Guest Room Decorating

I'm frustrated with all the looking and not-finding-anything I've been doing lately. Or, when I do find something - Ikea cabinets, for example - not being able to fit them into our car to get them home, nor wanting to spend $199 for shipping from Orlando to our house. For the time being, I'm taking a break. Who would ever have thought it would be wearing to shop?! Instead, I'm spending time doing what I have the wherewithall to do.

We brought along lamps, not knowing which, if any, would suit our new house. This plain white lamp has been in our house for years. You can tell from the dinginess of the lamp shade!

After reading a few tutorials about how to cover a lamp shade, I tackled it for myself. I rolled the shade across a big sheet of craft paper, tracing the edge to make a pattern. With that pattern I cut a single piece of fabric, adding about a 1/2-inch on the top and bottom edges for turning under. With Sobo fabric glue, I glued the fabric to the edges of the lampshade using binding clips to hold the fabric in place while it dried.

How glad am I that over the past several years I've bought palm tree (in this case, philodendren) fabric whenever I came across it!

I love it!

Such a simple way to add another coastal/beachy/Florida element to the guest room.

Another task was to recover a homemade "headboard" we brought along in our move. The headboard is simply a sheet of insulation, cut the width of the double bed and curved along the top corners. It has two yardsticks glued vertically to the back so the whole thing stands at the end of the bed, against the wall.

I removed the old blue/gold cover and used it to played around with font sizes/words printed from the computer. The phrase, "It's another beautiful day..." is one I chose because it's so often said here in The Villages, "It's another beautiful day in The Villages." Folks on WVLG radio say it all the time... because it's true!

Using a fusible, Kona Azure fabric, and variegated YLI thread, I machine appliqued each letter to a white print fabric.

Then I pressed fusible fleece to the back to give it the puffy look I wanted. Using small applique pins, the whole piece is securely attached to the insulation along the back edges.

Along with the "Friendship Medallion" quilt finished last March, this is the start of creating a colorful, welcoming room for visitors.

Linda

Sewing Room Update

As some of you know, I've been sharing progress about making the larger of our two guest bedrooms into a sewing room. We've been in our house seven weeks now and progress seems slow to me. However, this past week I made great headway when, in about 45 minutes, the closet was customized. I spent the better part of Thursday re-re-organizing my sewing supplies. I think pictures will give you a good idea of the transformation.

Three before pictures.

Three, after installation pictures.

Three, fully loaded pictures.

As you can see, I have made pretty good use of all the space, but I still have a few problem areas. 

1) In the closet... see those big bins in the middle, on the floor? Though I can close the closet doors in front of them, I can't pull out any small bins on the left side because the big bins are in the way. And, the big bins can't be turned sideways because they're 23" and the opening is 21-1/2" wide! I need to invest in some smaller bins.

2) Those lagoon blue canvas bins stacked on the floor are full of fabric scraps. I'd like to sit them on shelves. 

3) None of my fabric is in the closet. It's still on wire racks, exposed to dust and UV rays. I would much prefer to have it in cabinets behind doors, even glass ones if it comes to that. 

So this is what's left to organize. I've been seriously looking at Ikea's Billy series, bookcases with glass/panel doors, and extension shelves at the top. If I put a combination of units on the left wall, where the design wall is now, the big back wall will easily accommodate our 26" wall-mounted TV, and a larger design wall. Though the flannel wall is working okay, I discovered I cannot put a finished quilt on it for photo-taking without the whole thing pulling down - those magnets aren't that strong. It's likely I'll be recreating a flannel design wall with an insulation backing so I can pin to it.

Thus far, organizing this room has cost $865 of my $2,000 budget. A purchase of Ikea cabinets will be the biggest investment.

Too much indecision surrounds putting this room together - and the rest of the house too, for that matter. As much fun as it sounds to be able to shop for everything new, doing so requires much more time and effort than I would ever have imagined. Linda

A Flying (Geese) Finish

Almost 16 months ago, I made my first 12-inch, foundation paper-pieced, Circle of Geese block. It's a free pattern you can download here.

Nine blocks later, here's the finish in it's new habitat: Florida.

 

Of course I had to scope out a palm tree to include in my pictures. This little tree belongs to neighbors. (Alas, we do not yet have a palm tree in our own yard and, the palm tree class I was to have taken last week was cancelled!)

My first practice block was put to use on the quilt back.

Though outline stitching was done entirely free-motion, for the first time I used a BSR (Bernina Stitch Regulator), on my new Bernina, for fill-in quilting.

The BSR worked great for all over quilting like the jagged points design.

So what's my take on the BSR? Since I've been quilting for the past 13 years without a stitch regulator, I feel comfortable that my FMQ quilting stitches are mostly consistent. Still, I have the occasional flub that keeps me humble, like when I move too fast around a curve and the stitch length is too long. In those instances, the BSR does a better job of keeping up with me. But the BSR doesn't prevent skipped stitches. As with most sewing machines, when I get to bulky areas where seams are stacked, skipped stitches still occur. I don't know what to do about those, whether I'm quilting with or without a regulator.

I found that the BSR didn't help much when I was quilting a small design - those pebbles, for example. I think it's difficult for the BSR to focus on a small stitching space. What are supposed to be curved stitches still seem somewhat linear (jerky?) for lack of a better term. I think I can make prettier circles on my own.

All in all, I'm glad to have the BSR feature as I think it will be a nice option when I want to quilt all over, fluid designs - stippling, meandering, snail trails, feathers. But for outlining, stitch-in-the-ditch (which I always say is really "stitch-in-the-valley") and small detail work, I'll probably either disengage the BSR, or quilt on my Pfaff Grand Quilter. The Pfaff has the advantage of having a larger, 9-1/2 inch opening (harp). It's nice to have sewing machine options.

My Circle of Geese quilt is finished with my world-famous-very-different-yet-highly-effective binding method. See my amazing, machine-sewn corners, binding tutorial here if you'd like to try sewing binding in a way that will transform your life. Okay. Well. That's a slight exaggeration. But do give it a go. I bet it's unlike any binding you've ever sewn to a quilt!

Stats
Circle of Geese Quilt
44" X 44"
Foundation paper pieced with 50-weight Aurifil thread for piecing
White Rose batting
YLI polished polyester 50-weight thread for quilting
World-famous-very-different-yet-highly-effective binding

Thursday morning my sewing room closet is being customized. Behind twin bi-fold doors will be two upper rows of shelves, and floor to ceiling adjustable shelves on both the far right and far left sides. After living here for six weeks, it's about time to put stuff away. Yay! Linda

Some of This and That

Great Granny Along blocks are coming from my sewing room, disorganized as my sewing space is. 

Ten blocks are done, and here you see them on my new design wall. I don't know how a quilter can function without a design wall. I stewed over several ways to put this up, particularly because I can't yet bring myself to pound the first nail into the walls of this brand new house!

The fabric is 108-inch wide white flannel purchased from Fabric.com. Three sides are double-folded hems, with a 2-inch sleeve at the top. The "bar" inside is two yard sticks duct-taped together! I went with a lightweight rod because the entire thing is hanging by magnets.

Three pieces of 3M wall-mount adhesive strips are along the ceiling. Glued to each strip is a heavy-duty, round magnet. Glued to the long yard sticks, in three matching positions, are another three magnets. (If you do this, be sure you have the magnets glued on with the poles the proper direction!) Even through the fabric sleeve, the magnets are strong enough to hold together. 

Playing with the BSR on my new Bernina Aurora 440, I'm figuring out how to FMQ without using a foot control - just by moving the fabric. There's quite a different feel to this quilting than when I'm controlling the stitch length. I sure like the texture of this design.

Quilting is with YLI white polished polyester thread that I won. It's pretty, but slippery. I'm taking plenty of securing stitches so stitches don't come undone. By the way, if you see bits of orange in the quilting, that's the color of the Frixion pen used to draw straight lines.

Since I'm attending Happy Stitchers every Wednesday afternoon, I've managed to finish a couple more embroidered blocks in the Snowmen A to Zzz project.

Only two blocks remain to be finished! Letters "T, U, V" together in one block; and "Z."

On the home front, it's taking a long time to feel like The Villages is home because it still feels like we're on vacation! I love going everywhere on the golf cart. The scenery and landscaping is beautiful and the weather is great. (It's not even as hot here as it's been in Iowa!) Whether I'm going to a Saturday sewing group or line dancing lesson; making a quick run to the grocery or stopping at Walgreen for odds and ends; or going to Sumter Landing Market Square for live music and dancing, I can go in the golf cart! It's just plain fun!

From a golf cart road, this is a south view of The Villages where so much new construction is happening. The growth is pretty hard to believe. If you look closely, you can see the streets, street lamps, and even street signs for another new neighborhood. 

Golf courses are always a priority and this one is nearing completion. Behind the trees is either a new country club or a recreation center. I love pedaling my bicycle around the new neighborhoods because the streets are quiet. It's heartening to see an area that's thriving, and where the economy is booming.

In Tuesday's newspaper, The Villages sales offices published this information.

Those numbers mean that in The Villages sales offices alone, they've sold an average of 345 homes a month! Pretty incredible numbers I'd say, given housing sales in the rest of the country.

In small increments our house is looking more like home. I've finished painting for now. I'm lovin' all the fresh white furniture, but now I need some bright color. The rocker will get a cushion, and the lamp will get a new shade.

Two palm frond lamps were an online order (Wayfair.com) and I'm pleased with how perfectly they suit the furniture!

However, the rugs ordered online did not work out perfectly. In fact they were awful. We ordered two different sizes of the same rug design (see previous post) and this is what the small one looked like when it arrived. Comparing my picture with the web picture, there isn't a bit of the red in the web picture. And the binding was burgundy! At our own shipping expense, we've returned this rug and cancelled the order for the larger one. Ugh. It's back to rug shopping again, but this time not online.

Sharing some news... "Snowflake Medallion," the quilt many of you have seen dozens of times already, has been juried into the AQS (American Quilter's Society) show that will be in Des Moines, Iowa, October 3-6. I'm pretty darned happy about that. Before Snowflake heads to Des Moines, it will be shipped to Colorado to be photographed by "Quilter's Newsletter" magazine for a future issue! Oh, and "Life is a Celebration: Nature" will be photographed there too. Gotta love those Aussie designers - Emma Jansen and Kellie Wulfsohn - for making my quilting look good.

This morning I'm going to a class about palm trees at The Villages Lifelong Learning College. I think you all know how much I love palm trees. Oh, and my attempt to sprout a palm tree from a seed? Well, that failed. Rotted, actually.

Today we're also making a point of eating at Chick-fil-A. It's Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day, to show support for the company's biblical values. If you're in the US, I hope you're eating there too! Linda

Oh, to be only 20 months old

...and this limber!

Linda