Happy Mother's Day

From my youngest grandson - Mikey is 4. Daughter and grandkids took me out to eat on Friday night for Mother's Day -- it was very nice.

So, yesterday I was thinking about the problem I have with the landscaping around the house.  Here are two pictures of the rocks in the flower beds - just at the back of the house.

Apparently the guy that lived here before didn't ever want to have to mulch ever again, so he put down gravel all across the front, a huge area on the south side of the house (I'm sure he thought it would save him from mowing that area), and about halfway across the back.
I did go out yesterday afternoon and tried to rake the rocks out of the back of the house:

It's a whole lot better, but not great, still lots of rocks, and not enough good dirt, and the whole area needs to be re-edged and widened.  So I came in and emailed two companies to have them send out someone to give me an estimate on redoing the landscaping and removing all the rocks! It's probably going to cost me an arm and a leg, but I certainly can't take all those rocks out by myself and I hate how they look now!  So, decision made! Can't wait to get some ideas and see what they can do for me.

Until next time....blessings.

May

Good grief, it's May already!  Last blog post here was January ....guess time just gets away from me!
Not much going on, but I thought I'd attempt to blog now and then. 
My niece and I are in the beginning stages of planning an European River Cruise for next spring/summer.  So, I was thinking that I need to try to learn how to take pictures.  She took beautiful pictures on our Alaskan cruise last year and mine were so-so.  I should probably take a photography class, but that's not in the cards at this time.  So, I'm just going to try to take a few pictures every day and see if I can improve my skills.  I do need to read the instruction booklet again -- and try to retain it this time!  So, here's today's pictures:  These are two hanging baskets I bought at Pepper Creek in Rockford -- love that store, lots of candles and gifty things and also beautiful plants. These have petunias and ageratum and I'm not sure what the little red flowers are, they look like small petunias.

 And this is one of the petunias up close -- it was a windy day, so I had to catch it between wind gusts!

 A shot of the back of the house where these baskets are hanging just off the deck.

 And a shot of the peach colored iris planted next to the house in the back -- by the former owner. 

All of the flower beds around the house need to be re-done.  The former owner put in rocks - as in pebbles, for mulch in the front and one side and half of the back.  It makes the ground like concrete to work in -- so I'm in the decision making stage of trying to figure out if I can rake/dig out the rocks a little at a time myself, or hire someone to do it for me -- at great cost, I'm sure.  Either way it's going to be a lot of work, but I'm leaning towards doing it myself and improving each spot as I go.  The only thing planted in the long stretch against the back of the house is this one clump of iris.  I'd love to dig out the rocks, widen the bed a little bit, and plant daylilies on both sides of the iris.  Hmmm, might have to start there, instead of in the front where there's a lot more work to do! I'll let you know.....

Until next time, blessings!

I'm Back.....

And you didn't even know I was gone!  I went to Charlotte, NC with my daughter for a few days.  It was a leadership conference for Tastefully Simple leaders/managers and Steph is one of them.  I went along just to get away and I was hoping for warmer weather.  However, it was not all that warm -- 30's a lot, occasionally 40's - but at least there was no snow.  It was -30 wind chill here when we left!  
Anyway, while Steph went to her meetings, I stayed in the hotel, either in the lounge, or in our room and read and appliqued! 
This is the first Bunny Hill project of her free 12 month bom.  I finished the embroidery after I got home, and I haven't stuffed it yet - will probably do that after I have them all done.  It took no time at all and was a nice way to while away the hours!  I also worked on my Merry, Merry Snowmen block.  (We also celebrated my baby's 39th birthday on Saturday! - boy do I feel old - but we had a great time with some of her friends from TS and had a great Hibachi dinner at a Japanese restaurant in downtown Charlotte.)

Before I left, my hot water in the kitchen froze again - and once after I got back!  But I got it thawed with no problems and did what my plumber told me to do:  turned off the water line and opened all the faucets before I left -- and had no problems. I stuffed some leftover batting back behind the pipe in the basement to see if that will help block the cold air - it seems the wind swirls in the corner where the pipe comes up, and there isn't enough insulation in the basement there.

While I was gone, I downloaded a book onto my Kindle - for free.  I've decided it's high time I started reading the classics (I loved Grapes of Wrath in college -- looking forward to re-reading that one) - so I'm reading Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham.  I am kind of a tv junkie, but I'd like to get to the point that I'm reading more and watching tv less.  I have tons of books that I haven't read already on my Kindle, not to mention the hard copies of a few I haven't finished!  I am enjoying Of Human Bondage, btw.

Until next time....blessings!

Hot Water

So, plumber came out this morning as I didn't have hot water in the kitchen again. (I did open the cabinet under the sink last night, Mary - didn't help). He had to use my hair dryer to thaw the pipe in the basement, under the ceiling tile. So now I need to keep the ceiling tiles open the rest of the winter! While he was here, I had him install the new faucet I bought yesterday.

This is going to be another long winter!  At least I have a sprayer on the faucet now! LOL
Nothing else has gotten done today.  I have the feeling not much will get done the rest of the day either! 

He did tell me what to do if I ever go on a trip - even in summer:  turn off water to house and open all the faucets in the whole house.  Can turn the knob to "vacation" on the water heater too, if you want to - probably won't make any difference as the water will be turned off anyway!  Good information to know anyway! 
Until next time....blessings.

5 days and I've already negated one goal!

But, I just couldn't resist: Bunny Hill is offering a bom starting now for 12 months. I love, love, love her designs, and who can resist free? And yes, I may not be able to do these, but maybe I will. I cut out all 24 hearts from one fabric this afternoon and prepped this first block. I said I wasn't going to do any small blocks/quilts this year - ha ha ha!  We'll see.

Anyway, today is just getting back to normal day -- even though I don't work, the holidays is a little down time, a little different daily stuff.  So, started laundry, then went to rinse my coffee cup and the hot water in the kitchen didn't work.  I checked the rest of the house, all the hot water in the bathrooms and in the basement work -- just the kitchen faucet.  It's on the same line as the washer, but I was washing in cold water, so couldn't tell if that hook-up worked or not.  Looked online, found that if there's no hot water in the faucet, it means the faucet needs to be repaired.  So, decided to go buy a new faucet -- this one is old anyway and doesn't have a sprayer, so bought one with a sprayer.  Got home, started calling my plumber, turned the hot water on in the kitchen and it works!  Hung up before the plumber answered!  I suspect the hot water line might have frozen, but in the process of checking in the basement, I left the door to the back storage area open where part of the line goes up to the kitchen and also left the door to the laundry closet open.. either of these might have been the problem, or whatever was clogging the line fixed itself!  Life around here is never dull!  So, now I have a new kitchen faucet and when it is time to replace it, I will be calling the plumber and telling him I already have the new faucet!  And, while we are experiencing below zero wind chills, I will be leaving the doors open to hopefully keep the line from freezing again -- just in case!  FYI:  I hate dealing with stuff like this!  My husband would have taken care of the problem, and I would have loaded another quilt on the longarm today!  Oh well.
Until next time....blessings.

And on the 4th day...

It snowed! My deck and trees in the backyard. It didn't snow for Christmas, so as far as I'm concerned, we don't need it the rest of the year, but obviously I have nothing to say about it!

I did manage to go to the sewing room though! My goal each month is to cut five kits for the sewers to work on at our sew-in.  Today I managed to cut 6-1/2" squares -- we try to make easy things for them to work on!  I also cut the rest of the halloween strips to make a 6-1/2" sq rail fence:

I print out a picture that I made in EQ so whoever gets this kit will know what to do.  I try to make it as easy as I can for them -- and it must be working because they keep coming back every month and the ones that take them home in between our sew-ins love to report their progress!  Isn't it fun teaching someone to quilt?!  Only 3 more kits to cut.

Until next time.....blessings.

3rd Day....

Third, fourth, and fifth shelves. Before:

And, after:

And, I have 44 pantographs that I will sell, if anyone is interested. I paid $15-$16 each for them. All 44 for $300. Pick 12 for $100 + shipping. Or $10 ea. That's what all those rolls are on the 4th shelf!

It feels good to finally have this mess cleaned up, but:

Now I have this mess on one end of my antique table to take care of.  This is lots of smaller pieces of fabric, some orphan blocks, some fabrics already cut into squares and strips.  So, I'll be working on this mess as I start making kits for the homeless quilts.  I started cutting some strips this afternoon while I quilted another one.  I found a bag of 2-1/2" strips my girlfriend gave me of all halloween fabrics, so I'm cutting them to make a rail fence quilt - and planning on using a lot of the stack of halloween fabrics I found as well!  It's amazing how inspired you can be when you actually can see what you have!

Until next time...blessings.

2nd Day, 2nd Shelf

Here's the before on the second shelf in the cabinet:

And the after:

I added fabrics to the first shelf and moved some out from behind too. I also pulled a stack of fat quarters from the second and third shelves and stuck them all into a plastic drawer - well, actually two plastic drawers -- apparently I have a few fat quarters that I've never washed and added to the stash!  The rest of my stash gets washed before it goes into the cabinet.

It's called progress!

And this is the finished quilt top of the kit I found from a few years ago.  It'll go on the "to be quilted" stack now!  This wasn't all that hard to put together -- don't know why I put things off except that I probably had plenty of other things going on, or that I was already working on!

Until next time.....blessings.

First day, first shelf

So here's a close-up of the top shelf in the fabric cupboard - before:

And here's the after!:

I have a couple of stacks of fabric behind those in the front row, but hopefully as I do each shelf I'll be able to have just one row on each.  I found a couple of more kits to work on when I have time.  I found fabric I didn't know I even had, and I'll have to change my statement of yesterday - I did buy quite a bit of fabric last year and the year before because I did Jo Morton's Little Women Club at Quilters General Store the past two years and had to buy Jo Morton fabric.  So now I have a whole bunch of Jo Morton fabric to use up!  I have a whole stack of mostly Halloween fabric - and I don't make Halloween specific quilts - well not for myself anyway, but I have a friend that does Halloween well!
I have tote bags filled with fabric on these shelves also -- just more to clean out.  I also found a stack of flowered fabric - enough to cut up and make a quilt kit for my sew-in people to make into quilts for the homeless, so I left that stack out.

I finished quilting another homeless quilt while I was cleaning and folding fabric today - I love my Statler - only have to be close enough to change the bobbin and roll the quilt and handle any longarm emergency, but still have hands free and time to work on other things while it's quilting!  I pieced more of the quilt kit I dug out the other day too.  Just need to sew the blocks into rows and the rows into a quilt!

So, revised goal:  I'm not going to buy a lot of fabric this year -- only what I absolutely need and I'll be working a little harder to use up the Jo Morton fabric!

Until next time....Blessings.

Goals for 2015, part 2

This is my fabric cabinet.  My husband made this cabinet from leftover wood from the log home.  It weighs a ton, empty, and full I'm sure it weighs two tons!  After they put the carpet down in the basement, I made the carpet people move it, empty, to the spot it's in now - never to be moved again! 
Anyway, it doesn't look like I have much stash, but trust me on this, I do.  It does look like it's a mess and needs to be cleaned up -- and that it does!  So, this is one of my goals for 2015:  clean out this cabinet, refold the fabric and make it more accessible, and then start using it up.  Most of this fabric is quite a few years old.  When I started quilting back in the 90's, it was the fashion to build your stash.  So, I bought fabric - and lots of it.  I didn't really develop a favorite style back then- I collected plaids at one time, homespuns, lots of fabrics with applique possibilities, baby fabrics; went through a Sandy Gervais phase where I bought a lot of her fabrics, early on I bought Thimbleberries fabrics - and I'm not fond of them at all, and then Kansas Troubles -- still love Kansas Troubles fabrics, some thirties, some civil war, flowers - had a whole stack of flowered fabrics too, and of course Christmas fabrics too!  You get the picture.  

Nowadays, I rarely buy fabrics at all unless I need something specific -- like baby fabric I bought for a couple of baby quilts in December.  So, the goal for 2015 is to whittle down the stash.  I think I'll be donating a lot of it to the homeless quilt project at church.  I have some fabrics that were donated by a former quilt shop owner that need to be cut, but when I'm caught up with those, I will be working on my own stash.

That leads me to another goal for 2015:  Cutting fabrics for the sew-in we have each month at church.  I'd like to cut enough fabrics to make up at least 5 kits each month.  We have a few quilters in the group, and they've provided a lot of already cut fabrics that we've been teaching our non-quilters to put together to make quilts.  But, as the non-quilters get used to piecing the quilts, they are getting faster at it, so just to keep up I need to make up kits each month.  We started this group last spring, and we consistently have about a dozen people show up every month to sew with us - it's amazing to me!  One lady even asked her husband for a sewing machine for Christmas because she enjoys sewing with us so much!

So that brings me to my final goal for the new year:  Putting together all the kits and projects and ufo's I have in the cabinet, in drawers, in bags -- you know how it is.  The above quilt kit was a gift from a friend a couple of years ago.  I pulled it from the depths of the cabinet the other day and actually cut it out yesterday and started stitching it together while the longarm was busy quilting another homeless quilt.  I'm sure I won't make it through all the wips and ufo's, but I'm gonna work towards that goal.  And I'm going to concentrate on making larger quilts in 2015.  2014 was the year of taking classes (Jo's Little Women and Kim Diehl's new class) and all but one of the projects were small quilts -- not only small finished size, but also smaller pieces and I think I'm done for awhile with both!  I'm going to work on lap size or larger and make them for certain family members in 2015.  Like the above quilt -- it's lap size and I think one of my nephews might like it.

So, that's my goals for 2015.  And, since tomorrow is the new year, I'll start cleaning out the cabinet tomorrow, and work on the above quilt.
Until next time....blessings, and I hope your new year is filled with happiness, and hope.

Getting Ready for 2015

A Blank Slate (Wall)

(Actually took the Christmas quilt down and haven't put up a different quilt yet!)

I've taken down Christmas and have spent a lot of time thinking over the past month.  I like to make New Years' Resolutions, but this year I'm just going to make goals.  You know the usual ones:  lose weight -- only I'm already working on that.  I spent a lot of money in 2014 taking two big trips and finishing the basement and remodeling my bathroom and putting in new floors and painting, etc.  So, 2015 I won't be spending much at all!  I'm not going to be a miser, but I've been working on decluttering a lot, so I will think twice about buying anything that I really don't need.  I do hope to be able to buy a whole new wardrobe after I drop a size or two!

I've had a lot of trouble this past year with my hands -- I have degenerative osteoarthritis in my hands (I just thought I had arthritis, but now my Rheumatologist has given me a name for it! vbg). Basically it means I've had numerous cortisone shots in my thumbs and fingers, especially this year and it's never going to get better.  So, I've been thinking about what that means for my quilting.  I love to hand applique, but eventually I probably won't be able to do much of that. So, as often as I can, with probably lots of rests in between, I'm hoping to finish off my appliqued Merry, Merry Snowman quilt, by Bunny Hill.  I only have a couple of more blocks to do.  I also have a couple of other appliqued quilts in the queue that I started years ago, so hoping to work on them as I am able.

So here's more goals for 2015 - quiltwise.  I bought the Statler stitcher for my longarm last May.  It came with Creative Studio 5.0 which is the program that moves the machine head to the patterns I've selected.  We've just been notified that CS6 is coming out in January.  So far, I can only do edge to edge quilting well and this machine can do so much, and I haven't had time to learn 5.0!  So, I'm going to be learning CS6 in 2015.  I really would like to learn all the machine can do.  And I have plenty of tops that I've saved for years to quilt once I learn to do some custom quilting.  And that includes the appliqued quilts I'm hoping to finish. The quilt on the machine in the picture is one of the quilts for the homeless that I quilt for my church group.  The group makes the tops and I quilt them.  We've had backing fabrics donated by a quilt store owner - that has been a godsend in itself.  The quilt shop is in Pecatonica, IL, so if you're ever in the neighborhood, the name of the shop is Lucky 2B Quilting.  Polly has donated more than half of all the backings we've used.

I have more thoughts and goals, but I'll put them in the next post. What are your goals for 2015?
Until next time, blessings....

Merry Christmas....

A little early, but apparently I don't post much!  Just wanted to show you what my brother gave to me today:

Completely hand made by my brother and I totally love it.  I had asked him to make me a table/desk for my laptop.  It's all oak.

So that's my post for today! LOL  To catch you up:  I'm done remodeling the house -- it didn't really take that long to do, but I was surely tired of people in and out of the house constantly.  I have beautiful hand-scrapped 5" hickory hard wood floors in the kitchen/great room and hallway and I love them.  I have new tile floors in the bathrooms and new carpeting in the MBedroom.  And the rooms were painted.  I may have my fireplace converted to gas log -- but not this year!  Otherwise, house is done and I can get back to quilting.

Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Until next time...blessings.

Chaos

Just in case you ever wanted to know what chaos looks like...this is it! We got 3.4 inches of rain yesterday.  I've been working with a flooring company in addition to a remodeling company. So yesterday I picked out the wood floors I want installed in the living room and while I was talking to the salesman, I told him to just order them, but put them on hold because I needed to find a painter first to paint the rooms.  He gave me the name of one, the painter came out yesterday afternoon, gave me an estimate.  I asked him when he could do it (thinking I had months to get ready, because everyone is swamped with work around here right now).  He said today! (Because of the rain, his outside jobs are on hold, and most of his jobs are outside jobs right now.) He'll be done tomorrow -- including cathedral ceilings and walls! So in 3-1/2 hours yesterday I cleaned out everything from the furniture and what was in cabinets that he had to move to make it easier to move.  This first pic is the office and it has a bunch of everything in there!

This is the floor of my bedroom, which I already cleaned out waiting for the remodel to begin.  There just isn't any room for any of this excess stuff!

And this is the guest bedroom.  Good luck walking in there at all.  And the china and crystal will have to stay on the bed in here til the wood floors are put in and it'll be at least a couple of weeks for that!  If they come to do the bedroom remodel, I'll have to sleep on the floor in the basement!

And, I can tell you that a whole bunch of stuff will be tossed, given away or put away in its proper place after this mess!  I had to clean out my very small linen closet and hall coat closet and the closet that has the washer/dryer in it also.  When I first moved in last September/October, I put things all over the place and packed that linen closet full to overflowing, so that'll be the first one completely cleaned out. 

So, I've been in the woman cave, quilting quilts for the homeless (got two done today!), and attempting to make the lined curtains for my bedroom -- it's a real challenge since I don't sew, I just quilt!  You-tube is amazing, isn't it --you can find out how to do anything on it! lol

Until next time....blessings.

Simplicity

I just read something in Guideposts yesterday that seemed like a profound statement to me: "Live Simply to help others Simply Live." It was stated by a couple in England a long time ago. They had sold their mansion and lived in a cottage a fourth of the size of their former house and they started many charities with their excess funds.
I've long been a fan of decluttering and simplifying.  But that statement really made me start to think.

I'm in the process of having a little remodeling done and it means I had to clean out my large walk-in closet.  When I moved in here, I thought I had decluttered, but I still seem to have more than I need and a lot of it went into my closet because I didn't have any other place to put it at the time.  These two pictures are of the guest bedroom where I dumped everything from my room. 

And, believe it or not, I've already sorted a large black trash bag full of clothes to go to my church -- they have regular clothing give-aways and all the stuff that's still in good condition goes to someone who needs it more than I do.  I haven't finished emptying the dresser drawers or the clothes dumped into this closet - and I have an office floor with boxes of shoes that I will never wear again -- those too will be given away. 
There will be nothing put back into the walk-in closet that doesn't belong in there, that I can and do wear, and that needs to be in there. 

I just think it's well past the time that I live simply so others can simply live.  That's my goal for now and in the future for cleaning out my house.  It'll take awhile -- trust me on that one!
And that's not even talking about the fabric and quilt stuff! :-)

Until next time....blessings.

I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar!

The deck on the back of the house was never stained.  Mostly it was just left to weather and was a nasty gray color.  So the first two pictures are of the deck after I power washed it, sanded some of it and washed the deck with Deck Wash.  I did that a couple of weeks ago and then waited for it to dry out after a few rainstorms.

It's been an extremely busy summer trying to get things done around here and still trying to catch up on quilting the homeless quilts.  So, finally Friday I started staining the spindles and railings.  Saturday I put the second coat on the spindles and railings and the first coat on the deck and the steps.  Today, after church and in the hot noon day sun, I put the second coat on the deck and steps.  Done is better than perfect and I'm happy with it!  The color is called Russet, but it looks a little reddish brown.  The siding on my house is a light tan.  Pictures were taken from the patio door that opens to the great room.

It feels really good to have accomplished this task by myself.  I still have to sand the porch rockers and stain or paint them -- hopefully before the snow flies!
Next up is a bedroom remodel that I will not be doing myself.  I will, however, be making the curtains for the windows. 

Until next time...blessings.

Sound of Music

Just got home from the Sound of Music musical performed at the Starlight Theatre at Rock Valley College in Rockford. 
It was magnificent!  Wow are there some beautiful voices out there! Directed by Mike Webb and he's been directing plays and musicals for more than 20 years there.  The Starlight Theatre gets its name from it's roof.  It's an open air theatre with a roof that actually opens in the shape of a star so you are literally sitting under the stars watching the show.  And the weather was absolutely beautiful today and tonight for this show.  Superb!

Until next time....Blessings.

A quilt - for a change!

Seems to have been a busy year for me.  I did go on an Alaskan cruise in June -- it was a Quiltmaker's Block Party Cruise and my niece came with me.  We had a blast.  I took two quilt classes - one a Debbie Caffrey mystery that was really a great quilt.  I got one third of it done in class, and just finished the top last week.
We went to Juneau, Sitka, and Ketchikan -- Alaska is really an unbelievably beautiful state.  We even got to see a whale breach!  Stunning.  I think all I got on film was the splash afterwards!
I think I'm done traveling for awhile now.  Summer has arrived in the midwest -- I think.  We've had more rain in the past few months that it just feels like an extension of our very wet winter!  I'm enjoying the sun though, and not going to complain!

The quilt I did today:  Jo's Little Women's Club 13.  Those little squares are cut 1-1/4"! I used a lot of fabrics from last year that I had cut into at least 1-1/4" strips and some squares.  It's time to use up the fabrics I have -- I have tons of new Jo Morton fabrics, but I'd like to use up the old stuff too. 

I have organized a sew-in at my church once a month -- we're piecing quilts for the homeless.  I have a group of women that have never pieced a quilt -- most beginners and most don't even have a machine, so those of us that are quilters bring in extra machines and try to show them what to do!  We have an unlimited supply of 2-1/2" - 5" squares for them to put together.  I've also been trying to cut up some of my older fabric into larger squares so they can actually finish a top once in a while!  So far, I've quilted 3 of these quilts, bound one, still have one to put a label on, and thankfully, my friend Nancy takes them and binds them for me.  She's also provided me with 6 more tops that she's put together for me to quilt!  It seems to never end!  We're shooting for another 25 quilts to distribute in October or so.  We distributed 27 in May and they were well received.  These quilts are 60"x80".

Until next time....Blessings

Happy Independence Day!

New Baby

 I have been missing in action apparently!  Our church delivered 27 quilts to the homeless in our community last week.  And it was decided we'd do it again when we got 25 more made.  And since I did most of the quilting and one lady did most of the piecing and binding, we decided we'd teach a few ladies to piece quilts!  So, I went hunting for machines this morning.  Found a couple at Goodwill and Mission thrift stores and then went to the sewing machine store and bought two used machines -- cheap!  They're all cleaned up and oiled and ready to go.  But the three I bought at the thrift shops were not.  So, I managed to get two of them cleaned and oiled and they actually work really nicely.  I'll attempt the third one later this week.  But, this one was a find!  An antique "Rockford" machine in fabulous shape.  Made in Japan for the Rockford Co., Rockford, Illinois.  Which is where I live. Since it is not a featherweight (!), I'll probably leave it at church in case someone wants to sew during the weekdays.  I'll leave one of the other ones at church too. 
Our inaugural Sew-In is planned for this Saturday, so I'll be hauling a lot of stuff between now and then.  But I'm kinda excited to teach others to piece quilts.  I know at least 4 people are going to be there -- and none of them has a portable machine!

Other news:  I bought the computerized Statler Stitcher for my Gammill longarm machine.  Had two days of intense instruction on how to use it and haven't had a chance to do anything on it for weeks!  Yesterday I finally got a small quilt loaded and practiced an edge to edge pattern - screwed up the last row, but the important thing is that I know what I did wrong!  It's an amazing machine and I can't wait to spend time working with it.  

I'm looking forward to summer (if winter ever gets over - we had snow the other day!).  I have lots of plans to work in the yard and stain my deck and plant some flowers and try to fit in time in the basement with my sewing/quilting stuff!  Oh yeah -- and take plenty of walks to loose 30 excess pounds!

Until next time, blessings.....

Drum roll please....

The tiny bath in the basement is finally finished -- today! 
There's a shower to the right of the sink, but don't plan on using it -- kind of a selling point for the next owners -- after I'm gone!  I hung the mirror and tp holder and towel ring myself as soon as the plumber left today!

While the plumber was working, I managed to get this quilt quilted and bound for Steve's best friend's daughter.  She was born a few days after Steve died and I never got around to making her baby quilt. She'll be three in May.  Picture's not the greatest -- I took it with my phone.

 

Next on the agenda: Nancy at church is bringing me 13 twin size quilts for the homeless to make backings for and quilt. We'd like to deliver them soon, so I hope to get three done a week, if I can. 
Until next time....blessings.

Word is Still Patience

For the most part, the basement is finished - still waiting on the pedestal sink for the bathroom that's been on back-order for weeks.  Just about ready to tell them to buy one off the floor at Home Depot!  This shot is from one end of the basement looking towards the kitchen cabinets.  I did have the antique table at the other end cleaned off, but managed to load more stuff on it today!  The quilt on the longarm was just finished -- our church is making quilts for the homeless and I quilt them, so that's what this one is.

This shot is from the other direction - also a bit messy!

This is the small room between the longarm room and the stairs - it'll be another small office after I bring the computer desk down and set up my old computer,  The door on the right goes to the big room, the one straight ahead goes to a small storage room.

This is same room from other direction.  Opening on left is to the big room; stairs are on the other side of the wall on the right, the door seen to the right goes to the furnace room and a large storage area.  The bathroom, if it ever gets finished is just on the other side of the stairs.  I managed to hang the quilt hangers, just haven't found the quilts I want to hang on them yet.  It's a work in progress!

I sincerely hope the bathroom will be finished soon -- it'll be much nicer not to have to run upstairs all the time!

Until next time....Blessings.

Patience

My word for 2014:  Patience!

The plan was that the carpet and vinyl for the bathroom and under the fridge would be installed on Saturday.  The actuality:  The carpet men arrived at 12:30 on Sunday.  The vinyl is in, but nothing else is even tacked down.  And I'm pretty sure they aren't coming back til next Saturday - nobody has called me because I'm pretty sure they know I'm not a happy camper!  The contractor can't finish until they're done with the carpet and the plumber can't finish until the contractor is finished trimming the bathroom.  So, my word for 2014:  Patience!

Until next time....blessings!

R.I.P. JR

I had to have JR put to sleep yesterday.  He was down to 9 pounds and very ill.  We've been through a lot together, but I couldn't let him suffer.  I'm actually doing okay.  I never considered it, but it has given me some freedom -- I actually used to plan things around taking care of him, so now I only have myself to take care of.
Actually drove to Wisconsin this morning to have breakfast with my daughter!

Until next time...blessings.

Moving Along

This is the cabinet the contractor added to my kitchen while I was gone:  The bottom cabinet and countertop ended with the cabinet on the right.  The microwave on the shelf just hung out there in lala land!  So they matched the cabinets and installed the double cabinet on the left -- it doesn't really take away any space in the kitchen at all, but definitely adds much needed cabinet and counter space.

This week will see the rest of the woodwork finished in the basement, including staining 6 doors and the rest of the trim.  Saturday the flooring will be installed and next week the rest of the fixtures and trim will be installed.  I'm getting really anxious to see it all done.  My plan will be to put away the stuff I have all over the house first and then unpack the boxes still in the garage!

Until next time...blessings.