I’m pretty sure we’re not going to be able to put ornaments on the tree this year.

The mister and I have both been crazily scouring Craigslist lately on the hunt for new pieces for the house. We’ve made some great purchases, including a lovely 60s dining room table that got a workout since we hosted Thanksgiving for the first time ever. I plan to reupholster the chairs and then it will be perfect. Here it is decked out in an Orla Kiely tablecloth and our “wedding china” – Noritake Colorwave in mint, which has since been discontinued. See the gravy boat? We totally used it!

I am also in love with the chest of drawers we picked up for my clothes, which is another great Craigslist find. In fact, we ended up buying another chest of drawers from the same guy a few weeks later for the guest room. It’s right by a southern-facing window and the way the light shines on it makes me love it even more. It will eventually be the home to our bedroom television, but for now I’m enjoying it’s simplicity.

The end tables and coffee table in the photo below are new — too bad you can’t really see them. But you can see the splotches on the wall where I tried to touch up the previous owner’s paint job with the wrong color of paint. Since the photo was taken I have mixed up an almost perfect match and re-touched up the paint so that you have to look really hard, in just the right light, to see the splotches. Check out the kitten fight!

This year I participated in 2 separate ornament swaps: one hosted by Small Fox & one by freshly{blended}. To keep things easier I used the same ornaments for both swaps – yarn wrapped around a ring-shaped form and decorated with holly berries and felt leaves. The bulk of the yarn, the nubby dark khaki, was recycled from a thrifted jcrew sweater.

There are more photos of the mini wreaths on my flickr page, along with photos from last year’s swap contribution.

We’ve been so busy lately with the house, unpacking & the new kitten that i haven’t had much time for crafting. In fact, I don’t even have a proper chair in the craft room yet. I did manage to whip up a dinosaur hat for my favorite godson in time for Saturday’s backyard party. However, I did not manage to get a photo of it.

In the meantime, perhaps you’d like to take a look at some photos of the new kitten and his BFF, Fwankie.

I won a giveaway from painted fish studio, I’m super psyched to receive a wires t-shirt of my very own. err. husband’s very own.

This little “innocent” is currently gnawing on my thumb & bunny-kicking my arm. Little badly.

More info to follow.

I completed my contribution to the doll quilt swap 7 a few weeks ago. It has yet to be received by its’ recipient, but I sure hope she likes it. I made some drawstring bags out of the scraps for her kidlets and included a few craft projects for them.

Details:
Print: Neptune by Tula Pink for Moda charm pack – purchased from Colors Fabric
Sashing: Kona Cotton solid, maybe Eggshell or Ivory
Binding: Objects of Desire by Sandy Gervais for Moda in Flower Power Green, purchased at Seventh Heaven Quilt Shop

And even more exciting – I received my doll quilt from Sara. I absolutely love it and simply cannot think of a more appropriate quilt for me to receive. I can’t wait to get moved into the new house so I can hang it on the wall in my new craft room. It’s sure to brighten the place up.

Created by Sara:
Flickr – www.flickr.com/photos/handycrafts/
Blog – handy-crafts.blogspot.com/

Made some really good progress on my doll quilt swap 7 contribution this weekend. I have finished the quilt top and just need to add some sashing to the back and I’ll be ready to make a quilt sandwich.

Things have been pretty quiet around here as we attempt to purchase our own place. I thought applying for a mortgage and talking to a loan officer would be a good way for us to test the real estate waters, but things moved forward a lot quicker than I anticipated. We made an offer last week and it was accepted immediately. The inspection was a few days later and aside from some wiring concerns, everything seems to be pretty good. Now we’re waiting to hear back from the seller about how he wants to handle the requested repairs.

Our realtor seemed to have fun searching for a good condition mid-century home for us. In a city where most folks are moving out of the city to 3,000 square foot tract homes filled with marble, every shade of beige and nonexistent backyards, we offered her a little variety and a bit of a challenge. She definitely came through for us and found quite a few good houses for us to choose from. We knew this place was the one when we realized we were comparing all the others to it. It’s lovely. Look at that built-in in the entry. I swoon.

I have a lot of quilt projects in the works right now – a coin quilt that I have yet to begin piecing as well as the sorta-finished quilt top I posted on Tuesday – as well as a few more that are completely pieced and ready for quilting, but since they’re gifts I can’t post them until after the winter holidays. Anyway, lengthy lead-in to the fact that I feel like I still need some practice on quilting technique before I begin these larger projects. That’s where my current fondness for quilted patchwork coasters comes in. I get to practice quilting on my machine & binding. For these I didn’t sew together the ends of the binding & instead tucked the beginning under the end piece. It created a little lump that I’m not too happy with, so I’ll probably switch back to sewing the binding ends together – continuous quilt binding.

The second set is not really a set or patchwork. It’s just a pair of coasters for the mister to use for his fancy root beers & “pink stuff.” Our aesthetic tastes differ drastically. He loves skulls, camouflage, & red/black combos. I love bright, springtime color combos with some brown or grey thrown in. I keep a fair amount of skulls in my stash, though, to create crafty stuff that he’ll love and use.

I finished sewing this together back in May, but I’ve had the hardest time figuring out where to photograph it. I still didn’t get a great shot, but it’ll do for now.

I am totally in love with that wavy stripe fabric, but I could only find 3 fat quarters of it. I was trying to evenly space the 2 stripes of the multi-colored fabric, but I ended up adding a few extra strips to the bottom of the quilt and now it looks a little off. I may end up moving the lower wavy stripe in order to balance it out. This quilt is intended for our queen size bed. I had hoped to have it quilted by the end of the summer, but since I’m at a loss as to what to do for the back and may end up repiecing the top, that doesn’t seem likely. I’m still really happy with the turquoise, brown & mustard combo, though. It’s good for me to step away from green every now & then.