A new adventure

We are embarking on a new adventure....well...at least dipping our toes in the water.   We're starting to kinda, maybe, sorta....shop for a house.  In the actual  "shopping for a loan" and "going out and looking at them in person" sorta way, and not just reading the ads in the paper and watching House Hunters. 

See we're tired of dealing with unreasonable landlords.  I won't go into specifics 'cause this is the internet, and the internet is forever, and whatever you put out here will boomerang around and come back to bite you in the you-know-what. 

So the loan meeting was today, and dear god, do they like their paper.  We hit probably 6 open house this past weekend which includes a cute, but way outta date bungalow, a cape cod or two, a ranch or two, and a really modern split level.    I don't really like splits, but I'm keeping an open mind.

The bungalow (above) I threw in even though it needs a gut rehab because it's a damn good price in a really damn good neighborhood.  Which makes me wonder what else is wrong with it.  Mr Belfry said, "We should take a look.  Even if it needs work, we could redo it and make it ours."  My head flipped around so fast I thought I was Linda Blair.  Wait.  What?  Are you feeling ok, dear?  What happened to "move-in ready" and "totally rehabbed"?   His comment was that we've lived in plenty of places with really awful kitchens.  He could put up with it til we could redo it.  Which is true. Very true.   Actually every place we've lived has had a dreadful kitchen.  This kitchen had gold wallpaper on the ceiling and vintage 1940s cabinets...so pretty awful.  Huh.  You think you know someone.  Guess that's what keeps marriage interesting.  We figure we'd have to sink more than 100K into it to make it liveable.  Hmmm...that's more of a project than we want. 

This little cape cod has more space than you would think.  No formal dining room though, and access to transportation is almost non-existant.  It's still on the list.

This house is a side split.  Good space, but more stairs than we want. The owner also has a strong propensity to put mothballs everywhere.  Whew!

This house is also a side split, but in a completely different way.  This one is the top of our list currently, but it's over-priced for the neighborhood. We're guessing the price will drop in the next couple of months.  Or maybe something else will come available.  


So that's where we are.  Hopefully we'll have something in place in the next 6-8 months.  If not we'll be looking at a different rental.  Either way theres a new address in our future.


Ann

 Finally I get to mark some more things off the list!  I had 4 finishes this month.

To start with, I finally finished Elise's quilt.  This is a top that her great aunt made and she inherited. I believe it was made in the early 40s.  Not being a quilter, she asked if I would finish it for her.  Originally I had planned to hand quilt it, but life and other projects got in the way.  I had it all marked and started quilting it.  Eventually it got to the point where I couldn't even look at it anymore, so I put it away.  

I pulled it out this year because of Judy's challenge and contacted her to see if it would be alright to machine quilt it.  She was receptive, so I quilted it in a sort of scallop pattern.  It came through beautifully.  Then....I had to get the marking lines for the hand quilting out.  With sheer terror, I put it in the washing machine on the hand wash cycle.  Quilt did fine, but the markings didn't come out completely.   I bumped it up to permanent press and ran it through again.  It took 4 wash cycles, but the markings came out.  I actually finished the quilting in September, but didn't have time to do the binding til November.  Having this quilt off my list is a huge weight lifted.  She seems thrilled when I gave it to her.

My second finish is the Amish Baskets quilt.  Ever get bit by a bug and just decide you HAVE to make a certain quilt?  Yea, I got a basket bug.  This predates Elise's quilt.  I'm guessing I started these blocks in 2003 or 4.  It was one of my early attempts at hand piecing.  My seam allowance was....all over the place. 

 They weren't all the same size, and with hand piecing you can't trim the blocks down.  So, I just slapped them together, did a pillowcase turn on the edge and did a little ditch quilting.  Don't know what I'm going to do with it now, but it's off the list.  I didn't even chop off most of the points.

Finish Number three is the Halloween tablerunner.  This is a pattern of my own design.  I wanted something that looked seasonal without having all the cartoon-y Halloween prints.  No there's nothing wrong with those.  That was just my challenge to myself.   I free-motion quilted it in a viney kind of pattern.  It was fun to do.  The before picture is a couple of posts back.  Here is the after:

And here are a couple of detail shots:

And last but not least is Chez Moi 1.  This one was already marked as finished, and listed as my finish for Feb. or March.  I had it ready to go to the long armer, but my gal was closing shop.  My mom found someone near her who's fantastic, and I sent this top to her kind of as a trial.  I figured it was just for our bed.  If it wasn't ideal, no one else would see it.  However, they did a fantastic job.  The thread choice works great, and it's not something I would have considered.  It's turquoise, lime and purple.  I got the binding done over the long holiday weekend.

I've been looking over the rest of my UFO list.  I'm not quite where I wanted to be at this point, but I sure have made a good dent in the list.  I'll have at least one more for December.  Good thing Judy is having this challenge for next year.    


Ann