angry chicken

in the bag

I had a great day thrifting for vintage fabric last week.

I found 3 (!) unfinished quilt tops, one that had been already hacked up. They are all from the 30's and hand pieced-so very very nice.

this one is my favorite, and was the one already hacked up, so I didn't feel bad when I made it into this-

a special handbag for a certain someone who had a birthday this week. It comes with a handy coin purse and an "H" The lining is from that old sheet I keep making projects from, it is huge!! I used a super stiff sew in interfacing for this and I am really happy with how it turned out.

thursday is the day!

so, tomorrow is the apron deadline for the June Tie One On. This stylin' photo came from Hannah, who is celebrating her 29th b-day today, happy b-day!

some one you (at least 2) have posted aprons on your weblog, but have not e-mailed me links or photos of them. So, if this sounds like something you may have done, please e-mail me the goods, otherwise I may have a brain fade and forget to dig them up when I'm doing the gallery.

mail and such

kelly tucked all these goodies in the box when she returned books to me from our book loan swap. I am very lucky indeed! look at the peach! Sadie loves to eat it-which is really funny because she won't eat real fruit at all. and she eats this one with real gusto. I actually have to take it away from her. also, notice the wooden egg cup with spoon, the little chicken right next to it, which lays little eggs (kind of creepy and wonderful at the same time!) and lovely fabric and knick-knacks. thank you!

and Helen sent me this packet of lovelies. Wonderful craft books from the 70's, which are both odd and inspiring in the best way. Another reason to learn crochet. . .

hmm-reminds me of HR puffnstuff-

wonderful and so simple! look at the chicken!

again, creepy and good.

and this lovely apron! thank you! Helen also reminded me of this FUNNY weblog, which I seem to forget about-thanks Helen!

 

quilt monday

here is the commission wall quilt I have been working on for about a month now, and it is done! I am so happy. It's about 19"W x 30H". The patchwork is wool, cotton, and corduroy.

the flowers are light blue with orange quilting-it's hard to see here. It's all machine pieced with machine and hand applique. Machine and hand quilting details.

I used more raw edges in this piece and am really happy with the results.

It's called "quiet floating flowers". I love using a jaunty back fabric on my quilts. Here's the label. Now onto the next project. . .

more fun than an empty pool

summer has actually come to Portland-right on time, with it being the first week of summer. Sadie needed some skirts, so she got some. I sewed these up super fast (I love you , serger!) out of fabric that I was saving for skirts for me. . .

so, you may see mama and Sadie matching skirts here real soon, but I can't promise anything. Maybe baby Delia will get a matching hat too? or something else-must think .

on another crafting note-this book put out by rowan about 2 years ago is really swell. It features home interiors craft projects using Kaffe's line of fabric (remember him? before Amy Butler?) and I saw it here,at the link above, for $3.98!!! well-I paid a bit more for it than that, and it was worth every penny. Nothing earth shattering, just nice projects using nice fabric-very worth $3.98 (this place has a TON of cheap books-and a good kids selection too)

also, Daniel Clowes, my favorite comic artist of all time, (Chris Ware is #2) was interviewed on Fresh Air today. He has a new book out that I need to get pronto and the interview was good, but I wish it had been longer.

And, lastly, I have added a bunch of new posts to Tie One On, including a vintage apron sewing pattern photo gallery. I am very excited about this, so please take a peek. The "Home on the Range" apron submissions are due by the last day of June (next Thursday) I will post the new theme on Friday and hopefully get the apron gallery up by the following week (although we are expecting a new niece or nephew next Friday, very excited!!!-so there may be a slight delay)

popular dogs

From the land of king pod-these went to new homes this week. The not very nice dog seems to be the moving the fastest, which really surprises me. Shows what I know. Here's the breakdown so far based on most popular :
(Not to give an animals a complex. They don't know about each other. shh.)

 
So, the dog (you can't come up here) is in first, dusty the monkey, friendly deer, and I'm huge (elephant) come next-the other two not shown are even steven. hmmm. friendly deer has always been my favorite-then the elephant. interesting. . .

talking fiber

my library is sending me warning e-mails that I have had this Mary Frances book out too long. So, I took so photos and returned it.

wow. I love this outfit here. I know that this was wartime garb, not something to make light of, but this is a great look all the same.

I can't get enough of this illustrator-it's the same artist who did the Mary Frances Cooking Book. I think it's really hard to draw yarn, (try it!) yet here it is in all it's glory. It looks so heavy.

look at the faces on the needle heads. It appears one is happy and one is not so happy.

great advice.

yes they are, and lovely box.

notice wings with no arms, not wings and arms-you don't see that very much. wings instead of arms.

good bye!!

quilt monday-delia's quilt

Grammie finished Delia's quilt and gave it to her recently. It's is so lovely. I believe the pattern is called crossed canoes, and it's foundation paper-pieced, machine pieced and quilted.I especially love the pigeon toes around the border.

here's a detail. the pattern she choose for the all-over quilting and the border quilting is so cool. I wish it showed up better here in this photo.

and the label on the back! she used a transfer on fabric for the photo of Delia. It makes me teary eyed just seeing it here,and we have the quilt in person! The quilt is called "Delia's toes". Thank you grammie, I know she will treasure it forever.

papa day.

this was this morning. pete got no gifts because I am a bad, bad, mama.

but he got these! there is one left and I'm swear I'm going to save it for him.

family fun

 

here's my funny funny baby. sorry the other photo is so dark, but it was taken at 10:00pm last night when I thought pete had already put sadie to bed. I found this on the camera this morning. As you can see-she is not asleep.

I posted great photos from this japanese apron book on Tie One On-very lovely.

my apron

Here's my apron submission for Tie One On. For the "Home on the Range" theme, I went with a minimal western campy with abstract lasso thing. This is muslin cut on the bias and machine embellished. This novelty fabric is amazing. The cowboys all have names printed on it. This apron features Tex, Luke, and Owen. But some of the other names are: Hap, El Ray, Horace, Pole Cat, and Gus. Too good.

here's a shot of just the apron-

and with the matching pot holder, which loops through the ribbon I sewed on.

people are awesome

So, I have had a really hard last few days. With getting sick on friday and it blowing my whole weekend. It's so hard to have time go by with no crafting. I feel so close to getting done with so many projects, yet I can barely take a shower these days. ugh. The babies are wonderful but so busy and needing so much of my time. sigh. However, I know I will get my time soon-and with impeccable timing to cheer me up (and as a kick-ass b-day gift) I got this book from Karen last friday, and it is so amazing! I will post photos on Tie One On soon, but you can take a peek of the inside of this amazing apron book from Kay also (scroll down). And look at the postcard Karen sent! It is amazing! It's of her sweet needle-felted friend and I have always loved this little guy so much. I'm so happy to have a postcard of him! Karen, make more and sell them!

Oh-you may notice that I have made a Tie One On button at the left there. It's there for the taking. I would paste the code in here, but we did a bit of funky stuff specific to my templates, so I think it would less confusing to just let you all take it and do with it what you will . . and I have been getting quite a few apron submissions, keep them coming! They look amazing!

quilt monday

thank you thimble and dioramarama for posting about Denyse Schmidt's new quilt book coming out this September. I went to Chronicle Books to see what else they had, and found these fabric inspired stationary/notecards/journals by Denyse as well. Here are notecards with fabrics from her own vintage stash-

and this is a photo album.

 

and here's boxed notecards and an address book. I'm pretty excited for the book to come out to. Notice the apron (with ball fringe!) on the cover- very nice.

feeling better. .

bunch of stuff-firstly, thank you for all your concern and advice. I am feeling better, really. Lots of rest yesterday and the pain is almost gone. But don't think I'm gonna run around and craft all day, I will take care of myself, I promise.

I am soooo behind on show and tell. This lovely modbird came from Grammie (via Lisa) for my birthday. Lisa does such amazing work. This is even more special in person.

And here is the awesome fabric I just got from Laural-thank you!! Boy, some of these scream apron to me (but what doesn't nowadays??) And congrats to Amanda on her new shop! I hope she knows what she's in for! ;) 'cause she's gonna be busy, her bags look wonderful!

what the hell?

I woke up with a searing pain in my left boob, and after nursing all night (somehow through all the pain) my back went out, and now I feel like I my have an ear infection in my left ear (does this even happen to adults?) I don't think I have mastitis, (or am in denial?) but I feel horrible-so, I'm staying down today and made Pete call in sick. (and I was going to have a BBQ tonight, you know, with friends actually coming over! erggg!)

well, at least I have House of Flying Daggers and the first season of Starsky and Hutch (yes, the original) from netflix waiting for me. bah. And here is this amazing link from my brother. It's of the sad/funny/weird/amy saderis humor/variety. I've read it about 5 times now. wow.

mail and birds

show and tell. here is an amazing package that came in from the crochet bird pattern swap from a few weeks ago. Laurie, over at liquid paper, sent all these goodies, including this fish pin cushion (with sweet little handmade pins! that there is a little chicken on one of them) and sweet b-day wishes. I especially love the pencil bundle. thank you!
to all bird pattern takers-I'm getting all your swaps everyone, thank you, so much good stuff!

 

and Debbie sent these photos of one of the birds she made from the bird pattern. Her e-mail was so funny, self-deprecating and silly, my favorite type of humor. This is her "chicken-hawk eagle robin" and I believe it's from the eagle pattern, which is totally awesome because it doesn't look anything like the original pattern. She rocks.

and this from Claire. She was needing this magazine and was having a hard time finding it locally, so I begged to send her one. well, not begged, but you know what I mean. I think I am not alone in wanting to swap with Claire for anything. These are lovely fabrics-my favortie being the green with the little duck in the background. Mail is good.

It's camilla day

I think it is officially Camilla day. I got her print here (are there any left? probably not by the time this posts, but congrats to Camilla!) and I know all my webby friends probably have theirs too. Hooray! What I great thing tiny showcase has going on. Now, not to be annoying, but I have been hiding for about 2 weeks now, until today, to show it, because it's Camilla day-

Yes. I bought an original Camilla painting, and yes, it is stunning and even better in person. Now, along with blue bunny, and the print above, I feel complete. (Well, I could always have more, but you know what I mean.)

I almost started crying

I went to the Asian market by my mom's house over the weekend and found some new craft books. This one is called Kid's Drawings (isbn 4-7762-0113-5) and I sort of freaked out. I really freaked out. I spent way too much money (although, less than half of what I would have spent on eBay) but I officially can only go there once a season now. A new rule for myself. sigh. so, all the books I got (4) caused me to feel almost sick. The photography, ideas, everything. I can barely write about it. Every idea in this book is beautiful. Lots of raw edges and deconstructed designs that compliment the kid's artwork so well. More of idea book than an actual how to-but I like that better anyway. No rules to follow, make it up as you go.

There has been a lot floating around about inspiration from kid's drawings (hillary, amanda, and where else? somewhere, I can't remember right now.) I love it when we are all looking at things at the same time. A craft wave is so inspirational. Here is a stuffed lion made into a clock.

slippers with stitched kid's art

kid's art etched onto glasses

bean bags? paper weights? I'm not sure, but who cares, they are so wonderful. I will post the other books later, after I have absorbed them all. They are mostly from a publisher called Cafe Time Books, which uses designs from a much of designers-who all have bios and websites in the back (all in Japanese)

quilt monday-inspiration

here's a few images form a new Japanese craft book (isbn 4-391-62040-5) I picked up over the weekend. I can't figure out the name of it quite yet. This quilt above reminds me of early denyse schmidt. lovely tablecloth-hmmm.

elegant, minimal and lovely.

tie one on is up and running!

here it is!
I have linked to it too-see under my weblogs at left. A link button is one the way. thanks for all your excitement and encouragement!

fashion sense runs in the family

This is what Sadie decided to wear to the park, and then to dairy queen. Love the hat-that was a last minute request.

and we're off!

Wow! Thanks for all your comments! Okay, after dreaming about this endeavor, here's some more info. I'm going to set up a separate weblog for all this apron mania. Then we can all have a great apron resource with links, and an easy place to access the gallery each month. So, stay tuned for that. Also, the official name for this monthly project is called "tie one on" (thanks so much debbie for the great name!!)

I will make a button link soon, and again, the theme for June's apron is "Home on the Range" so think cowboys, cows, horses, you know, that kind of stuff. Oh, how I love kitsch! Thanks again you crazy webby crafters!! And when the weblog is up, I will be asking you all to send links from all your great apron posts out there.

apron of the month!

 

I can't stop thinking or talking about aprons, so how about "apron of the month"?  Here are my thoughts. Pretty similar to month of softies, just with aprons. There will be a theme, we all make an apron, you e-mail me the photo with your info, (no weblog needed! Erin and Leslie, I'm talking to you here!) then I will set up the gallery on flickr, (like myra did for the postcard swap.)

Sound good? I think so! The beauty of aprons is they can be made from any fabric, trimmed in so many ways, and are really such a great blank canvas, the choices are limitless! And they are small! ie: do-able.  (What a great way to use up your stash!) And then you can wear them! You can sew, draw, paint, embroider and/or glue on them. Anything goes here in terms of materials, not just limited to fabric. Think crocheted or even a paper or plastic apron! And the pockets! Ahhh, so many cool details to design and ponder.

My only rule is that they need to be created, not thrifted or bought. I love vintage aprons, you all know I do, but this is about putting newly created aprons into the world so future generations have something to collect, and so we, the next generation of textile lovers, have something to say. (Also, A little bird told me there might be a fun place to show/swap vintage aprons coming soon, so us thrift-hounds can get our fix there.)

So, please comment to let me know what you all think-I'd love to see how much interest there is, and if there is enough to generate this on a monthly basis. If you are game-the theme for June is Home on the Range. I will make a button link soon. Please spread the word about apron of the month! And please e-mail the photo of your apron to me by June 30. The photos above are of Sadie and I in aprons that were my mom's and grandmother's. Matching, of course.