Another Sew Saturday & More!

Wonderful things happen when we allow ourselves real PLAY TIME!

I reached my goal of finishing the needed Fireweed blocks.  I started playing with layout ideas – perhaps a zig-zag settng?  Maybe straight set with the blocks in strippy quilt style color rows of red and purple alternating?

I can spend a lot of time on my “design floor” just trying to figure out what I want to do.  What about on-point with red sashing?  Or what about purple?

Plain neutral was just TOO TOO much – but what if I did a pieced sashing with  squares on each end to become a secondary design?

*Side bar*  After taking this photo, I never noticed that there was one wayward bonus triangle hiding in plain sight until I was at the photo editing stage.  FUNNY!  Can you find it?

I think I’ve found what I want to do – and luckily there is a bin of recycled fabric and a bin of larger neutral scraps up here so I could dig in.

Today’s play time is ready to roll!

Take a look at my mug at the upper left.  This is my BEST in-the-mail birthday surprise ever!  It’s a candle warmer, and it will keep a ceramic mug with favorite beverage at the perfect drinking temp.  I am loving it – thank you so much!

I’ve got it plugged into the same power strip that the machine, light and iron are plugged in to so it is one switch to hit and everything is OFF.

One big job – The tarping of the Quiltville Post Office roof.

More rain has come – we’ve got to get things dried out before we can re-seal the roof when the temps warm up a bit more.  This is a temporary fix, but much needed against any further leaks coming through the ceiling inside.  Rain, rain GO AWAY!

There were other house things to take care of as well – it was a morning of puttering with things that took two people to manage.

The low-profile box springs were all assembled earlier, but it is a two person job to get the fabric zippered covers on them.  It didn’t take long, but now those box springs are sitting on lovely vintage bed frames waiting for new mattresses which should also be happening in the next few months.

Cafe rods and curtain installed!

This door is off the top front landing – it goes to the little hallway that leads to the attic stairs and also the access door into bedroom 4.  

We have decided to imagine bedroom 4 as the housekeeper’s room – it has a brick chimney on one wall where a wood burning stove likely sat.  (In my mind it’s cute and pot-bellied!)  With a simple bell system to notify her of the family's summons she could pass through the access door from the back side of the house, into the attic hallway you see behind the sheer curtain and through this door to reach the front bedrooms where the family resided.

This is Southwestern Virginia's version of Downton Abbey!

I didn’t want to block out the light that comes from a window in the ufinished rather rough attic hallway – but it needed something.  After Christmas I used a coupon at Bed Bath & Beyond for this sheer panel and picked up the rods at Walmart.  

It was another 2 person job that was finished in quick manner and I love the soft filtered light coming into the front top landing outside of bedrooms 1, 2 & 3! 

Knocking small things off my list is such a feel good feeling.

The attic hallway is partially dry-walled – partially not.  It could become a good storage space for supplies if we finish the drywall, add paint, and some shelving.  That will come later.

Coming home to live!

(And view of back stairwell banister!)

Thanks to Beth!

I chatted with Beth through Instagram when she sent a message asking me if I had need of an antique bedroom set that had belonged to her mother – she was trying to find it a new place to live as they get her mom’s house ready to sell.

There are not a lot of folks who want big bulky vintage furniture – and she came to the right place!

We made arrangements for the furniture to be brought from the Raleigh/Durham area out to Wallburg when I returned from Japan and Arizona.  It’s a good thing we chose Wednesday!  See the sunshine?  Tuesday was a rainy nightmare and the furniture was coming along with Beth & Her hubby in the back of a pickup truck. 

It was so much fun visiting with a like-minded quilter!  And let's just say that her hubby left knowing that his wife's quilting obsession could be MUCH WORSE than it was after seeing the inside of my house and studio.  LOL!

I was able to get the dresser and drawers, marble tops and mirror, footboard, rails & slats and a couple of beautiful lamps in the back of the van – but the headboard will have to come at another time – it wouldn’t fit in the van with all of the other stuff.  This furniture is beautifully MASSIVE!

It just BELONGS here!

Mirror detail.

The wood is dry and thirsty – I will spend some quality time getting to know it better with a nice coat of nourishing oil.  It will be loved and appreciated as it starts a new life in Virginia!

Imagine the hands who have grasped this drawer pull over the past 100+ years!

Backside of footboard.

and bedroom 4 chimney.

You’ll see the front side when we get the headboard in place!

Little by little – it’s all coming together!

It’s still raining.  Which means I’ll be in the sewing zone again today, fine by me.  I’d like to get as far as I can on this quilt so I can get it up off the floor before I leave tomorrow morning.  Full steam ahead!

For those interested in the block, click the Addicted to Scraps tab at the top of the blog.  Scroll down to October 2014.  Fireweed was my column block in that issue.  You may have it in your magazine archives.  

As to the pattern for the full quilt – think WAY FUTURE RELEASE.  It takes me a long time to make 12 quilts for a book, then to write the book, then for it to go through the process of actually becoming a book.  Think 2 years.  

I don’t have stunt sewists, or ghost writers writing my books.  I am a one person do-it-all. 

And there isn’t any bit of this that I wish to give up to another person or it wouldn’t be mine.

Quiltville Quote of the Day.

Don't let your worst define you, and extend the same courtesy to everyone else!

Have a lovely Sunday, friends!