And...It's Done!

That old song, "Heaven, I'm in heaven..."  probably from some musical, keeps running through my head.  It took me a few days, but I have order, lovely, blissful order in my sewing room!!  I combed through every piece of fabric I owned--yardage, fat quarters, and scraps, and I was ruthless.  I have bags and bags of things to take to the Hope Center (click here to read about) and my trusty Explorer is full of them.  

And the closet itself?  Have a look:

Now, I know must quilters would scoff at my "stash", but I can assure you that there is a lot of fabric on those shelves, and of course, there will be more to be purchased in the future.  It is so lovely to be able to walk into the closet and see exactly what's on each shelf.  I have sections for colors, sections for Christmas, one for fall, one for Kansas Troubles fabrics, and so on. I even have a section for fabrics to make more of those little Dresses for Africa (I was inspired to do them again after watching the video of the ninety-nine-year-old lady from Iowa who makes a dress a day and hopes to make her 1000th dress on her 100th birthday next May).  

Another section of the closet, which didn't need revamping, is a series of small shelves on the left side where I have books and magazines:

(Also on those shelves is the complete Magnum, P.I. series, courtesy of my Sweetie, and the complete Scarecrow and Mrs. King series, courtesy of my adorable daughter.  Love to watch them while I stitch.)

My sewing room seems even bigger and so much fresher! I even dusted now that there are cleared-off tables. (And we all know how rare that is for me!)  Now I'm ready for a new project.  ♥

A Little Organization, Please!

My longtime friend and pal, Kathy (all the way back to kindergarten!), and I email regularly as well as keep up via our blogs.  We've been discussing quilting stashes recently and mulling over purchases and possible additions.  I mentioned to her the other day that I really needed to sort out my sewing room closet, although I confess I really wasn't planning to do anything except contemplate sorting.  Until yesterday. 

For some strange reason, I found myself in my sewing room and I opened the closet doors and shockingly began to pull things out.  Dan happened along and I told him what I was up to.  He said, would more shelves help? Well, of course they would, but he has little time these days and I wanted closure on this project within a day or so.  He measured, we talked, and he said that rather than build the shelves from scratch and paint them, he could buy pre-painted boards and some brackets and get this project done that very afternoon.   Pre-painted boards? Who knew?!?  (Obviously not me.)

So, with my blessing, he headed out for the builder's supply and I attacked the closet with a vengeance. Here are some before pictures (don't judge!)

 

And how did the renovating turn out?

I so blessed to have such a wonderful, huge closet (with a light in it!) to start with, and now I have space, space, space thanks to my sweetie!  Today I have begun to put things back and it's an archeological dig.  So many wonderful fabrics that had been buried, some not so wonderful ones that will go bye-bye (I'll donate to the local Hope Center), and if you can believe it, I even found a piece of fabric I bought to make a maternity top back in the '70's!!  (Yeah, I saved it.)  

It's taking me a while to sort, and I have all kinds of plans for how to organize, but we'll see how that works in the space.  A section for Kansas Troubles, a section for Christmas, sections for colors (blue, green, red, etc.), flannels, and so on.  I'll keep you posted!  ♥

Still Here!

No photos, no real new news.  More storms but no trees down, just some limbs and another day of cleanup. We did make a quick trip to McCall last week as Dan had a talk to give.  The little over-nighter was a nice vacation and we enjoyed it immensely. I stopped at the little quilt shop there and added some Kansas Troubles fabrics to add to my stash.  Score!  

An old high school friend of Dan's was in a motorcycle accident so we drove to Spokane on Monday to visit him. He had surgery yesterday and we hope he's on the road to recovery although all estimates place that time at six months.  I'm so thankful Dan sold his motorcycle many years ago!!

The days are getting noticeably shorter.  We've enjoyed many evenings of reading on the deck, and all of a sudden, we're running out of light.  I guess it is the middle of August.  And speaking of August, I had a major birthday this month.  The one where one becomes eligible for Medicare.  How has this happened?!?  I feel no older. I remember my aunt, my dad's sister, telling me when she was in her eighties that she didn't feel any different than she did in her thirties.  I'm beginning to understand. At any rate, I have several new cards tucked into my billfold these days.  

Autumn is approaching and cooler days and nights are heralding it.  I'm looking forward to changing out my Americana decorating for fall things in a few weeks. Sure hope Safeway has those cute little pumpkins again!  ♥ 

Front Yard Update

For those of you who might have been wondering, we have grass where once the mighty shrubs grew!  It now looks like this:

Instead of this:

What an amazing transformation.  Just look at this beautiful grass!!

There are a few places that still need to seed in, but tonight marked the first cutting of this new green lawn. When Dan was done, we sat out in the old grass and admired it for quite some time.  ♥

Sewing Aerobics

One does not usually associate sewing with exercise, but with my latest project, I beg to differ.  The instructions called for eighty 2 1/2 x 5" rectangles to be sewn in a herringbone pattern to triangular bases.  

As a stickler for pressing as I go, that meant that each time I attached a rectangle, I needed to hop up, go to my iron, and press the seam.  Times eighty.  Because it was that herringbone pattern, there could be no chain piecing with a group pressing along the way.  

While my ironing board is fairly close to my machine, it does involve a few steps.

Up, over, press, back to the chair, stitch, up, over, press, back to the chair.  I think it was excellent exercise! 

The pieces are all joined and last night I trimmed them to size.  Up for today will be the assembling of the whole top.   And what will it be you ask?  A table runner from the Through the Winter Woods book.  ♥

Ahh . . . Vacation!

Bruder Bear and Karen had been asking Ann and family to come for a visit as it had been quite a while since they'd been down.  They worked out a time and we were glad to be able to join them for our annual trip to the Bruder Bear Resort.  Ann and family went to Jackson Hole first and would join us Sunday evening, but Dan and I drove down on Friday, arriving about nine.  A major remodel has been in progress at BB's, and we spent our first minutes seeing what had been done and being amazed at the transformation.  Karen is a fabulous cook and she now has a beautiful kitchen worthy of her efforts.  The rest of the evening was spent in a wonderful visit, catching up with one another.   

Dan and John spent much of Saturday working on one of the jet skis and the jet boat.  Both turned out to be fairly easy fixes--a stick in the intake of the jet boat and a new spark plug needed for the jet ski.  Sunday afternoon we enjoyed a boat trip up the Snake River to the dam, arriving back in time to welcome Ann, Eric, Cameron, Keaton and Daniel.  Sunday was also Dan's birthday, so dinner that night was barbecued ribs with all the trimmings courtesy of Karen and a Poor Man's Cake I had baked earlier that day.  It was a splendid birthday party! We were just sorry John had to fly to Nashville early the next morning.

The jet skis were, of course a hit with everyone. (Except me--they look like fun but there's no way I'm going on a rocking and rolling machine with my balance issues.  I was doing good to get on the boat although I was fine once I was on.  The getting on?  Not so cute.)  Cameron was soon zipping all over, Keaton was content to drive as long as someone rode with him, and Daniel was up for riding with anyone who would take him!  I forgot to take my camera when I was down at the dock so the following were taken from the deck at the house on zoom:

Keaton and Eric on the left, Ann and Cameron on the right

Ann and Cameron coming in to the dock

Part of the remodel included expanding the deck and adding a roof over half of it, making a wonderful outdoor room.  We made good use of it from the time we got up (coffee overlooking the river) until it got dark.  

Ann enjoying some of Dan's birthday cake

Cameron enjoying a relaxing moment

Daniel playing on Papa Dan's iPad

The lovely view

An evening game of ladder ball

What a wonderful time we all had!  Spending time with family is just the best gift of all.  How blessed we are!  ♥

And A Big Wind Came Along...

A week ago today we were on our way home from a visit at the Bruder Bear Resort.  As we drove north from Riggins, we noticed the wind was blowing.  REALLY blowing.  As our trusty Explorer crossed the bridge over the Salmon River just south of the White Bird grade I wasn't sure I could keep it on the road and I could only imagine how the 18-wheeler behind me was going to make it.  All the way up the grade we were blown and buffeted.  I was afraid to drive in the outside lane and kept to the left passing lane.  By the time we arrived in Grangeville, my hands were sore from clenching the steering wheel, but we made it and I was thankful.  

When we finally arrived home, it was dark and we unpacked and headed for bed.  When I got up the next morning, Dan had left for his Thursday morning guys Bible study and he'd left a note on the counter saying the wind had broken one of our hybrid poplar trees!  I looked out the dining room window and this was the scene:

Poor broken tree!

We had no idea the storm was so widespread.  From Riggins to Spokane and north there were downed trees and downed power lines.  Our power had been out; we'd noticed blinking clocks when we'd gotten home, but it was back on.  We heard that there were people without power until Sunday!  

But now we had our work cut out for us.  Or at least Dan did.  It was still windy on Thursday, so Friday morning Dan put in a call to his buddy Dennis and together they worked out a plan.  

If you look carefully at the above photo, you can see Dan's blue shirt as he climbs the ladder to attach a cable to the upright portion of the tree.  The other end of the cable was attached to the rear of our pickup off to the right.  Dennis ran the chain saw as Dan kept tension on the cable.  When the cuts were just right, Dan pulled with the truck and...

WHAM! Down came the main tree followed by the broken top.  Now all that was left was the cleanup.  Lots and lots of cleanup.  But we had help.

Lots of help!

And now we have a big empty spot in our back yard where once a mighty poplar stood.  (Come back tomorrow for the story of our trip to Bruder Bear's.)  ♥