Needles and Pens

Every time I start to tackle a new room, I have the same problem. Aside from the obvious cleaning and organizing, just what do I want to do in here? It takes a few days (or a week), but then something will spark inspiration. In the case of my bathroom, the window shopping did it. Looking at towels, bathmats, and other accessories helped me zero in on a color, which brought to mind some fabric I already had on hand -- and I have my new color scheme (though I haven't quite nailed down the exact shade of aqua for the walls). I love paisley... I'm thinking of using these in a window valance, something like this from Bed, Bath and Beyond : But first, the cleaning... ugh. Starting with the dreaded shower. I can't even bring myself to show you how cruddy it looked before, but I scrubbed my fingers to the bone and now it looks almost like new. I was seriously sore all over the next day, and everyone who uses this shower (I'm a bubble bath girl, myself) heard abou...

This week I sewed the binding on the scrappy baby quilt so beautifully quilted by Marcia of Marcia's Crafty Sewing & Quilting Blog . (Lucky me, to be the winner of her Scrappy Quilt Challenge -- her quilting was the prize!) All freshly washed and crinkly... I love it! Inspiring swirls! All done, and ready to snuggle... You can see all the details on this quilt in my earlier post here , and/or at Marcia's blog here , where she shared lots of great pictures of her quilting process. What a wonderful experience this has been! :o) Linking up this week at: Amylouwho's Sew & Tell Friday Finish it Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts TGIFF, being held this week at Quokka Quilts , and Minutes for Me at Marcia's -- because I truly enjoyed every minute working on this quilt!

We had quite a snowstorm here yesterday, and it looks more winter-like outside than it has all year, but I don't care... it's March! Spring is just around the corner. :o) It's also time for a new Better Home Challenge project, and for those who are playing along, this month's project is #2. For me, that's the downstairs bathroom. Yes, I'm finally getting out of the basement! It's a little tricky to take pictures of such a small room, but I gave it my best shot. (And I didn't clean first, so please pardon any mess you happen to see. Luckily dirt doesn't show up all that well in pictures. LoL) When I painted this dark hunter green several years ago, I really loved it, but it's most definitely time for a change. It's so dark, it makes the room look even smaller than it is, and it shows everything ! Dirt, toothpaste/soap splatters, hairspray overkill, dings in the wall, etc., etc. It's time for a change! And some organizing... ...

Previous Posts on February's Project: Project Overview and "Before" Pictures Mid-month Update Heads Up (Ongoing Suspended Ceiling Project) February has finally come to an end, and I can't say I'm sorry to see it go! We were hit with all the typical cold viruses and stomach bugs this month, and the last couple of weeks felt like slow motion. It's a wonder we got anything done at all, but I'm happy to say we made definite progress on our February challenge project, the basement rec room. Here are a few pictures taken this morning. The view, coming down the stairs, looking over the stair railing: Believe it or not, that floor is clean. I washed it myself just yesterday. On my hands and knees. My kingdom for new flooring! Despite the many things I didn't get done, my goal of making this a usable game room was accomplished. (As evidenced by the gamer who would rather be in all my "after" pics than stop playing his game.) Isn...

It's been awhile since I've posted an update on my February Better Home project, and with only three days left, I've been taking stock of what's been done and what can still realistically be done in these last few days. I think I was on target awhile back when I said I'd be happy just to have the area de-junked and the floor washed. Well, I have three days left to get that floor washed... LoL That's kind of how things have been going here this month. Aside from some major de-cluttering, we did get a start on a long-put-off project in this room -- the ceiling. Though the two bedroom ceilings were finished when we bought our house in 1998, the rest of the basement still has the heat duct-plumbing-wiring-and-beams decor overhead. In the area I've been working on, this is the basic ceiling view. Years ago, we purchased a suspended ceiling "starter kit" for the room, but never got around to so much as opening the box. This challenge has, if no...

Apparently the recent change that Blogger has made to the comment verifications on some blogs... is driving a lot of people totally CRAZY! LoL I've struggled with it a few times myself (taking multiple tries to get the "right" words), so thought I'd better check and see if I was one of those blogs... I couldn't find anything about it in my settings, so I did the next best thing (I thought) and did a test comment on my blog, and was NOT asked for verification. I thought I was in the clear. Wrong. Luckily, someone who did fight the "prove you're not a robot" fight, asked very kindly in her comment if I'd consider turning off my verifications... huh? I thought they were off! Sure enough, when I checked again (while logged OUT of blogger) there they were, those fuzzy gray words you can barely make out. Grrr... evidently you only see the verification words on your own blog when you're logged out of Blogger. I looked again in my settings (I use th...

Well, almost finished. We still need to find out the baby's name for the label, but for the most part, the Sweet Hearts baby quilt for my niece's friend (and my first attempt at quilting with this minky-type fabric) is done! The quilting was as challenging as I expected, but not for the reasons I had imagined. I planned to do simple cross-hatching through the minky squares, to keep it as trouble-free as possible. Once I had that part finished (or so I thought), I realized that there was all kinds of stitch skipping going on on the back of the quilt and had to completely UN-sew everything I had done so far. (All of the diagonal lines you see here.) Isn't this a gorgeous print? ("Fabulous Finds," a Stonehill Collection by Donna Wilder for Fabric Traditions © 2011) My niece chose all of the fabrics for this quilt. Such a unique and pretty combination! (If you like her style, I'm sure she'd love to have you check out her interior design website here ...