Hiatus

I can't believe it's been almost a year since my last post. A lot happened last year, the biggest thing was my mom's health declining significantly until she lost the battle with her diabetes related liver disease May 30th.

Losing a parent is a big life event, and one that you really can't understand how it will effect you until you've lost one yourself. I haven't really felt like blogging in a long time, but lately I've been thinking a lot about it, so here I am!

The last couple of years have been a trial for me filled with change, loss and a lot of betrayal. Every time someone would say 'It will get better!" something even crappier happened so I forbade people from saying it to me! But as the saying goes, nothing good or bad lasts forever, even though it seems like it at the time. And as Train says "I stopped believing although Journey told me not to. Before I call it day, maybe this'll be my year." 

Thanks to my family and friends, and running away to Scotland for a month, I've finally found the good things in life again and have become a stronger, better person for it. This year is starting off pretty amazingly. I'll go into that soon, so stay tuned.

I still haven't posted the latter half of my Scotland trip, so I will do that soon. I really want to introduce everyone to the wonderful quilters I met there! 

Here's a little recap of my projects from the last year for you. It's going to be a quick and dirty synopsis, so please bare with me!

This is a quilt I made for my darling Emmett's wedding in Sept 2012 that I just finished in time for his sister's wedding this January! I baby sat both Emmett and Liz since they were born and they are both very special to me and I love them tons. I can't believe they are both old enough to be married since I'm totally not any older!

Ironically enough the quilt pattern was designed by a quilt shop owner in Austin, Texas which is where Emmett got married! (I can't recall the name now, I'll update it when I find it again) Michelle and I discovered it when we were hitting all the quilt shops in the Austin area!

I used the first David Butler line w/Basic Grey' Grunge. I freaking love Grunge! It always come through for me when I can't find the perfect coordinate to pull it all together. It's white Minky on the back. I made it extra large because Em is ridiculously tall, and I wanted it big enough for he and Chrissy to be able to cuddle up together underneath it.

I quilted this vintage quilt top that a friend of mine found in the attic of her family's farmhouse which several generations of her family lived in. I couldn't believe what gorgeous shape it was in after being packed away for so many years!

I quilted the empty blocks with a traditional wreath pattern. It took me a long time to decide how to quilt it because I wanted to do it justice and be age appropriate (probably the only time I am age appropriate!)

I thought it photographed well on my grandmother's buggy bench.

I've had a terrible case of project ADD lately. I recently started working on this wall hanging. It started out as an entirely different quilt set on point, but I wasn't thrilled with that, so now it's straight set and will have applique when I get done. 

I've also been working on this for my baby cousin's baby quilt. She turned a year in November, so I'd best get it done before she's too big for it!!! I can't figure out how to rotate it, so you'll have to turn your head. I think I'm going to continue the pink down the tree trunk.

I've also been working on some wool applique when I travel or go to guild. 

This is the pattern:

I'm using a variety of 3 Sisters by Moda (because you know, I have quite a variety of it in my stash!) I think I'm going to change around that top left corner block too, because I'm not much of a heart person outside of Valentine's Day decorations.

On the home front, I've been quite busy as well. I found this cabinet at a barn sale for $50.
The bottom is now my sink in the Tiffany bathroom. The top will eventually be repainted and hung in the laundry room.

I have custom molding for the edges of the sink to put on and the backsplash tile to install, then it will be done!

I got the knobs at Anthropologie, I think they cost as much as the sink did in total!!! The 4 corner ones are mercury glass and the center is all blingy and rhinstones. Now if I can just figure out how to put a chandelier in there....

I went with the one on the left.  It sparkles in the light. The photo doesn't do it justice.

I finally finished painting the master bathroom. Say goodbye to the last of the Avocado Green!!!!

And hello to the gorgeous Farrow and Ball  Blue Gray! I thought I took a photo w/the mirror up, but I guess I didn't so I'll do an official before and after when I do that.

Ahhhh, that's better, isn't it?

I was going to go into the outdoor projects, but I have a feeling Blogger will explode if I try to add more photos, so I'll do a separate post on that. Also, I can't seem to get the font out of red and underlined. I'm not sure what' up with that. Apparently Google and Apple don't play nicely together, still.

Vintage fabulousness!

I went to the Winnetka rummage sale last Thursday. For those who don't know the area, Winnetka is on the 'North Shore', which is comprised of wealthy towns containing amazing houses. Not McMansions, but older, gorgeous houses with a ton of character, are all different and all really, really pricey. I left my house at 4:45am, met up with my boss and headed to the sale. We separated at the door and hit the various 'rooms'. This is the most organized rummage sale I've ever seen, and the nice part is that all the money goes to charity. I hit the linen room first and got a couple of retro table cloths, some fun vintage sheets and Pottery Barn valances for my bathroom.

Next was the pictures room, where I picked up some amazing vintage frames, which will be painted shabby chic-like for the vintage slate chalk board material that I got a few months ago.

The slate is from an old school and the doors were a score that Ashley found for me. I've been wanting to make an old door headboard for my purple and green spare room for a while now. I'm thinking one will be a daybed and one will be the headboard.

Then onto the vintage room (I stumbled across it, I had no idea this room existed) where I found the find of the day, possibly year.
Check out this quilt!!!!

It's an all velvet log cabin, in a modified barn raising pattern. The velvet is hand pieced to a cheesecloth like muslin. But the piping and backing were machine sewn. Look at that spring green! I'm in love.
The front is pristine.
The back, not so much. The backing is silk and greatly deteriorated.

It also came with a matching pillow, which was obviously used more than the quilt as it's a quite dirty.

The woman in the vintage room was willing to come down on the price for it, so I offered and she accepted. It was such a great deal that the woman who checked me out was ticked off. Since I know nothing about velvet quilts, I'm going to have it appraised and find out how to handle it appropriately. I think it's going to end up being framed somehow.

After the vintage room, I had a few bucks left, so it was on to the garden room, where I got the cute little bunny.

He was too cute to pass up for 2 dollars.

 I found the retro sprinkles bottle w/the old glitter in the Vintage room. I thought it was fun that it was from Skokie, near where I grew up. I passed on the naked Peter Pan doll though. He still had his hat at least, since it was molded to his head. He looked a little evil, if you ask me.

 

And if you can believe it, I then went to the sewing room and stocked up on some great wool tartans, one of which actually had the tag from the mill in Scotland. I had to pass on the 5 yards of navy wool though, which about killed me, but I didn't have enough money on me.

Since I still had a few dollars left, I went into the Hall of Woman's Clothes. I wish I had a photo. It was a massive hall, with tables, end to end, piled taller than me with clothes. I hit the skirts table and scored several Pendelton and 'made in England' 100% wool skirts! And they were $2 each. I about squealed with joy.
And after all of that, we were back home by 10:30a.m.!

Since I was in Arlington Heights, I went to Quilter's Destination, where I was just going to have a look around. Riiiiggghhhht.

They had the Riverwoods Pedal Pusher Panel, designed by Pearl Louise Krush as well as the matching button and bead embellishment packet. It's so sweet and summery that I just couldn't pass it up.

I'm planning to cut off the bird house part, embroider the bike outline, bead the flowers and border it for a little wall hanging for my cube at work.

I had about an hour to kill before lunch with DiscoJen and her son, so I also stopped at Touch of Amish, where I happily ran into my quilting friend Linda! It was a lovely surprise. They had some killer retro Halloween fabric they were kitting up, the Spellbound line by Renee Nanneman. The bats in the fabric were fab. And this border print would be great to just quilt up individually as a table runner. I'm a sucker for Halloween fabric.

As if that wasn't enough excitement for one day, after lunch I weeded a bit  and by 2:00pm I was so exhausted that I took a nap.