Phew........

Phew.........these cross stitch ornaments took a long time to stitch and put together. I realize that I'm getting older when it gets harder to see 32 count fabric to stitch on even with reading glasses and an Ott light with a magnifying lens. It was a real challenge at times. I had thoughts of making more for a few gifts.....not happening!  These will look great at the beach cottage, not just for the holidays but all the time as decor. Now back to working on holiday gifts. 

 

Seas the day........

Many thanks to all for letting me vent on this blog about the fire, it sure helps my mental health to be able to do that. The fire is still raging this morning, more resources arriving all the time. Having 100 + temps does not help with the fire fight.  Friday a dry front is supposed to come through with added winds - not a good thing. The smoke yesterday was in the highest hazard level, this morning a bit better. This fire won't be out until fall/winter rains but hopefully it will be contained before too many more losses.......hope, hope...........

I don't think I ever posted these cross stitches that I finally got framed.  I stitched them quite a few years ago, just hadn't added charms. A couple months ago I added the charms and stretched them over foam core and took them to Michael's for framing during one of their 70% off sales. I love how they turned out - they're now ready to hang at the beach cottage.  Not sure if the charms are easy to see in the mermaid piece, they're all different. The matt is actually silver - love the way it turned out.

I love the shell piece  - the charms on this one are all cockle shells.

And then there's this sweet little piece, looks big here but it's really very small. It's hard to see but there are pulled threads in this one.  I'm pretty sure all three of these will end up in our bedroom as other walls are pretty full but the bedroom walls are lacking.  I still have many cross stitch pieces done over a span of 30 years that need to be up on walls, on pillows, whatever - maybe this winter I'll figure out what to do with them all even if it's giving some away because I have nowhere for them. 
 

R & R weekend on the coast..........

I'm still here........

.....just been gone so hadn't posted. I didn't take many pictures this past 9 days but here are a few showing what I've been up to.

The major reason for the longer than usual trip to the beach cottage was to paint - argh. I've painted so many houses over the last 38 years - I'm tired of it - I don't want to paint anymore, but it must be done. Since we bought this house 5 years ago we've been slowly updating/fixing it up. We need to get the nasty smelly carpet out of there and lay some composite flooring but first we need to paint all the windows, doors, trim, baseboard, doorjambs, etc.  I love stained wood trim but this was an ugly dark color so we decided to paint it white. What a job!  First a deglosser to clean it off and prep it for paint, then a primer, then at least 2 coats of paint, in some areas 3 and even a few spots needed 4. Here's Sam taking down the blinds in prep for painting.

Here's Sam putting the blinds back up after we painted - we painted every single window/trim and door jamb/trim in the house. The doors are started, baseboard to come on another trip over but that's a quick painting job in comparison to all the windows in the house....much of the baseboard we pulled out to paint.  Unfortunately we can't do anything about the black windows and grids that are in-between the panes - we just have to live with those.  I love how much bigger the rooms look now. I should have taken a pic of the hallway - it must be only 14 feet long, very narrow and it has 6 doors in it - yes 6 doors!  It looks so much better without all that dark wood.

Here's the dining room put back together....ignore those leaves all over the floor that were blown in the back door.

I don't remember if I posted a pic of the quilted placemats actually in use or not so here they are.

I may have shown one of these tables before, just had to share again as these are my favorite types of tables and I have several of them and will buy more if I see them at a good price. I remember my grandmother having one by her back door when I was growing up. Sam says I brake for any kind of small table but especially these. I don't know what era they originally came from - the 30's or maybe 40's???  Anyone know?

I finished knitting a pair of sox - my second in this colorway as one pair are a gift.

I started another pair of sox just because there always has to be a pair of sox on the needles.

Started another secret project with dropped stitches.

I snuck in a few hours to weave and finish off the towel warp over at the beach cottage......that day I was really tired of painting.........

Here's the pile of towels just pulled off the loom, different colored wefts, some plaids, some solids....now these need to be washed and hemmed.

Fire over near Bandon Dunes Golf Resort this past week while we were at the beach cottage (pic pulled from the local paper website). I had been painting windows on the back side of the house, finished up and walked to the front door and saw smoke enveloping us. Silly me not having fire on the mind over there - they can just as easily have fires as we can here in the valley. Fire started on the beach by someone with an illegal fire, it caught the beach grass and gorse on fire which is highly flammable. Luckily the fire was put out quickly before spreading.  The town and miles around it burned to the ground in 1936, from 30 miles inland right to the beach.

Final shot of wind surfers.  Sorry it's so hard to see, we were far away and I only had my phone with me to take the shot. There are windsurfers with the sails on their boards and there are the ones being pulled along by kites. This spot is famous for windsurfing - it's just north of Gold Beach, around an hour south of our place.

So now I deal with, as I call it, re-entry - have much to do as I have cataract surgery this week and since I'm not getting the standard lens but getting a premium one that will give me a better range of vision and correct my astigmatism I have some restrictions on close up work/reading for a week. Last night after getting home I pulled and boxed up orders so they're ready to mail tomorrow. Today I will be tackling the huge Ashland Bay roving order that came in over 2 weeks ago that I ignored......I'm out of way too many colors in the shop so I must deal with it now.

A mini weaving studio

I finally got a small weaving space carved out at the beach cottage. This bedroom used to have 2 twin beds but there have never been 2 guests staying in here at the same time so only one bed has been used at a time. Out goes the second bed and in comes my small Macomber loom.

It's turned out to be a really comfortable, welcoming guest/weaving room. I hung the quilt that was on the other bed and love the way it looks. There's even room for my extra spinning wheel in this room. My shuttles and other small tools are stored in the two little boxes on the magazine table. Bigger weaving items are hidden under the bed and will come out when I'm weaving.

I put all my little Cape May, NJ houses up on the quilt rack, they look so much cuter there than in the window seat. From the age of 13 thru college I spent my summers in Cape May Point, NJ at my parents beach house - my fondest summer memories are from those years and I get to be reminded of them seeing these and some books I have on Cape May even though I'm on the total opposite coast. I can't wait to get a warp on this loom, it's going to be a lovely space to weave in. I've brought all the cottolin over there so towels will be on this loom for quite a while.

I started knitting a new shawl using the black baby alpaca/silk blend I spun recently. I'm stuck. I'm not so sure I like it but I don't think it's the pattern, it's the handspun. It's much hairier and fuzzier than I was thinking it would be and I don't like that. So for the moment this will sit until I decide if I want to continue on or rethink how this handspun will be used.

This is a Vellela vellela jellyfish. Starting last year I was seeing the clear sail/cellophane looking top of these jellyfish all over the beach but I thought it was trash, not from a living creature. Then I saw photos of them on two different blogs from beaches north of us.....and this past weekend I saw an intact one so I snapped a photo. Apparently the clear cellophane looking part acts as a sail on the ocean. These aren't anything like the giant jellyfish from the east coast that I got stung by more times than I'd like to remember.

Beach decor

In 4 days of painting kitchen cabinet doors at the beach cottage we found a little time to go to second hand stores. I found some wonderful silver trays for $2.00, $1.50 and another small one (not pictured) for 25 cents!  Above is a work in progress on the dining table. I have a little silver bowl to add to the mix next time over. I love the mercury glass pieces I found for less than $10 for the two of them. I have fabric set aside to sew some quilted placemats for the table - just need to find some time for it.

This tray is on the coffee table, will look for some old silver candlesticks I've had for eons to add to this.

As I was painting cabinet doors I was dreaming about getting back home so I could get back to my current spinning, get a shawl warp on the loom, twist fringe on scarves, design and sew quilted placemats...........then reality set in - way too much administrivia to deal with including pulling together all tax 'stuff', personally and business, so I can sit in front of the computer for even more hours with Turbo Tax.  Ah, the downside to having a business..........

Beach art

We've been looking for a piece of art glass to hang in the opening we cut between the living room and kitchen at the beach cottage.  We've admired these recycled windows by a gal on the coast many times but they were all too big for the space we had. We went in our favorite antique/salvage/upcycled shop up in Coos Bay and found that she had made some small ones. This was our anniversary gift from last May, we knew we'd eventually find something.

This is looking from the kitchen into the living room - it's the perfect size - we didn't want something that would be in our line of sight.

Here's looking from the living room into the kitchen. You can see the first painted cabinet to the right of the window......this one will get a shelf underneath it to display from pretties. I'll eventually get to the rest of the painting.

And here's a close-up - see all the pretty shells, seaglass and even little crab bodies in it? It's perfect for our space. Other than finding this treasure we pretty much did nothing the past 5 days on the coast - we did go look at tiles for the kitchen counter but no decision made on color yet, getting close.......we gave up on having someone install a countertop as the contractors on the coast are notorious for not getting back to folks - we've given up on them. We've installed floor tile so we know we can do a countertop.

A bit more painting......

Another bit of painting from this past week - this cute little Monterey table. It's in the bedroom where the dresser I painted earlier this week resides. It sits right where it can be seen from anyone walking down the hallway to the other bedrooms, bathroom or laundry room. I also painted a vanity bench but haven't recovered the top yet so didn't bother with a picture. I guess I better get moving on making the quilt top for that bedroom, get it machine quilted, and on the bed, leftovers from making the quilt will be put to use recovering the vanity bench. I think the fabrics have aged sat around quite long enough waiting for me to get started on them....almost 3 years now. That's what happens when one is always trying to make a living with fiber, not enough time leftover for my own projects.

Hmm, the print above the table appears to be hanging crooked.....but I know it's not. I found the print in an etsy shop at a great price then had it framed at Michaels during one of those 60% off framing sales.

Treasures from the beach

Usually on our beach walks the type of treasures we find are just shells, fossils and a pretty rock here and there (I still haven't figure out what's an agate or just a rock). But the other day I spotted these two buoys for marking crab pots. They were hung up in the rocks of the seawall........I made Sam go out there and retrieve them. Usually when I find treasures like this on the beach I'll make a statement that they must have come from the tsunami debris from Japan.....don't think I can get away with that this time with the numbers on the side.

the rocker.....and my obsession for little tables....

I had a couple comments on the nice rocker in the post from yesterday - Sam's uncle made that rocker, he worked at Lane Furniture for years making hope chests. Sam's mother gave it to us not long after we were married. It's a beautiful piece of furniture.......unfortunately not so comfortable, even with the added cushions. It's ok for a little while but then the butt falls asleep, pads or not. But we love it anyhow and we need that extra chair in the small living room. 

On my little tables - they all have to be bargains. The one pictured next to the rocker was $20. The one I painted that has carved ends was only $10. I have seen them for much more but I won't pay it. Pretty much everything in the beach cottage had to be a hand-me-down or a bargain......the hunt for furniture has been very fun, painting it too. My best bargain was a $5 small round table with already painted tan legs, it had a piece of cheap couch/upholstery fabric on the top - I pulled that fabric up a bit in the shop and found it was marble underneath....thank goodness they only hot glued the fabric on the underside.....but why even do it to begin with.

Administrivia - argh!

Today was yet another day filled with administrivia.....it's starting to get old, too much administrivia, too little time to create. I started out my day by printing out labels for a delivery of Ashland Bay roving, I then weighed out 8oz bags of many colorways - 45 pounds in all, then put it all in inventory. This took a major portion of my day. Here are some of the new Merino/Tussah silk colorways - I especially like the bottom two. Now these, a few other new colors of merino and colors I had run out of need to be listed in my etsy shop.

Last night while watching tv I reskeined some laceweight merino/silk yarn I had dyed, today I got the labels on them. There are two of each skein. I like the dye results - a kettle dye look.

This is a cute little shelf I found at a new little antique shop in town - it's going to be perfect for the beach cottage. I also found a little wooden box with a drawer with a carved flower - it's painted red, I'll repaint it seaglass teal......and a few pieces of inexpensive crystal including a beautiful little lavendar dish, all perfect for showing off seashells. I found this new shop after I left my spinning group heading  to the grocery store....needless to say I never made it to the grocery store!

And then there's Bailey - he kept standing in front of the camera wanting his picture taken - happy pooch.

As much as I'd rather be doing something else tomorrow I need to take pictures of handwoven scarves - they won't sell if I don't list them. More administrivia..........