House and home stuff | Crazy for Fiber

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Archive for the ‘House and home stuff’ Category

Happy New Year!!

Tuesday, December 31st, 2013

Where in the world have I been? Working, purging, sorting – will it ever end? Soon! We met with a cleaning service to make everything shine. We are meeting with the realtor on Friday to schedule the listing.

I thought I would share the really thoughtful gifts that I received for Christmas.

I mentioned to Stephanie that I would need a granny shopping cart so that I can walk to the store. She gifted me with this weather proof and very stylish cart. Suits me, don’t you think? She also gave me this too beautiful to use screenprinted linen apron. I think I will just hang it as art.

Lisa and Clay gave us a gorgeous photo book of their wedding. It brings back so many happy memories.

Jayme, Mark and Paige gave us these beautiful Heath pottery candlesticks.

Among other goodies, Mr C gave me these luxury socks – silk and cashmere:

I gave myself a Fitbit which tracks my steps and monitors how restless I am when sleeping! I have been racking up the steps with all of the house work I have been doing.

Tonight, Mr C and I are going out to dinner and then off to the Ode to Joy concert with the Oregon Symphony and other local artists. I am looking forward to some time away from the drudgery!!

Wishing you all a lovely and happy new year. I will be back tomorrow with a chance to win something really nice. So check back.

Posted in Family, Holidays, House and home stuff | 1 Comment »

This and That

Monday, December 23rd, 2013

Multi-tasking is my middle name. I gave up on discharging this fabric. Instead, I used a Stencil Girl stencil with irregular lines to print. I experimented with some different paints and ended up with Jacquard’s Lumiere Halo Blue Gold. It was the effect that I was going for. This photo is not that good. It is hard to photograph metallic paints, I think. Anyway, I am happy with it.

Mr C has been busy. He spackled the nail holes from the wall where I had hung my crosses. Then, it got a fresh coat of paint. It looks pretty bare. We will put the mirror back up and maybe some generic art.

That bench is a church pew that was gifted to us by our church in Wilmington, NC. We help to fund the redoing of the altar and a new organ. They had too many pews for the new space. It is one of those things we may have to give up.

Today, I wrapped gifts, which I do not enjoy doing. This one was pretty easy. I had a black box and I used Washi Tape to decorate it. Perfect for the architect in the family.

After a quick trip to Trader Joe’s this afternoon, I set about baking some goodies for the Christmas Eve meal — the traditional chocolate mint brownies and two gluten free recipes for me — pecan tassies and Girl Scout Samoa cookies. I still have to do the chocolate dipping and caramel/coconut top for the cookies.

Tonight, we went to the local Paleo restaurant near us. They brought me this tumbler of wine, which I enjoyed. A little boy came over to our table and asked if he could have the dinosaurs. I told him I was finished playing with them. He looked at me quizzically and then grinned.

And so tomorrow is Christmas eve. I am doing dinner here and Steph is doing Christmas Day dinner. I think she is making tamales.

Then, the crunch begins. More decluttering and organizing and cleaning. I move into my new little studio space the first week of January. It is both exhilarating and exhausting just to think about it.

Posted in Cooking and Recipes, FAFC, House and home stuff, painting fabric, The Printed Fabric Bee, This and that | 1 Comment »

Unearthing the Past

Friday, November 8th, 2013

The purging and organizing continues. Today, Steph and M and M came over to help me. Steph found this woven hanging that I did back in the 70’s. I thought I had lost it in one of our last moves. Here is a detail.

I did quite a bit of weaving back in the day. I was juried into the museum artisans guild in Schenectady and sold my work there. After we moved to California, I stopped weaving and sold the loom about 10 years ago.

Here is something else from the 70’s – That 70’s Family!

I always get tickled when I see something with my name on it because it is not very common so I have been hanging on to this:

And I was very happy to find this stencil that I made in a Jane Dunnewold class because the next Printed Fabric Bee Queen has asked for blue spirals.

Today, we finished clearing out the dye/paint kitchen so that Mr C can paint it. It is the only room downstairs that we have not painted.

Here are Mia and Miles:

Mia sorted all my brushes and other painting utensils. Then she moved on to my color pens and pencils. She threw out the ones that had dried up. I gave her the big box of Prismacolor pencils – she was quite happy.

Miles helped me sort paper and office supplies and made trips to our recycling bin.

These shelves were overloaded with paper stuff – much of which I will never use. Now, I just have what I need.

These are the donations for SCRAP, an organization that collects and sells creative supplies. I have another big bag full in the storage area.

It is starting to feel good to get this done. Next week, Steph and I are going to work on the office and start getting it staged. Then we will move on to the Studio. I have decided to commit to a studio downsizing sale so I will have to be organized and ready to get rid of stuff by Dec. 6th. I am going to put that in the Guild Newsletter so that I can’t back out. Trying to think how to sell the fabric I don’t want – by the bag or by the pound? If anyone has had experience with this, let me know what has worked well.

So, now you know what I have been doing – keeping my promise to Mr C and he is very happy with the results. We are also happy with the new room on the house – looks great!

Posted in House and home stuff, studio | Comments Off on Unearthing the Past

This and That and Stuff!

Tuesday, November 5th, 2013

Thought it was time to document the progress on the 3x3s. I hope to have the rows stitched together by the end of November. Then I have to connect the rows. I have an idea of how I will do that. Here are the remaining 3x3s.

I am starting to declutter and box up studio stuff for the move. I am starting with the dye/paint kitchen. I am going to completely empty it, box of stuff to go to the new studio, set aside stuff to donate to my guild’s silent auction and trash what is useless.

I have the cabinets empty.

I still have to do the undersink cabinet.

I have so much stuff that I want to hang on to because I am thinking of doing some classes in my new studio – small groups and one on one.

This is a tub of painting supplies, but not the brushes – just containers.

A tub of chemicals!!

A tub of dyes and disposable gloves. (if only I would remember to put them on)

Shibori poles.

Dye squirt bottles and containers.

The sorting table and my ubiquitous bottle of water.

I am feeling so much better this week. That virus I had knocked the stuffing out of me for a week. All of a sudden, on Monday, I was back to normal energy and happiness. It also helped that they finished the roof and chimney repair yesterday and packed up and left this morning. Nice to have peace and quiet again.

Posted in 3 x 3, House and home stuff, studio | 2 Comments »

She Did It!

Tuesday, October 29th, 2013

All things being equal, there are things I would have done differently on this, but I am finishing it tomorrow and will get it photographed. The title is ” Taking Leaf of My Seasons.” I struggled with the leaf component. One of the quilts in Quilt National this year consisted of leaves that were scanned and printed and arranged in a composition. In the end, I thought why not!?

I arranged and rearranged the leaves and glued them temporarily on the background and then stitched them and left them lose on the edges so they look as if they are floating.

For the back, I am using the big piece of fabric that I was gifted with in San Antonio. It has my name spelled out. I stitched two long edges of facing tonight. So all I have left to do is the top and bottom facings.

I am still dragging around with this virus. I wake in the morning and think I am ready to roll and as the day goes on, I get tired, achy and cranky. Having the roof work done is not helping. I wanted to crawl in bed and take a nap this afternoon, but they were working right over head and so that was not to be. It is dusty, noisy and I can’t wait for it to be over.

To add to our misery, Mr C’s jeep was broken into last night. We had to leave the cars out on the street because of the new materials and the roofer’s truck in our driveway. They broke a back window and took an old laptop that was with some other old computer stuff that Mr C was taking to the Free Geek recycle center. They no longer make the window that was broken so he had to go to a junk yard to find one and then have it installed. The good news is that it cost less than $100.

I hope that the next time I am back here, things will be looking up around here. I am tired of the plodding.

Posted in Finishing touches, House and home stuff, My creations | 1 Comment »

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