Yardley Forge

Jeff and Sharon drove over this morning to visit Steve, the blacksmith who owns Yardley Forge. (He's also on Etsy.)

Because he was local, we took the opportunity to see a pot rack in person before we ordered. Steve's quality seems excellent and we were delighted to order one from him this morning. Though, he'll be modifying his regular design a bit in order to have it hang closer to our ceiling.

Sharon also coveted a number of dragon sculptures he had around his place. We may need to buy a dragon for the yard once our remodel is finished.

Playing with Stencils

Since Sharon has started rereading stencil books for her independent study project, she's gotten an itch to try stenciling again. We can't pack all the time, so when we take breaks, Sharon has spent her time reading stencil books and planning out future projects. (She's not always so good about finishing projects, but she is certainly good at planning them!) This afternoon she pulled out her stencil supplies and gave stenciling another try.

While we haven't yet received the tile samples we ordered from New England Art Tile, we've tentatively chosen this tile to embellish our kitchen backsplash because the colors should blend well with our color scheme. Also, the tile design is reproduced from a tile originally made by Alfred Meakin in Staffordshire, England in 1910, according to John Parkinson over at New England Art Tile.

This afternoon, it occurred to Sharon she already had a stencil that would complement this design. She bought this Mission Rose Trio stencil from American Home Stencils a few weeks back.

Today she realized with just a tweak of the colors, she could make this.She also made this one for fun, because she had the right colors out.

Packing Again...

...hopefully for the last time, for a very long time. We're making progress on our list, but probably not fast enough to have everything ready for the movers on Thursday. We'll surely have to do another trip over the weekend to finish stuff up.

Here is the living room at about lunch time. The pile is quite a bit larger now.

The master bedroom closet and dressers are packed. The sewing room has also been partially packed. We haven't even started the kitchen.

University of Here

Because he's found many of the Portland Community College (PCC) classes were often not what he was hoping for, Jeff decided this next quarter he would plan and "take" some courses at home of his own devising. He has a number of landscape-related books he's been wanting to read for a while, but never had time because he was busy with work or classwork, so next quarter in addition to his one PCC course, he is also going to take two or three at-home classes. (This also has the benefit of saving us a bunch of tuition; the PCC courses, at about $250 each plus books, start to add up.)

Sharon decided to join him in her own University of Here class. Like Jeff, she wrote up a syllabus with a schedule and goals. Her class: Introduction to Arts & Crafts-Style Stenciling. During the quarter, she's going to read three of our stencil books, practice stenciling on paper, and practice stenciling on fabric. She's hoping to make a stenciled decorative pillow. Then, once she's done with that, she's going to advance to stenciling on the plaster walls.

Temporary Study Space

We spent today packing up the last pile of stuff out of the "library" and nearly managed to get it set up as our temporary parlor/study space. Presumably we'll both have school next quarter (maybe) and we'll need at least some place to study that isn't total chaos. And the basement gets too dreary since the windows down there are so small; it's nice to get at least some natural light.


We've got the closet nearly cleared out, and there's still a few boxes that are waiting to finish getting filled when we pack up the master bedroom, but otherwise this room is done.

We're looking forward to a break tonight visiting with friends at a birthday party.

Soapstone Unveiled

Sharon got a chance to go see the soapstone slabs for the first time today—and she loves them!! The soapstone is so gorgeous and a very beautiful green color; she's looking forward to seeing it installed this summer.
For those who are interested, these slabs are Green Minas Soapstone and we purchased them from Teresina Soapstone in the Sacramento, California area. They were excellent to work with and safely got the slabs shipped up to our fabricator in Portland, Oregon.

A New House—A New Sewing Project

Sharon is already looking ahead to after the remodel and has realized there are a lot of curtains to be made for the main floor windows. The stuff that the prior owner left behind is not terribly period and is also not to our taste, so she has undertaken the project to replace all these curtains. She is planning to make curtains which mount inside the windows frames (so you can see the wonderful woodwork); something along these lines.But, really, she's hoping for something more like this; we'll see how good her stenciling and/or embroidery skills turn out to be. After the triple-pleated curtains and the Roman shades, she's sure she can manage the sewing of the simple casing curtains.

From Craftsman Magazine, May 1910.

For inspiration, there are some examples by Dianne Ayers over at Textile Studios. She makes some really gorgeous curtains, but they no doubt cost a fortune. Sharon is hoping she can manage to make curtains that are nearly as nice looking. =)

Today, we received a large order of linen for this project. Several months ago, Sharon calculated how much fabric she would need for all these windows (it was 28 yards!), but she didn't get around to ordering until last week, when she got an email saying the linen was on sale. So, last week she ordered 30 yards from Fabrics-store.com.

She ended up choosing a medium weight linen in a very pale yellow color, called Krista Natural. She didn't like the bleached, it was way too white, and the natural (unbleached) colors were all too dark, so she compromised and got one that was probably bleached and then colored. Here is the linen next to a piece of white.

Sharon also bought some remnants to practice the stenciling and embroidery by making throw pillows.