Finishing up the African Wedding Quilt

I was able to push some things to the side and put the binding on the wedding quilt. The wedding is October 3rd - so it needed to be done! There certainly was not much room to move about as stuff is piled on top of stuff. My sewing room was the last free bit of space left until we needed to clear everything out for the floors.



Here is a picture of the quilt - back from the quilter - who did a wonderful job on quilt it - binding is on and I am stitching the binding down in the evenings as we watch some evening TV. The quilt will be ready on time - I am almost finished the binding now.



A close up of some of the detail stitching in the border. I am very happy with the result. She stitched around all the individual people in the border.


We had a very busy weekend -- which continued right through Monday and Tuesday. The floors were being refinished - by someone who knew what they were doing! They are done now and they look lovely. We are still not able to move furniture into the house. We are planning on moving some items in on the weekend.

The first hardwood floor guy that we hired was terrible had we had to fire him after 4 days of making a mess of the job.  I have pictures!!  Anyway the guy who we got was able to rescue us and fix most of the first guy's mess.  There are a few little things that we will be stuck with though - but I am NOT going to stress out about it too much!  But if anyone out there is looking for a hardwood floor refinisher -- I can tell you who NOT to get!

We spent most of the weekend doing outside work. Repainting the garage door - painting the outside of the front of the house.

And Jim spent two days on the roof with a shop vac - cleaning the needles out of the cedar shakes.

Not a great picture with the sun in the wrong place but you get the point!



I was off to the dentist this morning to have a crown put on a tooth. So I spent the rest of the day in pain - boy did it hurt when the freezing came out. But I must get all those odd bits of dental work done in the next five years so I can retire with a good set of teeth - and no dental plan!!

Jerusalem Pottery

Today is the first day I have used the new blogspot edit program - It is a bit different and I seem to be having a bit of trouble with it -- so bear with me.

When Jim and I were deciding what we wanted in the kitchen Jim announced that he really wanted some cobalt blue tiles - and I wanted a nice little feature tile on the wall behind the new cook top.  Jim went off to do some tile shopping one day while I was working and he couldn't find anything that he liked -- cobalt blue. Apparently cobalt blue colour comes from lead base glaze which is not allowed any longer.

So we did a little looking around the internet and found a site called Jerusalem Pottery  
The store is actually in Jerusalem.  So I sent them an email - just to see if it still existed.  I got a very prompt reply and I ordered some tiles - that were quickly shipped and arrived all in good order -- all the way from Israel.    And it wasn't all that expensive.  Cheaper than some of the brown tile mosaics that we saw.

This is the piece that will go on the wall behind the cook top.  It is 18 inches square.  Don't you love it!!

We ordered a few other tiles to go around the kitchen.  A few to go on the wall under the glass cabinets and then 2 fish tiles -- because Jim NEEDED fish tiles. 

The kitchen is getting close to the time to get the tiles installed.  I sure hope they look as lovely on the wall as they do in my quilting room. 

We cooked pasta last night

The new gas cooktop and oven were installed yesterday.



The sink is working - new taps - running water. The dishwasher works -- Jim is pretty happy about that one!




The kitchen was ready for use! It was fabulous to cook at a stove.


We are getting close. Unfortunately we had a little setback this week. The hardwood floors were to be refinished this week. We moved completely out of the house. Jenny went to spend the week with Lillie and the hardwood floor guy started Monday morning. He said he would be finished Thursday. He rarely showed up to work - he did a terrible job sanding and was not finished Thursday - didn't even show up on Friday (both his cell phone battery and truck battery were dead!! RIGHT!) and we fired him Saturday morning. So.... the floors are not done and we will have to go through this process again. The kitchen almost finished - although the tiles for the wall still need to be installed and the stove vent still needs to be replaced - as the guy who installed it bent it with a screwdriver. And we are leaving the blue wrapping on the fridge until the floors are finished.

I got the African wedding quilt back from the quilter last week and it looks fabulous. I just need to get some more black fabric for the binding. I am having trouble accessing my cutting table right now!