These pictures are for certain family members who have been asking:

We started out at picture number one. Actually, that is after we’d stripped most of the wallpaper. In 1983, I would have loved that ivy wallpaper, but now? Not so much. Oh sure, it looks relatively unoffensive in that first picture, because there’s only a tiny bit left, but that stuff was on the top half of every single wall, and it was really a bit much in that small room. Also, the floor was a hideous linoleum and because the floor underneath was damaged, there were gaping tears in a couple spots.

I know a lot of people are not going to understand why we’re replacing our claw foot tub. Believe me, I really love the idea of a claw foot tub, but the reality, of ours, at least  is not so great. First of all, there is the hideous faux paint treatment. It’s not just ugly, but it has a lot of texture to it, so simply re-painting was never really an option (an aside: the previous owner also left us with the matching plunger. That’s right, it wasn’t enough to paint the tub, someone took the time to lovingly faux paint the handle of a toilet plunger). We would have had to strip it and then paint. If that were the only problem, then maybe we could have invested the work in it, but the inside of the tub is really stained and never looks clean. I’ve tried everything I could think of, even some pretty toxic stuff, and the only possible solution is to have the whole thing re-porceleined. Also, it’s just a pain in general to clean around it and we are both tall people, so actually taking a bath in there was never that much fun. I think I might keep it and if we add a second bathroom then it might be worth salvaging and re-using, but for now we’re going with a nice big drop-in tub with a rain showerhead. I think the subway tiles keep the vintage look going and the glass tile strip makes it a bit modern. At least I hope so. I hope it doesn’t say, "hey, these glass tiles are expensive and these cheapskates could only afford a single stripe." It might be saying that, but whatever. I really love the look of glass tile, but at $25 a square foot, that little stripe is gonna have to do for now. 

For the floor, I just went with a 20" pretend travertine. I thought about penny tile, but I don’t think that would be fun to clean, and once everything is back in place, including the small dresser and clothes hamper we keep in there it’s not not going to show hardly at all. So that’s the bathroom so far.

My stress level hasn’t gone down too much, as evidenced by the progress on the little quilt.

I’m just about done sewing the binding. I like it, but I think something is missing. Maybe I need to do more quilting or something. I don’t know. I used some leftover wool batting from the baby quilt, and I like how puffy it is. I took a picture in the sunshine so you can really see how bubbly the bubbles are:

Our house is turned upside down right now. There is a big plastic garbage can in the living room, along with cans of paint, two very large medicine chests and various bits of hardware. On the porch we have a couple bathtubs, one old, one new, a toilet, a sink and a big stack of tile. The bathroom door is off it’s hinges and leaning against the hallway wall. In the bedroom, all the shoes are in a mountainous pile rather than neatly lined up in the closet because the contractor had to cut a hole in the closet wall for an access panel. The cats love going through the hole to play with the little plastic spacers used by the tile guy. The kitchen has remained mostly unscathed, except of the box of toiletries on the table. To deal with the chaos I’ve started working on a small quilt, hand applique-ing circles to a bit of white linen. It’s very soothing, as I sit in my chair, peering over the stacks of stuff on the floor to watch the television. And there is finally a light at the end of the tunnel. The tile guy will be done by the end of the week, and the plumber is scheduled to install all the fixtures on Monday. Tuesday, Spanky’s will be coming to take their lovely port-a-potty back, and I will be taking a very long, hot, bubble bath.

Since we’re in the middle of this bathroom renovation and life sucks right now (for example, it’s 6:30 a.m. and I couldn’t hold off any longer and had to go visit Spanky and the outside temperature? 25 degrees, that’s below 0 to you Celsius  people. Not fun at all.) I think I’ll try to divert attention elsewhere, and direct you to some other pretty things out there in internet-land.

I swear, one of these days I will take all the adorably cute ideas I have in my head (and in my book) and just make them and add them to my etsy shop, to join the two sad, lonely monsters that have been languishing under my neglect there for so very long. In the meantime, however, you can visit some other lovely shops at etsy and pick up some really wonderful stuff. I think I may do a big chunk of Christmas shopping there this year. Doesn’t that sound delightfully un-stressful? And with so many great designers, artists and hand-crafters there now, I bet I could really find some perfect gifts for all my special peeps. Meanwhile, although I’m not spending much on myself right now, I have recently splurged on a couple items there. Sheesh, I sound like a paid advertisement.

First of all, as soon as I saw this pillow, I knew it was meant to be mine. I was sure it would be snatched up quickly, but miraculously, after saving my egg money for a few weeks (hee hee), it was still there and now it lives in my guest room. Janet Clare draws charming pictures with her sewing machine, as well as designing lovely quilts, often with a barnyard theme. I just love how she captures the personality of this chicken and all the creatures she creates. In addition to her cushion covers, you’ll find mini quilts and quilt patterns and embroidery patterns in her shop.

Next up, I bookmarked this seller earlier this year, when I saw her 2007 letterpress calendars, which had long since sold out. I was determined not to miss out on her 2008 version, and as luck would have it, I checked the other day, and there it was. I just checked again, and she’s still got lots in stock. I just love the designs for March, August and November so much! I’ll probably pin all the months up on my cubicle  wall, so I can enjoy all of them all year long.

Not  on etsy at all is artist Emma BrownJohn. I’m really loving her landscape paintings. The colors in this  one really speak to me. Actually, I just picked up paint this weekend for our living room, bathroom and laundry room, and they are all really similar to the ones in this painting. Isn’t it so very dreamy and soothing?

And one more link that is giving me perspective: Renovation Voyeur, a new site where you can see lots of before and after pictures of renovations.  I think I’m hooked. And are you following along with apartment therapy’s fall cure? There’s always lots of inspiration to be found there.

One last little matter of business, once upon a time, a long time ago, I was going to give away some pamphlets. And then I took a long blog break and completely forgot my promise. I could blame my ADD or my falling down tree or the fact that there’s a porta-potty in the driveway, but the fact is, I was stressed out and being selfish, and totally forgot. So, I hope you will forgive me, and I’ll draw a number right this minute. Actually, I’m going to use a random number generator. And the lucky number is: 7! That would be Dawn. I’m sure the lovely nine commenter’s that participated in that post are probably no longer reading my blog, cursing me for my thoughtlessness, but I’ll be sending you an e-mail, Dawn, to get all your info :o)

Sunday night I sewed the binding on the quilt and last night my brother called to say contractions were five minutes apart and they were heading to the hospital. Phew! That was close. I hope he likes it! I’m quite proud of the neatly mitered corners, all thanks to these very helpful instructions.

And just because all babies need lots of onesies, I spent hours and hours making these little guys. Oh, wait, they actually took about three minutes, thanks to the Mod Dots shop. So I wasn’t too original here, but I love these little robot transfers. There’s nothing wrong with the cutesy baby stuff, but I like to be the cool auntie who makes the fun and funky presents. Of course, I might just really be the one who makes the kids think "oh no, another homemade weird gift from that kooky aunt," but I think I’m okay with that too.

It’s testosterone central at my house this morning. It’s a shame I have to go to work and miss all the action. The tree people started cutting down the tree yesterday, and arrived early this morning to continue the job. We are going to have quite the woodpile when they are done. We’ll be selling firewood for cheap this winter, I suspect, so if you’re in San Diego and need firewood and don’t mind taking a little drive, I’ll hook you up. 

I’m taking pictures of each day’s progress. They are probably not that interesting to anyone but me. It already feels so different out there, sort of blank and exposed. I’m sure we’ll get used to it, and make good use of the space, it’s really quite a huge area we’ll have that wasn’t really usable before. Still, it makes me sad to see 400 years of history being cut down. I have to remind myself that it’s already started falling down on it’s own, and will just continue to do so, so it’s better that we’re not waiting for another branch to fall on our house, or shed, or worse, the chicken coop! These tree cutters are pretty amazing, and despite the fact that we are paying them a huge sum of money, I think they are really earning every penny. Plus they are just as nice as can be. So if you need a tree cut down, Perpetual Tree Care is the place to call.

Then the contractor and plumber arrived to start work on our bathroom. There’s been water damage to the sub-floor for oh, I don’t know, five years? So it’s time we do something about that, before the toilet falls through the floor with someone on it, most likely me. While that would be sort of funny, and a really, really good party story, I’d rather avoid that scenario if possible. I’ll have before and after pictures as we progress. In the meantime, since this is the only bathroom in our little house, we’ve got a port-a-potty out front! Don’t be jealous! They rent by the month, so we can keep it through October. Lucky! It even came with four rolls of toilet paper. What a deal. I love that the name of the business is Spanky’s. They also showed up this morning to clean it, even though it’s only been here for a few days, and hasn’t been used. I don’t think I’ll be drinking any liquids after dinner. It’s cold at night, and I would hate to have to go out there in my jammies in the freezing dark at 3 a.m.

It should be quite a week, don’t you think?

Just in case you didn’t notice, I took a little blog vacation. It seems to happen every year around this time. I guess I just need a month off at the end of summer to recharge the creative batteries, so to speak. I’ve been more or less ignoring my computer at home, so other than cleaning out the enormous amount of spam I get, I’ve neglected my e-mail as well. Please accept my apologies if you’ve left a comment recently. I will respond eventually, I really will. Of course, by then you’ll probably be all, huh? why are you talking to me? I said that 5 months ago you dodo brain. But it will make me feel better, so just roll with it. k. Thanks :o)

I had grand plans for a gi-normous garden this summer, but somehow, with the whole tree situation, it never happened. I need to let go of my Martha Stewart induced perfectionism, where I seem to think that if I can’t create the magazine-picture perfect, neatly laid out vegetable patch with 15 different kinds of tomatoes, exotic beans and every kind of dark leafy green I can find then why bother? I really wish I had just thrown a couple tomato plants and maybe some zucchini out there and just been happy enough with that. Ah well, there’s always next summer.

I’ve also been wanting to have a pantry full of home-canned delicious things, but didn’t see how I could find the time and the resources to bottle quarts and quarts of tomatoes or pickles or jam (thanks again, Martha). First of all, have you ever read a canning website? Every time I do I end up thinking that I’m going to get botulism and die from canning my own vegetables. They’re all about special recipes and sterilizing every bit of equipment and processing time and pressure measurements. I don’t remember it being that difficult when my mom and grandma would can peaches and pears and cherries each summer. But then I read this series of articles (via Angry Chicken), and saw that my little sister had canned a few things, and realized that I could do this. It didn’t have to be quarts and quarts at a time and all I really needed was a little patience and a lot of hot water, and an hour or two in the evening after work. So I decided to give it a try. First I splurged on a couple pints of raspberries. In my speed reading of the recipe in the link above, I didn’t notice that it was for 2 half pints, not two pints, so my first batch of jam was a measley one pint jar. But no matter, it looks delicious and sealed up nicely, and gave me the confidence to keep going. Next up, strawberries! This time I made two whole pints. Unfortunetely, I let them sit in the fridge a little longer than overnight, as the recipe states, so it was a bit more runny and never really got very thick. We’ll just call it strawberry sauce. There was a little extra, so I poured it over ice cream as a reward for all my hard work. It was delicious. I guess I now have an excuse to make lots of waffles this winter.

The other day a co-worker brought a bag of tomatoes in, and I waited until the end of the day so that everyone could have their shot at taking some, and I squirreled the rest home. Serendipitiously, I stopped at my usual produce store, and they had tomatoes on sale, 3 lbs. for a dollar! They also had pretty little heirloom tomatoes, two pint boxes for $4, so I spent about $8 on more tomatoes. Not bad, eh? And I went home and canned them that very night. I didn’t use all the big tomatoes, and I still ended up with 5 quarts. Aren’t they pretty? The little green and yellow and purple spots are the heirloom tomatoes, not tomatoes gone bad :o) I’ll have to make a pot of our favorite soup this week and use a jar to see how they taste.

Oh, I almost forgot! I created a Flickr group for the Softies book, so if you make something using a pattern from the book, please join and share it with us! I wish I could tell you how to get a copy if you are somewhere other than Australia, but so far, the only possibilities seem to be to have a friend in Australia send it to you, or buy it from an online bookseller located there and pay a lot of money for shipping. :o( so sorry! Maybe if there is enough demand Penguin in the U.S. and U.K. will re-publish it.

Some of the best things about summer: lavender, roses and sunflowers. There’s not much else, except weeds in our yard at the moment, but I am focusing on the positive :o)

I thought this was a really sweet entry on my dad’s blog. It made me tear up a little.

I’m still working on the bookbinding post(s). I think part one may be up this evening. Unless I decide to re-do the entire thing.

Edwin says Hello blog readers! What do you have for me to eat? I want to nibble on your toes.

I haven’t gotten my copy yet, but thanks to eagle-eyed Belinda, who saw a copy on Sooz’s blog, it looks like Softies is coming very very soon. Do you see that? Wow, my little monster is on the cover! I did not expect that at all. Not only that, look how cute the other softies are? Now I really can’t wait to get my copy. I’m really really excited now. I can’t even type any more, I’m all woozy.