midwestpsyche

challenge 27

2011-09-26T18:54:00.000-07:00

There was a song on an album of mine that I played endlessly when I was seven or eight years old called, "I Love Onions". It was a Looney Tunes album that had the usual sing a longs, such as, "Mother-In=Law", "Monster Mash", "Little Red Riding Hood", and others. I hadn't thought about that album in years until I began painting this latest challenge.

I only remember a bit:

"I don't like shoes that pinch my toes

or people that squirt me with a garden hose but,

ooooooooh, I love onions."

And so I sang it. Over and over and over and over, every twenty minutes or so, as I painted. After driving myself into a near necessary medical attention state, I have decided at the end of the day, I do, in fact, love onions! I took a ton of pictures for this latest challenge and I think I might actually do a series of them in the future. Small little paintings, maybe daily, like the big kids do. There are so many colors and shapes to the near perfect-ness of the onions, and the colors are so warm they're right up my alley.

A really horrible result, or a really ambitious beginning...

2011-06-27T18:32:00.000-07:00

That's right. OIL. This is for the latest rookiepainter challenge, and believe it or not, this massively horrendous piece of - ahem - work is my second attempt ever at painting with oils. I've started taking classes here and so far, my instructor has done really well at hiding his laughter at my attempts. Actually, he's so, so helpful and encouraging. I don't know if I'll totally abandon my acrylics just yet, but so far I'm liking the challenge of painting with a new medium.

to the left, to the left...everything you paint in a box to the left...

2011-04-26T11:24:00.000-07:00

So I began this challenge like most the others, except this time I covered the canvas with a much thicker coat, trying to keep everything as wet as possible.

To cover the lovely avocado (blech) took about a minute, and was my favorite part of this painting.

This painting took about four hours total. I'm not super pleased with it, as everything is a bit left of center, and the last hour was spent working and reworking that crazy pitcher. I seriously at one point had it near perfect (perfect according to my standards, which if you haven't guessed by now are fairly low) and then decided to tweak it a little and ended up making a mess of it all.

A bit more sloshing of the paint and I was done. It of course isn't what I would be proud of normally, but I learned a valuable lesson, which is to just leave it alone when you think it's good.

new stichery

2011-04-18T06:17:00.001-07:00

It's been ages since I've done any cross stitch projects. Like, probably about 35 years, seriously. (I'm 43, for the record.) In the process of trying to open my new shop, my main focus has been on trying to find contemporary, modern needlecraft projects. Let me tell you, they've been very difficult to find.

So I decided to try out some of my own photographs to see how they would translate into cross stitch and/or needlepoint. I have to say that so far, I'm intrigued. I'm not certain whether or not this particular photo will be used for kits in the shop, but it's a nice start.

So far I've been reminded of the wonderful, calm focus that comes around with counted cross stitch projects. It's like working a puzzle in a sense, lulling you into a rhythm of across and back, up and down, unwilling to allow any worrying thoughts or thoughts of incomplete lists of things to do. In fact, maybe the call is too distracting; I've probably put in at least thirty hours into this piece and I've only completed about 25% of it. There are approximately 50 different DMC colors involved, and in hindsight, I wish I would've used three strands instead of two; the darker colors aren't popping as I would like them to.

I've also been reminded of the cost effectiveness of cross stitching. All of the materials for this project were around $20. Not bad for the diversity of colors involved, time it takes to complete, etc.

creamers on parade

2011-03-15T13:47:00.000-07:00

Because of the nastiest sinus infection I've had in years, I had to scour the photo archives to find something suitable for the most recent painting challenge. I found several shots of these three creamers I purchased at a local flea market slash antique shop slash junk fair. I wasn't thrilled with the initial composition and that's probably why I hadn't chose them before to include as a challenge, but desperate times lead to...etc.

Several of the participants in the challenge chose to rearrange the creamers, and it made for some interesting work, probably much more fun than just copying what's there. Although as much as I say I want to get away from doing just that, I always end up doing the same.

I did decide to make the single picture into a triptych, though, which is quite reaching for me! So what if it was more of a choice of what canvas I had on hand? I like it! I've also changed the surface color today, I just couldn't wrap my head around that green I used last night (in the above photo). I think I might actually frame these little creamers and throw them in the kitchen somewhere.

colin firth is a knitter and is in love with me...

2011-03-08T06:31:00.000-08:00

At least, according to my dream last night, which followed an evening of watching (in awe, I might add) The King's Speech. I'll admit I've been a fan since both Bridget Jones and Love Actually, but his performance was most certainly Oscar worthy and just incredible in Speech.

In my dream, which was better than any of the above movies put together, I was at a party in London (of course) in which Colin and other actors were performing a scene from Speech in person, right there in the middle of the cocktail party. After the scene, Colin came and sat next to me and we began to chat. The next thing I know, he starts presenting all of these adorable knits to me, showing me his craftiness. There was a child's cardigan, a hat and socks, and of course I was blown away.

After several cocktails and conversation, Colin leans in to kiss me. I back away, explaining that I am, in fact, a married woman. He smiles a tiny, Chesire cat-type smile and leans in closer still. I remind him at that point I was under the impression he was also married, to which his face soured. It was obvious his ego was bruised, but more importantly, it was apparent I had led him on and he viewed me now as this single blob of female that had just wasted a great amount of his time. After all, he had shared his knitting!

So anyway, Colin Firth is a knitter and is in love with me. I just thought the world should know. Years ago, Brad Pitt fell in love with me in the same way, although in that dream we were designing furniture together and as I was later chopping carrots, he made a pass. I turned him away in that dream as well. What is wrong with me?

Besides the fact that even with a pattern, I'm unable to knit felted ballet slippers that actually fit me. The first two photos are from before the felt, the last two are after two attempts in the washer, with three towels and a tennis ball. The only wavering of the pattern was that I knitted a double strand of yarn instead of a single. Do you think that would make this big of a difference? And no, I'm not exactly sure why there's a place for a dew claw in them, either.

Meanwhile, this is sooooo close to opening I can barely stand it!!! Maybe Colin will stop by for supplies...

eye candy

2011-02-24T12:31:00.000-08:00

I've never bought a knitting magazine before yesterday. I've bought several crochet mags, but never really liked the look of crocheted garments much. They seem to have a granny factor that despite my relative coolness, I cannot pull off without looking like a hopeless, ovary-shrinking grandmother to be.

But about a week ago, I picked up this magazine at the bookstore and immediately wanted to make just about everything in it. I think it's because almost everything in it has been knitted in my favorite neutral of the moment, gray. Love, love, love me some gray.

Aaack! I mean seriously! Look at those booties!

And I swear I thought these were for adults, and that's why I didn't buy the book initially, because I don't have any small ones around here. But I found myself thinking about the magazine time and time again over the past week and eventually went back and bought it. They should make great gifts to someone, no?

And this KILLER dress! Again, I wanted it for myself, but the pattern is for a girl's size 8, 10 & 12. Maybe, maybe if I put down the doughnuts now, by next winter...

happy valentines day

2011-02-14T15:44:00.000-08:00

The other day I read on a craft blog how the author despised Valentine's Day because she abhorred the idea of being told when to love.

I think she's missing the point, don't you?

so when I love a pattern

2011-02-07T15:22:00.000-08:00

I use it often. For instance, this hat (free, yay!), available here, has been made twice already and I have a friend who has asked for one for herself and I will most likely make one for her and her daughter both. It is easy and fairly quick, and I'm a sucker for those tassels! Which is odd, because it's the word, "tassel" that thwarted me from becoming the county spelling bee champion in 19somethingoranother. It was fourth grade, and I apparently had no idea what a tassel was and because it sounded just like "castle", I assumed it was spelled similar. It isn't.

Getting the word wrong in and of itself wasn't so bad. What was so bad was how I basically stopped the spelling bee by insisting it WAS a word, and how the administrators had to get the biggest dictionary I've ever seen and quite literally show me it was not. Not one of my proudest moments; not to mention my horrified mother, who I'm certain I saw in the audience deny any knowledge of knowing me in any capacity.

In any event, I like tassels now. As long as they're on hats or curtains. I don't want to paste any anywhere anytime soon. Mine are, in fact, smaller than my daughter's, who after several thousand dollars spent to straighten teeth, refuses to smile even for a split second.

How's your week so far?

stashpact11

2011-02-03T06:58:00.001-08:00

So I joined the stashpact11 group on Flickr last week, mainly because I have a ton of supplies I haven't touched in months. I was in complete denial of exactly how much stash I have until I had to recently reorganize it all and move it to another part of the house and now it's almost ridiculous to see the abundance of materials that have been neglected. I noticed in my wool section of yarn (I organize by fiber) that I had four full skeins of Lion Brand Wool in hot pink. Really. Hot pink? I am not, repeat not, a hot pink kind of girl. I remember snatching it up at Michael's when it was on clearance; when will I learn that it's not a good deal if I'll never use it?

Luckily, I know an adorable 8 month old who will rock the hot pink look, so I made this with her in mind. I also took advantage of the overstash moment and tried my hand at some simple color work, which is new to me. It was much easier than I thought and I know this won't be my last dance with it.

The pattern is a Ravelry freebie, listed here. And while the pattern was relatively simple even to a novice knitter like myself, I think the measurements might be a bit long for a 9-12 month old, but maybe not; it's been about a thousand years since I've been around an infant so who knows.

The cap is without pattern, just simple crochet rounds, increased until it looked like it would fit a baby head. Felt hearts added to allow for Valentine's Day wear, and it's done!

i've got a long way to go before i try this again...

2011-01-31T18:25:00.001-08:00

You know, some paintings I paint I'm actually okay with including them in my Facebook photo album. This latest endeavor isn't one of them.

The beginning sketch and palette were fine.

Even the original paint thrown on wasn't a horrible start.

And then something went horribly wrong. I continued. There was actually a point where it wasn't exactly tragic, and then I just kept working it and working it until I killed it. I wish I could say I was learning something by attempting to paint all these scenes that I would never try before, but so far I think I've just learned to go back to fruit.

test bunnies

2011-01-29T14:45:00.000-08:00

Sometime last year, the retail space next to my current biz opened up and it was such a steal rent-wise that I couldn't pass up jumping on it to open a small (very) needlecraft boutique. Our town has two quilt shops within city limits, each of whom responded with a resounding, "WHOOOO?!!!" when I called to inquire as to whether they carried any AMH, Kaffe or Amy B. fabrics. Seriously, I know. I have no desire to compete with JoAnn fabrics, Michael's or Hobby Lobby, all of which we have here. I just want to provide crafters and quilters with the ability to touch some of the lovely fabrics available before purchasing them, and to also not have to wait for them via the postman.

It's very difficult to be selective in the process of building inventory, especially with the tons of fabric lines available. As for everyday supplies, I plan to carry few. But one thing I want for sure are some kits. Kits are great for all ages, if they're planned right. I was lucky enough to find some great patterns available for wholesale purchase from Hillary Lang of Wee Wonderfuls, I've had the patterns for ages now and just took advantage of a huge sale at JoAnn's and tortured the cutting girl by needing 2 yards of every single felt they had. (Although she was very nice and didn't seem to mind at all.)

So a couple of weeks ago, we turned an otherwise TV filled Friday night into craft night!

Although we took it upon ourselves to trace the patterns not onto tissue paper, but freezer paper instead and ironed them to the felt to make it easier to cut those little shapes. I'm hoping Hilary won't mind if I assemble kits for these that will include several pieces of felt, the pattern of course, freezer paper & embroidery floss and sell them that way. I think these would be great birthday party favors or slumber party activities or whatever! I also want to make two ginormous ones to use for display purposes, so I need to ask her that as well. As soon as I beg her to release her cross stitch and embroidery patterns for wholesale purchase...

We did a bunch. Well, two for each of us...

Totally fun colors.

And tiny hands were kept busy for hours.

So far I'm digging them! It was such a fun project and so, so simple! These are the ones I did, and tomorrow I'll post pics of everyone else's. We've also got the turtle pattern and the doll booklet patterns and I hope to get to those this week!

i wanna be a billionaire

2011-01-27T06:52:00.000-08:00

so freakin' bad. Bruno Mars had it right, no? We were lucky enough to take a vacation to Maui the first of the year. It was our first vacation in seven years and our first ever vacation with just the two of us. It was really amazing, and if we're fortunate enough to be able to, we'll be back. As for being a billionaire, for starters, I'd fly out of the dreary grayness that is this time of year in Indiana and fly right into color via the beautiful island of Maui.

And spend a lot more time with this guy.

Going down this path...

Spotting more whales in this ocean.

Trying to remember to close my jaw when I look at this mountain.

And spend hours and hours underneath this (single) tree in Lahaina.

And cheering on these future hula dancers...

latest challenge

2011-01-10T20:52:00.000-08:00

Newest challenge for rookiepainter, 8 x 10 acrylic. This really was a quick, fairly straightforward, relatively easy, not a lot of paint involved painting. I only painted one of the two photos I posted, but I think I might attempt the other in the next couple of days if I have time because it was difficult to choose only one.

For this painting, I decided to try a loose sketch first. I realized after doing so that I didn't want to sketch it again onto the canvas, so I splurged and bought some transfer paper.

Unfortunately, the sketch book I used has paper that is WAAAAY too thick for even transfer paper to leave an impression, so I had to trace the image first onto tissue paper, then commence to tracing once again using the tissue paper copy.

Because I like to live on the edge, I used a pen to trace the image. It looked bumpy and I wasn't impressed to say the least.

But once I lifted the tissue and transfer papers, I was pleasantly surprised at how it was fairly clean looking. Not too bad for what I used to consider a cheat method. Now I consider it a cheating time method.

After a bit of paint and a bit more patience, this is what I ended up with. I'm fairly happy with it, but as always, as soon as I take a photo of the finished product I see issues with it. I'm certainly not going to voluntarily point them out, but they're there, just the same. I really like working with angles and simple, crisp objects, so maybe I will actually paint that second one!

so I'm a sucker for a bargain

2010-12-16T06:55:00.000-08:00

And when that bargain is Denyse Schmidt quilts? O. M. G. Ever since this nice lady shared her bargain, I've headed over to this site to see if they had any more DS quilts, and eventually, they did! I bought a queen size for $60!

It's so, so comfy, beautifully neutral, and mine, ALL MINE! My only regret is I didn't take advantage of the sale and get a couple of twin sized quilts as well. By the time I realized I should've ordered them, they were sold out. But I'm happy just to have gotten mine.

And apparently, I'm not the only one.

Have a great weekend!

New Harmony Red House

2010-12-13T21:22:00.000-08:00

For this painting, I chose a gesso primed canvas board, but not like the typical wrapped board I've used in the past. This board still has some tooth to it, but not anywhere near the grooves the regular type of canvas I'm used to working with.

The jury is still out on whether I like this primed board better or not. This was my first attempt. Look at that pitiful fence, lol! Oy! I took this picture to make sure I had a progression shot, as I normally forget as I get going. I have to say at this point, I was seriously questioning why I even bother.

And while it's certainly no masterpiece, I can live with it. No, that's a lie. I don't like it at all. It will go in the pile of things to paint over someday for sure. The fence is a bit better, but it just isn't my thing. I think the picture simply was too detailed and I am not skilled enough on how to show detail without actually pulling a hair from my head and using it as a brush.

I can't wait for the next challenge...The time to complete it will be extra long as I'll be on vacation for the end of the three weeks, plus with the holidays right before what would have been the deadline, it just seems like some extra time is a good thing.

what I do if left to my own devices...

2010-11-30T12:31:00.000-08:00

I wing it. Sometimes with good results, sometimes not so much, but always, always, lots of cursing and grinding of the teeth. So with that in mind, I started the finishing of my lap quilt top. I knew I somehow wanted to incorporate the striped strips that came with the jelly roll, and conveniently there were twelve. Twelve divided by four (sides of the quilt) equals three, so I sewed three strips together four times, creating one wide long strip for each side.

As I did this, I realized I had a BUNCH of lighter strips left over from making the log cabins. So, like any self-hating menopausal quilter, I chopped those suckers up into 2.5 x 2.5 squares and created long strips to go around the perimeter of the four attached log cabins. Cool! Loved that look, so all I needed to do was decide how to do the four empty corners that would exist once I attached the long stripe strips. Damn that's hard to type.

Believe it or not, I STILL had a bunch of lighter squares, so I sewed all of those into 16 patch squares, one for each corner. See that last row hanging off? It'll work, I told myself, it has to be like that for it to work out. Um, no. Not so much.

It's around this time that I began to hear Tim Gunn in the back of my mind saying, "Make it work!" So I did. I'm quite proud of myself for it, too. If you can see in the above photo, the way it had to be attached was to sew three 2.5" blocks together in a strip, and then attach to either side of two of the long stripe strips. I then attached each of these to opposite sides of the cabins.

THEEEEN, I made four blocks of 2.5" squares, 3 x 4 pieces, and attached them to the two remaining stripe strips. This, it should be noted, was where the majority of the swearing came into play. I then attached each of these long edges to the quilt and this is what I ended up with:

Woo-Hoo! One quilt top finished!!!! It measures 58.5" square, and I still have enough strips from the jelly rolls left over to complete the binding and maybe a bit of detail on the backing. Which I haven't decided what color to use yet; which I hope to complete tomorrow; which is really crazy considering I have a big fat schedule for the rest of the week.

I think it makes a pretty decent sized lap quilt, no? I can't wait until it's complete!

design roll experiment

2010-11-29T07:20:00.000-08:00

Several months ago, I bought four of these:

As with most of my fabric, I order it, drool over it when it arrives, then place it on the shelf and promptly forget about it because I'm too chicken to cut into it. It is not lost on me that this is what hoarders do, so with that in mind, last night I cut into a couple.

First of all, I have to say I really didn't care for this line much. I ordered it because it was on clearance and it's Kaffe! How could one go wrong with Kaffe? But when I first opened the roll, I really had no idea what to do with it all. The word, "blech" was uttered several times, I have to say. Once I laid out the colors and arranged them light to dark, I instantly knew I wanted to make some type of log cabin. The traditional kind, not wonky, just straight up, red center, good old fashioned log cabins.

But as I looked at the strips, I noticed those stripes were bothering me. They were stopping my eye as I viewed them all.

So I pulled those suckers out. Much better.

I used some red scrappy floral for my red center, started off with the idea of creating four large log cabin squares and took it from there. After this shot was taken, my camera died. I had fully intended on some type of tutorial to be presented here, but it just wasn't meant to be. It's probably for the best anyway, because I have absolutely no patience to teach anything, online or otherwise.

In the traditional sense, the blocks are separated light and dark, warm and cool. I think it works okay. I still have a TON of strips left, but this is as far as I can work the completed blocks without piecing the strips with mismatching patterns, which I didn't want to do. I think I'm going to round it out somehow with those left over stripe strips; it needs to be a bit bigger, even for a lap quilt. I might just do some simple squares as a border with the left over patterned strips that aren't stripes, not sure. But I'm giving myself just today to finish - Because if I don't, I'll throw it on the shelves and it will be forgotten.

Also, I'm not sure which layout I like better. The lights in the center or the darks? Any ideas?

Peach preserves

2010-11-22T22:04:00.000-08:00

I'm not finished with this painting, even though I've signed it and posted it for the internet world to see. I took these photos at 11:55 pm, trying desperately to beat the deadline of midnight. I got close. I got really close.

I wish I could say the same for the painting itself. I started off throwing in the dark background and continuing with the darker bits of the photo, and then progressed toward making a mess of things as the night went on. I turned the canvas on each of its sides as I painted tonight, I can't quite seem to give that up. As long as I'm not painting a twelve foot square canvas, I don't see it as a problem, really.

So there she is. Almost complete, but I can't help myself from running downstairs as soon as I finish this post to clean up that horizon line, tweak the foot of the glass and also level off the top of the dish just a hair. I've given it too much curve, I think.

Thanks to everyone who participated in this latest challenge!

one of these days...

2010-11-01T20:07:00.000-07:00

I'm going to learn how to photograph my paintings in the evening hours, indoors, without a flash. It's been bothering me the last few painting challenges, but I never seem to remember this until it's actually time to take the photo and get it up on the site before the deadline of midnight. What I should do is make sure I paint it the day before and then photograph it outdoors; but that would again take planning. Forethought is not my strong suit.

And while normally I wouldn't care, I think this painting needs all the help it can get. Oh well. On to the next challenge!!!!

2010-10-11T22:37:00.001-07:00

As God as my witness, I'll never paint leaves again.

And if I ever do, I'll give myself more than two and one half hours to complete it! Blech!

my late in life child

2010-10-11T15:20:00.000-07:00

I only say that because starting a new business is, in a way, like having a child. True, you don't have aspirations of it going to college, getting married and providing grandchildren, but I do expect it to take care of me at least a little by the time I retire. And so, City Stitch is ever so slowly emerging from the womb of my wee brain and into the space I'm going to give you a tour of now...

Above, you see the larger part of the front room as you enter the shop. Yes, I plan on covering the damage left on the wall by the previous tenants, one of hundreds of mortgage underwriter companies that have bit the dust over the last three or four years.

This is a partial view of the left side of the front entry room and hallway. This space is crazy split up, with the front room, five private rooms and a rather wide hallway connecting them all.

Pretty much the same shot as above, but I think for some reason this may give you a better idea of the layout.

The view down the hall....

And speaking of the view, did you happen to see that Elizabeth Hasselbeck is going to "guest star" on Good Morning America starting this week? I know! Yet another reason to NEVER watch GMA, not that I ever did; just sayin'.

Where we we...Oh yeah. The room above is what I'm calling my "showcase room". I plan on placing enough eye candy in this room to entice people to come in and spend their retirement on fat quarters and patterns. It is the only room with a window, and all of the stickers have been removed, rest assured. The mortgage company had been a member of the BBB for over 20 years and put a proud sticker on the window for each year. Um, thanks, mortgage company.

The space includes two somewhat larger, private rooms, like you see above and then below. At first I wasn't sure what to do with these rooms, but then all of a sudden it came to me that they should be classrooms. That's what they kind of look like, to me. What you see now are pics of the in-process part of the remodel. That dark wood trim is now ultra bright white, for example.

This is the second of the two larger rooms, complete with yummy stains on the carpet. I'm meeting the steam cleaner guy tomorrow to get an estimate and set up a time for him to vroom-vroom. I can't wait until that's done. The carpets are prolly beige under all that dirt!

And last but not least, some yardage I've been collecting that have fat quarter future written all over them. There's three yards of each, and while I'll have a collection of bolt fabrics within the store, I couldn't resist the online sale where I nabbed these. I'm digging the Heather Bailey the most, I think. I've never seen her prints in person and they're AWESOME.

That's all for today, folks! Have a great week!!!

cheap, but effective...

2010-09-22T12:53:00.000-07:00

So have you seen the commercial for Direct TV with the wealthy Russian guy who's first line is, "Opulence. I has it."? Well, my husband has, and he loves it. I'm pretty partial to it myself. My favorite part is the Russian's reaction to the giraffe's kiss. And if you don't have a clue as to what I'm talking about, take a minute and check it out on You Tube.

All I ask is that you don't check out how horrible my stitching is. I wasn't doing too badly until I reached the dots, which I thought a french knot would do nicely. And then I tried doing a french knot for the first time since I was like, eleven. The last two are so large they look like someone put a brand new ribbon in the typewriter and they pressed the key super hard or something.

Anyway, it's just a simple gift for a not so simple husband, to show my appreciation for everything he does for me.

Oh! And that waaay heavy opulent (really, could you have resisted?) frame was only $13 at Hobby Lobby - They're half price this week!

Have a great week!!!

yet again, I slack.

2010-09-21T05:52:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it's been so long since I've posted. It seems like I say that a lot, actually. I've been pretty obsessed with artsy craftsy projects lately, so I'm using that as an excuse. In particular, a basic but fun embroidery piece that I'll show you tomorrow - I can't wait for you to see it!

On to the lemon painting...I started this painting over a week ago by just getting the basic shapes and colors down. The tweaking and finishing happened last night, probably spending about an hour to finish it, maybe two hours total work time for this painting.

See all those brushes? That's not half of the ones I bought when I started painting. Dick Blick was clearing out a lot of their brushes and I grabbed them up all like they were sugar during WWII. The irony is, I only use...

These two. I absolutely LOOOOVE the angle brushes. I don't know if that screams amateur or not and I don't care. They work for me. The only time I use one of my big chunky brushes is when I'm applying background or a larger area.

This product is probably not new to anyone who's been painting for a while or has had proper instruction; however it is my first go around with it and I have to say - I LOVE IT! I know it's DecoArt, and that's a crafty kind of product, but if the higher grade mediums (assuming they are higher grade) work anything like this, I'm SO ready to play around with them, too. This was a way for me to see what it would be like to work with oils without having to buy a ton of paint only to find I didn't like them. Anyway, I can't wait to play some more with this stuff...I guess I'd better post a picture for the next challenge then!

2010-08-30T18:01:00.000-07:00

I have to admit, I'm getting lazy and it seems apathetic towards the painting challenges lately. Not only that, but it's apparent my blog is receiving the same, "meh" attitude from me. I can't explain it. I know these are challenges I've created; I know when I take the photo, I'm excited about the prospect of painting it. Something happens between the click of the shutter and getting the brushes wet that I can't explain other than to say I think I might just be lazy.

When I took the photo for this challenge, I really was in love with the drama of it all. The sharp, crisp shadows, all of the colors gathered on one side, black and white to the other. I don't imagine too many other folks shared my enthusiasm in painting it, as only a handful of artists joined in. But that's really, really okay. There are so many painting challenges out there that I'm completely thrilled when ANYONE decides to paint one of the challenges. It takes time, lots of time to do it right, I'm finding. I think that may be why I haven't returned to the last two paintings I've started. It's a commitment, and I certainly feel the failure of non-completion when it happens.

This was done over the course of about two and one half hours, with periodic stops so I could stretch and sing along with the most memorable of Grease songs (thank you AMC for providing my music for this evening!). And while it isn't a painting I'll likely frame, I'm glad to finally have one I can call finished.

how to fail miserably at your own challenge

2010-08-09T21:16:00.000-07:00

First, select crazy detailed photo and convince yourself four hours are plenty to complete masterpiece.

Select large canvas to match ego. Fill canvas with reference outline in bright ass red. Make sure your reference points are completely off while you're at it. Paint lines to quarter your canvas in a vain attempt to see where you've gone wrong.

Fold print out of original reference photo into quarters to allow for easy grid marks. Chuck original large canvas and select 9 x 12 canvas that is damn near identical in size to print out.

Sketch outline of flower. Don't worry that each petal is a signature all to itself; just for kicks, make sure you haven't sketched anything in several years.

Paint for two hours. Realize that no matter what you do, you cannot get the way cool hot pink color of the flower. Mix different batches of red, white, yellow, blue, and even throw black in there just because the internet told you to. Use a lot of paint to try to get that color. Realize that another Google search will inform you the best (if not only) way to achieve this color is to mix Alizarin Crimson with white...Realize you do not have Alizarin Crimson in your acrylic stash. Have brief internal debate on whether to run to Walmart to get what is now known to you as precious Alizarin Crimson and quickly convince yourself that failure is a positive, that it builds character, that perhaps next time you should plan just a tiny bit better.

Retrieve remaining ice cream bon bons from freezer, stuff into face and head to bed. Plan special trip to Dick Blick tomorrow to find elusive Alizarin Crimson and swear on all that's holy to never be without it again.

I might be in a bit of trouble here

2010-08-01T15:53:00.001-07:00

As usual, I've taken on a project that at the time, seems as if I can whip it up in a matter of hours, only to find that roughly five and one half hours after beginning said project, I'm ready to pull my hair out, jump without abandon on the nearest bed while screaming banshee-like until I collapse from exhaustion and cry myself to sleep.

Is that enough drama or what? I think so too. I just had to get it out of my system and this seemed as good of a place as any. The cause for my immediate frustration is the painting you see above, upside down as I paint it, is due on TUESDAY for my mother's birthday. Not NEXT Tuesday, but THIS coming Tuesday.

Here's a shot of it flipped right side. I don't know what I'm doing, can you tell? It becomes painfully obvious when the husband walks by and claims he was unaware my mother is a teletubby. I'm of course not finished, not even close, and I do have tonight and a bit of tomorrow to do so. But I'm stressed, completely. I am planning on baking her a cake as well, and I suppose if I don't get finished the hail Mary that is a gift certificate will have to do.

In the meantime, my class reunion diet (13 days left and 9 pounds to lose HAHAHAHAHHA) has taken a turn for the worse as these lovelies have been beckoning me to open the fridge about once every two hours and pluck one from the tray and pop it straight into my mouth with not ONE concern as to how I'm going to not have them count against me.

But how do you say no to red velvet????!!!!

on the burner

2010-07-25T08:08:00.000-07:00

So even though I should be painting for the rookiepainter challenge this weekend, I've opted to start a completely different project, just to continue the insanity that is my rebellious nature. That is, rebellious against timelines and your every day "have to" kinds of projects. That, and the fact that my mother''s birthday comes before the rookiepainter deadline, so I'm trying to finish each according to some kind of schedule, anyway. I started the above photo last night around 10:30 pm. I had a couple of hours to kill before picking up my daughter from work and just felt like painting, I guess.

The above photo is, of course, sideways. I know it's sideways, but I can't edit my pics until my husband gets me iPhoto, which I used to have before he switched out my computer. Now, I have some great things like Photoshop, but no idea on how to use them. So I'm sorry for the kink in your neck. And I'm sorry you can see all the mess on my kitchen table, normally I'd edit that out. The photo is one my husband took of my daughter, my mother and myself, seated at her dining room table. I really like the light of this photo and the way the doorway frames it all out. The photo is actually really blurry, so I'm hoping I can make it somewhat clearer somehow. I don't know how, of course, so this may end up being painted over in the end.

And last week, I finally finished my husband's requested quilt top using only solids. Each square is 8" and I actually am kind of digging this cross pattern. I wasn't exactly sure of the colors, like the way most of the reds kind of are gathering in a diagonal stripe, but my husband claimed to love it just the way it was (this was before actual joining of each square and I feel it may have had something to do with the fact I had it all laid out on the floor in front of the tv which was showing a golf tournament at the time, so I think he just wanted me out of the way).

I'm not finished with the backing yet, I'm trying to include a little surprise for him there, so I have to work on it when he's not here. And since he's golfing right now, I should probably get at it! Have a great weekend!!!

cherries

2010-07-20T06:13:00.000-07:00

So yeah. Since I procrastinated yet again for my painting challenge, I decided this time would be as good as any to begin to try to paint like this woman. The big, chunky and suggestive strokes, the wetness look of it all - Yep, that's what I thought I could do. I assumed a lack of time would force me to be loose and therefore my painting would be effortless and brilliant. As you can see, I and my painting fell short in so many, many ways.

What I wanted to look wet and juicy looks over/underworked and elementary. I can't stand to look at the far left cherry and not see the thick white line to which she hovers. I can fix that, but there's so much other stuff to fix also. As I've said before about my other paintings, this one is somewhat okay from a distance. So if you ever come to my house and notice paintings hung practically on the ceiling, just know those are the ones where I suck.

what i did today instead of all the things i should've been doing...

2010-07-18T12:19:00.000-07:00

Well, the day isn't over exactly, so I'll probably continue with the project I'm getting ready to lay out in front of you. A friend of mine told me on Friday that one of our local Lowe's had marked all of their plants 50% off and trees were now 75% off. Forget that I'm tired and have several hundred million other things I should be doing; I had to move on this sale or everything will be gone by the time I actually have time to put them in the ground.

Last year, we started this:

This bed consists of roses, pink diamond hydrangeas and spirea. It begins where our deck meets the lawn and stops abruptly where you see it above. Just beyond our fence, you can see the house of the lady who went around to each neighbor who would have an interest in us building a fence and proceeded to get everyone around us up in arms because well, we wanted to build a fence on - you guessed it - our own private property. She's a hoot to live next door to.

This is the view from just in front of the grill on our deck. It is largely untouched, other than the offending fence we put up. Just beyond the fence here, you can see the house of the man who, upon learning from aforementioned neighbor we were building a fence, came out of his house and approached my husband with, "Hey M...How big a' f#*k*% lot do you think you have?" He also went an entire year with a broken neck and didn't know it. I'd say he might not be the brightest. Anyway, that's the area we're dealing with.

These are some of the plants I bought yesterday. The crepe myrtle was not, of course, on sale. The two japanese maples next to it were though, a mere $10 each, woot! The tallest of the bunch, which was cut off by my awesome photography skills, thank you very much, is a Bradford Pear, which is destined for the front yard eventually. I think it was like, $8.

Okay. The front lilies were not 50% off, they came from another Lowe's, which is not apparently aware of the crazy great sale of its sister store. The back day lilies, though, were all 50% off and ended up being like, $2.49 each or something. Even though they're done blooming for this year, we'll plant them and expect great things next summer. We're crazy cheap and patient like that.

The layout. In case you're wondering why on earth I'd place a single adirondack chair out there by itself, it's because we're an extremely antisocial family. We prefer to have a place where we can go that tells other family members, "Back off. I'm completely overwhelmed and I just watched a Dateline marathon last night about spouses killing each other so I know how to do it and get away with it."

Not really. Those things are HEAVY and I didn't want to lug the other one over, just to get an idea of space, you dig? Ha. Nice pun, if I do say so myself.

Okay. The layout. We've got your crepe myrtle and chairs as the focal point. I toyed around with the idea of creating a curved area of pavers for the chairs to rest on briefly, and then I put the pipe down and reminded myself I only have two days for this project. So, after laying everything out, I left to take my daughter to an appointment and when I got back, my husband had tilled up a large part of the area for me. Thanks honey! (That's what you say when you really didn't want it tilled.) But it's the thought that counts, so thank you!!

Two and a half hours in, and this is what's going on. Large lightning, loud thunder and crazy pouring rain have put a damper on my project plans. In the time it's taken me to post this, it has all but stopped raining so I'm throwing on my flip flops and I'm headed out to try again. It's going to be muddy for sure, but it has to be cooler, right?

2010-07-05T07:12:00.000-07:00

I know I've already posted about this painting, but last night I decided to rework it a bit and wanted to see if anyone could offer an opinion on whether I should've done anything at all. There were two main problems I had with my original painting, one of which is that the jar simply seemed to be floating - I totally forgot to paint in some form of horizon line (which is actually in the photo, duh). And second, I just felt everything looked kind of fuzzy up close. I really would like to have my paintings appear crisper, cleaner, and just more real.

So here's a look at the first attempt:

And here's the second attempt:

In this one, I've attempted to create more subtle shadows than the first, as well as the concerns I mentioned above. I reworked the clothespins to be a bit warmer in tone and tried to represent the jar a bit better as well. I'm not sure if I improved it or not, or if it would've been best to leave it as it was. I tried to get the photos to line up side by side here, but I couldn't get that to happen.

I'd appreciate any advice or criticisms anyone could give; even though I think I'm finished with it. It's time for cherries!

michael's weekend

2010-06-29T06:19:00.000-07:00

My husband requested I title this painting, "Michael's Weekend". He has taken over laundry duty for at least the last five years now for our entire household and we love him dearly for it. Before he assumed full responsibility, our pants would shrink three sizes with one wash, pairs of socks were forever divorced and linens were stiff and uninviting.

Nowadays, we get dressed in half the time! We're able to dry from the shower and get dressed within minutes without changing several times to find items that haven't been altered to the point of no return! And even though I still put all of the laundry away once its completed, it's because of him that I'm able to paint or do anything at all of leisure on the weekends.

So this is for you, Michael. Enjoy?

Christmas in (almost) July

2010-06-21T10:27:00.000-07:00

Around Thanksgiving last year, I offered to make my sister a quilt for Christmas. To my surprise, she let me. I say to my surprise because if you saw my first quilt, which kind of looked a bit like ketchup & mustard all mixed up, you'd be surprised too.

This time, I researched a bit more and fell in love with this quilt. I'm not a fan of purples, but the appeal of a simple four patch that would allow me to utilize the various charm squares I'd acquired over time without becoming overwhelmed with patterned fabrics did, and so I opted to use a range of five shades of brown as the neutral component.

The quilt measures 87" x 104" and while the piecing and binding was completely machine stitched, the quilting was hand stitched using embroidery floss. The heavy duty twisty kind. DMC, of course, but I couldn't tell you what exact type. I had no idea you could quilt with embroidery floss until I saw it here, of which I am forever grateful to her for sharing her process because there's no way I could've machine quilted a queen sized quilt. And I couldn't have sent it out for quilting because it's way too 'spensive, as we say around here. I quilted it with simple, sometimes straight lines traveling diagonally through the squares. I freaking love it.

Although when I saw AMH's quilting frame and decided I had to have one, I was shocked to find it at Joanne's for - get this - $109! Are you kidding me? So with the help of my very patient husband, we made an even bigger (and better, imo) one for around $30. In fact, that might be a future tutorial here so you can build your own too.

And here it is! Almost the entire front; it was kind of hard to photograph it all until I gave up the notion that it shouldn't touch the ground. I really need to get over such things. Or grow another three feet.

And almost the entire back. I chose the butterscotch pudding shade of the five to use on the back. I hate pudding, but my sister likes it. In fact, she likes the way the top part gets hard in the fridge, like Jello does. She's kind of gross, did I mention that?

Anyway, here's a better shot of the binding, which is the first time ever for me. I did it with this tutorial. Can you tell I've perused her site a LOT? She's so completely wonderful to share her knowledge and in such a clear, concise way. I read through a lot of tutorials on how to bind a quilt, and hers was the first (and only, maybe?) to suggest it was okay to machine stitch the final go around. LOVE that.

And after six long months of waiting for it, it will be in the mail today, sis!!!! YAY!!!!!! Not that you need a big ol' quilt in July in Alabama anyway, but if you ever DO, you'll have one. ;)

new harmony, indiana

2010-06-16T06:47:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, I dragged the husband to the lovely small town of New Harmony, Indiana for a quick perusal of their annual antique festival. Being from a small town, I appreciate each and every nuance that comes along with the quiet, casual existence that is the rhythm of the day here.

As we walked into town, people passing actually said, "Hello," something that I've noticed has unfortunately gone out of fashion where I live. We were quite impressed that even the gutters in New Harmony have flowers instead of weeds!

There were many things to see, lots of old, wooden stadium seating, jewelry, and lots and lots of quilts.

And even though we didn't buy anything, I was relieved to see that there is finally a scientifically processed potato chip that is now less fattening and more easily digested! I do regret not buying this in a way - Although I have no room for it at all, I'm loving that graphic of the woman on the scale!

Have a great day. ;)

challenge six, birds

2010-06-12T06:12:00.000-07:00

As much as I was determined to try loose, chunky brushstrokes to complete this painting, something in me takes over as soon as I begin and it's almost like I can't even begin to try. Immediately I begin the dialogue in my head of, "That doesn't look right at all." or, "His tail feathers look like little sausages." I'm thinking maybe I need to keep practicing at realism a bit until I'm comfortable with it before I move into impressionistic methods. But I love the quick, perfect way of Carol Marine and Karin Jurick; the look is so purposeful yet almost looks haphazard in a way, too. Patience, Grasshopper.

Fairly simple color palette involved here. A bit of Burnt Umber and Burnt Sienna, small amounts of blue and aquamarine, lots and lots of white and parchment.

I started off with a coat of gesso, then a wash of teal, then the lightest of blue. I don't really know why I do this, when in the end I usually bring it back to white. The outline of the birds was really simple for me this time; there are many times I have to go back and correct misplaced outlines of the subjects.

The birds begin to take on some dimension here. Simply adding a bit here or there really determines so much about the depth and shape of the subjects.

And the final product. I'm not super pleased with the results, and I'm not hating them either. This painting to me evokes a simple, "meh" for me each time I look at it. It might be fine to hang in the bathroom...We'll see.

tulips

2010-05-19T06:39:00.000-07:00

This is my submission for the rookiepainter challenge. I cropped and cut a LOT. Overall I'm pleased with the results, but I would like to revisit this one to beef it up a bit. Whenever I go to a museum and I see a painting I like or am just overwhelmed by the sheer talent, I get within two inches of the canvas to try to see details of their method. So much so that I've been told more than once to back away from the painting. I can honestly say I'll never be one of those painters, for sure. I'd be mortified if anyone got within inches of any of my paintings; really, but especially this one. Lets just say I really like it from a distance, that's all.

I started by blending quite a few different colors together and painting a base of what turned out to be a very dark teal-like color. Not like what you see above. That came later. I attempted to take shots of the painting as it progressed, but once I got going I missed quite a few of the steps. Once the teal like color was dry I threw another layer on that is more like a Burnt Sienna, although again I just mixed a bunch of paint together, so I can't tell you exactly what color it is.

I started by painting a faint, white outline of the flowers for general placement. As you can see, I'm still painting upside down. Eventually throughout a painting, the canvas will be on its sides as well as upside down and right side up, but mostly I always start upside down. It's just easier for me that way. Also, never underestimate the power of the brown stuff in the cup underneath the easel. Just sayin'.

And this is the end result! I didn't stay within the initial white guide lines of the painting too much, and had to color them over in the end. Of course I couldn't recreate the same Burnt Sienna color even though I tried, and I came up with what was like a Burnt Sienna meets Burnt Violet or something, which was close enough for me. I threw that over the guide lines and in places it actually looks kind of like I did it on purpose and it provides a bit of light behind the flowers, giving a sense of depth. But again, please don't look too closely.

photo opp

2010-05-09T06:44:00.000-07:00

The roses have gone crazy beautiful this week, so Friday morning I grabbed the opportunity to capture some evidence of this, as they will not look as beautiful for the rest of the year. Before deadheading is required, before anything gets spotty, just full of blooms and maintenance free beauty.

These lovely white roses were planted two years ago and never really took root, or so I thought. They aren't very prolific or full, but man, the roses that do bloom are gorgeous and the smell of them makes my toes curl.

Alongside the west side of the house, we have these super hardy, super bright roses. They put on quite a show, but unfortunately have little scent and what scent is there is similar to that of latex balloons. Really. Weird, but true.

This year, one of the several yellow rose bushes I planted years ago made an appearance for the first time since the year I planted it. I don't know how it will do for the rest of the year, but for now it's keeping up with the group.

And lastly, the oldest roses we have. I think these roses are at least six or seven years old and we have two of them strategically placed between two Yoshino Cherry trees. They are to me to be old fashioned roses, although I've long forgotten what their proper name and species is.

Happy Mother's Day everyone!!!

spring crochet

2010-05-06T05:58:00.000-07:00

One of my clients is having her first baby, so of course I had to share some crochet love with her and her highly anticipated new family member. I started with a family of monster balls. I thought they might be fun to throw under the crib to start off as baby's first hiding monsters, but then was told if they did that, the dog would undoubtedly love them into oblivion and the baby would never have known them at all. So I'm not sure where they'll end up.

Next, I started making Alicia's Sunshine Day Afghan for the baby. I really love her version, with the soft grey and muted color palette, but knowing this particular mommy and knowing the nursery is chocolate brown with bright white accents, I chose a palette that is a bit more bland, really. I had fully intended on making a complete afghan, but after 16 of the squares, I decided for time's sake I would make a pillow cover out of the sixteen already made and simply make yet another (there have been three now) Tiramisu blanket, available as a free download on Alicia's site. It's such a fast, easy and mindless pattern to follow, and so far everyone I've given one to seems to love it, so it's really a no brainer.

one month without a word

2010-04-28T05:58:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it's been a month since I've posted anything here. I've been busy, very busy, with a touch of food poisoning to boot (I lost four pounds in two days!). And yes, I know other bloggers are busy too and still find time to share and I really have no excuse, other than sometimes blogs have to take a back seat to things like sleep.

Another reason I haven't posted is because I've been working furiously on my sister's Christmas present - Which is nearing completion and if she actually gets it, it will be a miracle because I LOOOOOOVE the way her quilt is turning out. I want it for myself, I really do. I'm thinking that's a good sign that she may like it too, no? But because it is a gift, I can't share photos of its progress. Someday soon, I promise.

The above painting is what I came up with for challenge five for the other blog. I really am disappointed in myself for once again waiting until 9:30 pm on deadline day to begin painting. I can't imagine what I was thinking. There's a whole lot of detail within this supposed simple composition! Like an idiot, I decided to include the title of the yellow book, and I can't remember what it is now, but the middle word of the title is "for", and it was centered on the book's spine so perfectly I thought it would be wise to paint it first and base the rest of the text on that reference point. After painting "for", I realized if I continued painting the title, the yellow book would be the only part of the painting that would be complete by midnight. So I quit with it and moved ahead, deciding to paint over the dreaded "for" once it had dried.

I can't paint over it! I mean, I've tried, but the yellow I'm using just doesn't cover. So now it's simply a book known as "for". For the love of Ray Jay...For Pete's Sake...Whatever. I'll throw some gesso on it and start over with something else, for sure. It was fun to paint though, had I given myself more time.

the process has ended

2010-03-17T06:39:00.000-07:00

And I'm so glad it has! I might someday return to this painting to insert the missing fork, because for the photo, I think it provides an important angle to balance the composition. But if I care at all about my mental well being and desire to ever paint again, I'll put it off. The spoon and other flatware involved was enough of a challenge. If anyone clicks on the photo I posted on the challenge site, I'll be thoroughly embarrassed. It's seriously elementary.

In my own defense, I started this painting on the day of my last post here, which was a little under three weeks ago. I walked by it every day on its easel, but denying the looming deadline proved easier than simply working on it for a bit. I just wasn't inspired, you know? So yesterday I had about an hour to throw away and yesterday was the deadline, so I picked up the brushes and attempted to tackle it. Apparently I'm a lazy, impatient painter. I spent two hours and fifteen minutes on this and that was enough. I could've done better, but I ran out of time and of course, that's what you get with procrastination, sub-par work. My personal challenge for the next painting challenge will be to work a couple of hours each week of the three provided and see if the quality improves.

the process has started

2010-02-25T13:36:00.000-08:00

I've started on the second painting challenge and I've discovered I might actually just be a little bit nuts. There's a whole lot going on in the picture I chose, even though it looks relatively straightforward and dare I say it; easy. I started by covering an old canvas with different colors with a big humongous brush. I'm not sure why, really. It seemed like that's what all the cool kids were doing, so I did it too.

I started out with this one, and gradually kept lightening it until I got it basically almost white. It's really a mix of the lightest green (in the first photo), a color called Parchment, and Titanium White. In hindsight, I probably should have just used a new canvas.

This is essentially how I start each painting. Have I mentioned before that I really have no idea what I'm doing. What I do know is that for me, it is easier to map out the shapes of all things involved and the easiest way for me to do this perspectively speaking is to turn the canvas and picture on its side. I don't know why I have trouble doing this any other way, but I do.

I've started with the saucepan. I know some people like to paint light to dark, and I tend to do some of that as well, but with this one I'm trying to work it back to front, if that makes any sense. I'm glad to have three weeks to complete; I'm sure I'll use every last minute of it at my current pace!

turkey chili

2010-02-23T10:22:00.000-08:00

Here's an easy peasy chili recipe that substitutes ground turkey breast for ground beef. It not only tastes great, but is surprisingly a healthy, low fat, low calorie meal that does like most comfort food and keeps you fuller longer.

Of course, it all begins with ground turkey breast. Cook thoroughly over medium heat. As the turkey was cooking, I diced one each red, orange and yellow bell peppers and threw them into the big soup pot with one tablespoon olive oil and cooked them until just tender.

Once the turkey is completely cooked, I threw it into the big soup pot along with the peppers.

These are the rest of the ingredients. This recipe was found on the back of the seasoning box, which you'll see in a second.

See? I told ya. I did kind of a "create your own" version in a way. This particular spice pack includes four items. Two seasoning packets, one salt packet and one MASA packet, which is used if a thicker chili is preferred. I don't prefer that, so I left it out. I did however, take the first three suggestions provided at the bottom of the recipe shown here:

Hey! There's the peppers! I didn't think I uploaded a photo of them! I didn't include any onions in my recipe, which I know is almost unheard of around these parts, but I'm not partial to farting a lot, so I left them out.

As I said, it's very, very easy. And as far as the "healthy" claim, here are the specifics that I personally care about:

This recipe made approximately 100 oz. total.

Total calorie count = 2535.

Total fat gram count = 6.5g. (Seriously! I know, right?)

Per serving calorie count, considering a 10 oz serving, or 1 1/4 cup, = 254 calories.

The ONLY ingredient I did not account for in the counts is the one tablespoon of olive oil. So if you're a stickler, go ahead and add the 10/15 calories to each serving if you want.

And last but not least, enjoy!

I'm sooooo over the oranges.

2010-02-11T15:16:00.000-08:00

I'm finished painting oranges, quite possibly forever. I spent about four hours total on this painting, and while I liked painting them for the most part, I feel they looked better a few days ago, before I started an endless tweaking habit as I came and went. Thirty minutes here, forty-five minutes there, until I feel like I'm just sick of it and I need to be done.

I know there are some issues with it, quite a few actually. But I'm not really displeased with the overall result. If you happen to notice some underlying textural issues with it, like say, the outline of a huge daisy, that's because I painted over an extremely horrid painting that was a part of an exercise. I guess I underestimated the effect of a thicker underlay.

what i've been up to

2010-02-09T07:05:00.000-08:00

I think I may have found the perfect criteria to blend my blogging and painting ambitions. Last week, I started rookiepainter, a painting challenge similar to Karin Jurick's

different strokes by different folks. I'm not sure how popular it will become or how successful I'll be at actually challenging any artists out there who have years of painting experience, but like Tim Robbins in Hudsucker Proxy, I'm full of ideas and eager to try.

The above photo is of the first challenge painting. I worked for about two and a half hours on this yesterday, to music of the '70's and '80's via cable television. Reminder to self: Find small cd player for kitchen, purchase John Mayer cd to paint to.

It isn't finished yet, but it's a nice start I think. I want to play a bit more with the fabric and the oranges still have some details to be worked out, but so far I'm digging the beginning of what I think might be a sweet adventure.

Another project we (husband mostly) have been working on is our daughter's bathroom. After living here for 14 years and laying peel and stick over linoleum, a basin craft project that went horribly wrong and several layers/colors/techniques of paint on the walls, we decided it was time to get it right. That included ceramic tile - a new product called SnapStone, and let me just tell you, it's awesome. No mortar, no removal of old linoleum if you don't want to (we did, only because it lifted up like it had never been adhered), and each tile is installed via an attached grid system, so there's no tile spacers, and best of all, if you hate it ten years from now, it lifts out easily. So far, we love it.

Remember this? Well, this isn't the same swatch I was knitting before. Oh, it looks like the same one, but the first one really didn't lay right to me and it felt like it was stiff to the touch and not squishy the way I like snuggly scarves to be. So I frogged it. The whole thing! I do believe at this point I definitely frog more than I knit. Which sounds impossible, but feels true anyway. I simply switched from size 8 needles to size 9 needles and it's made a world of difference. What you see above is utilizing one full skein of Paton's Classic Wool in Mercury, and I've one skein left to add. I really want this to be super long, so I'm thinking if I buy one more skein it will make it that way. Although by the time I finish, it'll be summer.

It's hard to quilt in front of the tv

2010-02-01T11:18:00.000-08:00

So while watching the Grammy's last night (Did you get your free 3-D glasses from Target too?) I knitted this little scarf wanna be. I started it the night before, while watching nothing, as it seems happens quite a bit in January, nothing is on that's worth paying attention to, yet we still keep it on as more habit than actual activity.

After my daunting experience knitting the sweater vest - something I still don't want to take pictures of to show you - I needed to knit something, anything, to prove to myself I wasn't a complete fail when it comes to holding two needles instead of one hook. I pulled out this book, The Complete Encyclopedia of Stitchery by Mildred Graves Ryan. I bought this book on clearance at Barnes & Noble for $7. It has been, by far, the best instructional needlework book I have bought to date. It covers everything; crochet, embroidery, knitting, tatting, sewing, macrame and rug making. Each subject is covered in depth and is current in its descriptions and wonderfully clear in its tutorials.

The stitch above is called, "Lattice Stitch" and for knitters, I'm sure it's no big deal to throw around three needles at a time, but for a single hook girl like me it can look pretty intimidating! But you know, I love it! There have been a couple (okay few) of rows where I've lost my place in the sequence and thought I'd found my way only to discover several rows/inches/hours later that I was waaay off. I'm just going to do like any novice who doesn't want to frog and declare it part of the design! I'm using Paton's Classic Wool in Merino and plan on going as far as I can with the two skeins I have.

I'll check in as soon as it's finished!!!

when determination overcomes frustration

2010-01-24T21:07:00.000-08:00

I haven't mentioned the quilt I'm working on with the new fabrics lately, mainly because I haven't worked on it at all for at least a week because I made what I thought at the time was going to be an unfixable fug, a fabric tragedy, an undeniable and of course obvious mistake once the quilt was assembled.

Without going into too much detail (because my sister is the recipient and she is the only one who reads this blog), I made grave errors when trimming some of my blocks. Like, over 30 of them before I realized what I had done. The method of trimming I had been using wasn't taking into account the center of each assembled block, and therefore when I begin to actually quilt it the way I want to quilt it, will force the lines to not go directly through the center of each block.

I have no idea why it took me so long to realize what I was doing, but there wasn't any way I was going to make another 30 something blocks or I'd never be finished and it would be summer in Alabama and it would be next Christmas before it was used! So. I decided I'd have to trim each block while making the center of each block as the reference point for my cutting.

Easier said than done. My finished, trimmed blocks are measuring 9 1/4". And let me tell you, there are no such OmniGrid trimmer thingys out there that measure 9 1/4". Oh sure, they have their 8 1/2", their 10 1/2", but none that I need. So I went to Joanne's to look around to see what I could get, ended up buying an 8 1/2" OmniGrid and brought it home to try. Once I placed it on the squares, I realized how much area I was going to lose overall and decided it just wasn't worth it. So for a week, I've thrown myself into knitting and anything else that would give me an excuse not to try to figure out what to do.

That changed today.

I got out one of my old drawing pads and my grid marker cutting guide thing I've been using all along, marked off a square that measured 9 1/4". I then cut out the square, folded each corner to its opposite corner, then measured a two inch square off of the center point of the paper.

I cut out the center square, and voila! I now have a cutting template complete with window that allows me to see precisely where the center of my square should be.

See? Isn't that cool? And I'm sure to anyone who has quilted before may look at this and say big deal, or that's so hard, she should've done this...but for me, me, who has fretted for a week over how to make it work, I'm elated. Really. It doesn't take much.

Oh, and just so you don't think I'm getting ready to make another tragic mistake, I do lay down my cutting guide ruler thing before I trim the edge. I'm so glad to be excited about this quilt again! I can't wait to see it finished and I can tell you now sister - This one is going to be hard to give up! So translated, that means, if you hate it, I'll buy it back from you.

Don't you just love it when things work out???

knitting is hard.

2010-01-14T07:27:00.000-08:00

On a recent trip to the book store, I picked up Erika Knight's Classic Knits for just $6.50. Heck of a bargain, right? That's what I thought! And despite my inexperience with knitting, I jumped right in and decided to make the cute, cute, cute sweater vest. It looked so easy. It looked so quick. And here I am on day FIVE, trying to undo my errors, giving up several times on what will soon (hopefully) be the front of the sweater and I'm just completing the bottom rib section. I still think the purchase was a good one, but I do think more descriptive patterns would help as well. For instance, in the finishing rows of working the back, it is never mentioned for the knitter to cut the yarn. I think that's kind of a big deal! I mean, it says something like, "bind off rem st purl" Then the very next sentence is, "Rejoin yarn..." Huh? So now I know (thanks to an ancient Ravelry post) that for each pattern in this book, every time I see that phrase, "rejoin yarn", I'll know to cut the yarn just before. Somewhat frustrating, for sure.

Here's the completed top, waiting patiently to be joined to its counterpart. Maybe by next week I'll have a finished garment!

crochet couture

2010-01-13T08:49:00.000-08:00

When my Harper's Bazaar came in the mail the other day, I almost chucked even flipping through the pages at all because of who's on the cover.

Really. Miley Cyrus again? Inevitably, at any given time there are several celebrities who are given more exposure than their talent warrants, and in my opinion, Miley is definitely the one of our time. Showcasing her on the cover of Harper's Bazaar when she has made no contribution to the world of fashion - at all - is like having a Ricky Gervais on the cover of a craft magazine. It just doesn't jive.

However, if I hadn't gone ahead and flipped through it out of desperation to read something other than the supermarket ads as I ate my turkey burger, I'd have missed these two lovelies completely:

I'm not sure if you can see it clearly or not, but that top right handbag is made by Dolce & Gabbana, out of what appears to be white cotton, or possibly a cotton/acrylic blend maybe. Or...Maybe it's a superfine cotton/cashmere blend. Who cares! The point is, it is quite simply nothing more than a repeat pattern of puff stitches, and the price tag of course reflects such high quality - $1275. Yes, that's one thousand seventy-five dollars. Crazy, ain't it? I think I just might have to copy this one. Not because I like it at all - I think it looks really, really granny, and I don't mean in a cool, granny chic way either. I think it's specific to the over 70 cruise goers.

Now, Chanel on the other hand...

Has a kick ASS dress, made from what appears to again be possibly a cotton/linen blend maybe, not sure. I kind of actually love this. Not because it's something I would/could actually wear, not because of the flowers or the tulle or the colors, but because Chanel actually took a method of handwork that typically lends itself to a granny-esque look (see second photo) and made it not only fresh, but fashionable. That's not easy to do! There's even a cute scalloped crocheted edge to this dress, yet again, it definitely doesn't look granny.

I actually love the fact that both design houses chose to implement some crochet into their line, most of the time in the spring/summer issues there will be some introduced, but so far this season, these are the only two I've noticed. A little while ago, my sister informed me that crochet is the only fiber craft that can't be created by machine, which I never knew before and which I think is ultimately cool. Now I know that anytime I see crochet work in a shop, I know it's been handmade. Which is kind of awesome. ;)

Along with the snow

2010-01-11T11:02:00.000-08:00

Came my all time favorite fabric delivery e. ver. Hancock's of Paducah is having a sale on the fabrics shown plus many more. Believe it or not, I used restraint when ordering these lovely prints. Most of these are Philip Jacobs, two are Kaffe Fassett prints. I have no idea how long the sale is going on, but they're $2.99 per half yard. I think that's about $2 off per yard, which isn't the best of deals, but any kind of discount on these fabrics is just pure bonus, as far as I'm concerned.

I never really considered myself a floral type of gal, but man. Look at those colors! Some of these are going into a quilt for my sister, her Christmas gift, believe it or not. Hopefully it will be worth the wait!

Just a couple of inches...

2010-01-08T06:50:00.000-08:00

Although they claimed we were getting four to six inches all week, which threw several hundred people into a panic, prompted the local Red Cross to set up a shelter with 50+ beds, schools to close and life as we know it to screech to an almost stop.

Which is fine by me. It hasn't stopped snowing really since I the above picture yesterday afternoon, so we may get those predicted inches after all!

I thought I'd show you one of the reasons I hadn't blogged much over the month of December. I don't see how others do it; blogging every day. But I do realize that most of the blogs I visit are penned by stay at home moms, and not that stay at home moms aren't busy, I want to get that in there, but you know, it does take a bit away from your schedule if eight or more hours are spoken for outside the home. Like me - I work outside the home, with my schedule largely at the mercy of any special occasion or season. I don't see my family much in December, is what I'm saying. Or blog much.

However, I did find time to make a bunch of these caps. Free pattern available here. I made all of mine in Paton's Classic Wool and even a few out of Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool. Unfortunately, I neglected to make one for myself, even though I made twenty-one of them in three days! I was waiting for the Carpal Tunnel, but luckily I escaped pain free.

I love the way it spirals around. I'm definitely making one for myself soon.

This is the mini workshop, conveniently located in front of the tv. And that creamy stuff in the mug? If you have a limitless supply of it, you can do just about anything, in any amount of time, I'm convinced.

Halfway finished at this point. Now I'm thinking I might want one in each color!

recovering

2010-01-07T07:08:00.001-08:00

Not from any kind of wild night or illness, but in the fabric sense. In the sense that I cannot imagine what possessed me to cover our dining nook cushions with that crazy weird color zebra come sea urchin looking print that's been there for several years. I think it was the whole Trading Spaces fury, when I bought this fabric, designed by Laurie Smith. As with many things, I guess I liked it enough to look at it every day for a number of years, but enough is enough.

So I decided to utilize some of my Anna Maria Horner fabrics I had recently purchased, and after an entire evening's work, I decided I hated my new compilation as much as the old stuff. That, and one simple, "Ew" from the husband was enough to determine this is not the way I wanted to go.

Our walls in the kitchen are painted a very, very dark chocolate brown. Against the white cabinetry, I really like this color. It's dramatic but clean and sharp, not shocking at all. It just looks precise, to me. So I scrapped the AMH project and began something that would allow for some small injection of color but continue to play upon the white that is the brightness of the room. I came up with this:

Simple white log cabin squares, each measuring 12" x 12 1/2". The extra half inch on one side is to allow me to join them without losing the square entirely. I have five squares completed, and five more to go. I'm excited to finish this so I can begin to fill the blank wall behind it with some type of painting(s). I've put off completion because I got busy with work and other things and then instead of picking this up again and finishing it off, I started new and bigger projects! Why do I do this???

Just five little squares to go...That shouldn't really be that difficult, should it? Maybe this weekend...

Please forgive me

2010-01-06T12:24:00.000-08:00

But my computer crashed a few weeks ago, and although it only took a couple of days for my husband to set me up with another, this one is a Mac, and I'm definitely a PC, so photo uploads, editing and the like is coming to me verrry slowly. But I'm trying! I have been knitting, crocheting and quilting a bit over the holidays, but for today, I'd just like to share a recipe that's close to my heart and will eventually probably stop it from beating completely. It's a combination of two recipes that I love, one from Lazarus department store and the other is Paula Deen's bread pudding recipe. It's the butter, and the sugar; the sugar and the butter, the white bread, the doughnuts, and the whiskey. Oh man. And I don't even like whiskey. Here we go:

Some of the players. I say some because I'm not entirely sure what that Nesquik is doing there, right in the middle of the shot. It shouldn't be, but sometimes the cabinets just aren't big enough I guess. Because it can't be that I'm lazy and untidy. Anyway, to make this Whiskey Bread Pudding, you'll need:

Bread Base:

One dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts

Two loaves french bread

1/4 c. pecans

4 oz butter, melted

Break bread into medium pieces. Add pecans and melted butter. Arrange in a 9 x 13 pan. It should look something like this:

For the custard, you'll need:

2 cups sugar

1 t. salt

8 large eggs

5 1/2 c. milk

1 t. vanilla

In a large mixing bowl, blend eggs, salt and sugar lightly with a whisk. Add vanilla and milk, blend. Pour over bread base.

Rookie note - Make sure you get a large bowl. This is the kind of mess you get if you don't. Even if you tell yourself it'll be fine, go for the bigger bowl, man. Unless you like sticky messes. In which case, set your blender on high.

Either way, you end up with this gorgeous creamy custard. Yuuuum.

Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes. Test center of bread base with a knife; if it comes out clean, it's done. When it's done, set aside to cool.

Now for the wicked sauce. I love this sauce. This is where the whiskey that I normally can't stand comes into play and just makes everything all right with the world. We should send some of this to Yemen and any other countries that hate us. It could change things, just sayin'.

Whiskey Sauce:

8 oz. butter, melted

2 c. powdered sugar

2 large eggs, beaten

1 oz. whiskey

Melt butter in saucepan over low heat. Whip in sifted powdered sugar. (I don't ever sift it, but if you're a stickler for rules, go right ahead). Slowly fold in eggs. Add whiskey and serve warm.

O. My. God. It's gorgeous, isn't it?

future endeavors

2009-11-16T16:20:00.000-08:00

This is what I did today. I played with napkins, eggs and apples. I've been trying to get back in the groove of the Michigan Avenue painting, but I just can't get into it. I think I get to a point where I get intimidated by the sheer detail of it all, and instead of just jumping in head first, I start contemplating new paintings. After several hours of waiting for the sun to come out if only even for five minutes, I decided to move the egg/apple party indoors and try to get some shots with some even halfway decent light. These photos were taken on my kitchen table with a big black illustration board as a back drop. I don't think they turned out too badly.

I think this one would be my favorite if it weren't so blurry. But maybe that's not such a horrible thing. That's the nice part about being a rookie, I can only go up from here!

I wish the second egg shot was as sharp as this one. Or if I had moved one of the eggs over, so they weren't in such a cluster on the left side of the picture. It makes it seem heavy to me.

Okay. On to apples. I was inspired by this lady, whose blog I found through another artist whose work was shown on Karin Jurick's DSFDF blog. I'm totally digging the wide brush strokes in Carol's work, the oranges of the apples in some of her paintings, and really just about everything with her compositions.

I could definitely see having some fun with these.

And yet another angle. I might try this one first just so I don't feel like I'm completely copying Carol's work. It's hard to determine at times what the difference is between being inspired by someone's work and what would be considered blatant plagarism. I don't think any works I create from these photos are going to be anywhere close to what Carol is doing, so I don't think I'll be called out on copying her anytime soon, although I would consider it a compliment for sure!

i bet you want to lick your computer screen, don't you?

2009-11-05T11:20:00.000-08:00

Just a quick ten minute post to share what came in the mail today. Two fabric stacks from Anna Maria's shop, which I've been wanting to order forEVER but talked myself down each and every time the urge hit. I can't remember what made me click the shop button that day, as I read her blog often, but don't visit the shop much, because I'm trying to back off the craft supply that is my heroin, my meth, my white sugar, if you will. Of course when I clicked, I saw her Garden Party and Drawing Room collections (my faves) are marked down 10%. You'd have thought they were 75% off, as fast as I clicked the BUY button! This could be, as experts describe it, as a cry for help.

Of course this sweet, sweet fluffiness didn't come from Anna Maria. It came from my LYS, and if was buy one get one free. LOVE that. I made the penguin mittens out of this hank's sister/brother/cousin. Although I love those blues, this one is my favorite. Even though I haven't really ever been a big fan of purples, I'm rethinking my opinion of them. This color is so bright, so nice and current, you know? I know I've seen it before somewhere....

Riiiight. The verbena that still insists on blooming even though we've had some pretty chilly days and even though it's still in its same Home Depot plastic container...I love that kind of stubborness!

did you know...

2009-11-03T11:43:00.001-08:00

it is very difficult to photograph mittens? It is. Especially if for some reason you thought you'd be able to do it with both mittens on at once without the camera slipping out of your hand.

So I placed them on one of the trees. Still weird looking.

Oh! Hey new neighbors! Not really. There wasn't anyone around. At least I hope not.

I realize the thumb on these need to be fixed, desperately. They kind of look like they could've been made for Danny Devito's Penguin character in one of the Batman movies, I can't remember which. While although they feel great, my extra long thumb sleeves look completely ridiculous. So I'll be reworking that for sure. And of course, these were made up as I went along, no pattern to follow or to blame for strange looking thumbs.

But don't you just love that wool?

hexagons

2009-11-02T09:21:00.000-08:00

I don't know why they're so addictive. Big ones, little ones, all joined, bright and cheery. At least, once you realize hexes have six sides, duh.

I've had this afghan finished for a while, using a free online pattern for inspiration, but making it my own with much more color. It also helps that I have (had) a huge acrylic stash to bust.

And because we have more than enough afghans to last us a lifetime, I'm thinking I'm going to place this one on Etsy. I've had a store forever, but nothing in it! Something I really need to work on doing, because I literally have two shelves full of projects completed that I'll never get around to using!

wordless wednesday

2009-10-28T15:37:00.001-07:00

liberated

2009-10-19T11:27:00.000-07:00

After weeks of procrastination, I finally quit my painting classes. I am so completely relieved I can't begin to tell you. I went back and forth trying to decide what to do, and ultimately what made my decision was the response I got from others when I explained to them exactly what had been progressing over the last several months during class. Which is, to say, nothing. Nothing happened at all. I think the final straw for me was during our last class, my instructor came over to see what I was doing (only because her dog was giving birth and was placed behind my chair - And of course I'm serious.) and noticed I was working on the SUV in the scene. I had decided to paint it out in a greyish-purple tone to first get the values right, and then will add more color when I'm happy with what I have down.

Without her asking, I described my approach to her, to which she responded with, "That's the way the Masters did it, too. It's called, (something I can't remember)." Please don't get me wrong. I know I am no Master, nor am I on my way to becoming one. And I know that right now the shape of my SUV is wonky and off. HOWEVER. At the risk of sounding like an egomaniac, if I'm just by some stroke of luck approaching a painting like someone who even remotely knows what they're doing without being told, WHY AM I THERE?

So yeah. That made the decision easy for me. That, and the fact that I told myself I could take the money I've been speding on classes each week for supplies! I'm going to start stocking up on oils, woot!

Five side a gons?

2009-10-08T06:49:00.000-07:00

So the next time I set out to make what I think will be a really cool afghan with large, large (the ones above aren't nearly big enough) hexagons, I'll be sure to confirm that what I'm whipping up is, in fact, a hexagon. Hope your crafting is going better!

Fall Festival '09

2009-10-07T13:09:00.000-07:00

Each year our city hosts the second largest street food fair in North America known simply as the West Side Nut Club Fall Festival. It occurs over the first full week of October, rain or shine, from early in the morning (some booths start serving food at 6:30 am!) until late at night, or around 11 pm. I haven't gone for many years, avoiding it like the plague as most of the offerings are of the deep fried variety, and when I say variety, I mean variety! There are deep fried candy bars of all kinds, deep fried Twinkies, Oreos, Monte Cristo sandwiches and chocolate covered bacon, alongside traditional faves like caramel apples, apple cider & pork tenderloin sandwiches. I took a few pics when my daughter and I ventured down on Monday afternoon; mostly because of the funny things I found in addition to the rides, games and food. Like the above booth, which is the only booth offering Rolaids alongside clams and frog legs. I'm sure they sold a fair amount!

See the hot dog over on the right? The one talking and walking? Yep, that's pretty typical.

These are deep fried Oreos. Also known as the main reason for me to take the time to drive there, pay for close proximity parking and walk FOREVER on a foot that had just been knifed earlier that day by my physician. (Weird growth, too yucky to talk about here.)

Anyway, the deep fried Oreo. Not to my liking, after all. Very dry, really no flavor at all and so disappointing I threw the untouched other two in the photo away. Bummer. Next year I'll try deep fried buttercream frosting. I've put the idea in some of the food booth operator's minds, and hopefully they'll take me up on it.

My personal favorite booth at the Fall Festival. Not because of the hot fudge brownie sundaes they offer, but because apparently they are on fire for Jesus. I cannot walk past their booth and not crack up every single time. What does that mean, exactly? On fire for Jesus? I can't imagine He would want us to be on fire, right? They don't serve any fried food at this particular booth, nor do they offer spicy chili. I just don't get it. But I appreciate the chuckle!

Oh - And I have worked on the painting a tiny, tiny bit. Will share soon!

Little by little

2009-10-05T12:16:00.000-07:00

So I've made a little bit of progress on the painting. Not much, as you can see, but the man headed out of the scene will soon be completely a thing of the past, my girl waiting to cross has color in her hair and clothes although no legs to speak of, and I'm feeling a bit better about how the pavement looks. Except now it looks more like a swamp than concrete lava, it at least is on its way to repair. Another thing. Isn't there always another thing? Last Tuesday, my painting instructor called to say our local magazine would be present during our next class, which is tonight. I'm so conflicted about this, really. I know it sounds crazy, but here I am, wanting to quit attending because I feel I'm not learning anything, and yet now I feel obligated to go because I AM going to quit once I get enough balls to do so, but I do not want myself or my painting to promote her and her teaching because I feel it would be a dishonest representation. I'm quite sure I'm overthinking all of this. I know for sure it has all but halted my interest in my painting this week; I've been filled with dread about going tonight. So I do what I always do, avoid and procrastinate. Mostly by doing this:

Large, seven round granny hexes, thank you for taking my mind off the conflicts of the art world! (I keed, I keed!) I am happy to have a distraction though - And to use up the collection of wool I've been accumulating over the last year or so!

How was your week?

I'm afraid I'm quite addicted

2009-09-30T13:14:00.000-07:00

to this combination of pita bread, hummus and cucumbers. And I've even added to this compilation of ingredients since I took this photo to include fresh tomato slices and tons of romaine lettuce. I've eaten it for several dinners in a row, a couple of late night snacks (sans pita) and even a couple of breakfasts. I've taken to purchasing multiple hummus(es/'s?) at once, opening them and sampling against each other. My current fave is Athenos Greek Style Hummus. Totally yum! Anyone make their own? I'm not quite brave enough yet, although I can tell it's just going to take one late night scraping of the store bought hummus tub to make it happen!

the perfect lazy Saturday

2009-09-29T06:49:00.000-07:00

Started off at Funk in the City, one of our local art festivals. I was so distracted by the many displays and collections I basically forgot I had brought my camera. By the time I reached Nikki Pritchett's booth (above), I remembered. Aren't you glad I did? Her stuff is so bright, cheery, and while some might think it's a bit cartoon-ey, I have to say I'm drawn to her works every time I go. I don't know Nikki, but I can only imagine she's as bright and exuberant as her paintings. She does a lot of local landmarks, schools and the like. She also has quite a few Chicago scenes, which I think are really cool. I'm not sure where exactly in my house I would ever place one of her paintings, but nonetheless, they're cool.

I saw this just hanging around (I kill me) on the way back to the car. I totally missed it the first time around, on the way to the festival. I like to think they put it out when I was there, rather than think I walked right under it without even noticing. I love Halloween. I've decided on my costume already, but I have no idea where I'm going!

On the way home, we had a crazy rainstorm. Actually, I pulled into the garage just as the first drop fell. And yes, I took this picture as I was driving. This was taken at five o'clock in the evening! And while not the best shot, you can kind of tell how bright it should be on the horizon, and how the blackness of the storm really did block out the sun. Kind of cool, kind of creepy.

How was your weekend?

progress

2009-09-26T06:20:00.000-07:00

Even though it is slight -very slight-, I have made some progress with the Michigan Avenue painting. And by progress, I mean I've actually thrown some color on the canvas. It's so interesting to have this experience of painting to me. It's unlike any medium I've done in the past, in the sense that each project presents its own challenges to me and my inexperience as a painter; in fact, so much so that I feel funny even calling myself a painter.

One thing I can definitely say for sure is that I need to lay off the charcoal big time when doing my sketch! And my columns aren't straight. And the two reddish buildings on the right are too dark. And I have some serious issues with the curb. And the list could go on forever...Well, like I said, at least I've started!

What I do in traffic

2009-09-23T11:17:00.000-07:00

So I've been inspired by all the lovely embroidery groups on Flickr, like this one. My favorite pic, and the one that made me say, don't I have a hoop around here somewhere? is this work by wardi, who has a way cool crafty blog with tons of crochet and scattered bits, just like me. Her weary shopper inspired me to get going again, mainly just by showing how one color and a simple contour line drawing can be really well, cool and impressive I suppose. So when this super nice lady I know finally moved into the house of her dreams (like, 8000 sq. ft!) I had to use it as an excuse to try my hand at it.

First, I found a pic of her house on the net via Google (thanks Google van with the circulating 180 degree camera on top!). Then, I sketched it. Then, I bought some transfer paper at the craft store and traced it onto linen. Above is the original sketch, and to be honest, this house is really so old and beautiful the drawing and I'm afraid the embroidered piece won't do it near justice. I'm going to frame it with a chunky black frame I found in the garage (shh...She'll never know) and give it to her as soon as I'm finished.

Even if she hates it, she certainly can find somewhere to stash it with all that room!

michigan avenue

2009-09-16T14:54:00.000-07:00

I found a killer blog over the weekend. Correction: I found two killer blogs over the weekend. They are both Karin Jurick's, a self-taught painter who when I found her first blog, a painting today, I was stuck to my screen for what seemed like hours, reading about her story and all the while being just in awe of her approach to her experiment of turning out a painting a day. (She works in oils, people! That's crazy!) Then, the next day, I found her other blog, different strokes by different folks, and I have to say, I became enthralled all over again! This lady has graciously opened her experience as a painter to other painters as well, posting a new picture every other Wednesday for anyone interested to paint along. At the end of the two week period, she posts quite a few of the submissions artists have uploaded so viewers/readers can see other interpretations of the same photo. How awesome is that? Tonight she is posting a new photo challenge, and I'd really like to take part, but I became impatient and started looking through our photos from our last Chicago trip and decided on this one. So far I've just done the charcoal sketch:

And yes, I know the poor man on the left looks more like Homer Simpson than he does in the photo...I'll try to rectify that. I almost think I may have bitten off more than I can chew here, with the limited instruction I've gotten. I'm still in class, but ready to take at least a hiatus. I just don't feel like I'm learning anything. For instance, this past Monday, for 90 minutes I drew this. My instructor came over and observed one time during the entire session, looked at it, told me to not put the man in and went back to painting her own project. I decided against leaving him out, as he is another source of depth for the painting, and I really want experience painting people.

At the end of class, my instructor came over and said I had broken the rules. She said one of the rules of a "good" painting was to not ever have anyone/anything walking away or out of the scene. Then she added, "You didn't know it was a rule because I didn't tell you." DUH! Maybe if I had had some specific reason to not put the man in, like "the rule", I wouldn't have!

It's no big deal, I haven't painted it, there's minimal time spent on sketching it, so it's not a crisis or anything. I guess I'm just frustrated at the lack of direction I'm recieving in class.

But I'm excited to add color!!!! What do you think? Keep him or kill him?

so when I said there was nothing off the hook

2009-09-12T14:28:00.000-07:00

in my last post, I had completely forgotten about these. Six double-sided little hotpads, crocheted in simple circles, alternating colors. Using different cottons, inspired by these little nuggets of fun:

These are painted wood circles, made by Tracy Melton of focuslineart, via Etsy. I thought they looked awesome in his shop, and would look even better in my downstairs bath.

I guess I like them okay...I mean, I picked the colors, but for some reason, in this case, I think I liked them better in the store! It's not that I dislike them, it's just that I thought they would be better; like when it's your birthday and someone brings you a cake and you think it's going to be wonderful and then it's chocolate chocolate. Sigh.

I might just want to work on not holding grudges.

Maybe.

finally!

2009-09-07T15:59:00.000-07:00

The top is finished! I'm so glad this part is over, now all I have to do is create the backing with the fabric I purchased at Joann's today (no small feat in itself considering the Labor Day line at the cutting counter) then create the binding, figure out how much more batting I'm going to need and then sandwich that baby and send it off for some quiltin'. Woot! I'm excited, can you tell?

A closer shot of the pieced blocks. This is a queen sized quilt, and as luck would have it, the piced blocks happen to lie just along the top edges of the mattress - It wasn't planned at all, just quilt karma or something. Hopefully I'll be able to show the backing tomorrow!

with a little practice

2009-09-05T05:20:00.000-07:00

I might actually be able to paint something recognizable! I started this painting a couple of weeks ago, just working on it during the 90 minute painting class I'm currently taking once a week. This week, as I left class, I just felt like I wasn't finished working on it for the night, so I continued working on it for about an hour after I got home.

What a difference a couple of hours make, no? I mean, don't they look like two completely different people painted the same subject matter? I'm SO glad I took a photo of the painting after the first class so I can see the progress side by side, not just from memory, because I can tell you, I would never have imagined the first session with this painting to be that bad. Not that the new one is any kind of masterpiece, but man. What a difference.

I really, really would like to do a portrait for my next class. It's as much fun choosing what to paint as it is to try to decide how to paint it.

Schweitzer Fest '09

2009-08-28T06:37:00.000-07:00

Each August, my home town has a German fest known as Schweitzer Fest. Mainly it includes lots of rides, food & beer. Lots of beer. Upon arrival, I did what any other small town German bred devotee would do and sought out the nearest funnel cake vendor. About halfway through my funnel cake, I dropped a large piece directly on my sandaled foot, where it proceeded to leave second degree burn (BLISTER, EVEN!) on the top of my foot. It wasn't pretty. See? Yep. I went there. Beyond the injury, I was able to catch up with friends of which I haven't seen for almost 20 years, like Kelly:

That's me on the left, Kelly on the right. Kelly was (and still is) one of the funniest people I've met in my life. She was a cheerleader and could stick a nickel up her nose with ease. Awesome, no?

The next morning, before leaving town, I decided to pay pennance for my night of carousing and drunkenness, so I headed off to find the nearest church.

Boy. One could pay a LOT of pennance here. Intimidating, no?

Nah. I'm just joshing you. This is the church my sister and I grew up in, so to speak. It is St. Michael's Catholic (I consider myself a recovering Catholic nowadays, but I have to say I really don't feel like I've been to church unless I go here, or one that is very similar) Church, and it is absolutely wonderful. The architecture, the scale, the fact that it sits in a place of height and prominence in the city - It sits directly on the precipice of, appropriately enough, Catholic Hill, it is simply inspiring, at the least, and that's what churches should be, don't you think?

At this point, you should know that I was not here to pay pennance, really. Besides, it was way past morning Mass and I had kind of planned it that way. I didn't want a bunch of parishners thinking the paparrazzi had come to their small town. More just to take pictures of the structure and be reminded of just how gorgeous this place is. It is home, after all. I had to get a shot of these solid wood doors, and the archway above them. Just awesome. Hey! What's that piece of paper stuck up there?

Aw! That's so cool! They still have socials! I don't know if they do that in the city I live in now, but if they don't, it'd be a shame. I thought it was so cool I took a shot of it. Then I went around to the side of the church, was greeted by a man coming out of the church (who was dressed waaay too nice to be custodial) who I exchanged greetings with and I apologetically explained that I had grown up here, and was just trying to capture memories via my Canon. He asked who my mother was and I responded; the next thing I knew, he was opening the door to the church and beckoning for someone named Margaret to come out, that Sandy's daughter (me) was out here for a visit.

A tall blond woman came into the daylight and I instantly recognized her as Mrs. Schank, the school secretary throughout our grade school years. She looked exactly the same. How do they do that? They must be vampires. Yes. Vampires hosting an ice cream social. Of course. Vampire or not, she invited me inside, which I was extremely grateful for, as it was several hundred degrees that day. And get this - There was ice cream! The flyer on the front door of the church was for today! I was sweaty. I had no make up on. I was in running shorts and flip flops and these lovely people welcomed me in like I was Mary on the donkey. It was wonderful. They shoved homemade ice cream at me that tasted like marshmallows. I was reintroduced to Mrs. Herzog, who lived (and still lives) in a Gingerbread-style house and was mother to Chris, who just about every girl in school had a crush on because of his smile and charm. There was Russell, the high school custodian, who was so funny and happy and pleasant to be around.

Mr. Schank was gracious enough to turn the lights on upstairs in the church for me to take photos. The church has recently been renovated and is just phenomenal. I'll post pics of those tomorrow or so...I'm running out of time this morning!

The church reunion was one I wasn't expecting at all, but one that I am grateful for. I haven't felt like I was home in a long time, and this really made me feel warm and welcome and sad to have to leave it all again.

And yet, another medium...

2009-08-26T06:19:00.000-07:00

About ten or twelve years ago, I took some art classes at the local university and for the most part, loved them. Unfortunately, like so many things, classes had to be put to the side for a while for reasons I can't remember just now; whether it be budgeting restraints of finances or time, I simply didn't sign up for any future classes. I took several different classes, but none that included any type of instruction for painting. Other than painting the rooms in our house so often we lose square footage, I've only attempted to paint one thing, this: It is a scene out of Garden Design magazine, and I honestly couldn't tell you what year/month/issue. I just liked it, and like so many things, I looked at it and thought it might be fun to try to paint. Some parts of it I'm quite proud of, it being my first attempt and all; and then all one has to do is look toward the bottom of the painting to see the incredibly awkward job I've done of the sidewalk! It's horrible! Plus, this painting was done with just acrylics, no water added, no extender/blender, nothing. It's very much a dot, blot & smoosh method of painting. Which leads me to the following:

This summer, I decided to take a painting class. Each Monday, I head to Dick Blick to recieve instruction from one of our local artists and the above was our first um, lesson? This is the one and only painting I've ever done from my head, although it is exactly as she prescribed it. The instructor chose the colors, subject and composition. I'm not exactly sure what we were to learn here, but the farthest this painting will go is the garage until I decide to paint something over it.

Second up is this painting of a cardinal. This painting was created using one of the instructor's paintings as a reference, again in acrylics. It's definitely no masterpiece, but at least it doesn't resemble a paint by numbers fiasco as in our first lesson.

Ew. I really hate this one. This was painted using a photo, and again made me rethink my participation in this class. The lesson here was to learn to build color to create dark backgrounds, so since there was, in fact, a lesson, I decided to continue.

I wish I would've spent a little more time with this one. I actually do kind of like it, if the petals weren't so wonky looking in the bottom right hand side of the painting and if it didn't look so much like a lopsided fried egg. More times than not, I grow bored, get in a hurry and want to move on to the next project.

Ok. This one is a replica of a famous artist, although I cannot remember who. I can tell you this is quite similar to the original, and that (imo) is no great feat. It's pretty rudimentary, don't you think? Simple shapes, easy color blending, just...easy. Moving on...

This was the first painting I was able to choose between two or three photos the instructor brought to use as reference. I'm not sure why I chose it. I think I wasn't too intrigued by either of the photos and so I chose the one of least resistance, or the one that would be easier. How's that for a cop out? It is at this point I was seriously reconsidering taking the class, even though the instructor is very cool on a personal level, we usually end up talking politics and current events and not painting so much.

Which brings us to my current painting. This is my attempt at reproducing this photo, which my sister shot and posted on her blog. She has no idea I pilfered it. I really love the colors of it, the fluid, fresh look of the tomatoes and just how great I think it would look above our dining room table. We have super dark chocolate brown walls with a stark white built in booth, and I think the colors would be great in there. But before I spend big $ on a large enough canvas, I thought I'd test my skill level on a smaller scale to see if I can even achieve it.

This painting isn't finished, by far. Apparently, I work right to left, at least that's what I've done in this painting. Right now I'm working on the large middle slice, and it isn't going great...I mean, it's okay, but I need to completely rework the shape of the slice, which is fine, but I don't want to work so long on the small version that I tire of it and then lose interest in painting a larger one. I'm not sure how long this painting streak will last; we have limited lighting inside the house as all of our windows face north and south. I know I would like to go as far as I can, I'd love to do some portraits if possible, and maybe just something I wouldn't be completely embarassed to hang in the house, even if it's the bathroom!

math is not my thing

2009-08-25T06:47:00.000-07:00

Have I mentioned that? Apparently, knowing the ins and outs of this blogging thing isn't either, because I've no idea why my text is underlined right now, but I'm going for it. I don't have time to figure it out now, and it's only mildly annoying. Anyhoo, I decided to work on the border for the quilt yesterday, having chosen some gorgeous Alexander Henry orange roses fabric at Joann's the day before. I decided to do a simple triangle motif, but I wanted them to be elongated triangles, not short boxey ones. So after (Hey! The underline is gone!) doing my figurins, I based the size of my triangles on how much AH fabric I had, because I bought every bit they had, and of course I could get more online, but that would require time and patience, and while I have time, I have little patience. So I measured precisely each block (fifteen total), laid them out face to face, pinned them and started the process of sewing and cutting.

First, I drew a line (very lightly, in pencil) down the middle, corner to corner to use as my sewing guide.

Then I sewed down each side of the drawn line. I've seen this on many blogs before, and it's as easy as it looks.

See? In no time, I'd sewn seven of them. It's probably as good of a time as any to tell you about my craft fairy, so I'll do that. Every once in a while, and it's happened many times with this quilt already, I'll be working a certain part, whether it be planning, cutting or sewing, and all of a sudden, it will "occur" to me to check my work before I go any further. It happens All. The. Time. Of course, I do not listen All. The. Time. What generally follows is typically a bit of despair and a LOT of swearing. The dog runs and hides behind the toilet, it's pretty ugly, and yesterday was no exception. Oh, sometimes I can laugh it off, but that's a rarity.

I'll just interject my measurements here. For anyone out there who is a quilter, has made a quilt before, or maybe just remembers Sophmore geometry, you'll no doubt realize my faux pas immediately. I measured each square 13" x 14 1/2". Because I wanted that sharp, elongated triangle, remember?

And so I cut. Even though it was way before this point when my craft fairy gave me the cautious inspiration to check my work. In fact, it occured to me just after sewing my first square to check how it looked. Listen to your voice of caution, people. That's all I have to say.

Because if you don't, you'll press open the seams...

And end up with the wonkiest triangle square EVER. Well, actually two of them, because you cut it and made one square two, remember? Yeah. So I did this TWICE before I listened to my voice. I had already sewn seven more or so. It took about 20 minutes of swearing, 5 minutes to find the seam ripper and all of True Blood, Hung and The Daily Show to rip them all out. And now that I've made my mistake, I of course, remember how to do the whole elongated triangle thing, but I'm over it, I think. Standard diagonal blocks will be just fine.

back to the summer craft report

2009-08-23T08:03:00.000-07:00

After stumbling upon this girl's blog, I fell in love with her kaleidescope quilt. I had never heard of a string quilt before, loved the look of precision involved. To me, it looks like an intricate and difficult quilt to make. As with most of my craft endeavors, I immediately look at it and think, "Oh I could to that", without any consideration of building my skill level over time with small, less challenging projects. It is the thought process that keeps me interested in the arts and also the curse that leaves me frustrated at times with projects that are possibly beyond my patience and skill level. i.e. here. And so it is with this wide-eyed blissful ignorance that I find myself here, with this project: I've had all of these fabrics forever, but could never quite put them together to where they weren't completely overwhelming. It's been over a year that I've held on to them, waiting for the right project. After trying them a few different ways with the help of my scanner and Publisher, I think the string quilt adds just enough white to make the quilt seem like a flower garden and not such an explosion.

My goal is to complete this to queen size, and at this point, I thought I was almost there.

But somehow I miscounted (twice!) and found I had 66 more squares to sew. That's quite a shocker when you think you're almost done. The squares portion of the quilt top is finished, and it still only goes to the top edge of our mattress, and I'm definitely not making anymore pieced squares, so I've bought some fabric to work out an easier design for a large border to avoid just that. At any rate, I'm happy to use up my stash, and I think I'm going to like it once it's finished.

Patio Redux Pictoral

2009-08-19T13:17:00.001-07:00

A few years ago, we (husband & friend) added a back patio. Over the years, we found that landscaping fabric/weed block would've been prudent. This year, we* decided to fix it. Above is our "before" shot.

And here you see the "after" shot. So clean and new! Love that.

While M was sweating, I laid out the design for planting. See how pretty & green the lawn is? Just wait, I'll ruin that shortly.

We also threw in a couple of these in planters. I don't know what they are, but they have GREAT color. I've seen this color on hundreds of toes this summer, it's quite popular.

And this is the true "after" shot. We've thrown in some Pink Diamond Hydrangeas, which I love, mainly because they do not favor traditional Hydrangeas and look more like miniature dogwoods to me.

Oh - We also threw in some Spirea in there as well. See all those bare patches in the lawn now? That's what you get when you're too lazy to dispose of the unwanted sod you've just pulled from the new flower bed. It'll all be fine in a few weeks or so. I hope.

And finally, the last shot. Now I can't wait until it's cool enough to sit out and enjoy it!!!

*We, for all intensive purposes, should always be known as Michael and friend when it is in reference to anything considered hard labor. Thank you.

it's a sickness, really.

2009-08-18T06:46:00.000-07:00

At least that's the story I'm sticking to and justification of making these babies when I have no business with this much sugar, butter & flour all in one place. I blame Ree, and her recipe. They were relatively easy to make, although they took forever if you add the 25 minutes it took me to run to the store mid-stir to get nutmeg. They're fairly dense, and if you do decide to make them, reverse the bowl size Ree calls for in the printable recipe download...It calls for the larger volume ingredients to go into the smaller bowl. Minimally frustrating, and of course, you'll stop swearing as soon as you taste them. Also, this recipe doesn't specify any type of yield, so I assumed it was for 12 medium muffins. Although the recipe had clear instruction to fill the muffin cups 2/3 full, I decided I needed to use all the batter in one round and I ended up with HUGE globes of goodness. It helped when I was stuffed and could honestly say I'd only had two, but in hindsight I'd really rather make two batches and make the job of rolling in the butter and sugar that much easier. The muffins; not me, that is. They're kind of like a big, fluffy Snickerdoodle cookie.

So go ahead, have one!

Crochet log cabin throw

2009-08-14T11:37:00.001-07:00

After seeing my sister's lovely log cabin, I had to give it a try in crochet, of course. Hers is really gorgeous, and made out of hand-dyed, hand-spun goodness, and will last forever and feel wonderful on your skin. Mine, of course, is made up entirely of acrylic (Lion Brand Thick 'n Quick) and while it wasn't cheap (around $80 - $90 to complete to this size), I had a lot of the yarn on hand and only had to purchase maybe six or so balls to get it as big as I wanted. It won't last forever, but for now, I think I love it. The stitch pattern is very, very simple. Simply begin with the number of stitches you want for your first square, make sure you end your chain with an odd number of stitches/chains, then turn and sc, skip one, sc all the way across to the end. Then, chain one at the end of each row, turn, then sc into first sc, skip one, sc, etc., all the way. Fasten off at the end of each color, I eyeballed everything and measured nothing. If you want to be exact, you can simply fold whatever color you're working on onto the previous color and if they are of equal width, you're good to go and change to your next color!

granny zig zag

2009-08-12T13:41:00.000-07:00

Granny ripple afghan, free pattern here. Made with 100% cotton "I Love this Yarn" available through Hobby Lobby stores. I love the feel of this yarn. It's not as dishclothy or stiff as Sugar 'n Creme and is very soft and easy to work with. We haven't even used this afghan; I think I may place it on Etsy in the fall. It's just enough to warm you on a fall day, but not get too hot.

chronological craft report

2009-08-11T07:07:00.000-07:00

In a vain attempt to post this summer's completed projects in some semblance of the order in which they were done, we begin with the granny throw. There was so much granny square love this spring on Flickr, I decided to use some scraps to make my own. I used this girl's completed throw as a reference for size, although I think I ended up making my border a bit larger with some extra rounds. I don't know about anyone else, but when working rounds in a granny square blanket, I have to change my usual 2 sc between each three dc to 1 sc between, else the entire blanket becomes warpy and off. Of course I discovered this about four rounds in and ripped it back to correct, which is never fun but I did learn from it, so it's not a total loss. Another shot:

Here's a few more of my favorites from the talented members of the crochet group at flickr:

While not technically a granny, these hexes from Sarah are awesome!

I can't imagine how long this one took, but the results are surely worth it.

I know there are tons more to share, but I've run out of time!

how i spent my summer vacation

2009-08-10T14:20:00.000-07:00

This year was the first year my husband and I have ever gone anywhere by ourselves. We've been married for over 20 years and have never been on a honeymoon or even a weekend away, so we decided it was time to change that tradition of not going anywhere, and visit an old friend. Here we are, standing underneath his magic hat. Oh. We look like we're wearing condoms you say? Well, yes, kind of. We stayed in the park for four days and nights (Port Orleans), and it rained without exception for our entire stay. I'm not expecting, by the way, that's just what a bit of after holiday boredom induced baking will do to a girl. I like to think the round belly effect is partly because of the way I'm standing and partly because of the poncho, because I simply refuse to believe my belly looks like that! We've been to Disney several times, taking our daughter through the evolution of rides and activities and loving every single visit. Unfortunately, this trip was the exception for sure. For one thing, there was the rain.

Lots and lots of rain. And tornadoes. We were so soaked each day we couldn't have gotten any more wet. There was no point in going back to the room to dry out, change clothes, etc., because there just wasn't any end in sight. Even when it did ease up to a slow drizzle, it became obvious to us the Disney of today is simply not the Disney we have known and loved all these years. Perhaps part of it was due to not having a toddler wide-eyed with wonder, but honestly, if I had to describe it (and I do) in a nutshell, Disney was just less. Less than it had been in all the times we had gone.

For instance, the first day we arrived we actually had perfect weather. We strolled Epcot and Magic Kingdom for hours and only saw one street performer. That was really surprising to me. The characters are what makes Disney come alive, and not having them enhanced the awareness of how commercial the park really is. I'm not even talking about the big movie characters in costume, I'm talking about the general street performers/musicians we've become accustomed to. In fact, that one street performer in France is the only performer of any kind we saw in over three full days of park hopping. If I had had a toddler with us, I would have felt cheated for sure. We joked about this being Disney's answer to the economy...Cut the artists, keep the boutique employees, etc.

Not only was the feeling of wonder gone, but I was disappointed to learn Pleasure Island is really not so pleasurable any more. In fact, I'd never visited PI on any of our previous trips because we always had our daughter along, and the vacation wasn't about us. Well, this time, it was! Or it was supposed to be! All of the bars along the walkway of PI are gone - Save one Planet Hollywood restaurant that serves alcohol. It is not the same as the cool 8-track nightclub that was once so popular and to which I looked forward to visiting. Now, I don't fault Disney for moving along and changing things up a bit to stay fresh and current, but it seemed to me they took everything fun away and threw in a bunch of shops, condos & restaurants. That's right folks, Pleasure Island is now reminiscent of a retirement community for the upper-middle class. Yawn. We knew we were in trouble when by the second night there, we went to a movie.

All in all, we made the best of it, and beyond any disappointment I experienced, I was still with my best friend, which was awesome.

little bits of stuff

2009-03-12T07:05:00.000-07:00

I really like working (ahem - playing) with inexpensive yarns, so when I saw Michael's was having a sale on Lily's Sugar 'n Creme yarns this week, I got there as soon as I could on Sunday to stock up. The bad news? Even though I got there on the first day of the sale, they were for the most part, sold out of just about everything. We're talking barren end cap, big time. The good news? Even when not on sale, Lily's is inexpensive enough to grab just about anytime.

So after making a couple of tunisan hot pads (which I of course forgot to take photos of), I decided it might be fun to make a much smaller version of Attic 24's bag for one of my friends' daughter. Just a little Easter gift, maybe throw some peeps or jelly beans in there, you know, simple, but fun stuff. As I was completing it, before putting the handles on, it struck me it basically is a cap! So now I'm torn on whether to continue and make it a bag, or stop and just give her a cap full of sugar? I think I'm going to continue and just try to make the handle removable so she can use it as both.

Also, with my dislike of my own Attic 24 bag, I remembered this bag I made over a year ago. It is made out of some funky wool yarn I bought on clearance at JoAnn's, and I think it's made just with simple single crochet and then felted. I know I didn't follow a pattern, but I really do like the way it turned out.

I like the way the yarn is bubbly but tight once it's felted. It's really strong and although I'm not usually a fan of purple and pinks, I really like this yarn and wish it wasn't discontinued. I still have some other colors of this yarn that I haven't played with yet; so maybe I'll try to recreate this bag in some different colors. If I can recreate the pattern I used, I'll post it if anyone is interested.

in a week's time

2009-03-11T10:10:00.000-07:00

A lot can happen in a week's time. You can plant some seeds, add some water, and when you pull the tray down from the fridge top seven days later, you find this:

Sprouts! Lots and lots of sprouts! Which if you're Martha or any other person who's ever had a garden, is no great feat. But if you're me, you're surprised and actually, dare I say it - proud of the fact you've grown something other than mold on forgotten unidentifiable food that's been in the refrigerator for months.

These tall ones in the middle are yellow squash, zucchini and a mixed group of winter squashes. I can't decide if I like the fact that I bought a mixed variety or not. I'm impatient and I want to know what each of them are now, but I'm also kind of excited about the discovery of it all as they grow, too.

Look at the teeny basil! Isn't it great? Like little clovers or something.

Okay, before I gush any further, I'll show what isn't going so well. See these? These are my problem children, otherwise known as Sweet Pepper Mix. I'm not sure exactly what is going on with them, I think I probably didn't stuff the seed down into the peat pattie far enough or something. Anyway, they're stunted.

So I've decided to throw them back into the oven. Or an egg carton with plastic wrap on top, whatever lets you sleep at night. I hope these eventually grow; I don't want to spend $2 each for them at the grocer anymore!

And last but not least, here's the bag I had worked on for just a couple of days; complete with the handles that took at least four days because I kept frogging them. And these are the ones I ended up with? I know. I don't like them either. Actually, I have to say I'm thinking of felting the whole thing, because after throwing three (lightweight, even!) items in it, it dragged to my ankles. Okay, not really, but it just reminds me of why I don't care for unlined and unfelted crochet/knitted bags. They sag like nobody's business! So I'm pretty sure I'm going to felt it. Maybe.

Ten minute blogging...

2009-03-04T15:09:00.001-08:00

Yep. That's right; I have now 8 minutes and 15 seconds to complete this post and head off to work. It probably won't make any sense, it probably will have errors, but it will, most definitely, be quick.

This is a bag I've been working on for about four or five days. Correction: The bag was finished in just over one evening...The HANDLES I've been working on for what seems like FOREVER. I've worked them and frogged them no less than four times, and now with attempt #5, I'm at peace with it and will definitely post a photo tomorrow. This bag was inspired by Attic 24's bag, and I used her pattern to create most of the bag. The only thing I changed were the straps and also on the bag itself, I began to decrease about 2/3 of the way up so it would have an egg or oval shape. I think I'm going to like it!

Ripple throw made from scraps left over from my niece's hexagon blanket.

And last but not least (90 seconds to go!!!) the beginning of a rug made almost entirely of thrifted linens. I say almost entirely because the little bit of orange is from my fabric stash, but it needed some brightness, no? I want to go a bit larger with it, but not sure how big. This will be the last one I ever make, as they are VERY hard on the wrist.

Have a great day - I'm out of here!

another one of my fine ideas

2009-03-03T07:11:00.000-08:00

Along with my wardrobe resolution for the year (I haven't bought one garment yet!), I've decided I'm finally going to try my hand at growing something I'll actually eat. Mostly we buy roses, annuals and a few perennials each year, and I'm sure there'll be some of that too; but for a long time I've wanted to grow at the very least, tomatoes, and so here we are.

Sunday evening we went to Lowe's to look at carpet and after selecting what we could both agree on (no small feat, I assure you), we found ourselves in the garden section and the above kit is what we brought home. I selected just about everything I throw on a salad, and after paying $3.99 last summer for a tomato, I feel pretty good shelling out $1.57 for the pack of seeds.

My hope is to become one of those people who carry paper bags of their overstock around with them in hopes of sharing. My hope is that I recover my overall $25 investment. My hope is that they even sprout!

First things first. Three quarts of warm water added to the peat pot tray and then wait 15 minutes until they swell.

Here they are midway through. Watching and waiting at this point was fun. It reminded me of the tiny terrariums we used to get at McDonald's as kids; before the days of Happy Meal toys and McNuggets. Does anyone remember those?

Here they are all swolled. That's what my husband's coworker says he used to be back in the day - "All swolled." He means that he was some kind of muscular badass, but we aren't buying it.

Anyway, back to the peat pots. We grabbed a couple of bamboo skewers to pull back the netting and scoot around the top of the soil so our seeds would have a place to nest.

After about 20 minutes, we were all finished, labelled and ready to sprout! I love it - The condensation started almost immediately. If you're wondering how I'm remembering where everything is in the tray, I planted two rows of each item and then glued the seed packet of what I planted directly above the two rows.

And now back to our regular programming...

2009-02-17T14:04:00.000-08:00

My sister makes the most gorgeous dyed yarn. And then she spins it! Really, I am quite impressed with her. She's been dyeing and spinning for at least a few years now I guess, and during her last visit home she was kind enough to share some of her stash with me. I am SOOO grateful, you have no idea. Because where my sister is one of quality, I am one of practicality and well, I'll say it; cheap. While I admire gorgeous handspun and just about every colorway of the Noro brand, I can't afford it! I just can't. So I peruse the aisles of Michael's, Joann's and Hobby Lobby (Who just happens to have my FAVORITE afghan yarn on sale this week - The "I Love This Yarn" brand) and search for the usual suspects.

Because I am so used to my stash of "common" yarn, it is a treat to play with such beauty:

So I made a little scarflette.

Don't you just love the way the colors wave together? It is SOOOO soft and squishy, too!

A final shot. I don't know what type of wool it is, so please don't ask. I'm going to take a photo tomorrow of all of the yarn she gave me if we have enough sun to show off the colors. She gave me a LOT!

Sisters ROCK.

Resolution

2009-01-06T12:11:00.000-08:00

I owe you an explanation. The other day, when I mentioned my New Year's resolution would have something to do with these folks, I think I left the impression with my sister that I was going to try to hang with them or something. My sis promptly emailed me with a very big, "HUH?", and so I thought I'd try to explain. On Christmas eve, I had planted myself onto the sofa to begin what was my hex addiction, and is now my hex affliction, as I am no longer as eager to work the rounds and am anxious to get finished and move on to the next project. Anyway, as you may or may not know, there's nothing, absolutely NOTHING on TV on Christmas eve. However, on TLC, the Duggar family has a weekly show chronicling their lives, and on Christmas eve, there was a marathon. I had seen a documentary about them a few years ago, and found them at the very least, intriguing. With a basic idea of what I was getting myself into, I began to watch. Show after show, hour after hour (I think three total), I watched this what I can only guess to be Pentacostal family grow and prosper in the midst of a nation that would have you believe the American dream is dead. Or at least crippled, or perhaps it is the dream itself has changed - That possibly now the American dream is to design a concept that is an overnight success so you yourself can be successful overnight; I'm not sure. Either way, whether or not the Duggar's methods are something I personally can or would choose to do is irrelevant; what made me watch is the sheer fact that they impress me. They live in a spacious, self-built home, have 18 children who are all homeschooled, have nice automobiles, including a tour bus to accomodate their large family on trips, have an enormous pantry stocked to the gills with food, have obedient, clean cut kids, and just an overall positive attitude and peaceful disposition. During one of these episodes it was mentioned that to clothe the family, they gather up everyone twice a year and descend upon the local thrift store. Why only twice a year? Because everything in the thrift store is 50% off twice a year, of course! And this bi-annual visit got me thinking, "Hey...I go to the thrift store twice a year!" Only when I go, it's to drop off bundles, not bring them home. Each year I do this. We clean out our closets, fill the plastic bags as full as we can get them and haul it over. Last year, I even gave away two pairs of boots I HAD NEVER WORN! Now, in the words of my taught by nuns mother, "That's a sin." And so, it is with great uncertainty that I declare my New Year's resolution: I'm not buying any clothing for the ENTIRE year. Seriously. Unless it's bras or unders or shoes. I draw the line with shoes. I think I have enough of everything to get me through the next 12 months, and although I will say word of after Christmas sales was tempting, I didn't cave and I haven't bought one item yet...What day is it again? Although I should mention that I am a very, very stingy shopper for the most part. I almost never go to the mall, and I know what day TJ Maxx gets deliveries. (Tuesdays here) I am a very, very savvy shopper most of the time and try to buy classic items when I can...Things that will last year after year. In fact, the boots I gave away and had never worn cost me $6. But - It's still not a bargain if you never wear them, right? So anyway, that's my resolution; not to begin going to church camp or making tater tot casserole or homeschooling. DEFINITELY not homeschooling!

spending the weekend dreaming

2009-01-05T07:23:00.000-08:00

of this:

You know those people that are addicted to online activities, like World of Warcraft, You Tube, LOL Cats, etc? While I don't go for any of those, I am completely and hopelessly addicted to surfing the local real estate market. I have had crushes on many houses over the years, only to see them in person and realize water damage, 3/4 inch gaps in the roof slats, area rugs strategically placed over damaged wooden floors, etc. So it was with our nothing to lose attitude yesterday we decided spur of the moment to visit the above house. This house.

I want it. I can't help it, God forgive me, I want it. Do I have $210K? Nope. Do I have $10K? Nope. Could we afford to heat it and ourselves? Most likely not. But (always a but...) it's gorgeous. And completely redone - Save the kitchen...Apparently the owners installed a 50K kitchen and then fell on hard times and ended up selling everything in the kitchen for 5K. They moved back to California three years ago, according to our new neighbor. I mean, the guy that was raking his leaves next door to the house of course.

Anyway, I'm off to have a teeth cleaning...Enjoy the tour of our new house* if you decide to click the link!

*Did I mention I was dreaming?

142.8

2009-01-01T16:28:00.000-08:00

See this pic? That's me. Or rather, that used to be me.* This past year, I lost some weight, sprayed on a fantastic tan, got my belly button pierced and unbuttoned my pants for a photo shoot. I was so proud of myself, who would've ever thought that at 41 (yes! forty-one!) that I could ever get in that great of shape? I seriously never wanted to put clothes on again. I came this close to pumping gas wearing exactly what I'm wearing in this photo, I was so proud to be so hot. But then Halloween came, and we made the mistake of buying candy we like. Correction: Candy we LOVE. We loved exactly five bags worth. Then, on November 1st, relieved we got by on the scraps we had left for actually passing out to children (our doorbell rang exactly once the entire night), my husband forced me to accompany him to Target to revel in the wonder that is half price clearance candy. Oh yeah. Five more bags went down in a week's time. And after Halloween came Thanksgiving, with it's pumpkin pie - a wonderful recipe if you haven't tried it -, sweet potatoes, stuffing and bread rolls. Only to be stalked by all things Christmas for the following four weeks. Four weeks worth of cookies, cakes and candies. And don't get me wrong - I love it, I really do. In fact, I wouldn't be writing this if I didn't LOOOOOVE it, if you know what I mean. And so it is that I am writing this post. This post about now weighing in at 142.8, which is exactly 15.8 pounds more than I want to be. That's roughly 50 sticks of butter if you're counting. Or three paper bags of sugar. Ugh. So today I started my exercise program again, after not sweating at all for about eight or nine days. I'm convinced that had I discontinued exercise from Halloween I'd be in much worse shape, but even as fifteen oatmeal cookies made their way into being my dinner one night, I still forced myself to move. But now it's back to being serious about sugar, flour, fat and portions. I went running today and could not sustain the level of energy I usually run with as cars are passing by to make them think I am in kickass shape. Other times, when no one is watching, I'm quite certain I look like each step is going to be my last. I know for a fact I am not one of those graceful runners, one of those that appear to have done it their entire life and could keep running for a second full hour. This of course, is by no means my resolution for the new year, and I DO have one. I'll share that tomorrow, but here's a hint: It involves wardrobe and these peeps. In the meantime, here's a little of what I've been twisting around the hook over the last few days: A belated gift for my niece who has a hankering for something homemade: *Fine. That's not me. It never was, and most likely, never will be. I can't handle even the thought of getting my belly button pierced. And besides, I have a few select surgical scars that if photographed in the above manner, would send even the most hardened internet reader screaming home to their mother.

brazil nut cookies

2008-12-22T17:34:00.001-08:00

There's absolutely no doubt in my mind now that our grandmother loved us dearly. I know this after cracking & shelling just one measley pound of brazil nuts, the amount required for one batch of my favorite Christmas cookie, brazil nut cookies. After just this one pound, I'm ready to swear on all things holy to never make another. It doesn't help that the nuts are completely uncooperative. They're slippery, with a tough as nails shell that just doesn't want to crack. In fact, I had some anxiety based daydreams that if I were ever stranded on a desert island with only brazil nuts to eat and no nutcracker, I'd be screwed. And then I started wondering if, because they are called Brazil nuts, does that really mean they are only from Brazil? And if so, that would be great, because Brazil is not an island and the situation would never present itself.

I wonder about myself sometimes.

Slopped on to wax paper and ready to roll.

Sorry, but you'll have to wait a couple of days for the cookie end result. The recipe requires a 24 hour chill time before baking, but if you are so inclined as to like raw cookie dough and laugh in the face of raw egg consumption, this cookie dough is 'da bomb just the way it is!

The Recipe:

Brazil Nut Cookies

1 lb. melted butter

2 cups sugar

4 eggs

1/4 t. salt

1/4 t. baking soda

1 T. vanilla

1 T. molasses

1 c. coconut

4 1/2 c. all purpose flour

1 lb. brazil nuts, chopped

Shape in rolls. Wrap in wax paper. Refrigerate overnight. Slice and bake in modern oven until lightly brown. 375 degrees for 8-9 minutes.

Seriously - That's the whole recipe. I don't know if Grandma wrote it down like that, but that's as detailed as it gets, folks. I can tell you that I mixed all the ingredients together, adding the flour last, and that worked well. Also, when Grandma made them, only the edges were brown, and that's how I plan to make them too. ;)

running out of time

2008-12-19T06:04:00.000-08:00

With five days left of shopping, crocheting and wrapping, I just realized I have not allotted for time to ship. Of course, the only person who reads this stinkin' thing is my sister, who just happens to be the one I need to ship to. So consider this your heads up, sis: Gifts are gonna be late. And while I think about it, any ideas for your second offspring??? In desperate need of ideas here.

I love this whole obsession with the British war poster thing...The Keep Calm posters and items seen online at just about every crafter's website seem at the very least appropriate for the current state of the country - Oh, and brace yourselves, I heard yesterday oil prices are about to rise again. Why? 'Cause they can I suppose. Anyway, I made a ton of these coated magnets with the sentiment emblazoned on the fronts and now I have nothing to do with them. I may just place them onto gifts as part of the decoration or tags, or just fill up one side of my fridge to REALLY remind me to keep things in perspective. Would anyone out there like one? I forgot another gift for you here...So I'll be mailing it with the young one's gift.

wtf america?

2008-12-18T12:03:00.000-08:00

I think I've mentioned here before that I lost some weight this past year. Well, I've gained about 10 pounds back, eating stuff like the cookies shown here. BTW, those are oatmeal cookies with golden raisins and walnuts, using the cookie base recipe from the inside of the Quaker Oat container. Very, very good stuff. Although I wouldn't suggest eating 15 of them for dinner, as I did. For various reasons, none of which I'll specify here. If you know anything about me, I'm a fool for the baked goods. Really any baked goods. I don't care for scones (not sweet enough), biscuits (again, the sweet is short), or breads as much as I am about the cakes, cookies and pies. LOVE them. Love to BAKE them. Love to share them, too, believe it or not. In any event, this is why I have gained 10 pounds back. I'm still running several times a week and doing circuit training three times per week, but I just simply went off of my diet plan too much to not have a negative result. Over the last few weeks, I've noticed this trend, but have seemed helpless to stop it. Until today. Today I went into an exclusive little dress shop here in my city. They sell Juicy, BCBG, Calvin Klein, etc., but THIS year's lines, not the year or two's old I get at TJ Maxx most days. Not that there's anything wrong with that either, at all. But I have a wedding to go to this weekend and of course, nothing to wear, so I thought I'd see what they had to offer. I had heard they have a basement area that holds promise of drastic markdowns, and I thought this the perfect time to check it out. As I tried on my first dress selection, I kind of let out a giggle as I caught my reflection because of the print and cut of the dress. It was so totally NOT me. Not only do I almost never wear print anything, I looked about nine months pregnant. Now, before I go any further, I want to say that even with my extra 10, I weigh 138 pounds and stand almost 5'6. So while I am not a Bratz doll by any means, I am certainly not Oprah, either. (The current Oprah, btw). In only what I can assume was of good intent, the sales lady who is standing outside my dressing room announces loudly, "Can I get you a LARGE in that dress?" At this point, all I can do is chuckle at myself and my situation. But I have to say that once I had my own, trusty clothes back on did I begin to realize exactly how offended I should be, and I got where I should be quick. I informed her that the dress did indeed fit, that it just wasn't my style, but thank you anyway. Once clothed and outside the dressing room, she continued to show me a few other dresses that were not my style either, and all I could think of was getting out of there before I broke down and made a complete ass of myself. At this point, I honestly didn't know whether to be angry at her for not saying, "Can I bring you another size?" or if I should be angry about the fact that in America, at 138 lbs, I might just be a large. Seriously. I've tried to buy a belt from Target, and each time I succeed, it is sized Large. It makes me wonder where the actual large ladies shop? It's no wonder we diet books outsell all others combined. It's no wonder anorexia and bulimia are prevelant in our country. I wish I had their fortitude! But for now, I'll just stay away from all things baked, I suppose.

snow cones

2008-12-17T06:26:00.000-08:00

Or more accurately, glitter cones. These are three of the 36 different cone ornaments we put together on Monday evening. One of the things I love about my friend Jess is that she is just as completely obsessed with hoarding as many craft supplies as she possibly can. If there's a bag of small wicker balls on clearance for .25 cents she'll grab ten bags, even if she has nothing in mind to use them for. She knows they'll come in handy at some point. And they certainly did. I think I like these cones the best out of all of the ones we made, and they were by far the easiest and fastest to make. This is how I left her house:

But actually a bit messier. I felt some guilt about that, but she insisted she'd take care of it.

Two of the last snowcones we made. As time went on, we discovered we liked the look of throwing even more glitter around the base of the cone, to make it look like there was a more fluent blend of the ball & cone.

It really is amazing what glitter can do to otherwise nonsparkly things. Oh, and sorry about the picture clarity. The lighting was really, really low and I had had a fat glass of wine just before these pics were taken. I think I'm going to propose we schedule a craft night at least once a month; it was such a great time!

otherwise a very normal morning, or, how i know it's monday

2008-12-15T12:45:00.000-08:00

There will be crafting. Lots and lots of crafting. Even though I should be doing other things, I'm in need of a playbreak, and nothing like glue, glitter and sugar cones will do the trick. I'm making my own version of these. But instead of painting the cones, I've smothered them with Mod Podge and iridescent glitter. In the pic, the glue isn't completely dry, so they aren't looking so great just yet.

I think this one shows them a bit better, maybe. My daughter and I are going to a friend's house to have a little craft house party tonight, and I'm bringing the craft, basically! My best friend has two daughters who are probably too big for this, but then again, I'm not too big for it, so maybe they'll have fun. My friend's boyfriend (serious boyfriend, too) broke up with her on Saturday. I don't think she knows anyone who reads this, so I don't really feel like I'm outing her or anything - But what a JERK! Before Christmas and everything! I can't/won't go into the reasons here, but let's just say it's super sad because they do both care a great deal about each other and it's just one of those baggage things.

In other news, this is what I see just about every morning:

Can't really see much, huh? Exactly. It is precisely this reason that this morning, as I thrust my trusty nasal decongestant spray up my nose to relieve my stuffiness did I realize to my horror I had just squirted what felt like quite a large amount of hand lotion into my right nostril. I'm not exactly sure how much actually got in, but I do know I smelled and tasted GREAT SHAKES hand lotion for most of the day so far and in my morning coffee as well. I don't think I'll ever be able to use it again.

For my vegan sis...

2008-11-10T17:46:00.000-08:00

The last time my sister came to visit, I made a salad that I eat on a daily basis. She liked it so much, I thought I'd post another salad I've become addicted to, which is just as flavorful, but a tad bit sweeter, which is always a great selling point for my taste buds.

It's really not a big deal, but I thought maybe you'd like it:

Romaine lettuce (I don't measure...It's lettuce for Pete's sake)

1/4 cup Golden California raisins (It's a color thing. I think regular dark raisins have their place, just not in my salad)

1 oz. Feta cheese, crumbled. (I use Presidente brand, but whatever is fine)

8 - 10 mandarin orange segments (I buy the ones that are NO SUGAR ADDED and packed in water)

1/8 - 1/4 cup Walnuts

Maple Grove Farms of Vermont Sugar Free Balsamic Vinaigrette. This dressing has no sugar and no calories, but an arseload of sodium, so if sodium is an issue for you, take it easy. I never salt any of my food, so it's no big deal for me. At least I don't think it is. In any event, I don't like my lettuce to swim, so I hardly use any dressing, good or bad.

I also sprinkle the top with just a teensy tiny bit of Splenda, too. I know! It's gross! But the vinaigrette, even while it contains Splenda, it isn't enough for me.

Enjoy!

back on the hook this week...

2008-10-19T15:50:00.000-07:00

After working on the clamshell quilt each night for about four nights, I realized I didn't have nearly enough fabric for the colored clamshells. I think I've used roughly 48 or so of the Kaffe Fasset charm squares, and even though the original pattern called for something insane like, 151 of them and 223 white shells, I decided early on I would just build one thick stripe of clamshells to move down the center (or off center) of the quilt. I mostly decided that out of necessity, because I do not possess the patience or fortitude to complete such a detailed and did I mention hand sewn quilt. Anyway, even after sticking myself numerous times, buying a thimble, cutting, pressing and clipping curves for what has seemed like forever, I don't have anywhere near the number of shells, so I've ordered more. Of course, the charm pack of 51 squares is backordered, as it was with the first batch, so I'm guessing it will take about four to five weeks at least. So while I wait for them, I decided to doodle a little with my hook: What started as an idea has become what my husband refers to as, "The Aztecian looking one." I'm not sure how it will eventually turn out, but he's not too far off, actually. I wanted to try some geometrical shapes, have them super textured for dimension, and this is what I've ended up with. This green one is wool, so I might end up felting it to see what will happen. I think it actually needs to be felted, because while right now it's really soft & cozy, its shape is not as defined as I would like it to be. The first dimensional scarf I made is this one:

My husband likes it much better than the first. And although you can't see it well in these photos, it's REALLY long.

TTFN!!!

clamshell assembly

2008-10-10T04:47:00.000-07:00

First things first, this is the quilt image that inspired me to take on the clamshell: Unfortunately, once again I neglected to read through the instructions entirely before I began cutting. Otherwise, I'm not sure I would've taken it on. Each clamshell is cut by hand, with scissors, no rotary blade. Which actually, I'm okay with, kind of.

I thought I would show you the template I used, which I traced from the quilt book but enlarged quite a bit. Somehow, thankfully, I had the forethought that assembling too tiny clamshells might lead me to request meds. I made my template out of cardstock paper, and made an extra in case the first became too worn to use.

Once you have all of your clamshells cut, you then need to clip the curved line at the top to allow for even pressing.

See?

To make it easier, I also made a template that was 1/4" shorter just on the curved line, so I would have a form to press against. I didn't figure this out until I had already attempted to iron most if not all of the shells without it. This is really a no brainer - It goes much faster with the template.

Once the curved line has been pressed into position, I then flipped over the clamshell, gave it a good spritz of starch, and then pressed it on the opposite (right) side. The cotton I'm working with is rather thick, and I just like the crispness the starch gives the structure. I don't like losing that sharp line later on in the game.

See? One completed, crisp shell. Now only one hundred thousand million to go. And please don't look at my ironing pad. It's gross. I know this, and yet, I'm fine with it. Probably because I don't have any idea how to clean it. I guess just simple soap and water. Oh well, that's not fun at all to think about...Back to clamshells...

To begin assembly, lay out as many white shells (or whatever your scheme will be, this will be your top row) side by side, as long as you would like. The original pattern calls for a specific number, but because I did not have enough charm squares to follow the pattern precisely, I am using the clamshells as more of an accent, or effect within the quilt, so for me, this was seven across.

Once your top row is laid out, begin arranging your colored clamshells below and 1/4" on top of previous clamshell row. Pin to keep in place, like this:

Once these are pinned, you get to sew by hand!!! Woo - Hoo! Yeah, I didn't know that when I started this Godforsaken project either. Remember, read all instructions thoroughly before beginning.

Another shot.

And another...I now have 13 rows completed, and my original design has changed a bit since beginning. I initially was going to make one rectangular clamshell shape and use it as the center of the quilt. Now I'm thinking I'd rather have a long, narrower peice and place it off center. I'm sure I'll still decide it as I sew along, with umpteen more rows to go I'll definitely have time to consider options for sure.

What to do with charm squares..

2008-10-05T08:47:00.000-07:00

I can't remember when exactly I ordered these Kaffe Fassett charm squares, but ever since I recieved them, I've laid them out on the bed, the floor, the sewing table and just in my lap to try to figure out what to do with them. I considered making a quilt, but realized there wouldn't be enough of them to make one using solely the charm squares, so I just tucked the idea of them back into a corner of my brain and waited until inspiration hit.

I finally decided on attempting a clamshell quilt, and like I normally do, I underestimate the detailed, labor intensive work that goes into making something so pretty. I partly blame myself for being naive, and partly the ladies who have made these traditional quilts look so irresistable and somehow, they make it look easy.

What could I possibly have been thinking? Loads and loads of curves, as if the tracing and cutting wasn't horrible (it actually wasn't, that's just me being dramatic), only after pressing each clamshell and seeing the curve wasn't even trying to be perfect did I find a tutorial on the web that was extremely helpful in suggesting using a template to press with. Lesson: Search for tutorial first. As of now, I haven't a clue as to how to join them. I know it's row by row, but really, I've no idea as to where to begin to start. I still have 25 white clamshells to press, so I'm not exactly in a hurry, but it would be nice to see the next step. If I can't find one and I figure it out, I'll definitely post pics of the process here, whether they're mistakes or not. In fact, I'll post pics of the last clamshells getting ready for assembly, too. I couldn't find the exact method I'm doing either!

best. monday morning. ever.

2008-08-12T10:41:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, I found something in my right breast. Something large, hard and foreign. Now, if you've ever met me, you know that the words, "large" and "breast" are rarely said in the same sentence when discussing my specific anatomy, if ever. And if they were spoken, it was most likely my proclaimation that I would never get implants, unless of course, something happened to my husband and I found myself thrown into the market again. Which, if that were the case, breast augmentation would only be the tip of the iceberg; I'm thinking Botox, tummy tuck, etc. But I'm really not that into pain, so the less the better. A N Y W A Y...The first round of mammograms/ultrasounds went splendidly, with the results showing I just basically had a big bubble of fluid (I know, gross) in my breast, but they wanted to take another look in three months. Yesterday was the the three month mark, and after three months of wondering whether or not I'd still just have a bubble, nothing at all, or something to be terrified of, I found out I have even more bubbles than I thought. In the words of the ultrasound technician, "You just have lumpy breasts." She was cheery, she was open and willing to answer any questions I had, but I still prefer to think I have bubbles and not lumps. Upon hearing the lovely news, me and my bubbles decided to visit some of the shops on Main Street I've been hearing and reading about for ages. The first was a corner consignment shop named, Molly's on Main. Cute, huh? I love the fact that when I went in, I actually met Molly, and kind of had a visit with her, you know? Not at all like the big chains. Not that I'm completely above shopping at the big chains, they absolutely have their place, but it just isn't the same. Molly offers a ton of different items, from antique jewelry to gently (I mean REALLY gently) used handbags, such as Coach. I have to say I exhibited GREAT restraint when it came to looking at these bags! I didn't purchase any! Not one. And there were several that were only $39 or so. But I have enough bags, for sure. I did however find one treasure, but I'll have to show it to you tomorrow, as I forgot to take a picture of it and it's almost time for my nap. What? You don't take naps? Pity. After my visit with Molly, I walked another block or so to the new Bower-Suhrheinrich Foundation Gallery and was surprised to find that are they not only a top notch gallery highlighting some fantastic local artists, they also offer an expansive collection of small offerings in their gift shop. LOVE the gift shop! I picked up the two watercolors shown above for only $40 total. I think I decided in that moment to not buy any more Target art. Or basically, anything mass produced...Don't even get me started on Home Interiors! They are both painted by Robert Pote, whom I know nothing about at all. Both depict historic downtown New Harmony, Indiana, and both, it seems are of the same scene:

This one, although at a different angle, seems almost wintery because of the lack of color and greyish overtones, don't you think?

And then this one, seems much brighter, cheerier, and just sunnier to me. I do believe they were painted somewhat close together in time because the white pick up truck on the left is seen in both. I don't mind that, I actually like the suggestion that with color, we live more vibrant lives, more detailed, warmer, etc. I'm sure most people know this already, but if there aren't artists or creative people to remind us of it from time to time, it's easy to take it for granted.

quick trips

2008-08-08T05:20:00.000-07:00

So after reading this lady's blog this morning and being reminded of mine (and probably everyone who was tripping around in their Candies in the 70's) favorite perfume, Love's Baby Soft, I began my Googles and sure enough, someone highlighted other big ideas from the 70's. Here's a quick trip down memory lane: M'kay. All I can say about this ad is it infuriates me almost as much as the current Kotex campaign that touts, "Have a nice period." What the frick. Have these people lost their ever-lovin' minds? I have absolutely no doubt the above ad was created by one or more idiot boyfriends/husbands thinking, heck, believing they were doing us a service by suggesting we better ourselves and those around us by taking our meds. In case you can't read the ad, here's what it says: "Your Guy: Your number one reason for taking Midol. Be the you he likes. Good to be around, any day of the month. Midol helps. When you feel good, you're good to be around. So use Midol. You've got a beautiful reason." Wow! I'm so glad my ovaries were just mere suggestions at the time of this ad! I'd probably write some scathing letter to the company resembling this post, or something. Because you know, my periods have always, if nothing else, been all about the people I'm around. And even if I were old enough to have been of menstruating age at the time of this ad AND been dating a "beautiful reason", he'd surely be smart enough to stay away from me for five days a month, right? I may need chocolate. And then there's this:

Is it just me or should we be convinced this is the actual beginning of mainstream ad campaigns utilizing kiddie porn? Was there outrage or controversy when this ad came out? If not, there absolutely should have been! Teddy bears, oingy-boingy curls, lip gloss and phallic-shaped dispensers were apparently where it was at, all with the tag line, too! Unbelieveable! Seriously, where the frick was Tipper Gore during all this?

Seeing these ads reminded me of a couple of 70's products...Remember Tickle? It was a deodorant that also had a brightly colored phallic shape. They were actually forced to change their package (snicker) design because some group protested the suggestive shape. I guess they were on vacation when the Love's ad came out.

And Body on Tap! Remember that one? If you were any sort of respectable teen in the mid to late 70's you had at least one bottle of it and thought you were the COOLEST thing since striped toe socks. I remember I kept trying to smell the beer in it and never could pick up on it. I guess that was probably a good thing, overall.

Don't be jealous, but I'm taking a quick trip here this weekend to meet up with old friends, drink some beer in the middle of the street, refrain from dancing in front of others and hopefully not vomit.

Too much.

2008-08-01T06:06:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, the husband insisted on taking me to see Mama Mia. (The newly released movie, not the live version). While unfamiliar with the story written around the songs, I am completely and wonderfully familiar with the songs themselves, and that was a strong enough selling point for me. And I have to say, the movie was okay; not great, not horrible, just somewhere in between. Although if I were to offer an opinion (and it seems as if I am), I would have to say I was quite impressed with Meryl Streep, as she was quite a bit older than the role called for (by at least 20 years), the girl can sing! I was pleasantly surprised, as ABBA songs are not generally what I would consider easy songs to sing. At least not when I'm trying to, anyway. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for Pierce Brosnan. Wow. What a big bag of suck that was to watch him torture such classics as When All is Said and Done, and SOS. Oy. During the first two or three lines of his delivery of the former, I leaned to my husband and whispered, "That's Remington Fucking Steele, dude." Pity, really. My favorite part of the film had to be at the very beginning, when my husband leaned in to me and whispered desperately, "Is this a musical?" Priceless. The next day, after realizing I was not going to stop singing the title song over and over and over, the husband downloaded the entire ABBA discography from Itunes for me! YAAY!!! So I sat in my craft room for a good part of the day and listened (and sang) over and over to my favorites, and began this little project of fabric and simple embroidery.

I'm really not quite sure what it's going to be yet, nor am I finished with the embroidery, but I wanted to post a picture of it in progress because I'm kind of loving this embroidery for the moment. There have been some way cool other things I've found since starting this project, like this, and it makes me want to do more and more. Right now it's a great break from the yarn, which I desperately needed. Although I have been mindlessly crocheting some big granny squares, in between sketching something to embroider, I must confess, so I guess the yarn thing isn't completely over yet.