I am sashing the squares to a reproduction quilt that was made by a group of quilters. The fabrics are by Chainteclaire and designed by Darlene Zimmerman. The squares were randomly cut by the ladies at Seams Like Home Quilt Shoppe in Anchorage, Alaska (http://www.seamslikehome.com) and machine quilted by them in part and finished by me. It’s gorgeous!
Marguerita’s Blog
The Kitchen Floor
We are stripping out an old vinyl kitchen floor. By hand. Inch by inch, layer by layer, using chisels and a 2″ metal scraper, on our hands & knees. The vinyl is anywhere on the older side of 25 years and is so worn that it only comes off in layers – I’ll post some photos this week. The top layer, a dirty lime green and dirty white pattern, comes off in brittle chips some of the time but sometimes we can get a whole 4″x6″ chunk and then we celebrate! Under that is the glue that adhered the surface layer to it’s composite backing, and this comes up in ribbons when it’s wet – I’ll get to the wet part soon.
Under that is a 1/8″ layer of some type of composite backing and under that is the glue layer and then plywood. The top brittle layer chips off easily even if it is in small bits but the underlayers are a nightmare. I’ve learned that soaking them helps. We layer small sections of old rag towels, about 2′ square, onto the exposed underlayer and pour boiling water on the towels and let them sit and soak for about 1/2 hour. Then we begin scraping. I can scrape away about a 2′ square section in an hour, and I can only do about an hour a day, every other day. My arms, back and my scraping hand hurt afterwards so I give them a rest.
Rabbits
We have a lot of rabbits! We have one that live indoors with us. He uses a modified cat litter box for his potty and he’s very, very tidy about using it. He has the run of the first floor of the house, but he’s afraid of the stairs going to the basement so he just stays upstairs. He’s a grey and white spotted lop that was rescued from a cat’s mouth at just a few weeks old. We’ve made a *lot* of modifications in the house because of the rabbit’s need to chew and our American desire for electricty that runs through cords that rabbits like to chew. For more info about indoor rabbits as pets, please visit www.rabbit.org
There is a lot to learn before jumping into having a bunny as a pet.
We also have many rabbits living on our undeveloped property about 7 miles outside the downtown Seward, Alaska area. They have burrowed a huge nest under a firewood storage shed and they have the run of the property (2 acres that we own and they invade the neighbors’ property too). We feed them, but because they run free they are at the mercy of predators like dogs, wolves, bears and eagles. And yes, we’ve seen them hunted and killed by the neighborhood dogs and by the eagles. Bears will sometimes get into the rabbit food but although there are wolves around, we’ve never seen them – just the tracks. So this is one of the hard parts of life. We love the rabbits but we lose a lot of them and when we get attached to each of them it’s hard when they don’t show up to be fed anymore. Basically, we’re idiots.
Commercial Fishing
Tom owns a 42′ seiner (the F/V Dolly B) and he fishes for salmon in Lower Cook Inlet. It is hard work. At age 44 I started working for him and I’ve never worked harder in my life – and believe me, I know what hard work is.
What a life though! I made it through 2 full seasons, and now I only fill in when we have crew shortages. I do a lot of the dock work and help keep the boat clean. Dock work means that I pitch fish upon delivery and then clean the boat (2-3 times a week), buy groceries and have them waiting for the boat at delivery and any other tasks that the skipper wants.
In the fall we do any maintenance and then we dry dock the boat until spring. In the winter Tom mills lumber with his friend Mark and they build stuff. Mostly cabins and sheds. And rabbit hutches and feeder stands.
The old house
This house, in the older downtown part of Seward, survived the 1964 earthquake in good style, but it’s seen a lot of changes over the years.
Tom grew up in this house and he and his brother Steve, along with their dad Perry, hand dug a full basement in the 1970’s when Tom & Steve were teenagers. The motivation that kept them working was that if they finished, they’d get a pool table in the basement. Now the basement has a small bedroom, huge “game” room (with pool table), laundry area and huge pantry area. The ceilings are not tall at about 6’6″ and the lighting isn’t great, but it’s about 800sf and that adds a lot to the house.
Upstairs we’ve pulled off the 1970’s paneling and 1″ tongue and groove backing boards so that we could insulate the outside walls. There was *no* insulation in this house until last year! This is still a work-in-progress because the interior walls are unfinished. We need to replace 3 windows and then add OSB and sheetrock to finish up. Right now we’ve got insulation & vabor barrier up – my favorite decor! Hehehehe.
Quilts in the works
In the latter part of December, 2007, I’m working on a quilt made of feedsack reproduction fabrics. I’ve had the fabrics for a long time and thanks to the folks on the Yahoo! group “Stashbusters” I’ve been inspired to finish this quilt. The more I work on it, the more I love it!
I’ve also got a black & white fabrics quilt in the works (just set aside for now) that has small bits of pink, yellow and blue fabrics interspersed. I’m using my 20wt Sulky threads on that one and some basic decorative stitches for the quilting.
