The winner is ....

brianbabymama. She was randomly selected by my totally disinterested teenage daughter. Thank you all for entering. It was a lot of fun to do and I can't wait to do another give away.

In progress

Nothing around here seems to be able to be finished. I think it is the tile guy's fault. Well, at least he started it. The tile on the bathroom remodel is still almost done. It has been almost done since Friday. My project seem to be following suit. I keep working on them but, they don't seem to get any closer to finished. Since I can't seem to finish anything I will show you what I am currently working on.

A knitted log cabin throw in picks and greens that is taking forever. I started this in December...I am so over this project
As always I am working on a pair of toe up socks. I always have a pair of these in process, so lac of progress on this project is not really bothering me.


I have this quilt sitting next to my sewing machine....I can't find my walking foot. I am a bit worried that one of my lovely children "put it away" for me if that is the case then I had better go buy a new one because I'll never be able to find it.And last of all a sheep felted bag that I am making for my mother.
Really, all these are taking to long so, I think that I should start a new project.

100th post giveaway

First the bathroom remodel update then on to the giveaway. Tiling continues, it really looks good, I am totally ready for them to be done. You know how the last ten miles before you get home from a long car trip are the longest. That is how I feel right now. So close, yet so far. Now for the pictures. This is the best I could do because the floor tile is still setting as I type. I promise no more bathroom picture on my blog until the bathroom is done.


I have reached the milestone of 100 post to my blog. To celebrate I thought that I would giveaway a small knitting bundle. It consists of the knitting pattern booklet Kindred by Louisa Harding and three different Louisa Harding yarns. I just love her booklets because of the photography and the fact that she writes patterns for children and teens. As the parent of a child and a teen I can tell you that stylish knitting patterns for these age groups are in short supply.
How to win my very modest knitting package, you ask? Just post a comment by July 14th 12pm Pacific time. That is it, that is all. You don't have to list some weird random fact about yourself to win (you can if you want to but, you don' t have to). On July 15th I will enlist the help of one of my children or the dog depending on who is more cooperative and draw a person at random.

Tea Towel

I am a sucker for old embroidered kitchen and bedroom linens. I love the amount of effort that was put into such utilitarian objects. I did happen to inherit some very nice pillow cases (and I actually use them) when my grandparents died, but I never received any kitchen linens. I am sure that this towel won't survive to be passed down because I will defiantly be using and enjoying it. Hubby and I would both love to have one of these vintage travel trailer so, I really enjoyed stitching these. Unfortunately, this is a close as we are likely to get to owning one of these trailers for a while.



The embroidery patterns is from Sublime Stitching. She has a lot of great patterns that you can buy from her site. The towel came from towel yardage that I bought at the Bobbin's Nest last month. All you have to do is trim it the the length that you want and hem the end such a quick way to make your own towels.

It is about to get exciting....

in our bathroom. Now that is a sentence that you don't hear everyday and probably don't want to hear. Tomorrow the tiling starts and that will make the biggest difference. The pictures are not much to look at now but, the remodel should really be taking shape by the end of the week.
Here is the bathroom when we left for the July 4th weekend.
And here is is today. That large space on the right hand side of the picture is going to be a linen closet. I may be more excited about this that any other feature of the bathroom. Well placed storage is really lacking in our house and I am so excited about having a closet in the bathroom.

Just so you don't think that all I've been up to lately is drooling over my new linen closet. Here is a picture from a hike to Chillkoot Lake that Hubby and I took with my dad's senior hiking group. The lake was cool and calm so my hiking buddy Jess got to go for a long swim.


Doesn't Jess look like he enjoyed his swim.

a little birthday present to myself

It is amazing how the littlest things can improve life so much. I had been using painters tape stuck to the needle plate of my Singer 15-91 sewing machine to measure my seam allowances. I poking around I found that you could buy a replacement needle plate for my machine that had seam allowances already marked on it. I promptly bought one for cheap off the internet and took at the results. I think it looks so much better.

Before:

After:



Happy 4th of July !

Fabric covered bullentin board

As my bathroom remodel continues to chug along and is not currently providing many interesting picture I thought that I would share another project that I finished a couple of weeks ago. My oldest daughter has a lovely bulletin board set in her bedroom. It was on the pricey side and DD#2 did not like any of the covering options that it came in. I am not really into spending money on things that you don't really like so, with two yards of Amy
Butler fabric and a trip to the office supply store here is what we came up with for her room.

These are just 12 x 12 cork tiles but they are a bit thinner than I wanted so I just used Elmer's Glue to glue them together.

About this much glue to be precise.
Set a heavy book on them and let is sit for about 10-12 hours. When the glue was dry I used pinking shears to cut a square of fabric about an two inches bigger than the tile. Using my regular desk stapler (I was too lazy to find the big stapler in the garage) I liberally stapled the edges down and then used nine of the adhesive squares per tile that the tile package to stick them to the wall. I might regret this last part in the future when I have to get that stick stuff off the wall, but for now I am livin' dangerously.
This really was a fun and easy project to do.