2016 Projects Review

I try to keep a running list of things I’m working on…partly so I don’t forget to finish things in a timely manner!  Its a good feeling to cross something off the list as ‘completed.’ Since I’m not good at photographing and doing tutorials for every project, here’s my condensed list from 2016. Feel free to ask questions or demand photos!  This list is more for my own memory as much as anything else 🙂

For 2017 I already have 3 quilts in the works, 3 pieces of furniture in our garage calling my name to make them pretty again, and a friend asking me to make some Roman shades and drapes.  Keeps me out of trouble!

Sewing Projects:

• Baby quilt + sister’s heritage quilt redo + wedding quilt
• 3 car seat wrap-around blankets
• 3 baby blankets
• Numerous baby burp cloths
• Living room chair seat covers w/cording
• Recovered dining room chairs
• Pillows and tablecloth for a dining room
• Placemats
• Baby leggings
• Corded bench cushion
• Prom dress tailoring
• Arm covers for damaged wicker chairs
• Various plaid scarves + cowl-neck poncho
• Small purse/carry bag

Painting projects:

• Restored antique desk
• Paint/distress dresser/changing table/custom shelf for nursery
• pedestal oak table paint/stain
• 2 wrought iron chairs + table paint/recover
• Huge bunk bed/desk/ladder set painted
• 2 vintage dressers painted/distressed for another nursery
• Coffee table and side table paint/stain
• Antique tv cabinet restoration
• small cabinet paint/new quartz top
• Sewing table restoration/paint
• Painted/distressed old trunk

Other:

• Repaired necklaces and bracelets for friends
• Made earrings/necklaces for gifts and myself
• Made brooch bouquet for bride
• Replicated a beloved old pair of earrings for my sister
• Turned old window into lacy altar piece for wedding
• Made 7 bridesmaid bouquets & centerpieces
• Made 7 groomsmen boutonnieres to match brooch bouquet
• Made cards for various birthdays, etc. (won a paper craft set!)

On to 2017!

 

 

Creating Gifts

I absolutely love having my own office/sewing room/craft room.  I spend a lot of time here, often soaking up sappy Hallmark movies as I finish up some Christmas gift…having a tv here is awesome!

Keeping a list of projects I’ve completed is interesting to look back on;  2016 proved to be a big one;  at 42 projects, that’s nearly 1 per week! Everything from sewing bench cushions, baby blankets and burp cloths to making a broach bouquet, jewelry and wedding decor, painting and refinishing desks, bunk beds, dressers and cabinets, and so much more.

Here are some of the things I finished in time for Christmas:

1.  A stocking for Chase, our newest grandchild.  It matches his sister Chloe’s that I made last year.  
2. Placemats for my mom, who handed me down her green thumb.  I saw this “Succulents” fabric line from Heather at CrimsonTate.com and just had to find some project to use it on.  Mom has aloe and jade plants that are 30+ years old!
   

   

   
3. After nearly two years of research, preparations and sewing, I finally got to present my sister with this quilt for her 60th birthday.  It was her childhood quilt, handmade by our great-grandmother, but overly loved and trashed. I cut out some salvageable squares (that first cut into a family quilt is HARD!), added borders, and turned it into this.  She loved it. (PS I had help from TD Quilts, who did the gorgeous! long-arm quilting.)
   

   

   
4. Its really fun for me to take something that is “past its prime” and turn it into something that is once again used and appreciated.  These old “American Heritage-style” dressers were destined for Goodwill until I painted and distressed them for family-friend Jaime’s new baby girl’s room.  Big sister Hadley might just be jealous…
   

   

   

   

Now that its 2017, I hope to keep this blog more updated 🙂 as I finish at least 2 quilts, paint more furniture, and sew some more fun things.  Send me your projects!

 

Brooch Bouquet

I don’t think I’d ever heard of a brooch bouquet until Sierra broached the subject with me (see how I did that).  But of course Pinterest came through for me and about 8 months prior to her wedding I began collecting brooches from antique shops, Shopgoodwill.com, Yerdle.com, etc. A bridesmaid also ordered a bag of knockoffs from China, which were a great help.

This is a very personal project…especially if you use vintage brooches with a story.  For me, it was something special I could provide for my “surrogate daughter” whom I’ve mentored for some 12 years.

Click each pic for captions…

The front with most significant piece.

Engineering was the hardest part!

The side facing her has a small angel that was Grammy’s. Each brooch was wired and attached through holes in a dense styrofoam disc, then hot glued.

Paper flowers, ribbons and pearls were added.

 

 

 

Reclaiming Daddy’s Desk

Before…sad, worn finish and layers of gunk.

Stripping and striping and sanding and cleaning through years of gunk.

Finally found the real wood.,,beautiful walnut.

Finished!

Polished up the original lions head knobs.

 

A friend of mine had a desk that she fondly remembered as her father’s. She wanted to give it to her daughter as she earned her Master’s degree.

I agreed to work on it, thinking it would be awesome painted, with the top remaining stained. She was adamant about keeping the wood as it was, and it turned out she was right!

Look how beautiful that walnut was under all the layers of gunk!  I also polished the cool lions head knobs and found some other vintage knobs to replace the missing ones on the cabinets.

On to the next project….

 

2015 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for my blog. Apparently in 2016 I really need to post more!

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,200 times in 2015. If it were a cable car, it would take about 20 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

 

Chalk Painting!

I’ve honestly been so busy with projects and work that I haven’t kept my blog very updated.  At this very moment, I am working on 4 different quilts, I just handed off yet another custom window seat cushion, am sewing diaper cloths and a baby blanket for a baby shower, making a beaded necklace and a few pairs of earrings, and chalk painting 2 tables with wood-stained tops.  I do a little bit every night after work/dinner, just to keep things moving forward…that’s how to get so much finished!  And…Christmas is just 10 weeks away! I guess I’m ADD….I rarely sit still!

Here is one of my favorite projects of all time.  This 2-piece buffet was a nice, solid wood piece that had been purchased by a friend online for just $125.  I chalk-painted it, stained the top, mercury-glass painted the glass (so you can’t see through very well, for storage-sake), painted knobs, and waxed it all.  Love LOVE it!  Isn’t it perfect for a farmhouse?

Before…great quality, solid wood.

After, updated and perfect for a farmhouse.

 

GiGi…Grandma…

I’ve posted dozens of photos on Facebook about our new granddaughter, but just realized I’d never blogged about her.

Everything “they” say about being a grandparent is so true.  We are in love with this adorable little person and also somewhat in awe of what a wonderful mom our daughter is turning into.  She, who has in her life been prone to anxiety, self-judging and feelings of “I’m not good enough”, has taken to nursing, cleaning dirty bottoms and schedule-keeping with surprising ease.  We are so proud of her and see a wonderful future for this new little family.

And little Chloe is nearly perfect in every way. Would a grandma…”GiGi”…say anything less?  Hubz “Papa” enjoys laying with her on his chest, as he did our own children.  I just love to hold her, stare at her, smell her sweetness, and wonder at how perfect she is.  She is very easy-going (ah…to lull her parents into having more?) and has slept through the night from a very early age.  I also get to “babysit” on a fairly regular basis, which is really nice.  Thanks to various resale shops, we have acquired all the necessary equipment, too, which we assume will be used quite a bit in the coming years for other grandchildren as well!

Here are some of my favorite pics…of the hundreds we’ve already taken!

 

Distressed Table for a Vintage Kitchen

$25 table and chairs was rough, with plaster on it, etc.

One missing a slat but we don’t care.

Scored plank lines into it with a screwdriver.

See how perfect in his little paneled kitchen.

Had son and his friend beat on it with chains and yard tools to distress before staining.

I love to paint.  I love to find things on FB marketplaces or Goodwill and repurpose them.  Here’s a table and chairs that I found and paid $25 for…planning to paint and resell.

Well, Kid #3 saw it and decided he “needed” it in his college apartment, so he helped me paint and then we distressed the top.  First, I sanded and sanded it.  Then I set his friend and him loose with chains and various garden tools to beat the heck out of it (technical term = distress…I’d be distressed if someone beat the heck out of me with chains, too!).

Then I decided it needed to look more like planks, so I scored it with a screwdriver and stained it a bit.

Final….son LOVES it! and it fits great with whole vintage-vibe, paneled-like-1962 apartment.  Worth way more than $25.

 

Overloaded March

Murphy’s Law says something about ‘whatever can go wrong,will’ and in our case, it all happens together.  I’m quite sure we’re off the “stress level” charts, but there’s something to be said about the numbness that comes with everything happening at once.
1. First, we lost Neal’s father on Feb.19.  He’d been in a care facility for a year and wasn’t “thriving”…had dementia, was losing appetite, and apparently was also suffering from some digestion blockage that eventually did him in.  When you’re 88 years old I guess it doesn’t have to be something hugely catastrophic…we are very sad to be without him.

7/22/26 (we loved him in the dash) 2/19/15

2. Immediately after that, we moved out of our home that we’d built 11 years ago, into a much smaller rental  home.  This will ease the financial pressure caused by 10 years of 10 “budget cut” job losses.  The house and the owner are a blessing;  we feel very comfortable here and may end up owning it ourselves, once we figure out how to fit all our “stuff” inside! Among other amenities, we finally have a fenced yard for the dogs!

Boxes everywhere

New garage; hoarders?!

New house, in progress

3.  A recruiter found me and I ended up with a new job.  I am Account Manager for Classic Stone, LLC, specializing in Cambria natural quartz.  I work directly with designers, builders and kitchen and bath dealers to assist them with countertops, fireplace surrounds, and other stone applications. It is very high-end and I’m loving being part of the design process.

Cambria, USA. Family owned, American made.

4. After publishing the Lawrence community magazine for more than a year, we opted to give it back to Towne Post Media Group and Tom Britt.  I am very sad about it, after working so hard to build it and inject ourselves into the growth and development of the city of Lawrence.  Unfortunately Tom ended the magazine, as he could not find anyone else to take it on.
5. I went to Le Seuer, Minnesota for Cambria training.  It snowed 8.5″ as I arrived and I ended up having to scoop all that snow off my rental car with the plastic tray from my hotel room as for some reason rental car companies in Minnesota don’t give you a snow brush, nor does the hotel!  The trip was great, though, as I got to tour the company dairy farm, fabrication facilities,  and learn so much about the product.

Got to spend time with good friends Jill & Scott too!

All Cambria starts as 93% pure white quartz + 7% resin/pigments.

Beautiful morning in Saint Peter, MN

No boots, no snow brush!

My official diploma!

6. One day after returning from Minnesota I put on my “Tour Director” hat and boarded a bus with 127 high schoolers and chaperones and drove to Orlando for a 4-day stay in Disney World.  The band marched in Epcot and the choir sang and they attended workshops where they got to play Disney music, then watch parts of the movie with their own music accompanying it.  Very wonderful experience for these kids;  some of them may never take such a trip again and for many it will be the highlight of their lives.  I’m honored to be part of it.  I guess that’s what gets me through the 20+ overnight drive on the bus there and back 🙂  And, the weather was absolutely perfect every day we were there.

Madison Consolidated HS, Mansfield, OH

The Band, Epcot’s Future World

Time in Italy…Epcot.

Nope. No rides for me!

Butterfly Garden

 

An Antique Quilt for Mom

25+ years ago my mom handed me a muslin bag full of vintage quilt squares, saying that I was more likely to do something with them than she was.  I  had good intentions;  over the years I researched “Grandma’s Fan” quilts, which was the pattern, and I ordered books on quilting.  But still the bag sat.

Finally in the fall of 2013 I signed up for a beginners quilting class and made my first quilt.  Amazingly, it was very easy and was pretty much completed in the 6 class sessions (okay, plus a little homework).  (Read it here)

So I clearly caught the quilting bug and was off and running.  For my next project, I decided to open that muslin bag and surprise my mom for her April birthday. There were plenty of squares for a queen-sized quilt and they’d been hand-stitched by my great-grandmother Irene back in the 1930s or 1940s out of feed sack cotton; she owned a bakery so acquired quite a few flour sacks!

Once I laid it out, I opted to highlight the white squares with a darker, navy border, which had a somewhat modern look that I knew my mom would like.

Did I mention it was QUEEN sized?!  I had no idea what I was getting into….I learned a lot about quilting on this beast….and quilted it on my own “domestic” Brother sewing machine.  Not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but certainly a labor of love for my mom.  Every stitch I thought about how surprised she’d be and how much I loved giving it to her.  And trust me….there were a LOT of stitches…like 5 spools of thread worth!

Trying to roll 94″ under a normal sewing machine…

If you don’t like to iron, you shouldn’t be a quilter.

Attaching the binding is the final step!

Brought the front/back/batting to the quilt store for direction in basting it all together.

MIL Nola helped pin it all.

Dozens of pins to hold it all together.

Decided to follow the lines of the “fan” with the quilting stitches.

Did I mention how tedious this was?

Always have assistants…but then had to get rid of all the allergens for Mom.

Round spots in the “suns”

Lots and lots of diagonal lines.

Made the corners fancy, too.

I love a label that explains it all.

So happy and proud to have it finished!

Yup…she was stunned and excited.

It is very heavy and warm.

This layout design was penciled by my mom on a piece of scratch paper I found in the muslin sack. 20 total squares!