Crafty Waffles

The Basement it is a ch-ch-Changin!

2012-02-09T15:20:00.000-08:00

Yes you read that right, after just 6 months of home ownership and we are making our first big stamp on the place. What you ask is that change, why getting our basement in rental condition - yes siree we want to the uber cute Scott McG says 'take cheques to the bank'!

From the get go, one of the big selling features on our house was the 'easy' conversion to a basement income suite. So we saved our pennies for the last few months, sorted out the master vision for the space, oh yeah.... and got permission from our city hall to get 'er done.

Before I get into what we are doing to the basement (yup we are already more than 1/2 way through the reno process!), let's take a peek at the plans shall we.
This, is what we inherited with the house.

As you can see we started out with some key features:

seperate entrance (woop woop!)
good sized rooms (okay the bathroom is suuuper pokey, but the others are good
existing plumbing
big windows (it is only 1/2 undergroud so it has good large middle of the wall windows- such a treat!)

But, we were missing one key feature.... a kitchen - yeah who'da thunk a tenant needed a kitchen?! So, we put on our thinking caps and came up with the new vision for our basement suite... ta dah.... this is the space that a future tenant at Casa Waffles will be able to enjoy.

We did a lot of brainstorming, measuring, pondering etc on what we wanted for today and in the future as our family hopefully will expand one day... as well as taking a hard look at the limitations of our house -- such as no realistic place for upstairs laundry, boo!

what we ended up with are the following modifications:

Remove the wall seperating the current laundryroom and hallway to make room for a nice sized kitchen (thanks Bro Guy for that stellar suggestion!)
Enlarge the "nook" in the current laundry room to make space for laundry
create two entrances into new laundry room to make it a shared space
Add an extra doorway into the beedroom - allowing us the ability to convert the 1 bedroom suite into a bachelor should we need a bit more space in the future
Put in a kitchen in the existing laundry space
spiff up the existing bathroom - new sink and toilet (buh bye rusty/faded rose) for a bit of a short term lipstick makeover
Other stuff

new flooring throughout - luxury vinyl plank floors?- from these guys??
Painting throughout
new lighting
more stuff I can't think of at the mo'

Phew, see... there's been lots of secret plotting going on around here. But, I'll be filling you in on all the details starting with the plan creation process this weekend!

Posing a Design Dilemma to my Ranch Loving Friends

2012-02-08T09:28:00.000-08:00

Our humble abode is being featured over at Retro Renovation this morning, where we have asked for suggestions on what to do about our wall-o-windows in our living room.

This is what it looked like on house inspection day (just looking at the old ruffly-thingy makes me wanna gag!)...... and below is a look at it post move in.

Feel free to give your two cents as well, as all suggestions are welcome :)

If You Don't Like it Then you Should Put Some Stain On It

2012-02-06T15:46:00.000-08:00

Back in November H and I tackled one of the big f-uglies in the house.... the most beautiferous pink with purple ends brick on our fireplace. Not only was the colour of the brick ugly, the area near the fire itself was crusted with ~50 years of soot that we couldn't budge no matter what we tried! As a non pink loving gal living with a guy who, yup you guessed it, is also not into pink, the brick needed a disguise.

We looking into new stone to cover the fireplace, but as it is a big fireplace (over 8ft tall and about 6ft around) it quickly added up to an expensive idea. Being the house poor new homeowners that we are, we realised a quick bit of lipstick was the best we could do in the interim. I had been dreaming of a charcoal coloured fireplace for that space, but was worried that it would be too dominant and heavy in the space, so I then second guessed myself (naughty Sarah) and moved onto the plan of safe and predictable white. But having seen a lot of painted fireplaces in the neighbourhood (I somehow think we were not the only ones who had fugly brick!)- I was not sold on how flat and lifeless painted brick looks, especially as we have so much brick to contend with, so I continued searching. After some web searching, I came across the option of masonry stain, and figured that if it didn't work out as planned, then the paint solution was always in our back pocket and we were, worst case, out $30 for a can of stain.

Because the stain is semi-transparent, and we had pink brick and soot stains to hide, we decided to try out my initial charcoal idea. So, after a trip to our local Rona, we gathered our supplies and our courage, and started to paint on the stain -the whole time cringing on the inside because we had passed the point of no return.

The process when pretty quickly, especially because our pink brick already had black grout (pointing?) - yeah it was a special design I'm tellin' ya!

our fireplace-pre stain

We just painted it on with small paint brushes the width of our bricks, being sure to cover the exposed sides of the bricks. After about an hour and a half, we have the fireplace covered from head to toe in charcoal stain and....

partway through the staining process

We then let it dry over night and the next day with fresh eyes we critiqued our work and our colour choice, and we loved it. The semi-transparent nature of the stain lets the variation in colour of the original bricks show through- the "grains" of the brick as well as the difference between the body and ends of the bricks, as well as a hint of the original pinky-ness.

With the first layer done, we decided to risk a second coat to touch up any missed bits and to further reduce the pinky-ness and hide more of the sooty bit.

Two coats of masonry stain was, for us just, the right amount. The finish is a bit shiny-er than our original brick was, but I'm pretty sure the average viewer wouldn't know the fugly-ness lurking beneath our lovely modern - but vintage appropriate fireplace. Just in time to show it off for the holidays.

Happy belated Holidays and 2012 to do's

2011-12-30T23:14:00.001-08:00

We are a bit slow on the uptake here at Casa Waffles, so instead of wishing you all a happy holiday, we'll just go with all the best for 2012

In case you were wondering, our big To Do's for the upcoming year are (and how we decorated our place this Christmas Season, cuz who doesn't like getting a peek at other people's decor... or is it just me who loves peeking in windows to see how in people's rooms.... wait, that came out weird.... I'm not like a peeping Tom or anything, it's for research !:

Basement Reno - it's time that "spare" unused space in our basement started bringing home the bacon

New Roof- because the tarped roof look is so 2011!

Attic Insulation- time to bring our insulation into the 21st century, cuz in our climate R4 isn't gonna cut it

Paint the Exterior- yup, we're planning to say buh buy Smurf Blue, much to the relief of our neighbours!

Paint: the upper hallway, entry, living and dining room- I'm thinking really pale greige, something like our bedrooms

Installing closet doors: Yup, no more exposed linens or cleaning supplies for us!

Oh, and a not so sneeky peek at our last big project in 2011....

Big hugs, Sarah & H

Saving $'s a crack and a flush at a time!

2011-12-19T09:36:00.002-08:00

Delayed post: July - Oct 2011

When we bought the house, we knew that there were some things we would need to do like, painting, changing out the floors, a roof (ugg!), insulate the attic covered by said roof (double ugg!), etc.

Since our govt re-started the Eco energy programme, which we knew combined with our Provincial Eco energy programme, could equal big moolah for the changes planned to the house - both the wants and the (ugg) needs! So, back in July we signed up for our pre-audit, dum dum duuuummmm.

The whole thing was pretty painless, the guy showed up set up his new-fangled contraption (it's a fan which reverses the air pressure in the house so you can find all the nooks and crannies that are leaking air, aka where our dollah bills are flying out of the house!).

We were surprised that the biggest culprit was.... our fireplace! over the last 50 years our fireplace has slowly separated from the wall, exposing a nice floor to ceiling crack on both sides which was allowing the cold attic air into our house, and the nice heated air to escape out. During the little test, the amount of air blowing in was enough to give me a mini Marilyn Monroe moment! Our surveyor estimated that ~ 80% of our house's heat loss was through that one crack alone! So, we knew we needed to form a plan of attack. With the Canadian programme ending in March, we had limited time and a limited budget to work with so we had to take the surveyors recommendations and make a list of our top (affordable-ish) priorities, which were:

Since then, we have already tackled a few of the items. back in October, in preparation for the winter, we...

1. Sealed up that monster of a crack. It nothing a little expanding foam (2 cans worth!) and clear paintable caulk couldn't handle. That $25 worth of supplies and ~1hr of our time will hopefully cut a big hole in our house's heat loss ... errrm, maybe that shoulda been "patch a big hole" in our heat loss? Anyways, it it was a cheap and easy fix and should pay for itself this winter alone!

(PS- gotta love that pinky-purple hue of our fireplace bricks, eh?! Gotta love the 60's!)

2. Swapped out the toilets, like this pink one in our basement... Oh dusty rose toilet with a broken, dis-coloured seat, how I do not miss thee!:

Oh yeah, we went for dual flush, white, and a way slimmer design! And with the Eco incentives from our local govt (yay District of North Van!) and the Canadian govt these skookum (for all you non-Canuck the transaltion of skookum is here!) $225 toilets will cost us ~$50 each when all is said and done thanks to:

Sale at the Home Depot ($65 off)
N Van govt credit ($50 rebate)- which we have already received!
govt rebate (extra $65 rebate)

That's $225-$65-$50-$65 = $45/ toilet, can I get a woop woop!

3. And insulated out the plugs and switches, which was a 20 minute job thanks to these super simple little foam jobbies from the local DIY center. At $5 for a 10 pack we were able to do the whole 2400 ft2 house for under $40 bucks :

image source

So, that leaves us with:

The last three will be part of our basement reno, which we will hopefully be kicking off in January, and the attic is a big job which we've been saving our pennies for 'cuz at ~$1500 on top of our basement reno it's been a whole lot of saving going on around here.

Cedar you Later

2011-12-01T17:25:00.001-08:00

Delayed Post: July 23 2011

With the purchase of our house, came three monoliths in our garden. And no, I don't mean three sleek black garden ornaments ala 2001 a Space Odyssey, though if they had come with a HAL-esque supercomputer that woulda been pretty cool! The monoliths that we got were three cedar monoliths that.are.huge!

As much as we love inheriting an established garden, those trees were just too established for our taste. at about 1.5 meters square they were big boys, and their placement on either side of the windows on our house, meant that we had a tunnel effect.

Yes, they are honkin' eh! And oh wait, if we peek behind those rhododendrons and cedars.

Yup, there are more windows behind there! Who'da thunk it! Even though we lucked out with ginormous windows both upstairs and down, the amount of light getting in was pretty minimal, meaning that downstairs the lights had to be on at any time of day in order to function in the space.E

I had casually mentioned to my parents and H that I'd love to get rid of them "one day" but having just used a huge amount of ~~slave~~ volunteer labour on our floors, I had resigned myself to tackle it next year. So, you can imagine my amazement when my Mom and Dad showed up at our place one weekend in July with a chainsaw in tow.

In a few short hours we made short work of those bad boys, and boy was it their time to go. They had been groomed within an inch of their poor little lives, so they were a dense nest of dead twigs with only a skin of green on the outside.

And boy do I love the result! Once we chopped those suckers down and re-located the out sized rhododendrons blocking the lower windows, and it's like our house can finally breathe. I can barely remember what the house was like with them.

Oh, and yes, the difference in the light levels in that side of the house is ah-mazing! We had seen the previous owners son a few weeks before when we had been painting and doing the floors, and he'd casually mentioned the "blue room" in the basement. It wasn't until after he'd left that H and I turned to each other and said "what blue room?". Well, we now know! The light coming in through the window had been reflecting off the cedars and rhodo which had made the bedroom downstairs appear green, and now that they are gone, presto.... it's light blue, no paintbrush required!

Oh yeah, you wouldn't have known it before, but we have house numbers and a front door light..... not pretty ones, but they are ours!

The orange brick on the other hand, now that is pretty, I can't wait to really make a feature of it, I have plans a foot! (spoiler alert, I've started the entrance makeover and already it looks a million times better)

The Big Switch

2011-11-28T21:46:00.001-08:00

Delayed Post: June 2011

With the floors done and the bedroom walls painted, the last thing in our 2 week pre-move in blitz was....

No, Papa Waffles is not having a time out.... he's busy changing out the insane variety of light switches and plugs in the house. I didn't know that they even made that many different styles! Well, I'm guessing we had ones that date from every era that our house has been here.... don't believe me? This is what we were dealing with!

Mmmm dimensional brassy gorgeousness.

Every room in the house had a different set, it seems the previous owners were big on the matchy matchy principle, but saw each room as independent... ie. our masterbedroom which had seafoam carpet, seafoam walls, and seafoam curtains.... oh yeah and the middle bottom in the montage!

Waltzing Matilda

2011-11-25T16:00:00.000-08:00

Delayed post: June 2011

So, we last left off with the floors prepped for sanding. What I didn't mention was that we were also going to be painting the bedrooms before moving into the house (oh the joy of living rent free so one can tackle the big stuff without having to live in the chaos!- love you Mom and Dad!!)

During the weekend from hell (aka staple-fest), my mom got busy painting out the closests of the three upper bedrooms- white- yeah, we are super original aren't we! And boy did they need it. Ckeck out the crazy avocado colour of our hall closet.... it's amazing that they could see anything in there it was so dark!

During the week and the following weekend we tackled the rest of the painting. It was long overdue, as they alll had ceilings the classic shade of smokers beige (gag!).

With the painting tackled, over the weekend we rented a floor sander for the floors. Our research led us to rent an orbital sander (ours was a U-Sand) vs. the traditional drum sander, and it rocked! The finish we were able to achieve is much more even than the other wood floors in our house which were refinished by the previous owners with a drum sander. For any locals considering this we got ours from here, not only were they the most coveniently located to us, they were also the cheapest.

But I digress... we picked up a sander and kicked things off in the 3rd bedroom as it had the worst floors (remember the decomposed underlay the was stick to the floors, no amount of cleaners was getting that stuff off, so we resorted to sanding it off).

Having used a floor polisher in Belgium previously I was very doubtful of my abilities to "drive" the sander (my polisher experience was just like a bad cartoon with the things flying around the room with a life of it's own and my clinging to the back of it) so... I persuaded my Dad to give it a go (~~'cuz that's what Dad's are for right?~~ 'cuz my Dad is a star!).

However, this thing was a dream, super easy to manuver, it was more like dancing (and yes, I named it Matilda, hence the post's title!), with a bit of ab workout mixed in! So, in the end we all took a whirl at at and the floors scrubbed up really well, but the amount of dust was nuts, even with the vaccumm feature of the sander (heck I can still see the film of super fine dust on our living room walls walls 6 months later- but that could also be reflective of my lurve of cleaning ;) ... or how tall those walls are since we have a cathedral ceiling in that room).

Then was wiping down the floors in prep for the verathane. We ended up going through 3 cans of verathane... partly because we had a lot of floors to do (3 bedrooms + a long hallway x 3 coats) but also becuase I learnt avery valuable lesson.... make sure you stir the can before each layer because it settles really fast- the outcome was everything was perfect until the last coat (which I had accounted exactly the right amount of verathane for), which dried ..... matt as in not shiny, which I acutally love on floors, but did not go at all with the rest of are hardwood which was high gloss- eeek! so, down to the store I went (after a chat with verathanes customer service to identify what was the cause - me, duh! We had to spring for a 3rd can. And, luckily it was worth it becasue we went from this...

to this....

Yeah baby!!!

So, what was the total cost for our lurverly "new" floors:

Sander rental + sanding pads: $85.01

        Verathane: 3x 49 = $147
        Labour (the cost of a few pizzas and burgers!)
        Total: $232.01

That's more than $3000 cheaper than the quotes we recieved for the sanding and refinishing!

Crafty Waffles gets a facelift

2011-11-24T09:37:00.000-08:00

With the new lease of life here at the ol' blog, I thought it was a good time to spiff it up a bit visually. As a rookie blogger, it's still a very steep learning curve, so your feedback dear reader would be much appreciated. Please let me know how you like/don't like the new layout and design, things you'd like to see etc.

Big hugs and kisses :)

Carpet today, gone tomorrow

2011-11-22T09:04:00.001-08:00

Delayed Post: June 9-11 2011

H and I knew from the get go that the carpet in the upstairs on the house had.to.go! The whole house had been steam cleaned by the previous owners, but 30+ years of heavy smokers had paid their toll, and the house was holding on to the smell. We probably could have used some special cleaners to get rid of it, but the fact that every room had a different coloured carpet- from light grey, to lime green shag, to forest green. We knew from our house inspection that there were hardwood floors under the carpet, but we had no idea on their condition.... were they covered for a reason? what the beeep are we going to do if they are a hot mess?

The end of our hallway with the rainbow of flooring, four different colours within a square meter of each other!
We had decided that the green shag had to go, it was old, dirty, and generally beyond it's sell by date.

Yes, this is post steam cleaning- yuk!

We got the keys to the house on the evening of June 8th, and bright and early the next day we were in ripping the carpet up in the 3rd bedroom.... and man was it overdue, not only was the carpet decrepid, but the underlay was litteraly decomposing, crumbling and sticking to the hardwood underneath.

However, we could tell that the floor was in pretty good condition. So, after reviewing the situation the next morning, we agreed that it was buh buy carpet, and the other rooms soon followed.

In order to save some pennies, 'cuz we're two cheapos who don't like paying people to do things that we can do ourselves (aka. couldn't have affored to pay anyone since we were broke from having just bought the house!), we decided to tackle the floor refinishing ourselves.

While the carpet itself was pretty quick to remove, but the staples.... oh, the staples! We spent about 2 full days with my dad on our hands and knees prying and digging out kabillions of staples, it was insane! By the end of each day I had a claw for a hand and wrists, knees and bum that felt broken. I thought it was never.going.to.end!

But, it did finally end (thank goodness or I might have started to cry I hurt so much by the end of that weekend) and we were left with a hallway with inlay (woop woop, a total bonus we were not expecting!), and 3 bedrooms in good enough condition that no repair work was needed (yay cuz I honestly don't know what we would hve done if they did need repair$). But, we were left with a very grimy floor that needed a facelift, but oh the potential!!

Yes, I was so tired and sore from staple-fest that I didn't have the energy for a proper "styled" or even a "victory" photo!

Back in action!

2011-11-21T09:02:00.002-08:00

After being on a pretty hefty bloggy hiatus, I've come to appreciate the benefit of having a place to log the events in our lives, as well as an impetus to take pictures of what we are dong to record it and to have something to look back on and remember. So because of that, combined with inlaws who want to know what H and I are up to in our new life in Canada, Crafty Waffles is back! I'm working on a bunch of posts from the first 6 months in our new house (wowza, is it seriously thaaat long?!), so I'll be catching up the the present and then letting you know all the new things we are planning and doing around Casa Waffles.

See ya again soon!

Where has the time gone

2011-07-23T23:30:00.002-07:00

Has it really been 3 months since my last post?? It has been an action packed time, so I have plenty to update on.

The biggest thing that happened is that H and I had a whirlwind courtship with a house. Well, with the Vancouver housing market being as hot as it is, I think a one night stand would be a better description!

At the beginning of May, we were getting to that "ugg I'm getting sick of house hunting", "are we ever gonna find our home", "when are we actally going to get a weekend to ourselves again", and "are we going to be living with my parents forever".... frame of mind. We were going through the motions but after being out bid on 2 other houses, and after months of looking not finding many that we were even excite about... we were getting frustrated to say the least.

We kept on plugging along, and our patience paid off because we finally found "the one". In our house hunting (and life) I am the visionary, and H is the practical one, I am the excited on the outside kind, and H is the excited on the inside kind, you know... opposites that attracted. So, it was a very telling moment when H was the one to push to pounce on the house.

inspection day!

We saw it on the Saturday at the first open house, managed to get an inspection the next day (thank goodness for our amazing realtor- mwuh Jeff!), and found ourselves embroiled in a 9 way bidding war on the Tuesday (yup that'd be just 4 days from the initial viewing...I told you it was a one night stand!).

Somehow we miraculously beat out the eight other interested parties, signed on the dotted line... and starting planning for our closing date, which was just 3 weeks away!

By my apron strings

2011-04-25T21:32:00.002-07:00

I've been making great strides with my apron... I managed to get the "skirt" finished yesterday, contrast piping and all.

I tried to do a pin ticked detail on the top... which didn't go so well. It looked right on the surface, but there were some serious structural flaws which meant over time it would have looked like a hot mess! So, today I went back to the drawing board, and brought out the big guns (aka a sewing book, yup... I went old school... a real book, no Google-ing was involved in the process), to learn how to properly make pintucks.

Luckily I was able to use my practise top as a chance to determine the correct size, spacing, and pattern for my final design, so it wasn't a total waste. And with the help of my friend, about an hour or so later I had properly executed pintucks.

Then It was a case of adding the neck straps and connecting the skirt to the top, et voila!

My version of Tea and Crumpets , complete!

How did I manage to start a collection of these things?!

2011-04-12T14:21:00.000-07:00

Umm..... so I'm not sure how it's happened, but I've accidentally started a vintage Singer collection. My newest acquisition was totally by accident (happy accident, but an accident none the less). Since most of our stuff is in storage, and we are making my parent's house look like a hoarder lives there (remember this post?), I've put myself on a furniture purchasing ban. The only allowed exceptions were bedside tables, and outdoor furniture since we had a shortage/none respectively. I was in the local Sally Ann, and ran across this...

A perfectly cute solid wood bedside table, simple but with a little detail to jazz it up, sweet! The next thing I noticed was the price....

Yup, $49.99 and then an extra 20% off, bringing it in a $40, double sweet. I pulled it out of the pile of furniture for a closer look, and thought to myself, dang this thing is heavy! After a little investigation I figured out why....... there was something hiding inside it...

Yup, my little bedside table is actually a portable sewing table by Mr Singer! I thought to myself, $40 for a table with a vintage sewing machine, triple sweet!!! ~~bring it on baby~~ bring it home baby!!

My little table is quite the transformer, they sure do not make things like they used to... not only is this thing super ingenious, it also is totally portable since the legs screw off and them it's just a wooden box, with the sewing machine safely tucked inside!

This one is Celia's younger sister since she is from 1936, but as she's electric (vs Celia's hand wheel), and in full working order, I may actually use this one. According to what I've found online, I have a No. 49 Cabinet, and she's come with all her parts, including the knee control (goodbye shin splints from a day putting the pedal to the metal), and it's Singer task light. There is one mystery part we are still trying to figure out what it is for.... apparently a friend of my Mom's learnt to sew on the identical machine, so I am hoping she can solve the mystery for me.

Now, I am just working on cleaning her up a bit, you know how much we enjoy stripping at Casa Waffles ;)

I ain't no Tina the Tailor

2011-04-09T08:59:00.004-07:00

I've been working on my apron, and I now remember why I don't make clothes! My quilting generally follows a plan, but the plan is always pretty flexible. For the apron, I found a pattern that was pretty similar to the design I wanted to make, and thought.... easy peasy, this'll be a breeze..... um yeah, right.

After opening the package, I realized that I had no idea what to do..... so I called in re-enforcements -- aka Mama Waffles! My Mom made tons of clothes for us as kids (heck she made her own wedding dress!) so I knew she could be the Obi Wan to my Luke Skywalker!

So, with a bit of ~~begging and pleading~~ bribery with home made baked goods, Mom was in. So we first settled on the kitchen floor to lay out the pieces... about 5 minutes in we realized that that wasn't going to fly, so we moved downstairs to the ~~sewing room~~ ping pong table.

Once we got going it went pretty smoothly, it seems that I bought too much of everything, but that's not a bit surprise especially since I didn't really know how to read the pattern recommendations!

About an hour later, after turning the pattern pieces in all different directions in an effort to conserve as much fabric as possible, we were left with the pile of parts. I have to seriously wonder what the heck would have happened if my Mom wasn't around to give me a hand... my Home Ec classes from back in the day, obviously instilled in me a love of baking, and sewing... but I obviously forgot the pattern construction lesson!

Well actually, since the piece of clothing I made in highschool Home Ec was a pair of sweat pants that were totally wrong (ie. the legs in the patter were too short for me, so instead of adding length I went up in size... so instead of a small/medium with extra long legs, I made a XXL.... oops!) maybe I never learnt it properly to start with!

Swap Stress

2011-04-01T15:03:00.003-07:00

What is it about creating things for other crafty folks that gets one in a tizzy? This Kitchen swap has me turning my wheels, so much so that I resorted to posting this on the group Flickr site:

"Okay, I'm gonna put it out here.... trying to pick out fabrics that my partner is going to lurv, is causing me some stress. Am I the only one suffering from Swap Selection Anxiety?? Anyways, partner-o- mine, how does this palette tickle your pickle? I'm totally not married to it, I'm actually already thinking of plan "B" as I type.... eeek! Whada ya think. I know that not everyone is a pink kinda person (me being one of them), so please let me know:

1. Do you likey the fabrics?

2. Would you rather purple than pink, or are both ok with you?

3. Are you thinking "yikes" what is that chick thinkin' that is not my style?

Don't worry about my feelings, I promise not to be offended, honest, I pinky swear!! "

Sigh...... I'm working on plan "B", I figure I've got to love it so I'm sticking more to my comfort colours.

Tea and crumpets anyone?

2011-03-14T17:52:00.005-07:00

Although my parents are both British, I consider myself 100% Canadian. However, I think my British heritage is sneaking through, because of all the aprons in the world, I chose this beauty....

Anthropologies Tea and Crumpets apron, as my guide for the apron sew-along. Since I'm using a bulk manufactured apron as my inspiration, I have no pattern to follow. My plan, is to ~~fly by the seat of my pants~~ improvise as I go. Considering that I have very limited clothing sewing skills - my last attempt about 8 years ago went horribly amiss, this is probably another one of my less brilliant hair brained ideas. But hey, nothing ventured nothing gained right?! ... right?!

My supplies for the project were super cheap thanks to my local Fabricland's renovation sale... $1.99 for an apron pattern to hopefully help me figure out how the heck to build a multi-piece apron, and 3 fabrics. I think the fabrics were a whopping $3/meter for the plains - the orange is poly cotton, sorry all you quilters for the fabric blasphemy, but it was all I could find in a coordinating fabric, that rusty orange colour was a ~~b*&ch~~ pain in the bum to match, but I think I did pretty well-, and $4.5/m for the printed one. I figure that for $15, it's worth a shot.

The plan is that the blue and orange print will be the main skirt (hello.... a plain fabric for the skirt of an apron, what the *beep* was Anthrpologie thinking?! Well I guess they were thinking of aesthetics, not how real people actually cook, but I digress... Anyways, the blue will be the skirt with the orange solid as the trim, I love me some contrasting trim), and the ivory will be for the top, not sure if I'll do the ruffles on the top or not.... Hah, who am I kidding, I'm not sure if I'll be able to pull off a reasonable imitation of the original, let alone worry about ruffle trim!

Going to Pot!

2011-03-08T23:36:00.003-08:00

I've been branching out into a new hobby... yeah I needed a new hobby like a hole in the head!!

It's something I did as a kid, and had been wanting to try out again. For Christmas H surprised me with a course at our local Rec Center (heehee, it seems that ~~nagging~~ overt hints do pay off sometimes!).

This year has been a real rollercoaster for us what with moving, marriage, and both of us getting new jobs.... oh yeah, and living with my parents for the last 10 months I thought H needed something special to show how much I appreciate him. So, as a bit of a thankyou, I made a special something for H for Valentine's day...

Using my new skills on the pottery wheel, and our vintage printers blocks, I made him a special mug. "LJU" is an inside thing for us, and stands for "Love Just You"... it's actually engraved in our wedding bands.

A little something special to make our future house our home. Love you honey, mwuh!

Criss Cross

2011-02-25T22:10:00.004-08:00

No, this isn't an ode to the musicians who brought "Jump" to the world... Well, technically I think they were Kriss Cross anyway, but whatever...

But alas, it is instead an ode to my latest quilt project, a baby quilt for my friend Sam's new little boy Evan. The blog has been pretty quiet recently, because I have been busy whipping all these little green scraps into....

You might recognize the block, it's a modified version of this block I made for one of my bees. I loved it when I made it last year and filed it away for a future project.

Thiis time I changed it up and did charcoal and green with a little bit of white for drama. Sam arrived last week for her one month visit from Ottawa, so I better put the pedel to the metal to get it done before they head home.

Getting Domesticated

2011-02-25T21:57:00.005-08:00

For ages I have wanted to make a really retro-fabulous apron. Since H is a chef, I am really more an accessory in the kitchen, so I may aswell be a fashionable accessory right?!

When the lovely miss Sonja invited be to join a apron sew along and kitchen swap I just couldn't resist...

Since my car mysteryiously pulled over at the fabric store on my way home from work today (weird huh?!), I managed to find a great retro fabric. Now to find a pattern, and maybe some orange ricrac??!

Going square-eyed

2011-01-25T00:13:00.001-08:00

I know it's been a bit quite around here in the sewing department, but I have been sewing.... I've been working on my ~~master~~ plan. I laid out all of the blocks that I had (done by me and my Eurovision bee buddies), and plotted out how big I wanted the finished quilt to be. After some consulting with H, we decided that it should be big enough for the two of us to cuddle under on the sofa, and could be used on a bed if desired. So, after doing my math based on the block sizes, I realized that a Queen sized quilt was the answer.... gulp! So, I counted up my blocks and realized I was 15 blocks short.

I've found it easiest/quickest, to plan them out in advance so I can cut all the pieces out in advance and then just stitch them together. This way I can get quite a little factory line going of chain pieces bits.

I still have a few blocks to go, and the sashing is on order (Kona Charcoal from here), but already I am loving it. That is a big relief since the thing is gonna be huuuuge!

I've been pondering the quilting plan, and I'm idly pondering whether to hand quilt it... since the winter is almost over (well by the time the top is done the winter will be over!), and hand quilting in the summer is a bit nuts.... I'm wonder if machine quilting is the way to go.

Celia Your Breakin' my Heart

2011-01-20T21:28:00.005-08:00

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, my parents are pretty awesome. It takes pretty amazing people to put up with their guest room looking like this for the past 6+ months...

Yeah, scary eh?! That's what moving across the world and getting married will do to a gal! And to think that we have a whole container of stuff in storage, eeek!

Even with all that craziness going on they still bought me a special little something for Christmas. Meet Celia....

Yup, it's Celia the Singer. We found this 102 yr old beauty in a thrift shop, and my lovely Dad bought her for me and cleaned her up. I just love all the details in it, they really don't make them like they used to. Check out that face plate.... such amazing detail, especially when you think that it's a totally useless part!

And that painting... gorg! I can't wait to find a special home for her in our house.... my sewing room perhaps (more likely our office/spare bedroom/storage room/everything else/sewing room!!)

It's in the Bag

2011-01-05T01:25:00.000-08:00

With my days as lady of sewing leisure coming to an end, I've been trying to finish up some projects. Something I've been meaning to do for ages was make a bag for my ~~yoga~~ pilates mat.

I checked the web for a tutorial, but in the end just winged it 'cuz a. I was too impatient to spend the time reading a tute. And b. I was using a fabric remanent so I had to improvise to make it work.

As the matt is pretty heavy I wanted to use a thicker, stronger fabric to make sure it would last. I had a sample a nice green and cream print that I had sitting around as it was a rejected candidate for our wedding's table runners.

I had just enough fabric to squeeze out a bag, and I do mean squeeze. No matter how I layed it out, I was a bit shy of length, so I had to add an extra band of fabric (my first excuse to use a french seam, yay for stretching by sewing skills).

I then sewed up the sides, adding in a simple tan webbing band for a carry strap (pilfered from an old, no longer used bag).

By boxing the bottom of the bag, I gave it a bit more definition, and a more fitted look.

And finally a little drawstring closure on the top, and presto, one cute and functional bag for my yoga/pilates mat.

Yes, that little side table is this one, it cleaned up pretty well didn't it!

Feeling Cozy

2011-01-01T23:40:00.003-08:00

I left a little tease before the holidays, and here is the big reveal.

These mystery items, were...

Tea cozies! My SIL asked for one for Christmas... and being a DIY-er, I figured why go buy one when I can make one myself. I started out with a simple one, using a colour palette similar to her Bento quilt.

Originally it was just going to be cotton, but the red white and blue came out a bit too "Americana" for this Canuck (and for my Brit SIL I'm guessing, though she might think it Jack related), so I had to think fast.... my solution, was a layered felt flower with a button center on each side.

Layer with insulated batting it's not only reversible, but also should really keep her orange pekoe warm.

However, one was not enough and I had an even more challenging creation floating around in my head...

embracing my West Coast roots, I embraced my natural surroundings and created a raw edge applique. I love how it turned out, I can't wait to stick it in the wash so that it's extra ruffly and wrinkly.

I made the two sides slightly different, one with a shiny sun, and the other with a dark bird, maybe my friend Tim's crow ~~obsession~~ love is rubbing off on me ;)

I again did the insulated batting, and made it double sided with this adorable grey and yellow print.

Something is a Brewing

2010-12-14T19:20:00.003-08:00

Something new is a brewin' here at Casa Waffles.....

I'll let you know how they turn out soon...

To Do list Update... again

2010-12-10T19:23:00.001-08:00

I'm back again with my To Do list update. I found it quite inspiring last time.

1. Snowville: Woohoo, I found the missing blocks... but no new action to report

2. Blue Bento: Done

3. Handmade Sampler: Done

4. Happy Hour/Bubbles: Still waiting on the missing fabric from my LQS

5. Mondrian: Next onto the sewing machine

6. Picnic: Done

3That's halfway.... 3 down (plus a few other unexpeced non-quilting projects) 3 to go :)

Summer in December?

2010-12-07T22:56:00.001-08:00

What you haven't heard of Summer in December? Well, there's Christmas in July, and since I just finished my picnic quilt I figure why not Summer in December.... maybe it'll catch on, whadaya think?

I stuck to my tried and true 1/4" off the seams quilting, this time I quilted parallelograms into hte center doublehourglass section, and for the wonky words, I just did simple parallel lines as I dindn't want to the quilting pattern to distract from the words.

She's all quilted and washed, gotta love the wrinkly goodness! Only 5 months late... or maybe 7 months early?!

I'm Bent into shape

2010-12-04T17:33:00.006-08:00

My first homemade xmas gift of 2010 is in the bag. My SIL's bento quilt is done! H's requested "sparkles" are sparkling, and I LOVE it!

Here she is in all her glory.... stars and squares. Or as I named it, Stars2 ...written like stars to the power of 2 (I don't think blogger does "powers").

I kept the quilting pretty simple, I figured the quilt had a lot going on it didn't need a super complicated quilting pattern.

And I think that I love the back as much as the front. The stars were planned due to a backing fabric shortage (which came from my stash woohoo!) and as a way to use up my red scraps... 9 stars later I don't see much of a dent, but oh well! Oh yeah, the new labels, loving them!

Now to wrap 'er up and stick 'er under the tree.

A Badge of Honour

2010-11-28T20:44:00.003-08:00

Labeling my quilts has always been a struggle for me. Making up a name for the quilts wasn't such an issue for me, but finding a simple but elegant and informative way to get the information onto the quilt proved my Achilles heel. In the past I've tried a few methods- hand embroidery and once machine embroidery when I was able to play with Dallas's crazy fancy machine. But neither of them really did it for me, because my hand embroidery skills are seriously sub-par, and my own machine doesn't have the skills to do machine embroidery...

With three quilts newly finished or almost finished, I knew I needed to find a better solution to my label issues. i knew I wanted something easy that I could do myself, because let's be honest, by the time I'm stitching the binding down on one project I've mentally already moved onto a new project! After doing some online investigations, I decided to use a modified version of this tute, a handwritten method I had heard about ages ago but never tried.

After some initial struggle with parchment paper and baking paper... FYI they don't stick to fabric when ironed... I re-read the instructions and headed down to my local grocery store to discover that Freezer Paper is actually a totally different product to the others I was attempting to work with, it is plastic on paper vs wax on paper... um yeah.

Because I wanted to use plain white fabric for my labels, and I didn't like how you saw a white"er" 1/4inch frame around it when you tuck under the edges to then blind stitch it down. Therefore, I modified the tute by adding a complementary border to the label piece - I just cut 1" strips and sewed them on like a log cabin block- ironing the seams away from the white fabric.

I then cut a piece of the border fabric the same size as my front piece and sewed them right sides together . A little snip into the backing fabric allowed me to turn the "block" right sides out, a little pressing and poking out the corners, et voila!

Noew to get them onto the quilts! (And yes, you read that right 2005-2010... my handmade smapler took 5 years to complete, I think the time taken is definitely worthy of a label in its own right!)

Come on Baby Light my Fire

2010-11-26T22:52:00.002-08:00

We've been getting some crazy weather here in Vancouver, below freezing temperatures and buckets and buckets of snow, which means inside days. Today Momma Waffles and I made festive fire starters. This is something I read about years ago in the lovely Ms. Martha's magazine.

As there are not a lot of pine trees (and therefore few pine cones) in Belgium, combined with the fact that our old apartment's fireplace was purely ornamental... I had not yet had a chance to test out these lovelies.

Canada however is a totally different story, so since I returned this summer I have been collecting pine cones like a deranged squirrel preparing for winter, H got quite used to me going "off trail" to collect cones. Our post wedding visit to BC's wine region? yup I came home with 2 bags of jumbo cones... and a few bottles of wine of course. A weekend in Whistler? You guessed it mountain hikes impeded by dragging home more cones!

Anyways... today we dragged out my prized cones and got to work turning them into fire starters. First we assembled our supplies.

Pine cones (the bigger the better)
wax paper
old bits of candle wax
old cooking pan or a disposable aluminium tray (to melt the wax in)
tongs

First up, melt your bits of wax in the pan... not too much as you want only a thin layer of wax to coat to cone, if you have too much wax in the pan and you get a really heavy layer of wax, which when dried, doesn't look as nice (in my opinion).

Now using your kitchen tongs, roll one pine cone at a time in the wax. Once is it covered, place it on the wax paper to dry. remember that the colour of the wax will "tint" the pine cone, so this can be a fun way to add some colour to your holiday decor.

They should look something like this one we did with red wax... see how there is just wax on the tips, and it's covered lightly enough that the cone's detail is still visible.

As the wax begins to cool, you will notice that it coats the cones more thickly. Just re-warm the wax as needed and continue, adding extra wax to the pot as needed.

Once they have dried, you have cute, basically FREE firestarters. Place them in a cute container next to your fireplace for the next cold evening.

- we're using an old mop bucket we found under our cabin this summer.

When you are ready to light a fire, throw one or two pine cones in with your wood and paper the wax on the cones will help keep the fire going for longer, just like in a candle.

In just over an hour, we had done enough cones for ourselves as well as my two brothers... can't beat that!

It's beginning to look a lot like christmas... presents!

2010-11-24T18:30:00.000-08:00

As mentioned during my To Quilt list update, my bento quilt is almost done. Before leaving Belgium, I had the rough plan and a few draft blocks made, but then it's original intended recipient, wasn't too overwhelmed, so the project got shelved.

Then my blue loving SIL put in a request for a quilt, and since my brother and SIL have a Modern Asian kinda theme going on at their, I thought my forgotten Bento idea would be perfect. So, I dug out the few blocks I had made before, whipped out another bunch and badabing, hello lap quilt.

For the back, I had this super cute robin print fabric that I picked up last year during the boxing day sales. I didn't have quite enough of the bird print to do the whole back, and since I'm digging quilt backs with their own character these days, I decided to do some wonky red stars in a randomly staggered along a white strip.

I did realize a bit belatedly that my ingenious plan that would mean that I would have to deal with thread issues on the back. I wanted the stitches to blend in with the light blue background, but I didn't want blue threads to distract from the white and red stars strip. Therefore, I would have to partition off the quilt into two sections and use two different bobbin threads.

While one side of the star strip lined up perfectly with the edge of a bento square (as planned), I was not so lucky with the other side... it landed about 1/3 of the way through another bento box which meant that I couldn't run the whole way around the square with one bobbin thread. So, I came up with a plan, I basted along the offending star strip edge with bright pink thread, to delineate a clear dividing line.

This was I had a perfect line to use to keep track of where to stop and start the different backing threads.

While showing the almost finished quilt to H, he commented that he loved the sparkle on the backing fabric..... I was pretty confused since it is just a regular ol' piece of cotton. Then I realized that he meant the bobby pins holding the quilt sandwich together!!

After a little brainstorming... H suggested embroidering with silver thread (umm, he obviously has no idea about the poor state of my embroidery skills), and I suggested puffy paints, yup you read that right, puffy paint.

As a life long crafter, I had a stash of puffy paints from my teen days of decorating my own t-shirts (do you remember those days?!). After rummaging around in my closet, I found my old craft box, and low and behold.... my 10+ year old fabric puffy paints still work like a charm.

To test my theory, and select the right colour, I used some scraps of the backing, and had fun. After testing out a few options: silver- too dirty looking, silver sparkles- too bright and distracting, blue sparkles- totally wrong...

I finally found a winner... iridescent "crystal" sparkles. They give just enough sparkle, without distracting from the great fabric pattern, the perfect wintery touch (sorry for the bad pic!).

Instead of using the fabric paint in the traditional way which creates a real 3d texture, while I want the sparkle I want to keep the fabric feel, so I am planning to use my finger to almost finger paint the sparkles in the desired locations.

Now, to paint the back, bind it in red, and make a label...

Trolley-ing along

2010-11-21T18:44:00.012-08:00

Lots of progress has been made on our poor little trolley..... yup this trolley

with our master plan sorted out, we got to work on all of the necessary prep. Stripping the old finish off the wood...

Replacing the top shelf (it was made of some cheap-o particle board), giving the chrome work a scrub up with some Flitz.

Staining the wood a darker colour... the kinda pee-ish yellow colour wasn't really doing it for us.

Enter a nice thick coat of Minwax Chestnut, a nice warm rich brown, yum. Much better no?!

Add in a new plywood top shelf (hello yummy browness!), and we were ready to get onto the decorative stuff.

After scouting out some full length mirrors at some local big box stores (Wallmart, Zellers, cdn Superstore, Home depot...), I was a bit stunned to discover that they were all about $20 plus.... ummm not so good for le budgette. Then my Mom had a totally inspired moment, and lucked out at our local Sally Ann...

And why you ask was I so excited? check out that price tag..... yup $5.59, booyah!

After taking some measurements of the trolley and the mirror pieces that we had, I quickly realized that the two shelves I was planning to cover in mirror to jazz it up a bit could quickly look very "homemade". Although it is homemade, the plan is that it doesn't look it! So, I whipped up a plan that I hope will look like planned elegance vs. scrappy accidental.

Now it's a question of cutting all the pieces. Thank goodness my Dad's hobby is making stained glass, so he has all the necessary glass cutting (and grinding) tools to make my mosaic shelves a reality.

yeah, sexy glasses, eh?! Safety first at Casa Waffles ;).

To-Do List status

2010-11-07T22:02:00.002-08:00

Back in June I made my to do list, and as we are 5 months later, I thought a check-in was necessary to name and shame. So, Here's the update:

Snowville- not been touched as I can't find the completed blocks!
Blue Bento- top and back are done, sandwiched and ready to start quilting once I have the thread
Handmade Sampler- DONE!
Happy Hour/ Bubbles- - waiting for more kona snow to come into my LQS
Mondrian- nothing new to report
Picnic- sandwiched and ready to quilt

When a good craft goes wrong...

2010-11-02T01:07:00.001-07:00

I was going to keep this crafting disaster to myself, but I figured that blogging is about keeping things real- sharing the good the bad and the ugly. My best friend Sam had her second baby recently... and I wanted to make her something... some thing like this...

source

A little taggie toy for little Evan to play with, easy peasy right?! Ummm, wrong. In my typical style I didn't bother to do any research online- a smart idea since I have never made one or received one since we don't have kids.

I don't know if I was having a real blond moment or what, but it took me 3 time to get it layered correctly, the first two tries I ended up with the taggies on the inside-- yup you read it right, the first two tries resulted in inside taggies!

Finally (with the help of my mom!) I got the tags arranged correctly, but then I ended up with this awkward looking thing ...

Bah bah baaahh.... Yeah, back to the drawing board for me!

Catching Up: Part 4

2010-10-27T20:28:00.000-07:00

Finally!! I've finally caught up on all my bee blocks, phew! I don't know how it happened.... okay do- moving, getting married, and being in 3 different bees was a really baaaaad combination.

I managed to keep only a month or two behind... but it was stressful. I hate having things "to do" that don't get done, it rattles around in my head until I can't stand it anymore.

In the final batch of blocks I did-

Non- wonky log cabins for Margurite in what happen to be two of my favourite colours:)

Then it was a block for Tacha, which she designed. It was a good test for my accuracy skills getting all those points right.

Then it was Marit's lady block.... such a cute idea for a bee block to have it personalized by each member with their names.

With Joyzelle's request for flowers, I decided to go with one of my favourites... Gerbera daisies :)

And finally, Leah asked for a heart block for her daughter- based on this tutorial

And that.... it is, I'm all caught up!

Drinks anyone?

2010-10-23T23:14:00.000-07:00

We've got a new project a-foot around here.....

We picked up this little "beauty" in Brussels about 2 days before the movers arrived, and have now put together our plan to transform her. How can we save this sad looking drinks trolley you ask... well, it's still in progress, but we are thinking in addition to a bit of spit polish:

For the mirrored tops (both top and bottom shelves, we need to keep the budget in check so, we are working up a plan including:

We'll keep you posted on how it progresses...

Photo Evidence

2010-10-20T18:29:00.004-07:00

A few of you have expressed disbelief that I really brought the bench/settee/whatever you wanna call it, into the fabric shop to help find "the fabric"...

I figure that a picture tells a thousand words....

So... since they are camera phone pictures, I figure that's at least 1500 words of proof!

Swatch Gate

2010-09-27T16:30:00.001-07:00

The Bench saga continues... why saga you ask. Well, choosing the fabric to re-upholster it with has grown into an epic event.

Maybe I should back up a bit. We last left off with the bench having gone from this to this

The wood came up like a charm, if I do say so myself, but the broken springs and ripped fabric were a not so fabulous. So, I visited some upholsterers to get quotes for the repairs, and possibly to re-upholster it for us (I can work a staple gun pretty well, but my struggles with it's cousin the f-ugly chair has left me a little leery about tackling it- especially if a professional will do it for a good price). I never thought that would be the easy part... I found the upholsterer weeks ago, but the fabric to cover it with has proved elusive.

Not willing to pay the totally INSANE prices of upholstery fabric from an upholsterer- a mere $299/ yard for the one that I liked (insert sound of me fainting here!) - I scoured the city looking for a budget friendly fabric (ie under $50/yard). However, it was sooo hard, as a "fabric person" and someone who I think can see what things will look like "done", I really struggled to essentially guess at what would be the best choice. I had an idea of what I was looking for.... aqua coloured fabric with a brown/beige stripe in it... but it was not to be found. So I broadened my search.... adding swatch candidates almost daily (poor H, my Parents, and even my girlfriends were real troopers in putting up with my design drama).

For those of you in the GVRD, they from: Arlene's (great selection and prices- each store has differnt fabrics in stock so it may be worth checking all 3 out if you are looking for something in particular), the others are from Chintz and co (the shop itself is crazy expensive, but they have a good selection of modern fabrics at reasonable prices), Fabricana (a bit far away, but worth checking out for all kinds of fabrics), and of course... Fabricland , and they all are in the $15-$35 range

Is it too plain?, is it too brown?, too Blue? too traditional? too modern? It was giving me an anxiety attack. Aggggh! We/I finally bit the bullet and narrowed it down to these two fabrics

I love how the blue one picks out the detail on the back of the settee, and I think the "champagne" one has great flowing lines reminiscent of the fabrics used in the 20's (hello Deco I love you!)

But, I couldn't pick between them with the itty bitty swatches... So, H patiently came with me to their shop in the city and, dragging the settee/previously f-ugly bench with us (Yes, we took the bench into the store, you should have seen the looks on the faces of the staff as we dragged it through the door!!), and weighed the pros and cons of each candidate... I only had my camera phone with me, and the cable to transfer from my phone to the computer is still in our stuff stored across town, so you'll just have to take my word for it!

In the end, we decided to follow the design theory of the ever fabulous Sarah Richardson (a Canuck named Sarah? She must have good taste ;) ) and went with neutral for the basics. So..

And I'm happy to report that the bench is now safely with the upholsterer, and this white/cream/beige fabric "Nouveau Pearl" is waiting to dress it up... and the blue fabric, it will make a great throw pillow or two to jazz it up!

Catching up: Part 3

2010-09-23T19:47:00.004-07:00

My sewing catch-up marathon continues... I was up to date with my Bee duties before leaving Belgium, but since arriving in Vancouver the blocks have been piling up. It seems that as soon as I get one done, a new package arrives!

This is part 2 of Carmen's tree request, this time pine trees in lime, simple raw edge applique

Then was Erin's block using her floral print and adding our own complementary fabrics and choosing our own design. I went with the classic Geese pinwheel design. It was a bit of a stretch for my stash, but I think it works.

And finally, last week was the September meeting for the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild. Our challenge was to make a flying geese block in lime, aqua, teal, and navy with a plain white background, and make another block using the leftovers- it's crazy how many different designs you can make with little triangles. I went for a patched square look, I think it's be a great design for a full quilt.... maybe a rainbow of blocks?

Speaking of the VMQG meeting, I brought Jack along, he was very well behaved during "Show and Tell", good boy Jack!

Photo by the uber talented Sonja

One down one to go!

2010-09-18T20:52:00.000-07:00

H and I have been making a lot of progress on our current projects... The f-ugly bench and new side table have been stained and sealed.

The table has been reassembled and we are currently scouting upholsterers who can repair the damaged springs... and tracking down the perfect fabric to cover it in!

Out of Season

2010-09-17T12:21:00.003-07:00

So... my month with the MMSB bee was December.... plenty of time to have a picnic quilt ready for this summer..... um yeah, right!

For last few days I`ve been "playing" with white scraps, to create these wonky blocks.

They are fillers for between the wonky words outer border.

By the time I had made the scrappy filler blocks and two thin borders to give the words more breathing room, this is all I had left of my white fabric stash...

I think the biggest piece is only 1"x 3"... talk about luck! But, I think all the fiddling was worth it...

We are now into rainy September... so I guess our inaugural picnic will have to be next summer!

Demo and a strippa

2010-09-12T22:16:00.000-07:00

What is a blogger to do, when she wakes up in the morning to find her husband has taken their newly purchased "diamond in the rough " and started work on it before she can get a "before" photo....

Yes, honey, you are right to look scared!

Well, I guess it's my own fault, I should have known better than to think he would let an opportunity to demolish something and play with strippa's pass him by!

Those pieces of wood he's working on... they ~~were~~ are a small demi-lune side table that we bought in a junk shop for 8bucks...

At least his enthousiasm is making a dent in the gross brown paint the prevous owner had covered it in.

FYI- We decided to take the table apart as the joints needed tightening, and the poorly applied paint needed to be kicked to the curb like nobody's business. As it is covered in a thick layer of brown paint, we don't know what condition the wood is in (or even what type of wood!)..... only time will tell!

Catching up: Part 2

2010-09-10T00:20:00.006-07:00

Now that I have my sewing stuff finally out of the container I am finally able to catch up on my sewing bee blocks that are overdue... I think I have 7 sitting in the wings waiting to be done... oops!

After a quick warm up with Christiane's 6 patch's, a bit more of a trouble than expected due to differences in my mom's sewing machine vs. mine (my first 2 blocks are 1.8" shy of the correct size)...

Then, I moved onto fellow canuck Carmen's tree request. This one was deffinately more of a challenge... but I knew quickly what I was going to do.

My colour was teal, and I wanted to make a tree with movement. So, I snipped out some leaf shapes, and used my handy dandy fabric adhesive glue stick (thanks Mom!), to stick the little pieces to the background fabric and avoided fighting with pins.

I stitched the center of each leaf with a leaf rib design. My theory is that once washed, the leaves will give a more three dimensional effect, and some "woodgrain" on the trunk.

Oh, and I couldn't help "carving" a little heart into the tree trunk. I had a lot of fun with this one, and am working on a new tree design for a second block for Carmen.

A new player on the bench

2010-09-05T09:33:00.004-07:00

Yesterday H and I had to babysit my niece, and since it was such nice weather, H and I thought it the perfect time to finish up the prep work on the f-ugly bench (the cousin of the f-ugly chair).

It seems that out of my siblings, I am the only one who inherited the furniture renovation gene from our parents... but, it looks like my brother`s little girl make have it as well...

Gotta love a two year old who knows how to work a sanding block!

While she was busy playing in the garden, H and I tackled, what I think was the most tedious part of the whole preparation process.... getting the old varnish out of the cracks and crevices... uggg, soooooooo slow!

My dad`s razor blades (used responsibly and kept well away from our niece!) helped, but it still took the two of us ages. But, the quality of work in the preparation makes all the difference to the finished product, so we persevered.

Next up... a visit to the upholster to get the springs repaired/replaced, 'cuz this isn't really the cushy seat we are looking for!

The tale of Two hundred lampshades

2010-08-31T01:27:00.002-07:00

Do you remember these errrmmm, "beauties"....

They have been primed and painted for ages.... Krylon's Ocean Breeze (I figure that the saying " Go Big or Go Home" applied here), and if I may say so myself, they look fab.

But, I couldn't for the life of me find the right lampshades... I mean seriously, I thought picking the paint colour was going to be the tough part, but MAN was I wrong.

Now, I don't know if I am either way ahead of fashion.... or seriously behind fashion, but who would have thought finding two plain white drum shades would be so difficult!

Being temporarily unemployed does have its advantages, allowing me the time to drive all over town looking for candidate lampshades. I searched everywhere I could think of, I think in total I dragged home about 8 different versions that I figured may possibly work- pleated, un-pleated, sloped, tan, white, shorter ones, longer ones... you get the picture.

I was about to pull out my hair and admit defeat when I had the sudden brainwave to try out Walmart, and what should I spy in their lampshade department...... white linen drumshades! Seriously I think the clouds parted and the angels sang, that's how awesome it was to finally be close to winning this battle.

So I snagged two and ran for the nearest check-out, a big cheesy grin on my face. And..... they look great, just what I was looking for.

Oh, yeah baby... a hot aqua base and a large and incharge lampshade! Now that is a statement piece... well since there are two of them, I guess they are statement pieces!! I can't wait until we finally buy our first house so we can get the buffet out of storage so I can see how they look in-situ.

And, if you ever thought that lampshades were not that important, take a look at this...

On the left side we have sleek and modern with a straight lampshade balancing out the curvy base. And on the right side, a confused lamp wearing a little asian hat and showing his/her ~~underwear~~ hardware!!

Cost breakdown:

Lamp base (Salvation Army): 7.99
Lampshade (Walmart): 14.98
Spray Paint (Canadian Tire): 5.99- 1.86 (saving from Canadian Tire bucks that I found on the street outside our house, bonus!)

Total Project cost: $50 + tax for two custom modern lamps

FYI- For you Canadians out there looking for lampshades after Walmart I checked out Zellers, and found a virtually identical lampshade (same size, same linen look) for $24.99 each -- that`s almost double the price of Walmart!

back in action again

2010-08-27T20:56:00.005-07:00

Our container has finally arrived! It only took about 2.5 months to get it from Europe, through Canadian customs, and delivered.... but our first batch of stuff is finally in our hot little hands. Since we are still without our own place (thanks Mom and Dad!!)

Only a few VIP boxes are with us... and by VIP I mean my 3 boxes of fabric, a box of clothes, some inheritance items for my family, and a few of our in progress furniture projects like this one and this one... and one you haven't even seen yet as we bought it the day before our stuff was packed up in Belgium..... yeah it was too good of a deal to pass up! So lots of new goodies to work on and show you guys.

And since my crafting lifeline is now here, I have been busily catching up. Last night I had a sewing night with my Mom while she whipped up a wonky word for my Picnic quilt... I finished up a Hunter star block for my online bee Mish Mash Stash Bash .

Jeanette wanted it scrappy ranging from white to tan and red's of all shades... and with 18 different fabrics incorporated ... I think I managed that ;)

Ahhh... it's so nice to have all my toys to play with again, I can't wait to dive in!!

Lighting the way

2010-08-10T07:59:00.001-07:00

With all my sewing goodies trapped in the container somewhere across town, my Mom and I decided to entertain ourselves and embrace my temporary unemployment, by hitting up a few thrift shops...

Until H and I buy our own house I'm trying to limit the amount of additional furniture I buy... but sometimes I can't resist a good deal. At 3 meters long, our art deco buffet is a whole lotta furniture, but probably one of my favourite pieces of furniture. To break up all the wood I've been dreaming of finding a funky pair of lamps to add much needed mood lighting, and a little height.

So, imagine my delight in tracking down these bad boys at our local Salvation Army thrift shop or as it's known locally, the Sally Ann (the Canadian version of Goodwill).

Since we couldn't bring most of our electrical goods due to differences in voltage, I figured I could justify the purchase. So yeah, they are big, heavy, and brassy table lamps... well 2 tone actually... so why the love?

Yup, you read that right $7.99 a piece. With new lamps costing over $200 for a pair, I figured that for 16 bucks and some spray paint I could customize them to be something spectacular for our buffet at a fraction of the price. H liked them as they were (um... yeah, no comment!), but leaving them as is would be no fun, and they were pretty scuffed up, so today I moved along with my original plan.

After picking up some metal primer and spray paint (Krylon's Ocean Breeze), I assembled the rest of the tools I'd need- painters tape, white vinegar, a rag, newspapers, and Twizzlers... okay that last one is optional!

After wiping the lamp bases down with a 50:50 mixture of white vinegar and water, taping carefully around the base of the harp and end of the lamp cord, to get a clean line after painting and finally covering the harp with more tape and newspaper, I was ready to go.

After a few thin coats of primer and they already look miles better.

Kinda like the fab floor lamp at the boutique hotel we stayed at the night of our wedding, Hmmmm.

photo credit

So now the dilemma is.... ocean blue or gloss white.... ocean blue... gloss white....

Feeding the crafting fire

2010-08-07T10:04:00.000-07:00

Although no sewing, other than wedding sewing, has happened around here lately due to a shortage of supplies --which should hopefully come to an end soon, fingers crossed! -- sewing and crafting has definitely been on my mind.

I have been stocking up on supplies for some new projects (yeah, to add to my already large to do list!) like some more towels to make some more of these as gifts. As well as...

I hadn't realized it, but since I arrived back in Vancouver, In lieu of sewing I've been quietly creating a new fabric stash... quite innocently collected from various locations like the quilt show, and my recent trip to Fabricana.

Oops!.....

Back to the beginning

2010-08-03T00:34:00.001-07:00

ImPatiently waiting for our container to arrive has had a few advantages. One of which is that it has given me time to dig through the stuff that I stashed at my parents 5 years ago when I moved to Belgium.

Hidden amongst all my stuff was this little treasure...

My first ever quilt, finished in 2002 (man does that seem a life time ago!). Made by me based on a design I saw in a sewing book of my mom's it is full of beginner mistakes (choosing the wrong batting which 'beards' through the outer border) and shows my penchant for biting off more than I could chew (adding a border to the back because the fabric that I just "had" to use was to small on its own, and then attempted to line the back border up with the front border). I have many a fond memory of going step by step through the quilting process, even when my Mom and I had many a frustrated moment struggling to get the quilt through the sewing machine due to it's weight and thickness as I was trying to quilt it.

I am not sure if we were just uneducated on the options and tools available, or if back then quilting materials were not easily found. But, luckily my trials and tribulations with this imperfect work of art, did instill in me an interest in the art of quilting, and from there I took a sampler class to learn the correct techniques. From there, as they say, the rest is history. Although the perfectionist part of me longs to take it apart and to "fix" its imperfections, I have come to accept that they are a part of its charm.

Making a runner for it! ..... and my first giveaway !!

2010-07-30T02:44:00.003-07:00

Sorry to disappoint, but as far as I know neither H or I planned to do a runner before the wedding... the runners in question were table runners for the reception.

From early on in the wedding planning progress, I wanted to make as many things myself as possible for the wedding- for both the cost efficiency and personalization factor. One of the things that was on my to make list was table runners. Somewhere in the wonderful world of online fabric shopping I first stumbled upon this fabric by Paula Prass- a gorgeous yellow-y lime coloured trellis print, the perfect summery colour to make our wedding "colours" pop (lime, pewter and white for those of you interested in those kind of things).

So, with a week before our house was invaded by 8 of H's family, and 7.5 meters of this print and a plain pewter grey coloured fabric for the border-'cuz I couldn't just do a simple 1 fabric runner now could I!- in tow, my mom and I set about planning the 9 table runners we would need for our 72 person wedding.

After whipping up a test model, in which we tested the measurements, and determined that mitered corners were the best plan, were were pretty quickly able to put together the 5 long runners and 4 square runners for the reception tables. To fit banquet tables for 10 people they were long suckers, thank goodness for ping pong tables!

Our professional pictures are not in yet, but here you can see a sneak peek of them (and H and I) in action.

The leftovers of the lime fabric will be going in the back of my Mondrian quilt to serve as a memory for H and I for years to come.

But, in the meantime... I'm left with 9 table runners. So, I thought to celebrate our big day that sharing the wealth is in order.

If you are interested in winning one of these table runners, leave a comment and tell me the craziest thing you did during your wedding (or other party) planning/preparations, and random.org and I will pick a winner on Aug 14th. Oh, don't forget to include an e-mail address where I can contact you in case you win!

THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED !

Avoiding withdrawl

2010-07-26T00:34:00.000-07:00

With the wedding now over and and the visitors heading back home, H and I are now settling into our new lives. Things have been pretty busy sorting out all the practical things... medical coverage, bank accounts, cell phones etc... but with my fabric still trapped in the ~~evil metal box~~ sea container travelling the Atlantic, I've been developing a serious quilting itch. Now that I have all this free time I'm dying to dig into my WIP stash and to try and make a dent in it before real life (aka a full time job) takes hold.

Today I headed out with my mom to keep her company, stove shopping since hers has packed it in. And you'll never guess what fell into my shopping basket...

Okay, it wasn't from the stove shop, but we did stop in at Fabricana which is across the street (side note: I hadn't been there in years- since my figure skatin' days... and was pleasently surprised by the variety of prints available... but then again maybe I've just got low expectations due to the ~~crap~~ poor selection I have been exposed to in Belgium for the last few years. Anyways, I digress, as I was saying.... what deprived quilter could pass up a 50% off quilting fabrics sale, I mean seriously... it'd be a crime to pass it up!! It's lucky for my bank account that we arrived 5 minutes before closing or who knows what might have happened...

Meetin`the Peeps

2010-07-21T00:51:00.007-07:00

So this is horribly out of date, but since I just finished planning a trans-atlantic wedding I figure it`s allowed.

Back in June via the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild, I heard about The Lions Gate quilters guild show in my hood... North Van. So with my Mom and 2 year old niece Sophie in tow, we took a break from wedding planning drama, to look at some amazing and inspiring collection of quilts.

Friendly Beacon by R. Leslie Forbes

(Picture stolen with permission from Holly Broadland `cuz I was not organized enough to bring a camera with me!)

After a few highschool-esque stalking, and ~~semi-covert glances~~ overt stares I also had the chance to catch up with 2 lovely ladies from the new VMQG, our fearless leader Holly, and the lovely and talented Sonja.... It was so great to meet up with some other young and outgoing quilters.

Floating Squares (Picture stolen with permission from Holly Broadland)

The VMQG has now has 2 meetings which I have unfortunately missed due to the wedding, and bridal brain (aka having no concept what day of the week it is), but I can`t wait to catch up with Holly and Sonja, and meet the other 45ish members of the guild at the Aug 19th meeting.

Radio Silence

2010-07-05T10:32:00.006-07:00

Testing testing...... is anybody there?? Sorry for the silence here on the blog, but we have been insanely busy here at Casa Waffles (seriously not joking herre peoples!!)

Over the last few weeks we were doing a lot of this....

Crossing our fingers while it all came out of our apartment like this... (scary, eh!)

To then be packed up in this bad boy.... before taking a long boat ride to Canada (sorry, no pics of that, aparently Harbour Control doesn't like people jumping fences to keep tabs on their containers of goodies... --joking! )

Since arriving in Canada just over a month ago, I've been running around like a chicken with no head to get ready for a very special event. Lot's of crafting was involved, so I'll have plenty of stories, tutes etc, to regale you with once things calm down around here --we have a house full of Belgians at Casa del Mom and Dad at the moment, so my free time is a almost non-existant, but in 2 weeks they will be gone and I will be continuing my regulary scheduled programme....

Oh, why do we have so many visitors in Canada right now, and why have I been running around like a mad woman?? Well, here's a hint... this pic of H and I was taken a few days ago.

My unemployment plan

2010-06-09T08:21:00.001-07:00

Wth my move back to Canada, the subsequent newly unemployed status... and access to a waaay better sewing machine, I'm going to cheat on my partner...

Sorry my sewing machine... but my Mom's is your much younger and better looking distant cousin! Anyways, you are stuck in the container somewhere crossing the Atlantic, so it's not reeeally cheating ;)

What you ask am I going to be doing with this newfound free time. Other than hang out here (hello suntan I have missed you dearly!), and spending quality time with my friends and family... oh yeah and spending time with my almost hubby H (less than a month until it's official!). I will be working on my large (and in charge) WIP list ...

In no particular order:

1. Snowville paper pieced winter/christmas quilt

2. Blue Bento- Originally for H's 2 nephews... I guess they will have to travel back to Belgium during our next visit.

3. Handmade Sampler- this just need binding.... should be a perfect excuse to sit and watch HGTV guilt free for a few hours ;)

4. Happy Hour/Bubbles with help from the SC3 girls... and boy! The front and back are done, so I just need to quilt and bind it.

5. Mondrian- with help from my Eurovision bee ladies and my wedding table runners (hopefully!)

And finally...

6. Picnic Quilt- with help from the MMSB peeps. And this fabric from Ikea maybe for the back??

I think that will keep me out of trouble for a while!

Black or white... or rainbows all over

2010-05-27T22:48:00.001-07:00

I've been contemplating the borders for the picnic quilt. My original plan was to do a thin black border between the double hourglass blocks and the wonky words...

But I've been wondering if it is too harsh...

So then I was thinking of skipping the black and going straight from the double hourglass to the words... but I think that something is missing.

So now I'm thinking maybe doing a pieced border which continues the rainbow gradient of the words and the double hourglass blocks... hmmm

Serendipity is....

2010-05-24T11:02:00.001-07:00

Serendipity is pulling out your wonky letter blocks and finding out that you have exactly enough to border your double hourglass blocks in exactly the colours needed ...

One step too far?

2010-05-19T09:35:00.007-07:00

Do you have those moments where you say to yourself you are nuts!...? As someone who is ~~OCD~~ ... ~~a perfectionist~~ detail orientated, I have them on a somewhat regular basis.

So, I'm putting it to you as a bit of a test. Do you notice anything off in this picture?......

It is driving me NUTS! Like I just stare at it and stare at it and I start to get hives kind of nuts. Am I the only one that has this reaction to this situation?

I've been considering unstiching it all so can seperate/replace the twin blocks so they aren't so in your face. But then I asked myself... will anyone else notice or is it the classic "you made it so you see the flaws" type of sitation?

So, did you notice my booboo? Do I give into temptation to re-do the layout or do I let it go?

Summer is coming!

2010-05-18T10:52:00.004-07:00

With the weather finally warming up, and the big move almost here (1 week tomorrow and I'm back home!), the drive to make some forward movement on my WIP list continues.

There's something about having to pack things up and not having access to them for a weeks while they are in transit that makes me desperate to spend time with them... even though I havn't touched them in months!

So, since the last of the hourglass blocks arrived, I spent an evening sewing them all up.

I was originally thinking of doing a random layout, but I was worried it would end up too busy once the wonky word border is addded, so I decided to adjust my plan a bit.

With the quick addition of a few blocks my rainbow was born.... I love how the individual blocks shine (thanks MMSB ladies!), but there is still a bit of order and structure.

Yummy! Now, can I get the words finished before I have to pack everything up?...

Trimming the fat

2010-05-13T11:46:00.001-07:00

All 49 double hourglass blocks for my Picnic Quilt are finally finished, so tonight I squared them all up to 6.5"

It's a bit tedius- especially without a 6.5" square ruler!- but I actually find squaring up blocks quite therapudic. And the little pile of cast-aways....

a bit like fabric spaghetti (can you tell I live with a chef?!)

Yum, nice and bright and summery. Now it's time to sew them all together!

May Quilting bee blocks

2010-05-09T04:37:00.000-07:00

With our big move coming up quickly (3 weeks, eek!), I am trying to keep up with all my quilting bee blocks as the next month or two will be pretty crazy. So, this afternoon I took a break from cataloging our stuff for insurance, and spent a nice few hours working on the two May blocks for Eurovision.

First up was the blocks for Katharina. She sent us 2 white squares, marked on them a 1/4 ring (in water soluble pen) and asked us to fill in the 1/4 rings any way we liked.

I had such fun playing with the fabrics she sent. My first 1/4 was bubbles...

And my second was a more geometric design, where I fussy cut the flowers from the fabric that she had designed and had printed at spoonflower (I sooo want to try that one day... hint hint H my bday is coming up!).

Then was Ulla's request for a Japanese themed 9 patch, which I was able to whip up.

Sigh... now back to packing and sorting... boo!

Filling in the missing pieces

2010-05-07T22:25:00.002-07:00

The final few blocks are coming on for my Picnic quilt, so I started up a double hourglass factory (based on this tute) to make up the missing blocks.

I also played around with a few layout ideas ...

But I've got other ideas... once I get the last 2 blocks I'll be able to start sewing them all together.

Not all snows are created equal

2010-05-05T09:00:00.001-07:00

One of the other projects that I have to finish up is my Happy Hour/ Bubbles quilt.

I pulled it out of my WIP drawer (yes... I have a drawer of WIP's these days!), and decided to tackle the bubble layout. As the bubble blocks I recieved were all different sizes-- lesson learned, send backing fabrics in the same sizes or in a few standards that are easy to fit together, getting these all to fit was a real math test (and even after careful planning I still had to trim things down to fit, arg!).

Another thing that I did find out the hard way while building the bubble border was that Kona solids are not pantones.. nad thus each batch varies in colour. You can't really see it that well in ht picture above, but if you look carefully at the below picture you can see that the added piece is a bit more yellow-y white (hahah as they say back home, watch out for yellow snow!).

As I don't have any more of the original batch of Snow for the center panel and the outer border, I'll just have to live with it, but I did learn a valuable lesson- always buy enough solids for a project from a single batch- and keep it with the WIP until complete or you run the risk of the colours not matching.

I have one border to add on, but I'm hoping once I get it all together and quilted it won't be too obvious (I'll probably be the only one who notices, one of the downsides of making things yourself, you know all of the errors and oopsies!).

Finally laid to rest

2010-05-02T10:24:00.005-07:00

The second quilt I ever started was a sampler quilt, I had wanted to do some mother-daughter bonding and having successfully completed my first very simple quilt (I'll have to show you guys once I am back in Canada as it never made the trip over to Belgium), I wanted to move on to more complex designs... when you see that first quilt you'll know why.

The course was for hand sewing (yeah... don't ask me why we thought that was a good idea!), and each week we had a different block to complete. I was working full time and was a bit slow at keeping the momentum going once the course was finished- My Mom on the other hand had hers finished in less than 2 months!

Anyways, about 6 months after the top was complete, I decided to move to Belgium, and as I was by this point onto the hand quilting, it was (we thought) the perfect thing to keep me busy while I was in a new country aud un-employed, so I dragged it over in my suitcase.

And.. I worked on it for a bit, I put it away for a while... I worked on it a bit more, I put it away again... you get the picture! But, I am proud to say that after about 5 years, the hand quilting of this queen sized quilt is finally complete, and here she is in all her glory...

each block has a different quilting design, and the detail is probably what I am most proud of.

To be honest, I have been pretty over the front for a while... I'm not sure if it is more that I am sick of staring at it or if I have just moved on style wise (I think more the latter), but I do still love the backing fabric I chose, and old Amy Butler from her Temple Flower line, love it!

I still have to bind it- in the purple/fushia colour I think to work with both sides and to make the flowers on the back pop.

I'm a bit worried about washing this one as my hand sewing skills are a bit iffy, I have already had a few seams open in spots- I'm not sure if it is the pressure from the hand quilting frame or that my stitches were too big or my 1/4 seam allowances were off were the cause.... probably a combination of the three.

Now I can pack it away for it's trip back home, and I can cross one big WIP off my list.

Getting dusty

2010-04-21T01:06:00.001-07:00

Icelandic volcanic ash is not the only dust in the air around Casa Waffles, we've been busy working on the f-ugly bench.

Our first job was to tackle the upholstery... yeah the seafoam green plastic had to go- do not pass go, do not collect $200- kind gotta go!!

Ahhh...beige brocade ?! .... um yeah, that's going to be going as well I think....

We've now moved onto the sanding stage. With our little terrace as a workarea, and having to keep the living room door open for the extension cord for our trusty Mouse sander (note to self, I've gotta get one of those babies on the wedding list as this one is for the wrong voltage), weare getting dust everywhere in the apartment, so I hope we get this sanding done quickly!

We are about 99.9% sure that the wood of this free bench (and it's cousin the chair) is mahogany (thanks Dad for the identification help via Skype!!). Since most of our furniture has a mohogany finish, and my Dad's slight horror at the finished product of the chair in that we had stained a piece of "good wood" ebony (though he did andmit the dark stain and fabric choice looked great together, score one Sarah!), has made us re-consider the finishing plan a bit.

Instead of ebony stain like the chair, we are planning to enhance the colour of the maghogany wood (we'll show you how in a future post), and then protect it with a wax, vs. a varnish, so that we have greater flexibility of we do want to change things in the future.

Now the fabric to re-cover it with.... that I still need to figure out!

A million shades of Grey

2010-04-19T10:58:00.000-07:00

With the big move coming up, I've been pondering what to do with my upcoming unemployed status. While hunting for a new job in my new (old) home, I'm thinking that it's about time I catch up on my Quilting Bee quilts. So, I've been putting together the parts to make sure I can keep myself entertained.

One of the projects I hope to finish up soon, is my Mondrian quilt. The blocks have started coming in so now I have to start thinking about sashing etc.

Here are the first few blocks that I have already recieved from the Eurovision Ladies (well ok, I made 1 ;) ), gorgeous eh!

I already have the back at least partialy planned, it will be in part this fabric which we are going to use as table runners at our wedding reception (assuming our guests don't get too carried away with the red wine!), Paula Prass' Flights of Fancy trellis in Lime.

So now I have to figure out what to do for the front sides sashing. I bust out my Kona colour chart (love it!, best 5$ ever (ok maybe a slight exaggeration, but it's great), to sort which colour to use.

I'm thinking of greys... but I can't decide on which one... Charcoal, Coal, Medium Grey. or Ash.

From the R. kaufman website, I'm thinking of adding one of these greys to my current pallet.

In reality the lightest green is a better match to the other 2 ... the real colours are here:

So, what do you think... which is the best grey.... or do you have any other sugestions, sound off!

It's crazy season!

2010-04-16T09:39:00.000-07:00

So, you'd think what with co-ordinating a transatlantic move AND planning a long distance wedding while working full time jobs, that things would be a bit crazy busy around here, and don't get me wrong, it is.

But as H and I are starting to gather together all of our belongings that are coming to Vancouver (thank goodness we currently live in a 3 bedroom apartment or I don't know what we would have done) we had a crazy thought.

One of the things that is sitting patiently in our ~~spare bedroom~~ storage space was the cousin of this freebie chair...

With the weather finally warming up, we thought we could fit in a quick makeover before our stuff is packed up in a container and shipped ... and boy does it need it.

Meet the cousin of our ex-f-ugly chair, the currently f-ugly bench !!

Mmmm seafoam green plastic upholstery.... gorg!!

This one has some structural issues that we will have to figure out how to fix, but I can already see the potential...

The Land of Milk and Honey

2010-04-10T12:00:00.004-07:00

We received some very exciting mail here at Casa Waffles, from this place...

We were both waiting with baited breath to see what the contents were...

Success, H's been approved as a Permanent Resident of Canada! All of our plans had been around H being able to work in Canada, so it's a HUUUUGE relief that that is all sorted. Now we can concentrate on getting married, moving, and our new life together in the Land of Milk and Honey!

Mouse- Patoutie

2010-03-23T04:32:00.004-07:00

What with H being a chef, we are big Ratatouille fans at Casa Crafty Waffles (both the food and the movie!).

For one of my Quilting bees, we were asked to make blocks for a 2.5 year old boy. I had seen this block over at 4twin sisters and thought it would be a perfect match. Marysia had sent us a lot of different fabrics so I wanted to make sure I incorporated a few into the design... at first I was a bit worried....

Ummm, yeah.... it's supposed to be a mouse with patchy ears with some cheese!

By this point I had already added a tail to the original design to up the mousy-ness, but it still looked a bit... off. So, I bust out my trusty embroidery floss stash and got to work.

Little beady eyes, some whiskers, and some circles in the cheese (a cross between cheddar and swiss I suppose)....

Now he looks like a mouse! I'm not sure how she'll be putting the blocks together, so I made sure she could leave the tail loose like above, or tuck it up to stay within the block, her choice.

Twine Love

2010-03-15T11:04:00.001-07:00

I love finding uses for my new bakers twine...

Happy Bday honey!

Forging a Master

2010-03-13T11:39:00.008-08:00

My month for one of my sewing bees is coming up next month, so today I put together the packages for my Mondrian quilt to mail out.

I gathered up my fabrics and my ideas book where I had put down some tentative ideas for the guidelines for the blocks.

As I am basing this quilt on real art, I wanted to make sure:

I had the thickness of the black lines correct
That I was sending out enough fabric

In order to see if my plan was on the right track, I cut out one set of fabric and then drew out a plan for a block.

Piecing it together was super quick (like crazy quick!) as I pre-cut all of the pieces according to my diagram, and voila...

I love it!

As I want the blocks to be in the style of Mondrian, I am sending them only 3 colours, so that the is a lot of white in the blocks like his art.

For anyone wanting to re-create this type of block, to keep the ratio right, I for a 12" finished block I used 1/2" finished thickness for the black lines.

Commenting with Love

2010-03-12T01:33:00.018-08:00

I've been busy working away at a few items on my rather HUGE To Do list. Why you ask is said list so huge? 'cuz H and I have been trying to keep the wedding budget in check (I had no idea how much these things cost, damn they are expensive parties!), and... I'm totally OCD, so doing some DIY was both a necessity and a preference.

For weeks now I have been plugging away at a few wedding items, and one of them is finally ready for its big reveal... our comment cards.

For the wedding we are going with a vintage modern vibe to go with our location, a 1920's villa overlooking the sea. As I am Canadian, and my future hubby is Belgian. We currently live in Belgium but will be getting married and starting our married life in Canada, our Save The Dates were a way to excite our Belgian/foreign friends and family for their upcoming "adventure". Instead of a book for people to sign, thought that sticking with the vintage postcard idea would be a fun way to continue the theme.

Buying real vintage postcards was an option, but even on Ebay, the cost to buy and ship the cards quickly added up- not mention trying to find enough blank vintage postcards with images we liked! So, it was quilckly dismissed. Instead, I decided to recreate my own.

We wanted our guest comment cards to be something fun and memorable, both for us and our guests, as well as being one of the few wedding souveniers that we will keep with us long after the wedding is over, we wanted it to be special and reflect our journey so far. So, we scoured the internet for vintage postcard images of special places to us...

Vancouver, Canada (my hometown, our wedding location, and future home)

Leffinge, Belgium (H's hometown)

Oostende, Belgium (where H's family are from)

Dartmoor area, the UK (where my family come from)

Brussels, Belgium (where we live now)

the Ilse of Skye (where we got engaged)

I then found some blank backs of vintage postcards and as easy as copy paste I set up in MS Illustrator four postcards per page- 10cm x 14.5cm per postcard (in Europe we work with different paper sizes so I am not sure if four would fit on a letter size piece of paper).

Then, via a lot of layout work and manual alterations of the postcard backs to suit my needs (because I am a perfectionist)- conserving as much space as possible for comments, adding a spot for their names, and removing/hiding plenty of unwanted details of the postcards, I finally have come up with my masterpiece.

It was a bit of a fiddle getting the two sides lined up so I made a guide and then used the same guide on all pages to match everything up. on the backs I added two lines perpendicular to the card for them to write their names and thus freeing up more space for the comments than the original cards (no addresses required!).

H and I went to AVA (our local paper and party supply store- kinda 1/2 Michaels and 1/2 Staples), and found some great thick slightly textured paper to really make them feel like vintage postcards (FYI- I'd recommend no less than 200g paper to get the "postcard feel").

After a nervewracking few minutes worrying that my printer would cooperate or not, these babies are finally ready to get put away in a box until June!

Tip- when I am printing off a large number of pages, I always print in small batches so if there are any printing problem only a few sheets are messed up.

At 64 cards we now have enough unique cards (no front image is repeated) for all our guests to leave us a little note on our big day (I calculated the amount we would need based on the assumption that most couples will write a comment card as a couple so we will actually only need about 40 cards plus extras for "do-overs", and a few that we will mail to family who can't make the big day). After the wedding the cards will be kept in an antique art deco wooden box that I inherited from my Grandparents (by making the cards myself I was able to custom size the cards to fit the box) and I think it'll be wonderful to not only read all of the loving comments but also enjoying the historical images of our and our families past.

I probably could have hired a professional to do the work for me, but as I wanted each card to be unique I think the cost would have been astronomical. Doing it myself was definitely more time consuming, but flipping through them 20 years from now I think I will still feel a great sense of I made that accomplishment, which I think is priceless.

But, as we all like a budget breakdown, and I think the numbers are pretty impressive:

Software: free (part of standard MS office suite)
Paper: 200gm ivory paper at 0.54€/sheet= 9.72€

Total per piece: 0.15€ (including the 2 sheets that my printer decided to eat!)

You can see my other DIY wedding projects here and here

Unwanted visitors

2010-03-07T08:13:00.017-08:00

The other day H noticed evidence that we had some visitors... and I'm not talking about the kind one looks forward to.

I'm talking creepy crawly visitors... wood worms!

About a year ago we inherited a mahogany chest of drawers from H's grandparents... It's been around the block a bit (we are the 5th generation of his family that has taken care of this) but considering how old it is and the amount of times it has been moved, it has done remarkably well.

Edited to Add: When we received the cupboard from H's family last year it already had many woodworm holes, something that is quite common in old furniture (it is over 150 yrs old!). We gave it a quick look and then thought nothing of it- until H took a second look last week. As the lifecycle of woodworms is very long (from 1- several years), it takes a long time for any evidence of an infestation to become visible. We know that H's Grandpa treated it for woodworm many years ago, but it is difficulty to know if he just missed a few of them or if it is a new infestation.

Infestations are much more likely in areas of high humidity (ie damp places like attics, basements etc.), so treating it with anti-woodworm and having it in a nice heated house should dramatically cut dsown on our chances of a return infestation.

As two relative DIY rookies, we consulted our furniture care bible, we quickly found out how to check if the "infestation" was active or not.

Sawdust in the holes
The wood inside the hole is lighter that the surrounding wood

Check and double check.... gulp!!

According to The Book, the holes are the "flight holes" which are created when the fully grown woodworms (it's actually a type of beetle) burrows it's way to the surface of the wood.

With this double positive result for a recent infestation there was a high chance that they were still around With the thought of the reepy crawly beetles crawling through ~~my fabric stash (which is currently stored in that cupoard)~~ our house enough of a turn off, plus the damage these little beesties can do to the cupboard and the distinct possibility that they could move in on one of our other pieces of furniture), we decided that action was required.

A quick stop off at the DIY store later we were armed and ready.

First up we gave the cupboard a thorough cleaning with the vaccum- apparently the wordworms like dust and dirt, so clean wood is key to keeping them at bay.

Then H got started injecting the flight holes with the anti-woodworm product. You really want to push the fluid in as the woodworms create a whole network of tunnels in the wood before they are all grown up, so you want the fluid to spread throughout their little wormy road system.

As H was squeezing the product in, we could see it travelling through the tunnels, and sometimes it would even dribble out of another hole... sneeky little worms!

While H was busy attacking the holes, I went to work on the drawers.

The woodworms lay their eggs in the dirty cracks and crevises of untreated wood, so to get rid of any existing wormies, and to prevent anyone in the future from thinking our cupoard was a good place to start a family, I painted the anti-woodworm product on all of the unfinished wood, both the drawers and carcass of the cupboard, giving a double dose to the really problematic areas.

After 48 hours to dry/absorb, it's then time to polish up the wood, and we are back in business. Bye bye, wormies... hope not to see you around here any time soon :)

Quilt Bee Blocks: February

2010-02-28T03:00:00.004-08:00

It feels like I've been living out of a suitcase recently due to a lot of business trips. But yesterday was a day just for me, well for me and my sewing machine :)

Kandra from MMSB asked if anyone was willing to make an extra block, which I hapily signed up for. It seems with this pattern practise makes ~~perfect~~ better as I was able to match up the black seams much better vs. my first block.

Next up was an Amish block for Gretchen in SC3. I decided to try the Swing in the Centre block from Block Central.

One big blearning point for me was that I should of worked with a darker thread... luckily it's not too obvious unless it's stretched.

With my "orders" complete I was able to tackle a small project for myself. Most of the blocks have come in for my picnic quilt, so I got started on the filler blocks. I personaly had never made the blocks I had challenged the MMSB'ers to make, so this was also my first wonky word.

I think that the "Y" needs a bit of a tweek as it looks a little apart from the rest, but in general I fould it to be a fun style (my bee members also seemed to really enjoy it)-- just as well as I have aboutseveral more words that will need to be made to finish the quilt.

A Recipe for Success

2010-02-23T09:34:00.002-08:00

One fun thing about living in a foreign country is how your typical food is unique and exotic. My "almost SIL" is a huge fan of apple crumble, and every time we visit them, I get pleading eyes and not so subtle hints to bring some with me.

Over the weekend, H and I had a family birthday party to attend, so we decided to make up some crumble to take with us --I have no skill at food photography, so sorry, you don't get to see our masterpieces- but it looked kinda like this:

source

In an effort to share the wealth, and to avoid desperate crumble emergency calls, H and I translated my apple crumble recipe (from my 8th grade Home Economics book no less!) from English into Dutch. When the time came to write it out nicely, I had no appropriate note paper so I had to resort to using the solitary sad and a bit scruffy looking index card in our house. Yeah, very un-Martha of me I know, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

In an effort to be better prepared for next time, I decided to make up some cute recipe cards and thought that you all might enjoy them too.

~~I'm not sure how to link from my blog to a pdf, so if you are interested in a copy of the recipe cards (or know how to link to a PDF) please drop me a line.~~

Edit: I now know how this should work, please click hereto go to the PDF

Round 2 goes to Crafty Waffles

2010-02-21T12:54:00.000-08:00

I made a second attempt at designing a paper pieced pattern, this time a house for Santa- I went with the theory that more straight lines = easier to plan.

Having learnt a few valuable lessons from my previous attempt, like carefully planning the order of the pieces to make sure that each piece can be added with only 1 stitch line... (yeah, duh!), I went back to work.

And voila... may I present Santa's house

A bit Swiss cottage meets Swedish farmhouse I think. And yeah, it couldn't be a straightforward house, it needed to have a bit extra. I had a great wood print fabric that would be perfect for the house... and the front entrance was a bit bare so I added in some trees (again... overacheiver anonymous here!)... so, it quickly went from a simple plan to a rather complex one, will I ever learn?!

Luckily this time the execution went much better, I could even say perfectly (woohoo, chest thump and a high five!)... there is no doubt I think that THIS is a house!

Even H gave his seal of approval, which says a lot! My only minor dissapointment is that it doesn't look too Christmas-y... but then again I suppose that penguins aren't exactly your typical Christmas fare either!

The Support Team

2010-02-19T01:14:00.000-08:00

The paper piecing extravaganza continues here at Chez Crafty Waffles, with the introduction of Santa's little assistant...

Yes, I took a break from my own designs to finish up the Christmas blocks kindly provided by Sew hooked.

Next up... Penguin 2.0

Trial and Errored

2010-02-17T09:37:00.001-08:00

So, the time had come to attempt my master plan for Santa's sleigh. I gathered my supplies and prepped the templates.

I wouldn't call it a failure, but I definitely learnt a few things along the way (my 6 piece pattern turned into 8 pieces as I had not correctly planned the execution side of the design... oops!). What I ended up with was this:

It matches the drawing pretty closely- I think...

But, H said that it is a rather abstract version of a sleigh-- It could be that he is an amateur Santa guy- In Belgium Santa plays second fiddle to St. Nicholas (or my less than stellar fabric choice for the sleigh's runner)-- and that he thought I could do better... sigh!

Since I now had two "dud" blocks -my dirty bird and the sleigh, I decided to stick them together to make a pot holder-ish thing.

Thanks to some scrap batting, I was able to whip it together pretty quickly, now it just needs to be bound.

Now back to the drawing board to take my learnings and prove that I can design a paper pieced block!

Take a Seat

2010-02-15T08:36:00.001-08:00

I have a confession to make... I am not a shoe addict like many women, but I do have a weird love of chairs. Although we have ~~plenty~~ more than enough chairs in our house, I can't help wandering past a design store window, hello Callebert and Knoll I'm talking about you!!, or looking in interiros magazines, and secretly dreaming of all the beautiful chairs and where I could put them in my house. If I could, I'd totally smuggle them into the house, and then bring it out a few months later and try the whole "what this ol' thing, I've had it for ages..." line. Unfortunatly, our storage closet isn't that big!

H has put me on a bit of a chair ban... (don't really blame him, as we have more than we could possibly sit on!), but I think he'd let me get away with putting some of this , in our house...

Cira 50 Chairs Multi

Hello future craft room, I see some fab chair print pillows in your future!

This is part of the new Circa 50 range by MonaLuna which should be out in March (I saw it for sale here).

Full Circa 50 Range

I also love the retro car print, perfect for a retro guy quilt no?! So much for my fabric shopping ban!

Going to Pieces

2010-02-12T01:49:00.004-08:00

As you know I've been pretty distracted recently by the cute Christmas blocks I found over at Sewhooked.

However, when I triumphantly showed H my handiwork he wasn't too impressed... actually he said something along the lines of "you're following a pattern, that's cheating"(humph! yeah, no comment Mr. Party Pooper!), and then proceeded to challenge me to make my own paper piecing pattern.

As I needed more blocks for my planned Christmas quilt and couldn't find what I was looking for online, and never one to back down from a challenge, I did a little research, and decided to give it a go, nothing ventured nothing gained right?!

I figured that my Sanata and Mrs Clause would need a sleigh to get around in (why a sleigh you ask and not something easy like a tree for my first homemade pattern???.... ummm, not sure either because I roll with the philiosophy of go big or go home, or because I am a total overachiever... most probably it was a moment of insanity due to the latter!). Anyways, I had decided on a sleigh.

As I don't have photoshop which was used in the tutorial, I turned to my BFF MS Illustrator, and after a rather pleasant 1.5 hours I ended up with this...

Yeah, I even did the whole seperate the pieces and add seam allowances thing (which took about 1 hr of the 1.5 hr design time!), total overachiever. I think I need to get out my pocket protector!

Sorry I digress, I think it turned out pretty well. Now to see if I can actually make the darn thing!

Riding the Q-train

2010-02-09T09:12:00.003-08:00

So I've been a bit distracted recently... and that meant my Quilt bee blocks were piling up pretty quickly.

H had to work on Sunday, so I got in a sewing frenzy and I caught myself up! A few were a bigger skill/style stretch for me, and one made me almost pull my hair out (I always knew that my weakness in math would come back to haunt me!). But all in all I got the chance to work on a variety of block styles which was really nice.

Scrappy X block for Kandra MMSB (from this Tute- which I found to be a bit lacking in detail) I think I see a baby quilt made from this one... Green, teal and yellow, whadda you think Sam?!

Scrappy gnome house (or as I call it "K-nome")- kinda Frank Lloyd Wright inspired no?!- and applique mushroom for Susi in my Eurovision Group.

And finally the one that did my head in... the Squares and rectuanges block for Mari in Eurovision (I told you I was behind!!).

It may appear the simplest... but calculating to get all the pieces to fit together (while working with a limited amount of fabric) caused me soem serious headaches! But, I guess it's like giving birth because now that it's all over I really like it!

Feeling Solid

2010-02-08T01:36:00.006-08:00

The fabric arrived for my Mondrian quilt. Sigh.... I have some serious fabric love!

fabrics: Kona solids- cyan, lagoon, robin egg, lime, grass and cactus (to be paired with my usual standby, Kona Snow)

I can't wait to get this baby ~~finished~~ started!

Snow Day in Brussels

2010-02-01T08:21:00.001-08:00

It snowed again in Brussels over the weeekend, and H and I decided to take a walk around our local park to enjoy the winter weather.

Ummm, yeah... I love the park, but I'm not such a fan of the local swans!

He`s got a dirty face

2010-01-30T13:55:00.009-08:00

I`ve been plugging away on my Christmas paper piecing blocks (2.5 more done, woo woo!). I say 2.5 because I was happily dry ironing away while working on a block when this happened...

Yeah... my penguin has a dirty face :(

I am pretty sure it is from the black fabric not the iron -- because silly ole me was too ~~psyched about making more blocks~~ lazy and impatient to bother pre-washing the new black fabric that I picked up last weekend.

I gave him a quick face wash, which seemed to get most of the black off, and finished him up, but now I don`t know what to do. Do I:

1. Chalk it it to experience and start again (with pre-washed black fabric!)

or do I

2. Throw caution to the wind and put him into the quilt and cross my fingers that the black won't bleed into his pretty white face?

Has anyone had any experience with this? Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

On a happier note, my little Christmas project is really starting to come together.

all patterns from Sewhooked excluding the 3 tree block

The Shopping Gods smiled on me!

2010-01-29T08:22:00.000-08:00

For ages, the simplicity of images like this have gotten my heart all a flutter.

(source)

For the holidays, I had visions of bakers twine dancing in my head. However, living in Europe, I had no known source for the lovely stuff and the price online, had put me off due to the cost, especially when it's one of those things that I really didn't need!

So, today I had to visit a hardware store for work with my spy camera (aka. cell phone) to do some market research, buh! .... not the most interesting place to spend my Friday afternoon. But, while slowly wandering through the shop sneakily snapping away at the shelves (I work for a packaging company), what should I spy on my camera screen, but...

Yup, the clouds parted and the angels sang... it was bakers twine, and in three different colours to boot! After checking out the EUR 1.85 for 100 meters price tag (score !!), I did a quick happy dance and snatched up one of each. Oh happy day!

A few Little People

2010-01-27T12:02:00.001-08:00

I was all commited to finishing up my growing list of WIP's.... when I stumbled across some super cute paper piecing patterns over at Sewhooked.

Since H had to work late last night leaving home on my lonesome, I rushed through my normal to do list, whipped up some KD (one of my imported from Canada indulgences!), and gave paper piecing a crack. So, even though I have a ton of other things that I should have been doing, my excuses of: 1. they were cute and 2. I have to do some paper piecing for a one of my bees soon, won out. The fact that the blocks are Christmas related and that it's January, did not persuade me to stop. I kind of figure that at the rate I'm adding WIP's, I'll probably need the 11 months to get it done!!

Anyways, few hours later I had produced these:

A level 1 tree and a level 2 Mrs Clause, not to shabby if I say so myself.

For some unknown reason I pulled a "striped" fabric out for Mrs Clause's jacket -why you ask would I choose a stripe for my rookie attempts at paper piecing??... dunnno, I think I'm a glutton for punishment! I almost pulled my hair out and stomped on the ground during my attempts to match the stripes but, I'm glad I perservered because I think she turned out pretty adorable. My stripe plan worked out (kind of- they were supposed to be vertical- but at least I matched up the slight angle they ended up on!) by giving the needed definition to her arm so it doesn't blend in- score 1 Sarah :)

Oh yeah, and I love how the background fabric looks like snowflakes :) Before bed last night, I already pulled out the fabrics for the next three blocks, Santa, an elf, and a penguin...

Picnic Plans

2010-01-22T10:43:00.001-08:00

The ladies in MMSB have been busy, here's a little flavour of what I have in mind for the blocks...

I think I need a coloured border between the double hourglass and words... and maybe something between each of the words, but I'll wait until all the blocks are in before deciding.

Time out in Brussels- Marolle

2010-01-20T08:21:00.003-08:00

I don't post often about the places that we vist, but I thought that one of H's and my favourite weekend haunts, the Marolle, deserved a little bloggy love.

The Marolle is the antiques district of Brussels, which inclues a daily market 7am -2pm (Place du Jeu de Balle, which is walking distance from the Place Poelaert glass elevator- by Ave Lousie metro stop- for those of you who want to stop by). We love it because the market and shops are open on a Sunday - very unusual in Belgium where most things are closed Sundays leaving us stuck at home!

Glass elevator and view of the Marolle district, Brussels

H and I have spent many great days wandering around the area, and bought many a "treasure" there hidden amongst the random collections- often junk, but with a bit of patience, we've found some real winners :)

Being a market vendor "french" style... a glass of red wine to keep the cold at bay!

This past weekend was no exception. On Sunday, we grabbed the metro and wandered over to the Marolle market. And while wandering aroundthe market square, what should I spy... but a old box full of vintage wooden printers letters, which I have been wanting for ages. As I have been lusting after these for ages, I know the ebay price = about 1€/letter... Marolle price= 25€ for 45 letters and a small wooden box that locks! To top it off, we have almost a complete alphabet, all we are missing is an "R"! Yay, happy dance and a big smile!

The box needs a bit of a clean up, but after a little TLC will be a great addition to our house. I'm wondering If I can use the blocks for some stamping... I need to investigate this a bit further. This time around we also scooped up 6 silver plate julip cups, which I already have plans for. Plan #1. wedding decor that after will serve as #2. mini vases for our house. Oh, what was the price you ask... after a bit of negotiating they were 2€ a pop, so 12€ for all 6 matching cups, such a steal, sweeeet!

A Marolle antiques store located in an old department store- 4 stories full of treasures!

For anyone who's not a "market type" of person (or the weather means you want to stay indoors), there is more to the Marolle than just the market, there are also some great antiques (and regular shops) in the street nearby. Both the filled to the brim type of "A" shop, where you really have to hunt around, as well as the shops with a careful selected products. To be honest we haven't had as much luck in those shops (actually I don't think we've EVER bought anything in one of them- but that's probably because we are pretty ~~cheap~~ frugal). They are however, a great place to get ideas, as well as figure out the "real price" of things... as well as just being generally fun to poke around :)

2009 in Summary

2010-01-14T08:26:00.002-08:00

In almost a year of blogging, I have to say I was pleasently surprised to see all the crafty things that I accomplished in 2009.... all this plus a few WIP's, not too shabby!

Bento revised

2010-01-13T09:44:00.005-08:00

Now that I'm back home from my whirlwind trip home for the holidays, I realized that I had to get cracking on my WIP's. My sister-in-law requested blue and white matching quilts for her two boys (H's nephews and godsons), so I decided that it would be a great chance to try out a bento box design.

before the holidays I got started on them...

But I wasn't feeling the super scrappyness of the the blocks. So, I recruited H to pick apart the outer section of the blocks I had completed ... while I got busy cutting out strips and sewing other blocks.

A little more matchy matchy

That's looking much better. Now to do some online shopping for blues... my stash isn't going to stretch thaaat far!

Getting Wordy

2010-01-08T06:47:00.007-08:00

I'm so excited, the blocks are starting to trickle in for my month at MMSB. For my future picnic quilt I requested both double hourglass and word blocks - yeah, I stretched the rules a bit and asked for two different types of blocks! As you may remember, I sent out white fabrics, and they were to add in the colours.

Check out what those lovely ladies have been making....

Looking good, eh!

T Par-tay with an extra surprise!

2010-01-01T21:24:00.006-08:00

As I mentioned before, I was hoping to rope some of my lovely girlfriends into helping me out in making our Tea Towel wedding favours.

Being the amazing troopers they are, they were totally not intimidated by the idea of a making a huge pile of tea towels, so with irons in tow we got to business.

And, what had been giving me sleepless nights due to stress, was quickly completed by my awesome team.And it was a great chance to hang out with my girls :)

A few hours (and a yummy dinner prepared by my awesome future hubby) later, and we were done, one more wedding project off the list

But hey, you're probably wondering, what was the "extra surprise"?! Well, that would be the crazy stomach bug that everyone got that night. I guess for us the new saying will have to be, those who craft together...

Booty-licious

2009-12-29T00:51:00.006-08:00

So, we are now 1.5 weeks into my holiday and my time has been filled up with a lot of this...

visting our wedding venue, for the first time ever!!, luckily it's even more gorgeous in person :)

debates over the merits of square vs. round centerpieces, dress colours (yes, I've found my dress!), etc., as well as Christmas shopping, Christmas parties, Christmas... seriously mind boggling in such a short period of time-- and soooo much left to do!!

But, over the weekend, my family H and I headed up for a much needed wedding free "time-out", filled with skiing and boarding for the boys, and a relaxing few days for my Mom and I sleeping in and wandering around Whistler.

During said wandering we stumbled across a florist who was throwing out some Christmas stuff that I guess he didn't want to store until next year... Not opposed to a little bit-o-dumpster diving (well, since it was in plastic bags just outside their closed store I don't really consider that dumpster diving...), we started rifling through the bags and picking our loot... What did we find you ask? Well... this!

Only 13 garlands of real pine cones, cinnamon, berries, and greenery (front left and behind the garbage bag on the floor)... 16 garlands of berries, faux pine greenery, and pine cones (sofa left) , about 40 pre-wired real pine cones, about 15 green glass ornaments, and white faux berries (in the garbage bag on the floor), 1 faux pine garland, and 2 sets of working white outdoor LED Xmas lights with extension cable (sofa right) .... (Seriously, that picture totally does not do it all justice!). We estimate at least $200 worth of stuff, for ..... FREE! Merry Christmas to me!!

And don't worry, the next day we checked with the florist if they were okay with us taking the bags...

Happy Holidays

2009-12-23T23:18:00.001-08:00

Merry Christmas from us to you ... see you in 2010!

A sea of white

2009-12-15T10:13:00.000-08:00

January is my month as "Queen bee" for MMSB and after agonizing for ages over what I would have my little workers make for me, H and I came up with our master plan for a waaaay cool picnic quilt. This brilliant plan combines some retro style quilt bocks with fun wonky word blocks... hopefully it looks as good in real life as it does in my head!

Because MMSB is a stash busting bee, we send out one fabric and they build the rest of the block(s) from their fabric stash.

So, to make 2010 start out with a bang... the lovely ladies in my bee will be receiving some of this...

No, do not adjust your screen... I really am sending them different scraps of whites.

So that all of the blocks are congruous (umm, that's a word right??!), I'm hoping for a scrappy white background (to better hide future picnic stains, as well as to help blend in any stash whites that need to be added). To this they will be adding the colour and any extra whites necessary.

The holiday countdown is on (1 day to go then I'm in Vancouver for 3 weeks, woohoo!!), so here they are all packaged up and ready to go (trees not included!).

Going Down Under

2009-12-13T12:32:00.001-08:00

Nope, we didn't do a whirlwind trip to Australia, we went to a Christmas Grotto in Holland :) H and I decided a few weekends ago to check out a Christmas Market, and as there are a bazillion (okay a slight exaggeration :) ) we decided to go for a more unusual one. Valkenburg has a giant sandstone cave in which they set up a collection of stand selling everything from the traditional ornaments to African drums, dancing Santa's, paper flowers... you name it. Since I'm a huge Christmas fan and the Europeans do Christmas markets like nobody's business, I said bring on the Christmas!

Entrance to the grotto

Taking a break from grotto shopping for a hot chocolate with amaretto, purely for the cultural experience of course!

We managed to pick up some cute Christmas ornaments as souvenirs of our trip.

But unfortunately I had to leave these babies behind ...

Ahhh, bobblyhead santa headband- you've gotta love the pure kitch of it!

We had a great day at the market and wandering around the small town before settling in to watch the Christmas parade where the children from the local schools have choreographed dances that they do through the street to music, it was too cute! Unfortunately my night time actions photo taking skills suck even more than my normal photo taking skills, so I'll have to leave you with this half decent pic of the older kids.

Mastering the art of avoidance

2009-11-29T11:01:00.002-08:00

Instead of working on making the long list of Christmas gifts, I've been thinking about what the final layout will be for the Bubbles quilt

one line

Or a frame (with an extra white border on the outside)

And instead of sewing it together, I've started a new one....

Yeah, no comment!

I can do that... I think?!

2009-11-27T08:05:00.011-08:00

So... in this whole wedding planning process I was determined to DIY as much as possible. And although I have absolutly no training as a graphic designer, the list of Wedding DIY's include

Save the Dates (done!)
Invitations (eek!)
Monogram
Favours for Guests

I've been busy at work on the last two items- I seriously heart MS Publisher, it makes life so much easier.

For the monograms I've been up to my eyeballs in this... so many choices (this is still the first round for the general concept.. .we haven't even got to colour selection yet!

In case you didn't figure it out, our wedding colours are grey, black,white, and green!

H and I decided ages ago (long before we were even engaged) that a perfect gift for our wedding would be customizes tea towels. What... tea towels??! Yup you heard me right- he's a chef... tea towels go in the kitchen.... get it?! Yeah anyways, we think it's brilliant! As the computer savy of the two of us, I've been tasked (well I tasked myself really!) to come up with the customized part of the towels...

This weekend while visiting family I'll be picking up a hundred unprinted tea towels -- thank goodness for cheap local delivery rates, family living in the UK, and a job that gives me an excuse to visit said family on their dollar... well ... Euro I guess! :)

The plan is to get the towels over to Canada at Christmas, and to then ~~guilt trip~~ persuade friends and family to help in the great "Tea Towel event". Until then, I have a several designs up my sleeves, but I'll leave you with a few tid bits.

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