Day 37

Day 36

Day 35

First Weekend of Spring = A Full Weekend of Gardening

Alabama Studio Style Part 2

The Alabama Studio workshop with Natalie Chanin last Sunday was wonderful. That's about all that I can say about it. Spacecraft was wonderful. Natalie is lovely. The techniques were even more fun and easy than I could have imagined. The other participants were friendly and helpful.

And now I am addicted. I've already, in the course of 1 week, picked out 11 yards of cotton jersey from the Alabama Chanin Store, not to mention the 7,215 beads and 12 spools of thread. I'm going to make a dress, a skirt, and a top. And pillows. And placemats. And finish my bandana (pictured above). Yeah. I think I need to take a breath. But it's all just too much fun! I can't seem to stop. And I don't want to.

Day 33

The Quest for a Desk

Patrick has always dreamed of a desk. The perfect desk. Which is perfectly reasonable, as he is a writer. The problem is that we have never had space for said desk. But that never stopped him from picking out desks every time we ran across them. Now that we have space, of course, these perfect desks have stopped crossing our path. I think that it just means that when we do find a perfect desk again, it will really be the desk but, for now, the green table left behind by the former owners of the house will just have to do.

But he doesn't mind. Especially as his study is probably the room most far along in terms of what has been done to it. (See evidence below)

And it is the room with the lovely view of the mountains and the town down the hill. Even if he is not yet looking at them from his Mission Style desk.


Although this wall on the left will be a wall of bookcases and it is currently a blank wall, the curtains for the room are sewn and hung and there is a sitting area with a small reading table. It will be quite a nice room someday but, for now, it is still one of the spots farthest along the road.

Day 32

Day 31

Night & Day Cardigan

I'm feeling intrigued lately with the Night & Day Cardigan from this book. I can't seem to find much mention of it through a quick google search however and am wondering if I am, yet again, misjudging the wonderfulness of a pattern. I often seem to base my opinion of patterns on styling / yarn color / etc. Has anyone knitted this one and/or have something to say about it?

Day 30

Guestroom Plans

After finding this fabric at Purl while looking for some linen for my kitchen curtains (this fabric will be for the guestroom curtains), I'm excited to get started on another room's redecorating.

The guestroom is the room really requiring the least work to be done to it but really wanting work more than almost any other room. The pull-down shades, like all of the rest of the pull-down shades in the house, have sun rot and are on the verge of exploding into 1,000 splinters every time one pulls them down or puts them up, the curtains currently on the windows are not made to actually cover the windows (why would curtains be large enough to cover the windows anyway? -- especially when this is the only bedroom on the first floor. No need for curtains. Why yes, that is the white house next door visible through the window.), and the yellow walls are even more disturbingly violently yellow in this small space than they appear to be in these photos. Which, by the way, were taken back in August when we were first looking at the house -- none of this furniture was left behind.

The room currenly houses a double bed, a writing desk, about 5 pieces of furniture which should be in the living room, and a good smattering of boxes full of books (as we still have yet to either find or build bookshelves to house our 20 boxes or so of books).



I'm thinking that we'll go with the 2nd tone on the color card -- "Portland Grey". I'm also in the beginning stages of a quilt for the bed in this room. It will be red and white. By beginning stages I, of course, mean that I've purchased piles of fabric and drafted up my plans. It's always a bit after that part where I stall out. But I'll post more on the quilt later and maybe it will give me incentive to actually work on it.

Day 28

Day 27

Day 26

Day 25

Alabama Studio Style

What have I been doing since the giant snowstorm, you ask? I've been obsessing over Alabama Studio Style, just like most of the rest of the world's crafters, of course! Everyone needs a break from house-painting and curtain-sewing once in a while. So I've been following, with huge interest, the blog tour of Natalie Chanin and I've also signed up for her workshop in Brooklyn on Sunday! I'm hoping it'll be the push I need to finally find some cotton jersey and get started on some slow crafting.

This will, of course, to Patrick's dismay, require my journey into the city on a non-work-day but I think it will be worth it to attend a Natalie Chanin workshop (and it's not quite as far as I would have to go for one of her Weekend Workshops). And did I mention that there's a free party afterward? What more could I want?

Day 24

Day 23

Day 22

Day 20

Day 19