Saturday, May 2, 2009

Busy, Busy!

The last week has flown by. Jeff and I decided last weekend that it is time to move from where we are to a new place. We rent a townhouse next door to the one I grew up in and for many reasons, it's time to go! So if posts become a bit few and far between, we are in a flurry of cleaning and looking at new places.

Anyway, I have lots of projects to share today, so here goes.
Last weekend was another weekend dedicated to painting things with bright colors and a bit of sewing and reorganizing my studio.
My first painting projects for the weekend were of two old colanders I found. I love colanders for some strange reason and I have seen them painted and selling for $8 and more. This first one I think I paid $1.50 for at a thrift shop by my work. I love that its deep. It started out as an eyesore, but add some watermelon paint and presto-chango how pretty is it now? I will use it to hold some yarn or other odds and ends.
Next came another colander. This one was more shallow with a star shaped pattern of draining holes.


I added some celery green paint and made it into this:


I also painted a candlestick that I've had forever. I haven't used it because it was just blah before:

But after adding some ocean blue paint, I know just where it's going to go!

My last painted project was my thread holder. Jean gave me this when I first got back into sewing and it was just plain wood. I can't say I'm entirely thrilled with the result because the yellow paint was much paler than I wanted, but I plan to buy a brighter yellow and repaint it soon. It still brightens up my studio a bit though.

In between coats of painting all of this stuff, I got some sewing in. One of my favorite blogs is Cluck. Cluck. Sew. Allison posted a tutorial on how to make a camera strap cover. I have been tempted several times to buy one of these from Etsy, but hesitated to do it because, as a sewer/quilter, I always think "I can do that!". I was determined to try last Sunday.
Let me just say that Allison's tutorial was awesome. If I had followed all of the directions I would have had no problems. Unfortunately, when I was about halfway through, I started thinking "I got it! I don't need no stinkin' directions." This is where things went downhill. Please, I beg of you, if you try her tutorial and are like me and get all confident about halfway...check yourself. READ THE DIRECTIONS!
Basically, I didn't leave enough wiggle room in my strap (because I conveniently forgot that it had to go over the little clippy things that attach the strap to the bag) and it was extremely difficult to get it on. But I am a determined woman. That cover was going on. I didn't care if every seam I had just carefully sewn ripped out in the process, it was going on.
Finally, it did go on. Thank you, Jesus!
This was just my test strap that I did for my Nikon Cool Pix camera. Last Christmas, Jeff got me a new camera bag for my Canon Rebel and I will be doing a strap cover for that next. This time, I'm making sure to follow the darn directions to the letter!
My other project is still a work in progress. Jean and I bought a bunch of flour sack towels to embroider and I have been working on one. I did the embroidery on one end but I still want to embroider the opposite end and add a fabric strip along the bottom. So far I'm pretty happy with how it's turning out.


I will post the finished product when I get it done!

Lastly was organization. Last week I posted the link to the fabric folding method I'm using. I spent a lot of time folding fabric last weekend and I'm still nowhere near done. But here is what I have done so far. I still want to organize it by color, but this is a good start:

Trust me when I say that this shelf will be full when I'm done folding all of my fabric and I will still have tons of fabric that won't fit! God Bless my Mom for all the fabric she left me!

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. It's rainy here, so no painting this weekend, but Jeff and I are making a quick trip to drop some stuff off at the dump and then to look at a few houses we saw online.

always,

K

2 comments:

  1. I LOVE painting thrift store finds! I've been tempted to buy an old metal strainer and paint it, but I haven't found a good spot to put one yet.

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  2. Those look so good! I would never think to paint a colander, its so cool I love the color. I've even been wanting some cute colored colanders just to store stuff in, but those are expensive in stores! I'll keep my eyes peeled for thrift ones. And I love your camera strap. Thanks for stopping by and saying hello! -Allison

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