Author: Jo

Smokey House Rehab (Part 5)

I know it’s been a couple months since I posted an update on the Smokey House Rehab, but that’s mainly because there’s been nothing to update you about.  The rehab has been on the back burner because of all the wedding madness, and we’ve finally gotten back into it.  The last time we attempted to fix it up ourselves with no help from professionals, it was 100° outside with no working A/C, which made it about 110° inside the house.  We were trying to put up a very heavy light fixture in the house and it wasn’t cooperating, and that pretty much pushed us past our breaking point.  We decided that we wanted to hire some help instead of doing it all ourselves, because we were just getting too burnt out.

We had several contractors/handy men/painters come and take a look at the house to give us quotes, and then once they left, we never heard back from them.  What’s the deal?  People don’t want work?  Finally, we found an awesome painter that has been doing an amazing job so far.

So far he’s painted all the bedrooms, the hallway, the bonus room, and the stairway going up to the bonus room.

We chose Mushroom Bisque as the wall color, and we couldn’t be more happy.  It’s a good contrast with the white trim, and it’s a nice tan color without being too peachy, as some tans can be.

I spent Sunday afternoon cleaning the kitchen……again.  This kitchen is seriously my nemesis, but I think I finally conquered it!  Our painter is going to be painting the inside of the cabinets to try to get rid of the smell that is still lingering from the previous tenant who smoked heavily in the house and somehow got this kitchen dirtier than anything I have ever seen.  We’re going to be replacing those awful green counter tops and that dirty sink and faucet, as well as installing a pretty, modern, tile floor.  It’s gonna look like a brand new kitchen!

After I was satisfied with my cleaning job in the kitchen, I got started on the weeds in the front yard.  There were certain sections of grass around the walkway that had weeds that grew like they were on steroids.  The rest of the grass would be a normal length, and these weeds were 2 feet tall!  So I pulled them all out……in the rain.  We had a landscape company come out a few weeks ago and completely demo the entire backyard, which was previously covered with thick weeds and vineage (yes that’s a word, even though my spell check doesn’t think so).  They removed the tree stumps from those huge cedar trees and dug out all the weeds and about an inch of top soil to get rid of most of the roots.  Then they spread seed and covered it with hay so that the seeds would be able to germinate more successfully.  Now we have pretty little shoots of grass poking through, and in about a month it’ll be a pretty grassy backyard, instead of the forest it was when we started.

Steve spent the day pressure washing the outside of the house and the deck, and what a difference!

It’s amazing what some high-pressured water can do!  You can actually see the grain of the wood now instead of a thick layer of greenish black algae, or whatever that stuff is.  We’ll be sealing the deck once it’s completely clean so that it’ll last for several more years.

Next time we go to the house, I’ll be sure to take a picture of the backyard so you can see the difference from when I posted this picture:

Yellow Scrappy Table Runner

I’ve been learning how to quilt recently, as you saw in this post, so when my friend Jenni’s birthday came up, I decided it might be a cute idea to make her a quilted table runner as a gift.  I decided this the night before we were supposed to go to her birthday dinner, and I didn’t even have fabric yet.  So I ran over to Joann’s and bought some cute fabric (and of course I didn’t just buy fabric for this one project….because how often do I go to Joann’s and only get what I came for?  Umm….I think never.)  Anyway, I think it turned out really cute, so I thought I’d give a little tutorial on how I did it!

I selected the fabric I wanted to use, and got a larger piece of coordinating fabric for the back and binding.   I was already home before I realized that I probably should have gotten 2 different fabrics for the back and binding, but oh well.  You live and you learn.  It still turned out cute.

First, press all your fabric so that you don’t have to work around any unruly creases or folds.

Then measure and cut strips from your fabric.  I cut 4 strips from each piece of fabric in varying widths.  I had 6 different fabrics I was using for the front, so that totaled 24 strips in all, but you can add more fabric or more strips depending on how long you want your table runner to be.  Remember when you’re cutting that you’re going to need a 1/4 inch seam allowance on all the strips, so cut it 1/2 inch bigger than you want the final width to be.

Next, lay out your strips in the order that you want them, then when you have your desired length and width, cut out your backing piece so that it’s slightly bigger than the fabric strips.

One at a time, pin and sew the strips together, with the right sides facing each other.  Remember to use a 1/4 inch seam allowance.

There should be a marker on your sewing machine and/or sewing foot that shows you where 1/4 inch is.

Here’s what the strips will look like when they’re all sewn together.  It doesn’t matter if the edges are perfectly straight, because we’ll be trimming those later.

Cut out some quilt batting to match the size of your backing fabric.  Your backing fabric should be laying right side down when you lay the batting on top.

Lay your strips on top of the batting and smooth out so that there are no loose or wrinkled spots.

Then pin through all 3 layers of fabric and batting so that you make a quilt sandwich that won’t move around.  You’ll want to pin every 6 inches or so in every direction so that the fabric won’t move while you’re sewing it together.  You can also use quilting safety pins, or fusible fleece batting that you can actually iron onto your backing and front fabric so that it basically glues itself to the fabric so you don’t have to worry about pinning.

Now it’s time to quilt.  I just used the seams as a guideline and did straight lines across on either side of each seam, but you can do any quilting pattern that you want.  I don’t have a free motion foot for my sewing machine, so I can only sew in straight lines for now.  But hopefully I’ll get one soon so I can try out all those cool quilting patterns!

Once you get toward the end, you’ll want to roll up the other side of the table runner so that it’s not all bunched up when you’re trying to sew.  It makes life a lot easier!

Trim away any excess batting or uneven edges.

Now comes the binding, which can be pretty tricky.  Cut 4 strips of fabric that are 2 1/2 inches wide.  As for length, I kind of eyeballed it, and just did it as long as my original backing fabric was.  In the picture above, you can see that I folded my fabric in half twice so that I could better cut a straight line.  It was also a time saver to do it this way!

Sew the ends of the binding strips together (right sides together and 1/4 inch seam allowance) and press open the seams so they lay flat.

Then fold your fabric in half so that the right sides are facing out, and press.  This is so you have a nice thick, double binding.

Pin the binding all the way around your table runner with the rough edge facing out, and flush with the rough edge of the table runner.

It’ll look like this when you’re done pinning.

Sew around with a 1/4 inch seam allowance.  Your corners should look like this.  I don’t think I’ll be very good at explaining this, so you can watch this video on binding a quilt.  You’ll be folding the binding around to the back of the table runner and sewing that in place as well, so you’ll have a pretty border around your quilt that hides the rough edges.

Tada!  Here’s the finished table runner!  You can also wash and dry this table runner if you want it to have a more wrinkly and quilted appearance.

I think I might just have to make one of these for myself as well!  You could also do it in Christmas colors for a nice holiday decoration, or for any season really.  It’s a pretty and easy way to change the look of your kitchen throughout the year.  I hope you enjoyed this tutorial, and that I explained everything without confusing you.  You can always leave a comment if you have any questions and I will try my best to answer them.

My First Quilt!

It’s true.  I made a quilt!  And I couldn’t be happier with the results.  I found a cute quilt kit at Joann’s that had all the fabric I needed, plus a quilt pattern with instructions, and after reading several quilting blogs, I decided that it was time to give it a try.

And here’s the finished product!!  The front patchwork actually came together pretty easily and quickly.  I did the entire front in about 2 hours or so (that includes cutting each piece as well).

The kit came with a large piece of flannel to use as the backing.  It was neat that the backing had pretty much all the colors in it as the front so it matched perfectly!

The pink border was a little tricky, and my bobbin kept getting messed up, so I had to take the stitches out twice before I was successful.

But it turned out really nice.  Here’s another view of the back.

I decided to crosshatch the quilt, since I don’t know how to free motion quilt yet.  Getting those lines straight and evenly spaced was a little tricky.  An easy way to do it would be to stretch blue painter’s tape across diagonally and stitch along side the edges, then move the tape over every row.  But of course we didn’t have any painter’s tape, so I had to measure it out and mark the lines with chalk.  A longer process, but I ended up with the same result.  I hope you all like my first quilt!  I think I’ll attempt a rag quilt next!  Those are so adorable, and very forgiving from what I’ve read.