Success!!

I managed to add the piping to the pillows! All of you sewing experts out there for whom this is no sweat please just humor me a second here. :) I've never done anything that involved using a different foot on the sewing machine before so just let me have my moment. LOL I ended up using the zipper foot to do these since my cheapy brother model of sewing machine did not have a piping foot and I didn't want to look for and buy one.

An experienced seamstress will be able to find room for improvement upon close inspection of the pillows, but I'm pretty happy with how they turned out and now the window seat is complete. Except of course for the silver curtains Katie has requested....*sigh*.

Speaking of curtains, I have no earthly idea how to dress the window in my living room. The valance was left by the previous owner and I know it is hard to see in the pic. This house is so hard to photograph because there is always all this natural light pooring in the windows where I'm trying to take the picture. Anyway - it is a burgandy gingham valance on a thick wood pole. I'm fine with burgandy - but gingham not so much, plus this window set just seems like it needs more than just a weaky mealkey valance on it.... suggestions??

Katie's Window Seat

Please excuse the poor lighting and the messy room, but here is a picture of the window seat cushion I made for Katie's room. When we moved in there was just no cushion at all, so I started from scratch. I bought two 72in rolls of 2in foam that was 24in. wide. Since the window seat is 31 in. x 110 in. I ended up cutting the foam in five 24 in strips and glueing them together with tacky glue. I could have done it length wise, but I felt the longer seam would not have held together as well and might have been more noticeable. Sorry, I should have taken a picture once I had the pieces glued together to illustrate what I'm talking about, but I didn't think of it at the time.

Once I had the pieces of foam glued together, they seemed pretty secure, but because the cushion was so big, I felt I really should find a way to more securely keep all the pieces together. I had this muslin-like fabric left over from a clearance purchase of fabric years ago and it was exactly the right size to be able to enclose the whole cushion in one piece of fabric. The width of the fabric just made it around the cushion, so I had to whipstitch it on. I wanted a really tight fit anyway, and with a piece this big I just couldn't imagine fighting with sewing it inside out and then trying to wrangle it onto the foam without the pieces coming apart.
It took about 5 hours or so to whipstitch around both angled sides and the shorter straight edge. (The longer straight edge is the fold of the fabric.)

Here is a close-up of the fabric I used for the cover. It is a chenille, and DH hated it, but Katie loves it - and it is her room. I like it too, because I guess I always wanted a girly room when I was a child and never really had the chance because I was raised by my dad who didn't get such things, and I also had to share a room with one of my sisters and she wasn't the girly type as a child (though come to think of it she is now).

Oh, funny aside about DH and fabric: We were in JoAnn's picking out this fabric and I suggested a fabric to Katie and DH said, "Jenn, look this one is all messed up on the edge - I don't think you want that one. Actually lots of them are like that - maybe we should go to a different store." It took me a minute to realize he was talking about the selvedge edge. I actually had to convince him that was supposed to be like that to prevent fraying - when I first explained it (trying not to laugh in his face!) he didn't believe me and acted like I didn't know what I was talking about and this was all just poor quality fabric, etc. etc. Yeah, cause I've been doing crafty stuff including minor sewing projects since I was 10 - but you who are in a fabric store for about the 2nd time in your entire life, know more than me....

Anyway, I had decided I wanted the cover for the cushion to be removeable. Katie is only 5 after all, and although we don't allow her to eat food in her room, she does have markers and crayons and paints that she uses in there, and who knows what mischief a 5 yr old can get into right?

The fabric for the cover did not come in as wide a bolt as the fabric I used to enclose the cushion. I orginally intended to do either a zipper or an envelope back for the cushion, but I ended up doing this on the fly. The diagonal seems are all machine sewn - since I was using the fabric from selvedge to selvedge edge I didn't need to put in a hem to prevent fraying on the part of the fabric that didn't get sewn together. I just used a million pins to pin it tightly and to keep the fabric from slipping around and losing the shape I wanted. The opening works out fine, because it is just large enough to slip the cushion out of if I need to, but it is completely invisible on the back while the cushion is in place.

Now for the pillows - probaby won't make them until this weekend. The pillows are also a chenille, but in a lighter pink shade with hearts for the raised design instead of circles (Katie picked out both fabrics). I was thinking of using the small bit of fabric I have left from the seat cover to make piping on the lighter colored pillows to tie them together a bit. I've never done piping before though, so we'll see. I have pillow forms for them and will just do a standard envelope back on them, so except for the piping (if I go that route) they should be really easy to do. I'm in the middle of stitching a section on the Mira RR though, and having fun with that, so I'll probably wait to do the pillows until over the weekend.

Yes, I edited this after I realized I had missspelled "selvedge". :)

Stitcher's Heirloom Sampler Progress

I'm working on new window seat cushion for the big bay window in Katie's room and that and the endless gardening has been eating a lot of my stitching time. I did manage to stitch a little though and completed the first scene in the Stitcher's Heirloom Sampler by Victoria Sampler.

I'm hoping to share pictures of the window seat cushion in the next few days. :) I'm going to make coordinating pillows and am trying to decide whether to take a crack at doing piping around them, or to just glue on some cording when I'm done like a lazy dope. We'll see what wins out. I also received Sophia's Mirabilia RR today - which is a pixie-themed design. So I'll be working on that shortly too. :)

The Universe

Somedays I think the universe is just mocking me - you know playing head games and such. Today was shaping up to be a pretty awful day. It's TTOM for starters, which gives me headaches, sinus problems and insomnia. Didn't have the insomnia part, but check and check on the other two. Got to work this morning and I had forgotten my security fob so had to stand outside the office like a big DORK until one of the executives (why oh why couldn't it be the receptionist or the nice HR lady) comes by and lets me in. Then at lunch time I drop a big ole creamy noodle out of my lean cuisine microwave dinner right onto my satin-like shirt. Yeah, so I went the rest of the day with a palm-sized stain on my shirt that was VERY noticeable.

But then, one very good thing happened - I found out I got a new placement!! I interviewed on Monday and was starting to get nervous since I hadn't heard anything yet. Today my boss got the call though that I start July 1st. What a huge relief. Just before I found out, I was playing on facebook and took one of those silly quizes - this one read my fortune and said that something I was hoping for was going to happen - less than 30 minutes later my boss comes over to tell me.

Of course the day went right on being crappy except for that one huge good thing. My headache persists, I got to go pee in a cup for the new job in a seedy part of town, my mom called to try to weasel her way into coming an extra weekend this summer, the plants I planted over the weekend are threatening to wither and die, and I still have to figure out what to make for dinner.

Reading back over this, I think I have it figured out - The universe is saying, "Quit your whining - you got it pretty darn good girl!" Even after all the annoyances, I have to mark this day in the good column.

My Craft Room (to be)

This post is inspired by Susan, who is asking for pictures of your craft room so that she can get ideas for her own stitching room. :) As most of you know, I just moved into a new house too and having a craft/stitching room was definitely on the priority list. This is the only finished room in our basement, and as soon as we finish the rest of the basement so we can use it for our family and computer rooms, this will be mine (all mine!!). As you can see the room is currently serving as our second living room or a family room, the computer is in it, as is the lazy teenager most of the time! See there he is! And our old couch and the video game system. *sigh* but it will be all mine when the rest of the basement is finished. We are hoping that is later this year, but we are waiting to see if I get a new placement at work before we commit to spending any more money on the house for right now.

I did, however, unpack all my stash into the built in shelves though. This is the bulk of my stash - I also have my beads and a few WIPs and other miscellaneous supplies in a two-drawer end table next to my stitching chair upstairs, but this is pretty much everything else. Now that it is unpacked at least I can get to everything again. The door next to the shelves is an unfinished closet that goes under the stairs. I'm going to finish that off with more storage for crafty stuff too.

Oh, and I almost forgot, the previous owner left this huge storage closet in the unfinished part of the basement. I might just snag this for the craft room too. I'm thinking it will give me all the room I need to start a fabric collection and other miscellaneous supplies for all the crafty goodness I can stand! :)

Humpty Dumpty

A couple of pics of the latest afghan block and the whole afghan as it stands now. I think I will take a bit of a break from this for a little bit. I want to stitch on something else for a few days until the Mira RR comes, then maybe when I finish with that I'll come back to the afghan.

Thanks everyone for your comments on my garden - the ones here and some made on facebook really helped point me in the right direction. I'm slowly getting there on what I want/need to do to make it look decent. :)

One other thing, I think I'm going to skip entering anything in the Fair this year. I'm just not close enough to finishing anything, and in no mood to push myself to have a finish just to enter. I'm going to try to go to the judging though anyway. It is always a fun day. If you are thinking of entering something in the WI fair this year though, be aware the entry deadline is June 20 - so go check out the website if you want to enter. :)

We are Closed!

On the house that is. :) Our closing went off without much ado or any problems on Friday morning. Relieved isn't even the word for it. First item on the agenda after becoming the offical owners was to paint Alex's room. It was pink before:

And now it is green:

Neither picture is the best, and they show different angles of the room because I picked the one from each bunch of before and after pictures that showed the respective colors the best. I won't be winning any decorating awards for this room, and it still needs curtains, but at least we aren't forcing the almost 14yr old boy to live in a pink room anymore. :)

I also managed to transplant one of my hostas to the decrepit border garden around the house. Provided it takes well, I'll transplant a bunch more to finish off the area better. The more I look at the garden areas though, the more I see additional plants sprouting and blooming. It is hard to tell what is weeds and what is plant sometimes, but I'm learning. I weeded out a bunch today and want to get some mulch down soon to stop the weeds coming up so much. A little at a time is how it is gonna get done I'm afraid.

I got in a little more stitching on the baby afghan today too - will probably have another block to show in the next few days. Pretty soon I'll be mailing off my Mira RR and someone else's will arrive for me to stitch on - looking forward to that. :)

Rock a bye Baby

We had a little good news on the house today - the seller's bank says we can close whenever we want now! I'm excited, but also nervous that something will come up again at the last minute. The new closing is scheduled for Friday at 9:30am. Cross your fingers that this time it will really close and the bank has no more surprises.

Lately I just haven't had the concentration for any of my WIPs as they are all larger pieces. Instead I've been working on the baby afghan for my sister - each block is a quick finish. I've also been working on one of the smalls I got at Celebration, so hopefully I'll have that to show one of these days too. So the above picture is another of the nursery rhyme blocks from the baby afghan.

The job situation is looking up too - it sounds like I have a definite maybe for a new placement, which would be awesome and aleviate some of the "OMG, I have a larger mortgage payment and I might loose my job." angst I've been having.

So things are looking up, I hope, maybe, I think. Cross your fingers and say a prayer though just in case!