Saturday, August 29, 2020

Garage Progress Finally

Now that the end of summer is rapidly approaching, I finally kickstarted my garage organization effort. As a reminder, this is the plan for two free-standing garage racks. They're going to be installed along the left wall.
It's too bad I didn't buy the wood last year because it was quite a bit more expensive this summer. I ended up buying framing lumber because it was the least expensive real wood option. I did buy sanded plywood because the lowest grade of plywood was so rough I was worried it would tear up the bottoms of my plastic tubs.

When I made the plan, I had expected to paint the wood before we assembled it because we have lots of leftover paint in the garage, but the wood is so rough I don't think it will look very good, even after I've spent a few hours sanding the boards. They're still not great, but they're better.

Last week, while I was sifting my closet I found a nearly-full gallon of really old shellac—I think I bought it in 2013 when we put in the closets. I should have used it to finish the sewing room, but I forgot about it and bought a new can. I opened it up this morning and tested it out on a scrap, expecting to have to trash it, but it actually dried surprisingly quickly so I decided I may as well brush it onto this wood.
I've finished one coat on the 2x4s today. I'd like to finish the 2x2s and plywood tomorrow. I doubt I'll get more than one coat out of the single gallon of shellac so I'm just putting one coat on all the pieces to start. It makes the wood look nicer so I think it's worth the effort.

I scheduled time with Jeff starting next Wednesday to start disgorging the garage so we can put these together and put them into place and do a better sift and organize, so that's my deadline to finish preparing the wood.

Friday, August 28, 2020

Master Closet, Again

Back in early-2013, I presented a design for a very complicated wall of cubes for my master bedroom closet. Folks who have followed us for a while will no doubt be 0% surprised that we never built it.
Briefly, in 2016, I revisited the issue again hoping I could figure out an easier plan that we could actually do.
We didn't do that either. The more I looked at the plan, the more I was sure we would muck it up. We have a lousy woodshop and those boxes need to be made perfectly square. When I thought about how we would work on this project together, I decided it would not be good for our marriage. LOL

I think I finally figured out a way we can finish this project and not get a divorce. I read at the Family Handyman site a recommendation to use kitchen cabinetry for built-in bookcases and it occurred to me they might work for my closet! The benefit of using kitchen cabinets is they'll be drilled for adjustable shelves and everything will be built nice and square.
The days of free SketchUp are mostly gone, but I was able to make some edits to my old file. I'm not sure we'll be able to hang these cabinets without help, but we will try.

The plan calls for two stacked upper cabinets because I could not find a pantry cabinet that came as wide as I wanted it (they're 25½" wide); I'm sizing these to fit the Sterilite plastic tubs I like to use. The shelves along the right side will be fixed and simply cut to length in order to fill whatever space remains.

Saturday, August 22, 2020

Aug Friday Night Sew In

I joined Wendy from Sugarlane Designs for the Friday Night Sew In again this month. But I had a short night because we were working on canning during the day, but I did finally make it up to my sewing room in the evening. I turned my attention to making Jeff an overnight bag, similar to the one I made for myself. I had originally planned to make him a quilted one, but then I remembered this wonderful tapestry fabric I bought about 15 years ago. He would like this much better.

I finished making the outer pieces on Friday night and then today, Saturday, I finished assembling them. I still need to make the lining, but it will have to wait because we have some more canning to finish.
This time I had the interfacings the video called for, though with the tapestry fabrics, the seam is still pretty bulky and it's hard to get it to turn and lay flat.

Sunday, August 16, 2020

Quilted Overnight Bag

I decided I wanted to make a duffle-type bag for overnight visits and I found this DIY Weekend Bag video and decided to try it. I had originally planned to make it out of salvaged denim, but then I didn't feel like tearing apart jeans.

The video called for a whole lot of interfacing, which I didn't have. What I did have in abundant amounts was batting scraps, so I decided to try substituting quilted pieces instead of fabric. It would have been better with a thinner batting, but that is what I had. It has not escaped my notice that it looks a lot like a diaper bag. LOL

This project used up the leftover red strips from making the xmas quilt and a clearance batik I bought last year thinking I would use it in a project, but when it came I was sort of disappointed by it because there were so many "bad spots" on the fabric. This piece of batik must have been made by a beginner. No wonder it was on clearance. But, it was perfect for this project.

I made some changes from the original pattern: I actually added more pockets inside and I made it slightly larger because that was the zipper I had. But, overall, I'm happy with the design. Now that I've figured it out, I may make another for Jeff.

Friday, August 14, 2020

Denim Quilt for the Dog

Bailey sleeps in the corner of the foot of our bed. The same spot, every night. I decided it would be good to make her her own little quilt to lay in that spot so it could get laundered more often than the queen-size bed quilt.
This was a quick and fun little project.

I think I'll make some more projects with cut up jeans. Now that Jeff and I have lost so much weight, we have several boxes of jeans available to cut up. It's nice to have large tote bags to take shopping so I think I'll make some more of those.

I am sort of quilted out. I've got several finished flimsies sitting around waiting to be quilted so I'm not feeling super motivated to make more. I would like to make the Harvest Quilt before the end of the year, but I'm ready for some small projects for a while.

Tuesday, August 11, 2020

Xmas Placemats Finished

And they're done!
The 120° corners were actually really easy to sew. There are tons of videos out there that show how to sew them.

I'm starting to run out of projects I'm excited to work on. I think I'll take a break from my WOOFA list and work on something new temporarily. I'm thinking about making a really small denim quilt to put on the bed for Bailey as she always sleeps in the same spot. It would be nice to have something a little more washable than the queen size quilts.

Friday, August 7, 2020

Aug Friday Night w/Friends

For this month's Friday Night with Friends I decided to make more progress on my WOOFA list and work on Xmas placemats out of the leftover fabric strewn throughout my sewing room.

I originally planned a very complicated set of Xmas placemats but when I saw how much of the poinsettia border I had leftover it reminded me of some placemats I had seen ages ago on etsy.
I thought I could probably figure out how to make these so I started with scraps to test the process.
I am happy I had a 60° triangle ruler.
It went together pretty well with the poinsettia border but because the border was only about 5"-wide it was too small.
I decided to add some of the leftover holly border fabric around the outer edge. It was a bit of a process to do all those mitered corners.
Finished. The first one has a bad corner with a small crease that I will rip out and resew.
The second turned out better. The hardest part of these was figuring out the pieces. If I were to make more I would cut out pattern pieces and then they would go together quite quickly.
The two fabrics I'm debating on for the backing. I'll probably choose the cheap one on the left just because I think the poinsettia fabric on the right is too nice to waste on a backing.