Shame on Me!

A few weeks ago I won a fabulous fat quarter bundle from a sweet blogger friend Sue.  But shame on me, I didn't email her to thank her or even let her know it arrived!  Nor did I blog about it as I intended to when I took a picture to show ya'll (I say ya'll 'cause Sue is from Texas).  That picture has stayed on my phone all forlorn.

Sweet Sue, will you please forgive my lack of graciousness?  I am truly sorry and in the future I plan to be more communicative!

Without further ado, here's the picture of the fabric....I especially adore the butterfly fabric.

Now to decide what to make!

Hanging my head, Leslie

"New" Fireplace

Over the 3-day weekend I was able to get the fireplace painted.  Now, I have some very dear friends who were appalled when I told them I was planning to paint my fireplace.  And some very dear relatives too.

I've been throwing it around for 5 years and every time I got ready to do it, Dr. Love talked me out of it.  Well, after finding some great before & after pics online he agreed and even helped!

After vacuuming it well to remove dust & cobwebs, we put on three coats of primer.  Primer at $16/gallon is much less expensive than my Benjamin Moore paint at $45/gallon!  After the 3 coats, I needed only 1 coat of paint!

I must say, it looks terrific.  You would say so too if I posted a picture of it.  But I'm not going to post any "in progress" pictures of the room so you'll have to wait a while for the reveal.  I am also going to stain my mantel...it's an old piece of lumber from who-knows-where and is bolted onto the brick tightly.  It's dark but worn looking so I'm adding some matte dark stain so that it will complement the floor (when Dr. Love gets it done) better.  And, I'm looking for new light fixtures too :)

What have you been up to?

Hugs, Leslie

In the Beginning (and a sneak peek)

After 5+ years, I am able to redecorate my family room!  No more dingy, dirty, ugly light beige carpeting.  No more ugly dingy waIls!  No more other stuff in there that I don't like :).

According to my timetable, I won't be finished until sometime in April.  We've purchased the flooring but my wonderful Dr. Love isn't going to install it until the last weekend in March.  So I have some time to get my ducks in a row and get painting!

Here are my "official" before pictures:

And here's a sneak peek at my slipcovers which arrived today!

Tomorrow's Friday!  Have a great weekend!

Hugs, Leslie

New Year Sew Along finish

Several blog posts (Do you like how I use "several?"  It's more than three so it's not a few!) ago I posted about joining a New Year's Sew Along and I even showed you the fabrics.

January has come & gone and I didn't get my blocks or project finished.  But the last few days I've had fingers itchy to sew so I finished up the blocks, sewed them together, and sewed the blocks into a project.

To be honest, I am not thrilled with how the blocks turned out.  Sewing them together was easy-peesy but I had trouble with the cutting part.  I am glad that I changed my mind on the layout though:  at first I intended to make 7 blocks of single colors but then I changed to put each color in every block.  I'm also glad that I sashed between the blocks.  I had that fabric leftover from a previous quilt sashing and I think it's the perfect width.

I had one leftover block that I will probably incorporate into the backing....I like to do that.  And all of the extra pieces that got cut off I sewed together to make scrappy blocks.  I will put them in my stash for now.

So without further ado:

Do you have any sewing projects going? What're you planning to do next?

My next big thing is a redecoration of my family room.  I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS!  So excited, that I just screamed it!  I've been wanting to do this room since the day we moved in but other rooms came first.  Now it's time!  We've already bought some gorgeous wood laminate flooring to replace the nasty carpeting, I have slipcovers ordered and my paint colors picked out.  I'm even going to paint the fireplace!!  I'm having fun in the planning stage--I'm not doing the actual work until the end of March.  But that will be here before I know it!

Dinner's calling....have a great night!
Hugs, Leslie