Saving money

There hasn't been a lot of quilting going on but I've been busy...saving money!

Savings #1 

We decided to recover the cushions on our screened porch couch. After talking to a reupholstery lady, I decided I could save a lot of money by doing the work myself. I ordered the fabric from her and she offered me advice and gave me her large spool of off-white thread so I could use what I needed! (Yes, I'll go back to her when I have another upholstery need.)

In the following photo, you can see the old cushion cover on the right - I forgot to take pictures before I tore the cushions apart.

Next is the couch with all six cushions (3 seat and 3 back) done.

And. last is the finished couch with the two throw pillows.

Some of the expert advice I received: take apart each cushion and iron the pieces flat to use as pattern pieces; line up the bottom of each main piece at the same place on the fabric; use polyester thread. I followed all of that advice and you may be able to tell that the front of the seat cushions 'match' going across. (Actually all the cushions 'match' wherever you look across the couch.) It never occurred to me that I had to match the cushions with this all over pattern (which repeated every 13"). I'm thankful for experts, especially those that offer their expertise!

Savings #2

The sewing studio has needed painting for a while especially the longarm room which had a good-sized crack in the wall. (We live in a 100+ year-old house.) Ray and I had a discussion about hiring a painter after Ray fixed the crack. After we checked prices, I decided that I would attempt the job myself. I decided on a lighter color, pale yellow, and ended up doing 3 coats (the first 2 with a cheaper paint). Ray did the final coat on the ceiling while I did the walls. Here are a few views of the finished room.

The room was blue as you can see in this picture.

The room is much lighter and brighter and I am delighted. Eventually we plan to paint the other 2 rooms in the studio.

Total savings: over $1000!!!

Both projects were well worth my time. And now it's time to quilt!

My Sewing Room

When our children left home, I took over the upstairs - the entire area became my sewing studio. We live in a Sears house that is a story and a half so the upstairs is not huge; it has two bedrooms and a large dormer. When we bought the house in 1979, that dormer which overlooks the front of the house and the street, became my sewing room.   

A few days ago I showed my cutting/fabric/pressing room. A few of you asked to see more. Since I just cleaned it, I thought this would be the right time for pictures. The other bedroom used to be the layout room but now I have a design wall so that room is our guest room and the place I store finished quilts. Right now it is full of stuff for the upcoming garage sale and a mess - you really don't want to see it!

The dormer room is 6.5 feet by 13 feet and it is still the place I sit and sew. It is large enough that 3 grandchildren have sewn there at the same time. 

When you enter the room and look to the left, there is a desk with my 1949 Singer Featherweight. This is my favorite machine; I love the way it sounds. The bulletin board/design wall gets very full at times I just cleaned it off. The top shelf of the bookcase has all of my quilt journals - almost every quilt I've made is recorded in pictures and notes. 

North end of sewing room

If you look right when entering the room, you'll see a custom made table that holds my Sears Serger and my Husqvarna Quilt Designer. The serger belonged to my sister-in-law and my brother gifted it to me after her death a few years ago. I use it frequently and should probably learn what else it can do. The Husqvarna (Viking) is a great workhorse; it will sew through anything! There are many racks of thread on the wall at the right side of the photo just out of view.

South end of sewing room

If you look straight into the room, you'll see my Bernina 550QE. I use it for some piecing and almost all of my quilting. You can see the black rack that I clip quilts to as I'm quilting to get the weight off of the surface. It is actually a photo backdrop stand. It was snowing the day I took this photo - I love sitting in front of the windows and looking outside while I sew.

East side of sewing room

I took a panoramic shot as I stood in the doorway. You can kind of see how everything fits together - there is enough room but not really any extra. I just move chairs to wherever I need one.

Sewing room

I am fortunate to have always had a dedicated place to sew since we moved here - it was one of the reasons I wanted to buy this house. Way back then we only had one little boy and really didn't know what the future would hold. It never occurred to me that one day I would take over the whole upstairs. 

All day in the sewing studio . . .

All day in the sewing studio is not always as much fun as it sounds. I decided to clean the craft closet in the cutting/fabric room. It's time to clean out everything - we're having a garage sale in May. It will probably take me until May to get all this cleaning done! 

The closets in this room are dormer closets and they hold a lot but really - this much from one closet????

Finally, an empty closet. 

After sorting things out, Ray helped and we got much more in the closet than I took out! It is so nice to once again be able to walk into the closet and find what I want.

The cutting/fabric room survived

 although more cleaning will eventually take place in here.

Interesting that I found some things I forgot I had - a few leader/ender quilts in progress and more. That WIP pile was kind of empty . . .

Garage Update

Garage Update:

It's almost done! The work on this door will be finished this week. Then we'll just need electricity - we are already on the electrician's list.

The process has been interesting with a few hidden blessings. We ordered a 7' tall door with windows. Another customer ordered this 8' tall door and then changed his mind. We were offered the door in place of ours. Who needs windows? That extra foot is great for opening the hatch backs on our vehicles!

Somehow we didn't order the side door and the windows??! The lumber yard must know us well - everything is perfect. We didn't know we wanted windows that opened with screens! They are great. 

The roll up door in the back was supposed to be 5' wide. Our neighbor thought we might be sorry we didn't order a 6' door but it was already ordered. Another fluke blessing, somehow we received a 6' door!

You can see the sidewalk along the side of the garage in the above photo. I love it! And that little bit of walkway in the back is for the garbage cans.

Ray has been busy organizing and moving into his storage/shop area. We are getting rid of a number of things. He is moving from an 8' by 10' shed into a 9' by 24' area. It is getting full?! I guess it must be like a sewing studio!

Teal and Black Quilt done; Outside work is moving along

All projects seem to be moving forward around here.

First is the Teal and Black Quilt. I really like this and at the moment, it resides in my living room so I can look at it. Will it end up as a donation quilt? I haven't decided yet.

I saw this on Facebook one day and knew I had to make it. I found the pattern at Quilting is more fun than Housework. I used leftover squares of blacks and brights. The teal blue fabric was in my stash and really pops with the black. 

The quilt is 48 1/2" by 64 1/2". I used Dream Cotton for the batting and Aurifil thread for the piecing and quilting. The quilting is squares echoing the parts of the large square blocks. 

The back is black with a small white dot. I added the leftover teal blue to add a little interest.

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Our concrete guy, Alan, worked so hard to get our project finished. The concrete is done! Alan was constantly working around rain storms. Once he dug up swampy dirt and replaced it with dry stuff. More than once, he replaced very wet gravel with dry gravel. He hand troweled every inch of our new concrete and there was a lot. 

front view

We have had inches of rain since the concrete was put down by the house (way at the back in the above photo) and we haven't had any water in our basement. Before, when we had a lot of rain, we always got tiny rivers in the basement of our 100 year old house. I've wondered many times if the concrete near the house was causing water to run into the foundation. Now we know it was and we know it's been fixed - YAY!

Back of house view

The drain in the garage (middle of the standing water in the photo) gets uncovered tomorrow. 

We are now in the concrete curing mode meaning we wait. In 2 - 3 weeks when heavy vehicles can safely drive on the concrete, the work on the garage will begin. Until then, Ray will spend lots of time in the yard trying to figure out how he wants to redo the gardens and the parts of the lawn that have been destroyed. 

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Ray signed up for a photography workshop in Kansas City in another week or so. I thought it sounded wonderful because we could stop at Missouri Star Quilt Company on our way home. Well, the workshop was cancelled. We were able to cancel our Airbnb rental near Kansas City but we weren't that lucky with the VRBO rental near Hamilton, MO. So instead of forfeiting our fee, we're going to go to Hamilton and shop at MSQC. I think we really did get lucky with the VRBO rental's refund policy!

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I noticed this today. 

Ray was photographing flowers (lilacs) last night while I was gone. Guess he needed a black background. The black fabric is from my stash - he just finds whatever he needs. Most of the time I don't even know he's used something because he puts it back before I miss it.

I think I'd better work on my list for Missouri Star...

Hope you all enjoy the weekend. 

Happy Mother's Day

Fish Sticks, A Sweater, and A Mess!

Fish Sticks is a fun, small, donation quilt. 

The fish fabric was gifted to me as part of my friend Nancy's stash. I loved the colors so I pulled fabric from my scrap stash and made this little quilt that is about 42" square.

I used Dream Cotton Batting and orange Aurifil thread for the piecing and the quilting. The back is orange with yellow dots.

I think you can see the quilting - gentle waves crossing the quilt. I used my quilting rulers to quilt this. The binding had all the colors of the quilt - it also is from my stash.

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I finally finished the sweater that I began in January. I used Ann Budd's book, Top Down Sweaters, and made a generic raglan sleeve sweater. 

I used gray Coffee Beenz yarn by Plymouth. I think I figured out some things that should help me with my next sweater.

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We Have a MESS here! We are building a new garage or more accurately: we are having a new garage built. The driveway is being replaced too. We spent a few days emptying the garage and shed. Our screened porch is FULL of stuff. The workers began Saturday - 3 days ago. The old garage is down and gone. The driveway has also been torn up and hauled away. A couple of trees have been removed 😔. The shed will leave within the hour.  A few truckloads of gravel have just arrived and are in the driveway. If the rain will hold off, we might get forms up for the concrete tomorrow. 

Some of the driveway rubble:

The driveway before gravel:

We've had lots of BIG trucks and equipment it's very exciting and VERY dirty and dusty. We've also had LOTS to traffic on our quiet, little street - people are checking it out. I'm glad that we now have gravel - it should help with the dirt. 

On Sunday, we dug up and gave away all of the day lily plants that were along the driveway; we'll be able to enjoy them in neighbors'  yards now. Ray is concerned about our lawn and garden next to the drive. I guess we'll take care of that when this MESS is gone.

New Appliances and Socks!

Our new stove and microwave finally arrived today. We bought them a month ago and had to wait until late last week to get the gas line run to the kitchen. 

This is a picture of the north wall of our kitchen this morning, aka BEFORE.

And this is a picture taken this afternoon, aka AFTER.

I'm excited to have a gas stove - I haven't had one since 1978. I feel like Santa's been here - or maybe it was the Easter Bunny!

For the time being, the other appliances in the kitchen do not match the new ones but the appliances on each wall do match! When the refrigerator and dishwasher need to be replaced, they will be.

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I have a knitting finish! I made these socks with Zauberball sock yarn using the pattern 8 Stitches per Inch Socks by Ann Budd. 

The socks are knit with size 1 needles.

I do love wearing hand knit socks although I'm looking forward to warmer weather and not wearing socks.

Remodeling is done - maybe!

The kitchen is done - check.
This began with refacing the cupboards and grew to include new countertops and backsplash. It was very sunny outside today so some of the photos have bright spots. The upper and lower cupboards are the same color.

The floors are done - check.
After the kitchen was finished, the floors looked horrible. Our house is pretty open and redoing the floors meant redoing the entire first floor except the bathrooms. The kitchen is a vinyl tile that looks like ceramic. We couldn't do ceramic because the refrigerator was too close to the overhead cupboard. 

The living and dining rooms are hardwood - hickory. 

The family room, hallway, and bedroom have frieze carpet. The bathrooms both have ceramic tile that was done a few years ago.

The bedroom is painted - check.
The whole first floor was painted last spring except for the bedroom and bathrooms. The bathrooms were done a few years ago. The bedroom - hmm, we don't remember. It really needed to be done and now it is!

And NOW, we need to do something about drapes and curtains - UGH! We really could use some new furniture in the living room but NOT now.

When this whole thing started, I remember saying ok to the cupboards and that we would update the appliances to stainless as each one died. I really didn't know this was going to mushroom out of control. We will live with the window coverings for the time being but they will be replaced...then we're done... unless we decide to get new furniture! Will it ever end??!

Updates: flooring and dehydrating

Flooring update:

We've had lots of piles of wood this week...

and finally the first piece of hardwood was in place.

And then more...

The dining room is now done and there are piles of wood in it. Next week, the living room will be done.

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Dehydrator update Sorry no photos:

This week, I've dehydrated mushrooms, celery, onions and apple slices, apple chips, orange slices, and pineapple. I also made fruit leather with good success and dried pasta with great success!

Tonight I made vegetable beef soup with some shredded beef from my freezer, a can of diced tomatoes, and all kinds of dehydrated veggies - onions, garlic, celery, carrots, green beans, mushrooms. I just through it all together and let the veggies rehydrate as the soup cooked. It was so fast to put together - very nice and very good! However I did forget the noodles!

New dehydrator and floors

Yesterday was exciting - my new dehydrator arrived AND the fellows arrived to begin work on our floors at the same time! We are redoing all floors on the first level of our home.

I did lots of research on a new dehydrator and ended up with the one that Marlene at StitchinByTheLake recommended. You can see it here. Because of the work going on in the house, it ended up on the dining room table.

As soon as I was able to be in my kitchen last night, I washed all of the trays and liners. Then I fixed some banana chips and some pineapple slices and put them in the dehydrator. 

It was a long day waiting to try something! I spent much of the day reading my dehydrating books, The Dehydrator Cookbook by Gangloff and Preserve it Naturally by Excalibur.

This morning we had dried fruit. We also had a tray with 'crazy fruit' - pineapple pieces and banana pieces dried/fused together. (Sorry no photo.) It is really good! 

In the meantime... the fellows worked on the kitchen floor all day yesterday and again today. It was a late start yesterday due to weather but a lot of prep work was done. The old vinyl tile (the white with blue is going away. The new tile (earth tones) is replacing it - actually going down over it.

Today they put down the floor and grouted the tiles. Tomorrow they will replace the trim work and begin on the dining room and living room. Carpet will be replaced with hardwood floors in those rooms.

Hopefully these guys will be done by the weekend but maybe not until late Saturday. Then we can put back some furniture and begin moving other furniture because the family room, hallway, and bedroom carpet will arrive in a couple of weeks. 

At least I'll be able to use my dehydrator as I wait for the next installment ...