We're Kind of Carpenters

When we were looking for houses in Portland so many of them had these gorgeous built in benches by the front door.  Ours didn't have one, but it did have the perfect spot for one.

See that table? There's going to be a bench there someday!

After much, much, much too much planning we started by building a box.

I helped too.

Obviously.

Starting to get some stuff up on the wall.

Finally we stained out the bench seat and did some finishing work.

And here it is!

It's not actually painted yet since we're planning to repaint the trim in the house.

The stained (instead of painted) bench seat is actually my favorite part and it was a sort of spur of the moment decision.

My favorite part other than these bunny hooks, that is.

Carpenter Team Sunshine Fuzzy Bunny!

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The Best Thing I've Ever Made (In Under 2 Hours)

There is a dearth of coasters in this house.  We need so many coasters.  Not even kidding.  I had a couple of hours the other day, so I decided to make one for my workshop and truthfully it's one of my favorite little quilts I've ever made.

The free pattern can be found on the Craftsy blog.

Pretty much can't go wrong with these colors if I do say so myself.

Really the best thing I've ever made. Never gonna top it.

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Finally! A Library!

We attempted to make a library in our California house.  In the end, though, it ended up just being a dog room and a room we passed through to get to our bedroom.  Our Portland house, however, has the perfect space for a library.

We're not finished in there yet but yours truly, apprentice electrician, installed some new light fixtures.

The old ones were pretty yuck.

Eddy's teaching me everything he knows about wiring.

There's not too much more to tell yet, so here's what the library looks like now.

Eventually I'll recover the chairs, but there are about 3 million quilts to be made right now, so it might be awhile. Also, paint. Down with the color tan!

Forever.

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The Lonely Purple Velvet Couch

We have a giant purple velvet couch in our master bedroom.  It's the best.

It did look a little lonely, though.  Like it needed some quilts on it.  That's my favorite thing about our new house--it needs more quilts.

I started with some fussy cutting for a Dresden plate.

Gah. So cute.

And I cut the circle for the middle of the plate.

Skip to the end to see the finished quilt.

Next I wanted to make a little cross stitch pocket quilt.

Also so cute.

Here are both pillows all finished up.

Aaaaaand here's the best picture I could get of them on the couch.

There's just too much pesky natural light, I tell you.

Did I mention that we also got a sequin cat pillow? You know. To keep the couch company.

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Workshop in Progress

In comparison to our previous houses, I think this house is likely to roll along slowly with little projects completed piecemeal in a variety of rooms instead of having rooms finished all at once.

In that spirit, there are a couple of recent projects that have rendered my new workshop so much more lovely and functional.

First I removed the closet doors so I had an open closet to work with and bought some IKEA furniture to create some shelving.

Then Eddy was kind enough to install a new light fixture in the closet.

Let there be light!

I bought about 1,000 of these carts and sorted all of my fabric and scraps into them by color.

So satisfying.

Here's the closet now!

I also made a standing station. Of course I didn't take any pictures other than this, rather unsexy, shot of me preparing to paint the hairpin legs I bought.

For the sake of comprehensiveness, here's one last shot of my workshop as it looks now.

Did I mention I got a TV?! How else do you expect me to watch Quantum Leap while I quilt?

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In Which I am Accidentally a Weird Quilting Fangirl

Elizabeth Hartman is probably my favorite quilting celeb, if there is such a thing.  I made her Fancy Forest quilt for my nephew.

I've been working on her Bunny quilt for a while now and have posted a few pictures on Facebook (the rest were lost in the great phone --> pool disaster of 2016.) In the meantime, I felt that we needed a little table runner for a coffee table we recently bought and I decided to make a variation on her Bunny pattern.

Just look how freaking cute those little faces are. How could I resist?

I think I'm finally getting the hang of all the different diagonal seams her patterns usually contain.

I decided to piece these end to end and give the table runner some interesting edge shapes to compliment all of the diagonals.

Here it is all bound up and in its new home!

Turns out, the fabric I used to back the quilt is also an Elizabeth Hartman design.

Seriously, I had no idea how many fabrics of hers I actually have and love.  Here's the quilt in it's new home.

Now for the embarrassing fangirl part.

A couple of weeks ago I attended my first meeting of the Portland chapter of the Modern Quilt Guild. The reason I actually went was that I was glancing through their previous meeting show and tell and noticed some Elizabeth Hartman quilts. After some stalking research I realized that she actually lives in Portland and is a member of the Guild.

When I decided to attend the meeting with my EH quilt in hand, I figured it would be a few quilters sharing what they've done and that she might or might not be there. Turns out, there were 200 people there that night and she sat right in the front row while I tried to not behave like a smitten fangirl. I am not sure how well I masked my starstruck demeanor, but I am certain that I will always think of that night when I look at this quilt.

*runs away and hides*

Here's a link to where my quilt appears on the PMQG blog (eep!) along with so many other amazing quilts.

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Me and Bob Ross

In the past, Eddy and I have made a few paintings for our house because, while we are no artists, it's nice to have something you made together on your walls and because, let's just say it, large scale original artwork can be expensive.

When we lived in California, Eddy made these blue and orange paintings for his office.

Those colors didn't quite work in the new house, but they were big canvases, so I figured I could reuse them. The more I looked at them, the more I thought I might preserve some of Eddy's original work.

So over the course of a few days, I sat in our basement binge watching Bob Ross on Netflix and channelling my ability to make "happy little trees."

There's Bob in the background.

Look! You can almost see his 'fro in that picture!

Here they are all finished and hung in our dining room!

Did I mention we installed a beautiful pink light fixture we got from Kirsten Cronin on Etsy in there?

And the other painting on the opposite wall.

Happy little trees.

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