28 August 2015

Tearful goodbye

My lovely and fun quilt, "Conversations" has just gone to it's new home in Belfast, Maine





25 August 2015

It's never easy

I sat down ready to make some drapes and the Juki was having none of it. I re-threaded it and it worked less well. I tried to find the owners manual so I could go through the step by step directions and I couldn't find ANY of my owners manuals. I got out the Brother, my old stalwart stand by; never lets me down. The shaft for the foot was missing. I sold my huge Brother Innovis embroidery machine and I guess I gave them one foot too many. I went on eBay and bought a new one. It was only $6. but I would have to wait. UGH!

Later that afternoon I started to put away the small boxes in which I keep attachments. I decided to go through all the boxes of attachments again and low and behold under a serger net was the sad lonely shaft laying on it's side. Quick like a bunny, I attached a foot to the shaft and started to sew.




See my cute felted pin cushion (face)? My friend Katherine made it for me.





What beautiful silk and the drapes really do the trick.

21 August 2015

Last but not least (new space-wise)

I have sheers on all the windows in my studio. Before I moved down everything was so Extra White that I decided to buy 18 yards of silk haboti to hang as a top layer from the windows. When it came it was almost see through and I wondered if I'd made a mistake choosing white haboti. After dyeing (acid) the silk is gorgeous. As soon as I get back from visiting my new found family in Little Rock, Arkansas, I will stitch up the curtains. The 18 yards is torn into eight 2 1/4 yard panels.



19 August 2015

Final Move Down

A few weeks after I moved down, two guys came over and carried down Brian's things. He moved into the bedroom of the apartment and turned the walk-in closet into his office. So the King Size bed and twin are in my studio where I will create a visitors suite with microwave and a small refrigerator. I also have a chaise longe and a reading chair. Photos much later. Brian's old room upstairs now has a reading chair and a double bed for guests and our old guest room still is. The bathroom is huge. It WAS a bedroom when the house was build in the 1880's and when plumbing moved indoors, it was converted. The apartment bathroom is so small in comparison.


Brian's room

 His office

The living room with the beautiful chairs moved upstairs and our new leather club chairs.


The poodles "bedroom". She will NOT eat unless safely in her cage. She was very abused when we adopted her. She has been totally freaked out with the move. She JUST ate and drank (24 hours).


Dogs chillin'




My "Jade" forrest



Better picture of Command Central and my hand painted desk.



and the rest of the "old" dining room.



17 August 2015

EXTRA White

Yes, that is the name of the paint I bought. It certainly was extra white.



Living room now



Dining room now

Then I really stripped out the rooms - rugs gone, everything gone. I hired two guys and they moved my stuff down from the studio to the "new" studio.


Sleeping station


Work area. My painting table and 4 X 8 work table.


I like my cold air


View from stairs I won't be climbing much anymore



Command central. My desk which was a gift to my parents on their wedding day from my Uncle Jack. He hand painted the entire desk. He was a set designer in Hollywood at the time. Peppa Pig and her family keeping an eye on all activities.

Just realized there are some pictures left to be taken.......

15 August 2015

Cogitations

Since we moved in here 9 years ago, we have RARELY used the living room and dining room. I have a huge kitchen which I use as a wet studio and I have shown countless times on this blog. That was the frustration part of living here - we only used the kitchen downstairs but spent most of our time upstairs. Well, knees not being what they once were, it was time to think outside the box.

I decided to paint the living room (pea green) and the dining room (roman gold) white and move my studio downstairs.






The first thing I had to do was try to block the color so I didn't have to do 3 coats of paint.






Would you believe this was with ONE coat of Kilz primer? It totally knocked back the color.

Now for the final coat........

13 August 2015

Apartment part 2

In addition to the living room and dining room, I also repainted the walk in closet which had the most holes in the wall from the screw fasteners I had used to construct the closet. Pulling them out of the wall left major holes. Here it is finished as a very small guest room with a twin bed.



Then I touched up some patched holes in the bathroom. Not a full blown paint job




The bedroom had one lavendar wall and the other white. I also painted the mirrored closet doors.






View from the back windows (bathroom and bedroom)



When I was done I said, "Man, I love this place. I want to live here". 

The big problem was having to leave my beautiful studio upstairs - Upstairs being the operative word. I just can't do 40-50+ trips up and down those stairs every day - carrying things. So I started to cogitate........ 

11 August 2015

Back after a hiatus

OK, OK, the vacation from blogging is slowly coming to a halt. So much has been going on that it will take a few posts to tell the story. I mentioned before I disappeared that I had found my birth family. They initially were going to visit me here in Maine but decided a trip east was a bit much for this summer. Meanwhile, I started getting the old (actually 8 years old) apartment ready for them. I had purchased paint 2 years ago after my father died and mother went into assisted living. The name of the color is "Raging Tiger River" - no kidding. I hadn't even vacuumed the place in a year so serious plastering of holes and prep work was needed.

Here is the living room and kitchen "before".



As you can see I left my new design wall up and cut around it with the green. You can see some patching above the lamp. There was LOTS of patching, mudding and sanding.




The after of the living room and kitchen was striking.








More painting and designing to come.......