The Befores and Afters

The kitchen is nearly finished.

Even though nothing was changed in regard to expanding walls and the enclosure of a porch to make a pantry, the whole room seems twice as large. Moving and enlarging one window, the addition of a glass paneled door and opening up the ceiling changed everything.

The only thing left to add is a movable kitchen island. I'm ping-ponging between a wooden cart type one and an industrial-look stainless steel.

So, you've already seen the business end of the kitchen--the working area was shifted away from the front and side view area. The previous work plan had me running up and down the long cabinet line. The new work area is now a rather tight triangle from the sink to the stove to the refrigerator at the back of the room.

The new pantry is around the corner where the refrigerator is now located.

The window over the sink was shifted a couple of feet toward the view and is a bit larger than the old one.

The old overhead cabinet and Norwegian "cooler" were done away with and a new door with a very large glass panel opens up the view down the shoreline.

The old kitchen had old strip light cans and another light fixture at the stove. New recessed LED light cans were installed in the ceiling and under the counter LEDs light up the work areas.

The cabinets are lacquer finish ivory white, the countertops and backsplash are soapstone. All the outlets over the cabinets are framed in black so they seem to disappear into the stone.

The old view to the east and the new one with the shortened cabinet and new door. We also placed a smaller table with some English elm chairs at the window.


There was not question that I wanted a solid surface behind the stove and work areas. None of that fiddly postage stamp tile for me! What are they thinking? Imagine what a cleaning nightmare they must be. I hope that fad dies a fast and hideous death!

Besides, when you buy stone, you get it by the slab, so why not use it all? (More about stone countertops in a later post.)

We relocated and widened the narrow doorway. So, even though the kitchen is still a separate room, it seems to link with the living room better.

The wider doorway has brightened and opened up that end of the living room as well as the kitchen.

The old cabinets were replaced with two tall Restoration Hardware French door cabinets. They are oak and have wonderful hardware.

They hold as much or more than the old cabinets. The cabinets were 1 3/4 inches too tall, so the wonderful carpenters trimmed up the bases and they just fit under the curve of the ceiling.

Both cabinets are fastened to the wall and added quarter round anchoring strips finish the bases off nicely. I mixed up some acrylic paint and matched the cabinet finish adding a thin black line between the wood and the flooring.

Finally!

The workmen have left.

Only a few things remain to be done to make my new kitchen complete: The addition of a stainless steel work table and finishing off the pull-out pantry shelves, adding the soft close to the cabinet doors and a small piece of metal to conceal water pipes going to the new baseboard heater.

My new kitchen is such a joy to work in. It is so much more efficient than the old one and I haven't even filled up all the new storage that was gained.

I'm waiting to photograph it in total with comparative before and afters, but for now, here's a hint:

Shown is the old kitchen with the low ceiling and the parquet floor. The only thing we kept was the 'fridge. The new kitchen has a lofty ceiling and a refinished original floor we found hiding underneath the parquet and an old linoleum floor.

A Jewelry Bag

This little bag is an all-fabric compartmentalized jewelry travel bag.

It is constructed of an upholstery sample and heavy cotton fabric.

The bead closure is one of my ceramic beads.

I have made several of these bags--this one has smaller compartments mainly for rings and earrings.

Another Little Bag

This little bag is very unstructured, but has a bit of expansion from the sides.

It's about 4 inches by 6 inches.

The fabric is a synthetic canvas remnant. And the inside is a designer fabric sample. The binding is fake suede leather. I had a lot of fun with the knots and braid. A simple snap closure keeps it shut.

This bag is great for tucking a few extra hose for a suitcase or purse.

Other items such as a sewing kit, make-up or small necessities.

Another Badge

My Quilt Guild badge.

This one was a toughie--the tiny triangles had to be made by hand, they were so small.

All the pieces came from a salvaged scarf which itself was salvaged from a skirt.

The whole thing is about 4 1/4 inches square. Notice the official guild pin at the bottom which was the design for the soft nametag.

Special NameTape

The logo mentioned in the previous post is one I have used for my art business.

I still use that metal dye to mark my artwork.

So when I began to make ethnic clothing some years ago, I ordered a custom "name tape" to sew inside as a label.

The company that made this tape is still in business and can be found on:

http://www.sterlingnametape.com

Badges? Badges? We don't need no.......

Delving into my sewing drawer the other day, I unearthed this little badge/bag.

It is about 4 inches long, 3 inches wide and has a long with a long, closed loop attached.

Why would you make that, you ask?

At one time I belonged to a quilt group that was just forming and we had no official name tags or badges.

And, being tired of writing my name on a paper badge and slapping it on my shoulder,

And because I always had trouble locating my embroidery scissors, I made this small permanent badge.

I could put my little scissors into it, just loop over my head and march off to the meetings.

The fabric is a delicious scrap of some kind of miraculous canvas. I have no clue where it came from, being the fabric hoarder that I am, but it is not all cotton.

It must be some kind of commercial grade poly blend. But whatever it is, I sure wish I could get my hands on more. It goes into the washer and comes out looking exactly the same.

The inner lining is another scrap of decorator fabric from a sample tablet I scrounged from somewhere. (I have boxes of this stuff.) It makes a very nice surprise when you lift the fold-over.

The strapping and trim is made from yet another scrap of felty-fake-leather-y fabric.

And the knot for the loop is made by taking a bit of this, making it into a tape and then tying it into a monkey's fist knot.

The logo on the front is made with Coats & Clark cotton embroidery thread over a free-hand pencil copy of my logo.

Previously, I used this logo for a metal dye and stamp made to mark my art books and books I want to keep in my collection.

Later on, the metal dye became a stamp for my clay pottery.

I still use it at times on my clay art, but only on pieces that have a flat bottom.

Progress.....

The old kitchen was charming, but old, decrepit and worn out.

The drawers were the old style--wood sliding on wood--and every time I pulled one out, I was making sawdust in the bottom of the cabinet or into the drawer beneath.

When they were taken out and the wall boards removed, we found there was no insulation whatsoever between the interior walls and the shiplap or wooden walls behind the studs.

The roof was the same, except there had been a flat ceiling before and a modicum of insulation blown in there.

Above all that, a beautiful ceiling had been hiding.

I wish we could leave it like this, but insulation is needed. So the ceiling will be brought to code by adding more rafters and laying in batts of insulation.

Instead of a flat, low ceiling, we now have a lofty, airy one! Yea

Renovation Revolution

Coffee and Dog Food are now available in the guest bathroom,

dinner will be served in the Living Room,

and the laundry room is the new multi-purpose room.

The kitchen renovation has begun!

Mirror or Shishah Cloth - I

Shishah or mirror cloth is made in areas of India, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Wikipedia says:

"Shisheh (Persian: شيشه) embroidery, or mirror-work, is a type of embroidery which attaches small pieces of mirrors reflective metal to fabric. The term "shisheh" means glass in Persian, from where the word transferred to Urdu/Hindi and other related languages. Shisheh embroidery was brought to India by the Persian Mogul Dynasty and is now most common on the Indian subcontinent especially in parts of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana and Delhi. This type of embroidery lends a sparkling appearance to the brightly-colored clothes worn in the region, and is very popular for use on clothing, hangings, and domestic textiles.

Shisheh is also used to describe the small mirrors purchased for use in embroidery, which come in varying shapes and sizes. Traditionally, shisheh work was done using mica flakes, but was later subsumed by glass blown into large thin bubbles and broken into small pieces for this use. Contemporary shisheh work almost entirely consists of mass-produced, machine-cut glass shishah with a silvered backing."

Antique pieces are becoming more recognized as pieces of art and the price of good examples is rising.

Contemporary cloth artists are also incorporating shishah or shisha into their work. Linda Matthews of http://www.LindaMathews.com has a great tutorial and beautiful example of using shisha in embroidery today:

A well photographed and clear tutorial is also available on shishah stitching on: www.joyfulabode.com/2008/02/12/tutorial-indian-shisha-mirror-embroidery

Time Out

Well.

It's been a while.

We're in the throes* of all-consuming kitchen renovation planning. Ugh!

*The other day I saw that someone wrote 'throws'. Maybe that's right after all.

Decisions, decisions. My head is spinning with cabinet fronts, appliance specs, electrical wiring layouts, blueprints, estimates, etc.

We have spent 3 days, so far looking at humongous slabs of granite, soapstone, marble. How do you balance beauty and practicality?

Like the Mud Lady in the mop ad, I stuck to a beautifully undulating-patterned, buttery sea of slab of marble. Going back to look at my kitchen brought me back down to reality and I realized it was infatuation, not a marriage. I'd still like to live with that slab of rock in my house. It was beautiful. But soapstone it will be for the countertops.

So be warned, fair reader, I will probably subject you to the agony and the ecstasy of renovation.

Altering Clothes

I buy men's shirts and alter them.

One of the reasons why I like men's shirts is they are usually made of better fabric.

They are sewn up better, most of the seams are French seams.

The shirts last longer and have roomier armholes, shoulders and sleeves.

The pleat in the back also gives a more comfortable fit.

A lot of the time, the permanent press is better too.

I customize the shirts by removing the collar, but leave the base portion intact to make a band collar.

I sometimes cut off the shirt tail too. The shirts have a longer cut and removing the shirt tail doesn't change the shirt that much. But it does give it a better line and proportion for me.

Besides, if you cut the shirt tail off, the re-designed shirt can now be worn over a T-shirt and look more like a tailored top. And a shorter shirt fits underneath a blazer or jacket.

Indigo

Once, I went to a plantation outside of New Orleans some years ago. They were having a festival about plantation life and this particular place happened to be an indigo plantation.

The main house sat down in a boggy location; certainly not a place I would pick to live. It was brick, had a basement storage area that would be the equivalent of a first floor and the main living level was one floor up. There were two wings branching off from the main 3 storied building.

One side was for the daughters; the other for you sons of the family. The reason this was done (aside from limiting the male man-cave messiness) was to collect prepubescent urine in chamber pots to use in the processing of indigo. Uck! Evidently, this (pinch-nose, pinch-nose) liquid had just the right kind of acidity to break down the plant fibers and speed the chemical process of transforming the plant. Smelly vats of the stuff was allowed to 'fester' for a specific amount of time until the dyeing process was done.

It is a wonderful thing to see pure white fibers being lifted out of a colorless vat and see the indigo appear magically when exposed to the air.

Another time I was involved with indigo, I was lucky enough to visit a paper-making factory in Japan. I don't know how they did it, but there was no smell from the dye process.

After the tour of the process, we were invited to dye our own piece of indigo cotton.* Since we didn't want to spend the rest of the visit in Japan with blue hands, we wore transparent plastic gloves.

I elected to fold my square and control the amount of dye that could penetrate the fiber, much like the tie-dye process, but this was more geometrical.

I still have a small packet of the plant kernels for making the dye.

Japanese indigo plant workers didn't have it so good. They lived a very short life in virtual slavery, sleeping on mats in what nearly amounts to a crawl space located above the kitchen--the warmest place in the factory/estate of the owner. They toiled in the fields using simple tools like rakes and sickles, winnowed and crushed the plant fibers with flailing and muscle. Tread the noxious mixture using vats and their feet. They were given the bare minimum of clothing and a diet of rice.

They fried in the summer and froze in the winter, all under the watchful eye of the family who lived on and sold from the estate. Traditional Japanese houses were not long on insulation nor were they very air-tight. Believe me, I lived in one.

When we visited the museum and estate of an indigo factory, I certainly felt sorry for those poor souls. Beside living in awful conditions, their health was affected by the constant exposure of their skin to the dye.

Until I looked it up, I didn't realize how wide the use of indigo was and is even today. From India, the supposed origination of the dye to the Taureg in north Africa to the imperial courts of China and Japan, indigo cloth has been treasured by these cultures since ancient times.

*True plant-derived indigo only works on natural fibers. Cotton or silk are the best choices. Today, however, most of the modern 'indigo' dyes are synthetic chemical dyes.

My Life, Lately

After a brief interuption, normal programing will resume.

Antique Wedding Crown

When I was about 8 or 10 years old, I discovered this silver plate tiara in an old store.

It was a store my family owned and there was an office/balcony area with old storage shelves that were no longer used. I was there with my dad and he was working on the receipts for the day at a desk after the store was closed.

I, being bored, went exploring, looking around in an area that no one ever went into. I saw something shiny in the back corner of a shelving unit.

I fished it out and took it to show my Dad. It was pretty tarnished; almost black. "Where did you find that?" Dad asked. He had never seen it before and had no idea it had been there for who knows how long.

I took it home, polished it up and found a patent pending date of 1880 engraved on the inside. I used to play dress-up with it. And somewhere along the way, broke it into two pieces.

Many years later, I found a jeweler who could solder it back together.

I put it away and didn't give it much thought after that. I even forgot about it when my own wedding happened.

But I remembered it again and made a very special crown for someone I love very much. I made the background for the veil and sewed the crown onto it. It isn't exactly perfect, owning to the mend, but it looked stunning on the day.

Especially for someone who shares a common ancestor with Princess Diana: Sir Hugh Despencer the Elder. The name was later shortened to Spencer.

Beautiful Indigo

Just look at this wonderful jacket.

I have a real weakness for indigo. I don't think there has been a time that I didn't own a denim shirt, jacket, coat--something.

At one time, I had a Mao jacket, but I haven't a clue what happened to it.

This garment is so simple; it wouldn't be hard to make your own pattern just by your own measurements. There are no darts, gussets, difficult stuff. Just figure out how the overlap would work and you're home and dry.

I think I would change the width of the bottom to a less flared shape and definitely add at least one pocket.

Can't ever have enough pockets. That's one of the reasons why I buy men's T-shirts. They have pockets. And they are made better than women's, generally.

Happy Easter

Design

I don't usually save plastic bags. But somewhere, sometime, I bought something; (It may have been tea.....wink, wink) and it was put in a bright yellow bag with this on the side of it.

I liked the design so much, I cut it out and filed it in my "Embroidery" file. One day, this sassy little dragon is going on a pillow, shirt, purse, wall hanging, quilt block. (Minus the 'Ceylon Tea' mind you.)

Wonder if it needs a caption.

"No Cell Phones"

or

"Mind your Tongue."