Sunday 8 January 2023

Digging in the fabric stash

I found the prettiest thing last night.  It took no moments at all to decide that this would be the wall paper for my bedroom.  It is just the sweetest thing and very much in period.



That does seem to set the way that my quilt and sheets and blankets for the bed shall go.  I won't be doing the stunning embroidered blue and white coverlet I had seen on Pinterest.  

I dug in my box of bits and found exactly the right thing.  I will be making a bit of a crazy quilt from left over bits from a large quilt top I once made.  I found plenty of sections to play with and there are lots of pieces of coordinating fabrics for pillows and maybe even a little rug to match. 

You can also see the floor I picked for this room.  It has the look of pickled wood, as if someone washed it a hundred times and never stained or varnished it.  It suits the room perfectly and now, I am almost wondering if I ought to have the same floor in the parlor.  I love the dark floors because they lend seriousness to the room but I wonder if that dark is really what my homeowners prefer.  I will give it time.  There is no rush.

I found a few other goodies while I was digging.  

                                       

I found this marvelous piece of striped cotton.  It is so wonderfully vibrant.  I think it will make a perfect braided rug for in my kitchen.  I will add a bit of plain blue too, to give the whole thing a strong single tone running through the vibrant stripes and to help it look like many pieces of worn out clothing were used in the making of the rug.

                                       

I also took out a couple of pieces of fabric to use to reupholster that ugly striped chair that was in the last picture of the bedroom yesterday.  I choose these pieces not just because I felt the colours might work, but because I felt the scale of the prints was right.  Honestly, I wasn't thrilled with either choice, but I wasn't sure what else I had.  I did find scraps of leather and there was enough to cover the chair, but a leather chair felt wrong for the place and time my house is.  It felt too Victorian for my rooms, more of the late 19th century, rather than my 20th century farmhouse.

And then, as I was moving things about taking pictures of all my pieces of fabric, I realized the answer was right in front of my face.


The plain blue.  I have lots of it, and it is perfect for a chair in a room with a very flowery wallpaper.  It's a bit too dark for curtains, but it may be that the blue could show up as a trim on otherwise plain curtains.  And then too, my homeowner may decide that she wants crocheted lace curtains.    

Midafternoon, Keith suggested that we work on a puzzle I got last year for Christmas.  I had started it a just after Christmas and it was kind of fun.  I don't think I could puzzle all day everyday, but as a change of scenery, it was kind of fun.  Last time, we finished the outside edges, and we had a few sections where we had colours of things in the picture together.  


Today we started fitting those pieces together.  This was after about an hour of work.   Note the missing piece.  It was there before and is still there somewhere, we just don't know where.  Keith came and helped again while we were waiting for our supper to cook.  We had Jamaican Jerk Chicken  from Lori's Eats and Treats, who has her kitchen in the old bakery.  This was our first meal from her, and I can say, it was fantastic.  Our little town is very lucky.

All the puzzle setting, several hours, made this happen.


It's not a lot but these sections were some of the hardest parts.  On the left hand lower corner is a big basket of radishes, many kinds and the roots go hither and thither and make it a real challenge.  But it is starting to come along and as we pick though the pieces, we are getting more familiar with the rest of the picture too.  

My hand is getting better but it isn't quite ready for knitting.  It is going to have to wait for another week or two.  So more minis and more puzzles.  And who knows.  There might be other adventures I will find along the way.

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