Tillie Studio

Sunday laziness

What a nice long weekend!  I did not get anything checked off my to-do list...at least nothing BIG, and this weekend is already nearing a close.  Not sure where the time went, but I got to have quite a bit of fun.  I got together with lots of friends on Saturday...friends from all different parts of my life, from middle school, to college, to the past few years...all together to enjoy dinner at Thalia Spice, a restaurant a block away from my house that I have never been to.   I have no excuse for not having checked it out before, but am glad to know there is such a cute and trendy place so close...and the fact that it is still BYOB for the time being makes it more of a draw.   So dinner was followed by an excursion to another bar where I got to watch my UNC Tarheels make it to the final four!  Woo hoo!  Probably stayed out a little too late, but that's okay.  Gotta get a little crazy sometimes.  Early this morning B and I spent two hours on a "conference call" with friends of ours in Virginia...a way I could happily start every Sunday morning.  Then we headed to Cleo's and Amanda and baby Claire joined us for brunch.  Since then I have spent the afternoon relaxing on the couch and watching bad Sunday TV.  I am looking forward to Rock of Love later tonight...

Anyway, I finished a bunch of those scrap bibs...so here are some photos. 

   

The motherload of all postings...#3

In case you were thinking you could escape more of my musings about this terrible Chicago winter...no such luck!  It has been snowing and sleeting ALL DAY and I have heard some thunder and seen flashes of lightning.  Cooper is bored...This is what Coop does when he is bored with the hopes that I will feel sorry enough for him to start a game of fetch...

The motherload of all postings...#2

On the fabric front...I LOVE this fabric by Jason Yenter...I am not sure what I want to do with it.  Does anyone have any ideas?
I have an assembly line of bibs started...I went through my bag of larger scraps and was able to cut out about a dozen bibs from that fabric.  It always makes me feel good to use up my scraps. 

The motherload of all postings...#1

I am still coughing at this point, but am not allowing myself to be sick any longer.  I have had it!  I have a bunch to post about, and I am going to start in no particular order.   Here is my new friend...I decided to go for it and get the serger I REALLY wanted...the one with Jet-Air threading and lots of bells and whistles. 
My lessons start in a couple of weeks, but I have already discovered one HUGE time-saver that my serger accomplishes for me...
I ran over the edges of some newly cut fabric with the 3-thread overlock stitch before throwing it in to be laundered, and when the pieces came out, there were no frayed edges (duh!) but there was also no need to iron as they were flat and perfect!  I cannot tell you how much time this is going save me. 

finally almost normal

It has been over a week since my last post.  I have been totally out of commission with the flu, and it has been TERRIBLE.  It started with 5 days of a fever, topping out at a near hallucination-inducing 102.5 degrees, but mostly hovering around 101.  The fever and aches were bad, but not nearly as bad as this lingering cough that has me totally exhausted and wheezy.  To add to my misery, Cooper decided to get in bed on top of me and when I sat up to cough, I jerked awkwardly because of his weight on me, and totally pulled something in my upper back...so now I have back pain, too.  UGH!  I am done complaining, but thought you should know where I have been.  I still have a lot to post about, but am going to wait until I am feeling more energized.  Oh, and this is a silly photo of our first day of spring here in Chicago...ARE YOU KIDDING ME??  There are no pretty flowers popping up here!

More on the weather

This is the balcony view I am looking for...a nice Carolina Blue sky (yes, I know I live in Chicago - That is the Sears Tower - but I am a Carolina girl...GO HEELS!) some leaves on the trees...some sense of hope and life...Instead I am stuck with this.  I mean REALLY...give me a break!  I know, I know...what do I expect living in Chicago.  This winter has just thrown me for a loop.

Minor Update!

Our kitchen is fine...not spectacular...certainly not fancy...but it has lots of cabinet space and a really usable layout.  While I am a HGTV junkie, I could find a million things I would like to change, but realistically it is just not worth it...especially with the market the way it is.  The one change we made was adding some shelves to this huge open wall we had...just stuff from Ikea worth a grand total of a couple hundred bucks, but wow!  What a difference!  It is nice to be able to display some of my favorite things.  And with the new Big Kahuna cutting board we got as a gift from my Aunt Caryle the kitchen is looking much better...we have not replaced the original stove yet, as it works great, and haven't fallen in love (or really looked for) a new one yet.  Some person on Craigslist is eventually going to have themselves a mighty nice stove!

Before:                                                                                    After: