Little by Little

There are a couple things in the works here, said work happening in fits and starts.  If I put off posting until either of them is done, we'd be waiting a while, so let's just talk progress, shall we?

A couple weeks ago, I sanded the mid-century end table in preparation for painting it.  Then we had a cool and damp spell and I was suddenly stricken with the urge to hibernate, or at least kvetch about the weather.

I'm curious as to who made the table.  All I could find was this pencil mark on the underside that says "32 Table."

Norm said he remembered the table in his house growing up, and when he moved into his first bachelor pad, he took it along from out of his parents' basement.  Sometime we'll have to dig out his old family photo albums and see if we can find it in a picture from back in the late '50s or early '60s.

I wondered if his dad or one of his dad's friends might have made the table.  Norm didn't know but said it was possible.  His dad worked for a suitcase company in Milwaukee and a few years later started his own woodworking company with a couple friends.  This was back when console televisions, stereo speakers, amplifiers, and stage monitors had covered wood cabinets, and that's what the company manufactured.

The lower shelf is plywood.  Not sure what kind of wood comprises the rest of it.  It's lightweight yet sturdily made and doesn't wobble even after 50-something years.  Kinda like me.  Except the lightweight part.  ;)

Here it is primed.

And with the first coat of paint, below.

There's at least one more coat of paint to go, plus probably one or two coats of clear poly.  It's eventually going back to its humble digs in the laundry room, but at least it'll have a colorful change of clothes.  I'm liking the color, Tropical Coral from Glidden.  I think the primer coat really helped the color stay true.

The other thing I'm working on is making a strata for the plaid quilt.  Eventually the drunkard's path templates will be cut from these strip sets.

The pattern says to sew together dark strips then light strips, alternating from light to dark about every 10 inches.

The strips are about 22 inches long, which seems to be about the width of the average men's plaid shirt back.  This piece measures about 2 yards in length now, but I need to make another 7 yards worth of strips.  No worries about my stash running low.  I thought I had them all corralled on the cutting table the other day, but more kept turning up, having been tucked here or there throughout the sewing room.  The other day I lifted the cover of my sewing machine from the top of a rolling cart, and underneath it there were two more bags of shirts!

I heard two tunes this past week that I thought were particularly good.  Meaning that I have now listened an embarrassing number of times to each of them.  First, Paolo Nutini (which sounds like something one should slather on bread...I said bread not bed, get your mind out of the gutter...okay fine, he is cute...).


And then there's this by Postmodern Jukebox.  Love it.  I hadn't heard the Maroon 5 song they're covering, but this vintage soul version sounds like it was meant to be.  Wait for the vocals at about 2:50 for some goosebumps. 


Happy Wednesday!