One More Hexie Rosette, Fabric Picks for Next Stonefields Blocks, + Coffee Catastrophe in the Studio

 UGH!!!  Let’s start with the worst first!  This morning I sat down at my desk and set down a full, steaming cup of coffee, apparently partly on the desk and partly hanging over the edge to defy the laws of gravity.  And then gravity won.  BLAM, SPLATTER, SCREAMS…  Because, you know, white carpeting in my studio that is brand new from just a year ago.  After blotting and water rinsing and blotting some more as best as I could, I spent the rest of the morning tidying up my studio in preparation for Stanley Steemer’s arrival with the giant carpet cleaning contraption.  If I’m being honest, the clutter was the culprit to begin with — too many stacks of papers and fabric swatches and sewing tools and notebooks on too small of a desk did not leave much room for cups of coffee or anything else.

By the time the carpet cleaners arrived at 2 pm, I had most of the room cleaned up with the chairs and rolling carts moved out of the room and was just working on folding and putting away mountains of fabric on my worktable.  I did stop to finalize my fabric picks for those next three Stonefields sampler quilt blocks.  The pile on the left is the one I’ve already started stitching, with the dotted background fabric and the orange plus sign pieced into the Tilda print:

Fabrics Selected for Next 3 Stonefields Blocks

These three blocks are the same design, but the other two get plain background fabrics.  I also finished another EPP hexagon rosette for the Stonefields outer border last night.

The Latest Hexie Rosette

I’ve decided that I can’t just pile up more and more fabric on the worktable for Stonefields because, duh, that prevents me from working on anything else in between these fiddly little blocks!  Now that I’ve picked the fabrics for the next three blocks, which should keep me busy for at least a couple weeks, a clean worktable will allow me to piece that Scrappy Celebrations backing, right?  At least that’s the plan.

I apologize for the enormous file size of today’s photos, by the way.  I can’t resize them on my iPad the same way I normally do on my desktop computer, and I don’t like how the Blogger app is annoyingly different on my iPad, too.  Sadly, I have to stay out of my studio tonight and can’t even put my desk chair back until morning because the carpet is still wet.  The guy from Stanley Steemer said he didn’t get the stain out completely, which is annoying, but it has to be better than it was, right?  My husband will say something snarky about how he told me white carpet was a bad idea, but it’s not like I was going to choose chocolate brown carpet instead just to disguise spills.  Anyone have a favorite miracle carpet stain remover that works even better than the commercial carpet cleaners’ stuff?  Let me know in the comments, please!

I'm linking up with some of these favorite linky parties:

MONDAY

Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts  

Monday Musings at Songbird Designs  

TUESDAY

To-Do Tuesday at Quilt Schmilt  

WEDNESDAY

Wednesday Wait Loss at The Inquiring Quilter

FRIDAY

Finished or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts

Off the Wall Friday at Nina Marie Sayre

Beauty Pageant at From Bolt to Beauty

 TGIFF Thank Goodness It’s Finished Friday, rotates, schedule found here: TGIF Friday

SATURDAY

Scrap Happy Saturday at So Scrappy

SUNDAY

Frédérique at Quilting Patchwork Appliqué

Slow Stitching Sunday at Kathy's Quilts

Oh Scrap! at Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework

Hello, August! The One Where Bernie Accomplishes Much, and I Accomplish Little

Hello, Happy Monday, and Happy August, Everyone!  

After finishing my Scrappy Celebrations quilt top last week, I stalled out on the backing.  Having recently moved several times, I am acutely aware of how much fabric I own, and therefore I am not even considering purchasing yardage to back this quilt, but most of my fabric stash is half yard pieces or smaller, or leftover strips of backing trimmed from larger quilts after long arm quilting them.  I will have to get creative, and I will need my work table cleared off in order to piece the backing, and right now my work table is a mess.  Nevertheless, I do plan to get that backing pieced this week!

Meanwhile, I accomplished one more little 3/4" hexagon rosette for my Stonefields quilt border.  I fussy-cut the print but either I imperfectly centered the motif when I fussy-cut the hexagons or else the templates shifted slightly as I was hand stitching them together, probably a little of both.  Best viewed from a distance, then!

One Little Stonefields Hexie Rosette to Show For Myself

Progress On the Home Renovation Project

With so little progress to show for myself, I might as well share someone else's progress with you!  Eight and a half months after beginning and three months behind schedule, our builder is still not finished with the renovation.  Nearly 14 months since we purchased this decrepit haunted house and we have never slept in our bedroom, showered in our own bathroom, or cooked in our kitchen.  That is because the steam shower in the primary bathroom was leaking and full of mold, there was mold behind the leaking refrigerator in the kitchen, the oven did not heat to temperature, and some of the burners did not light on the stove top.  I am not complaining -- we knew what we were getting ourselves into and the price we paid for the house absolutely reflected the amount of work it needed.  We are just tired from the stress of living in a construction zone for so long and looking forward to the day, hopefully 2-3 weeks from now, when we can kiss that port-o-potty and dumpster goodbye (not literally!) and move up out of the basement and into the main floor of our home.

Meanwhile, not everything needing to be done was included in our builder's scope for the renovation.  The door hardware was in bad shape: some doors were not closing properly and needed adjustment, most of the door knobs had peeling or scratched up finishes from the previous owners' German Shepherd, and the door knob on the powder bath was broken and did not lock.  Since I selected mostly unlacquered brass light fixtures throughout the main floor, I decided to replace the handle sets and door hinges with brass as well.  They are the same manufacturer and style as the original hardware, just a different finish, to be cohesive with the original door hardware in other parts of the home.  We ordered the new hardware ourselves and Bernie installed it, saving us the builder's markup on materials as well as additional labor costs.  

Bernie Installing New Door Hardware

The outside of the house was looking pretty awful, too.  We don't think it had ever been painted since it was built in 2000, except that at some point previous owners had painted over the cedar garage doors and mahogany front doors instead of keeping up with the maintenance of the original stained finish (the insides of the garage doors still showed the original stain).  I get it; in direct sunlight in the South, stained doors need to be lightly sanded and a new coat of stain applied every 2-3 years and paint lasts so much longer, but Bernie strongly prefers the look of stained and he is willing to do the work.  Instead of including the exterior painting and staining in the scope of our builder's remodeling contract, we got a referral from a neighbor and hired a painter ourselves.  They finished up a week ago and it looks so much better now!