Room to craft

Ever since we bought our house in July, I've been very excited about my new craft room. Of course, for the first six months, the craft room proved to be the "room full of junk from the move that I haven't quite sorted yet". With several concerted bouts of cleaning, the room is finally becoming usable, and visions of craft projects are dancing madly in my head.

The craft room came with turquoise walls and white trim, which I've decided to keep. It's a good happy color. Recently I also decided on this carpet from FLOR. It's called "Needlepoint Stripe" (in "Ginger"). It's kind of like a favorite handspun yarn made into a rug--perfect for a craft room.

throw pillow

Today I made a throw pillow, finally, with fabric that I bought in January in New York. It's inspired by these pillows from Room & Board, but my version was much cheaper : ) It was really nice to use my sewing machine again after about a year-long hiatus!

Pillow in process.
I cut two squares of the brown linen fabric and cut one into strips on a 45 degree angle. Then I pinned the strips in place and sewed loosely across at a right angle to hold them in place so that I could remove the pins while I did the final top stitching. My fabric was a fairly loose weave, so I opted for top stitching about 1/4 inch in from both sides. I was afraid that a single seam down the center would allow too much fraying. At the end I ripped out the temporary holding thread. Voila! Pillow!

Done! and on its intended chair.

The back side of the pillow is purple fulled wool with a hint of neon green in the cord that catches the button.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I hope everyone survived the holidays and had a good time with family and friends. I just wanted to share a little stocking cap ornament that I made for a friend's son's first Christmas.

Getting crafty

I used to make things all the time - gifts for friends and family, decor, cards, ornaments. But as life gets busier I've found that, aside from my knitting (which I can take with me just about anywhere and which has become a social activity thanks to my K&S gals), I don't make very much. Which is why I totally knocked my own socks off this weekend with our Christmas tree, our 2008 ornament, and a much needed tree-topper in the form of a Moravian paper star. The star amazed me the most because I went from cardboard and a compass to this great symmetrical 3-d pointy thing in about 2 hours.

Our 2008 Ornament

Paper star


I'll just say that I was pleasantly surprised to see that I haven't lost my multimedia craft skills. Having my new craft room to work in didn't hurt!

(pics to come just as soon as I find that darn camera cord)

baby sizes

I think I underestimate the size of babies. This little sweater turned out a bit on the small side, but I still love it. I think I need to abandon the "newborn" size in any and all patterns, given my propensity for knitting on the tight side.

I'm sure a little teddy bear will be very happy in it!

House update

We've officially been in residence for three weeks as of last night, but we were still moving stuff for a week after that, and have only had the internet setup here since Tuesday. SO... I'm finally settled enough and connected enough to post about our new house!

The house is in great shape thanks to the sellers having done many, many updates [thank you!], but we had three major projects to do right away: refinish the hardwood floors on the first floor, convert a third floor bedroom into a media room / theater, and fix up my second floor office.

The finish on the floors had clouded, and the walnut and oak had faded and darkened to almost the same color--such that you could hardly see the detailed borders. So, we were really excited when the first pass of the sander revealed gorgeous contrast. The floors turned out really well, and I have no second thoughts about hiring a professional rather than trying to do it ourselves.

Border: Before & After


Detail of a worn corner, and the same corner from across the room after refinishing


Two weekends ago we primed and painted a third floor room, turning a turquoise bedroom into a cozy espresso and mocha colored media room. The look should be complete come Friday when the futon will be delivered... pics to follow!

My office is on deck with wallpaper arriving this week (bad plaster) and a ceiling that we'll hopefully paint tomorrow!

It's a hard life

So, I haven't posted much in the last month because I was out of the country on a whirlwind art historical tour of English country houses and their collections of paintings and objets d'art.

In sum: Forty-eight museum professionals from around the world, thirty houses (plus lectures and garden tours) all in eighteen days. And it all ended with an extremely nerdy "dress as your favorite work of art / architecture" costume bash!

Needless to say it was an amazing experience, and I'm still going through withdrawal. I am never allowed to complain about anything again, because I get to do things like this as part of my job (albeit with substantial effort put into the grant applications to make it possible).

I took about 2500 pictures, so I'm going to just try to highlight here.

Broughton Castle 14th-16th Century - Medieval and Elizabethan. Parts of of Shakespeare in Love were filmed here.

Hardwick Hall 16th Century. Elizabethan. Built by Bess of Hardwick in the 1590s after the death of her fourth husband.

Petworth 17th Century. Baroque. The most grand and bland facade in England (It used to have more decoration).

Chatsworth 17th-18th Century. Baroque. Home of the Dukes of Devonshire, this house masquerades as Mr. Darcy's Pemberly in the latest Pride & Prejudice movie.

Kedleston Hall 18th Century. Neoclassical. One of Robert Adam's earliest grand masterpieces.

Tyntesfield 19th Century. Gothic Revival. A mansion built by William "Guano Gibbs" who made a fortune in importing guano fertilizer from South America.

Wightwick 19th Century. Arts & Crafts. A cozy house built by a paint and varnish tycoon who married an American amusingly named Flora Paint.

I'll save the interiors, objects, and gardens for a future post!