Inspiration From Flowers

Foxgloves, Roses, and Daffodils inspired colours for yummy lace weight yarns in silk and wool blend.

Green

Rose In Bloom

Red rose twining over the mailbox.

Wild rose over the back fence.

Sweet smelling roses to scent the June air,

This might be Apothecary Rose, I don't have a label on it.

Tropical Sunrise Rose at sunset.

White rose like a puffy white cloud.

Practice Makes... It Obvious When You Need More Practice

Everybody online suggested that Practicing your booth set-up at home first would make it easier to set up when you got to your event. So I practiced for this new direction that my life is taking. A table full of wool, hand-dyed. some handspun even, yarns and fluff.  

I registered my business as "Best Friend Fibers" and my logo says "BFF"

It looked pretty good at home, I thought.

Of course, in the end, I did things a little differently.

P.S. Tomorrow is World-Wide Knit In Public Day, and I'll be setting up at the Farmers Market again for that.

Among the Iris

Are You My Mother?

Simon found a baby bird in the garden. I was mowing the yard and he was "on point" pointing to the bottom rung of a tomato tower where this little guy was chirping away.

 

The poor little thing seemed scared, stunned, and a little wet. I 'm not sure Simon hadn't already tried to eat it... or lick it... or eat it. He was quite sure I shouldn't have anything to do with it though.

This is Simon's barking face. He was not ready to share his mommy with a bird. As far as he was concerned, I was giving aide and comfort to the enemy and he repeatedly ordered me to leave that baby bird alone. Now! Mommy!

The bird meanwhile seemed quite at home on my finger, on my shoulder, even on the camera. When it fluttered to the camera it had a sort of "Are you my mother?" vibe. (Anyone remember that classic kids book? Good stuff.)

So  safe resting spot was found, where the little bird could rest and recover.

By afternoon it had moved to the hammock rope, and by evening it was gone.

Be well baby bird.

Bathroom, Part 4

Indoor plumbing. I have proven one can live without it, but oh by golly, I so much prefer living with it.

Flush.

And the sink next.

A wiser person might have painted the whole room the night before instead of painting just what had to get done and then going to bed. I was not a wiser person -- but I thought I was pretty clever to figure out I could put the ladder half in the tub.

A few more finishing touches.

Even the bath shy Simon approves. He's a huge fan of the new bobbley bath rug.

Intermission

The very first thing I thought of after learning about helix knitting was how it could be used to make candy cane stripe hats. I think I've almost got it, don't you? Which one is your favorite?

Bathroom, Part 3

And so the new floor goes in. Or rather, what goes in is the leftover flooring from when I re-did the studio and there were two boxes extra and even though a couple of the boards were warped a bit I still made it work for the bathroom with just bits and pieces and only one and a half planks leftover from this job. Oh Yeah!

Thermal layer under floating hardwood/laminate. I used actual duct tape to tape it to the duct -- Did you know Duck Tape, and Duct Tape, while supposedly the same thing, aren't. Duct tape is shiny silver and has a much stronger sticky.

Did I mention I had already primed (2 coats) all of the new drywall and painted (Benjamin Moore, Dove White) the wall where the toilet and sink needed to be installed. I had. If I could get everything done in time the plumber would seat the toilet the next day -- if not it would be maybe another week before he could get back to me. It was getting finished that night!

Oh, and the power was off to the bathroom, so I was pulling a late night with only a trouble light to see by.

My version of a "Dove Bar" in the freezer.

Here's a handy tip I learned ages ago: If you are only going to be taking a break from painting and come right back to it in the next day or two then don't clean your paint brush. Freeze it instead. Wrapped in aluminium foil and frozen the paint brush or roller will last up to a week even. This will save you all the wasted latex paint you get when cleaning out between uses. It takes a little while to thaw out but it works really well.

So while the paint brushes and rollers full of primer and Dove White paint waited in the freezer the floor went in.

I am proud of how well I managed jigging into the corners and such.

The power was still on in the living room so that was the staging area where I cut all the boards to size. There was a lot of sawdust. A lot!

Those boxes on the left are the sink and toilet waiting to go in.

Eventually the floor was done, and with aching bones (slightly warped boards take a lot of pounding to be convinced to lay flat properly) I went to borrow the functioning plumbing at the Wise Woman's house for a hot shower. After all, my hair may be going grey, but it really shouldn't be going Dove White!

The vent grate had to be trimmed down with metal cutters to fit since the duct was flush with the wall.

To be continued...

Bathroom, Part 2

Meanwhile, in the half-emptied living room, the new tub has arrived and the shower surround warms itself by the fireplace.

The plummer I found to help with the work recommended a durable fiberglass tub with horizontal seams in the surround. It's supposed to not get as gringy. (You know what that word means right? Even though I made it up?)

Progress is being made. Okay, the new tub is not hooked into the plumbing yet, but at least it's in place!

Fiberglass bat insulation now fills the space between the studs of the exterior wall. Eighth inch ply sheaths the floor for a clean level surface, and the new tub finally wandered in from the living room. But what do I see in that photos? I'm not loving those oddly ornate pulls on the cupboard -- I think I have some old white porcelain ones somewhere I can use instead. (I did. Happiness!)

Still needs a shower head... and drywalling in.

The tub just squeaked in. Any tighter and we'd have had to move the window, not just the window trim.

But doesn't the new drywall look good? There's something about freshly spackled drywall that always seems so hopeful to me. Like I imagine artist feel with a freshly gessoed canvas.

To be continued...

At Last

At Last I am getting around to updating this blog and At Last showing pictures of my bathroom redo from February.  (Also, "At Last" the song will be my earworm for the duration of this post if not the rest of the day. Thank you, Billie Holiday.)

I could blame the delay on the two (Two!) times my supposedly immune laptop got virused and had to be wiped and reset, but I suspect the delay was more along the lines of I just didn't make the blog a priority and was busy doing other things. Sorry about that. Photos of "other things" will be forthcoming. (No really, I promise.)

Let us begin with the bathroom demo:

Evidence that the bathroom was once tiled with real tile.
Was chipped, mismatched, poorly installed "faux tile" board really an upgrade?

While I realize that circa 1950 tile means that that plaster was probably once back of pink and black, powder blue, or mint green tiles... was that really so bad that some previous owner needed to remove it and do a crap job with crap wallboard? (I'm blaming the "flipper" who took cheapo shortcuts in the kitchen too.)

Dealing with what's left -- the plaster -- that's a lot to rip out, so we'll be using a 1/4 drywall later floor to ceiling to evenly cover the whole wall with a clean surface.

For the next couple days the only bathroom in the house won't be usable.
Which is a problem because after creating this sort of mess one really wants a shower!

This is the old tub. The hairline cracks around the drain had reached about to cause serious water damage leaking into the basement stage. Grey water's all very well in theory, but it's not so great puddling in front of the dryer.

Under several layers of floor there's another floor. It was like a stack of pancakes in there!

We did remove the plaster from the end wall, in order to insulate it properly as it is an exterior wall. Previously it was un-insulated, unless you count the single layer of brown paper thinner than a paper bag, which I don't.

That's original wood flooring under the lino glue and flooring staples.
 I could cry over having to cover that floor back over.

To be continued...