Our New Couch!

Ta Da! There she is. And now for a moment of silence for all of my life I lost sewing her.





For those of you who don't know, I have been working on making my apartment the most lovely and beautiful place I can since August. That included selling my old futon and getting a new couch. This is the new beauty I found on craigslist. One day I am planning on getting her recovered. I was thinking a neutral linen. But for now she is going to rock the fitted slipcover I have made.



A little close up... love the legs.



And now for a little story.

I learned a lot about myself while sewing this. While I was in the thick of it sewing my heart out and not sure how it was going to pull it off, I started to reminisce. I remembered when I was 7 years old ( I know that for a fact). I had been taking swimming lessons in the summertime and I had been a Red-Cross Level III. For those of you who dont know that meant I could swim a short distance on my stomach and back using arms and legs. Well I must have grown quite confident in my practices with my teacher, going across the short end of the pool because my aunt took me swimming with her first baby who was not quite a year old. While they were playing in the kiddie pool I went over to the big pool and walked over to where my class used to practice. It was in the shallow end but the deepest part of the shallow end. My teacher could walk easily in that area but I could not touch the bottom without going completely under the water. Well that day when my aunt wasn't looking I decided I was going to swim across the pool. I think I had told her I was going too, but she was a little occupied with her baby. She wasn't watching and I jumped in.

At first everything was OK. I was swimming, but when I got about a little less than half I started to get really tired and struggle. I remember thinking that I wasn't going to make it, and I also remember wondering where the life guard was. I went under a few times. I almost drowned that day but some how I made it back to the wall. I don't remember that part, perhaps someone helped me, or perhaps I remembered to float and kick. What I do remember is that afterwords I wondered how could I have been so silly, I almost died.

Well in the middle of sewing this slipcover I realized that my personality is that I think of something I want to do and decide that I CAN do that thing. And then I jump right in, sometimes into the deep end. I almost always struggle and then pull through wondering how it happened. That was how it was with this slipcover. For a while I thought I had wasted a ton of money that I couldn't spare and was going to end up with a nasty old couch covered with a blanket. Somehow it came together even though I didn't' know what I was doing.

Morale of the story, It can be done, but don't underestimate the difficulty level of such a large project. In some ways it was easier than expected and in some ways harder. I love the end result.

Pompions

I love pumpkins. Did you know that the early American settlers called them pompions. Every fall I start to dream about pumpkins in all different shapes, sizes and colors. One day I will have a large garden in which I will grow them in all different varieties. Some of my favorites are the cinderella, and the white ones. I want to cover my porches with them and have them piled in my house. I dream of all the things I could cook with them, pies, bread, pumpkin salad, pumpkin stew. Ahhhh if only...




My biggest problem is that I find that in stores and at local farms they are really expensive. I guess they are just expensive for me because I always buy way too many. This year I just cant go buy them like I usually do. I almost thought we weren't going to be able to get any, since they are an unessential expense.



Lucky for us where my husband works, they grow a large garden. They invited all the employees to come get a couple of pumpkins. We went yesterday and It was really fun. We walked out into the patch and I tried to get some pictures of Bubbie there but it was a little prickly and he didn't like it very much.


Instead I got to put him in this pile. It was really sunny so he wasn't so sure about it but It was cute.




We got four pumpkins, one for me, one for hubby, one little one for Bubbie, and one to cook. Happy Fall!

Sisters

I don't get to see her very much but I do think about her often. She works pretty hard, and I am impressed. Love you Sis.

Goodbye My Love

I think I have finally decided to sell some of my paintings. I have not been able to decide what to do with them since I really do find the colors and brushstrokes interesting and bueatiful. The problem is that I have so much of my own artwork that I just cant keep it all. Most of it I end up destroying out of the eventual dislike I grow for it from looking at it over time. I just don't really like most of what I create. The stuff I do like and keep I want to protect and the best way to do that is to hang it in my house. The one problem with that is that my house ends up looking like an Andrea shrine. I don't really like that so much. I would love to have more original art work from other people in my home. So the best way to do that is to sell some of the paintings I have made that I do like but don't need to keep. Here are the first I have decided to sell.


No. 1


They are all roughly the same size with variances from 20"-25" in height and range in length from 28"-30" with one large one at 36" long.


No.2


No.3



No.4


No.5


No.6


If anyone is interested in them leave me a comment and we can work out the details.

A Little Catching Up

A few months back I was loosing my mind with all of the toys in our small living room. I decided to go to Goodwill and look for a basket or something to put the toys in. Until then I had been keeping them all in a metal wash basin and a metal pail. I had been looking for more wash basins for a long time but haven't seen any.


What I found at Goodwill was not what I had in mind but something about it had me very interested. I felt a little silly because I had just convinced one of my dearest friends to get rid of almost the exact same thing because the shape was awkward. Well when I saw this ugly box I almost couldn't get it because it would make me a super hypocrite. I called my mom and she was supportive, then I called my friend and told her what I had purchased and how bad I felt. Next I busted out my paint.

Do you see this thing. At first thought it is totally retro seventies but I saw through it and envisioned how pretty it could be when not distracted by the dark wood.


There it is complete, nice and white. I tried distressing it but ended up painting over it, deciding that I am not that much a fan of fake chippy paint. I painted the knobs white too since they had a nice silhouette. I am quite happy with our new toy box and my little bubie can just go right over, open the doors and play away. Who knows, maybe someday if we ever get out of this apartment, Ill have enough space to play with it some more an add some flirty legs and new knobs.