W.I.P Wednesday

Linking up with Freshly Pieced for this weeks W.I.P. Wednesday!

The past few weeks {here and here} I’ve been posting about the Heartland Heritage Block of the Month kit that I got from FatQuarterShop.com, eons ago {seriously I think I got it at least 5 years ago…I know it was before I was pregnant with Ave}. Well, today I am pleased to say that I have finished the top: YAY!!!!

Over the weekend I was working on the borders, sashing and cornerstone blocks. I spent most of Monday then piecing it all together. I was not going to NOT finish it before supper time. Fortunately, the kids were very agreeable and all 4 napped at the same time for 3 hours: WOOHOO!!!!!

Here it is…..

Yay! {It’s actually hanging upside down in the picture, but oh well} Yes, those are mini pinwheel blocks amidst the sashing; each of them finished at 3”, talk about tiny pieces. I woke up on Sunday, wondering why my wrists hurt so much, then I remembered.

I don’t love all the blocks, but it was a good challenge. Some of these blocks I would have looked at before and thought “No way…I can’t do that”, but I did. It was a good step out of my comfort zone in quilting. Plus, I now have some 12.5” sampler patterns that I could always use to make other quilts…there were a good 5 or 6 blocks here that I really liked and would do again…all of them a variation of stars or pinwheels.

This is the first quilt I’ve ever made for myself. I made Matt’s quilt and our Christmas bed quilt, but this is the first one that I will be saying “MINE!” I plan on sending it out to be quilted, but I need to enter negotiations with the lady who has done my quilts in the past. I want this to be very cuddly, warm and soft. I’m thinking a flannel backing {in a dark red or blue}, with a higher loft wool batting, and a quilt pattern that doesn’t have too much to it {I’ve noticed the more quilting the harder a quilt feels}.

Of course with this quilt finished, I now am jumping onto the next 2. I started the boys’ Sail Boat Quilts a long time ago and never got around to finishing them. The blocks are all done, but the putting together was, is, daunting. You see I’m not just making them a simple quilt with their names on it. Oh no. That would be too easy. I decided to make the Nautical Flags that spell out their names as part of the quilt. Yea.

I spent some time last night going over the different flags with Matt {since he did go to school for Marine Transportation and had to know all of these things} and figuring out how to go about this. Then I sat down with my EQ6 program and deciphered out how to do each of the blocks, in honest-to-goodness-stitched-together-quilt-blocks, that will measure 7” square.

Now to just figure out the rest of it. These quilts are so close to being done it’s ridiculous, but it will probably take me another month just to finish them.

What have you been working on? Whatever it is, I’d love to hear about it, whether it’s sewing, crafting, construction or a good book :-)

Hi, my name is Jessica…..Nice to meet you.

It’s been crazy around here….and I’m not even sure why. I know I had a few guest posts that went up last week, but they only happened, because they were written weeks ago. If you missed them, here they are: Meal Planning at the PurposefulWife.blogspot.com and Infertility Changed Me at NatashaMetzler.com .

This week isn’t shaping up to be much better. I feel like I go-go-go all day long, night comes and I look around and it seems like NOTHING was accomplished. Sunday, the kids stayed a few hours at my in-laws, which was great, for Matt. He managed to get a lot of outside work done: Apple trees trimmed, seeds planted in the garden, things done with the bees, and some other stuff. I’m not even sure what I accomplished, because there seemed to be just as much stuff before as after.

I have decided one thing though; the reason for my having to have projects, whether quilting or DIY, is because I need to have SOMETHING that has an absolute start and finish, otherwise I would go out of my mind. Laundry never gets “finished”, dishes never get “finished”, cleaning the house never gets “finished”: It’s entirely never ending. Sewing projects and other things at least give me a sense of accomplishment, once they’re done.

On top of the household to-dos, this weekend is Matt’s sister’s wedding, which means I’ve been doing whatever wedding stuff I can to help her out. Throw in a bit of kids not sleeping at night or during the day, and mommy is not having much time to blog, which stinks, because I so miss being here!

A brief run down of other things that I haven’t blogged about:

*Ellie is officially walking
*I started a Moms’ Night Out group, and we had our first get-together
*Went to (in)RL
*Started a project for the back yard
*Been busy planting veggies
*Finished a couple of books
*Got a haircut and color {realized how easy it is to straighten my hair with a curling iron}
*Bought some new fabric
*Finished a few more of my quilt blocks
*Have 50 chicks that we’re raising for meat, with another 50 coming today, and  more in the future {we’re doing 300 total}

I’m hoping that things slow down, at least a little bit, because we haven’t even gotten to the summer yet and I’m ready for Fall.

  If you’re missing me here, I am pretty active on instagram if you want to follow me there :-) or on Facebook

Don’t forget about the Ultimate Homemaking eBook Bundle sale going on right now!

W.I.P. Wednesday

I actually have something to share, and since I posted the other day about my creative juices, I thought an appropriate follow up would be showing you what I’ve been working on.

It has to have been at least 4 or 5, maybe more, years since I received a couple of BOM projects as Christmas gifts. For those of you not in the quilty-know, a BOM is a Block of the Month quilt kit. Every month you receive a pattern with the necessary fabric to create that block, and then at the end of a year, you have a quilt to show for it.

The first that I received was ‘O Tannebaum’ {a Christmas quilt} from Keepsake Quilting, that I did not realize was paper piecing. That one will be sitting in a drawer until I actually learn paper piecing {I pulled it out and quite frankly it scared the bejeezers out of me}.

The other one that I received was a Mystery BOM from Fat Quarter Shop called ‘Heartland’, which works the same way, but you don’t know what the finished project is going to look like. This is the one that I decided I should work on.

I don’t know what took me so long! I’m loving it! If you follow me on instagram, then you’ve probably seen each one of the blocks as I’ve been finishing them.

The blocks are slightly more intricate than I’m used to, but definitely not beyond my level of non-expertise. They’ve actually been really good…kind of pulling me out of my usual and getting me to try something that I probably wouldn’t have, whether the actual pattern or color placement.

So far I’m halfway through the blocks.

What I’m loving about doing a BOM is that I’m able to work on an entire quilt, but in a way that I feel productive, not overwhelmed {and it doesn’t take over my dining room…where we actually need to eat at least 2 of our meals each day}! I can usually get through a block in an evening, or at least get one of the more intricate ones cut or stitched together. It’s been great!

There’s another Mystery BOM on Fat Quarter Shop right now that I love, but I do not have the funds necessary to purchase the said kit.

I can’t wait to get this one finished though. I think I’ll back it in flannel, so that I have an extra cozy quilt to curl up with on the couch next winter. Depending on how it comes out, I may even send it out to be quilted!

Thoughts on Creativity

You can find this post on my new blog JessicaMWhite.com by clicking HERE.

“A person who never made a mistake, never tried something new.” ~ Albert Einstein

I tried something new; actually a couple of something news. Can you see them?

Rounded edges and bias binding.

The rounded edges were pretty easy…they would look more impressive on a wider border. All I did was trace a small bowl, cut down the edges, after the whole thing was stitched together.

The bias binding didn’t go as easily. I found a couple of video tutorials online, all of which showed some sort of weird origami folding with your fabric that I completely did not understand. It probably didn’t help that I was trying to use up a bunch of scraps to finish the binding.

I ended up doing some sort of weird cutting on an angle thing, then I was confused with how to put together all of the pieces into one long strip…so I just kind of cob-jobbed. It turned out looking good in the end. I do want to learn the right way to do a bias binding, because I did like working with it, particularly with the curved corners.

And I tried a new way of presenting a baby quilt. Rather than just folding it up and sticking it in a bag I rolled it up, turned down the corner with the label {baby’s name, birth date, and stats}. Then tied it with a strip of matching fabric. Tada!

What is something new that you would like to learn how to do?

The Winner is…

Thank you so much to all of you who entered the giveaway. I had such a fun time doing this, as well as getting to read all of your comments; it was such a blessing!

I hope you had fun too, and found some wonderful new blogs to read. I also hope to see you back around these parts again :-)

It’s the most wonderful time of the year…. {W.I.P Wednesday}

Since we’ve already discussed my sanity before, we won’t even bother going in to that.

This year, after looking at the prices of Christmas pajamas and those adorable Christmas outfits, I realized {once again} that they are ridiculously overpriced, even if they are seriously cute! If I were to buy matching PJs and coordinated outfits for the kids it was going to cost around, $320, give or take. Yea, not something we have room in our budget for.

I, in a moment of absolute brilliance, decided that I would SEW all of those clothes instead. I got some adorable flannel to make bottoms for ALL of us, which cost me around $30 for NINE YARDS (Joann had it on sale for $2.79/yard). I purchased some beautiful reds and greens to make jumpers for the girls and rompers for the boys.

Then my MasterMind Blogging group, decided to do a little something {more on this VERY soon – I can’t wait to share it with you!}, that I now have another project to complete.
Well, all this to say that I now have 11 things to stitch to completion in the next 3 weeks. Are you laughing yet? I am.

What is it they say, “There’s a fine line between genius and insanity” {I think I cross it quite frequently}.

Yesterday, my mother-in-law, very graciously, agreed to take the kids for the day so that I could work on some of the mountain. I actually had a very productive day, only to realize at the end of it, that everything came out way too big. Oh yea. The dress I made for Ellie, fits Ave, but it’s too short to be a dress on Ave: Yup.

I’ve decided to look at it this way: I made outfits that will work for the next few years. No one will remember what they wore this year. So, I’m ahead of the game. {Yea, I’m not buying it either – Forehead meet palm}.


They are what they are.

I still need to stitch the inseam and hem on the boys; I intentionally cut the legs long, knowing that I might have to adjust for their cloth diapers, but I think I’m just going to hem them up, so that they can still wear these in a few years…I also need to do the buttons. I just need to finish the buttons on the girls, but I think, after seeing how big it was on Ave, I’m going to have to do some gathering at the waist.

I did however give up on my idea of making 3 Christmas stockings this year. It just was not working and I decided that I could live with them having stockings that I had not made. It also really helped that Lands’ End had an awesome sale {30% off + free shipping + save $10 when you bought 3 or more stockings+6% Cash Back via Ebates.com}: It worked out to $18 a stocking. I can’t even make them that cheap.
Now it’s on to quilting projects and Christmas pajamas. Hopefully I don’t manage to mess either of those things up.

So…now…if you would be willing to pray for me and the projects I need to complete I would absolutely appreciate it.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Are you working on any projects for Christmas? I’d love to hear about them.

Linking up with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

Whoo Loves You?

Another finish to the pile!  Friends of our’s just had their first baby, a boy, last Sunday. I had been feverishly working on finishing the quilt and actually managed to finish it, quite literally as this handsome bundle of joy trounced his way into the world. {On a separate note: I guessed both the due date and the gender right. I’m now 5 for 5 in the gender-guess!}

I had seen this design on pinterest, but couldn’t find the original site for the pin {I hate when that happens!} Once I was almost done with the quilt I finally did find it. I freehanded the owl, branch and leaves, then appliqued them on the quilt. I also did double batting, to give it a bit more thickness and warmth, as well as a hanging sleeve on the back.

I was quite proud of myself and how it came out. Now onto the other baby quilt, table runner, ipad case, Christmas clothes, and Christmas jammies that are on my list. Oy!

W.I.P. Wednesday

It’s been a while since I’ve linked up with Freshly Pieced and WIP Wednesday, probably because I haven’t really had any thing to show.

I’ve been working on a baby quilt for a friend (whom I hope doesn’t click over here and see her quilt). A while back I saw this cute quilt on pinterest, but I’m a cheapskate and I didn’t really feel like buying a pattern for such a simple quilt. I pulled out my trusty Electric Quilt computer program and started playing around with measurements.

I managed to scrimp together the entire top with fabric I had, except for the border, which resulted in a major splurge of $4.03 for fabric. I’ve been really trying to use up some of the fabric in my stash this year, rather than spending money on more.

Anyways.

Here is my interpretation…

I’m really liking it. I still have to sandwich and hand tie the whole thing, plus binding, but I think I’ll get it done in time. Of course, then I have another baby quilt to start and the kids clothes for Christmas….oy!

Have you been working on any projects? This time of year I’m always “hankering” to start being creative again.

W.I.P Wednesday

The other day I posted asking you to guess what I was working on. It was going to be my WIP post for this week, but I actually managed to finish it before that happened. Presenting Miss A’s dress for this Sunday’s festivities {the babies are being baptized}!

I had a bit of an unfortunate revelation last week. I paid the bills. Which of course made me face the fact that there really wasnt’ much room to buy Ave a dress. I decided it would be more prudent to use some of the fabric that I already had to make her a dress. But I needed a pattern, which can cost a lot of money. So I started googling for “FREE Little Girl Dress Tutorials”.

I found this awesome, AWESOME tutorial {Seriously! Go visit this blog, she has fantastic patterns and tutorials}.

Oh my! I am so proud of this dress! The entire thing is lined, there isn’t an unfinished seam in it! If my grandmother were alive today she might actually have told me I did a good job on it :-)

 

A couple of Christmases ago my mother-in-law bought me a serger, which I promptly thought to myself “What on earth am I going to do with this!?” I’ve changed my tune. Any seam that was visible I was able to finish with the serger. If I were to buy {or sell} this dress it would probably go for around $60 or more, that’s how professional this pattern was and what a difference using a serger makes.

The directions were easy to follow (I am not a clothes-maker) and I was able to figure it all out. I thought it was going to take me the better part of a week to do this, thus my WIP Wednesday post. I did it in 3 afternoons, with a total of about 4-5 hours of work.

Onto an actual WIP!

I’ve been working on this for a while and just got around to doing some more work on it.

This is the boys’ sail boat quilt. I had finished all of the boats a few months ago, but just finished all of the “Thrifty” blocks (left). Now I can start piecing them together. But there is a lot more work to go on this quilt. I’m planning on changing the crib size to twin size, which means adding in some stuff. I’ll be adding a border between rows 1 and 2 and 4 and 5, on which will I’m going to appliqué their names, both in letters and in the call flags for each letter. That alone is going to take a while.

  If you’re interested head over to FRESHLY PIECED and see what others have been up to.

W.I.P Wednesday

This week I decided to join up with Freshly Pieced and take part in Work in Progress Wednesday. I've got a couple of things on the drawing boards, but I actually managed to finish something that I started!

I've been working on the boys' baby quilts and then decided that I might as well do a twin size quilt, so that they can actually use it once they have their own {nautical themed} room. Here's the idea: The middle section is sailboats and nine patch, then there will be a top and bottom border. The top will be their name appliqued on, the bottom will be their name, appliqued, spelled out in flag-signs (Matt's helping me with that).

 

This finish got me the crazy lady award! I found out on 2/11 that BIL and PP were coming to visit the following weekend with our new nephew, so I had to get this quilt done. I managed to start and finish a 46" square quilt in 1 week with 4 kids....needless to say I didn't sleep much last week, but it was done. I love how it came out too!

The fabric was Baby Safari, the pattern was from my latest APQ magazine cover: I just adjusted the pattern from 9" finished blocks to 13"...took a lot of math to figure that out. In my latest form of baby quilts I backed it in flannel and hand tied the quilt. I really feel this just makes a nicer quilt; it's warm, it's soft, it's super cuddly.

"The best kind of sleep beneath Heaven above, Is under a quilt, handmade with love."

The Wednesday that I went into labor I received a really awesome package in the mail: Our Christmas quilt! I was so excited to see the quilt (and then didn't even get to sleep under it!). It came out really well and it is so warm and cozy.

I had asked the woman who does my quilting to just stitch the binding on and I would hand stitch it down: She finished the whole thing. At first I was a bit "annoyed" (for lack of a less strong word) that she had finished it, but she knew me better than I did. There was no way I would have finished the quilt, especially since the babies arrived less than 24 hours later. It was so wonderful to take the quilt out of the box, shake it out, and put it on our bed...FINISHED!

We are the Face of Quilting!

Jennifer at SewHooked.com is challenging quilters to throw off the preconceived notions of what a quilter is, and show the world how broad a spectrum of people we are!

I started quilting when I was 25, to distract me from the dealing with our infertility. My grandmother started teaching me how to sew when I was little. I've always loved fabric, but would get frustrated when sewing clothes: They never fit and always looked terrible on me. Quilting? Now that was something to try.

At my old job I was told I was the "grandma" of the group because I quilted (by someone my own age). My boss at the time was also a quilter and she was my mom's age. Many people assume I'm a boring, fuddy-duddy (which yea, I guess I am, but I was before I started quilting) because I quilt.

I've been scoffed at because I enjoy spending my free time cutting and stitching fabric to make a quilt, particularly when I could "just go to Walm.art or Bed.Bath.andBey.ond and buy one".

Regardless of what people may think a quilter is, I'll take it, because I know what a quilter is: It's one of the most varied, kindest, and generous group of people I know. I'm proud to be a quilter!

Another one {partially} done!

I managed to get another stocking top partially done. I'm actually surprised by how much I liked this one. I always like log cabins, but have never done one (don't ask me why). The one difficulty was that to really be able to play with log cabin variations you need to have at least 4 blocks across and I only have 3.

(and it looks a lot blue-er in this picture than it really is....I think the mat is making it funky)

Only 3 more stocking tops to go! Then the fun part comes...figuring out how to put them together :-\

The stockings were hung.....

A while ago I posted about how unfair our Christmas stockings were: Mine is HUGE, the others are not. My mom did needlepoint Christmas stockings for all of us, and with the progression of time the stockings became smaller. The manufacturers just started making the stocking kits, smaller and smaller, my sister's is HALF the size of mine, Matt's is about the same as that, and Ave's is even smaller.

It took me almost 2 years to make Matt's stocking (I enjoy needlepoint, but it's tedious and time consuming), it took me over a year to make Ave's stocking....see where we're going. With needing 3 more stockings, I could not spend the next 6 years working on Christmas stockings (not to mention I don't think I'll have the time).

I decided to scrap the needlepoint stockings and do quilted stockings. While certainly easier and less time consuming, it is not easy and not NOT time consuming, just less. So far I've gotten the top part of Matt's stocking done, and 1 other one (I'm not sure which kid is getting which yet).

The tops have come together pretty easy, it's the rest of it that has me worried. I found this great tutorial (and new blog) that shows how to do what needs to be done, but I'm still confused. Of course it doesn't help that I want to use Matt's grandmother's embroidery machine to put the names on the cuffs, which creates a whole other level of complexity.

Here's what I got so far, but I flubbed (does anyone else use that word? Flubbed? "To botch or mangle"). I used my stocking as a template, made a paper copy and added a bit around the whole thing for a seam allowance. On the first stocking (Matt's) I added even a bit more when I cut it out...I forgot I had done that when I cut the second stocking...Yea.

Notice how the "neck" (where your leg would go) of the second stocking is a lot smaller...that would be the problem. It's still big, but it's definitely messed up. I don't know what I want to do; I can either trash it, go with it, make the others the same, or ignore the mess-up and make the others like the first (CORRECT) one.

Needless to say, for the mean time this one has been put aside. I have a feeling I'll probably do what I usually do....start over, but only if I can find the right fabric, or have enough left of the fabric I used, because I love it! The green fabric is beautiful with bows of branches, swirls, and tiny peppermints. We shall see....

1 down 7 more to go!

Last winter I started my Christmas quilt for our bed....I finally finished it yesterday, well the top at least. All that needed to be done was the outside black border. It took me an hour, I don't know what my procrastinating was for.

Yes, it was hot; yes, it was not easy to feed a 100" square quilt through my machine; but it's done.

Of course now that I see it laying out I notice silly mistakes: Like the middle 3 rows are not laid out in an aesthetically optimal pattern...they repeat, but it could be better. But, I am not going to pull the whole thing apart.

That's the hard thing I've noticed with bigger quilts: That it is very difficult to see the quilt as a whole, because it's a bunch of little parts.

But, it's done. Now I have to decide what I want to do with it. I know I cannot hand tie this, it's too big, so machine quilting is my answer (sending it out). What I need to decide is whether to back it in cotton or flannel, and whether to use cotton or wool batting. Any input?

As for the 7: That's right I have 7 quilts to do, plus 6 Christmas stockings, in the next 2 months. I've come up with the brilliant idea of sewing my grandfather a lap blanket for his birthday, in addition to the now 6 baby quilts I have to do. Pray for me :-P

ETA: So yea, guess what I'm doing....I'm sitting on the floor seam ripping out the right two columns to fix the quilt.

So I fixed the quilt....it didn't take me too long and was definitely worth my not being aggravated every Christmas when I look at it. The wrong one is on the left, the corrected one is on the right :-) Click on the picture: I circled the blocks that were placed wrong and drew an arrow to the block it was switched with.

"Do not plan for ventures before finishing what's at hand." Euripides

There are a few projects that we've almost completed around here, but just haven't managed to share.

After working diligently on the Christmas quilt for our room I think it's done. I planned on putting a few more borders on it, but when I put it on our bed it already covers the bed with quite a bit of a hang-over so I think it's good. Now I just have to decide if I want to hand tie it or send it out to be quilted....I have a few months to decide.

The other projects were of the wood-working kind: A new coffee table for the living room and a towel shelf for the bathroom.

Matt and I always work together with this kind of stuff. I usually draw up the plans, then we work together on cutting out the wood and assembly and then I get to finish it.

The coffee table was a simple enough design. Our old one was just too big for the room, particularly with Avelyn running around. We have a stash of pine that we keep for any projects that pop up and that worked perfectly for this piece. We haven't decided about a shelf along the bottom. We're waiting to see what Ave does with it and whether she hangs out underneath.

What I loved about the coffee table is it didn't cost us any thing: We had the pine, I had sample paint left over from choosing a house color, and we had a can of poly-acrylic left from the vanity. Love that kind of project!

The other thing we did was build a towel shelf for our bathroom out of the same oak (and stain) we use in the rest of the room. None of the towel racks I could find were right, plus they all cost several hundred dollars, and quite frankly, I'm cheap.

That's a few of the things we've been up to as we prepare for spring and the BUSY season :-)

"A quilt will warm your body and comfort your soul." ~Author Unknown

OK, now I'll post about my latest finish. You saw a bit of it in my other post, but here it is...finished!

I also did this one with flannel backing and hand-tying: I'm really loving that method for baby blankets. It just makes such a cozy, warm and soft blanket. This was such an easy quilt to do, the variety of fabrics makes the blocks look a lot more complicated.

I love this fabric too! I bought it with the certain-someone in mind, before I even knew what they were having (I had a feeling;-). The line is Wild Rose from Marti Michell and Maywood studio (I've decided I need to start keeping track of that info).

I think the quilt ended up being around 36" square. I was pleased with how it came out, and even more pleased that the recipient liked :-)

Progress....

I'm getting there. All of the blocks are stitched together. Now comes the fun part of stitching all the rows together, as well as all the point pieces, then the borders. This is where it get's tricky...suddenly the tiniest mistakes can compound and suddenly an initial 1/16" of an inch can cause inches of troubles.

The squares where the floor can be seen will be gold fabric squares. Not sure what I'm doing the next border, but there will be more beige and black. I must say....I love black. It's awesome! There's no other color that completely sets something off, as well as black does.

Scrappy is as scrappy does....

I had every intention of having the Christmas quilt I've been working on be scrappy...my kind of scrappy. Which means each block has all the same fabrics in it and the same background fabric throughout the whole quilt, and all of them a full piece of fabric (that isn't a few pieces stitched together): That's not happening.

I think I miss calculated somewhere along the line, and grossly underestimated the amount of fabric I would need. Considering I bought the fabric last year and can't even remember from where I can't buy more.

So, my quilt is going to be much more "scrappy" than I would have liked. I am the queen of symmetry and things being balanced and looking right...this quilt has become a lesson in dealing with things when they aren't perfect.

As of right now I've had to: Pick out other neutral fabrics to use as my background (and will now have 3 different patterns in those), I have had to piece together strips of the same fabric to eek out the last few pieces that I need, and even, in some desperate cases, had to piece together similar (BUT DIFFERENT) fabrics to get the pieces that I need.

Will it be ok? Yes, it will....the quilt will still come out all right and it's just going to be scrappier than I originally wanted.

What's my issue with scrappy quilts? I honestly don't know. I always love quilts that are scrappy, but for some reason have never liked making them that way myself. I suppose I just think it's too much work pulling together all these random little pieces and trying to make something out of them.

I've been known to take scrappy patterns, dissect the pattern to see what I can do to make it scrappy, but out of a select number of fabrics and prints....which defeats the purpose of a scrappy quilt (which is to use up whatever you have lying around).

I'm almost done cutting out all of the fabrics (500 4 1/2" squares cut into triangles - not as hard as it sounds), but then it gets tough. Because now I have to take all of my pieces of fabrics and mix and match them in a way that doesn't drive me nuts (because remember I have to have everything symmetrical and patterned and perfect), but looks like it's scrappy.

This is becoming a lot more work than I anticipated....oy!