Another FAB meeting, and a V-day swap
Last night we had another fabulous meeting! This time we did not do our usual show and tell, instead we had a great presentation from The Batty Lady, and a Valentine’s Day swap! Alicia brought all kinds of batting to present, sell, and dispense pearls of wisdom about! It was great to touch, drape, and see how they worked up into finished projects! Thank you so much for coming to see us! We all learned SO MUCH! Who knew that perhaps an 80/12 Jeans needles is the best to quilt with!? We didn’t!
Here is my little pouch I put together for the swap using oh Frannson’s! tutorial, sans the strap to make it a wristlet because I didn’t have the hardware when I went to put it together(this is actually a super good thing… more later.) I especially like her method of putting fabric on either side of the zipper… does that make sense? I didn’t take, a picture from that angle before gifting it away, but look at the pics of her tutorial pics in her shop, you get the idea.
So here is the thing, if you have known me for ANY length of time, you pretty much know that pink REALLY is not my thing, especially light pink… put that with red, and hearts… and sprinkle with some poodles… NOT SO MUCH! BUT I got this fabric in a Japanese linen FQ stack last week @ Strawberry Patches. While not crazy about this fabric myself, it didn’t mean OTHER people wouldn’t like it, and so I decided to use it for my upcoming swap… great idea, right, RIGHT??…. again… not so much…
Take a look at his expression… go on, do it! (Click the pic you can see it larger) Now, take a look at the few ladies you CAN see in the picture… multiply that by 10.5, and that pretty much sums it up. A big fat FAIL is what that is! DANG IT! We, including me, got a great laugh out of it though. While his less than hearty reaction was a bummer, Andrew did seek me out at the end to thank me and said he really did like it… but, honestly– come on! …. Pink-poodles-and-hearts aren’t really my thing either, so I understand Andrew. I just hope you can find a good home for it. And for the record, the fabric WAS a hit to some who came up afterwords to ask where I got it! Honest, I am NOT crazy.
Here’s more of our fun!
Teresa & Alison
And some more Valentine’s Day Swap goodness! These and others are up over at the flickr LA MQG group, too!
categories LA MQG, crafty | 12 comments so far!
Sewing Saturday (on a Sunday) w/ MQG
I am still bubbling with excitement, so I am not sure where to start! Yesterday I did the most indulgent thing I have done in… I don’t know how long! “My” modern quilt guild had its first ever Saturday Sit and Sew!!… but it was on a Sunday this first time because of scheduling conflicts. SIX hours of sewing, people! Not that I actually sewed for the six hours, nor did I exactly show up on time… damn blue dot on my iPhone almost got me lost for REAL! BUT to be in a room with ACTUAL people that sew, and have similar taste in fabric and style!! MIRACLE, I tell you!
When I started sewing a couple years ago I thought I was just going to be that crazy young-ish women who sews and quilts alone and has make-believe friends online. I was ok with it actually, so I am just tickled to have found such an easy going, welcoming, corky, and excited group of women to get to know as friends!!
I was sorta too busy chatting and reveling in being away from kids and home WITH my sewing machine that I didn’t get too many pics of us all, I got my camera out a bit late. But here are a few (click to see them larger and to scroll through). OH, and did I mention, I even went out to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner afterward? I TOLD you, indulgent! Thank you Chris, Pat & Wendy for a simply relaxing evening!
Here is what I worked on… I feel like I could have gotten more accomplished, but I did do a good amount of stippling. Perhaps more sewing, less talking next time… maybe– maybe not!
categories crafty | 3 comments so far!
E’s new art journal
This was one of the few gifts I managed to finish this Christmas, I had grand plans, honest!! But only three gifts reached completion in time and this is one of them. Last year I gave two of Ella’s friends decorated journals with some rock crayons from stubby pencil studio, we LOVED ours so nauraly we had to spread the love… but I never got around to decorating E’s OR photographing the other two that I made. BLAH! The back story is that I learned early on when the little lady was 18 months or so that having paper out for her to color on was NOT the best idea! She spread it out everywhere and I was frustrated with the mess, so I hatched a plan!
I found these 8×8 Kraft sketchbooks at stubby pencil studio, she could color on them any way she wanted as many pages at a time as she wanted and it didn’t get all over my house!!! SCORE! They proved to be of super great quality too, I was please to find out that they worked great with water colors to boot…. well the good kind at least– I am not sure how cheap-o Crayola water colors that you have to saturate with tons of water would work. Anyway, we had one that she colored in all the time, it had finally reached its capacity, and our resident artist needed a new one! So this year I managed to decorate it for her so 2010’s would not be so brown and boring!
Here are a couple pieces that I took out of last year’s journal done with some water colors, similar to the ones listed here… but not quiet THAT nice. And I matted and framed them up with some inexpensive CLIP frames from IKEA above her new art center!
categories crafty, parenting & child's play | 2 comments so far!
family website update…
So a handful of you have been getting on me about not updating my family website, I was so good about it there for a while… but alas another child proved to be more work than I thought! SO, here’s the deal, I am in the process of switching everything over to the site you are looking at right now. I will be combining my family postings with my crafty stuff to make my life easier… the family posts will require a username and password just like most other sites, that YOU come up with on your own! No more remembering stupid passwords I give you! And what this means for you, crafty exclusive readers, is that you don’t have to read em’ if you don’t wanna! This here site is getting a complete makeover too…. sometime… I hope… soon… you know… in my spare time.
In the mean time I HAVE been flooding my flickr account with new pictures of the kiddos in preparation of this phantom site overhaul… only not so many of you know about it! So here is what you need to do:
Walk your nimble little fingers over HERE, and join flickr if you don’t already have a login. HINT: you probably already have one! Use your yahoo e-mail and password to login, it is the same thing (or for you local types, use your sbcglobal.net or att.net username and password, that will work too!) Then, up there on the top part of the screen click “add seventeen and em as a contact,” after which I will add you as a “family or friend” (if I know you that is, virtually or for real… THAT is the whole point of this, duh!) and voila, you will be able to see everything from here on out, AND be sent automatic e-mail updates that you set up whenever updates are made… you know, if that is your thing. AND, grandma CLARE… ARE YOU READING THIS!!!??? You can now print out pictures directly by pressing the “order prints” button! I know, you are thrilled beyond words, ENJOY! ;)
Once you have done that be sure to check out:
Pictures by Month, & Asher’s first year.
and b/c no post in complete without a picture:
While the rest of the nation is reportedly freezing, this is us outside at 10am in all our no-coat-glory. E still has on her pajamas with a few choice accessories, and A is just out to foil whatever well organized plans his sister has for the day.
Stay warm out there!
categories crafty | 2 comments so far!
Three wrens came for a visit…
I haven’t done anything crafty lately– I should I KNOW and I really have no excuse for it except that I have been in a bit of a funk. BUT I do have this picture of a project I did a couple months ago that I never posted about.
These are the quick wall hangings I did for Ella’s “baby room,” they coordinate with the, I guess you would call it window treatment, and the quilt that Lori so generously made for Ella when she was born. I had been meaning to do something with the remaining fabric from Ella’s window project but I was having trouble deciding on what. Ella’s walls stayed naked until I stumbled upon a great and simple idea from Anna Maria Horner which was then featured on The Martha Show. I already had the fabric and Modge Podge, acrylic paint is cheap, all I had to find were the square canvases. I eventually found them at a Joann’s, but not just any Joann’s, a super store of sorts, and then it was off to Micheal’s to pick up a couple great flat paintbrushes that I have wanted to own anyway! In an afternoon the project was completed and hung. Easy breezy. I decided to use the wren that Anna Maria featured because, well… I was uninspired to do anything else, and I really do like the realistic quality, not to mention my obvious obsession with silhouettes and birds lately.
They are hung above Ella’s changing table, which poses some problems when putting on pants now that she is one! They seem to be a bit irresistible to reach up and grab and knock off the wall, but I can’t blame her, they are tempting to touch.
categories around the house, crafty | 2 comments so far!
