New Home & More Sewing

A visitor getting a drink at our bird bath!

The Great Room.

We had another trip to Ohio last week for walk-throughs with several tradesmen in our new home we are building  - electrical, sound and vision for our large screen TVs and central vac system.

Photo above looking from kitchen/morning room into great room.

Room to the left of fireplace is the office.

Room to the right is our master bedroom and bath.

Garage ceiling electrical fixtures.

The trade crews were hard at work.  

It was neat to see all the wires and tubes running everywhere.  

We had so many decisions to make - where to place electrical outlets, electrical box fixtures and hide-a-hose outlets.  

Our heads were spinning!

Over all we were very pleased with the progress.

However, we noticed the wrong window was installed in our great room during our last visit.   

So we were pleased to see on this visit that the opening was reframed for the correct transom window (on order).  

The half wall frame in the kitchen is too high and has to be redone.   

It's suppose to be counter high.

Our custom kitchen cabinets are being built.

I will finally have a white kitchen.   

They also forgot to frame the walls in our hobby room in the lower level.  

I guess it's good we are coming back frequently to catch these boo-boos.  

Front porch with our eight foot Pella door.

It was a busy week. 

Now we have a week at home and then we are returning to Ohio for a family event (we are so thrilled because my Hubby's brother is being sworn in as Chief of Police).

And, of course, we are meeting with suppliers again too.

We are in the process of picking out our electrical fixtures and flooring options.

It's like going into a candy store…there are so many tasty treats to choose from.  

Once we were back home in PA I had one day to sew my "Party with Patrick" design for this month.

I devoted last Sunday as my sewing day and finished this project, "Dealer's Choice" (order digital design here).  

Whew!  

Monday was our "Party with Patrick" class…only three of us finished or almost finished the project.  

I think some of the ladies were "turned off" by the deck of cards design (maybe because of the  dark red and black colors used in Patrick's sample). 

I had no black fabric on hand.  

I tentatively thought of using the colors in a deck of cards - you, know…the red, black and bright yellow of the King, Queen and Jack…

 Instead I decided to use red, white and blue fabrics I had on hand.  

 This way I could use this project as either a place mat (or wall hanging) for 4th of July festivities.  

I had the funniest boo-boo on this project.

As usual I embroidered my name and year on the back.

I typed it all out on my computer using my TruEmbroidery software, printed out the design on paper in actual size to use for placement and downloaded the digital design into my Janome for stitching.

The design was as clear as day on all those screens and the paper.

But I never saw my mistake until it was embroidering the second "0".

I typed in "2004" instead of "2014"!

At least I got the correct decade.

HA!

The Dealer's Choice!

One of the ladies stopped me after class and said I always choose the most beautiful colors for my projects. 

Awwww….wasn't that nice!  

Well, I'm off to work on next month's "Party with Patrick" design, "Late-Summer Sunflower". 

Thanks for visiting!

Dream House

It happened.

Last December.

We found our "Dream House".

This is the model.

A ranch…all one floor with a huge finished lower level. 

We had talked several times before we retired in 2008 and after whether or not to move.

Either into a "55 plus" community (I wasn't ready to down size) or to another state or even back to Ohio where we have family.

So last Christmas on our way to Ohio to be with family I said to Hubby, "Well, you know what it will take to move back to Ohio…if I can find a house I love."

We had a couple extra days tacked on to our visit so we drove around the area I said I would like to have a home and saw this subdivision and this model.

I loved it immediately.

And that doesn't happen often.

There is always something I don't like.

But every corner I turned in this model it had what I wanted in my "dream home".

There were several lots to choose from…from ones with a farmer's field behind them (uncomfortable with that…if the farmer sold the land and something horrible was built there) to several corner lots.

We liked this lot with the trees behind it.  

There is a 50 ft. strip of trees that will be owned by the lots behind us but can't be built on nor can the trees be removed. 

A nice buffer to have to extend the look & feel of our small back yard.

This is the smallest yard we have ever had in a home.

It's .45 of an acre.

We wish it was a little wider but it is what it is.

We have made several trips back to Ohio to visit with suppliers and see the progress on our "dream home".

The lot was finally cleared on this visit. 

The basement dug.

The basement walls poured.

The outside framing going up.

We made a few minor changes to the model inside and out.

We added a slight bump-out to one bay of the three-car garage so we can park our travel van in the garage.

We had two windows added to the side of the garage and moved the garage man door to the other side.

This is a custom built home so the builder will do just about anything we ask for a PRICE.

The roof was going on when we visited in August.

Since this will probably be the last home for us we are putting quite a bit of bells and whistles in it.

I get my large screened-in porch and a deck off the back of the house. 

The garage is huge…three bays with 10 feet tall doors to accommodate our travel van and our pick up truck.

The basement floor was poured last week.

This huge room will be a combined hobby area for both of us.

I'm so excited about having an even bigger area for my sewing and crafts.

Through the double doors will be a room that we will use as a family room with a large flat screen TV.

There will be a bedroom with an attached bathroom down here too.

In the unfinished area we will have a room with a laundry tub, 9 feet of cabinets and room to put a small freezer and a refrigerator.

Plenty of storage room for all my kitchen stuff that isn't used everyday.

The front porch slab was poured last week too.

I love having a porch to protect the front entrance.

We had a Pella door put in the front….it's eight feet tall!

This is our fourth house and the second one we are building.

But…we hate to leave where we are now.

We love this area and especially our neighborhood and friends here.

But the pull of being close to our brothers and their families as we get older was too great.

Needless to say they are thrilled we are moving back to Ohio.

The day after we married way back in 1974, we went on our three-day honeymoon to Canada, and then moved immediately to Illinois…and stayed there for 26 years until we moved to SE PA almost 15 years ago.

So, it has been 40 years since we lived in Ohio.

It's going to be a new adventure for us.

Remember Always 9-11-2001

One More For the Road…Happy Camper!

 I couldn't resist embroidering one more towel for the White Elephant Gift Exchange at the RV Rally & Show in Hershey this week.

I googled "campfires" and chose this clip art and downloaded it into my TruEmbroidery Software to convert to an embroidery design.

Then I printed out the pattern in it's actual size.

That helps to place it properly on the towel.

I added some lettering because we are all "Happy Campers" at the rally.

I changed the thread colors slightly too.

Notice my first design said "Happy Camping" by mistake so I redid it to read "Happy Camper"!

My Hubby likes this one too.

If we don't do the gift exchange I'll going to give them to our club president because she works so hard for all us club members.

So true…isn't it!

The media loves to tell us all the bad things going on around the world but there is a lot of good going on too.

We all need to laugh more.  

Berry Begonia Lap Throw

I loved my "Breezy Begonia" lap throw in shades of turquoise so much I decided to make another one in shades of purple for one of my sister-in-laws.

Purple is her favorite color.

I've named this one "Berry Begonia"!

I used Caron Simply Soft yarns in two shades:  Iris (the dark purple) and Lavender Blue (the light purple) and an H hook.

The motif square is from Jan Eaton's book, "200 Crochet Blocks" - #181 Begonia (page 104).  

Like "Breezy" I use the continuous "Three-Chain Flat Braid" join as you go method to join the squares.

As I mentioned on my "Breezy" posting I really like this method.  It gives a nice firm join at the corners without gaps and holes.  

And continuous means there are only two ends to weave in when finished.

My kind of join method.

At first I was only going to do an edging in the variegated yarn.

It was nice but after staring at it for a few days I decided it needed more.

So I added four more rounds in the Iris (deep purple) single crochet in the spaces, chain three repeated all the way around.

And to finish it off I used the first two rounds of Edie Eckman's #38 edging from her book, "Around The Corner Crochet Borders" in the Lavender Blue yarn.

Off setting the edging with the main two yarn colors really makes the edging POP!

Check out more details on my Ravelry project page for "Breezy" (here) and "Berry" (here).

And my blog posting on "Breezy Begonia" (here).  

Two pretty Begonia throws.

This pattern/design would be pretty using 3 squares by 3 squares for a baby throw.

Think how pretty two shades of pink would look!

I machine embroidered a pretty label for the lap throw and I can't wait to give it to my sister-in-law on our next trip to Ohio.

Have a lovely weekend and thanks for visiting.