WOW, right?!! Picked up this little beauty at a garage sale today. Love all of the colors and perfect twin bed size. The best bit may be that the entire top is hand-pieced!
Or, the best bit may be that they only wanted $5 for it! Felt a bit guilty as I quickly handed over my five bucks and rolled it under my arm, but it will certainly be loved. And to whomever spend all that time piecing this top, that is all that counts.
So look what I found at Michael’s yesterday (40% off! Get there while the scrapbooking storage sale is still on). It has sixteen of these little guys:
and an easy snap system with a handle. While I am sure that my photos would benefit greatly from such an organization system, I had something more along the lines of a solution for all of this:
and this:
I had some of those floss bags and had those organized by color, but, as you can see, it was still a big hot mess.
So last night, while my husband was diplomatically averting his eyes but could not resist asking just how much floss one person needed in a single lifetime, I sorted, packed and donated the excess until I ended up with this stunning little beauty:
Yummy, right?
So if your embroidery floss needs organizing, it fits the skeins perfectly, you can see through each of the containers, and it has a easy-to-carry case with a handle. Quickly, before the Michael’s sales is over!
I was so jealous when I was hearing about everyone’s last-minute projects before coming to Quilt Market last week, as I just figured that I could never work to that kind of timeline. But it seems that frustration breeds creativity as I just had to have a case for my laptop before I leave for my next trip.
I made a pocket in the front to hold the cord and an envelope type top closure. With just an hour to go before I catch my flight, the case is all finished up with time to spare (blog)!
I thought that if I covered it in the lovely V&A fabric from David Textiles and some Denyse Schmidt fabrics, I can pretend it is really a book! Off to Denver for a SAQA conference I go and I will actually take some pictures this time!
I forgot to show you what I did on my flight to London a couple of months ago. Well…maybe not so much ‘forgot’ as decided never to show you. But, today I finally pulled it out and finished off the last few stitches…
Yes, I decided that I needed something to do on the plane, so with 10 minutes to spare before my taxi came to pick me up for the airport, I madly cut all of the pieces I needed to make this adorable little project from Jill. Hers looks like this:
Mine….kinda less so.
I sewed the entire cozy by hand except for the last bits of construction.
Here is a close up of my best attempts at a sewing in a straight line *sarcasm*. Ugh. So, there you have it. I don’t think that I will be sewing on an airplane again anytime soon, but I do have good news:
There was a 10 year old girl sitting next to me who took great interest in my wobbly mess. I just so happened to get chatting to her and her mum about sewing, we exchanged email addresses, and I was able to send the young lady a great pack of books to get her started on a sewing road of her own. Hopefully hers will be a bit more along the straight and…well, I guess just straighter than mine is! Paying it forward….now that is a happy beginning.
So, we usually dye eggs with the kids and end up with a fridge full of more egg salad than any one family could hope to consume. This year, I decided cupcake decorating instead. Winner.
Most of you probably know by now that earlier this year I started a new imprint (or line of books) for the publisher I work for. It’s called Stash Books. I had a vision of what it could be from the instant I accepted the position of Acquisitions Editor there two years ago and somehow managed to cajole the whole company into taking a chance that my vision could pay off. Luckily it has! One of the aspects of my job that I most enjoy is getting to work with a team who not only ‘gets’ that vision, but through their input and ideas, they help make it better.
Even though I acquire over 50 titles per year, it is the dozen or so titles on the Stash Books list that I get exceptionally passionate about. And the rest of the staff at my work seem to humour me in this regard! So, I get to collaborate with our photo studio, developmental editor and designer regarding the feel of each book and the vision of the execution that I have for each title I acquire for this list. Because, 99% of the time (and anyone who knows me personally can confirm this), I have pretty strong opinions. That could be an understatement. But why quibble?
This week was the first time I have been on a photo shoot for one of our books. I was pretty clear about what I wanted it to be. I did most of the styling for Little Birds, but that was all in the photo studio. I have never helped with the styling at an off site shoot before. Man, was it exhausting. I mean really exausting. Even though I move furniture around all day when I work at the store, and organize truckloads of items into our pick-up at garage sales every week, this work was physical and mentally just flat out tiring. But we did get to stay here
Anyhoo, I thought you might want to see some of the before, mid and after shots of the main room of the house we used for the shoot.
Before…
middle…
after
But we did put it all back again and the photographs taken by our amazing photo studio are really fantastic! It was a wonderful collaboration of some talented folks and exciting to see what I had envisioned this book to be, come to life before my eyes…despite what we ignored in the background (i.e. the piles of boxes, the random bits of furniture stashed all over the house…at one point I think we had all of the dining chairs in the bathroom!).
For some reason, I was obsessed with being able to photograph the steam coming out of a cup of coffee and it took us all of this mess to get that one cup of coffee and scone sitting on that plate in the middle of that range.
I wish I could tell you more about the amazing projects, but alas…you will all have to buy the book.
In the meantime, I still have to show you the quilt I made for my sister’s 40th birthday out of the Cath Kidston fabrics I bought in London and some lovely muted Fig Tree fabrics, the bag I made from Lantern Bloom, the tunic I designed, the bathrobes I made for the boys…maybe Monday! Have a great weekend all!
So, after many, many, many bobbins of thread, some TAP technique for the paintings within the painting, some slashing of the fabric, fusing and then masses of stitching to create the illusion of paint brush strokes, I finally finished my slice and we put them all together. Mine is the one kind of in the middle with the bright blue walls and the scrunched pillows to look like the bed had been slept in, and the confetti floor. C&T is donating this to NAMTA to be raffled off. I’ll post the details when the quilt is back from the quilter.
Here are some other photos with close-ups of my slice:
I suppose it is a bit off to showcase the bag I made on Sunday after the post I put up on Sunday morning, but I think I needed a project that was a little more familiar. That…and, I sewed this up during naptime. So no mommy guilt. Except for the playroom still strewn with every toy they have. I ignored that.
But lookie what I made with my coveted Sherbet Pips by the lovely Aneela:
I raw edge appliqued on my nieces initials. I found the perfect giant sleepover bag out of Style Stitches from Amy Butler to accompany the PJs I made for her 10th birthday next week. I actually think I like the back of the bag more than the front…
The pattern was complicated (sheeish, 6 pages of instruction for one bag)…but worth it. The directions were very well written and I would definitely make this bag again. I hesitated to make something from this book because I found the book design completely over-worked and really do kind of object that she only ever uses her own fabrics in the bag samples. It’s a lot to look at. But that’s just me. At the end of the day, I love the bag. If you fancy making your own, consider joining in this fun Sew-Along. Cosmo ended up being really fun to make and in my world full of boy, it was wonderful to make something so very, very pink!
In one of those crazy seconds of life where I deluded myself into thinking that I could jam one more thing into it, I volunteered to be a part of a slice quilt with some of the gals at work. This is my slice:
So I began a couple of weeks ago. During these weeks, I gradually sketched out the major lines, I thought about what techniques I wanted to try, I picked out the fabrics from my stash (often the hardest part for me), I backed all of the fabrics with fusible web…you know, made progress.
(Ignore my breakfast curmpet!). Then the rest of the gals started to bring in their work and this week most of them were just about done…and I was here:
EEEK. So, yesterday I knew I had to get my butt in gear! I went out to garage sales in the early morning. Now this may sound fun (and it usually is) but it isn’t really a choice, if you see what I mean. We buy a lot of inventory for our store so even though I am always drawn to the kids clothes, or to the toys, or interesting little things…I have to force myself to go for the furniture first because I am there to work, after all.
So, once I spent the morning doing that, I played with the kids for a bit and then hunkered down. All. Day. As the kids played around me, I only stopped sewing, fusing, and cutting for potty breaks, mediation breaks, and to make lunch/dinner. And here is the result:
Now, don’t get me wrong, I just love it. It is completely out of my comfort zone with a variety of techniques that do not include piecing. But it was the time…
Maybe it would have come together more easily if I were more familiar with creating something like this, but I always balance the result against the cost. This cost me the entire day with my kids. I follow hundreds of blogs written by some amazingly talented and prolific designers who create beautiful work on a really consistent basis. And I just do not know how they do it!
Sometimes, I come home at the end of a week so inspired by all that I saw through all of the different media I track and I feel kind of lousy that I don’t contribute more to this fabulous creative marketplace. I did that this week. But for me…I am just not willing to pay that price. Rather, I am not willing to make my family pay that price.
So I am remembering the mantra I came up with for this year as encouraged by Betz White. My 2011 mantra is: Release.
I’ll not make this commitment again as my life just doesn’t work like that. It can, to be sure, it can. But right now my 3 year old is standing next to this desk asking me to play Thomas with him. I get to choose between being Molly or Bertie the Bus. Sheeish…now that’s a commitment I want to make!
I finally had time to sew this weekend and am going to have to change my ‘About Me‘ to indicate the second time that I sewed a garment aside from my wedding dress. I made these PJs for my niece’s upcoming 11th birthday early next month. I love the Parisville by Tula Pink and bought it in the blue (mist) colorway so I can make some for me too. I am going to make up a overnight bag to put them in (good intentions anyhow) as this girl is all about her slumber parties!
I also completely scored at garage sales this weekend. Mostly for the store, but also a lovely little find: some vintage books. I just can’t resist those lovely pliable leather bindings.
And…I couldn’t tell you about the garage sale find of the century before Christmas, but not three weeks before I was struggling with what to give my husband. Then, I came across this little beauty:
It’s a Sony N50 and I just cannot say what I paid for it but…not much, I’ll tell you that. I was secretly hoping to steal it to use for my own blog photos so I can get some better quality photos on here. Funnily enough, I can’t seem to get the darn thing out of his hands!
And, I cooked. And made some Valentine’s pinwheels while the kids made some Valentine’s Day cards for friends and family. We finally got the bookcase up and while I was trying to purge the cookbook stash to fit on the shelf (didn’t quite work, but most of them are there), I came across this recipe for amazing mushroom and roquefort stuffed homemade crepes with a béchamel sauce for tonight…yumm. It’s from Nigel Slater’s Real Food. Don’t you love snooping at other people’s bookshelves….or is that just me?
Hope you all had a great weekend too!
