Sunday, September 19, 2010

Busy, but no sewing

While gone to MN in August, Daughter's room became a storage area while the walls in the living and dining room were taped, mudded and textured...
...which is why I am unable to do any sewing! We are now trying to paint both ceilings and walls; everything is covered in plastic and pushed to the middle of the rooms!
And then there is the outside. One half of the house is now painted a lovely green. The rest will wait for Indian summer or spring, as it is now too wet to do any more. I love the color, but I need to do something about that white front door! And the roof really looks awful with the new paint color! Well, replacing the shingles is on our schedule of things to do next summer.
This is the garage door, still the old color. I decided to pull off the late-60's decorative accents, and now I need to do some sanding and filling before the door can be painted green.
And then there is the yard work. These are my pole beans; I let the final crop hang on the plants...
...until they are monsters. I will let the beans dry; the seeds saved will be for next year's crop!
Everything is pretty much out of the garden, except for the carrots. They are so sweet; I am skeptical about just leaving them in the garden; my common sense says that the carrots will deteriorate while just sitting in the wet dirt. So this is my experiment. I will pull the carrots as we eat them, and see if they do last in the ground for a while longer!
I've still got some colorful flowers. The fuschia is blooming really late this year, and I am loving the color of the coxcombs!
And for fall color, I planted some mums outside my dining room window.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

More Potholders!

Daughter and I are home at last. Four weeks is a long time to be away from home.

I made a set of potholders for my sister in honor of her 40th birthday! She is, by trade, a historian, so I picked some vintage-styled fabrics.
Here you can see two of the backs. I love the "classic kitchen" fabric in the bottom left corner.
I also made two "Handy Heart Potholders" from a pattern by Eva Holen. The binding was challenging on these.
My sister is obviously using them! I am so glad, for when I made some for my mom (last post), she said she would save the potholders for special occasions. I told her I made them to be used! If they wear out or get dirty, I will make more!

Friday, August 6, 2010

Potholders

Daughter and I are in Minnesota visiting my parents for three weeks. I did take a small bag of fabrics along to make some potholders. I had a lot of leftover strips of Flutterby (Moda) after I finished my tuffet. Using the blues and greens, I made four potholders.
I like piecing the backs to use up more of the smallest scraps.
It was a challenge, for I used my mom's sewing machine, which has no walking foot or free motion ability.
These are so far from perfect, and I really am not pleased with the details. But I am glad for the learning process. I learned that too much quilting can take away from the pattern produced by the piecing (top right corner). I also practiced machine binding; by the fourth try I was doing pretty good.
I've linked this up with Sew and Tell over at http://www.amylouwho.com/. Lots of great stuff to check out over there!