Home Improvement and Quilting

Hooray!!! Our new windows and front door were installed on Tuesday! Here's the big window in our family room. The sill and some of the siding was a bit rotten so now it's all primed and ready for paint if it ever stops raining!

And I'm glad that none of you out there has to look at what WAS the front door since I don't have a picture. It had a crazy plastic dog door and the ugliest handle/knob known to man. Plus it leaked when it rained and it was totally flat and plain (except for above mentioned dog accessory) which made all kinds of scratches and marks very obvious. Here's the new one, yay! Luckily the sidelights/frame/brick molding were all fine so we just had to get the door itself.

We've made some progress painting the outside of the house, but we're thinking if any more painting needs to be done, we're going to hire someone. Painting sucks.

Here's my Totally Groovy quilt all quilted and ready for binding. I've trimmed it and attached the binding to the front now, so I'm in the process of hand sewing the binding to the back. I was all ready to try my first bias binding, but I was worried I didn't have enough fabric, so it's a straight-of-grain binding. Here's a link to some others' work on FLICKR. I'm thinking of hanging it up on the wall in our house. This was such a fun project.

And a few weeks ago, Scott and I got out for a night (thank you awesome neighbor for babysitting!!!!!!!) and got to see a film at the Atlantic Film Festival here in Halifax. We saw The Ambassador, which I quite enjoyed - very controversial. After seeing it, we rented another of Mads Bruegger's documentaries, The Red Chapel, which I didn't like as much. It was a bit baffling, really. I especially liked Mads' boots in The Ambassador :)

Groovy Top

It's a dreary rainy day here, so sorry for the indoor flash photo. I've finished the top, so now I just have to put something together for the back and quilt 'er up! The size is manageable enough for me to try to quilt it on my machine with the walking  foot.

Next I'll get back to my flying basketballs. Maybe some more bibs and an attempt at making a new bag for our sad old IKEA laundry basket too.

I'm secretly celebrating this torrential downpour - it means I get a break from paint scraping. Ew.

Cape Breton

The girl can sleep for HOURS in the backpack when we go for a hike. She always wakes up for the most scenic parts, though.

At Louisbourg Fortress. The dancing kids had to move inside because of the rain, but we had fun anyway. You have to visit this place. It's AMAZING! The largest historical reconstruction in Canada (I want to say North America, but I'm not positive).

Sheep! We fed them some grass. They were cute.

We would like to perpetuate the idea of a Cape Breton "Big Five:" moose, coyote, bald eagle, bear, and whale. Yep, we got 'em all.

The money shot, north of Cheticamp on the "Skyline Trail." Possibly the only hike walk EVERYONE has to do when driving around the Cabot Trail. 

Flying kites at the Alexander Graham Bell museum in Baddeck. The most toys ever assembled in one room to keep the little ones out of trouble while you learn about telephones, tetrahedra, and hydrofoils.

Pie

I ATTACKED curved piecing for the first time today with my Denyse Schmidt Pie in the Sky quilt. I spent a lot of time pinning carefully so the actual sewing didn't take too long and came out very well, yay! Here's my pie just lying on a crumpled piece of the background, so it looks more wobbly than it is. The machine sewing of the white "crust" onto the orange and blue "pie" is what I did today. Next I'll hand applique the whole thing to a piece of blue. I can fix any non-round bits of the outside of the crust when I sew it down to the background.

I'd call the sewing part a success, though Scott says the design of it is not his favorite. 

I think I like it - it's kind of arty. 

Groovy Colours

DUDE, I won the giveaway for the Totally Groovy Quilt Along. Since I am just doing the crib size for my first quilt-along, the gift certificate covered the cost of all the fabric including shipping from the U.S. SWEET!

For home maintenance news, today we have steam cleaning of the carpeting in part of the basement and carpet removal in the back room of the basement. Super groovy linoleum was underneath. We're having that small window on the left replaced, with the same thing, but vinyl. The seal is shot and the sill and siding all round it on the outside are all rotten. Scott had to cut out a little piece of the subfloor that had water damage. Fun. Also more obliteration of weeds and small trees.

In the fun with toddlers category: Yesterday we went to the Shubenacadie Wildlife Park. It was farther away than I had thought, but cheap and worth the drive! Even though it was mostly just common creatures like moose, skunk, and raccoons, they also had some awesome birds, reindeer, a lynx (so cool!!) and other cool animals. It was a pretty big place and luckily there was lots of shade; it's been pretty hot and sticky here lately. This is a long weekend  for us (Natal Day - I don't know what that means, but I like three-day weekends so it doesn't matter). Hooray for watching track and field live at a not-too-scary hour of the day with the whole fam :)

Groovy Quilt Along - much text, few pics

I read quilting blogs way too much - and way more than I actually quilt. To get myself in gear, I've joined the Totally Groovy Quilt Along at pileofabric.com. Can I get my supplies on time through the mail from Canada? Can I get anything done with a 1-year-old running around? Can I piece curves on the first try? Stay tuned - possibly for a long long time since I'm not too good at keeping up with the blog these days. :)

 

While I wait for those festivities to commence, I've been working on a Denyse Schmidt quilt from her first book, Quilts. Got it and her newer book from the library. Pictures later if I'm feeling feisty.

I've been forming a close relationship with the public library lately. I was lent a few Lisa See books and they were good reads so now I'm into Shanghai Girls. I think I'll have to move on after this since I've already read Snowflower and the Secret Fan, Peony in Love, and Dreams of Joy.  Also read Room based on Scott's mom's recommendation, and it was pretty good. I love free stuff. I read about 1 page per month in Nelson Mandela's autobiography on the side :D

We don't go to the movies anymore, but we rent on occasion from Video Difference (STAFF IS AMAZING and makes good recommendations EVERY TIME!!!). Too bad they don't have a Dartmouth location. Netflix - you are dead to me! I don't love every movie they recommend, but they definitely can latch on to what I'm saying I like in my own special vague way - "dark documentary" or "something like Cohen brothers drama." So the last movie we saw was Marwencol. Definitely not up everyone's alley, but certainly interesting.

Finally, for those interested in home reno. (that's you Kimbo Bimbo)... sorry I don't have any good pics, but here's some of what Scott and our parents have checked off the list so far (I'm pretty much not helpful in any way at this stuff):

*install new downspouts and drainage pipes *repair garden hose tap *install deadbolt on back door *remove squirrel nest from back deck roof *replace light fixtures in kitchen and master bedroom *massive weed removal and cutting down of trees and dead limbs on all sides of the house *repair shed doors, replace hinges, and repaint shed trim *pull out, clean, and properly install dishwasher *lift oven to fit properly in cabinet cutout *re-caulk around bathtub *remove massive dog hairball from forced hot air fan.

Our street is on a steep hill.

Each of these things sounds small, but anyone who owns a home knows that any little project you take on always turns out to be more annoying than you think it will be. Ongoing headaches include the weeds, the squirrel nest in the roof, the green mildew that builds up everywhere, the ceiling fan light of doom, a severe lack of furniture, and the dog hair that seems to keep oozing out of every nook and cranny in this place. Worst of all is the leaky wet basement. That's #1 on our list now. Stinky demo and bugs, ew! I still really like this place. Ahhhh.... so nice to have a home with space. ahhhh....

Watching Olympics. Gotta go...

Summer Fun

Mostly we've been doing a lot of new house stuff since we moved in at the beginning of June, but we also took a trip to Wisconsin to visit my grandmas and had a nice visit with Scott's parents over Canada Day. They were super wonderful awesome taking care of lots of projects at the house, looking after Bea.... AND they brought some much needed furniture. Yay! Thanks!

A fire boat in Halifax Harbor

 

Shooting at something from the Citadel to celebrate Canada day. These things are not usually up there. There is normally a daily firing of the noon gun (a big cannon with no cannonball, of course) from the top of the Citadel. I can hear it a lot more distinctly over here in Dartmouth as it's aimed in this general direction. Our old apartment in Halifax was behind the Citadel so I never heard it from there. Scott is in its direct path when he's at work and very close, so he gets a shock every day around lunch time. WAKE UP! Time for lunch!!!

I can't take any credit for helping to assemble the new bbq (as seen on the deck at our new house, yay!). Good job dada and gramps!

 Royal Nova Scotia International Tattoo Parade - coincidentally happening on Canada Day weekend. Yeah, I wasn't aware of this kind of tattoo until a month ago. NOT related to embedding ink in the flesh.

At the beach at Taylor's Head. We LOVE the beach these days. We got to stop at Chickenburger in Bedford on the way home and had some good eats, even though their power was out after a big thunderstorm.

 

We also returned to Ross Farm Museum one weekend. There is more stuff going on now that it's tourist season. This is them turning the hay the old fashioned way.

 

A baby cow. er.... calf.

More babies at the farm. HONK!

 

Bea is STILL talking about the neigh-neigh ride at the farm. We also saw the apple barrel cooper at work and a blacksmith making shooes for a team of oxen .

Space Cadet

Yeah, she must be my daughter.