If only my whole house could look this nice...

I just have to say that I still – a few weeks after finishing it off – walk into my half bath just to look and obtain a sense of calm. I still love it! And it is kicking some serious motivation into me to make the rest of my house pretty.

Insert my husband’s eye roll.

This weekend I cleaned my closet out. I split it up – my side on Saturday and AB’s side on Sunday. As always happens with this type of organization project, I envision that it is going to take days, maybe even weeks! I look at the daunting mess and worry about getting lost in there and no one finding me.

I was wrong. It took me an hour on each day and this includes hanging hooks, piling up trash, piling up Goodwill stacks and actually bringing stuff into the closet to store. AB gets up before the crack of dawn and he tends to go back and forth from the dresser to the bathroom and closet. I emptied about 1/3 of his dresser out into his shelves. I KNOW my husband well and so I KNOW that these shelves will become messy quickly. He made mention of possibly putting cupboard fronts on the faces of the shelves, but I don’t think that will work easily and I think his time will be better spent just folding and not stuffing stuff on the shelves. Or *my* time will be better spent finding a few low tray like baskets to hold the small loose things. We will see.

In the meantime I have belts, bags and scarves all separated and on their own hooks.

I had to walk in the closet a few times today just to look around and admire.

Our house was a parade home once upon a time. So little details were paid attention to. We have loads of shelves in our closet. I love that. My bank of shelves doesn’t hold clothes. It holds shoes. And I took a little ribbing about the sheer number of shoes on my shelves. Oh well. I can deal.

The last thing I need though is a step ladder to just put in and keep in the closet. A very tall person built our house. Many of these fabulous shelves are up high and I need to be able to utilize them without going to get a ladder. If I can do that then my closet becomes so much more effective at its job.

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The other part of my goals that I am working this month is tackling my quilt.

I packed it up and went to the local Quiltworks store that I heard had a long arm machine and could likely quilt my quilt in a very short time. And yes, they can do it, and yes, it will look fancy and fabulous when finished. For only $240.

Sigh.

AB heaved a big sigh and said, “what?”

Then I ignored him and pulled out the three fabrics I found – two for a double border and one for a dress for Skadi.

Quilt – zero progress.

Dress? And matching dolly dress? Done! Skadi had found a pattern for a dress in my stacks of my mom’s sewing stuff. I am sure she bought it intending to make the dress for Skadi at some point (or for Celeste before this). (See I DO get this affliction from someone.) So when I saw the cute fishy fabric I knew I had to have it.

Skadi was a bit disappointed that little mice didn’t come out to help us sew and that flinging the fabric into the air didn’t magically create a gown. But she was very interested in watching me sew and “helping”.

Once the dress was nearly done I needed to sew the shoulder straps on. Skadi squealed, “wait!” And she ran up to her room and found her little baggie of cute buttons from my mom and pulled out two smiley faced orange buttons and handed them to me. Instead of sewing the straps on and putting a zipper in the back, I sewed up the back and put buttons on.

I know my mom was looking down smiling.

Anyways… back to my issue. I have a decision to make. Try and tackle quilting a king sized quilt myself. Pay the local shop's price. Finding a less expensive place online. Or deciding that it is just worth it to try and quilt it myself. Or – and as a quilter, I can’t believe I am thinking this – tie it?

A story of a dog and her 18 lives.

This dog has many, many lives and has this latest life to thank from one little 3.5 year old little girl who "LOVES Freya so much! Smooches!"

She had two names before landing at our house at only just over a year old. Let this be a lesson before adopting a rescue dog. Research. Spend time with the dog. There sometimes is a reason why she is in rescue, it isn't always the people.

Nope, I always thought it was the people. People that just weren't good dog owners. Any dog is trainable.

Ha.

There was a most unfortunate incident in the house last week that has prevented me from progressing on my quilt. I know, people may have thought I would have had it done by now. And under normal circumstances I probably would have.

But no.

THAT dog was in the kitchen, mooching around the table for scraps. (She has put on 20 lbs since landing at our house...). I was running up and down the stairs sewing strips of blocks together all happy like.

When CRASH!

I turn around and see the dog bolting from under the table and somehow grabbing the cord for the sewing machine with her and sending my beloved Viking Huqvarna tumbling to the tile. Yes tile. Dangerous for little baby teetch and sewing machines alike.

I haven't found anyone who thinks they can fix - i.e., bend the machine back into shape... yet. And I am not sure if I find someone, if it will be worth it or not. Or if I should just pony up and buy a new sewing machine.

Destructo dog.

Lucky for her she has a 3.5 year old who loves her like no ones business.

No rescue dogs EVER again.

If it isn't one thing...

It's the other.

So I bought all my fabric. Washed it. Ironed it. And the other night while watching "Covert Affairs" I cut 118 seven inch squares.

Then I did a quick calculation. Round up to 120 and that makes approximately a 10 square by 12 square quilt. Or 60" by 74".

Or so not a king sized quilt at all.

A king sized bed is 76" x 80". And I like some overhang. I like lots of overhang because I have a tendency to wrap myself like a burrito.

Back to the fabric store I will go this weekend!

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The chandelier arrived! I ended up going with the slightly more rustic one. AB liked it best. (I liked the Pottery Barn ones best.) AB liked the price of the more rustic one best mostly I think. I can't blame him. It was half the price of the PB ones.

It arrived, we set to assembling it this weekend and got it most of the way done. The next task at hand is to remove the old one and wire and hang the new one. I don't think it will take more than 30 minutes to do. It all looks quite straight forward.

I am not terribly far off my schedule, though it is slipping.

And I have had another interference come up.

We will get the chandelier hung and then we can decide on paint. But I am pushing back the paint date for a few reasons. One of them being that AB has grand plans to take a few days off next week as well as the Labor Day weekend (4 days for him) and replace the nasty flooring in the big bonus room! We are leaning towards a bamboo laminate flooring.

I am very excited to get this done. It needs it bad.

But how does this affect the dining room?

I may get my flooring for the dining room. Our big bonus room is large and square and very forgiving. AB wants to test out the flooring install there. If it goes well then we are thinking we may go forth with replacing the flooring in the dining room as well. And no way we would paint the walls before doing that.

So the dining room redecorate is slipping. But it isn't going away. It just may get better is all!

A quilting we will go!

Way back when, once upon a time, I had time to create. Part of my monthly goal this month is to get that back a bit. In March I tackled setting up a cross stitch (which I admit, I haven't picked back up).

One of my all time loves is quilting. I have a weakness for fabric big time.

I needed a stress reducer - and I wanted to get started on my next project - so I looked forward all week to Saturday when I was allowing myself a few hours to wander the fabric store sans children. Peace. Fabric love. Camaraderie. Textiles.

For my two hours wandering I walked out with 11 fabrics loosely coordinated around a blue and brown color scheme. Here they are in all their glory!



They have been washed and pressed as of tonight. Awaiting their deconstruction into many, many little squares only to be sewn back in some random pattern.

Here is the quilt I made for Leif. I was pressing on getting it done before he was born. Then my mom came to town and pushed me to sit down and finish it.

Thanks mom!


And here is Skadi's baby quilt. My mom arrived and hers was done because I was not going to condemn her to the ordinary life of a second child where nothing is fair or done to the extent that it was for the first one. (Ha ha ha ha ha ha! I know, if I laugh too loudly I will wake her up.)


I have a pumpikin wall hanging I did for myself that is identical to three others that I made for the most important people in my life - my mom and Rick, my dad and grandmother.I will post a picture of it someday.

I also did an apple wall hanging that hangs in my mom's and Rick's work out room. And I need to find it in some packed away box somewhere, but I also have the quilt that AB and I used on our bed for nearly a decade.

I know I have said all this before... I just need to put it out there for motivation to finish this quilt!

Oh and I didn't buy anything else at the fabric store. Nope! That wasn't me buying foamies for my daughter... or outdoor upholstery fabric... or the most fabulous thick soft yarn and a crochet needle... nope nothing else that might divert my attention from my quilt project!

Stay tuned!