15 minute quilt block and a lot of messes

This quilt is a result of a cool class I took a few weeks back.  It's a 15 minute (or was it 5?) quilt block.  It was fun and relatively easy.  I used my fabric stash and just threw together any colors.  Fun.

Now on to the messes!  Ken and Rob worked on the floor and moldings today.  It's after 8 and Ken is just finishing for the night after sanding all day.  We have our bedroom furniture all over the upstairs.  What a mess.  Our bedrooms are small and with the extra stuff in there it is like a closet.  I took one bedroom and Ken has the other.  I slept with Penny and the cat, which made me hot all night.  How did Evy do this every night all of her life!?

You can barely walk around to get to the bed in Rob's room.  This is Ken's dorm for the next week or so.

While Ken and Rob were upstairs sanding and strpping moldings, Emma was getting nervous in the living room.  Very nervous.  Like eating stuff nervous.  She ate things...like money.  Like 30 dollars!  This is all that's left of three ten dollar bills on the coffee table.   She ate a few bills as well.  LIPA, insurance bills, etc.  Gives a whole new meaning to the dog ate it! 

Tearing down wallpaper and using my new Ellisimo (a little)

I decided not to go away this vacation because there is just too much to do around here and I had to get to some of it now.  Kenny and I want to paint our bedroom before he gets back to work in a few weeks (wow is that going by fast--he never even stopped working until a week ago!)  so I had to tear down the old wallpaper which has been there for almost 30 years.  The first afternoon I got to work, I was not wearing my happy face!  It was not coming off very well no matter what I did!  Then Ken said I should hire Rob to come the next day to work on it with me.  Here is Rob setting my iPad for Science Fridays on NPR.  He came up with a plan to make it go more smoothly and it worked pretty well.  Instead of scoring the paper, he totally soaked it and kept putting DIF and hot water on it with the scraper (it looked like he was putting on wallpaper instead of taking it off), then we soaked it with hot water and vinegar right before we started peeling.  It worked most of the time but there were occasions when we did have to score it anyway.  Anyway, it took us 3 hours to take it all down and clean the walls.  Not bad.  I bleached the walls today, so my job is now done until we paint.

Today I tackled my little sewing area by the dining room.  Since I got the new embroidery machine, I no longer need my 20 year old big computer system.  So now I can organize my stuff in the cabinet that housed it for all these years.

While I was cleaning my sewing room out, I got to make a few embroideries.  This is for a baby quilt that I have to make by March 3.  The dad of the baby is a total comic book/superhero freak, so I got the coolest fabric with Marvel comics on it (will show that when the quilt is done) and I got a few embroideries with superhero kids, etc. on them.  I made this little guy's hair dark like the hair of both his mom and dad.

Wallpaper messiness.  Can't wait til my room is all done!!  It will be a month I am sure since so much has to be done and Kenny is working alone once I am back to work.

I totally loved this wallpaper back in the 1980s!  It held up over time since it was just country style.  Glad to see it go though.

My friend Colleen from PQ and I were joking about who would use the embroidery part of our machines first!  I won!  She manages the quilt store, so her time at her own machine just doing personal sewing is much more limited than mine.  When I got my first machine 10 years ago, it took me SIX months to work up the courage to embroider!!  This machine is easy to use, just like my old one.  Actually, it is much more user friendly.

This is the nemesis for the baby quilt.  He is so cute in his evil little way.  I used a variegated thread for his spiky hair.  I had a little tension problem a few times and that's why the white shows up on top when I was using black.  User error I am sure since once I rethreaded it, the problem went away.  It doesn't look as bad as this picture makes it look!  :)

Even though I am tired now from all the work I did this week, it feels good to be getting ready for a new look.  Once our bedroom is done, then the whole upstairs is like new.  That's something to look foward to.

My new baby! Ellisimo Gold is here!

I have been searching and researching embroidery machines since the fall and finally made the commitment to this Ellisimo Gold last week!  While my old one is still pretty good, it does have a few quirks now that it's ten years old, and no matter who I take it to, it still acts up from time to time.  Not very relaxing when you sew as a hobby.  So, I plunked the money down last Saturday (almost two weeks ago actually) and it came yesterday.  Perfect timing since I am done with drama club since Tuesday night!!!  I am on vacation next week so plan to do some serious embroidery while I am off.  Can't wait!

Look at the size of the embroidery unit compared to my old machine!!  It will be amazing!!

Funny how I still love my old girl, though.  I used her tonight for hours!!  I have missed sewing every night.  This weekend I will be at the quilt store in town two times (YAY) and the one in Cutchogue all day on Saturday.  It feels good to have no more huge obligations after school.

Valentines table mats using accuquilt go

Kenny got the accuquilt go for me last winter and I have cut tons of fabric with it! What a fun and fast way to cut with precision. I made these little mats to go on my Hoosier for Valentines Day. I am working on bindings with curves so that eventually I can do a scalloped edged quilt and bind it properly. The longer mat is my practice piece.