October 27, 2019

Half Square Mosaic



I recently sorted all the plywood and lumber in our workshop/garage. It was a mess, stacked here and there and leaning against walls. Once it was in like piles, I started working on the biggest pile - the plywood. Once I picked out all the pieces needed for upcoming projects, I started cutting the remaining scraps into building boards for the grandsons. All the scraps from that were then cut into triangles, half square triangles to be exact.



After all the cutting was done, I laid out the triangles to see what I could do with them.



I decided to make a mosaic to hang on the wall in the garage. I ran them through the router to round the edges, and then started painting and playing with designs.  I decided on a half square expanded star.



Someone asked me how I painted them.  I used acrylic paints, the tube type worked better than the bottled craft paint.  Some triangles were painted with just one color but I get bored easily and decided to play with color.  So on some I painted two colors and blended them while the paint was wet, and on some I painted a base color, let it dry, and then painted a thinned color and sprinkled drops of alcohol on it.



Next, I built a frame with a back so I could glue down each triangle.  I also cut some small strips for a solid border (not shown).



I painted a stripes on the frame, blending in one color to the next, like I did on some of the triangles. Then, mounted wood blocks on the wall, turned the piece on point, and hung it.

This is as close as I've come to quilting in months!

Linking to:
Inspire Me Monday at Create With Joy
Busy Monday 389 at a Pinch of Joy
Inspire Me Monday at Domestically Speaking
Fabulous Party at Lou Lou Girls
Friday Feature at Oh My Heartsie Girl
Talk of the Town at My Repurposed Life
Handmade & Otherwise at Petals Pies and Otherwise
Saturday Sparks at Pieced Pastimes


October 14, 2019

Rain, Glorious Rain!

I was going to post this Friday, but I got sick again. This time I am on antibiotics so maybe won't relapse. It rained heavily Thursday night and slowed to a light rain Friday morning. Two neighbors reported 3-1/2 inches in their gauges, so I'll take their word. I drove through our low field Sunday and didn't leave any ruts, so the water must have soaked in quickly. This was our first measurable rain in over two months, so we are still under a burn ban. But hopefully, it is the first of many more rains. I just need to get out there with some fertilizer first.

Friday morning, a friend went with me to a quilt show in a neighboring town. I say quilt show, but it wasn't like a guild show. It was a group of church ladies who have a quilting/sewing group and they like to show and sell their projects once a year. I wanted to take some photos, but since no one else was taking pictures, and since the items were for sale, I kept my phone in my purse. The ladies there were very friendly and invited us to join their weekly sewing circle, and I may go next time. By the time we left, it had stopped raining.

Our town was having a city wide garage sale Saturday, so I dropped Linda at her house to start setting up, and I went to the grocery store to buy kid-friendly foods because Lil and the grands were coming for the weekend. By the time I got home, I had a scratchy throat and the beginning cough. I took some AirBorne, but it didn't make any difference and by Saturday morning, I was feeling much worse. Needless to say, Lil didn't bring the kids to our house. I had just been to the doctor Thursday with another complaint, and Hubby went Friday for his cold, so I called the office and the on call doctor called in a prescription so I didn't have to wait until today to start antibiotics. I feel much better today too.

I hope you are staying well and have a good week.

October 07, 2019

Fall is Finally Here

September only had one day with temperatures below 90 degrees. Most days were over 95, but with the drought, at least they weren't very humid days. October brought a couple of quick rain showers that barely got the ground wet, and the high temperatures stayed with us. But last night, finally, a cold front made it down here and right now it is 68 degrees. I actually wore a light jacket to the lumber yard. There is a strong wind blowing, but it's still wonderful to be cool again.

October 05, 2019

Cleaning Up and Then Making More Sawdust

Our workshop had gotten so cluttered that it took as long to clear stuff off the workbench as it did to actually make something. Wood was on the workbenches, on the sawhorses, leaning against the wall, and piled on the floor. And we had gotten lax with the sawdust cleanup, so it was a real mess. Needless to say, you don't get to see a BEFORE picture.

I started by clearing out the kitchen corner so I could move the freezer. When we moved here, the compressor on our all fridge quit working, so we bought a new refrigerator with freezer and moved the old freezer to the garage. It was right beside the door into the house but that wasn't a great spot for it. It was hot and blocked access to the counterspace. So I moved it to the opposite end of the garage kitchen, thinking I would switch the door so it opened from the other side. But the all fridge/all freezer sets don't have that option, and opening the door was a real nuisance, especially if there was something like a scaffold in front of it. So my goal for cleaning was just to clear the area to move the freezer. And it snowballed from there. (I had already cleaned quite a bit before I took this BEFORE picture.)  You can see we still need to put up quite a bit of wall board.  All in good time.



I spent all day Friday, sorting materials into groups and stacking them flat on 2x4's so they will stay flat and dry until we need them. Luckily, only one board was warped and one had some sun damage. So we got lucky that our neglect didn't cost us too much. Sorry it's so dark. I was shooting into the light.



My goal is to turn these materials into the projects they were bought for, so once I got the table saw and workbench cleared off, I started on the plywood pile. I had a specific project in mind, and made a good start on it and on another set of bookshelves. Then I made use of the cut offs. Can you guess what I'm going to make with them?