Saturday, April 9, 2011

My Doings

Seems like I just posted, but I see its been several weeks.  Sorry about that.

I've been really busy lately working on quilts, getting some rehab done on the house, and oh, yeah, work. 

I got back two quilts from my long armer (actually two different ones).  So here's a little show.

Here's my Christmas Irish Chain.  I've never had a Christmas quilt before, so this one is rather special for me.

Full Sized Quilt

Close Up of Quilting with Christmas Bells

Detail of Chain
And here's the Trip Around the World quilt that I made from fabric that I bought when I was in Florida over Christmas.
Huge Queen Sized Quilt

Detail of Feather Quilting

The rehabbing on my house is going well, but slow.  I decided I wanted my laundry area on the ground floor of my 2 story house instead of down in the unfinished basement.  I happened across a contractor who lives about 3 blocks away (I love buying local), got good references for him, and talked to him about what I wanted to do.  There was an empty hall way between my downstairs half bath and my family room.  The hallway went to a door that went out onto the back deck.  But since there's a big sliding door in the family room, I never used that door, and I thought I could remove the wall between the bathroom and hallway, and move the bathroom wall to enclose the former hallway and put a laundry area in the downstairs bath.  The contractor has done 80% of his work, but now we're to the point of replacing the flooring, which I wanted to do anyway.  I'm about ready to pull the trigger on that, then my painter will come in and paint the walls, the contractor's electrician will come in to finish the electric, and the plumber will come back to finish the plumbing.  Then the contractor will replace all the doors (I've been living without a door on my downstairs bath for the past 3 weeks) with new 6 panel doors, replace the molding that we saved, bring the washer and dryer up from the basement and ta-da!  I have been taking pictures of each step and I'll show it all when I've got it done -- before and after.

Tuesday I leave for Phoenix for some training and will return on Saturday.  I've got relatives out there that I expect to be able to spend some time with and will do a little sight seeing.  So I've got my sewing machine put away for a while between being out of town, etc.

Out in the flower garden, the snow is gone and the crocuses are coming up.  I have little purple buds.  The day lilies are being brave and are starting to peak their heads above the cold soil.  The big maple tree in my front yard is starting the process of budding.  When you look out at the landscape, no real green yet, just a hint of yellow around the edges of the willows.  Nothing showing on my forsythia yet.  But we all feel like Spring is finally on its way!