mmm.... coffee.....

what this book presupposes is... maybe he didn't?

i have decided that the quilt goes the other way so now it's upside-down in that photograph.  i really like how the green silk puckered from the interfacing because i ironed it too much.  now how to do that on purpose?!  i did a teeny bit of sashiko-type quilting on this one & i love it.   i'm trying to restrain myself & keep it simple, but some times it's hard to know when to stop.  i still have to figure out how much white sashing there should be & if it wants to be centered or not...

there's been a good amount of work getting done over here, but i have this nagging feeling that the alumni sale will arrive far too soon.  i really ought to pull out my vinyl & work on cuffs, sleeves & purses.  i put them away after Renegade & just haven't felt like working on them lately.  we'll see what this weekend brings...

this is apple & honey for a sweet new year - friday night i helped neighbor susan celebrate rosh hashana with a dinner for 18 friends.  there was so much tasty food, including brisket which she's really getting the hang of, and although there was no kugle friday, susan brought me some for lunch yesterday!  i also made my first matzoh balls for her soup which was deee-licious.  i need to have susan over to decorate christmas cookies this year like we did with our jewish friends when i was younger...

how lovely you are with your inlays of mother-of-pearl

this is all i will show you of the curtains i'm working on - i want them to be a surprise for mike & marsha...  the curtains are for Coastal Coffee's front windows & i had an idea in my head, but then it didn't work quite as i expected & i had to re-figure it out, but i'm pretty sure they're going to love it...

so, to go to NYC this weekend or not?  i'm trying to decide...  i want to go, i want to see lee & jo, i want to buy a new computer at the apple store & i can catch a free ride down with neighbor susan...  but i have so much to do!  i won't have the quilt done in time & i want to keep working on it, i want to finish these curtains, i have new things to start & only 2 weekends left before the alumni sale!  i am still having a hard time adjusting to this whole full-time thing...  where oh where do the hours go?  speaking of which, i haven't eaten lunch yet.

romantic residuals with legs akimbo

susan & i dropped off our little machines at Spirito Sewing this morning.  i love visiting him & seeing all the gorgeous old machines on every surface.  he usually has some great machine he just picked up to show me - this time it was a single-thread industrial chain-stitch machine from Pennsylvania in a wooden case, circa 1910.  it was tiny & beautiful.  we brought him susan's lovely blue Brother which was once her grandmother's, it needs a belt, a good cleaning & a lot of oil, but hopefully the motor won't give out.  my fab green Singer also needs a good cleaning & oiling and turns out to be almost exactly the same model as the one i wanted to buy - isn't that amazing?  and mine is from Maine so that makes it even better.  oh, i am so excited about it!  i borrowed the instruction manual to copy so i'll know how all the little parts work & it can do so many things...  apparently Singer didn't make a lot of these (late 50's - early 60's) because it was kind of the higher-end model at the time, the average housewife wouldn't have spent the extra $200. 

that is a sneak peak of the quilt i'm working on for my sister to give as a wedding gift to some friends of her's.  after ignoring it for a few days i think i know what to do with it, or i will once i get to a fabric store...  it needs a something...  and i don't have that something...

if you were waiting for the opportune moment, that was it

Maxims by the Yard, Some in Meter, Spools of Knowledge Vol.I
book by Angela Lorenz in a box by me


more info on this book can be found here.  the red box i made is a simple clamshell with a little window cut out of the box to highlight the maxim that has been woven into the spine & i lined it with mylar to protect the item from dust & dirt.  sorry this is short, but i must get back to work!  oh, i mean, yarr, me hearties, i best be getting to me ship afore i end up in davey jones' locker...

perhaps margaret is right - piracy is our only option

these photos are to entice you to see the Wunderground show, they can't possibly convey what it feels like to be in there.  i'm going back (when there isn't a billion people & a marching band) to take better photos.  the majority of the posters i've collected are in the show, but i have quite a few that aren't.  we found several of paul's posters among the over 2,000 on display, some of my favorites were there, many that i hadn't seen before & so many that i remember from when they were wheat-pasted up around the city:



it's because of artwork like this that i desired to do graphic design without a computer.  my professors said i should be in the illustration dept if i wanted to draw or the printmaking dept if i wanted to screenprint, but i wanted to do it all...  in case you hadn't noticed, i have quite a few interests/talents/skills/hobbies.  i can't imagine picking just one.  and i don't think i lack focus because i am extremely focused on all these things, sometimes they overlap & combine.  i even find my graphic design background creeping up & showing itself in the strangest places.  all these diverse interests make up who i am & i am not easily defined...

in addition to the thousands of posters, there is a room filled with installations called Shangri-la-la-land.  this part made me sad, whereas the poster display felt like a celebration, the installations felt like a memorial.  even more evident here then in the photographs of the rubble of what was once Eagle Square, you can tell this era that has ended.  now what i want to know is, what's next?

a mind-pounding, eardrum-harming experience"

it's quite possible that we don't share the same sense of humor...  i think my newest pincushion is awesome, but it's okay if you don't want to have a dead one-winged raven to stick pins in!  i'll just keep it for myself:

i meant to post this the other day, but i was struck down by some random allergy attack & then, well, the rest of the week got away from me.  that keeps happening, although every day lately feels like it must be monday, somehow it is already friday...  and tonight is the opening for Wunderground at the RISD Museum, i'm going with my friend Paul Lyons.  the show spans 1995-2005, which i guess is kind of my era in providence, it's a little weird & i'm not sure i'm ready to see it spread across the walls of a museum!  i'm both excited & a little freaked out about it - i am curious to see how many of the posters i've stolen are in it & if i have any that aren't.  just to the right of her shoulder is one of my favorites, a long skinny BSR 88.1FM poster:

(photo from projo.com by Gretchen Ertl, click it to go to the article)

now i go out alone if i go out at all

done!  i worked through a migraine yesterday afternoon to hand-stitch the binding down on the wedding ring quilt.  it's actually my favorite part (& it helped to distract me from the pain) i enjoy the methodical & meticulous blind stitch & pride myself on making it disappear.  i do not recommend making your quilt top out of silk dupioni.  seriously.  i did my best with it - zigzagged the binding on & lined the binding itself with interfacing.  i'm confident in my work, i'm not as confident in the strength of the silk itself.  it's well-made, but i didn't go too crazy with it.  in book repair i learned that it's important that your repairs are not stronger than the book itself, otherwise it will tear itself apart.  the same goes for sewing.  we have some really old family quilts & the ones that are made out of a mix of clothing scraps have ripped themselves apart because some fabrics are stronger than others.  this is why i enjoy making "art quilts" that aren't going to be used or washed, i can mix & match & not worry about wearability!

i've been meaning to make myself some little felt pincushions for a while now & finally stitched a few last night.  i seem to have lost my good pins, i'm hoping they'll show up now that i have these adorable pincushions to stick them in...  i'm going to need them since i got into the Foundry Artists Sale in addition to the Bazaar Bizarre Boston & the RISD Alumni Sale!  so i'm basically not allowed to leave the house for the next 4 months.

bend your branches down along the ground & cover me

if i bought things to make things with & things to display things on (in erica orange & teresa lime) does that make up for wussing out of craft night last night?   i ran off to ikea with whitney & akram instead because i had nothing portable to work on except for the never-ending first sweater which my hands are too tired to knit.


i found some fun scraps of fabric buried in the as-is bin of slipcovers - most of them were only $1!  and i know those weird tree things will come in handy at a craft fair some day...  i'm finishing an amazingly cool box today at work & i'm so excited to show it to everyone, but someone was taking lots of pictures last night & now my camera battery is dead.  you know those tiny paper labels that bookbinders & shops used to paste inside their books?  i need to design my own because i think this box deserves to be signed.

pretty much as good as two or three cups of that other coffee

my 3-day weekend (mostly) in photos:

only $7 at the farmer's market saturday morning


i finished the hand-work on stacey's quilt & am now tackling the binding


drinks & board games & music with two friends


poppy seed chiffon cake with lemon glaze


it's a shame i didn't take a photo of the finished cake - i baked it in a Williams-Sonoma's bundt pan shaped like a rose. (oh my, when did they come out with that sandcastle pan?!)  it was for our block party which i look forward to all year.  we got rained out on sunday & had to have it on monday when the weather was lovely.  it was a lot quieter this year & ended rather early, but it was still quite fun to reconnect with my neighbors & meet a few new folks, too.

my roommate has gone home for a couple weeks which means i have no excuses to keep me from finally finishing cleaning my studio.  tonight i will pull out everything i hastily shoved in there & make a huge mess of the kitchen, mwhahaha!  then i will have the space to finish the binding on stacey's quilt & then slowly reorganize everything.  how long have i been saying that?  shhh.

if your jeans cost more than an iPod, but your t-shirt cost less than a pack of gum...

   i like to stand on the furniture. 
and sit on top of desks. 
people try to chide me by saying,
"you don't do that at home, do you?" 
ah, but yes, yes i do!  i don't wear
shoes in my house, though...
  that soundchex poster from AS220 behind me is one of my most favorite posters, it's got a little dinosaur on it playing with a rubix cube.
  mm, i just ate a delicious lunch of sushi!  a little present to myself for making it through 2 whole weeks at full time.  that's my excuse, anyway...  while waiting for my dragon roll, i wandered into the evil Urban Outfitters & saw a fabulous set of sheets covered in little spiders.  i know tara is shuddering right now, but i really liked them.  although i wander into UO from time to time, i don't buy anything there anymore.  then i stopped by & said hello to greenhouse brian who gave me a small passion flower which smells divine:

(more in this photo album)

and now i'm making another box similar to the napoleon box, except this time it was requested that i do something so elaborate.  the inner recess is very shallow because it is for a teeny tiny pamphlet:

now can someone please tell me what to do with my hair?  i need an actual hair style or else i'm going to shave it off.