And 2018 is Over!

We hope everyone had a wonderful New Years' Eve.

Today was a beautiful sunny day in Portland and Jeff spent a couple hours digging ugly rose bushes and a large volunteer maple tree out of our front yard. There were four old rose bushes in the yard that were hideous when we moved in and we always meant to pull them out. Today, finally, Jeff did it. Usually, we like roses, but we suspect these had died down to the rootstock at some point before we bought the house so the flowers on them were nothing to blog about.

The front yard had gotten pretty overgrown. Here is how it looked last summer.

Some of the plants we planted in the rain garden had gotten really big, plus we had a number of maple volunteers pop up.

Jeff trimmed back the spiraea douglasii, which had gotten as tall as the roofline. And he is working to pull out the volunteer trees, except for one birch which he really likes.

Here is how it looked after some tidying work. Until Spring when the plants start leafing out, it will be hard to tell how successful he's been.

I've spent the last couple of days sifting our SCA belongings and taking photos so I can list them for sale. AnTir's 12th Night is next weekend and it's only 2 miles from our house, so this is one of our best opportunities to thin down those possessions.

I've spent quite a lot of time on the various trade sites the last couple of weeks. I don't particularly like dealing with eBay, but sometimes it's the best option.

Merry Christmas

Our decorated tree from last year

We hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas, or whatever holiday you celebrate. Jeff and I pulled out all the Christmas decorations this year, but never managed to get them set up. I'm vaguely disappointed because this will probably be our last year in this beautiful house, but our energy level is pretty low for optional projects.

And for a progress report, we continue to sift never unpacked boxes from our basement. We've been selling stuff on eBay, Facebook marketplace and craigslist. And stuff that isn't worth selling, we've just been donating. There hasn't been much to take pictures of, which is a large part of why I haven't been posting. We have fewer boxes in our basement, but we are probably accomplishing too little for our timeline.

I've finished scanning all of the photos packed away in our storage. I pulled apart old photo albums and scanned all the loose stacks of photos. We only kept one plastic filebox of photos and the rest were discarded. I'm still holding a couple boxes to give to other family members who wish to keep them.  Hopefully, we'll make it down to California next year for a visit and to deliver all these things we need to give to family members.

Oh, and we sort of changed the moving plan again.... 
Yes, we are still planning to move to Prineville. And we are still planning to sell our Laurelhurst house. But the declining economy scared us and we decided not to spend the bulk of our savings right now remodeling the new house with the risk that we wouldn't be able to sell the big house in a timely manner. So, we postponed the remodel on Prineville and decided to rent it out short-term while we continue to make progress on the Portland end. Once we are in escrow in Portland, we'll revisit the project plan.

We also changed the washer and dryer delivery to Portland. I have a huge rant about Home Depot, but I'll spare you all. It's Christmas and who wants to hear me whining about my frustration with Home Depot? No one. I'll just say, I remember now why I stopped buying big stuff from Home Depot. After Jeff hooked the machines up, I spent about three days washing most everything in the house. It was great to have working machines again.

Chose Soapstone Slabs

They're much darker green than the counters we currently have, but the veining is beautiful. It's called Brazilian Green.

This slab has not been wetted down in the photo. We forgot to take a photo with it wet.

Next, we're going to choose the wood. It's likely the cost will figure in our decision.

November Update

Most years Jeff and I don't take advantage of Black Friday sales but, with the move, this year was an exception. Our current dryer went kaput after only 8 years. (Which is a rant, I'll spare you.) We've also been having problems with the washing machine, but it is still limping along. So, yesterday, I ordered a new washer and dryer (and freezer and microwave).

I don't know about you guys, but I have had a dilemma about which brand to buy. Basically, there are no laundry machine brands that are designed to last and all are likely to fail within the first decade. So, given that, I decided to go with a lower budget line of machines. I figure if they make them to fail, then I'm going to spend less on them. Though, I still haven't figured out why anyone would want WiFi laundry machines.

I actually ordered them to be delivered to the new house in Prineville, so it should be interesting. Little stuff we'll continue to wash here in Portland and hang dry. We'll bring the huge stuff, like sheets and quilts, to Prineville and wash them there. LOL

In the afternoon, we found ourselves back at Portland Direct Tile & Marble. I often find myself perusing their tile pictures online and their staff are super helpful about bringing out pieces for you to look at. Yesterday, I found a room in the back I had never seen before where they had a ton of discontinued borders to choose from. I was super excited to find some that I thought would look good with the soapstone. Green is really not in style this year. Also, I am not excited about this year's encaustic tile trend. We have always tried to avoid trendy kitchen materials because we don't want to "date" our remodels.

We finally made a commitment on the border when we found they had enough remaining of this one.

Sifting Again

Jeff and I finally decided we needed to get serious about making progress on downsizing so we have started sifting our possessions again with renewed energy. I've been working in my sewing room, Jeff started opening moved but never unpacked boxes in my closet. I was excited to find a couple quilts I made that I haven't seen since they were packed up in 2006. (Yes, you read that right. 12 years ago.)

I have a full-size set of rose, burgundy and dark green bedding from our guest room in Forest Grove I have no idea what to do with. We don't have a full-size bed anymore. I made the quilt, shams, pillowcases, matching throw pillows and curtains. There is also a bed skirt and coordinated sheets. It's really too bad handmade items have so little value in the resale market. Sigh.

I think this is the move when most of the rest of our SCA belongings depart. We'll probably just keep enough gear for day trips. And we're still trying to decide how much of the too-small clothing we're going to get rid of.

I spent several hours scanning and posting SCA period style costume sewing patterns to Amazon. I hadn't even known you could buy out-of-print patterns on there. With any luck, some of them will sell. Otherwise, I'm not really sure how to get rid of unused patterns.

Update later: My niece has a full-size bed and wants the bedding. Yeah.

Quilt Progress

I spent a couple of hours cutting out right-angle triangles for my quilt project before realizing they were coming out way too unevenly. It was really difficult to get them all identical when I was relying on the 45-degree line on a rectangular ruler. I pride myself on my uniformity.

This is the finished design of the blocks I'm making

I ordered a right angle ruler off Amazon and it took nearly two weeks to arrive. I should have just gone to the fabric store and found one, but somehow it just seemed easier to order it. I didn't expect it to take so long. (Amazon sucks now if you don't pay their monthly tribute.)

Anyway, I'm glad I bought the ruler. It makes a huge difference in how uniform the pieces are. I finally restarted the project again this week.

If I were smart though, I would have tossed the old, uneven pieces, but I don't like wasting fabric. So instead I'm wasting a lot of time fussing with getting these old pieces to work.

After I sew the 4 triangles together, I have to add another strip to the bottom edge.

I need 144 of these triangle units. I've finished about 8.

I obviously won't be finishing this project before the election. LOL

Started New Quilt

After spending about three days goofing off designing quilts, I've finally started working on one. In the end, I chose a scrappy quilt. Most of my fabrics are only about a yard or two, and a lot of the designs I made need five-yard pieces. So, ultimately, I decided to choose a design that would look good made with lots of different fabrics.

It's called Queen's Jewels and I found it in the book Quick Quilts from Your Scrap Bag by Patricia Wilens. I need more than a thousand triangle units, so it will probably take me at least a couple of weeks. I'm rather hoping to get this quilt top finished by the election because Jeff and I are planning to participate in NaNoWriMo in November again.