Covid Creativity

My DH is making a small boat in the garage. It seats 4 people and will (hopefully) sail, row, and motor once it's finished. My contributions were buying him the boat kit for Father's Day and giving up my garage space and parking outside in the horrible Texas summer heat.
I never felt anything quite like the Texas heat we had when we visited San Antonio last September. I came home and told people that I had sweat on my sweat. It was quite something.
 
My DH is making a small boat in the garage. It seats 4 people and will (hopefully) sail, row, and motor once it's finished. My contributions were buying him the boat kit for Father's Day and giving up my garage space and parking outside in the horrible Texas summer heat.
Wait ...what?? You're from Texas? How'd you get into this thread? Borders closed. Did you quarrantine for 14 days before entering?? Wth someone call PHAC!!. Are you just passing through to the Alaska thread?

Lol jk. Just injecting some humor as some people go cray cray when they see a US license plate (and are here legitimately, and following rules).

Carry on.... (cool about the boat btw)
 
A few years ago we actually considered moving to Calgary but my parents need my help. My DH's company does a lot of business in Calgary so we were considering opening our first satellite office there.
 
our house is small so we maximize every inch as possible. We took out an old sliding door from our daughter's room and have started putting in a window seat. This is also part of a renovation of our deck...the dog will be happy when it's done, she has to get outside through the basement.

I hear you on maximizing space.
Last year we did a major reno and I love my new found space.
I love window seats,,,great space to read,chill,knit and design.
Thanks for sharing.
Hugs
Mel
 


I present to you my covid-creativity. Every May I have a combined Indy 500 (Indy cars) and Coca Cola 600 (Nascar stock cars) race party in May with some friends and family but this year they postponed the Indy 500 to Aug 23 and held the Nascar Race in May. I went virtual for the May race because we couldn't have that many in our bubble. I was hoping that the August race would allow me to have a party but we still have small bubbles allowed so I am going virtual for this weekend as well. This time I appointed some friends to stand in for my living body friends and yes they are all suitably masked. I have been making masks for my own and a friends inside and outside teddies. Who wouda thunk we would be making masks for our teddies. I am letting my virtual guests pick which stand-in they want to be them.P8200642 indy bears.jpg
 
I am creative person, but I have not had much down time. We were lucky enough to keep working through the lockdown, and I was still working on my college courses too. Those start again in October, which I am looking forward to.
The local quilting shops are back open again, and I now have fabric for 2 quilts that are already spoken for. I was able to upcycle one project. Another one is almost done and ready to sell. I am hoping to start quilting again after the Sept long weekend when life hopefully slows down again. I attached a couple pictures of my upcycled coffee table that I sold.IMG_20200523_180833.jpgIMG_20200523_180846.jpg
 

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I am creative person, but I have not had much down time. We were lucky enough to keep working through the lockdown, and I was still working on my college courses too. Those start again in October, which I am looking forward to.
The local quilting ships are back open again, and I have done fabric for 2 quilts that are already spoken for. I was able to upcycle one project. Another one is almost done and ready to sell. I am hoping to start quilting again after the Sept long weekend when life hopefully slows down again. I attached a couple pictures of my upcycled coffee table that I sold.View attachment 520267View attachment 520268


I love to see furniture being upcycled!
Nice work Hon!
Thanks for sharing
Hugs
Mel
 
I love the upcycled furniture. I have a coffee table almost exactly like that in the basement that came from my parents house. DS is going to take it when he moves out. They could work on learning how to do a treatment like that to modernize it.

Well done!
 
So since I am tired of making masks for me, my family and my friends I thought I would get back into online facebook painting sessions. This is the picture that I painted today. The class was actually recorded a few days before Canada Day but I can display it now anyway. The instructors didn't have flowers in the fields or on the path but I thought it looked too barren. I also added a fence along the field/sky border to make the off in the distance trees pop more. I am going to look at my saved videos and paint a few more.
painted canada scene P8300668.jpg
 
So many wonderful pictures of creativity here!

My daughter was working on a quilt (baby quilt) and had just finished the quilt top in March as all the stores closed. She was taking weekend classes and going to learn how to quilt it herself on the machine. Classes have not resumed yet but neither she or I feel comfortable trying to learn from Youtube videos at the moment. So she's going to make more quilt tops at home and eventually finish the quilts. She's thinking of selling them once they are fully completed. Here's the baby quilt. There are 2,750 all 1" finished squares in this. Hmm... I think l'll need to take another photo. It's not the greatest but it's all I have right now. Ohh, plus here's a great shot where you can see the outline of all the squares from the light shining on the back of the quilt!

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The house behind us is getting fixed up to be sold. We don't have a fence between our backyards and he decided to landscape his backyard. He also did a bit of ours to try to level it and my husband rented a ditch witch to finish off leveling our backyard. But getting someone to dig & set fence posts is almost impossible. I must have phoned almost a dozen companies. Only two came out and gave us quotes.. expensive quotes. This was back in July. We found out then that everyone is doing home improvements and contractors are in high demand and can pick & choose what jobs they want. Plus lumber was 2-3 weeks on backorder. Needless to say we still do not have fence posts in. At least the backyard is level now.

In the meanwhile, the front porch became my sanctuary. In June I scrubbed and cleaned it up. Ordered new thick comfortable cushions for the chairs. Flowers in the garden and hanging baskets. Ohh I scored these hanging baskets for FREE! I also found glass candles to hang off the porch railing! I have loved sitting out here for the past two months reading a book, having a drink or tea and playing games on my phone. Next year the porch itself needs a recoat.

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I’ve been knitting up a storm - especially while I was off work for 3 months. I usually spend most of my time knitting for others but these are all for ME!View attachment 521872View attachment 521873View attachment 521874View attachment 521875View attachment 521876

Those are beautiful sweaters. You're very talented.

So many wonderful pictures of creativity here!

My daughter was working on a quilt (baby quilt) and had just finished the quilt top in March as all the stores closed. She was taking weekend classes and going to learn how to quilt it herself on the machine. Classes have not resumed yet but neither she or I feel comfortable trying to learn from Youtube videos at the moment. So she's going to make more quilt tops at home and eventually finish the quilts. She's thinking of selling them once they are fully completed. Here's the baby quilt. There are 2,750 all 1" finished squares in this. Hmm... I think l'll need to take another photo. It's not the greatest but it's all I have right now. Ohh, plus here's a great shot where you can see the outline of all the squares from the light shining on the back of the quilt!

View attachment 522842View attachment 522843
That is one cute quilt. I've often thought of trying one of those pixel quilts but I don't know if I would get frustrated and give up if everything wasn't matching up perfectly. I guess I need to work on my machine stitching accuracy. Do you need special software to create the picture or did she map it out herself?

The garden looks great too. Reminds me that mine needs some more weeding.
 
The house behind us is getting fixed up to be sold. We don't have a fence between our backyards and he decided to landscape his backyard. He also did a bit of ours to try to level it and my husband rented a ditch witch to finish off leveling our backyard. But getting someone to dig & set fence posts is almost impossible. I must have phoned almost a dozen companies. Only two came out and gave us quotes.. expensive quotes. This was back in July. We found out then that everyone is doing home improvements and contractors are in high demand and can pick & choose what jobs they want. Plus lumber was 2-3 weeks on backorder. Needless to say we still do not have fence posts in. At least the backyard is level now.

In the meanwhile, the front porch became my sanctuary. In June I scrubbed and cleaned it up. Ordered new thick comfortable cushions for the chairs. Flowers in the garden and hanging baskets. Ohh I scored these hanging baskets for FREE! I also found glass candles to hang off the porch railing! I have loved sitting out here for the past two months reading a book, having a drink or tea and playing games on my phone. Next year the porch itself needs a recoat.

View attachment 522847View attachment 522848

So frustrating when you can't even get companies to get back to you or give quotes. On the other hand, we just got fencing done here in Victoria which was completed within 2 weeks of asking for a quote. They finished last week and it is beautiful.
 
The house behind us is getting fixed up to be sold. We don't have a fence between our backyards and he decided to landscape his backyard. He also did a bit of ours to try to level it and my husband rented a ditch witch to finish off leveling our backyard. But getting someone to dig & set fence posts is almost impossible. I must have phoned almost a dozen companies. Only two came out and gave us quotes.. expensive quotes. This was back in July. We found out then that everyone is doing home improvements and contractors are in high demand and can pick & choose what jobs they want. Plus lumber was 2-3 weeks on backorder. Needless to say we still do not have fence posts in. At least the backyard is level now.

In the meanwhile, the front porch became my sanctuary. In June I scrubbed and cleaned it up. Ordered new thick comfortable cushions for the chairs. Flowers in the garden and hanging baskets. Ohh I scored these hanging baskets for FREE! I also found glass candles to hang off the porch railing! I have loved sitting out here for the past two months reading a book, having a drink or tea and playing games on my phone. Next year the porch itself needs a recoat.
Love your porch furniture and all your lights. I know about people not getting fences done. The lad next door decided he was going to redo our falling down fence (wind damage from a year or 2 ago) and took down the old fence and is still putting up the new fence months later. He is working with his Dad so I guess they have to work on their paying customers first. He is paying for it all because he wanted to do something nice for his Mom and for me because I have been a good neighbour all these years. :flower: It really isn't a problem waiting because I use my front yard more than the back yard so all is well.
I see your cat roaming about the yard.
So frustrating when you can't even get companies to get back to you or give quotes. On the other hand, we just got fencing done here in Victoria which was completed within 2 weeks of asking for a quote. They finished last week and it is beautiful.
My mother needed to have her roof reshingled in Toronto =- guy came over last Tuesday for a quote and today she is getting a new roof. Guess we didn't have the wind damage on roofs here that we had last year and year before or her roof is small and won't take much time. All I can say is she is happy her roof won't leak anymore.
 
That is one cute quilt. I've often thought of trying one of those pixel quilts but I don't know if I would get frustrated and give up if everything wasn't matching up perfectly. I guess I need to work on my machine stitching accuracy. Do you need special software to create the picture or did she map it out herself?

The garden looks great too. Reminds me that mine needs some more weeding.

Every now and then I have tried to locate software to do this. There is software advertised but nothing that seemed to work for us. I really dislike paying for software before trying it out so I haven't tried to locate anything too hard I admit. I found it easier to print out the picture and then recreate it on an excel spreadsheet for her. I made all the cells the same width/height to resemble squares and then treated them all as 1" squares in my head. I used the "fill" option to color in the squares and made sure a grid was on so when it was printed out, she could see each square and cut out or sew her fabric accordingly. I also counted up how many squares was needed for each different color so I could work out how much fabric she would need of each color.

For her next two quilts (Marauder's Map and Oogie Boogie from the Nightmare before Christmas) my daughter "mapped" them out on Excel herself (from the printed picture I gave her, which is already graphed out). Then I counted up the squares; added up the total fabric ; and we went shopping. I mapped out the Tinkerbell quilt and Christmas Lantern quilt she'll be working on as well.

LOL - now you reminded me our garden needs weeding again! I looked at it the other day and forgot to remind my daughter to do it.


So frustrating when you can't even get companies to get back to you or give quotes. On the other hand, we just got fencing done here in Victoria which was completed within 2 weeks of asking for a quote. They finished last week and it is beautiful.

That's great! I can hardly wait to have a fence again. It's been a few years! I'm fairly certain we won't get the posts in until Spring at this point.
 

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