Both bedrooms (and thus all my painting except the bathroom) are finished!  I love my new room – it is so soothing to wake up in the pretty green, and it looks lovely with the woodwork!

I bought a new Duvet cover (Martha Stewart for Macys) and I painted my headboard.  Previously is was sort of oaky colored (my Dad made it for me, but he was ok with the paint – it was not nice wood.)  The trunk was refinished for me by my Dad also (he is an antique refinisher by trade, mostly old trunks.)  It’s a patterned tin trunk with green and copper… it goes so well in the room!

The fireplace screen I painted after determining that it was made of brass, not cast iron, so it was not black underneath the old paint.  The paint claimed to be matte, but clearly it is not, so I only applied one coat to keep it from looking too new.  It looks nicely old in person.

And my owls have a home at last!  I bought these for a dollar at a thrift store last year.

I also bought curtains for this room and the guest room at IKEA this weekend, but I have not gotten around to putting them up.  They’re just white sheers anyway, so use your imagination.  I’m not really much of a curtain person, but I am even less of a blind person and these windows face the very busy street!

The guest room is also finished!  The walls are slightly less bright than they look here, but they are very pretty.  I also painted this headboard (it was a giveaway item we took, and it was a bright shiny fake brass finish before.)  The wall to the left has several black and white photos, and I’m planning on adding a few more.  This room also has a dresser and a desk, and it is pretty crowded, thus the lack of photos.  It also gets the most light of any room in the house.

I hope you have all enjoyed my house painting pictures… there will be more when we do the bathroom (as soon as we sell the condo, which is taking forever… our real estate agent now wants us to paint parts of it, but I am not convinced that would make any difference.)

In knitting news…

I am knitting a parallelogram.

According to my swatch (and to others on ravelry with the same experience) this will blockout (perhaps it is a problem with the irish moss stitch?) even so… it is disconcerting, and it’s hard to measure my progress!

I am enjoying the stitch, which is nice and mindless.  Mine is coming out quite small, but that’s ok with me – it will stretch, and I don’t want mine to be too big the way it seems many have been.  Love the Colrain again… I had almost forgotten what a great knitting experience it is!

I bought the new Debbie Bliss knitting magazine this week.  Let me say that I am not the largest fan of her patterns.  She seems to believe that every pattern needs at least 2″ of positive ease, and I know this is not the case.  But I love these three patterns, so in spite of some slight resizing being needed I bought the magazine.

I especially like that cabled vest thing, and I plan to make it (but not out of cashmerino aran.)  I have wanted to make Juliet (the last sweater) but I could not bring myself to buy the book it’s in for one pattern.  And the fair isle dress is lovely, though I doubt I would make it.

Most of the patterns here are from older debbie bliss books, so if you have some of her books I would use caution before buying this.  Otherwise, at $7.99 I think it’s a good deal.  Just be aware if (like me) you are on the *ahem* less busty side that you will not find much under a 35″ bust.