Busy Summer

Somehow this summer has gone flying by!  I don't know how it got to be September already!

I've been working on multiple projects... both inside and outside... that have been consuming a lot of time.  My running has also picked up during the summer and I'm running 45 minutes two days a week with a longer (~1.5 hr) run on the weekends.  I've gotten more fit, which I'm happy about.  I haven't quite broken the 30 minute barrier on a 5k, but I chalk up the last one to running when it was 77 degrees and 95% humidity.  Yuck!

Here's a few of the various projects that are on-going....

1. This is a quilt called Heat Wave by Judy Laquidara.  Its been stalled a bit due to working on other projects, but its in good shape.  I have to make a large pieced border yet in a snail's tail pattern, but I've made those blocks before and know how to get them to come out right.



2. The reason #1 is stalled.... a friend at work had a second child earlier this summer, so I've been working on a pair of quilts (one for child #1 and one for the new child).  Sadly, I'm WAY behind on this and I'm still not done with either quilt.  The baby was born in June, but the way I see it (or rationalize it) is that they won't need the blankets until it gets cold anyway.  :)




#3. In late May/early June, we went on a vacation to Myrtle Beach.  It was absolutely gorgeous and we had perfect weather.  The first photo is from the first morning there.  We had a tropical storm that was heading out from the prior day (hence the clouds), but the rest of the week was perfect.




#4.  I've gotten my groove back with needlepoint.  This is where it was earlier in the summer and the second photo is from the past few days.  I'm finally on to page 4... of 20+ pages.  A ways to go yet....




#5.  With the great weather we've had this summer, there's been a lot of work being done outside.  First and foremost is the stone wall that my husband has been building.  He picks out the rocks... I help him cement them all into place.  This is only one half of the wall.  There will be an arbor on the left of the picture before the second half of the wall starts up again.




All in all, its been a good summer.  It went by quickly, but hopefully we will still have several weeks of good weather before the true cold starts to set in.

Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Vacation

Last week, my husband and I both took the entire week off from work.  We didn't really have any plans to go anywhere, but we both needed to just not be at work.  Sometimes it isn't about going somewhere on vacation, but just being able to relax.

I always feel like when I travel on vacation that I need a secondary vacation to make up for the energy spent traveling somewhere.  It was really nice to just be home and relax.  We did make the most of our time and got a fair amount done around the house/yard.

When we purchased our piano a few months ago, we decided to convert our formal dining room into the room with the piano.  This ended up meaning that we had to change the table in our eat-in kitchen area to be one with leaves in it so we could seat everyone for large families dinners.  I don't have a picture of the new table yet, but it was delivered last week while we were home.

In addition to the new table, we then had to find some comfy chairs to put in the room with the piano.  We both hate furniture shopping.  Most of the time you don't find anything you like and you end up frustrated and feeling hassled by the sales folks at the stores.  This time, we did find some chairs!



This chair was at the 3rd furniture store we went to (over 2 weekends), but we fell in love with it.  Its comfortable to sit in and looks very nice.  One of the best parts.. its actually a recliner!  It looks like any normal chair (even from the back), but that square section on the front...that's the foot rest.  They will be perfect in the room with the piano and will let one of us sit and relax while the other plays.

Besides a bunch of yard work being done last week, we also spent some time at my in-laws where they live on a lake.  We went up twice and enjoyed swimming and kayaking.


Finally since I haven't shown many garden pictures this year.... The catchfly is flowering and is a very pretty orange-red color.


My orange coneflowers are also finally blooming.  They seem to be happy this year, which is good considering we thought we were going to have to replace them since they just didn't do it last year.



I hope you all are enjoying your summer and those of you in the south aren't wilting from the heat too much yet.  I did get a small amount of quilting done on vacation, but not enough to even consider taking pictures.  Hopefully I'll get my mojo back soon and will start making progress on a few things.

Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Pool Table Installation

Last week we had our pool table delivered and installed.  I couldn't take time off from work, so I made my husband take some pictures.  He didn't take as many as I would have liked, but its enough to see what the table looks like all taken apart.

So first they bring in just the frame of the table and there's no side rails, pockets or slate on it.

Before adding the slate pieces, they position the table where you want it in the room and make sure that it is level.  Somehow with the combination of our floors and the leg heights, the table ended up being perfectly level.  Sometimes they have to put shims under the legs to make it level, but this case they didn't have to.

The slate pieces actually come in three separate pieces.  The installer positions the slate in place...

They adjust each piece individually to make sure the slate pieces are level.  They then use bondo to tie the pieces together and create a smooth surface.

This is where the hubby stopped taking pictures, so I don't have anything that shows how they wrapped the felt around the pieces of slate or installed the rails.  Oh well.  Here is the table completely finished and in-place in the room.

I was also able to get a good picture of the light we have above the table.  Apparently the key to taking pictures of lights is to turn them on and take the picture during the day.  You can get the light coming through the glass, but its not bright enough to cause problems for the camera.

We've been playing pretty much every evening, so the table is definitely getting a workout already.

Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Make-A-List Monday

I missed a lot of posting last week!  Sorry!

Last week was a bit crazy between work and trying to finish up the coffered ceiling in time for the pool table to be delivered.  I've also been feeling a bit "down" lately, so its been difficult to find time to get into the sewing room.

I have been able to make it to the gym 3 times each week for the past 2 weeks.  To date, I've already lost 4 pounds.  Yay!  I've found my best workout day is actually Friday.  There's something to be said for being done with work, not having to get up the next morning, and hitting the gym for a good strong workout.

I think I'm going to be getting a different kind of workout tomorrow....SNOW!

We're expected to get a pretty significant snow storm for this late in March.  We're actually located around the first "a" in the word "Saratoga Springs" in the picture above.  This puts us in the 6-10" range, but if the storm shifts a bit, we could be in the 5-8" range or in the 10"+ range.  We're up in the hills a little bit, so we may be closer to the 10"+ range.

So the other big thing this past week was that our pool table was delivered on Friday.  There is plenty of room for it in the room, but somehow the room feels smaller now.  I think its just because we've either had nothing in the room or just a small foos-ball table.  It looks really nice and we're definitely putting it through its paces.  :-)

I'm not even going to bother going through my last Monday list, but I have been making some small progress on the Lone Star quilting.  I have 3 of the 4 sides of the outer border quilted and the last side is almost halfway done.  There's still a bunch more quilting to do, but it will be good to be done with the outer border and move onto something else.

So here's the list for the upcoming week:
1. Finish quilting the outer border on Lone Star.
2. Quilt the white sections of the center star on Lone Star.
3. Post pictures of pool table being assembled.
4. Fold fabrics from winter sampler and put on bookshelf.

Hope everyone has a great week!


Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Oy!

How did it get to be Thursday??!!

I'm not quite sure what happened this week, but I totally didn't get around to my usual posts.  I'll try to do a quick run-down here...

Last Saturday we spent all day working on the ceiling.  When I say "all day", I really do mean ALL day!  We started working at 8:30am and didn't finish until 6pm.  We didn't even break for lunch, just some snacks here an there.  We did get it done though!  Completely finished.  Everything is painted and caulked and looks shiny and new.

I love the green paint and the bright white molding.  The lamp is really cool too.  It has a bit of the Tiffany glass look to it.

Sunday was spent touching up a few last little bits, hanging the light in the room with the new ceiling detail and doing all the usual weekend chores (shopping, cleaning, laundry).  I got a little bit of sewing in, but only about an hour or two.  I'm still quilting on Lone Star, so there's nothing new to show.

This week at work has also been very crazy and busy.  Between work and going back to the gym 3 times a week, I haven't been doing a lot of sewing.  I have lost 3 lbs already since going to the gym (2 weeks now).  In order to get down to the "normal" BMI, I need to lose about 10-15 lbs.  I'm already down 3 lbs, so about 7-12 more to go.  I'd love to get lower, but I'd like to at least get down to the high-end of the BMI range for my height.  Once there, then I'll work on getting down to the weight I'd like to be.

This week we had some high temps (high 40Fs) that resulted in a bunch of snow melt and we had rain on top of it.  With all the runoff, our stream near the house was really moving.  Here's some pictures of the water...

Our dam will need a little bit of work come spring to repair the damage from the water.  The plastic pipes... there's two that should be at the top of the dam to allow water to flow through.  They both were sent downstream a bit.

Further down on our land, we have a bit of a lake happening.  The stream loses definition in this area, so it just spreads out everywhere.  We plan on using a backhoe to define a path for the stream and then be able to plant a garden in this area.

I'm hoping to get back to quilting this weekend and be able to show some progress pictures of the Lone Star quilting.  I'll also show pictures of the room with the pool table in place.  Its being delivered tomorrow! :-)


Happy Crafting!
 ~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Ceiling Progress

We made a ton of progress this past week and weekend on the ceiling.  My husband's parents came up again to help us out with the long pieces of molding that needed to be put up on the ceiling.  Due to the length, it was definitely helpful to have two extra people to hold the long boards in place.

At this stage, we have all the molding nailed up onto the ceiling.  Yay!

You can see there are a few bare spots where we already did some sanding.  We have to sand the areas where there are high spots and then spackle them.  Once we clean up the spackle, its time to paint and then the final caulking.

My job so far has been to put the tape on the ceiling while my husband sands.  You can see the painter's tape around a few of the boxes in the two pictures on this post.

So far we really love how the ceiling looks and I'm sure it will look even better once the painting is done and all the blue tape is removed from the walls.

Once we get all the painting done and the pool table is in place, we'll have some folks over to the house for a mini billiards tourney.


Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Ceiling Progress

We made some good progress on the ceiling over the weekend.  All of the joints between the vertical boards and the flat, bottom boards were closed up with spackle and then sanded.  We then did the first coat of painting on the crown molding and got it nailed into place for 3 of the boxes on the ceiling.

This is a different view that shows the crown molding a bit better.  It doesn't have the joints sealed yet, but that will happen this week and then its time to paint again.

We have a definite move date for the pool table... March 15th.  So we have to make sure we at least get the main center section done before the pool table arrives.  ;-)



Happy Crafting! ~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Make-A-List Monday

I hope everyone had a great weekend.  Here in Upstate NY, it was a bit of a cold and dreary weekend.  We had snow/sleet off and on all day Saturday.  Sunday evening we had a short burst of snow, but in general it was pretty cold and damp feeling.  At least it was outside, inside we had the fireplace going so it was nice and toasty warm. :-)

I was able to get a few things done last week and even got a bit of quilting done on Saturday.  I was going to go on a "tea" road trip with Yarnkettle, but we decided to post-pone due to the yucky weather on Saturday.

Here's the list from last week:
1. Finish sewing the Bento Box quilt pieces.  Done!  The blocks are sewn, but I need to press them before I do any more pictures.
2. Quilt the marked border for the Lone Star quilt.  Done! I even got a little bit quilted.

3. Post pictures of the ceiling progress.  Done!  Its posted here.
4. Decide upon design to quilt Wildflower Fields.  Done!  I decided to quilt this using a panto called Bayside.

Here's the plan for the upcoming week:
1. Finish quilting the border for Lone Star.
2. Post pictures of ceiling progress (we should get all the crown up this week).
3. Press and photograph Bento Box pieces.
4. Setup Wildflower Fields for quilting.

Hope everyone has a great week!


Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Ceiling Project

We made some significant progress on the ceiling last weekend.  We spent all day Sunday working on the ceiling.  Here's where it was last week:

And after working all weekend on the project:

We have all the vertical pieces up in place and we spent some time this week after work shimming and nailing the vertical pieces all in place.

We have crown molding that will go up in those boxes, too, and that's the project for this coming weekend.  Tomorrow (Saturday), we expect to get the molding and get it painted.  I'll be doing the painting while my husband spackles the gaps around the boxes on the ceiling.

Last weekend we also picked out the felt color for the pool table.  It should be delivered on March 15th, so we have 3 more weekends to get the center portion above the pool table finished.  We'll try to get as much done as we can, but we definitely need to get that center section done.  The rest of the boxes could be finished after the pool table is in place.

Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Coffered Ceiling Progress

We have a pretty significant house project that we're working on.  We're putting a coffered ceiling up into one of the rooms in our house.  We have a traditional center-hall colonial styled house so this would be where the formal living room would be.  However, we designed the house (with our builder) to have this room be large enough to fit an 8-ft pool table. 

After a few weeks of figuring out how to put the largest square inside that room and how to account for walls not being completely straight, we were able to put the anchoring boxes up on the ceiling.  We're definitely glad that we have a compressor with a nail gun and an impact driver.  This would have been MUCH harder without those two little tools.

Here's my husband up on the ladder putting painter's tape around the recessed lighting fixtures that we loosened from the ceiling. The ceiling will be painted the same color as the walls and all the molding created by the coffered boxes will be white like the molding around the windows and doorways.

Here we are with the first coat of paint on the ceiling and putting up the flat boards on the bottoms of the boxes.  This was quite an endeavor and we ended up needing 4 people to do it.  We could have gotten away with just 3, but the 4th person helped with handing tools up to my husband so he didn't have to keep getting down from the ladder.

We were able to get all the flat boards up on Saturday and I took this picture Sunday morning while we had some natural daylight in the room.

We jokingly said we should keep it open like that and provide a way for the cat to get up there and walk all around the ceiling areas in those sections.  She would probably have a ball doing that. :-)

So that's our progress so far.  We now have to route the bottoms of the vertical pieces, paint them and then nail them up to the anchor boxes to enclose everything.  After that, its time for crown molding.

We have a deadline of March 15 as some friends of ours sold their house and can't take their pool table with them when they move down south.  So we are purchasing their pool table from them.  However, we need to have the ceiling done before the 15th such that we're not trying to work around the pool table.  We're going to work from the center section outward when doing the crown molding and touch-up painting.  If we can get the center section done by the deadline, then we'll be OK as we'll still be able to get ladders up around the pool table after its in place.


Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Make-A-List Monday

I totally didn't get done what I wanted to last week, but it sure wasn't for lack of effort.  It was a busy week at work...insanely busy.  We also had some friends over to the house on Saturday, which meant the entire day was spent doing grocery shopping, cleaning, cooking and finally entertaining.  We had a great time and it was good seeing some of our friends that are going to be moving soon.

Here was the plan for last week

1. Quilt 2 corner squares for Lone Star. Nope. :-(  I did get half of one block quilted.
2. Post needlepoint picture. Nope.  Didn't get any pictures taken.
3. Sew 4 blocks for the Bento Box quilt. Nope... consistent story, right? Didn't get to this either.
4. Order backing material for Wildflower Fields. I also didn't order backing.  I'm still debating what I want to do with backing.  I could probably make the backing scrappy, but I don't know if I want to do that or just purchase some yardage.

After entertaining our friends on Saturday, we spent a good portion on Sunday working on the coffered ceiling in the "green" room.  We have all the lines marked on the ceiling and some frame boxes made, but we needed to get them squared up on the ceiling and nailed/screwed in place.  That was the Sunday project that kept me from getting into my sewing room.

This next view you can see some of the boxes on the edge as well as the marks on the ceiling showing where all the pieces intersect.

Finally a picture showing the edge of the green room into the dining room. 

Our big purchase for 2013 will be to get a "real" dining room table.  We've figured out we need to be able to have close to 100" of dining length for our families to sit and eat.  What we haven't quite figured out is whether we want to get a solid table 100" long and its permanently set that long, or if we want to do one that has leaves to extend to the necessary 100" length.

I'm hoping this coming week won't be as crazy (or depressing) as the last week.  Here's my plan:
1. Quilt one additional square on Lone Star.
2. Cut and piece 2 Bento Box blocks.
3. Post photo of needlepoint.


Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations