Pages

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Remodeling - Part 2

The second installment of our remodeling job.  You can read the first one here.

Every time I go work on this house, I find at least ten other things that need to get done!  My husband says that we should just get done what we need to in order to move in.  However, I am afraid that if we don't get it all done before hand, then it will never get done.

At least it kind of looks like we have made some progress.  In part one I showed this bathroom completely gutted out. It's about done now.


Remember how we knocked out the closet to my daughter's room for the bathroom to be bigger. The shower/tub sits where her closet was. We built in those little cubby holes for towels and such.


The sun room (also known as the second reason (first was the oven) why I decided to move into this house)).  Still some of the owner's old furniture to move out;  I can see this room full of plant starts for my garden.  I would also like to get a dwarf lemon and orange tree to put in here!  :)


Everyone kept asking me what color I wanted to paint my son's room.  I told them to ask him, it's his room.  He chose white walls with John Deere green trim.  Of course, the only way to get John Deere green is to buy actual tractor paint.  We started painting some old furniture in the same green with Ag yellow trimming.  See that green and yellow dresser above? 

As you can see, his double windows open up into the sun room.


And so we move onto the master bedroom.  You can't see it in the picture, but there is a door to my left that leads out to the other side of the sun room.  And over there to the right of the closet is another door that leads to an office. 


We knocked the wall out between the office and my daughter's room so now you can loop between the two rooms through here.  I am going to put
some kind of shelving and rod unit in there to make her a little closet since we knocked out the original for the bathroom.  I have found that little girls need a closet!  You can see below the doorway we added.  That glass door leads out back to where I want to put my cutting garden.  I'll show more pictures of the yard and outside in part 3.




Every room has been painted except for the kitchen and my daughter's (above.)  My plan is to paint it the way it is painted in our house now (picture below.)  Those scallops were actually done with a quilting ruler!


As you can see, we've been pretty busy!  Hoping to get done and moved in soon.

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

12th WIP of 2012 - Organizing the Stash

Over the last few days, I have been using all my free time to turn this mess (read more here) of fabric and fabric scraps into a nicely organized one. 


I had purchased comic book backing boards a while ago, so figured now was as good time as any to start using them.  I still have more fabrics to wrap around the boards, but this is a start and makes me so. happy!


Even my fat quarters - I refolded each one in an uniform manner and placed them in a canvas box.


Next will be organizing my smaller scraps.

And what else have I been doing besides all this organizing?  Well, I started cutting out triangles.



 Ultimatley this will become a lap quilt for someone I have in mind; I have thoughts on what all these triangles to turn into, but also am just going to see where they think they belong.

And in case you missed it, I finished up my granny square quilt.  You can read all about it here.


That just about sums up this week.  Linking up to other great works in progress over at Freshly Pieced.


Sunday, August 5, 2012

Generosity

We all know that quilters/sewers are some of the most generous people.  We pour our hearts into our projects, and if you are like me, give each one away to someone.

In troubled times, we help with the gift of a quilt (or other small token made by our own two hands.)  Whether it be pillowcases for the local homeless shelter/children's hospital, quilts for soldiers overseas, or for a disaster (such as the those who lost their homes in the fires.)

While I was on vacation, my sister and I went to a couple of quilt shops.  One of them was questionable on whether it was still open or not, since it was based out of someones home.  A few years earlier, my Mom and sister had gone by and the owner said her shop was closed.  We decided to drive by anyway and see if the situation was the same.

Upon walking through the open door, there were bolts of fabrics from ceiling to floor along the walls, as well as completed mini quilts and other such decor.  We could hear children talking but could not find anyone around.  My husband peeked upstairs and found the owner, explained to her what we were doing there.  It turned out that the fabric portion of her shop was closed, but she does long arm quilting, and that portion is still open.  All of those pretty bolts were her personal stash!

Instead of kicking us out, she showed us around her long arm studio and we chatted for a while - turns out she was a teacher at a neighboring school and we knew a lot of the same people - it really is a small world!

She asked me if I had sewn with flannel. 

Yes, not much though. 

Did you like it? 

Yeah sure.

She then proceeded to fill up a bag of fabrics for me to take home; fat quarters and cotton yardage pieces!


I couldn't believe it!  What a very generous gesture!  Quilters/sewers are truly the best!