Back to Creativity

Back to Creativity. I've been sidetracked for a bit - we've been fixing up the house a bit. We redid the upstairs bathroom and hallway and are in the much and muddle of doing the same to the main bath.

I just thought I would say hi.

Lately I've been involved with "Craft for a Cause for Christ," a group of women at church that meets twice a month to knit, crochet, sew or whatever, in order to make things for an orphanage in Russia, Crisis Pregnancy Center, Chemo-Caps for a hospital and whatever else we can think of. Most of these women are extremely productive. I just keep chugging along. I finally have a cute baby hat finished but booties are driving me nuts. Getting the right pattern, crochet hook size and yarn combination is part of it; getting my hands to do what I need is the other thing.

We’ve been in the muddle of bathroom things again, this time the downstairs bath, so this past Tuesday I didn’t even try to go (beyond getting my purse ready to leave.) Instead, I went to Home Depot to buy more stuff to wire new outlets and lights in the bathroom. The tub was to go in on Thursday; the Sheetrock was scheduled to be hung today, Friday. I didn't have a choice - unless I didn't care if the electrical was finished in the bathroom.

Thursday was a sleep-doc appointment and we ended up at the Tigard Lowe's. After much too long, we picked out the lights and the adjustable switches for the lights over the sink and bathtub. After a long ride home (why do they call sitting still on a freeway "rush" hour?

Today, (Friday), the Sheetrock was hung. It is interesting to have a bunch of Hispanic guys, who were excellent workers by the way, doing what has needed doing for a long time. After one of them hung it in the bathroom and another worked on our bedroom ceiling, they all came back to tape. They asked if it would be alright if they could eat lunch in our bedroom. I said ‘yes,’ so they sat on the floor lined up against the wall, chattering and eating things that smelled delicious. All but one were related and they had another brother who has a food trailer where they bought lunch.

In the meantime, Andrea came over with the boys to pick me up to assist her on errands. I was still putting plastic over the hung clothes in the closet, so I wasn’t ready to leave for a bit. After checking out the progress, she went downstairs to take care of Christian and Brandon stayed upstairs with me in the closet. Normally, he cannot be easily contained but the semi-empty closet entertained him for quite some time. He enjoyed opening and closing the bi-fold closet door to peek at the crew. They enjoyed him, too, They decided that Brandon’s jabbering and sputtering was Spanish, not English, because they ‘knew’ he was saying grandma and grandpa in Spanish.

They were impressed with Christian, too. He is a , sweet baby - almost four months old already and hasn't stopped growing.

We now have the ceiling in our bedroom sheetrocked. We remodeled in 1987 but when I said I really wanted to raise the 7’2” ceiling while everything else was torn apart but I couldn’t make the right person see the need. He only did what he wanted to do. He was several inches shorter than Bob and didn't comprehend the problem. Instead, part – the new part – got sheetrock, the rest was left with the original ceiling - those little square accoustic tiles that never were set quite straight that glared down at me when I was in bed.

Right now, it is all smooth – and blended together. Quarter-inch sheetrock over the top of everything is just right. We knew there was blown-in insulation that would drop all over if we removed the ceiling tile. Keeping the tiles mean that there is more insulation, too.

Now, to get to bed - almost on the floor. The room is empty, the bed taken apart so we're kind-of camping. We could have camped downstairs, but the 'working' bathroom is upstairs. The floor is covered with heavy paper and is quite noisy so I put down as many little rugs as I could. We'll see how the night goes. They will be back in the morning to work on it so it needed to be kept simple for the night.

Wadda Mess - Upstairs Bathroom

Today, Monday, October 22, 2007, I’ve had a change of heart. I love HGTV. However, I've been amazed (and critical) to see how unprepared people are when they start a project . I had forgotten that, until you start ripping up and tearing down, you don’t really know what will work. I LOVE LOWES AND HOME DEPOT. Home Depot has the price but Lowes has a better selection. They both save me from even more driving to get stuff.

This a.m., I was off to Home Depot to get some primer and picked up sample tiles, knobs, and a vanity light. I wasn’t finished shopping but had to hurry home because I was watching two grandboys while my DD#1 went to see how the kidney stones were progressing. On that front, things look stuck so she thinks she will have more surgery/procedure. She is thinking, why wait another week, check it again and then schedule it. Getting it over now sounds good to her. She has a stent in which is like a heavy wire that keeps the uriter open for it to pass, which can be quite painful.

When I got home, the bathroom was bare. A friend is doing much of the work and he and Bob got a lot of exercise ripping, pulling and carrying it all out. Anyone wanna cracked toilet? Howsabout an ugly vanity?

The boys arrived and we had fun for about three hours. Zander, the older one, cried – sobbed - when his mom came. He wanted to stay longer. They haven’t been here much since Bob’s surgery since he gets so tired. They watched the guys across the street dump rocks into a retaining wall with a backhoe. Then they made their way upstairs to get a good look at our mess.

The discovery of the day: packed between two joists, was a stash of very old walnut shells that would do any varmint proud. That’s the very down side of an old house.

Dinner came and I went – to Lowe’s for more tile samples and the bathroom fan fit for a king we saw last week and then to GI Joes for a portable throne for night emergencies. Once I got the fan home, we decided that it was a bit over the top for a little bathroom so I get to retrace my steps in a few hours. I got gas on the way home - $3.05 and gallon for middle grade. Lovely.

Bob is frustrated that he gets so worn out. He hasn’t had much reserve energy since his prostate surgery a year and a half ago although he doesn't hesitate to do what exhausts much younger men. It takes the fun out of it for him to be so tired.

I think I’m just postponing the inevitable – going all the way downstairs to brush my teeth than back up to bed. Fortunately, I no longer sleepwalk to the bathroom like I did when I was a kid.

Kathleen, who thinks a tiny bathroom doesn’t need a fan that has a nightlight, a dual bulb light fixture, and a heater. It’s a bit crowded up there on the ceiling – especially when we will already have a ceiling light and a vanity light so I can see those wrinkles more clearly…

Little Lambie Pie

A Quilting We Will Go ---

One of my daughters is expecting her first babe in a few weeks. She hadn't been able to get it done yet so I took it home a few weeks ago to finish for her. She had gotten frustrated and after working on it, I found a few things to be frustrated about which relieved her a bit - it wasn't all her problem.


Getting those triangles sewn onto the corners of the lamb blocks was frustrating since there wasn't any way to line up the triangle

against another edge of fabric. One of the problems was that the pattern's seam allowance wasn't accurate. Urgh!

We progress.... The feet and muzzles are all stitched down and I am now ready to applique the fluffy lambs onto the background. I started thinking about the fluffy stuff and babes. I called my oldest and we decided that it should be all right. If I run my fingers through the fleece, it (the fluff) comes to the top of my fingers.

I am thinking of breaking away from the pattern a bit since the ears were supposed to be appliqued on the body. Using the fake-fur meant that the ears would flatten it a bit. I'm making them so they will not be stitched all the way around - they will only be attached at the top of the ear. It will be more dimensional that way, too.

It isn't a large quilt but it is a cutie. One of the lamb's fur is flying a different way which only looks like he has been leaping through the air.

The quilt is from Baby Quilts - Goof-Proof Instructions to SEW Three Beautiful Quilts by Ursula Michael.

Splitting My Personality

With the intent of keeping Creativity-Sidetracked a place to talk about creating and creativity and keep it more centered on that thought, I've started a more personal blog at Kat's How Do I Do. I am hoping this will give me more incentive to be more active on both blogs instead of questioning myself as to whether or not I should talk about more personal things here.

Since I enjoy being able to share what I'm doing, I do hope this will be an interesting place for you to return to see what is happening in my world.

Pillow Talk

My oldest granddaughter is five and the last time she was here I brought her up to my sewing room and embroidered her first initial. She picked the colors. During the process I discovered she loved blue and that her mom bought pink paint before asking what Nat wanted for her new bedroom.

So the N is blue with beige, gold and green around it.

I was left with the instruction to put “more of that gold” around it (she picked from several metallic shades) which I did. The next time I saw her, she asked for more blue.

Today we stitched the blue and added some pink ribbon stitched down with a heart stitch she picked out. I explained that it needs pink so it will look nice in her room and she thought that the pink looks good.

This is becoming a wonderful project. I had a chunk of my Andrea’s blue slip taffeta and she agreed it will be good on it. She also decided on a small, rectangular pillow form. I’m backing it with some rose upholstery velvet I have for some pillows for my living room. She thinks that will be great.

It is a great experience for both of us. I had been looking for the opportunity to do some one-on-one with my grandkids and this has been perfect. All of the grands are one year apart so when we see one, we see more. Her brothers were quite happy playing with toys while we did our thing.

Now I need to rinse out the stabilizer I used in the embroidery so I can go on to the next step.