giving rusty chairs new life

I've started a project that is kind of exciting and out of my regular wheelhouse. Kind of.  It involves rusty chairs and spray paint.

It all started really by buying this house.  That has a dining room.  And space. And I have friends. That I like. That may want to come over sometime.  It's kind of around that time when you invite peeps over that you realize you need chairs for said peeps to sit on.  While I do have a good amount of chairs (6), what if friends bring friends?  What then?!  You need more chairs, temporary chairs.

So, I found some old rusty fold up chairs that are actually really sturdy.  I thought maybe I can give them new life?  Pretty paint, perhaps.  Yes!

Here we are at the beginning after a bath, drying in the sun that lasted a couple hours this morning.  One is very, very rusty and the other is on it's way to very, very rusty.

I sprayed the chairs with a rust primer by Rustoleum.  One can covered both chairs!  They already look so much better!

After the primer dried I sprayed two coats of color.  I picked two really bright, fun colors that I like.  That way if I find more grody chairs I can just pick a bright color and they will match without having to be exactly the same.  Now I'm waiting for the paint to dry and catching up on podcasts.  I figured I'd cover the top with the most paint then flip them and spray the bottom a bit.

Here are the dry chairs:

So, now that I have them inside the house with good lighting I can tell that I missed spots on the pink chair.  Does it bother me enough to buy another can of spray paint??? Not sure yet. I also need to find rubber feet for the ends of the chair legs as a few legs are missing them.  But!  Don't these look better than the rusty grody chairs at the beginning?  I would actually feel comfortable sitting on one of these, which was the point.

What I learned: 

* When the can says don't spray on a windy day, it means it.

* Good lighting is key to full coverage

* pick colors that are fun!

* Patience, patience, patience. Waiting for the paint to dry is key before touching!

* Don't give up on grody rusty chairs, paint can do wonders

all the sparkle

Good morning! I'm just popping on here this morning to say hello and share my sock progress.  It's a rainy morning so light is not great....but you can see all the SPARKLE! This yarn is so fun, each color is super vibrant and the glitter thread in it stands out so well!

lots of little things, a catch up

I didn't mean to take a long break from blogging, but it sort of happened.  I've noticed that when I have a lot on my mind that it's hard for me to keep it light here on the blog. So what I thought I'd do to kind of ease back into the routine is show a few pictures from the last week.

Last weekend I drove down and visited my Mom for the weekend.  Every year about this time I really love to go to a pumpkin patch.  I love to go with my Mom because she is not daunted one bit by my excitement, she mostly eggs me on! ha!  There's a fruit stand outside Red Bluff that does a pumpkin patch and then sets them out for you to pick from.  There is one in Chico that people were raving about last year but it was a huge disappointment so we went back to the tried and true fruit stand that we love.  

I got a bunch of tiny fun pumpkins that I took to the office to share and then kept these large ones for my house.  Mom had given me this step-stool, and as I was taking it out of the car to put in the house I thought the pumpkins would look fun on it! 

I took my little mouse along to show Mom and also finish knitting up the dress.  Mom decided her name is Hortence!  ha!  Here she is amongst some Fall decorations in my house.  Isn't she cute?

Awhile ago I planted some Red Hot Poker plants, but since it was the end of the season I fully did not expect any blooms.  I was walking through the back yard yesterday and what did I find?  A little bloom!!!!  Oh how my heart leapt. Just love this. 

Oh man, this cross stitch frame is a long time coming!  Oy vey.  You may not remember that I have been working on the Storytime Sampler by the Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery, because it's been a million years since I've worked on it.  Yikes.  The thing is, I was hoping that Harry Potter would be one of the frames.  I was waiting each month, hoping he would be the next story.  Since I've been so slow at stitching this I've been able to see the work others have done on Instagram.  I had made up my mind to just stitch the pattern the way it was written, just go with it.  But, I kept thinking of Harry.  There was one lady who replaced another frame with Harry and I thought, I should do that.  But, then I felt conflicted about copying her.  I started the September frame which was Black Beauty.  Then was distracted a couple months.  When I picked it up again I realized that the train already in that pattern could be the Hogwarts train!  As I started to think more about it, I realized I could pick parts from other patterns and frames and mix them together to make Harry.  I used one of the empty frames in the pattern and played around with colored pencils until I came up with this:

It's not perfect, but I'm happy with it because it represents one of my most favorite book series.  I'm glad that I deviated from the pattern :)

This next picture is a two-fold project picture.  Since I finished Hortence the mouse I allowed myself to cast on some socks!  Yes!  I don't even know why I am so strict with myself project-wise because I've been longing to knit socks for weeks.  So, I took yarn with me to Mom's house and the second I finished the dress for Hortence I cast on these socks.  I wanted to add a little texture and luckily remembered the Hermione's Everyday Sock pattern stitch so that's what I've been working on knitwise.  I bought this fabric at the quilt fabric store in Chico and this morning made it into a needle cozy.  I had been wanting to make one using these poppers as closures.  I also added a bit of batting and quilted straight lines.  Sorry it's sideways, not sure how to fix that.  I just love this fabric, it will be fun to use it every day on with these socks.

In other news, I think I may be out of the non reading brain fog caused by grief.  Before my husband passed 3.5 years ago I was a bookworm.  After, I could still read but my attention span and retention was just not there.  It's slowly been coming back, thankfully!  I read an entire book in one night last Friday at Mom's house!  Crazy.  I had been wanting to see the movie The Girl on the Train and Mom gave me the book to read before seeing the movie.  I read the whole thing, that night.  It's funny, now that I've read it I'm not sure I want to see the movie - ha!  

Sorry this was so long to catch up, and such a long post.  Hope you all have a great week!

off to a good start

I have a couple of finishes to share with you this week.  Lately, I've been in a stitching mood, like cross stitch.  Mostly because I want the finished product, ha!  I really love the Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery patterns and follow them on Instagram.  Right now one of their new patterns is Trick or Treat Costume Club.  I dig it, but know for myself I need a quicker project.  I saw that there was a smaller pattern similar to the bigger one in the Halloween special issue of Just CrossStitch magazine.    

It turned out so cute!!!  I was going to just clip it on this little pedestal I have on my entryway table.  But, then I remembered seeing some people make little cushions with little patterns.  I did add rick rack around the edges and a ribbon loop.  So, the magazine pattern had a light grey fabric but I could not find any grey cross stitch fabric locally and was too impatient to order any! ha! Due to using black I had to rethink the black bits in the pattern.  So the girl's costume I did a light grey and then the bats I decided lime would be fun.

 So this next project I finished yesterday.  It's funny, while I was knitting socks I was trying to hurry up and finish so I could start a little animal.  The last week I've been hurrying to finish this little mouse so I can start socks! ha

I've made this pattern before basically.  It's the Mrs. Bakery Bear pattern by Kay Jones of the Bakery Bears podcast.  In the previous incarnation I altered the bear pattern to a kitten.  I thought I'd be making another kitten when I started this pattern.

I think I've said before that I feel like a pattern "speaks" to me while I'm making it.  I know that makes me sound crazy.  But, while I'm knitting, crocheting or sewing a doll or animal I start to think of it's story.  Which then influences how the stuffie is made.  This one did not really have a story, which is why it took me until I had finished all the pieces except the nose and ears.  She also does not have a name yet which is also unusual for me.

I'm really pleased with her nose.  I followed the pattern for the bear and thought I'd see if I could make it pointy like a snout.  I did a couple extra decrease rows and that worked!  Then, I stitched the light pink across the point several times to fill it in and then went round to shape it.  The little smile is really what made her personable!  

And the ears.  How sweet are they?  The modification I made on these were stitching them in stockinette instead of garter.  I knew I was going to line them so I wanted the outer part of the ear to be more like the rest of the body, which is stockinette.  I thought about lining them with felt but then changed my tune to fabric.  This has the tiniest rosettes.  I sewed some half circles into the middle of the ear and then pulled the edges towards the center to kind of gather the ear, then sewed them to the head.  I think it worked well.  I'll update once I get the dress finished.

So, I know it's Fall but today really feels like Winter already!  We've had rain, hail and currently it is 40 degrees out!  Brrrrrrr.  I did catch this rainbow in my back yard!  It was a full rainbow but since I was pretty close could only get a portion.  So pretty!