down to the river

Last Wednesday,

after a squabble about what we should have for lunch,

I up and decided we were having a picnic at the river.

It had been waaaay too long since we'd been.

I've often thought it would be neat 

to return weekly to the same place

and observe changes in nature.

I've never planned it, though,

because

weekly

is a big commitment.

I decided that this might be the year.

And the river might be the place.

And even if we don't always make it to the river weekly,

if I at least make it a (soft) goal,

we'll make it occasionally.

And occasionally

is better 

than never.

Right?

We went back today

and I didn't bring my camera,

but my goodness, I wish I would have!! 

The river was sooo much lower than it was

just last week!

This is going to be fun.

😊

go to the river 𑂽 Check!

weary and worn

I'm feeling really worn out,

so I'm listening to this song on repeat

(I prefer it live in my LEM,

but listening to the original artist on youtube is okay too)

I thought maybe you might need to listen too.

This one is pretty great also

to help me regain perspective.

one way to fold a quilt

Remember the Pigeon quilt??

It sold!!

😀

I've been meaning to share how I fold quilts 

so that they don't get strong creases in them

with my new friend, Carolyn,

and figured I may as well share it here, too,

in case anybody else would like to know.

Since this one is going away soon,

well, it was a no-brainer to use it in my demo.

Obviously,

if you have a larger quilt, you'll just add a few more folds

in each direction.

The key is 

to fold diagonally,

and when you unfold your quilt

you won't have strong creases in it.

I have more of this fabric,

so if you felt great sadness in your heart

when you saw that the awesome pigeon quilt sold,

don't fret - I can make a similar one for you :-)

let there be light

Now that we actually have some progress to speak of,

I figured it was time for a house update.

As a reminder,

at the time of my last post

all ceilings and walls were primed 

and ceilings were painted,

but the only walls that were painted

were Brandon's.

Currently,

we've got color on the walls in the boys' room also

(PPG Tornado - same as in Brandon's room)

as well as in the playroom

(PPG color matched Sherwin William's Waterscape @ 60%)

and living room / dining room / kitchen,

and the pantry and mudroom

PPG color matched Valspar Clothesline Fresh @40%)

squeeeal!!!

We've got oh, probably 20-25% of the receptacles (outlets) installed 

and several light switches.

My dad came down Friday and Saturday

and finished up getting the breaker box set up,

and did the wiring of 3-way switches

which is much trickier than regular switches

and required more talking to himself than usual ;-)

and helped Tyler and Brandon install the final door.

Jeannie came with him on Saturday

and helped me paint the second coat in the playroom.

(My friend, Eva, had come earlier in the week 

and painted the first coat with me,

so that room's had a lot of love already :-)

The most exciting progress though,

aside from the fact that we

(obviously)

 finally picked our main color

(and painted it everywhere it goes except the entryway)

is lights!!

Tyler and I spent about 3 hours at Lowe's Friday night 

and came home with

lights for all of the closets,

two lights for the mudroom

(one of which I love so much, 

it makes me squeal and smile every time I see it!)

and all but one of the ceiling fans we still needed

(actually we still need 2 - we'd forgotten

 that we wired the office/music room for a fan too - oops)

We've installed several can lights over the past week;

the only ones left are the kitchen  and dining rooms

which weren't installed

because Miss Picky wasn't happy with the ceiling's paint job yet.

The 4th (or maybe it was the 5th?) coat 

(applied at 9:30 last night)

did the trick,

so we'll get those put in this week.

Friday night

Brandon and Tyler installed  the mudroom lights,

and Saturday

they installed

all of the closet lights,

the front porch fans and over the door light,

and the absolutely perfect living room ceiling fan/light

It's all very exciting!!

(Tyler and Brandon went out while I was finishing typing up this post 

and finished up the kitchen and dining room can lights!

I nixed the installation of the pendant lights, though,

for fear of bumping heads and breaking the lights

during the remainder of the construction

especially flooring installation

which should begin before long!!)

playing catch up

We are back to being a three vehicle family again!

It was a little rough there for a few weeks.

We've had two vehicles out of commission,

and we found out that our mechanic of 22 years

closed up shop.

sadness.

I'm sad we don't have Barry as a mechanic anymore,

and I'm also sad for him to have to have a boss again.

I expect that's a little hard

after being your own boss 

for a few dozen years.

It's a wonderful gift to have a mechanic that you trust,

and now we've got to start all over again with somebody else.

I'm holding off on forming an opinion just yet

of the new place,

but let's just say that the first vehicle we had in there 

had to go back,

and the the second one 

cost almost $100 more than he'd told me it would.

so things aren't looking super just yet.

~

I sold my quilts!!!

All three of them!

I happy danced and cried, 

both.

They went to a super sweet gal in California

who plans to use them as art

and treasure them,

and pass them on to her daughter.

💚

It was an excellent reminder to me that God does things in His time.

A few weeks ago,

after getting an e-mail from Etsy

telling me that I needed at least 10 things in my shop 

in order for people to find my stuff,

I sent an entire Sunday afternoon

making some chapstick holders to put in there.

It didn't go real well.

They took waay too long, 

and I ended up trashing 2,

and giving 2 that weren't in what *I* considered sale-able condition

to Josiah and Lexi

and all I ended up with after several hours

was 4 little lip balm clip things

that I could sell for maybe $3-$4 a piece.

It hardly seemed worth the time to take and edit pictures

and list them.

Plus,

we all know about me and the post office....

Did I really want to have to make a trip

(or - let's be real - send Brandon)

to the post office 

for what will end up being

maybe $1.50 to add to  a sewing machine fund??

I don't think so.

So then, they sat there taunting me.

"how is anybody ever going to find your quilts 

with only 3 items in your shop?"

But God showed me

He's got this.

~

Work has been super crazy for Tyler,

so we aren't getting in as much work on the house as we'd like,

but - we finally have everything primed,

all ceilings are painted,

and we have color on the walls in Brandon's room.

so -yay!!!

~

My sewing machine is still in Fayetteville,

though it is finally ready for me to pick it up.

I guess I will do that Monday,

since we'll be painting when they are open tomorrow,

and they're closed on Sunday.

While waiting on the machine,

Lily helped me baste the two quilt tops so they'll be ready to go

when I get my Juki back.

She's actually getting to be a great basting helper

(but I still have to repeat an awful lot,

"smooth it from the middle out...")

Since any wonkiness in Sojourner would be especially obvious,

I wanted to make sure it stays nice and straight,

so in addition to spray basting,

I ironed it also,

and then thread basted with tailor tacks

for good measure.

(but not as close together as if I hadn't sprayed)

Lil' threaded all of the needles for me,

which was another huge help.

~

I miss coffee.

Having not noticed any improvement from the absence of it,

I've actually had a couple of half cups,

which I've thoroughly enjoyed.

~

Lexi will be teaching her Sunday School class this week.

She has spent hours working on her lesson,

and enlisted the help of Lily and Josiah

to make a couple of games,

then got Brandon to take her to the store to buy snack 

to go along with it.

(She's doing Ruth and Naomi, and got 100% wheat bread,

which she was very excited about.

She was also quite excited that it came with it's own twist tie!

which made me think,

my children should maybe get out more ;-)

~

It seems like I had more stuff to record,

but I can't remember at the moment

and it's time for me to start fixing dinner soon

(BLT salads, since one of Tyler's friends gave us some garden tomatoes.

yum!!)

more Monday miscellanies

Well.

Another kid is taller than me.

Darn that Jeremiah!

~

Along with my wheat, grains, and sugar,

I have temporarily given up coffee.

and dairy.

We'll see if anything comes of it...

It was actually much easier than I expected

but I gotta be honest,

I was really hoping yesterday

that Tyler would forget I wasn't drinking coffee

and make me a cup.

I would have had to drink it to not be rude....

~

My Juki is in the shop.

Brandon took her up to Fayetteville for me on Saturday.

I was hoping he'd also

come back with her

on Saturday,

but they don't have technicians over the weekend.

pooh.

~

Tyler and I spent 7 hrs 

out working in the house Saturday.

we've got everything but the upstairs bathroom 

and the media room primed.

It was soooo hot!

I told him I'd never sweat so much in my life.

He said, "You said that last year.

Doing electric.

I told him this year's sweat trumps last year's!

I was chugging water

and pouring salt in my mouth,

but it wasn't enough, 

and that night,

I also had the worst headache I've ever had.

It. Was. Miserable.

I had it all day yesterday, too,

but the pain had lessened considerably.

I still have a remnant of it this morning.

~

I absolutely

positively

have to have paint picked out and purchased

by Friday.

I can do this.

I can!

Sojourner and Sparkle

I finished two quilt tops this week!

Remember a few weeks ago,

when I shared my new project sketch?

It was paper pieced,

darn it,

but it was perfect for the quilt I had in mind.

Meet Sparkle

I got off to a super rocky start,

which isn't all that surprising,

seeing as how it's me.

But it's such a simple pattern,

I sort of expected I could handle it,

since I've had a good bit of practice...

The first day of paper piecing was absolutely awful

and if I hadn't already cut up all of my fabric,

I would have gone back to my original

(much easier, much less 'wow')

plan

of 4 patches on point.

The second day was a smidge better,

and the last 2 dozen units

were made without any mistakes!

(I still don't like paper piecing, though ;-)

I'm going to try a minky backing with this one,

which will be a first for me,

so if you've got any tips, I'd love to hear them!

My second finish, 

Sojourner,

 has been in the works for quite a bit longer.

I am really pleased with how it turned out!!

I had several 'I'm not sure about this' moments along the way,

but I am soo happy with it now.

I accidentally gave myself a ton of partial seams in this quilt,

so it took a lot longer to sew together

than I'd anticipated

once the blocks were all sewn up.

Fortunately everything fit together really well,

so it wasn't hard

as much as it was overwhelming.

It was inspired by Kathleen Riggins version

of the Gypsy Wife quilt

(although I have already reminded my client 

that my quilting 

will be nowhere near as spectacular as Kathleen's.

Mercy, that girl has skills!)

My sewing machine needs to go in the shop
before I attempt to quilt either of these, though;
my machine won't allow me to move the quilt in all directions : /

I hate to make a trip to Fayetteville just for that,
but I also don't want to have to wait too long to get started....

linking up with pincushion queen Amanda Jean