Em's quilt

Em decided that she needed to enter a quilt contest inspired by Dana.

She knew exactly what she wanted to do.  Use all the polka dot fabric that she has been collecting for quite some time and cut them into triangles.  594 triangles.  Yeah.  More ambitious than I have been for sure.  Now it's just a matter of deciding what the back should look like.  There's a huge debate going on about that.  

And it was all thought of after she saw the picture below.

(from design seeds) 

Can you believe she said she is bored at the moment and really needs to get going on the back of the quilt.  Determination.  Gotta love it!

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Planning...

I'm finally biting the bullet and will be cutting into my lovely bundle of Flea Market Fancy.  I've been putting it off since Spring.  Nervous.  Not wanting to totally ruin it with one wrong cut.  I'm weird like that.  I can't help it with prized little treasures.

So I have finally decided (after millions of mind changing episodes)  to make a wall hanging for the dining room, inspired by Blue Elephant Stitches.

Then with the leftovers of the above stack and with the newly found most awesome of awesome purchases today (Vintage Flea Market Fancy!!!  SQUEAL!!!!!), 

(photo from etsy)

I will be planning, ever so carefully, my course of action in order to make a quilt big enough to fit on my bed from the following inspiration from this book.

Now that I'm all giddy and have all this adrenaline getting me going I better put some of that energy towards a wee bit of yard work before I absolutely lose control and hibernate here in the craft room and completely forget about what needs to be done around here.  It happens, trust me.

I'm so excited!!!

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Smiling...

Pleased to pieces as to how this little project makes me smile every time I come into my craft room now.

Now something for the walls.  :)

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This weekend...

After a couple of corrections in the placement of squares (not sure what happened there) and completing the quilting yesterday,

the binding was added this morning.  

This weekend has turned out to be pretty darn great as far as the productivity of the desk quilt is concerned.

But a break must be taken so some time with my favorite peeps can be spent at the book store, lunch somewhere and a little stop at the park.

I can't be totally selfish and make the weekend all about me.  

Maybe another time. 

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The desk...

Things are starting to look better in the computer room.  The beast is in it's new home.  Things are somewhat set up for usage.  There's more tweaking to be done to make things just right for Glenn.  But at least the desk is finished and moved in.  Now Glenn just has to figure out what to do with all those drawers that he can put things in.

We are amazed at the color that it is now.  Like I said before we couldn't even see all the grain due to the dark color and the years of grime that was on this thing.  It looks like a totally new piece of furniture now.

Some of our favorite spots are the sun burst looking grain on one side.  That had to be placed in just the right place so it could be seen every time you walk into the room.  Request made by Glenn.

The top is my favorite.  Never knew it would look like this.

This project turned out better than I had imagined at first.  

It's amazing what you will find when refinishing an old piece of furniture that looks drab, dirty and yucky.  I'm glad we tackled this project and went for it.  Turned out to be a great treasure.  At least for us.

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Refinishing...

Just thought I would share with you on what I have been up to since last week.  Oh you think I was working on the little patchwork project for the new desk in the craft room.  I wish. 

Well, that came to a screeching halt the middle of last week when I could no longer stand seeing the million pieces of the behemoth desk sitting all over my family room.  It drove me insane!  So I recruited some help in dragging all those pieces out to the garage and proceeded in refinishing this monster.  The guys at the local hardware store just smiled and laughed when I told them the project I was going to tackle.  Maybe that was a sign that I should have said the heck with it and turned around and went back home.  But they know me be now and that I don't come in looking at starting easy little projects.  They always chuckle when I come in.  Awesome, huh.  

Let's just say that sanding the old crud off of a nearly 100yr. old desk is no way any fun at all.  We didn't want to use chemicals due to the fact that we had a little visitor most of the weekend and didn't want him around that stuff.  I now feel like I have depleted the country's supply of sandpaper after all of this.  And I can barely move after all the sanding that had to be done.

  We had never seen this much grain detail on the desk top before.  Only bits and pieces due to all the dark stain and shellac on it.  Who knew really old shellac will gum up a piece of sandpaper in mere seconds.  Awesome.  Gotta love that shellac.

And who knew the desk top looked this great without all the crud on it.

So now after days of sanding, staining was completed yesterday and the first coat of new varnish was applied today.  I actually thought I heard angels singing.

Glenn actually thought he was a comedian at one point yesterday and asked "what happens if I want to change the color of the stain in the future?".  He got the biggest stink eye I could muster up and quickly stopped asking ridiculous questions.  Plus the fact that I was holding the electric sander while he was asking the ridiculous question may have scared him a bit while I was giving him the stink eye.

Refinishing this monster is not an option, ever again.  At least not by me.  Ever!

God bless furniture restorers.  I'm just saying.

Completion pics in a few days.  I hope.

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