I didn't forget last week, but it was Thursday when I remembered and then something interrupted me and I never got back to it. It is one of my goals to be more regular about posting, but it's probably going to be slow progress.

Anyway... on to my progress and the pictures...

...

Last Monday and Tuesday I helped my son with some of his moving. His moving progress was small, but we both had some patience building. My van broke down on us. EEEP! It was the brakes. They were totally gone. How did we manage? PTL, we did get to the apartment without incident, just lots of grinding noise, but we didn't get our second trip back to Salem for more stuff and had to rent a U-Haul for the rest of the local large items.  I also made progress in driving around Portland. I used to be a timid driver, but my son is teaching me to be braver about driving--both intentionally and unintentionally.

Yesterday I spent the whole afternoon and evening helping him again. Much less stress this time and I enjoyed my visit even if it was boring work (filing his humongous DVD collection).

House

Last Tuesday I was going to paint, but was in Portland to help some more, and since I was the one who rented the U-Haul, I had to be the one to return it. I'm not sure that was actually true, but that's what I was told.

I was going to paint on Wednesday, but first I decided to get the last bit of carpet pulled out. I guess I'm getting old, because that wore me out. Painting is not the progress I've made in the past two weeks.
This is on my list of things to do again this week. I have so much painting to do and no one else in this house can do it. HoneyBear is too sloppy a painter and Mom just physically can't do it. It vertainly won't all get done this week.

☐ Kitchen Ceiling
☐ Kitchen touch ups
☐ Kitchen woodwork

☐ Family room walls
☐ Family room ceiling
☐ Family room woodwork

☐ Sewing studio woodwork

☐ Lots of woodwork throughout the rest of the house

Needlework

I have been working off and on, on a piece of CQ. I started this about two years ago, before I knew anything about CQ. It was going to be a purse for my sister. I kept getting the feeling that she didn't like it. That put a damper on my working on it. (Along with learning all the things I did "wrong" with it.) Finally she explained that she'd be afraid to use it because it would get ruined. We brainstormed a bit and decided it would make a nice pillow, instead. Now, finally I am almost finished with it.

TAST

Some of the recent stitches I did on the pillow were current TAST stitches.

Beaded hedebo,  

knotted loop stitch

and Pistil stitch

are the ones I've done.

 

Other Needlework

I managed to make a big dent in cleaning the studio. It was something I had to do. Here I've had this wonderful room since the end of April and I haven't been able to use it. I was going crazy.

Then, on Friday (10-19) I went downtown to the Quilted Forest and signed up for their Block-of-the-Month. It started in September, but I figured I could catch up, and Sylvia said OK.  The current BOM is actually two 6" blocks a month. The colors are my mom's favorites--peaches and greens, so I know who I'm making this one for.

(this is actually peach and purple, not yellow and purple)

 

One of the things that prompted this was thinking about the BOM I did with them in 2010-2011. I have twelve chain blocks and was wondering what to do on the alternate blocks. Then it hit me. A simple design in chain stitch! My background is black and the colors are jewel tones. I think stitching in the jewel tones will look great. I sort of decided I'd used some of Sharon B's Friday Freebies, but I've also decided to give the quilt to my son, and he doesn't like floral designs. Those are what I remember from Sharon's designs. Mostly the kind of designes I've done, too. But now I've asked him if there are any types of designs he would prefer. something that has meaning to him. Another option would be Celtic knots. I think he'd like them if I didn't get to fussy with the stitching... which I won't because I still want this to be chain stitches, which might work well with the knots. I'll have to talk to him about it again.

When I got home I looked for the Chain BOM and discovered I had not finished all of them!! I knew I didn't get to the last one, but there were four unfinished blocks. (There are so many UFOs and WIPs around me!!)

On Sunday, I wanted only one thing--to sew. So I did. All. Day. I managed to complete September's and October's blocks (above). On Monday I went to the studio at about four in the afternoon and again after dinner. I managed to get three of the for chain blocks completed. I had already cut them out, so it was just a matter of putting them together. I would have gotten to the fourth, but my sister stopped by on her way home from Sacramento where she gave a speach. We had to hear all about that. The final block was not cut. It has tons of 1" squares in it, too, so it's going to take a few minutes.

I will have all of these in my photoblog soon--reshot in natural light and all the threads removed!.

Sketchbook

I hadn't done anything with the sketchbook challenge for months. When I saw this month's challenge, I knew I had to get back to it. Drawing is not my strong point creatively, but I had fun. Maybe if I ever get to doing it regularly, I'll be better. Anyway. I drew my cabinet. I call it the bird cage because it houses most of my bird figurines. There are other things in there, too. I couldn't get them all in this drawing, but I will be choosing individual items to draw.

I also tried to get the cat, Ruby, who was hovering around me. She kept moving, though.

 

None of these cat drawings actually looks like Ruby. If I want to draw her, it'll have to be from a photograph.

 

See SharonB's Pintangle for more beaded hedebo, knotted loop stitch and pistil stitch, as well as the others I'm not caught up on. Also, see the photos at the Flickr TAST site. You can also see what projects others are working on at her WIPW post

See lots of drawings at   Sketchbook Challenge and their Flickr site.