A Tiny Bit of Sewing and a BIG CHANGE COMING!

It's been a bit crazy around here lately...I'll explain why later in this post.

 I have had very little sewing time lately, BUT I did start the quilting on my Sadie portrait! I had planned to do intricate free motion work. Then I thought it through and changed my mind.

My upper body strength has not been up to par since my mastectomy a few years ago. I was afraid I'd end up sore and miserable during the process of free motion quilting. So I decided to do straight line quilting instead. I'm letting my machine do all the work with dual feed set. 

I'm not marking or using rulers....just aiming and sewing. This is a great technique for me because I can try to sew a few lines on the quilt each day. It's not hard to pick up where I left off and I don't have to get into the rhythm of free motion work each time.

And here is the progress on this baby quilt. All these pieces are sewn together now. This top will get only one or two more rounds of blocks and it will be ready for quilting. I wish you could see this in person. The colors are so nice and it's SO SOFT to touch.

(First zinnia bloom from seeds Sadie and I planted!)

And now for the craziness....

Yes, we custom built our home.

Yes, we've only been living in it for 2.5 years.

Yes, we love it.

BUT...

1. We decided earlier this year that we wouldn't mind moving back to the other side of town - the area where we lived when we first moved to Auburn 10 years ago. (Can you believe we've been here 10 years???)

2. We decided we wanted a little more house, something a bit bigger. Our needs have changed in the last couple of years.

3. We wanted to live closer to the elementary school Sadie and her upcoming baby brother will be attending. (I imagine picking her up from school and bringing her to our house quickly.)

4. Though I was previously against having an upstairs, now that I've lost more than 40 pounds, stairs don't bother me so much.

And so.... for the past several months we've been looking. We were even open to building again, but lots are hard to come by in that area of town. We even made a couple of offers on homes, but couldn't come to an agreement with sellers.

Thursday morning a new listing popped up. We have learned that here in Auburn homes can sell FAST! So we made an appointment and saw the house at noon that day. That evening we made an offer. Friday it was accepted. No counter offer, no dickering. It was meant to be, I believe. 

And so...if the inspection goes well, we'll be closing on that home in a few short weeks. We love the decor of the new home. The only thing we will want to do before we move in is to add wood floors to the two rooms upstairs. We'll wait until that is complete before moving in. 

(First lime from my lime tree!)

So we are now preparing our current home to sell. Luckily there is not too much to do. But we are clearing some things out and touching up paint here and there. The worst part so far?  Removing 168 foam stickers from the wall of my sewing room. They held up my design wall felt squares. Advertised as ‘easy removal, no wall damage’. WRONG on both! It took hours! The wall is now smooth and spackled, ready for a touch of primer and paint. 

I will reuse these felt tiles in the new home, BUT I will not use the same sticky pads that came with them.

This week we'll have the home inspection done at the new house, but since it's only a couple of years old I doubt anything major will be found.

God's timing is really perfect. We needed this to happen exactly when it did, though we didn't realize it. We'll be moved in before the new grandson arrives. Sadie starts back to preschool this week, giving us a bit of extra time to get packing done. 

Every house we've owned in Auburn (this will be the 4th) we've thought would be our forever home. Haha! That's okay. Moving is really not that hard. It IS hard to move from a home you've living in for 20 years. But it's not hard when you move every few years. We're excited.

The biggest challenge will be to finish 3 baby quilts quickly. I haven't even started one of them. But, trust me...it will happen!