Mystery Quilt: Fabric Choice (better late then never)

Today is the official start of the Bonnie Hunters Celtic Solstice Mystery Quilt along!  

She has a linky for everyone to share their progress here.  Very cool way to see how everyone is coming along! (and know that everyone else is way ahead of you! lol )

Since I am waiting on my tri-recs to arrives, I re-did my fabric choices...again. I decided to be brave and use orange. I found a yard of this underwater print in my stash and decided it would make a great fabric to base my color scheme on. I am using shades of solid blue/blue green as my neutral and then red,orange, yellow, and green. Still need more of all of them, but it's a start.

Christmas Quilts -Part One

I have been getting back into quilting...big time.  Here's the first of the Christmas quilts.  I was at our LQS and picked up a fat eighths bundle of this:

It's BasicGrey's Fruitcake for Moda. I think it's a few years out of date.  I know the yardage is getting harder to find.  I got it home, laid it out on the cutting table, and just stared at it for a few weeks.  I tried to find patterns for fat eighths, and there just aren't that many of them.  I ended up cutting the eighths into 9.5 inch squares, and treating them like two layer cakes.  This led to making two smaller quilts instead of one big quilt. Which is a good thing because they will be much easier to quilt.

I decided to go with a simple pinwheel for the first quilt. 

It was interesting trying to pair up the colors together to create a good contrast and balance.  Once I had the pairs together, I followed the HST tutorial here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUNGH9B0Ohw&list=PLE250BDA2E891066B   You match up your large squares, sew all the way around the edge and then cut the square in fourths diagonally. (Just watch the video...) I think I will do the chevron shown in the tutorial for the other Christmas quilt.

Anyhow..you end up with HST (half square triangles) I am not that great at keeping my seam allowance exactly 1/4" So I have to square up all my squares.  Which means cutting off little tiny slivers of fabric. Until you end up with a pile like this:

It was at this point I remembered a conversation with a good friend of mine at a quilting class.   She told the teacher that I was the perfectionist between us.  I vehemently denied being a perfectionist! I have the cat hair tumbleweeds in my family room to prove it!  Okay, looking at this pile of tiny slivers, maybe I am a little bit of a perfectionist, but only in important areas...like quilting and painting.  

Chief was watching, so I had to get it right.

( I love how the iron gives him a third ear!)

After all that trimming, I crossed my toes and sewed the pinwheels together.   

And LOOOK!!!!

All that trimming was worth it! My points match!  They really match! Almost all of them mostly do!

This is what I have so far.  I will ad another border or two, but haven't decided what yet.

 I need to get a better photo of it outside.

Painting the Stairs Part 4

Where were we?
Yes, back to painting the stairs.

One coat of primer, two coats of porch paint.  

Painted all the trim before the second coat.

Then corner molding for each step. 

Going down the stairs, they all seems to blend together.  So for safety, I decided to add some strips.
I used a Martha Stewart specialty paint called Terra Cotta.  It has sand mixed in it so it gives a little added traction.

It was a pain to measure and tape those stripes!  I used a sponge to apply the paint for the strips.

After I used the terra cotta paint, I then added a thin layer of glow in the dark paint. 

It gave an unintentional marbled effect that I really like AND it GLOWS IN THE DARK.  Way cool!

I tried to get a photo of the glowing stairs, but my camera phone isn't up to that.

 This is pulling the tape off.  I let it dry a few hours, but no completely.  Then, I used a hair dryer to soften the paint a bit before pulling up the tape.  I used a low tack tape on the outer edge and it did great!  The center tape is just plain old painters tape and it did pull up the paint in a few spots.

  Yes, it is a necessary part of the process to step on the giant ball of painted tape at the bottom of the stairs.  It won't turn out right if you skip this step.

AND all done!

Okay, all done except the quarter molding...need to practice on the 

miter saw before I attempt those little corners.

Painting the Stairs Part 3

So, after spackling, sanding, priming, re-spackling, re-sanding, it's finally time for the top coat:

Once again, paint every other step.

The papers mark the dry steps.

It was at this point in the project that I lost freakin' my mind.

I think it was the paint fumes. Yea..or maybe that carpet marble dust..

I decided to do the hallway, while I was doing the stairs.  

So, I ripped up the hallway carpet. And the evil hallway carpet strips. And the evil hallway staples.

before

more evil carpet strips!

See the little dots?  those are the evil hallway staples.

spackle then sand again

At this point..I had the brilliant idea of painting the walls in the hallway and stairwell.  Definitely paint fumes.

And then I had the idea of painting the inside of the linen closet. I mean, when else do you get to paint and not worry about spilling anything on the floor.

Chief really wanted to help.

prime, spackle, sand again

After all those side projects...paint the floor.

This is porch paint in Martha Stewart's Sequoia.  

It looks like melted chocolate.

The walls are Martha Stewart's Lunch Bag. 

The trim is just plain old white.

In part 4, I'll get back to painting the stairs.

Painting the Stairs- Part 2

After ripping up the carpet, and the padding, and the evil carpet strips, and evil staples, I then spackled all the nooks and crannies I could find.  I used this cool stuff that was pink when you put on, and then dries white.   I like pink in general, so I figured this must be a good product. Right?

The painter's putty is for big holes, the drydex is for little holes (it's the pink stuff.)

After that was done, I was ready to sand down the stairs. I used a small electric sander.  This WILL leave a fine layer of sawdust over your entire house.  Close all doorways, cover the furniture, cover all possible openings with plastic.  Don't forget any vents, or it will get into your AC and clog it up. I forgot. My poor AC. The filter covered and being suck up into the great beyond of the attic, it was just plain scary.

Get some goggles (like you had in science class) and a good dust mask.  You will look like this:

Boo!

Chief is not amused. He did not appreciate being stuck in the office for most of the day.

After sanding, clean the stairs.  Vacuum, and wipe everything down with a damp rag. Then vacuum again, and mop.  After all the cleaning, comes priming.  I used a primer called Glidden Gripper Primer. You need a good primer.  There are builders marks and stains on the wood.  It will seep through the paint if you don't prime.  It was recommended to us by a professional handyman that painted the trim on our house this spring.  It did a great job. I used white for the risers and a grey primer for the treads. 

It's a good idea to paint ever other step, so you can still use them while your are working on them. Use yellow sticky notes or just pieces of paper to mark the dry stairs

At this point, I kind of liked the grey!  It didn't go with anything else in our house or I might have left it that color.

After the primer is dry, spackle all the spots you missed the first time.  You can just hand sand this layer. Then, once again, vacuum and wipe down with a damp rag.

To be continued in part 3.

Painting the Stairs - Part 1

before and after:

This is not really a "tutorial", this is more just my experience.

I hated the carpet on my stairs and upstairs hallway.  Hated it.  It was builder's beige carpet that had been through 12 years of red clay, dogs, cats, spills and drips.  It was gross.  So, after getting spousal approval, and spending way to much time on pinterested drooling over painted stair photos and tutorials, I decided to rip out the carpet and paint! Woohoo!  This is going to be EASY! no sweat!  take me a couple of days tops!  That's what all the bloggers said.  Sat there on their newly painted, gorgeous steps, big smile on their faces, and said "This is an easy project."    And I, in my starry eyed hope for non-disgusting stairs, believed them.  *sigh*  I don't know.  Maybe they had slaves, or home improvement elves?

Here are the before photos.  I really should have gotten a close up of the grossness:

I started in on ripping up the carpet.  You need a pair of pliers and a good pair of work gloves.  There are evil carpet strips that live under your carpet waiting to attack anything that disturbs their peace. Gloves are a must.  Probably, you should wear a mask if you any kind of dust allergy. I removed the carpet, the carpet strips, the 1,897 staples, and then vacuumed each step as I went.

  There was a bunch of brownish stuff under the carpet, which I thought was dirt.  Of course, I immediately googled "dirt under carpet" to see if everyone's carpet was that dirty underneath or if we were just special.  Turns out, it's not dirt.  Or at least, not all dirt. In order to give the carpet stability and make it more fire retardant, the backing of the carpet is coated with a mixture of glue, marble dust, and some other stuff.  During use, the marble dust slowly comes loose and ends up on the floor under the carpet. So, I didn't feel as dirty then, but I did run to Home Depot and grab a couple of masks.

Ripping up the carpet:

padding and carpet strips

my helpers from top to bottom:

Emp, Diva, Chief, and Annabelle

Using a chisel (upside down) was the best method I found for getting up the strips. 

If I had been staining the floor, I might have been gentler.  

All the carpet off. 

The next morning, my right hand had swollen up from pulling up all the evil staples.  I took a day off to ice it and whine about the dangers of home decorating. After that I wore a very attractive wrist stabilizer for the next few days.  But I was determined to carry on!   Part 2 coming up next.

just changing something

Walking: Lansford Canal Water Lilies

I am fortunate to belong to a wonderful group of lady hikers!  We went to the Lansford Canal in South Carolina.  The spider lilies were in bloom, and so beautiful. They really should be called star lilies, the white of their petals seem to sparkle against the dark water. I was able to capture a brief video with my camera phone, and few photos, but neither really do them justice.  

About the lilies (from park sign)

" Lansford Canal State Park hugs the last free flowing stretch of the Catawba River, and includes the largest known stand of rocky shoals spider lilies. 

The Spider Lily (Hymenocallis coranaria) found in South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, requires

clean free flowing water with uneven, rocky bottom to root.  Peak blooming occurs May through June.

These tough plants known for their spring blanket of white blooms are named for the shallow rocky stretches of river they need to survive.  As shoals such as this found along the Catawba have vanished, primarily because of damming of rivers, the rocky shoal spider lily likewise has become rare and endangered.

Much of the free-flowing rocky shoals habitat along the Catawba River has been lost to hydroelectric dams built along the rocky elevation drops to take advantage of the natural water power.

The future of such unique habitats depends on their continued wise management by private, corporate, and public partners in conservation and preservation. "

Walking: Green Heron Fishing!

I mean the bird was fishing, not that I was fishing for the bird :)

While we were doing our weekly long walk (just 9 miles this time,) my friend and I took a break on a bench near the swamppond.  The turtles are there every week, but this time there was also this cool looking water bird.  I got really lucky and got a shot of him catching a fish with my camera phone.  Not a great shot, but hey it has like a 10 second delay after you press the button, so I was happy to get to see the fish at all!
After some google research, I believe this is a green heron (http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/green_heron/id )

Hanging with his baby turtle friend.

Waiting for a fish to swim by..

Got it!