The Tale of the Never Ending Quilt

One day, a long time ago, I was wandering through my local quilt shop. It was just after Christmas and all of their holiday fabric and patterns were on sale. I casually looked through their merchandise and then I saw it! The quilt I'd seen made before and thought how lovely it was. It was on sale for 60% off! Of course I had to buy it! And I put it in my pattern box, never to be remembered again, until one day in July. I was talking to my grandma and told her that I had this quilt I wanted to sew, it was sort of intimidating to me though and I wasn't sure that I was brave enough to take it on. One of us suggested that we sew it together! We could get together once a week and work on cutting out our blocks and piecing them. Serve as motivation for each other, to help make sure it got finished. We picked out the fabric, and got all the stars sewn. Then came the embroidery. I did a couple of panels and in the same time my grandmother decided she didn't want to embroider, but would rather use a fabric pen and draw the panels. Hers was finished quickly, mine was not. I slowly lost the motivation to finish my quilt and it ended up in The Pile. The Pile Where Projects Go to Die is actually the official term for it. This was in 2011. Then, one day in 2013, I was one million months pregnant and nesting fiercely. I stumbled upon my long forgotten Christmas quilt and during the long winter nights, while my husband was working, I slowly finished the last embroidery panel for my quilt.

Please note my pregnant tummy

 I got all the panel pieces put together and trimmed and threw myself a little party! I attached the star boarder and returned the quilt to The Pile. I didn't have money to send her to a quilter and in my millionth month of pregnancy, already didn't have the energy to quilt it at home.

Well. I was talking with my mom and she asked me if I would like to have my beautiful quilt finished off for my birthday! Of course the answer was yes!!! So I retrieved that quilt once again from The Pile, ironed her out and started searching for a backing. I settled on the red floral print from Bonnie and Camille's newest line Hello Darling and I am over the moon excited to see how it turns out! It is currently at the quilter now and I'm very impatiently waiting for her notice to come and pick it up!

So, in the meantime. Here is a shot of my lovely Winter Wonderland quilt (pattern from Crabapple Hill) just the other day before I sent her off to be finished. I love all that this quilt means to me now. Precious time spent with my grandma putting it together, and embroidering the panels while my baby girl was still a part of me. And isn't that what quilting is all about? Preserving memories and bringing happiness? I certainly think so!

I'm linking up!

WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced

http://www.estheraliu.blogspot.com/2015/09/wow-omas-blues-quilting-ideas.html

Bee Social

My Quilt Infatuation

Cute Tuesday

Fabric Tuesday
Pet Project

This year I...

Hold on to your hats folks, I'm back for another post!

It shouldn't surprise you to hear that it will be about my list of things-to-do for this next year. I like calling it a "to-do" list more than I like calling them goals. Crazy? Maybe but thats fine with me.

So, like last year, I just wrote up my list on a kitchen note pad and stuck it on my memo board.

Here it is!

• Learn to use the table saw
• line the kitchen cabinets
• finish snowman quilt
• line bathroom cabinets
• intall laundry nook outlet
• Make a perfect batch of rolls
• finish kitchen
• finish kitchen baseboards
• finish knitting socks
• finish baby girl quilt
• make baby room curtains
• paint pantry
• do something about master bed lights
• lose all baby weight
• pay off car 
• pay off furnace
• stay debt free!!

Okay. So they aren't terribly exciting goals, I know. But here's the thing. They are all things that I want to do, or learn or accomplish. So worthy, right? The first couple things on the list are roll-overs from last year, so theres that. I bought a knitting book about knitting socks and I taught myself how to knit. Now I just need to finish the socks right? So far, they are pretty bad looking but its okay! Its my first project. Also, I have yet to bake a batch of yeast bread that turned out. So this year I'd like to make that happen. Anyway, my ambitions all in a list. Woo-hoo! I'm looking forward to this year, even though we have welcomed it in with terrible colds all around. I mean, all three of us super sick and congested. Its been awesome. I have coughed so hard I thought I would send myself into labor. Its horrible. But aside from that, we have fun things to look forward to! New baby, fun adventures and good times to be had. 

Here's to the New Year!!!

Oh hey.

Hey

I guess I should dust off thee ol' blog and write something yeah?

So what have I been up to? Just the same old same. Taking care of a boy, and his dad and growing another human. The regular stuff.

I've been really trying to get my craft room cleaned out and ready for its new occupant. This has been about the third round of cleaning out and throwing away and bagging for the DI. Seriously. I feel like a such a hoarder when I think about all the junk that I managed to pull out of that room. But I did have a yardsale and sell a lot of what was in there online so that made me feel better.

Believe me when I tell you that getting this room to the point that I could even vacuum the floor was a MAJOR undertaking. And I'm really quite proud that I made it to this point. I had one minor melt down while cleaning and luckily Darrell was able to pull me out of it and keep it going. So pretty much we just need to find a home for some of the stuff on the counter top and then we need to cut up the countertop so we can get it out and thrown away. That thing is HEAVY. Really really heavy.

So there's that. Also, I got in a car accident a couple weeks ago. It was awesome. Seriously. I mean, it wasn't my fault so hopefully the insurance gets that worked out in our favor. As much as I really want to pay that $500 deductible, I'd rather I didn't have to.

That's the other guy's car. Totally dented in his door and scratched him up good. I know, it looks like it would be my fault but it wasn't. He turned out in front of me, thinking he was at a four way stop (which he wasn't) and I nailed him. Luckily, Liam wasn't with me and we were in a residential zone so I don't even think either of us were going more than 20 MPH and he was driving away from me when I hit him. Blech. I'd rather not go through that again.

So I guess I'll wrap this one up by showing you one of my latest crafty projects. (I'm trying to finish them and I'm making pretty good progress!)

I decided that I would recover Liams old infant carseat. It would have been fine as it was but the supplies only cost... $10 dollars? Maybe sooooo I went for it. Here's what it looked like before:

And here is what it looked like after:

Cute right?! It wasn't complicated, just time consuming and a little frustrating right at the end. Basically, you rip all the pieces apart (at the seams, not actually ripping anything but the stitching..) and use it as a template and then piece it back together the same way it came apart. If you want to try it, take LOTS of pictures of everything so that you can remember how it was before it came apart. I'm pretty happy with. I think it'll suit little girl juuuuust fine. 

Lets talk.

Hey. How are you? I haven't talked to you in a while. Sorry about it. Sometimes I just hit a dry spell and I really don't have much to say. Also, sometimes I feel like life gets a bit monotonous, boring and very repetitive.

But things are good. You know, can't complain. Everyone is healthy, and happy and we are gainfully employed and have had no critical emergencies. So yes.  I guess sometimes its just hard to feel fulfilled you know? Motherhood, its rough. I've read a couple of articles and blog posts that articulate my feelings much more accurately than I ever can, but its rough. Somedays how I WISH I could just go to work, do my time, clock out and go home and be done with my job. Get a paycheck, leave work at work...

I mean. Really. *sigh*

I'm starting to sound depressed and pathetic aren't I? I'm neither depressed nor am I pathetic (at least I say I'm not) so don't worry.

So what have I been doing you ask? Well. I've been playing with my cute boy and slowly working up the energy to clean out what used to be my sewing room and convert it into a bedroom. I've sold or got rid of piles and piles of clothes, furniture, random home decor and fabric. Oh the fabric. Its disgusting. I have so much *hoarder* and its like no matter how much I use or sell or throw away, I have more than I know what to do with. In fact, I found a pile of minky fabric laying around and I had enough to make not one, not two but THREE receiving blankets using said minky and other fabric from my stash (some of which I didn't even know I had) for baby purple. Ridiculous.

I've also been working on finishing projects. You know, cause I have a serious problem with that. So, I FINALLY painted the baseboards in my hallway (10 months later) and I got down to some nitty gritty finishing in my kitchen. It is seriously SO close to being done. I think we only need about two more pieces of trim and a couple coats of paint and we can check that sucker off the list.

I have projects I want to complete piling up in my mind so here's a little brain dump of what I want to get done:

• install outlets in the laundry closet turned sewing nook so I can, you know, sew in there.
• get carpet secured in the hallway and install transitions
• paint (?) or whitewash (?) the fireplace and trim it out so its lovely (anyone have experience with this?)
• remove the built in cabinet in the former sewing room and patch the wall if necessary for baby
• buy Liam a mattress for his big boy bed and transfer crib to baby purple's room
• paint the ceiling in the first bathroom
• paint the outside trim so our house doesn't look so shabby
• paint the garage door
• contain rock pile in the back yard and make a raised flower bed.
• install closet organizer in our closet so its a more functional space.
• new windows erywhere
• new gutters
• paint the master bedroom

I'm sure there are LOTS more things I want to do, and this list doesn't even start to cover the basement projects downstairs (lets just say there are drop down ceilings that have got to go and a fully wood paneled bathroom the looks like it belongs in a cabin somewhere). Obviously, some of those projects will have to wait a while so we can have money, and others need to wait until next spring. Some will clearly be getting done faster (hello, baby is coming in february) than others. So I guess we'll just see where we get. I know windows are quite a ways off considering we had to buy a new furnace before winter so that took up our big money spend for the year. But I'm totally not complaining about that, I mean as much fun as it was to wake up to a house that was 55 degrees because the furnace wasn't working, I much prefer my house to be in the 70's when we wake up. So much nicer. So, so nice. 

Also, we are still working on paying off our debt and even though it will take us longer than we were hoping to pay off our car, it will be paid off at least a year ahead of schedule so virtual bum pat for us there. We have shifter our focus from paying off the debts we have (while maintaing our zero balance on credit cards) to saving as much as we can so we don't have emergencies pop up that we have no savings to cover. It really makes things much less stressful knowing we have that cushion.

And we've jumped back on the dieting state of being. I know, I know I'm pregnant. But look. I gained 40 pounds with Liam. 40. Want to know how much of that I lost? 20. rocking. And then I gained a little on top of that. Which was depressing. So, I've pretty much been trying SO hard to gain as little weight as possible this pregnancy. It hard, and it would be so much easier to just give in to my wants and make a whole pan of brownies and just eat it. But I would be stuck trying to lose that weight until the next time I get pregnant so no thank you. I'm almost 24 weeks and have gained under 10 pounds still. I really really don't want to gain more than 10. I won't cry over it if I do, but 10 sounds pretty ideal. Also, husband would like to lose weight so we're in this together. Being healthy and stuff. 

Anyway, there you have a look into my scrambled thoughts. 

Until next time

clean out yer garage.

I really wish I had a clean, immaculately organized, lovely garage. I would love it. You know,

source

source

source

Just lovely. Alas. We actually use our garage regularly and so it doesn't stay organized. But occasionally we get the bug, and sweep it out and get it all "cleaned" up, more or less.

Well today we started vacuuming up the sawdust from ripping down some paneling to finish our kitchen, and Darrell pulled out a project I started working on many, many months ago. Maybe you remember it? I mentioned it here. And here is a little picture to refresh your memory

Yeah, it was over a year ago that I bought it.  And I got it mostly done. And then I had to finish the canopy. And I just... didn't. I don't know why. Well, a month or so ago I finally got around to sewing the canopy, and I guess it was probably a good thing I waited. I was able to finish it differently than I was originally planning and it was so much easier than it would have been! 

Anyway, back to today. Darrell pulled the stroller out of the corner of the garage and I pulled out the canopy and put it all together and it looks so good! Check it out!

Cute right?! I really like how it turned out. I was going to spray paint the frame black, but I don't think I will anymore. Not too long after I bought it, our neighbors had a yard sale and were selling a really really nice double jogger stroller so we picked that one up and I'm planning on selling this one. I think someone should like it! Hopefully I can get it sold quickly, we only have FIVE strollers in our garage right now *coughhoardercough* 

So, check it off the list man, this project is done!

I'm linking up!

http://www.savvysouthernstyle.net

http://www.gingersnapcrafts.com/
http://linda-coastalcharm.blogspot.com/
http://romanceonadime.com/
http://ladybug-blessings.com/

an announcement and other things

so i have something to announce. what an official way to start a post right?

i'm pregnant!

Hooray! we are really excited about it! i'll be 17 weeks tomorrow so that puts me due "they" say on Feb. 3rd. i'm really thinking its about a week later than that. cause, really, what do "they" know anyway, amiright?

i think announcing you're pregnant is awkward. is it just me? its like "hey, i got knocked up!" but not really cause we are married and wanted a kid... but still. ugh.

i'm feeling pretty good for the most part, it seems the really dreadful parts of being pregnant are fading. slowly, but surely. i can walk into the kitchen without gagging so that really is a plus. and i'm not so tired that i feel like dying all the time. thats nice too. goodness though, i didn't think it was possible to look as pregnant as i do as early as it happened. i mean, i guess thats normal right? but still, so annoying. especially since we were trying to keep it on the down low until i was into my second trimester. liam was obviously paying attention to what i was saying though, he woke up one morning and told darrell "don't touch my boobs, they hurt" which i must have said regularly for a couple of weeks, even a hug, yikes it hurt.

anyway, hooray, baby! we'll probably find out what i'm having in 3 weeks or so, at my 20 week ultrasound. and, we are hoping for a human baby. boy or girl it doesn't matter, as long as it comes out human.

so...

in other news, we had a mini flood the other day. we got a call (which i didn't hear) from our renter and were then woken up by the doorbell being rang repeatedly at about 8 in the morning to hear that water had come gushing into the basement and there was a lot of water on the carpet and she finally found the shut off and the water had stopped. awesome right? so we trekked downstairs and found quite a bit of water and bulging paint on the walls and the panel covering the water shut off valves pulled off the wall. apparently the water came pouring out after the sprinklers shut off. i started sucking up water and darrell went out and started digging out by the sprinkler box to see if the problem was coming from outside. it wasn't. so what does that mean? inside the wall. what does that mean? cutting into drywall which then means drywall repair which is quite possibly my LEAST favorite thing to have to do EVER. so darrell started cutting and cutting and finally found the problem. an elbow had pretty much snapped in half so water was pouring out of a 3/4 inch pipe straight into our basement for almost 10 minutes. that is a lot of water. we ended up having to pull up the carpet around the edge of the room so we could suck water out of the pad. hopefully tomorrow a carpet guy will come and stretch the carpet and tack it back into place. ahhhhhh the joys of owning a house :) (i wouldn't trade if for anything!)

Jealous?

There is a bright side to this story. so we actually only just turned our sprinklers on with the timer for the first time last week. they are set to run every monday, wednesday, friday and saturday i believe. we went out of town on wednesday and our renter left on thursday. we got back on sunday and our renter got back on monday. we didn't even go down the stairs until quite late sunday night. can you even imagine how horrifying it would have been if that pipe had broken on friday after the sprinklers ran and water just poured into our basement for a day and a half solid??? awful, awful, awful. so i mean, if it was going to happen, i guess i'm glad it happened when it did. 

also, i've been working on doing my bathroom (yes again) and this time i think i love it. i even pulled down the old mirror and awful medicine cabinet that were probably original to the house. the paint color is fantastic, the wall treatment lovely. all in all its great. and almost done. just a couple more paychecks and i can put the finishing touches on it. (stay out of debt right? even if the final touches only involve a $30 can of paint. it can wait until next payday so i don't have to use the credit card.) 

also, i've been trying really hard to finish projects. so. i finished sewing the pillows closed that i started ages ago. and i just have to put binding on a wall hanging that i started last christmas and it will be done too! so i guess not much has been finished but at least those two things have!

anyway, that was long and kind of all over the place but thats how life is sometimes right?

until next time!

unfinished.

So i like to do a good project.

And I like to do it until its just enough done that i can live with it.

Bad.

Case in point(s):


I made new pillow cases for my couch pillows, still need to sew those suckers shut (2 months)
Kitchen cabinet project, finishing touches, trim and paneling almost done. Also, still no knobs installed. (5 months)
Baseboards in the hall need to be painted (8 months)


But.

Today I got a little something done!

About a month (maybe two??) ago I stopped at the DI (thrift store) right when it opened. I've noticed thats when all the good stuff is there. I was walking through the yard area when this little piece of white, rusty metal goodness caught my eye. Super cute (or it could be) and only $10 bucks! Oh yes, it came home with me and I very promptly, that day, primed and started spray painting it. The thing about spray paint is that if you run out of paint before you are done you have to either hustle to the store and get another can and get back before your "recoat within one hour" is over or you have to wait "or after 48 hours." Guess which happened to me? Yup. So it was good enough and came to live in my kitchen. I even managed to pick up another can of paint and still it sat. In all its splotchy goodness.

No more! I finished that sucker!

Dont mind that I don't have baseboards on that wall, its a work in progress, and honestly, that scraped up wall looks about a million times better than the disgusting plastic baseboards that used to be there. 

yeah, plastic. 

Oh and in the time it took me to get my big girl pants on and finish this little task, I somehow found the motivation to paint my kitchen blue. I could paint a ceiling and three walls but I couldn't manage to bust out a simple drop cloth and a can of spray paint? 

I must have a mental condition.

I'm Linking Up:

http://chasethestar.net

www.chef-in-training.com

How to paint your cabinets: Part 2

So last I left off I had filled all the cabinet doors and drawers (and a few spot on the frames) and was getting ready to sand.

Sanding.

What a joy.

Not really. Safety first. That dust could kill ya. I actually don't know if thats true but it will give you a mad case of the sneezes if you're not careful.

Also, please not that when doing any sort of home project it is NOT acceptable to wash or fix your hair. Putting in contacts is totally optional.

Moving on.

I sanded those doors and drawers. Busted it out. It was Aw.Ful. Not fun. My whole arm was vibrating for like a day and I think my hips got a good work out. Also, sanding on the ground might have contributed to all those problems.

 Also, you must wear your grossest, worn out shoes when you do home projects.

So once the doors were sanded, I used some liquid deglosser/sander to wipe down the fronts and backs to get rid of any left over shine and/or grease and oil that might have been on them. I also used it to wipe down the edges of all the doors. Mine are slightly curved so I couldn't get to them with a sander. This just roughed them up a bit and helped clean them. And it made me feel better about not sanding them and that is the most important part.

Then I took on the super fun task of sanding down the cabinet frames and the lazy susans. I couldn't for the life of my figure out if it was even possible to take those darn doors off so I just left them on and sanded them along with everything else. It worked like a peach. Sanding the cabinet frames was only a little bit more awful than I was anticipating. I unloaded all the cabinets (which I might not have reloaded quite yet) and covered up the things I didn't want to get super duper dusty and went for it. It was gross. And the worst part was that our water was still shut off because we hadn't finished installing our dishwasher and so it was pretty hard to get everything cleaned up. And lets face it, the dishwasher has been hooked up and the water running for almost two days and I still haven't quite gotten all the dust wiped up. There's just that much of it. Anyway, it was about at this point:

that I really started to wonder what I'd gotten myself into. I mean, what if they turn out awful? What if they just look bad, or they don't hold up? I was talking to husband about it and he said "well the worst that can happen is that they turn out bad, but at least it will be something new to look at!" Stud. Right there. It seriously can't look worse than they were looking.

I've actually gotten farther along in this project and... I'm not going to give it away but I don't think I need to worry about it looking as bad as it did before ;)

I'm pretty excited about how its turning out!



I'm linking up to these fun parties:
http://www.savvysouthernstyle.net
http://www.gingersnapcrafts.com/
http://linda-coastalcharm.blogspot.com/
http://romanceonadime.com/
http://lilluna.com
http://adiamondinthestuff.blogspot.com/
http://www.theshabbycreekcottage.com
http://ladybug-blessings.com/

http://www.allthingswithpurpose.com
http://www.houseofhepworths.com
http://www.firefliesandjellybeans.com
http://chasethestar.net

http://tatertotsandjello.com

It is finished.

Remember when I talked about this quilt a couple of years ago? I am happy to say yesterday I finished it! I finally got the binding done. There is just something wonderful about binding a quilt... so relaxing, I love it.

This quilt is hodgepodge of different projects I have done. A little (or HUGE) diary of the many sewing endeavors I have embarked on. Different quilts, clothes and even the left over binding of another quilt. It is completely recycled, even the back is an old sheet we weren't using anymore.

I measures in at a whopping 90" x 102" . It is huge.

Now on to the next project!