Hey guys!

Today, I cut up some super antique family heirloom linens.  I was freaking out about it the whole time, but now that I'me done and i've had some wine, I am feeling much better about the whole process.

Let me tell you what actually happened.

big ol' pile of family treasures

These are some linens my husband's grandmother gave me.  To be honest, I am not entirely sure why she is giving her things away, but I suspect it has something to do with paring down a bit and wanting to see people taking and using and knowing where stuff came from that she has.  I kinda get that, but it makes me sad, mostly because Jeff's grandmother is the most grandmotherly person on earth.  She is basically perfect.

But in any case, when we were visiting in the late spring, she unpacked a chest of linens and asked everyone to please take whatever we wanted.  I gotta tell you, I find it really difficult to, like, take things from people.  Even when they ask me to.  Jeff told me that she probably wants people to use them, which I understood.

Another shot

So I tried to look for things that were pretty colors and most importantly, things that were already damaged.  The pretty lady at the bottom of this pic was apparently part of a tablecloth that grandma's mother and her sisters embroidered and some things I think gramma herself worked on.  Eventually, it got used enough that someone cut them into handkerchiefs.  (The bottom left one you can barely see was also a tablecloth->hankie transformation.)

The magenta flowers at the top were a table runner.  You can see in the bottom right corner, someone had already cut or torn the runner.  So basically, I took some things that were

1. beautiful
2. had interesting family history
3. were already damaged so I could not really mess them up

For reference, I also asked Gramma if I could take them to cut them up and turn them into a quilt or something else.  She was totally on board.  I pointed out that I took the ones that were kinda marred, but I honestly don't think she would have cared if I took more nice things and cut them up.  (Thank God for awesome Gramma-in-laws.)

Isn't she pretty?

So then I found some fabric I liked that went with the embroidered bits, but felt kinda modern and cheerful.  This yellow and fuchsia quilting stuff was from joanns, as was the teal-ey blue you'll see later.  The first thing I did is put all of it, old and new, in the washer and dryer together.  If it's gonna be in the same quilt, it prolly needs to be washable together.  I was TOTALLY FREAKING OUT.  Especially because I went with the fuchsia.  But it came out perfect, so I folded it up and put it on my desk to look at it and work up the courage for stage II.

Here's the thing: Nothing was a regular size.  So I measured everything to figure out what my size options were.  Eventually, I figured out that with some strips and scraps, I could turn all 5 bits of embroidery into 12.5" squares.

Starting to add some borders

Some could just be cut to 12X12, some needed lining, yeah.

I decided that I wanted a 5X5 foot grid would work well and i measured my fabric to make sure I could actually do that.  To be honest, I am not much into tiny fussy patchwork.  I think it's beautiful, really, but I do not have the patience or the time to do that, and I kinda like my crazy quilting.

I made a kinda map for myself to use as I was putting things together.

my scribblings that turned into a quilt top.  with colored pencils to make sure I don't mess something up.

The end result is a little different because I made some changes as I went, but it was super helpful along the way to keep me from making super crazy mistakes.  I am a really lazy quilter, people.  So doing a quick head check helps me make sure I am not totally messing up my stuff.

Here's what I ended up with.  These colors look a little brighter than in real life, but not much.  I wanted happy, quirky, and featuring the slightly damaged embroidered bits.  (Soon my new camera will arrive and I will be able to learn to take better pics!(

Some things I learned:

• Don't try to use something else as a seam ripper.  Also, just don't try to seam rip the hem on a hankie that is embroidered and is also probably 75 years old.  It's just not gonna work.
• The old fabric?  It's a little brittle.  There are also some places where it's starting to wear, but I did not want to cut it out.  I am probably going to do something that I assume is like darning over top of the one big spot.  I have some stitches on my sewing machine that look like they would be darnalicious.  I haven't actually quilted it yet, so I can still do that.  
• Stop trying to make everything perfect.  This is not the christening gown that 3 generations of boys have worn and that I think was made from someone's wedding gown.  This are pieces that were probably going to be thrown into a drawer.  Plus I got explicit permission because I am paranoid.
• Cutting anything this old is basically going to completely freak you out.  Measure twice, cut once, walk away for five minutes.  Take deep breaths.  It's OK.

me with quilt top

top down view of our first floor

Minor criticism of floorplanner: I could not find anyway to put in stained glass windows.  I get that they can't really make them have the same design, so yeah, prolly not.  I also can't figure out how to make the bookcases in the living room short.  (In the 3D version, they are over top of the windows, which is not the case in real life.)

the 2d version

I also can't figure out how to make the breakfast bar show up right.  I tried to make it higher, but it looked like it was floating in midair in the 3d view, so I just took it out.

sideways view

Not the band.  My doors.

So, I had a custom door built.  I tried to find one that I liked, and I tried to make one of those jenn-weld aluminum ones that look like wood customized, but ultimately, all that was going to be like $5k.  A bit spend for a front door, doncha think?

So, custom.  My father in law found someone, or some company locally who could do what I wanted.  We ordered a fancy handle set from the hardware store we can walk to from our house (yay awesome neighborhood!) and my contractor-father-in-law stained it a pretty english chestnut color.  (says the min wax)  It's douglas fir, and it's fab.

pretty, right?  i loves it.

But I am continuing to obsess about it . Why is that, you ask?  The freakin' storm door.

Not loving it.

Seriously, all you can see from the street is the white monstrosity.  I have it half glass/half screen so you can see how neither of them is really any better than the other.  Dislike!

bigger pretty

bigger monstrosity

You can't see my lovely, painstakingly selected and finished custom door!  What a waste!!!

I am kinda torn about what to do here.  The cheapest and easiest solution is to just take the monstrosity off and call it a day.  (If you don't remember because I post so infrequently, I don't know how much it will matter, since our door is protected by a relatively deep porch that's windowed in on two sides.)

We got rid of those awful yew, btw.

Oh Pinterest, how I love you.

Through Pinterest, I ran into this recipe for something called 'crack sauce' that my friend from college pinned.  Today, I made it to dip green beans in, and although I do not feel though I am addicted to it, it was certainly plenty tasty.  I am hoping it will be better tomorrow after it sits a while and the garlic melds in.  Also, if I had it to do over again, I would add more smoked paprika.  Smoked paprika is basically a special gift from the heavens.  I am going to try to invent some sort of grilled cheese sandwich with the crack sauce and some pepper jack and maybe some roasted red peppers.  yum!

While wandering around the grocery store, I ran into this stuff. (Also, this picture is really pretty!  Thanks random flickr person who marked your picture as OK to use!)

via

The San Pellegrino orange is super awesome fantastic, and I was making fake chicken with this orange glaze, and I thought "hey, this looks interesting.  i'm totally getting this to have with my crack sauce bean/orange glazed chixen dinner".  (We also had baked potatoes.)

Do Not Want.  It was totally weird tasting.  Did not taste like oranges at all.  I'm not sure what kind of orange-like citrus fruit a chinotto is, but it is not for me.  I asked Jeff to get me some water, since I was not going to drink it.  He took a sip, promptly gagged and requested I give him some bleach to gargle with. Apparently my (Italian) friend loves it and does not understand why non-Italian people think it's weird.  Your mileage may vary, whether or not you are Italian.

I don't know why I can't rotate this.

Speaking of Italian, I took this picture at the grocery store of a pasta salad kit 'Caesar' flavor.

Why is it "Suddenly" a salad?  Is it going to run up behind me when I'm not expecting it?  Did I think I was getting a spaghetti dinner and got pasta salad again?  Also, wasn't Caesar assassinated?  I am not really interested in Caesar suddenly surprising me with some kind of death salad. I'm a little afraid.  Anyone know what's in these things?  Worth buying?  Pasta and a bottle of salad dressing seems like a better deal.  Just saying.

We have not been on a real vacation in a while.
Last May, we went to New Orleans on a vacation without Thomas for the first time.  It was terrifying but also awesome.  Today, I am supposed to be laying on the couch, relaxing and doing as little as possible.

August is a hard month where I work, so a little R&R is totally in order.  I am pathologically incapable of sitting in my PJs doing nothing, however.  On top of that, I have been freaking out about how I can not find any of our pictures from Paris, so I went on a scouring mission of all the random websites one could put photographs on until I assembled something I consider a reasonable collection of pictures of our travels.  Aieeeeeeeee happiness!  Jeff believes he has all of them somewhere on a hard drive, but we have like four hard drives, and I can never find anything on them, so scour away.

To be honest, we are not going anywhere far for a while, since we spent basically all our savings on the kitchen reno.  I am not complaining, the kitchen is completely fabulous.  But I can at least check out my pics and feel nostalgic about our past.

The Caribbean

You guys, my sister in law is having a baby and she is letting me plan and throw her shower!!!! ZOMG I am going to be an aunt!!!!  I am super excited about this.  We have a place and a list of people, so we're on our way.

Here is my problem:
I am trying to match the feel of the shower to her bedding, which she loves, and which is adorable.

bedding from Target

Dots!  I love it!
The baker we are getting our cupcakes at has this awesome thing where the put these little sugar dots on top of their cupcakes, so I am hoping we can custom order something with the right colors of dots.

Vanilla Pastry Studio

And I think I found some invitations on etsy I could buy that would be really awesome and in theme.

Sugar Doodle Designs

But I need favors, you guys!  Something Mod and dot-having and something that's not totally lame and that you'd like to take home from a shower.  Help!  I'm not awesome at the favors stuff.

I would also love to hear ideas for DIY centerpieces we could do with lots of awesome dots.  I was wondering if a cookie bouquet of different sized circle sugar cookies with brown/blue/green colored icing would be nifty or a little overmuch on the sweets.   I think it could work.

Help!

So, I took a bunch of pictures to stuff to post here and babble about, but i used the real camera instead of my cell phone and man, getting pics off an actual camera is harder than getting them off the iphone.

Instead of that, I am going to link to some things I am reading about in blog land that I think are awesome in some way or other.

• I always love Mrs. Lilien's blog, but I am basically head over heels with this whole set of bike awesomeness.  
• Whatever your thoughts are on organic food (I'm pro!), this little girl's project and video are basically adorable.
• Maillardville Manor  Manor is becoming my new fave blog, and this cupcake stand project is really helping.  ZOMG.  
• Do you guys know about Picnick?  I saw this somewhere I can't remember now, but it appears to be web based photoshop kinda.  Imma check it out because Photoshop is kinda pricey.
• The weather has been a little cooler, and I am totally ready to bake cookies.  This cool kickstarter project has a way to make cutout cookies with no waste.  Srsly?  
• Jeff keeps taunting me by telling me that we are going to leave the old kitchen without any drywall, just studs.  He stopped doing that when I told him about The Lettered Cottage's wonder wall, an oldie but goodie.  

Sunset on the lake

Hold my calls, mommy