While Finn is trying not to cry/throw a fit/talk when doing his homework I let me eyes wander around the room. The light is just so interesting, I try to hold on to the peace around us. Sunday evening are just what we make of them I realize.
September 07, 2014
August 01, 2014
Summer interlude continues
You would think that with all the sewing happening here I would have something to show for it, but no. It's all about taking my time these days, making a gazillion muslins (4) and going overboard with the fretting on what size fits best... Logically I should have some great/complicated finished projects to show you soon. In the meantime, much like call waiting music but for the eyes, here is a tour of my garden. I love growing things as much as I like making things so I think it's a fair trade off!
This Dinner Plate Dahlia is currently my favorite thing, I love its speckledness (not a word I bet).
On the side patio, I created a felt bag veggie garden and infant rose nursery. This is my fist year trying out this technique and I am still in observation phase. The roses were mail order from Heirloom Roses and High Country Roses, some David Austins some not. Because they are own root and come very tiny they cannot go in the ground right away and must be cultivated in pots. Makes hoarding all the DA containers a brilliant move in hindsight.
I give my winter Amaryllis a bit of fresh air in the summer and make sure to fertilize them with the rest of the garden. In fact this is what happened this morning and the smell of fish is following me everywhere. The cats are both intrigued. The tiny peonies are being nursed from roots I found at Walmart (!). They are "bowl of beauty", a very interesting pink and yellow flower. I really doubted they would even grow roots but voila, I was proved completely wrong. Two peonies for $5, winning! The cannas are also started from Walmart roots, it was an experiment as well.
My friend Ambre gave me a bag of Hens and Chicks to plant in this salvaged strawberry pot. They really seem to enjoy it. I plan on adding a few more varieties when I come across interesting specimens.
So there you have it! a little update on what makes me smile and now it's time to wash off the fish stink and turn Big Bertha on (Big Bertha= BERNINA 780, because you know, it is The Bomb! in a good way of course!).
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May 27, 2014
{little garden tour}
(sometimes you take a picture of your house and discover you are in need of a new mailbox and a brick cleaning!)
My favorite blog is a gardening blog, here I said it! Even in the winter I enjoy reading it, dreaming of what is to come. Unfortunately for me, its creator is taking a break from writing, I hope not too long... It's by reading her educational and gorgeous posts that I got the courage to start my own rose collection and ended up completely devoted to seeing them thrive. I went from none to 12 planted and 4 potted shrubs in two years. Most of those David Austin's. So in honor of Hedgerow Rose, I am giving you a little tour of what is blooming in my own garden:
Graham Thomas, Climbing. A David Austin rose planted last summer (2013). This bush has been so easy to grow, it asks very little and loves it's location. I wonder if the canes will ever get tall enough to train on the wall. I think patience is key with climbers. The canes are not woody and robust yet.
Crocus Rose, another David Austin that grows right by Graham Thomas above. It was planted at the same time. This bush shot up this spring. The flowers are adorable and last well in a vase inside.
Lady of Shalott, a David Austin climber. Started small and is growing slowly but surely. The blooms are variegated and a bit too olé olé tequila sunrise for my taste but the scent is unbelievable.
Red Eden syn. Eric Tabarly. A red Pierre de Ronsard climber named for the famed French naval officer and navigator. I purchased this one this year to replace a sickly Heritage. The blooms it came with could be complete false advertising but I was "suckered" into bringing it home when I took a look at the super robust canes they were perched on.
A brand new Gertrude Jekyll, DA that lives in partial shade and a few daisies wrap up this visit. There will be more where these came from as the season progresses. I leave you with another view of the Crocus rose, in a vase on my nighstand, really turning on the charm after a few days in the water.
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May 14, 2014
On The Other Side of The Wall
You may recall that the sewing room came about when we decided to split our master bedroom in almost half. In the fifties when the home was built the rooms existed separate from each other and even included a hallway (this we know from the lines on the sub-floor). At some point, recently no doubt people got a taste for large master bedrooms and even though you could never build a suite in our house, the previous owners decided to tear down some walls and pretend. Part of the pretending included building a closet in front of a window (!). We knew from the moment we purchased the place that our bedroom was "dumb" but what we could not have ever imagined is how much space we gained by building walls all over again... seems counter-intuitive but it's true. Our bedroom is still large enough for a boat of a bed, and I now have a place to work where before stood a "dumb closet", a mirror and a rug. You can see a few "before" pictures if you follow the links bellow the post.
So far only Thomas is set up with a nightstand. He is not a huge collector but likes to keep a few of his interests on hand and needs a little space to keep it all together. I let him keep his revolting alarm clock, a relic from high school no doubt. I loath that thing but don't have the heart to pry it away from him. On my side there must be compromise, a heating vent needs to stay unobstructed so I chose a round side table that should be here shortly... Looking at this you would think I love decorating when in fact it gives me terrible anxiety. I fear making mistakes that will be stay with us for years, I want things to looks unique but I need to be realistic when it comes to cost. Further more I believe that if at all possible second hand is kinder on the Earth than new... This all leads to much over-thinking. When looking for ideas in magazines, books and deco-blogs it seems like arranging rooms would be the most rewarding and exciting moment a house-wife could dream of, well I would rather peel potatoes than go through much more of this... Strange because I truly love what it all looks like now and sit here grateful for it all, I just didn't enjoy the journey very much.
As is traditional in this sort of post I will give a few of my sources for the items displayed in the pictures:
Teak Bed from Klyn Furniture, KSL Classifieds
Mirrored nightstand from Furniture Row, KSL Classifieds
Bamboo Frame, gilded by me, Goodwill
Luminary, Philippe Deshouliere. A gift
Vase, Deseret industries. Flowers, my garden
Cushions, Ralph Lauren fabric, made and embroidered by me on the B580.
See what I mean by preferring second hand? unfortunately on my side I was unable to source anything good from the usual places... I actually bought a very pretty lamp and a table I haven't seen yet... It felt weird but wanting to be done took over my other instincts.
Sleeping on such a tall bed after years on the MALM from Ikea made me believe that the cats would be moving elsewhere at night. Not at all, even in the daytime they enjoy their new perch.
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April 15, 2014
Lovely Local Shopping: CKB Creations
It don't usually write about shopping much but this month for no reason in particular turned out to be filled with lovely finds. At the Jenibee show , here in Holladay I found two pairs of earrings that I could not pass up. The first one is crafted in clear quartz and gold vermeil
While the other comes in Labradorite and Gold Vermeil. They are made by local jewelery designer Chris Benson and were really affordable considering the care and quality which frankly I would compare to Sundance Catalogue. She will be showing again soon at Sugarhouse Park Garden Pavilion.
To compliment the wonderful rose catalogue sent to me by Hedgerow, I was very lucky to find at the annual downtown library sale, Mary Tonetti Dorra's Beautiful American Rose Gardens, Yepsen's Celebration of Heirloom Vegetables and Ines Heugel's Classic Garden Style.
Finally, have you tried the Waterlogue App? it's so so fun. Basically it turns your pictures into watercolors, with very realistic "painting effects". I wonder it one could learn how to paint just by looking at the results... Here are some of my roses, to stay in theme ; )
This last one is Queen of Sweeden by David Austin, I quite like it by the ferns but I think it needs a sunnier local this summer, it is about to be moved... wish me luck!
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April 09, 2014
Urban Thread nod = great day
This morning a friend at BERNINA noticed something pretty great... The picture of my sofa cushions as the new cover of Urban Threads on facebook. I love Urban Threads embroidery files, they come out very well on the B580, which sadly is not always the case with all embroidery design companies. Sometimes the digitizing is just done wrong and terrible things happen, such as big nasty knots of bobbin thread and so on... Not with UB though.
I made the pillows with the Miniature Menagerie design pack and the alphabet preprogrammed in the B580 hooping the large oval hoop three times for each pillows. With the new "immense hoop" (can you tell I don't know the proper term!), on the B780 I am pretty confident you could do all the embroidery in one hooping. Luxury!
Edit: the hoop is called JUMBO hoop, naturally.
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April 06, 2014
A sewing room just for an instant
We finished painting the small room that will become my sewing room and for a brief instant it sat gloriously empty and light filled (Thomas installed some very bright warm LEDs) and I could imagine for an instant what is is like to have a space to work in, above ground...
But reality dictates that as we divided our bedroom in half to create that space, the other half must be renovated as well. Since we need a place to sleep in the meantime we moved our bed into the little room and it takes up almost the entire space!
I am not at all complaining of course but lack patience and would love to have it magically done with. But...as it is all DIY it will take another month or two for the BERNINAs to find there new home. I am completely grateful of course for what we have done so far...just in a hurry (wink wink!).
What we have done so far:
Our house was built in the early 50's by the contractor that built quite a few houses in the neighborhood but this particular one he built for himself. Its shape is different than the others, it has a very large detached garage that he most likely used to store heavy equipment and everything in here is triple engineered as we like to call it.
The office we are creating used to exist before the world decided it needed master bedrooms and walls were blown up. We are restoring the initial floor plan more or less. So far we have reopened a door way, broken down a closet that stood in front of a window, built a new wall and closet for our future bedroom, installed white oak hardwood floors, LED cans and trim to the windows.
Quite the mountain of work for such a little space!
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January 13, 2014
New bed, for later
The renovation of the main floor is slowly but surely moving along. We keep adding task for Thomas to undertake as we have more and more ideas for the rooms. This weekend we acquired a beautiful bed via the classifieds, it a built of Indonesian teak, carved beautifully in a sleigh shape. The bed was really affordable, surprisingly so, we can only hope that the price solely reflected the desire of the owners to get it out of their garage! They even delivered it...
The bed is very large, one could say enormous. Apparently you can use large pieces in small room if you only use one of them. To accommodate the bed with the headboard along a wall we will remove a door. The bedroom has two, it is a small place so one is enough. Here are a few images of the bed:
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January 07, 2014
Sewing, binding, sanding...
The new year's resolution to sew everyday is going strong, then again it has only been seven days! I wonder how long it takes to form an habit that sticks? Regardless, I sorted my stash, gave away a few more bag and with the tiny amount of fabric that I have left I find myself more inspired to work than ever. First I am finishing some long standing WIPs such as this quilt top, bought at the Whimsy closing sale, that I had quilted but never bothered to bind. Working on that right now as it is destined for some Parisian friends for whom I had bought it in the first place. I am also working on a quilt kit my mother bought before Finn was born! More on that project later this week.
On the renovation front, Thomas dealt with some electrical tasks, such as relocating the light switch. We also scored 4 solid wood paneled door from Park City Recycling, my favorite architectural recycling store. The doors were brought there by contractors that saw the value in salvaging them. They are truly better quality that the solid pine wood doors sold at home depot but they have seen better days. Still at $20 a pop you can imagine I was perfectly willing to put in the work to get ALL the doors on the main floor switch from hollow core slabs to what we found. We are still short two alas, but I hope that some 28" candidates will be waiting for us next time we shop there.
Bellow, a few images of one of the doors being sanded by yours truly and what they look like before anything is done to them. The sanding dust is still on the door, when wiped they are still varnished but scuffed, ready to be primed.
Thomas and I had a deep discussion about hardware. He has agreed on principle about the color (oiled bronze), but we are not of one mind when it comes to handle shape. I would love a typically european oval knob such as this one:
Thomas find them unpleasant to operate and would rather go with some thing closer to this lever handle:
Time will tell what we end up with, more often than not at the Maison Lanvers the lowest hanging fruit makes it in the pie... The wood floor came today, it's all still stacked up in the back of my wagon, I felt pretty grown up getting it all home by myself, with the trunk half open in this frigid weather!
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January 02, 2014
Happy New Year! let's renovate...
Before I start with the meat of this post I would like to wish everyone who stops here a very "Bonne Annee". I hope you all can stick to your new year's resolution, mine is to sew everyday even if it's but one seam. Thank you also to those of you that left comments lately, I have been terrible at answering, in great part because I have been offline mostly. The gratuitous picture of Uli the gorgeous cat is just here to compensate for the ugliness of the pictures to come...
I always like reading blog entries about renovations, especially in the regular homes of regular people, if you didn't catch my meaning: not millionaires, professional interiors decorator or architects. Just regular people with an inclination for change and a garage full of hammers. I like reading about it so much in fact that I decided to write about it. You see, after a bout of winter blues coupled with cabin fever I decided that we had to move to a bigger nicer place ASAP. However, after driving around the valley I realized that I might have failed to notice that the little incorporated city of Holladay (where we live) is quite nice actually. Nothing like shopping around to make you realize what you already have. So we are staying put for now and looking for solutions to our space problem in-house.
This soul searching resulted in carving out a new small room out of the empty space in the master bedroom. In theory master bedrooms are a nice idea, if your house as a lot of bedrooms already but we only have three where we need four. So up a wall is coming, and through a wall a door will be, see for yourselves:
The large closet you see in the back of the first picture is actually a faux closet. It was put there by the previous owners in front of a large window (!). I had to add a black out shade to protect our clothes from the light of the sun and moon. We will completely remove the faux-closet and gain 3 feet of space as well as a second window. The room will be tiny but bright and most important, MINE. Yes, I am getting a petit atelier de couture* which makes me so happy I could cry.
This brings me back to my new year resolution, to sew everyday in that space when it is completed. I intend to deserve the result as Thomas is spending much of his free time to make our house work for our tiny family.
*small sewing workshop
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