MIA

 It was time to take down my shamrock flag but too early to put out the bunny/tulip flag so this afternoon I whipped out a heart flag in support of those in Ukraine who are living in the most horrible of situations - my heart goes out to them. It's not even quilted - just a single layer of piecing. 

I've been MIA once again. Since my last post we practically packed up the entire house and stored it in the garage so the majority could be painted and then get new flooring. At the same time we updated the guest bath which we luckily got finished up before family visits the beginning of April. All we have left in the house to do is painting and new flooring in the master bedroom and bathroom - that will wait until we're up for another mess.......and we're not just updating our bathroom we're gutting it.

I'm hoping now that we've finished working on my cousin's house, which sold a few weeks ago after spending the better part of last year working on it........and now that we've gotten part of the work done here at our house that had been put on hold 2 years ago.........and are working on getting the garden beds ready, that there will be more time to be creative. I've been wondering how I ever wove, sewed, spun, dyed, or knitted all day because the past couple of years I was lucky to do anything creative and fun.  I think that light I'm starting to see at the end of the tunnel is no longer the train rushing toward me! 

Hopefully I'll be posting more in the future as I get more time to be creative. In the mean time I wish you all peace and send big hugs to those in Ukraine or who have already fled the country. 

Almost time to picnic...........

Last week in the middle of other things I finished sewing together the denim squares for our picnic blanket. It's a generous 76 x 76. Next up is to find a fun and very colorful backing fabric for it. It's so heavy that I won't be putting any batting in-between.  I'm pretty much set on tying it as machine quilting would be a challenge with the thick denim at the seams. I'm very pleased with it!  Soon we'll have to plan a picnic to try it out. As a reminder this is from a Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville Inn pattern - hers is for a throw size, I just added to it to make it bigger. 

Our back deck gets the hot sun until around 3pm so we splurged on a retractable awning. It was installed yesterday and we already love it. Now we can plan on eating breakfast and lunch out there sitting in the shade. 

Here's another view of it.  It does have a motor which is great but there is also a pole to do it by hand if the power happened to go out. There is a wind monitor so if the wind picks up and we don't notice it will automatically close it. (this pix was taken later in the afternoon so the deck was starting to get some natural shade on it by then)

 

This and that.............

When I saw green/blue polka dot towels in the May/June 2019 Handwoven magazine I knew I eventually had to use that draft to weave my own version of the towels.  I call mine tutti fruiti, they could also be called clown towels. These are a turned taquete weave structure.  The design by Susan Poague.

Here I used a navy weft

Dark wine is the weft here

This one, currently in progress, I'm using a green weft.  I haven't decided what other weft colors I'll use on this warp, will figure that out after I weave 2 green ones.

A weaving friend helped me make driftwood looms to teach the kids across the street how to weave. I had encourage them to use found items of all kinds along with wool yarn but they both chose to only weave with wool in solid stripes. Theirs are still sitting on my front porch along with the yarn waiting for them to finish them - short attention spans.  Tapestry style weaving is not my thing but it got me enthused to give it a try. The driftwood is held on a frame of scrap wood while I'm weaving.  Once I'm done I'll take the screws off and it will just have the driftwood at the top and bottom of the weaving. I'm using yarn, some commercial, some handspun, fabric strips, shells and since this picture I've started adding sealife buttons. Don't know if my driftwood is too big, guess I'll find out once it's done. There are no rules.  I'll hang it out in the yard when I'm done.

On the house front more work has been finished up.  We took out the arches between the living and dining rooms. That's hubby covering up furniture before taking a saw to the arches. We actually took them out and built new stud walls, they had been that way for several months but we didn't want the drywall guy in the house due to covid.  Notice how I keep saying 'we' - well, it's the collective 'we' as I only watched.

We threw caution to the wind and had the drywall guy come. We could have done the drywall ourselves but could have never matched the texture on the walls so we let him do it all. I must have wiped down the knobs and anything else he may have touched 10 times while he was here - hopefully he left no virus germs in our house. Like this look so much better.  Next up, at some point, we will be painting - white ceilings, light gray walls, white trim, all new baseboards throughout the house. Once all that is done we'll tackle the new flooring. Long term projects. Notice the new black tv stand in the after pic?  Our oak entertainment center was overwhelming for that wall so it now sits in the garage waiting for us to sell it, we got a new wood console, painted black, distressed. Much happier with it, the other one fit much better in our old house.

In spite of our governor being very conservative in loosening up covid restrictions too many in my area still refuse to wear masks even though they are mandatory they seem to think it violates their civil rights. So we have increases in cases, not as bad as other areas of the country but still scary.  I took my mother to two medical appointments this week and have been having anxiety attacks since wondering if I could have possibly been exposed while sitting in little exam rooms with questionable ventilation. I hate feeling this vulnerable and paranoid but that's life these days.

Be kind

"We don't have to agree on anything to be kind to one another"

This is the quote today on Bonnie Hunter's blog - Quiltville. I follow her quilting blog, she's a quilter, author and designer. There is a new quote each and every day - some of her own, some from others. It's always a wonderful way to start the day seeing the quote at the end of her daily post.  If interested in quilting check out her blog and website.  So today take this quote with you - be kind to everyone, we could sure use that in our country rather than being divided and being exposed to so much hate.

On another note our new deck is almost finished, just one more 3 ft section to go in near the steps, waiting on extra brackets for the railing. We knew when we moved in this house 2 years ago we had to replace all the deck railing as it was rotted and we knew we wanted to make it a bit bigger as it could only hold 2 chairs and the grill. What we found was that the entire deck structure was not built with pressure treated wood so it all had to go.

 Here's a look out the sliding glass door at the new deck. We chose a composite decking from Fiberon, no staining or oiling in the future. Sam worked really hard building it and is thankful for 2 friends that helped at certain points where he needed a second set of hands.

Here's a view from the yard.  Still not a big deck but it's the perfect size for us. We also went with a no care/upkeep railing which is from Timbertech. Since I took this picture the stair riser has been painted to match. Next up is to work on the walkway that goes across the back of the house leading to the deck. I need to get back to looking for ideas. We get the hot sun on it until early afternoon but then the entire rest of the day it's in the shade and we get a lovely breeze coming down off Dollar Mountain that starts a block or so away. We're giving thought to a retractable sun shade but not this year. 

We have another small deck to replace off the master bedroom but that will wait until next year. We will never use that tiny deck as it's so close to the neighbor's house and it gets the hot sun all day long being on the side of the house. But it is also rotted so needs to eventually be replaced.  But the rest of this year we have the walkway to work on, interior house painting (argh) and replacing the flooring inside. 

I hope everyone has a wonderful day and remember to be kind to one another.  And do something creative today! I will be. 

This and that......

I hope all had a safe and happy holiday.  Life has been challenging these days but I'll muddle through it, hopefully without totally losing my mind.

Once again photos taken using my phone have a mind of their own. I took the first picture with the phone held vertically but it turned anyhow, and even though I saved it on the computer and turned it the correct way and it shows that way on my computer screen once I uploaded it to blogger it turned again.  The second picture the phone was held horizontally. The two pictures below the phone held vertically, they turned out perfect when uploaded to blogger.  I don't understand it. I guess I'm going to just make sure I use the camera which I know will turn out correctly every time, before and after editing. Does anyone know why this happens with photos taken with a phone???

So, sorry that you have to turn your head to see this. Right before Christmas after I had finished all gifts I knit this cowl - it's called The Sampler Cowl and is by Heather Lynch. This was knit from my handspun which was spun from merino/tussah silk roving I had hand-dyed. I have enough yarn left for a pair of fingerless mitts which are on the needles and either a hat or headband.  This cowl pattern is free on Ravelry.

I saw this adorable fabric at Jordan's Quilts and had to buy it - this incredible fabric shop is just 5 minutes from the house!  I thought when I bought the fat quarter pack that I was only getting the prints but there was the big panels folded up along with them.  So I put the panel in the center, pieced the light colored prints for the first border and darker colored prints for the wider outer border.....and then piece 3 solids for the binding. This quilt is for Misty.  Sometimes I like to lay on the floor with her and she loves being under an afghan with me - so that's what this afghan quilt is for. It was quickly machine quilted, good thing you can't see it the details!

Here is a before picture of our gas fireplace at this house which we bought 1 1/2 years ago. We're slowly updating it room by room. Not only was this ugly with it's drywall mantel but it also put out zero heat.  And it was very scary to light the fireplace.

Here is our new and improved gas fireplace. Not only does it put out tons of heat but it will put out heat without the fan running, total radiant heat which is great if there's a power outage. It couldn't be easier to light with a little battery operated remote. After the new fireplace was installed we closed the wall back up with cement board and tiled it. Big black tiles on the hearth and small black tiles with white running through them on the wall which complements the kitchen granite. Then we hired the kitchen cabinet maker to make our mantel. That took a while as there were several measuring mistakes made but eventually it was installed (last week) and we love it.

The carpet is just cut in front of the hearth as it will all be coming out soon. We're still trying to decide what kind of flooring - laminate, real hardwood, whatever. Our past two houses had real hardwood floors that stood up to running dogs and one dog who drank water so it ended up all over the floor. So, we definitely need a floor here that will stand up to a crazy dog. While we research flooring we'll move on to the painting project - white ceilings, light gray walls and white trim and doors. It's an overwhelming job with the high ceilings what we may or may not do ourselves.

In-between house projects I hope to get more time to spend in the studio this year although the January calendar is already looking stinky.

Another project crossed off the list......

We've crossed another house remodel project off the very long to-do list. This room is actually kitchen dining nook but I've taken it over for my office, orchids and pottery......we have bar seating and a dining room, we don't need a third eating area. The before picture isn't the best since our old chair is right in the foreground, this pic was taken months ago...…...I didn't take it, I forgot to take a before picture so this is one Sam had taken early on.

See that drop tray ceiling?  It's a monstrosity. All the ceilings in the house are 11-12 foot except for here. What possessed the builder to put in that heavy drop ceiling???  We knew it had to come out.

Just a couple weeks ago Sam, a friend and my cousin took that drop ceiling out - it was built so well the house could have fallen down around it and it would have still been there. Here it is with new insulation before drywall and texturing. Unfortunately I didn't get an in process photo - plastic hanging down with around a foot of blown in insulation and drywall trash laying all around.

And here it is finished - it looks so much better. I have since put décor on the desk shelves, I decided it should be handmade baskets for the time being....not sure if that's what will stay. I even question if I want to keep the hutch on the desk or put art on the wall above the desk instead. I've also given thought to painting this furniture. No need to decide now.

Next project up - new gas fireplace and mantel. The old gas fireplace puts out 0 heat, zero, nada, nothing. This winter we'd love to swivel around in our recliners to read or knit (me) in front of a cozy fire.

Before and after.......

The kitchen remodel is almost finished.  I've got some before and after photos.....

BEFORE - Looking at the kitchen from the kitchen nook (computer nook). It's not evident in the photos but these cabinets were below builder grade quality, many of the drawers falling apart, shelves bowing and very short uppers. Countertops were granite tile - I hate grout in kitchens. The sink was scarred. We had already removed one light fixture - it was a sight to behold - a huge ornate dining room chandelier which we replaced with the fan - that light over the sink came down later. There's my sweet Bailey in this picture taken right before kitchen demo - brings tears to my eyes.

AFTER - Here's the after from the same angle.  The faucet isn't in yet as the epoxy or whatever it is needs to cure on the under mount sink - faucet, garbage disposal and dishwasher hookup be finished today by Sam. The new lighting over the sink is up. We kept all the same appliances as they are practically new. That horrible carpet will be going eventually - it's nasty.

BEFORE - Here's looking toward the fridge.

AFTER - So much better - the fridge now looks like it belongs. We haven't decided on a backsplash yet - I have a feeling it will take a while to figure that one out. I just know I want something relatively simple and not busy/fussy. Our new granite is mostly black with white running through it like a reverse marble - just a tiny bit of sparkle. What a pleasure to have knobs and drawer pulls - the old cabinets had none and were a pain to open.

BEFORE - Looking toward the sink.

AFTER: Now looking toward the sink - so much nicer. This house has high ceilings throughout except the kitchen nook where there's a dropped coffered ceiling - see it to the left in the photo. It's a monstrosity - it's horrible - it's going......it might be the next project, there's also the gas fireplace reno before next winter, it's very old and puts out no heat plus the mantle is weird made out of drywall - it's far in the background.

BEFORE - And here's the stove wall. So, why in the world didn't they extend those cabinets all the way to the top???  The builder was being cheap is my thought. And look at that cord coming from the back of the gas stove to plug it in. Why in the world wasn't there a plug behind the stove??? There is now.

AFTER - This picture is pretty dramatic. So much better........and no cord coming up from behind the stove. After we do all the other work involving drywall, the drop ceiling and fireplace, and walls will be painted a light gray, baseboards white. I hate painting anymore so not looking forward to that.

We generally do all reno work ourselves to save money but the kitchen was a place we had to rely on others like KA Designs for our locally made cabinets and Umpqua Stone for our granite. But Sam did do all the drywall repair work from where the old backsplash was removed and tore up the walls, he also did electrical and plumbing work and built up the floors to match the wood floor height underneath the cabinets as that wasn't done before which makes it impossible to remove/replace appliances. We'll do the backsplash ourselves once we have time to explore tile options and audition them.