A Furry Guest, Christmas and Carnival

I was out today at a meeting for our Guilds Quilt show. The show is not until May of 2013, but if you have ever had anything to do with a show you know how much work it takes to organize.
I belong to the Kawartha Quiltmakers' Guild so if you are interested in attending our show please check out our website.  My friend and I have taken on demo's so we will organize our guild members to set up all kinds hand and machine demonstrations. By the way I am web mistress for our Guild too.

Hubby took this picture of bunny rabbit who spent several hours on our front lawn today. I know they are prolific and invade gardens eating everything but darn they are cute. He let him get quite close to take this picture.

 On the left you will see the finger tips and beautifully turned ankle of yes, none other than Darling Hubby.

He is holding the first creation to come out of my newly refurbished
sewing room.

It is a Christmas table runner that I have made as a gift for someone leaving a group I belong to. I was amazed that for someone who does not collect Christmas fabric I managed to come up with a pretty nice selection of it.

I have so many scraps of strips left I may make a few placemats for Christmas.

I was pretty pleased with how it turned out.

The weather is starting to cool down a little this week and although we have had some rain we could use more.

We are now working on updating our kitchen so I will have some before pictures for you soon. We are planning a new floor and new granite counter tops and tile back splash.

It going to be our 35th wedding anniversary next month and we decided that this would be our gift to ourselves as we are not going anywhere special this year.

The colour of the Granite we have chosen is called Carnival. I told hubby that was fitting because it costs as much as the cruise we won't be taking.

Updated Sewing Room

I have been remiss in posting for some time. I guess I lost my mojo. Part of that is because my sewing room was not, in my estimation giving off the right essence to produce any either quilty or written.  Sooooo anywhooooo, I decided to do something about it.  It took me a couple of months to come up with an idea and then I was off and  running.

I am working with a very small room, so my idea was to keep it light and bright and try to keep as much as possible behind closed doors so that I would not be distracted by mess when trying to create. First I decided on purchasing a couple of cupboards. (I actually had a home improvement guy do most of this for me) he added some additional shelves to them for even more storage and so the fabric piles would not be to high. He also put together a tall bookcase to hold all of my quilting books. The shelves are adjustable another great feature.

Then I needed a large work surface, cutting table and a place for a second sewing machine for when my friend comes to visit. I thought about using a counter top. So my so guy went to Home Depot and bought me a an off the rack 6 foot counter top and two small bathroom vanities which were slightly higher than kitchen units.  The vanities are at either end and again gives me extra storage. I had my guy put one shelf up high on the wall so that I could store some of my UFO projects and scraps. I have put up a peg board above my counter top and purchased a new 19 inch flat screen which takes up a quarter of the space of my old TV. I also had my guy make me some doors for a small bookcase that I had and then I sanded and  painted the whole thing white. That was my contribution to the room. That and the endless fabric folding I did to fill my cupboards.

He also took a couple of large chunks of wood and made me two rulers holders. I also had him build me a big top for my ironing board which I am going to pad and cover.I have some more pictures to hang and a cork board to mount but all in all it is ready.

Old Room

Old Space

Fabric drawers before

book case before doors

Here are some before and afters of my lovely sewing space.      

Shot from the door, new cabinets and the bookcase with new doors added, my beloved Janome to the right.

new book case and I have moved my computer

my folded fabric

my ruler holders, piece of wood with routed slots

Countertop with bathroom vanity ends, pegboard above and small TV on the right 

Storage shelf above, eventually I am going to change to all white containers.

Counter tall enough for small drawers on rollers to fit underneath

Hubby insisted on taking this picture of me in my newly organized space.

 

I will leave you with one last photo, on the bus trip to Pennsylvania we went to the quilt show in Lancaster, which you have seen pictures of in my last blog.  I rented a scooter to see the show because it was on three floors and much to see. My hip would not have allowed me to enjoy the show otherwise. Mary on our tour took this photo of me and although I am not one for having my picture taken it is not bad.

Next time I will have some pictures of what I am working on now.