The moth situation.

Oh no! A hole!!!!

Moths. The fear of every knitter, weaver, spinner, fiber artist...or anyone who has wool in the house. I think nearly all of us have had these very unwelcome pests in our house at one time or another. It's almost impossible not to have them if you store wool (and alpaca and silk and other animal fibers) in your home, whether they're raw materials or finished goods. By the way, moths flying around your pantry are a different pest, unrelated and not interested in your wool, but still annoying and something you have to deal with as soon as you see them. Those buggers often hitch a ride in a packaged food item you brought into the house, so clean the pantry out and find the source. But I'm going to talk about wool moths here.

I recently found moths in some cheap merino fiber I got in Izmir, Turkey a couple years ago and wasn't using. So I didn't know there was a problem. It's possible the moths were there when I acquired the fiber. I bought the fiber from a bazaar vendor and it was intended for stuffing, not spinning, so it was not of high quality. I should have inspected it thoroughly when I brought it home, but instead I left it in the corner of my storage room in the plastic trash bag I brought it home in. Yeah, pretty stupid. The good thing was that it wasn't around any other fiber, except some non-wool fabric, which appears unaffected. It appeared that the moths were loving it where they were, with their seemingly unlimited food source, and probably didn't seek out other fibers. I thought of trying to save it...for about 10 seconds...and then threw the entire bag away. That could have been the extent of it, but it wasn't. I haven't been spinning hardly at all since I moved here but recently a knitting friend was interested in learning. When I went to retrieve my spindles I discovered I had tried out some of that lousy Izmir merino and it was still on the spindle...with moths. And to make matters worse, the basket that held the spindles also contained one unfinished fair isle mitten and the yarn for the second mitten from a kit I'd bought in Helsinki. Most of the yarn was a total loss but the mitten was too small anyway, so starting over with new yarn is probably what I was going to have to do anyway. Still, losing the yarn was a painful lesson. 

We knew there was a problem but just didn't want to face it. There had been a moth here and there in our apartment and some of my husband's woolen hats, scarves and sweaters were showing up with holes in them. Most of my woolen things had been fine - maybe because I was more fastidious about cleaning them. But then I started finding some holes in my things too. When I found the bag of merino moth-feast, I could no longer live in denial about moths in the apartment. It's quite possible the moths hadn't all come from the Izmir merino, but it didn't matter. Moths are moths and they eat wool. I had to do something. 

In my fiber studio I, not surprisingly, found more evidence of moths. One strange case was a hank of bamboo with some moth webbing on it and breaks in the yarn. I didn't think moths went after non-animal products, especially if animal products were around. The damage and loss of fiber was what I would consider minimal but after I rewound it I put the yarn into the freezer with a skein of wool I found with some damage. Cleaning up the bedroom revealed a felted wool hat of my husband's with some damage. Into the freezer it went.

From what I've read, the adult moths you see aren't the problem but they're indicators that you do have a problem. The larvae is what eats your fiber and the eggs are the next problem when they hatch into larvae. You can kill larvae by freezing but eggs will survive so you have to do it again. Unfortunately it's spring now so I can't just put everything outside on a cold night.

I was planning on sewing today but instead I spent the day continuing to battle the moth situation. I inspected some more of my stash and found more evidence in some spinning fiber. Again, nothing near as bad as the Izmir merino, but worrisome just the same. Our freezer is small so I decided to try another option - heat. One blog I read suggested using the oven but cautioned that you can catch fiber on fire that way so it has to be done with caution. I don't like fire so I won't try this. Another option is to put your stash in a hot car - apparently 120 degrees is the key temperature. Well, it's not hot enough here for that so this option is not possible right now. Laundering is good for finished items but not very easy to do for yarns or spinning fiber and of course there's the problem of shrinkage and felting. I decided to go a different route - steam heat. I have an excellent Laura Star steam iron that puts out very hot, continuous steam heat. So I blasted my spinning fiber with it and then stored it in zip lock bags. I also steamed the items that I'd previously put in the freezer. I then went through our winter scarves and hats - mostly things I'd knit or woven - and steamed those as well. I found some evidence of moths on them and have a few repairs to make. At least I found the damage early and it's good that I kept the left over bits of yarn!

Pile of things to fix. 

I know I am not done. I really will have to go through every bit of yarn and fiber and wool cloth in my stash as well as the wool sweaters in our closets. And I can't just do this once. I will need to inspect things regularly and steam them again if I see evidence of moths. Ugh. 

Now we landscape

Now that the inside is finished (I know, I promised pictures), we can move to fixing up the outside. Our landscape "plan" was evolutionary over the 12 1/2 years we've lived in this house. Some things worked, some did not. Many of the things that worked became overgrown. I learned the hard way to NEVER use Roundup on the dandelions in your yard - it looked like a dog visited and peed in selective spots. Then during the bathroom renovations the tile guys set up shop on the front lawn and it just went downhill from there. Oh yeah, one last blow...Mr. Gopher came to visit. But thanks to a hardworking landscaping crew, our yard will be transformed and our neighbor two doors down will no longer feel compelled to share "helpful" gardening hints when he's out walking his dog (he paid big bucks to have his front lawn redone).

Anyway, here are some pictures of the work in progress:

Big yard waste pickup next week.

The landscapers were really good. They removed all the weeds but left the good plants that were buried beneath them. These are Gerbera daisies (my favorite flower).

More evidence of the thorough weeding. They left all the good plants, even reducing the overgrown Agapanthus to a more normal size.

Some transplanted Agapanthus in a new location. This is some of the new irrigation line. In the past we used the black drip line most DIYers use because that's what they sell in the big box DIY stores. But it didn't work all that well and we killed a lot of plants as a result. Plus every year we had to fix "geysers" when the pieces broke due to being trampled on or becoming brittle due to the exposure to the sun. Hopefully we'll be able to keep things alive with this system, which is a simple soaker line.

Here's how it will work around the trees. This section of the yard will be mulched.

The backyard is getting some improvement as well. We laid this brick patio years ago but the edge bricks were not secured in concrete and they soon began to tilt. I'm happy we're getting this fixed because I always felt like I was going to tumble into the pond.

Magazine overload

I have to do something difficult. No, I'm not getting rid of these Threads magazines (yet), but I am going to let my renewal pass by. It's not that I don't enjoy the magazine because I do. I just don't have room to keep collecting them, and frankly, I don't have time to thoroughly read them either. When the magazine arrives I flip through it and I see the helpful articles on sewing techniques, but I don't read them. I expect that I will someday go back to these magazines when I need sewing help and on a few occasions I have. But I'm also just as likely to reach for one of the many sewing books I own. Tauton Press put out a Threads DVD archive, which I bought, and perhaps they'll continue to make DVDs on a yearly or multi-year basis. With e-books and iPads and the like, maybe we're heading toward paperless books and magazines as the norm. Could be interesting. I'm not ready to find a new home for all of my old Threads issues or toss them in the recycle bin so in the meantime they take up room. And that's mainly the reason why I need to stop the flow of magazines coming into the house. It's not just Threads that I collect. All these magazines are starting to overwhelm me.

These are some of the knitting magazines, which I no longer subscribe to. If there's a magazine for sewing, knitting, spinning, weaving, machine embroidery...I probably have at least one copy. Often I just buy the single copies but I've had subscriptions to many of them. Then there are the foreign magazines and don't even get me started on the pattern magazines. My bookshelf is stuffed with ten years of Burda plus a smattering of Diana Couture, Elena Couture, La Mia Boutique, Patrones, Knipmode...

I also have a large collection of Martha Stewart Living magazines, which is boxed up because I don't have the bookshelf space. That's another magazine I stopped subscribing to.

So my magazine subscription is now down to only two: Burda and Elle. I might stop Elle in favor of a different fashion magazine. I like to mix it up and try different ones. At least I don't hold on to the fashion mags - I tear out pictures that interest me and put them into a inspiration book...when I get around to it.

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We have four cats in our house but only one of them seems to make the blog on a regular basis: Felix. Today he took advantage of an open pantry and foraged for his own food. Apparently it's much more fun and interesting to tear into the bag instead of just eating the very same food out of his bowl. He works hard for that food too - meowing, rubbing, reaching up to the counter...but I guess it's better straight out of the bag.

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And finally...

The deck is about  95% done - just a few steps left and some sealing and then it'll be ready to enjoy.

Shower cat

Felix decided to take a bath in the shower.

He likes to roll around and show off his white belly. Action shot!

Taking a break during his manic "wash-fest"

And in other news...the deck is coming along:

Reveal #1, without furniture

The guest room is finished. It's empty and ready for furniture...and stuff. I thought I'd take some pictures before it gets filled up.

But first, a "before" picture. However, I didn't take one before the demolition and I couldn't find any good photos of the room before we redid it. The best one I could come up with was one I took of a purse and skirt I made...with a bonus action shot of Felix about to jump up on top of a cabinet. There's not much to say about it really. The room was mint-green and had one window. And it had wood floors, but they were in pretty bad shape and there was water damage in the middle of the room (waterbed?).

We changed the window to French doors and added a window on the right wall. The paint color is a light purple-gray - Lowes Olympic paint "Bad Lands", to be specific. My husband refinished floors. We also added the ceiling light and added and moved some wall outlets. Ok, to be clear, the contractor did the electrical and put in the door and window and we had a drywall guy redo the walls. Although we're capable of doing the work, we just don't have the time anymore. I did get out the drywall mud and patch the inside of the closet though! I'm pretty good with the hawk (it's a flat surface with a handle that you use for holding the mud while you use a putty knife to apply it). And I also painted.

I designed the closet shelves and our contractor built them. I included a pull-out ironing board, which was expensive, but worth it I think. The closet doors are 3 sliding doors. The outermost one, which is visible here, will eventually have a tack-board mounted on it.

Here's a view of the closet doors closed. Two of the doors have mirrors on them.

Since I'm showing pictures, I should also show off the hall bathroom, which we also redid. This is actually the second re-do, although the first was only partial. About 10 years ago (wow, has it been that long?) we painted and changed out the vanity, sink and mirror. At the time I was into a beachy look so we painted the walls a sea-green and I added a little bit of decorative fish. Here is the before:

We didn't redo the bathtub at that time, which was a one-piece vinyl surround.

And here's how it looks now! The entire room was gutted and we had a skylight put in. I designed everything, from the tile layout to the vanity, which our contractor made for us out of walnut.

Here's a closeup of the vanity...and yes, there is a knob missing. Actually three knobs are missing. Some of them were damaged and I had to reorder and just haven't gotten around to putting them on. Originally we were going to have a Caesarstone counter but the walnut was so beautiful I didn't want to cover it up.

The bathtub is an airjet and it makes lots of bubbles.

I should also share photos of the master bedroom and bathroom, which have long been finished but I'll save that for another time.

I can see light at the end of the dusty tunnel

We're making progress on the guest room/sewing room #2 renovations and I'm excited that I will soon be able to get back to sewing. The drywall will be finished today and this weekend I think we'll be priming the walls. It'll take a couple of coats since there's new drywall  on the walls and the once textured ceiling has a couple coats of drywall mud on it now to make it smooth. I'm so glad we're hiring contractors for this work because we simply don't have the energy anymore to put in a full day's work and then work on house renovations in the evening. I also enjoy coming home and seeing the progress. It's like a surprise every day and they're doing a very nice job.

It's been at times stressful but loads of fun to design these renovations. I especially love that I've been able to customize things to fit not only our taste but how we use the space. Since this guest room is also used for my some of my sewing activities, I have been able to make some design details that will be very useful for me.

The room is a basic bedroom. It had one rectangular window, which was fairly high up on the wall and a closet with two heavy, mirrored sliding doors on it. The bed has a pop-up trundle bed underneath it. My cutting table sets up in the middle of the room and pretty much occupies all of the space, so I'm glad it folds up and can be wheeled away.

The major change to the room was replacing the window with outswing French doors. The doors lead out to a full view of two peach trees and to what will be a deck, which will wrap around the side of the house to the right where the new window is located. This new window is taller, with a casement window below and an awning window on top for ventilation. The view from the new window looks out on our side yard fence (covered with a Jasmine bush) and the neighbors well-kept back yard. And we can finally see the hills! This is the only south facing window of our house that is not blocked by the neighbor's house. 

The pattern cabinet is a custom-made dream of mine. I used to have all of my patterns scattered throughout multiple cardboard and plastic organizer bins. Finally they will all be in one place. The cabinet replaces a much smaller bookshelf that was really a re-purposed small IKEA china cabinet. I will share pictures of the new pattern cabinet later when I do my big "reveal." The cabinet turned out a bit larger than I anticipated but it stores all of my patterns and has room for lots of sewing and knitting magazines. I also designed it with a pull-out shelf, which will be convenient for browsing the magazines or, as I've found, setting up my yarn swift and ball winder.

The other noticeable change is with the closet. The original closet had a standard clothing rod and some crooked wood storage shelves a previous owner put in. The new closet will have custom-built shelves, drawers and hanging areas and a pull-out ironing board. This ironing board is probably 20 times more expensive than your standard ironing board, but it'll be worth it. I had the contractor put in an outlet in the skinny wall space between the door and the closet so that it's handy to plug in the iron. Another custom change is with the closet doors, which will be triple doors on sliding tracks. Two doors will have mirrors on them and one will have a design board affixed to it. I plan to make the design board removable so I can change the fabric cover whenever I want to change the look.
There's still stuff to do like paint and refinishing the wood floors, and then I'll have the big task of organizing and putting things away. My first sewing project will probably be window coverings. The new doors and window let in a lot of light and although we bought them with super energy efficient glass, all that light will translate into extra heat too.

So there's an end in sight, and I am looking forward to it! It'll also be nice to finally be done (?) with the renovations inside the house, but I will have no excuse now for not cleaning things, especially dusting. The inside of the china cabinet is quite dusty from lots of floor refinishing and dry wall dust over the years, but as long as there was more to do....So I guess I'll be putting that on my to-do list now.

Like a jigsaw puzzle

I made a small patio!

We bought the concrete stepping stones a while ago with the intention of making a small patio under a bench we have in the backyard. Like many projects, we had good intentions but other stuff stood in the way, like  weeding under the bench just so that we could get to the point of being able to put down the stones. Here's what the area looked like before we hired three guys to save us from the weeds:

I'd like to get a few more of the concrete stepping stones and fill in some more area in the front of the patio but I'm too pooped to go out to the home improvement store to get more. It's a beautiful day today and just the right temperature but it was still hard work to make the area level and lay down the stones. I took frequent breaks and enjoyed the pretty blossoms in the yard.

The bees like the cherry blossoms too

The Wisteria is blooming and smells wonderful

I even let two of the cats out to have a romp. Felix loves to roll in the dirt.

I can tell I will be sore tomorrow from the digging and raking and lifting. I'm already feeling it, so I think I will finally try out that new air-jet tub we put in and have a soak.

Weed-be-gone

The house projects continue. Work on the guest room/sewing room #2 will begin in a couple of weeks and we also took the first steps toward landscaping the yard.

On Friday the backyard looked like this:

And after two days and three guys we hired it now looks like this!

It's great to see the raised vegetable beds again and with everything cleared out we're inspired to put in new plants and flowers. Although I do like the very green "before" and the flowers were pretty, they were all weeds. Lots of weeds. The guys also weeded the front yard and removed two big juniper bushes, so they did a lot of work in two days! The next step is to put in large flat stones to mark the paths through the yard. There is no grass in the backyard, which is just fine in this climate where there is no rain at all from around May to October. The last window in the above picture is the window in the bedroom what we'll be replacing with French doors. After that work is completed next month we'll have a brick patio put in that wraps around the side of the house. And there's the front yard to work on too. Slowly but surely we're getting it done.

Flew the coop

Oh well. I returned home this evening and found that Ms. Mourning Dove and her eggs are gone. Again. I read that it's not uncommon for Mourning Doves to abandon their nests. Still it makes me sad. I was hoping to see little Mourning Dove chicks. I really hope she chooses a more secluded location for her nest next time.

Location, location, location

A Mourning Dove has taken over a hanging planter on our patio and used it for her nest, but I don't think she knew she'd have an audience of cats (we have four). Thankfully for her there's glass separating the cats from her and her nest.

Even though I know the male takes over for stretches of the incubating period, I'll just refer to the bird as "her." It's hard not to startle her since she's so close to the house and we need to move about the patio to tend to the pond and take out the compost. She pretty much stays quietly sitting on the two little white eggs, peering out with tiny black eyes. Last weekend I forgot about our feathered visitor and took my laptop out to the patio to do some work. She was stayed motionless in her nest while I worked at the table (off to the right in the above picture) but when my husband came around the side of the house to talk to me, we both forgot about her and eventually she lost her nerve and flew off. I am concerned for her eggs because she didn't return for half an hour. But she's back. I took the above picture this morning and she (or he) is there in the white pot on the left, pretty well hidden among the chives.



This is likely her second attempt this season. A Mourning Dove laid two eggs last month but one day both the doves and the eggs vanished. Since we never saw any babies nor was there any evidence that anything hatched, I'm afraid the eggs became breakfast for a squirrel.

The renovations on our own "nest" continue. Our contractor built us a window seat and bookshelves for the bedroom and installed them yesterday. I am really pleased with them. I'm also glad I made the last minute decision to lower the window seat height from the height of the window sill to 19 inches. There is some finishing work to be done, like trim and paint (white) and installation of the shelves, but here's a photo of the progress:

How we spent last weekend

Refinishing your own floors isn't that hard to do, it's just tedious. You need to rent a floor sander and use a hand sander for the edges. Ear protection is a must as the sanders are very noisy. You should also wear a respirator or at the very least a mask because the wood dust is very fine. We rented the floor sander from the hardware store (Orchard Supply, or "OSH" for those of you in northern California). In the past we've rented floor sanders from that "orange" big box home improvement center and found them to be pretty beat up. Plus, the last time we rented one from them we saw they'd removed the skirt at the bottom that helps keep the dust contained (all of the sanders had it removed, why we don't know). Without that skirt there was A LOT of wood dust. I had to constantly use the shop vac while my husband ran the sander. The sander we rented from OSH is an orbital sander from Varathane and it works pretty well to sand and vacuum at the same time. It's really easy to push and you just have to move it around the floor...back and forth, back and forth. It takes a while and uses up lots of heavy grit sandpaper to get through the tough varnish, especially the oil-based stuff they used in the late 60's when our house was built. But eventually you can switch to a finer grit sandpaper and then finish it off with the finest grit. The next step is staining and varnishing. We use water-based polyurethane and put on about 4-5 coats.

Mysterious Mosaics

The bathroom shower tile looks just fine and it's the picture that emphasizes the dark tiles and makes them appear very regular, especially when you look at low resolution, like on a computer screen. Weird.

Here's another picture of the tiles (now showing the completed wall) and you can probably see lots of zig-zags - or at least I can:

But click on the above picture to see a larger view (really large!) and the patterns made by the dark tiles are not as obvious. But trust me, in real life you have to work hard to see them.

Since neither I nor my husband was home to see the actual tile, we were relying on the cell phone picture of the tile. The message to fix the tile was routed through our contractor and then to the tile guy. When the tile guy looked at the tile, I'm sure he thought we were nuts, but he moved a few of the small tiles anyway. He asked his assistant to take a picture to send to the contractor but when the assistant prepared to take the picture he got a screwy look on his face as he looked from the camera to the tile and back again. Now they saw what we saw!

So mystery solved. The tile is just fine and we've all learned that pictures can lie, especially when it's a picture of glass mosaic tile!

Update on the house

Here are some pictures of the bathroom shower and floor in various stages of tiling (they're cell phone pics, so pardon the quality and color):

Bathroom floor, looking in from the doorway:

Shower floor (those are temporary wood strips just above the strip of mosaic):



The shower as of this morning:



This one shows how wide the mosaic border is. The white tile will continue above the mosaics to the ceiling:



It's been a more labor intensive tiling job than the "tile guy" first thought. But he is doing an absolutely beautiful job. I'll probably be taking longer showers just to admire the tile. I am sure his other construction work is just as well done, so I highly recommend Dastrup Construction.

I finished writing this post and was about to publish it when I saw something in the above picture that made my heart just sink. Do you see it? The mosaic tiles above the inset shelf are not very random, in fact they are down right regular...in a ziggedy zaggedy way. I tried not to see it. I thought maybe I was just noticing it because of the lighting. Mosaic tile comes pre-arranged in sheets so it's not the tilers fault. They certainly didn't lay the individual tiles that way. Somehow the sheets, which are 12x12, must have come that way. But I knew it was speak now or forever live with the tile because tomorrow they're going to grout. The tile guys now see the issue and they're fixing it. Crisis averted.

The other projects are progressing. The bedroom drywall is up and after the tiling is finished, the drywaller will come back to tape, mud, and smooth out the joints. There are eight 4" diameter recessed lights in the ceiling (yay - light!) and the contractor repositioned electrical outlets so they are more accessible and added one more. The ceiling fan box is also wired. This is the fan we're thinking of getting. It will have maple blades and a brushed nickel housing:

(picture from Modern Fan Company)

The contractor is also building our custom bathroom vanity. It will be maple with brushed steel cylindrical feet and stainless steel drawer pulls. We're still mulling over the idea of a stainless vanity sink. But I hear from those who have stainless bathroom sinks that while they look great when clean, they dirty easily with toothpaste, water spots, and finger prints. A basic white sink hides a lot of those messes.

The front of the house (where this whole project first started) is also almost finished. The front doors are being stained and will be installed once the interior workmen are finished going in and out so we can minimize wear and tear on the new door.

So it looks like a few more weeks to go. I think we (as in me and the husband) will be refinishing the floors, putting in closet organizers, painting, and installing the light fixtures and ceiling fan. All things we've done before. We've also done tiling, drywall, and electrical ourselves but it's been good to pay someone else to do these things this time, especially after seeing how difficult the tiling is.

A new window on the world

The new bay window arrived this week and it was installed today. It has really opened up the view. The old window was about the size of the center window, which was still a good-size window but now it's even better. And it's made a larger place for the cats to sit. You can see that Felix already approves.

The plan is to build a window seat across the bottom width of the window with drawers in it for storage and there will be built-in bookshelves on either side.

And if you're wondering what the "polka dots" are, they're remnants of the glue that held on the wainscoting. Lots more work to be done!

Bathroom update

I am an HGTV-junkie and I am most impressed by the beautiful drawings that some of the designers make to show their clients what their new rooms will look like. I particularly like the drawings Candice Olson does. I could not find an example of her sketches on the HGTV website (I assume she does them herself), but I so wish I could draw like that. Since I am the interior designer on this bathroom project (should I add that to my resume?), I found that I needed to sketch my ideas out for our contractor. In the past, when my husband and I did the work ourselves, I relied on his husband-ly telepathic abilities...which work so well as all wives know. Actually I would give him vague ideas of what I wanted and wave my arms around and gesture a lot. I talked of colors and textures and all he wanted to know was where the lights needed to be wired. Somehow the kitchen ended up exactly how I envisioned it. Perhaps he really does have telepathic abilities; however, I know our contractor does not so I actually dug out my sketch pad and colored pencils and made an attempt to provide a description of the tile layout to him and the guy who will be installing the tile (who I don't know but I doubt he's telepathic either). And now I will share it with all of you. I took a photo of my sketches, so they're not all that clear, but hopefully you'll get the idea.

Click to view larger...

The tile for both the floor and the shower floor is blue-gray with hints of brown. It's a porcelain tile from Italy (TC Textile) and it has texture to it, kind of like grass cloth. We'll be using large 13"x26" tile on the floor and small squares on the shower floor. We got the idea from the tile store. Here's a photo from their showroom mock-up:

The wall tile is an 8"x13" porcelain tile (Line Blanco) from Spain that is white with faint vertical brown streaks. The mosaic tile is from Mandala tile, Wavelength blend in the Rimini color, but the picture on their website doesn't really look like it does in real life. It goes really well with the two other tiles.

So it will be a modern bathroom, but not too far out. I know the last concept pictures I showed were of a more neutral bathroom with stone tiles but we decided to go with my original desire to incorporate glass mosaic tile. I think it will look great.

The skylight is in and it's fabulous to have afternoon sun in that part of the house. I want to put skylights all over the house now! All the electrical and plumbing is finished and the contractor planned to finish the shower and tape the drywall today. The bay window for the bedroom arrives on Wednesday so he'll shift gears to install that and finish the siding. The front door should arrive next week. I'll be getting my sketchpad out again to draw up my ideas for the bathroom vanity and the bookshelves/window seat that the contractor will be building for us. I kinda like being a designer.