paint colours and wall hangings (warning lots of pictures)

Here is my last finish from earlier this week in use. I'm not sure if the comfy factor is the chair we inherited from Chris's GG a few weeks ago or the quilt, but Grimace sure loves this spot while l'm working today. That chair is from Chris's earliest memories of visiting his grandma and one thing he wanted when she passed last month. It was his 45th birthday yesterday to put the age of the chair in perspective.

Dining room 

As I mentioned last post, we are in the process of painting our home. Gone are the Ralph Lauren Suede in deep grey and deep blue accent walls. Everything including the ceilings and baseboards are getting freshened up. We've started on the first level, the only wall we didn't touch was the Venetian plastered wall in the kitchen. It was the very first wall we painted in the house it goes perfectly with our floors and we still love it. (Didn't think to take before pictures)

We had a hard time choosing a paint color. Our house has been builders standard egg shell, cafe au lait, and gun metal grey (which turned out more blue than grey). The thought of going back to any range of those colors didn't appeal in the slightest.

Looking from entry way

We came across a color called white mountain which looked in the book to be a hint of a sunset on a snow covered mountain - up against the primed wall it looked like a shade of blue... So we went out of the box and started looking at cotton candy, blush ... light pink tones (not to be confused with peach). It was a leap off the deep end for us.  We knew it was going to turn out one of two ways - absolute brilliance or utter disaster. Settled on Behr Prism Pink. When the first strokes started drying I had a moment of horror. Against the white primed wall it was looking pepto bismal pink. As more went on the wall it seemed to dull & blend and look more like the colour we picked. We've agreed on a one year commitment to this colour. Both pictures were taken around 5 pm so there is a lot of shading going on especially with the second picture. As you can see we are a real mish mash of style when it comes to furniture choices ... that is an original 60's Seeburg jukebox on the edge of our dining room.

With the new paint job, we evaluated our love bird situation. They are incredibly sweet but messy!  Our walls need constant cleanup behind the cage. Solution - washable wall hangings. After evaluating the new colour I pulled out the extra squares from my grand mothers flower garden. I have those 3 jelly rolls of Favorites and another unopened 6 packs of Paris Flea Market on top of stack of squares from the original 6 packs, a bunch of cream and sage fabric of the already completed hexies. For a bed cover the combination wasn't what I was looking for but a wall hanging to go with our new paint colour - I think I can come up with something that will work nicely.

So back to work with Paris Flea Market.

I do have my next quilt pattern and fabric picked. From Fons & Porter March/April 2015 Quilting Quickly. I'm hoping to get started as soon as the wall hangings are done.

I'm waffling on starting the string bean challenge quilt. I'm just not loving options that I have in my stash to add to it. After my last fabric frenzy I've put myself back on a fabric buying diet ... 

A whole lot of ripping and some sewing ends in a finish

Chris surprised me on Friday with this little bit of sunshine to celebrate the arrival of spring. It was snowy and cold all weekend seems old man winter isn't finished yet.

After last weeks post, I got my act together and have spent time in my sewing room everyday since and I finished my Amethyst Cream quilt!

By Friday night I had all the blocks ready to go. It took a few hours to come out with the layout and started to sew them into blocks of 4 while watching the Glee finale. Started early Saturday morning and had the top done and basted by early afternoon.

Tried a few things with my embroidery machine. I didn't like the result (front looked great but back wasn't very neat) ripped the stitches out. Started straight line stitching got 1 of the 4 sections done, again I was unhappy with the result. I decided to sleep on it. Up at the crack of dawn Sunday morning, I made the decision the quilting took away from the quilt, so another 6 hours with my ripper. It was a heck of a lot of lines and backing is a light cream minky chenille which was a real pain. In hindsight I should have taken it down to my mom's where we could have visited and ripped them together in half the time.

Stitches all gone I tackled my quilt with chalk and rulers again. Finished the quilting while catching up on The Blacklist.

Last night after dinner, I got going on the binding. With that finished into the washer for a wash and fluff dry. I am so happy with the result. The girls are already telling me this quilt should be on the love seat in the family room (where they tend to camp out).

Had a hard time getting pictures, all our furniture is pushed to the middle of the rooms. We are in the middle of painting the entire first floor.

My hexies haven't seen much action. Next up wall hangings to go behind the bird cage. Our love birds are sweet but sooo messy! More on those next time.

to join or not to join...

I have been reading the blogs for hands2help charity quilt challenge. All three charities are incredibly worthy causes, but the cause closest to home (or to be more accurate not so close but in the same country) speaks to my heart the loudest. I have not joined the challenge. While my giving a quilt or not won't make a dent in the big picture, it could have made a huge difference to one child needing something to hold on to and call their own.

Whats the hold up? I'm not in my sewing room daily or weekly and at times there have been month(s) long breaks from working on my projects. I seem to get side tracked very easily and my ufo's far out number my finishes. I don't trust my fabric color/ pattern choices - what if they aren't appropriate (too babyish or too old) or clash Or (my greatest fears) it's just plain ugly and it's not worthy to give away?!?

While it may seem like I'm whining/having a pity party of one or simply just making excuses I'm not. Long story short - my inconsistency and lack of confidence are the problem.  The two issues go hand in hand. I see plenty of people who started quilting at the same time as I did & they seem light years ahead of me. The difference is they are in the sewing room constantly and finish what they started. Once I get started on a project it starts - is this the right fabric combintions, oh I should have done this pattern instead... hem and haw ...  I'm starting to think that's what I should've named my blog!!!!

Enough of that. It's time to get experimenting again. Even if it's only 15 minutes a day making progress in the sewing room. Time to deal with my ever growing ufo/wip (at what point does a work in progress move to unfinished project category?) pile & stop second guessing and just go with it! (Hexies don't count they are like eating Lays potato chips - pure mindless enjoyment and can't stop at just one).

Maybe next year I'll be in a place where I will feel I can join.

Pictured at top of the post is the backing for my hexie table runner that my eldest daughter M picked out.  Below some of my progress of the table runner top.

partial delivery and changing plans.

My order came in from the west coast ... I was so excited. On opening I realized not only did I mis-order one item, there was a jelly roll missing that I paid for. (Ugh)

I thought I ordered 3 of 3 Sisters Favorites - I ordered/paid for 2 and received one. I checked the package 4 times -was it separated? Was this 1 of 2 packages? Nope. I called the store, added the third to my order and they are going to send with the second. I'm very happy they didn't run out, I changed the plan on how I'm putting together my grandmothers flower garden.

Not a huge issue that I didn't get it today, I have a ways to go before I'm even close to being through what I have already from the stack of Paris Flea market I bought over a year ago and now the new jelly roll that will need to be cut to size. I've no clue what size this is going to end up.

The new plan is to not frame each flower. I found the flowers to blah and while I was enjoying making them I wasn't thrilled with the results. The ones that are already finished will be a part of the border or pillow cases.  I'm just going to keep going and see how far my fabric takes me. I will need to buy backing and batting but with 3 jelly rolls and 6 of the Paris Flea market candy squares still unopened and a bunch of squares from the other 6 packs still not put together. There is also the sage green and cream (now to be used for the borders ??) I can't imagine I'll need more fabric to complete a good sized top.

The one fabric I was waiting for is the solid white jellyroll - my table runner is almost ready for the Scrumptious hexie panels to joined, which I'm using the white for. Hope to have a finish to show soon!!

Looking at the order I'd say I'm in a moda frame of mind.

My other order with the Pat Sloan jelly roll should be in any day...

No progress to report on my amethyst - vanilla cream quilt. It was a mindless hexie kind of weekend.

Continuing on and some retail therapy

The past few weeks I let myself go on a fabric shopping spree for the first time in over 6 months.

It started mid last week when I bought 3 Sisters Favorites jelly rolls to mix in with my grandmothers flower garden. Favorites includes Paris Flea Market prints which is the line I've been using and Seaside Rose which will coordinate well. Solid jelly rolls for the hexie table runner project I'm half way through & another planned project for place mats (these are what I originally went looking for) and a layer cake & jelly roll of Monkey Tales. Why this one? Well, I just love everything monkey related and this just looked like fun. All of this was bought online and is being shipped from British Columbia which translates to a two week wait for delivery - one more week before it arrives.

In need of instant gratification, I went to the local quilt store last weekend and bought Amethyst Royale and Vanilla Cream jelly rolls.  There are only 20 strips per pack, thinking that wouldn't be enough for a lap quilt I bought 2 packs of each. I have more than half the blocks trimmed and on the design wall, doing the math it's obvious I'll be able to make two lap quilts - a happy mistake! As I've been going I've been thinking of ideas on how to use the second set. Working on this quilt I've discovered I'm going to have to rethink where I moved my design wall last fall. I couldn't get a decent picture no matter what I tried. Here is a small sample of the layout from my cutting table along with the two unopened packs. I darkened the picture a bit too much - those blocks are actually the lighter tones but look like the mid range. I have no idea what this block pattern is called but I keep seeing it on other blogs. This was perfect! I needed something simple to get moving on my sewing machine again.

On to my latest purchase - last night I read Pat Sloan's blog post where she has started the String Bean Challenge. While I don't think I will submit anything, I thought why not give it a go. One of the requirements is to incorporate some fabric from any of her fabric lines. Seeing I'm planning on using the pattern I felt I should buy/use some of her fabric. I found One for you One for me fat quarter bundle on Amazon for a great price, once you factored in shipping & exchange rate it nearly doubled the cost. Hmm... plan b. Searching my go to Canadian online stores , I found The Sweet Life jelly rolls so I purchased that. This store is in the same province so I should have fabric soon. I won't start this one until the lap quilt is done. I doubt I will complete both tops by April 19th, but wouldn't it be miraculous great if I did!