More Paint

Well it seems all I do right now is patch and paint, patch and paint. It's getting exhausted and I'm feeling the need to do some sewing! I've been doing more work in my sewing room, but I'm still needing a work surface. I've contemplated a few styles. This one has some great features. It's got a section I could put my laptop on, and my sewing machine on the return.
L-shaped desk
But I'm tempted to just go with a straight desk and maybe a seperate rolling desk for my laptop.
In the meantime, here are some updated photos of the sewing room and the living room!

My fur closet - fake fur of course! And larger amounts of fabric.

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Temporary window covering until we figure out what we're doing.

'Flaming June' - had a problem with the hooks on the back so I can't hang it yet.

Organization and a magnet board (and some old sewing projects) New desk will be to the left.

Desk area for cutting fabric with my rotary blade (etc)

One side of the living room. Probably a small dining table will go here.

Main wall of living room.

Dark wall - we'll be getting a flat screen to go on this wall in the new year (because I broke the big tv d'oh)

Other living room corner with my favorite wall art - bought in Scotland, by a Polish artist Wiesław Wałkuski. Check out his work! awesome art here

And of course, my favorite picture of Levy.

Now onto the 'murder' room - who does this?

New Sewing Room

Well I am using the small bedroom upstairs in the new house for a sewing room. I painted it green - 'baby poo green' is what Todd calls it. Eventually we are redoing all the floors so I must admit that I didn't tape the baseboards because they'll be replaced eventually, and with a much higher base.
So this is what the room looked like originally

And now it looks like this!

now to decide on some window coverings and put the rest of my shelves up!

The Ongoing Story of ...

Well we've bought a house - and let me tell you, buying a house is not for the weak of heart! It's ours on November 8th so the next few weeks will be busy packing and moving.
In other news, I've been working away on my Japanese quilt. It's really starting to come together! I love the black strips in between, making it like a window frame.
I'm struggling a bit with squaring the blocks up. I use a rotary blade but they dull so quickly and are so expensive. I did some research and people suggested rolling the blade over foil. I tried it out and I'm really not sure if it made any difference. Perhaps I need to order one of the blade sharpeners I spotted online a well. Or find a place that sells them in bulk!

I also decided to start a rag quilt with a bunch of pink and green fabrics I bought down on the coast. I use my Baby GO! machine from Accuquilt. I really love this machine. For someone with bad wrists it's really helpful but I found myself struggling with the rag quilt die. The threads got stuck in the die and I used tweezers to pull them out all the time. I also had a brand new cutting mat and for some reason the thing wouldn't catch in the roller.. I was getting frustrated. I turned to the accuquilt website and watched some videos with hints. Apparently the threads are fine, you can keep running fabric through and you don't have to clean the threads every single time! I also had only been running two layers of fabric through thinking that was the problem with the mat not catching... but when I put a third layer on it, the darn thing started catching properly! Which of course made my life much easier, as I was able to cut more fabric in a shorter amount of time!

So in two days I've cut all the squares I need and the cotton to go between each layer. Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to sew them all and then it goes in the wash to 'rag'... very exciting!

I've also asked my friend Jane, the amazingly talanted knitter, to knit Casey a sweater for winter.. can't wait to see it!

Continuing work on the Japanese quilt aka 'Fans'

So I've finally managed to get an iron. I somehow lost/gave away or just plain misplaced my old iron. One thing I discovered though was that my old iron was not so great! The new iron works much better, with both spray and plenty of steam. I'm not sure how much I like the idea of having to empty the water every time I'm done with using it. The dog was extremely fascinated with the steam and kept trying to get her face onto the ironing board - not the best idea dog!!
After our last trip down to the valley I picked up a variety of fun fabrics as well as a large amount of black fabric. After taking a look at my fan squares on my design wall, and trying a variet of options, I decided to bring some black fabric strips into place and run them between EVERY block. I washed the fabric as I had washed the fan fabrics, and unfortunately it came out very wrinkled. Having to iron the fabric is what put me off working on this quilt for a few weeks.
Today I ironed most of the fabric, and used my baby Go cutter to cut strips out. I've managed to perfect the easiest way for me to this, as well as how many layers I can run through at one sitting. I can run more layers through but this seems to result in the cutting mat getting warn out before it's time (I'll have to post a photo of my smaller mat to show what I mean) I've since ordered some new ones to replace the destroyed one.
I really love my Go! Getting long even strips is so easy now. I tried using a rotary cutter but my hand always slips at some point and I screw up the strips.
My laptop is in the shop, so I'll have to update photos later :)

Baby Quilt Burst - Finished

So I used fleece on the border and on the back of this quilt. it was very forgivving but things to remember - wash on gentle or you will get pills.. sigh.. I razored off the pills but still..

Baby Quilt 'Burst''

Well we've moved into a duplex and I've managed to get (most) things unpacked. I've set up my sewing stuff in the spare room and dove right into making a baby quilt. I don't have a desk or table to sew on so I compromised by putting a table top onto a drawer unit. The only problem? I have to stand to use it. It's actually not as bad as one would expect. It's forcing me to not hunch over a desk, and my shoulders and back actually feel better. The only problem is shifting from leg to leg to use the foot.

  Baby quilt.. tried to get a bit creative but it felt unbalanced so I made some adjustments which I'll post later.

I really didn't like this look, felt it was unbalanced, so I took off a few strips from the other end and recreated the same blocks on both ends. Much better! I then used spray and patted the quilt top down onto the batting. I did the same to the other side with the fleece backing I picked.and started machine quilting in a simple pattern using painters tape as a guide.

Camper Quilting

So it's been three weeks or so that we've been living in the camper in our friend's back yard in Fort Saint John, BC. We were hoping we'd find a place this week, with two applications into property management companies but no such luck - neither of them finished approving the application so I guess it will wait until next week.
In the meantime, I pulled out some fabrics and in my limited amount of space starting cutting fabric for a Christmas quilt with my baby go! I have a space about.. 18" square to work in, if I push my laptop to the other side of the table.

 Here is my helper, working hard! Casey has been enjoying her stay here, playing with our friends puppy every day. I'm not sure what she will do when we leave here! We might have to get her a playmate :)

The place we are hoping to get is expensive but it's only for around six months, when we hope to buy a place here and I can start working on the perfect sewing studio haha! Until that time, if we get the place we're hoping I'll have more space then I will know what to do with, as we don't have any furniture and this place is HUGE.. so big we'll probably only live on the top floor and the bottom floor will remain empty!

Some Oldies But Goodies!

This is a quilt my grandmother made for me when I was born. My grandmother in a lot of ways, is my quilting inspiration.

 You can see how she reused something else for the inside of the blanket.

This is a table cloth cover she crocheted. Again, she made one for each (female I think) grandchild (and there are plenty of us!)

 She made quilts for every grandchild. I loved my quilt (not this one) but unfortunately one of the fabrics completely frayed and ruined the quilt. I begged for another one and got this lovely, completely scrappy quilt.

Thank you Grandma!

Changes are Coming!

Well it's been awhile. Lots of change are afoot. We lost our little cat Mr Black to some lung and heart issues he had for many years. Three pets lost in less then a year has been hard! We've decided to move to northern BC as well. It's big move and we're liquidating a lot of our things, so I've really not had a chance to do any sewing.
The good news is that I will have lots of time up north to sew to my hearts content!!

Still Keeping On Keeping On

I'm slowly adjusting to life without Levy. I won't lie, it's been hard.
I've spent a bunch of time organizing and de-cluttering (does de-cluttering a go hand and hand with death?)
We had a pipe break in the basement of our rental home and so I spent a bunch of time after cleaning up organizing rubbermaid bins and clearing out a lot of things. Old clothing, old papers etc. I decided to take a lot of old stained t-shirts and start running them through my 'Go' during hockey games (go canucks!) so I've slowly gathering a box of squares and triangles in greens, blacks, blues, oranges and whites. I wonder what my favorite colors are? Eventually I'd love to sew them together and recover one of the cowboy's old comforters. Either that or I am giving them away to charity. I'm trying to downsize big time and there is no room for old crappy things (besides me and the cowboy of course!)

A Loss

So I haven't blogged in a while. It's been a hard time.

Last Thursday night we brought our three year old dog in to be euthanized. It was the hardest thing I've done in my life and I don't think I can even express the horror I feel remembering what happened. I can never undo it and I wish I could, though it had to be done. My partner couldn't stay in the room so it was just the vet and I, and my beautiful, spunky, sick dog. I don't really feeling like sewing and I'm not sure when I will be, because the loss is overwhelming to me.

RIP little girl. I'll miss you forever.

April Showers...

Well it's been an exciting day!

But first, here's a few things I'm working on! The cowboy found this old ponds jar out in the field and I decided that it will make a perfect pin cushion. I need to finish it up, and glue it in place. Maybe add a trim.

A mug rug for a work mate who's moving back east. She makes wonderful mugs and this quote goes with her mugs perfectly! Her last day is Thursday so I need to finish it up quickly!

The new toy is working awesome! I love the ease of cutting strips. Next to try will be the template for the rag quilt!

And now for the surprise! My sister who has been in Japan for many years is very close to leaving sent me a little present! Imagine my surprise to find this in the mail today!