Putting Down Roots

With the garden makeover back in September we also did two other little additions to our garden.

1.  We finally put the wooden "round" that was living on the back deck as a rather precarious bird feeder to a more permanent use-- we figured the new tenant probably wouldn't want the thing in their space.  Partly inspired a random blog post on some random blog somewhere (helpful no?!) and revived by an episode of Design Star Season 7 and, I had the idea to add a bit of whimsy to our garden.

 

Since our round was too thin to make a side table from (as we don't have space for any more outdoor furniture), we went for something more ornamental.  With our 4 inch circle bit to make space for the plants, and a drill to make some drainage, we came up with this:

We raised it off the bark much with some flat rocks to help drain/avoid rotting, and nestled it in our front (south facing) flower bed under the 2nd storey's overhang. This area gets almost no water, so we figure that these succulents should do ok.  And the large wood "planter" adds some nice texture and interest, bonus!

A few months later and it is still going strong... We figure worst case, investing a few bucks in 2 new plants every year - or even harvesting some clippings from our other outdoor succulents means it's no biggie for some character and inhospitable space filling.


2.  We planted our fig tree.  Last summer we had visited the Okanagan with H's mom during her visit, and while at the Penticton Farmer's market we found some baby fig trees for sale by one of the farmers.  As a chef, H loves pretty much anything we can grow that is edible, so we picked one up.  You might have seen it peeking out from the pile of basement reno stuff stored in our living room in this post.

After staying in our living room for the year, it had gotten much bigger (like a gangly teenager!), and according to our research the summer/fall was the time to plant it.   So, a hole, some random bits of scrap wood, twist ties, and some of my trusty black bark mulch later, and we were good to go. 

When we the man folk cleared the tree out of our side yard, we weren't too worried about the exposure to the street, because we had plans to put the fig on that side of the house.  We pulled the fig forward on our lot so it is more in our front yard and had better sun access.  We figured that this way it will provide some visual interest without blocking too much light and  keep our side yard open and better for future little Waffles to play in.

For reference, the old tree was behind the low blue spruces in the middle ground of the above picture (lined up about smack dab in the center of the side of our house). The fig is pulled out into the front (unused) part of our lawn so takes up no play space and should be a nice visual from both the street and the house.

So far so good, it's too bad we will have to cut off most of the new growth before wrapping it up for winter..... H tells me I have to do it, as it'll hurt him too much to cut the limbs off himself. 

It's in the Bag

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

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...

With 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.

Summer in December?

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

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.

The tale of Two hundred lampshades

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!

Finally laid to rest

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.

Scrap Busting Christmas

Sorry my faithful three readers that things have been so quiet around here. In the real world things have been a bit more hectic... I've been tracking down places to buy bulk tea towels (a crafty future project for the wedding), and pretending to be a graphic designer( for said tea towel project, gotta keep the budget real people!) amongst other wedding prep.

In actual physical crafting, I've been working on the hand quilting for my big ole' sampler quilt (I'm on the final border woohoo!!), and in a crafting day with Dallas I made some scrap busting (thanks for letting me raid your stash Dallas, hugs!) microfiber and hand towels that I thought would make some cute decor for my house xmas gifts/housewarming gifts/etc.

I have gotta admit I have a serious crush on Dallas' sewing machine... I was like a kid in a candy store playing with all her stitch options... maybe one day Santa will get me a fancy shmancy machine. Or wait ..... could I put one on my wedding registry??..... hmmm, probably not, darn!

I've gotta admit that I'm not a huuge orange person, but I'm loving this orange and teal combo, I think it may be a future baby quilt colour scheme (especially if my friends and family keep to their annoying trend of keeping the baby's sex a secret 'till birth!).

Double Zig Zag

So apparently a messed up knee is good for my productivity. With my weekend plans put on hold and H at work, my Saturday afternoon was filled with Season 1 of SATC, and some binding...

Yup, Ziggy's done, and even ahead of schedule! Now to package it up and make a date with the parents to be.

I also managed to finish up Dallas's block for SC3, a slightly modified zig zag (yeah original I know, but she wanted simple and modern, I figured this was a good solution)

I think one of my favourite things about this quilting bee is how you have to make fabric from someone else work no matter the size of the pieces they send, the desired 'theme", or colours. It really stretches the brain :)

Letting my hair down

This month at Sew Connected 3 we have 2 different sets of fabric to work with. Jessica's plan was to make a bird themed quilt so she sent each of us a bird fabric with some coordinating fabrics- the only request being that the bird is the focal point of the block.

It'll be a breeze I thought, not much of a challenge as I could do whatever I wanted... hmmm yeah, right! I opened my package and found one tiny piece of bird fabric- Michael Millers' Tweet Tweet (which I have been lusting after)- which has little birdies in cages, super cute, but as the scrap was so small I was totally intimidated.

Jessica said we could add fabric... and I thought crap I have no bird fabric in my stash... or do I?? A quick search through my stash turned up some leftover Amy Butler Temple Flower fabric from my sampler quilt- that has birds AND coordinates with perfectly with the fabrics Jessica sent.... heheh, an evil plan it hatched- I'll switch bird fabrics, brilliant!

So away I went and came up with a really simple traditional block showing off my birdy....

Hmm, that's kinda lame isn't it! I also guilty for"cheating"and that I wasn't pushing myself enough, the whole point of me joining this quilting bee was to stretch my sewing skills and creativity. So, back our comes the Tweet Tweet fabric and the leftover pieces and I came up with this.

Now I am normally verging on the anal side when it comes to straight lines and have already had a minor battle with that already with this bee, and this time I just winged it and let the fabric decide how it would go together. After seeing the completed block I think I'll be adding a freestyle quilt to my to do list- oh yeah, and buying some of that Tweet Tweet fabric for myself!

Jack is back

So, The Secret Quilt, aka "Jack" as he's become known at chez Craftywaffles is done. Ok, just the top is done, so I guess I should say half done. I hung it up to take some picture and love it.... could you make a patchwork curtain?? Maybe a bit too country for me? Hmmmmm...

He's going to be shelved for a while as I have a baby quilt to get started on for a friend- deadline July... yeah it's a while away but I'm not the speediest quilter. I still havn't decided if I'm gonna risk machine quilting it on my little Frister and Rossman!

My productivity hasn't just been on Jack, I have also finished up my April block for SC3. Amy sent over some super cute fabrics for her picnic quilt. As soon as I saw the ant fabric I had a eureka moment and knew I wanted to have the ants marching around the block in a little ant trail. Because of all the seams, it used a lot more fabric then I expected so I had to scrimp a bit to get it done as well as walk away vs keep fussing with it- but that's part of the fun of this quilting bee, working with "un-me" fabrics and working with what you've got on hand- it seems to be helping my OCD tendancies!

Mostly Non-sewing Crafting

With a change to H's schedule (him working mostly days the past few weeks) my quilting evenings have been non-existant. I feel guilty quilting while he's home since we don't see each other that much, so together we have been doing some other kinds of crafty stuff.

H's birthday was last week, and in the small amount of alone alone time that I've had recently, I found and cleaned up an antique kitchen scale. As a chef, food is H's job and hobby, he's one of those really lucky people who love what they do. So, buying kitchen related stuff is always a safe bet for him.

The scale is over 100 yrs old. It arrived chez Craftywaffles looking pretty rough. It was crusted with rust and its lovely copper face was hidden by years of neglect. Here it is after a nice bath and scrub in anti-rust product (it's original state was too nasty to show!)

After some loving.... it's now looking like this... happy bday babe!

Now, I bet you are asking yourself what is that yellow thing in the background of the first scale picture.... so glad you asked, it's our new chairs!! For Vday H and I decided to gift each other a set of art deco club chairs. The yellow velvet is in good condition, so we gave the fabric a good cleaning which should hold us until we (aka I) re-cover them- I'm in love with these babies!

The other day I mentioned to H that I wanted a bench seat for the end of our new bed (you know in my mind it'd be an elegant sitting place- but in a reality a parking sport for clothes etc!). As the Mr Efficient that he is, H tracked one down- for free no less, Score! Hidden away in a Oostende basement was a settee (cross between a bench and a sofa), just what I was looking for. As we are currently living in an apartment, I banned the bench from coming in due to lack of space- but we are practising our renovation skills on the matching arm chair.

So last weekend H sanded away the old finish while got a jump start on removing the once seafoam green plastic upholstery (yup- you read that right!). However It seems I lost the battle against the person who put that stuff on- However, after a few stabs from the screwdriver- ouch- I got it off.

Now... Yesterday H worked a later "shift" so I had some quality Sarah time - yeah I'm terrible, I'm happy to have a night to myself sometimes... Anyways, I had picked up from Dallas my next batch of fabric for our Sew Connected 3 group. The inspiration images were mostly wonky log cabin-ish, so I tried to quell my inner obbsessive compulsive need for order, and wonked it up. I'm pretty pleased with the outcome. I hope Rocklily is too :)

Making Royal Progress

Hiya,

So ,as I mentioned the other day although you haven't seen it, I have been busy... Now that I have all the necessary fabrics for the Secret Quilt, I have been busy piecing it together. Tonight was a big moment when I had to see if all of my calculations were correct... and so far so good. I almost chickened out of splitting the blue square 'cuz it was going to be a ahem.. pain to repair if I messed it up, but I soldiered on...
I am soooooo excited about this... it's looking even better than I had hoped. I hope it wasn't just beginners lick that made it work so perfectly, but that'll have to wait for another day as my back is dead so I have to stop for tonight.

Another thing I made was a new pin cushion... I have a very bad habit of poking pins/needles in the sofa while quilting and watching TV. H hates it (and I can't really blame him as it is pretty dangerous and I end up loosing or forgetting them half the time). So, here is Karl...

Finally, I met up with Dallas from my quilting bee and her friend Ali and we had a great day exploring Creativa. Knowing Dallas her pictures will be much more inspiring so head over there to check them out.

We all couldn't resist a bit of shopping (and lots of drooling), over the fab stuff they had. The expo hall was full of quilt shops, scrapbooking, flower arranging, etc. considering there is no Michael's in Belgium, it was the most crafty stuff by far I have seen since moving here... Fun!

Looks like it might be the beginning of a beautiful crafty relationship :)