Popping In

Thought I'd drop in between packing boxes to let you know this move hasn't killed me yet.  But there's still time.

Our neighbors.  Seriously, these bucks are so tame.  And playful!  The big one came leaping out of the woods, ran donuts all over the yard, and leaped back in - twice.

This is my last night in our old house.  Tomorrow, my bedroom, sewing room, and washer and dryer will get moved.  I'm first to stay in the new house!  As it should be.  We're nowhere near moved, amazing how much stuff you can accumulate in a tiny house in 25 years.

I've been doing nothing more than cleaning until tonight, when we finally moved some stuff in.  I still have all the closets to clean, the lower cupboards in the kitchen, the bedrooms...but all the bathrooms are clean, most of the kitchen, and of course the sewing room.

Good news on the mom front - she can keep her house.  We're setting up a budget for her.  My brother is the enforcer.  I'd really like to build her a house on our property...but that will have to wait.

I'm sorry I haven't answered any comments since my last post, we already have internet at the new house so hopefully that will happen soon.  It's just finding the time!!!!

See you soon - 
Love,
Allie

The New House

Well, we had the closing, it's ours.  Now to pay for it, lol....wanna see?  I'm not sharing all the pics, you can thank me later.  

The house.

2200 sq ft., so twice the size of the one we're in now.
In front, on the left is the living room, on the right is the kitchen and dining area.  Upstairs are four good-sized bedrooms, one with a balcony.  There are 2 1/2 baths.  No carpet anywhere, thank goodness.

On closing day, we inspected the house right before close.  We walked to the back, out by the outbuilding, and I saw what appeared to be a deer statue between the fruit trees - I thought "what dummy would put a deer statue there", and then it moved!  She was waiting to greet us to our new home.  Totally unafraid of us.  The guy who lived there told me they also have red foxes that frequent the place.

From the driveway.  Our lot goes back about 30 - 40ft beyond the furthest vegetation you can see.  The outbuilding is almost 1,000 sq ft, and hubby couldn't be happier!  [Plus, it has a furnace!]

Other side of the house.  The doorwall goes to my sewing room, the balcony to the largest bedroom.

The kitchen.  I LOVE the kitchen.  Two wall ovens - built-in glass-top stove - dishwasher - and a pass-through to the hallway, for some reason, but it makes it feel much more open, and there's a ton of counter space over there.  The layout is perfect for me.

This is the hallway from just to the left of the kitchen, leading into the SEWING ROOM.  Past the closet are the stairs leading to the bedrooms on the left, down the steps is a door leading to the garage, laundry area, and full bath.  To the right is an odd area - 

This is in the sewing room.  I honestly thought there was a wall where those shelves are - the guy had two very large fish tanks there.  We may wall that off and make that room a pantry, or else it will become part of the sewing room.  I'd really like a pantry.

Windows in the sewing room.

We walked as far as we could to the back of the lot, in the distance you can see the house and my car in the driveway.  Hard to believe that right down the street, within walking distance, is a Tim Horton's, Wendy's, Kroger, Dollar Tree, you name it - it really feels like you're in the country.  And somewhere on the property is a well, we have to find it so we can water our future garden.  Oh, and down the street is a house that sells fresh eggs!

We have the utilities turned on, except the water - they're coming out Monday to do the final read, the guy didn't get that done.  I can't start cleaning without water!!!  And I refuse to move stuff into a dirty house.  Sunday the internet guy is coming out, yay for that.

Needless to say, no sewing of any kind is going on, and not much internetting.  In the midst of all this, my mother really needs your prayers desperately - she got a letter today from the city, it looks like she's lost her house, we're going to try to save it but not sure if we can.  So while she's going through all the medical testing for liver failure, and heart failure, we may have to move her too.  

So if you would keep us in your thoughts and prayers, we'd really appreciate it.  

Love,
Allie

Update On Oopsie

Being that I forgot to reverse my lettering yesterday, and didn't realize it until I saw the picture on my blog, I had to re-do the whole thing.  I went searching on google for a way to reverse lettering in Word 2003, and apparently you can't.  Woe is me.

You can in newer versions, but I can't walk you through that.  

So.  I put my thinking cap on, which promptly melted [it's 93F, no a/c] and scanned my printed pages into my computer.  I then opened them in paint, flipped them horizontally, and saved them as a png file.  I copied and pasted the png files into another word document, and lo and behold, it worked.

And for some strange, bonus reason, the print came out darker than the original - no light box needed to trace these onto fusible web!

Isn't that a lovely compensation for the extra work.  I'd trace them tonight, but I had used up all my fusible and need to get more tomorrow.

I don't think I ever showed you this quilt, it belongs to my friend Shirley, and was made by her husband's aunt many years ago.  I think it's interesting that what is old is new again - I'm seeing these quilts made new everywhere.  Lovely, isn't it?

And a close-up:

Have a great weekend - 

Love,
Allie

News, and a Tutorial

Good news - we close on the house next Wednesday!!!  Yay we're moving!  Wait - someone has to move all this stuff....*gulp*  Oh dear.  

I had an idea the other night, and have been playing.  I'd love to hang some scripture quilts in our new house.  So, I picked a few verses, put them into a Word document, and made appliques.  I'm going to show you how I did it.  Today, I fused all the letters, and Sunday will start on piecing the background.

That's a lot of letters.  And I just realized I forgot to reverse every single one of them.  Somebody needs to write in red ink in huge letters on my wall - REVERSE YOUR LETTERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You really can make appliques from almost any font, in Word.  I have Word 2003, you may have a newer version, but it's pretty basic.  

Open a new Word document.  Type in or copy and paste your text.  I copied a verse from my King James Bible Search software [free download].  

When you're done typing, or pasting, click on edit [above the red arrow].  When the drop-down menu comes up, click "select all".  This will highlight all your text.

Now click Format, by the red arrow.

This will open a small window.  Forgive the next pic, I couldn't get a screenshot, the window would disappear - had to use my phone.

This is where the magic happens.  Scroll through until you find a font you like, I prefer one that isn't too fancy.  Click "outline", under Effects, where the lower red arrow is.  It will change the font to just an outline!

Next, change the size.  You can put your cursor in the size window, and type in the size you want.  I chose 150 for this project.  

Now click "ok", and see what happened to your type!

You can keep following these steps until you get exactly the font and size you want.  I wasn't sure the size was right until I printed out the first page [only print out one page!] but it was great.

I like to type in the whole alphabet, and keep it for a reference.  That way I’m not printing out pages and pages of letters, I only have to do it once, and I can use that printout over and over.  On the printout, I write the font size and type as well.  I'll be using this font and size for more than one scripture quilt.

I really shouldn't be sewing - I should be packing - but it's not like we have a time limit.  We won't be selling our house right away, we have SO much stuff to move, and the house needs some fixing up.  So...what did we do last weekend?  We went to a neighborhood garage sale, tons of them.  Because we need more stuff to move, lol.  Mum went too, and she found some toys - 

She's pretty serious about toys.  We were cracking up about this picture.  She's everybody's grandma, and when any kids come over, she's prepared for them!  Not sure if you can make out the chairs, they're children's school chairs from the 50's, I HAD to have them.  One is going to my best friend's house, we both have a thing about chairs. 

Oh - about Mum - her liver is slowly failing, she needs to see a specialist, and her heart dr. called, there's something wrong with her mitral valve.  More specialists.  Prayers would be mucho appreciated. 

That's all the news from Allie-land I think, I have no idea when we're taking possession of our new house, I just can't wait to walk you through it!  It's double the size of our house now, I'm so looking forward to having some breathing room.  I'll see you soon!

Love,

Allie