Settling in nicely and ScrapHappy

Into my new home, that is. 

I took this photo of what is now my home, one foggy winter morning, long before I had any idea I'd be living here one day. It sits right on the river, and has a wonderful outlook onto parkland.  

I wrote my last post the day before settlement, and life sped up after that, as I had a month to finish packing up my house, while renovation and restoration work was getting started on the new house.  I thought that part  would be easy, just let the tradies get on with it, but it ended up being incredibly busy and quite stressful at times.  It was a few of the hottest weeks of the year, and I seemed to spend the days going back and forth to the new house to "site meetings".  While my head was still pretty much at the old place and focused on getting out of there and leaving it spic and span, it was hard to think about where I might want a light switch or a power point at some hazy time in the future. The photo below was taken from the front window of my new house, and there's the old one, across the road and up the hill, behind the frangipanni tree.....not a great distance, but in nearly 40C ( 104 F) and 90% humidity, it might as well have been a million miles.

The new house is in really good condition, but was old and tired, all rooms had musty old wallpaper, which I thought was going to take forever to remove, but a lovely surprise was that the wallpaper was attached to plywood panelling, which was in turn attached to  beautiful old original tongue and groove boards, making the job an easy one of just ripping that panelling off.  The old carpet and vinyl were pulled up, to reveal more beautiful wood, which has now been sanded and sealed.

I'll do some more posts about before and after, and the progress of the renovations, as this post, to launch me back into blogland, is about scraps.....fabric scraps, and to link up with Kate and others for ScrapHappy Day, which falls on the 15th of each month.   In the few weeks before I moved, for some reason, I mostly ignored the packing, pulled out my scraps and started a scrap quilt., just as if I was going nowhere.  I think some of that was the sense of disbelief that I was actually moving, it had taken 18 months of being very unwell from my ex-neighbours cigarette smoke ....I wrote about that here ......to being so close to moving away from her for good, that it felt unreal. Although it was around 12 months ago that my offer on this house was accepted, there were many delays until settlement, including a long drawn - out probate process, and waiting for documents from Council, to actually selling my house. Talk about 2 steps forward and one back, no wonder I couldn't quite believe it was actually going to happen.

So, the scraps are technically February's project, but since last month's ScrapHappy Day was the day I moved, I was far too exhausted to think about writing a blog post.  Since then, I've done some more work on the blocks this month, so I think it can now qualify for March. I cut 2 inch squares and 2 inch strips, and made these square in a square 6 inch blocks.

Seventy of them........

And have been joining them into sets of 2, then 4 and now I'm onto the rows. This part will be about 40 inches square, so I'll add a couple of borders to make it a bit bigger. It'll end up going to a charity asking for kids quilts for winter.

I also made this small prayer flag together from scraps for a friend's 60th birthday last week.

This is put together from op-shop linens and lace, an old tea-towel that had the bird and music on it.......Wendy's a singer and a musician, so this and the musical note charm were appropriate for her........other scraps I pulled out, lots of stitching and old buttons.  I chose the bird theme and stamped the word 'soar' because Wendy is building a new life for herself after her divorce....flying free!.... then to finish  I stitched a red thread through it, for protection.

Joining Kate  for ScrapHappy Day......check out the links on Kate's page to see what others have been doing with their scraps, maybe you'll be inspired to delve into your scraps next month, and reduce your stash. a little too.

Till next time........