Closer to the End

View from the Door
View from the Door

I know the whole project seems never-ending. Guess how it feels from here? It is getting better.

The painting is done. I have some furniture in the room, but am still waiting on the bookcases.

We (meaning DH) pulled up the carpet and the floor is in pretty good condition. We didn’t take the time to redo it, though I did clean it with Murphy’s Wood Oil soap. We really didn’t have the time to do a full scale floor update.

View from the windows
View from the windows

I am starting to put things back in the green bookcase, not that you can see that in the photo (left). I am forcing DH to go through his books before I reshelve them. I am not putting books back on the shelf that should be donated. He doesn’t have to give any of them away, I made that clear, but if he is going to read them, I have other uses for the shelves.

New power
New power

My sewing machine is going against the wall that used to have my new design wall, as mentioned. That is one of two walls with an outlet. I wanted to minimize the number of extension cords required as I kept tripping over them. The last thing I need is another broken foot or torn ligament. I took the opportunity of all of the furniture and stuff being out of the room to have the electrician expand the available to outlets to ‘fours’ from ‘twos’. One reason I had 200 extension cords in use was that there were a total of 4 outlets in the entire room. That was nowhere near enough. While 8 is better, it is still not enough, but an upgrade nonetheless.  We have outlets on only two walls and if we want outlets on all the walls, we have to rip out more of the walls than we want to and that is too big of a job for us now. The outlet covers are nice and fresh. You can see the difference between the phone jack and the new outlet.

New door handles
New door handles

Finally, I got new door handles as well. I don’t know that they are my dream door handles, but they are fresh and clean. I am really happy with them.

This weekend: bookcases, I hope.  The YM is coming for a flying visit and it would probably be nice if he could actually get into his room.

DH is talking about painting our bedroom now.

 

Nearing the End

Showing the White
Showing the White

What this post should have been named is “Nearing the End of the Life Sucking Beige”, but that is too long and it makes for ugly URLs.

The white is definitely dominating and only the baseboards need to be painted. The room really looks fresh. Today it was pretty foggy and the room didn’t look as depressing (which I try to ignore since it is my own space) as it has in the past.

Carpeting gone
Carpeting gone

DH also ripped up the carpeting, which I wanted. The floor is hardwood and in good shape except for one spot. I call that a win. The dirt we swept up from under the carpet was amazing. It looked like a sand drift. That blue is the old pad, which DH is using to keep the paint from hitting the floor.

The house stinks and I have had a headache for two days from the paint fumes. We have the windows open as much as they will open and there isn’t much else that I can do except stay away.DH isn’t allowing me in the room anyway since I may hit some surface that is still wet.

Wall of design wall
Wall of design wall

This is a picture of the wall where my new design wall was hung. The door is the door of the fabric closet. The furniture lumps in the center of the room are my work desk and my sewing table. They are the only two things we couldn’t get out of the room. They are too heavy for the two of us to carry.

I also bought new door handles. Ours were sort of functional, but I thought I would just go for broke and replace them with new fresh ones.

Yay! It’s looking good.

Beautiful White

White vs. Life Sucking Beige
White vs. Life Sucking Beige

The white looks beautiful.

The life sucking beige looks even worse than it did before. Who would choose that color?

I can’t wait until it’s all done.

I have the best husband ever.

My SIL#2 also helped paint. (I would have, but I have to work) Also, I don’t like painting.

Bathroom in use
Bathroom in use

Also, every room in our house is involved in this project except the kitchen. Yes, even the bathroom.

Shark-like Behaviour

I do not like prep.

I do not enjoy cutting fabric out.

I know I should, but I almost never put all of my ingredients out in little bowls, measured and perfect, before starting to cook.

I do not like the spackling and sanding part of painting.

I do not like waiting in traffic. I like moving forward.

I like to move forward: start and go. Usually, I do not start, because I know I need to do prep and I don’t like it. Quiltmaking is the exception.

Primer on the wall
Primer on the wall

My DH is good at preparation part of painting. Meticulous, in fact, which is good since he is preparing the walls for paint. And he is making good progress. Yesterday he put primer on the walls. The primer is white so I can start to see what my work room will look like. It looks so much more fresh and white. I am pretty excited to get rid of that life sucking beige.

Worse Before Better

YM's Room
YM’s Room

Our house is a disaster. 🙁

This is the best looking, most organized room in the house, the YM’s room. Our bedroom, actually, has not escaped the rehoming of stuff, but it has the least amount of stuff.

All of these boxes are fairly organized, though I couldn’t tell you exactly where any one thing is, but when I see the top of a box, I know what is in that box. If you want something in the bottom box, tough luck. The other thing is that we can’t really do anything. I have a small space to work (and occasionally write a blog post), we can watch TV and sleep, but that’s it. No sewing, no cutting, no EPP unless it is hand work that needs no prep, no extra fabric nothing else. I like to be able to sew whenever I want, so this is difficult.

My mantra is that it will be awesome when it is done.

Workroom is almost empty
Workroom is almost empty

One reason for all this disorganization is that there is almost nothing in my workroom.

My sewing table and my work desk are still in the room, only because they are too heavy and awkward for the two of us to move downstairs. The green bookcase you can see peeking out of the right of the photo is in our dining room now.

DH has scraped the walls and will spackle and buy paint tomorrow. The goal is to have the room done by the time he goes back to work next week.

I know it will get better, but right now it is horrible to live here.

Workroom Refresh Storage

Boxes in the YM's room
Boxes in the YM’s room

Boxes and boxes are filling up the YM’s room. There are a lot, because they are small and filled with books. I used all of our CSA boxes that we have not been able to return due to the pandemic. They turned out to be a good size for books. I ran out eventually and had to scrounge random amazon and other boxes. Eventually, my mom bought me some boxes from Home Depot and that was the last of what I needed.

The YM is coming for a visit in a week and I need to get all of these boxes out of his room

More of the Workroom Refresh

View west
View west

I spent last Saturday doing the final clear out of my workroom. It is kind of horrifying to do something like this. It shows how much stuff I have. I don’t feel bad about it, but I need to use it. I produce a lot, but I need to produce more. Now that I have a better idea of what I have, I can use more of it. I am also going to be more careful about what comes into my workroom going forward.

View south
View south

The other thing is the dust. There are places that are inaccessible so the dust bunnies are large.

The view in the photo, right, doesn’t look like much, but I moved a lot of random stuff out of that corner. I had organized everything I could, but it was still kind of a jumble of projects and other random stuff. There is still some project boxes and my thread box there, but the corner next to my design wall is a lot more clear.

View east
View east

I am getting rid of some ugly pieces of furniture. That brown bookcase in the corner is out of the room as I write this and will be leaving my house soon. It is too short and too ugly for the future. I hope to bring in some fresh white bookcases. I haven’t picked them out yet, but I will.

Boxes of fabric
Boxes of fabric

Clearing out the last bits from my workroom is a big drag. It has to be done, but is a big drag. It’s like moving. Stuff that has always been in a  spot has to be moved. A lot of it has to be wrapped up, you need boxes. Bleah. It’s just a lot of work. I keep thinking of the end result.

I had a pile of just pressed fabric and a pile of fabric waiting to be pressed. I decided to put them all in boxes. It was a good opportunity to check out some fabrics I hadn’t seen in awhile. I picked out another group of fabrics for a different quilt. Stay tuned for that post.

The removal of everything gives me two opportunities to go through my stuff. I am donating a lot of books. I also threw out a bunch of stuff I didn’t need to keep around. I hope to go for another round when I put everything back.

 

Refreshed Inspiration Board

Some time ago I made an inspiration board. At the time I liked it, but for the last several months it has been getting on my nerves. I need a cleaner look throughout my workroom.

The other day I got out some tools and the fabric I bought on the trip and went to work. I redid my inspiration board as one piece of the effort of redecorating my workroom.

Refreshed Inspiration Board
Refreshed Inspiration Board

It has a much cleaner look and is much less exuberant. I’d like to get a frame, paint it white and hang the inspiration board in that. I’ll have to go look at thrift stores and that is one of my least favorite activities.

Inspiration Board with Buttons
Inspiration Board with Buttons

My old inspiration board was blue with dots.

Inspiration Board tools
Inspiration Board tools

I reused some of the ribbon, because it was nice. I saved all the buttons as there was nothing wrong with them. Also, some of them are special.

Workroom Refresh Gets Real

A few months ago I started clearing off the bookshelves in my workroom/office/yoga studio in anticipation of painting, buying a little new furniture and giving the room a basic refresh.

I worked on this project in a desultory manner, but the project just got real. DH said he wanted to paint the room instead of me hiring someone and he took time off work next month to do it. I spent time last weekend clearing off more shelves and putting my workroom stuff in boxes.

Books and other Workroom stuff
Books and other Workroom stuff

The YM’s room is looking pretty full at the moment. Good thing he doesn’t need to sleep there as more stuff needs to be stored there. I am out of the boxes I have been using boxes that stack up nicely together and need to find others.

Gazebo Finished

Journey 2 Nebula icon
Journey 2 Nebula icon

So, the Journey 2 Nebula is finished. I finished all the projects which were part of the ‘Journey’ and the rulers have been returned to Amy. I am not making the Nebula quilt. If you like hexagons, you should try it. It is an interesting design. I am happy with the small projects I made during this Journey 2 Nebula and am moving on to other designs.

Gazebo Finished
Gazebo Finished

Gazebo, as I mentioned, is the one project about which I was really excited. I did all the projects in order and waited patiently to get to this one.

This project, like all the others, was pretty easy. I was able to start and finish it in less than a day. This is an example of the excellent directions provided by the pattern.

 

 

 

 

 

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Gazebo Starts

Journey 2 Nebula icon
Journey 2 Nebula icon

Last week I decided to finish the last project.

The last Journey 2 Nebula project (except for the bonus project, which I am not doing) is Gazebo. I sort of did the whole project in order to do this one for myself. By the time I finished Candy Dish, I was kind of sick of the whole thing. All of the projects were well received by their recipients, was a relief. I don’t know what my problem was. I enjoyed it until December-ish.

I think life ended up overwhelming me. Big surprise since it was December!

Gazebo Progress
Gazebo Progress

However, I like this design, so I decided just to cut it out and do it. I started after lunch one day. I was able to get the whole thing cut out and pieced by the end of the day. I was also able to make the back and start quilting it.

I worked hard on the fabrics. Since this was for me, I really thought about the look I wanted and am pleased with my choices.

Rock Candy Cut

Journey 2 Nebula icon
Journey 2 Nebula icon

I spent some of the very little time I had to sew this week cutting out Rock Candy, the next Journey2Nebula project. It is table mat made with diamonds.

This will be a matching piece to the Seaside table runner.

So far, I am ok with the fabrics I chose. I am not 100% sold on the layout, but I am ok with it. I have seen some in the Facebook group that I really don’t like. I don’t sincerely dislike mine, so I can live with it. We’ll have to see.

Rock Candy - Pieces cut out
Rock Candy – Pieces cut out

I wasn’t very excited about using the rulers for this project. This project requires the Sidekick or Super Sidekick. The directions said to turn the ruler over and cut from the wrong side at certain points. There are no lines on the wrong side and I worry about the distortion. It seemed to work ok.

I also didn’t like the large size of the Super Sidekick for the small-ish diamonds. Amy didn’t have the Sidekick, as I may have mentioned, and I didn’t want to buy it so I had to suck it up. I did try the Creative Grids Lazy Angle ruler she included. I tried it as it is smaller and fits my hand better. Unfortunately, I couldn’t figure out how to use it for cutting these diamonds with the Jaybird pattern. It is configured a little differently and its use wasn’t intuitive. C’est la vie.

According to the schedule, I don’t have to start sewing until Tuesday, but I may sew it together any way. We’ll see.

 

 

 

 

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Red Text Table Runner Finished

Journey 2 Nebula icon
Journey 2 Nebula icon
Red Text Table Runner
Red Text Table Runner

The Red Text table runner is finished. I finished sewing on the binding on Monday during Craft Night. I had already machine sewed and the hand stitching went surprisingly fast.

As I mentioned, I machine quilted it over last weekend. I am pleased, even after several days of looking at it, about how it came out. I am also really pleased that it is done since the new project came out on Tuesday, the Lucky Charm pillow.

Red Text Table Runner quilting detail
Red Text Table Runner quilting detail

I am more than a little thrilled that I finished the two table runners in time for the new project.

Red Text Table Runner Quilted

Journey 2 Nebula icon
Journey 2 Nebula icon

I really don’t want these Journey2Nebula projects hanging around clogging up my UFO list. Since the next project started yesterday, I sat down on Sunday an did some simple quilting on the Red Text table runner. It will be for my buffet (if I didn’t mention that before) and I would like to get it done so I can use it for a little while before I need to set up the decor for Thanksgiving.

Red Text Table Runner - quilted
Red Text Table Runner – quilted

I quilted most of it while talking on the phone to the YM. I used the Rotary Even foot rather than my usual clear applique foot. I wasn’t happy with it for other uses, but thought it worked pretty well for quilting straight lines. I definitely didn’t have to worry about the layers shifting. I also liked it because it was quiet. Unlike the walking foot, this foot didn’t clang and make a ton of noise while I was sewing.

I don’t like quilting that much, but it was a good task to do to stay off my foot.

I also made the binding, but it was a little too big, so I need to adjust it then hand stitch the binding to the back of the table runner. I am excited to have it finished!