The Tale of a Last Minute Shower Gift

Last week Tuesday morning I received a last minute invitation to a bridal shower for the coming Friday night. The actual invitation was sent to our old address and some how was not forwarded. Most people would head over to Target or Bed Bath Beyond and pick up a gift. Easy-Peasy with time to spare. I could not do that, however, since I am cursed/blessed with many, many creative bones. Some might call it personal vanity, but I pride myself in giving homemade gifts for new brides and mommys-to-be. Oh, I'll add a cookbook or some baby socks, but 80-90% of the gift has to be made-by-me.


The limited time frame did not deter me. By Tuesday afternoon I had the quilt cut out. Wednesday morning it was completely pieced and ready for machine quilting. Thursday I machine quilted it, cut, sewed, and pressed the binding strips. Friday morning I sewed on the binding and in the afternoon hand stitched it to the back. Finished, just in time. =)


The fabric collection is called "Daydream Catcher" by Heidi Grace (Joann Fabrics). I did not pre-wash the fabric as I planned to wash the entire quilt after I machine quilted it to give it a slight vintage look. It worked out somewhat as I planned. At the last minute, I decided to use a sheet instead of making a trip to Joann's for coordinating fabric to use as the backing. The sheet was not 100% cotton and didn't allow the quilt top and batting to shrink as much as I wanted. Lesson learned ... I won't do that again. =)

It's a very nice sized quilt - 44X44 inches. Big enough to cover the back of a couch but small enough to be placed on a table on point. The center blocks are 7 1/2" unfinished/7" finished and they are bordered with 3" unfinished/2 1/2" finished strips.

Love,

Erin

Joann, you take my breathe away ...

by your absolute incompetency and complete lack of service with a smile!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We are talking Joann Fabrics and Craft here. Seriously! How is it that these people even get hired?????? There is something SERIOUSLY wrong with management to allow such people to be on staff.

I went in to buy batting, as it is 40% off. I wanted Warm & White and I also thought I'd try some Warm Blend. The Warm & White had the price SKU on it, but the Warm Blend did not. The clerk wanted to charge me THE SAME THING even though they were obviously different products. She did not WANT TO LOOK UP THE RIGHT PRICE. And then to top it off, she folded the batting into the messiest lump you ever saw.

I can't say I'll never shop at Joann's because I really like the big holiday sales when batting, notions, etc. are 50% off ... BUT, I will never set foot in THAT particular Joann's EVER again. Never.

Love,

Erin

Happy Monday!

This is the BIG WEEK!!!! Abigail starts kindergarten tomorrow. I think it finally sunk in this weekend that she's starting big girl school and she is EXCITED! We are sending her to a local private (Christian) school that has a uniform dress code. Miss A decided to wear her plaid jumper, white polo, red socks, and black mary janes. Her hairstyle will be 1/2 piggie tales with black rubber bands. It's ok to bring a stuffed animal the first day, so she is bringing Puppy. Puppy has been one of her constant companions since her birth. =)

The tail end of last week was busy, too. I received a last minute invitations to a bridal shower and had to make a gift in record time. It turned out lovely. The bride received it Friday night and loves it.

As I'm typing, there are 244 pictures uploading into Picasa off my camera. That's LOTS of blogging material for the next couple of weeks. I'll leave you with a picture ... one of the quilts on the docket for this week.




Love,

Erin

Feedback Desired!

Vanessa at V and Co. has a nifty tutorial on how to change your blog background. I've always used a "cookie-cutter" blog template and always thought it would be cool to have a "designer" looking blog. But I was scared to try. =( What if I screwed up and ended up deleting EVERYTHING!!!!! That.would.be.bad. Tonight I finally got the guts to try.

Yeah-haw! It worked. Whatcha think?!

Love,

Erin

Count Down to K-Day

4 days.

That's it until the first day of kindergarten. Miss Abigail had her before school checkup and got her last 2 immunizations. Let me tell you, that girl has a good fight or flight mechanism! She did not want those shots and made a b-line for the door. I tackled her and had to hold her arms down in a bear hug while the nurse injected.

School supplies bought -- check.
School uniforms acquired -- check.
Backpack labeled -- check.

We are only missing one thing ... an enthusiastic mommy. I'm going to sorely miss my little gal pal. I think I'm going to feel like I lost my right arm.

Love,

Erin

Bedford Road Before & After - Bedrooms

Our house has four bedrooms -- 2 down and 2 up. At the time these pictures were taken, the two upstairs bedrooms were still under construction, so I'll just show you the main level ones.

ABIGAIL'S BEDROOM

Before:

After:


MASTER BEDROOM
Before:

Lovely powder blue sponge painted closet interiors with particle board closet organizers.
Simple lovely ... ah, no!
After:

I think that's it for interior pictures. I have a slew of pictures somewhere on the computer of when we had 22 tress cut down on Memorial Day weekend. Yes, you heard me correctly. TWENTY-TWO trees. And the backyard still looks like a forest. LOL

Love,

Erin

My Favorite Yarn Store is FOR SALE

I received this information on Tuesday afternoon from a fellow fiber addict that Woolgathering, in Kennette Square, PA, is on the market.

Oh, if only I had several TENS of THOUSANDS extra dollars sitting around, I'd buy the place!!! I'd specialize in Indy Dyed sock yarn like The Sanguine Gryphon, Yarn Pirate, Zen String, and Creative Yarns. And THEN I'd stock quilt fabrics like Kaffe Fassett, Amy Butler, Joel Dewberry, Denyse Schmidt. Very funky and very modern.

Love,

Erin =)

Where did my Blogs go??

I just noticed that all the links in "Blogs that Inspire Me" are GONE. Where did they go?!?! I'll get that fixed ASAP. I want you to be able to link to all the FABULOUS blogs that I check on a daily (ok sometimes a couple times a day) basis.

Love,

Erin

Before & After Pictures - Part II

LIVING ROOM
Before:

After:

The paint color looks AMAZING with the fireplace stone. It's hard to tell from this photo but there is a keystone in the fireplace surround. Very cool looking!

FAMILY ROOM
Before:

What in the world were the previous owners thinking?! We decided to tear out the "bar" and build a closet in its place that opens into the hallway.

After:
Everyone loves the red Family Room. Everyone tells me how brave I was to paint such a big room such a bold color. I act really non-chalant and say "Oh I knew the room could carry this color because of the size" when in fact I was scared to death. But it turned out SOOOO good. =)

Is everyone enjoying the Before and After pictures? I haven't gotten any comments ... should I keep them coming or move onto more interesting subjects?

Love,

Erin

The House on Bedford Road - Before & After

This week I'm going to post pictures of our new house. Every day will be a couple more rooms with before and after pictures. It's been one HECK of a project and at times Mr. K and I wondered "Is this really worth it?!" If you have any questions about paint colors, cabinet styles, etc. please don't be shy. Ask away!!!

KITCHEN
Before

After

UTILITY/MUD ROOM
Before

After

Love,

Erin =)

Would you call this an Obsession?

I spent most of Friday and Saturday reorganizing our digital photos into Picasa 3. I made a separate file for each obsession, I mean hobby. Hehe! It was great fun to look at all the projects I've made. One thing that struck me was how much yarn I've dyed in 3 years. I couldn't make a mosaic with all the pictures because there were close to 100 colorways, so I just did a random selection:

You know what the crazy thing is?! I remember dyeing every single one. It's rather strange how I remember weird stuff like that ... inherited that from my dad. =)

Well, I'm on to another obsession but this one is not new. I'm irresitabley drawn to my first love. Quilting ... ahhhhh, yes. I can't wait to get started! I've been designing like a crazy woman and have a notebook full of patterns to make. Many of them I plan on sharing with you in the form of tutorials. =)

Oh, great news!!! The fabric stash is refolded ... I repeat, the fabric stash is refolded. I liked the Closetmaid cubbies so much I went out to Target in the pouring rain at 7:30pm Saturday night to get another one before they went off sale. LOL.

Love,

Erin

PS - Click on the mosiac for a larger view.

Fabric is Therapy

I've been a bit anxious lately and my emotions have been like riding the Magnum at Cedar Point. Abigail, my constant company for 5 years, is starting kindergarten on September 1st. Full day. Every day. Yeah. Then we have this house remodeling project that continues to cause us a good deal of angst. We planned on it taking 3-4 months. We just entered month nine. Yeah. So, I decided that I needed a bit of therapy on Thursday afternoon and decided to refold my fabric stash. =)

I've been eyeing Ikea's Expedit bookshelves for some time. Several friends have them for organizing their fabric and yarn stashes. Target has something similar and I grabbed one when I saw it on sale for $39.99:
My entire fabric stash has to be refolded to fit into each "cube." I'm folding my fabric in 1/2 the width of the fabric and in 1/2 again so that it's a skinny rectangle. Then I'm folding it 1/2 so that the raw cut ends meet and I have a nice fold in the front. Two stacks of fabric fit just nicely in each cube. It's working out very well and looks very tidy. I'm a quilter so 99% of my fabric is 44/45" wide. I only buy fabric in 1/2 yard increments so it's easier for me to fold everything to match. Yes, I am very anal and OCD in regards to organizing. After a couple hours of work, I'd folded and smoothed my way to a happier and worry-free Erin. At least for the day. ;-)

Love,

Erin

I'm a Quilter and this is Pathetic

These are the three quilts that I have in Photobucket. Three? THREE!??!?!

I've made many more, but just no pictures. How totally unexceptable! Shame, Shame. I absolutely MUST do something about that.

Love,

Erin

PS - I made the above photo mosiac here. It's free, it's fun, and a mosaic looks super spiffy IMO!

Paint Colors

The main reason I haven't blogged since the beginning of the year is a HUGE house remodeling project. Mr. K and I bought a foreclosed house that needed an unbelievable amount of work. More then we ever imagined!

One of the good things about this crazy house project was the opportunity for me to have fun with paint colors. After close to 30 sample paints, I had the paint colors whittled down to five. That's what the "experts" say is the maximum number of colors to use in a house. No fewer then two and no more then five. Ok, ok ... Abigial's room is pink so that makes it sixe colors. =)

Since I agonized and agonized over paint colors, I thought I'd share with you the ones we used:

Kitchen, Dining Room, Halls, Closets, Upstairs Bedrooms - Tobacco Road
This is an old Duron color that I learned about through the Nesting Place. It is a wonderful, neutral color that isn't at all blaaaaah. Think golden tan that's not too dark and looks great with pretty much any color. I had it mixed into Olympic paint so if you want the "recipe", send me an email.

Living Room - Walnut by Ralph Lauren; mixed into Valspar American Traditons paint
I would never have picked this color off the card, but my friend Kim has her family room painted this color. When Mr. K started cutting in this color he was worried it was too dark, but it grew on him. When he was done with the room he said, "I like this color. It will never show any dirt." Ever the practical man .... love him! It looks great with the white crown molding, white built-in bookshelves, and stone fireplace.

Family Room - Royal Red by Olympic Paints (Biltmore Estate Collection)
This is a color I would not have been brave enough to paint unless I saw it in person first. My friend Sue painted her family room in her old house this color and I loved it. When you were in the room, you never wanted to leave. It was warm and inviting and so perfectly RED.
I.LOVE.THIS.ROOM.

Utility Room and Hall Bathroom - Lighthouse Shadows by Valspar Paints
I totally did NOT agonize about this color. It's a nice light blue that's not at all babyish. Very fresh and clean - just what I wanted in these two rooms.

Master Bedroom - Svelte Sage by Sherwin Williams mixed into Valspar American Traditions paint
Nesting Place to the rescue again!!! It's a wonderful green that is very neutral. This color swatch bopped it's way around the house before settling in the Master bedroom. =)

If you are in the painting mood, check out these colors on Flickr or pick up paint chips from Lowes.

Love,

Erin

Bloggy House Cleaning

Have you noticed any changes??? I changed to a different blog template, as I was getting a little tired of the blue theme. I also deleted a good number of posts. I stepped away from blogging for many months due to a house remodeling project. When I read my past posts, I realized how fake I've been in my writing. I made myself out to be a perfect homemaker, with my weekly meal plans, schedules, apron wearing, and inspirational quotes. It feels good to get that off my chest. =) In the future, I'm going to let my writing reflect who I really am. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

Love,

Erin =)