the joys of an old house

I think because Spring is coming DH is starting to get ready to tackle some of the many, many projects involved with maintaining this old house. We spent Saturday going to architectural salvage yards. We were hoping to find a replacement for our front door. We are going to have to completely tear this out and rebuild the framing and the windows. I think you can see the damage at the bottom of the door. It's sitting on a granite threshold and isn't sealed. The door is not original and is actually put together from 2 smaller doors. Whoever did it didn't do it in a stable way. Where the seam is it bows in. We didn't find a door that we liked and was in good enough shape to use. DH would have had to rebuild any of them so we decided he will just rebuild this one. We also looked for thumb latches, registers and soapstone sinks. We didn't end up with anything except for a new understanding of just how much this is going to cost. :o/ I am lucky that DH is very handy and can do a lot of the work himself. Now if he can only find the time.

My Valentines Day present from Gail Wilson Designs arrived this weekend. I have been wanting these ornaments for a couple of years. I am going to ask for the rest of them at upcoming holidays. My little doll is 3 1/4 inches tall and the detail is amazing. I just love miniature things.

making the best of it

Since I have moved here, my friend April and I have been trying to have a quilting weekend. We had planned for her to come here this past weekend and had both planned what we were going to work on. Well, about Thursday they were calling for a big storm on Friday night through Saturday so we decided to forgo April driving and have a cyber-quilting weekend instead. Good thing. The storm turned out to be about 6 inches of snow topped with about 2 inches of ice.

It wasn't quite as much fun as if she had been here, but we chatted through the day and checked in with progress. We both got started with some cleaning in our sewing rooms and then April worked on some UFO's and I worked on cutting more blocks for the Fireside Cozy quilt. I decided to stick with the red in the corners so I finished stitching the blocks together. I think this picture shows the color better. I auditioned some other colors for the red but none of them were any better so I decided to stick with it.

I know it doesn't look like much, but it took quite a while to get all these parts of blocks stitched and then cut. I also trimmed these over 200 HST's for the border of this quilt I started some time ago. It took me more than the whole movie (which we both liked btw) to get them squared up. It is such a tedious job and probably my least favorite.

On Sunday I was going to get the borders figured out and sewn on. I planned to do a narrow red border then a wider border of the background and then the HST's. I got the sizes figured out and then realized that I will need another yard if I want to use that same background for the border. I auditioned some other fabrics that will work OK, but I am going to keep looking for some more of this. It is a Cherished Memories by RJR, beige background with tiny red dots. I just love it because it goes with my favorite fabrics. I have used it in a number of quilts and I have run out. :o( I'm going to start shopping online, but if anyone sees any at their LQS let me know and I'll see if they will ship. :o) If you enlarge the picture of the HST's you can see the fabric pretty well.

my babies are getting so big

My little kitties aren't so little anymore. It's been so long since I have had kittens that I had forgotten how fast they grow. Here is Misty peeking out from the tunnel of their new tent that I bought them last week. DS was home and pointed out that they are very spoiled. He was complaining that he didn't get a new toy every time I went out shopping. I told him he was getting a college education and that their toys weren't nearly as expensive. He is going to a maritime college and is teaching himself to tie knots. I did notice that he spent a lot of time spoiling them too, tieing them some monkey fist knot balls to play with.
Dusky has gotten so big that I don't think his name really fits him anymore. He seems to have developed a mane and his features are pretty large. We have started calling him Carrrrne like the lions in the Taco Bell commercial because he reminds us of a lion. For some reason he doesn't come to it ;o) but we laugh at our own joke anyway. :oD Misty is still a dainty little thing although she gives as good as she gets when they wrestle.
Not much quilty going on. We had to take DS back to school yesterday which is about a 6 hour drive round trip. We try to do any shopping at stores that are not close, but on the way. This obviously makes the trip much longer and then we always have to stop to eat because we can never seem to get him back before dinnertime. Makes for a very long day.

what do you think?

I had planned this weekend to work on my February Christmas presents. I didn't do it the weekend closest to the 25th because it was DS's birthday on the 23rd and he came home so we could celebrate. My baby is 19. He's home again for Spring Break. DH had to go get him a day early on Thursday because almost the entire state of Maine shut down last Friday for a storm. Personally, I didn't think the storm ended up being that bad, but I didn't have to drive in it.

Anyway, I couldn't think of any ideas for presents so I worked on my Fireside Cozy for JudyL's use the stash challenge. It's all cut out now. I was so excited I wanted to get started putting some blocks together. I have 3 almost together and now I am not sure I like the red. The red will be in opposite corners of every square. I chose the fabrics that I wasn't sure about coordinating well with the red and it's not speaking to me. I have enough of a dark green, almost black, or a chocolate brown, but I have a brown paisley and a dark green that I think will have the same effect as the ones I have done. The colors are fairly accurate in the picture. So, what do you all think? Do you like the red? What other color do you think might be better? I would love any ideas.