A worthwhale project

 We went yard saling (sailing?) last Saturday and we passed a barn sale on a side road. It was mostly junk but I did find this really nice wooden frame for only FIVE BUCKS! Of course, I needed to put some sort of art in it and knowing me, it wasn't long before I did another homage to "Moby-Dick". I stitched a "quilt collage" out of some scraps of fabric I've got in my quilting stash. I just happened to have a pattern of an old schooner of some sort, a whale, and some fabric that looked like ocean waves. With some arty modern stitch lines I'm happy with the result. 

Scott thought it would look good in the hallway next to the basement door. He was right (as usual). 

House of Windsor

We love to scope out yard and garage sales on Saturdays, just drive around and see what goodies we can find. There was one in Bridgehampton that had mostly junk being held by this chatty older lady. Quickly I spotted a Windsor-style bar stool for only $40. I sat down on it and it was very comfy. I sent this pic to Scott who was waiting in the car with Travis. He came and saw it and approved. I snapped it up. 

I've been needing a new one for the kitchen bar, the one I have now was not easy on the butt anymore and was getting worn looking despite the slip covered I sewed for it last year. 

When we got the chair home it was too tall for the bar top, UGH...but then I noticed there were some ridges already cut into the legs at the bottom. What if I tried cutting the legs down along those lines? I was super worried that I'd never be able to make the angled cuts correctly to make the chair sit properly but decided to give it a go. Lo and behold, my jigsaw went through the legs 'like buttah', easy peasy. The angle of the cut was perfect and now the stool is at the right height for the bar. The color of the wood matches nicely with he dining table also. I'm thinking I'll get a seat cushion for it to make sitting on it that much comfier, something I'll probably pick up at Home Goods. 

Paging Donna shillelagh??

We love to take long walks around the village with the dog. And when we do, I usually pick up a branch to be my 'walking stick' (sorta like Barbara Parkins at the end of "Valley of the Dolls"). So one day I thought I'd take one of these comfortable sticks and "tshudge it up" a bit, i.e. sand it, stain it, and polyurethane it so it would look a whole lot better. I'd be making my own shillelagh and I'm not even Irish! LOL So far I have two nice ones, and I'm sure they won't be the last. I've always got my eye out for the next perfect stick to transform.

Feeling my oats

I've taken up quilting (more on that in a future post), and it's caused me to accumulate a ton of fabric scraps. They were too small to use for quilting but too nice to simply throw out, what a waste that would be. So I decided to use them in a craft project. 

We eat a lot of oatmeal in our house and the big oatmeal box seemed like the prefect container to cover with the fabric scraps. I could use it for storage...or something, right?

I broke out my bottle of Mod Podge decoupage glue and covered it from top to bottom overlapping the squares and rectangles in a 'Modrian'-ish pattern. 

I like the way it came out, I'm using it for now as a vase for some dried hydrangea blooms in the kitchen. 

We've already eaten enough oatmeal to furnish another box...I think I'll use that one to store future piles of scraps! 

A whale of a project

I ran across a cute picture on Pinterest of a stuffed whale doll that someone made and I thought to myself, "I could make that". I've stated my fascination of all things whale in past posts. It has something to do with living in a historic whaling village I guess. 

In any event, I found a pdf of the pattern online and with an old pair of jeans to provide the fabric I got to sewing. It came out pretty cute. I especially love the button eye and the belly detail (made from overstitching the reverse side of the jeans). 

It now sits on a shelf in the bedroom. 

On the radio

 I saw a cute radio/CD player on Nextdoor.com the other week, only 20 bucks. I wanted a CD player for the craft room to play music while I'm sewing & crafting. 

I loved the retro look of it (even tho it's not vintage by a long shot)...but the bright blue color ended up being too much for me. I decided to try painting it. I taped off all the chrome parts with blue painter's tape and got out the black spray paint.

Two coats later it was sleek and black. Much better. It now happily sits on a side table in the craft room and works like a charm.