A Week Without the Internet

I'm still here, we just couldn't get online all of last week and this weekend. That makes blogging a challenge! haha I did get lots of little things done so I have some more things to show you. 

I already have itty-bitty toys, remember Santa? Well, I used one of my weekly coupons from Borders and picked up itty-bitty hats. My baby will be drowning in hats! This one's called the "pastel marley" hat, I mostly finished it last night but it still needs the wiggly bits on top. It's pretty big because I used monkey yarn to make it, not quite the right scale but I figure she'll grow into it and if she has a brother one day, he can wear it too.

The baby's room is a work in progress too! The curtains are made & hung, along with the new blinds. You can just see a glimpse of the wood panels on the left wall. It's all installed and primed now, I hope to get it painted in the next couple days (I think a crib may arrive at my door this weekend). What do you think so far?

Here's a little update on the granny square blanket. I'm happy. I just have about 24 more squares to make. 

I've completed the most fiddly and tedious part of the baby shower invitations. I need to get to the part where they say something and go into an envelope next. 

This is one of my next projects for the baby's room. I'm not telling exactly what it will be, but you'll see.

This goes with the Honey Bun & wreath above. (I got this book at JoAnn with a 50% off coupon! I love my coupons.) I want to make everything in this book! When the baby is big enough to dig her way out from under all the hats, she'll have to climb a mountain of knitted, sewn & crocheted toys. Poor little lamb.

So that's a taste of what I've been doing around here. I got the fabric to finish the baby quilt and I also made something for her room with these. I'll keep you posted. Now, I really must get to work on some custom coupon organizers for my shop.

One more thing! Trisha mentioned that I didn't blog about my cats much. You know, my "current" children? Here's a little taste of what a day in the life of Maple & Jody is like....

Yeah, she even goes for peanut butter cookies. I like to call her "The Bottomless Pit" (all 20+ pounds of her) or "Fluffy Princess".

Always interested in what's going on in the kitchen. So helpful.

Jody's more relaxed and mellow. Though he can be quite a pest when he needs a lap to sit on, he's a little relentless sometimes.

Can you tell which one's the toddler and which one's the teenager? Kids!

Don't worry, they both find time to rest.

Finished Projects

**Note: My house is a cave on the brightest day, I apologize for the terrible photos.

I told you that we'd been trying to get some work done around the house before Nick's parents came, right? Here are a few of the projects we got (mostly) finished...

The Guest Room

I made some very bright and colorful curtains for the guest room. I bought some of that pre-patchworked (like this) fabric at JoAnn. I thought it would look good with the quilt that's in the room. It's the most colorful room in our house.

The Dining Room

 This is a photo of the room before we moved in. The door to the kitchen is long gone too, you can see how unnecessary it was with the kitchen just off to the right.

We took the Japanese doors and window screen out pretty quickly, but I only just finished patching up all the holes from all the framing it took to hang them.

We've replaced the light fixture, painted and I made some curtains too. Eventually I will be hemming the curtains and adding some decorative buttons to the tabs at the top. For now, it's just nice to have them hanging, haha.

The Hallway

We've still got a few walls that need some love, but I finally finished the quilt I was working on for the wall opposite the entryway.

Yep, it's the same line of fabric I used for both the living room and dining room curtains. I hope it's not too much of one thing.

Since this quilt was actually for us, I took my time and freehand quilted the whole thing. It took forever but I like the way it turned out. It really warmed up the hall too.

There were some more projects, but these are the biggies. This weekend, or some time soon, I hope we'll tackle the next phase of the kitchen remodel.

We'll be taking out the lower cabinets under the cooktop and replacing them with three new ones. It'll be nice to have the cooktop in the middle and lots of nice storage below and to the sides. Those old cabinets are so gross inside (you won't be seeing any pictures of that, ick). The cabinets are here, so I'm hopeful it'll be sooner than later...I won't hold my breath though. Oh, and yes, we will be putting doors on the uppers, they're just really expensive. I think it's more important to have more new cabinets than to hide my stuff...for now.

Absence

Wow, I knew it had been a while since I blogged, but I didn't know it was that long.

Things have slowed down a bit on Etsy lately so I've been extra busy trying to get things done around the house.

 We've got a full set of upper cabinets now. I have so much storage space in there, I can't even find enough things to put away. Wait till we move on to the next round!

Yesterday I finished making and hanging the living room curtains. They really finished off the room! I'll make some tie backs for them next. Too bad you can't tell how sunny it is today, it's always night time at my house. We hope to put a couple sky lights in there at some point.

I've been sticking with my new plan to only work on "work" during the day, so I've been doing lots of knitting in the evenings. 

 

I finished two socks, now I just need to make the partner for each one, hehe.

I really love these yarns, both from Lilou Colours.

Saturday I went to my first yarn show with Trisha and Lou. I got a great pattern for a sweater (my first attempt at a sweater) and this pretty bamboo yarn.

 

I'd like to make a baby hat with it. There's always someone around having a baby, right?

I've been baking a bit too...

I made some lemon cupcakes, just for fun...

 

and red velvet for Valentine's Day. Nick's office mates liked these. 

Thanks for stopping by to see me again, it's nice to be back.

Dining Room Conundrum

Not too long ago I came across a great display of this collection in a (somewhat) local quilt shop. If I hadn't seen these in person, I may not have taken notice. But I'm telling you, up close, they are divine. I got some bits and brought them home to show Nick. As usual, he was really interested. Ahem, okay, maybe interested isn't the right word, but he did like what I got. haha Anyway, I thought some of these prints would look great as curtains in our dining and living room so I set about acquiring the right amounts.

Here's what the dining room looked like when we bought the house. It's still about the same, minus the weird Japanese sliding doors & window covers and the useless doorway to the kitchen. It's nice and open to the hallway and living room now. I think it's time to decorate!

These are the fabrics I'm using for the curtains. The red will be the majority with the bottom, say 18", in the grey. We currently have an oak dining set (hand me down, but nice enough) with khaki shabby chic seat covers. I figured these two fabrics would blend nicely with what we have and add something to the space

Now for the conundrum...

This is the paint color we chose. It's sort of mushroom and would likely change with the light (or lack of) in the room. It's nice, it's neutral...and now I'm afraid it might be boring too. I don't know why I'm so afraid of color! Actually, I was pretty happy with it until I made this...

Now I want to paint the room aqua. Is that wrong? I think it would be fine with the chair covers and even better with the curtains. Nick and I were just sitting at the dining room table, eating some cake, when I noticed these are the exact colors of my place mats, and what I did for my wedding! (And Nick wasn't sure about aqua, red and brown together!!!! Such a man.)

Anyway, what do you guys think about a watered down version of a shade of aqua for the walls in my dining room? Can you see it?

Insert helpful replies here:

p.s. I mean a very muted, on the grey side, aqua. Not AQUA!!!

Waiting for the Cable Guy

Today we're getting TV, but I'm not really excited about it. We don't watch a lot of TV and we HATE cable. Unfortunately, when your house is surrounded by really tall tress, satellite isn't an option. sigh So, today I'm waiting for the cable guy. Expecting someone always throws off my schedule, I have lots of hallway trim to paint today. Anyway, while I wait, I thought I'd pop in and share a few more pictures from the new house and surrounding areas....

We were happy to learn that there is a little farmer's market at the shopping center by our house. We picked up this gorgeous bouquet for Jenn last weekend. (She makes a mean brunch.)

This weekend we headed over to Bainbridge Island for a barbecue. We love it over there, it's so much like Nova Scotia, and the weather was absolutely gorgeous!

I found my local quilt shop last week too, that's a relief. It's in a really cute little country village full of shops & cafe's and it's only about 10 minutes away. Perfect.


Nick put up my curtains in the sewing room, they really soften up that ugly aluminum window.


Yesterday I got this cute little pot of silk flowers for my window. I added the fabric trim this morning, the pot was just too white. Pretty cute, no?

Now I must get to work. No more fun stuff for me.