again.

Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

More Progress...

Whew!  Another post and it hasn't even been a month yet.  ;c)

A weekend ago, we finally had the sun creep out for a bit during the morning and it made the outdoors look awfully inviting despite the snow.  We have had a lot of grey, cloudy days due to the cold and almost constant snowfall.  Here was the view out my sewing room the other weekend:


That was the day that I was finally able to start sewing on the outside corners of the Mariner's Compass quilt.  Here's a section that was partially done...


And a slightly different angle (and later on in the day) showing the texture created.  Some of the triangles still have some non-straight "lines" in them from the basting stitches.  Once I get this washed, those lines will disappear.


Up-close and personal with pebbles...






I love the overall texture and depth the pebbles are giving to this quilt.  Sometimes I think I should have gone with some more than just pebbles, but too late now!  I'm definitely not ripping out this much pebbling!


I'm still not quite done with this one corner, but very close.  Its probably another 1/2 hour of quilting or so and it should be done.  It takes me a bit longer as I try to break it up into manageable chunks and get myself up and moving in between.  I've found that I can do about 10-15 individual pebbles before I have to re-adjust my hands.  So after I do 3 or 4 re-adjustments, I typically will get up, walk around, etc.   It makes it so it takes longer to get the quilt done, but my body appreciates the break.

 Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Another Month Gone!

Once again, I have no idea where the month of February went.  It seems like time is flying by faster and faster and I'm not quite sure where its going.  We've had a lot of cold weather and snow here in the Northeast this winter.  While you would think that would equate to lots of quilting, it really hasn't.  It has been so cold that I've been spending a lot of time near the fireplace, which is far away from the sewing room.

We had almost 8 weeks of temperatures where it did not go above freezing....at all!  Just constant, sub-freezing temperatures all the time, not to mention the wind chill.  Brrrr!  I think we bottomed out at -27F with straight temperature.  We did have one day earlier this week where it was 37 and it felt absolutely wonderful! :c)

I did finally get the center section of the Mariner's Compass quilt fully quilted.  I still have to do the corners and in the white section of the pieced border, but I'm making progress.  Here's almost a full view of the quilt:


A little bit more of a close-up so you can see the pebble quilting.


And getting right down at the quilt level to see the stitching and the texture it creates...



I'm really digging the texture this quilt has so far.  I've started on one of the corners and it is almost quilted and the design really pops out, but those photos are for another day (and hopefully not a month from now).

Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations