Presenting: our kitchen!

This story begins a long time ago and is a long time waiting to be told.  When we bought our house in 2007 it had been a student house for 20 years and it showed.  The plan was to do it up, which is taking a lot of time as we don't have the cash, time or inclination to spend every weekend plastering and sanding!

This is how our kitchen looked.

See the 80s kitchen cupboards?  The big patch on the wall where the boiler used to be?  The burnt oven which must have been 30 years old at least?

There was a nice bit to the kitchen, my white painted shelves with the bunting!  The open door is the door to the dining room, the closed door is the door to the cellar, it was a real squeeze to get down there!

That's the back door with the lovely exposed pipes and the wide drawers which were too big to be organised.

Not forgetting the gorgeous lino, torn and stained all over.

And then, in April 2013 it was time for a new kitchen.  The dining room was full of the new cabinets, delivered and waiting to be fitted, so we moved our kitchen into the living room.  This was day one when it all seemed like an adventure.

Slowly the kitchen started coming apart.  Appliances removed.

Down came the cabinets.

On day two all the units were removed and the kitchen in all its beauty was exposed.

And that's when the discovery was made.  The plaster wasn't coming away from the wall above the door, the wall of the house was falling down.  Marvellous.  What followed was months of hell arguing with the insurance company, who in the end refused to pay up, then full building works for 2 weeks whilst our house was put back together.  The entire time we lived without a kitchen.  I will never ever eat another ready meal.  This was also the catalyst for my depression, so it sparked an extra year or so (please don't let it go on much longer) of hell.  All because of this innocent looking patch of bricks.

November 2013 the new kitchen was finally fitted.  So why am I showing you this over a year later?  Because I'd been waiting for kitchen curtains!  It turned out that they weren't going to sew themselves from the fabric I bought back in November 2013 and I had to do it.

We went with white units, black counter top, black floor, then injected colour with the multi-coloured tiles.  That meant I could use any of the colours in the tiles (all colours except purple) for accents.  I chose yellow for the curtains.

Unfortunately the exposed pipes remain, a year later I'm still waiting for them to be boxed in!

So ta-dah!  These cafe-style curtains herald the end of the nightmare that was our house falling down.  I love my new kitchen.

Bathroom curtain is finished!

Now, before I start talking about the momentus bathroom curtain that I've been rambling on about for months, let me show you how our bathroom looked.

I bought the house 6 years ago, it had been a student house for years and so was badly decorated and grimy.  We've started doing it up, but it's expensive and we have no money, so it's going slowly.  Check out the brown suite.  Seriously, who buys a brown suite??  Also note the grimy cabinet with chipped glass doors.  The bottom of the mirror was at the correct height to reflect my forehead!

Yucky stained ceiling (we did use to clean it often!) and horrible light fixture.

Grimy grouting and tiles that always look dirty, even when they're not, due to the horrible pattern.  You can also make out the mis-matched trim on the bath.

I bought this blind for a fiver from IKEA when I first moved in, just to give us some privacy.  It's horrible and dirty and marked.

The bathroom is tiny, the door opens directly onto the boiler-housing cupboard so you have to squeeze past.  The yellowish walls don't help matters.

Mr CA started by replacing the boiler cabinet doors which were ancient and chipped to show the green paint underneath.  Everywhere we've decorated in our house we've found layers of white gloss, then a layer or two of green.  Clearly at some stage in its 130-year old history, the entire house was painted green.

A couple of months ago we painted.  We painted the walls and ceiling white and the tiles white too.  How much cleaner does that look, even with the gross brown suite?  I removed the horrible cabinet and put this little one in its place.  There are to be shelves next to it.  One day, when Mr CA gets round to it.

I even Mod Podged some bathroom-themed fabric inside the cupboard!

 

The door could do with a coat of paint, but it does look a lot better.  I also want to get some new shower and light pulls and fixtures, I just keep forgetting.

.

Oh, I wanted to show you that the tile paint isn't brilliant - it does come off in patches at some points, and I'd advise you not to scrub it!

A new clock, clean white walls and a book on Photography for Crafters!  Remember I added the crochet sail boats?

 

You can read about them here if you are so inclined.

That just left the window undressed.  For months.  And months.  Enter WIP 15

So, remember back in June when I started the granny square blocks for a bathroom curtain?

Then I showed you the otherday that I'd got this far?

I added some sashing.  Wider at the sides as the dimensions were a bit odd.  I then had to piece a backing as the piece of white fabric I had left was just not quite big enough!

I sewed it all together and then noticed this.  Ooops.  But, finally, it was finished.

Excuse the dark photo, it's very hard to take a photo of a dark room in Winter when the thing you are taking a photo of covers the window!

I love it!  Yes, that is the backing you can see through the curtain.  I also noticed that when the sun is very bright, you can see the threads and bits of lint trapped inside the two layers.

 

I had the brilliant idea of interfacing the front to make it less see-through.  Didn't work.

This is the back, I forgot to take a photo before I hung it but as it's visible through the front, I think you get the idea!

Spot the mistake?  Yep, I put the front on upside down.  Those birds are the only directional prints and I got them upside down.

To make the curtain I made the back and the front, interfaced the front and sewed them right sides together, trapping some tabs in the top.  I then turned it through and top stitched the gap closed.

As I finished, I realised that's not how you make curtains.  Ooops.

Oh yee of little faith - and why you are probably right

I started the year by telling you about my resolution to get through all my WIPs and kits and planned projects.  You responded by telling me I'm crazy!  I'm not mad, I completely agree BUT I have started...

I started this bathroom curtain back in June!  I can't believe it was so long ago.  I've been working on it....  Despite having cut out enough squares for a King size quilt, it will only be 3 blocks x 3 blocks.

The giant granny is an even older WIP, having been started way back in July 2011!  Oh, you will be finished blanky.  I'm now on round 50 and I think I've got enough wool for another 10-15 rounds before the border, each round now takes about an hour!  I couldn't remember what hook I was using so started using a 4mm, I think it might have been a 3.5mm as the middle is definitely tighter than the edge.
 

I can't find my original post for the next item, but I had taken photos so I think I'd written a post.  I've finished off the pink flower to the left and done all the blue "bits" so far.  I have done more than this now as I took this photo a few days ago.  I did this stitching straight after Christmas but then put it aside as I wasn't sure what to do with the "under-bits" under the blue...  It's done and I'll show you an update soon.

Considering I had all week off last week you might think I'd have made more progress, but alas, this little girl got in the way.

Excuse the dark photo, it was taken in my hall which has no natural light.  And that's a piece of banana in case you're wondering.  On Thursday I noticed she wasn't eating, VERY unusual for this little greed-bag.  Off to the vets who said it was her teeth so back to the vets on Friday for an operation to file them down.  She's fine now but caused me some worry, along with some quality time keeping an eye on her.  We have to do that in the hall as she hates the floor in the living room, dining room and kitchen (laminate/lino) - she's no good at skating! 

I would like to tell you I've vacuumed the dirty brown carpet since taking this photo, but it wouldn't be true.  I haven't.

The ever-growing to-do list

I realise I didn't show you my glass class progress last week, I remembered this morning as I was putting my glass box in my car.  The thing is... I only have 3 little leaves to show you.  I had also made another fused piece, but the lady at the studio accidentally slumped it!  I'm hoping to get it back, unslumped, tonight and I can show you that piece, the leaves and the stem which I finished last week and left to be fired.

Thinking about this rather large work-in-progress (my glass window... I'm not sure if that train of thought carried out of my brain onto the keyboard or if you'd all be sitting there wondering what I'm waffling about now) led me to think about all the other work in progresses hanging around.  I really need to get some of them done as they're stressing me out a bit.  I don't even know why.  Why should a half-finished doily bother me so much?

Anyway.  I decided to share.  I know you've all been going crazy wondering exactly what is on my WIP list and so I thought it was about time I put you out of your misery.  I know.  I'm good like that.

1. 5 more babygrows for Jacob out of my brother's t-shirts.  Not technically a WIP as I haven't started... but I said I'd do it and I have the pattern cut out.

My very talented graphic designer brother actually designed this one himself:

I'd better not much that one up!
2. The granny square bathroom curtain.  I'm going for 3 blocks of each of the 4 colours.  That makes 12.  I think I only need 9.  I have plans for the others if they're not needed.

3. These tea wallets have been languishing in my craft room, almost finished, since the day before Mother's Day.  They were to be Mother's Day presents, but I messed up the binding on one of them trying to sew it on by machine both front and back.  It has to come off and both bindings have to be hand sewn.  I knew I wouldn't get it done in time so it got shunted.

4. 5. 6. 7. Not technically WIPs again as I haven't started them, but they're at the top of my to-do list (meaning I'll get another 85 projects done before I get to these!).  The Joel Dewberry herringbone is for a pattern in the bottom book, dungarees for Jacob.  There's something I want to make from Pretty Little Projects, can't remember what it is right now.. a potholder?  Then there's a lunchbag tutorial I've printed out and I can see two marked projects in Sew and Stow.  Wonder what they are?!

8. My project for my Something Old, Something New competition.

9. I last mentioned my giant granny way back in September when I was on round 36.  I hadn't touched it since then until the weekend when I had it as my in-car project.  I've now completed round 45!  It's no where near finished though, it's too small!

10. Another crochet project I haven't mentioned in a while is my giant doily rug.  I got quite far, then put it aside to work on something else and when I came back to it I had no idea what I was doing!  The pattern I used was only for 10 rounds but I'd carried it on.  I intend to do the same things again.  Yes, I did have to rip it back to the very first round!

11. So far I've frogged and recrocheted every single round of this doily.  I'm not sure why it's still languishing as I love crocheting it.  When I look back on my evenings of the last month or so, I don't seem to have done much crafting at all.  I hate being too busy!

12. The one thing I have been working on is this cross stitch.  I showed you this a couple of weeks ago and asked if you could guess what it was.  You couldn't.  Or perhaps didn't want to.  That's fine!  I hope you can tell what it is now though?

It's a pattern I'm testing for Beverly who sells her amazing cross stitch patterns, though I can't find a link to her shop on her blog - Beverly!  I'm hoping to get it finished soon.  It's been worked on a lot as I've been getting home so late and I'm so tired that cross stitch is the only thing I can do.

12 WIPs isn't bad at all, is it?  Well, it wouldn't be but I actually have a lot more than that... they just managed to escape the camera this time!

I'm hoping to get back into regular crafting again very soon, and I've also got a selection of craft courses to look forward to.  I'll tell you all about them later this week.



Don't forget to enter my Something Old, Something New competition. The deadline is 31st July and there is a prize!

Curtain update

The witty blog post titles just keep on coming, don't they?!  I'm at work, I'm mega busy.  I' ve got so much to do but I realised after lunch that it's never going to get done by the end of the day and so I've kind of given up - not a good attitude!!

Well, the bad attitude is prevailing so I'm going to go and make a cup of coffee, then I'm going to come back and show you what I've done so far for my bathroom curtains.

I'm back.  I also ate a small piece of cake that I found in there.  Working here is rubbish for my diet.  I'm pretty rubbish at dieting at the minute, it's not going well and I need to get back on track.  I also need to get back on the track of this post as my attention seems to have wandered!

I have been admiring the lovely granny squares made by the equally lovely Katherine for ages, I've also been threatening to make some.  Well I have.  I know, most unlike me, I usually say I'm going to make something and then don't as my to-do list is so ridiculously long not even a pack of WI women would be able to get through it in a lifetime.  This is one of my to-do lists.  I have about 6 in total. 

It all began with a massive pile of 2.5 inch squares that I randomly cut out weeks and weeks and weeks ago.  I had to get them all out and have a look what I had.  I divided them into 4 rough colour groups - green, blue, aqua and brown.  Now, I know what you're thinking - Brown! Urgghhh... but remember, my bathroom suite is brown.  It looks a lot better in there since we painted (I know, I know, I promised photos!) but the brown is still there and I thought it best not to try to deny it

I cut a whole load of white squares, then started laying them out.  Katherine talked about colour values when she was showing us her stunning solids quilt and I tried to think about values when I laid out these squares.  I'm not sure if I've got it or not though?

These are the greens all sewn up.  I used the tutorial at Blue Elephant Stitches - it's excellent.  Even I understood it.

My blocks are far from perfect.  Lots of wonky seams and mis-matched points.  Some I took out and redid, but a lot of them I just left.  I'm not perfect, I don't sew perfectly and these are my curtains, so who gives a monkey's?  Want to see the back?

I did follow the pressing directions suggested in the tutorial, but some of them twisted and shifted as I sewed the rows together.  I will be lining these curtains so it shouldn't matter.

People talk about being addicted to making a certain block and I've never understood it.  I do now.  I LOVE making these.  I had a single solitary hour to spare at the weekend and I was straight upstairs, piecing grannies!

Pressing the seams open would have been impossible without my mini-iron.  I love this tool, it really is invaluable.  I only burnt myself once and that was on the main iron when pressing the finished block.

There are all kind of scraps in these blocks.  I recognise some Hideaway, there's some Amy Butler Lotus in there too, and I spot some Hushabye... anyone recognise the rest?  I'm rubbish at remembering what my fabric is!

The centre square above is a little puckered, I'm not really sure why.  I haven't trimmed any of the blocks, I'm not even sure how many I need.  I thought I needed 12 so was going to do 3 of each colour, but now I think I need 9 and I'm not sure how I'll lay them out.

I don't even know how big they are!

I have made a couple more since this photo shoot, so I'm nearly there, then just some sashing and then I actually have to turn them into curtains.  I've never made curtains before!  They're going to be tab-top cafe curtains so it can't be that hard!  I've already decided that any left over blocks will be the front of some storage boxes for the shelves I've yet to pursuade mr CA to put up.  I did only tell him about them 3 weeks ago so I'm thinking they'll be in place by Christmas 2015.

Yum, love you grannies!