glittergoods

we call it "relaxing," not "boring"

Oh, I had a whole long post detailing our weekend in San Francisco, which was not actually very detailed because mostly all we did was eat good food & take long walks in the wrong direction (thanks, Google Maps, I owe you one), & thus we completely failed to hit any of the crafty hotspots except Britex.  And Kinokuniya, but that was by accident (see:  long walk, wrong direction). 

But then New Typepad ate it, & I'm not sure that we are not all better off for it being reduced to the single paragraph above.

Also, despite lugging the big camera around all weekend, in the end I took exactly two pictures, both inside the hotel:

This is the most comfortable bed ever.

This is the view from our hotel room.

Ta-da.

But, really, thanks to all of you SF suggestion-makers.  I have an extensive & interesting-looking list of cool shops & etc. for the next time we go, &, frankly, there are worse things than organizing a weekend around great vegetarian food (to wit:  Millenium, Herbivore (we had very cheerful + efficient service at the Divisadero location -- beware extremely liberal onion use), Papalote, Weird Fish).

And, also,  I got to go to Britex.

It was a little overwhelming, but since when has being slightly overwhelmed stopped me from buying fabric?  The remnant floor was my favorite, but they'd also just gotten a fresh Liberty shipment in so I stood around & ogled for a while.

I made sure our "well, we might as well, since we're HERE" trip to Kinokuniya wasn't wasted either:

I especially like that little dress.  The mother/daughter matching isn't really my scene, but there's some cute kid stuff in this book.  (I would immediately return home & proceed to make some dresses from a completely different Japanese craft book, but that's another post.)

Those pictures are from after I got home, by the way.  Seriously, two pictures.  The entire weekend.

scattered

Lots of lazy little things going on around here this past week or so as summer rushes to a close.  It's cool & greyish again here this morning, though we did just have two hot days (which is rare enough this year that everyone is walking around talking about how we just had two hot days).

First-ever attempt at a jacket.  Sleeves turned out surprisingly decently; have stalled out at crucial moment of zipper installation.  Maybe today.  This project has served as a reminder to me to never show the pattern packet to my girl, who got very shouty that I was not making the pretty pink ruffly one as pictured.

Playing around with hand-dyeing cotton twill tape.  I'm finding the process incredibly satisfying, though I suppose at some point I should take a break from process & think about what I'm going to do with product.

Been spending some time poring over the book I got from Sally's tag sale, Basics for Girls (ISBN978-4-579-11147-3, more pictures on flickr).  It's exactly that, charmingly basic, with several variations on each pattern, (ie, dress with short sleeves, no sleeves, long sleeves, & "formal" versions).  I'm not sure there's much here that I couldn't find with a good dig-through of fabric store pattern books, but of course I love the styling (& not having to imagine what the pattern could look if done up in fabrics more to my taste is nice, too).

When there are two kids, you can't make just one space helmet.  My boy & I got into papier mache the other day, an excellent cheap messy morning of flour paste, a local free paper, & a balloon.  He's hoping it's dry enough to paint today, I'm hoping that I didn't over- or under-estimate his head size too badly.

I was never very impressed with this mirror ball dot fabric on the bolt, but on our perfect trip to Portland a while back we were at a quilting store (Fabric in the City) & there on the wall was this big amazing modern quilt made using all of the colors together, & it was the color combinations that got me more than anything else.  I ordered this fat quarter box after looking longingly at it for months, & I love seeing it on my shelf so much that I don't know if I'll ever be able to cut into it.

The Great Wall of Tomato is finally paying off, & we're getting cherry tomatoes by the double handful every day (these are Sungold, the Matt's Wild Cherry are just starting to ripen).  I have been ruthlessly cutting back still-growing vines & blossoms in hopes that if the plants would just focus, there will be enough time to ripen up all of the full-size tomatoes before the weather turns.  We have been laughing all summer about how maybe we won't put in quite so many tomato plants next year, wouldn't it be nice to be able to see the dahlias?, but this harvest part is pretty well worth it.

goodbye headache, hello sun

I've spent the past two days gingerly negotiating around a migraine & its aftermath, so I could not have been more delighted to wake up this morning to discover that it was gearing up to be sunny.  Say what you will about the drear of our Northwest winters, but spring is really something around here.

And just how, you may be asking yourself, did I spend this sunny morning?  By bundling my kids off to their respective schools, then sitting in a coffee shop for an hour, working on the grannies (I'm on edging now, doll-sized stuff is so satisfying to do!).

Then a quick trip to the yarn store (ok, a quick trip to the yarn store across the street from the coffee shop, which conveniently had just opened as I was finishing my hour of coffee + crochet, then another quick trip to a different yarn store that's kind of on the way home) to get this pile of color

on the off-chance that another little girl I know might happen to need a granny square doll blanket.  Which totally blows the whole idea of it being a stash project (though the one I'm making for my girl is 100% pure stash, baby), but I can (& probably will, tonight, to my husband) make the argument that what I'm doing is filling in gaps in the stash (er, because while it might look like these colors pretty well match what I've already got, I don't have EVERY SINGLE SHADE.  Yet.), so that in future, my stash projects will be much better-balanced.  Or something.  I haven't been to the yarn store in a long time, ok?

With the nice weather comes the appearance of the first of the spring skirts (oh, punchy balloon, you were full of annoying vitality when I took this picture, though you have since fallen prey to migraine-induced BALLOON DESTRUCTION.  My son will miss you, but I will not.).  I think this is the 5th or 6th of this particular pattern I've made (the pattern is two pieces, yoke & skirt, & I've actually redrafted the skirt piece to make it longer for my little beanpole), & the love affair is not over yet.  Two, maybe three of these fabrics

are slated for New Look 6506 (if you look it up?  Don't be alarmed by the fact that the cover illo shows a little girl in a pink tweed suit, ok?  The skirt, on its own, is terrific.), though my plans may change when Erin posts her skirt tutorial.  I also want to find a good, easy pattern for some summery wide-leg pants for her  -- any suggestions?

signs of spring

While uploading this entry's pictures to my flickr I realized how springy they all are as a group; I mean, obviously, the cherry tree

(This is a lovely, sturdy, arching cherry (under grey March skies) in our backyard.  For about one week every year the blossoms form a perfect canopy of palest pink translucent fluff, & it's enough to make me not mind so much that we don't have room in our yard for my all-time favorite spring tree, the tulip magnolia.)

& the grape hyacinth

(This border has naturalized from about 20 bulbs planted 4 or 5 years ago.  I would grow a whole field of these if I could.  I'm especially pleased to see that some of my paler blue ones are starting to peek out between the tulip leaves.  We have big plans to redo our (tiny) front yard this year, replacing the near-tragic grass with a path + planting beds, but I'm feeling pretty nervous about disturbing my perfect muscari border in process.)

are plenty springy, being spring flowers etc, but it wasn't until this morning that I realized how obvious it is that I'm ready for the season change.  Granted, two of my three current projects are for my daughter, who is nothing if not pink so there's a built-in excuse for it, but oh how I'm enjoying being up to my elbows in bright girly florals.

I finished piecing this last night, & the first thing I noticed about it this morning is a mistake that I am going to try to ignore (I have been reading the blogs about doll quilts being slapdash by nature!  I listened to the podcast!) but between you & me, it's inevitable that I am totally going to end up picking apart a bunch of tiny seams before the end of the day.   It's particularly frustrating because I'd figured out what I thought was a reasonable compromise between obvious repeat (easy) & no repeat (hard) & was feeling pretty pleased with myself about it.  Until this morning.  Anyway, my ridiculous perfectionism aside, this is going to be part of a doll bed/bedding set for my daughter's birthday present, & I am having a fantastic time with the project. 

The doll blanket was not part of the original bed extravaganza, but what better excuse to get with the grannying?

At first I thought I'd make a whole bunch of tiny squares, but then, thanks to Alicia & an untouched ball of aqua cotton in my stash, I decided to go for a nice soothing border around all that pink.  I have some edging plans that I'm excited about, but first I have to decide how big to make the thing.  The squares are blocked to 3.5", so I'll probably do one more row of three & then get on to the fun stuff (like weaving in the ends, whee).  I like that this little project is giving me a sense of what it means to crochet a thing (the structure of the stitches hasn't quite snapped into focus for me yet, but I am sticking my hook into the yarn mess a little less randomly these days), but I wouldn't say I'm a crochet convert.  Yet.

Third project:

I love the way these colors are coming together, so crisp & light even with all the black.  Also, I'm already investigating the idea of sending this one out to be quilted by someone else, & I'm finding that just the thought of not having to carefully cram it through my machine is making me feel light & springy too.

all my snacks should be so happy

My daughter loves the clothespin dolls, which is gratifying because what if I decided to give them up & she thought they were boring?  She plays with them in her wooden doll house, unlike her beloved (plastic) playmobil, which she will only play with in her old (plastic) Little People house -- there's a purity of concept there that deeply appeals to me.  Somewhat unexpectedly, my son instantly requested one of his own, so:

I need to work out the whole short hair thing a bit more (& I see now that my son is right, the arms are too long), but I had fun painting the details on this one, especially the robot shirt.  I realized, while working on this, that one of the things that appeals to me about the clothespins is the sweet little challenge posed by the limitation of form.  Not to get too philosophical about clothespin dolls or anything.

Look at that popcorn!  I'd been seeing around the blogs that Alexander Henry fabric is showing up at JoAnn stores, so I set off in search the other morning.  I did indeed get my hands on a couple of AH prints, plus the usual half-yard or two from the calico wall, & THEN I found this ridiculously irresistable flannel.

I think that it's excellent of my sister to be giving me the chance to do a set of wedding invites, since I didn't own my gocco when I did my own wedding junk.  The invites themselves are very simple, on cream textured paper, but the other pieces are more playful & today I'm going to try my hand at a little two-color printing.  I'm in love with screenprinting as an art form lately (look at this great print I found on etsy), so of course I am jumping at the chance to play around a little.  (I am also jumping at the chance to go wedding cake tasting with her this week, hurrah.)

A short list for Wednesday

Five things I love today:

1.  I  felt fast & hard for the Alexander Henry fabric that small hands posted today.  Beautiful little apple + pear print, will you be mine?  Hopeful googling hasn't turned anything up yet, but I'm determined.

2. I got another wholesale order out the door:  people in Denver will soon be able to find my knitting cards at Fancy Tiger (which looks like a mighty cool store).

3.  Speaking of my knitting cards (like how I just slipped that in there?), they were recently selected as an editor's pick in the Interweave Knits Holiday Gifts issue:

(they're in the picture frame on the upper right side of the picture.)  As a knitter (albeit a currently nonpracticing one), what I have to say about getting my cards into IK is:  yay!  I think I'm going to have to start up one of the projects in this issue so I have an excuse to carry it around with me (I have my eye on the pattern for a sweet little pair of cabled fingerless gloves).

4.  I've been sneaking in more rings & pendants when I can find the time.

When I'm making these, I'm just playing around with colors, but when I get them all together for pictures I can see that I'm a big fan of green for the rings, & I'm feeling sort of fallish when it comes to the pendants.  The black/avocado ring on the far left & the purple pendant on the far right are custom orders, but the others will find their way to the site (when I get a chance) or to my upcoming shows.

5.  Oh, Russell + Hazel binders, you are ridiculously expensive, but I think I love you.  What if you really did make dread paperwork tasks that much better?  Will you make me glamorous & sophisticated as well as organized?  If I meet all my deadlines, will you be my reward?  (You might have to duke it out with that one pair of moss green J.Crew cords, though.)

evolution of a sundress

Sweet little pile of fabric in hand, a couple of days ago I spent the evening whipping up a sundress for my daughter.  As I've mentioned before, I am basically a sewing novice -- I do quite a bit of straight stitching when I'm making bracelets & sewing tags into shirts or sewing acres of quilting grid lines, & I've done plenty of hemming in my time, but the niceties of sewing curves & understanding basic garment construction are new to me.  Because I am so pleased with the skirts I've been making for my girl, & because she is still small enough that I wouldn't be ruining yards & yards of fabric, & because I want to know how to do everything, I decided it was time.  The pattern was easy, the fabric was cute, my bodice curves worked out perfectly.  Then, I put it on her.

Despite the fact that her measurements matched the pattern measurements almost exactly, the unaltered first version looks like the cloth version of one of those barrels with shoulder straps.  (Oh, but I will cop to adding the red border -- my kids are usually tall enough to need a size or two up in length, plus I love the red with white dots & thought it would be cute.  Which it...was?  Kind of?  If it hadn't looked like a barrel?)

Where are my feet??

I was trying to keep at least a little of the red border, so I cut it down & used it as a sort of binding on the bottom instead.  It turns out that:  1.  a thickish binding doesn't do much for the lightweight swish of a breezy summer sundress,  &, more importantly, 2.  the step from "barrel" to "mumu" is not that much of an improvement.

And it's still too long!  Cut off all the red stuff, ok?

After hacking a bunch more off the bottom, we finally started seeing something that looked a little like what I was imagining.  Of course, once I got the bottom sorted out, my attention was freed up enough to notice that the bodice -- despite the perfect underarm curves -- was way too wide & the straps had a tendency to slip.  Note the casual clutching happening in the picture above.

I said it's FINE.  Can I please just watch my show now?

Last night I shortened the straps & took in the bodice a little bit, & while it's still a little bit rodeo clown for my tastes, at least it's a summery, winsome sort of clownishness.  Considering the pattern I used & the fact that I don't know how to put in zippers or anything, I'm happy with it, & it's certainly very satisfying to see her running around in something I made for her.

Sadly, she specifically forbade me to make a matching headband.

playing catch-up

Beautiful little color week plus painting like a madwoman threw me off my blog game (both posting & answering comments, sorry!), but I was taking pictures, even if I didn't get around to posting them.

Here's red, on top of one of the many rubble-like WIP piles produced by the hallway project.  I love this little accordion, particularly when the kids aren't playing it.

Rubble aside, this is the actual WIP shot I took on Friday, which gives a peek into how much thrashing around we did before settling on a color.  It's been a while since we've done any painting, & I'd almost forgotten how much I love looking at paint chips, how much possibility there seems to be in each little hopeful square of color.  It makes me want to pick a really difficult, possibly unruly shade of paint & try it out, just to see if I can figure out how to work with it.  (It makes my husband want to hide my paintbrushes.)

As focused as I've been on house projects, though, I did find time last week to squeeze in another little skirt.  Rigorous testing proves that it's quite twirly, & I plan on making a whole big stack of them for little miss summertime.  I also made a matching headband, just because I love that pattern & there I was with plenty of extra fabric, but our fashion standoff continues & so I haven't gotten a picture of her modeling it yet -- though she did proudly wear it to school, Janis-style, today.

Now, this is the kind of sweet little pile that I was wishing for on Friday but which didn't materialize until today (the paint store is very conveniently located across the street from the fabric store, which has meant quite a few long leisurely mornings of "important errands" lately).  I am having such fun with making skirts for my girl that I've decided to splash out & try a sundress next.  In my mind, the dress is winsome & vintagey, not at all like all of the "festive" Fourth of July dresses I saw at Target today on another "important errand" (which mostly yielded an excellent orange expanding file for organizing the stack of one zillion recipes that have been scrawled on envelope backs, ripped out of magazines, & printed off the internet.  Clever & attractive organizing containers are as full of possibilities as paint chips, though I wish they were also full of lots of extra time to keep everything organized.).  We'll see.

a day at the beach (in a log cabin)

Oh, I love the colors in this quilt.  I'd had the three main solids tucked away in stash for quite a while by the time I got around to actually starting in on things, & all I knew was that I was going to do another version of A Day at the Beach, this time incorporating log cabin squares, & that I wanted it to be a tiny bit unexpected.

The thing I really love about this pattern (really love, ok, I'm already thinking ahead to version three) is that you get the big bold stretches of color setting boundaries for whatever pieced work is happening in the (off) center, which means restrictions on size & color that I find really inspiring.

The pattern doesn't call for a pieced back, but at 65" x 75"*, you have to sew the fabric together somewhere in order to get the right size, so I decided to avoid a boring seam & instead add a pieced strip (much like the quilt top of the original ADatB pattern).  I wish that it wasn't quite so close to the concentric-square quilting pattern (or, I guess, maybe I wish that it was right in the middle of it), but I think it looks pretty good -- although it did end up being a little bit of an object lesson on the importance of double-checking the straightness of your seams before basting everything together.

I used organic cotton batting in this quilt -- I mentioned before how wonderfully soft it is, & I have also learned that because it shrinks up a little more than a poly/cotton batting, the resulting quilt is a little squishier, too.  When I look at it by itself, I think that it looks a lot more puckered than my first one (which used an 80/20 cotton/poly batting), but side-by-side, the difference is not that significant.  This is a huge relief, because I had the complete trauma of the chalk lines not washing out the first time I washed it on Friday night, so I was up until all hours washing it two more times, finally resorting to stain spray & even a little (non-chlorine) bleach.  The end result is that the chalk is gone (unless you look very closely), & the whole thing has a slight pleasantly-weathered look (which almost made me cry at first, but it was really really late & I like it well enough in the light of day), & I think I managed not to shrink it too much more than necessary.

 

*This being the only quilt I have ever made (twice) don't know if it's a standard throw size or what, but it's a terrific size if you need to throw it over someone six feet tall, & or make a tent for two small children, or spread it out flat on top of a queen-size bed without any hanging over.

silly little flowers

I thought that I would take a picture of the pile of 75 felt bracelets I'm working semi-feverishly on (for this awards promo thing I'm doing), but they are in a very boring stage right now so instead here's my second three peas skirt:

I slimmed down the proportions of this one a little, & also cut the second tier incorrectly (thus the random solid stripe.  It makes me wish I could have put racing stripes down the whole length, but I'm not sure how to manage that with the separately gathered tiers.).  I was very happy to use that fabric, which I purchased when my daughter was a baby & have been waiting for just the right inspiration to use.  Imagine my excitement at this conversation, then:

Her:  Why did you make me another skirt?
Me:  Because I like making skirts & you like wearing them.
Her:  Oh.  Well, I don't like this one, I only like the other one.
Me:  ...
Her:  I don't like these silly little flowers!

Luckily, we agreed that maybe the next day she'd like the flowers, which turned out to be true, so everything worked out in the end.  I have to say, this will likely not be the last skirt you see from me, especially because my package from Kitty-Craft arrived today (this would be part of the fabric bender, yes), & along with some little bits of ridiculous + excellent Japanese fabric:

Came these books:

This one (ISBN4-579-11045--5) I got because of developing skirt obsession (& also because all the little girls appear to be wearing choppily-cut acrylic wigs of the cheapest sort, & because the book is also filled with pictures of hiply vintagey crafty room settings, which seem to have nothing to do with anything, as far as I can tell.  I love it!)

This one (ISBN4-579-10969-4), on the other hand, is filled with simple but amazingly decorated tote bags.  I saw the shopping cart & had to have it.  It seems like out of all the Japanese craft books I've picked up thus far, this one may be the most impossible to figure out without being able to read Japanese because it's not always obvious which techniques were used on the bags, but the book itself is completely gorgeous.

That suitcase is pretty amazing too, but for some reason I just can't get over the shopping cart.

PS, please excuse the random dark spot on all of my pictures today.  Looks like the camera needs to go in for spring cleaning.