61 since 61

 Yesterday was my 61st birthday, 61 years since the year I was born, 1961. It was a very pleasant day. Scott couldn't be here, he was in Boston seeing his parents for the holidays. It was the only time he could fit them into his schedule between work and also seeing his kids in Idaho. We'll celebrate when he gets here later this week. 

I got to sleep late and had my usual oatmeal with blueberries and bananas. 

Then I made some Christmas ccokies, gingerbread dusted with confectioner's sugar. It was a new recipe, I was hoping they'd be really spicy. They were good but I could have used a little more kick. 

I got a new Christmas CD, Kelly Clarkson's second holiday album. It's good. She's clearly trying to land a hit like Mariah's "All I Want for Christmas is You"...but what artist these days isn't?

My afternoon snack was cookies and Abuelita hot chocolate...

while I read my present from Scott, Ina Garten's new cookbook, "Go-To Dinners". 

For dinner I made my favorite recipe, Curry Chicken Pot Pie, it's a Martha Stewart number, really good. 

And I ended the evening watching an episode of one of my favorite mystery programs, "Grantchester", who doesn't love a hot ginger priest who solves crimes? 

That's a pretty good birthday if I do say so myself :) 

Lamplight

 Two weekends ago I went to an estate sale a few blocks over on Division Street. It was a little house very near the Harbor Market. I found this little lamp (without the shade) for only eight bucks. I put it behind me on the shelves in back of my sewing desk in the craft room, it works great. 

Finding the Septic

 It was that time again. Time to have the septic tank serviced. But where exactly was the lid buried? I thought I had it all under control from last time when I took a picture of the location. Fat chance. I spent all afternoon digging and digging to no avail. UGH. 

I was DETERMINED to find it today because for the septic company to send a "pinpoint technician" would cost TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS. No way, forget it. After more digging, Scott and I finally found it. It was basically where we had been digging but way deeper underground. 

So there's no going through this again, I drew up a 'treasure map' to keep on file. That should do the trick in a couple of years. 

A leg up on storage

 I saw this idea on Pinterest, a smart way to store wrapping papers: take an ordinary stool, flip it upside down, add some wheels and you've got a great caddy to store them all in. 

I've been searching for one and the other weekend I found a white wooden one at a yard sale for only FOUR DOLLARS. 

I painted it dark gray, and got the wheels for cheap at Home Depot, and VOILA! A perfect storage solution that works great in the craft/sewing room. 

Side board solutions

A few months ago I saw a posting on Nextdoor.com selling a side table. I made Scott go with me that night to haul it home. It was a couple over in the Springs section of East Hampton. They were asking around $95 so I offered $70 and they took. It just fit in the back of the Jeep. 

I needed a place to cut fabric that could also double as an 'ironing board', something long and not too deep, as there's not a lot of space in that small room. This was the perfect solution. It also had two small drawers to stash supplies and a shelf underneath.

I bought a thick wool ironing mat on Amazon that would go on one side and my cutting mat would go on the other. Add two task lights and I was in business. 

I soon learned that it was a tad low for working on, so then I went back to Amazon and ordered some plastic furniture risers. I wanted them in brown to match the wood but no luck, only  white or black was available in what I needed. I got the white ones and with a couple of coats of brown spray paint all was good. 

Next I got a piece of wood at Home Depot and some L brackets to add an extra shelf underneath. I stained and polyurethaned it first. Then I got some under shelf baskets from Home Sense to give me some added storage on the bottom, this way I could sweep underneath. 

Lastly, I got a multi outlet cord to mount on the side. It makes it way more convenient to turn the iron off and on instead of bending down the the wall plug behind the shelf. 

All in all, it's pretty functional piece now, I'm super happy to have it.

A hex on you

 Since I started the quilting thing I've been wanting to make an old fashioned hexagon quilt. But researching them I found they're pretty tricky to make, not the best undertaking for a beginner (it's joining all those "Y" seams that's tough). But then I stumbled upon a way to make them that's much easier: you assemble the hexagon with HALF hexagons and just use straight line quilting. It requires a lot of planning before you start sewing. You have to make sure everything is placed exactly where you want it because once you start sewing the rows, it's not easy to undo mistakes. 

The first step is to lay out all your cut half hexagons on the floor (I lay down a sheet so as not to dirty the fabric pieces). 

Here's a close-up of a practice piece I did...I eventually turned it into a small throw pillow. You can see how the half pieces make up the whole hexagon....and how you sew the rows across. 

Here's an 'in-process' shot of how I attach the backing to the quilt top with the batting attached to it. Oh how I wish I had a huge work space with a big work table to lay out everything, it would make life so much easier. 

And finally the finished piece...I love it. It's exactly what I envisioned in my head. I wanted a vintage 1940's vibe to go with the age of the house. I call it "granny chic"...very Todd Oldham, a modern take on an old-timey idea. 

Here's a close-up shot of the detail in the quilting...

I wanted this quilt specifically for the day bed in the craft room. It got a cabin-y Adirondack-y feeling so I thought this would work well in there...and it does. The first picture above was shot in the bedroom for better lighting, here's the quilt in the craft room. A perfect place for afternoon naps or curling up with a good book...

Lastly, here's a look at the back, the "after quilt" as one YouTube tutorialist call it. It's a terrific way to use up scraps of fabric. This all have a floral and/or fruit pattern and they're all in the colors of the front, yellows, golds, oranges, greens, burgandies, etc

Caddy shack

When I'm sitting on the living room sofa and I'm hand sewing something, or darning something else I need a lot of paraphernalia: thread, needles, scissors, a seam ripper, a darning mushroom, etc. I bring all that stuff downstairs and set it on the side table, awkwardly twisting my body around to reach it all. On top of that I have nowhere to put the needle when I'm tying the thread, it invariably gets lost. Then I saw an idea on Pinterest...a sofa sewing caddy, complete with pockets and built-in pin cushion. Brilliant. 

However, great idea, BAD execution (IMHO). Too busy and 'granny' by a mile. So I took the idea and adapted it to my style and sofa. I used an old denim shirt that I got at an estate sale for $2, the pocket came in handy on one side of the caddy. On the other side there's a pocket for the darning mushroom and clips. For that I used more of the Scalamandre fabric I used for the quilt backing. It's also the binding all the way the around the edges. I think it came out great and I can't wait to use it. 

Quilt #2

I started my next quilt the week after Christmas and it's been my Big Winter Project. I finished it yesterday and am so pleased with how it turned out. 

I decided I wanted to try a completely different kind of quilt. This one is a pieced quilt. 48 different blocks all in a blue color scheme. 

I found the patterns in a book "Quilt As You Go Made Modern". It was fun tackling each design, some were very simple and others very complicated. I wanted that old country vibe, something that looked like an old heirloom. For the backing I used some fabric I found at an estate sale a few weeks ago, a whole bolt of Scalamandre that was a STEAL at only FIVE BUCKS for the whole thing. 

That's quite fancy and expensive stuff, I've still got a lot left, I'll be using it for a while. 

Easel on down the road

 Another weekend, another estate sale score: I found an amazing artist's easel for just TWENTY DOLLARS at an estate sale only one street over here in the village. It was marked $25 but of course I hondled it down five bucks. I looked up the brand online (Juliann, a French company) and they sell for over $200 so this was a big find. It's in perfect condition, just a few paint marks (which I kinda like, gives it some 'patina'), but to top it off it was FILLED with a cache of oil paints in various colors. So now the only problem is I have to getting painting!! 

Q is for Qrazy (and Quilt)

At the end of last summer I stumbled upon an Instagram feed of a crafting/sewing woman in Scandinavia. In one post she was making quilted squares of fabric from old scraps. It looked very easy. See her post here.  I thought "if you connected a lot of those squares together you could make a quilt". And so began my journey into making my first quilt, something that I never dreamed I would try. That first post discovery led me to countless other IG feeds, blogs, and YouTube video tutorials. I jumped in headfirst not really knowing what I was getting into. It turned into quite a crafting sojourn, that lasted over FOUR MONTHS, but I finally finished my first quilt. It was not always easy but I am VERY satisfied with the end result...and I have a new hobby that I adore. 

So here are a few snapshots of the process (with the finished quilt at the end)...

The traditional way of quilting is to create a top of various fabric pieces in some sort of pleasing pattern, then you sandwich it on top of batting and a backing piece of fabric. After that you quilt this big and cumbersome thing which is not easy. But back int he 1980's a technique became very popular where you sew various quilted blocks together piece by piece. This is a lot easier to manage on a domestic sewing machine. That's where I started, I began amassing these 8" by 8" squares made out of all kinds of fabric, anything I could find, old material I had in the back of closets, old clothes, old jeans, pillow cases, sheets, you name it. I got Scott to give me old clothes of his and I even started looking for old clothes at yard sales, anything was fair game to use. I then supplemented it all with fabrics I bought online and at places like the Sag Harbor Five & Dime and Walmart. 

Here are few samples, I ended up needing NINETY-NINE squares (!) altogether. 

As you can see, I decided to go with a nautical them, aside from basic hues of blue and green, I incorporated lighthouses, anchors, whales, sharks, sailors, mermen, all things I'm obsessed with. Not to mention that I do live in Sag Harbor, an old whaling town. 

This part of the process took the longest. I averaged an hour to an hour and a half when sewing each square depending on how intricate the pieces of fabric were. You can do the math to figure out how long it took me to get to 99! How satisfying to see that final stack of squares it was. 

In my research, practically everywhere said that to sew all the squares together you need what's called a 'walking foot' attachment for your sewing machine. Basically, it pulls the fabric thru the machine not only from the bottom but from the TOP as well. This is what they look like...

The problem is that my vintage Kenmore is so old it took a LOT of hunting to track down the right resource that carried one that would fit my machine. After many dead ends, I found a vendor on eBay that had the right foot. It was not cheap, about $60, but it was ABSOLUTELY worth every penny. It made the sewing way, way easier to maneuver. 

Before I started connecting the squares, I needed to layout all of them in order to find the most pleasing layout. I wanted to spread out various fabrics and colors so that patterns weren't repeated too close to one another. I did this on the floor of my bedroom on top of an old sheet, it was the only space big enough to lay it all out. 

I numbered the rows and pinned Post-It notes to them so that everything was organized when I finally started sewing. Having this picture helped also. 

You start by connecting one row of squares horizontally. I had 11 rows. 

Then you connect all the rows together starting from the middle rows and working out from there, first the top rows, then the bottom ones. This is how it looked from the back, you can see the quilting of the fabric pieces thru the batting. 

The next stage is to add the backing fabric. I didn't want to piece together more rows of fabric so I discovered that many people use bed sheets for this. Purists don't like this solution for some reason but it's a lifesaver, saving money and time. I had a hard time finding the right pattern of sheet. I found this one on Kmart.com. I liked it because it was blue, sort of modern, and the pattern would hide a lot of sins in case my stitches turned out wonky. It turned out great on the latter point. If I had to do it all over again, I would choose a cotton sheet (this one was a synthetic), but it's fine. It's very soft. 

In an ideal world I have a huge work table to lay out these big pieces to pin the backing fabric to the top and batting. I have no such thing. YouTube rescued me again.  There were a few videos on how to attach the backing on a very small table. It's not easy but I managed. I did it on the kitchen counter, the only place with a large surface. I didn't want to do it on the floor to save my knees and back, besides, I didn't want to put my lovely creation on the floor to get dirty. 

The pinning took an entire afternoon, there were over a hundred curved safety pins in all. 

Trying to sew this big thing on my sewing machine was the one thing I feared the most. I had nightmares about how to do this. Again, the internet taught me that it could be done. You roll up each side and persevere. It's like wrestling an alligator but it's possible. All it takes is patience. Thank God for the walking foot and my good ol' Kenmore, that thing is built like a tank. It worked like a champ. 

Next was adding the binding. I had found a nice fabric for cheap online, I think it was from Joanne's, a blue pattern that looked like an old bandana. You have to cut several long strips and attach them end to end on the bias, another process I learned from YouTube. 

Here's the quilt without the binding folded up. 

And here are the binding strips. 

Sewing the binding took another whole afternoon. After all that, here's the--drumroll please--finished piece. I'm super pleased with how it turned out. It's not perfect by a long shot, very 'hamishe' like everything I make, but you learn that quilting forgives a lot of sins. You don't see little imperfections, you're just left with the cozy comfy end product. 

As a coda, I had several squares left over, I had made extra in case the overall design needed adjusting. I  turned three of these into pot holders, Christmas gifts for my nieces and nephew. 

And as a second coda, I took a few of the leftover blocks and made a table runner. I think it's a little thin for the dining room tho. It will look a lot better on the bistro table we use on the front porch next spring. 

60 is the new 40

Yesterday was my Big One: I turned 60. It's hard to believe. It doesn't feel like that many years have passed...but time does fly. It turned out to be a great and memorable day. 

 

We woke up late and had a big breakfast of oatmeal with blueberries and bananas, one of my favorite meals. 

My gift from Scott was this neat metal racoon (my spirit animal) for the yard. See, I call the house "Racoon Hall", so it's a perfect talisman. It's a die-cut piece of metal that you nail into the side of a building, a fence, or a tree. It rusts and ages over time. Not sure where it will be placed just yet, stay tuned. Here's a pic from the maker:

We went back to bed for a long afternoon nap, it was that kind of day...

Afterward, we got cleaned up and had dinner at a beautiful restaurant in East Hampton, 1770 House. It's  in a lovely Inn. 

The room was warm and cozy and very Christmas-y. 

I had the most delicious dinner:

First course was Brussels Sprouts & Granny Smith Apple Salad

Bacon, Golden Raisins, Parmigiano Reggiano, & Lemon-Anchovy Dressing.

My entree was Roasted ‘Painted Hills’ Striploin with

Marrow Emulsion, Sauteed Spinach,  and Pommes Allumettes. 

We has a side of parsnip puree and finished off the meal with a sticky date cake with ice cream and caramel sauce. All of it was simply perfect. 

When we got home there's always something that goes wrong, right? Travis had thrown up in his cage! Scott had to give him a quick bath and we had to rinse off the cage in the backyard with the water hose. Aside from this snafu, it was a terrific day, everything that you could hope for.