Eve of the Eve of the New Year...

Today was grey, rainy an blustery. Not a choice pick for a grocery shopping day. However, since I had my Bugaboo with me I might as well have had my own personal ray of sun.

But running around town doing errands left little time for much else! I did finish the body of a hat for Audrey. I even made an extra ribbed cuff to attach to the front to give it a more over-sized, chunky, snuggly sort of feel. Tassels have been voted upon for the scarf with the additional request of a giant pom-pom for the hat. So, with hat completed I now begin the long journey of wrapping yarn for a pom-pom. What a way to close out the year...

Lots of work, little crafting

Today has been quite the day. Last night, a member of my household accidentally dropped my laptop on the kitchen floor. Needless to say, they felt completely terrible about it (and it was just one of those flukey things that could've happened to anyone).

Anyway, I'd been hoping to access all my social networking portals today in an attempt to streamline how I'll be interfacing from now on. I mean, why post something ten times when I only have to do it once or twice? But it would seem a higher power had a different agenda for how I'd be passing my time today.

It would turn out I was able to help a family member modify some images for a book submittal. Ninety-two images in all, making for a hefty Photoshoping day. Now I'm settling down to make a hat to go with yesterday's scarf. I'll try a couple shots of the finished product later on, if my lighting's not too awful. Otherwise, I'll wait for some good morning light.

In the meantime, I'm anxiously watching my Inbox for my eagerly anticipated Pinterest invite...

Busting My Stash

This morning I pulled pulled out most of my yarn, re-winding unravelled balls and exploring various pairings.

The colors run the gamut. Since they're a hodge-podge of hues from across the decades, some work well together while others leave something to be desired. Like any self-respecting crafter I'm on a mission to sift out what will work amongst the trove I already have. As excited as I am about trolling local yarn aisles, conscience dictated I can't possibly shell out $50 on 1000 yards of new yarn. After all, I have 10,000 yards snuggled in a basket already, waiting to be transformed.

So, having promised Audrey (my daughter) a scarf for our brisk morning walks to her bus, I sat down last night in front of PBS and worked one up while listening to Michael Pollan. Stories of multi-million dollar tulip bulbs and cannibus farmers filtered from the TV as I grabbed one of my fatter crochet hooks to work shades of pinks and rose.

Grandma changed the station after awhile, and I was able to finish up before Body Of Proof was over. Now for the real conundrum: to tassel or NOT to tassel?...

Diving Back In....

I have been neglecting my online presence, but for good reason. Life's been eventful, to say the least. And so, for awhile, I placed my creative endeavors on the proverbial back burner. I've had a year to enjoy my infant's rise into toddlerhood. I also watched my Mom, victim of two strokes in an 18 month period, gradually regain all her faculties while in my care.

Now, my toddler's toddling, my first-grader's in school all day and Mom's gearing up to start her membership at the local Y. This all leaves me feeling not so desperately needed and, therefore, a little more free for personal endeavors again. :)

So, in this upcoming new year I'm hoping I can 'stick to it' and start a daily blogging adventure of crafting, crocheting, knitting, sewing, woodworking... and maybe I'll mix in a dash of the day to day that peppers my creative juices and spices up my creations.

Sofa and Loveseat - After

So, this ended up being a HUGE endeavor for me. The love seat alone is about 72" long. The sofa is 94" long! Both pieces are 42" deep. Considering I'd never done any sort of upholstering project before, I certainly had my work cut out for me. In fact, in hind sight I don't know what I was thinking: I'd always joked that I couldn't sew a pillow case to save my life. Not only did this project create a gigantic learning curve for me, it certainly boosted my confidence with textile manipulations in general (which I'll be posting more samples of as I have time to photograph them...).

Anyway. Being on an extremely tight budget and realizing I was going to have to purchase, from my point of view, enough fabric to wrap my up my house, I went REALLY cheap. I decided I'd make the slip covers in simple canvas. More specifically, I paid $7 each for 3 9' x 12' canvas painter's throws from the local hardware shop (they were on sale). I cut them down to workable widths and, voila, I had my foundation fabric. I used a handy little book I'd purchased at the local craft shop for a quick How-To on slip covers, and the rest was a lot of pain-staking measuring, trimming, pinning and sewing.... miles and miles of sewing.

I realized the pillows would be too bland if I made all of them out of canvas. So, I pulled out the old hand-made curtains and upholstering projects my mother-in-law had given me (there she is again!). The fabrics are from the 70's and very early 80's, so they had the colors and prints that I have come to really adore. Mix that with a few bargains I found at the local fabric shop, and you have the final product. It looks a little bohemian... but I guess that's why I like it. :)

Sofa and Loveseat - Before

It's been years ago now, but after we relocated our family across country, we found ourselves starting over from scratch (we'd sold just about everything to make the move). Dear friends of ours, having just purchased a new living room set, gave us their old sofa and love seat to help get us started.

As you've seen from my other posts, I tend to lean toward lighter and brighter color palettes. So, the existing fabric on the furniture didn't really work with what I was envisioning for our home. I captured some images of the sofas in their 'before' state from a video I'd taken as we were originally unpacking. You can see the tweed quality and the darker colors that compose the fabric's pattern.

4-handle Nightstand - After

The finish choice was pretty simple: this piece was going into my daughter's room, I only used a tenth of the off-white quart I'd purchased to redo her rocker and it would be over my dead body that I'd paint this thing pink. The nightstand was going to be Alpaca White, just like the rocking chair.

The original handles were cheap little white ceramic knobs with brass pins in the center. Two of them were broken and, even if they hadn't been, the white would look terrible up against the off-white.

I can't tell you how many online sites and stores I went to trying to find a small-scale knob that would look decent on this piece AND look cute in my daughter's room. I finally headed to a local hardware place, Menard's, and low and behold, there they were! All on sale (I think I paid about $2 for all of them) and a finish that matched the metal fixtures in her room.

As with the little telephone table I'd done, I was initially concerned about the scale of the handles. But the filigree adds a lightness to their presence that balances it all out.