jump up and down

sweet shoes

A good friend of mine recently had twins.  And the journey they took to join their family was neither short nor easy.  I wanted to do something special for the precious new girl and boy.  When I saw Kirsten's post a while back, I knew what to do.  

 

I embroidered these sweet linen shoes - a pair for Ella and a pair for Joshua.  The monograms came from some vintage embroidery transfer sheets that I have and I freehanded the flower and pinwheel.  I used vintage sheet scraps for the lining.  

They were made using this pattern.  I like that the entire top of the shoe is one piece of fabric - it made it easy to fit my embroidery pattern there.  

I haven't seen the babies yet - unfortunately, we are many miles apart, but the twins were preemies, so they probably won't be fitting into these shoes for a while.  I'm so happy they're here!

half

It's seems like there are many half or at least partially finished things around here...

a half finished mini quilt.

a partially finished pile of books (which also includes Einstein Never Used Flashcards, but I left it at speech therapy this morning).

a half finished crochet dishcloth (from a skein of yarn that I thrifted for 10 cents a couple of weeks ago).

an embroidery project...embroidery done, now on to some sewing. 

And an almost finished decision, which is probably why there's so much half finished stuff around here.  I've been thinking a lot about Peter and school next year...maybe obsessing a little too much about it, but I really think these first few years of school can set the tone for the rest of his life.  After that rough start to summer school, Peter did finally survive a day without me and has been doing well since then.  Those first few days were a real eye-opener for me and I was grateful to be there to see what goes on - so many worksheets and so much sitting!  Is this just how kindergarten is now or is it just here?  This is my first experience with it in almost 30 years (when it was me going to kindergarten), so I'm not really sure.  I know Peter is ready for the "academics" of kindergarten (it really seems silly to say that, but I don't really think there is a better term for what kindergartners are expected to know), but I'm not sure he's ready for how it's being taught here.  I assume they do it this way because they are dealing with a large group of students.  We do have some options, each with its pros and cons of course, and I think we've almost come to a decision...more on that later.

before and after: the living room

I think I've been teasing you long enough.  For a recap, here is the before:

and the after...

Before...

and what do we do with a wall that we don't like?  Fill it with maps, of course!  Also, there's a good view of the rug that gave me such a headache.   It took even more work than what I shared here as it got bigger and I'll have to tell you how I finally got it to stay flat when I'm done being mad at it for being such a hassle!

The couch, all cleaned up.  You also get a view of how this area transitions into the play area.

More living room details in the next post...stay tuned.

before and after: curtain call

I promise I had good intentions to blog a little more often this week - remember how I said Peter was starting summer school this week?  I thought I might have a few more quiet moments at home, just Ned and me.  Well, really I've had a lot more moments sitting on the floor with Ned in Peter's classroom reassuring him that he is fine.  The first day was pretty awful, for both of us.  The second day was better.  Hopefully we'll be on our way next week.

Last Saturday, I woke up at about six in the morning and decided I couldn't take the ugliness of the kitchen curtains anymore (see ugliness above in the "Before" shot).  Seriously, these things are paper thin, 85% polyester scratchy fabric and stained with greasy dust because no one had bothered to wash them.  So, I dragged my feet out of bed and started sewing.  I had my new curtains almost finished by the time the boys woke up at 9 am!  It is so unlike them to sleep this late and it was so nice!

I got the great fabric from Randi's shop - not a great picture here, but this is the only window in that room, so it made getting the lighting right sort of impossible for me, the amateur photographer.  The walls in the kitchen are covered with the ugliest contact paper and there was no way I was going to go the trouble of removing that when we're only living here for a year, so I was trying to work with that color (sort of a beige-salmon).  This fabric did the trick!  I am loving those curtain rings too - they are from IKEA and I've used them on all of the curtains in the house.  I love just making a straight panel and hooking it on the rings - so easy!

I think I am in love!

before and after: the entry

 The curtains are finished and the maps are up - yes, I used vintage road maps to cover up what one commenter aptly referred to as "puke on walls."  If the house were mine, I probably would've done something more permanent, but I think this really works for a rental. 

The idea came after I saw a vintage map tablecloth on a wall.  It made me think of the cupboard full of road maps that my grandparents had in a cupboard in the house I grew up in.  My grandparents have driven their car to a lot of places.  My grandpa worked for IBM and was sent to school in New York once.  The whole family drove the car across the nation and spent a few months there. My mother always talks about how much that experience opened the eyes of a born and raised in Utah girl. Unfortunately, I encouraged my Grandma to get rid of most of those maps a couple of years ago when I was helping her purge, so I bought a couple of lots of maps from eBay.

There are a few other walls in the house that have been or will be covered with these maps.  We all enjoy looking at them, especially Ryan.  And Peter brought one of the leftover maps to the table today and said, "Where do you want to go, Mommy?" so we're all getting from these maps what I hoped they would accomplish - a sense of adventure and a feeling of wanting to hit the road.  At some point in my life, I want to take a cross-country road trip, so I'm fueling the desire in those who will hopefully join me on that journey.

I think the entry is going to look even better after I re-do the two pieces of furniture I picked up a couple of weeks ago at the thrift store.  Along with this chair, I've got three other wood chairs with upholstered seats now that will all be painted white and have various homes throughout the house, but I haven't decided how to do the re-upholstering.  And I'm thinking about a nice golden yellow for the side table - it is actually painted in some sort of faux wood finish right now and I'm trying to decide if I need to strip it or not. 

before and after: the play area

I finally have one area of the house ready to show - our little play area.  The living room is short and wide and naturally separated into two spaces by the front door (which you can't see from the road because of all of the pine trees so everyone comes in the back door anyway, but that's another chapter in the book of this quirky house), so we decided to make half of it into a play area for the kids. 

This is the best before picture I have of the area, taken when we looked at the place the second time.

And the afters....

The Entire Area - the rug was a clearance deal from Target.  I almost paid as much to ship it as I paid for the rug, but still a great deal and covering up as much of the nasty carpet as possible is a must! 

The bookshelves - both were pieces we had before.  The white one is actually one from Ryan's childhood and I painted it white.  It was a dark blue, about the same color as the corner chair in the overview pic above.  I considered keeping it the same color, but after we put up our white bookcase in the living room, we liked the white so much that we decided everything that could possibly be turned white should be painted.

My one splurge for the room was a set of Trofast toy storage units from Ikea.  I knew that if I were going to have most of the toys that close to the living room and dining area that I would need them to be easy to put away and then not seen when they are put away.  My favorite drawer is full of a set of vintage wood blocks I found a couple of months ago.

My wonderful Mom came two weeks before we moved and helped make the curtains.  I was lucky enough to have that ribbon in my stash - a roll I bough when our local Hancock's went out of business.  The top is just white muslin and the bottom is Alexander Henry's Traffic Jam.  The chair is another great thrift find, bought for a whopping $2.25.  I had planned to put it in the bathroom to sit on when bathing the boys, but it didn't fit, so I thought it added a little something here.  I will probably make a cushion for it, but there are so many sewing projects right now that it's on the backburner.

The top shelf of the bookcase is a mini-office space - a vintage aluminum pan I picked up a while back and filled with envelopes, staples, tape, and all those things that the boys love to play with but we can never find if we let them.  The two bread pans are for mail and bills. 

And a bit of decor...the top print is from Candace at Sparkle Power and the bottom is from John W. Golden and both were hanging in other areas of our previous place.  The globe is thrifted - does it count as vintage becuase it still has the USSR on it?  We bought it as a family a week or two before we moved.  You'll see as I show you more of the house that there is a bit of a geography/map theme.

I'm quite pleased with it.  I'll probably add a few more things - maybe some pennant banners over the windows and possibly more artwork, but overall I'm liking the looks and it seems to be functioning well for the boys and for me.

 

getting there: a little sewing

Getting things together in our new place seems to be going very slowly, but maybe that is just because I want everything finished now so I can sit back and relax.  There's still seems to be a lot to do, but I think most of the cleaning is finished (or as good as it's going to get, a lot of things are just damaged and I'm thinking about ways to cover them) and I am focusing more on my improvement projects, so that is good.  The boys are starting to calm down and accept this as home.  Peter is pretty much there, but Ned still struggles sometimes.  On Sunday, Ryan had to chase him down the street right after he yelled, "I want to go home!"  Today he said the same thing to me when we were outside, but when I explained that this was our new home, he decided it would be OK to just go inside. 

 

I did get my sewing machine out, finally - mostly because I was forced to after I opened my shop last Friday, thinking that it would take a while to get things going again and then sold a banner on the first day it opened.  It was good though, I'd been meaning  for several days to get my room to the point where I could sew.  Last night I braved the creepy basement and stayed up to put these pillows together.  The Etsuko Furuya scooter fabric was an impulse buy that I had to have when I was buying fabric for the curtains in the play area.  I knew the colors and funky feel were just what I was going for and had to make a pillow out of it.  The other pillow is that piece of thrifted embroidery that I blogged about  in February (before we knew we were moving) and that I'm so glad I hadn't done anything with yet.  I think you can see just from these two pillows alone that I'm going for an incredibly eclectic look and so far I'm really liking it.  I don't expect to have the living room "finished" for a week or two (or three), but I'm happy that minus a few pieces of furniture that I bought (all thrifted, so not a big loss) that just won't fit, this room is turning out almost exactly like I thought it would.  

Next on my list though is to tackle this...the sponge painted entryway that many of you have requested to see.  Our lease specifically forbids painting (probably only because I brought it up when we looked at the place) and our landlords live across the street and do all of our maintenance and repairs, but I've got another idea to cover up this hideousness. 

another one: crochet rag rug

I was going to make myself catch up on my e-mail before I posted again, but packing is in full force now and I fear I won't post again before the move if I stick to that rule!  Please know that I love and appreciate your comments and I try to respond to them in a semi-timely manner, but I'm really not that good at any sort of correspondence unless it's a pressing matter!

Anyway, I wanted to show this rug that I crocheted this a few weeks ago -  it was a great TV watching project.  It will probably go in the kitchen in the new house.  It's made out of strips of thrifted sheets.  I meant to have it be a circle, but apparently I am not so good at getting the shape right when I'm going free hand and it's more of an oval or rounded square.  I'm just glad that it sits pretty flat.  I mostly followed this tutorial from Vintage Chica. I may have used a bigger hook than I was supposed to - the one I bought came in a two pack with two sizes, but the individual hooks weren't marked, so I just went with the biggest one.  My rug has a lot of space in between the stitches, but I think it will work well.

I'm getting really excited to get into that house and get decorating.  Our big moving day is next Saturday (the 23rd) and then we'll be back and forth for another week while we clean up at the old place and let Peter finish his last week of preschool.  I'll probably do at least one more post before moving day with a few more thrift finds.  In the meantime, I'll be back to stuffing all of our worldly possessions in boxes and trying to keep the boys from climbing all over them!

more furniture finds

This couch has really started something.  Since we previously just had room for our current couch and chair in our fairly small living room and most of our other rooms are small or full of furniture already, I've resisted the urge to buy too many pieces of furniture while thrifting.  Now that we will have a little more room and I'm trying to create something fabulous in that house, apparently I am resisting no longer.  I've picked up a lot of pieces recently.  Most of them need some work - painting, a little reupholstering.  I have a mountain of projects here.  I'm so excited to get started on them...next Wednesday afternoon when I am a free women...well, free except that I still have to pack up the entire house. 

This desk was a steal at $20.  I think I'm even going to leave it the same color.  It will need a bit of touching up though - there's a big scratch in the paint on the other side.  I'm having a hard time deciding if I should use this one in my sewing room or use it for the computer.  I might have to keep it for my own.

These two chairs were both under $8 a piece.  They are definitely getting painted...red, maybe?  And they'll get new upholstery too.  Currently I'm thinking about some version of Beki's Anthropologie knock off (aren't they fabulous?) pillows.  I'm excited to have an excuse to buy my first staple gun!

 And this thing - I'm not even exactly sure what it is (does anyone else know?), but it was $5 and it looked like it could be useful and pretty.  They'll be some paint on this too.  I'm actually planning a whole lot of painting - all of this stuff and some of our current furniture that is dark wood.  I will probably just hide out in the garage for a week and paint after we move in - let the kids ride their bikes and run in the sprinklers and paint.  It's going to be a good summer.

 And the super cool $5 side table.  I've been holding off on getting another one of these (they are all over the place here) for two reasons - I'm not sure if another is going to fit and I think I'm going to spend all of my time telling my children that it is not a set of stairs!  And yes, it will be getting some paint too.

There's a whole lot of planning going on here and not a whole lot of finished projects...hopefully that will all change very, very soon.  But for now, I better get back to the wonderful world of Anatomy...

wip and some tips: braided circle rag rug

Thank you so much for your encouragement with my rug last week.  It was one of those projects that when I thought to do it, I knew I had to - I keep imagining myself lying on this rug with a pillow and a book, soaking in the sun from that big window.  So, all the trouble I was having with it was really getting me down.  Taking a little trip away last weekend was the perfect thing - a little rest from it and I came back with a renewed determination to conquer it and make it into a circle, just as I had pictured.  I knew that I had just been winding those outer rows too tight - so how to get them a little looser without creating puckers and ruffles? 

I did start with this tutorial from Moda, but there wasn't much instruction here on how to make sure your rug would lay flat.  I found a couple of tips online at various sites, but most of them were for hand sewing.  At first, I had hand sewn the rug, laying flat on the floor, and had more problems than when I tried machine sewing.  I was also much happier with the stability and strength of the rug with the machine stitching.  So, I set my machine on the widest zig zag and lengthened the stitch a bit and off I went.  

What I ended up doing was force feeding the free braid a bit with my right hand while my left hand held the already wound rug.  I would just make sure there was a little more free braid going through the feed dogs than the wound braid it was attaching too.  At first it wasn't too hard to tell if the rug was laying flat - if was flat on my sewing table (my machine sits flush with the level of my table that is a hand-me-down from my aunt that was then rigged by my grandpa to fit my machine) then I knew the rug was laying flat.  When it got a little bigger is when I ran into trouble the first time. 

So, after I'd ripped it apart again (for the third time), I just used my force feeding technique and checked every few rows to make sure that it was still OK.  And voila - a flat circle!  I am so pleased.  The rug is about 47" in diameter right now - it's getting a bit cumbersome to work with, but I want to make it at least 60", so I'll keep going.  

I should probably mention that my machine does have a built in walking foot that I almost always have on.  If you have one, I think it would probably be beneficial to use it.  If you don't have one, it would probably be a little more work to feed the layers through, but I'm hoping that it would still work - let me know if you try it.