Befloor and After

The floor guys are finished!  I believe I can say for the first time ever--and, no doubt, the only time ever--that my floor is clean enough to eat off of.  Although I'm not sure why you would want to when I have a perfectly good table...and perfectly good plates.  But since folks seem to be fond of those whose homes are so clean you can eat off the floor, I thought I'd grab this opportunity to join in, if only for a few minutes.

The finish they put on it is natural, and the floor is very light now.  Just after I wrote that first paragraph, Mike came home, and he isn't completely happy with the color or the sheen.  I'm sort of neutral about it.  I kind of like the natural look.  Of course, it will darken eventually.

Here's what we were working with originally.  You can see where the new, refinished wood at the top ends and the older darker wood at the bottom begins.  Also, there were large cracks...some probably at least an eighth of an inch between the boards where all manner of things would get trapped.  Kitty litter rocks come to mind.

The cracks were all filled in and sanded and then they put three finish coats over the top.  Here's another picture below.  We put cardboard down in that cold air exchange so that you-know-who would get a mind to go exploring the bowels of the ventilation system.

So these pictures aren't very informative, but I thought you'd feel cheated if I didn't show you something.

While they worked on the floor, I continued to work on the quilting for the Divine Promises quilt.  I have it a little less than half finished now.  I have quilted the three blocks in the second row, and almost all of the long block in the third row.

I can only quilt for about an hour before I need to give my neck and shoulders a rest.  Try as I might, I cannot stop myself from hunching my shoulders up around my ears, which eventually leads to neck and shoulder fatigue.  For one thing, I think my chair needs to be a little higher, but it is as high as it will go right now.  Maybe I need a phone book or a booster chair or something.

Anyway, I'm stippling the interior of each block.

For the tiny lettering of the Bible verses, I am stippling around them as best I can.  There isn't much room in which to work.

For the larger lettering in the long block, I stitched around both sides of the embroidery.  I saw this on a quilt at a quilt show, and I like the way it makes the lettering a little more pronounced.

Then I used the motif that Leah Day calls Flower Ball in this blue section at the end of the long block.  It doesn't look exactly the way I hoped it would look.  I'm working with a small rectangle, and so it didn't fit quite the way hers did in the larger square.  

Nevertheless, I'm happy with how it turned out.  This is what I like about free motion quilting.  To my mind, it is very forgiving.  You might start out trying to do one thing, but even if it doesn't turn out, it still looks okay.  If I didn't tell you I was trying to copy Leah Day's design, you wouldn't know the difference.  

Updated to say that I'll be linking this post to the mid-month linky party at Fiber of All Sorts.

That was where I stopped for the day.  I still need to do the blue patch at the other end of the long block, and then I'll continue on with the rest of the blocks.  I'm still considering what to do in the sashing, but I'll make a decision about that once I have all the stippling done.

Just as I came into the room to write this post, I caught Smitty and Gracie sleeping side by side in the chair.  Smitty jumped down when he heard the camera come on, and now he's stretched out on the floor of my office.  This morning he was staging a sleep-in to protest the location of his treat bowls.  They are supposed to be in the kitchen, and now they are in the laundry room, which is completely unacceptable.  

Gracie for her part was staging an Occupy protest in the closet to protest the presence of Evil Mans in her house.  The utter gall of humans, allowing strange and Evil Mans into her domain.

Tomorrow I'll spend the day getting the dust out of every tiny little crevice in the kitchen and packing up the remaining fragile things on the main floor.  Mike has the responsibility of unhooking and moving all of the electronic components from our wall unit.  All of the furniture will have to be moved out of the living room and the dining room so that the new carpeting can be laid on Thursday.  Fortunately the carpet guy is bringing a crew to move the heaviest things.

With all of that going on, I'm not sure I'll have any time to sew tomorrow, but I'm hoping I will.

How are things in your world?