mmm.... coffee.....

all my memories are in clipart

i made this little cat toy last night for Sputnik, jonathan & ana's new kitty.  i was playing with him friday night, sputnik is one of those awesome cats that you can get to jump really high & twist around when playing with string.  they call it the zombie string because it won't die so i made a zombie head on a string & filled it with catnip.  the face i embroidered is from a painting by jonathan.  i know some of you crafty ladies make things with other people's drawings & i wondered why, i like to draw myself, but it was fun taking someone else's work & making a new creation out of it.  i asked jon if i could make more things with his drawings & he said yeah, he'd draw some more for me!

both quilts are almost done, but i hesitated because i wasn't ready for them to be finished, it was happening too fast.  besides, when the green one is done i have to give it to the person who requested it!  i was thinking about doing a little beading on it because i know he is going to hang it on a wall instead of using it...  i'm not sure, i did buy some green beads though...  instead i knit myself a hat this weekend.  i really wanted to make marnie's nautilus hat even though it bothered my wrist to work with the double-pointed needles.  here is a series of photos of the hat in which i try to make up for lack of quality by giving you quantity:


in the background you can see the corner of a poster for movies with live soundtracks from Fort Thunder (by the brad pitt of comics?) an IWW solidarity poster (by my friend mike) and a poster for brit-pop night at the greenroom (by uncle) can you tell i've been staying up til 3am lately?  i blame the knitting & my need to learn the turkish cast-on for socks.  i decided to catch up with some of the ladies this weekend, i had breakfast at the modern diner with kristen, watched a movie with allison & had dinner with jodie.  i also went out saturday night to AS220 with jonathan & JP!  happily i got to see bob & ginny and talked with JP for a while (that's a misquote from him in the subject line.)  it was great.  i should do that again some time.

my firstborn, written in a burst

these are photos of the busiest corner in my studio, my work table.  i took them a while ago, but since i don't have my camera with me today (& have neglected to take pictures of everything i want to show you anway) i thought i'd post them today.

among many things are the few months of softies, borogove figure made by dan from the bookstore, tiny coffee book by kristen, collection of cool book covers for a never-realized sketchbook project, tapir box painting by a friend from college, owl perfume bottle, technical drawing supplies from my dad, small stash of yarn (it's bigger now), tiny hammer my mom gave me, coffee drawing framed by my boss michelle, drawing about drinking coffee jonathan drew for me, jabberwocky stencils & scraps now covering a drawing of santa riding a unicorn scott drew for me, tracing for tiny paper-pieced quilts, article on book repair, coffee bean clock from lee, various sketches for things, tiny santa i assembled from an xmas card by isaac, photo of teresa & me dressed up to go to a goth club in LA, string of beads from marie, more sketches & inspirations, pin that belonged to marianne, arrow-through-the-head made by dean booher's father, little rooster patch by lily'srooster...

little plastic drawer-box storage thing i should utilize more from landlord, tiny polaroid camera, tiny xyron sticker maker, stuff from my desk when i worked at the Rockefeller library, drawer thing from ikea that wasn't really worth building, giant heirloom knitting needles (the smaller pair) my mom had, knitting needles, rulers, etc, thread for bookbinding, post-it from long-gone roommate, cute hanky i meant to send to weewonderfuls, photo of gregory with flock-of-seagulls hair, photos of quilts i made for marie's little pixie twins, quote about anxiety from neighbor susan, tiny polaroids of my bike, cats & book press, postcards, snowflakes from anthropologie gifts, framed etching from a book labeled "better to be cain than abel",  framed telegram from a valentines day,  little bird bell neighbor susan gave me, photo of my cat i briefly had, pin from first night belfast, 50's ad with caption "Rodney Peters already had a wife", triangles, small portion of keys from my key collection...  and there is always so much more scattered across my desk, mostly tools & fabric. 

i'm tired.  this weekend was awful, i think, i'm not entirely decided yet, but i think i had a migraine saturday.  how can i not be sure?  well, my migraines aren't like that, but the same thing happened to me early december.  so i'm thinking it's a migraine, a horrible 10 hour puke-a-thon migraine.  a couple glasses of wine over 6 hours while eating food do not a hangover make.  any migraine sufferers want to weigh in?  i'll be reading some more of Migraine by Oliver Sacks tonight.  so not much to report on the crafty front, although i did get the glorious green & orange quilt all machine-quilted & am now sewing on the binding.  i should show you that, i did a cool abstract pattern along the large orange area.  oops, i have to go to my other work!

you're only 16 you don't have a rep yet

before the pretty pictures we first have some business to attend to:

1) a note to any male readers: if you are making a mix cd for your ex-girlfriend as a christmas present do not include the song "fight for your honor" by peter cetera.  it will not be well received.  it will not be appreciated.  and no, being on the karate kid soundtrack does not make it okay.  in fact, no one should put that song on any mix cd for anyone.  ever.

2) a question for (but not limited to) readers in relationships: would you date / have you dated / are you dating /are you married to someone who is not an artist or craftsperson?  how important is it to you that your partner appreciate your art or craft?  do you make things together or do you prefer everything to be seperate in your lives? (and yes, i consider music art)  would you consider dating someone who, although cute, stared at you blankly when you told them you just sewed a quilt?

and now the pretty pictures! above are the only photos i took at our new england crafty get-together at alison of wonderlandq's house saturday.  oddly for such an internet journal bunch, we sure didn't take many pictures!  that was super super fun, a whole group of us met up, ate chips & cookies, talked shop & life, had the most polite yankee gift swap ever & shared extra craft supplies.  i snagged some amazing soldier fabric & a stack of cigar boxes among other things.  the gift i scored was appropriately wrapped in pokemon paper (i am ever so professionally dressed in my GottaCatchEmAll! tee today) from dayna the crafty scientist.  i am the proud owner of a sockmonkey fabric pillow!  no, you can't have it.  go buy one from her.


"but, erica, why aren't you talking about the quilt photos?"  okay, i'm getting to that!  there it is, about 45" square & all sewn from 8pm friday night till 3am this morning.  in the third photo you can see i started to machine quilt it, but it being 3am and all i figured i should stop before i screwed something up.  this weekend was fabulous, besides saturday evening, i stayed home alone & just cut & sewed & sewed & cut!  i'm having a hard time getting my brain to understand that i'm at work now & not in my studio staring at greens & orange.  all i'm thinking about is which fabric i want to do the binding in, i was going to do one of the rich greens i have a lot of like the stripey one in the last photo or the marble endpaper one.  but now that it's laid out with the green backing peeking around the edge i'm thinking orange or yellow.  or orange.  green.  yellow.  green.  orange.  green.  yellow.   i could just sit and stare at it for hours.  this one is for someone, but i think i'm going to have a hard time letting it go!  hey, don't let the pretty colors distract you from that question.  green.  orange.  green.  yellow.  orange....

i'm coming over but i won't be long

i've been matting some amazing things from the military collection at work these last few days.  i'm not a fan of military things, i can't stand watching images of war & i don't like the history channel, but some of these paintings are so delicate that i can look past the violent aspects & appreciate them.  how can you not love those mutton-chops?!

this library is such a wonderful place, it's gorgeous & small & eclectic & full of great people.  i am so lucky to get to work here, even for just a little while.  before the holidays they had a party: after the doors were locked we went down into the staff lounge for a potluck dinner!  it was so neat to hang out, drink wine & meet people's partners.  someone asked where the budget comes from for it, there isn't one, they just decided to have it for themselves & provide everything.

i don't hardly know her

thank you so much for the comments about my quilt, i hope to make more of them now that the holiday season is over.  i'm still catching up on my photo posting, back in the beginning of december santiago, kristen & i took Art out for sushi on his birthday.  it was so much fun, we got a huge boat of sashimi & some little tables of rolls, a bottle of cold sake & a bottle of plum wine:



afterwards, santiago & i went over to jonathan & ana's to drink the bottle of Poizin (the wine to die for apparently) that lee & jo brought back from napa valley a while ago.  it came in a little wooden casket, i had saved it for a while, but was afraid it might go bad... not that my apartment is ever very warm this time of year!

my life is like an artichoke

i know this is all you really want to see, the quilt i made while visiting my parents down south!  but i also threw in a montage of photos from the whole week at Hilton Head, South Carolina & Stockton Springs, Maine.  i have been itching to make a full-size quilt with my new... style?  technique?  not sure what to call it, but here it is 40x50"!  it now has a 1/4" seam binding out of the dark blue batik.  all the fabrics are batiks except for that turquoise sunflower print, i tried to take it out of the mix, but it just tied everything together so perfectly.  the bottom half is one large stripey piece.  the photos are a little blurry, but i think you can get the idea.  so now how the hell should i quilt this thing?

in addition to fabric buying & quilt making, there was christmas tree decorating, cookie baking, walking on the beach, and yes, even a little driving!  then, sans my luggage, wednesday night i got off the plane & hopped into Art's little beetle with bookstore kristen & zipped up to visit Mike & Marsha again for New Years.  i ate 2 lobsters one night, went to Belfast for First Night, & fell in love with the small kitty Mocha. that's a photo of me down below holding Morty their other cat so you can truly appreciate how large he is!