The (Gray and) Purple House

Remember how ugly our the outside of our house was?

When it came time to pick colors, we thought for many months about what to do. Finally, narrowed it to a few.

We did what everyone does and tried some samples before we made a final decision.

The first to go was the hunter green trim (and I've got to say at this point that it already looks soooooooo much better).

Then the house color went on!

But the real pièce de résistance was the shutters I made.

So.

Many.

Shutters.

Here it is. All painted pretty!

It's basically a completely different house. We're not finished yet with the outside, but it's certainly on its way!

Friends Give Friends Icosahedrons

Eddy has some good friends who were kind enough to put him up during a recent trip to Chicago.  We wanted to say thanks for this and for just generally being great people, so Eddy picked out a pattern and I put together a little quilt for them.

It started, like all quilts do, at the fabric store.

Eddy chose a paper piecing pattern,

and I got started putting it all together,

and quilting it.

Here's the back all bound and finished.

And the front.

We hope you love it, Christie and Maciej!  Remember, kids.  Friends give friends icosahedrons.

All the Small Things

The outside of our house is ugly.  Lots of ugly.  Everywhere.

We've started working to change that and we started small.

First, we replaced the garage doors.

Pretty big change, actually. But a small thing was the screen in the back door.

It was shamefully dirty. To our credit, it was like that when we got here, but we have lived here for two years, so it was probably about time to replace the screen.

You'll notice too, the ugly brass doorbell and also the brick we use to keep the door somewhat closed.

This new doorknob means that we no longer need to use the brick.

And here's a new doorbell.

I also replaced this

with this.

Not perfect, but better, certainly.

There was also this terrible railing up the front walk.

Removing it required some finessing.

Also some smashing and kicking.

Eddy also replaced all of our janky, barely working light fixtures. Ugly light fixture:

Ugly light fixture:

Ugh. This one was the worst. It was plastic and flickering dimly was the best it could muster.

Better...

Much better.

The biggest of the small things was replacing the windows, though. They were pretty terrible.

We used to hold our windows open with wood. You know, for safety.

Well, that about covers all the small things, so stay tuned for the big house exterior reveal!

Farmer Eddy

Eddy recently wanted to make a garden for his longtime friend Molly on the occasion of her wedding. He found a great piece of sky

and a nice plot of earth

and he put them together.

Then he went in search of some veg.

Gotta plant the green tops first (just like in the real world?)

Then came the root veggies!

Done! Well, mostly. I just helped Eddy out by finishing up a few of the veg

and applying the binding.

Now all done!

Wrapped up all pretty and on its way.

Congratulations, Molly and Sam!  We hope your garden blooms for many years to come!