Second top done

I finished sewing together the second veteran top for Vicki.

I plan on making two more. I think I will dig out the white, gray and black strips I have left and make a couple of these simple tops out of them. I still have quite a pile left from last year.

Adding to the stash

I didn't do much last evening because I was tired and my stomach was hurting. I speed watched the rest of the Grammy's (FF thru the commercials, some performances, and acceptance speeches), watched a bad Steven Segal movie, flipped thru a couple magazines, and a book.

I did add to my stash a bit. I had used the orange skull fabric in the past on the back of a Harley t-shirt quilt and found 4 and 1/3 yards at a great price so I went ahead and bought it. I also got the pink Alexander Henry skull print and a remnant of the bus print all on sale. Only about 7 yards altogether.

I got a good night's sleep and feel fine today.

Sewing and painting

I got the first top sewn together that I will be sending to Vicki of Colorways by Vicki Welch for a veteran lap quilt. It turned out 48 1/2" x 61".

I put a second one on the design wall and have it almost sewn together. I just have to sew together the top five rows and then attach that section to the bottom 10 rows.

Friday night the painter came. He got the high area at the steps painted

and the living room ceiling. The ceiling goes from 8' to 13 1/2'.

He was suppose to arrive at 5 but showed up at 6:30. He got done about 10:30 and I hit the bed at 10:45. I had to get up early to get my hair cut so it was a short night. I see a couple of spots the need some touch up on the ceiling, but they are at the lower end so I will take care of that eventually.

Saturday I sewed and Sunday I sanded and painted. I sanded some parts of the TV cabinet and primed them.

I also primed a bunch more trim.

UFO LIst for 2018

I updated my UFO list and I am pretty happy about my progress over the last couple of years. For 2017 I had 25 items on the list.

This year's list I have 15 with one I just added this morning.

I added this blanket I need to finish knitting. It has be sitting around for a number of years.

I hope all of your UFO's are being completed and your lists are getting shorter!

How hard could it be?

I had to get the living room cleaned up because Ron, the painter, was coming. Here is what is looked liked before

After gathering up all the floor cloths, moving my tool shelf and miter saw into the kitchen, vacuuming, and picking up trash it looked a whole lot better.

Then Ron called and said he had a bit more to do on the job he on and if it would be ok to reschedule for Friday evening. That was fine with me so I moved the sawhorses back into the living room and put the second coat of paint on the trim, while I did laundry and cooked salmon for dinner and lunch today.

Before the clean up I wanted to get the grille covers on the return air openings. For the top one I couldn't get the screw in the right side so I had to drill the hole deeper. The bottom one - well, that was a different story. I mean how hard could it be to screw the grille on? Well, let me tell you! I had to drill new holes because the old grille cover was a different size. Left hole - no problem, but for the right hole there was nothing to drill into. Crap! This was going to be more work than I thought. So it was down to the garage to find a scrap of wood and drag the heavy air compressor back upstairs for the nail gun. I cut the wood and nailed it in, but there was still a gap between the wall and the wood so I found some shims and pounded those in to fill up the gap.

I drilled the right hole and finally got the grille installed. This simple job ended up taking an hour!

By 6:30 I had 13,000+ steps and I was getting tired. I was glad to get these jobs done and now I can start to install the painted casing and baseboard this weekend.

AHIQ #29 and blue top

It time to join the first AHIQ group challenge for 2018. This is the 29th challenge which the main theme is the use of scale. Kaja of http//www.sewslowly.com assured me that using a UFO for this challenge is perfect so I knew which one I would use. Here is an oversized improv pieced log cabin using one block to make the entire quilt. I hand dyed all the fabrics and as you can see I pieced it in 2010. Time to get it done! It is 47 1/2" x 64 1/2" so not too big. Why I made this quilt in these colors I have no idea. I not a big fan of green or purple.

My plan is to continue play with scale in the quilting - width of rows and size of stitches- and weights of thread. I refuse to buy any thread for quilting this, but to use what I have. I dug around to find what I had that I could use and I have plenty! There is linen thread, perle cotton size 8 and 12, and some top stitching thread.

We have six months to complete this project. No more watching TV and doing nothing!

I hadn't cut any batiks for the herringbone quilts, but I needed a few more darks for the first veteran quilt top. I dug thru my blue batiks and found some pieces that would work including several scrap sized pieces. So now the top is ready to sew together once I switch around a couple more pieces that I think could be in a better place.

The next quilt top and painting

I sanded the primed trim at lunch time so I could dust it off and get the first coat of finish paint on it after work.

all painted

I decided I had made enough blue herringbone quilt tops. I needed to figure out what to do with all the pieces of blue fabric that were hanging on the design wall. I need to make some veteran quilt tops for Vicki of Colorways by Vicki Welsh so I started laying out the pieces to see what I could come up with. The tops are to be 48 x 60 and that works out perfectly as three 16" pieces equals 48". Here is what I have so far. I will have to try and find a few more lights and a few more darks to get 15 rows that will be 4" which equals 60". See it was meant to be!

Tonight I have to get the living room cleared out for my neighbor so he can paint the ceiling. The living room is my workshop for all this fixing up. The tall orange and black ladder will stay, but I will have to find a home for the other stuff.

Progress is slow, but I am making progress!

5th blue herringbone top done

It was a busy weekend. I did get the 5th top sewn together and I like how it turned out.

I am going to have to switch from making tops to getting these quilted. Anymore I don't like having unquilted tops laying around because in the past they have easily turned into UFOs! Here are the 5 tops.

Saturday I drove to Keim Lumber in Charm, Ohio to get more casing and baseboard. One way takes about an hour and twenty minues I also ordered a door for a closet and some baseboard in longer lengths which they will deliver in a couple weeks. On my way back I stopped at the bulk food store in Sugarcreek to get some spices and nuts. Here is what I brought home from the lumber yard.

I needed to sort all of this out using my lists and room layouts that I drew. I marked each piece on the back where it needed to be installed and grouped those pieces together

I want to get the living room finished first so I laid out what I needed and primed those pieces. I had enough room on the sawhorses for a few more pieces so I also primed the casing for the window in the studio.

Painting and installing trim every night will be the norm for the next week. Tonight will be giving these pieces a light sanding and then putting on the first coat of finish paint.

I have a neighbor who is a painter by trade and he stopped over last evening to look at the high areas I need help with - the ceiling and the entry. He is going to come Wednesday evening. That will be huge to get that done!

Putting away

I continue to put items away in my new bookcases. I moved most of my quilting books and emptied three boxes of pottery. I still have empty shelves! I sure am getting my steps in with moving everything I had to take down to the lower level to get the floors refinished and now moving it back upstairs.

The rest of the evening was spent continuing to read this book.

5th herringbone blue top and what am I going to used all those bookshelves for?

I had to cut two more pieces of light fabric and now I can sew together the 5th blue herringbone top.

I was asked by Swoozie "What are you going to put in all those bookcases?" I have plans! This house has no storage except for the closets and there are not many cabinets in the kitchen. The first items in the bookcases were my cookbooks. This makes me so happy I have a place to put them now. I also now have a place for my FoodSaver and my tea.

Then I starting moving the photo albums in, my china, a tea set that was my Mom's when she was little, Mom's binoculars, and a bowl that my Grandmother brought back on one of her trips. I think it was from AZ. I remember that bowl sitting on my parent dining room table or the buffet and it collected stuff. I had no place to honor these items that I brought home after our Dad died. Now I can enjoy seeing them.

I had to think hard, but I finally remember where I put my two boxes of pottery that I have collected over the years. The pottery was in another cabinet that I gave my son and now it will go in the bookcases. Here is one box.

I have been editing my stuff and did get rid of some cookbooks and other items. They went to the Goodwill. I am putting my eye to everything again as I put items in the bookcases and there may be a few more that don't make the cut. So far I am ecstatic that I have so much space! I have a number of baking pans that don't fit in my kitchen cabinets so they will be going in the lower part of the cabinets. Downstairs where I had the cookbooks in a bookcase has now freed up space where I can put my scrap bins.

after the cookbooks were moved upstairs

Three and a half days of hard work

Friday they sent us home early because of the storm that was coming our way. This is the first time in 15 years that I can remember being sent home early. I had some baseboard to cut and install, and some touchup painting to do. I then hung my AC/DC piece on the blank wall in my bedroom. Here is the wall

I had some touch up to do at the receptacle and then install the cover. Here is what is looks like now. I get to wake up every morning and see this piece I worked so hard on. I had a couple pin back buttons and a patch I had acquired after the piece was done so I sewed those on before I hung it up. I also changed the hanging rod. I never did like the one I had. I had saved the old trim when I had the front door replaced so I used that as my handing rod. I made a new rod pocket and now the quilt hangs much better.

I sewed Saturday to avoid painting the living room one more day. I did get the 3rd blue herringbone quilt top sewn together

Then I put another one on the design wall and sewed it together

I have the 5th blue herringbone top on the design wall ready to sew together.

Sunday I had no choice, but to paint the living room. My brother was coming over on Monday to help me put the bookcases together so I had to get to painting. The color I was painting, Cloud Cover, was very close to what the color that was on the walls so it is hard to see what didn't get done. I could get the walls up to the ceiling with the paint pole, but the edging still needs done. My ceiling goes from 8' to 13 1/2'. You have to look close to see the edges that aren't painted. This wall is after shot of the wall painted.

These walls are the before shots and are now painted

I painted for six hours and I just didn't have the energy to tackle the ceiling. I am painting the ceiling the same color as the walls. In this picture you can just see the lighter color on the left and where I stopped.

My brother brought over this fabulous ladder that someone gave him. I can reach the ceiling without even using the extension pole!

Now where I am uncomfortable trying to paint is the area at the top of the stairs. I have a neighbor who paints for a living and I texted him to give me a call. I plan on hiring him to do this area.

After I was done painting I made stuff shells so that after Mike and I were done working on Monday he would not have to worry about what to make for dinner. This is something I always do as a bit of appreciation for his help. I ended up with two dishes to give him and the little one was for me. I stuck one dish for him and the little one for me in the oven in the middle of the afternoon on Monday so it would be hot when he got home.

Monday I was up before dawn cracked and made a batch of from scratch cinnamon rolls so my brother would have a little snack while we worked. I sent him home with a container full so that he, my SIL and Michael could have for them for dessert or breakfast. I forgot to take a picture of them, but here are two that I brought to give to the custodian at the school.

My brother arrive about 9:30 and we got to work installing the bookcases I had bought at IKEA a few weeks ago.

We got a good system going and got the bookcases put together in a couple hours. After Mike figured out the best way to attach the bookcases to each other and the wall it was time to get the doors hung. He did the hanging while I put the hardware on the doors.

There is a tv cabinet that goes in the middle. IKEA was sold out of the white ones so I bought the natural finish unit and will paint it to match the bookcases.

We got done about 3:45. I helped him load up his tools, hot food, and clean the snow off his van. Here is what the bookcases look like. I now have a place to put my cookbooks!

I ate my stuffed shells and rested for about an hour. Did some laundry, mending, and made about 6 trips to the garage to haul out all the cardboard. I was tired, but I am very happy with all the progress that was made. I can't wait to install the shelves and put all the storage space to use!