20 Pallets

We're SLOOOOOOOWLY working on decorating our basement.  It's always been a place we hang with the dogs and binge Netflix and all that good stuff, but until recently it's been relatively untouched and one can stand only so much tan.  Tan walls.  Tan floors.  Tan, tan as far as the eye can see.

The first wall we claimed from the tan is the wall our TV is on.

We love hanging in the basement, but we never bothered to even hide the TV cords. For three years, people! That's how very oppressed we were by the blandness of this basement. What's that you spy in the left of the picture above? Why, it's wooden pallets! We scrounged around Portland one weekend for free pallets and amassed around 20 or so.

The first thing we did was tackle cord management. Look how excited I am to cut into that wall!

THAT'S HOW SICK I AM OF LOOKING AT TV CORDS AND TAN WALLS. Eddy's excited too, but maybe sliiiightly less excited.

He did get excited about using a reciprocating saw to disassemble all those pallets, though.

He was especially excited to break down all the pallets into an "E". That's my Eddy.

Once we (ahem, Eddy) broke all the pallets down, we were left with just this little pile of wood!

We painted our wall black so all those delicious cracks and knot holes would really stand out.

Then we started applying the wood.

We got about halfway finished and then we had to give up and reinstall our TV for awhile because we had tons going on this winter.

But we got back at it after a few weeks.

We're still wearing the same clothes even though weeks have passed like they do on fancy reality TV. We're professionals like that. Here's the finished wall!

I know, I know. It's a bit tan. However, there's tons of texture and once the rest of the walls are no longer tan, it's really going to look great.

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To the Moon and Back

This year for Christmas, my mom asked for a quilt to hang above her bed.  She just painted the fireplace in her bedroom purple and she asked that the quilt say, "I love you to the moon and back." Armed with this LAMQG BOM pattern (that's Los Angeles Modern Quilt Guild Block of the Month pattern for the uninitiated) I set out to piece some curves.

Some people hate piecing curves, but I actually love it. There's something magical about making these two opposing curves come together.

Here's my first block all laid out and ready for piecing!

Some sides of the block can be constructed open to make a sort of disappearing circles pattern.

When I got the quilt this far, I quilted the lyrics to Fly Me to the Moon in a blendy thread. The effect was perhaps a bit more subtle than I would usually go for, but I was going for a subtler look for this quilt.

Then I started some appliqué.

I made a big ole appliqué moon and then did some special quilting for a moon shadow.

I used some glittery black linen for the binding because I'm a big believer in the power of framing.

And here's the final front of the quilt! Apologies for the not amazing picture. Sometimes the best available lighting is overcast.

But here's a cuter closeup showing the little shark bites I took out of each bottom corner to follow the shape of the curved pieces.

I even contributed some celestial fabric from my stash for the backing. There's also a sleeve for hanging the quilt that is matched to the backing fabrics.

Here it is in its new home!

Merry MUCH belated Xmas, to my mom!

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