Spring is Popping and a Curb Pick

After a long cool spring, it finally got warm—very warm, and very quickly—and everything turned green, popped, and took off!  I mean, it seemed like in just a couple days' time.  I remarked on a friend's Facebook post that my daffodils were barely up a couple inches, then bam, they were blooming, and now, a few days later, they've already called it quits. 

One day I came around the north side of the house to see the bleeding heart bush coming back nicely but no blooms yet, and it seemed like the next, there were pink hearts all over it!  Now it's the lilacs.  Here today, gone in a short few.  Such is the season.

So I did what we do here when it seems we've finally rounded that corner to warm weather.  I bought flowers and mulch and dirt, and set to work cleaning up last year's garden debris, turning soil, and planting pots.  There's not much to show for it yet except aching knees and whatever the heck I did to hurt my left foot, but hopefully that'll all get better as fast as things in the garden are growing.

A couple weeks ago, we were out for a neighborhood walk during a time when the city sanctions its semiannual "bulk pickup."  That's when residents can put out larger pieces of furniture and other stuff that doesn't fit in the regular weekly trash container.  Just about every street has the usual lineup of defunct Hoovers, decaying sofas, and banged-up headboards.  I am not above a good trash-picking, though, so I keep a casual eye out for treasure on our walks.  

The hubs is wary of my penchant for adopting others' castoffs, but he should trust me by now.  He's still using a bedside table I gleaned from the curb years ago and repainted with a faux marble finish.  And there was that lovely-but-rained-on vintage typewriter that turned into a nice bit of green cash.  And remember the Red Wing crock that's now holding a plant in our living room?  Just a few of my trash-picked treasures.

(2018 - Can you believe someone put this beauty at the curb?!)

So when I pointed out a bench on our recent walk, I got the usual resistance.  "We don't need that!  Where are you going to put it?  It's nasty, and I'm not carrying it," and so on.  But by the time we reached our house a couple blocks later, he agreed to hop in the car and retrieve the bench.

Isn't she pretty?  Okay, maybe not cosmetically, but she was sturdy.  Good bones, as they say.  

I sanded her down as best I could—and there were more layers than a Swiss Colony Dobosh Torte—or as best as need be, since she was just going to go back outside to serve a supporting role for summering houseplants.

A couple coats of exterior paint and voila!  I'm sure it won't be long until the weathered patina returns, but at least she had the full spa treatment in the interim.

Not much sewing has happened for a couple weeks while I did other things in the fine weather.  But yesterday I started on my Table Scraps Challenge for May, so I won't be totally empty handed by the end of the month link-up.

So tell me, do you have a favorite trash-picked success story?

~Paulette

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!

Catching Up

Well, there's been quite the lull over here, huh?  The summer has been humming right along and here we are in August already.  How'd that happen?

I have been making 16-patch blocks here and there.  Here's how things stand so far on the scrappy 16-patch quilt.

I'm not sure whether to add more to make it five blocks across by six down, or leave it as is.  I'm not sure whether I love it yet, either.  I mean, I like it fine, and once it's done I'll be happy to toss it over me while I watch TV, and that's good.  I think it'll maybe grow on me. 

You may recall the Key to My Heart quilt I made early in the year.  It was recently gifted to my nephew Cody and Courtney's baby girl, Cali Jean, born a couple weeks ago.

What a cute little peanut she is, here with first-time grandma, my sister Nita:

And Cali below checking out her new quilt.  "Oh, how beautiful!" she is cooing.  Nah, she was just getting hungry, but I like her expression.

Norm went to the Renaissance Fair a couple weeks ago with friends.  It was Steampunk weekend, and they dressed in full garb.  

Photo by Brian Schultz, via Flickr

Photographer Brian Schultz took a nice head shot of Norm, which we found a few days later on Flickr.  There are a lot of cool photos in his Ren Faire and Steampunk groups, should you want to check it out.

When the new washer and dryer went in recently, I took the old mid-century, parental cast-off table that sat next to the washer outside to be hosed off.  It holds the laundry soaps and bleaches, etc.

This is after cleaning it, so you can see it's pretty worse for wear.  But I left it in the garage for now, because I feel another furniture painting episode coming on.  I'll probably use the tropical coral color on it, for better or worse (it sits in the basement where the sun doesn't shine).  I'm going to prime it first and use a poly sealer after its painted, not wax. 

But first, next week, I have to quilt and bind the second chevron quilt.  That's been in a stall for a bit, but I have a self-imposed deadline which I intend to meet.

Another project I've committed to is making some kennel quilts for the animal surgery where my daughter works.  She gave me a box of her "funky scrubs," with cute prints, that she can't wear anymore because they've gone to uniform scrubs.  I've been pinning easy quilt ideas on Pinterest to make use of the upcycled fabric.  Stay tuned.

Finally, I did a fun and quick little project last weekend, which took all of 15 minutes.  I made a dry-erase board for my daughter, who we helped move to a new apartment on Sunday.  

For all the new, um, information that comes to light that you have to write down (a favorite quote/scene from The Big Lebowski movie).  I also put an extra blank sheet of light-colored scrapbook paper inside the frame in case she wants to make a change.  

See the fine print on the board above for the how-to.  I should probably add that your frame should have glass in it.  Sort of a given, but you never know.  This one was 8x10.

Shirt to Planter Cover

I finally got around to moving the newly chalk painted table into the bedroom.  I had intended to put a third coat of clear wax on it, but after procrastinating on that task for a full month, I decided to skip it entirely.  

See how that works?  Put it off long enough and sometimes it doesn't need doing after all.

First I had to take the aspidistra on the old table outside and give it a spray with the hose to wash the dust off its leaves.  

Did I ever show you the old table? 

I trash picked and refinished this table in 2003.  The veneer on top was badly damaged and peeling, so I removed it.  There were some pretty significant gouges in the underlying wood, so I used wood fill to smooth those out the best I could.

Then I painted a faux marble finish on the top with some craft paints and stained the lower part of the table a mahogany color.  I think it turned out pretty well for a novice.

Around that same time, I also repainted a little half-round table I'd picked up at a garage sale.  I used craft paint on that as well, with some water-based poly on top to seal it.

It turned out like sort of a faux verdigris patina.  I really just kept slapping different color paints on until I liked it.

Back to the recently chalk painted table, after I hosed off the plant, the shabby basket over the inner plastic pot was looking, well, rather shabby.  I thought about repotting the plant, but the pot I was thinking of using happens to have geraniums in it for the summer.

So how about covering the planter with fabric?  

Enter this shirt my daughter recently cast off.  Instead of putting it into the Goodwill bag for donation, I asked her if I could have it for the fabric.   She said sure.

I cut off the upper bodice above the band.  Then I just pulled it up around the planter like a skirt, pinned it up in back, and tied it with a length of some vintage rickrack from the sewing room.

The bottom is just tucked up underneath and the whole thing is set on a thrifted plate, originally from Target, I think.  

There's no drainage hole on the basket cover (it is lined with plastic and the plastic pot fits down into it), so I don't worry much about leakage.  But if it does get wet, the cover is cotton and washable.

Here is the view of the corner of the bedroom.  The plant's a little droopy now, but it'll perk up.

Gotta love a quick, no-sew fix!

My First Chalk Painted Table

Yesterday, hot and muggy as it was, I chalk painted the table found last month at an estate sale.  I'd never chalk painted anything before, but armed with a brainful of YouTube and blog tutorials, tips, and other supplies, I took the first step.

Step 1:  Enlist a buddy.  Anti-procrastination insurance!

Marie, who is an awesome friend, had never chalk painted anything before either, but she had a small table passed down from her mother-in-law that she was willing to try it on.  We went with a home-made chalk paint recipe I found online that uses satin latex paint (1 cup) with plaster of paris (~3 T.) mixed with a little water (~2 T.) added in.

I chose Glidden's Tropical Coral for my piece (not the color I'd gone to the store with the intention to buy, but that's another story).

Marie went with a Dutch Boy color called Crushed Seed.

Here are a couple of before pictures of my clover-shaped, very old table.  I'd given it a quick sanding.  Ha, ha, ha, quick!  Who am I kidding, it took as long as one would expect to hand sand a table with a lot of little knobby bits on the legs.

You're not supposed to have to sand something you chalk paint, but you have to use your discretion when it comes to that.  My table had obviously been sitting for a long time in a place inhabited by spiders and other creatures who did their business.  I think I sanded off equal parts dried poo and wood.

Marie didn't sand her table at all, just made sure it was clean.

Then we commenced to painting.  After one coat, I was loving Marie's table.  Mine, not so much.

When her first coat dried, we both decided we liked her table just as it was.  Some of the underlying finish showed through the paint, giving it just the right look.  A couple coats of wax, and she was done, lucky girl!

Since she had some of her chalk paint mixture left over, and mine was not the color I was looking for, we mixed the rest of my paint into hers, which yielded a sort of coral-y salmon color that looked just about right to me.  She helped me put the second coat on my table.  Much better!

In the evening, after it had dried a few hours, I lightly distressed the paint with some medium grit sandpaper.  It nicely revealed the underlying color, and some original wood, if I worked a little harder.  I didn't want it too distressed, though.

Then it was time to wax.  It was very warm yesterday, so my Johnson's paste wax was quite soft and could be brushed on with a large natural bristle paint brush.  Working in small sections at a time, I followed the clear wax immediately with another smaller paint brush loaded with dark wax, otherwise known as Kiwi shoe polish in black.  I then followed this a couple minutes later by swabbing over the waxed parts with a piece of cheesecloth containing more clear wax.  This works the dark wax in where you want it while removing the excess and smoothing it all out at the same time.  

Then I let the waxed table dry overnight.

I cleaned my brushes, took a shower, changed clothes, watched a movie and went to bed—and still had the smell of Johnson Wax in my head!  Not a bad thing, but definitely a little weird.  I asked Norm if he could smell it.  He said no, but said every time he waxes the car, he smells wax for the rest of the day. 

Today the wax was dry (and the phantom smell in my head was gone).  I buffed the table with an old t-shirt and a horsehair shoe brush, which worked wonders on those knobby legs!

Et voila!

The paint color was definitely deepened by the dark wax.  In the end, it's more of a rosy salmon.  I do like it.  Were I to do it again, though, I might have omitted the dark wax and just went with clear.  Overall, I'm very pleased with how it turned out, especially for a first attempt with this particular medium and technique.

 I think it will look nice in the corner of the bedroom with aqua/blue colored walls, below my paint-by-number collection!

Linking to: Can I Get a Whoop Whoop?