glittergoods

a little spring cleaning

I love the Northwest, really.  I'm one of those people who doesn't mind the drizzle, someone who thinks that our endless gray days are a fair tradeoff for our other beautiful seasons, etc.  But, MAN, my mood is approximately one thousand times better the past couple days than it has been for weeks, & I'm pretty sure it's just because I've seen a little bit of sun for two days in a row (never mind that as I was leaving dinner with friends last night, we were debating whether it was rain or snow we were seeing.  Rain, I say, rain!).

Since I'm feeling like an actual person who makes actual stuff again, I thought maybe I'd poke around & see what's hanging around the studio that would be better off hanging around other people's houses, to wit:

The last two pillows from my "fall collection,"

& a whole bunch of rings.  The pillows are already up on etsy, the rings will be following a few at a time once I sort out some good photo light for them.

Of course, I have to offset the moving out of things with the moving in of other things, though I am trying hard to make sure they are smallish, & nice to look at.

Like this:

I am obligated to love this because my son made it (in "art club," no less), but I would love it anyway.  See that flying saucer up in the corner, there?  This is tissue + other paper decoupaged onto a scrap piece of wood, & guess whether this idea is going in my boring-days-of-summer toolkit?

I am not obligated to love this, but I do, so much.  It's from theantibride at etsy:  the chair is screened onto muslin, surrounded by lovely meticulous hand-stitching.

It will fit right in.

Maybe I wouldn't mind the snow so much

if everything looked like this.

I love this kind of processing (we tried to get our wedding pictures done this way, but were only partially successful, back in the days of film (which is also why we have no pictures of the ring exchange, but that's another story)), but right now the thing I love even more is that peek of blue sky coming through the branches.  About time, APRIL.

practice fairy

I have been trying to talk my girl into a fairy tea party sort of birthday party for the last couple of years, mostly because of the tiny food, but she has been staunchly disinterested.  Last month, though, her brother was in a school production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, & she was glued to her seat with wide-eyed fairy love the entire time (2 hours!).  So then there was plenty of fairy talk for the next few days, & one day in the car I said "You know what I think would be fun to do sometime?  Have a fairy party."  And she said "YES!  FOR MY BIRTHDAY!"  And I said "Oh, wow, that's a terrific idea you just had!"

And then, after a triumphant phone call to my husband in which I gloated about having PUT ONE OVER on my four year old, I immediately started plotting.

And practicing. 

We've just discovered the Flower Fairies chapter books, so this skirt is specifically modeled after Wild Cherry Blossom,

with her red bow in back.

She took it for a test run this morning, & it seems to hold up ok.

This one, she says, is "for regular," when she's a "workity fairy," which is different than the fancy birthday party fairy, & which implies that she has BIG PLANS for her fairy wardrobe.  Probably I'm going to need some more tulle.

hey, cowgirl!

After a false start or two (excellent false starts which will eventually end up in my shop, but still), I finished the pillow that accompanies the Reading Rocks bench.

First I was thinking about how I will try not to over-commit myself to auction junk next year, but then I was thinking about how this particular pillow was the tipping point that finally sent me out to buy that serger I've been wanting, so maybe I should go ahead & over-commit next year but just do it in some interesting new area that will require similar sort-of justifiable purchase of expensive equipment.

Anyway, then I had time to turn my attention to a birthday present for my girl's best friend, which was specifically & jealously requested by the friend when my kid showed up at her house in full cowgirl regalia last week.

(Note the totally unnecessary serging around the hem.)

So we were in the cowgirl mood & all, but had no idea there would be real live ponies.  Ever since we saw her brother's elementary school production of Midsummer Night's Dream, we've been planning a fairy birthday party around here, but now there's some small, hopeful talk about whether fairies have ponies.  Fairies with bigger backyards, maybe, I said.

she'd put bells on her toes if she could

Today is a sitting around kind of day, everyone is tired & half sick, plus there is nothing truly pressing that has to get done this instant.  But then my girl found a scrap of pink pipecleaner & turned it into a ring (because she loves nothing so much as adorning herself), & the box of leftover auction project jewels caught my eye, & hello, fastest kid-pleasing project ever.

Obviously, a girl can't stop at just ONE jeweled pipecleaner ring.

Wrap the pipecleaner around the finger, twist a time or two to keep your loop in shape.

Trim the ends to a couple of inches above the loop.

Take a pair of beading pliers (or similar) & make a little loop at each end to get rid of the sharp bits, then smash the loops flat.

Holding the two ends together, twist them around into a circular "nest" that sits perpendicular to the ring loop.  There is no particular trick to this, just twist & tuck until the setting is the shape you want.

Once you've got your nice flat setting, you could put just about anything on top (as I type this, I am suddenly wondering where I put my shrinky dink sheets).  We put on our jewels with Fast Grab Tacky Glue, which is my current favorite kid-craft glue due to it being thick &, well, fast-grabbing. 

After you've made rings for every single finger, don't forget the matching bracelet.

and now for something completely different

Except completely the same in that my Sisyphean auction season will not end.  I am probably even more tired of talking about it than you are of reading about it.  Though that still doesn't stop me from writing this post.

Ok, so, Auction 1, the big one, was on Saturday & came off very well, if I do say so myself.

The only time I almost cried during setup was when it turned out that we -- & when I say we, I mean me, an interior designer, & a graphic designer, so we're not a spatially incompetent bunch, ok? -- had completely overestimated the distance between mezzanine railings & people's heads, so my mobiles were way too dangly.

Eventually we figured it out, managing to avoid the threat of forehead paper cuts for our taller guests.   I didn't even have to rebuild anything.  [I will mention here that they were not hard to build in the first place:  each one is based off of a pair of 36" dowels, wired together as an X, with an 18" X suspended from each of the four arms.]

One last picture of the Quilt for old time's sake.  We hung it from a sturdy coat rack they had on-site, but the rack wasn't quite tall enough so my husband rigged up a rail from a piece of composite trim molding & a handful of bulldog clips.  He attached it to shelf brackets on the back, then zip-tied the brackets to the top of the coat rack.  It worked beautifully, & I'm pretty sure the rail is destined for a wall in my house somewhere, if I can figure out where.

I loved working on the Quilt, mostly, but I never particularly felt like it was mine, & I wasn't too sad to see it go.  Especially since it went for a satisfyingly large bid.

Glitter aside, I take no responsibility for these little arrangements of kermit mums (my design/decor co-chair knows her flowers!), but I love them.  Also, this picture reminds me that I think there's one of those little boxes of chocolate rattling around in my purse somewhere, excellent.

Now then.  Auction 2 is coming up, & while my original plan was to only be involved to the extent of donating that little quilt & helping out with my son's classroom project, I of course immediately fell into the irritatingly sucking black hole of me not being able to resist making things for auctions (though I did stand firm about not decorating an 8-foot umbrella this year), so in the end it was me & one other artist mom doing almost all of the work on the GIANT DECOUPAGE BENCH.

I don't have pictures of the entire thing, since it was flipped on its back today when I finished working on the front panel, but I think that the front ended up being pretty excellent in a totally over the top way:

It's a "reading bench," & so we put READING ROCKS! on the front with fancy rocks & jewels (the kids did this part), then filled in all the gaps with tinier jewels & beads & sequins (the other mom & I did this part, discovering that we were both perfectly, serenely content to spend hours fussing over getting the letters glamorously encrusted just so.   It's possible that this was more excellent to do than it will be to buy; also, this is not the way to speedily finish an auction project.).  Our teacher was the one who suggested that we "bedazzle" (actual quote) the words, which is only one of the reasons we love him.

Like I mentioned, the bench is flipped on its back; this is the front panel, just under where the lid closes, just above two big drawers, just next to a stack of three smaller drawers on the side.  (I told you, GIANT DECOUPAGE BENCH.)   The rest of the bench is covered with vintage book pages (try setting up your book-destroying decoupage project in an elementary school hallway & just SEE what kind of crowd reaction you get), color copies of favorite book covers (brought in by the kids), & kid art that represents something from their favorite books.   

Plus a teeny little bit of glitter.

Now it's in the hands of the varnish volunteers, so I just have to make a pillow for it, & then I AM DONE.

crossing things off the list

Finished this:

[45" x 51", it's off to Auction 2.  I will miss it.]

Finished this:

[Sample custom pillow for Auction 1; silent auction companion piece to Auction Quilt.]

Still working on this:

[A lot, though probably not as many as we'll need, of glittered leaves for the three big mobiles I'm building for Auction 1 decorations.  My leaves have a crush on Meg's flowers.]

Almost, almost there.

and...it's finished (one of them, anyway)

Turns out that the silver lining to catching an awful achy fever the last full weekend before the first of the two upcoming auctions is that I had no choice but to spend an entire day on the couch, binding the Auction Quilt.  Binding the quilt & watching Wolf, Witches of Eastwick, the fourth Omen, & part of Sky High, ahem.

I was thinking, as much as you can think when you're sleepy, feverish, trying to keep your stitches even, & also half-watching an exciting wolfman wrestling match between Jack Nicholson & James Spader, about how much I always dread the time commitment that hand-binding a quilt brings with it, but how much I always fundamentally enjoy the process of wrapping a neat tight edge around a quilt with a gazillion snug little stitches.  It gives me a sense of tidy closure, which lasts approximately until it's time to put the quilt in the machine & then I stand around anxiously for the entire wash cycle, wondering if my quilting & or binding & or basic idea for a quilt is going to hold together.

Look at me, waxing philosophical about this thing now that it's done.

Done!  Hurrah!  (Lots more detail pictures in my flickr set.)

Not that I have been all quilt all the time, lo these many silent weeks.

Or not just the ONE quilt  This one is lap sized, destined for the second of the auctions.  I have to finish binding it approximately immediately.  Next year:  two kids, one school, one auction, can't wait.

This little one is on the bind too, but has to wait until next week.  When I'm totally going to feel like picking up a little quilt-binding project just to relax.

I mock, & yet...it's probably true.

 

The Auction Quilt, nuts & bolts

The auction quilt (The Auction Quilt!  I will capitalize it!) has left the building.  At least for a week or so, until it comes back to me for binding.  And by "left" I mean "is tidily packaged up waiting for me to drop it off tomorrow for the quilter to pick up, only I have to go buy a spool of thread to send with it first," so obviously my entire metaphor is seriously flawed, but whatever, it is ALMOST DONE.

So now, I can talk about it without hyperventilating. Without hyperventilating, & also at tremendous length.  Ready?

From this:

to this:

has been an interesting process for me. The Auction Quilt is a little bit larger than the other ones I've done (70" x 80" finished top) & it's the first one that has been entirely pieced, plus it's going to be auctioned off, so, you know, no pressure, for sure.

To start, each of our preschool graduates drew a picture representing friendship, which I then scanned & printed out on inkjet fabric.  Washability is important for a quilt like this, so I chose the EQ Printables Regular Inkjet Fabric from Electric Quilt Company (as recommended in the Purl book), & after some struggles with getting printer & monitor colors to match, was very pleased with the printouts (using Epson inks).  Bottom line? I'd use the EQ sheets again.

A few specific comments:

• The fabric initially looks off-white, but after printing, removing the backing & rinsing, is a bright, clear white.
  
• The Regular sheets are very...crispy.  I assume they'll soften some with washing, but I don't know whether that will come at the expense of some color fade.  I am not unhappy with the texture for this project (plus, we were able to gang six 5"x5" images with 1/4" seam allowance on all sides onto one 11"x17" sheet, so the Regular was definitely the most economical choice), but if my design depended on more printed real estate, as it were, I think I'd give the EQ Cotton Lawn a try. 
• I saw some pretty significant color bleed, particularly in the magenta/purple/brown range, as the sheets were drying after rinse.  I got mostly around this by letting the sheets sit longer the recommended 15 mins after printing (up to a couple of hours), then doing an initial room-temp rinse, then a very warm soak with a little Synthrapol, then back to room temp rinsing until clear.
  
• Probably because I used a warmer than recommended water, I saw about 1/2" shrinkage widthwise across the sheets.  Even when sticking to room temp water, though, I was still getting up to 1/4" shrinkage, so I definitely recommend factoring a generous seam allowance with this stuff.

Ok, so, printing aside, the overall plan was 5" art squares, framed with squares of red, blue, or green, then finished out with a linen/cotton blend to make 10" blocks.  We ended up with 37 art squares; I made a series of smaller log cabins to go in the center of the remaining 19 blocks.  Everything was improvisationally pieced, though eventually (& arbitrarily, it just made things go a bit quicker, plus I loved those specific  blocks) I settled on doing sets of 3 when it came to some of the smaller log cabins.

Maybe a quarter of the way into piecing the blocks, I suddenly realized that if I just made the center parts & then chain-pieced the centers onto the linen strips, things would go much much faster.  It was revolutionary!   Also head-slappingly obvious, & I am grateful that I was only about twenty-five percent done when I figured it out.  The way I did it was not particularly thrifty of fabric (though I generally don't worry about this, since all leftovers but the smallest trimmed-off slivers go right into the scrap boxes), but it was an efficient way to get the off-center grid look I was after.

I cut my linen, selvedge to selvedge, into strips of various widths (3", 3.5", 4" mostly, though I did use some 5" strips on the smallest of the non-art centers), & then chain-pieced as many block centers as would fit on one strip.  I made sure to leave some blank linen space between the blocks, so I could follow the existing block angle through the linen strip when it came time to cut them apart.  Trim, rotate, repeat.  I varied the width of linen strips I used based on the size of the log cabin center, so that when it came time to trim the blocks to their final 10.5" square, I had plenty of flexibility in terms of angle & centeredness.

Possibly the most challenging part of the entire project was figuring out the final layout for the blocks.  There are three major color groups (reds, blues, greens), & since I was working improvisationally, choosing border colors based on the colors in each child's drawing, I had no particular layout plan other than:  "Oh, you know, kind of random.  In a cool way."  My friend Kirsten worked on it with me, & eventually we came up with something that had 1. a reasonable color distribution of art blocks; 2. a reasonable color distribution of non-art blocks, with careful attention to scattering the three sets of three far enough away from each other; 3.  no awkward clumping of art vs. non-art; 4. no obvious color diagonals of three blocks or more; 5. no accidental straight lines.  It took us kind of a long time, & Kirsten is very patient, but we got there.  Eventually.

(I made sure that this particular square, made by my particular daughter, is prominently placed.  There has to be some payoff for all this work, right?  Kirsten's son's square got good placement too, but sadly I do not have a picture of his fine, fine, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.)

Here it is, laid out in sandwich form for basting, looking more or less like I first imagined.  You might notice that the top is far less bubbly than in the first picture of it above -- after looking at the first pictures I took of it, I fled back to the ironing board to do some serious further work on pressing my seams out.  You might also be able to imagine my relief upon discovering that it was my ironing, not my sewing, which had caused the problem.

Tomorrow it goes out to the woman who will quilt it (2" diagonal grid, natural colored cotton thread), & I will have a week to breathe work on other auction stuff before binding time.  When it comes back it will be all grown up into a quilt (Quilt!), & I will have no choice but to sit under it for three days, watching DVDs & handstitching the binding.  The sacrifices I make, right?

gocco jr.

I have been meaning to post about progress & process of the auction quilt (latest pictures on flickr), but just today I learned that instead of the four or five final squares I was expecting, I actually have THIRTEEN squares to complete by the end of the week, so I sort of can't say anything articulate about the project right now.

But then, as it turns out, Valentine's Day waits for no fit of pique, so this afternoon I pulled out the gocco & set the kids to work making their valentines.  I was not at all sure that things would go well, but they LOVED it. 

I explained to my girl that we'd be making a fancy kind of stamp out of one of her drawings, & though she was a bit skeptical of the idea that we'd be putting the same picture on every valentine, she was willing to try.  She supervised the ink-mixing,  & then was a little tentative with the first few prints, but by the time her brother got home she'd pushed me out of the way & was busily printing.

Her cards had to be positioned very specifically on the grid (four down, one over), & she took that over too, with great seriousness.

And then very carefully laid the prints out to dry.

This one took to it just as quickly, though I was very amused to see that where my daughter was getting a lot of satisfaction from the creation of each individual print, he clearly saw it as an excellent means of mass-production, i.e. getting to mess around with one of my cool art tools while getting classroom valentines out of the way at the same time.

He liked the squishing part, too, though once the cards were printed he handed them off to me to deal with, assembly-line style.

Ah, efficiency.