TGIFF August 21, 2026: Scrappy Celebrations Pieced Backing + My ETERNAL HOME RENOVATIONS!

Hello, and welcome to TGIFF "Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday."  As I begin writing this post on Thursday evening, it is already two minutes past the deadline by which I was supposed to have published the post and forwarded the link along to Laura.  Those of you who know me will not be surprised that I am down to the wire... again!  If you are unfamiliar with the TGIFF linky party, click here to learn more about it.

So let's get on with it!  I'll kick off with my underwhelming sewing related finish: After completing my Scrappy Celebrations quilt top on July 29th, I finally got around to piecing a backing for this quilt using stash yardage and leftover backing scraps from other quilts.  Here you see my final step of checking that the backing is indeed big enough for the margins I need when I load it on my long arm frame.  Measuring is all well and good, but sometimes rulers lie -- my eyes can tell me immediately if I've goofed when I lay the quilt top right on top of my backing and check how much backing sticks out all the way around the quilt top.

Yes, My Backing Is Big Enough to Load On My Long Arm Machine

Here you can see the pieced backing itself, oriented sideways as I'm planning to load this quilt sideways and quilt it with a non-directional design:

Pieced Backing Turned Sideways

The gray and pink floral is a JoAnn's print that I picked up on sale years ago when I got my first long arm machine, and I was going to use it for quilting practice before I realized that solids make for better practice fabrics as you want to be able to see your mistakes in order to improve.  I just ripped off a long enough piece of that yardage, then snipped and ripped it in half near the center bolt fold line, and inserted an 18" wide combination of Kaffe Fassett circles and a bubblegum pink Tula Pink print.  Those fabrics already had been ripped on grain and seamed together because it was leftover from another quilt backing, and it was just enough to widen the JoAnn print to fit my quilt with margins for pinning to the leaders and attaching to the side clamps.  All pressed and ready to load!  My next task will be figuring out which batting to use, cutting that to size, and actually getting this quilt loaded and quilted.  Let's be honest with each other: my original plan was to have this quilt actually quilted and not just be showing you that I made the backing today, but this is the Real Life Happens edition of TGIFF.  I've been distracted by other things finally finishing -- THANK GOODNESS! -- with my house this week.  

Home Renovations Are Finally Wrapping Up!

I am already late with this blog post so I'm giving you the condensed version: We bought a severely neglected, "fixer-upper" house in June of 2025 that was a great deal because it needed so much work that no one else wanted to buy it and it had been sitting on the market for months, sellers had moved on and were desperate, etc.  This past year of major renovations has been extremely stressful, but it has also been a wonderful creative opportunity to put our personal stamp on the house and remake it into a home that feels personal and perfect for our family.  There are still some remaining issues (water damage under the primary bathroom, I'm talking about YOU) and punch list items needing to be addressed, but we had our final construction cleaning today and our walk through with the builder is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon.  My home renovation will be "Finished On Friday" -- see why I wanted to host this week?!  😍

I'm not going to bore everyone with a tour of the whole house, just wanted to show what we accomplished in the last couple days.  This is the main living room of the house, called "The Great Room" on the floor plan, that you see when you walk through the front door, in a photo taken shortly after we purchased the house last year:

The "Great Room" Before

This is the same room, photo taken earlier this week after the painter finished his touch ups and right before my internal move crew showed up to bring boxes and furniture to the main floor that had been stored in the basement and in the garage:

The "Great Room" 

This room has 10' ceilings and I wanted to add some drama, being a drama mama as I am, so we tore out the existing shorter built in and had a new arched built in bookcase built that reaches all the way to the ceiling.  The applied trim on the walls and ceiling is new.  Bernie picked out the cast stone fireplace and I found that mirror that fit perfectly between the fireplace mantel and the crown molding.  Originally the only lights in the room were those two sconces over the fireplace, no ceiling lighting at all, and it was pretty dark and gloomy at night.  We added the chandelier, matching sconces, and four can lights.  My goal was to inject some of the character that you might find in a much older, historic home.

I was thrilled with how this room turned out by the time this next photo was taken on Wednesday evening, once I'd unpacked my books and started filling up the shelves.  My poor books that had been imprisoned inside of moving boxes for a whole year!!!  Breathe, little book babies, breathe!

My Bookshelves Were Built For BOOKS!

You would be amazed how many times I went back and forth with the cabinet maker about those shelves.  He wanted to make the shelves super deep and far apart, but I kept insisting 12" deep max and not more than 12-14" apart, because I knew the only things I wanted to put on those shelves were hardcover and paperback books, not "accessories" or large home decor objects.  The shelves are reinforced with steel because I warned them I was going to load them up with hundreds of pounds of books, cramming in as many as I could fit, and I didn't want them to bow or warp under the weight.  I'm delighted with how they turned out -- it feels like home with our books on the shelves!

The next thing we worked on to "reclaim our space" from the builders was getting some of our art hung on the walls.  I chose that really neutral wall color throughout most of the main floor deliberately because we have a collection of vibrantly colored abstract paintings and I wanted to see the art instead of the wall color.  Last night when we should have been off to bed, Bernie and I were working on hanging a series of four paintings in the dining room:

Bernie's Elaborate Tape-And-Level System of Artwork Installation

With most of the artwork, it was pretty straightforward, following gallery standard of hanging each painting so its center is about 60" off the floor, putting the artwork at approximate eye level.  I wanted to treat this grouping of four paintings as one work of art, with the center of the collection 60" off the floor and approximately 6" of space between them, horizontally and vertically.  Bernie was nervous about making a million marks and holes in the freshly painted walls, so he devised a method of making his marks on bits of painter's tape and then doing some kind of alchemy with his level instead of getting the big T square or any of my quilting rulers that might have come in handy...  There were lots of magical incantations muttered under his breath, occasionally punctuated by a four-letter Magic Word, but after a couple hours of this we had all four paintings on the wall pretty much how I wanted them.  I was too tired to take a photo last night, but I took one this afternoon just so I could show you all what a great job he did:

Success!

Those paintings remind me of batik fabrics.  More evidence that a quilter lives here!  

Tomorrow morning I have a big furniture delivery coming, then the formal walk through with the builder in the late afternoon to create the final punch list of items needing correction.  After that it will be like moving day all over again, unpacking all of the kitchen boxes, finding places for dishes and cookware in the new cupboards, putting toilet paper and towels in the new bathrooms, and moving into my bedroom so I can sleep in it for the very first time since purchasing this home over a year ago.  I can't wait!  

So, to recap, I FINISHED piecing my quilt backing, I FINISHED unpacking my fiction books and alphabetizing them on my new bookshelves, and I FINISHED hanging artwork with my husband without either of us killing the other -- and that last one is the biggest accomplishment of them all.  My only sewing goal for next week is going to be loading and quilting Scrappy Celebrations, which I'll work on when I need a break from unpacking and organizing the kitchen.  Thanks for stopping by!

Now it's YOUR turn -- please link up YOUR most recent finish, whether it's a Big, Magnificent Masterpiece finish or just one of the many smaller victories along the way.  If you managed to sew on a button this week, I am proud of you.  😘.  Don't forget to tour the other finishes and spread the comment love, and include a link back to TGIFF in your blog post so all of your friends know where to find the party.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

I'm also linking up today's post with some of my other 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

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