Insulation hanging at the Duck

I have just come back from 5 days at the Duck...hanging insulation. 10 rolls of insulation...416 feet of insulation. up and down the ladder hundreds of times. and whacked the top of my head on the ceiling joist in the kithcen...ouch!

I like the Johns Manville stuff better....it comes in a whole roll and i can cut off a 10' section to put up in one piece. i had 6 rolls of that.

Then i had 4 rolls of the pink panther stuff...that comes precut...into 8 foot sections. so there will be a lot of cut and paste to finish up the bottom 2 feet.  We won't talk about the sections that are too narrow or too wide for the 15" wide insulation. so, next trip will be a LOT of cutting and pasting to fit those sections....days worth.

And i had to take 1 piece down and move it. i can't hang insulation where the pocket doors go into the wall....i almost screwed up there. good thing i noticed after only hanging one piece.

How do you like my brown leather rocker that i scored at auction? it is very comfy. and there is a regular chair to match. they are pretty heavy. i am going to take the bottoms off and add more padding to the seats. they will live in the living room.

This is my kitchen table and chairs that i scored at auction for $41. has tiles on the top. in pretty good shape. rather heavy. i had to take the legs off to get the table into the house. my doorways were too narrow. will probably paint it later.

And i found this tablecloth at the Salvation Army thrift store for 1.49. someone embroidered that so beautifully that i had to bring it home. it's like card table size so i put it on the table crossways.  and the jar with the blue heart that is on the table is a thrift store find, also.  this might have to be called the Thrift Store Duck. hahahaha

After all that insulation hanging...i HAD to pretty something up....anything....so i painted the laundry room and hung stuff up in there. SOME PART of that house had to look more normal. i'll show you what i did in the next posting...

Later

On the Road Again

When i visit thrift stores i always look in the linens and curtains section. sometimes i come across some cool cotton fabric that i can score.

Lately i found this chocolate brown and blue. someone had sewed together a couple of curtain panels with them. i unsewed it all and probably had 4 yards or more. i think i paid 3.99.  score!!

Then i found some cool vehicles on www.designsbyjuju.com     there were 9 of them and i did them in brown thread on light blue fabric. the designs are called On the Road Again.

This is the top i created with my score fabric and the 9 blocks.

I used just about all of the fabric. the side borders are 8" wide. the bottom is 10" and the top is 12"...plus the blue and brown blocks up there, too.

I was cutting, figuring and piecing as i went. trying to get the most out of my found fabric. had less than a fat quarter left at the end.

It turned out to be 68x80"....a pretty good couch size. or small bed size. it is now residing in the to-be-quilted closet. it joins just 7 other tops ready to be quilted. can you believe it....only 8 now in the cabinet. shoot....at the beginning of the year there were about 25 tops in there. progress is being made.

If i quit making NEW tops......i could catch up with myself. but we all know that is not going to happen...right?

That's ok...too much fun.

Later

I might be a bit Monkish

I was checking out the local thrift stores the other day and off in a corner i spied a box with 30 glass spice jars in it for $2.00 .... couldn't pass that up....they came home with me.

I washed them all up and printed out some new labels and got rid of all my old spice containers....different sizes, different colors...now they all look pretty.

I keep them all in alphabetical order, too.  perhaps a little Monkish...but it works for me.

Who knew i could fill 30 spice jars....plus i am out of 2 or 3 things....so i could actually use a few more.

How many spices do you normally keep in the cupboard?  can you beat 30?  LOL

My weekend fun

I went to my sister's on wednesday and got home sunday. we had big fun.

We did thrift store shopping at our old haunts on wednesday. Horrors!!!!   our favorite St. Vincent de Paul thrift store is St. Louis was moving...waaay across town. bummer. we got there the last day but they were about all boxed up. in that same vicinity is also the Goodwill and Salvation Army. but St. Vincent had better furniture. sadly, we decided we would scratch that area from our thrift store map.

On thursday we went to a fabulous book sale at a school. i scored 9 quilt magazines and about 30 books. they had lots and lots of new hardback books. from $1 to $3.  i found about 6 of the Nora Roberts writing as J.D. Robb books...which i can never find anywhere. in these she writes in the future....like 2060. they are murder mysteries in the future...very cool.  and a couple dozen others that i liked. great sale...we spent 2.5 hours there.

On friday we decided to find other thrift stores in new areas. we went to St. Charles, Missouri and found the goodwill, salvation army and st. vincent de paul out there. the difference is like night and day. the stores were much cleaner and brighter and less 'junky'. no kids running around throwing stuff on the floors and a better class of merchandise. i came home with a few finds. my favorite from this trip was this vase.

Isn't it the greatest vase? it is very, very heavy. it didn't have a maker's mark or tag on it. i am thinking that someone made it themselves. it's about 14" tall. i like it a lot.

Here are a few other thrift store treasures i have found in the last few trips. i like to get unusual things to put in my studio. things that perhaps someone made and then got tired of or someone else threw out for whatever reason. i like the unusual.

Big Blue...also very heavy..

Someone's ceramic class vase..

And a very bright, colorful fish. i think this was probably manufactured somewhere but i like it. it is just so colorful and bright and makes me smile when i look at it.

On saturday we went out to the beast and did a few things...not much...it was hot. but we managed to put together a couple bookcases and put some books on them. measured for some tile and paint. and had lunch at our favorite mexican restaurant there. all in all a good day.

I took my sewing machine with me this weekend and finished piecing my selvage quilt top. it is 80"x100" and i am keeping it for me. hopefully it will get quilted before winter and go on my bed.  i have enough selvages to make dozens more.

and here's a closeup

Now that i'm back home i need to focus on my customer quilts that need to get done...there are 7 in line. and get more of mine done, too. will get started tomorrow.

Today was a total loss...i had to do the eye doctor thing and he dilated my eyes. that sort of ruins the whole day...can't do anything outside....couldn't do computer work...it hurt....a napped for a while and tried to read...that didn't work too well either. but i am almost back to normal (for me..LOL)...so tomorrow is back to work.

Have fun...stay cool...quilt on.

Re-crafted thrift store hat

I love thrift stores....do you?  sometimes my sister and I spend the whole day checking out thrift stores all over town. some days we fill the truck with goodies and some days we just go have lunch instead.

the local Goodwill stores around our area seem to be getting donations from Target and such stores. you see many more clothes with the tags still on them and lots of kitchen items, household items and such that are recognizable as coming from a retail store.

a few weeks ago i found a hat...they had several colors of the same hat. it was made of angora and still had a tag on it. so i figured i would give one of them a new home. i was thinking of adding some felt embellishments or something to it with my embellishment machine.

it had a funky flower on it made of wool....i took that off. i had some different yarns that i thought might look good. so i embellished them on there first. i went around the hat 3 or 4 times with each yarn.

then i had a piece of silk that i folded and stuck on there with a piece of folded pink felt over that. i embellished it all down in the middle. then piled 3 buttons on top. that was it. quick and easy with a whole new look.

my niece loves thrift shops, too and i thought she might enjoy this hat so i sent it to her. she showed me a picture of a knitted cap that she had gotten at the thrift store and that is what made me remember this hat.

so the hat is on it's way to savannah, georgia.  if you see it around somewhere, you will know where it came from. LOL

perhaps the next time i am at the thrift store i will look for another hat and see what else i can do.