Summer Stitching Club

About 4 weeks ago I signed up for Wild Olive's Summer Stitching Club. I don't know why. I took an embroidery class two years ago and haven't really done much with it since. I am not really a fan of hand sewing, and I dislike cutting things out. This project has all of that. I wrangled a friend into doing with me, and that made a huge difference. We got all the hexagons cut out together and it was easy peasy with a rotary cutter.

The project has been a pleasant surprise. Each week I get a new embroidery pattern and it only takes an hour or so to do it. It's good practice, and they are so cute. I have actually enjoyed sewing the hexagons together. I think it's because things are small and it's easy to work on it for a short amount of time. I'm about a third of the way done with the project. I'm pretty happy that I challenged myself to take this on!

Crepe Dress

I took a 3 session dress of the month class at Stitch Lab, and made a super cute wrap around dress. It even has pockets. It's a pretty clever design, and was pretty easy to put together. My only complaint is that it's a tad big. I still don't seem to be able to pick the right size for a pattern. I'm sure I'll get better at that.

London Trip

I spend a wonderful week in London with my best friend from high school. We rented an apartment for the week....originally in the Whitechapel area, but got switched at the last minute to the uber swanky Knightsbridge area near Harrod's. Here's a link to photos.

London is not my favorite city, but I liked it more this time than I have on previous visits.

4/17--arrived in London. Super jetlagged, but managed to go to Picadilly to get my London Pass, and get some food before crashing. Nikki's flight was cancelled so she wouldn't arrive until the next day.

4/18--Day tour of Stonehenge, Lacock and Bath. We left London at 5:20 am. Yes...5:30 am!! We arrived at Stonehendge about 8am. This was a private viewing before Stonehenge opens and we were able to go in and around the stones, but under no circumstances could we touch the stones. It was amazing. Next we went to Lacock for a full English breakfast in an old pub and had about an hour total there. Last stop was Bath for a couple of hours. We had a tour of the baths, and then I also toured the abbey, which was amazing. Then back in London by about 5:30 pm. Nikki finally arrived about 6pm, and we had dinner and a few drinks that night.

4/19--London. We tried to queue for some day of tickets to a play Peter and Alice with Judi Dench, but didn't have any luck. We then went on a bus tour around London, and got off at the London Tower for a tour there. Queued again for return tickets to the play, and did manage to get tickets!! The play was amazing. I was in the 11th row and all the actors gave fantastic performances. Afterwards we had some drinks in Picadilly and then headed home.

4/20--London. We spent half the day in the Camden market. It's a mix of handcrafted goods and clothing stalls and stores. It was a crush of people, but pretty amazing too. I wound up buying a cute top, a sweater and a fitted winter coat. I also had an amazing gluten free crepe! :-D Next we went on a river cruise of the Thames. It was a beautiful day, warm and sunny. We had some drinks in at the flat and relaxed a bit.

4/21--Cardiff. We took the bus to Cardiff so we could go to the Dr. Who Experience. Unfortunately things did not work out us to spend any time exploring Cardiff or trying the local drink...Brains....beer! We hung out at a pub in London that night.

4/22--London. We saw St. Paul's Cathedral. We had lunch at Speedy's to bask in sharing the same space as Martin Freeman and Benedict Cumberbatch in Sherlock. Got tickets for the London Eye, and then went over to Oxford St. for a little more shopping and then tea at Selfridges. We then went back for a late afternoon trip on the London Eye. That night we went out dancing until the wee hours.

4/23--London. We had a lovely full English breakfast, and then unfortunately had to leave to go home.

Kitchen Demo Day 73

My backsplash was put in while I was on vacation! I love it. The pictures don't quite do it justice, but the colors are fairly accurate.

The kitchen is about 98% done. I still need a couple of things done to the floor. So happy it's practically over!!

Kitchen Demo Day 43

 I have a functional kitchen!! I have cold and hot water, and even filtered water. I have a dishwasher that works!! Oh, I haven't had a dishwasher since I moved in in August. I have drawer pulls and knobs. And as you can see by the pictures I'm very happy to have counters to pile crap on.

I have a fridge, but.... There are a couple of scratches on the top of the front door. And unfortunately no one realized there were three bags of frozen food in the freezer, so those got hauled off with the old fridge. I'm pretty devastated by that. I use my freezer like nobody's business, and lost a lot of food. It's actually pretty amazing how much was left in there since I've been eating lunch out of my freezer for 6 weeks. I gave up on trying to do dinner because the washing up was too much. I'll get over the heartbreak, and can hopefully clear out the curse of the fridge. :-D I have a beautiful, lovely, open kitchen that I can't wait to be in. I ordered the backsplash today. Unfortunately it won't be ready until the end of next week, but at least I have a functional kitchen. I can start settling in!! And despite a few annoyances, that's all they are. I have a kitchen again!! And a pretty one at that!!

Kitchen Demo Day 42

I have a working stove, microwave, garbage disposal and cold water!! So exciting! The disposal is super quiet, and I can't tell you how lovely it is to have a sink.

This kitchen feels like home. And bonus, I can't touch the ceiling anymore!!

Kitchen Demo Day 41

41 days of not having a kitchen. UGH!! I should have the appliances and plumbing hooked up on Thursday. Yay!!

So I love the granite. It's definitely more blue green than I was expecting, and doesn't go with the olive green I just painted in the dining room. So I need to pick a new color. I am pretty well decided on the celery green subway tile and a couple of rows of the mosaic.

Here are the paint swatches I'm considering.