Month: October 2010

Sewing

October is a month of sewing!  I have to finish up Emily’s birthday quilt before this weekend when we see her and then I have to get 3 halloween costumes done for my cousins as well as maybe one for myself this year?!

So Tuesday night I squared up the quilt and made the binding.  Last night I attached the binding (still have to do all the hand sewing).

Binding attached ... ready to finish up!

Then I started on costumes, opting to start with Chloe’s costume first.  Chloe is going to be a Black Cat which is the simplest of all the costumes (hence the reason I’m starting it first) – it’s all one fabric plus some embellishments.  I don’t have an actual pattern so I am just winging it.  I started with a pair of pants – going with the pirate pattern I’ve used for 2 costumes already as a base.  Since pirate pants are short I had to adjust them but I got the basic line from the pattern.  I whipped up the pants in an hour.  Next up is the top and some ears and a tale!

Black cat pants all done

I will probably do Georgia’s costume next – a Gypsie – which has a pattern so should be easy and she picked some really fun fabrics and embellishments.  Then I’ll do the princess dress for Maia, again, following a pattern and it’s lots of pink fabrics!

More painting…

I got the second coat of paint on the trim around the 2 tvroom windows. By then it was 6 and I knew I had less than an hour before it got too dark so I switched to the other side of the house and got the second coat of paint on the new section of siding. This is all done now and I can call the electric company to re-attach the meter. It was dark when I finished so I’ll have to get pictures tomorrow although pictures of a second coat of paint never show that much.

Siding primed (updated with pictures)

After we finished up the last piece of siding, I got the siding caulked, sanded and then primed.  Hopefully tomorrow I can get both coats of paint on it.

Siding primed

While I primed, Ryan worked on the window panels, putting the MDO panels into the completed panels and then caulking around them.  We’re not sure when we’ll get to putting the moldings in so we want to make sure it’s water proof.

First window - panels almost done

Later Ryan had to work so I switched to the other side of the house and started painting the trim.  I didn’t quite get it all done before it got dark, got 3 windows done and the soffit though.  Tomorrow I hope to finish the first coat and later put on the second coat.

Trim painted on 3 windows
Half finished window

So tomorrow will be lots of painting.  Ryan probably has to work again so it might just be a painting day.  I couldn’t get pictures before it got dark so I’ll take some in the morning for tomorrow’s post.

Can’t wait for the day off tomorrow!

Siding

A great 3 day weekend has begun!  After dropping my cousins off back at their house (they stayed over Friday night) – I came home to Ryan getting the siding started.

Paint stripped and ready to prime (well after that big hole is filled)
Siding started
Got the "window cap" in on the side piece so we could side around it.
A day's progress

The next piece of siding will have to be cut around the window cap that we put on, we’ll do that tomorrow.  After that we’ll put in some temporary pieces that will have to come back out when we do the window panels on the next level of the house.

Unfortunately we lost a half hour of work because our miter saw has a problem with the guard.  We played around with it for about 30 minutes and couldn’t figure out what the problem is so we temporarily took the guard off for the last few cuts.  We definitely need to get that fixed though!

And it looks like the weather is on board with our 3 day weekend to work on the house!  0% chance of rain means we can continue the outside work!  Tomorrow I’ll get a coat of paint on the trim on the other side of the house and we’ll probably work on window panels (after we finish up that siding section).

A girl night

We had the 3 cousins over for the evening Friday night.  I took them to Joanns to get fabric for their halloween costumes, then we went to the park, made pizzas for dinner and watched a movie.  It was a nice relaxing night before a weekend of work!

Yum!

Ryan has Monday off for Columbus day so I also took the day off and we plan to get some outside work done around the house.  So far the weather looks like it’s on our side and we’ve already managed to get the lawn mowed so things are looking good!

Quilting finished!

Wow – 3 nights on aunt mo’s machine and the quilting on Emily’s quilt is completed!  That’s crazy!  I still have to make the binding and attach it which I will start this weekend and I think I’ll have the quilt done by the time I see Emily on the 18th.

Quilting finished
Close up of some of the quilting

The quilting is a mix of designs, I just quilted what I felt like in each block or section and then went around the border with swirls that had hearts and flowers in them.  I may fix up one corner where the batting was too small, I got some bunching of the fabric, I have to see how bad it is, I can take out the quilting in that corner and fix it if it’s really bad but it was too late last night to worry about it 🙂