Dilemma

I haven't been blogging lately because I don't have anything to share. I'm quite sure I'd bore you to tears in no time flat discussing, ad nauseum, all the things we are doing to get the house ready to sell. Suffice it to say, we're not quite there, YET.....I cannot believe just how much stuff two people can accumulate in 22 years. Then there are all the projects that we've been meaning to do and never managed to start until now. Too bad I won't be able to enjoy the walls my laundry finally has, or all the nice, freshly painted white doors, windowsills, baseboards etc. After 22 years of 1980 dark, faux wood grain doors, everything has been freshened and lightened up.

We're almost there. The 10' x 10' storage unit is getting pretty full. The wonderful young EMT who moonlights doing yard work is almost done with the yard and it looks amazing. All that's left are a few odds and ends, the guest room needs to be painted -- it's still the same color it was when we moved in, Pepto Bismal pink! And, the carpet needs to be replaced. I think we will be carpet shopping next week.

Now for the dilemma, we've found a house in Wenatchee that is exactly what we want, complete with three car garage that are all tall enough for the bus to fit in with a bonus room above for my sewing room. The house also has a wonderful view of the Columbia River and the Wenatchee valley which is a big thing for me since there really isn't much over there besides brown. The house has just started construction and is due to be completed mid-late November. However, the latest word on the opening of the data center, which is where The Bearded One will be working, has been slid from April to August. Yes, NEXT August as in 2013.

So, do we go ahead and put this house on the market as planned by Labor Day. If so, and if it sells, I will be moving to Wenatchee with the Spotted One while the Bearded One stays here. And then there's the problem, where would he stay? As I said, this house is absolutely perfect. It's the only thing we've found that has everything we want. So, it's hard to pass up something so perfect. There's also the little fact that interest rates are really low right now. What to do, what to do. That is our dilemma. Meanwhile, we will continue to finish up what needs to be done here and figure out what our next step will be.

I will leave you with a picture of the Spotted One from our camping trip to the coast last weekend. It was a beautiful weekend and it was nice to get away and not do anything. Of course, when we got home, one of the hottest days of the summer, the air conditioning decided to break down.....


And yes, that is my pillow he's resting his Spotted little head on......

Not Much to Share

Life has been getting in the way of quilting and will continue to do so for the immediate future.

A little over two years ago my husband was laid off after working for almost 20 years at a local airline manufacturer. He has spent the past two years back there, working as a contractor. Now he is going back fulltime but he will be working at their new data center that is currently being built in "The Middle of Nowhere, Washington". This means that we will be moving, probably by the end of the year.

So, to that end, we have been busy doing all sorts of home improvement projects in prep for getting the house ready to go on the market. First up was a much needed bathroom remodel. To go with that I made a quilted shower curtain based on Elizabeth Hartman's Sparkle Punch pattern. The bathroom walls are painted a very light shade of gray that almost looks lavender. I dug thru my stash for all my grays and blue-purples with a few red toned purples for punch. I added tabs on the back to fit over the rod and placed the liner hooks between the tabs and minimally quilted a few of the white areas just to hold it together with the backing (no batting). I did this so that I can easily turn it into a quilt if I don't have a need for a shower curtain in our new home.



Since the next few months will be filled with more home improvement and lots of sorting of 22 years worth of stuff. This blog will most likely be quiet for awhile.

Blogger's Quilt Festival: Spring 2012

I'm excited to be participating in the Blogger's Quilt Festival. I am a first time participant and feel quite honored to be part of such a talented group of quilters.

My entry is my Christmas quilt from last year. This is my second full sized Christmas quilt. My first one, had a very unfortunate accident with the red flannel backing bleeding despite having been prewashed multiple times. It bled so bad and my efforts to remove the bleeding literally destroyed the quilt.

So, here is the new quilt. It is a medallion quilt. The center portion, is from American Patchwork & Quilting magazine. But, I wanted to make it queen sized and I wanted to try Tonya's free-pieced letters. So the last two borders are my addition. This quilt is 96" and heavy. I used flannel for the backing and the heaviest weight cotton batting from Quilter's Dream -- next time I will stick with wool, my favorite batting.

I started the center portion of the medallion with some of my leftover Dalmatian puppies Christmas fabric. I had used this in a Christmas tree skirt a few years ago. What you can't really see is that the white on white fabric also has little dog bones. If there is a fabric with Dalmatians on it, you can bet it's in my stash. I also have an inordinate amount of polka dotted fabric too.....hhmmmmm......

For the free pieced border words, I tried to used appropriate fabric. If you enlarge the pictures, you can see I used holly fabric, candy cane fabric, snowflakes etc. The packages between the words were also free pieced and acted as good filler. 

The most difficult part of this quilt was putting the borders together after all the words were made. Since the words were all different lengths, trying to get them to fit the sides of the quilt was quite a challenge. I quilted this on my HandiQuilter with a holly pantograph. And, because of difficulties with my thumb which no longer allow me to do hand binding, the binding is machine stitched. 

Thank you for giving me the chance to share this with all of you.