Sewing Room Makeover Day 1

Before photos

It's a mess! I warned you. Notice the brown paneling in the first two photos surrounding the window. All of the exterior walls in this house had paneling on them when we bought it. This is the last of it to go.

The paneling comes down.

There is mold behind the paneling, as I expected. Every wall had mold on it behind the paneling. Yuck! Fortunately, this isn't too bad. Some walls were much worse!

A bleach and water mix and some elbow grease takes care of the mold.

It's not a fun job but it only took about an hour.

The mold is gone and hubby is filling in holes with joint compound.

That's as far as we got today. We need to let the wall dry over night. Tomorrow I will prime it with a stain blocker primer and hopefully get at least one coat of paint on the walls and ceiling. The ceiling needs painting as well and I'm going to be lazy and paint it the same color as the walls.

Crochet Project

Before we left for our trip I found a Ladder Stitch Crocheted Dishcloth pattern on Ravelry. I think I made something like 7 of these while we were gone!

I even got fancy and changed colors on a few.

The above photo shows the two sides. The ladder stitch is easy to do and looks interesting. I'm planning to give some of these as gifts this Christmas. I found that crochet is better than sewing for me in a moving vehicle because the only sharp instrument it requires is scissors and you don't need to cut often.

The big clean up of the boy's room is almost complete. All that is left is to put some of the toys back in. I'm hoping to be able to purge some toys and only put a few back in his room with the rest going to the playroom. The playroom also needs a makeover, but my sewing room is next. Maybe before school starts back in August we can get the playroom done too.

Robbi Joy Eklow Class (photo heavy)

Eighteen ladies spent all day yesterday in class with Robbi Joy Eklow here in Alamosa. This is one of the quilts Robbi brought to show us. (Click on the images to see them larger)

This is typical of Robbi's style, bright and geometric fused applique, although upon closer inspection some of the smaller details are painted. Click on the link in the first sentence above to go to Robbi's website.

We worked from 9 am until 4 pm with a break for lunch.

As part of our class fee we got to choose a pattern to work on. Robbi brought about a dozen to choose from and some had samples. Here are a few.

I chose to work on the one second from the right. I got two of the units mostly finished in class.

I got pictures of the progress made by a few others in the class too.

As you can see, it was a fun class!

My plan for today is to clean the house and get the boy's room back in order. I don't know if we will finish today, but I hope to make a dent in it. Once I get the boy's room back together I plan to start on my sewing room. Before we left I ordered some new shelving for my sewing room. It is currently sitting in boxes in the living room. I plan to paint and reorganize my sewing room over the next few weeks. Of course, I will share photos of the process. The "before" photos are pretty scary though. You have been warned!

Home Again - Just in time for the Show

We made it home last night from our trip. The traveling was one of those experiences that makes a good story but isn't much fun at the time. I need to recover a bit before I can tell you about that. However, the visit at my parent's house with my sister and her kids was great. The cousins all had fun together.

I wanted to be home for this weekend because the Colorado Quilt Council held it's monthly meeting in Alamosa this morning and this weekend is my guild's annual quilt show. The speaker at the meeting was Robbi Joy Eklow and she will be teaching an all day class tomorrow that I'm signed up for. I'll tell you about that next week.

For the meeting my guild made columbine pins and the little bags made from the bottom part of the legs of old jeans.

We also gave out small bags of fingerling potatoes so the bags contain some recipes. The San Luis Valley has a lot of potato farms and one of the local farms donated these as welcome gifts to all attendees.

On to the show! Click on the images to see them larger.

This first quilt was made by my friend Janet Davis. Janet teaches at our local quilt store, The Gray Goose. She does beautiful work and has won some awards. She won third place in one of the recent Keepsake Quilting challenges, not with this quilt though.

Then an applique quilt by Mary Ann Sandoval. It is all hand applique and hand quilted. It was one of the first hand applique and hand quilted quilts Mary Ann did, but I think she did a nice job.

This next quilt was made by Karyl Scarlett. I thought it was darling and cutely embellished.

This one was made by Maverick Brooks-Turner. She calls the outside edge treatment "Texas Mink."

This one was made by one of my art group members, Peg Collins. She made the stars during one of our meetings when I showed everyone how to make wonky stars. It is hand quilted with intentionally larger stitches.

I saved the best for last. This one was made by Judy Freeark. It is all done by hand. Judy has also won some national recognition and had a quilt in the 2010 AQS Planner calendar - the one that is smaller like a day planner with a quilt for each week of the year.

There are many other quilts in our show. These are just a few that I got permission to share with you.

Arrived

We made it to my parents house Sunday night - late. This was my view for most of Saturday.

I think this might be Texas. Or it could be Oklahoma. Everything starts to run together after a while.

East of Oklahoma City we stopped for gas and this restaurant was next to the gas station.

Their billboards were advertising 100 oz. plates of pork - free if you can finish it in 1 hour. I'm no vegetarian, but shouldn't 100 oz. of meat feed about 20 people? I'm trying not to think about it too much because the thought of eating that much meat in one hour makes my stomach queasy. They had these pigs out front and the son though they were hilarious.

Yesterday morning I went to my mom's guild meeting. I got to meet Susan of Blackberry Creek Home Arts and she took this picture of me and my mom.

Go over to Susan's blog to see the beautiful quilts brought for Show and Tell yesterday.

It is as hot as I remember here in Alabama. Ugh! We are going to check out the neighborhood pool this afternoon.

Vacation Time

We will be leaving soon for a trip to my parent's house. I may post some while we are away, but then again, I may not. Don't expect to hear from me until early July, but don't be surprised if I post something about our trip before then.

Fissures of Time

My piece for my art group display in the upcoming Downtown Quilt Show is finished! Orientation #3 received the most votes, so I went with that.

I'll be dropping it off with a friend today since the show will be hung on or before the day we get back from our trip.

Below are some detail photographs of the individual blocks. You can click on the images to see them larger. This piece is all hand embellished with stitching (that is, quilted). I used 12 wt. variegated Pearl cotton. The color is M40 Violet Meadows.

The title is "Fissures of Time." I decided this was the most appropriate of the various titles I came up with. This piece was quilted in the fissures of time that occur in daily life. In between the laundry, shopping, cleaning, cooking, grading, ... you get the idea. Between all the necessary jobs and chores of life there are fissures of unscheduled time in which one can create, if you look for them.

Permit me to do a brief "public service announcement" for some local quilty happenings:

The Downtown Quilt Show is put on by my local quilt store, The Gray Goose. They hang quilts in the windows of downtown businesses for a few weeks in the summer. This year the show will be hung Friday June 24th and will stay up through July 4th. Since my guild began having an annual show we try to coordinate with The Gray Goose. The guild show will also be hung June 24th and will stay up until early afternoon on June 26th. The guild show is hung in the atrium of the Inn of the Rio Grande in Alamosa. So there are two quilt shows that weekend!

In addition, my guild is hosting the Colorado Quilting Council meeting that weekend. The meeting is Saturday, June 25th, and there is an all day workshop on Sunday, June 26th, given by Robbi Joy Eklow. So it's a big quilting weekend in Alamosa the last weekend in June.

That's it for now. I'll leave you with one last photo. I took the quilt out and about yesterday evening for a photo shoot.

Splashland

This post is mainly for local folks.

The son and I went to Splashland this afternoon.

The pool and decking have definitely been upgraded.

There is no shade and not many chairs. There are two nice grassy areas though and then fence around the pool is very nice. There is a warming house located down by the deep end. It is just a green house with chairs inside.

The water was not as warm as most local folks are used to, only 84 degrees today. It was a bit cold with the strong winds but it didn't seem to bother most of the kids. Personally, I find Hooper pool too hot in the summer so I think Splashland will be a nice change. The water is still fed by a hot spring but it cools down during the filtering process. They hope to be able to speed up the process so that the pool water will be warmer. I think they are still figuring things out.

There are life guards on duty just like before and they are offering swimming lessons. I didn't get that information today because it took us "forever" to pay. The son didn't have enough patience left for me to get the swimming lessons information. Next time.

The main building is exactly the same. I couldn't see that they had done anything at all to it. I seem to remember an article in the Valley Courier saying that they didn't have enough money to renovate the building this year.