Time in my work room at last

It is quite some time since I spent time in the room where I do sewing etc. and it was good to get in there the other day.  I was inspired after reading a blog where the writer had decided to get to unfinished projects and try to complete them before starting something new.  I thought, yes I can relate to that.  I have a few things on the go and I need to get some of them finished and out of the way.

I decided to start with some of my framing projects.

I looked back through my posts and discovered that it was August 2017 when I started these projects, cutting the mats and backing core foam.  That is certainly procrastination on a grand scale.

I spent some time cutting the moulding for the frames and now I need to get the moulding joined before glass cutting for two of the pictures and then assembling the pictures.

I find I get easily distracted and spent some time doing a little bit more on the crocheted floor rug I started many moons ago. It is quite sore on the fingers when working the denim so I can only do a little bit at a time.

It is an on-going project so I can leave that and go back to it at any time.  I started this after I had upholstered a chair in old jeans and I had scraps left over.

I love this piece of equipment

I don’t know if you own a Karcher or the equivalent in another brand but I have to say that I absolutely love the results produced with this piece of kit.

A Karcher is a high pressure washer.  I am not sure of the technical name but that is what it does.  It washes using high pressure. You can read all about it here.

I set out to get rid of lichen on the roof of our back awning and somehow I just kept going. It is a little bit addictive. 🙂

Before using the Karcher.  You can see some of the lichen on the roof.After.  The lichen has been removed and the gutters cleaned.

But I didn’t stop there.  I then decided I should keep going and pressure wash the paving out the back.You can clearly see what a difference the Karcher makes on the parts I have done.

We now have a lovely clean back deck.

The other thing to note is that it uses much less water than if you were hosing down the area.

(Since posting this I notice I have blogged about this before.  Sorry for the repetition.)

Some clever carpentry by a clever granddaughter

This lovely little table was made by our granddaughter.  She made it at school and it was being kept secretly so that she could give it to her mother as a surprise for Christmas.  It is a beautiful piece of craftsmanship made with beautiful wood.  This granddaughter is the one that made me the lovely flower vase containers.

It is so good to see girls being given the opportunity to pursue these crafts at school.  I often wish that I had been given the chance to do woodwork when at school but I guess I wouldn’t have gained all the needlework skills I now have.

A bit of the island of Harris in a Christmas wreath

When we were in the outer Hebrides in Scotland one of the craft shops we visited had these wreaths which made use of the off cuts of Harris Tweed.  The wreaths are very simply made by knotting the scraps onto a wire ring.

In Stornaway I purchased some Harris Tweed off cuts to make such a wreath for Christmas but didn’t quite get around to it this year so I will need to make sure I make it next year.

This year’s wreath was a simple Australian one featuring penny gumleaves and baby’s breath.

It has taken a year. . .is that procrastinating?

I wrote a blog post in October 2017 saying that I wanted to redecorate our bedroom.

This is how our bedroom looked then.I have almost finished the redecoration and it has taken longer than I anticipated. The reason for the delay in starting was summoning up the courage to tackle using chalk paint.  I checked out several videos on YouTube and spoke to the retailer in Paint n’ Paper in Bairnsdale and decided I would give it a go.  It didn’t seem to be as terrifying as I thought.

I purchased a 1 litre can of chalk paint in Irish Linen and a tub of wax for the finishing off.  I ended up buying a second can of paint as I thought I wouldn’t have enough.  As it was I only used about 5 or 6 dips of paint from the second can but I did need it.

I started with the bedside cabinets.  This is is a before and after picture.  I only painted the front of the drawers and the actual cabinet frame.  I didn’t bother with the back as no one is going to see the back.  This is before the wax had been applied and the handles bronzed. The next picture is the finished cabinet.

The bed was a tedious job as there were so many railings to paint.  Two coats were applied and then the sanding to distress the piece before the wax was applied to seal the finish.The dresser required more care as I had to get my husband to dismantle the mirror from its frame before I could start painting the surround.  Again it all went well and the mirror was returned to its rightful place after everything was waxed.The wall colours are Taubman’s Rendezvous for the feature wall and Taubman’s Silky blue for the other walls.The colours are truer on the photos rather than the colour samples.

Now I just need to get some art work on the walls.  I have put up some family photos but we need artwork on the feature wall.Strange how the wall colours look grey in this photo.

Some garden activity

We demolished some concrete at the back of our back shed and we were going to take it to the recycling centre but the cost of depositing the concrete was over $200 so we thought there must be some other means of disposal.  We came up with the idea of creating a mounded garden bed at the edge of our front garden.  It is part of the nature strip but our nature strip is about four metres wide and we have a dirt road in front of that.

We covered the rubble with soil and we will plant some ground cover over that.  It is a less expensive method of disposal.