Bathroom Renovation - Day 1

The dumpster was delivered today, kicking off the official start of the bathroom renovation. We got an extra large container so we could also get rid of the extra scrap lumber from previous projects that was piling up behind the garage. Damon and I will be doing the demolition this weekend.


Here are the 'before' photos of the bathroom. We have done nothing to the bathroom since we bought the house. This will be a complete gut of the room including the ceiling, walls, and floor. We will be completely rearranging the room and will be installing a separate tub and shower.

Bloomin' Steps

The pattern is called Bloomin' Steps. Other than the white background, all the fabrics are from my scrap bag and charm squares. As you can see I am still contemplating borders - likely all from scraps and charm squares too. I got the blocks done at the quilting retreat a couple of weeks ago and got the blocks pieced together this weekend.

I still have an overload of scraps. I am hoping to find a pattern I want to do which will use up more scraps, maybe one that is all scraps so I do not need yardage for background.

What I Did Last Weekend

Last weekend was the fall quilt retreat. I really needed this retreat, I have not spent any time on sewing/quilting since the spring. (I am not counting sewing on hanging sleeves for the quilt show).

The first thing I worked on at the retreat was a star for a retreat friend who is going through cancer treatment. Pat and Bev our retreat coordinators brought the background fabric - hard to tell from the photo but it is white with small gold metallic stars. We were asked to contribute a star. I made this star from a pattern in Peggy Martin's Paper Piece the Quick-Strip Way book. I just bought the book a couple of weeks ago when I was down in Glens Falls.



I inherited some purple/lilac fabric from my friend Cheryl over the summer. I used the Disappearing 9-Patch pattern to create this small quilt. I still needs a border or two. This will be donated as a community service quilt once it is done.









Also for Cheryl, our sewing group is putting together projects she left for her family members. This is the one I am working on. I still have to add a black strip to the center panel but after that is added it will go together quickly. I already have the the top, bottom and sides pieced together. I also need to cut the corner blocks.

My first Quilting Ribbon!

I was awarded my first quilting award this week. The ribbon is a second place viewers choice for my Mystery quilt (previous posts have info on that quilt). My local guild had their quilt show last weekend. We don't have official quilt judges, just guest community member judges and we also do viewers choice for all the categories in the show. What is really cool about this ribbon is that it is a paper-pieced quilted ribbon. It looks really impressive.

Fall Hike

Since we didn't get the chance to hike any mountains this summer I was thrilled to take the opportunity to take dad on his first Adirondack mountain hike last weekend when the folks were up for a visit.
We had beautiful weather, daytime temps in the mid-70s, and mostly sunny. Of course we hiked in the morning when it was a bit cooler. We went to our 'local' small peak - Silver Lake mountain. As you can see in the photos we are in the middle of peak leaf color. The trail was only muddy in a couple of spots but all the leaves and pine needles made it a bit slippery.
We were the only ones on the summit but a couple of other groups were coming up the trail as we were heading back down.

Proof I am Still a Quilter

With all the chaos of planning the set up of a quilt show I really put my own quilting on the back burner. But as evidence that I didn't give it up cold turkey here is what I have been working on in my limited spare time.
I started hand piecing these star block a couple of years ago. If you look closely you will notice that I did a bunch fussy cutting for the corner pieces of the stars.
In the last couple of weeks I have hand stitched these blocks together. I am planning on adding a couple of borders. To keep with the hand-work theme I will be hand quilting this piece as well. I have no concrete time line for getting this done. (Lets hear it for no deadlines!)

Minding the Gap - Fall Update

OK, its been a couple of months. These have been filled by health issues, increased workload at work and of course the planning and layout of the quilt show. The garden suffered some serious neglect this season, but was not a total loss. In fact today I harvested the first pumpkin (that's him in the picture) and a few tomatoes. Harvesting pumpkins and tomatoes on the same day is pretty remarkable but then again the weather was pretty remarkable this year as well. I have 2 more pumpkins still out in the garden which should be ready in another week or 2.

Today was a warmer than average fall day and I went out for a walk before it got dark. It was pretty noisy with all the honking (geese not cars).