Category Archives: Every Day Life

The stuff of life, right here!

2020 1st Q Creative Wins !

Posted in Craft, Creative Practice, Every Day Life, Fiber fun, Handmade, In the Studio, Knitting, Make Stuff, quilting, Quilting, Scrapbooking, Sew this, Yarn hobbies by

May 3 – I am finding one way to grab any kind of positivity out there is to look back and acknowledge things that I have completed (Complete – my 2020 word) and celebrating that…since 1/3 of the 2nd qtr of 2020 is done (how did that happen…because we are all just working and/or sitting in our houses) I figured it’s high time to note what I managed to complete in the first quarter of 2020 for my own tracking…

January

Memorykeeping: Finished my December Daily album (38 layouts) and made 10 other pages. Worked on Stacy Julian’s 20in20 class setting up project ideas and completed 1 project for that, finding photos of myself for an project about me.

Fiber: Started a Cables and Colorwork Class taught by my friend at Cambridge Center for Adult Ed. Worked on broken rib cowl, worked on Briochealicious shawl. Finished mini quilt and quilt blocks.

Went to FLA with the Fam ! (Album or photo book forthcoming this year)

February

Memorykeeping: finished my OneLittleWord album for 2019 (27 layouts), and made 8 other pages.

Fiber: Continued C & C class, broken rib cowl & Briochealicious shawl. Finished a cable knit hat, with fun faux fur pom pom. Started the Hinterland dress in yummmmyyyyyy red buffalo check flannel. Took old binding off of circus quilt…

Other stuff: Designed a poster of Gun Digest covers painted by my Uncle, James Triggs.

March:

Memorykeeping: Made a photo book of Shadows “stick of the day” and sent copies to the girls at school. Completed my March One Little Word work. I think I only did one digi-layout … I know I have other scrappy layouts but quite frankly, March was when the world fell apart so I am amazed I did anything at all…

Fiber: Finished! Hinterland dress in yummmmyyyyyy red buffalo check flannel (photo before I put the black buttons on… I actually don’t think I took a photo of it completely done… at any rate, it qualifies as secret pajamas.

Re-bound the vintage circus quilt (Pretty sure it was my sisters quilt when she was little so it’s going back to her so she can use it with her grands!) Binding is still one of my bugaboo’s in quilting, v tricky for me to get right on both sides with the machine stitching… but I keep plugging away at it.

And March was when mask making and scrub cap making started… I only made two caps for my Dr friend but began what would end up as over 200 masks for family, friends, church family and donation to a nursing home.

Alright then. Things are so weird right now, no other way to say it… I find that if I don’t jot down or take photos of what’s going on… it all becomes one big blur of mush overlaid with nothing but bad news from the outside world, especially from the middle of March onwards… But that is why we make things right? To keep our hands busy, our minds calm and to spread some cheer in the world.

What are you making this spring? Stay safe and wash your hands everybody…

Super Casual Craft Room Tour

Posted in Craft, Creative Practice, Every Day Life, In the Studio by

Hi everyone! Writing to you from Boston on a very cold and dark and rainy day. It is super miserable and the twinkle lights are on all over the house.

I’m a part of the Simple Scrapper community, and a few weeks ago, I posted an idea for whoever wanted to, to post a super casual video of your craft room… not spic and span and fancy but a “real” video. I volunteered to go first, and so I did. I thought I’d share here on my blog as well. Completely amateur video skills happening here, but hope you enjoy a slice of the craziness over here.

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you are staying well and safe during the Pandemic. xo Sue

One Second Everyday

Posted in Around Here, Documenting Life, Every Day Life by

(Except for the chunk this summer where I totally forgot about the app and my children didn’t remind me…)  And most of the videos are clips from videos I sent my girlfriend in Houston !

LOL I have now blogged as much in the first 3 days of 2020 as I did in all of 2019…go me!

And I do have to say… this app is really fun and I have already started my 2020 version! Give it a try!

Home Made Goodness

Posted in Creative Practice, Digital Scrapbooking, Documenting Life, Every Day Life, Food, Layouts, Scrapbooking by

In an effort to ATTEMPT to spend my time creating more and consuming less (GoT excepted)… tonight I sat down and instead of scrolling FB endlessly…I made a scrapbook layout (!) gasp.  I know, I know.  We have actually been super busy in a good way this summer so lots going on but not a lot of sharing. In an effort to remedy that, may I present…

yep, Christmas baking layouts in August!  I had bought the cutest baking kit from Pink Reptile Designs and a template kit from Scrapping with Liz at The Lilypad (one of my fave digi-scrapping shops) and tonight was the night to use it.

Last night I spent my evening catching up with my 2016 photos in Lightroom, and I’m thrilled to say that I believe that 2016 is all done, edited, rated and tagged.  That is why I could find these photos about baking…from my “baking” keyword.  I have a lot of memory keeping to work on.  I have realized that I’ve been catching myself thinking 2 more first-days-of-school until the girls go to college, 2 more back-to-school shoppings until the girls go to college … you get the idea.   One layout to make a dent in the memory keeping list!

Once school starts and we are on a more normal schedule, maybe more posting  (?!)  best of intentions…. enjoy!

1/14: The Big Gray Pot

Posted in Around Here, Cooking, Creative Practice, Every Day Life by

Happy Middle of January !

Winter had finally arrived here in New England.  It’s cold, it snowed (not enough to really shovel but enough to look pretty), the sun is out and it’s cold.  Just the kind of weather for hearty yummy carb-laden goodies made in the Big Gray Pot.

This week (so far) I made risotto with shrimp and peas.   Risotto is one of those dishes that everyone in the house loves, but I kind of forget about when I’m thinking of things to make.  It is super easy, I use the basic recipe from an old, old Williams Sonoma “Risotto” cookbook.  There is half an hour of minding the pot on the stove as you add the chicken stock but easy to do while you are puttering around the kitchen making salad or cleaning up.  Add to that peas in the freezer and frozen cooked shrimp on sale at MarketBasket and it’s risotto for the win!

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The night I made it was my basketball carpool night, after the risotto was finished, I put the lid on and put it in a 200 degree oven to stay warm while I picked up and dropped off hoop stars.  I’ve never “held” risotto in the oven like that before and I think were I to do it again, I’d add a little extra water on the top to keep it moist.  The rice kept sucking up the cooking liquid and wasn’t dry but not quite as creamy.

Hope you try something like this, I love the fact that I can cook something on the stove and then hold it in a warm oven rather than letting it get cold and them microwaving to heat up later.

Have a great day everyone!!