flower fun

I was home over memorial day weekend, and my mom and I had a little too much fun putting together planters. We drove around looking for shade plants with flowers that would grow under the dense foliage covering my patio. And we went nuts with packets of pansy and coleus. I purchassed the Astilbe from Scotland Yards Greenhouse in Edinboro, PA. (We got dad a really neat hosta while we were at it). They have a pretty sweet gift shop in their barn, too, with nice gardening and outdoor accessories. Mom sent me home with dicentra from her own garden. The hosta was a rescued volunteer from the carport at the last house I lived at.

When I first moved to the Big City, I bought a bedframe off a friend who lived semi-locally. It was the top of a bunkbed, but since it got my matress and boxspring off the floor, that's really all I cared about. My bed lived in storage for a year while I was living in the Queen Ann in the East End, and it was set up in my new place, where it's lack of height irked me no end. I got a KURA loft bed from some friends for free, but not having a car with a hatchback, I wouldn't effectivey get rid of the bunkyboard. So I hauled it outside and it sat on my patio until that EUREKA moment when I turned it on it's end, leaned it against a half wall for support and have been using it for hanging baskets.
 

and I thought I had killed this, but it's still hanging on by it's teeth.

hiatus

I left my camera at my mom's place memorial day weekend, and I didn't realize how often I use that thing until the third time I called asking if they'd found it yet. Hmm...

I spent some time in the oversized book section at the CLPGH main branch, checking out all seven of the available Kaffee Fassett books on shelf. The sewing machines have covers over them until classes are over, but that doesn't mean I can't figure out what to do with the fabric I've got laying around. And there's a lot of that. Kaffee has his own version of Jane Austin's famous lozenge quilt, and I discovered photocopied patterns I've been looking for, tucked into a binder I forgot about. And I found out the name of the book they came from, 101 nine patch quits, by Marti Michell. Which, if I ever find a copy that's not going for $80 on Amazon, I'll probably buy.

in the meantime, before class started, I got some things finished.

 like this goofy flowerpot. I've seen similar ones that have little birds or dogs or houses or whatever, but there was nothing anywhere else on the mold to suggest that there was anything to put there. So I'm going to leave it.













and the granny square is done! it looks a little awkward with two different sashing fabrics, but i wasn't planning on giving it away anyhow.

also finished is the cheerful child and the sampler!

I took a long arm lesson at the end of May, and can't wait to try it out on an actual quilt, but my summer course work is a little prohibitive in terms of working on anything. Bleh.

Upcoming is a children's book, based on a cat who moves to the city, and has to deal with keys and locks. it's due next week.

ikea hack

It started with a dresser I bought little over a year ago that I repainted. A move and a year later, the drawers on the dresser were finally giving up the proverbial ghost, though the cabinet was still in great shape (damn crying shame I don't have space for it, it would make GREAT shelves with some custom cut MDF)

To keep the morning rolling smoothly instead of peppered with explicatives everytime a drawer came apart, I ambled over to IKEA and purchased a GORM (as mentioned previously in terrarium 2.ohnoes)

I did some browsing on Ikea hackers for some ideas, and settled on simply cutting down the framing materials to height. Since the square footage in my apartment is pretty small, I didn't waste floor space on the dresser; it lived inside one half of one of my closets. I'd never been pleased with it living there, as there still seemed to be a lot of wasted space involved

GORM, as I hacked it

GORM, as IKEA intended it

Now the inside of my closet looks like an over glorified clothes press - back around the American Revolution, people folded their clothes in piles instead of hanging them up. Which is partly why so many old homes don't have closets - they used a wardrobe (clothes press) instead. Less monkeying with building materials and what not when building a house, I guess. I know they had WAY less clothing and accessories than we do, because keeping those clothes clean was a time consuming pain.

I have several knobs left over from other projects, so I decided to take advantage of the many pre-drilled holes in the GORM unit, giving me space to hang up anything from hand bags to my pain clothes.

Looking at it, I realized I could really use the left over scrap from the pieces I cut off, so I pulled out a few more knobs and created a hook rack for incidentals like umbrellas, my day pack, or anything else I've otherwise had to fish for in the bottom of the closet. The only thing I had to do was sink a few nails into it.

terrarium 2.0K

terrarium 2.ohnoes

Discovered a gaping hole in the bottom of my terrarium the other day. Bad, bad bad since the terrarium was a re-purposed glass vase. No idea when the chunk decided to fall out, but it did. Thus began the search for a suitable replacement and I almost bought this beautiful terrarium from IKEA -

so... when did IKEA climb on the Shabby-Chic bandwagen?

And there's more where that came from. I wouldn't have said S/C went with Scandinavian Minimalism, but there is something appealing about accenting the spartan with a little frill. The plant stand makes me think of made over Mission/Arts and Crafts, which painted white does go with the whole cottage thing more than the traditional dark, oxidized oak hallmark of the A/C movement.

Did I mention I'm ADD? Sorry. Terrarium. Found a $5 goldfish bowl at a thrift shop. Twice the real estate as the vase, so I added a little more plant life to it, and some other umm... decor. 

While at IKEA, I purchased a GORM for the reduced price of $30 (the website lied and quoted me $40). This to replace the dresser that I guess I never posted about... I gave the dresser a face lift, and then discovered that the glue holding the drawers together was failing... again, and again, and again I got tired of running to the hardware store and purchasing brackets to keep it together. I can't install a ClosetMaid so I went with the next closest thing I could think of. I chose a GORM simply because it was wood, and I would be able to cut it down to the height requirements of the closet, unlike the other metal shelving options avalible. Since GORM has all these handy pre-drilled holes for positioning shelves, I was able to put my knob and drawer pull collection to work, installing them as decorative hooks for holding purses and other accessories. If I were going all out, this puppy would be framed in bead board, whitewashed, have a pretty paper on the back, and have pretty matching bins corralling my socks, tee-shirts and the like. Hackers gotta hack. When they have the money to do it :). Baby steps.

simon's cat

I made these for my Lyd! Lovingly ripped from Simon's mischievous cat, I found images of Cat making a ruckus about being fed, which is pretty consistent with Lyd's behavior at 06:30 in the morning [Google search: "simon's cat+ feed me"] They turned out so well, I think I want to make a few more... They will be living in the store window through the week until the studio/ humane society event this Sunday. Then teh Lydia can eat in style. 

upcoming fun

• June 24, 2012 (Sun) -- Quilts in the Gardens
  . . The Miller Homestead on Stone Manse Drive in Allegheny County's South Park
  . . 1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.; admission $2
  . . (412) 835-1554 or www.olivermiller.org for information
  
• September 21-22, 2012 (Fri-Sat) -- Peggy's Patchwork Pals Sixth Annual Quilt Show and Sale
  . . Slate Lick United Presbyterian Church, 106 Brown Road, Freeport, PA 16229
  . . 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Vendors and lunch will be available.
  . . For more information call Peggy Coriale (724) 295-3734 or Judy Kois (724) 337-1129

There was a show this weekend that I missed that I had wanted to go to, but thought it was happening in May. Missed my chance. I'm not aware of any other upcoming events this summer that I will be able to get to. Some of this is planning way in advance, but that's life as a grad student. Figure life out for the next six months, and it's pretty well set in stone. 

I cleaned house this weekend... sort of.  The upshot of all this:

1. Winter wardrobe and bedding is all put away. Mostly all in one container.
2. Clothes that I didn't wear for the entire season have been pulled out for resale/donation. 
3. I discovered that I have 2 bags of queen sized batting, 1 double, and 4 [four, priced at $2 a pop from thrift stores] of baby/crib batting stashed in a closet. Fab.U.Louis.
4. In removing my CD collection from the bookshelf to the fireplace cubby, I freed up space for more craft related things to be stored with all the other craft related things. 

The downside is that I can't find anything. Missing in action:

1. My rotary cutters. The new Gingher, the pretty owl-covered Fiskers. Gone. Probably hanging out with the missing floral enameled Gingers that I haven't been able to find since I moved last May. 
2. My acrylic rulers. All three of them. 
3. Kaleidoscopic Heart and Human Again. I had set these albums aside to lend to people

Some bonus action: the sampler is done! After a lot of seam releasing, restitching, and additional patchwork construction to fill in new holes, I got the sashing stitched on sometime Saturday. 

It is now 5th in a queue of quilts waiting to be basted with a back and batting. I'll finish them all eventually. Maybe it's time to schedule the long arm quilting lessons...

Happy Friday! I'm having the oil changed in my car this morning (about 75 miles overdue). I picked up my Singer from the repair shop last week after almost forgetting it was there, and I stopped at a thrift shop a few doors down on the way home.

I love thrift shops.What I need is a "find-a-thrift-shop" app. Concerning is the rising prices at the thrift shops, but I suppose they are feeling the squeeze just like the rest of us. Delightful for quilters unfamiliar with an area is the Quilt Shop Locator from Quilters Club of America and Fons and Porter. Did we mention it is free? On wifi enabled devices it only works where wifi is available, of course, but with a data plan, it works whenever, wherever, as long as there's power. The downside is that the app can only locate stores that have contacted Fons and Porter, AND if you are running a system other than Apple, certain devices remain unsupported. Sorry, KindleFire owners. You can't play in the app sandbox.

stalled and terrarium fun

two, well, really, one and a half weeks of school left before I have a month (!) off from school. Then I have four summer classes, but details. I am very seriously thinking of purchasing a serger, after years of threatening, I think it's coming down to the wire. Preempted by a garment project that I am loath to start because the material will be fray-happy, and I just don't want to deal with that.

last month I took a class on terrarium building at Creative Reuse with GreenSinner. Since then, my container took one for hte team, and is missing a chunk out of the boom... so I'm watching it a little more carefully, and on the look-out for a new container.

setting it up with little plants...

A companion container!

All finished!

Chillin' on the patio outside

"You may not like him Minister but, you can't deny...Dumbledore's got style"

Last early summer at Joann Fabrics, they were featuring a North African/ Indian decorating scheme replete with exotic furnishings, and, as I recall, a fair amount of paisley. At the time, I knew I was moving into a small apartment, and had been doing some homework about what sort of furniture pieces people felt worked best for small spaces. The repeat offender? Objects that pulled double duty and or were not "heavy" in the dual  sense of physical weight, but also visually - small spaces needed objects that allowed light to pass through them. I knew I would need a coffee table, and after reading other's blogs about small space dwelling, I also knew that unless said table could be moved quickly and easily, and was adaptable, I would hate it. 

While a LACK table from IKEA would have fit the bill, I'm just not that minimalist. 

And then these kids went on sale for $10 a pop. 

I did a little more homework, and armed with a can of spray-on primer and a can of Rustoleum #7929830 Lagoon, I got to work refinishing the Mallard and Avocado green side tables. The primer step is absolutely worth it, even though the dark table color was so close to the new, and the light would have been easily camouflaged. 

Why I love these pieces

At 16" tall and 11" square, they fit EVERYWHERE. When I have people over, no one is tripping over them, they're easy to move, and they carry the pop of color that I wanted to put on the walls, but would have turned this tiny space into a cave. They also have a hint of flair. I only wish I had two more, so that I could pull them together into a square. However, I would be equally as happy finding a tray that would nest over the tops