What a weekend!

I don't know what has gotten into me, but I have this new energy and a need to get stuff done. Friday night I cleaned house, because company was coming. My company came, we went to dinner, and my friend's husband checked out my big sewing table. We never made it upstairs where I had spent the majority of my time cleaning, but I didn't care. It was all straightened up and looking good.

Saturday I started working on this

What is it? A pile of drapes someone had given to me. I remodeled them for a family member and by Monday I finished the last of them - two pairs of pinch pleated drapes, a door curtian, and a pair of tie backs.

If there is anyone out there in cyberspace that wants to know a great easy method for making pinch pleated drapes let me know. I took a bunch of pictures and I could put together a post on it.


Saturday I did take a break from working on the drapes to go see my nephew's band play. My goodness it was hot - 91 degrees. One of the families had brought a open air tent, so we all huddled in the shade. The kids did a great job and were happy with the icy towels I brought them.

Sunday was all about the drapes. I decided to replace the lining. The lining with the drapes was cheap and very discolored. I had some lining in my storage room that I had bought years ago for my still unmade living room drapes, so I thought I may have enough to do these. I was a foot short of having enough - darn! JoAnn's had lining 50% off plus a coupon for 10% off your total purchase so I ran to JoAnn's and bought the lining I needed plus enought for my living room drapes. I also started a batch of homemade yogurt and made the dough for pizza.

Monday the electrician came and fixed up my re-do room. Here is the before:

and the after:

I am so glad this is done! While he was working the electric was off so I switched projects and trimmed all the blocks for the I Spy quilts. I am making two so you can see that I am a little short. I have two of my blogging buddies who are going to send me some prints to help me out. Thanks so much!

Here is my to list from Monday. I always think I can get more done than what is possible! The drapes just took longer than I thought, but they are done and that to me is huge. Now I just need to find the time to install them.

Hope your holiday weekend was great!

Need help/giveaway, a shout out to Brandon, and e-bay posting

After sewing the novelty patches onto the Kona strips I realize I do not have enought novelty prints for two quilts. SO, I am having a giveaway. There will be two prizes! If you are interested in sending me a few patches at least 3 1/2" x 4 1/2" and you will have a chance to win a bundle of four fat quarters of my hand dyed fabric in either a gradient of pink, yellow or purple.

I will also giveaway another bundle to the person who sends me the most unique, strange, odd, weird, offensive?, or bizarre fabric. I like strange so suprise me! Leave a comment and E-mail me at pattynubs at gmail dot com and I will send you my address. I won't have computer access Saturday, Sunday, or Monday so if you leave me a message, I will respond to it on Tuesday.

I have to give a shout out to Brandon at the Apple store in Fairlawn, Ohio. I was in the store last evening with my son who needed to get his iPhone looked at and purchase a computer. While my son was getting his phone checked out, I was hanging out by the iPads wondering to myself "What is the deal with these. Why would anybody want one? What is all the hoopla about?" Well Brandon came up to me and we got talking. Next thing I know we fired up one of those iPads to look up the Walter Tool site so see if the Fein Multimasters were still on sale - we were talking about home improvement projects. Next we went to my blog so I could show him the windows I trimmed out - he thought I did a good job. Then the conversation led to quilting and he said he has some t-shirts that his wife doesn't like him to wear because they have holes, but he can't get rid of them. I said "T-shirt quilt". So I maybe making Brandon a quilt. I gave him my blog address, so if you are reading this - Hello Brandon and the iPads are pretty darn cool!

I am going to post these books on e-bay today Yvonne Porcella Magical Four and Nine Patch Quilts, Dye it! Paint it! Quilt it! by Joyce Mori, and Hand dyed Fabric made Easy. The item number is 330609320700 if you are interested.

Yeah, it is Friday and I have a three day weekend. My plans are to work on the I Spy quilts, get to some of those pesky alterations, remodel some draperies for a family member, and complete the final touches on the bedroom re-do so that I can have the giveaway on Tuesday to celebrate the 95% completion of the room. I hope it is not too hot this weekend so that I can get some weeding done and maybe get to gathering more stuff for the garage sale. I am having company tonight and Saturday I will go watch my nephew's band play at an outdoor festival, but the rest of the time I will need to stay home and work. Have a great Labor Day weekend!

A new sewing project started

I wandered around looking for the parts I had started for a couple of I Spy quilts. With everything moved and reorgaized with the bedroom re-do, I was having trouble remembering where I had put the pieces I had already cut for these quilts. Eventually I found them along with a piece of Kona snow. I cut the snow into strips 3 1/2" wide. My novelty pieces are cut 3 1/2" x 4 1/2".

I sewed the pieces on the strip of Kona

The pieces were cut apart, trimmed and this is a sampling of how I plan to arrange them. Simple, but I like the space to rest the eyes between the prints. I have no idea what size these will turn out. I am just winging it as usual and will just put blocks together until I am happy with the size. So at this point I have no idea if I have enough prints, but I guess we'll find out!

Soup and what's bugging me

I made a big pot of vegetable beef soup for lunches. Even with my cold it smells good.

What's bugging me - Public schools wasting money on stupid stuff and then wanting more.
There was another murder about 6 blocks from where I work in the middle of the afternoon. The guy had "at least six children". WTF! Nobody knows how many kids this guy had? He had a rap sheet 5 pages long including non-payment of child support.
The government giving out free cell phones
The IRS making deals with people who own more taxes than they can pay. This is what is bugging me - you don't have to agree or disagree - I just feel like I am living in a world gone mad.

Another detail

Here is the return air grille from the redo bedroom. I did buy a new one, but it was lightweight and the screw holes did not line up with the old ones. This old paint encrusted, dirty grille is make from steel so I decided to striped it, scraped it, then wire brushed to get those last crusty bits off and use steel wool to smooth the surfaces.

Here it is before painting.

Here it is after one coat of paint.

I am pleased with how it turned out. I will give it another coat of gloss white paint, install it, and that will be one more thing done. I am getting so close to being done with everything except the closet doors which will have to wait and the baseboards. I will finish the touch up painting and electrical this weekend the room will be done. That means I will have a giveaway on Tuesday to celebrate the room being as done as I can at this time. The giveaway will be sewing related - not remodeling!

Details and fixing stuff

Saturday my nose ran all day. I have the starting of a cold. Every 5 minutes I was blowing my nose so I decided to work on the small details for the room re-do and fixing stuff. Here is a shade for the floor lamp I had spray painted a couple of weeks ago. The shade had a crack in it already, but when I went to clean the shade the piece cracked the rest of the way. I got out the Goop and glued it back together.

While I had the Goop out I tacked this diffuser cover that was broken.

Fixed.

Next - I forgot to spray paint the part that screws on the top of a lamp to hold the shade - I don't remember what it is called. This is a table lamp which is going into the redo room.
Sprayed

Installed

Here are some screws for the return air grilles that I spray painted white.

To finish out Saturday I worked on the window treatments for the redo room and mowed most of the grass. I will have to take the week wacker to cut down some of the grass in the back. My poor mower was trying it's best, but the grass was just too long and it was still wet underneath.

Sunday I trimed out the other window in the redo bedroom.
Extension jambs - installed

Trim pieces at the ready

Before the first trim piece was put in place

I have to sand the ends of any excess paint on these trim pieces or they will not fit

First piece installed

All eight installed

Next is the casing. As I installed each piece, I filled the gap with spray foam for doors and windows. I learned not to go all the way around the window and then install the casing, because the stuff expands and then you have to wipe the excess away and it is a big mess.

Here is a reminder of what the before looked like.

Here is the casing done. I still need to finish the caulking and give it a touch up coat of paint, but the hard part is done!

I finished up the other window treatment on Sunday. The fabric width ended up being too narrow for the windows so I put on my thinking cap, and rumaged thru my stash and found some black duck left over from a lighting mask I had made for my brother when he toured with Bruce Springsteen. I cut strips and added it to the sides. I still need to get some hardware to wind the cords on.

So what is left to do in this space? The electrical will be cleaned up on Labor Day weekend and I still need to sort out the water issue before I can install the baseboards. The casing at the doorway needs a touch up coat of paint (I will do that when I put the final coat on the window), I need to hang the door, and put a few more coats of yellow paint on the bed. The closet doors will have to wait until I save up some money, but I am getting close to having the work done in this room.

I did get about 6" of the 17" of unquilting I need to do on the Dutch wax quilt.

Darn that yellow paint

Last evening I sanded and primed the extension jambs for the other window in the re-do bedroom. I should have gotten up early to put the first coat of paint on them before I went to work, but I had a cool dream instead. I was dreaming that I was starting to work in a fabric printing shop, but not like anything normal. Everything was custom and very edgy.

I put another coat of paint on this chair. This is the fourth coat. It looks ok in the picture, but in person there are still places where the wood is showing thru.

While I had yellow on the brush, I put another coat on the back side of the head and foot board for the bed. I can only paint one side at a time, so right now there are two coats of paint on each side. I know I will have to do at least one more and possibly two more coats.

This weekend I plan on getting the finish coats on the extension jambs so I can install the trim on Sunday. I will try and get another coat of paint on the bed. I need to get back to alterations and maybe work on unquilting the Dutch wax quilt. I guess I will be busy - again!