Life

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My husband made this sliding barn door for my birthday. He used tongue & groove reclaimed pecky cypress wood a relative had removed from their home during a remodel. I located the frame at a website called Rustica. I absolutely love it! This photo doesn’t really show the beauty of the wood.

He also made a new, much smaller table that I really wanted after I saw how well the door turned out. The photo of the table below is a better depiction of the wood’s actual color.

I like the industrial look and you can see touches of black iron in our home, though it’s far from an industrial interior design.

This is what the wood looked like when he began. Luckily, there were plenty of planks to choose from so he was able to find enough that didn’t have serious knot hole damage. The planks were originally used as a half wall. They were stained a deep, dark brown so he did quite a bit of work to bring back their natural beauty.

When we were asked if we wanted the wood, I shouted a loud “Yes!” before my husband even had time to think about it. The previous owner had a mirrored wall and door in the living room. (That was the style back then.) The mirrors came off years ago and I had always wanted a barn door in that location. Now I have one that I absolutely love! ♥

This is the table he made me for Christmas from the same wood. He removed the tongue and groove sections from the planks used for the table top. I located the iron table legs on Amazon. The only problem was, they were only legs and there was nowhere to attach the wood. My husband came up with a great solution. He built a support from parts on an old bed frame.

I’m all over the place when it comes to interior design. 🙂 I like some antiques but not all of them, at least for our home.

I have an antique humpback trunk that I love and and antique hand made ladder I use to display a few quilts. I nearly had a heart attack when my husband offered to sand it down and remove all the old touches of paint adorning it from it’s previous life. Thank goodness I didn’t just wake up one morning and see him already busy working on it!!

I like minimalism so I have very few photos or knick knacks around.

Living in a coastal area we have accumulated many, many seashells on family vacations. I believe if you love them enough to keep them, you should love them enough to display them!

I prefer to think my style is what they call “eclectic” though a professional designer might get a chuckle out of that description.


See that sailboat on the shelf in the center photo above? There’s a rather interesting story about how it came to be too.

A few years ago, we rented a beach house in Ormond Beach. It’s a few hours north of us, also on the east coast of Florida. Ormond Beach is the next city north of Daytona Beach. I love the small quaint feeling of Ormond, OBC (Ormond by the Sea) as it’s referred to by the locals. If I could choose a place to own a vacation home, that would be it!

One day when we were walking on the beach I found this piece of driftwood in the sand. I thought I could make it into a sailboat. I’m glad I kept it but never attempted to use my DIY skills on it. A few years later, I met someone who’s son lived in Maine used to carve and sell handmade sailboats from driftwood. (He’s long since retired.) I practically begged her to ask him if he’d do just one more. Okay… who am I kidding? I actually did beg! LOL

She talked him into doing for HER in exchange for my quilting her top. I think I got the better half of that deal.

You can see the before and after below. He even rigged the sails for me.

We have even more seashells outside. My husband found this plastic boat (originally a kid’s bed) being thrown away in front of a neighbor’s home.

We used bags of sea shells and some blue tumbled glass we drove over to Tampa Bay on the west coast of Florida to purchase. Here it is just before planting flowers in it.

Small things matter

(reposted from archives)

I finished a special gift to commemorate a sobriety anniversary. I’m happy with how well the quilting on it turned out so I hope they like it.


I also read a book! 🙂 My 8 year old granddaughter does well in math but, her parents struggle to get her to do her nightly reading. I’ve been telling her to pay attention to how the adults around her speak and try to pick out the ones who are articulate and have interesting things to say. They’re usually the people who read a lot. Ask them if they do and let me know what you find out. 🙂

Last week while they were on vacation, her mom texted me that she’d bought “Charlotte’s Web” because Emma was really enjoying it and had asked for her own copy. She read it in the car on the long drive to the cabin they rented in North Carolina.

I remember reading the book as a child and decided I should probably re-read it. When I see her again next week, I’ll be prepared to talk to her about what she’s read. She texted me that she’s reading a book now called “Wishing Day”. She was curious about why it had that title instead of “Wishing Tree” after seeing the cover. I got curious too. 🙂 I checked the book out from the library today.

I’m not sure if it’s lead by example or practice what you preach but, in any case, I hope it helps. I’ve always been more into math than language arts too but I’m hoping seeing me read might help encourage her to love books as much as I do!

3 Finishes

(Re -published. Original post dated March 14, 2023)

I finished the quilt from the blocks I won at last month’s guild meeting. The block pattern is Amish Diamond from the Quilter’s Cache website.


These were the 9 blocks I won. I really wanted to make something fun to donate that might appeal to a teen or pre-teen.


The original blocks finished at 12″. But, some were a little larger and some smaller so I chose to trim them all so they’d finish at 10″. Plus, the math worked out better.

I made 7 more blocks so I could use them to frame this little panel I’ve had in my stash for several years. Two years ago I bought the fabric I used for the border at my local quilt shop’s end of the year sale.

It was windy so hard to get a good photo. You can see the fabrics and the quilting a little better in the last picture.


After making the extra 7 blocks, I decided to use the scraps left with some fabrics in the bin of bright scraps as my first group of scrap busting quilts.

The first one is a simple rail fence block using some 2 1/2″ wide scraps that are less than 10″ in length.

I used more 2 1/2″ scraps to make a smaller version of Jo’s Country Junction pattern Jimmy John.


After I finish a couple of string quilts from this bin I’ll be ready to move on to a different style fabric.

~Time to Quilt!

Quilting – the good, the bad, and the “I don’t think so”

(Reposted from archives)

I haven’t worked on my own stuff this week because I’ve been busy quilting and binding some tops for the local small guild I joined last year.

A couple of the tops were really nicely pieced adult quilts. It makes such a huge difference when the borders lie nice and flat rather than trying to ruffle down the sides as you quilt.

The two not in the bags yet were tops that had been made by sewing just three wide fabric strips together. They were identical. As you can see in the photo below, the fabric is really cute and colorful but I felt certain it must have been a backing put in the bag by mistake.. but nope! It was the top.


I quilted a simple wave pattern on both of them using this Urban Elementz design board and opted to bind them by machine.

These type of quilts are not at all enjoyable to work on. While you’re quilting it you’re thinking about how much time and energy it’ taking compared to how quickly it was slapped together. I’m sure my expression gave away my “Are you CRAZY?” thought when someone tried to give me two pieces of fabric to quilt together. What I actually said was “no, I’m not doing that. This isn’t China and I don’t work in a factory.”

It’s a little nutty considering they had just been discussing how many unfinished quilt tops there are as they were finishing these up and bagging them for me to take home and quilt. And, now I know why. Too many piecers, in too big of a hurry, and too few quilters who actually do the quilting.

The one good thing that did happen today – my machine binding is getting a lot better. I tried shifting my needle position one click to the right. Now when I following the center line on my walking foot as I stitch, it’s really close to the edge, just like it should be!


~Time to Quilt!

Why Quilters Share: Expression or Validation?

(Reposted from archive)

I read this quote last year attributed to President Harry S. Truman:

“It’s amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.”

After reading it, I spent the next several months making and donating quilts without taking photos of them or even telling my friends. I wanted to see if it affected my enjoyment of the process. Would I still feel excited about the finished quilt and eager to begin the next one? I didn’t know, but I was curious to find out.

We give because it makes us feel good, as it should. I learned that the desire to share a photo of a quilt we chose to give away isn’t to fill a need for validation or, about seeking some sort of arbitrary credit for donating it. Whether I chose to tell everyone, or tell no one, the pride and joy I felt were the same.

It quickly became clear that as quilters, we’ve always shared our ideas and felt proud to show our quilts to others. Blogging is just one of the ways our generation does it. I’m often inspired by seeing another quilter’s photo. Sometimes it’s a pattern I’ve never seen or a color combination that reminds me of something I have tucked away. Other times just seeing something beautiful that motivates me to create too.

Truman was may have been right that seeking credit can affect accomplishment. But, I’m no longer concerned that quilters are seeking recognition when we share our photos.

We share our creations for the same reason a ballerina, an actor, a musician, or a singer steps on stage. Much like those performers, we showcase our quilts with the simple hope that others will enjoy seeing them. ♥

Women of Appalachia posing with their handmade quilts.

Wedding Dress Blue

Quilting and other things I love in this colorful world