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.  

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!

Happiness is a Missing Wall Between the Sewing Room and the Long Arm Quilting Studio

You guys, I am SO EXCITED by this dreary photo that my son snapped for me at 2 AM:

The Wall is Gone!  This Is My New Studio in North Carolina!!

That is where there used to be a wall dividing a basement "guest bedroom" from a small "exercise room."  My builders started the renovation this week and they have ripped out the flooring and removed the offending wall.  I know it doesn't look like much at this point, but the photo was taken from the former exercise room where my sewing machine and serger cabinets will be set up, looking through the new opening to the former bedroom where my long arm machine will be set up with my thread racks and ruler racks on the walls, and that black door leads to a nice, big closet that will store all of my batting.  

If that doesn't motivate me to get cracking and get packing, nothing will!  That's all you get from me today because I'm headed out to get more boxes and packing supplies!

I'm linking up with nothing and nobody because this the shortest blog post ever.  

Staircase Railing Makeover in the New House Because Rebecca Is Picky And Bernie Loves Her

I know most of you only come here for the quilting, so here's a snapshot of where I am with custom quilting my Deco bed quilt as of today:

The End is In Sight for Deco Stitch In the Ditch Quilting!

Side note: I will NOT MISS those garish yellow walls in my Florida long arm studio!!  At first I was living with them so as not to offend my father-in-law, but then once my long arm was set up in there the repainting took a back seat to other priorities.  It is really difficult to get accurate quilt photos with such a vivid wall color as light reflects off the walls and casts yellow onto everything.  Every photo taken in this space has needed to be color corrected with editing software.  Here's what that photo looked like before editing:

Same Photo Before Editing to Correct Color

See what I mean?  And that is with white fluorescent lighting!  My next studio is going to have nice NEUTRAL wall paint.

Okay, back to the quilt: I've done the interior ditch quilting in the top row of purple and blue log cabin blocks but tomorrow I'll need to back up a row and quilt the ditches around each of those green 1" square patches in the row above them.  Do you see that canvas leader edge at the bottom of the photo?  That is the very bottom edge of my quilt top pinned to that leader.  When I get to the bottom I will still have to go back and do additional "To Be Determined" detail quilting in the pieced blocks, but at least I will be done with the tedious slog of ditch quilting.