Flea Market Fancy by Denyse Schmidt

…I’m sewing again!

And this time I’m actually taking a risk and stepping out on a limb. I’m making bibs to sell on Etsy. I’ve got 10 cut out right now. I’ll keep you posted. The big obstacle I’ve got to overcome is to price them reasonably for customers while at the same time get paid for the materials and work I put into them.

Here’s to taking risks!

Oh, and also by putting away Olivia’s craft supplies, because the sewing dining room also serves as the classroom/craft center.

Some may consider my house to be small. But I like it. I don’t wish I lived in a McMansion. It’s hard enough keeping 1650 square feet cleaned. Please don’t give me any more bathrooms or bedrooms! Well, unless it’s a modest sewing room off of the dining room or something. I promise I’d vacuum it once in a while.

My tidiness situation was starting to get out of control. I might as well just show you.

Totally classy, right?

I really needed more storage for my fabric. That dresser does an amazing job but she just isn’t big enough. I searched every antique place around here, watched estate sales, and shopped online, but could not find an affordable tall bookcase that would fit a 32″ wide space. Until Ikea. The land of Swedish Decorating Wonderment and Affordable Prices. Sadly, the closest Ikea is nearly 2.5 hours away. I was making plans to drive there myself when a friend told me about ViaIkea. ViaIkea is an outfit run by a very nice man in Grand Rapids who makes regular trips to Ikea and picks up orders from locals for a fee. So instead of paying for a tank of gas and over 5 hours of my time to get it myself, I paid James less than a tank of gas and he got it for me. How neat is that??? And as JB pointed out, it saved us the hassle of buying a dozen other shiny things that would have caught our eyes if we had walked into the store ourselves.

If you live near GR and need Ikea items, just drop him a line. It’s worth it!

And now, may I present to you, a proper sewing dining room!

Wow, you can actually see the neat wood trim around the bottom of the walls!

Most of this houses sewing room runoff, but the middle shelf also holds Olivia's crayons, stickers, coloring books, etc. (And her beloved yellow chick.) I've also got a bunch of tablecloths behind the doors that weren't fitting in my china cabinet. And now I can see all the pretty sewing things that I admire, like my basket and the little spool drawers.

Peace has been restored to this corner that used to have the iron, a pile of quilts and blocks in progress, etc.

Isn't this a delightful bookshelf?

Being able to move my sewing books from this shelf meant more room for such important tomes as guides on surviving a Zombie apocalypse (we're so ready!) and White Trash Cooking.

We love our new bookcase so much that JB has suggested getting another for the left side of the window. I only wish that the height extenders that they sell would fit the deeper bookcase model that we bought. But alas, they are not deep enough. Perhaps one day. That would add another 24″ or so to the top. More storage!!

I’ve got a thing for bookcases. There are at least two in nearly every room in the house. What is YOUR favorite storage method?

Isn’t it lovely? I couldn’t really act so surprised when I opened the gift because I had been with her when she bought it last summer at the Allegan Antiques Fair. In fact, I was the one who first noticed the topper draped over an old wire hanger in someone’s small booth. Marian had gone back to review it and somehow snagged a great deal on it. I think she paid like $25 for it. She’s got skillz.

I hadn’t recognized the design so I perused my Quilter’s Album of Patchwork Patterns for the pattern. It’s called Friendship Album.

A closer look at the topper, after washing and drying it, revealed more mismatched seams than I originally noticed.

Yeah, I'm confused as to how you can smash seams this badly, too.

The artisan also failed to properly piece each block as they don’t lie flat and straight. So quilting it will be a trial, but I’m willing to give it a shot. It has such beautiful colors and is such a nice size. I’m actually fine with it not being pieced perfectly. If it were I’d be afraid to use it after quilting it because it would be Antique Art. But now it’s just Vintagey Art. And I’ll enjoy it for years to come.

Some girls dream of diamonds or Lexuses at Christmas.

Me, I’m quite content with some old fabric that’s been sitting in someone’s basement for a few decades.

I think poor Lucy was missing her modeling days so I had her sit for me again.

Life has been almost maniacally busy and stressful. There are too many things to name, but a few things are that: We are refinancing our house and it was taking forEVer and taking a lot of my time chasing down paperwork. Our computer broke, leaving me blogless for two weeks. My iPhone broke and wasn’t covered under warranty. I barely got the phone in the first place because they’re so expensive–it was a birthday/replace-old-breaking-phone combo gift. And then I had to buy it again? Not. Cool. I was so stressed out about a dozen other things that I was constantly tired and therefore too exhausted to carry on normal tasks, which then added to the mountain.

Agh!!!!

I am not sure when/if life will return to “normal.” Hopefully soon.

So, in lieu of wordy blog fodder, here’s a little photo show for you of HAPPY events of March.

We checked out the Butterfly exhibit at Meijer Gardens. O loved searching for caterpillars on the plants.

Meijer Gardens has a beautiful orchid display, honoring Anne Frank, I believe.

Izzy went on her first swing ride and loved it from moment one. She's my adventurous girl!

Izza also got a little cuter last month. She does that every month. I'm waiting for my camera to break from the cuteness explosion.

O made a cute bird craft at MOPS. The sweet girl tried sharing the craft with her baby sister, who immediately ripped it up. O was so forlorn.

She was forlorn until we did our OWN bird craft together, adding a Daddy bird, a nest, and four eggs. On popsicle sticks. Problem solved.

And so you don't think I'm a complete craft slacker, I did manage to make these burp cloths for a friend having a baby in April. The gender is a mystery so this is my attempt at gender neutral. Ha!

However, baby Lydia came early and Isabel wasn’t planning to come at all (if you ask me) so they ended up being five weeks apart in age.  Was I happy that Erin had her baby early? Yes. Was I quite jealous that I still had to wait? Double yes!

I made Lydia a bib and it became a quick favorite with Erin. We all love the shoulder coverage that this pattern provides and also that the bib ties, so a baby can’t pull it off. Erin asked me to make another one for Lydia’s birthday but with an applique’d number 1 on it. Lydia’s party was Hawaiian theme so I pulled out my tropical fabrics and Erin was immediately drawn to this green. Didn’t she pick well? It’s beautiful fabric and the large print was perfect for a project like this.

I unfortunately did not get any fantastic photos of the bib. I was in a hurry and trying to do it while O was away at school. Well, and I was a little distracted by cuteness…

How can you NOT photograph this face???

Well, I never thought this day would come, but I am finally making myself my very own quilt.

When I saw the Swoon pattern I immediately admired it. I was really excited to see a classic block pattern hit the “modern” quilting world with such frenzy. So many modern quilters are adverse to classic that they turn their nose up at tried-and-true patterns. Dude, you do not have to use Laura Ingall’s Wilder fabrics just because it’s an old block! (Though I’m personally waiting for calico to hit an upswing at fabric stores again.)

Though while I liked Swoon, I never made any plans to use it. I just had enough on my plate.

But THEN, my original plans for making me my own quilt fell thru. I had this fantastic idea to make a quilt inspired by these Frank Lloyd Wright window masterpieces:

You know, an Art Deco quilt. With Anna Maria Horner fabrics.

But I couldn’t find the right fabric for all the white space. And the quilt would have taken forever to do and I don’t have a lot of forever time these days.

I had temporarily given up my “own quilt” dream when I was flipping through one of my mother-in-law’s quilt block books, researching the Swoon pattern (as I knew that it was an old block). Unable to find the Swoon block, I decided to indulge and go to my bookmarked page that has my current favorite blocks on it.

And there it was. I realized that my two favorite blocks were variations on Swoon: Carpenter Star and Dutch Rose. Same block layout, just different use of color. Ha!

I took it as a sign that I should make myself my own Swoon quilt.

Instead of trying to do a certain theme (like using all Anna Maria Horner fabrics), I’m just using all of my favorite fabrics that I have been hoarding because of their intense beauty. The quilt probably won’t have any matchy-matchy going on. But it will have pretty-pretty.

The block here is my first one. I’ve had this brown dictionary text fabric forEVER. When I opened it up to use it in this block I was pleasantly surprised to see bird lithographs scattered about the fabric. Naturally, I couldn’t resist: I put a bird on it. The pattern you can buy makes a 24″ block. For my uses a 20″ block works better. It’s fun making large blocks!

Coincidentally, this block was finished the same time I finished my rough draft of the Rooster story for my book. I am considering doing a block each time I finish a chapter for my book. As motivation to keep working on each project.

I have to be honest: I don’t immediately think of the quilt pattern. Thanks to my husband’s influence I have become a fan of The Dresden Files, a popular fantasy book series.

Don’t judge me.

You like fantasy, too. You just don’t know it.

Don’t think so? How about Chronicles of Narnia? Or The Lord of the Rings? Yeah. Those are the gateway books, friends.

Admittedly, I haven’t read a single Dresden book (there are currently 13 penned). I’ve seen them lying around the house but I just wasn’t ready to read a book whose back flap featured a man looking at me like this:

No offense, Jim Butcher. But you’ve got the “fist in chin” thing going on, the penetrating mind-reading stare, and, well, LARPer hair. I was skeptical: could this man really write about a dry-humored 30-something wizard taking down bad guys in current day Chicago?

But then I listened to some of the tales while riding in the car with my husband (and I even watched the TV show based on the books).

And yes, this man can write.

I’m guessing it’s because underneath the LARPer hair, there is a 30-something dry-humored man living in current day… Kansas? Anyway.

This was the photo that greeted me on the back flap of the latest Dresden Files book. I'm just glad he's not trying to look into my soul anymore.

And now when you think that this post can’t get any stranger, I’ll do a 180 and actually talk about the SEWING dresden. Cuz that was the whole point of this post, anyway.

I originally wanted to make a cool patch to use as the label on the back of Isabel’s quilt, like the pinwheel I did on Olivia’s. I wanted to go 30′s style so I chose dresden plate. I was going to do a black and white piece with a yellow center. As I searched for a good tutorial on piecing dresden plates I found one on the Sew Mama, Sew blog written by Oh, Frannson. Her plate was black and white. That of course meant that I had to use her tutorial.

Then I got the great idea to run a strip of dresdens a little off-center down the back of the quilt, making the quilt REVERSIBLE. Coolest mom ever, right? I was even going to make one colorful instead of black and white. To be all artsy.

Imagine my dismay when I finished one plate and realized that since it’s an appliqued piece, machine quilting with it on the bottom would prove to be difficult, as the blocks do not lie flat.

Boo.

I still determined to put this one in, though, and just got out my white fabric to piece together the back and get quilting this thing.

Boo again. My two different swaths of white fabric were not matching fabrics. Not even close. One was chintzy wrinkly Kona (no offense, Kona! I still use you!) and one was a luxurious beautifully draping white.

I had committed to scraping together $18 to buy more Kona white for the backing when JB tells me with excitement that I should do a black and white back on it. I have asked him to sketch his vision for me so I can see if it’ll work. Until then, this pretty little dresden plate is sitting in my sewing room, cheering me up and frustrating me at the same time. It makes me happy to look at it, but also aggravated that I still haven’t begun quilting Izzy’s quilt!

(…Wow. I just did the math on that. I thought it was only 6. No wonder we look so young in the early house photos!)

The place needed more than a makeover in 2005. It needed something akin to the Extreme Home Makeovers you see on TV. Only without the complete teardown. And slowly but surely, with the incredible help from family and friends, we have brought this girl back to life.

The full bath was awful when we first got the house. I don’t know how anyone could stomach bathing in that place. We ended up gutting the room and doing all new fixtures, etc. JB and Mr. Rich even painstakingly put up subway tiles for the tub surround.

And the room was mostly awesome when we were “done.” But it was painted white. And I didn’t have any inspiration to hang curtains or really decorate. It also had a few fiddly things that needed attention. But a couple of weeks ago JB and his Dad worked hard to fix all those fiddly things and then JB whipped out his paint roller and gave our bathroom a healthy new glow. I even made a valance and put up framed photos I had taken. Woo!

So here it is. In case you are feeling ungrateful for the bathroom that you have, feast your eyes on what you could have had, if you had bought this house and never had it improved. (I’ve spared you the  need for a strong gag reflex, as I have not included close-ups of some nasty stuff.)

1.) Note the grimey window. That's how the previous owners rolled. 2.) Notice the blue flooring. It was laid overtop the original tile in 12" squares. The squares separated, leaving a nice sticky adhesive to collect any and all bathroom indescretions. JB cleaned up that mess over several days. He gets a Gold Star for life for that one. And for not puking once during the ordeal.

I think this is self explanatory. The previous owners, on the day of showing, did not bother to clean the tub, but rather to give the IMPRESSION that they intended to clean, by dumping a bunch of comet into the tub. Hmmm...

Back in the 20's someone thought it was a cool idea to have a separate tub and shower in the same bathroom. Sadly this shower was neglected for too long and could not be saved. Not that a separate shower would have made sense. We put a shower head in the bathtub and converted this to a closet. (Also note the shower hardware tossted on the floor. The shower didn't work, and again, they wanted to give the impression that they cared.)

The walls and floor were 3-4" thick slabs of concrete. I dropped several chunks on my feet as I worked. I swear I broke at least one toe during the shower breakdown, which is why I have toe arthritis when it rains or snows. JB thinks I'm being dramataic but I'm sticking to my story.

The old cast iron tub was not salvageable. It was too pitted to clean properly. Being probably near 500 pounds, we had to sledgehammer it to more manageable pieces to haul out.

The ceiling had to come out, too. This is looking down into the bathroom from the attic. It was here that I inadvertently picked up a squirrel skeleton that was entangled in an old shag pillow. The look on his squirrelly skull was that of terror. As though he died a horrible death. Good. Tree rats. He and the shag pillow were part of a mound of trash that was sitting on the rafters above the bathroom, caving the ceiling in. I hadn't wanted to fix the ceiling but my father-in-law said that I probably wouldn't want the ceiling coming down on me while I was bathing. And knowing now who was in the pile of garbage, I say that my father-in-law was 1000% right. Sadly, this was not the only dried up squirrel that we encountered during renovations.

I didn’t take any closeups of the awesome valance that I made, but take my word for it: it’s awesome. I know–curtains are easy to make–but it took a lot of math brainpower to make sure this valance came out right. Math power which I try to keep on reserve for important things like designing quilts or paying the bills. There was over 100″ of material and cotton ain’t cheap these days so I had to be wise. I also lined it with some of the free fabric from Bev and now it’s a reversible valance. Oh yeah. Coolest valance on the block.

I did a load of research on Bungalow Bathrooms. I desperately wanted two pedestal sinks put in but had to opt for a regular sink. One sink is less to clean than two, so I am okay with this compromise.

I need a good tagline yet. Any suggestions? So far I've got "Ordinary till you cross the county line." And the cover image isn't set in stone.

Well guys,

there’s a reason I  haven’t been sewing as much and blogging as much about sewing.

Can you guess???

Okay, yes, Children have interfered. Illness. The Holidays. Mouse Wars. Social Life. Working Nights and Weekends.

But when I still find a few free moments here and there and those moments have been spent on Writing a Book.

There, to all of you who ever said, “You need to write a book!”

I am.

Who knows if/when I’ll finish it. What it’ll be like. But I’m doing it.

This, my 33rd year, is my year of adventure. My year to accomplish one of my life goals: write a book and put it on my bookshelf so as to admire it.

If I deem it sensible enough I may make a few copies to share. Mostly with you, you who have encouraged me to write a book. But this dream can only come true with a little help. Can you help encourage me? I can get easily discouraged when writing my book because I don’t want to do it unless it’s perfect. Or perfectly funny. Whatever. And for me, I can’t just sit down and write. The story has to come to me.

Good renditions of tales usually come to me when I’m relaxed and not stressed out. When I have had a significant amount of quiet to think. I won’t even be thinking about the story I write but then BAM, words are there in my head, stringing themselves together in clever ways. And if I can get to a computer, all is well.

The last time that happened was this summer when I was on vacation. I penned Buzz. And only those who took Biology in Mayberry will know who THAT one’s about.

So now instead of writing one tale every 1 to 2 years, I am trying to slap down 10 in as many months. A few I’ve already written (they still need editing and to be made longer if possible,  though). The rest are just waiting to be told!

Two years later I have finally finished K’s Citrus quilt.  I gave it to her for Christmas.

I really wanted to photograph it against freshly falllen snow but the Grand Rapids skies have only been able to muster flurries so far this year.  Which is quite odd.  In fact, today I took the girls for a walk in the stroller. Usually this time of year the winds are bitter and the sidewalks are impassable with ice and snow. But today it was sunny and 52.  A good time was had by all.

I also had a good time shooting this quilt. Even though on the day of the shoot it was so cold that my fingers froze inside my leather gloves. A pretty quilt can make one overlook such icy hardships. So here she is, in pictures.

I used my polarizing filter even though I wasn't photographing the sky or anything. I think it helped realy saturate the colors.

I bound it with Tula Pink's Prince Charming. It's got frogs. It's awesome. In a few spots I got it so the frog's eyes were peeping at you from the binding.

I can't resist black and white.