A New House

Well it seems we can't stay longer than 3 years in any one place, so this spring it was time to move again. My hubby got a new job about 1 hour west of where we were currently living so we decided to move to a small house in the suburbs to cut down his commute a bit and finally buy a house after living in appartment style condos before.

It's a tiny bungalo built in 1954, and though one day we dream of having a bit more space, frankly it's perfect for us at the moment. I really appreciate the fact that it's less to clean as already I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by the garden. We're leaving that for next year as we've been fortunate to be blessed with the wonderful flowers the previous owner planted for us. I'm just a little scared that it'll be a mess come next spring due to our neglect.


Our first mission was to bring the stlye up to date and remove the "elderly" feel. The pink carpet had to go! We spent a lovely weekend removing the pepto-bismo inspired flooring so that our contractor could put down some new hardwood and remove the wall the created a hallway leading to the bedrooms. Initally we had planned to simply refinish the original hardwood under the carpet, however as the dining room was previously a 3rd bedroom, there was a bit gap where the wall had been removed and all of the planks were in the opposite direction to the majority of the hardwood. In the end to ensure a better result we decided to go with new flooring. Just as well, as our contractor informed us that the wood had seen better days and was pretty thin.

Here's a shot before:

And after:

I'm in love with our new floors and we just have to get another 2 pannels of curtains for the big window and paint the window boxes the same colour as the wall. Initally I thought we'd leave them white, but they stand out a bit too much. After that just a few more accessories to finish the space off, though I'm so happy with the results already.

Here's the perspective from the other side:

For the moment, you'll just have to imagine a large mirror with some floating shelves along the back wall and a better scaled picture between the two windows.

Here's the wall we had removed to open up the space a bit. The hallway was usefull when the dining room was a bedroom, however it just seemed to cut the space too much. so thanks to our wonderful contractors bye bye wall.

Yep, so in a nutshell this is what has been keeping me from my sewing projects. Well in reality, the fact that Hubby has taken my table and I only just started unpacking my sewing boxes once we finished painting the second bedroom which will eventually become my sewing room.

When Stuck, Start a New Project

So I got a bit stuck on my Jalie pants, but I finished a skirt today. Here as well I was getting horizontal wrinkles so I definitly think that I need to let out the hips on my pants.

This is my second skirt from this patter from Sew U by Wendy Mullen. It went together quite well, and was made even easier by the border print that requires no hemming. In total I think it took me about 4-5 hours, but I'm definitly not a fast sewer and I don't have a serger that is up and running yet, so this is good for me.

I'll write up a pattern review for this baby tomorrow, but for now it's bed time.

Wrinkle Woes and Some Finished Socks

I've been working on my Jalie pants 2561. I really like them so far, and can't wait to finish them up, but I'm a little concerned about the horizontal wrinkles. You can see them here. I guess I should really just try letting out the hips a smidge and see if that helps. I think I've gained a little bit of weight since I first started making the pants. If I raise them up slightly the wrinkles disappear, but I'm not sure if the waist band will really help with that. Perhaps I just need to run a bit and the problem will sort itself out.

There is also a bit of wrinkling under my butt that I can't figure out. I reeally need to find a good fitting book to figure out what is causing the wrinkles. I couldn't find any info online. I thought this would have been a common problem, but I'm obviously not using the right words to search.

I think I'll be off to the bookstore to see if I can find a good book to find the solution to my woes.

In knitting news, I've finished a few socks and completed the pairs. First up, X-mas socks for my Mother-in-Law, by her request.

Then the window-pane socks (ravelry link) for my Grandma. I actually started these on our summer road trip in September, so I'm glad that they are finally finished.

And some socks just for me: These are the Embossed Leaves (ravelry link again) by Mona Schmidt. I love the pattern, but they are just a tiny bit big because I probably should have gone down a needle size, but once again, I didn't check guage. I even dyed the wool myself for these babies!