Made Craftsman Stencils!

When Sharon got her new stencil making supplies in the mail yesterday, she couldn't resist making some stencils! Besides, it was nice to have some time off of bending over the too-low table where we've been working on the leaded glass project.

This is the probable color scheme for the dining room curtains.

She purchased blank mylar and a stencil cutting tool from Stencilease. Though, it doesn't actually cut; it really melts the plastic along the line where you drag the heated tip. It works pretty well, though the melted edge of the stencil isn't as smooth as when the plastic film is cut. But it definitely does the job faster than a craft knife.

Sharon also found it helpful to tape the plastic mylar to the back of a cookie sheet, because then she could hold it in her lap and rotate it as needed. The activity is pretty compatible with "watching" TV (OK, really listening to TV).

As mentioned earlier, she chose this design from the article "Draperies for the dining room: designs in stencil and embroidery" from the October 1910 Craftsman Magazine.

Last Set of Leaded Glass

We spent much of the day cutting glass. The border is cut and now the glass is all cut; tomorrow we'll start putting these last four panels together.

Jeff also gingerly removed all the old panels from the bookcase cabinets so we can fit in the new panels when they're done.

Ornaments from Scraps

Sharon would like to make all of the ornaments for the tree for our Winter Solstice/25th Anniversary celebration later this year. She has compiled quite a few neat ornament ideas and is planning to try many of them over the next several months. She will try and share her successes and failures here for others who might want to try making their own ornaments.

Our first try was weaving stars from fabric scraps. They turned out well and were fun to make. Even Jeff spent a couple hours making them and enjoyed the project. We made like twenty of them over two evenings in front of the TV. Finally, we just had to stop, or the whole tree would end up covered in them! There is a tutorial here for how to make them.

Dining Room Curtains

Progress on interior projects continues at a steady pace. Sharon finished off her quilt backing and worked on a couple other non-house sewing projects.

Today we started cutting for the last four leaded glass panels. We're treating these last four panels as a "set" and cutting all the pieces up front and then planning to put each of them together, one after the other.

Sharon also got started on the dining room curtains. At this point, they are not hemmed along the bottom edge. She is letting them hang for a couple of days to be sure they stretch evenly.

In fact, this is really just the starting point. Besides hemming, she is going to sew on rings and apply stencils. Her earlier successful attempts have given her more confidence to try something a bit more difficult.

She chose this design from the article "Draperies for the dining room: designs in stencil and embroidery" from the October 1910 Craftsman Magazine. Though, she's not planning to stencil along the top edge.

For this project, Sharon is going to have to cut her own stencils. So, she ordered the materials to do that: a stencil cutting tool and some mylar. But this project surely won't be finished before the kitchen tour.

Change of Pace

Sharon decided to spend her day on a sewing project. She built the center portion of the quilt backing. Though, she didn't complete the backing as she needs to calculate the overall size first.

Sharon has gotten it into her mind to make all of the ornaments for our Winter Solstice celebration. Today she made her first ornament from a couple of the William Morris reproduction fabric scraps leftover from this project. It was pretty fun! She definitely needs to make a few more of these! There is a tutorial here for how to make it if anyone else would like to try.

Made a few more this evening while we were watching TV!

Another Panel Done!

We guess it's time to clean up this cabinet and put in pretty stuff. Count to date—six panels done!

Right colonnade leaded glass

Living Room Photos

Given that we've had rain for like the last ten days, we decided today's sunny weather was too nice to spend in the basement working on glass. We went upstairs and did projects in the light. (The roller shades, but that's another post.)

Also Sharon snapped a few photos of the living room furnished with the new furniture. Our camera is pretty basic, so this is the best we can get. 

Love the box beam ceiling!