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gosh-more Easter? Yup, sorry.
Here are the cards we sent out this year. And all from my stash here in the craft room-not one single thing purchased for this project (well, not purchased recently-you know what I mean) so-I only made 10 cards-sorry to friends/family who didn't get one-I burnt out and am officially using the "2 kids under the age of 3" excuse to those of you left out.-So, lots of Easter love a few days late!
She lives here now. I splurged and got this blue bunny from Camilla Engman. She is so lovely.
and look at the swap I got from The Small Object! I think Sarah (might have gotten the short end of the deal-I made out like a bandit! It was all gift wrapped so pretty-she sent me postcards, a photo album, original artwork (!)
and the Family Tree I coveted so much! Wow! I raved about her last week and am a bit stalker-ish about her illustration style, and now I have all this stuff from her-too much! Nice-happy-crafting- goodness-overload! Must drink some coffee now, go for a walk and calm down. . .
Easter was wonderful-albeit very rainy. Here's some cupcakes Grammie made with chick-in-red bonnets toppers that I had to have from the decorette shop.
and Grammie made the chicken cupcakes from the March Martha Stewart magazine
On the way home from the chiropractor today (pinched a nerve and woke up with such a pain, I looked like I was wearing an invisible neck cast all morning, charming!) I was able to score some Easter decorations half-off today. Love the day after sales. And love the fact that one of the shops that sells this sort off stuff in next door to the chiropractor. . .I feel much better now.
Before I show the tutorial about tying off a simple quilt-I have to talk about Mecozy. Multi-talented artist Kerstin Svendsen makes quilted tea cozies. Yes, I said quilted tea cozies. They are minimal and wonderful and so lovely-please go take a look at her shop. She also has a nice weblog (and thanks for the mention, Kerstin!)
okay-here's the visuial tutorial on tying off a quilt-which was mentioned last week as a way to keep your precious fabric intact beacuse you are too in love with it to cut it up.
Pretend this is a big quilt, not the small little thing I'm showing for this demo-Layer the backing, batting and top, and smooth out. Then pin no less than 6" apart in rows and columns. This will take a long time-smooth as you go and tell puckering to take a hike- If you have created quilt blocks, you can pin at the corners and in the middle of each block.
Next-using yarn (you can also use embroidery floss) stick the needle through all 3 layers at each pinned spot. Go up and down, and then to the next pinned spot-leave the long strand in-between. You will cut at the end, just keep sewing. When you have all your pinned spots sewn through, cut the yarn in the middle of each section-so you have tails to tie in a square knot.
Tie each in a square knot and then trim, leaving about 1/2" tail-
here's the back-you can see the little spots where the yarn has gone through. If you really don't want anything distracting from your lovely top fabric-you can tie the knots on the back. Then the front will look like this (of course, you can also match the yarn to the fabric, so it won't show as much)
Here is a lovely vintage quilt of mine that has been tied off. You can see the yarn tails where the points match up. Now you just have to bind the quilt and you are done! Binding is it's own subject-and I suggest a book for this. There are several ways to do it, so there is no need to re-invent the wheel and make up your own way (which I am always tempted to do and always regret!) I like this book-but any book that covers binding should help-checking one out from the library is a great way to go, too. Hope this helps and send me photos of your whole cloth quilts if you try this!
these kitty heads have a lot to say! happy easter.
Here's the "nap pillow" Grammie made for Sadie. Amanda was talking about Amy Butler's patterns on SouleMama-this is the only one I have experience with-although I bought many more. Mom said the petals were hard-but she busted this out for me in a weekend!
Here's the back-I gave her a huge pile of fabrics that I hadn't used from my stash and she did this great scrappy back-this was not in the pattern.
And check out this CUTE spider!! This is in the pattern-it's a good one. The whole flower cover comes off the pillow form (which you also have to make) so it can be washed-but it gets a bit lumpy when it comes out of the dryer because the petals are stuffed as well. The babies LOVE it. Thanks Grammie!
This is my favorite sewing book ever. I got it in college and use it all the time. It's especially good for crafters who like to make up their own patterns-so you don't have to re-invent how to put in a zipper, etc.
When I asked my costume instructor which general sewing book I should buy, she said this one, and boy was she right. Plus it has all these really groovy patterns and photos which are amazing.
look at this "garden smock"!! too cool. I can't believe that I haven't made this one yet.
I'm feeling the power of the internet. I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling this way, but sometimes I just get so dang HAPPY that I can say hi to such amazing talent out there-for example, I fell in love with this Family Tree print over at The Small Object that Sarah did (this is a detail) and then just decided to say "hi" and tell her how much I loved everything over there that she sells-then she said "hi" back and now I am totally happy.
Also, Tania has a lovely new spring look and a lovely illustration up now for illustration friday (which I will participate in next week-my new goal. at least once a month) I finally said "hi" to her after lurking on her blog forever. And again, she said "hi" back. See the happiness?
I also am feeling that special kind of funny mama pain with this from Amanda over at SouleMama-please read it-it's too good-
as is this from Krystyn over at coffeegirlstudios, scroll down to the very bottom to read "girls don't have wieners"-mothers of young boys will laugh even harder.
Hooray computer!
Image from The Crewelwork Company
I really want to learn how to do crewel work. I haven't even tried but I know it will be next on my list of crafts. I can't wait to start this pattern I have as a kit published by The Crewel Work Company.
Image from wool & hoop
This design is from Wool and Hoop, which is such a great company I think everyone should buy a pattern from the designer, Katherine Shaughnessy.
Okay-enough digging around for needles-
I made this little felt needle case this weekend while I was working on my small quilts. I realized I needed a better way to keep tack of my needles after the 100th time of digging in here-
which is where they all used to be!
"don't believe this one-eyed cat"
This hangs in the house of a close friend, a gift for her birthday. That is cat poop in the lower left corner. The photo is too dark too see this well-but it says "liar" on there with an arrow.
What do you do when you love a piece of fabric so much you don't want to cut it up to make a quilt? Hanna is facing such a dilemma, and I have as well. Here is a really simple quilt Grammie made for Sadie. Now of course, Grammie made parts of it quite complex, prairie points at edge, and some fancy quilting on border, but the gist of it is-just take your fabric add a border and binding, and you are done.
Grammie did a simple diamond pattern machine quilted over the main fabric. You could also tie this off and forget the whole machine quilting altogether.
To celebrate the first day of Spring today-this is what I had for dinner last night and for breakfast this morning.
Last night was a semi-failure craft night. I don't really want to talk about it-but I will tell you it involved fabric dye and a lot of great ideas that didn't really pan out.
So here is a photo of a project that DID work-Sadie's spring jacket fits perfect for Easter (made way too big last fall) if I were cool-I'd actually show you what Sadie looks like in it-but that would invole standing-which isn't going to happen right now-so, for now I am uncool.
Great Grandma Birchie's vintage buttons from her button tin-when my mom (grammie) asked why she didn't get the button tin handed down to her-my grandmother replied "I never remember seeing you mend anything." My grandmother was one sassy dame!
Our kids have small heads. Really small heads. Our pediatrician told us her theory about head size vs. baby behavior. "small head busy body-big head dreamer." Well- both of our girls are quite busy, needless to say. I sewed this hat in a pinch for Sadie yesterday, and I made it way too small. Lucky me-I can put on baby #2-So, baby Delia gets another hat, and Sadie still has none. Lame mommy-life is already unfair.
My first little egg cup has two new friends. The middle one I picked up thrifting a couple weeks ago, and the one on the right was sent to me by Sharon-thank you! They look so happy together, they will have to stay out all year around.
I really love listening to the radio, especially radio shows like This American Life and The Next Big Thing. And one of my favorite contributers on The Next Big Thing is Miranda July. When I am sad or a bit down I spend a lot of time streaming these audio files and marvel at how great this world is that we can expierence all these shows for free.
One of the funniest things I've heard in a long time by her was here. (Scroll down and click on the "Arguments" audio file.) This is a project where she asked people to send in a transcript of an argument and she then had actors re-enact them. Really funny. She also has an ongoing project at Learning to Love you More.
You can buy this really cute radio here-and support NPR!
I have been loving Karen's creations for awhile-and now look at this new crazy cute felt from kraf-O-La !
And I am super excited about Bitchen Kitchen which is a great recipe sharing project started over at CoffeeGirl Studios-check it out, share a recipe and spread the word!
This is my most prized vintage cookbook in my collection handed down to me from Great-Grandma Nina. I never had the pleasure of meeting Nina, but apparently she was a wonderful woman who was hard of hearing most of her life, had a penchant for bingo, and thought that this girl on the Jello book looked EXACTLY like her. According to my mom, it did!
these are such amazing illustrations. I love the mushrooms. And look at that Jello! I hate the stuff, but I wish I liked it so I could eat these . .
I also have Jello molds-they are so pretty. I have a glass one almost exactly like this one.
And look! Nina is showing us how to do our daily exercises to work off all that Jello! All cookbooks should have exercises-wait, no, I take that back. Bad idea.
Bye Nina! I wish I had known you!! I'm so glad you kept this cookbook!!
so-it's Monday which means it's a quilt day! So far,I have only shown my quilts, which are either of the small or modern variety, so to mix it up a bit Log Cabin quilts are the theme this week. I've read some mention of them lately, Hillary mentioned one here, and Maggie has already started one.
This amazing Log Cabin quilt was made by my mom (you know her in the comments section as "grammie") for my second daughter Delia Jean. She brought it to the hospital when Delia was born. It's about 42" x 42" and look at all these tiny pieces! This is all from her scrap and the center squares are no larger than about 1/2"! Beautiful machine quilting on an angle, which is why it has that beautiful slanted look.
center detail-it's amazing with all the diagonal quilting, it doesn't even look like a Log Cabin.
Detail-look at the "orange slices" she machine quilted in the border.
This is a vintage Log Cabin quilt from the April 2005, Better Homes and Garden American Patchwork & Quilting Magazine, which in an interesting little article on the history of Log Cabins, features this quilt, and has a pattern of it.
Deatil of a block-lots of shirtings in this quilt.
and this lovely vintage quilt is from the museumlink illinois-
I get so much inspiration looking at vintage quilts. I love the irregularity and imperfection, and of course the worn out feeling only time can provide. There are so many ways to set these Log Cabin squares-it's such a beautiful and historically rich block. And a wonderful way to use fabric bits that are too small for other blocks, but can't thow away.
and look what mom did with her extra blocks! Chicken bean bags! When by brother asked what you do with them she said, "you huck them!" well okay then! mom is rad.
Well it's been a big week here in Portland. Mt. St. Helen's blew up, Portland, known for our rainy weather, is now in a drought, and apparently, according to the local paper, we are in the height of a fondue craze. Who knew??
I have never tried fondue, not at fondue restaurant. . it seems like a lot of mouth burning to me. Also, I don't eat meat-so that leaves bread and dessert-which sounds good, don't get me wrong. But with the toddler and baby and hot oil and cheese and all that.
I was talking to my brother about this new trend spun by the local media with nothing better to write about and he informed me one of his good buddies "will not eat fondue with another guy." I think this is the funniest thing I've heard all month. I don't even want to know the details. Let's just leave it at that.
I saw these pillows by salvor the other day on Design*Sponge and they really got to me- Design*Sponge finds such great stuff and she shows so many images, I had to post these again so I could look at them all day. They are so primitive and yet so modern too. I really have been avoiding things that look too "designy" lately, or things that are too serious, and these are perfect for my design mood right now. I have a decent amount of mid-century modern furniture, textiles and accessories, but I find I'm gravitating to more rustic, crazy things again. These remind me of weird taxidermy or something. I wish there was a pillow with antlers. . .maybe I will do something like that.
This is our favorite shirt of Sadie's. We got this at a great local kids store here in Portland called Grasshopper, where I also sell kingpod bibs. When I did a little research for this post I had a really hard time finding this shirt! It's made by a company called Shrnk (sic)-and as you can see, it is way cool. . . .Grasshopper just got some more in, but only 6-12 months and 12-18 months.503-335-3131
I just can't get enough of this stuff from christmas traditions-
I love it when christmas stuff, in this case a bottle brush tree, crosses over to other holidays, like "let's s make it pink and add bunnies and call it easter" 
So, I am already combing stores in Portland to see what's out there and then the monday after easter I am running to buy these things on sale. so, look out!
my art friends and I are a bit stalkerish about Seattle artist Susan Dory. These pieces are enamel on paper-
I think they would be wonderful quilts-
I really need to get my art slides scanned-add that to my to-do list. . .
so much patternist-style artwork leaves me cold, but there is such a human, hand made quailty to these pieces, I love them. They also are so mid-1960's cool without being too obviously retro.
I was pretty excited last month with all my kingpod orders. Although most of the small quilts had sold long ago-I did sell some clothes this last month. Then I added up my expenses. Not so good. So I promised myself to only use from my existing stash for new designs. Then I promptly went out about an hour later and bought all this. bad, bad, me. I am bad.
so far-this is the extent of my easter decorating. I really want to go all or nothing with holiday decorating, so I usually end up doing very little. Probably for the best since we have to fight Sadie every night not to take the little chick to bed with her. But, can you blame her?
so-to organize my brain I have decided to post all quilt-type stuff on Mondays. Having said that-
here's one of mine called "rocks and sticks". This is the first in a series of 3 that I made about 1 1/2 years ago-I have shown them in Portland only once. So this is "rocks and sticks" second debut and she is so happy to get a chance to be seen! This is muslin with all other colors hand dyed by me. Machine pieced and machine quilted. I drew the machine stitching pattern on and used my mom's Gammill to machine stitch. Overall size is about 50:W x 40"H.
here's some stitching detail. This is so hard to photograph well. .
organic shapes in the machine quilting pattern, leaving the pieced pattern more rigid.
the "rocks" are machine appliqued with a zig-zag
this looks like rocks being dropped in a puddle of water.
these are all made of paper!
aren't they amazing! they're from the book The Great Paper Toy Show, by Makiko Azakami
according to the book-she started doing these at work-what a way to kill time in a boring meeting!
when I was really into bookbinding/box making (I still love you, book arts!) I made this little sewing kit. It's a clamshell style box, which is covered in Liberty cotton bookcloth I made, using wheatpaste and all that.
An amazing teacher taught this craft class in Eugene, OR. and she designed this. The cool thing is that everything fits so snug. The tape measure is stuck on with velcro and the little pockets are so fun.
And the card with all the attached sewing goodies comes out! You can see my horribly tarnished needlecase. I miss taking classes! I need to take another one soon-
These sweet little creatures were sleeping in Sadie's stocking this christmas and have been a wonderful addition to our household. Oh wait. . .something is not right. .
oh-that is so much better!
these little guys are going to be small quilts soon-I'm posting this to give myself a kick in the arse to start working on them and stop surfing the internet all day. Talk about baby neglect. .
you know when you get excited and a little sick at the same time? that's how I felt when I thumbed through the new Crate and Barrel catalog today-and fell in love with this quilt. I read the description more closely and saw that it is our beloved Denyse Schmidt, who is now making quilts for Crate and Barrel. I remember when she was gallery only and had Amish ladies hand quilting her work, then did a whole cloth line to the trade only (I think) that was machine quilted, and now has really hit critical mass. I feel happy and sad-happy that the desire for high quality design in quilts is there and sad that a queen size is $199 and no doubt that hand quilting is done with very cheap labor. Not that success is bad (would I turn down the chance to design quilts for a company? heck no!:) It's just quilts take SO LONG to make-it's hard to see them so cheap and easy to buy. It's like when a precious object you are collecting gets reproduced for everyone to find-and you can buy it anywhere-like. . .
Eva Zeisel!!I have always wanted to start collecting -and now I can-so the crate and barrel made me happy and sad. . .
wow-what is it? I'm not sure, but it's about easter, and I love it! All these little goodies are available at christmas traditions, which has a ton of holiday stuff-some of it way too cute (not in a good way), and some is cute/strange-the best kind.
what happened to his little arm? so sweet and sad-
frog juggling eggs = easter. rad shorts.
I didn't get around to making anything for this month of softies, but since the theme was Alice in Wonderland, I thought I'd honor my favorite children's book illustrator, Lizbeth Zwerger, by showing her book of Alice in Wonderland. I have almost all her books-they are so sparse, quiet, and minimal, they blow my mind.
the caterpillar smoking a hookah and having a good time
I love her red tights.
