I’m posting these photos for my friend, Mermaids, who is looking for decorating inspiration. I saw these at a local TJMaxx store and want them for myself too. I may have to find $$ to go get them. Posting them here is the only way that I know of to get them up to Pinterest too.

There were two of these side chairs with pillows that said “hello!” as soon as I entered the store. The color scheme screams ME. I even like the floor lamp behind them. The details are posted on the TJMaxx site here.

I also loved this take on a nautical glass ball with rope. Also at TJMaxx but I can’t find it online.

I can’t think of anything harder to shop for than a sofa. They are expensive and not easily swapped out if you don’t like it without losing a lot of money. Harder to shop for than a car, I’d say. I need sofas. Badly. All I have right now are a couple of black leather Danish style recliners that were my mothers. They are okay, but they’re not my style, nor are they really comfortable.

I’ve had all kinds of sofas. Microfiber. Floral. Overstuffed. Understuffed. Hand-me-downs. Brand new from a department store. The only thing I haven’t had is leather. With my cats and grandkids, I kind of think I want the easy clean of leather. Plus, my mom has leather sofas that she and my father bought in the mid 1980s and they are still okay. They could use a new zipper to hold on a cushion here and there, but otherwise, they’re fine.

There are a few other criteria that I want:

• Back cushions that stay firm. Not the floppy pillow kind. Cats tend to like to sleep on them and then they look old, tattered, and frumpy.
• Seat cushions that stay in place. The last sofa my daughter bought was so cheap (quality, not price) that the manufacturer didn’t even line up the Velcro strips right. The department store said they’d stand by it and fix it, but they never did. Now, a year later, it’s probably too late to do anything about it. I kind of like the single seat cushion look.
• Neutral color. I’ve done the moss green (loved it, but then it grew old and dirty) and the floral (couldn’t match my decorations to it – too limiting). Now I just want a timeless color that will be a background color to my cushions and curtains and rugs, and other fun stuff I want to decorate with.
• Comfortable. I probably should have put this one first. It needs to be comfy for my back, but not so comfy that it’s hard to get out of and off my butt.
• Elegant and welcoming. I want my home to be welcoming, traditional, and elegant, but not stuffy and where people are afraid to sit down.

So, I’m window shopping. Here are a few of the looks I like, with none of the prices I like.

(Source)

This one meets the back criteria and neutral color, but not the seat cushion look. I like the style. I wonder if I could get it in leather?

(Source)

I really, really like this one. But not the price. At a whopping $1,599 I’ll have to save for a year. And of course, I wouldn’t choose white. Not so sure about those back cushions though.

(Source)

This is a really nice, classic one. I can definitely see this one working. Except this is in fabric. And, the website doesn’t put the price on it, so likely it’s out of my league.

Anyway, I continue to shop. I may be sitting on black chairs for a long time.

Reno, as in renovation.

So, mom’s condo is done. I’ve completely updated it for her so it can now be rented out and hopefully mom can receive a modest addition to her income from it. We went through and completely replaced the carpet, painted everywhere with a pretty soft neutral beige on the walls and creamy white on the trim. We replaced all the brass fixtures (faucets, door handles, cabinet knobs) with brushed nickel. And the part I’m most proud of: we remodeled the second bathroom.

I can’t believe I didn’t capture a complete before picture of this bathroom. Ewww. It was ugly. Well, not completely. Mom had picked a pretty new Corian countertop and had that installed recently, but the worst offender was the brass-look sliding shower doors with mirror. I guess my dad worked really hard to install those back circa 1989. Sorry, dad.

Some of the bathroom before pictures. You can see how outdated it was. The center part of the water fixtures for the bath was broken inside the wall so the tile was going to have to come off anyway. The shower doors were outdated, so for the price of replacing that, plus labor, we stripped everything out and retiled.

In addition, we elevated the shower head to accommodate the height of the average male. Mom is about 5 foot zero so the shower head height (and the shower door bar) was not an issue for her but certainly would be for any renter.

We removed the plate glass mirror that was all oxidized around the edges and icky and replaced it with a nice clean wood framed mirror.

Now look at this gorgeous bathroom.

And adding handles to the bathroom cabinet made a HUGE difference.

Here are a few more pictures of the condo, in case you have any friends or relatives in the local Kirkland, WA area who are interested in renting the place out.

One of the stunning views from the living area.

Kitchen – also updated with new fixtures, new dishwasher, and new microwave.

Second bedroom boasts a Murphy bed (queen size) and plenty of storage.

The view outside the front door. Straight into the heart of downtown Kirkland. Inside the condo, however, it’s still peacefully quiet.

Oversized master bath jetted tub. And yes, we left the brass here – too expensive to replace or update.

Another view through the oversized living area. This condo is 1212 SF, double the average size of a unit in this building. That is because mom took two units and combined them. Man, this place is really nice. Don’t you want to live here? I do.

In case you’re curious, here’s the MLS listing:
http://www.matrix.nwmls.com/DE.asp?ID=3035579118

Seriously, I am baffled how people pull these things off – beautifully decorated homes and perfectly browned turkeys.  I read a ton of decorating blogs across the interwebs where all these women are decorating their hearths and showing us how to do these cute little crafty trees out of burlap or wreaths out of ornaments. It makes me wonder if they are high on happy pills or caffeine, or if somewhere behind their computer screen they are screaming at the top of their lungs because they, too, feel the pressure. The pressure to be perfect. The pressure to be just like the Waltons or Leave it to Beaver.

It’s unreal, folks. I’m exhausted just thinking about it and ready to dive for cover. And we haven’t even had Thanksgiving yet.

Don’t get me wrong – I love the holidays. I really do. I love the family and friends that you connect with and share times and meals with. It’s an important respite from a very busy world.

I’m trying, I really am. My house is full to the brim of boxes and bins of the necessary decorations – ribbons, lights, candles, whimsical characters, and all manner of cozy things to make one feel good. Once they all get put where they’re supposed to go, I know I’ll feel better. But until then, the requisite mess that they create makes me feel like I’m a borderline hoarder.

So, this year (as I tell myself every year), I’m going to pause, take a deep breath, and just relax. Screw perfection. (Is that even possible for me, the ultimate perfectionist?) I’m going to enjoy the family and the grandkids whenever and however I can, and I’m going to not worry if my pie burns or if I gain two pounds.

Remind me tomorrow that I said this, okay?

I’d better hurry. I need to have this dress finished asap and I haven’t finished cutting it out yet. I plan to wear it to my brother’s wedding this Friday. My brother is getting married to a wonderful, sweet woman, and we all couldn’t be happier for them.

So, because I’m in a hurry, I’m keeping this post short, but thought my sewing peeps would want to see what I’m working on.

This fabric, which I’ve had in my stash for about four years. It’s a beautiful soft tie-dye look on embroidered rayon linen. Won’t wrinkle. Sweet!

This dress. The short view, since the wedding is semi-formal. I made it before several years ago, so it should go together fast. I plan on lining the skirt part with a lightweight cotton lining, so you can’t see through the eyelets. I’ll be using a contrasting tangerine solid color for the neckline binding. The scalloped edging on the fabric (which is a double border) will be the hemline, so no hemming required.

And I hope to catch a couple more tanning sessions between now and then too. Pictures after the wedding.

Later, folks.

If you’ve been following me from my Little Miss Sew N Sew blog, you know that I love to sew. However, life has been such that I’ve not had time for sewing lately but boy do I have the itch. There have been no signs of summer here so I’ve had to dream about it. Also, my beau has introduced me to tanning, and I’m enjoying this, and I’m imagining a summer with a tan body (and abdomen) and lots of fun things to do. This leads me to thinking about sewing something cute and breezy for myself because I’m pretty turned off by all the stuff in the stores.

So in my five minutes of spare time, I browsed through some of my patterns and came across this vintage pattern. This is the very first pattern I ever sewed, I think – I sewed a simple skirt and an apron before this, but this was the first wardrobe ensemble. The copyright on this pattern is 1974. I think the lines on the shirt and shorts are fairly classic, and I’ve seen some of these skirts in pictures recently. (Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong or if you think this is totally not a good idea.)

I am wearing the skirt, below, but I also made the shirt and shorts out of the same coordinating fabric. I was 14 in this picture. Don’t you just love the groovy patterns on the fabrics – and my brother’s plaid jeans? My mom as always was rockin’ the runway. LOL.

Believe it or not, I am down to the size that the pattern measurements call for, and I think the little bandeau top and skirt with a coordinating shirt would be fun for the hot weather we’ll have when my mom and I go to San Antonio in July. Of course, I’d pick some more trendy fabric.

Here’s the line drawing. I like how that little top ties in the back.

I also have this pattern (below) from 1987 and I’ve seen a similar skirt – which are shorts in this pattern, and I’d convert it to a skirt – and top online recently.

From nordstrom.com

If I were to make this today, I think I might alter or remove the pockets and reduce just a bit of the fullness in the skirt, but the top (not the shirt) is classic twist-front style and would look cute in a white pique that I have in my stash.

Again, from nordstrom.com

Anyway, enough of my dreaming for today. Must get busy and work and watch the rain outside… and find a sweater.

If it’s not Spring yet, it should be. It’s acting like it outside. The sun is out, the birds are chirping, and not one electronic item broke yesterday, so all is good in the world.

My daughter is still pregnant but all is good there as well. As of right now, she is scheduled to be induced on Tuesday – her due date. We are all amazed she’s made it to her due date. All the doctors felt she would deliver early so this is great. That little granddaughter of mine is going to be so welcomed and loved.

Anyway, on to report about a little bit of sewing I did recently. I made these a while ago for my daughter. She didn’t want to have to wear the ugly hospital gowns when she has her baby and, like her mama, wants to look good in her pictures after she has her baby, so she found a free pattern online for maternity delivery gowns and I stitched them up. I used some pretty quilting cotton that my daughter picked out. I altered the pattern slightly by creating pleats in the front. This way the gown would spread out better across a very pregnant belly. I also left the back opening straight, not curved as the pattern suggests so that the overlap could later be stitched together leaving her with a regular cotton gown after she comes home. The snaps at each shoulder allow her to nurse with this gown as well. I thought about creating slits for openings to nurse, but I didn’t make the pleats large enough in the front to allow for any level of modesty if I did that.

Here’s the original pattern laid out. The pattern is the same for the front and the back, with the exception of the opening.

This the front after widening the pattern, and scooping out the neckline some. After the fact, the first one I made wider this way was just too darn wide. Another example of why you should tissue fit or make a muslin. Oh well.  This also shows how I made the back opening straight.

A closeup of the fabric choices

The finished white gown. I made the other gown with the reverse combination – that is, the pink is the main, and the silver is the contrast.

A closeup of the pleated front. I made one large pleat and then topstitched along both sides of the center to add interest.

One flaw – either with the altering I did (likely) or with the pattern itself – the front doesn’t match up with the back at the sleeves. Ugh.

I didn’t take a picture of the back, but the pattern calls for ties at the back. My daughter didn’t want these, she just wanted snaps at the top. There’s enough overlap in the gown to give her the modesty she needs at the back, so I just put about three snaps down the back at the top.

Oh, another note: I prewashed the fabric a few times before stitching so it would soften up, and over time, these will be very comfy. I can see her using them alot. We can eventually just stitch up the shoulder seams too, to eliminate the snaps. This will be easy by removing the snap tape (and reusing somewhere) and unfolding where I turned over the seam allowance. Brilliant, right?

Modeled pictures to show later, along with baby Laila, when she gets here.

Really. I did. Not that I was on any sort of self-imposed restriction or anything like that. But when I saw this in my inbox from Lucy’s Fabrics, I couldn’t resist.

What I love about this is that it’s chocolate brown and pink and has a border print. This fabric is also 58-60” wide, so you get even more for your money. Gotta love that. I bought 2 yards. I’ve been dying to try out a border print and I’m in the mood to sew up some yummy things for myself for this summer.

While I was there, I also found this. Same width as the one above. I love me some pink. I bought one yard of this one. I haven’t been sewing since last weekend but I decided that I need to insert some sewing for myself amidst all this sewing for everyone else. Plus, since I’m almost to my goal weight and size, I’m ready to try sewing clothes for me again. I can’t wait for UPS to get here next week.

Update on baby Laila: My daughter had to go to the maternity ER a couple days ago. (This is a special triage area of the hospital for their maternity patients.) It was determined that my daughter had some signs of preterm labor and they gave her a special shot to stop the contractions and prescribed modified bed rest. Essentially that means that she needs to take it easy, no extensive walking. We’re not too worried at this point if baby comes early as she’s being monitored for her breathing and heartbeat twice a week and baby is doing great. She’s already practicing how to breathe! And they estimate her weight to be currently about 4lbs 9 oz. We just want her to get more chubbiness on her little body before she joins us on this side of the womb.

…To quote a friend of mine.

I’ve been burning up the sewing machine trying to get rid of the stacks of projects (aka fabric) in my sewing loft. It’s been driving me nuts. In addition, baby Laila will be here in about 7 weeks and she needs receiving blankets. Lots of them. And burp cloths, and crib sheets. I also have projects pending for my other three grandkids from so long ago, it’s embarrassing. Not to mention a bunch of stuff I want to sew up for myself for this spring and summer. So, I have been focused and seem to have regained my sewing mojo.

Way back when… ok, well only about 10 days ago or so… I showed you the fabric my daughter picked out for her baby crib bedding. I wasn’t so sure about using the high loft batting, but as I mulled it over, I decided to go for it, even though I’d already purchased some other quilt batting. It took me 10 days of mulling this over to figure out how to actually quilt this stuff.

Totally flying by the seat of my pants (read: didn’t have a clue what I was doing, really) I sandwiched the batting between the top and the bottom of the quilt, pinned it in place, and then managed to get it into my sewing machine and I stitched along some of the design lines of the quilt. That was a total pain in the patootie as I just don’t have the kind of machine that supports stuffing large quantities of fabric and batting in between the needle and the main part of the machine. It was quite an adventure, but the effect is one my daughter doesn’t just like, she loves! (To quote her.)

Finally, after all that, I stitched on the ribbon blanket binding, and called it good. My perfectionist personality sees so much of this that could be improved, but my baby granddaughter won’t know the difference.

Next, after that, I stitched up two more crib sheets, and five receiving blankets, plus a fleece blanket for my littlest grandson that I meant to make him for Christmas.

Guess which receiving blanket is my favorite? 

Finally, I ended my day by cutting out the panels and bias strips to make the coordinating crib bumpers for Laila’s crib. Once this is done, I can move on to finishing the doggie beds for my brother (sorry, Chris!), which I think I’ve totally hosed up and have no idea how to stuff, but that’s another post. I also have to make some curtains for Cayden before he outgrows Lightening McQueen – if he hasn’t already.

At least I feel like I’m making progress and accomplishing things. Oh, and I did get a 2.5 mile run in yesterday, got my hair done, and went shopping for some pretty unmentionables.

Phew.

Thursday night, my youngest (the mommy to be) and I went up to my oldest daughter’s house and we got the party favors ready for the baby shower. What a fun time that was. When my first grandson was born, we spent time at my house making candles. I remember my son-in-law and daughter working hard in the kitchen actually melting the wax, adding the scents and coloring, and pouring into something like 4o little candle jars with lids. My house smelled great for days.

Since that was such a hit, we did something similar for this daughter’s shower. I was looking everywhere for pink candles and even with all the Valentine’s stuff out, I couldn’t find what I wanted at a cheap price. We found these boxes of vanilla-ish candles in packs of 12 for $7.99. Gotta love that. Cheaper than the $1.00 ones I was hoping to find at Wally World (aka WalMart). Then my oldest and I decided that we’d tie tulle and ribbon around them. She tested it out of Friday. Fail. We also didn’t have a hot glue gun, so we tried crafter glue – fail. We tried puffy paint – fail. Everything we had on hand, nothing worked.

So, my sweet son-in-law headed out to Fred Meyer and picked us up a hot glue gun. Now we were in biz. Sweet!

All the ribbon and charms prepped, waiting for the glue gun.

A close-up of the candle and charms.

The mommy-to-be stamping cards for the party.

Some of the party favors all wrapped up.

And the final favors all set out at the shower.

(More shower info to come in my next post.) 

And just some fun family pics. Me and my oldest grandson.

The boys eating their dinner at the “kids table” because we took over the main dining table with our craftiness.

What a cute little impish look. His newest thing is sticking his tongue halfway out at me. Stinker!