mmm.... coffee.....

mint & lime

teresa & i trekked to the Paper Source again & i came home with lots of goodies!  i had fun with an embossing pen & tiny glassine envelopes (they became the above 2" thank-you cards for the sampler).  i also bought a ton of cards & envelopes to make some fun little stationery sets for teresa's new shop. 

the responses i've gotten for the kitty golightly have been awesome!  thank you so much everyone, you've inspired me to try sewing some more animals.  usually i'm sewing my strange creatures, they're much more abstract, but it was a fun challenge to try to make a stuffed animal that looked like something! 

sh sh sh sugartown

i have been paper-piecing tiny little quilt squares all day & i adore it.  i've been using all my scraps that i save & sort by color.  it seemed a bit obsessive at the time, maybe some people teased me about it, but now i'm so glad i saved them all!  i haven't quite decided what i'm going to do with these, maybe sew them onto cards?  i'm thinking i'll send them to the sampler along with the coffee buttons... 

 

in an attempt to not cut my hair during this cold winter i decided to have a little fun with some dye scott left behind.  the color was "nuclear red" over "ash blonde" which came out prettier than expected:

this is one of the little quilts i made during the blizzard.  i took a stack of orange & a stack of green & spread them out on my studio floor.  i love it.  this is what i want to do all the time.  play with colors, sew little quilts, & do more bookbinding.  here's a yummy close-up to click on so you can see the individual patterns:

kitty golightly

i made two more tiny quilts while pretending to be completely snowed in & this little kitty for this month of softies "vintage catwalk" theme.  i had grand ideas for her & you'd think i'd have a better understanding of this kind of animal body after years of sewing with teresa, but, alas, i only knew enough to know i wasn't doing it right!  or, at least, not how she would do it.  there were some tense moments & a not-so-pretty underbelly, but in the end i think she's quite lovely.  quite stylish with her little scarf, too.  i finally remembered where i got the idea for the shape of her head & if you can figure it out she's yours!

this is what i will be thinking about sewing while wishing for more snow so i don't have to go to work tomorrow: tsnumai relief quilt project.

blizzard of 2005?

i finished the new little quilt square that i've been making for teresa.  it came out really sweet with the little embroidered bird.  i found the bird fabric i know she likes when i was visiting my parents & picked out the two batiks to match.  then it just came together the other night & i've been embroidering it for several days.  i wrapped it up & gave it to teresa this afternoon & she said i was crazy.  it's basically one log cabin square with a piece of warm&natural batting wrapped around a little wood frame.  that last picture is of the back so you can see how it's stapled like a painting around the wood & masonite. i had these little frames custom-made, but when they're larger i just use stretcher bars from the art store.

someone that i used to be

the blue valentines are up in teresa's temporary shop! they're gocco printed blue & silver foldover cards with matching envelopes. i also handcut little swallow stickers to seal them with my handy new orange sparkly xyron.  i've already sold some & i'm super excited because i wasn't sure if anyone else would like them. so thanks to those of you who decided a couple of blue valentines were just what you needed this year!

paper piecing, also a girl's best friend

since i finally got my studio cleared i made a little mess in the middle of it while making this 6" quilt square!  this is the back side of it, there's going to be something embroidered on the front, but it's a surprise so i can't show you any more right now...  it's paper-pieced with blue & green cotton batiks & a little scrap of emerald silk for the center & rust orange silk for the tiny strips.  i love that i can draw any log-cabin-type-pattern on tracing paper & make it come out perfect with no measuring!  i first figured this technique out with the help of 202 Little Log Cabin Blocks by linda causee, she has a ton of books with great instructions.  i like to keep magazines & books like that around for inspiration.   my studio is the warmest room in the house so it was a nice cozy place to escape to last night.  it's hard to leave for work in the mornings when the sun in shining on my sewing machine.

evaporating markers are a girl's best friend

i started embroidering this tea-towel at craftygroup last night, i brought it to work, too, & the other people in the breakroom clearly think i'm a weirdo.  what's so strange about a twenty-something embroidering tea-towels on her lunch?  i'm going to make the steam curl all the way up one side & then down the other.  i should make a set, sew another one with a glass of bubbly champagne & what else?  then i could give them to my brother-in-law...  i need to post my blue valentine's day cards!  teresa said she might sell them in her shop when she sets up the new program, that'd be so awesome.  most of our stuff is pretty different, but i think the cards kind of go together.  there is much more i meant to say, but i'm so hungry i can't remember!

frosted donettes

my friend isaac sent me a little christmas card with a 3-d santa kit like a chris ware comic. it took a while to figure out that glue stick didn't work, tape looked awful, & tacky fabric glue was fast enough, but doesn't stick to your fingers like crazy glue. i think he looks cute, but his legs aren't on properly so he's a little crooked! i spent my 3 day weekend cleaning my studio, 3 bags of trash so far. i decided to toss a lot of the scraps & such that i think i'll use, but clearly i don't. i have a pile of fabric that other people gave me that i don't know what to do with. i'm never going to use it, does the salvation army take fabric? or maybe someone out there wants this? some of it's pretty scary, some of it's amazing, most of it isn't 100% cotton, but it's free... i followed along & organized my buttons into a type-tray like wee wonderfuls & it fits just right under my sewing table! i have officially run out of room for my fabric. oh! here's the rest of the goods from maine & south carolina & check some pictures from maine in my shiny new photo album to the right!

i quickly stitched together some mod curtains last night during the commercials for the west wing.  they still need to be hemmed, but i couldn't wait to hang them up.  i took this picture in the morning with the foggy light peeking through.  i noticed them from the street when i got home from work today & they looked inviting.  i was using scraps for the tan part from this weird velvety blanket a roommate left behind so i was hoping the bottom part would be shorter, i think it's a little overwhelming, but it does match the room.  the pattern is called "wurlitzer" & i adore it.  it would make an amazing dress...

teresa said i could use her new little gocco to print something & i want to make litle valentines.  i'm such a Tom Waits dork, but i don't care, i've always wanted to make blue valentines!  i dream about it every year & it never gets done.  i've been drawing this tattoo bluebird, like a sailor jerry bird, with a ribbon in it's mouth.  sometimes i forget how much i like to draw, mostly i just don't know what to draw.  so i draw coffee cups.