Sewing Room

Are you ready to see my sewing/crafting space? I am never sure what to call it....room or closet? It is rather large to be a closet and rather small to be a room! It does have a window and you could fit a twin bed if you really wanted to.

It fits my sewing table along the left side perfectly. I love this view from my bedroom doorway, it makes me happy to see my sewing machine ready to go! I don't always manage to fit in as much sewing time as I wish, but it is nice to know I can sneak a few minutes in whenever I want!

This is about the cleanest my table has been since I moved in. I kept hoping to get it a little better under control, but that wasn't happening. So I "tidied" it for the pictures by sweeping up the two giant mounds and hiding them out of sight! It sure was nice to see the table for a few minutes.

My sewing chair make-over turned out perfectly! It got a couple of coats of white paint, new caning and a new seat cover.

 Looking at the opposite wall, cube shelves from Ikea with my fabric and notions. Once I had the shelves in I realized I could make much better use of the space with bigger bins, so I found Hefty tubs that fit perfectly!

Yarn, fabric, sewing books and notions.

Since the sewing room also has to function as my closet, I left some space between the wall and the shelves for a clothes rod. Just enough for my shirts and dresses!

 I love having a proper place to put the ironing board, it always ended up stashed behind something before.

There are still a few things I would like to do, like hang a couple of vintage fashion prints on the wall and paint the bottom portion of the table. Someday I will get there, in the mean time I am enjoying it tidied up!

Looking back to the book nook.

Upstairs Bedroom

Here is my cozy little nest! 

I have to tell you, when I took these pictures last week, it was a crazy blog writer moment...... I was so excited to wake up to sun I jumped out of bed and grabbed the camera, I didn't wait to get dressed! Then I realized the floors were dusty! So there I was rushing around mopping floors in my pjs and snapping pictures before I had to dash off to work! Unfortunately, the sun wasn't being cooperative and kept coming and going. But I managed to capture a few good ones!

I love how the ceilings come down and enscone one, it is my favorite feature (besides the windows). The ceilings really defined how and why I decorated this room. As you all know, I love pink. In my previous room the walls were pink and I just planned on painting the walls pink again. But once I studied the room more, I realized if I painted the walls pink I would also have to paint the ceilings pink or spend an enormous amount of time trying to draw "ceiling lines". (Which I knew I would never be happy with.) So right away I changed courses and switched to white (with a faint tint of pink, just to keep me happy!). The other factor that influenced my decorating, was the English cottage feel the room had. The little in-swinging windows..... the sloping ceiling......the basic wood floors......

The curtains I re-made from an comforter cover I had sewn. I think they add the perfect English cottage touch! Other then the curtains, just about everything else was in my old room.

 To the left, the dresser is tucked behind the door. Not the most convenient place, but the room is small and that is what works. 

 Since the dresser isn't in full view most of time, I didn't really know what to put on top..... until winter descended! The basket holds my knitted scarf collection handily ready for topping the day's outfit. A few of my quilts are also ever ready to be snuggled up in. (You can see on this side of the room the ceiling also slopes. Where would I put a ceiling line on that?!)

 I know this looks a little odd and at first is bothered me a bit, but the only way all the furiture was going to fit was with something over the attic door. Since, we don't access it very often, it works fine. And I still get a dressing table!

My bedroom furniture set was found at a garage sale years ago, a special gift from my sister.  I love it's vintage style! I recovered the stool in hand painted rose fabric.

 I had to post one picture of my wonderful floors! I know you all know I love my floors! These are pine, darkened from age and sunlight. All I did to them was a good cleaning and three new coats of shellac.

How can you not love those windows! Even though the bedroom faces north, it gets a surprising amount of sunlight.

 See the dresser peaking out from behind the door, that is the usually view. In the background, the attic door.

Looking into the sewing closet. I thought this gave a nice perspective of how "cozy" everything is! But once you add all the upstairs space together, it is the perfect amount. 

A place for everything.

Book Nook Updates

You know how once one has lived with something you don't really see it anymore? As I am looking at these pictures of the book nook, I feel like there has been quite a few changes since the last post, but I really am not sure what they are! I will try to remember, but you might discover a few yourself.

One of the main changes is finally another shelf! At first you might not notice, but there is a smaller cube shelf next to the bigger one. I also picked up a few baskets at Ikea to tidy up the dvds and cds. I love that our entire book collection, dvds and cds are all in one place! I don't think that has ever happened. We do have a few books in the living room, but those are mostly our knitting and quilting books, up here are the novels.

 Once we  put the new book shelf in and reorganized the books again, it felt much more finished, which inspired me to add a few finishing touches. I rearranged a few unhappy house plants, added some small mementos and hung up this little English cottage scene.

This is one of my favorite pictures, but I have had the hardest time trying to figure out how to frame it. Finally I arrived at this idea; hot gluing the picture onto a fabric covered board (I used fabric sheets with adhesive on the back from the scrap booking section). Originally, I really wanted to hang it in my room, but I just couldn't find the right place. Here I still get to walk past it every morning!

This section is the new shelf. I can't believe how much they hold!

Our grandparents.

The other change I am really excited to share is the new pillow! Isn't it darling? I had such a fun time making it. I really am addicted to hexagons...... To me it says cozy vintage cottage. 

 It is so nice when a project comes out exactly how you dreamed it would!

Do you see my foot stool?! I am so excited to get to work on the cover. It was on the list for this week, but the foam I had purchased for the top was borrowed. Once it is returned, I can get to work with my scraps again as it also is going to be patchwork!

Next up, we will take a tour of my bedroom. Stay tuned!

Rose colored glasses.....

I don't know if that old saying really applies, but I think of it every time I turn on my bedroom light! The pink shade turns the room a wonderful pink shade. Doesn't it look cozy?

Next week I will be sharing pictures of a few changes in the book nook, my bedroom and sewing room. Do you remember how it looked last year? I posted a picture of the sewing room just after we moved in. (Can you believe it already has been a year?!)

Autumn Spice Cake

 The other night I was in the baking mood and after flipping through a few cookbooks I remembered this cake recipe, aptly named "Autumn Spice Cake", I have been meaning to try. (I posted about this little promotional cookbook here.) I am not sure the cake turned out the way it was suppose to. I didn't have anything to fill it with, so I added apples. It didn't turn out as fluffy as pictured either, but that might have had something to do with not having baking soda......

Do you get the sudden notion to bake like I do? I usually don't have baking planned, unless it is a special occasion. At the end of the day I suddenly decided something yummy sounds wonderful and take a look through cookbooks and the cupboards to see what will work. I don't want to make a trip to the store at that point, so whatever I can make work will do!

As this was another evening baking session, I decided I didn't want to mess with frosting and threw some chopped apples in the batter. Because this was a war time recipe, the sugar has been cut down to a minimum and after tasting the cake, it was decided frosting was a must! 

 So I whipped up a bit of Cream Cheese frosting and stuck in on top, much better! 

I am loving my vintage spring form pan I picked up at an estate sale this spring! It is the perfect pan for a cake like this.

The recipe calls for molasses, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. Yum! The fig filling recipe intrigues me, I might need to bake another cake to try it out......

Remembering.......

Since I have been doing genealogy the last couple of weeks, I thought it would be a fitting post to share a veteran in my family history. Our family like most, is full of veterans, men who have fought and served through all of this country's battles. Recently, I have been researching a Civil War veteran. We have our fair share of Civil War soldiers on the family tree, but this one is special, we have a picture of him!

His name is David Miller. He was born in 1833 to a War of 1812 veteran in Pennsylvania. For some time he has been quite a mystery. I have finally discovered his parents and grandparents names, which I am very excited about! I don't have a lot of other information on him though. He did return from the war, but died not too long after. He was a farmer, working land he inherited from his father. He had five children that lived their whole lives in the same area

This year is the 100th anniversary of WWI. It was very touching to see the memorial at the Tower of London that Hope & Wander posted about.

Apple Upside Down Cake

When I posted about the Spry Shortening cookbook awhile back, this recipe caught my eye. We had also just recently acquired a cast iron skillet. I was surprised how the cake turned out, instead of having the same texture as a traditional upside down cake, it was feather light and melted in your mouth. 

The apples tend to cook down quite a bit so the second time (Yes, it was so good, I made a second cake!) I used more apples. 

 The cake batter is very fluffy and soft. 

Even though the recipe doesn't call for a cast iron pan, it worked out really nice. If you want to be fancy, you could turn the cake out onto a platter. 

With the weather typical gray November, Apple Upside-Down Cake is the perfect comfort food!