Update for real!

I completed the first cabinet of drawers and the first hanging cabinet. (Because of the fiasco mentioned earlier, this required stripping already refinished areas and using the new safe, water-based stain/poly that I can drink with abandon!)




































The verdict is in. "Wow Mom, it worked!" (Karen) and "You did a spectacular job!" (Mr. B.)

So now, one and a half weeks later, we know how to do it. And get darned good results! I will probably strip the rest of the kitchen, three-four cabinets at a time. Actually Mr. B. has offered to help with that also....it's a messy, icky, sticky job....but I went to Home Depot again and got TWO 24-pack terry-towels (sale price $4.98!), odorless mineral spirits (yay!) and more Citrustrip. We're set!




















(Also, here's a chip of the Silestone countertop I'm close to picking. Colors on the blog aren't true, but its got tans, brownish-greys, and a touch of blue in it.)

In QUILTING NEWS!, (yay - that's what I really like to talk about!)

Karen pretty much completed her very first quilt - a flannel brick road, for her friend TiJae. But at the very end, we fumbled. I suggested quilting it on the frame with an all-over meander (thinking it might help it all stay smooth) and she was more interested in stitching in the ditch - which SHOULD have worked well also.....if dear old Mom (sigh! that would be me!) had remembered to tell her to use a walking foot. The portions of her quilt made with better quality flannel worked fine, even with the regular sewing foot. But there was one section, maybe about an eighth of the quilt, where she had pieced the backing with an apparently lesser quality flannel. She went up one row and down the next, to avoid skewing the quilt......and it worked perfectly except, in this one section. It resulted in a "chevroning" effect on the back. And a bit of unevenness on the front. She got pretty discouraged.....and I could tell she was Not. Happy.

Everyone swore it would all work out in the end, still be the quilt she wanted it to be (a virtual hug for TiJae and Cage to curl up in and snuggle while reading books, or napping, etc), but it was rapidly becoming the Quilt from, um.....Hades.

I happened to think of that pre-made quilt binding I had seen at Joanne's from time to time. Normally, I would make binding from fabric used in the quilt, but this quilt was THICK and there were many seams, just due to the nature of the brick road pattern. I was really thinking it would be harder to bind. And who knew if the flannel would cooperate.... So I suggested to Karen that maybe I slap some black pre-made binding on it, and she give it to TiJae anyway..... Evidence of how p.o.'d she was, was her shrug and the statement "eh, I'm over it, it's okay." She promptly went on to purchase this pattern and start this quilt!! (She's using beautiful batiks!)



















Meanwhile, the Quilt from Hades was put in the Time-Out Corner, up in my quilting studio. It languished there for a few weeks. Apparently this helped! Last night I tackled the binding.














(click to enlarge and see stitch, sorta.....gets blurry)

I used a stitch on my Janome called Grandmother's Garden. It went on like a dream and somewhere in the process, the entire quilt came together, just like everyone said it would.




















Karen was grinning from ear to ear when she saw it! Her first quilt! From cutting and planning in Wyoming on vacation:















To stitching at the classroom at Leah's quilt shop .....















she worked hard! And you can tell from the "preview" where she showed it to TiJae and son Cage, while batting still hung out all around, that its going to be loved and used!!















She did such a fantastic job on it! Yahoo!



















(yes, I know the picture is similar to the one above....I'm proud of her! so hush!)

Mr. B. took a look at it last night and said, "boy, if she didn't already have a home for it, I would LOVE to have one like that!"

(Note to Karen: Good quality flannels, and be sure and put it in the Time Out Corner at some point! Christmas present for Dad??!! Karen? why are you running from the room??!!)



















And Jack would just like to register a further complaint about the continued lack of a decent view from his new residence.

Note the flowered handle on the screwdriver. That's a gift from my Dad a few years ago. Yes, I like to play with tools. But there's no reason I can't have pretty ones!!

Happy Friday!!