mmm.... coffee.....

no strangers, only friends you haven't met yet

many of you may have noticed that i haven't been returning emails lately.  well, okay, even worse than usual!  i did get some response from my hosting service about the excruciating slowness & they have offered to switch the server my account is located on.  i'm going to go ahead & do that some time this week.  they say it will take 24-48 hours & any emails sent to me will be bounced back.  so you have been  warned!  i'm going to send out a general email to everyone i can think of, but i can't get into my mailbox right now, maybe later... grumble grumble...

rachel drove me to Osgood Textile in western mass yesterday so i could roll around in overwhelming piles of vinyl.  i spent an embarassing amount of money on the stuff.  it was about what i had expected, but i had hoped it wouldn't be that much.  we met up with the lovely miss tara of plainmabel & ate grilled cheeses with bacon & onion rings at a real diner.  we played johnny cash on the jukebox, they had lemon & chocolate cream pies & i had a strawberry milkshake for dessert.  delicious!

and to those of you who have requested merchandise for your store and/or webshop: i am sewing sewing sewing like mad, obviously restocked & expanded my vinyl selection, and will hopefully be able to email you back about it soon!
 

melty melt dribbly drip

i am so excited about this month of softies theme!  alice's adventures in wonderland & through the looking glass are my favorite children's books, alice in wonderland is my favorite Disney animation, & alice is my favorite creepy live-action animation.  if you've never seen any of svankmeyer's animations definitely watch this one: alice is a real little girl chasing an animated taxidermy rabbit through a decaying Czech house.  i have decided to spend this gorgeous day in my sunlit studio sewing a slithy tove: he is like a badger, with a green lizard underbelly & a corkscrew nose.  i wanted to make some of the insects, but a friend of mine is always quoting the verse "twas brillig and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe: all mimsy were the borogoves and the mome raths outgrabe."  you're probably wondering how one can insert this rhyme in everyday conversation, but that's just the kind of curious person he is.  the slithy tove is going to be made out of felt, a little easier this time, and i'm going to try to make a pattern first so i can make more of them. 

there should be many slithy toves.

>here are some pictures of why i didn't get to sew & post for days & days - can you find my poor computer in all that mess?  hundreds of books passed through my tired little fingers this week.  i would've crawled under my desk to hide & cry if not for my friends Art, santiago, ben & beau.

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!

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. 

done & done

instead of joining the ladies at crafty-night, i assemble our ikea furniture last night!  this is our new entertainment-center-type-thing, it houses my record collection, our ancient tv, nintendo & my collection of 70's board games.  eventually it'll have big rolling drawers on the bottom for the videos & the rest of my board games.  i'm super excited about it!   there was also a cabinet for abby's bedroom: hanging glass doors on ikea furniture wasn't easy, but eventually it worked.  i love getting to put together stuff like this, makes me want to build my own furniture!  someday when i move to maine i can have a woodshop in addition to my sewing room, bookbinding bench & screenprinting studio...

i took advantage of the car ride to ikea by embroidering a pink-frosted donut on the other side of my shirt.  i think it came out really nice, i might have to embroider stuff on all my plain clothes!  i can't decide what to put on the back...  i was thinking of swirling steam across the top with a plate of eggs & bacon, or, as my boss suggested, a diner.  then i need to stitch along the collar & cuffs.  i really enjoyed drawing & embroidering.  i wonder if other people would want shirts like this...

a romantic comedy, with zombies

(click on the picture for a big close-up)  with encouragement from a kit by jenny hart, i remembered how to embroider last night while watching shaun of the dead.  my roommate & i are off to ikea today to spend lots of money & i hope to embroider something on the other side of my shirt!

"button button

who's got the button?" it was a very late night & another early morning sewing & making buttons.  (there was also some candle-lighting for my neighbor susan squeezed in there somewhere)  i have lots of little buttons with tiny drawings of mostly coffee cups that i watercolored.  i brought them to work & everyone thought $2 was a fine price.  so maybe i won't have enough creatures, but i've got lots of little buttons... 

procrastination

i'm not really sure what to say since this is my first post.  i've never seen anyone else's first one, do you usually just jump in?  there's a lot i ought to be doing right now & making a weblog probably isn't one of them!  i should be a creature-factory, but my hands are tired.  i should be going to bed, but my mind is awake.  instead i'll draw tiny coffee cups with a micron 005 pen.