Whatca Workin on Wed

I'm trying to use up and clear out. This week it's old quilt blocks.

There is a warning though. I got a little carried away with the bags. I think my OCD kicked in a little. I started out just trying to cover up the writing on the bags I use for groceries.

The bag before I did anything to them.

This is the same bag back and front with a stray quilt block attached to cover up the writing.

Then I talked to a friend (HI Cheryl) and she suggested making pockets out of the quilt blocks.

These old quilt blocks are some that people give me. They really aren't square and can't be used for much but I like them just the same. They were hidden in a box on the shelf so This to me is a better way to enjoy them and give my shopping excursion a boost.

Plus it gives me extra pockets. And who can't use those???

And........the more boxes I get rid of the more wool I can bring in. I have been having such a good time making penny rugs.
I call this one Cheerios. It reminds me of the cereal now that it's done.

I have always liked miniatures and this is no exception. The pennies were small to work with. The army blanket wool I used is one of my favorite prim colors. I dyed some green wool too and it turned out good for my first try at dyeing.

The colors are more accurate in the first picture under the candle. This one is washed out. For some reason I can't see to get good pictures with nice color of my rugs.

My next rug will be a cream and tan one. I noticed that everything up until now is pretty dark in coloring. I need something a little lighter for some of my darker furniture.

Many more projects..........
so little time.
Until the next ones are finished......

Be sure and visit My Country Home for more Projects.

Blessings,
Rhonda

Whatca Working on Wednesday and Where's Waldo

I finished my "make do" Flannel quilt. I made a significant dent in my flannel stash. I wanted to just do something fun with it and not worry too much about color placement. I achieved my goal. It is random all right. The size of the squares vary throughout the quilt but it came together nicely since I used a basic 2" start. Everything had to be in increments of 2. It sure is warm and everyone enjoys using it in this weather.(If they can get it away from me that is.)Eventually I think Tori will claim it. DH and daughter #2 already have a flannel...of course DD#2 says hers is getting too small.


Some time ago I started a quilt I absolutely loved when I saw the pattern. It's from the Nickel Quilts book by Pat Speth and Charlene Thode.
When I saw this coverI knew I had to make it in Civil War Repro fabric. Everything in the book is made from 5" squares. But I wanted it really scrappy. I didn't want to go buy all that fabric for a couple of 5" squares so I went looking and found a Nickel Quilt group. First I exchanged a couple times for finished blocks then a couple of times for just squares. I found this too time consuming for me though. So I resorted to buying a little at a time and since I love this fabric anyway I know I will use it in other projects. SHHHHH I even have more projects picked already. DH doesn't understand this type of thinking.

Here's the 67 blocks I have completed already. I ONLY have 100 more to go for a queen size. I will probably make it bigger though since it's for our bed and I want it to be a generous size.

I always lay the quilt out and watch it through the day for different patterns I might see. It also helps to take a picture of it or look at it through the camera lens or a peep hole for a door to get a perceptive look at the pattern.
So here's the Where's Waldo .........I laid this out to photograph it and found a mistake in the piecing of one of the blocks when I saved the picture for posting. Can you find the block????????


I need to get a few things done around here before I go to work. Be sure and check out other Wednesday projects at Leslie's.

Blessings,
Rhonda

Whatca Working on Wed

I am finishing the binding on this quilt today. My annual Jan quilting retreat is this weekend and I want it on my bed. For such a simple pattern I love how it turned out.
It was a challenge on a blog last May. We were supposed to make a block a day for 70 days. Of course I couldn't be happy with that. I made 2 blocks a day in the reverse of each other. These same fabrics are in the quilt I made for my SIL in Texas last year. This one is supposed to be for my brother. I just liked it so much when it was done that it's hard to part with. The gold tied it all together so nicely and made it look old. So of course I loved it.
This is the back. My friend quilted it for me in an all over meandering star pattern. It just finishes off the quilt nicely.


My DH got me 4 yes I said 4 of the Judy Condon books for Christmas. I had 3 already so that brings me up to date I think. I actually have 2 of Country on a Shoestring so I may regift one of those. He didn't see it on the shelf when he was looking to see what I had.
Be sure and visit Leslie's blog to see what others are working on.


Blessings
Rhonda

Whatca Working on Wednesday

I am really late posting this. I have had this metal tree for some time and have been looking for ornaments to hang on it for every season. I found these cute pumpkins on aprimitivegathering's blog. If you want to make your own she has all the instructions there.

Aren't they just the cutest? And you cn use so much of your own creativity after the basic recipe.


Fabric pumpkins are all over my crafting table. It is amazing to me the process of sewing,staining,and baking takes. A friend of mine(Hi Lisa) and I went to the Apple Festival in Franklin PA a couple of weeks ago. At one booth we were talking to the owner and an artist for the shop. One lady picked up a make do and wanted to know the price. She turned up her nose at the price. The owner said she wouldn't sell it to her anyway (after she had left) since she didn't appreciate all the work that went into making it. So of course we then had a conversation about how much time things actually takes to make a make-do. No pun intended. But we determined when you are good at what you do it really does look easy.

Here's my make do. I love it. It is sort of a mix of several I've seen.


Have a nice evening. Check out Leslie's blog for more WWW projects.

Rhonda

WWW ......Dining room reno and bittersweet

These are the pictures of the ongoing dining room reno that began with the start of my vacation.
This is a before picture. I had removed the baseboards and painted the walls a soft olivey green.

Next DH put up 6" wide pine wainscoting about 1/2 way up the walls.


All this was done prior to my vacation. Now day 1 was priming all the wainscoting and the chair rail,corner moldings and base boards.


Day 2 Today I added the color. It is a putty color about the color of Pella doors in Putty. It's my new favorite color.



DH finished the second coat of the putty. Now all we have to do is put on the chair rail,baseboards and corner moldings. But I'm changing my mind. I painted all the wood work the same putty color. Now I'm thinking the chair rail need to be something else. I'm not liking the green anymore either. He's not going to be happy but I don't want to do it again anytime soon. The wall is so easily changed since it's only 1/2 the wall. I'm going shopping at some prim stores today so I have the day off. When I get home tonight I'll ponder some more about color.
I want to stencil in this room too and I'm afraid it'll get lost on the green even though it's a subtle color. .......................Big sigh ..........................too many decisions.

I learned a lesson about bittersweet this week. I found some in our church parking lot while the girls were at youth group last week. I cut it and put it in my car. I forgot about it till I was parking the car at work the next day. Never do it. It must have been the heat that caused it all to open. I was so disappointed. I can still use it but it lost all of the yellow seed coverings as I was taking the leaves off.
It was harder to work with this way too.I couldn't get it to bend the way it usually does. It was probaly dried out. I'll look for more this week and try it again. I did get some on the chandlier in the dining room. You can see it hanging in the top of some of the pictures.

Be sure and check out Leslie's blog for others and their Wed projects

Off to shop.
Rhonda

Whatca Workin on Wednesday

I can't believe how time flies. I have had soooo many things go on in the last month I couldn't even find time to post. I did keep up reading though.
I am a Cat Scan tech and I need to take my boards. Let me begin by telling you I am over 45 and it was really hard to study. I think I forgot more than I remember. I refuse to admit it is because of my age so I'll just blame it on peri menopause. And what kind of word is that anyway?? Somebody in advanced stages of dementia came up with that one. I guess it means you are only getting "a little hot flash" and you are only sweating "a little bit". I'm new to all this so bear with me. I did pass though. I had a ceremonial book burning and yahooo celebration. I'll show you the pictures of what I treated myself too for passing. Something nice and prim of course.

I finally now have time to work on a couple of projects I wanted to get started.
First is a candle paddle from the pattern on Char's blog. I had my brother cut it out while we were in Texas. I put the hanging hole and the candle hole in when I got home. I added the stain today and I think I will prim it up some more.
Notice the picture background. That is a piece of furniture I brought back from Texas with me. I'll let you see that in another post.

Another project I have on the cutting table is am Americana Star quilt. A friend of mine found a blog www.crazymomquilts.blogspot.com that has an on going summer project. She started in May and is making a 6 in 9 Patch to end in August. You make one block a day. Even I can handle that. A group of 40 of us are making them locally and getting together with our finished tops at the end of August for a pot luck. I thought it was a good way to get something done over the summer. And of course I can always use a chance to see friends.
I was trying to use up some fabric I have here. We had a sale at one of our quilting retreats from a lady in the group who had a stroke and could no longer quilt. She collected star fabric and I bought a ton. I love star fabric and thought once I made something out of it I would think of her when I used it.
This is my SIL Theresa's quilt made from some also. My brother Ron made the rack It's hanging on. I photographed it while in Texas. I'm not sure if you can see it or not but on the left side of the shelf is a make do bird I gave her for her birthday.
i will have mine quilted by the same gal. It has a meandering star pattern all over it. I love it.
The last and final project if you can bear with me is my drying rack. It was a yucky faded yellow color. First I tried stripping it and that didn't work. then i tried sanding it. That was changing the shape of the rungs to finally get off enough paint. So I went with painting it all black. I am putting it behind my bed with a quilt or 2 on it. We don't have a headboard and I thought it would be the perfect backdrop. It is utilitarian too since I can store my bed quilts on it in off seasons.

I think the black will bring out the colors in the quilts. I'm happy with it.

So nice to say "Hello" to all of you. Enjoy your summer. More about the Texas trip as time permits.
Be sure and visit Leslie's blog to see what others are working on.

Rhonda

Whatca Workin on Wednesday

Good Wednesday Morning all. I haven't had as much time as I would have liked to work on MY fun stuff but I did manage to get a few things accomplished.

First I did get some bunnies cut out and sewn. Now I just need to Chocolate them up and work on a grouping for them. I had seen chocolate bunnies on both Leslie's and Rondell's blog and couldn't wait to try them. Here's my interpretation. Thanks gals for the inspiration.




I also didn't have enough carrots to compliment the bunnies. So I cut out some more. I just need to get to JoAnn's today as I'm all out of orange thread.


I saved the best for last. I found this pattern on Retro Mama's blog. I used some of my vintage feedsack fabric to make these eggs and fell in love with them. I can't wait to pull out some more scraps and make tons more. I have a couple of gals form my Feedsack Club coming in from Canada this week so I thought I'd have a small gift for them too.




My goal was to use up some things I have here and not purchase anything to make my "goodies". So far so good. I do have some orange thread in my jar in a previous post maybe I'll see if there's any orange in there. The bunnies were made with old feedsack ammunition bags. As you can see they are a cream colored with red lettering. The red lettering I turned to the inside. All the orange fabric was left over from a Halloween quilt top I made. I wish I could say that everything is "Made in the USA" but stuffing and some of the orange fabric is not. The bags and the old thread was certainly made here. Of but I digress to another topic.

Time for me to get painting. Yes unfortunately it has taken longer than expected. I am today changing the ceiling color. But once I paint the ceiling I can begin putting things back. We will be adding stenciling and wainscoting but I need to get this room back together for company coming. I'll post pictures once I get everything done.

It's pouring rain here so at least I can enjoy being in side and listening to my radio as I paint. I plan on getting out a little this afternoon though. I have some things to mail.

Be sure and check out Leslie's blog for more Whatca Workin on Wednesday projects.

Happy April Fool's Day
Rhonda

Whatca Workin on Wednesday and Shopping

I kept seeing all these carrots popping up on blogs and for sale but I could ever get my order in fast enough. They were all sold out. So I decided to do the next best thing. I tried making my own. Make do style of course. I took what ever orange fabric in my stash and sewed it together with greens for the tops. Next I stuffed and closed them. Lastly I grungied them all up. I do love them even if I do say so myself.
They look a little washed out in the lighting from the camera.

Now I just need to finish up some more to fill my bowl. These are more accurate colors.
Next I'm going to try a chocolate bunny to sit in the bowl in "carrot heaven". I also got some orange wool to try making carrots out of. We'll see what happens with that.

Last Wednesday I went shopping with a friend of mine from work.--- Hi Lisa----. She took me to all her favorite haunts. I was in sensory overload. I'll need to go back just to see what all I missed. Here are a few of my purchases.

At the first antique store I bought this firkin. It is a wonderful warm old yellow.

I purchased the glass jar to hold my wooden spools with the thread on them. I think they fit perfectly.

Another store had the candle holder. I have wanted a hog scraper candlestick for a long time but was afraid to buy one off the internet till I saw one up close. I love this one. The candle is one I made.

Last but not least I found these 2 fly screens and thought I could make them into the ones Char had on her blog. I'm having trouble getting the vine and flowers off though. They might just go into the summer cooking things and I'll try something else.


I bought this cupboard at the Country Store that I visited with Rondell. It was in the 50% off room. Well my DH finally got it up on the wall so I could get a picture of it. Now it just needs accessorized. But he wants me to wait as it is really heavy and he wants to get a different screw for in the wall so it doesn't fall. I think I'll wait so I don't loose anything that might be in or on it. I think I'll take his word for it.

Be sure and stop over at Leslie's to see what others are working on today.

Rhonda