Tearing out the Soffit

Since we love our house and plan to stay in it forever, I wanted to make sure I didn't have regrets with the remodel. One thing I have really been wanting is to get rid of the dropped ceiling in the kitchen area and raise the ceiling to the same height as the dining area. (sorry for the dark photos)

This was incredibly intimidating and is actually what has held us back for so long. I couldn't find much information online about tearing out sofits, besides that you need to check to make sure it's not hiding duct work or doing any load bearing stuff. We climbed into the attic and it seemed ok, but we still didn't dare do it on our own. We finally hired a friend to help us out and I'm glad we did. It was worth every penny.
It took us a full day of very dirty work (I say us, but I mostly mean my husband and our friend) but we did it!

After removing all the upper cabinets they cut a hole in the ceiling and let a bunch of insulation fall down. They then decided it would be a good idea to climb up in the attic with snow shovels and move as much insulation as possible out of the way. This worked out better. It was still a huge mess as they tore out the sheetrock though.

By the end of the day we were hot, sweaty and very dirty, but so excited that it worked out so well and there weren't any issues along the way. In one day we were able to tear out the cabinets, tear out the sofit, and put drywall back up making the ceiling all one equal level through the dining room and kitchen. The sofit wasn't hiding anything important, it was just cosmetic.

It was a huge mess to clean and mop up, but we were able to cook dinner on our own stove by dinner time (if you call buttered noodles and frozen corn on the cob dinner...)

It has been such a relief to have that huge project out of the way, but it's been a bit of a pain to live in a kitchen with a lot less cabinets and storage space.

It's Kitchen Remodel Time!

I realize this has nothing to do with sewing, but I wanted to blog about our kitchen renovation because I'm so excited about it! So, for my first blog post I have some before pictures. Here is what our kitchen looked like when we bought our house 5 years ago.
Actually it's not a true before picture. When we bought the house there was green shag carpet in the dining area and orange linoleum in the kitchen area. We changed the carpet throughout the house and put in this laminate wood flooring before we moved into the house. The cabinets also had some lovely 70's hardware that my husband hated and removed right away.

 For years we were bumping our hips on that beautiful orange peninsula counter top every time we walked past. The color started to grown on me, but the layout didn't work well with the flow of traffic in our house. It made the dining area feel cramped and the cabinets above and below the orange counter were hard to access and keep organized. It was a cluttery mess!
One day I went to a play and when I came home, the orange counter and surrounding cabinets were gone! My husband was so tired of them, he ripped them out. For the past year or more we have been living like this.

 It has felt a lot more open, but it's been a pain! The stove is sandwiched in there with no counters on either side. One of the cabinets (to the left of the fridge) hasn't had a counter top on it, and it's just been awful. So, now that summer has come and we have time on our hands, the real kitchen remodel has begun!

Legend of Zelda finished quilt top!!!

And....We...Did it!!!!!!

We finally, after 8 long months, have finished our Legend of Zelda quilt top. We have it sent off to the quilter now with a heartfelt plea, begging her to take good care of it and work her magical quilting skills. It was hard to turn it over to someone else to finish it off, but I have been assured we deposited it in good hands. The lady who is quilting it was pretty impressed with what we've done. She has never seen a quilt like it before.

In this picture you can get a sneak peak of the fabric my son chose for the back of it. It has Link with his sword and shield and horse, and while it doesn't match the top perfectly, it's going be pretty awesome!
So, I wanted to share some final thoughts on this project:
1- Linda's pattern is awesome! I would have paid money for it if she didn't offer it free. Her instructions were very clear and easy to follow and it all came together so well.
2- Don't be afraid to use some fun fabric and change up the colors. We love the subtle patterns and vibrant colors of the fabric we used!
3-Use gray thread! Linda suggests using white thread so it doesn't shadow through on the white parts, but there are far more black parts to this quilt than white. I used white thread at first and there are some places where the white shows through on the black. Once I switched to gray it worked great everywhere.
4-Don't skip the first step of making the ironing grid to lay the pieces out on! That part is super time consuming, but worth it. It doesn't have to be expensive though. I think I mentioned in a previous post that I  used duck cloth (that I got for cheap out of a remnant bin) on top of my card table, and it worked great! The only burn mark we got on the card table was when someone plugged in the iron and left it laying on the fabric. We have a nice iron burn mark on the card table now for some happy memories.
5-If you are curious about the final cost of this project (that's always something I like to know) I will try to break it down for you, although I didn't keep as good of track as I wish I would have.
I bought a bolt of 20 yards of interfacing from walmart.com. That was about $20
The June Tailor slotted ruler (almost a necessity for this project) was gifted to me by my friend, but goes for $30-$50.
2 yards of the green I used $10 (it was $5 a yard at Walmart. Walmart is all we've got in my small town! :(
1 yard red fabric $5
Some fat quarters for other colors, about $10
The rest of the fabric for my front was either from my stash or gifted to me, but if I had to have bought it it would have been probably another $40-50 (also included in this would be the cost of needles, thread, and a new blade for my rotary cutter).
The fabric for the back was about $50 with a coupon from Joann's
Cost of getting it quilted by someone with a long arm will be about $65 (but could be much higher if I wanted cotton batting or a specific design. As it is I chose polyester batting and asked her to just do random swirls)
I will make my own binding using fabric from my stash.
Total cost=
$20+$50+$10+$5+$10+$40+$50+$65=$250
So the cost will be pretty variable depending on what you already have. I think it's important for people to realize how costly making a quilt like this can be though! It's not cheap for sure.

And I think that's all folks! This has been a super fun project. I can't wait to see how it turns out after being quilted and bound.

And we have our Link!

So far we have stuck to Linda's pattern pretty closely making only minor changes with colors. However, we knew we wanted to make Link a little different. We wanted his sword showing (because to a 7 year old boy, what's cooler than a sword being swung!), and my son also of course wanted a blue Link, which is totally legit and true to the game.

Changing up the pattern required some mental gymnastics for this tired mom brain, but ultimately we figured it out. With Linda's Link she made him double size, but with our sword swinging Link we weren't going to be able to make him double size. So I figured out that her pattern for Link had 4 blocks that were each 15x15 squares. So that's a total of a 30x30 block. Our sword Link was 27 blocks wide by about 12 or 13 tall. So he was too short. We didn't want to fill above him with empty space, so we created our own pattern for the hearts.
So, Link is 27 blocks himself and then 2 rows of black behind him and one row at the tip of his sword. Above him and below him I did a 2 1/2 inch strip of black (I was getting awfully tired of cutting out tiny squares!) and then on either side of the hearts there is about a 4 inch panel of black. I just need to add one more strip of black above the hearts and then i can finish sewing the blocks all together and my top will be complete (except for the border on the outside).
Whew! What a huge project this has been.
Hopefully you can expect a post pretty soon with a complete picture of the top along with my final thoughts and words of wisdom that I've learned from this project.

the triforce and the missing Link

We are moving along on this awesome quilt! Both my son and I are getting really excited as we sew blocks together and see the progress.

I was pretty nervous about the triforce block because the directions sounded all complicated, but to my utter relief it was the easiest block yet. I did not even need to use any special angles for cutting the triangles, they were just rectangles that I marked the middle of and then used a straight edge to cut it to each corner. It turned out beautifully!
I just sewed these two sections together today, but next week I am going to have to unpick them. The green section is slightly longer than the black section, and I thought I would just add a strip of black there by the wizzrobe, but I realized that the triforce is not cenered over Zelda so I really need to add the black strip to the side by the darknut. I asked my husband and he said he doesn't even notice, but I do and I know it will forever bug me if I don't fix it now. Ugh! I am getting lazy and should have known better than to just try to sew them together without measuring and planning first.
Speaking of planning, we have something different planned for the Link block than what Linda did with hers. It's a surprise though! I can't wait to show you all what we are doing. Here's to hoping it actually works out...

Princess Zelda and the Wizzrobe

I got two more blocks done! Princess Zelda:

And the Wizzrobe, which I don't have a picture of. All I have left to do is the triforce (which I'm a little nervous about since it involves triangles cut at special angles and other geometry), and Link. So we are planning to change up Link a little bit and add some things. We'll see how it all goes, but it feels so good to have an end in sight! Hopefully we can get this quilt on the bed before winter is over.

Legend of Zelda Quilt

I have a son who likes everything his dad likes. This includes the Legend of Zelda! As Christmas was approaching last year I thought it would be amazing to surprise him with a quilt for his bed. I turned to pinterest and found some amazing Legend of Zelda quilts out there. People are so creative! I originally wanted to take some ideas and then do my own thing, but when it all came down to it, this pattern from quiltinglinda.com was just what I was looking for and has amazing instructions, and it's FREE. Why reinvent the wheel?

So, now that I knew what I wanted, it was time to get started. However I began to realize how hard it was going to be to hide a project of this size from my little guy. I would have to only work on it while he wasn't around and always be cleaning up after myself. Honestly, it may not have been that hard to do it right under his nose. He's a typical boy and doesn't usually pay much attention to my craft projects, but I got to thinking how much he might enjoy helping me with it. So, I enlisted his help and he was thrilled! We have had so much fun doing this quilt together!

For starters I followed Linda's instructions on how to make a grid and pressing board. This was time consuming, but definitely a must for this quilt. Actually, all I did was use a piece of duck cloth and then clamp it to the top of an old card table using cheap wood clamps. I iron right on top of this. I'm not sure what it's doing to the table underneath, but I'm not too concerned about it!

So this is what we do. I cut the squares for the quilt, then my son lays them out on the grid. Then I straighten them out and iron them on. Then I sew it all up and we have our block!

This one is still our favorite block.

When I was planning out the quilt I called up my good friend and quilting mentor. She was so excited for me to be making this quilt she bought me the June Taylor tool thingy that makes cutting the squares a breeze and mailed it to me along with a bunch of beautiful fat quarters. She has such amazing taste for colors. I am loving how vibrant and fun this quilt is!

Basically I am using the fat quarters she sent me, along with colors from my stash. Then when I need a new color I run to the store and buy what I need. And here are the blocks we have completed! I am still veering off a bit to do my own thing, but mostly sticking to Linda's pattern.

Before I started this quilt I saw some like it for sale on Etsy for $350 or more. I would like to say that people who are selling it for that much are short changing themselves! The amount of work that goes in to this quilt is worth so much more than that! It is worth it for the bonding I've done with my son though. I hope he always remembers the fun we are having doing this project together.