Dryer Balls

I have been desperately trying to get back into sewing.  There are a few reasons for this...

•  I truly do enjoy sewing, it is satisfying to finish projects relatively quickly, especially compared to knitting sometimes
• I have a bunch of great supplies I should be using, but of course, I never seem to have what I need!
• I have a bunch of project lined up for the nursery, the baby, nursing, etc.  All of these are items that are sold for much more than I can make them
• I am in the process of creating a great new sewing / craft studio.  My husband will be annoyed if I never ever use it!

Throughout my pregnancy, I have found sewing a little exhausting.  I have more energy these days, but it still tires me out to stand for a while ironing and cutting, and then to put it all together to sew.  I keep trying, but I'm not always very successful. It is much easier to curl up on the couch and knit, of course!

A few weeks ago I did finish up some dryer balls.  These had been on my list of things to do for a while.  We don't use fabric softener, but we do use dryer sheets.  I'm hoping that now we can stop.

The pattern I used is from the purl bee fabric beach balls pattern.  The pattern ended up being much to big (even the smallest ball), so I halfed it for the two of the balls I did. The balls are filled with wool sweater scraps and some wool yarn as well.  The biggest makes a huge racket while in the dryer, it'll just become a toy I guess, but the other two are in constant rotation through the dryer.

You definitely don't have to use cute colours for this project, but I really wanted to enjoy using these.  Fun and bright colours make me smile.  I'm just like that.

Once I sat down to sew these, they went pretty quickly.  There is a small amount of hand sewing for the final seam, but since these are pretty utilitarian items, the seam doesn't have to be too pretty.  This was a great way to use up some smaller scraps you might have kicking around from other projects.

Wall Painting Complete

Are you bored of hearing about my recent painting yet?  Although I still have to paint the trim, and the ceiling (Alain will be doing that!), the green painting on the walls is actually finished.  I snuck in and took a quick photo this morning before morning sunlight got too bright, so without further ado....

Alain has promised me I can change the light fixture into something fresh and fun.  On the right hand wall we are going to put our favourite IKEA Expedit shelving units (shown here, although ours are in the now-unavailable beech veneer) (2 of them will almost fill the whole wall) which will be amazing for storage.

This space will continue to be in transition for a little while, but for now I'm very excited to see how much progress can be made in just a few days.

Painting Update

I have a quick painting update to share.  Remember, I am currently in the process of painting my soon-to-be Craft Studio.  We are using Olympic Premium No-VOC paint and it is great.  There is pretty much no smell at all to the paint.  I found the primer smelled a little, for whatever reason, but it is a huge difference from the usual paint smell.  Olympic is well priced and available at Lowe's, if anyone is interested.

We had them tint the paint to match the chip I showed you here and they did a pretty good job.  We were worried it might be a little bold, but actually, I love it in the space so far.

Here it is:

So far I have finished one big wall and the wall with the window.  I have one more big wall, and one almost-non-existent wall to finish.  I'm hoping I can finish it off by the weekend, we'll see though.

Priming was the hardest part, and I had Alain help me quite a bit.  I wanted to get it all done in one go, so I could work slowly on the wall colour, so we did it all on Saturday.  It was a bit too much for my pregnant body.  Since then I have been taking it easy and working an hour or two a day. 

I'm not a great painter, but after applying the second coat the paint dried clear and flat, no weird blotches or light spots were left behind.

Pre-Baby Home Renovations

I finally seem to have my normal energy levels back.  I have gone for three days now without my 3:00 pm afternoon nap.  Since I am feeling more energetic, we are embarking on lots of pre-baby home renovations.

You already saw the nursery do-over.  Where we went from this:

To this:

(Obviously, we are still using this room as a guest room for now, the make over is in the paint colour.  We will be able to do more nursery work when we find out the gender of the baby NEXT WEEK!)
Now I have set my sights on the library / dining room.  Soon to become the library / craft and sewing room:

The Library

The Dining Room

The whole room, from the Dining Room

Our Dining Room is moving into our current tv room, our current tv room is moving to the basement (which we are currently working on finishing).  My husband is in charge of the basement and I thought I would tackle this area. 

We love the library, and are going to continue to use it as a library.  The dining room will become a great area for sewing and crafting.  I have plans for a huge table that the wee one can sit at (eventually) with me for lots of arts and craft adventures.  We are definitely installing a window seat (with storage) in the bay window. 

For now though, the main aspect of the transformation will involve a lot of painting (don't worry, we are going to use low VOC paint to protect me and the baby from those nasty fumes).

I saw this photo a few days ago and fell in love with the light green / dark green colour pallette. 

Since then, I have settled on our paint colours:

Ignore "Fencepost", that is just in there to take the third place, which apparently must be filled in Cil's handy planner.

The main walls will be in Precious Jasper, and the bookshelves will be in Veridian Green.  We'll likely leave the back of the bookcases, as is (white).  We plan to do a little minor bookshelf sprucing in the process, but nothing too major.

There will be lots of priming to do this weekend and eventually the ceilings and trim will have to be repainted too. I hope the baby is ready for some work!

Guests!

This weekend is Thanksgiving in Canada.  I am busy working on some cute knits to help celebrate the season, but I've also been busy with house stuff too.

Alain was away on business last week, and I wanted to surprise him in some way when he got home.  With Alain set to arrive home around midnight on Friday, I left my surprise until around 8:30 pm.

When Alain left last week, the guest room looked like this:

When he returned, the guest room looked like this:

I finished the headboard, put the bed back together and dragged the extra furniture into place.  The bookshelf was no big deal, but man, that drawer unit is heavy!  I was a little crazy for moving that all the way from our bedroom by myself.

Here is a snapshot of the headboard, I used mod-podge and scrapbook paper.  The paper bubbled a little, but overall, it looks okay.  This bed will live on for a little while longer.

 











I adore this room now and keep sneaking in to have a look at my handywork.  We had the bedding on hand, and definitely didn't purchase it with the wall colour in mind.  I think it looks pretty good in a non-matchy-matchy kind of way.  According to Project Runway non-match-matchy is very in these days, right?

The room is finished just in time for some houseguests.  My parents will be spending Thanksgiving with us this year and we will be hosting Alain's whole family for dinner.  Yikes, that's a lot of people!