you know what i love?

… more snow

2012-01-19T20:56:00.000-08:00

still snowing

still sewing

still drinking cocoa (this time with a side of chocolate chip cookies)

it's a good day for being still

(p.s. can you tell i'm on instagram? i'm @arajaneo, if you want to be friends!)

… a snow day

2012-01-18T21:28:00.000-08:00

we rarely get snow in seattle, so it was so exciting to have several rounds of gorgeous whiteness descend on the city in the last few days.

on sunday, at the first snowfall, we ventured out with some friends for a walk with hot cider in hand. and took lots of ingrid's-first-snow pictures.

this morning, after several days of on-again-off-again snow, we woke to a serious blanket of white. i love it. and, even though everyone makes fun of us when it comes to snow, i love living in this city, where at the first sign of snow we all stay home from work, turn into giddy little children and venture outside to make snowmen, go sledding, and throw snowballs.

now excuse me while i sip some hot cocoa and admire this lovely landscape before it all melts away.

… stashing locally

2012-01-16T13:15:00.000-08:00

i really have to work to keep on top of my stashing habit. i mean, i need at least a yard of fabric for every week for the first year of my little one's life to maintain this photography project. and let me tell you, that's not easy!

last week i stopped in at my lqs, the quilting loft, to see what's new (to me). i found two large-scale floral prints and the smaller red floral print from the peacock lane collection. these are the kinds of prints i look for when i think about what would look good behind the little snowdrop. prints that are bigger, dramatic, and high contrast. unfortunately, these are not always the same kinds of prints that i am usually drawn to for quilting.

when i sew i tend to like small-scale designs, and lately i find i'm really into single-color, linear graphic designs. like that red grid print by kyla may for the smirk collection, or that green i heart squiggle print by rashida coleman hale. and always, always polka dots. i ordered this stack from drygoods design online, an absolutely lovely site run by the equally lovely keli, who i recently met via the seattle modern quilt guild. not only does she stock a terrific selection of gorgeous fabrics, but if you live in seattle she will hand-deliver the order to your house. i can't think of anything nicer than that. and even if you don't live in seattle your order is packaged up so sweetly (mine was tied with baker's twine and topped with a pixie stick!), she seems to offer great deals on shipping, and there are currently lots of great fabrics on sale.

(i should also point out that no one pays me to say anything nice. in fact, the thought is making me laugh to myself. it's probably pretty clear that i do not have sponsors or underwriters. all my fabrics are purchased by me alone and all my nice words are thought up by me. so when i say i like something, you can trust me that i honestly do mean it.)

so yay for adding to my stash and yay for quality local businesses!

now on with the sewing.

… making progress

2012-01-13T21:20:00.000-08:00

i had enough time this week to make another arkansas traveler. this one is all aqua. i am still in love with this block. good thing because i have 18 more to make.

and good thing i bought a new, gigantic cutting mat (super cheap with a coupon at joann--i've come to realize that if you're paying full price at joann, you're doing it wrong). i'd been getting by with an 18x24 mat for the past few years, which was fine for smaller projects, but cutting larger projects was a total pain in the butt. now i don't have to sidle around to the awkward side of my desk when i need to handle larger cuts of fabric and cram the hangover into my scrap baskets.

ah, sweet freedom!

and seriously, this new mat is terrific since i apparently had forgotten how much cutting is involved with making a whole quilt top. it's been that long since i've made one on my own, and i feel like i've spent hours and hours and hours just cutting. yikes!

and here are my two blocks together. i am so excited about the white space that is forming stars. i am seeing some beautiful quilting going on in there… beautiful quilting i'm not sure i can do myself. oh well. we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

… the new year

2012-01-09T21:38:00.000-08:00

happy new year! i finally took down the christmas tree today (i know, i know) and felt so sad that the holidays are over. there's this dark little corner in our living room that looks so empty now. sigh.

but i do like a fresh new year. every year we have a family motto. last year's was "don't be scared" and the year before that was "don't be a slave to comfort". this year it's "make it happen, cap'n!" i love it. there are so many things that i need to make happen. so many exciting things that i can't wait to share with you.

c's birthday is early january, and he doesn't like a big to-do about the occasion, but i made a little cake (lemon cake with lemon curd and cream cheese frosting… yum!) and we had a tiny family celebration.

we also had our annual new year's day party. we should really just call it the scone party. i make a whole bunch of my favorite scones and friends stop by throughout the day to say hi and welcome the new year. i have to admit, it was a whole bunch of work this year, what with having a baby to take care of, but still i love having this party. there's nothing like spending the first day of the year with good friends and good food.

let's see, what else have i been up to?

making herringbone blocks for rachel's quilt for do. good stitches.

becoming a pie ninja at the pantry at delancey. i would like to move into this kitchen, thank you very much.

fabric: joel dewberry rustic dots in peony (from the deer valley collection)

fabric: my mind's eye dot in purple (from the so sophie collection)

taking pictures of my little snowdrop, as usual.

and working on something new. meet my new favorite block, arkansas traveler. this was a block from the summer sampler series, but i'm so smitten with it i'm going to make a quilt made up of just this block. i honestly can't remember the last time i sewed something just because. i love it.

i'm making it happen, cap'n.

… handmade christmas gifts

2011-12-28T12:44:00.000-08:00

i am so glad i had a chance to make at least a couple of christmas gifts this year. it seemed like i had all the time in the world and then, whoosh! christmas was here and all those things i wanted to finish had to be set aside for another time. was i still sewing on christmas eve? you betcha!

but i squeezed in some time to make my nephew his own pencil roll. i made one for his sister last year, and he seemed to like hers quite a bit, so i figured this was a guaranteed winner.

i tried to make sure i didn't use any of the same prints for the inside that i did for my niece's pencil roll, and without checking first it turns out i only used one--the same print i used for white. i have very few white-dominant fabrics, it seems.

the outer fabric is by kokka, something i've had in my stash for quite a while just waiting for the perfect project. and i found the perfect red twill tape at joann to finish it off.

fabric: nancy mims of mod green pod poppies in aqua (from the pick a bunch collection)

and, oh my goodness, suddenly my baby looks very grown up! how and when did this happen?

… holiday baking

2011-12-24T23:31:00.000-08:00

at last, i got a chance to do my holiday baking. i know everyone gets overloaded with sweets around christmas, but i just can't help myself. i like to bake some nice things for our lovely neighbors to enjoy to say thank you for being such terrific friends.

this year i found some cute little martha stewart crafts boxes with four little divided sections at joann. i only started kicking myself for this yesterday, though, since i realized i committed myself to having to bake four different things. it was a baking frenzy, i tell you.

this year i made:
nutmeg sugar cookies with eggnog frosting
chocolate-covered caramelized matzoh crunch
cherry rum shortbread (the original recipe called for cranberries, which i don't like, so in went the cherries!)
apple cider toffee (this should have been apple cider caramels, but i suspect my candy thermometer is malfunctioning, since these came out rock hard. oh well, they are still delicious when called by a different name!)

everything was delicious, but the eggnog cookies were a big hit with c and his brother. i made some extras for us with a moose cookie cutter.

so much butter. and that's not even all of what i used. yikes.

and even though i do love baking, i am glad it's done.

i thought i might come back here and post tomorrow, but now i think i'd rather just relax and enjoy the day with my little family.

merry christmas!

… the christmas boats

2011-12-23T23:15:00.000-08:00

tonight we went down to portage bay with our friends j & t to see the christmas ships. this picture just doesn't do justice to the festive, bright, light-bedecked boats that filled the bay. i had never seen them before and it was just lovely. the seattle girls' choir sang carols from the main boat that played out over the water and at the end they invited everyone on shore to sing along to silent night. it was so heartening to see so many people out on the street and everyone so happy.

at the end of the singing they declared "ahoy to the world!" and the giant parade of christmas boats departed for the next stop on the caroling tour.

ahoy to the world, indeed!

… holiday sewing

2011-12-21T21:40:00.000-08:00

ever the optimist, i have taken up a couple of projects intended for christmas gifts. i just can't help myself.

wish me luck, i'm going to need it!

… wrapping presents

2011-12-20T23:40:00.000-08:00

tonight i am wrapping presents…

… and watching the shop around the corner.

… and drinking cocoa.

… and enjoying the view under the tree.

… a baby christmas

2011-12-19T22:15:00.000-08:00

fabric: vintage

i don't have much for you today aside from ingrid's weekly photo. but isn't it a good one?

and here are some outtakes from our photo session today. just to show you how many flavors of awesome this baby is.

and also how much work it is to get a good photograph of a baby in an ill-fitting santa hat.

merry christmas, baby!

… a winter walk

2011-12-18T22:07:00.000-08:00

i love me a good walk. and even though it isn't summer and i can't just throw on some flip-flops and take a stroll with my baby dressed just in a onesie, i still try to get out at least once a day. today we ambled through the woods and enjoyed the brisk winter air.

today was a good day.

… a holiday dress

2011-12-17T22:28:00.000-08:00

whew! i finished knitting this little dress for ingrid just in time for christmas. looking at my ravelry page for this one, i'm embarrassed to see that i started it way back in april. that only took me eight short months.

don't let my slowness fool you, though, this dress is easy peasy to make. it's knit in all one piece from the top down, so there's no pesky putting-together-of-the-pieces at the end. i like that very much.

the end result makes the perfect little christmas dress for the snowdrop. and it goes great with some ruffle-butted winter tights. adorable, i tell you, adorable.

… candy cane lane

2011-12-16T22:03:00.000-08:00

tonight we went for a stroll to candy cane lane. every city has one of these, right? ours is a sweet little tudor neighborhood that, lucky for us, is just a few blocks from our house so we can walk there. it's so popular that traffic can back up a half mile in either direction down the boulevard. people love candy cane lane. i do, too.

the only thing that could have made this any more lovely was if it was snowing. [sigh]

… doing good

2011-12-15T23:36:00.000-08:00

(whoops, it appears i missed posting yesterday. let's pretend i've just been sitting here with my feet up by the fireplace and somehow forgot to post in my happy blissed out state. sure!)

but here's some good news! i finally finished the august improv quilt for the love circle of do. good stitches. just in time for some warm holiday fuzzies. because one of the many great things about christmas is spending some time doing something good for others, right?

for this quilt i asked for improv-pieced blocks in browns, creams, yellows, and pinks. didn't everyone do a fabulous job? after much hemming and hawing i finally decided to go with that lighter linen for the sashing. i have come around to loving it, but honestly, it took me a while.

i also spent countless hours quilting this and then ripping out said quilting. some of that was due to my own stupid mistakes, and then some was due to me changing my mind repeatedly. i thought i'd try a kind of squiggly quilting within each of the blocks, but let me tell you, that looked terrible. so i went with a straight line grid. a double line around each block and a triple line on a diagonal running through the centers of each block. what i especially love it where all those lines intersect at the corners of each block. that makes me very, very happy.

you can see the quilting even better on the back. yay!

for the back i made a long improv strip with leftover scraps, and then used that awesome joel dewberry herringbone in two shades of brown. wow, that's a lot of brown.

and hey, the binding is even more brown! but it's a super duper awesome alexander henry heath.

ok, so here's where i went photo crazy and started taking pictures in front of the christmas tree because i want to photograph everything in front of the christmas tree right now.

and here's one more, because when you've got a chance to photograph a finished quilt in the golden glow of a christmas tree, you take it, right?

and a bonus since i forgot to post yesterday, here's my little snowdrop's 23 week photo. i love this one because it looks like she's breaking down some serious dance moves.

fabric: ikea by s. edholm and l. ullenius

… a quiet, cozy night

2011-12-13T22:47:00.000-08:00

tonight i am just appreciating some time on the sofa in front of the "fire". sometimes it's the little things.

… swanson's at christmas

2011-12-12T23:25:00.000-08:00

our favorite nursery, swanson's, goes all out in december. we visited yesterday to enjoy all the holiday goodness and stock up on poinsettias, cyclamen, mistletoe and greenery.

my favorite thing to see is the model train. this year the theme was the yukon, which made me giddy with its snowy, wintery loveliness.

they also have live reindeer, which all the kids love. (though ingrid, that clever little baby, slept through the whole thing. i suppose next year she might be more apt to appreciate it.)

everyone needs a charlie brown christmas tree, right? with a few lights, some ornaments, and linus's blanket, i'm sure this little guy will be looking great.

it really is starting to feel like christmas, isn't it?

… cookie party

2011-12-11T22:03:00.000-08:00

camera retrieved. it was a gael's house, so all is well and i can now tell you how fabulous cookie party was! i look forward to cookie party every year because it's a chance to see my lovely friends, make a whole mess of cookies, and eat a whole other mess of cookies. and then get sick of eating cookies. but then forget that i was sick of cookies and eat even more cookies. you know how it goes.

there were lots of yummy cookies this year. i'm a sucker for peanut butter kiss cookies (you know, the ones with a hershey's kiss plopped down on top). but there were some tasty tea cookies, sugar cookies, peppermint bark, toffee bars, chocolate crinkles and more i can't remember.

and we celebrated gael's upcoming birthday with some cake. happy birthday, gael!

i always admire gael's little people nativity. so cute!

there were cookies to decorate. i like admiring the handiwork of all the kids. some of them really know how to go for it.

yup, it never quite feels like the holidays without cookie party.

… decking the halls

2011-12-10T22:00:00.000-08:00

ok, that's much better. i had some time tonight to finish trimming the tree and decking the rest of the halls. i like lots of lights on the tree.

in years past we have had a blue and silver themed tree, but this year i decided we needed red. so thanks to ikea and target i can now bask in the glow of a very merry red tree.

i like pulling out my old ornaments, ones that i've had since i was a child, and putting them on the tree. my godmother used to send an angel ornament every year for christmas when i was growing up. even though i don't see or talk to her anymore, it still feels special to have those.

today we went to my friend gael's annual cookie party, and i had planned to write all about that but can't find my camera with all the pictures i took. i'm crossing my fingers that i left the camera at gael's and that it's safe and sound somewhere. but for now it's instagram photos and make-do posts.

i'm not complaining, though, since the house sure is pretty right now.

… decorating (almost)

2011-12-09T23:14:00.000-08:00

well, i had planned to have the tree up and trimmed, lights on, house decked out, santa mug filled with cocoa, feet up, kicking back and watching christmas movies by this point. what i do have is a bare tree and a handful of things on the mantle. things happen, you know, especially around this time of year, and things don't always go according to plan.

that's okay, i'm trying not to stress out about it. at least the tree smells nice.

… christmas movies

2011-12-08T23:23:00.000-08:00

i'm sure i'm not alone in my love for christmas movies, right? i love hunkering down with a mug of some aforementioned hot cocoa and getting in the holiday spirit. so i thought i'd share some of my favorites with you.

remember the night
this may be the best holiday movie ever. it stars barbara stanwyck as a petty thief who gets caught shoplifting just before christmas and fred macmurray as her prosecuting attorney. he wants the trial postponed until after the holidays because he thinks she'll get too much sympathy from the jury. but because he feels sorry for her he posts her bail and then ends up taking her home with him for christmas. what happens is entirely unexpected in a way. it is sweet and strange and silly. and fred macmurray and barbara stanwyck are the best (remember them in double indemnity?)

the shop around the corner
jimmy stewart and margaret sullavan play coworkers who despise each other in real life, but don't know that they are each other's secret pen pals (who are in love via mail). (sounds familiar, right? yup, you've got mail is more or less the same story.) this movie is terrific, and a bonus is that you can turn it into a drinking game by taking a swig every time someone says "matuschek". you'll be drunk within minutes.

meet me in st. louis
though it's not necessarily a christmas movie, pretty much the best part at the end takes place at christmas. and judy garland singing "have yourself a merry little christmas" is so lovely, it melts my heart. no one will ever sing that song as beautifully as she does.

the family stone
i don't know what it is about this movie, but i love it so. i know, i know, it's not great, but it gives me such warm fuzzies inside. it's got great house porn, it's got snow, it's got family drama, and rachel mcadams' character wears a dinosaur jr t-shirt at one point. total love. i watch it every year.

elf
everyone loves this movie, right? i'm not even that big a will ferrell fan, but still it rules. it has just the right balance of schmaltz and funny. plus, when zooey deschanel sing "baby it's cold outside" it's magic.

ok, so what about you? are there any movies you look forward to watching every christmas?

… hot cocoa on a cold day

2011-12-07T21:50:00.000-08:00

in the winter i become a cocoa connoisseur. hot cocoa is a nightly treat in our house, made with unsweetened almond milk. the last few weeks i have become a fan of the cocoa at oddfellows, where they top it with a homemade marshmallow. it's a terrific accompaniment to their toasted baguette and butter. it's such a great treat to warm my hands and my belly and my heart.

… a stocking for the snowdrop

2011-12-06T21:01:00.000-08:00

it's ingrid's first christmas! obviously, she needs a stocking.

i used this tutorial to make a simple lined stocking, but sized it up quite a bit. i also added a little tab so i could hang it up. i used an amy butler polka dot from the love collection on the outside and some kei honeycomb for the lining.

and then i added some little felt snowflakes that i made using this stocking tutorial on the purl bee to spruce it up. cute, right?

now, does anyone know what one should put in a baby's stocking? seriously, i have no idea.

… making the christmas pudding

2011-12-05T22:14:00.000-08:00

i got it together today to finally make the christmas pudding. this is definitely a happy day.

with my dried fruit completely brandy-soaked, it was time to get down to business. (there's raisins, currants, figs, apricots, tart cherries and candied lemon peel in there… yum!)

i am a fan of mise en place. it makes cooking and baking so much easier. and i know one is supposed to use suet when making a traditional plum pudding, but i don't believe in suet. so i use butter (the horror!).

everyone in the house is supposed to give the pudding a stir, but c was at work so the task fell to ingrid and me. ingrid is a surprisingly good stirrer.

i don't hide coins in the pudding, as one should traditionally, because… well, that's kind of gross.

so, the pudding spent the evening steaming away while it made the house smell delicious, and now it's been put away to rest in a cool place until christmas, when we will re-steam it for several hours, top it with a sprig of holly, flame it with brandy and enjoy the heck out of it.

fabric: lizzie house peeps towers in dusk (from the 1001 peeps collection)

and bonus christmas love! it's my 22-week-old baby. in other words, she turned five months yesterday. wow!

… holiday lights

2011-12-04T22:25:00.000-08:00

it has been a quiet day today. i had intended to make the christmas pudding, but forgot that i needed to soak the fruit in brandy overnight.

no big deal, though, i'll just make it tomorrow. meanwhile, visions of brandied fruits will dance in my head as i sleep tonight.

tonight i'm taking it easy, admiring the christmas lights on our street. if it didn't make us look like the laziest jerks ever, i would keep the lights up all year long.

… my wedding anniversary

2011-12-03T22:40:00.000-08:00

i am sitting here tonight eating year old wedding cake celebrating the fact that i got married one year ago today. huzzah! another reason why i love the month of december so very much.

and here's something i should have mentioned last year because it was all kinds of awesomeness. after returning home from new york, our neighbors threw us a surprise party to celebrate our wedding. our friend jenn made us an actual three-tiered wedding cake, one that featured polka dots to match my wedding tights. hence, the wedding cake we dined on tonight since we had none on the actual day. and our friend alice made this wedding cake topper based on our wedding photo.

seriously, i am not kidding. she got every detail right, down to the dots on my tights and the pattern on c's tie. it lives on our mantle now and i swoon over it pretty much every day.

in the spirit of giving paper for the first year, i got c this print. it's an a-to-z of new york icons, to celebrate the city of our elopement.

i know i've said it before, but i am one lucky lady. here's to many anniversaries to come!

… holiday music

2011-12-02T21:09:00.000-08:00

i am a total sucker for christmas music. in fact, it might be just a little true that i was listening to some christmas music a few days before thanksgiving this year. and last year i spent the entire month of december with the vince guaraldi peanuts christmas album playing in my car constantly. and i never got sick of it.

this year i have the new album from the lower lights, come let us adore him on repeat. you guys, it is so pretty. my favorite is probably "i heard the bells on christmas day" but they're all just so lovely. trust me.

i'm also digging the she and him christmas album. a couple of songs border on cloying, but mostly they are lovely. the first track, "the christmas waltz" is terrific.

and then there's always bing crosby. we had the actual record when i was a little kid and i remember being so excited to pull it out each christmas. bing crosby is pretty much the definition of christmas.

and so i've made this little christmas mix for you with a sampling of my favorites (including the lower lights, she and him, good ol' bing, nat king cole, vince guaraldi and more). what do i like in a good christmas song? i like warmth, i like happy, i definitely like a little melancholy, i like tradition. i'm not so much a fan of the gimmicky (e.g. santa got run over by a reindeer, you know what i mean) but i definitely like a little weirdness (prince's "another lonely christmas" as covered by dump is pretty spectacular).

so tell me, what's your favorite holiday music? anything else i should be listening to?

… a december advent

2011-12-01T23:23:00.000-08:00

i love the holidays. thanksgiving has always been one of my favorites, since it's about two of my most-loved things: family and food. and then christmas comes, with its sparkly lights and the smell of the tree and cozy indoor activities (because, let's face it, i am mostly a cozy indoor activities kind of person) and hot drinks and get-togethers with good friends. this year seems so very special to me, since i now have my own little family to celebrate the holidays with (aren't babies magic like that?). this year thanksgiving had me filled with gratitude for everything i have and i was reminded again about how important gratitude is when i read this article on the foundation of happiness. (go ahead, read it, it's not that long!)

in fact, it reminded me how much i miss this blog. not because i feel obligated to post here, but because i really sincerely miss the chance to remind myself on a regular basis how much there is to love in the world, which was why i started this thing in the first place.

so, just to get back in the habit, my aim is to post here every day until christmas, mostly about what i love about this time of year. i know, that's a lofty goal for someone who has managed to write one or two times a month since the little snowdrop made her appearance, but i think i can do it. consider this my own little advent calendar.

and speaking of advent calendars, i had big plans to make one this year to start a new family tradition. you know, one of those lovely fabric ones with little pockets that i would lovingly stash tiny presents inside to the delight of my daughter (yes, she is 5 months old and yes, she probably has no concept of an advent calendar yet). but… well… that never happened. luckily c's brother brought us a lego advent calendar two days ago, just in time for the 1st. oh happy day! still, i would like to plan on making one for next year and i pinned several for some inspiration.

source: the purl bee

source: noodlehead on gwenny penny

source: elizabeth hartman on sew, mama, sew!

aren't they just lovely? i should probably start one now to have it finished by next december, though.

and speaking of slow sewing, i am finally wrapping up my august (ahem) quilt for do. good stitches. binding was completed today and now all i have left is the best part: hand sewing it to the back. yay for cozy evenings on the couch with a needle and thread!

and speaking of my daughter (wait, we weren't? oh well…) here's a few weeks worth of pictures.

fabric: amy butler charisma in midnight (from the lark collection)

this was a terrible week. and a terrible picture on purpose. oh well, they can't all be winners.

fabric: violet craft parade day in grey (from the peacock lane collection)

fabric: anna maria horner in the clearing in autumn (from the loulouthi flannel collection)

i am so looking forward to this month. here's to celebrating the holidays with gratitude and purpose!

… catching up

2011-11-07T23:21:00.000-08:00

geez louise! where have i been? how about in lieu of telling you i just bombard you with a gazillion photos?

i worked on the do. good stitches august quilt a bit and managed to send off blocks to melanie for her october quilt in the nick of time. these are blocks for a trip around the world quilt that used a super nifty trick.

ingrid and i took a trip to the pacific antique mall. she was a very happy baby, what with so much to look at.

i am a magpie for all things sparkly-christmassy.

i stood staring at this painting forever and then decided that i needed to take it home with me. it is now hanging above our bed. i love it.

by the end of the excursion i had one sleepy baby on my hands.

we celebrated halloween by carving pumpkins and dressing ingrid up as a snowdrop. i made the little costume out of felt, though it took me several tries. my first attempt made her look like a kkk grand wizard. you do not need me to tell you how unfortunate that was.

here she is with her peps peeps. terrible photo, i know. but super adorable babies, right?

we spent a lot of time outdoors, at the japanese garden at the arboretum and at seward park. fall has been truly lovely in seattle.

we took ingrid out for her first ethiopian food, though we did all the eating. (the veggie combo is the tastiest deal around.)

we had a terrific little downtown adventure with a visit to the crumpet shop and an afternoon spent wandering around the seattle art museum. crumpets and art are a winning combo.

fabric: michael miller bicycles in citron

fabric: ikea by helen trast

fabric: liz scott painted flowers in cream chartreuse (from the sugar pop collection)

fabric: lotta jansdotter choma in bermuda (from the echo collection)

and i've been continuing to take my weekly photos. today's photo is on the new lotta jansdotter fabric. i am in love with this collection.

it has been ages since i've bought a complete fat quarter set, but i couldn't resist with this one. each and every fabric in this line is just so perfect.

now, if only i could find some time to sew with it!

… outings

2011-10-12T22:07:00.000-07:00

i am slowly but surely working on the august quilt for do. good stitches. i had it on the ironing board, pressing in progress, when i had to stop work and attend to other things. the next day i caught this scene as i walked by the sewing room and it looked so perfectly lovely i couldn't resist the shot.

i did end up going with the light flax linen for sashing. it started to grow on me and now i do love it. i also picked up backing fabric so, if everything goes right, i can have it finished in the next week or two.

last weekend we took a little day trip up to la conner for the annual quilt festival at the la conner quilt & textile museum. it was mostly an excuse to get out of town on a gorgeous day. and also look at quilts. that was nice, too.

i have a pretty terrific little family.

fabric: jessica jones tulip in dusk (from the outside oslo collection)

14 weeks! she's a keeper.

… a challenge

2011-10-03T22:25:00.000-07:00

yay for accomplishing things! as opposed to just sitting around and thinking of accomplishing things (as i am wont to do). the always-lovely amanda proposed that we all stop pinning and start doing. so i took her up on the challenge and baked a cake i pinned a while back to bring to our friends' house for dinner this weekend.

i made a root beer chocolate bundt cake from the kitchn. doesn't that sound heavenly? i am here to tell you that it was, so if you pinned this, too, you should go right ahead and make it. however, you might notice how terrible the frosting looks in my photo. and it's true, that frosting was no looker. it was so weirdly gloppy that i ended up applying it to the cake like putty. i'm not sure where went wrong, i know i followed the recipe perfectly, and i even put it in the food processor when it looked like it wouldn't come together, but still, it stayed super ugly. but honestly, it tasted so fan-feaking-tastic that i stopped caring how it looked pretty quickly. you really can taste the root beer in this cake, and it was insanely moist and dense and dark with that fudgey, intense frosting.

yum, yum, and yum.

fabric: anna maria horner fortune in sunset (from the folksy flannels collection)

and did you know that this whole ingrid-on-fabric project was inspired by something that i pinned? it's true! i'm making it happen, cap'n.

fabric: timeless treasures cotton lawn betty in cream (from the darling clementine collection)

(oh, i just love that little baby's smile. we are now able to make her laugh on cue by doing a comical stage whisper. i don't know why she's so tickled by that, but she is, and her laugh just melts my heart. swoon.)

so thanks, amanda, for the fun challenge and reminder that inspiration is just the first step and that actually following through can be so very satisfying.

… the fair

2011-09-26T17:10:00.000-07:00

last year i missed the puyallup fair and i was so very sad. i swore i wouldn't let it pass me by again and i stuck to my guns. this year i went with ingrid, c and our friend anika and her two little ones. plus, our friend, suze, gave ingrid this awesome wrangler onesie that was just screaming to be worn to the fair. how could i resist?

my favorite thing to do at the fair is see all the animals. sheep are my all-time favorite. i mean, look at those faces!

but the rabbits and hares were pretty cute this year.

and this camel, in the exotic animal barn, was killing me. that snaggletooth!

and a woman was showing off this hedgehog. it was impossible to get a non-blurry picture because he was a squirmy little guy.

my second favorite thing about the fair is fisher scones. i could eat a hundred of these.

(actually, i ate two and maxed out my sweetness capacity.)

this year i made time to see the quilts. even though most of these weren't my bag aesthetically, i still was in awe of the skill. my points never match up this good.

jams and jellies!

all in all, a successful trip. ingrid was a champ and was a happy camper the whole time. it was just c and i who got insanely tired and required naps when we got home.

… bats!

2011-09-18T21:33:00.000-07:00

i mean, hey, why not love bats? sure, i didn't really love them before we went on a bat walk the other week (in fact, maybe i was a little scared of them) but now i think they're pretty cool.

it was led by these two lovable and kooky volunteers from bats northwest.

they came with all sorts of visual aids and an unbridled enthusiasm for all things bats. seriously, these people really love bats.

they also had real taxidermic bats. eep!

but the real attraction was the bats who come to feed in the trees by greenlake at dusk. we waited as the sun set, and one of the bat people had a bat sensor (no kidding) so you could hear the bats as they approached.

and sure enough, they came. how cool is that!

and even though i'm now somewhat fond of bats, this is still about as close as i want to get to them.

… bee busy-ness

2011-09-15T13:40:00.000-07:00

another block for do. good stitches love circle. this time natalie asked for something different, long strip blocks that measure 6 1/2 x 48 inches in one of three colors: plum, red, or gold. i chose gold, because you know me, i love yellows!

i know the block i made is shockingly basic (it is essentially a cascade of squares that start at 1 inch and increase to 2 inches, 3 inches, and then 6 inch squares) but still, i drew out a plan for it. but i'm glad i did, because after seeing it on paper i realized that the bottom corner needed more interest, so i added in a small panel of 1 inch squares to tie it back in to the top.

turns out this is my favorite part.

looking forward to seeing what natalie does with all of our blocks!

in other news, lately i've been having serious problems with my sewing machine (have i mentioned this before? i must have). it seemed to keep sucking fabric into the bobbin case and not feeding fabric properly under the foot. this has caused much agony and much use of the seam ripper. this week i finally took the time to bring it into the shop for service. but before making me shell out the $160 for service (which is more than i paid for the actual machine) the nice man took a look at it. turns out there were three easy fixes to making my machine run smoothly again.

the first was simply changing my needle. yup, i'm terrible about this. i have changed it a couple of times in the past two years, but not on a regular basis, so i stocked up on needles and made a vow to change it regularly. the second was simply cleaning out the bobbin case. now, i actually do this on a very regular basis by taking a q-tip and swabbing around to collect all the lint in there. it's very satisfying. but it turns out that i should also have been taking off the metal plate and cleaning around the feed dogs, too. when the nice man took my machine apart we found these amazingly large layers of what essentially was lint that had turned into felt collecting around the feed dogs. no wonder it wasn't feeding fabric through properly! he also showed me how to use canned air to really get out the stuff that hides in places you can't see. (side note: if you don't look at canned air and immediately think "i'm walking on sunshine!" then you don't watch intervention. oh how this makes me giggle every time, even though it really shouldn't.)

and, lastly, he showed me this miracle product called a quarter inch foot. how did i not know about this? do all you quilters already sew with a quarter inch foot and i'm the last one in the universe to get one? wow, what a difference that made! now the fabric sits firmly under the foot and i can also easily see where the quarter inch seam is without having to use tape to mark it on my foot. woo hoo!

i am also trying to finish up the august quilt for do. good stitches. i just love all the very different blocks everyone sent in! i originally planned to sash it in the linen you see under the blocks above (which was the trimmings from some ikea curtains for the nursery… isn't recycling the best?) but now that i have the blocks on there it feels a little too washed out. i'm thinking maybe a nice rich chocolate color would be better to help the blocks stand out, but i'm unsure. if anyone has opinions i'd love to hear them! especially before i go and order a bunch of fabric.

and how about new pictures of my little cutie? here's weeks nine and ten!

fabric: amy butler cypress paisley in blush (from the love collection)

fabric: alexander henry holland in blue

oh my goodness, how that little smile melts my heart.

… blackberry season

2011-09-04T19:12:00.000-07:00

summer has been slow to start here in seattle. we only just really got into it last month. that means, as usual, september is looking to be downright summery gorgeousness. and for us that means that it's finally blackberry season. i am always surprised when i see people selling blackberries. don't they know you can get them for free, like, just about everywhere? you can't walk two steps in this city without tripping over a blackberry vine. there are two terrific patches just in the alley behind our house that i frequent in the summer to get my fix.

this morning i ventured out in the alley in my robe and flip flops to pick some berries for buttermilk pancakes.

i fry my pancakes up in our cast iron skillet so they are all sorts of wabi sabi. i think i like them kind of wonky (like i like my cake).

i topped my pancakes with fresh blackberries along with some leftover berry sauce i made last weekend for this most delicious summer bread pudding.

yum!

and you know what else i love in the summer? dahlias. oh boy, do i love dahlias. nothing says summer like having blackberries and dahlias on the table.

… cake, just because

2011-09-02T15:50:00.000-07:00

i like to bake. but that's no secret. this cake came about because of one very overripe banana in our fruit basket and an old pin on my "to make and eat" board on pinterest.

i am not too shabby a baker, but there are some things that completely elude me. one of those things is how to properly frost a cake. "ara jane, why don't you try a crumb coat," you might say! and to that i would reply, "what's a crumb coat?"

i am kidding (just a little) but i really do prefer cakes that are more rustic in appearance. you know, big puffs of buttercream and wonky, sloppy layers. it is a fact that they taste better. is there anyone out there who actually likes the taste of fondant? yeah, i thought not.

of course, now i have an entire cake in my house with no where to take it and no one to eat it except me and c. (like that's a bad thing.)

oh, and this really might be the best banana cake ever. no wait, it might just be the best cake ever, it's that good.

… a hodgepodge of small, happy things

2011-08-30T16:27:00.000-07:00

with my small bits of available time i have been able to accomplish… well, some small bits of projects. that's okay, though, as small things often have the most potential for greatness, right?

like the postage stamp exchange we recently did at our modern quilt guild meeting. we each made up packets of 100 2-1/2 inch squares and received an equal number of packets in exchange.

i don't know quite how i found the time, but i did manage to cut 500 postage stamps and received four delightful packets of different fabrics in exchange (i kept one of my own for myself).

after receiving my packets i had fun laying them all out on my design wall just to see what i had to work with, though i'm still not sure what i'm going to do with them. i could make a simple patchwork, just like it looks above, but i was also thinking of making some half square triangles, perhaps, and doing a value quilt, or even (gasp!) turning them into hexagons. right about now that all sounds like a lot of work, so off the design wall it came.

what is up now is my month's quilt for do. good stitches. i asked for improv pieced blocks in brown/cream/khaki, pink and yellow. this was a pretty selfish request on my part, since i wanted to do something more freeform and less fussy (since that's all my brain can handle at the moment). i really enjoyed piecing my blocks, even though it took me many, many hours over many, many days.

i've received half the blocks so far and am loving the way this is coming together. even though we all used different fabrics and our interpretations were all different, the colors really work together and make the blocks appear united. the color scheme was a stretch for me (and it sounds like it also was for the bee members) but, seriously, i love it. i think the piecing makes it look less country cousin and more clean and modern. i may use this color combo again in the future.

fabric: timeless treasures elephants in pink

fabric: from ikea designed by lotta kuhlhorn

and it looks like i'm behind in sharing my weekly ingrid photos! she is already growing out of her onesies (and these are the 3 to 6 month size). yes, we have an enormous baby. yes, i am terribly proud.

and speaking of proud, can i tell you how thrilled i am to find this mug?! i was over on bainbridge island perusing the emma bridgewater collection at churchmouse and saw this and probably emitted a little squeal. see, this is the snowdrop's namesake, this loveliest of flowers that blooms in the winter, and is one of c's favorite (he is the one who christened her the snowdrop). from the bottom of the mug:

"the blankets of snowdrops that carpet the woodland floor make the feeble sprinklings in the garden seem irrelevant. however a solid clump here and there reminds one not that spring-is-on-the way but that there is plenty of chilly weather still to come. a glass of snowdrops by the bedside is a seasonal treat."

… a walk around the block

2011-08-24T19:27:00.000-07:00

one of the many things i am enjoying about having a baby is the tiny rituals that we've developed. for the past couple of weeks, when ingrid gets fussy, i like to put her in the baby bjorn or the moby and go for a walk around the block. usually by the time we've completed our little circuit through the neighborhood she's calm and chilled out.

want to come on a walk with us?

first we head down our street, toward the park. we live on a dead end, making things mostly quiet and super lovely. and there's lots of trees. we love trees.

we pass by the cooper's house, where the dogs come out to the porch to bark their hellos. say hi to scout, stella and rudy!

there are some amazing gardens on our street. i particularly like this planter in jenn and george's garden.

at the end of the street we turn down the path, which traverses the southernmost border of the park.

we only take the path for a short while, because we usually turn up 17th.

right now this house is being renovated. it was formerly occupied by a very elderly gentleman who is now in an assisted living facility. but that's a sad story for another day. the happy part of that story is that his house is being fixed up and restored to what i assume was its former loveliness.

there is a bench in the front yard that i have been eyeing for a while. i wonder if they would sell it to me? would it be terrible to ask? wouldn't it be the sweetest with a fresh coat of paint and some hand-sewn cushions?

also on 17th is the ruin. someone actually does live here. yikes. sometimes i think 17th is the bizzaro version of our street.

and here is a stump that has been festooned with the strangest, most wonderful art.

whoa!

but, alas, it appears there is a thief roaming our streets. at least the trollbooth authority has a sense of humor.

at the end of 17th we turn onto the boulevard. it is my most humble opinion that every street should be a boulevard. because, obviously, that means more trees!

i don't know who lives here, but i've always adored this house. perhaps it's the cheerful yellow color or the cozy chairs on the front porch. maybe i'll introduce myself to the owners one day and angle for an invitation to sit in one of those fantastic chairs.

then we turn back down our street. the house on the corner was recently fixed up, and i believe it is made up of individual apartments. i just love the trees that seem to envelope the house.

chris and alice's lilies smell amazing right now. if the breeze is blowing in just the right way when you walk by it is absolutely intoxicating. (and that hydrangea isn't too shabby, either!)

when i walk into our yard i always take time to stop and smell the calycanthus. they don't call it sweet bush for nothing. when it's blooming it smells like the richest, sweetest wine, but, unlike the lilies, you've got to get your nose up in there to really appreciate it.

before heading inside i have to admire the happy, bright geraniums on our porch. and, with luck, my little snowdrop is now also happy and bright.

or asleep. i'll also take asleep.

… small projects

2011-08-15T18:59:00.000-07:00

i haven't been able to do much sewing lately. but i have been able to squeeze in some very small projects here and there whilst the little snowdrop is either napping or spending quality father/daughter time with c.

one project was quite necessary. see, our bassinet/moses basket came with a lovely organic cotton pad, which i ruined pretty much right off the bat by putting it in the washing machine. apparently this thing needed to be hand washed but i neglected to notice that (don't get me started on why people even make baby products that can't be put in the washing machine. seriously, this thing was covered in spit-up within just a few days and who has the time to hand wash and line dry anything when there's a tiny baby to attend to?) so when i pulled this thing out of the washing machine it was a giant, balled-up, unrepairable mess. quick, to the sewing machine!

i whipped up this simple new bassinet pad with anna maria horner's folksy flannels. i used a double layer of batting, and even though it's a bit thinner than the original, ingrid seems to like it. plus, it's double sided so i change up the print whenever i want, and hey! i can also put it in the washing machine, easy peasy lemon squeezy.

the other quick project was a gift for our doula. for our labor she asked us to have some heating pads on hand, so i made a microwavable rice bag out of muslin. cheryl liked it so much (it had baffles to keep the rice in place) that i decided to fancy it up and make a nice cover for one for her to use with her clients. if i'd had more time i would have done some nice patchwork for the cover, but since i only had an hour or so i kept it simple and used the same anna maria horner flannels that i used for our bassinet pad. it has a simple envelope closure on the back to make it easy to take the rice bag out and wash the cover (again, see how important being able to wash things is?).

i know neither of these things are fancy, but at least i've been able to work on some minor projects to keep up my sewing chops.

fabric: lizzy house pearl bracelet in green (from the 1001 peeps collection)

and, look, our little girl is six weeks old today! i can't believe how much she's changed over the last few weeks. she's been smiling up a storm and is (ohthankgod) sleeping a bit better.

i am smitten.

… ingrid week by week

2011-08-08T23:04:00.000-07:00

fabric: michael miller dumb dot

it's amazing how quickly babies change, no? i can't believe our little girl is 5 weeks old today.

to document ingrid's growth (and to have some fun) we've been photographing her at each week's milestone. i hope that at the end of the year we'll have a terrific collection of photos showing how much she's changed, and also something super pretty to look at.

fabric: anna maria horner summer totem in tart (from the loulouthi collection)

this idea is not mine at all, but something blatantly ripped off from the fine folks over at young house love. they photographed their adorable daughter every week with different fabric backdrops and photoshopped the week onto the onesie. when i saw this i thought, "this is the project for me!" not only do i also have an adorable new daughter to photograph, but i also have an endless supply of fabric on which to photograph her. though, sadly, what i didn't realize when i started this project is that i'd need at least a yard of fabric for the backdrop, and most of the cuts in my stash are half yards or smaller. so, good news/bad news, that means i have to start buying new fabric to keep this up. oh, the things we have to suffer for the sake of our children, right?

fabric: monaluna anika organic blossoms

i chose not to add the number of weeks to the onesie, but instead to make an icon over the fabric itself. but otherwise, i'm pretty much doing exactly what they did. and i'm going to tell you what the fabric of the week is, because i'm thoughtful like that.

fabric: timeless treasures organic apples and pears in cream (from the fruit punch collection)

so please enjoy these photos of my sweet snowdrop from the last 5 weeks and stay tuned for more to come!

fabric: anna maria horner coloring garden in jewel (from the folksy flannels collection)

… my modern quilt guild peeps

2011-07-31T21:41:00.000-07:00

last week (or maybe the week before… who knows, right?) katie came by for a visit bearing gifts and food, two things most welcome in this household. she presented little ingrid with a quilt made by the ladies of the seattle modern quilt guild. isn't it the prettiest?

i especially love the embroidery (thank you, melissa!) which makes this quilt that much more special. and see how much ingrid likes it?

i'm so looking forward to seeing all my quilt guild ladies at a sew-in soon so i can thank you all in person!

… these july days

2011-07-29T22:26:00.000-07:00

i am so deeply touched by all of you who left such kinds comments on my last post. really, it meant so much to me to read your words of encouragement and commiseration. things are getting better here, constantly changing, old difficulties are replaced by new ones, but also a with growing baby who is now cooing and, to my eyes, appears to be smiling at times. life is still crazy, but also just crazy good. even through the fatigue and insanity i wouldn't ask for anything else right now.

in other, non-baby news, i had a birthday last sunday (yay for july babies!), which was celebrated with a delightful breakfast wherein i actually made scones, some lovely flowers from my lovely man, and dinner at the home of our friends, j and t, who most thoughtfully got me an insanely delicious s'mores cake and berry pie from the dahlia bakery to celebrate.

and in even further non-baby news, i also squeezed in some time to sew my block for this month's do. good stitches bee. rachel asked for one larger block with appliquéd bubbles in a deep sea pallet. i'm not usually big on appliqué, but i do love this block and can't wait to see the finished quilt!

i've also been plugging away on alicia paulson's daisychain abc crewel sampler. i finished the a and the b the day before i went into labor, and since then i've done the c and half of the d. yes, it's slow going around here, as having two hands free at one time is a rarity.

but this slowness just means i have more time to appreciate the little things.

... ingrid jane mealy

2011-07-13T11:41:00.000-07:00

oh wow. introducing my new life. ingrid was born on the fourth of july at 8:04 am to lots of emotional fireworks and celebration. to say that she is the most beautiful thing i've ever seen is an understatement. and she was a very big baby indeed! 9 pounds 8 ounces and 22 inches long. yowza!

everything i've ever heard any new parent say about the first week with their newborn is entirely true. it's a whirlwind, a dizzying spell of delight and despair, a fever dream, a roller coaster of emotions. it's hours of quiet stillness with feelings of the most amazing heart-filling love followed by thoughts of "oh my goodness, i am going to kill this fragile little creature if i make the slightest wrong move" followed by deep, deep feelings of inadequacy. and then the cycle starts all over again.

the most true thing i am finding is that it's hard to not get caught up in whatever thing i am feeling at the moment, and then start thinking that that's how it's going to be forever. when she cries i think, "oh no! she is going to cry forever and i can't do anything about it!" and when she is quietly snuggled up in my arms, her wide eyes staring up at me and her adorable little mouth making my most favorite little faces i think, "i could do this forever! i am super mom!"

i know, everyone tells me that it's all just a phase, and i need to start repeating that to myself like a mantra.

of course, all of this is heightened by the fact that i am simply not sleeping. and i don't mean that i'm bummed that i'm not getting my usual 8 hours a night. i mean that half the nights so far have found me up all night and getting zero sleep at all. i do not recommend this. yesterday, after not napping all the previous day and not sleeping all night, i will be honest, i spent most of the day in tears. like, inconsolable sobbing. my poor husband had to deal with two crying ladies all day. he is a super champ, taking care of the both of us. but this morning, after a night where i got to sleep for a cumulative three to four hours, i'm feeling great. cue the rocky theme music, and imagine me running to the stop of the stairs at the philadelphia museum of art pumping my fists in the air.

and then imagine little ingrid as burgess meredith, who played rocky's coach, which is exactly who she looks like in this little cap. and that tickles me to no end. see, she's even pumping her fists for me!

some things i've learned over my nine whopping days of motherhood:

poo-splosions happen. learn to deal with it.
do not get overzealous in making plans. accept the fact that just getting one thing done in a day is enough, even if that one thing is simply feeding and caring for your baby. the other day, in a fit of energy and optimism, i declared i wanted to accomplish three things: do some shopping, prepare and wash the cloth diapers, and take our weekly photo (a most wonderful idea stolen shamelessly from here). our shopping trip ended in a poo-tastrophe (see above), our weekly photo was essentially five shots of a crying baby, and i abandoned the diaper washing in lieu of a nap. oh well.
sleep is good. but if one more person tells me to sleep when the baby sleeps i will knock their block off. seriously.
accepting help from friends and family without feeling guilty is super important. i would not be coping nearly so well without the tireless help of my mom, who came to stay with us last weekend, and spent so many hours fixing us delicious and nutritious meals, taking the baby in the early morning hours so i could get a couple more hours of sleep, calling throughout the week to make sure we're doing alright, and giving me pep talks to help me through the tougher days. i am also insanely grateful to our friends and neighbors who have brought us food, dropped off treats, stopped in for visits, or have signed up to bring us meals in the future. such generosity is amazing.
it is important to stop and appreciate the small things, like taking a short walk down the street to get some air, laughing with c over something silly, taking time to smell the calycanthus that is currently blooming in the front garden, or enjoying a few moments of quiet in a hot shower. i am also appreciating the fact that i can now sleep on my belly again, that my terrible acid reflux is now gone gone gone (!!!), and my painful swollen cankles are slowly turning back into ankles.
don't compare yourself to others. one of the things i've had time to do is keep up on blogs, since i can use my laptop one-handed whist nursing ingrid, and i found i was getting discouraged by what others seem to accomplish. even those with very young children. i need to remind myself that i am my own person doing my level best and what anyone else is able to do is completely irrelevant.
we are going at our own pace in this household. and that pace is dictated by a little someone who is the most important thing right now.
i chose the right man to marry and have babies with. c has been the most amazing partner for the past 10 years and is now an even more amazing father. i am the luckiest girl in the world.

holy wow, i did not intend to be this loquacious. for any of you who have bothered to read all the way down here, i would love to hear your stories of life post childbirth. were there things that you struggled with? lessons you learned the hard way? days spent in tears? perhaps it's that misery loves company, but i'm finding it heartening to hear about other parents' difficulties in these first weeks and knowing i'm not alone. so please share your stories with me if you're so inclined! it would certainly make this tired mama feel like she's in good company.

... the snowdrop's nursery

2011-07-01T22:28:00.000-07:00

one of the good things about waiting around for a baby to be born is that you can keep working on the nursery. it's not like this room has to be 100% perfect for her arrival. i mean, what does the baby care, right? all she needs is a place to sleep, some diapers, some food (supplied by me), and she's all set.

so the need to have a lovely and complete nursery is really more for us parents. it gives us something to focus on to make this weird abstract concept of bringing a new life into the world a reality.

things aren't completely finished in here. we're still waiting on some artwork to be framed, which will liven up the walls a bit. and i'm still working on a quilt, which i'm ashamed to say i still haven't basted (because, honestly, the thought of basting a quilt right now is so not appealing). but i love it in here. this really is the best room in our house, especially with the warm summer evening light coming in and the trees in full leaf right outside the windows.

this week i made some more little fabric boxes (which i've made previously for scrap baskets), using and slightly modifying the sometimes crafter's excellent tutorial.

i used a couple for diapering supplies, and one to store some little toys and rattles that have been lying around.

i am in love with this sheep mobile that is hanging over the changing station/dresser.

and equally in love with this hedgehog clock by the door.

but my favorite spot is the rocking chair in the corner with the pillow i made a few months back. i like to just sit here and relax and think forward a few weeks to when we will have an actual baby in here.

soon. very soon.

... the process

2011-06-27T19:32:00.000-07:00

i am being generous here when i say i love the process. because sometimes the process sucks. sometimes it takes several tries to get something right. like this month's bee blocks for do. good stitches. for some reason (many reasons?) i could just not get these to work out properly, despite following lee's terrific tutorial closely. the first two i tried (the bottom two in the above photo) the hexagons came out way too big and there wasn't enough room for the border to make them 12-1/2" square. so for the second two i tried (the top two in the above photo and the two in the photo below) i used a very, very generous 1/4" seam allowance and they came out slightly undersized, but enough that i could finish them off with a white border to size. i don't know if i've just lost my sewing mojo or what, but i'm not usually this off when it comes to seam allowance.

but also, my machine is killing me. it feels like it's pulling the fabric into the bobbin case. either that, or the feed dogs aren't feeding properly, so the fabric keeps getting stuck. ugh. perhaps this was the source of my size issues? i know i need to bring it in for service, and yet i have no time for that right now. what with sitting here waiting around for this dang baby to be born. and having a bunch of sewing projects i want to work on in the mean time.

today, after going for a stroll with my doula, high on a spurt of energy (nesting, perhaps?) i ran some errands to pick up supplies for a couple of small projects and stopped by the quilting loft to peruse the new fabric. since it had been a while since i bought anything new, i picked up these lovelies. i suppose the joel dewberry herringbone and aviary print aren't new, but the lizzie house pearl bracelet print that was my favorite from red letter day is also out in new colors as part of the 1001 peeps line. and since i don't have much (any) purple in my stash, i thought this might be a print i would actually sew with.

yay for pretty new things to look at. cross your fingers for me that in the next few days i have a pretty new baby to look at, too!

... sweet treats

2011-06-13T21:27:00.000-07:00

oh man, do i love to bake. sadly, because of my debilitating pregnancy-induced acid reflux, with the main offender being the combo of sugar + wheat, i have not really been doing any baking of late.

but tomorrow is my last shift supervising chinese medicine students at our teaching clinic before i embark on my new maternal adventures, and i felt that in order to properly celebrate i needed to do some baking. i love baking for my students, mostly because i just love baking but also because students are usually appreciative recipients of my baked goods.

so here we have some salted brown butter crispy treats (recipe via smitten kitchen) and some coconut swirl brownies (via martha stewart).

yes, i had to sample them (even though i've made both recipes previously and i already knew they were delicious). and yes i know i will suffer tonight.

but it was so worth it.

... modern day quilts

2011-06-03T22:04:00.000-07:00

ooh, this is exciting! our do. good stitches quilt is being featured on modern day quilts.

i really like the idea behind this site: it simply features one modern quilt a day. go check it out!

... sewing for others

2011-05-31T23:13:00.000-07:00

have i mentioned how much i love the do. good stitches charity quilting bee? because i really, really do. it's so satisfying sewing for someone in need and, for selfish reasons, i love being challenged by the blocks every month. and, being a quilter for the love circle, i also love coming up with the quilt design, like this one i just finished for the march quilt.

you may remember that i mentioned that for this quilt i was inspired by a technique i learned from my pal katie that she taught it in one of her improvisational quilting classes. (sidenote: if you live in seattle, you should most definitely take a class from her... she has so many great things to teach!) and she was inspired by a technique from joelle hoverson's last-minute patchwork + quilted gifts. katie called the technique tumbling blocks in her original pillow and joelle called hers little bits, so i named this quilt bits and blocks. i'm a little sheepish at how blatantly it turns out i ripped katie off (see her finished split decision quilt here), but i suppose i'll have to be okay with that (and i hope katie is, too). honestly, it was slightly unintentional, but we all know how fuzzy inspiration can be in the quilting world.

but didn't this turn out lovely? i asked our circle members for blocks in this style on any solid grey background using yellow to slightly greenish prints for the bits. when all the blocks arrived in the mail i couldn't believe how great they looked together. i really like the variation among the greys and how it breaks up the quilt into segments. i used one set of blocks on the back with yellows that complemented the backing fabric i chose. and it's hard to see in the pictures, but the quilting looks really cool. i quilted straight lines horizontally around the seams of each block and then i ran lines vertically down the quilt that zig-zagged in the pattern of each small bit that it intersected, making it look kind of maze-like.

the finished quilt measures 54 x 48 inches and it is bound in a grey polka dot (michael miller, maybe? my pregnant brain can't remember and my pregnant body is too lazy to go check). thank you to all the love circle quilters for contributing to such a great quilt!

and, speaking of do. good stitches, i also just finished my blocks for the may quilt. melanie asked for two blocks in one color to contribute to a box of crayons quilt. i chose pink.

pink!

for some reason i thought it would be fun to do some paper piecing and made an all-hexagon block. in my head, piecing hexagons went really quickly, but oh, not so in real life! i spent all weekend, hours upon hours, working on this to get these blocks finished in time to send by the end of the month. my second block had to be incredibly simple because i just did not have the time or energy to do anything else. they got shipped off today, just under the wire, and i hope they work well in the finished quilt. i can't wait to see the result!

... pregnancy, and all that it entails

2011-05-24T18:16:00.000-07:00

oh my gosh, you guys, being pregnant is so hard! i'm sure it's so much easier raising an infant and then a toddler and then a child and then a teenager... right? (humor me, please.)

but oh, you people who already have kids and lives and other responsibilities and who can blog consistently, i salute you.

my life has been quite full, what with preparing for the arrival of the snowdrop, attending baby showers, going to plant sales, putting together a nursery from scratch, madly trying to accomplish a gazillion house projects, and, you know, cramming in more work/teaching hours than i ever usually do because that seemed sensible when making my schedule several months ago.

also, i have just not been taking many photos. i have no excuse for that. just plain and simple negligence. what is contained herein is a smattering of what i discovered on my camera after downloading the contents the other day.

in happy news, i am thisclose to finishing the march quilt for do. good stitches. i just have an hour or two more of hand-sewing the binding and then it's done! a little late, still, but not as late as my last one.

and, fortunately, there is still time for simple things like watching our garden blossom in the recent warm weather and eating ice cream and making popsicles and sleeping. precious, precious sleeping.

... the happiest quilt

2011-05-02T16:52:00.000-07:00

an alternate title for this post could be "you know what i hate?... cancer." because in the last six months three wonderful women i know have been diagnosed with breast cancer. and i'm sure you don't need me to tell you how truly terrible that is. i lost one of my best childhood friends to cancer when she was only 23 years old, and on a purely selfish level i just can't bear to go through that kind of loss again.

my neighbor and friend, deb, was diagnosed last month with a particularly nasty type, and has already undergone a mastectomy and started chemo last week, to be followed by more chemo and then a bunch of radiation. with everything she has been through and everything she is going to have to go through i wanted to make her a quilt to provide maybe just a little comfort through the next few difficult months.

i call this the happiest quilt, because i wanted it to be as cheery as possible. bright colors, happy prints, warm, simple and cozy.

i tried my hand at some embroidery on the back, and yes, it's not great, and yes, i need more practice with embroidery (that O just keeps mocking me), but it expresses what i feel and what i want deb to know. so i'm okay with the imperfections. (and speaking of imperfections, these photos were taken quite hastily, before i noticed how terribly wrinkled the quilt looked due it being folded up overnight, but after it was delivered so i couldn't take better pictures. i promise the quilt doesn't look this terrible in real life.)

this is just a simple patchwork using many of my favorite prints in orange, pink, yellow and turqoise with some bright kona cottons mixed in. the back is mostly kona tangerine and the binding is pieced with the same kona colors i used on the front.

it measures 56 x 64" and i did my usual straight line quilting, not too fussy, because i wanted to finished this quickly for deb to have as soon as possible.

... color!

2011-04-19T22:27:00.000-07:00

in the form of blocks made for the april round of do. good stitches. the colors struck me as so springy and eastery, that i just had to photograph them out in the grass (in the sun, no less!) these will be heading out to natalie of greenleaf goods very shortly.

and i just wanted to show you this roll of loveliness that will be the binding on my latest quilt. so much color, so much happiness. i can't get enough.

... projects in motion

2011-04-12T21:46:00.000-07:00

there are lots of little things going on around here, despite the quiet. the read-a-thon was terrific. i managed to make it nearly 19 hours before my tired, pregnant body forced me to finally go to sleep. but i read a lot of great books and had the perfect day relaxing at home doing one of the things i love most.

for the past two weeks i've been working on a special project that i haven't been ready to show off yet, but i finished quilting it today and i anticipate being done by this weekend.

i also finished this sweet baby cap (pattern and notes on ravelry) for our little snowdrop. since i didn't have my own baby's head on which to model the hat, i let my childhood teddy bear model it for you all. isn't he the cutest?

i love the all the points and the little chin strap tie. so cute! (cute enough to erase the memory of how difficult a time i had with the pattern and how many times i had to rip it out and start again.) i knit up the 6 month size since that will be about the age of my little one when winter sets in.

i still have to block it (blocking... ugh) but otherwise, it feels so very good to finish something for my baby.

... another read-a-thon!

2011-04-08T18:55:00.000-07:00

yup, it's time for another read-a-thon! you may remember that i did this last october and had an insanely good time. i even managed to stay awake and read for 23 1/2 hours. i know, i know, i just couldn't make it that last half hour for the life of me. and, to be perfectly honest, i don't have much faith in myself of making it even that long this time, what with being pregnant, and constantly tired, and not even able to partake in caffeine. but i'll give it my best shot and have fun in the process.

you can swing by my book blog tomorrow and see what i'm up to if you're so inclined. we start 5am sharp and i'll be doing hourly updates!

... finishing what i started

2011-03-31T21:00:00.000-07:00

especially long-forgotten projects. like this quilt i started for my to-be-nephew last year and never finished. until a spurt of energy overcame me last week and i managed to make the quilt back, baste it, quilt it, and bind it in just a few days.

it makes me wonder why i put it off for so long, when it was so simple to finish.

actually, i couldn't decide on a backing for the longest time, until i finally saw this anna maria horner folksy flannel (diamond mine in grass) and decided it was perfect. i wanted something equally bright that would highlight the diagonal quilting. yay for yellow!

i bound it in a simple grey polka dot to restrain the brightness just a little. i like it very much.

the quilt is 48"x48" and is made of half-square triangles with a variety of fabrics from my stash. the white is robert kaufman essex linen/cotton blend. this little quilt will soon be zooming through the skies to my nephew in toronto who is, hopefully, not too big for it now.

... the little things

2011-03-23T21:48:00.000-07:00

whew! at last, i'm coming out of a several-day funk. i think the combination of pregnancy hormones + the final episode of big love + bad news about a good friend + the most unrelentingly painful acid reflux = extreme weepiness for two days straight. but now that i think i've put my finger on the cause of the reflux (sugar is my worst enemy... good news/bad news, right?) and finally got a really good night's sleep, and seattle's beautiful spring weather showed its pretty face today... well, i woke up a changed woman. and it's the simple things that are delighting me.

like a posy of cheery ranunculus on the dining room table. i just can't get enough ranunculus.

or a flannel and cotton lawn receiving blanket i whipped up for my little snowdrop. (i still want to make more of these.)

or a stack of new fabrics delivered to my mailbox fresh from hawthorne threads. i probably don't need any more fabric, but a sad girl's gotta do whatever she can to cheer herself up, right?

yup, things are looking up.

... pieced party napkins

2011-03-16T20:40:00.000-07:00

my party napkins quilt top is finally finished. whew!

thankfully, i am still in love with it. though i am stumped as to what to do with the back. my heart is telling me to stick with all solids, but my head wants to add in a print. or maybe it's vice versa. honestly, i can't tell which body part is talking anymore.

and monday brought an early spring trip up to swanson's to see what's going on in the plant world. this table of ranunculus was so lovely, with the most beautiful, electric, saturated colors. needless to say, we brought some home to brighten up our porch.

... my new sewing space

2011-03-08T22:30:00.000-08:00

remember this train-wreck of a room:

yeah, that one. with the box spring and the willy nilly stacks of fabric and the sad strips of fleece that served as my "design wall"?

well, now it finally looks like this:

yay! double yay! ok, triple yay!

three things happened to make this all possible. the first is that i finally got rid of that box spring by posting it for free on craigslist. and some ~~sucker~~ wonderful person came to take it away. the second is that i managed to get some shelves up on the wall to hold my fabric and supplies. the third is that i made a mini design wall on the facing wall, which is actually quite functional and is really serving me well.

why don't you join me on a tour?

it's not perfect, but it's pretty darn great. sewing in there this afternoon was such a pleasure. the light coming in from the window that is no longer blocked by a giant mattress is truly refreshing. and the fact that most everything has a place pleases me to no end.

and just getting something done and checking it off my list is a satisfying feeling.

... winning

2011-03-07T20:47:00.000-08:00

hey, i'm only human. i like winning as much as the next gal. so i was pretty delighted to win rachel's february round of her blogger's pillow party. especially since there were so many amazing pillows this month. and also since rita of red pepper quilts chose my pillow as the winner! rita's was one of the first blogs i discovered when i first stumbled into the world of modern quilting, and i've always found her sense of color and way with pattern so inspiring. so thank you, rita! and thank you, rachel for hosting this little pillow party! there's still time for you to enter the march round... so what are you waiting for?

my prize was this super generous fat quarter bundle of tanya whelan's delilah range, donated by randi at fresh squeezed fabrics. wow, thanks randi! while these colors aren't my usual cup of tea, i'm still totally charmed by these fabrics. i think they're calling out to be made into an old-fashioned patchwork quilt for a little one, no? maybe even a tied quilt?

ooh, now i'm feeling inspired!

... bits and blocks

2011-02-28T18:12:00.000-08:00

what follows is a "tutorial" for making blocks for the march quilt for do. good stitches. please forgive the less-than-optimal photos: seattle is under an enormous black cloud at the moment and i needed to get this done today. also, forgive my less than stellar explanations. i have never done any kind of tutorial before, and my own style of sewing is of the "winging it" variety, so explaining this didn't come easy to me. please feel free to let me know if you have specific questions or if you need help with a step.

now that the disclaimers are done, let's make some blocks!

this month i want everyone to make 2 blocks that measure 6-1/2 x 24-1/2 inches each. the color palette is grey and yellow (one that i can never get enough of). for your solid background fabric you can use any solid grey of your choosing. i used kona coal, but you can use a light grey, medium grey, dark grey... whatever. just so long as it's solid and it's grey, it doesn't matter. for your bits please use yellow print fabrics, but with more of a greenish tinge (as opposed to orangish). i used several fabrics from denyse schmidt's hope valley collection, which i think are a good reference if you're not sure what shade of yellow i'm going for. but whatever, i'm not picky. your prints can also have other colors in them, but make sure they're neutral accents (meaning grey, black, brown or khaki, as opposed to red, purple or pink, etc.)

the technique for making these blocks is one i learned from the fabulous katie pedersen in her improvisational patchwork class. check out her lovely tumbling blocks pillow, which shows you what i'm going for. this is a technique that's also used in joelle hoverson's last-minute patchwork + quilted gifts in the "little bits" quilt. if you own this book (and why wouldn't you?) you should reference the technique here as it goes into more detail than i will.

so, once you've selected your fabrics, you're going to start by cutting out blocks of your solid grey. to determine how much you need, you're going to need to do a little rough math to figure out how much to cut. i used five different print fabrics, so i cut five different grey rectangles. and because i know i will need these to ultimately make two blocks that are 24-1/2 inches long each, i will need at least 49 inches of finished length in grey, plus a generous amount added on for seam allowances. i ended up cutting five grey blocks (to go with my five different yellow fabrics) that are 6 inches high (this will be standard for each block) and 12 inches long. i figured that 5 x 12 = 60, and 11 extra inches would give me enough for seam allowance, but i was wrong. it ended up being just shy of what i needed, so i made one more small block at the end to round out my length (so maybe i should have made my grey blocks 13 inches long instead). if you use more prints than i did, your grey blocks don't have to be so long. yes, i said my math was rough. if you have a better way of figuring this out, go for it! but since a lot of this piecing is improvisational, it's hard to know exactly how much you will need. if you're at all worried, just err on the generous side and you should have enough.

and now we're done with math... whew!

the next thing you will do is turn your grey rectangle on end and cut it diagonally lengthwise. you can cut at any angle you like, but just make sure you don't get closer than one inch to the corners of your fabric. also make sure you are cutting these blocks at a variety of angles (to the left, to the right, more angled, less angled, etc), as this is what will give your finished blocks the most visual interest.

next, cut a strip of one of your prints that is long enough to fit into the middle of your cut grey rectangle. you can make this strip any width you like, but it needs to be wider than an 1-1/2 inches and probably no bigger than 3 inches.

now go ahead and sew that strip between your two grey pieces.

next, just square off the edges and cut this block into strips in any width of your choosing. i think these blocks look nice with a variety of widths so feel free to free-form it here.

and, honestly, the tricky part is over. just repeat the above steps for your remaining grey rectangles and yellow prints and you'll end up with a whole bunch of strips.

now the fun part comes. you get to arrange your strips into whatever pleasing formation you like. you'll notice here, though, that the strips won't be exactly the same height, but they should all be over 6-1/2 inches high. that's okay though, because you're going to trim them up when you're done.

go ahead and sew those strips together. if you're a fancy pants you can do some chain piecing, and if you're slow like me you can just sew one at a time. just make sure that the finished length for each block is at least 24-1/2 inches.

when you're done piecing these together, trim your blocks down so that they measure 6-1/2 x 24-1/2 inches.

and now you have your finished blocks!

(i know that was a lot of words for what you will come to realize is a really easy block to make. but please please please let me know if anything doesn't make sense and i can try and help you out!)

... a soft and cozy baby blanket

2011-02-27T14:38:00.000-08:00

a friend from one of my book clubs is having a baby very soon and for her shower i whipped up this lovely little receiving blanket. the guidelines (and i do mean guidelines, there is no real pattern) are from anna maria horner and i used her folksy flannel for one side and little folks voile for the other.

flannel + voile = super cozy softness.

i even bound it in a solid voile, which freaked me out a bit. it was my first time making bias binding and boy, i did not like it. obviously, i love the rounded corners and the overall effect and how easily the bias-cut binding curves into place. but cutting the strips out from slippery voile, which is also wider than standard quilting cottons, and then piecing them together to make binding, well... it kind of broke my brain.

also, i will admit, i am not a fan of cutting large pieces of fabric. i could sit around all day and cut thousands of 1-inch squares quite happily, but cutting one 36 x 36" piece of fabric made me want to jam a rotary cutter in my skull. if anyone has tips on how to make this process easier, please do tell.

and though i just complained more than i should have, i still want to make a bunch more of these. (and maybe if i keep making bias binding over and over and if i keep practicing cutting large pieces i will get better and in no time, i will be a pro and then i will stop complaining about these things!) they are so soft and sweet and the perfect size for a new baby. i have a few large cuts of some beautiful cotton lawn that will also pair nicely with the folksy flannels, so i can see making at least a few more of these receiving blankets for my own little snowdrop in the coming weeks.

... lots o' blocks

2011-02-25T08:18:00.000-08:00

i've actually been quite productive (for me) lately, and that includes some bee blocks i made for do. good stitches this month.

rachel requested wonky stars in pink, red and white. wonky stars are always fun to make

and these colors totally warm my heart.

i also forgot to show you the blocks i made in january for elizabeth's month. aren't these cool? there's a tutorial for this mod mosaic style block on her blog, should you want to try it yourself. it's super satisfying, especially when you get to use a bunch of scraps.

... a pillow for the nursery

2011-02-22T17:10:00.000-08:00

because my party napkins quilt isn't progressing fast enough, i decided to make a preview version in a little quilted pillow. and also because i cut a bunch of extra squares and wanted to put them to good use. and, hi! who doesn't love a good pillow?

and ok, how about another reason? the ever-amazing rachel, of stitched in color, is hosting a blogger's pillow party that i was dying to enter.

(*edited to add: just realized i can also enter this in the great sms pillow contest. that's killing two birds with one pillow!)

i made a quilted top with my spare half-square triangles and then followed alicia paulson's terrific pattern for her summerhouse pillows to add piping and make an envelope closure for the back.

i really would like to learn how to do an invisible zipper, but i have to admit, i just love the look of a simple envelope closure. also, i love how perfectly this bright pink piping goes so well with my pillow.

the pillow is intended for the nursery (along with its coordinating quilt, whenever i manage to finish that), and looks right at home on the rocker i am sure we will be using quite a bit.

... a belated christmas gift

2011-02-15T13:36:00.000-08:00

here's one element of my christmas gift for my mom (given to her late because our family did not get to spend christmas together). i knew i wanted to give her something hand-made, and i'm glad i opened up last-minute patchwork + quilted gifts for inspiration. these coasters are super cute and easy-peasy to make.

i made things trickier than the pattern called for by piecing two different fabrics on each side and using some half-square triangles (half-square triangles!) which was fine, but actually bulked things up a lot with extra seams so my machine kind of choked when it came time to quilt these puppies. i spent a lot of time with my seam ripper and going back over the more difficult areas very very very very slowly. so if you look closely you can see my goofs. but i'm sure my mom doesn't care. i hope.

i love the colors (yellow, obviously) and i got to use one of my favorite fabrics from naomi ito. maybe i need a set for myself?

... a good mail week

2011-02-07T16:38:00.000-08:00

it's been a while since i've bought new fabric. but this last week brought me the best mail ever.

first off, i actually won a yard of fabric from sew, mama, sew! it's my very first online giveaway win. yay, me! (honestly, i was about to give up on even entering giveaways, so this was a happy, happy event indeed.) i selected a yard of robert kaufman metro living rings in marigold. clearly a color i can never get enough of in a perfectly simple and pleasing print. thanks sew, mama, sew!

then i got the kona cotton solids i was waiting for (ordered from pink chalk) to continue work on my party napkins quilt. seriously, aren't those colors the best?

and, through a whole other story i need to tell some other time, my amazing neighbors got me a gift certificate to anna maria horner's online shop as a wedding present. i know, right?! i went crazy and got four yards of folksy flannels, a whole stack of little folks voiles (you can never have too much, is what i say), and my very own copy of handmade beginnings, a book i've been wanting since i found out i was pregnant.

such welcome deliveries in the happiest of colors to brighten up these grey february days.

... half-square triangles

2011-02-03T19:28:00.000-08:00

so, this isn't on my list at all. but i don't care because i love it.

in the spirit of the process pledge (remember that?) i will tell you how this came about. i saw this napkin on pinterest. and, obviously it looks a lot like a quilt. but i loved the colors and had become quite smitten with the idea of making an all-solids quilt.

so i sketched something out. roughly. and pulled some fabric. and then realized that i wanted some brighter shades in the mix, so i added in the tangerine and bright pink to complement the papaya and carnation.

and then i cut and cut and sewed and sewed and cut and cut some more.

i wanted my squares to finish at 4 inches, so i cut 5-inch blocks in my selected colors, sewed them together at random and cut in half to make two half-square triangles, and then trimmed the blocks to 4 1/2 inches square. i know some people like to cut the initial blocks to 4 7/8 inches, which should leave you with a perfect 4 1/2 inch square when you're done, but these people have got to be magicians or something, because my half-square triangles never come out that perfectly. they're seriously all kinds of wonky. so i don't mind doing the tedious work of trimming them down to perfect squares when i'm done.

and then i randomly laid them out so it looks like all kinds of crazy.

i am not nearly done yet. i have some more half-square triangles to make, seeing as how i ran out of fabric half way through. yeah, i'm not so good with the planning. but more kona cotton was ordered and has arrived and i'm ready to make some more blocks so my little quilt can grow.

i had no idea what this quilt would be for when i started it, but i'm liking the idea of this being my first baby quilt. since we found out that our little snowdrop is a girl (a girl! squeeeee!) i am really in love with this insanely bright color palette for the nursery.

... listening

2011-01-31T20:48:00.000-08:00

one of my favorite things, when i get ready to sit down for a few hours of sewing, is to queue up some podcasts to accompany me. so i thought i'd share some of my favorites with you, and then you can tell me what you like to listen, and perhaps we can all discover something new?

[now, don't get me wrong, i do love music, but sewing usually puts me in a quieter, more meditative mood, one that enjoys being talked at. music i save for housecleaning, driving, showering and grading papers (not all at the same time, duh).]

selected shorts

ooh boy, do i love a good short story. i used to read them all the time in high school and college and then got completely burned out because i discovered that most modern short stories follow this pattern: funny, funny, sad, sad, sad, sad, poignant, sad, heartbreakingly sad. and that can get tiresome. but there's something about the stories that they select (ha! see what i did there?) because they are usually quite good. many funny, some sad, some crazy, and sure, some that are poignant. not to mention the amazing actors they get to read these stories! there is nothing quite as dreamy as hearing david rakoff or alec baldwin reading you a story in the comfort of your own home. and the theme music is so lovely is gives me goosebumps every time i hear it. i heart you, isaiah sheffer, i really do!

the best show on wfmu

actually, wfmu has many of my favorite shows (downtown soulville, sinner's crossroads), but this is my all-time favorite. boy howdy, do i love tom scharpling and the best show. at first i hated it. i'm sure you did/will, too. tom comes across as rude and egotistical and i couldn't figure out why everyone loved him so much. but after listening for a while, i found him hilarious. i love the regular callers (spike, laurie, julie, fredericks) i love the scharpling/wurster segments, i love all his good friends who call/come in regularly (paul f. tompkins, patton oswalt, john hodgman, ted leo, aimee mann)... i love it all. and you will, too, if you give it a chance.

the pod f. tompkast

and speaking of paul f. tompkins, you can now hear him on his own podcast! the intro part where he's kind of babbling strangely with noodley piano music in the background is almost disconcerting before you realize it's terribly funny, and then it just gets good. you get to hear a regular call with jen kirkman, segments from the paul f. tompkins show, and all of his ridiculously awesome impressions of celebrities like the cake boss, andrew lloyd webber, ice t, and john c. reilly. super fun good times. if you are a fan of comedy you should be a fan of paul f. tompkins.

this american life

sure, everyone loves this american life, and you probably live in a hole if you don't know it. but honestly, it makes for the best sewing listening. i like the short segments that let me stop for a while if i need a break. sure, sometimes the stories can be a little predictable (as a good friend once put it, the intro should go something like this: "i am ira glass, and this week on this american life i am going to break. your f*$%ing. heart.") but many times they are just so very good. and yes, i heart you, too, ira glass.

the splendid table

i usually reserve this one for when i'm going to be doing some baking, but since i eliminated sugar from my diet recently and haven't been doing much baking (but not forever, only for a little while!!) i find i want to listen to this whilst sewing sometimes, too. i just love lynn rossetto kasper's obviously unrestrained love for food. and just listening to people talk about food and cooking and travel makes my mouth water. which, these days, happens pretty easily.

seven second delay

this was the first show we started listening to on wfmu and is still a favorite. it's probably not to everyone's taste, but if you like stupid jokes and listening to figurative trainwrecks happen on air, this one is for you. one of the hosts, andy breckman, likes to pretend he's the star, but really, ken freedman is the perfect straight man. their chemistry is pure magic. or alchemy. or whatever. i love the show.

ok, so now you tell me: what do you like to listen to while you sew?

... seeing the forest for the trees

2011-01-30T18:27:00.000-08:00

at long last, i have managed to finish my tree quilt for the do. good stitches charity bee. yay! i don't know why, but it always takes me longer to finish quilts than i expect it to. i have this naive optimism when i set out making my quilt sandwich that, in just a few hours, the whole thing will be finished. sure. cut to a week later as i'm on the third day of hand sewing the binding thinking why in the world did this take me so long?

i think i can answer that with a little more clarity right now, and the key is my sewing machine. while i love my little project runway edition brother, it's time for me to admit it's just not cut out to be doing any major quilting. i swear, there were times this week when i wanted to throw the freaking thing across the room. i can baste the bejeezus out of my quilt and use my walking foot and go as slow as a snail, and every quilt still manages to bunch and pucker in the worst of ways. i spend so much time ripping out seams and cursing up a storm, but going back to redo areas doesn't even help that much. my only consolation is that washing and drying the quilts makes the most egregious mistakes look slightly less so, and i've gotten pretty good at taking photos that don't show you the worst of it. but still, it hurts my heart to see a quilt i've spent so much time on end up looking less than perfect, and it is doubly hurtful when it's a group quilt for a charity project where i want us to be represented in the best of ways. (i know, i know, it's not really that bad, but as fellow quilters i'm sure you can sympathize with this kind of thing, right? also, sewing machine recommendations are welcome... i'm leaning towards a bernina, but still looking around.)

so anyhows, despite my griping, i do love how this one came out. i love how each block is so different, and yet they all look so perfect together. i love the variety and harmony in color. and, despite the flaws, i love the quilting. i chose to do random "straight" line quilting since it seemed like anything too geometric would interfere with the blocks. in retrospect i should have quilted it a bit tighter, but that would have made me lose my mind, and this was enough to keep the whole thing together and functional and able to withstand many years of some good use.

i also love the binding. i chose a nice, bright yellow kona cotton (actual color name long forgotten... i've got to get one of those color cards) to set off and complement the greens in many of the trees. and also, i just love yellow. so there.

and i love the other side, too! mari made some adorable blocks that i featured on the back of the quilt surrounded by this simple tone-on-tone green fabric.

see the little frogs under the trees? adorable!

what else? the quilt measures 48 x 48 inches, so each block is 12 x 12. i will package this little baby up this week and ship it off to wrap them in love, a very deserving charity, indeed.

... crewel

2011-01-19T18:08:00.000-08:00

well, i can proudly say that i have learned a new craft and am very much in love. last sunday i took my first class at the uber-cool assemble, taught by emily of tako fibers, who is one of the sweetest and most patient teachers imaginable. if you have a chance to take a class with her (and she's teaching this same crewel class again next month!) i urge you to do so.

emily's kits come with pretty much everything you need to complete them: embroidery hoop, needle, more than enough yarn for each project, a screenprinted design on hopsack, instructions, and a little instruction book to remind you of all the stiches should you (inevitably) forget. and there were so many great kits to choose from! i picked this abstract flower design, but she also had some adorable birds, a fox, bear, party garland, raindrops, and others i just can't remember right now.

class started with practice, so we got to try all the stitches before going at it on our kits. i am a big fan of satin stitch and chain stitch. french knots are still not my friend. but i will persevere.

on monday i was lucky enough to have the majority of the day off, so i cozied up on the sofa with my crewel, some (decaf) tea, toast, and a viewing of anne of green gables. i know, lucky me, right? it was so terrific to have a day to myself where i could spend some time on a project and enjoy a movie that only i love.

and then i got sick. and i've spent the last two days in bed feeling pretty awful. because sick + pregnant = ugh.

but at least i got to finish my kit! isn't it the prettiest? i think i'm going to get a slightly larger hoop and hang it in that. unless i get inspired to maybe frame it in a patchwork-style pillow of some kind. but right now i'm just so happy looking at it in its little hoop. i am picturing a bunch of these clustered together on the wall (in the nursery, perhaps?) but i don't want to get too ahead of myself.

... making lists

2011-01-04T18:14:00.000-08:00

i really like what jo is doing over in her corner of blogland. i, too, feel the urge, in my sudden need for order and getting things done, to have some kind of master list to manage my creative endeavors this year. but whoa! have you seen her list? just looking at it makes my head spin. so my list will be a bit smaller in the hopes that i can accomplish everything on it. and really, it's actually more of a "what ara jane wants to accomplish this year" list, with only few specifics. so here goes!

finish my september [cough cough] quilt for the do. good stitches bee. i have the backing fabric, binding, and the finished quilt top sitting around, now i just need the energy to put it all together. also, the heat is really on to finish this soon since it looks like march is my turn again for quilting. yikes!
finish the quilt for my now not-so-new nephew.
finish my mini-quilt project that i was so excited about last year. (see above photo for this project on my sad little "design wall".)
make my own sewing machine cover. why do i not have one already? poor, dusty sewing machine.
make my very own baby quilt (i'll get started on this once i learn the sex of this little peanut inside of me.)
once and for all learn to sew clothing, starting with baby clothes. baby clothes!
seriously, i will learn to embroider this year. i swear i will. in fact, i just today signed up for a crewel class at assemble next weekend. yay for crewel!
finish knitting the cutest little baby hat that i started pretty much the second i learned i was pregnant.
send off all my bee blocks on time. i've been good so far, but gosh darn it, i don't want to fall behind!
make a table runner. i've been dreaming about having a handmade one for quite a while.
make a cute little dishmat (ala this one from r0ssie). i always seem to have some kind of bunched up, sad towel on my counter for my drying dishes, and i've wanted something just a bit more lovely and stylish, not to mention, practical.
fix up my little sewing nook (see above for current set up... i am ashamed to admit that my fabric is stacked on top of a box spring with a sheet draped over it and that i've been too lazy to just get rid of that box spring). i'm currently sewing in the back sun room on our main floor, but am considering moving everything upstairs to what is currently my "office" i.e. the place where i pile up a bunch a papers but never actually spend any time in, thus making it an actually useful space. question to the mothers out there: do you think it's best to have your sewing space separate from the family area (what with keeping sharp objects and such out of reach) or is it best to be set up in a main living space where all the action is? having no experience here i'm not sure what the best thing will be once the baby comes and once that baby turns into a toddler.
quilt quilt quilt!
sew sew sew!
knit knit knit!
and, you know, all the other gifts and inspiration and various projects that will invariably pop up along the way.

yup, that's a pretty good list to get me started.

blocks for december do. good stitches. mailed off in the nick of time to melanie at texas freckles. what a fun block to make!

... new beginnings

2011-01-02T17:14:00.000-08:00

when i was a young, angsty teen i thought the new year was so silly. i think i enjoyed being contrary more than, say, actually believing in anything, so i had this thing about time being arbitrary and how celebrating the changing of the year was a stupid pastime. i'm glad that phase is over and done, because i really do enjoy the tradition of getting excited about a new year. i like having new year's resolutions (even the ones i don't keep) and i enjoy the feeling of starting afresh with new hope and a new outlook.

looking back, 2010 has been so, so good to me. i'm grateful for all my wonderful friends, both virtual and real-life, new and old, my family, my lovely and comfortable home, my amazing husband (that still tickles me to write), and all the small, beautiful experiences that dotted my everyday life. heck, i got married! that alone makes 2010 100% awesomeness. and last year we started the tradition of having a family motto. this past year's was "don't be a slave to comfort," something i took quite seriously and, i do believe, really changed my outlook in a number of situations (even though i never got around to embroidering it on a pillow). for me that meant physical comfort (i.e. stop complaining and suck it up, you ninny) but also my own psychological comfort, as in, trying new things and going outside my comfort zone with new experiences. it's true, i can tend to be a slave to comfort and like things just as they are. but i think i've made some small, gentle strides in changing that.

this year's motto, in a similar vein, is "don't be scared." it started out as somewhat of an inside joke between me and c, but one that took on some extra meaning and now seems entirely appropriate for the new year. and one i still hope to embroider on a pillow.

you see, we are going to have a baby in june and, i'm going to admit it right away, this kind of frightens me. of course, i'm terribly excited and ready for this new adventure, but i don't think i'd be human if there wasn't a small amount of terror mixed in with that excitement, right? already thing are changing, what with feeling a constant low-grade queasiness (c's new nickname for me is queasy... i'm like the eighth dwarf) and insane fatigue. can i use that as an excuse for not really being present here much the last couple of months? i hope so, because i'd like to milk it for all it's worth! i mean, there's not much to write about when you're spending any time not working just lying around on the couch watching bad tv and moaning about how queasy you feel. (though, admittedly, i totally missed the opportunity to do posts called "you know what i love... my couch" or "you know what i love... [insert name of reality tv show here]".) seriously, i haven't even finished a real book since november! and that, for me, indicates that things were kind of crazy.

so this year will be a year of new beginnings in every sense of the word. i already feel like i'm coming out of my fog, i have a renewed passion for sewing and the energy to do something about it, and i feel so optimistic about everything that is to come. in addition to my motto, my only real resolution* is to be the best mother i can possibly be and focus on that, both before and after this baby comes.

(*oh, okay, and also post here an awful lot, sew and quilt as much as possible, read my 52 books before this darn baby comes, put learning to embroider back on my list of things to learn this year, since i never learned it last year, and be happy, hearty and healthy!)

all photos are from today's sunny (and chilly!) walk around the center for urban horticulture, one of my favorite places in seattle. highly recommended as a place go for a stroll with your sweetie and reflect on the new year.

... new york

2010-12-28T20:51:00.000-08:00

i didn't mean for this much time to pass, but december always gets away from me. what with the holidays and getting married and other important life events, the rest of this month passed in a sort of blur that i'm only sort of coming out of. hopefully i will fully emerge in time for the new year.

but i wanted to show some highlights from our new york trip, which really was nearly as thrilling as getting married.

confession: the original reason behind our trip was to see yo la tengo's 8 nights of hanukkah at maxwell's in hoboken. we got tickets to three nights of shows, and it was so worth it. obviously, yo la tengo is the greatest and each show was different and exciting, but among the surprise guests we got to see our favorite comedian, eugene mirman (you can read a write-up of the night over at brooklyn vegan, which incidentally, includes a photo of me onstage with eugene and in which you can probably see i was nervous as all getout), great stand-up by jim gaffigan and wyatt cenac, and i discovered my new favorite band, the parting gifts.

seriously, they are so great. they make me want to dance around and/or get things done. and these are things i really need right about now. so do yourself a favor and listen to this song. yum!

i also made time to stop by purl soho. it was as lovely in person as i'd imagined it to be. however, i was so overwhelmed with all the gorgeous fabrics and yarns, that i couldn't decide what to get, except for a loverly little fat eighth bundle of liberty fabrics that is so pretty i may never cut into it.

we also swung by mood, just to ogle the goods and ooh and ahh. i didn't get anything there, since outside of the world of quilting cottons i know nothing about fabric, but it sure made for good eye candy and was also fun to imagine all the project runway contestants running up and down the endless aisles. i can now see why everyone is so insanely crazy on the show. so many choices! such chaos!

and you can't go to new york without eating pizza, which i did at least a couple of time. and speaking of good food, i had one of the most amazing meals of my life at kajitsu, which serves japanese vegetarian temple cuisine. the food was so good and so pretty i couldn't bear to spoil the night by taking pictures. i would go back there in a second should i be in new york again. it was worth every penny.

i also got to eat at one of my most-idealized, most-looked-forward-to restaurants, shopsin's. when we got there, kenny shopsin was out front in a chair sleeping away and i so very much wanted to take a picture, but i also didn't want to get kicked out. and it so happened that whilst we were enjoying our delicious food (banana nut bread pudding french toast for me... wowzers!) we got to witness a group being lectured and then ousted. i have now had the perfect shopsin's experience and my life is complete. huzzah!

on our last day we braved the chilly windy city for a walk on the high line. such a beautiful idea for a park in such an unlikely location.

(and ok, here's me, in pretty much the only photo of myself i've liked in the past few years, which probably means that it looks nothing like me. but still.)

it was so cold that day, with snow flurries and icy winds, that we had to warm up with some hot cocoa before heading back to catch our plane home.

thank you, new york, for the wonderful time and for sending me home the most happily married woman.

... being married!

2010-12-11T17:40:00.000-08:00

yup, we got married.

or, more specifically, we eloped in new york city last weekend. it was 100% perfect. wonderful, beautiful and just what we wanted. city hall makes it insanely fun to get married there, and though i thought it might cheapen the experience, the fact that we were surrounded by dozens of other eloping couples made it both exciting and romantic. it was a room filled with a whole lot of love.

and c will kill me for this, but i just love this photo. he's so very handsome and looks amazing in this suit. (seriously, look at my handsome husband!)

one of the best parts is that my parents embraced our spontaneity and, on just a few days notice, booked a flight out to new york to join us in our celebration. it made it that much more special having them there.

(also, because my mom thought of the little things like getting us flowers--for some reason, this never occurred to me--and making sure sufficient pictures were taken.)

the ceremony was quick and simple, and conducted by this no-nonsense clerk. seriously, would you mess with her? yikes!

we followed up the early morning ceremony with the traditional* post-wedding ukrainian brunch at veselka. pierogi... yum!

i couldn't be happier.

there were many more adventures in nyc, but obviously, this was the most exciting. i'll post more soon!

*not traditional at all

... november in retrospect

2010-11-30T23:15:00.000-08:00

i just can't let november completely pass by without posting something. i'll be honest, this month really slipped through my fingers. i've felt one step behind in nearly everything. and when i look back on the month it almost seems like i accomplished nothing. and yet, when i look at some of my pictures from the month, i know i did at least a little something.

like attend a modern quilt guild meeting and admire the work of my amazing quilting cohorts. aren't these projects so inspiring?

and experience the first snow of the year, which surprised us seattleites who aren't used to so much white stuff so early in the season (or at all, for that matter). never mind that the snowpocalypse came just when our furnace fan decided to go kaput. sure, we had two and half days of no heat while it was about 12 degrees out, but it was an adventure. right?

right?

i got to do some thanksgiving baking and made a maple pumpkin pie (yum!) and some seriously delicious buttermilk rolls (via rice and wheat via michael ruhlman).

and i did a little sewing myself, though not at all enough. i finished some bee blocks (and mailed them out in time... yay me!) and managed to piece the top for the tree quilt for do. good stitches. seriously, how great is this quilt top? if it wouldn't be so wrong to keep it for myself, i would, i love it that much. i am constantly impressed with the creativity and diversity that comes from this little group of sewists.

here's to hoping the next month brings some more inspiration and magic.

but i have a feeling that good things are in store for me in december.

a very good feeling.

... bee blocks

2010-11-04T17:43:00.000-07:00

today was catch-up day for me. i was a bit behind in my do. good stitches bee blocks. and the blocks that were late were for the quilt that i am putting together. yipes! to be fair, i haven't yet received all the blocks from all the members, so it's not like it was waiting on me or anything. but still.

my request was for scrappy tree blocks in any style, just so long as the trees were all surrounded in white. i was hoping for a forest of trees and i'm super pleased with the diversity of blocks i got. i'm glad i waited until i received most of the blocks because i feel like the quilt needs some smaller trees, so that's what i focused on. i also wanted to add more color to unite the quilt. mission accomplished. and, excluding the white, these trees are made entirely of scraps.

i am so in love with these blocks, i had a selfish moment where i thought i just might keep them for myself. sigh.

i'm looking forward to getting this put together and off to wrap them in love, and hoping i can get that done in the next week or so. fingers crossed for feelings of motivation and lack of distractions.

i also sent off my october blocks last week to jennifer of that girl that quilt. she asked for log cabins in purple and orange. purple! i had, like, one fabric in purple in my stash, so i was quite happy to discover that innocent crush has some great purples and oranges, which served as the foundation fabrics for my blocks. honestly, though, i'm torn between loving these and finding them horribly obnoxious.

what do you think?

... creepy lichen

2010-10-31T21:27:00.000-07:00

happy halloween!

yesterday, in the spirit of the season (and in the spirit of joining c on an adventure) we went on a walk led by a uw phd to learn about lichens of seattle.

in a cemetery! creeeeeeeeeeepy lichens!

seriously, they were absolutely lovely, and even though i have appreciated lichens before, i didn't quite realize that they were everywhere.

and that they really like growing on headstones.

i admit, it was super rainy and insanely cold yesterday morning so i was slightly less than thrilled at being outside, but that just made the whole graveyard thing that much more atmospheric.

today, i celebrated halloween in my favorite way by baking up some pumpkin cookies with brown butter icing. these are delicious, trust me. and you can get the recipe here.

... settling in to the season

2010-10-21T22:40:00.000-07:00

before our hike last weekend it honestly hadn't felt like autumn at all in seattle. and then, suddenly, wow! that one tree at the end of our street was all iridescent and golden/red and the leaves have been crunching so satisfyingly under the bike tires and the sun has been out in full-autumn-force yet still with that crispness and just this afternoon so much wind and rain rolled in to make for a cozy evening indoors.

last weekend we enjoyed our first croquet game of the season. sigh. my croquet gang this year kind of fell apart, what with work and travel and children and the like (oh yeah, and the not-so-summery weather). but most of us rallied on sunday for a last-minute gathering at the old croquet stomping grounds and braved the chilliness despite the sunshine. (c and i even biked there!) we warmed our insides with hot cider and snacks and caught some bits of sunshine where we could and caught up with each other's lives. truly the perfect fall day.

and don't despair, i really have been sewing. (not that i imagine that anyone else is despairing over my lack of sewing, just more a note to self.) working on a little something. whilst drinking hot cocoa. from my favorite cocoa mug.

and also still in search of the perfect backing for this quilt top, which i finished quite a while ago. i have in my head some sort of perfect yellow or green flannel, but i have yet to find it. someday someday this will be finished and quilted and off to the young babe who might not be a young babe much longer.

... a bedside bouquet

2010-10-18T22:57:00.001-07:00

lately, i am finding it incredibly important to have a bedside bouquet. there is nothing quite as nice as seeing fresh flowers right before going to sleep and first thing in the morning.

this little posy is from our garden, with some penstemon, coreopsis, zinnia, aster, plumbago and several varieties of salvia.

... welcoming autumn

2010-10-17T21:41:00.000-07:00

my own personal bell rang out friday morning and we declared it to be the perfect mountain day. c and i filled a pack with some cookies, water and camera and drove north to perry creek.

we had done this hike several years ago and were both so delighted by it that we decided to give it another go. arthur kruckeberg, botanist and superhumanbeing, declared it a "fern-watcher's eldorado" when he mapped out this trail many, many years ago. who can resist a fern-watcher's eldorado?!

the entrance has since been changed, and now for the better. instead of driving up an unmarked, rough gravel road for a mile to the tiny parking lot, you instead park off of the mountain loop highway and spend the first mile hiking through gorgeous shady forest with tall evergreens and dense northwest-ian underbrush. you eventually meet up with the former road and "parking lot" to start the hike that essentially traverses a rocky mountain side. you can hear perry creek below you in the valley, but don't get to see it until you meet up with the falls at what was the turn-around point on our hike.

all around on either side of this little canyon are waterfalls descending from high rocky cliffs, douglas maple, dogwood, big leaf maple, succulents, gooseberry and, of course, lots and lots of ferns. looking back from whence you came you can see mountain peaks still covered in snow from last season and the air is chilly enough to remind you that this is definitely possible.

and after all the rocky hillside, you are super delighted to finally see the creek when you enter thick forest and see the falls. oh, so lovely!

i recommend sitting here for a while and snacking on some cookies. if you are super motivated and aren't scared of slippery logs high over the creek, you can cross and go further up the trail to mount dickerman. we figured a roughly 7-mile hike was more than enough for the day and so, decided to turn around.

sadly, there were no cider doughnuts to be had, but we did have some hot cocoa on returning home and got to enjoy some more amazing fall weather the rest of this weekend. autumn feels like it's finally arrived.

at last!

... the 24-hour read-a-thon!

2010-10-08T16:22:00.000-07:00

ok, so today feels like christmas eve or something because tomorrow morning, at 5am sharp, i will be participating in dewey's 24-hour read-a-thon! which is exactly what it sounds like: i will (attempt to) stay up reading for 24 hours. i am seriously giddy about this, no joke. i have all my potential books stacked and at the ready. please do not judge me by these choices. i am going for books that fall under one--or many--of the following categories: light reading, short, ya fiction, chick lit, scary/suspense, or filled with pictures (aka graphic novels). it nearly killed me to hold off on reading the new love & rockets since i got it last week (complete with signed book plate, no less), but i was able to save it specifically for the occasion. yay!

sure, my sad old ass probably has no hope of staying awake the full 24 hours, but that won't stop me from trying. i have my stack of books lined up, i will have scones ready for baking first thing in the morning and snacks and meals prepared, and the weather gods are promising rain, which should make for a cozy booktastic day.

c will also be joining me in this endeavor and, as you can see, has a much more intellectually stimulating stack than i. any of these books could put me to sleep in a matter of seconds. i honestly don't know how he does it.

and jenn, my awesome pal down the street, is also joining in for much of the day, so i'll have another compatriot in this endeavor. misery loves company, right?

anyhow, if you are so inclined, please pop on over to my book blog* sometime tomorrow to hear about my read-a-thon shenanigans and cheer me on. i will try to post there every hour or so with mini-reviews and grainy hipstamatic photos and status updates on my sanity. and if you could come by to bring me a cup of coffee at, say, 2am, i would love you for life.

*yes, i have a book blog! and hey, look, i am actually capable of using capital letters sometimes!

... my dutch bike

2010-09-27T23:52:00.000-07:00

oh my goodness, i can't believe this is the first real picture i've taken of my new bike since i got it over two months ago. but really, she's quite photogenic, no?

i am smitten.

this is the oma, a real and true dutch bicycle from the seattle dutch bike co*. shiny, black, sleek, comfortable, lovely and handsome. notice the enclosed chain ring and skirt guard. that means i can wear whatever i want when i ride to work or to the store. in fact, i find that i dress up just in order to ride my bike.

seriously, doesn't this just cry out for a flowy skirt and high heels? (i got the skirt part down pat, but unfortunately am i not the heels-wearing type. only in my dreams.)

i can't really explain how happy this bike makes me. i think it is, in fact, impossible to be angry or irritated or sad whilst cruising around town on it. and it seems to inspire happiness on the part of people i ride by. i get so many smiles and whistles and stares and shouts of "great bike!" when i go past. how awesome is that?! maybe this is corny, but i feel like some kind of ambassador of happiness on my bike.

on my inaugural ride home from the bike shop a fellow rode up next to me on the burke-gilman, looked my bike over and asked, "is that electric?"

i smiled back, "no, it's dutch!"

and now when c and i bike to the store, i can load up my panniers with our groceries and the box-o-wine fits nicely on the rack of his bike. but maybe the box-o-wine is a you know what i love entry for another day. (dook dook dook.)

*the dutch bike co. has the most gorgeous new shop on ballard ave. everyone should stop by for a test ride and an espresso in their new cafe. in fact, we were their first customers in the new space before the shop officially opened!

... scraps!

2010-09-25T20:56:00.000-07:00

what my last project taught me is that i need a better way of storing my scraps. all my scraps were previously sorted by color, but they were in plastic bags kept in a tub under my desk and not super easy to access. so after this quilt--where i was pulling scraps out of bags and throwing them around like a madwoman--it looked someone barfed up fabric all over my sewing room... yikes!

i loved these simple scrap baskets from the sometimes crafter and went on a bender the other day making basket after basket. these are so easy to make, yet so so so adorable, that even a dummy sewer like myself can make them easy peasy.

the pattern calls for interfacing to help the baskets hold their shape, which i did use, but for some of the baskets i also used home decor weight to give them that little extra oomph. but honestly, the ones that i just made with quilting weight cottons are still plenty shapely.

is it crazy to think that these are going to change the way i sew? no? great.

... impromptu vacations

2010-09-24T23:30:00.000-07:00

lucky me, i had most of the week off. so tuesday morning, c brings me tea in bed (i know, lucky me, right?!) and says, we're going to go somewhere today. but where? so, by noon some decisions are made and we are packed, in the car, and headed toward the olympic peninsula. yay!

see, i don't take a lot of vacations because i am horrible at making plans. i hate figuring out where to stay and what to do and i agonize over every decision. but this was such a nice change of pace, an i-don't-care-let's-just-get-out-of-here-and-stop-worrying-about-it-all attitude was so refreshing.

we booked a room at the lake quinault lodge and i couldn't have been happier. seriously, this place is the greatest. super charm, old-school quaintness, cozy corners, beautiful lake views, adirondack chairs on an expansive lawn, fireplace... did i say yay? yay!

we went on hikes through the woods around the lake, we lounged by the great fireplace and read books, we sat and enjoyed the sunset by the lake, we ate the most delicious veggie burgers at the mercantile across the street from the lodge, we enjoyed the company of each other.

my recommendation: get a quinault steamer after dinner and sit by the fire with your sweetie and your book. sigh.

my only regret: canoe rental season at the lodge was over. which was made even more insulting as they left all the boats out on the lawn, but we weren't allowed to take them out on the lake. and all i wanted to do was get in one of those darn canoes... phooey!

on our drive home, we first stepped out onto the beach and enjoyed what i think is the most amazing view ever: the vastness of the pacific ocean in all its grey, stormy goodness.

we also stopped by the hoh rain forest for another hike. sigh. such drippy lovely green lushness.

and, lastly, what trip to the olympic peninsula isn't complete without a stop in forks? really, we didn't plan this, we just wanted a milkshake and this place looked awesome. still, gotta love the vampires.

wait, shouldn't they have drawn fangs on that smiley face?

... pink blue pink!

2010-09-19T22:09:00.000-07:00

wouldn't you know it, as soon as i posted that last post, i sat down at the machine and started sewing and couldn't stop. i had a scrap of an improvised log cabin block lying around from a while back that i picked up and built off and it went from there.

good thing i pretty much finished all the blocks that day, because the next morning i woke up sick as a dog.

i suppose a deadline also didn't hurt. this was made for my friend heather's baby girl, who should be arriving next month (on halloween, no less!) and who had a baby shower today. whew, finished it just in time!

i went for very minimal quilting for reasons thrice: 1) my last quilting experiment was waaaaaay overwhelming 2) i liked the look of simple squares to outline the log cabins and 3) i was kind of running out of time.

the happiest part is that it's about 90% made of scraps. and 100% made from my stash, including the backing and the binding... and the batting and the thread!

quilt specs:

it measures 35 x 46 inches.
the blocks are improvised log cabins that varied in size so i finished each with pink and blue kona cottons (sorry, don't remember the colors) to make 12" blocks.
fabrics used are too numerous to mention, but i'm happy to report that it includes quilting weight cotton, voile, canvas, linen, flannel and double gauze.
i made a simple pieced back with a strip of fabrics used on the front, plus two lovely folksy flannel prints for super baby softness.
the binding is kona coal. i love kona coal.

... inertia

2010-09-09T00:01:00.000-07:00

even i am surprised by my lack of motivation these days.

can you believe that instead of actually doing something i roamed the house taking photos just to document my own laziness?

wait, does that count as doing something?

so many unfinished projects.

so many things to not do. so little time.

this is what happens when you forget about your knitting project for the past six months and the moths go to town on your business. so many holes. yup, it's been frogged.

and this is what happens when you decide to sort all your books, but lose interest halfway through the project.

the fiction made it onto the shelves (alphabetized even!) but i'm unhappy with the layout. this will be reorganized. at a later date, obviously.

nyrb gets its own special area. i will always heart nyrb.

... the nicest and sweetest days

2010-08-31T20:30:00.000-07:00

"'after all,' anne had said to marilla once, 'i believe the nicest and sweetest days are not those on which anything very splendid or wonderful or exciting happens, but just those that bring simple little pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls slipping off a string.'" --anne of avonlea

... dutch bicycles

2010-08-27T23:43:00.000-07:00

in the spirit of my super-fabulous-too-amazing-insert-superlative-here birthday present, which i know i have not shown you yet, because i'm way too busy riding it to take pictures of it, i want to share with you this little video that is making me so happy right now. my good friend, who is half of the team behind the blog newelty, made this delightful video of her daily trip to dutch language school by bike.

i know, right?! and isn't that the happiest little song?

so why am i not packing up my bags and moving to the netherlands right now just so i can ride my bike around in such style and comfort? not to mention the flatness... oh the flatness! curse you and your hills, seattle!

so yeah, can i also mention how much i love newelty? describing it as a travel blog doesn't really do it justice since i, a person who travels so very little, always find so much goodness there. please go see for yourself.

... many little things

2010-08-25T23:08:00.000-07:00

there's so much to enjoy right now.

like finally (finally!) planning a new quilt...

... that is slowly coming to fruition.

and painting our old, dingy, cluttered entryway in a nice fresh bright white. [contented sigh.] is it wrong that i would i rather leave it empty and spare and clean rather than fill it with our old crap again?

and, look! a bright splash of yellow that makes my heart so, so happy. (this color is called sunny outlook... need i say more?)

and the giant pile of basil from our farm share that we turned into a whole lot of pesto over the weekend.

not to mention many places to have a nice cold drink on a hot summer day:

a pimm's cup at the white horse.

a beer (and a veggie dog) at shorty's.

a fancy cocktail (and some seriously delicious food) at poppy.

and rejoicing in some recent fabric purchases.

and there's more. but there's always more, right?

... pretty cards

2010-08-22T23:15:00.000-07:00

try not to be super jealous, but i just received these amazing letterpress cards in the mail as a thank you for doing the most nominal of favors for a friend.

seriously, someone out there read my mind and combined two of my favorite things: letterpress cards and quilts. aren't these absolutely gorgeous? you can find them here at the krank press etsy store.

they were sent to me by the talented jeannette, who also designs and sells her own super-awesome cards (see above... cuteness, right?) and who, incidentally, writes one of my most favorite food blogs.

and when you add all that to getting little surprise gifts in the mail? well, consider my day made. (and seriously, i need some made days lately, let me tell you.)

... quilting bee blocks

2010-08-10T21:55:00.000-07:00

blocks for my first ever quilting bee! these are for our first project for do. good stitches. the fabulous rachel organized this round (and, in fact, put together this whole enterprise) and her parameters were that we use red and aqua and that the blocks be non-wonky and non-curvy.

i had a lot of fun making these, especially working with a color combo that i haven't used before (and discovering that i have very little red in my stash). however, i did find that i was more worried about sewing perfectly than i am when sewing for myself. thinking things like, oh no, those corners don't line up perfectly! or crap, that seam got sewn open! this is the first time that any other quilter will be looking closely at and sewing with my work, and it freaks me out just a little.

next month it's my turn to choose the theme and assemble the quilt. i have lots of ideas, but need to finally settle on one. what will it be?!

... the oregon coast

2010-08-04T00:00:00.000-07:00

it seems i documented my vacation in reverse. see, i had the most recent things on my mind and could think of nothing more than portland and cupcakes and food carts (oh my!). but i can't forget the first part of our trip to manzanita, on the gorgeous oregon coast.

we drove down on my birthday (aside: on which i woke up to cupcakes and fresh eggs from my most wonderful neighbors, all discovered after the most perfect morning swim in the lake with my favorite swimming peeps) to stay at our friends' cabin in manzanita. they were there the first night and there was much game playing and talking and we stayed on for an extra day of hiking and beachgoing and tidepool watching. yay for good friends with awesome cabins!

our hike was along the coast through ecola state park to indian beach, that wound through beautiful a coastal forest with occasional views of the water and the rocks below.

i had fun watching the surfers and walking barefoot in the sand. and enjoying the long shadows made by the setting sun.

the next morning we got up bright and early for a tide pool walk led by a naturalist during a minus tide at oswald west state park. what fun!

we saw lots of sea stars and mussels and barnacles and sea anemones and crabs.

there was a gorgeous fog over the water and it was bracingly chilly, yet still, there were surfers out there in the scary looking waves. i so admire our crazy pacific northwest surfers.

but no time for lingering... it was onward to portland and all its delights.

... doing other things besides eating in portland

2010-07-31T22:12:00.000-07:00

we also had a great time in portland doing other things besides stuffing foods down our gullets. like stopping by tanner springs park in the pearl district and enjoying the quiet and the scenery and the bubbling spring.

and, obviously, spending lots of quality time at powell's.

we also swung by the international rose test garden, which i had never been to before. now, i'm not a lover of roses, but this place might convince me to become one. so much diversity! so many flowers!

there was a young lady obviously celebrating her quinceañera getting her photos taken amongst the roses. i snuck this photo pretending that i was taking a picture of the flowers, but really, i just wanted to remember how sweet she looked. see her there, way back in background? she almost looks like a rose herself.

i was charmed by this sign. that's all.

(also, i'm not going to mention the three fabric stores i visited in portland because that would be crazy. whoops. too late, i guess i just mentioned it.)

we also lucked out in that r. crumb's genesis was being displayed in its entirely at the portland art museum. i wasn't able to read the whole thing, but it was a delight seeing the original drawings in person.

on the way out of town we took a detour by way of the columbia river gorge scenic highway. first we stopped by mcmenamins edgefield to stock up on several bottles of their delicious gin, which i just can't live without. and further along down the road is the lookout vista, which gives you an insane view of the columbia river and the twisty turny road to the falls.

you can also go inside the vista house to see gorgeous arts and crafts style architecture and more pretty views.

and then, onward to multnomah falls! such prettiness, such greenness!

such a lovely way to say goodbye to oregon before returning home.

... eating in portland

2010-07-29T21:34:00.000-07:00

portland has my heart when it comes to food. especially food served out of a cart. i don't know why it is that when an establishment has wheels (or at least, the prospect of wheels) the food suddenly seems exponentially delicious.

first stop: pine state biscuits on alberta. (ok, not a food cart, but i believe its roots were of the cart variety.) yum. i had a delicious collard greens and egg-topped biscuit with some spicy sauce, and c had a great veggie biscuits and gravy. i will go back again, for sure.

next stop, pok pok for dinner. no pictures. maybe because it was dark or maybe because the food was really good, but not great. though the grilled sweet corn with coconut milk was seriously amazing.

for breakfast on day two: bloop! no lie, a food cart that serves nothing but oatmeal (ok, in reality it's a shared food cart that in the morning serves oatmeal and then they turn it over to a vegan bowl-based food cart... great idea, no?). but it's all cooked to order and it's seriously delicious. and oatmeal is my most favorite of breakfasts, so i'm quite partial to the concept.

i had the apple cider oatmeal and c had the peanut butter banana dream. wow.

for lunch we stopped by the downtown whole bowl. they serve one thing, but boy is it a delicious thing! i have a suspicion that the secret tali sauce may be very similar to the now defunct gravity bar's lemon flax dressing, but i'm not entirely sure. whatever the case, it was yummy.

for lunch 2: electric boogaloo we stopped by solar waffle. i liked the savory mushroom waffle just fine (and the whole non-profit, solar powered business is great), but the scene was this weird we-don't-really-care-crusty-hippie-thing that didn't jive with me. i like my food clean with minimal hawking of loogies, thank you very much.

dinner was a true neopolitan-style pizza at ken's artisan pizza. i read some reviews beforehand, many of which mentioned that the pizza was too burnt, which i dismissed because who doesn't love little burned bits on their wood oven baked pizza? but, to be honest, it seriously was burned. like, the entire crust. which is a shame because the pizza could have been great. if only they took it out of the oven about 45 seconds sooner.

day three breakfast was at broder, my most favorite breakfast place in portland. abelskiver and scandinavian decor and very good coffee and blurry pictures abound!

before heading out of the city, we stopped at the mississippi marketplace for a three-course food cart lunch. the appetizer was some amazing chickpea fries from garden state served up with the surliness one would expect from new jersey.

next up was veggie sushi from the sushi tree. we had to wait forever since the rice needed to cool, but i don't mind at all since the ladies making the sushi were so sweet, we got to eat edamame while we waited, and the sushi was fan-freaking-tastic.

and lastly, the long-awaited sugar cube offered us dessert for the road. we got a highway to heaven cupcake (lots of moist dense chocolate and ganache and salted caramel), and the acclaimed triple threat chocolate cookie. i might be ashamed to admit that we also had the vanilla bean lemonade and a fizzy lifting drink had i not enjoyed them so very much.

and now, i will eat salad for the next year to make up for these three days of gluttony. or, at least, until i return to portland again.

... coming home

2010-07-28T22:12:00.000-07:00

i'm back! back from a socks-knocking-off birthday and a road trip and a delicious food-devouring adventure and relaxation and sweet, happy times with my c.

back from having my feet in the sands of the pacific.

back with tales to tell of the best. birthday. present. of. all. time. (you think i am exaggerating but wait until you see what i have to show you.)

but right now i am tired. and collapsed in a pile on the sofa. and awaiting the season premiere of mad men (no spoilers!), which our magic box diligently recorded for us whilst we were away.

and, sadly, i may be gone again tomorrow for slightly less happy-inducing adventures. but i am still here. i promise.

... salsa party!

2010-07-20T23:25:00.000-07:00

gael, of the famous cookie party, and also the miss america party and the f1 monaco grand prix party and the world cup parties and, honestly, every fabulous party you can think of, had us over last (last) weekend for a salsa making party.

how cool is that!?

i think that, in this case, too many cooks in the kitchen was a very good thing. collectively we chopped and diced and squeezed and stirred and tasted until we had just the right salsa.

our first was a classic tomato salsa that we all wanted a little on the spicy side.

therefore, a lot of jalapeños and serranos were required.

francine was the chili-cutting master. or mistress. or whatever. i was just happy not to have this job.

we also made a lovely, sweet, mango and black bean salsa. i took home two jars of this and have been enjoying it very much.

of course, a gael party isn't complete without appropriate decorations.

and a most delicious sangria.

all followed by sweet miss kelly demonstrating her moves with her deluxe bubble maker. (i still want to know what a bubble parade is, by the way!)

... summer

2010-07-12T22:47:00.001-07:00

i would like to be a summer baby, but i am, admittedly, more of a child of winter. it is more in my nature to bundle up and hunker down for the cold winter months than to set myself free under the warm summer sun. but this past week in seattle we've had the kind of summer weather you just can't ignore. and i'm doing my best to enjoy the heck out of it.

like picking the first radishes of the season from our garden.

and enjoying them still warm from the sun sprinkled with sea salt.

or reading a good book in the sun with a well-garnished pimm's cup close at hand.

or having a plate of the best summer fruit for an afternoon snack.

or momentarily escaping the heat with a cold beer in the cool darkness of the pub.

and finding any time, any place to read. these few words from the great gatsby that i read the other day over at jane's most wonderful blog (and, sidenote, you should click on that link and read all her lovely words and enjoy her photos, and then tell her how you want her to update more, because, really, how important is med school anyhow?) really summed up how i feel about summer:

“and so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow fast in movies, i had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer. there was so much to read for one thing….”

true dat.

... a sweet, quick, handmade gift

2010-07-03T16:06:00.000-07:00

my niece's birthday was last week, and for the occasion i whipped up this delightful colored pencil roll from joelle hoverson's last-minute patchwork + quilted gifts. i had been wanting this book for a while, and i remember seeing a bunch of people making these a while ago, so when i thought about what to give her, this pencil roll immediately came to mind.

when i saw this super cute fabric (which i used for the back of the roll) at fabric crush, i suspected that olivia would like it as much as i do. i think she's at just the right age to appreciate hearts and peace signs and notebook doodles. at least, i hope she is.

i had the best time digging through my scraps finding fabrics to go with each of the colored pencils. this range of the blues, purples, pinks and browns is my favorite section.

but all of them are pretty great.

i'm giving her the pencil roll along with a copy of anne of green gables. i am so excited for her to read this book, you have no idea. i will try my best to not have my heart broken if she blows this off for a few years. but i just know that even if she waits until she is 35 to read it for the first time--like i did--she will still adore it.

... inspiration

2010-07-01T23:18:00.000-07:00

since i finished my last quilt i've been at a bit of a standstill. i've had lots of thoughtsicles forming in the ol' noggin lately, but nothing i felt ready to develop quite yet. so yesterday i just started cutting based on this sketch i did a few weeks ago.

and then this happened.

and then this became that.

and then a bunch of those became this.

and after looking at it for a while, i'm thinking my original idea maybe isn't the best thing, and it might go in a different direction. but that's okay. i hope.

some more inspiration. my eye is on making that grey/white half square triangle jobbie come to life in a quilt someday. but that orange maze-like pattern is also quite inspiring, no?

also, this caught my eye whilst driving down the freeway the other week. something about those colors was intriguing. or maybe it was the stripes? i dunno, i'm just going to hold onto this until i either remember what i wanted to do with it or i decide i was crazy for even taking this picture in the first place.

... bainbridge weekends

2010-06-30T23:35:00.000-07:00

my beloved rotary auction was held last weekend, so it was an excuse to spend the weekend on bainbridge enjoying all the goodness the island has to offer.

like veggie kabobs at emmy's vege house.

and movies at lynwood theater. i have such fond memories of this being the only movie theater on bainbridge, and having many a date here in my teen years. now that there is a cineplex in town, lynwood theater shows independent movies, which are always introduced with a few words and applause from the crowd.

i know, right?!

and ice cream at mora.

and, ok, how about ice cream at mora again the next day?

and, of course, no trip to bainbridge is complete without an excursion to the beach down the road from my parent's house.

and you must--MUST--take the dog with you. it's like your enjoyment is compounded simply by throwing and watching the dog run repeatedly after the ball.

there was a very, very, very low tide on saturday. i have never seen so much marine life before. was this a minus tide? crazy!

i mean, look at this seastar! this is just one of many we spotted.

there were even several baby octopi creeping around through the kelp and barnacles.

the community beach has a new project where they are asking beachcombers to collect plastic they find on the beach and add it to this artful collection. i love how someone organized it into rainbow colors. somehow this trash has been transformed into something so very beautiful. love.

as for the rotary auction, i had a few nice finds, including a bag of vintage fabric scraps that please me immensely.

and somehow, what with the frenzy and excitement of the morning, i managed to take no other photos of the auction itself except for this one of all the foosball tables lined up at the preview the night before, ready for new homes. godspeed, little plastic soccer guys.

godspeed.

... a quilt for me

2010-06-23T21:44:00.001-07:00

with just over a year of quilting under my belt, i have finally made a quilt just for me. though i should say "us," considering i will most likely be cuddling with c under this quilt.

i finished piecing the quilt top almost a year ago, but this poor thing has sat neglected for so long in the face of quilts i wanted to make for others.

i call this my deep sea quilt. but after completing it i'm going to give it the nickname, the wabi-sabi quilt. because while i do love it, there is so very much wrong with it.

some things i learned:

trim your thread from your quilt top before you make your quilt sandwich. especially when you (inexplicably) decide to piece everything with bright pink thread. what i wound up with is vague strands of pink visible under the white blocks. but in my effort to put a good spin on things, i'm trying to imagine these as ethereal jellyfish floating by in the background.
basting, basting, basting! i swear i am usually a thorough and good baster, but maybe i got cocky on this one? i don't know, what i was thinking, but what i do know is that i did not baste nearly enough for this kind of quilting, so there was a disturbing amount of shifting going on.
and that leads me to something i learned about myself: i don't like to undo work i've already done. i had already quilted about a third of the quilt before i started to notice the shifting. but since that represented five to six hours of work already, i just couldn't bring myself to rip it out. c'est la guerre, non?

but, boy howdy, do i love the back of this quilt! one of the first fabric lines i fell in love with after i started sewing last year was heather ross's mendocino and one i used a bit on the quilt front. so i knew i wanted to feature it even more boldy on the back. i was inspired by this gorgeous quilt, by erin from house on hill road with its large, bright, happy squares.

mermaids! fish! octopi! sea horses! oh my!

some quilt specs:

it measures 60 x 84 inches, by far the largest quilt i've attempted so far.
the front is a simple four-patch with solid borders. each square is 4 inches finished and the border measures 2 inches, so each finished block is 12 inches total.
fabrics on the front include mendocino, joelle hoverson's cake rock beach, some alexander henry, and a bunch of other stuff i can't for the life of me remember. sorry.
solid fabric is all robert kaufman essex linen/cotton blend in colors i also don't remember.
backing fabric is almost entirely mendocino with one yellow alexander henry floral.
binding fabric is cake rock beach.

... hibernating

2010-06-21T21:38:00.000-07:00

i don't know what my deal has been lately. maybe it's been the cold seattle weather, of which i am usually the most enthusiastic cheerleader, but may finally be starting to get to me, after months and months of the same cold wet sameness. maybe it's been the fact that i've been reading like a madwoman, motivated by the aforementioned weather and the comforting thought of hunkering down with a good book and a hot mug of tea. or maybe it's the fact that i've been slavishly working at the same quilt for almost a month now and have had nothing new to report. just more of the same same same same quilting.

though i'm happy to report that i just finished sewing the binding on this afternoon and soon there will be pictures to prove it! and did i mention that this is the first quilt i've completed for myself? so, so thrilled.

so to prove that i am still enthusiastic about this process pledge, i will show you some things that have been knocking around my brain and my creative space of late.

some quick sketches i've been doing in some of my idle moments.

bonus points for any fellow geeks who know what this quilt sketch is inspired by.

some stacks of fabric that i've pulled recently, though not quite sure what they will become yet.

and i was invited to take part in this super cool charity quilting bee, do. good stitches, by the lovely rachel over at stitched in color. i'm really excited at the prospect of working with a bunch of talented quilters and donating our end results to charity. can't wait for this to get started in a couple of months!

until then, it's back to the comfort of my sofa and a warm blanket. now, where's my tea?