Trash to Treasure

This little foot stool was a garage sale item I got a couple years ago that has been sitting in my garage waiting for me to do something with. I got it for $1.

I finally decided it was time to do something with it or throw it out - and it is oh, so hard for me to throw anything away...

so I painted it and made a new cushion and cover...

I think it turned out pretty cute. The fabric is from one of the Cath Kidston duvet covers I bought earlier in the year. I am going to use some more of it to cover this chair...

(also in my garage for about 2 years, costing me only $2, but still waiting to be rescued) and use them both in my bedroom. As much as I loved my red rose velvet chair I had up there, it really belonged and was need at the lake.

A fresh coat of paint, and some strawberry and white polka dot fabric and it will look fabulous!!! Are you seeing it?

Old Bottles

I love finding old medicine bottles at garage sales or thrift stores. They make great windowsill vases for some cut flowers out of my garden.

They are nice and skinny so they easily fit in shallow places. I like the colored ones the best, but the clear will do too!

On a separate note, I am blown away by the number of comments/entries I have received from the May Giveaway Day. I think I received more comments yesterday then I have the entire year and a half I have been blogging combined! I guess I will have to give things away more often.

If you are looking for how to enter that giveaway, please scroll down the page 2 posts.

Thanks for stopping by and good luck.

Polka Dot Love

If you are looking for my May Giveaway from the Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day, scroll down to the next post. Otherwise just enjoy these polka dot plates with me!In the spirit of May Giveaway day, I wanted to pass along another giveaway going on at Feather Your Nest. They are giving away a set of these polka dot plates!!! If you have ever looked at my blog before you know that I love RED and I love POLKA DOTs. So what could be better than RED POLKA DOT PLATES? Especially with my white with red polka dot fire king bowls at our lake cottage. You can enter if you like, but I'm sure I'm going to win (that and the $250 million power ball drawing that my husband bought tickets for)

Giveaway Day!!!

(This text is being added on 5/28... "I am blown away by the number of entries I have already received to this giveaway. If you are here to enter, this is the post you need to enter in. See below for entry rules. I hope if you come here to enter, that you will come back regularily, add me to your favorites list or sign up to follow this blog. You can do that by clicking the button on the sidebar. I have already added some of the commenters to my favorite blog list, and am sure I will be adding more when I get through all the comments and check out everyone's blogs.)

Giveaway day has finally arrived. If you don't know what I'm talking about, click on the Giveaway Day button on my side bar. But in a nutshell, Sew Mama Sew is organizing a day where anyone in blogland can offer to give something away. You can get the list of those participating at her blog.

I am so excited, I can't wait to see what wonderful treasures people are giving away, and hopefully win something myself.

I too am participating in the Giveaway Day. I am giving away fat quarters of my vintage sheet stock. There will be at least 10 in the package along with some smaller pieces of some of my favorites that I no longer have fat quarters left of. The picture below is just of the 6 I had cut already to put into this post - there was a deadline for getting your post in and as usual I am running behind.

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In order to enter, just leave me a comment on this post with your favorite way to get your "Creative Juices" flowing. What gets you inspired to create?

I can't wait to see what inspires you to create all the wonderful things I have seen you make.

The winner of the fat quarters will be chosen via a random drawing on June 1.

There will be a second place winner, that will receive a surprise gift. The criteria for winning the second prize is the posting that most inspires me! Yes, I know it is subjection-able critera for a contest, but hay, it is my give away!

When you leave your comment, make sure that you provide a way for me to get back in touch with you if you win, email address, blogaddress, etc...

I unfortunately can not ship internationally. You can enter up through midnight on May 31.

GOOD LUCK!

Be sure to check out Sew Mama Sew for the list of other great giveaways going on in the next couple of days...

Checkers anyone?

I took a break from my sheet zig zag quilt to whip up a birthday present for my nephew who is turning 6 this weekend.

I still have to hand sew the binding to the back - that is the red polka dot fabric on the edge. But I was so excited about it I just had to show you.

I made him this game quilt. One side has a big checker board...

And the reverse has a backgammon board!

I made game pieces out of large washers from the home improvement store. A quick coat of spray paint, and custom game pieces! I was orginally making the pieces out of felt pieces hand sewn together. They were cute, but very time consuming, and I was afraid they would blow away if you used it outside. This way the washers help hold the quilt down.

My kids are begging me not to give it away, but keep it up at our lake cottage. Believe me, I am tempted. But I will make another one for us. There are some things I would change on the next one, but if it turns out good, I may list it on my Etsy store to as a sample of a custom game quilts that can be ordered... or maybe I'll write a pattern for it. I've never tried that. Any thoughts?

The quilt is about 40" x 50". Great for a lap quilt, or to throw on the floor or on a picnic or at the beach, to play a few games.

I love how the outline quilting and the diagonal X's through the squares on the front stand out on back. The white fabric in this quilt is an old ultra soft cotton sheet!

Recent Treasures...

This old yard chair is so cool, and comfortable! And only $5 at a garage sale!


What is the biggest problem with yard furniture?
Storage of it when not in use right?
Well, this chair takes care of it...

It comes apart into two pieces...

And they fit inside each other for storage!!!

I have a friend who is a woodworker, I am going to see if he can make me a few more and paint them all fun "beachy" colors for our lake house!!!

This cute magazine magazine rack was only $1...

Before and After...

Well I'm back off to the lake for the weekend. I hope you all have a great holiday weekend, and enjoy some R & R. I know I will...

Sheet Quilt Update

I have made some modifications to my sheet quilt. I took the "orangie-red" out. Although it added the punch it needed, it just did not go in my room. Too orange.

(I took this picture outside and it looks very washed out - sorry!)

So, I then was back to square one of needing something to give it some punch. While cleaning out my linen closet I found the green gingham pillowcases I got on a clearance rack years ago. I bought them for my daughters room, not realizing they were king size cases, and never got around to shortening them. I decided they needed to be sacrificed for my sheet quilt.

I think it adds just enough color and something to contrast all the roses.

Working with all different thread counts and fabric contents on this quilt has been a nightmare. I had to go back and trim every block to square them all up. That then resulted in the quilt being smaller than I had originally planned (but I did not even think about that fact until I had sewn all the blocks together, and trimmed the points off to straighten the sides - too late to just make the rows a little longer and add an extra row - mind fart!!)

So now I have to add a border to make it big enough to fit my bed. I found this perfect aqua sheet yesterday to use as the border.

So excited to have found just what I was looking for (at a good price too - $3.50 for a king size flat sheet - 100% cotton too ) I quickly sewed the 2 long sides on only to find out that I had once again pulled too tight when aligning the border and quilt and ended up with a "ruffely" border.

I HATE THAT!!!

Does anyone have a suggestion on how to prevent this?

I guess I could pin, but that never seems to work so well for me either. So I took both sides off and will have to try again. The problem is that the way the edges of the quilt are trimmed I have all bias squares on the edges and they tend to stretch, and I am afraid that now that I have sewn them on and taken them off I may have pulled them causing another problem.

I am thinking about quilting the entire zig zag section - leaving the backing and batting larger on all sides to accomodate the borders and then sewing them on after the center is quilted to eliminate the pulling effect of the border and the bias sides.

I would really appreciate any suggestion that may be out there in blogland.

Well, I am off this evening to the lake to do some cleaning, planting and general getting the place ready for the season tomorrow. The weather is suppose to be gorgeous, and I will have uninterrupted time all to myself. I am in serious need of that right now!!!

I plan to also bring this book I just started...

And a few of these...

to enjoy the sunset by tonight! On second thought maybe I will pass on the cleaning tomorrow!!!

I will be back tomorrow evening and will worry then about how to finish my quilt.

May Giveaway Day!

I am going to participate in the May Giveaway Day being organinzed by Sew Mama Sew! Not sure yet what I will be giving away, but I'm sure I will come up with something interesting.

The details on the Giveaway Day are posted on Sew Mama Sew's blog you can go there by clicking on the button above. You too can join in by giving something away yourself or by just checking out all the great stuff others are giving away on that day! Best of luck!

Make sure you come back on May 27, to see what you could win!!

The Pony Party

My neighbor and good friend Jenny W. always has the best kids birthday parties, but she even outdid herself this year. Her youngest turned 5 and she had a Pony Party. But not just 1 pony but three ponies, and kittens, and bunnies, a pot bellie pig, lambs and a chicken!!!Here is the birthday girl with a soft fluffy bunny.

All the kids got to hold the animals and ride the ponies around the cul-de-sac. What a hoot!!!My friend Jenny V. from Point of View Lens is trying to get a good shot of her little M. riding the pony!

My girls loved the bunnies!Even the adults got into it...

A good time was had by all...

Happy Birthday A!

I Love Spring

The weather has been so nice the past few days, I have taken a break from my quilt to work out in the garden. DH and I spent all day Saturday, spreading mulch over all my beds. Boy was I sore on Sunday!!!
On Mother's Day I was able to get my pots planted with the help of my beautiful daughter C.
I made these pot holders out of old porch posts I found in someones trash last summer. They are actually quite ingenious, if I don't say so myself.

It is amazing what you can construct from the plumming isle of the home improvement store...The posts are hollow, so I bought some PVC pipe to fit inside the posts, cut it about 3 inches longer than the posts and pounded it into the ground. I also bought a cap for the pipe with a threaded hole on the end and a 4" threaded metal pipe that screws into the cap at the top. I assembled these pieces then slid the porch post over the PVC pipe.The threaded metal pipe sticks out the top of the post, and the drainage hole in bottom of the pot fits perfectly over the pipe. The PVC pipe keeps the post standing straight, and the small metal pipe at the top holds the pot on the post.

I white washed the terra cotta pots to make them look old, add some impatients (my favorite annual, and great in the shade under my crab apple tree) and DONE!!! It looks like the pot would blow off in a strong wind, but they have actually stayed there through straight line winds that pulled some siding off our house!!!

I love the hot pink and green together.
My perennial garden has seen better days, a lot of my stuff has died in the past year and I'm not sure why. But my sweet woodriff has spread like crazy and is more beautiful than ever. I love the tiny white flowers atop the interestingly shaped leaves. It is one of my favorites - beautiful in the spring but also a great ground cover the rest of the summer.
Now I am going out to spray paint so garage sale treasures I got this weekend (since we finally have a day where it is dry and not too windy). I will show you some "before" and "afters" later.

Making Progress, I think...

The light of day, and a thought at 4 am of where you put the red with blue roses sheet you wanted to use in the quit, can sometimes make all the difference in the world.

I found the sheet I'd been looking for this morning, and whipped up a couple row to see what it would do for the quilt. I think it adds the punch it needed. However, the red may be a little too "orangie". What do you think? If you click on the pictures you can see a larger image that will give you a clearer picutre of what I mean.

I think if I do 3 rows of the red with blue, and 2 rows of the tan with pink (the next most prominent zig zag), and fill in with the more muted white with blue and white with pink, it just may take shape. I also thought if I outline quilt the zig zags, the other more muted ones will become a little more obvious.

Well, I have about 20 more minutes to work, then off the clean out my overflowing linen closet.

I have a feeling I may find some more treasures for this quilt there. My DH tends to shove every sheet, pillowcase, towel, washcloth, etc... into the linen closet in no order what-so-ever. I have found fabric yardage that I washed, dried, and folded, shoved in there in the past. Great way to make a girl think she is loosing her mind... Buy 3 yards of material, wash it, dry it, fold it, go to bed, and then next afternoon when you want to use it, not be able to find it ANYWHERE!!! Only to find it behind a stack of towels a month later!!!

New Quilt for My Bedroom

I am in the process of redoing our bedroom. You can see the start of it here. I have decided to make a quilt out of various vintage sheets and pillowcases I have collected. I want it to be made from just sheets/pillowcases with red/pink and blue roses. I also have some sheets/pillowcases with yellow, green, and purple, but not sure if I should include them. Too many colors? Too busy? Not enough color/contrast with just the red and blue? Thoughts... suggestions...

I also can't decide what type of pattern/quilt block to use. I want it to feel vintage to go with the vintage linens, so something "scrappy" comes to mind but what? I thought about doing it as a nine patch and joining in Amanda Jeans "quilt-along", but am afraid that since most of the sheets have a white or whiteish background that it would be incredibly boring.

Since starting this post I have begun making it a zig zag quilt, but now that I have half the pieces cut, blocks pieced and laid out on my living room floor, I'm not sure I like it. Any suggestions on how I can fix this or do something else with the blocks I have already cut?

Please excuse the incredibly poor lighting...

And my left foot in the bottom of the picture!!! It's late and I need to get to bed!!!