An Update and A Finish

Today the worker Peter (who is from Ukraine) worked all day and well into the evening on my sewing room.  He has completed all of the drywall work, texturing, and painting--two coats!  Here's how it looks as of this evening.

Fortunately, Peter's new little assistant was helping him all day long.  He checked to make sure all of the drop cloths were ship shape and otherwise helped out as needed...checking for mouses and stuff like that.  After a hard day's work, I know I always need a good streeeeeeetch.  Allow Smitty to demonstrate.

This is the nook where my sewing machine usually sits.  Notice anything missing?  Yeah, the sewing machine.

It's coming along, but there is still a lot that needs to be done.  He still needs to build in the cabinet where the plumbing access will be, and the baseboards need to be replaced.  Eventually, he'll have to put the shelves and sewing table back on the wall.  They are the Elfa-style that screw into the wall, and everything had to come down for the painting.  Then they'll need to replace the carpet pad and re-stretch the carpet.  I'll just be glad when it's all finished.  

I've been sewing, but in my temporary space, everything takes ten times as long...or so it seams.  Today I completed another of the basket blocks for my Plain and Simple Amish sampler.

And for the record, I love the look of paper-piecing.  I hate doing it.  I don't know about you, but I think paper-piecing is tedious and time-consuming.  And it makes a big mess.  I don't like the waste that I have when I'm doing it either.  Some blocks are difficult to make any other way.  I think this basket block might well go easier if it were pieced in the traditional way.  By the time I got the math worked out, however, I could have the blocks all made.  I'll persevere, but I won't be happy about it.  In fact, I'm feeling pretty darned crabby about being out of my sewing room as I write this.  So there.  Tomorrow will be a better day, I'm sure of it.

But how bad can it be when I finished sewing the binding on the Day in the Life of Mr. Bear quilt?  Here it is--all finished!

I started this quilt on August 16, 2011, and so it has been a little over a year to complete it.  The blocks were completed one per month.  It sat in a grocery sack on my floor for a while once the top was completed until I decided what I wanted to do about the quilting.  Marcia from Marcia's Crafty Quilting & Sewing did a beautiful job on the quilting.  If you missed my previous post showing the individual blocks, you can click on the link to see them.