plumbing and other projects

For the last few weeks I've been feeling kind of blah. I DO NOT want to clean, and so my house is messy. It got cleaned up by Dan and the boys last night, so that was nice (I even helped by cleaning the kitchen, how nice of me).

I've been a little overwhelmed by my list of projects. Which means that I've been sitting here trying to decide what to start on. Which means I haven't been doing much. But I did shorten my current list a bit to just 4 projects (bed quilt, Luke's quilt, bike quilt, and church bag). Then when I'm wandering around trying to figure out something to work on, I'll pick from that list.)

While I was sitting here trying to decide what to do, I read a few books. If you want to see what I've been reading go here. I would also recommend The Hunger Games to everyone. Very good. I'll be reading the second one shortly.

I did sew on the borders to my bed quilt (queen sized). When I figure out how to take a photo of the whole thing, I will. Also - I need to figure out what to do about quilting it. I don't really want to hand quilt the whole thing. I don't really want to machine quilt the whole thing. I also don't want to take it to a quilter. Not really any other options so I'll have to pick one of those.

I just wrote a whole long thing about fixing the shower/tub. And then deleted because I realized that you probably don't want to hear all the boring details. Just know that I have put in lots of time and effort into fixing them and I am sick of it. But I still have 1 more thing to fix (because it is old and it broke while I was fixing the rest of it). Ugh. Sometimes I really hate fixing up this house.

Today I made some pillows. I've been wanting some new pillows since the last time I made some out of quilt weight fabric. It's just not sturdy enough for living room pillows in my house. So these were made from canvas (thrifted even). I LOVE this pillow and I was thinking of making an owl pillow (by copying this owl). I did it using freezer paper stencils and after I made the first ampersand, I realized I had the negative and wouldn't it be great to just have 2 opposites. I think I'll save the owl for something else. I like them (and Charlie says he does too.)

I also started working on Luke's bed quilt last week. It is turning out really cute! Which is a relief because sometimes I don't realize my ideas look like crap until I've already finished them.

Okay - one last thing. I have a lovely mantle. But I never know what to put on it. Actually - during the fall I love to put white pumpkins on it. And during Christmas I can always come up with something. It's January through September that I'm not sure what to do with it. Do any of you lovely decorating ladies have any ideas? I don't really want to make it too cluttery. I'm looking for something simple and clean. If you have any good references, please share. Even design blog ideas would be welcome, since I don't really read those.