Slow Progress

Happy Saturday!  Our neighborhood is having a clean-up drive today and they're supplying three roll-off dumpsters for green waste, hazardous materials (paints, etc. that the local scouts are coming around to collect) and regular household and limited construction waste.  We have taken advantage of that by getting rid of some old paints and the detritus from our clean-up of the patio and storage sheds earlier in the week. We still make weekly runs to the  thrift store to unload usables. Although we are purging instead of collecting, it still feels as though it fits in well with this nesting time of year! Getting things in order.

But let’s talk about quilting. Last weekend I quilted my cousin Kim’s red, white and black quilt. But I will wait to show pictures until she adds the binding and we wash it. A couple weeks. She has this idea to piece the binding in patchwork squares, and I couldn’t dissuade her. I’m glad she will be doing the binding, not me. Stay tuned.

On my personal sewing front, I have started the purple litter of kittens (and their mama) for Kitten Quilt #3andfinal. When purple is done, there will only be green and pink left.

Those will get finished up today.  And so, I am linking up to Angela’s Scrappy Saturday for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

What else did I sew on this week? Not as much as I would have liked, but I did finish up the orange peel blocks (42, machine appliquéd) for my DIL Kim’s Christmas quilt. She picked the fabric (Bonnie & Camille’s Hello Darling) and the pattern. The top is now pieced.

She loves red, so I originally thought I might use red for the border. But it was overwhelming. So luckily I found some of this matching Bliss pink dot fabric in my stash. I had just enough to do a 5” border. The backing got sewn up as well, using some fabrics from that Hello Darling, the leftover pink from my Dresdens backgrounds, and a cute white with pink starflower design fabric. I even sewed in a label. It’s now in the To Be Basted and Quilted pile, which is back up to 5 quilts. But I quilted a quilt and sewed a quilt top and back this week, so I am sticking to my goal of one per week until Christmas.

Living room remodel progress:  We got the plans back from the carpenter’s shop. After the sticker shock (almost double what we anticipated), I had to put pen to paper and do some fancy financial figuring (and obviously I can alliterate too). Long story short, it will work. The plans were great, and we signed off. They had a scheduled job that was delayed, so were able to squeeze us in immediately. Time frame: two weeks until delivery. That means that Jeff, our contractor/relative is busy doing some additional brickwork for the floor hearth and grouting this weekend. But first he had to pour some cement to level that floor area. The living room is painted except for where I have to wait for the boxes of flooring (stacked along the wall under the front window) to be moved. A job of ten minutes to paint. We will begin ripping carpet out this week, I think. Jeff wants to start the flooring and have much of it done (except the part that abuts the cabinetry) by the time it gets here.


We also bought all our new living room furniture this week. But as one couch (leather, from Italy) won’t arrive until Dec. 7, we have about a month to worry about that. We got the aforementioned leather couch, a fabric couch, a modern wingback chair for me (pictured above, in showroom), an ottoman (leather, from the Italian set) for me to use with my chair, a side table, and a large room rug.  In the meantime, our former Ikea shelves were brought down to my sewing room to give me additional fabric storage.

More space for fabric!

Left cabinet: WIP’s, then drawers of scraps 

The white cabinet in the right photo is missing a shelf near the top. I’m still looking. I know it seems that I don’t have much fabric compared to many of you, but I did a major purge about 3 years ago and have (for the most part) only recent fabrics. I do have a large basket of strings and strips (not pictured) that cousin Kim and I are saving to crochet some rag rugs. Many of my old cuts are in there, awaiting slashing.

And then moving around the room, this area still needs work. That old desk was mine when I was growing up. Heck, it was MY MOM’s when she was growing up. It is solid maple and heavy beyond belief. Next to it is my old 1916 Singer Treadle, which needs a belt. Those bins under the desk are RSC WIPs, but will get moved to the shelves by the door once a space opens up. In other words, once I sew up a couple more RSC and Christmas quilt tops. Before the new year.

In the center of the room, not pictured, is a long folding table and a card table. I hope to replace both of those with two matching heavy 4-legged Ikea tables. DH has been put on alert that I will need him to hack one of the tables to make it possible to drop my Bernina down so it is flush with the tabletop. He has the tools, he has the skills. Luckily, he also has the impetus to keep me happy, so that is on the Honey-Do for after the Holidays.

Hopefully I haven’t lulled you to sleep with all my blathering.  I am doing my best to stay downstairs to sew and do laundry. The real reason is that I want to stay away from the kitchen; today begins my fasting for a Monday colonoscopy. Two days; the new Thorough Cleanout procedure, I guess. Enough said. I still get liquids (coffee and soda OK!), popsicles, jello and broth. As long as it isn’t red or purple.  But I will have purple scraps today, LOL!!  Kitty sewing, here I come....