WIP Wednesday... on Thursday

Running a day late again. Had planned to write it last night but after a lovely long soak in my new bath I went straight to be. Never mind

Getting ready for my first bath in our new bath. Complete with Lush bathbomb

What have I been working on this week?

Made great progress on Disappearing into the Blue. The top is finished. Yay. Whoot. Having thought it was finished last week I then decided it needed another border... a white one so that the lovely binding fabric I bought would stand out. I worked out how much I would need of the tone on tone white for a narrow border (1" finished) and went to buy it... found some great stuff in backing width and the shop's minimum cut was .5m. I only needed about 50cm of the ordinary width stuff so had double and more! So thought... might as well use it up and instead made the border 4" (and still had leftovers) The quilt has ended up 93" x 103" (or something like that) I didn't get a photo of it when it was laid out at patchwork yesterday. No room to do it here so... you'll have to imagine it

I am now in the process of making a pieced backing from the leftover blue fabric from the top. With the smaller pieces thus far I have a piece 43"x83". I will put the bigger left over pieces around the edges so they will get trimmed back not the pieced littler bits. I have two strips of left over piano key border. I'd accidentally trimmed one stip to 4" when I made it instead of 4.5" so that went into the back along with the leftover bits and all the too small tag ends. I also made up a bit more in order to get the 2nd strip long enough. I think it looks really cool. There is the strip of white tone on tone not needed for the borders in there as well.

New Project. Riverwalk
I have been working on a green banner to use in church too. I started a blog post just about it on Tuesday but didn't get it finished. I might complete that blog post to fully explain it. Meanwhile I'll just say I am using heaps of different green scrap fabrics. I am using my 2.5" strips, bricks and squares plus 4.5" squares and strips. Its coming on. I have it about 2/3s pieced. I don't think Fixit Guy was overly impressed by it. He tried hard not to sound too negative but today I showed our minister Suzy and she was delighted by it. FG is much more of a literal guy... doesn't do the figurative too well!! I think I will call it River Walk cause it was inspired by my walks by the river. Or then again I might find a biblical reference to trees and rivers and call it that. If you have a suggestion then please let me know

  

I received the ruler I ordered to trim up my half square triangle blocks. Its a Quilt in a Day ruler. That means that I'll be able to start work again on my black and white with a touch of red trip around the world quilt. Need to come up with a name for this quilt as what I refer to it as currently is way too long.

No further progress made on Teddies and Pinwheels or Twist and Disappear (Disappearing Nine patch with a twist) They both have tops and backs done. Just need to get the batting cut (or do a bit of Frankenbatting) and pinned. Should surge ahead and do them so I have a finish for Sunday but it isn't going to happen. Tomorrow is all booked out and we go away on Saturday for the weekend.

Other non quilting works in progress.

The Bathrooms.
Both are almost done. The family bathroom should have been all finished BUT there was a problem with the shower leaking under the door and the water not running to the drain in the floor. They pulled up a couple of tiles and relaid them to fix the drain problem but having hassles with the seal under the door. Sigh. It looks beautiful though and I had my first bath in the glorious tub last night. It is deeper, wider and longer than our old one so it actually fits me (short and slim I am not)

Since this photo was taken the painting of the trim has been completed and the ugly blue tape has come down

En suite is coming along. Fixit Guy has to paint it and the builder is waiting on the shower screens. We are going to move back into our bedroom today which will be nice. The weather has been chilly this last week and I miss my electric blanket. We didn't move it onto the spare bed. Probably should have just gone out and bought myself a second one!

Almost there! So close I could just about squeal. 

Fixit Guy's retirement.

Tomorrow is his last day. Yay. Today he is at meetings at another mine in another town. He took his replacement to show him the ropes. Tomorrow he has to hand over his laptop and his mobile (cell) phone and will drive his car home for the last time. Someone will pick it up from here over the weekend we presume. (unless someone drives him home and drops him off!) He has emptied his car of all his own stuff and has bought home a box or two of stuff from his office. He has taken his personal stuff off the computer and the phone. He has a new phone - bought last week with help from Fangirl. Also a new computer (with same assistant). His new car is on order and should be here at the end of the month. We have to wait for his redundancy payout to come through before we can pay for it. So... transition to retirement is progressing well.

Last week they had a farewell morning tea for him at work (early cause his boss was going away) and they are having another night time farewell for him next week (after his boss gets back). That works out well for us as this Friday Fangirl is in Brisbane. She will be back by next Friday and Massage Man (26 year old son) will also be in town. He lives in Melbourne. Kombi Boy (21 year old son), his partner Gamer Girl and our youngest son (19 year old whose blog name I forget atm) are both in town because they are university students and its currently holidays. We are going out for dinner to celebrate anyway.

Fixit Guy has a list of projects he wants to work on and has a large number of options to look at as far as volunteering about the place. There are all manner of people with a definite gleam in their eye when they hear a) he is retiring and b) we aren't planning on leaving town.

I celebrated the other day when I checked his wardrobe and realised he had enough shirts to see him through to the end of the week and that meant I didn't have to iron the work shirts that were in the basket

On Monday afternoon there were 4 shirts hanging up, and 4 work days to go!

so these two puppies got to go into a drawer. And I retired from work shirt ironing. Yeah

linking up with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced