My Latest Inspiration: William Morris

I love the Arts and Craft movement...

And that's led to my love of William Morris works...

Don't know who William Morris is? Check him out here.

I actually discovered him through tonicliving.com and these wonderful fabrics:

Source

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Unfortunately, they've been out of stock but I plan on ordering some ASAP when they have it in.

But for now, I'm working on doing a set of William Morris Replica squares... I'm thinking of doing 9 squares ultimately, but here's the one I finished today:

The Original

The Replica

It looks way more washed out than in person, but what do you think?

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Snow Update and Paintings Finished

Remember the snow from yesterday?

The forecast wasn't for very much... 

...And we ended up with close to 6 inches.

So no work outside for me. Although I might walk to the grocery store if it gets above freezing.

On a better note, the paintings are (almost) done!

(you can see the inspiration here and progress here and here)

The blue print IS done. I just need to get a super fine tipped pen to finish up all of the small writing and designs on the map. It doesn't quite look complete without it.

And I'm very happy with how both of them turned out...

(Sorry if these are a bit blurry... Living in a basement isn't good for taking photos w/o flash and the flash just washes them out.)

I even hung them all by myself.

They might look a little small for the wall, but we're not here permanently, so I consider their placement temporary.

And now I've got to get back to my "spring cleaning..." Who knew washing walls, windowsills and baseboards is so time consuming?

Linking up to:

New dining set!

I've been spending a lot of time on craigslist/kijiji looking at new dining room tables and chairs. What we have now is fine:

Yep, that's a dog on the table.

But it's not something I want to have forever. So I found a set I liked and we drove an hour to get it.

That wouldn't be that big of a deal if we had a truck, but we drove home like this:

It's a good thing the bf and I have experience tying down sailboats, or this could have been a complete disaster...

We unpacked everything out of the car and here's what we came home with:

A dining room table w/ leaf

4 chairs

A hutch

Unfortunately, the table got a little damaged in the move... We were planning on refinishing the whole set anyway, so it's happening sooner rather than later.

We're not sure when the furniture is from, exactly (we think the 50's), but it all has these cool old tags still on it. I'm going to have to  do a little research on this, I think.

And we don't have room for the hutch downstairs... so we're leaving it upstairs for now until we're in a place that has more room... It will be replacing the rickety old bookshelf.

We started the refinishing work this weekend, starting with the leaf in case we seriously messed something up. And let me tell you, it was a lot of work. Whatever they used to seal tables when this was made, it works.

The leaf, after one coat

The bf hard at work

Still sanding, 45 minutes later

Even I did some of the work...

And after an hour and a half of sanding... We were finally done.

It's still a little wet here, but you get the effect. I'm just hoping we get some nicer days so we can get this table inside and use it!

And Freyja? She wasn't much help at all. 

She played fetch for about an hour...

And then decided it was nap time.

Linking up to:

Another painting well underway

I think I've been bitten by the painting bug. 

After I finished up the Pike Place Market blueprint, I started right away on this one:

The original

I'm still not done with it after 2 solid days of work. After I finish my first cup of coffee, I start working and don't stop until 6:00 when the bf gets home from work. 

I've never been so sore in my entire life. And I sailed competitively in college, so I know a thing or two about being sore from head to toe.

But it's been entirely worth it.

Crossing things off the "craft list"

This weekend was sort of a continuation of my Friday... so I ended up getting a number of things done:

1) Rabbit and chick cut outs (posted here):

They were easy to start, not so easy to finish. Used double tack adhesive paper for the first time and it went okay, but I have little pieces of paper stuck everywhere. Some of them turned out a little "busy," but they didn't have a great selection of paper at Michaels.

2) Pike Place Market blueprint painting (posted here):

I started this one on Saturday and finished it up (FINALLY) this morning. I wasn't entirely sure how it would turn out, but the more and more I painted, the more I was liking how I would turn out. I do need to get some painter's tape to clean up the lines on the top and bottom, but it's basically ready to be hung up!

And my favorite part? The fact that they have large areas dedicated to pickles and doughnuts.

I also want to get the map done as well before I hang this one up, so it might be awhile before I actually show these bad boys on the wall. But I'm excited anyway.

And on Saturday, the bf and I took Freyja to small dog play time at a local doggie daycare. She's okay with other dogs; not aggressive or anything, mostly just terrified. But that's why she needs to do something like this occasionally.

At first she was stuck to one of us like glue...

But eventually (and hesitantly), she made a few new friends :)

Hopefully, your weekends were as productive :)

A new project, perhaps?

Since we live in an apartment and won't be here (hopefully) for much longer, I've been looking for ways to make the place a little more our own. There are so many things I would change, but since we rent, we can't do that. Our apartment has a lot of (tacky) built in pieces of furniture and we don't have any more room, so furniture is out of the question. All I can really do is find smaller items that fit in with what we already have.

Well, I was up early this morning and was just surfing the internet when I came across this:

Source

Not everything in the picture is my style, but I loved the idea of framing old blueprints. But after a little time on eBay, they aren't easy to find and you aren't likely to find a specific building. I turned to google and the only Seattle area blueprint I could find online was this one of Pike Place Market from 1921:

Source

It's not exactly what I was thinking, but it is a well-known landmark. And it's just a picture on the internet, not a print I can just order.

Then I got thinking... I'm an okay painter, why not buy a canvas and do my own? 

So... that's what I'm going to do.

And during my search, I found this cool vintage Seattle map showing parks and playgrounds from 1909 (once again, just a photo, not a print):

Source

I LOVE this one. So I'm going to try to do this one for sure. 

Canvases are on sale for 50% off at Michael's, as are some of the their paints, so I think I'm going to be making a run tonight... I'm really excited [ and a little nervous : / ] to see how this is going to turn out...

I'll keep you updated.

Say goodbye to the old couch pillow

We have the world's ugliest pillow on the couch. It's covered in slightly dirty fake suede (it's not even classy enough to call "faux"). It's lumpy and limp. So after my mom visited and left a stack of fabric remnants, I decided just needed to recover that pillow. 

I'd seen yo-yo's done before in quilting, but had never had an excuse to try them out. They're basically round circles of fabric hand sewn to form a pouch and flattened. Below are a couple of pictures of the process:

Partially done

Completed front

I may not be the neatest hand sew-er

I finally finished it up this afternoon. The bf (he's the one who uses the pillow) is at work and doesn't know yet, so I hope he doesn't mind...

I do think it looks a million times better...


(just ignore the ugly couch)










How about you?

New Sewing Machine

Happy birthday to me (a bit early)!

 I got my sewing machine, a birthday present from my parents in the mail the other day... even though my birthday isn't for over a month.

But, I did have some projects I've been wanting to do that pretty much require a sewing machine.

Like a tablecloth. When I won Lisa's giveaway a couple of months ago, I received a fall tablecloth that had been on our table up until last weekend. I guess I'd never realized how easy it is to make a room seasonal with just a piece of hemmed fabric. So when my bf suggested that we get a tablecloth for the holiday season, I knew that it would be an easy first project to learn the ropes of my new machine. Although I've done some big projects on a sewing machine, it's been awhile.

And I learned that sewing really is like riding a bike: scrapes, bruises and all (but you'll never put your finger that close to the needle again...). And that hem may not be perfect, but it's a $7 tablecloth.

And while I was at the fabric store, I looked through the remnants; it's just a good idea and a great way to find cheap fabric. Well, I found a piece of remnant fleece to try to make a dog sweater for Freyja.

After finding a few patterns I liked, I ended up kind of blending them to get the finished product I had in mind.

Although this project is also far from perfect, I think it turned out pretty good. I may have to re-fit the sleeves, though. Sometimes she gets out of control while running and gets a foot caught up in it, stumbles, falls then tries to run on three legs. She's not the most graceful creature ever, but she is mighty cute.

And the bf already has some sewing projects in mind for me... but I'd just like to make it through finals and the holidays first!