Busy, busy, busy!

Lots has been going on here in the sandbox. I've been sewing but haven't taken any pictures this week. I've been slogging away at my Old Tobacco Road quilt (I think I'm on step 4) and finished up a few things that were due at the guild meeting on Thursday.

Last Sunday we decided it was high time to update one of our bathrooms. We did some measuring and went off to Home Depot and Lowes to see what we could find. At Lowes we found a vanity and medicine cabinet on clearance! And it was the one I liked the best anyway. :-) So once we got them, and the sink/counter top and light fixture home, it meant it was time to tear out the old!


Under the big mirror we found the vestiges of an old pink paint treatment. It must have been a huge job to do the whole room like that.

Even older wall paper, yucky linoleum...


and extra pipes.

I've also been dealing with insurance people over the fallen tree limb. Apparently it was an "act of God" so they won't pay for the damage. Thank goodness no one was hurt! Sheesh. Lucky for them they didn't have to talk to The Tramp. :-) Now the leaves have browned we can see other broken branches just hanging up there. Sadly, the whole tree is to be taken down on Monday. Wouldn't have been anyone's choice but it's just too dangerous not to.

Also this week we had termite bait stations installed and had our first pest control treatment. We're termite free so far and I'd like it to remain that way. I'm sure hoping the pest control stuff works too 'cause I'm really tired of vacuuming up all the critters that get in the house somehow. Yick! I'm also not a fan of the black widow spiders and such that hang out around the foundation. *shiver*

The other project of the week was getting an air return relocated. The room (the old photo studio) we are going to use as a living room had the return up in the ceiling. Well that's about 15 feet up! I teetered at the top of the extension ladder and changed the filter exactly once. Never again!

So now we have a hole to fill when we get way up there to paint.



This is the hole on the sewing room side of the wall for the new return.


Which now looks like this...at least until we box it in.


Simple, but it's the simple things that make life so much easier!


Look at that. I can reach the vent. Without a ladder! Yippee


They neatly stuffed some cardboard in the old hole to get us by for now.


And then they did a really nice job cleaning up all the drywall dust and insulation fluff that came down. I couldn't resist telling the two guys how much I enjoyed watching them vacuum. LOL!


So this is going to be a nice room...eventually. After the bathroom is done! Oh yeah, the flooring people came to measure this week too. Tomorrow, after he fixes the non-working doorbells that have been making me crazy all week with contractors coming and going, I'm taking The Tramp over to look at the flooring I chose. Not being rich enough to put down an acre of fancy stone tile or hardwood, I chose a cool vinyl product meant for spaces where dampness is a concern....which in my case means wet and dirty dogs! At this point anything is better than wall to wall carpet....sigh.

Dirt???? Who....me?

After the wind...

Actually, after all was said and done, the wind and rain happened but it didn't get all that bad. Of course it's been raining almost every day ever since and I'm beginning to feel like a humid prune but the drought alternative is worse! Now we just have to worry about what Ike is going to do!! :-(

Mom and I were supposed to go to a quilt workshop on Saturday but decided the rain and wind were too much to drive in. Instead we waited until Tuesday to take the trip down to Fayetteville to pick up our workshop packages, my Bernina, and shop for Old Tobacco Road fabric. Dad came along and we had a nice lunch in the historic center of Fayetteville surrounded by galleries and antique shops. We've actually been down there twice in the last week!

Market House, a national historic landmark.


Looking down Hay Street towards Market House.


An excellent place for lunch.


Nice, no matter which way you look!


And down this little narrow side street....


Is a wonderful quilt shop!


Mom bought fabric for her Old Tobacco Road and I scouted around for border fabric. I already had the black (inner border) and found the rust color (outer border) to go with it. I think they play well together!


So since Bernina has been away at the spa, I set up another workstation courtesy of Singer. What a wonderful machine for piecing! Love it, love it, love it!



And worked my way through the four-patches. I just love them! Lots of fungly combinations of new and old scraps and thrifted clothing. I think I'm finally getting the feeling of this scrappy thing. :-D

Yesterday was a dark and dreary day so I stayed at my sewing machine and started working through the pinwheels. I have lots more to do, but they are soooo cool! LOL




And in other news.... This morning another bigger limb fell out of the pecan tree next door. It was quite a shocker. My lovely Japanese maple is smashed, along with an old metal arbor and a bunch of garden plants. We're just lucky the fence is still in one piece. The neighbors were outside by 7am having their daily early morning garden perusal and filling bird feeders while I lay in bed considering getting up. I can usually hear them talking when the windows are open. I heard Neighbor Man say to his wife, "You'd better get out from under that tree!" Then I heard the crack and the crash. So I put on my robe and and slippers and went out in the wet to see what had happened. Sigh....unfortunately it all happened on my side of the fence. So tomorrow I have to take photos for the insurance adjuster as the tree man says my little maple is quite valuable. Who knew?

Update tomorrow. Good night!

Wind?

If you draw a line on the weather maps for Tropical Storm/Hurricane Hanna, it's going to cross directly over Raleigh on the way to New England. I'm just wondering where the hurricane-changes-back-to-tropical-storm line will be! I think we'll be bringing in lots of lawn furniture, bird feeders and stuff, just in case.

Oddly, with no wind in sight, last night around 10:30 I heard a crack and a crash while I was laying in bed reading. We turned on the outdoor lights but couldn't see anything. This morning I discovered limbs from the pecan tree next door had fallen just on the other side of our fence. Neighbor man hauled one big one out of his garden with the truck...

...but there's another one up there hanging by a bit of bark. We need to get it down before the winds come this weekend!
And the pecans! Oh my! I've been hit by a few already. One even made a painful welt on the back of my neck, and if this debris is any indication we're in for a big mess crop this fall!

We've been a bit tree challenged this year so I hope the winds don't get too strong!

That little maple was damaged when we had our pecan tree taken down. I always feel bad about cutting down a tree but it was just too big and too close to the house. We have plans for planting four shade trees in the front yard and we have lots of others so I shouldn't feel tree deprived. :-)

While the dogs were getting good and dirty (sigh) I took a short spin around the garden with the camera. Things are still blooming madly, though it's beginning to look more like an autumn garden. It got a late start but the black-eyed susan vine is taking off.

Forget-me-nots.

The sedum (sp?) is in bloom and the four o'clocks are taking over!

This crazy cosmos just gets bigger...and bigger...and bigger and hasn't bloomed yet. It's taller than I am now! The one on the left is finally blooming but I'm wondering if this one ever will. Weird.
And if this mass is any indication we're going to have a nice display of mums!

Off to get the sewing machine fixed now. Fingers crossed!

What is that???

In between household chores and going to the gym, today I've been alternately sitting at my computer and cutting fabrics for the Old Tobacco Road mystery quilt. I had just taken a photo of my cut fabrics...
...when I spotted something strange on the bird feeder pole. I couldn't see it properly with the binoculars so I grabbed the camera and went outside to see. It was the biggest bug holding another big bug (I think). Creepy. I couldn't get the camera to focus quickly enough and it flew up to the roof. So this is the best picture I could get. Not much good! :-)

It was huge. At least three inches long. *shiver*

So instead I finished up the batteries in the camera on wrestling dogs. Yes...the lawn needs mowing...badly!

Ivy seems to favor the drop-and-roll strategy. Lots of teeth and rattling tags but it's mostly a silent game. Just a grunt or a hum from Ngaire now and then. They were wrestling all around my cutting table earlier and it was like an old silent movie comedy. I had background music going and as the dogs moved around various body parts would pop into view above the edge of the table then disappear again. All very silently. It always makes me laugh. :-D

Tobacco Roads

Saturday we spent some time at the State Fairgrounds Flea Market. One of the inside vendors had an eye-catching selection of bags and luggage. As Middle Daughter is traveling again at the end of this week, she just couldn't resist this luggage! I wish I had a reason to buy some. There was (were?) this pink and brown, as well as pink and black, pink and white, brown and turquoise, green and brown...some large polka dots and some small. Cute, cute, cute.

We were hoping to find a coordinating fabric in a quick trip through Hancocks but ended up with brown and turquoise instead. So I whipped this little sling bag up before they left last night.

My daughters never took to sewing quite the way I did but they like to sit down with my mother to put a little something together when they visit. Mom is working on piecing a quilt top by hand. MD sat down and sewed six blocks! Her SO did one too. They signed the ones they did and SO drew a hummingbird on his. (They were fascinated by the hummingbirds at our feeders.) We decided it's a hummingbird on steroids! LOL


Today the Tramp and I were going to devote a bunch of time to listing stuff on eBay and Craigslist. This is my pile.

And this is his!

LOL...not really. There's a bunch of computer parts on the desk and books on the floor to be (hopefully) sold. We've been collecting boxes and packing material for a while now and the pile is definitely out of hand! The Tramp got the books listed then we went out to get more padded envelopes in the event they actually sell!

It was a beautiful day for a ride. Pretty roads, hay, cows, barns and......




tobacco!


LOL It would have been better if we had pulled over. "Objects are closer than they appear" indeed! With all the talk about mystery quilts called Old Tobacco Road, I felt a compulsion to snap a picture of at least one of the fields nearby.

I also raided my stash for appropriate "Tobacco Road" fabrics.


These are not "my colors" so I was kind of amazed I had so much in the appropriate color scheme. But where fabric is concerned enough is never enough! The Tramp is lucky the thrift stores were closed today. :-D