Looking Better

My last post, everything was just a mess, and I had hurt my shoulder. Well, thanks to some excellent advice I received, my shoulder is much better, all the baby quilts are done, aside from food and last minute cleaning I'm ready for the baby shower, and most of the places that are being rearranged are looking better.

The room that will belong to grandsons #1 and #4 now looks like this-

I still need to move out my cutting table, but at least it's disassembled. Everything else in this pic is staying in here. The shelves will house toys, the bed linens are on them now, plus a stuffed animal for each of the grandkids moving in. The cardboard boxes hold the bunk beds, which I'm hoping to assemble tomorrow.

The "guest room" is now cleaned up enough for DD#2 and DSIL to sleep here Saturday night.

I've still got a lot to do in here, but it's going to have to wait. I'm going home with DD#2 and DSIL after the baby shower on Sunday, so I can help them with the packing and unpacking since they are moving. I'll be gone over a week, so I'll leave a honey-do list for DH and DD#3, so hopefully a few things will get done while I'm gone.

I'm hoping to make quite a bit of progress on the room for my grandsons tomorrow, The weekend is pretty booked, with preparations for the baby shower, and make DD#2's birthday dinner. Her birthday is Saturday, her baby shower Sunday. I'll have a week after I get back to get the last of the rearranging done before DD#1 arrives with her 3 kids. Time is just flying!

Today my big project was to consolidate two sets of shelves into one, and move the other set out, so we are one step closer to being ready for the addition.

  I was forced to finish culling my cookbooks, because I had to get rid of quite a bit to have two sets of shelves go down to one. I think this is fairly workable. The white shelves next to these are leaving the house, a friend is taking them. I've got them empty except for some things for the baby shower, which will be moved on Sunday. The other thing that needs to be done in this area before building starts, is DH's tool cabinet needs to be moved right next to these brown shelves, where the white shelves currently are. Well, I'm hoping that happens while I'm gone! I know the tool cabinet is too heavy for me to move. I'm also hoping construction starts while I'm gone.

The grandson on the way will be named Lincoln, and DH has already decided to call him Hot Rod, after the old song Hot Rod Lincoln. As a result of that, I'm doing a Hot Rod themed shower.

I spent a good part of a day tracing these arrow shapes and cutting them out. Any guess what they are?

They folded into envelopes for a baby shower Jeopardy game! This game took me much longer than I bargained for to put together and come up with questions. There are a couple ready made ones available online, but I couldn't find one I was completely happy with, so a couple of the categories I mostly used questions from those, but mostly I did a bunch of internet research and came up with my own questions.

I've got the favors done (chocolate, can't go wrong with chocolate, right?), and overall I'm feeling pretty confident about the shower.

Just in case you didn't feel like that was enough to get done, I also finished all three baby quilts!

This is Lincoln's quilt. His nursery is Legend of Zelda themed (it's a video game).  am going to tell him Nana played on his quilt before he did, because I tried some new quilting designs on it.

Woodgrain

Leaves

Water

Clouds and Wind, I need more practice on this one, but I was making it up as I went along, so it's passable.

I needed the backing to be just a bit wider than WOF, so I hit the orphan block box, and added some Flying Geese to make it wide enough.

This baby quilt is going to a friend of a friend, who is a huge New England Patriots fan. It's my childhood home team, so I was happy to make it. 

This one is going to my best friend's daughter. She's doing a Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin themed nursery, and I happened to have two different fall themed Peanuts fabrics in my stash. I designed the quilt myself, no pattern. 

This quilt was just a little too wide for WOF too, so the orphan bin came to the rescue again!

Lest you think I am totally a whirlwind and have everything on schedule, here is my current downfall.

This is what got dumped in my bedroom while cleaning out the other rooms! This is not something I can live with, especially in my bedroom, so I'm already working on a couple solutions. I am hoping within a couple weeks after I'm back, I will have this in a much more organized, cleaner looking situation. I ordered new white totes to go on the wire shelves, which will fit two totes to a shelf. Eliminating all the mismatched containers should make it more visibly relaxing. The stacked bins will be moved out, the cardboard boxes as well. I know I can't peacefully live in a bedroom this chaotic, so it will be my first priority after I get the rooms ready for DD#1's family. I'm just really pressed for time right now, so it needed to get dumped here temporarily, but I don't intend to leave it like this. 

As I come up with storage solutions for quilting without a sewing room, I'll show them, so maybe it will help someone else. One of the things I have the stuff to do, but haven't had a chance to do yet, is I bought Command hooks, with the no damage removable sticky pads. I plan to hang my most used quilting rulers along the inside walls of my sewing cabinet, where my legs go. They won't be in my way hanging along the sides, but they'll be more handy than digging through a drawer for them. When I get a sewing room back, I'll go back to hanging my rulers on pegboard, which I really like, but for now, this will help.