What I've been up to lately

I spent the early part of last week reorganizing all of my fabric and notions (that was no small feat!) I purged, then sorted and refolded every piece of fabric I own.  I came across a piece of fabric that was just the right size for a roman blind for the downstairs bedroom.  I made it using the guts from a commercial mini blind.  There are many tutorials out there, but I found this one quite helpful.

This old dresser has been used in many places over the years.  I believe it was in Nolan's room when he was a baby.  It was in our baby's room and now it houses my thread and pantos.  Nolan helped me add a removable ironing surface to the top.  Birch plywood, batting and 1/2m of fabric leftover from a kit somewhere along the way.  I am really enjoying this latest recycling project.  

  I also completed the last block in the Curve it Up Quilt Along - the Dresden Plate.

Here is the first block in the the Bullas Bears Block of the Month Quilt. It is called "Joy Bearer". There is a little more embellishing that will happen after quilting.  Snowflake buttons and some shading on the bear's cheeks and muzzle.  This pattern is found in the Quilt Pattern Magazine.  It is designed by Nan Baker, and is based on the artwork of Will Bullas.

And the basement... we have decided to hold off on the flooring in the studio until the rest of the basement is ready for flooring.  This weekend consisted of some paneling removal.  Remove the paneling and what do we find?  The chimney clean out for the living room fireplace!  Even though we don't have intentions of using the wood burning fireplace, I think we will leave it accessible!

And the framing and drywalling of the bulk head.

 

I was enlisted to assist with the drywall.  (I do help occasionally.)

 Apparently I seemed a little weak and shaky, so for the second sheet I was replaced....

My job became just getting the T into place.

  All in all, not a bad week!

Weekend Progress

Here is the latest in the Curve It Up series of blocks - fans. When I first read through the instructions I was a little worried that this one might be difficult, but it went together quite easily.  

We had a great weekend.  More forward progress in the basement and a nice evening out at a local fundraising gala with some friends.  We started with the flooring in the bedroom.  Turns out that the best thing to cut the underlay was a rotary cutter!

This was where we had to leave things Saturday so we had time to get ready for the party.  Close, but not quite!

And here is the bedroom tonight.  Baseboard up and ready for furniture.

And we solved one more issue.  See the eyesore of an electrical panel that lives in my studio?  How about this old bulletin board that was just a little too good to make it from the office to the dump?

 Give it a little tweak and add some snow dyed fabric that was lying around and this is the result.  I am thrilled with my new art/bulletin board/door combo!

A Productive Weekend

Progress was definitely made in my studio this weekend. What a difference a ceiling makes!

Tidying up the wiring and removing the old strapping with the cute help.

Up goes the new grid.

 In go the new lights. (Sure glad I got the optional casters on the longarm!)

 And finally some tiles.

While all this activity was going on downstairs  I was upstairs making some headway on the mystery quilt project that Kathy are teaching at our respective guilds.  My guild meets on the first Thursday of the month so they get the instructions first and Kathy's meet the third Tuesday of the month so they have to wait a little longer.  Normally when I am doing a mystery I like to be a month ahead of what I was teaching. I was way  behind but not anymore!

The 256 HST from January...  apparently some of the ladies around here were using my name a little more colorfully than normal as they were trimming these!  (It was a little scary handing out the February instructions after I found that out!)

No picture of February as I wouldn't want to ruin the surprise for the Flin Flon crew, but how about a sneak peak at what everyone has to look forward to in March...

Sandra's Stars

I always love working on Sandra's quilts because she has a much more modern taste in fabric than I do.  I love this quilt, but can honestly say I would never have carried these fabrics out of the store.

Sandra made this quilt as part of a Mystery when we both lived in Flin Flon.  She chose the Popcorn panto, King Tut thread on top and So Fine! in the bottom along with the Dream Puff batting.

When you combine the puff batting with this wonderful flannel backing fabric you end up with one cuddly quilt!  I think it really could stay in my living room!

This may be the last thing coming off my longarm for a while. Renovations in my studio have begun.  Since we moved into this house 16 months ago we have tackled many projects.  (Thankfully I am married to a wonderfully handy guy and he has done it all himself, with a little help from me here and there.)  We have built a shed, removed a hot tub (it had 4 whole jets), gutted  the kitchen, two bathrooms and laundry room, replaced the exterior doors and countless other more minor projects.  Needless to say my studio wasn't really high on the list.  As part of my Christmas present my hubby has promised that I will have a proper studio before the end of the year.  Here are some before pictures of the guest "bedroom" and studio.  My shelves have been creating a bit of a wall, but it was sorely lacking one thing - a door.  Thankfully all our house guests have been most understanding over the past year.  It certainly is anything special, but I am thankful for the square footage to call my own!

Nolan took Friday off and we cleared almost everything out of the studio and bedroom.  Good bye nasty carpet!  He made great progress over the weekend with the framing, electrical and drywall. We are now at the mudding of the drywall stage.  I am happy to leave my longarm covered up for this phase!  I will be happy when we get to priming the walls and containing the dust.  My stress right now is trying to decide on a paint color to paint of the paneling and new drywall.  I hate this part!  I'll keep you posted on  the progress.