A side project.......................

I decided to wash my bathroom curtains yesterday and when trying to slide them off the tension rod, they tore all the way down the side, sun rot.  I checked back on my blog and those curtains were made 10 1/2 years ago.  They were so faded they didn't look anything like when they were new.

Here is a close up of the new fabric.  I bought it several years ago on sale.  It is an Alex Anderson design for P&B fabrics.  It is so much heavier weight than most new fabrics are.  It only took about 2 hours out of my day to make the curtains.

I hung the top half of the Marcia Derse 16 patch quilt on my design wall (color is not true).  I was going to start working on the bottom half but decided to continue hand stitching the binding on another quilt instead.  I'm almost done with it.

Testing the panel blocks.......................

I cut squares from the Marcia Derse panel fabric and tried them with the MD 16 patch blocks.  Some areas are light and some darker so every square looks different.  I have 100 sixteen patch blocks  made and need 120 so I could use 20 squares cut from the panel.  It really isn't a panel even though they call it that.  The stores are just cutting at the repeat of the design.

I continued hand stitching the binding while a plumber was here for 3 hours yesterday.

The plumber tried to clear the plugged bathroom sink drain but he couldn't get through.  He ended up cutting the black pipe that was installed when the house was built in 1953 and replacing the line from both the sink and the tub (which was also having problems).  The white PVC pipe is the new line, on the left coming from the tub and the right coming from the sink and joining before they feed into the main stack.  I covered everything in the area with plastic drop cloths so I wouldn't get metal shavings from the pipe cutting on anything.  Last night I was vacuuming the area and moving tables back in place.  I have lots of pipes running across the ceiling of the basement.  I have hot water heat so there are those pipes, plus the natural gas pipe.  The top of my design wall leans against pipes (see this at the left in the photo).

Binding more................

My binding choice is looking good on the Crooked Cobblestones wall hanging.  I finished the long side and also finished one short side and turned the corner onto the next long side.

While my daughter and granddaughter were visiting we went over to the next town to the furniture store and sat in many recliners to choose one that fits me perfectly.  My old recliner was at least 31 years old and just not comfortable anymore.  The furniture store is family owned since 1886 and they offer free delivery and free removal of the furniture you are replacing.

We finally got some rain, all day yesterday and into the night and there was still only a little less than 1/2" in the rain gauge.  Towns only 20 miles away got over 2" with some getting 3".  I'm hoping when I check it this morning that it will be over 1/2".  

A little yellow added................

There are 4 pale yellows added to the mix now, left and middle on the top row and middle and right on the bottom row.  I did some pairing and counting last night.

Here is the batch I sewed last night.  Maybe one more night of sewing and then I can start playing with the layout.

Yesterday morning early I did some grocery shopping and then I became the repair person.  This handle on the freezer compartment of my refrigerator has come off 5 or 6 times in the last 18 years.  The first time the guy who sold it to me fixed it at no charge.  Due to health reasons that store closed and when the handle fell off the second time I had to call an appliance repair guy.  Minimum service call charge was $80 but he explained to me how to fix it and get it back on and I have been successful every time since (after about 20 minutes of frustrated working at it, manual in hand).  The handle was starting to come loose over a year ago but I decided to wait until it actually fell off to fix it.

My Cranesbill (or Hardy Geranium) with the lavender flowers is in full bloom now.  I saw one flower on the white one and one flower on the fuchsia one yesterday.

I have lots of these blooming too.  They love to grow in the cracks of the sidewalk where I can't get to the root.

My front garden will be officially 2 years old in June but that makes it the beginning of the 3rd growing season for the plants.  I need to plant something in the center of the middle front section.  I also need to dig out the Hosta in front of the Hydrangea bush.  I planted it there when the bush was smaller and the space looked so bare.  Now the bush is leaning on the Hosta.

This is my current favorite plant in the front garden; pink and green, what's not to love?

 

New Modem and router..............

The good news - the equipment arrived.  The bad news - the fact that they expect an 80 year old person to self install.  If I don't have a post tomorrow you will know I wasn't successful.

3:45 p.m.  Good news! I got it hooked up.  Now let's hope it continues working.
 

Prep work done.................

This is the only fabric therapy I got yesterday, 3 blocks cut.  I got everything covered in the attic, brought into the garage all of my pots of flowers.  I went with my granddaughter to her wedding dress fitting.

The roofing materials were delivered yesterday afternoon.  This is the second load of them.

Added at noon, no roof today.....more details tomorrow.

Then the fork lift drives back onto a pad and the guy hits the elevator button and he rises up and then drives onto the truck.  Pretty neat.  I watched this same process when the house across from me had their shingles delivered for their new garage a week ago.

My Coleus plants are getting big.  They are safe in the garage for a day.

I didn't think my Dwarf Beebalm had survived the winter, but surprise, there are 3 stems with flowers.

Pop up shop is now open to people on the mailing list - an email should have gotten to you with a password.  Everyone else can get into the shop noon tomorrow (Thursday) by going to exuberantcolor.com and clicking on POP-UP SHOP.

Mostly cutting yesterday.........

I went through the Australian fabrics looking for 4 more pairs to make Hunter Star blocks.  I started the quilt with mostly red, black, and light neutral.  I added several purples and now I'm adding a couple blues.  I think the quilt will still read mostly red/rust/burgundy/black and light neutral.  The pieces shown are ready to run through the die cutter.

I got the strips for my friend's quilt cut to the right lengths.

Late in the afternoon my granddaughter and her 2 little ones came over to vacuum up all of the little fuzzies and a little later the 3 guys got here to move furniture back into the living room on the new carpeting.  There are still piles to go through on the 3 shelf units and on the fireplace mantel, little by little since I'm not supposed to lift anything heavy.

Lonely couch..........

Don't the couch and desk look lonely?  It will be at least 3 days before the rest of the furniture is moved back in.  I know it looks kind of gray in a photo but the carpeting is taupe, black and white tweed.  Taupe is a grayed beige so I figured when the time comes for repainting either gray or beige will work on the walls.

Today I will be visiting my primary care doctor and next week I will be going to the device lab to have my pacemaker and my incision checked.  Only 3 more weeks before I can raise my left arm above shoulder level.  Reading the pacemaker manual is sobering.  No cell phone or cordless phone within 6" of my pacemaker but using a microwave oven is safe.   Lots to remember.

Not quite finished........

It was a crew of 2 that arrived at 9:45 a.m. yesterday and they had to tear out the old carpet first.  At 5 p.m. they were exhausted and still had this wall on the left and around the fireplace to finish.  I told them it was OK with me if they wanted to finish this morning and they were happy to leave.

I was surprised when I saw a piece of the carpet close up that it is black and white twisted, taupe and white twisted and plain white.  I don't know what percentage of each but I'm really happy with it.  I thought it might be darker than my old carpet but it looks to be close.  It is made of 50% recycled bottles spun into fiber and very soft.

I sorted 1.5" strips all day.  I was looking for the ones that I had 3 or more of.  This is one container repacked with one of each of hundreds of batiks, 2 layers in there.

This is the bunch I will be working with.  The roll to the left is 2 alike of many batiks, the other larger roll is anywhere from 3 to 8 strips of each fabric.

A little outdoors............

Yesterday morning I went for a walk through the back garden with my camera.  This is on a Jack-in-the-Pulpit plant.

Here is one on another Jack plant.  I have them coming up all over in the shadiest part of the garden.

Here are 2 little Carnation flowers with some more buds on the plant.  It has been dry for so long so I hope they can take the dry weather and not die yet.  With our really cool nights ahead this week I think a lot of plants will go into their autumn mode.

I came around to the front yard and saw there were enough nice zinnia blooms to pick a bouquet.

Say goodbye to this 22 year old carpeting with the ridges at the center as you are headed to the dining room.  Sunday 3 strong men in the family and my strong daughter-in-law came and moved all of the smaller furniture.  The guest bedroom is filled to the brim and some of it is in my sewing room.

Say goodbye to the huge rust stain created when one of the bleeders in the hot water heat system broke and flooded this part of the living room.  Notice how pink the carpeting is at the left?  It is taupe colored carpeting that turned pink under lots of the pieces of furniture and had a green cast  in other areas.  I am so happy to see it go.  New carpeting comes tomorrow.  I ordered it the Saturday before my health declined and I got the Pacemaker. 

I am restricted on the movement of my left arm and how much I can lift so I haven't tried to do anything in the studio yet.  I'm used to picking up heavy piles of fabric and I can't do that right now. The bandage comes off tonight so I'll know how it looks. I will wait until after my one week check up before I do any cutting.    

Door is done............

My son came over yesterday morning to give the final coat to the front door.  It looks so nice!  Now I need a new modern screen/storm door with a larger window to show it off.

We had rain in the morning so I waited until afternoon to go outside and dig out a flower bed.  There was a bush planted in the middle that was dying and lots of Sneezeweed and Asters in it.  My helper last year cleaned out half of it so luckily I only had half to do.  That was enough for my old body.

There was a second flower stalk on the Amaryllis and one of the flowers opened on Friday.  There were 3 blooms on the first stalk and 2 on this one.

Here is a close up on the Sundrops.  They have such an unusual center.  There are lots of buds on each plant and there were bunches of them in bloom yesterday.









 

Mother's Day surprise.............

My son and grandson surprised me by coming over to sand down and paint my front door.  It has needed some care for a couple years and I wasn't up to doing it myself.

The lady at the hardware store warned me that this red paint would look pink until it dried and she was right.  It is a rosy red and just what I wanted.

After they left I mowed the grass since it was a nice cool day.

The art quilters are coming today so lots of fun ahead!!

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

The crunchy ice melted off the driveway by 10:30 yesterday morning.  I figured it was better to be safe than sorry and reschedule the class.   
I rearranged the blocks on the Hunter Star and thought it might be the final layout.  Then I got an email that I had won a giveaway and I'm wondering if some of those fabrics might look good with this so I'll wait until I get them before I sew it together.

I made new curtains for my 1953 pink bathroom.  It is a flesh pink so the curtain leans toward pale coral.  2 1/2 years procrastination, 55 minutes pressing, cutting and sewing them.

Two of last year's Amaryllis bulbs have buds on them.  I didn't even put them outside last summer.  They were in the garage the whole time.  I brought them in and started watering them about 6 weeks ago.  I have 3 others from last year or previous years and they are just leaves so far.

I didn't have anything ready to sew last night so I tore papers out of these pieces.  I know you are supposed to sew the pieces together first and then tear the paper out but I have success this way.  Here is a photo of all of the blocks.  I was happy to see I had taken a picture of the whole layout since I didn't know how any of these pieces go back up on the wall.


 

A little more decorating.....

My quilts came home from NC with my daughter's family for Thanksgiving.  My son in law helped with the hanging to get it level.  It's hard to do by myself.  We actually hung a different one first but I decided it was too light of a color and changed to this one.  I have one ready to quilt that will really hang here when I get it finished.  Meanwhile I can enjoy this one.

 

It was over 60 degrees here yesterday, kind of rare for December.  I went out and dumped my last 3 pots and brought in both hose reels.  Now I think I'm really ready for winter.

I've turned the corner......

I got the 30' wall done yesterday and turned the corner and painted 12' of the next 30' wall.  I moved the desk back and reloaded the drawers, moved the side table back against the right wall, taped the front window, moved more furniture on the 18' stretch that is left.  I hope I can get the rest of this wall painted today.  I have 2 blog readers stopping by on Monday and my brother and his wife will be here from TX Tues. - Sat. so I need the room mostly back in place.  I never even made it to the studio.  It was nice and cool yesterday, didn't even get up to 70 degrees so it was perfect painting weather.  Today promised to be similar weather.  I guess I won't make it out to the fair this year.  It ends today.

 

I added my "film debut" video to my right side bar in case you missed it on the post or want to watch it again.

A fun day......

It was so much fun yesterday morning meeting another blogger.  I can't tell you who it was until she gets home from her trip but I can tell you we had a great time talking 'quilt'.  Her husband checked out the fair and was impressed with the size of our fairgrounds.  After they left I got out my helpers, super sliders and started moving furniture away from the next wall to be painted.

I'm going to show you why I hate my carpeting.  I had it put in 17 years ago and painted the walls the same shade of taupe and was very happy with it.......until the carpeting started changing color.  The pink area is where furniture was sitting. The carpet has a green cast in some areas and some areas are still taupe.  The dark area near the wall is the rust from the bleeder leaking earlier this year.    The only good news in all of this is that furniture will always cover the rust, and the carpet doesn't look as sick with the new contrasting paint color.  I got the ceiling line taped on 20' of this 30' wall and I need to move the roll top desk before I can finish it.  I will have to take all of the drawers out and then I can lift the corners just enough to stick the sliders under.  I have moved the desk before so I know I can do it.....it's not fun, but I can do it.

My reward for prepping the wall was sewing the 5 strip sets that I chose the day before.

Here is the reward I will have after painting on Saturday and Sunday.