THE DAY STRETCHED OUT

The seal went in the door on the right so I ordered some privacy film and put it up first thing in the morning.  it looks prettier than the foggy window and echos the bamboo that grows in our yard!

It even looks pretty from the pool side, too. 

 A nice bonus.

Next, I headed to the garage to tackle a bowl from the Brown Birch my son cut down in his yard.  It was so nice to work with green or fresh wood (it isn't so hard!) for a change! 

 I have it sanded and a coat of sanding sealer

 on after I took this picture. 

 The weather changed from hot and humid to rain

so I headed back inside.

With a good rain storm outside, I put on Vera 

and did some knitting!  Lena gave me some added love!

 

I DO'S AND TO-DO'S!

This was 47 years ago today!  We will be celebrating with a lunch date at Corky Bells!

I snapped this pic at Broward Lake because it reminded me of a Monet painting!

I finished weeding and laying new mulch on one side 

of our front porch flowers!  

And managed to paint the wroght iron gates at the end of the driveway!  I'm trying to play catch-up on the chores that need doing outside before the really hot/humid weather hits!

 

FIXING THINGS

I felt good about getting the last borders on the QuitsForKids.  Mary will finish up her quilt on the frame tomorrow and then I can begin chipping away at the pile I have stacked up!

And for those of you who noticed the mistake on this corner of the quilt;  it has been ripped out and resewn!

I spent the other hours of my up time this weekend putting in the baseboard for this wall in the dining room and also framed the cut out Bill leaves in the wall to access the pipes (the bathroom is on the other side!)  We've already had to access a burst pipe in there once!  The frame only has two small screws holding it in the wall and will easily come away if there is another emergency!  I'm glad it looks finished now!

  I'm going for labs today--hoping to nail down the reason for the hives still plaguing me and interrupting my nights for hours!

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

I know it's the end of March when my fringe tree bursts into bloom! This one goes from looking like a dead tree to a dead tree with these ghostly large blooms almost overnight!

The blooms are beautiful and smell sweetly aromatic. 

If we get enough rain, they last for a few weeks.

My project for the day, was to take off this broken old folding door and replace it with a new one!

I was able to remove the old door and all the mess, but could not single handedly get the new door hardware put together or to use the drill over my head to attach the hardware! Since Bill was outside working, the conclusion of this job will have to wait till it rains again and he's stuck in the house!

 

Start the Week with a Bang

While I watered my flowers first thing, I noticed my Tropical Milkweed was completely bare;  I soon discovered why!  I brought one of my other milkweed plants over and coaxed him to board the one with all of its leaves!  I hope I will be seeing a chrysalis soon enough!

Inside, I tackled the quilting on the 2nd QOV and hours later completed the job!

I did bring out some practice fabric (the green) so that I can check the fit and if tweaking is needed, I can work it out before I cut out the silky flowery fabric at the top of the photo.

My goal was to cut all of the pieces of baseboard for the hall to my bedroom.  They are not nailed in place, only fitted but the major part of the work is done.  (my hall and the garage where the saw is are on opposite sides of the house!)

And by 6;00 I was ready for a swim and then a relax with an Audible book to knit by! 

Outside Work

Look what other tree is in bloom!  

The Chinaberry tree which is what we call our Lilac tree 

because that is what it smells like!  

It was a beautiful day outside-no drizzles and lots of sunshine! 

 I painted the poolside tables after wire-brushing them.  

I ran out of white paint so I was stalled 

until I could pick up some more to finish the shelving rack.

That also needs a new piece of wood --

I will be finishing this today.

I also tried my hand at cutting up some pallets for the bird house project plans!  It worked out okay, if a bit messy and noisy!

But I did end up with a pallet's worth of boards

 all ready to be cut to size for a bird house.  

Soon.

 

Wooed by the Wood Shop!

I worked on the quilting finally for the Christmas Hunter Stars....just swoops and loops but I still have to quilt the holly leaves in the rest of the border.  Sigh.

Bill was hard at work repairing the stove that dared to die the day before Thanksgiving when I had 4 pies inside!  

I t ended up being the heating element but at least that is an easier fix 

than the 'brains' which is cost prohibitive!

I was chomping at the bit to get to the new bandsaw;  first up was this kind of log segment.  It is going to reduce so much chipping away at the lathe to make a bowl.

See how I can now start out with a round shape instead of all of the irregularities of a hunk of wood!  I won't begin this bowl right away-

I wanted to make another snowman!  

No, this isn't a shadow but the cool way the grain of this wood grew!  

I've got some lacquer to apply, then to paint the face-all pleasurable steps!

Since I was on a roll, I pulled out the Sapalee wood I bought last month

 and cut a circle of this,

and immediately placed it on the lathe.

In no time, I had done this!  It is 4" x 2" deep.

 Wow to the wood-it is amazing!  

No wonder is is called the poor man's mahogany!

This is a Good Room After All!

 I took on the binding for the small tumbler block quilt and put it right into the washer!

 I then finished the one on the frame, squared up the outside and

then made the binding for it.  First thing tomorrow I will be sewing it on to finish this one, too.

I immediately loaded up a new one on the frame right away!

I want to keep the rhythm moving.

 While things didn't go terrible like yesterday,  I did sustain an injury.

I am pretty careful around this open fly wheel, being sure my hair is pulled back so it won't get caught in here while stitching.

 I am behind the quilt when I do a pantograph using these handle bars to steer.

 I didn't think first and quickly pulled my arm across the sharp metal--I have since added the duck tape so that another 'slice' into my forearm will not happen again!

Whoever said that quilting is sedentary is so very wrong! lol

 While I was working in the studio, Bill took on the job of brightening up the sidewalk.

We now have a beautifully blacktopped driveway but the sidewalk which was pretty ugly before

but now stood out even more pitifully!

We chose the same terracotta paint as the veranda.  

This new sidewalk calls you right up to the front door in style!

My Timing is Off!

 Well, I know a lot more about the insides of my heavy duty quilting machine!

 The good news was that while it is interesting...we still needed to find the problem.

I hit a pin that was mistakenly in the quilting path and the machine ground to a halt!

This machine is 25 yrs old...it didn't like the interruption.

Not for the first time, I am very grateful for my husband who figures out all things mechanical!

Now that he has figured out the problem, he even knew how to fix it!

By Hand

 Sadly, my first birdbath mosaic work developed a bunch of bubbles where the water seeped under the tile and lifted up several areas.  Nothing for it but pulling up the whole middle.

 I easily scraped up all of these tiles-the ones around the outside edge were fully adhered

 so I left them.  

I saved all the old tiles so I could pick the adhesive and grout off of them so I could reuse them! 

 It only took a bit over an hour to  clean them!

 Now to  get the tiles to fit back in place to be a similar design to the original! 

 This is a project for today unless it is too hot and humid again! 

 Since the second birdbath is holding up fine, I think I used too thick a layer of adhesive

 and too thin a layer of grout on the first one.

  Live and learn!!!  

It is too pretty to not try to fix it!

 Speaking of pretty, Ethan picked me this pretty ginger blossom;

Oh, I wish you could smell this!

It is a very beautiful, heady floral aroma!

 Also, I finished the front and back and did a three-needle-bind-off-by-machine to join the shoulders,

I then picked up stitches for the sleeves and knit them toward the cuff.

 Remember-the waste yarn (odd colored yarn on the edges) are to allow me to pick up the live stitches and then hand knit ribbing for the bottom edge and cuffs as soon as I stitch up the side seams!

Another project I hope to make good progress on today.

And yesterday in the studio, I pushed all my lovely bits of equipment to the end of the room 

to make room for the men to work to replace our air handler (in my room here) and the compressor (which is just outside this room) so we have air conditioning again! 

 It has turned my sauna-like home into an igloo once again-pure bliss!

Today I will be putting it all to rights and use the opportunity to reorganize!

It is so easy to sprawl the clutter and I like open and clean so much better!

A nice day looms ahead for me;  I hope yours will be a sweet Saturday, too!