Welcome to my entry in the blogger’s quilt festival! Those of us who can’t get to Houston can blog about a favorite quilt instead! Then we all go visit each other’s quilts – too much fun – click on the badge abouve for more info!

One of the focuses of this festival is the story behind the quilt, so I thought I’d show you folks the last pair of bed sized quilts I made – 5 years ago! We had just moved across the country, from Newark, OH to Redlands, CA. In fact, I created a little diary about our journey to share with friends and family, and posted it here, feel free to take a look!

The boys new bedroom was the 1st room I decorated – I wanted them to feel excitement about the new home, so we talked about how to decorate it while driving cross country. The idea we hit on was to make it feel like the southwest, since we had a short but fun visit at the Grand Canyon during our cross country trek. Each boy bought a poster of the Grand Canyon and a dream catcher to hang while we were there, and I painted the walls, and made some stencils with Kokopelli and other primitive Native American type figures:

Although I had sworn off making large quilts, because the free motion quilting I do on them takes so long and is hard to manipulate with my Bernina (lovely though she is), I really wanted to make the perfect quilts for those beds! It was quilte a struggle to design, as I’ve never worked with these types of motifs, but I got it designed, with a row for each boys name. I was lucky enough to have a couple of yards of PFD fabric with little Kokopelli’s on it, which I dyed, along with some other earthy Southwest colors…and here’s the result:

The boys have used them every night for 5 years and they’re still going strong!Thanks for stopping by!

Big surprise…the more time I spend surfing the web, the less I actually get done! With the countdown to vacation at 10 days, I’ve really got to put my nose to the grindstone. I kept blog reading to a bare minimum yesterday, only reading the blogs I’ve put in a special category called “1st read”, the others will get read at night when I’m relaxing on my chaise…isn’t that why they invented laptops?

Speaking of the chaise, last Friday I got a bee and my bonnet, and found bamboo blinds for lots of $$$ off at Bed, Bath & Beyond, had the hubby install them, dyed fabric for some side panels, had hubby install some fancy picture lights above the 2 quilts that have been sitting unused in my house for months, and the living room is pretty much complete! I’ve hung a couple of quilts in the Dining room, but those will change, hopefully sooner then later. Here’s the before and here is the after:

Now, I’m putting my nose back to the grindstone!

Warning! Picture heavy post!

I have one of those houses where you’ve got the soaring vaulted ceiling, and the living room is open to the dining room. It’s a doozy to arrange furniture in it, I’ve NEVER been happy with how it’s been arranged, the whole 5 years we’ve lived in it! Here’s what it looked like 4 years ago:

A little while later I made some curtains to replace those hideous vertical blinds, and this is how it stayed for 4 years, except for the continual moving of the couch and chairs in the living room.

4 years later, my oldest son is taking ‘cello & trombone lessons, and the younger one is also taking ‘cello lessons.Also, my husband practices his trombone at home at the end of the most days. In order to encourage the kids to practice most days, we have them leave their instruments out, and everyone has been practicing in the little transition zone between LR & DR, and leaving their instruments and cases in the DR, like this: (wish I’d taken a before picture…but big surprise, I never wanted to take a picture of the cluttered mess that it was!)

It occurred to me that we ought to be using the DR as a MUSIC room, as we only dine in it about 4 times a year, but it wasn’t until 6 weeks ago that I figured out how to make that happen. All I had to do is switch the DR table with the library table in front of the window! Then, my husband built 2 cello stands (and I discovered the joy/horror of how sticky spray glue for foam & fabric can be when added velvet & foam to the inside of the boxes) so the cellos could stand upright safely. I was amazed at how open and airy the room felt! And now there was more room for practicing folk! Finally, the space was arranged for how it was really used…and the 4 times a year we DO use the DR, all we have to do is pack up the instruments and switch the tables! (HOLD on, pictures are coming)

THEN, a MONTH ago, that curved screen, 14 year old TV gave up the ghost with some sparks and more than a wiff of ozone!

So sad

Amazingly enough, I had more than enough money in my business account to justify actually buying a fancy dancy flat screen TV (that, plus they’re really come down in price and we got a terrific deal). Although the $$$ from our salaries in our “real jobs” is spoken for 7 ways til Sunday, the money that I earn as an artist either has to go back into the business – or, I decided 5 seconds after the TV exploded, it should be spent on fun things. So, although I feel incredibly guilty buying an extravagant TV, I justify it this way! Plus, I ignore my dear hubby so, he should at least be able to see what show he falls asleep in front of each night while I’m upstairs sewing and ignoring him! So, with the new TV I really needed get the room closer to my vision of an ideal LR.

infinitum!I’ve been in a funk the past couple of weeks, and realized that I needed to do some de-cluttering of my surroundings. And as my hubby has some free time, I decided we needed to go to Ikea to get ONE more book storage unit, and by combining it with the 3 storage units we were using for storing the bulk of our books  in our bedroom, we could have an awesome media wall. Combine that with my awesome as-is Ikea chaise purchase with the perfectly dyed slipcover – I’ve spent the past 3 days moving over 1000 books downstairs, and moving around literally about 1/3 of all the furniture in our house to new spaces (and discovering 5 year old dust piles! eeewww!) Now my downstairs looks like this! Edit: Actually it looks like this – I made new curtains a week later!

Looking down from stairs

All this is from the Bonde series (most discontinued now) I just had to buy one of the tall double bookshelves on the right

Each of these cupboards holds, no joke, 200-300 books!

Arranging these will be performance art...I can see me fiddling with these shelves ad infinitum

Stirling, who makes himself at home in EVERY chair/couch!

My knittin gbooks - maybe I'll start knitting again, right here!

And beautiful agapanthus out my window!

Ignore the brown leaves - hopefully these are going to recover from the dreaded tenting!

I never want to leave home! NOW!!!!! I can get on to creating!!!!!