art and soul

QCE Show, take 2

2011-11-11T11:01:00.000-05:00

There are two additional sets of pictures from the Quilt Company East's 3 Lakes show that I haven't posted, mostly because I felt they fell into separate categories other than just quilt. First, we'll talk soft sculpture. AKA awesome.

part of the soft sculpture exhibit

Eslinger the Dragon, and his beautiful wings

So, if you haven't guessed, I'm an fantastical beasts kind of person. Have always loved fairy tales - I'm loving ABC's Once Upon a Time with it's undercurrents of the redemption of creation. Something about fairytales that has always fascinated me is relates to a principle of physics - to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Now it took us until Newton to put stuff like that into words, but somewhere, people had an understanding of this in their subconcious. Death curses broken love. Even Russian fairytales - take Sleeping Beauty, for example. Story didn't end - sorry, Disney - with the Philip and Aurora dancing in the castle with Aurora's magic pink-and-blue gown (purple, ladies? nice compromise there, what say?) Aurora and Philip move in with none other than Philip's mother. Maybe it was step mother, that part is a little dicey, and of course, it would have been rude to toss her out on her ear just because the young couple is ready to start life together. Aurora and Philip have two beautifully radiant children, a boy and a girl, and everything is wonderful until Philip has to ride off to war, leaving behind Aurora and the children. And Grandmere. Who, at this point it is incumbent to mention, is an ogress. An ogress with a tooth for manflesh, as the Orcs put it. In this case, her grandchildren.

So for a recap up to this point; death curse, love everlasting, cannibalistic grandma. What is the chief cook supposed to do when the Queen asks for her grandson trussed on a platter as a turkey? Kidnap the boy and serve up veal instead. This sounds vaguely familliar... who else asked for manflesh served up in cold blood? Snow White's step mother, who was handed the heart of a doe instead. Our poor chief cook does the veal trick again with the granddaughter, and finally, needing something a little bigger than a calf to serve up for an adult woman, serves up venison in place of lovely Aurora, who meanwhile is reunited with her children in the deep places of the castle for their protection.

The story ends with Gramma getting her comeuppance. Curse, antidote, curse, antidote. Equal and opposite reaction. I'm fairly certain it is a literary device with an actual name; what this is I don't know. I do know it is a universal theme, even if it means that the protagonists beat the odds by being united in death as stars, or rivers, or things of that nature. We all know this, even if we say "Yes, but the world doesn't work that way, good doesn't always triumph over evil." Not immediately, no.

But ask anyone who, while dealing with an immediate problem, left loose ends in the form of infant children to survive. It came full circle.

coming into the finish line.

2011-11-07T12:37:00.000-05:00

as an assessment of the semester, we're far from being done yet, but there are only three or four more weeks of class left. But I'm feeling like I got hit with something in the shins. Man down!

I took a little time yesterday to go to the Quilt Company East guild show. I feel like I missed a large chunk of the show - there's no way I saw 140 quilts yesterday, even if some of them were three dimensional fiber forms. And I totally missed the Martha Washington guild show in Washington... but after the events of Friday, I wasn't about to take another jaunt in the country.

*We pause for a moment to interest Lydia Kitty in a game in the kitchen where the linoleum floor allows mousie to move with decided alacrity*

P.A. Farmer's Market 2009, G.B., Jeanette

Beach Balls, J.B., Penn Hills

Josh's Quilt

detail. that's my thumb.

Phoenix Rising, G.B., Wilkensburg

East Indian Rain Music, J.J., Oakmont

Peripatetic Album

Detail, Peripatetic, J.S., Export

Murphy's Lap, A.D., Squirrel Hill

Murphy

Color Full Trees, M.B., Penn Hills

My Favorite Color - N.O., Murrysville

N.Y. Beauty loves Silky Fabrics, E.S., Pgh.

This was from the Show Challenge. The fabric they incorporated for the challenge is featured in the center of the prize rosette.

Second runner up, Challenge category:

Lost in the Badlands, T.M., Greensburg

Nature's Triple Play

A.H., Pittsburgh, NTP

blue stocking.

2011-11-06T17:19:00.000-05:00

So. Here's dolly. Jointed at the shoulders and hips. Kitteh is jealous.

She is a Bas Bleu! But that dress simply will not do, it is stiff with glue.

So we make something new.

And we soak the old dress off, and look for a maker's mark.

No marks. Just glue residue.

Alas! Too big! Take in the sides!
Now for an under skirt.
Something with a little frou-frou for
Mademoiselle Babette Bleu.

Viola! C'est magnifique!

Que es une "Bas Bleu", says you?
Bas bleu, the French equivalent of a Bluestocking, refers to an intellectual woman; up until the late 18th century, it referred to learned folk of both genders. The term later developed negative connotations [read:frumpy]. Beliefs persist [obviously] about the need for women to dress fashionably; an old saying is "women don't become bluestockings until men have tired of looking at their legs". Another prejudice, attributed to William Hazlitt goes something like "The bluestocking is the most odious character in society ... she sinks wherever she is placed, like the yolk of an egg, to the bottom, and carries the filth with her."

technique

2011-10-19T13:35:00.000-04:00

For a while, at work, we were painting pieces for the dual purpose of not wasting the paper products and having a variety of examples to show people how techniques worked. First up was painting light over dark. I was going through a revisitation of an elephant

phase, and looked up Indian elephants and paisley designs. The mottled texture was created with a synthetic sponge using an Olive tone. The elepahant was painted primarily in Green Tea, with Cranberry, Passionate Plum, Just blue, Pacific Salmon and Blue Green details.

We moved onto large spaghetti bowls to demonstrate sgraffito. Which trust me, I can tell you already it's not something you want to try- you probably won't have the time or the patience to execute this technique. And it's a pain.

Sgraffito works by first painting a thick - about three but more is better - coats of glaze on a piece of bisque. My base coat was Olive. You then take a stylus [we use dental picks] and carve out a design. I wanted my things to match, so I stuck with the Elephant/Paisley theme. That's supposed to be a pomegranate in the middle. After the carving is done, you take a secondary color and glaze the piece again, paying particular attention to the carved areas.Again, the more coats the better because when you are done, you have to wipe off the secondary color, but not wipe so much that you remove all the glaze down to the bisque. The idea is that the secondary color fills in the carved out places in the first layer of glaze. The Blue Green paisley swirls were painted on later, as were the little blue dots around the rim.

I sponged the back of the bowl and glazed it to look like the plate. My wood furniture teacher in undergrad was very fond of encouraging us to do the unexpected, like putting a decorative paper on the underside of small boxes and drawers. It was the little details in overlooked places that made a piece really stand out.

a slice of random

2011-10-18T11:47:00.000-04:00

I remain ridiculously interested in travel. Never mind that I am a broke graduate student. The siren call of Megabus' $1 fare whispers to me in the night... go, go GO! I however, am like most whimps, and don't want to gogo-ago alone.

Let's blame the wanderlust on StumbleUpon, purveyor of websites catering to my interest in travel, baking, classical history, sewing, the list goes on. Mostly images of the Maldives and the luxury island resorts there.Or awesome things like this in Germany. [To my credit, I tried to follow the links, only to discover the website is ... in German. yo no hablo deutsch.] I should just opt not to click on the little round green, white and blue icon in the top right of my web browser.

Right. And miss out on cool things like this.

A wall that makes music when it RAINS!
the Funnel Wall at the Kunsthof-Passage in Neustadt.

When I do next go, I plan on lovingly ripping [in the style of John Williams] a few melodic ideas to make my travel life a little nicer. Even if the travel is to Villa Mamma e Babbo where the shampoo, body wash and conditioner are in normal sized, easy to handle bottles and the bed linens are pink check.

Flight001
Aside from the California Roll sushi luggage tag, I was particularly interested in the heavy nylon bags for shoes, lingere, the token wet swimsuit and the like. I usually pack a laundry bag, I never thought to pack my shoes in a bag. Which begs the question of legalities concerning a small spray bottle of vodka. "Vodka?!" you say, waggling your finger, "Little lush!". I learned, in my brief stint as a costumer, that next to Lysol, plain unassuming [read:cheap] vodka is quite possibly the best disinfectant out there. So yes, a small spray bottle of vodka for hosing down said bacteria infested shoes.

3 floz
Billed as "For those who travel, for those who are curious, a those who can't commit."
Of particular interest, the "Help" line. Packaged neatly into a square tin [i'm assuming tin, paperboard wouldn't survive two seconds in any of my normal bags] Help products have you covered from aching or snuffly head to blistered toe. Pretty cool. I'm also thinking Christmas, particularly for my friends on the run in school who would sorely like to brush their teeth before arriving at choir practice.

minimalist materialsism

2011-10-17T17:01:00.000-04:00

I'm proud of myself for not snagging the free bedside table in Shadyside. I was also on my bike, so it would have been a little ridiculous. It was pretty dated, looked to be from the 60/70's, but it had beautiful bones and potential...

Must stop. Else I hop in car and fetch a piece of furniture I have no space for. Decor wise, I seem to be going for a blonde wood, white trim - okay, the paint color was called "Silver Chalice". Looking around, I would say I could do a better job hiding the clutter. One thing at a time.

The To-Do pile keeps growing, and some things I will have to resign myself to not getting done this year. I can't paint indoors because I don't have a garage or the proper ventilation. So this puppy might have to wait for spring.

I bought it in May at a garage sale. I just replaced the original(?) painted wood knobs for white ceramic ones. A little on the lamesauce side, but you work with what you got sometimes.

I started looking up furniture stenciling, wondering if maybe I could incorporate the knobs into the design somehow, and I came across foiling. Oh dear. What is foiling? I asked self. How does it work?
Holographic-metalic-metal-rainbow? What?

One thing at a time, broke grad student, one thing at a time.

Butler Quilt Explosion

2011-10-08T09:58:00.000-04:00

Starting today at 10 A.M. is the Butler Quilt Explosion! This year's theme, "A Journey Back in Time".

First of all, it was a day for a drive. The trees are just beginning to turn, and will probably peak by next weekend. But who knows what the weather will be like next weekend, right? Last weekend I camped in the Laurel Highlands, and we got rained out. Today was picture perfect. 73 degrees, not a cloud in the sky. Aside from the fact that one of the street Google tried to send me down was one way in the wrong direction, it was very easy to find (and apparently, the police officers were turning a blind eye to the parking meters in that section of town)

So I got parked, and first thing there is the requisite basket of scraps, fill a ziplock (and seal it) for $.50. For $.50? oh, yes, please and thank you. So here is the addition to the stash - some nice reds, a mishmash of batiks, oh, happy day.

Moogie thinks, of course, that they are all for her.
Silly kitty.

There is also the raffle table, with baskets and a quilt. I have not heard anything as of publication... but the show goes for 2 more days, so there's still hope, right?

And then, to get to the quilts, you had to pass by the concessions. I will not regale you with tales of tasty pyrohi and apple dumpling. But it was fresh, homemade and TASTY.

Entre vous!

First up, on the left, was the display of Hoffman challenge entries. I, being biased and the only person in my party, took pictures of my favorites - and this goes for the pictures of the rest of the show, too.

Hoffman Challenge 2011 Fabric H8709 Moss Gold #98G

Clockwise from top left
Asian Garden, 35"x40", Marcia Brown, Prineville, OR
Who Hoo's There? 27"x38", Vinda Robinson, Colorado Springs, CO
Ovals, Circles and Squares, Oh, My! 37"x37", Diane Whittier, Shawnee, KS
Weeping Cherry, 24"x33", Chris Davis, Antioch, TN

As aforementioned, these were my four favorites. Now to the rest of the show, and I will attempt to give proper credit where due. Remember, these are my personal favorites.

Peppermint Patty, 88"x99"
S. M., Pittsburgh, PA
Quilted by R. M.
Honorable mention

"I'm a beginner quilter and came across this pattern and instantly knew I wanted to make it. I had my eye on bubblegum pink and chocolate fabrics and decided to challenge myself with the pattern ("Peppermint Patty" in American Patchwork and Quilting, 8/2008) Choosing all of the scrappy pinks and browns was fun; with the corners of the quilt my favorite parts. This was my third quilt. I designed the back unsil log cabins out of leftover fabrics"

Sunflower Illusions, 80"x91"
J.K., Zelienople, PA
Quilted by M.T.
Third place, best use of color
Machine pieced, Long arm quilted

It's a Judy Niemeyer design. Paper-pieced with "piping hot binding" by Susan Cleveland. Most fabrics are batiks.

My View, 88"x88"

T.M., Irwin, PA

Quilted by self

Third place, Novelty

"I started this quilt for my mother because it was her favorite pattern. When she died I put it away for about 5 years. This past January, I took it out and finished it."

Together Forever, 96"x116"L.S., North Lima, OHQuilted by self

Original design
"This wedding quilt was inspired by the couple, who are very supportive of each other and yet true individuals. The yin and yang was a perfect symbol. The blue/green background reflected the universe."

Sarah's Kaleidascope, 92"x92"
S.D., Butler, PA
Quilted by J.M.
Machine pieced, Long arm quilted

Inspired by a quilt shown in a Fons and Porter Love of Quilting magazine.

Florida Curves, 108"x104"
L.S., North Lima Ohio
Quilted by self
Pieced by machine, long arm quilted.

"I began this quilt in Florida while visiting with my newest grandchild. My husband and I went to 6 different quilt shops gathering fabricsI had wanted to do a stack-and-whack with curves because this was the Tri-County Quilter's Guild challenge for 2011. I made my own pattern with freezer paper. I got directions from a friend on how to re-stack. To add interest, I reversed one half of the stacks."

Big Fish, 21"x18"
B.R., Lower Burrell, PA
Quilted by self
Appique

"I bought the pattern at a quilt show while in Naples, Fla. I had fun embellishing it with netting and stones."

E. Pluribus Unum, 48"x48"

L.A., Mars, PA

Quilted by self, hand quilted

First place, Best Hand Quilting

"This Quilt was inspired by one half of our nation's Great Seal. I drafted it from the version which appears on the back of our one dollar bills."

detail with seed bead embellishment

Well, no one is perfect, and I goofed on this one. So enthralled was I at the ensy-weeeeensy ickle pieces that I forgot to take a picture of the description beside it. This may yet be in my possession, as I saved the brochure provided by the guild.

Uluru / Ayers Rock, Australia, 25"x18"
L.S., North Lima,OH

Quilted by self
Third place
Original Design
"This quilt is based on a photo take while on vacation in 2010. It was created to comply with a warm color scheme challenge for the United Quilt Guild in Salem, OH"

Pittsburgh
N.R., Pittsburgh, PA
Quilted by N.R., C.A., A.D., P.G.
Original Design

"A snapshot of Pittsburgh was cut up into 4 slices and four people each got a slice to use for inspiration. The four quilts were then sewn together."

Sunflower, 26"x31"
D.C., Slippery Rock, PA
Quilted by A.G.
Applique

"It's a Phil Beaver pattern and fabric. Using fusible web and pattern for applique technique to achieve desired coloration in petals and leaves."

Anita's Jacket
G.K., Sewickley, PA

Quilted by self
First place
Novelty

Lucky Me, 56"x"70
J.B., Eon Valley, PA
Quilted by J.R.
Machine pieced, long arm quilted

This quilt grew from the extra blocks from my granddaughter, A----'s quilt. It's Terry Atkinson's "Lucky Stars" pattern. I love using batiks and I'm lucky to have this quilt for me."

Dear Margaret, 50"x77"
M.C., Pittsburgh, PA
Quilted by self
Hand quilted
Second place, best theme quilt

"Blocks made in a class by Terry Benzo at Quilters Corners. I named it Dear Margaret since I pieced all of those itty bitty pieces, not Jane."

[Jane, for those of you who don't know, is in reference to an actual woman named Jane who's quilt, after which this is modeled, was showcased in a book for quilters. Quilts in this style are typically referred to as Dear Jane for that reason.]

Hunting in Blue, 52"x67"
G.K., Sewickley, PA
Quilted by self
Pieced by machine, long arm quilted.

"I tried to use as many blues and creams from my batik stash as I could find."

Magic Carpet, 55"x55"
B.H., Freeport, PA
Quilted by self
First place
Pieced by machine
Domestic machine quilted

"A fat quarter collection and a selection of batiks came together with a paper pieced pattern to make this multi-colored hanging that looks like a carpet"

Wizard of OZ, 50"x62"
E.E., Murrysville, PA
Quilted by S.W.
Original design

"OZ is a favorite of a niece. I will present it to her... some day."

Mariposa Beauty, 36"x51"
B.H., Freeport, PA
Quilted by self
Pieced by machine
Domestic machine quilted

"A variation of New York Beauty blocks done with a Lonni Rossi group of fabrics from her Mariposa collection."

Show times: 10A.M.-5P.M. Fri/Sat, 10-4 Sun. $5 Admission.
Family First Resource Center, 216 N. Washington Street, Butler, PA 16001

chocolate, like temptation...

2011-09-13T11:48:00.000-04:00

I told myself when I started THIS blog I would try to steer clear of all things personal, but this is has become a font of frustration. My institution of higher learning doesn't offer bus passes to students. They have a shuttle which goes to one area in the city, which you have to purchase a pass for every semester. i have, ahead of me just this semester, a 30 hour field experience, and the check engine light came on in my car. I already can't afford to fuel/park my car or take the bus, since my workable hours are now consumed with course work. Dear Administration - what am I supposed to do, exactly? Even if I moved on campus, it would not solve the work issue - I have to earn money to pay for the tuition and fees my scholarship and loans already aren't covering. Would you like to pay to keep my car going so I can get to class and continue to pay your salary and support your lifestyle? I didn't think so. Bus passes. Please.

Thank you, reader, for staying with me, and I apologize. If I knew where to hold a sit in and launch a peaceful protest, I would have done it yesterday, and would probably still be sitting there. Moving on.

We are in the middle of my favorite time of year. Labor day is passed, and suddenly wearing a tee-shirt doesn't feel like a lead weight. This is the time of year when the temperature doesn't spike 90 or 100 in certain pockets of the city [due to excessive amounts of surface concrete and asphalt]. Suddenly, we're at a comfortable 70. Well, except in the paint your own pottery studio I work in. Our A/C has been on the fritz all summer, and with a kiln that reaches 2000 degrees Fahrenheit, we can get a little toasty. In addition to phone calls about what, exactly, it is that we do at a PYOPS, I'm always a little saddened to admit that there really doesn't seem to be any non-specific art creation venue in the city.

What city? Oh, yeah,
YINZ IN DA 'BURGH, N'AT!!!

I'm so not a yinzer. I wear proudly wear brown and orange to church two Sundays every fall. Yes, I know, you don't need to tell me, this is not the right city for me to be habituating. Artistically speaking, there are quite a few options. There is a monthly gallery crawl in Lawrenceville along Penn Ave, always the first weekend of the month, however it happens.

There's Natural Stitches, also on Penn Ave, but much further down in East Liberty - near Trader Joe's. They are a fantastic, full service yarn shop. They offer classes.

There's also (and this is the worst picture ever, my apologies to the proprietress) Needlepoint Breeze, which isn't terribly far from Natural Stitches further into the East End. The Make Your Mark Artspace is a vegan/vegitarian cafe. No makings going on there, I checked their website.

And there's KnitOne, which is in Squirrel Hill, and very near the 376 Squirrel Hill Tunnel (For those of you that don't know, 376 is referred to as the Parkway - Parkway East, in this section of town). I've never been there, but their website indicates that they do offer classes. I was extremely excited to see that they were offering a free class for a no-prior-experience knitter... but it was from last year. Here is their blog. The website said they had a knitting group on Tuesday afternoons at one, and I have a hat that needs finishing...

Also in Squirrel Hill is the Artist And Craftsman Supply. Where you can buy things like paints, brushes, canvas, charcoal pencils, fabric dye. They're at 5603 Hobart Street, Pittsburgh PA. I've never been there either. Maybe it's time for a field trip...

These establishments are all well and good, but are product specific.

No, the sort of thing I am talking about would be more of a make-it, take-it lounge/studio, working in partnership with other local, small art and craftsmen supply businesses. Ideally, the space would have two separate classrooms - a "wet space" [with plenty of appropriate sinks] where one could paint, construct and grout mosaics, or hold ceramics and pottery classes. The other class room would be dry, catering to fiber arts where one wouldn't want to discover acrylic paint on the work surfaces. In the front would be a little drop-in sitting area with comfortable chairs, plenty of natural and appropriate artificial light, where one could sit down and work on a small project with out worrying about the sugar residue on the table surface or someone else accidentally knocking over their mocha latte on a project. And a list of events and potentially other classes being offered in the area, organized by activity. Because if they're really that interested, and can't take it at my studio, they're probably going to go elsewhere anyway.

Maybe you, reader, are the one to put this plan into action. Places like this are springing up across Europe. Here's a report from decor8 about such a place in London, England, called the Make Lounge. I, I have a graduate degree to complete, and I have one and a half years to do it, so I'ma be a little busy. But if you need a crafty employee...

shekere

2011-09-06T14:17:00.000-04:00

I never would have thought of making this except that I actually made it to my parent's house this weekend, and they had some gourds kicking around. Now that I've made a small one, I'd love to make a larger one. I used wooden beads and cotton string such you would knit with. Eh. Next time I'll go for nylon cording and try to find some different beads, maybe even some cowrie? The instructions I found on YouTube from StanfordTaiko that pretty concisely explained how to make one of these instruments from scratch.

Anyway, here's what I'm handing in for class tonight

my mess, your mess, my mess, your mess, MY mess. YOUR mess.

2011-08-30T11:51:00.001-04:00

Just because we're crafty [and perhaps cluttered...?] doesn't mean we're slobs!

I stumbled on this, and it made me laugh. My closet and my sock drawer and my desk are nightmares to behold - I covered this problem in yesterday's post. Mostly though, my problem is effective storage. It also got me thinking about ways I can effectively clean up the clutter without feeling like I spent the whole day dealing with it. That just sounds like a drag - 'dealing with it'. I've got other things to be dealing with - 40 minutes of cardio a day, homework, cooking, work, kitteh-attention-time. Who has time to deal?

But I'm making an effort, right? I did a web search for a monthly chore chart. A great place to start - I'm ADD and forget to include things on my list. I found this one over at moneycrashers.com. Unfortunately for me, there isn't an Adam [or a Josh or a Desmond or a Max...] to go through the bills and check the smoke detectors and kill spiders, but the bills are fairly infrequent and I don't care so much about the spiders. [But I do hate after-cooking-clean-up.]

The thought also occurred to me, since I do a fair amount of living in my car, that I ought to include that on my cleaning list - shaking out the floor mats, vacuuming in there, dusting off the dash. Maybe start leaving the church bulletin in the basket at the back to recycle instead of dropping it in the passenger seat and throwing it out weeks later? Baby steps. I think we'll just start with the chore chart.

Did we mention I'm ADD?

via Shelterpop.com, in the storage and cleaning department.
If you have messy: Closets
Chances are you are: Nostalgic -- perhaps a bit too much.
Sam Gossling, author of Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You notes the connection between old items and our ties to their past. If you've got an out-of-control closet, it doesn't mean you're a pig -- chances are, you're trying to hold on to past events and people through those small mementos.
How to change it: Letting go can be hard. Don't put pressure on yourself to empty out the closet during a quick cleaning session. Instead, take some time to go through the items and identify what justifies keeping in a special place and what you can part with.

If you have a messy: Desk
Chances are you are: Creative. [ha! we crafty people knew this, we just needed someone with a high tone degree to tell our loved ones it's okay!?]
"Messiness is related to creativity because it tends to juxtapose things that don't normally go together." says Columbia University Business School professor Eric Abrahamson, over on Penelope Trunk's site.
How to change it: In the same article, Illinois-based career coach Kelly Crescenti suggests setting up a filing system and then spending the last 15 minutes of every day organizing your piles and clutter into that system.

not yet dead

2011-08-29T11:57:00.000-04:00

School - aka graduate studies - began last Monday, and despite a towering To-Do list and a whopping 4 day migraine, I'm still here. Still kicking. Still twitching at the sight of craftiness that I say, "Oh, geeze, I could do that!", and realizing I haven't got the time to cook, much less be crafty. Even the teeniest little bit.

So, what have I learned this week?

1. My mother is, I suspect, actually Wonder Woman. No kidding this time. I don't know how she managed, but she did, and she always managed to look put together, and make tasty food, and get to work on time despite the daily shenanigans of her children. I fail on all counts, and I don't have kids. I have regressed to eating Ramen simply because it's... simple. Add hot water. Poof. No thinking required.

2. If we could figure out food replicators, the world just might be a better place. Or at least, people wouldn't be hungry.

3. A shuttle bus to one part of the city is not the answer.

4. I've changed my mind about menu planning; how does this work again, and how do i get started?

I also discovered a need to apologize anytime someone comes to the hobbit hole. My work table is a disaster of scraps of paper, novels and bits of fabric and computer nonsense. The desk is equally as bad, but that's because the shelves on the bookcase all fell down, and a massive cleanup has yet to be wholly completed. This is not a mancave with science experiments growing in drinking glasses. It's clean, it's just disorganized... okay, there's cat hair on everything. But besides that, clean. There just happens to be a hamper of unfolded laundry in the middle of the sitting area. All this serves to remind me that I've accomplished nothing thus far today. Grr.

pushing daisies

2011-08-12T11:33:00.001-04:00

I can't believe this didn't make it on here.

The windup: A couple summers ago, when I was less overworked, and there was more than one quilt show in the summer to attend locally, and my car was cooperating, I went to the Meadville Quilt show and the Westminster (Erie) quilt show. And as a thank you for coming, they both handed out English Paper Piece kits, complete with little bits of fabric. It was an advertisement for a die-cut paper piece company. And since I went to two shows, I got two packets.

Uhh, yes, they are laid out on the grass. Outside. I didn't think I was going to like EPP- it seemed way too tedious to sit there and stitch those tinsy pieces together, but having done it, I think it's the only thing I would have made, if I'd lived 150 years ago. It's actually been really relaxing. I can take it on the bus and work on it while I'm waiting for someone or thing to start. I'm modeling it after a quilt that my paternal Grandmother owns. It was actually a gift from someone else, not anything anyone in the family made, but all the quilts my grandmother owns were spoken for long before I arrived on the scene.Getting the EPP packets nudged me into making a copy. It's not an exact copy - the origional has flowers with red centers and mix-match petals, solid electric blue sashing and plain white background. Mine will be sashed in a low density sage green calico, with (obviously) coordinated flowers and white print background. I just kept an eye on the remnant bin and grabbed what ever I saw there, so there are four different patterns. A lot of the daisies are made of scrapped fabrics from other projects. In a way, it's a time capsule of almost every project I've made to date. It's also something I made with my mom. She would baste the hexagons to the paper and I'd stitch them together.

anniversary

2011-08-12T10:49:00.001-04:00

Mystery quilt! I can't say much about it. The person to whom this is being gifted may in fact read my blog before I give it to them. Can't take any chances, can we? But I did want to put it out there, before it's done. I suppose it qualifies more as a coverlette than a quilt since there is no batting. Did we mention The Cheap? I was sorely grieved - one of the Big Boxes was running a massive sale on batting, but due to entire lack of funds, I had to pass up the sale. Sorely. Grieved. I could have picked up the batting for three separate projects at the cost for one, but alas. I'm not a violent person, but I kind of want to punch someone.

Anyway, here's a picture. I sewed together large 9 Patches, stacked them, and cut through the middle, then had fun rotating the sashed squares. I hope they like it. The back is a flannel paisley, which will stick to clothing with any kind of nap. Oh well. Obviously it's on the hoop now. It's a signature project, so I'm quilting around the blocks with autographs, and then some of the squares with out as well, to keep everything balanced.

Little Black Book [Cover]

2011-08-11T21:26:00.001-04:00

Thursday night, and the Moogie and I are being decided homebodies. Well, Moo is always a home body, little bugger jumps at her own shadow. Perfect Hobbit Hole dweller, never goes on any adventures or does anything unexpected. I on the other hand...

I made progress with the patio! There were cardboard boxes left over from moving out there, and I knew there was brick paving, I just didn't know how much of it was covered with verge. So I hacked it back with my bare hands, and I rearranged some plant pots to help define the space... and then my legs started to itch. 12 mosquito bites on my left calf, all centered close to the knee. I scurried indoors pretty quickly. The nice part about pushing back the verge was I uncovered some pretty awesome soil chock full of earthworms, so I was able to do a little plant re-potting on the cheap. We love the cheap [not to be confused with The Cheat] right now since our lovely friends at PPS have apparently decided it's a great idea not to hand out any money to some of it's employees until the middle of September. How the school board would like to work for five weeks, not get paid for the duration AND THEN get to wait two weeks or move before being compensated, I'm not sure. They probably wouldn't like it. Just a guess. So it's living on The Cheap.

Made a Little Black Book [Cover] for my Address book this evening while educating myself on how, exactly, the Federation met up with the Borg in the first place. LBB[C] is exactly what I've been mumbling about making for a long time - it has pockets (four total) for stamps (and maybe postcards), a pen pocket in the back, and a strap to keep it closed. I wish I could say I had a plan making this, but I mostly made it up while Riker ran around a Borg Cube with Data and LaForge. I was going to use the ever classic B/W French Toile for the whole project, but I messed up on the cutting dimensions. Too small to use. Plan B: make the whole thing black. Except for the pockets.

what has it got in it's pocketses?

I think my favorite thing about this is the cuppycake fabric. I found it in a scrap box, and the three pieces looked like they wanted to be pockets layered over one another.They weren't very big pieces - all about as wide as the strip across the bottom, so it took a little fussing to get them layered such that the lot of them were spread out as efficiently as possible. The address book itself was a gift from a big when I rushed a sorority. She included the names of all the sisters inside, and their phone numbers. I love that it's a mini ring binder. Being a huge fan of planned redundancy, I back up my iPod and cell phone when I think of it. And now, after I've gone hunting for an address, I don't have very far to look for stamps. Success!

tie it up tuesday

2011-08-09T18:15:00.000-04:00

why tie-it-up-Tuesday? Because tomorrow is Wrap-it-up-Wednesday - last day of PPS Summer Dreamers!

Today was our gallery crawl. I'm not sure what exactly happened, but somehow we missed the whole walk-around and look at everyone's stuff memo. But we did. A few of my student's parents came, which was nice.

Here are a few of the ceramic things which came in at the VERY last minute:

Shaving cream + glaze!

I'd really like a lesson on how to arrange pictures on this blog in a more compact fashion that doesn't leave a few football field's worth of space between them, so if you have any pointers on that, I'd love to hear it.

make-it-monday glue batik tee-shirt tutorial

2011-08-08T10:25:00.000-04:00

In the continuing list of art project to do with elementary students (or anyone crafty who would get a kick out of it), I bring...
Elmer's glue Batik!
Hooray!

WARNING!! *this project requires two separate drying times, plus the additional use of either a dryer for a full cycle or an iron if using Tempra paint and the fabric painting medium*

Materials
a white tee shirt in the painter's size

acrylic paint in cyan, magenta and yellow (these colors mix beautifully for secondary shades of greens and purples)
OR
tempra paint in cyan, magenta and yellow AND
fabric painting medium

thin foamcore or an empty cereal box
pencil
black permanent marker

optional equipment... or use all of them for some really neat effects
paint brushes
spray bottle
sponge
plastic grocery bag

medium-and-tempra premixed in squirt bottles (i didn't use this much, not even 1/4 of the bottle)

Method
if you're not quite pressed for time...have the participant draw out a design on a piece of paper board or thin foam core - the paper board could be the back of a cereal box, what ever is handy. Remember, simple and big is usually best - intricate designs will be harder to accomplish with white Elmer's glue and will take more time.

Once the final design is settled on, go over the pencil lines with the black permanent marker.
Slide the paperboard design side up in between the front and back of shirt, making sure the tag is facing you if the front is what you want to paint. Center as needed.

tee shirt design (far too complicated) with the dried, applied glue and bag-stuffed tee shirt

Have the participant go over the design - visible through the front of the tee shirt - with the white glue. It will soak in and spread, so try to drag blobs of glue along with the tip of the glue applicator to achieve lines and filled in places.

if you are pressed for time... go nuts a la Jackson Pollak with the white glue. Or try for an Australian aboriginal design of concentric dot circles and swirls. Or just be creative.

set the tee shirt aside with the paperboard still inserted inside for the glue to dry. This takes a few hours. After the glue is dry, haul out the paint! This is where the plastic grocery bag comes in - if your paper inside the shirt isn't large enough to fill the inside, a plastic bag will fill enough of the shirt cavity that the paint design will not bleed through the back of the shirt. Acrylic won't need to be mixed, but the Termpra will need to be mixed with the medium as per the directions on the bottle.

Paint can be applied with brushed, sprayed on with a spray bottle, pounced on with sponges, flicked on with a toothbrush, what ever.While painting, make sure any area that was decorated with glue is covered over and/or around with paint - otherwise the design won't be visible. Experiment with wetting the fabric slightly with clean water and painting with a dampened paint brush (with paint on it, of course) this will make the colors blend together. A dry tee shirt and a 'dry' (a not dampened brush with paint on it) will create a different look.

When finished painting, set the shirt aside with the bag/paperboard still inside. This takes a few hours, and is especially dependent on how much paint made it onto the shirt, how thick the paint is, etc.

Once the shirt is completely dry, remove the plastic bag/paper board. For acrylic paint, run through the wash - this will dissolve the white glue and cause the design to appear white.

For the tempra/medium method, follow the directions to set the paint. Our medium required that we either iron the shirt (putting a piece of clean, blank paper between the shirt and the iron)for five to ten minutes on high heat, or running the shirt through the dryer for a minimum of 40 minutes on high heat. Only after these steps are the shirts safe to toss in the wash to dissolve the glue.

...teh kitteh comes in for a closer look

I completed the glue and paint aspect of the project in the space of nine hours - this was setting up, applying the glue, the time I spent in a meeting after work and driving home with glued shirt in the back seat of my car, cooking dinner, walking around the block, playing with the cat, etc., eating dinner and then a chunk of epic paint time in the evening. In short, I could have been more efficient, and gotten it done a leeeettle faster. I did let the paint dry over night, then threw my tee in the dryer while I made breakfast and coffee and checked my email and showered, etc., the following morning. I was rushed, so I soaked it in a bucket of warm water and dish soap, and scrubbed at the glue spots with my fingers to encourage them to peel off faster.

fun with still life

2011-07-30T08:34:00.000-04:00

And we're back. Sort of. At a loss one morning as what to do with the chilluns, I remembered still lifes, and how easy they are to set up with anything. And I needed some eggplant anyway.

our gallery of still lifes...

Some of them really got the concept of drawing what they saw, some of them had to be led to water, others... others had major melt downs. But then, that happens everyday. Carry on.

Make-it Monday

2011-07-29T20:24:00.001-04:00

Another week of Summer Dreamers drew to a close earlier today - I'm quietly cheering, having stood on concrete block floor four hours straight. Attendance was down today, way down, and several of my more... delightful students were among the missing, making class run a whole lot smoother. We were finishing up our papier machet project, which was going to be a pinata for the chilluns to take home, fill with candy and club to death. Then self said "Be realistic - none of these parents are going to do that for their child." I don't think I'd be terribly excited as a mom if my kid showed up with a pinata from school. Of course, I would be the mom who'd make it with my kids, but that's another story.

So we're making hot air balloons instead! It took me 20 minutes to explain this concept - I'd say:
"We're making hot air balloons with a plastic bottle bottom for the basket, and the papier machet form as the balloon!"
"What's a hot air balloon?"
"It's a vehicle for transportation - a bag made of silk or nylon with a heat source to keep the air in the balloon warm - because hot air rises - with a basket attached for people to ride in."
"How's it work?"
"The heat source makes the air hot in the bag and it rises - no hot air, no rise-y. We're just going to make a model of a hot air balloon - these won't actually work."
"Miss Zara, Miss Zara!"
"Yes?"
"What are we making today?"
*headdesk*

I don't have any pictures from today due to the flour + water + salt = mess all over Miss Zara's hands and clothes and apron. The process is pretty simple though. Blow up a party balloon, start applying strips of newspaper dampened in papier machet solution in an organized manner, making sure the strips overlap each other slightly. More layers = stronger side walls. Allow to dry over night. Decorate in what ever manner you see fit. Since we had problems with children and paint, the coordinator and I decided to get tissue paper and let the kids glue it on the sides instead [yay, modge podge!]. I need to rustle up some pictures of hot air balloons, knowing none of them have likely seen one, especially any that are food related. This is Captain Cook's Clay Kitchen after all.

*These pictures were taken after the event in question

On display at the gallery crawl, we cut off the bottom of
plastic bottles and punched holes in them for the baskets

2011-07-21T18:42:00.000-04:00

It's been one of those weeks. Yesterday I discovered my car was broken into, today I locked myself out of the house with out my phone... ugh. I'm trying to come up with something to do with 20 antsy first grade students and I'm at a total loss, despite hours of combing through the internet for ideas. Speaking of antsy, here's something we did last week:

It's the end of a nylon sock filled with sawdust and grass seed. My ninja cyclops monster. The googly eyes came in the kit - yes, kit - and the mask is Sharpie'd on. I'm not exactly at whit's end with these kids, it's more that the projects we were assigned to do don't take the full time period to complete, so you have to come up with something else that won't deplete the small amount of supplies on hand meant for other projects and to top it off, despite our requests to be put in class rooms WITHOUT carpeting... yeah. And the only paint we have is acrylic. Some got spilled on a carpet last week and the janitorial staff flipped out. So no more paint projects, unless we take the kids outside - almost hottest summer on record! - and we can't finish all the kiln fired glazing projects because we're already backlogged. Well, I have to fold laundry, yay! Stay cool out there, love from the Hobbit Hole.

red hots... or nots

2011-07-01T17:18:00.000-04:00

If you're anything like me, you have difficulty finishing what you start. Or finding the things you need to finish a project. Locating things I'd say is 90% of my battle. I found a pile of precut purple squares left over from the cross-country purple charm quilt, and the February 2010 issue 102 of American Patchwork & Quilting happened to be sitting out on my bedside table. I don't have a subscription, I buy them as a reward or treat for accomplishing something... which usually happens to coincide with liking what I see on the front cover. Actually a subscription to a quilting magazine would be nice... I digress.

Here's the first on many blocks with the inspiration project. I'm not going to add the Flying Geese. Do I need to be making another top? Eh, no, but it will go by fast. The top bit, I mean, the quilting takes a little longer. Maybe I'll use it for a first time long arm quilting project. Who knows.

Bennet. Jane Bennet.

2011-06-30T16:05:00.000-04:00

Broke down and made the Regency gown. I used Simplicity pattern #4055, view A for myself, and I made it a size - hah - 18 to fit my bust. I'm not an 18. I'm a US 14. I read somewhere a mother lamenting that patterns ran big, which thoroughly surprised me. My friend and I have sewn dresses together for years and it has been our rule of thumb to size up a pattern. Amanda is tiny compared to me, I mean tiny, and she usually sizes up, not down when sewing from a pattern. Like most Simplicity patterns I've encountered, I sized up. And to my chagrin, after hours of labor, discovered this baby still didn't fit. Unless I wore my stays. Which are totally the wrong foundation garment for this time period. Stays = French and Indian war and the Revolutionary War. Stays don't = Jane Austin.

Also disconcerting about this dress - total lack of placket to cover the back. The instructions were to create a drawstring casing around the neck line and the bottom of the bodice to draw the dress in. I will certainly be doing a little aftermarket adding to this garment, because no where, in the history of Regency clothing, was it socially acceptable to have what you wore under your dress on display to the public. I was pretty well covered but mollified nonetheless to discover that the back gaped if I did anything other than stand stock still. I realize Simplicity patterns aren't completely historically accurate. They've got the general shape going for them and the bit about tying in the back. But I'm pretty sure there should have been a placket here. I wore a similar gown to a dinner party once that buttoned in the back instead of tying - my friend had to adjust the internal drawstring on the bodice and replace the buttons so that it would fit me, but my friend's back would have been sufficiently covered by a placket had she been wearing it.

I did also make one to fit doll, out of the scraps from the dress for me. I used American Girl's Josephina's Christmas dress from the Pretty Clothes patterns, and omitted the long sleeves. Have I mentioned something about patterns running small? Oh, right, because it seems the pattern drafters at Pleasant Company had difficulty with this concept as well - the dress doesn't fit the doll! I made some bias tape to bind off the sleeves on the doll dress instead of making the sleeves long, and will have to use additional bias tape to make a Velcro placket for the back, and to bind off the hem so that the dress is the proper length. Details. Details I shouldn't have to worry about, because I followed the directions to a T and they still don't fit.

I used Halloween as a road test for the dress, wearing it at work before I wore it to a party I was invited to. I was invited to a birthday tea party, and the instructions were to bring along a doll or bear, so I brought along doll in her dress (mine was packed so I wore something else).

steppy-stool. and The Hobbit

2011-06-30T11:59:00.001-04:00

A. Love "The Hobbit". And LOTR.
B. YAY Peter Jackson!!!
C.1 Alas, however epic awesome this is for Benedict Cumberbatch (our old pal Smaug the dragon) and Martin Freeman (ahem, Bilbo) GUYS!!! Both of you?! SHERLOCK!!!
C.2 I need a steppy-stool
D. I want Bilbo's

E. But I think I'll have to make it myself, because this isn't going to be one of the "officially licensed" objects from the movie.

I was drawing up sketches last night, knowing I had seen this little guy somewhere, but unsure of the where part. And then I remembered - The Hobbit!! My knowledge of seating and step construction being minimal compared to tables, I wasn't entirely sure how it would bear weight. Didn't look up the finer points of wood seating and steps because it was late and I really should have been asleep.

(sketches - bottom right in box is Bilbo's. roughly.)

I figured the steps would have to constructed in some sort of tongue and groove fashion. I'm not so terribly concerned with making and exact copy as I am with just liking the design of the piece. And being in need of a steppy stool for reaching the high places in my kitchen and climbing into bed. I'd probably make it out of poplar or maple. Poplar if I decided to paint, and maple because I really don't like the look of oak.

Who do I know with a router or dado blade on their table saw.....

kaleidoscope batik project

2011-06-30T11:24:00.000-04:00

still in pieces

This project has been in the works for quite a while. I picked up the first bit of batik at Calico Corner in Erie, PA... which I'm not sure is even open any more, or if they moved (I hope they just moved).
Some of the dark blue came from the remnant bin of a fabric shop in Canterbury, England. The majority of the beige-ish fabric came from Creative Reuse Pittsburgh during their fabric and yarn sale - 70" for $2. I almost went into cardiac arrest. I knew I needed something - and a lot of that something - to give harmony to this project, and this muted mustard yellow/olive green was just the thing. The blues weren't cutting it. I'm not a huge fan of blue in the first place, but most of these reminded me of the color of water.

There are three obvious spheres in the photograph that draw attention to themselves, two sort of halvesies in the opposite corners. I had seen a kaleidoscope quilt at a show in Erie two summers ago that had less contrast in the overall design and a few spheres that stood out, which I liked a lot better than a clipping of a Kaffe Fassat kaleidoscope I had saved for reference purposes.

Free associations include

oil on water.

opposites attract.

star cluster.

nebula.

wormhole.

when worlds collide

Pleiades

hebrides

I don't remember the dimensions, but its about a twin. I don't like it in it's current state. It needs something to encapsulate and contain it.

K Basement, 1st installment

2011-06-20T16:00:00.000-04:00

The fun and excitement... painting walls and trim, assembling furniture, discovering a corroded pipe under the utility sink, arranging the room, hanging curtains, rearranging the room to accommodate a neurotic desktop computer, discovering a corroded pipe under the kitchen sink, dangling by a bit of PVC, hauling three neurotic cats to church for half the day while the house is flea bombed, discovering that the plumbing under the bathroom sink is also corroded, installing a curtain wire for a faux Dutch bed, discovering the measurements were slightly off and there's a bend in the one point bracket. Fantastic.

Place looks like a bomb dropped and class was canceled for the week due to lack of enrollment. Huzzah, that means the doors can be painted. Again.

the truth is stranger than fiction. I couldn't make this up. The pilot light will be re-lit tomorrow sometime - we had to turn it off to set off the bombs - and the plumber comes Wednesday to fix the faucets in the bathroom sink so that there's hot and cold water, the mechanism to stop up the tub works, replace the pipes under the kitchen sink, and have a look at aforementioned leaky plumbing under the aforementioned bathroom sink. Pictures to come later.

habitat, pt.II

2011-06-06T08:34:00.000-04:00

The cart was before the horse on this one - I love furniture. Old furniture. I appreciate Ikea's modern sensibilities and streamlines but the part of me that screams to recycle and reuse says buy old. And yeah. Old can mean a lot of things; many people equate old with things like decrepit. Pshaw.

I found this on Craig's List for a whopping $25. The pain was peeling and cracking, the drop leaves were gone, the wheel on the gate leg is missing, and it looks like the top was used for a chop block. Ouch. But it was $25 and smallish. I needed a smallish table for my smallish apartment. I went out to look at it and about died. This thing is solid. SOLID. The legs and the apron weren't bolted together, they're joined, and you'd think it had been glued up yesterday. Worth the $25? Yes. Despite the peeling paint. Bonus, what I didn't know was that this table takes leaves - up to 5 leaves, in point of fact. And I picked up two for an additional $20.

what spray on stripper looks like after sitting five minutes. gross.

Frightening. But that's oak under there, not poplar. Solid. Stripping is serious business, and I've known more than a few people to get partway through a stripping job and then quit because it was more than they could handle. I didn't get all the paint off before I had to move the table, but I got most of it. The legs pose a challenge. Do I have delusions of grandeur about this project? Yep. I'm using it as my desk right now, but I imagine clearing it off and having a few friends over for dinner. Putting the leaves in it when I move on and have a bigger kitchen, or - gasp! - a dining room. Finding more leaves to accommodate my own family. Cleaning off dried bits of cereal left there by the kids. Yep. Delusions of grandeur.

upcycling 2.3

2011-06-06T08:12:00.001-04:00

I really need to stay out of Goodwill.

Aside from buying my whole spring wardrobe there yesterday - which hopefully in 6-8 weeks will be running big instead of fitting :) - I'm in the habit of checking housewares. Because you never know what you're going to find.

Like a very sad, sad twin sized, obviously home made duvet in need of... erm... something. Sad waste of a really nice twin sheet by Nautica. Dunno if the blue baby stuff was sheeting or yardage. I suspect the yellow was a Target RE sheet... similar to the one I made into ~~a duvet,~~ into baby blankets. So I did what any self respecting up-cycler would: I cut it into pieces. Rolled up the blue circus animals for more baby blanket fun times later [and you know they're coming later when three of your friends get married with in 6 months of each other, starting Memorial Day weekend]

bag-a-bag tutorial

2011-04-30T10:33:00.000-04:00

This is my first attempt at drafting a tutorial, so bear with me :-) I was out picking up necessaries for an art instalation for Good Friday and I stopped at a discounted overstock store. Usually I never find anything, but aside from scoring some inexpensive and super cool sport sunglasses ~~and athletic socks and an Easter dress and some tee shirts and---~~ okay, so obviously I found something[s] this time.

I saw, but did not buy, a bag much like this:

Geezum-crow. It may have been $1.99, but I really don't need ANOTHER bag.

The caption pretty well sums it up. Smaller than my camera and made of nylon, the colors at the store were burnt umber and olive. Meh. Don't want an olive bag, though I should have picked one up, you know, as a stocking stuffer or something. It was only $1.99.

Which brings us to the drive home where I thought about a canvas bag I was recovering, and the usefulness of having it tucked in my purse, or my glove box - because you don't ever stop at farmer's markets and garage sales either, right? - but not floating around kattywampus and getting tangled up in things. So, just make one like the one at the store, Right Brain says. Okay, says left brain.

Materials:
thread
scissors
scrap fabric; two of varrying size, one that's 2" x 3"
a bag (premade, for stuffing into the stuff bag)

I started with this bag [already made], and added the log cabin block. The square is apliqued over a logo for a book store in Nevada or someothersuch. Sorry about the orientation, I can't get it to rotate...

The measurements of the bag aren't so important laid out empty and flat as they are rolled up, since that's how you'll be toting your tote around anyway.

So, roll up the bag. I trifolded this one, then rolled from the bottom up and wrapped the straps around. Bad idea.

Better idea: with the bag flat, fold the straps down so they are laying over the bag, then tri or bifold, what ever you're comfortable with. It will stuff into the baggie far more easily. For the sake of economy, I rolled mine as tightly as I could, and it measures out at just under six inches [6"] long and three inches [3"] wide. Then there's about 2" of height in there to take into consideration. I figured 1/4" seam allowances, so I'm up to 3 1/2" [two sides, remember] wide and 6 1/2" long.

But the bag baggie in the picture has a flap to keep the

bag inside, and this thing isn't flat when rolled up, so the dimensions need to have 2" added - 5 1/2". So that covers width. What about length? I used two left over scraps to make my bag, clearly they are different patterns. The shorter one is for the front, and the longer one is for the back, and will also service as the flap on one end. I said my bag was 6 inches long rolled, so I'll need to add 2 1/2" to cover the height and seams. Since we're making a flap, one piece needs to be longer than the other, but the numbers should add up to 17". The short piece is 6 1/2", the long one is 10 1/2".

Clean up one short end of each scrap by either serging or folding over 1/4" of the end and stitching down, clip your threads so they're flush with the end of the piece. I used an embroidery stitch because I like it, it shows up better, and it covered the raw edge nicely. From another, small scrap - this one is about 2" by 3", make a loop tab for the bag by folding the long edges into the middle so they meet, then fold it over again so the two raw edges are sandwiched in the middle. Stitch that puppy down along the open end - my embroidery stitch was wide enough to ensure it wouldn't fall apart. Clip your threads.

On a flat surface, lay the longer of the two scraps right side down so you're looking at the pretty side. Lay the short one, pretty side down, on top of it so the two raw opposide ends match. Pin the raw short ends together. Fold back the short scrap and lay the now folded in half loop tab below the pretty edge of the short scrap. Pin it down to the long scrap with the loop laying as shown, facing inside. Fold the top of the long scrap down so that the pretty end hits the top of the loop tab with the raw edge facing you. Finish the fabric sandwich by folding the short scrap into place over the long piece and the loop tab. Pin this together, then pin the opposide side together.

This is what it will look like after all the folds have been made - my fingers are holding down the loop tab.

<-- This is important : fold the flip top underneath the short end. Otherwise you'll be ripping stitches, because the opening will be wrong. Lamesauce.
here it is all pinned together. The fourth pin on the bottom of the picture is the loop tab, three pins seemed to hold the sides down pretty well, spaced as they are. Let's sew this together - start at the top of the bag on either the loop tab side or the sans tab side. Stitch in about 1/2", back stitch, then sontinue sewing down the long side. When you get to the end, back stitch one or two stitches until you're looking a a small square in the corner.With the needle piercing the fabric and the presser foot UP, pivot the piece 90 degrees so you will be sewing the bottom next. Back stitch the 1/4 inch to the edge and straight stitch to the other end.

L side - sans tab..............R side with tab over here

Repeat the back stitching process, and when you are on the third leg so to speak of the piece, back stitch after you've completed stitching the fabric together.

This is what it should look like right before you're done - I started on the side opposite the tab, and back stitched a couple of times when I got to the tab for reinforcement purposes.

*I neglected to mention that before stitching the tab down, this would be a fantastic time to add a clip, the sort with the bail on one end and a swivel head on the other. Personally, I'm a big fan of caribeaners - if they break, they're easily replaceable, and you can find them relatively inexpensively... or free. I like free. A caribeaner clips more easily to a belt loop, bicycle brake lines... you get the idea. And there's room for your key ring.

One last step - two, if you haven't already taken the pins out as you went, now is a good time to do that. For real this time, last step is folding the bag inside out or right side in... which ever. I did something called kimono corners so the corners would be nice and crisp and not awkward bulky as they sometimes are. A huge thank you to Clair, who taught me how to do this wilst I was interning with Porthouse Theatre in the summer of '08. Clair also reminded me repeatedly... and all summer... of the necessity of clipping dangling threads as you go.

Kimono corners

forgive the blur, focus on the intersecting lines

With the stuff baggie sewn together and lying flat, identify the corners. I suggested back stitching for reinforcement, but also for a first time corner maker, the seams are really helpful. This takes some practice, mostly coordination, but it's worth it.

See my finger? Pointing at the intersection of two seams forming a 90 degree angle.
Pick one of the sides to start with, and fold it in towards the project, using the seam as your crease guideline.
Now take the perpendicular side - the one still chilling out in space - and fold it toward the project so that it's laying on top of the fold you just made. You should have another 90 degree corner in place of raw edges you started with. Grab hold of that with your thumb and index finger and hold on to that corner.

my thumb is covering it up, but this should give you an idea of what it should look like.

4. Very carefully flip the part of the bag right side out over your pinching fingers - your index will be inside now, keeping the folds in place. Don't flip the whole thing, there's still the opposite corner to fix! 5. Repeat the fold, fold, pinch and flip on the opposite corner for the purposes of this bag.

The upper part of the bag before it's turned right side in, kimono corners in process

6. The bottom of the bag will be turned right side in, and the top flap will still be backwards at this point. Repeat the kimono corners folds on the top flap end.

Voila! You're done! Now stuff the baggie with a bag and put it in a convenient place!

car fixin's, part II, or how epoxy and duct tape fix anything

2011-04-21T16:28:00.000-04:00

sad, sad duct tape day

So Rusty McRustbucket came back from the auto body shop today. The broken mirror was dangling limply from it's duct tape sling, and I discerned two things:

1. Epoxy doesn't like wet and cold.

2. Duct tape hates direct sun light. [Well, so do I for that matter]

The weather being considerably nicer today than it was a week ago, I decided to give this whole epoxy thing another shot. And learned that squirtable epoxy, sitting on the mixing palate, sets up in .3 seconds when left in the sun. This, despite the wasted epoxy, was an excellent sign. My mirror was broken in what I thought initially was three places. But no!

The fourth broken place is hiding out under the foam insert - which is what aparently held the mirror to the car in the first place. This also explains why the mirror dangled limply off the side of the car even after I glued the mirror back together

At this point, I was chock out of squirt epoxy - since about 75% of it had hardened in the sun before I could apply it to my car. But wait! It's our good friend and close cousin, maleable epoxy! Waterweld! At the auto parts store, I hesitated getting the maleable epoxy, but now, I'm really glad I had it on hand. The fail came in when I didn't duct tape the mirror in place while the maleable epoxy set up. The good news is, now I have a contact point for another round of glue, since it's been dry all day and pretty warm.

I know what you're thinking. Wow, that looks like crap. Yeah, yeah it does. Consider the following; your mechanic and the auto body guy tell you the car won't be worth reinspecting in a year. And a new mirror is about $100 used, and that doesn't count labor. And you are under-employed. I am suddenly not above doing it myself.

habitat

2011-04-20T08:44:00.000-04:00

The count down has begun to new living arangements! When people ask why I don't sound more excited about this, it's mostly because I feel like I just bounced off a brick wall, and I'm laying on the ground wondering what just happened. I got a look at the apartment a few days ago, and discovered aqua carpeting. Not slap you silly aqua, but it's aqua, or sea glass, it's just really pale. And there's a brick - thank God it's not fake - wall adding some earthy richness in there. I thought maybe of a red or something, maybe a mustard... ugh, not with the carpet. So I found a picture of some plants in terra cotta pots (Bonus that the pots are pulling faces). I thought maybe of incorporating a grey into the room, maybe in the trim or something but then I remembered... the carpet! Yeah, it's not grey, but it's that silvery lamb's ear color, like the stuff growing in the middle, but the lightest parts. A color palatte generator spit off a very dark, muted teal as the darkest value in the strip. Which, for a basement with low ceiling clearance sounded a little, well, dark. Now, depending on how you look at it on the monitor, it's grey. Flat grey. Move around a little and it develops some personality. I have a friend who's living room is about #718264, but the ceiling in that room is at least 12' - great for him, since he's 6'4". I'm only 5'4", and I think my new celiling tops out at 8', maybe even 7 1/2. Can we say low clearance? So I looked at the value strip and saw my brick wall, #4D4B23 and #A89773, and the carpet (this is why I went for these plants) #A7D6A4... Which left me with a green and a ... is it teal? I would have said this was muted, but then I found the brightness toggle and discovered that no, these are the 'pure' shades'.

#718264 is just going to be too dark. I have a huge window on one side of the room that looks out on... trees. And the world's tiniest, sweetest patio with a stone retaining wall on one side. And #6DB05D? I have a shirt that color. I wear it with orange on St. Patrick's day. In a room that would get more sunlight, I would have picked that green. Like a focus wall in the kitchen or something. But what about the two together? Glidden's Sea Glass Green, GLG25? It's not the rock your socks off je-ne-sai-qua at my friend's place, but I'm considering a space less lofty. It also has some heft color-wise against the lambsear carpet.

I may, in fact, go a shade lighter, because it is pretty dark in there. Celery green, more in the pastel hue range and my first pick, just won't match the carpet. It would be insipid. So let's pull on the big girl shoes and pick a jewel tone. Or something in between. Oh. And then something that's not pure white for the trim and ceiling.

And then there's the bathroom. It's mostly tiled. And painted mustard yellow. Can we fix that? The mustard yellow part?

I think I'm starting to get excited about this.

today

2011-04-15T21:42:00.000-04:00

Outside my window...
Cloudy. Okay, overcast, and the temperature is falling.

I am thinking...
Can I go to bed now? Is that okay? I don't have to keep being super-woman right now, do I?

I am thankful for...
Feeling the most together in weeks.

From the kitchen...
Chilaquilles caserole from EatingWell. It was pretty tasty. Now if only the Greek Easter bread wasn't teasing me from the counter...

I am wearing...
A stained, pink long sleeve v neck from Old Navy that's been relegated to PJ status, and a pair of charcoal grey yoga pants with a green paisley looking embroidered detail on one of the pant legs. It's kinda cute.

I am creating...
Nothing currently. Not physically, anyway. The mental synapses are firing away.

I am going...
to keep going. To not quit. To go back to school. To keep living and breathing and healing.

I'm reading...
"Waking the Dead", John Elderidge

I am hoping...
in spite of what I've told myself, against hope. It seems to be the only thing I do with out waivering.

I am hearing...
The siren call of bed, and the dulcet strains of Ingrid Michaelson.
Around the house...
There's evidence of a chapter of life coming to an end. We don't see things in terms of beginnings, just ends. The end of school, the end of life, the end of a career.

One of my favorite things...
that laugh and dopey grin.

A few plans for the rest of the week...
work, work, work, babysitting, work, packing, work, babysitting, work, packing, storming the gratuate office at school. I feel vaguely that I should have a Brunhilda hat for this task.

A picture to share...

I took this on a trip to England five years ago. I don't remember what posessed me to photograph doors, but I tried to take one everywhere we went, if there was one that struck my fancy. This is from somewherein Southern England, God knows where. It may not even be blue anymore.

car fixin's

2011-03-30T12:21:00.000-04:00

I know nothing about car repair.

So when my mechanic said I had some rust holes in my car, I gamely said, no problem, I'll fix them myself... with the help of a friend. Trouble was, neither one of us could figure out where the problems were listed on the work order, and the real gaping hole that was plainly visible was apparently not a problem [?!]. Well, we put a patch over the obvious hole, scraped off the rust we could find, laid down some rust inhibitor, and I was on my way - except that, backing out of the remarkably narrow driveway, my passenger mirror got caught on a chain link fence and snapped into 3 pieces. Yeah, I have one of those cars - specifically, a 98 Ford Taurus. No hatchback, and no breakaway mirrors :'( . Now what do I do?! The inspection being up... uhm, today... I still haven't found the holes the mechanic was talking about, and my mirror is dangling limply off the side of my car. Christe Eleison...

I don't like pulling the Damsel In Distress card. I can fix this because I can fix [almost] anything. Let's put a plug in for the friendly folk at the chain auto parts store that I frequent, a packet of adhesive Bondo patches, two different kinds of marine grade adhesive and a spackling tool. [I forgot the rust inhibiting primer and a wire brush... oops]. All this for about $16. Thanks guys, you rock. Now to go home and fix this thing!

Oh, did we mention it's barely 40 degrees Fahrenheit outside? I have no garage? Not ideal conditions to try to fix a problem like this, but the weather isn't going to get any warmer any time soon. In fact, they're calling for snow this afternoon. >:(

I do my best to mix the epoxy to it's proper uniform light blue consistence, watching as my hands turn a similar color. Since I'm in no position to take the door of my car apart at all, and certainly not outdoors in temperatures around 38 degrees, the best approach to this problem seemed to involve gluing the three pieces of the mirror casing back together first, and then see what could be done about adhering it back to the car, if necessary. The biggest challenge in this is that the casing containing the mirror unit separated completely from the two other casing pieces. How then to keep that very heavy object stabilized - still attatched to the car - while the glue sets up on it's fracture, and the fracture between the other casing parts? Our good friend, Duct tape. I ended up ripping off a long piece of tape and adhered it to the passenger window and a less conspicuous place on the windshield, forming a fairly effective sling as it were to cradle the mirror unit in place, as well as adding strips of tape to the other pieces to keep them in place. I don't know how well this is going to work, and I also don't know where to find a junk yard in pittsburgh to buy a second hand mirror, since I'd rather not buy a new one. It's been half an hour since I mixed the glue and applied it to the car. The package said it would set up in an hour at temperatures in the low seventies... yes, thank you for laughing with me, since it's late March in Southwestern Pennsylvania, currently a balmy 38 degrees Fahrenheit. So I've got another hour and a half to go waiting for the glue to set. Hopefully, I'll have regained feeling in my hands by then.

continental drift

2011-03-25T16:33:00.001-04:00

The beautiful thing about living in a Queen Anne is that the foyer has a grand staircase, and if you clear off the foyer floor, lay out the work, and climb to the second landing, you can stick a camera over the banister and get a pretty nice full on shot. The image is a little skewed because of the angle, but the top of the duvet really does have a slight dimple. I laid out the duvet, ripped out the stitches, recut the back and the top to fit the comforter, and that's how it turned out. A slight dimple in the side. The top right and bottom right look flared - that's because I put holes at the 'bottom' to aid in fitting the comforter into the cover, and I put facing along the seams.

Just facing, the duvet itself isn't lined. Maybe at some point, I will line it. Or remake it. Or whatever. In any case, a full lining seemed ridiculous where a two inch facing would do well. The end nearest my hand is sewn into the seam for the side, and tucked under. The opposite end of the hole I left the tails free of one another so that they can be tucked to cover the comforter. They should have been wider than two inches to effectively accomplish this, but that was the left over bit. It is a pretty sizable hand hole; I wanted to be sure I could get my arm in with out pulling the seams apart.

I dealt with the large open end by putting in a button placket. They aren't the nicest looking button holes in the world, but considering they won't be seen, I'm not concerned about appearances. Something to watch out for on the sewing machine in the future though. I tried to center the placket as best as I could with out actually measuring, the button holes were marked out at six inches apart. I'm not looking at it right now, I think I sewed in seven button holes. I won't be adding buttons for a while as my button stash has been packed... like everything else. I'm still not satisfied with how the piece looks over all. It could have been the stripe orientation on the bed, or the giant, void, yellow space. Also unsatisfying is that somehow the three grouped stripes drifted on one end. I have no other word for it, they square evenly on one side and on the other side, the seam comes together at the piecing on an angle. It doesn't happen anywhere else, and it's just along the edge that it is obvious. As duvet covers go, it is serviceable, and the comforter does fit, as long as the stitching of the comforter is parallel with the long stripe pieces. Design flaw that comes with not taking one's time. I also noticed that the Target brand sheet billed as "ultra soft" is only ultra soft on one side. The fabric has retained some of the perfume from the laundry detergent it was washed in yesterday, now every once in a while I get a whiff of fresh scent.

The initial purpose for this project was to cover a comforter to put on a bed for when the house is shown. The comforter, meant for a full size bed, only covers the top of the California King bed, not, obviously the sides. The sheets on the bed are therefore visible, also obviously the wrong size because we kept out the regular king sheets instead of packing them. Also visible is the area under the bed, where most of my things are currently stored. Unacceptable, says the Realtor. So there's a blue and white damask bedspread - also not intended for a bed of this, uhm, stature - that is magically supposed to help take care of the visibility problems. Trouble is, there are about four other different blue and white color combinations already going on in this room. And they kind of make my head hurt.

insane insanity

2011-03-25T10:16:00.001-04:00

Am setting out on an insane quest to creat a duvet cover for a full comforter out of the following materials:

*1 Martha Stewart Everyday yellow pinstripe queen flat sheet (100% cotton) - thrift store, $2
(Matching Martha Stewart pillow cases, $3 at same thriftstore. Go figure, right?)
*1 Room Essentials solid butter yellow queen size ultra soft flat sheet (100% cotton) Target, $13 [about] Came in a doofy little yellow fabric bag.
*1/2 yard Joann Keepsake Calico blue multi-dot
*33" of some grass green polkadot on white fabric I found in the remnant bin (50%)
*1 fat quarter (18"x22" - 1/4 yard cut fat ways instead of selvage to selvage) of pale green plaid
*1 fat quarter of a mostly tomato-y red dense floral.
God I hope I bought enough fabric!!!!! 0_o

I am attempting to do this in a mad wild rush because the house I'm living in is going on the market... and people will be walking through the house... and I can't use one of my plain old quilts because "it will detract from the space". So I'm trying to make a duvet on the cheap, and fast, so that it's also something I can stand living with through this showing process.

Finding the buttery yellow sheets at the thrift store for such a low price is actually a little of a boon. It's still early spring, and the comforter isn't quite enough, even if I'm wearing fleece pajamas. Having put away the rest of the quilts, I left out a twin sized "Rosie Stripe" [it could have been "Rosie's Stripe]quilt made by Arizona Jeans Co. that I bought with Christmas money, way back in early high school (I'm coming up on the 10 year reunion). Now I wish I would have gone for a full, but that's hindsight for you. In any case, the greens and the yellows are the same, so they won't clash terribly. Which is rather what you're going for when selling the house.

I did rip the stitching out of both of the sheets... The MS sheet was sewn with those wonderful seams that pull apart - very satisfying. The RE sheet... hello straight stitching. Ugh. If I hadn't found the MS sheet for $2 at the thrift store-- Okay, yes, you're right, I could have gone with a king size for the back, but I was thinking in terms of useable fabric and not wasting too much. And queens are cheaper than kings. Cheap, cheap, cheap, talk a lot, pick a little more. Ended up having to wash on a full hour cycle all the fabric. Thank you, fancy-schmancy electric display washer. I miss my mother's Maytag, the kind where you could skip the wash and just do rinse and spin... It will all need ironing, especially the sheets, to get the creases out from the fold over seams. Retrospectively, it's probably best that I washed the thrift store sheets. *pause to check the wash, iron all the wrinkles out of the fabric*

night time

daytime

I discovered two things about this project. First of all, when I measured my comforter, I forgot that it was slightly longer than wide, so at 12:45 [this would be AM, when clearly I'm not on my A game] when I finally got the bulk of the duvet sewn together and the comforter stuffed inside, it "didn't fit" But I was tired, so I went to bed and dreamed strange dreams and woke up at the far saner hour of 8:45 to tackle the button placket for the closure and figure out how it went wrong. So it's wider than long, I stuffed it in the wrong way. Thing #2 - the colors are slightly off in the sunlight. I thought it looked a little funny in the incandescent light of my room, but brushed it off as exhaustion. Nope, the yellow is too yellow for the rest of the fabrics. Maybe not the tomato. But the stripes aren't wide enough for the scale of the project or they are too far apart or... Or what I don't know, but it needs something. I need to percolate on that one.

satisfying the nom-nom monster

2011-03-21T21:27:00.000-04:00

So the season of Lent is upon us Christians. I didn't give much thought to the practice giving up anything, uhm, fasting, either in a food deprivation sense, limiting my technology intake [ie: going "dark" on Facebook], I don't swear, don't really drink alcohol, so when it came to fasting on something, anything, I found myself at a bit of a loss.

I had been planning on attending the Lenten dinner series that my church hosts every year, until a packet arrived in the mail about a study I was participating in. A study on weight loss. How convenient that the first so-called intervention began on the same evening as the Lenten Dinner series. As I sat there last week, listening to the dietary guidelines I was about to undertake, the thought occured to me that this year, my Lenten fast, admittedly thrust upon me, was more about depriving myself of gluttony than total elimination of one thing or another. This lifestyle change requires diligence - did I mention there's an exercise portion? - and thoughtfulness. Am I thoughtful about baking? You betcha. Just not so thoughtful on how many calories and grams of fat are in that piece of carrot cake. And I love, love, love Mexican food. And CHEESE. Especially on my Mexican food. Parmesean, Jarlsberg, Brie, Muenster, Gorgonzola, extra-sharp Cheddar, Mozzarella... I <3 cheese. And chocolate. The darker the better.

So they want me to count my calories and watch my fat gram intake... this is not something I'm obviously inherently good at, or I wouldn't be in this study. In my family, especially my mom's side, food was love. And you shared abundant amounts of food with the people you loved because [coming from an immigrant Italian background] we'd made it in this country. We could be so deliriously foolish as to offer three main dishes, have upwards of 10 sides, three kinds of bread [plus pasta] and, to cap it off, four kinds of cookies and/or pastries, two pies and three separate cartons of different flavored ice cream, so everyone was happy. We took feasts very seriously... and the standard Sunday brunch as well.

I'm pretty sure there isn't a low calorie, low fat method of making a tirimisu that's worth spending the time to make. But chocolate cookies? I found a recipe that might just be a lifesaver from EatingWell - chewy chocolate cookies. Just chocolate, no whistles and bells. Mmm... And a healthy alternative to getting my Mexican fix while trimming the excess pounds.

Beginning the second week of Lent, I don't know if I've lost any weight... I don't actually own my own scale. But I'm sure willing to take a stab at the deadly sin of Gluttony. Christe Eleison.

new bunkie

2011-03-14T10:33:00.000-04:00

I thought this got posted, but it's a figment of my imagination, aparently. A couple of Saturdays ago I spent the better part of the morning driving around the Greater Pittsburgh Area in pursuit of some orange star fabric. No luck. Standing in the Joann's in the South Hills, I thought to self, "You could drive to the North Hills... yeah, right, that's thirty miles away... or you could just call TOD on the first project, shelve it for the next baby, and start over again." I decided, very grumpily, to start over again, and shuffle through the stacks of material that I had just spent fifteen minutes combing for orange star material. Which, aparently, has ceased to exist, according to the Joann website. I found myself standing in front of an end cap with some convenient coordinating fat quarters, bolts of fabric, jelly rolls, and charm squares... which triggered a memory.

I can has interwebz? Plz?

Yes, yes and yes. Thank you iPod, for being charged, and whoever left an unsecured wireless network wandering around the Joann's. I could kiss you. My web surfing in the weeks before this outing brought me to Oh, Fransson!, which I had left open in my iPod's Safari browser, which in turn brought me to this charm squares baby blanket. And what was I standing in front of? An end cap with charm squares, so I reached out and grabbed Fabric Central's Sea Glass charm packet. The instructions said 38 squares, there were only 30 to a packet... Hmm.

I had a bolt of fabric in my line of sight with humming birds and mod graphic flowers - Legacy Studio Fresh Fusion Large Spring Floral Cream # 2292415 [this picture really doesn't do it justice] with all the Sea Glass colors, plus a red and peachy orange. Red and Orange fat quarters! Done and Done! That'll be nice contrast to all the light blues and greens. Ooh! And a lovely middle range green with a subtle paisley so as not to look quite so stark! Sashing and binding! Done! YAY!

I was out of the store faster than you could say "modern baby blanket", the final cost of the project slashed by at least a third because - unbeknownst to me - some of the fabric was on sale, and the kind ladies in front of me in the check out line had a fist full of excess cupons they were kind enough to share.

...now if only I could get the quilt sandwich to not shift while I sew it together on my very obviously not meant for quilting Singer.

h00t

2011-03-14T09:50:00.000-04:00

We have these owl canisters at work... well, we did. They're so darn cute, they've been flying off the shelves, uhm, no pun intended. See? Even you said, "Aww, hey that's--" Even if you stopped yourself. It's cute.

They come in two sizes, small (4" tall) and cute, and about large (~9" tall) and cute. It's a canister because the head comes off... which sounds a little disgusting, but it's cute when left alone. Sitting on your counter top. Guarding your caffienated coffee beans....

You know what else is cute? This guy:

It's a Northern (as opposed to Southern) Saw-whet owl. They live in Pennsylvania... and most of the rest of North America. And yes, they are really tiny enough to fit in the palm of your hand. Screech owls are about this big. SO CUTE!!! You have to have special licences from the state and federal governments, and the bird has to be incapable of being reintroduced into the wild, and it's not like a dog you can just put on a leash and take for a walk... rambling, sorry. If I ever was in a place in life where I could do wild life rehab, and the opportunity arose that I could care long term for an owl such as thus, I would. Or something similarly small.

And if you haven't figured out where I'm going with this... well, anyway. My other Brilliant Idea goes something along this order:

yamaha FSX720SC

2011-02-19T14:13:00.000-05:00

w00t ^-^

pack up your life in cardboard boxes

2011-02-16T11:49:00.000-05:00

So the baby bunkie is stalled because I've either run out of one of the fabrics, or like a total fool, I packed that necessary bit away in a suitcase that is now sitting in storage. *headdesk* I'm likely on my way to pick up some more plastic storage bins, having no more cardboard boxes in the house and wanting to get a move on things. I hate moving. And further likely, I'll be moving twice in the next four months. I think I'd hate it less if I had less stuff. Most of it is art or craft related; acrylic paints, brushes, knitting needles, a portman of fabric, beads, wire... I haven't purchassed anything in the last three months, but somehow artstuff keeps finding me. And now I keep finding it, and discovering how disorganized I really am. I don't need an art bin, I need a freekin' tool chest. One of those big red ones you see rolling down a flight of stairs in a movie. Just for art supplies. I read about people who have art/craft command centers, based around a piece of furniture. I used to have one, in a Hoosier I was attempting to strip [So not worth it - built in the 30's of ash and poplar, not oak]. I was going to sell the Hoosier. Have since changed my mind; I don't know how I got along with out it's two overhead cubbies, the two shallow but long drawers under the enameled worksurface, the cavernous cabinet below. Le Sigh. And where the flour despenser would have been, it can hold not one but two sewing machines which can be hidden by a roll down.

So in the realm of packing, we're down to the personal of personal effects, framed art, flotsam and jetsam and lots of clothing. Ugh. This too shall pass.

bunkie

2011-01-26T11:20:00.000-05:00

I'm stalled on a current project. I don't know why it's not coming together the way it ought, but the baby will be here in less than a month, and I like to have these things done before the baby arrives. The good news about other stalled projects is that I still have time to complete them.

Thank God baby blankets are so small.

after[Christmas]math

2011-01-23T17:33:00.000-05:00

Way after Christmas. 3rd week of Epiphany.

The knitting for the holiday was well recieved. The children loved their hats. The mitteners loved their mittens. And the scarves? "YOU MADE ME A SCARF!!! THAT IS TOO COOL!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!"

That response made my day. [!!!] those did, too. :)

So now we're on the other side of Christmas, and I'm not going to attempt to knit a gift for anyone until at least April. Or something. I did get some beautiful hand dyed, alpaca/linen yarn for Christmas from Annadele Alpacas, with strictest instructions to knit something for myself with it. Though what I'm going to knit for myself remains a bit of a mystery. I'm content to finger the hanks and drown in the deep sea green varigations. This Christmas, the unplanned project was to make replacement stockings for the family. Whoops.

Dad's, Mom's, Brother's, Mine

And V's.

I really didn't want to do the stockings for everyone, excepting V, who didn't have one at all, and after that one arrived in the mail, mom thought it was fantastic - not to mention big-person-sized, thus much better for stuffing than our wussy child-sized ones- so she requested I make some more. So I did. After some coaxing. At least mom understood why I was dragging my feet. I was busy with work, but more than that, it was something I had been planning to do for the first Christmas with Mr. Zara. Not necessarily so that they matched or anything. Knowing full well that it wasn't going to be this year. I don't know why, but it had been a very emotionally difficult fall. We make plans and say, "When this happens, then___." And sometimes we end up having to wait for the "this" part.

I'm a very impatient person. Especially when waiting for an answer about something. Just tell me already! If it's 'yes', I'll wait secure in the knowledge that it is, in fact, going to happen. Even if it's a yes, eventually. If 'no', I will most happily move on with my life, and keep waiting until I sense the next "maybe yes?" moment.
Life, however, is not like this. Saint Nicholas, for example, he would chuckle, "God helps those who help themselves. Rouse yourself! Get out there and do something about it!". Nowhere in the Bible does it say anything about God helping those that help themselves. Giantfreekinlie.

it was my first one, it was too small. it didn't fit you at all.

2010-11-19T21:22:00.000-05:00

but you wore it just the same. yes, it's knitting-in-time-for-Christmas. I'm actually sitting here and casting on as I type, which will make the journaling slow going... but I garnered insight into a particular knitting situation. Two kids, siblings. I was going to knit a fish and a cupcake, but then the heavenly choir sang and the coin dropped and I remembered... they both love cats. and would probably wear cat hats more readily than a cupcake or a fish. Duh Zara. Cat hats it is. way easier? mayhaps. we'll see.

I love Advent and Christmas. Really. (and yes, there's a but coming)

but.

let's leave but hanging in the air there. like the princess and the tiger, but has more than one ending.
I like to believe in benign endings.

scarf season

2010-10-14T11:58:00.000-04:00

Yes, it's October, and that means it's scarf and sweater season. Sort of. I'm trying to get a jump on my Christmas presents this year, so I'm starting early - as if October is early - with my knitting. Idealy, I'll have two guys scarves, several pair of mittens, and two hats - a fish and a pink frosted cupcake. Ambitious? Maybe a little much. I have several quilts that need to be finished. A baby blanket by February, an aniversary throw by next November, another anniversary quilt by August in two years, and to top it off, quilt a throwish sized Window pane by Easter. And to complicate things, I started a stash buster. Which I prefer working on above all else due to it's ease of construction. And then Halloween is coming! Do I make the Regency dress, or do I hold off and pull from my closet and borrow from others for something else?

And I still need to apply for school. And find a more steady form of employment.

Scarves.
right.
I finished a corded cable scarf in Lion Brand's Wool Ease, Oxford Grey, for a guy in my small group who was very enthusiastic about scarf wearing in winter. I was working on it at a petit bon fire in his back yard, with intentions of giving it to someone else that I'm rather... uhm... More-Fond-Of. But I wasn't even sure if More-Fond-Of would even wear a scarf. Or that I was happy with the pattern enough to give it to More-Fond-Of. So thrice-cord cabled scarf in Oxford Grey goes to small group fellow for Christmas. Which will probably work out, because I'm also not sure if I want to single out More-Fond-Of with this gift.

I just cast on for More-Fond-Of, also a cabled creation, but with more of an aran bent. It's comprised of sand tracks, which I'm hoping will look more like a braided cord of three strands, and a Tree of Life in the middle. Which I also hope turns out. At least as being obvious what it is. I don't remember the name of the color. It's a heathered denim sort of blue 100% merino wool made by Patton's. I'm hoping the dye lot still exists, because if the Oxford Grey is any indication, I'm going to need a second skein. In any event, I'm cautiously optimistic about this project. And if it turns out that More-Fond-Of isn't a scarf wearing kind of person, I do know several other people that would love a hand knit, 100% merino wool scarf.

And on a side note, I started the binding on the Ocean Waves. One short side is done o_0. Three to go. I keep telling myself how worth it the project will be when [finally] finished.

new babies

2010-09-13T16:59:00.000-04:00

Am not having one. Now that's out of the way.

I might be the slowest person to admit it, but I'm pretty girly. See most of my wardrobe is pink, I can bake better than Betty Crocker - from scratch, no less - and I love dolls. And doll houses. And all the silly little tinsy tiny things you put in them. So when I saw an American --> Girl of Today at a church sale, I couldn't pass her up. Even missing her shoes. And especially at - no, I can't tell you how much I paid for her. It was highway robbery.

How many of these girls do I have, you ask? She makes number six, after Kailey, Molly, Felicity, Kirsten and Samantha. I got started young, what can I say. What could be better?Well, her clothes, for one thing. Mattel, seriously.

Her pants fall off when she is sitting, and that tee shirt covers nothing. Okay, so some things could be better.

Haha.

And then, to make things even better, an awesome woman I know told me about this website, where another wonderful woman (I am guessing) scanned for what must have been days to make available these wonderful and out of print patterns for the historic American Girl characters, who seem to be dropping like flies. So I did what any other self respecting and thrifty seamstress would do... I downloaded those as fast as I could and made a dress and pinafore for my new girl.

(Worst picture in the world, I know. Camera is fussy). You can't tell from the photo, but the dress is a white background with little violet buds surrounded by even smaller violet polka dots. In case you were wondering, this is Kirsten's birthday dress* and pinafore, which I will be remaking in the appropriate pink check, as soon as I find it.

My new doll, like my car, is nameless. She doesn't have the looks to be Lizzy Bennett or Jane Eyre. Maybe Lexie [Alexandria] MacDonald. Perhaps Meg Murry. In which case, this little girl will need a pair of tortoise shell glasses. In any case, she serves as the perfect model for the clothes I'm making from the aforementioned patterns.

Oh, I forgot Bitty Baby. When the camera isn't acting out.

*If you're interested in making these dresses, and never have before, watch out for the back closures. My grandmother made a trousseau for Samantha, and had to make the first dress she attempted twice, because the dress wouldn't close in the back, it didn't come close. I had to make a placket for the back of this dress because it too would not close in the back, even when I followed the Velcro placement directions.

creative reuse

2010-08-12T13:29:00.000-04:00

No one reads this, do they?

Well, if you are reading, and you're in the Pittsburgh area, and you are bored [don't tell me that never happens], I encourage you to check out two places; Construction Junction and Creative Reuse Pittsburgh, [214 North Lexington Street, Pittsburgh, PA] both fantastic resources for ... well, what ever. "But I'm not creative," you say. "I failed art in school." You know what? I barely passed math in the seventh and ninth grades. Who told you you couldn't?

Climbing down off that soapbox... Many of us are attempting to live green lives, so here's a test of how dedicated to being green you really are. Check out Construction Junction and Creative Reuse Pittsburgh! "What are they?" you ask? Construction Junction is a warehouse full of reclaimed building materials, most all of them donated. "Like what?" Says you? Like:

Pianos, pews, desk chairs, kitchen cabinets, windows, storm doors, screen doors, banisters, door knobs, mortis locks, claw foot bath tubs, lighting fixtures, exterior and interior paint, kitchen sinks... are you starting to get the picture? It's amazingness in several hundred square feet of the most unlikely location in Pittsburgh. I don't have a house to fix up, but I love wandering around and planning my bucket list tree house [Not the kids I will doubtless have someday. Me.]

Located in Construction Junction's attic is Creative Reuse Pittsburgh. Currently open Wednesdays from 12-5 or by appointment, CRP takes donations of any kind, like paperclips, lab equipment, picture frames, sample carpet and fabric swatches and books from decorators, binder clips, papers - wall, drawing, specialty, small quantities of paint, leather in several colors, treatments and sizes that can be purchassed by the pound, and many things in quantity that would otherwise go to a landfill and take hundreds or thousands of years to decompose. What did I find there? Several 100% cotton swatches from a designer in a stellar theme with stars and moons and planets that I will turn into nauseating baby blanket adorableness. And the thread to sew them together with.

Don't go there if you don't actually like being green. I won't say don't go there if you don't like to be creative. It's impossible to see something there and not visualize it repurposed. Say, for example, in your own tree house... with a Craftsman door... and a 1950's wall sconse over your favorite chair situated between the mahogany built-ins [yeah, I said mahogany built-ins, 30 linear feet of them] We're grown up. That doesn't mean we have to stop imagining.

art and the 1st grade... and other things

2010-07-19T20:14:00.000-04:00

My part time job this summer is teaching art to first graders who are in summer school. It's a hook to try to keep them interested in coming day after day. Some of these kids probably aren't getting half of what we talk about, but they seem to be enjoying themselves, and in the long run, I'd rather be a positive art experience than the person that ruined it for them. Today we played with tempra paint and mixed colors together. Some kids had some pretty impressive colors mixed together, some went along kicking and screaming until they folded their papers in half, wailing that they had "made a mistake" and wanted a new paper and I unfolded their page and showed them the mirror images they created... and they were hooked. We painted pictures of bananas, oranges and eggplant - not something you would think of a 1st grader painting, but considering that circles closer to the size of grapes are currently beyond their motor skill level, we went for eggplant, fine examples of aubergine. Now I'm drooling - I had eggplant in garlic sauce for lunch and it was amazing.

I'm listening to Pandora on my iPod right now, and there are bits and pieces of music playing, then silence, then a phrase, then silence. I feel like I'm listening for music. There will be moments of clarity, when I can hear it and I think, you know, this sounds beautiful/moving/etc and I think in that moment that I : get it, can see the bigger picture, etc : and then the [proverbial] music stops and I'm left in the silence, wondering. Waiting. Looking around and thinking why did it go away? Why have I lost it? Is it going to come back? I think to myself, what if I had heard more of the phrase earlier in my life, would I have taken the path I did, made the decisions I did? There are some things I simply couldn't have known were coming, and other things I should have seen coming, and made preparations for.

I'm where I am now. The only thing I can change is the direction I am going, and not think of it as back tracking or correcting mistakes. What about the things I did? Would I have not done them? Visit Europe? Taken that internship? Signed up for Wood Furniture? Taken the job that made me move away from home? Section hiked the Appalachian Trail? No, I'm glad I did these things. But sometimes I can't help thinking I could have been a lot more organized about life. But I was not thinking forward. I was not looking at the road ahead, and the bend coming, but at the rock formation to the left, the clouds sailing above, the pasture, the forest, the things on the side of the road, not necessarily distractions, but things that certainly had me completely captivated.

I'm like the kid that was sent to summer school. That got held back in Kindergarten because I needed time to "get the play out" - mature emotionally. Gain life experience. But I pray to God that when it comes time to retire, I have the ability to do so, because I've ... not wasted time, none of this time was wastecd in trying to find a stable career, but it sure feels like that sometimes.

Purple is charming

2010-06-07T10:57:00.000-04:00

I've said nothing about the purple charm quilt. Good heavens.

Now, I realize this isn't the best picture because it doesn't completely fill the frame, but it's the best I've got at the moment, and there's no where for me to lay it out and get a better picture at the moment...

So the story behind this is as follows. One fine day in May [I'm guessing, though it could have been April] 2007 I got a letter in the mail with fabric. What could be better than that? Free fabric in the mail. It just showed up, and I didn't ask for it or buy it, fabulous! Accompanying it was a letter indicating that it was a chain letter, send so may letters out with fabric squares thus and such a size, blah, you know the rest. So I obligingly went and bought the most unusual material I could find [try finding unusual fabric in purple. I dare you.] But I succeeded, and you can see several of the fabrics I bought in these close ups... The purple with the cranes was imported from Australia. I also supplied the purple leopard print, and the '30's reproduction purple-and-yellow flowers. In the third picture, is the Celtic knot fabric and very obvious quilt square and scissors motif. I bought enough to send the 7 people, and to put some in my own quilt.
Strafford, Missouri... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... Roy, Utah

Part of the charm of this kind of project is that you don't know what you are going to get. Life is like that sometimes. No, all the time. You don't know what will show up, and sometimes what comes isn't the nicest, the prettest, the finest. The decision to make then is what to do with the time, materials and resources given to us. Someone I sent fabric to returned my squares, along with two fat quarters, apologizing that she was doing so, and hoping that her offering would be enough. I personally never would have picked purple for this project but tha'ts what was specified, so that there would be some color harmony. And I never would have thought of picking out some of the fabric I got, especially that flaming yellow from Missouri.

Austintown, Ohio.

Represented in this quilt are about 20 fabrics from Western Pennsylvania, and material from lovely people in Ohio, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, Colorado and Utah... and probably someplace else, which I am forgetting. At some point, I would like to take a road trip with the quilt, and visit all the places fabric came from. And who knows, maybe someone who participated in this chain letter will see me holding this thing as my picture is being taken and stop and say, "Oh! I recognise that!" And we'll have a lovely chat about quilting and sewing. That would be lovely.

eggs

2010-06-07T10:28:00.000-04:00

And now for the real reason I keep this blog...
Let's start with Lent. Which is a far bigger deal in the Anglican church than the Methodist. At least the one I was going to.

I was a pysanke making fool this year, thanks in part to the generosity of space at church, where I would hang out between work and choir practice and make eggs. Also the generosity of a farmer in the town I grew up in, who handed me about 4 dozen fresh eggs over the course of 40 days for free because I was making art out of them, and they thought that was pretty cool [I gave them some decorated eggs as a thank you]. I actually had a few that I was able to sell. Maybe next year I'll have a better marketing campaign or something... right. Anyway, here's a small sampling of some of the eggs that I did this year, drying after being varnished. I used Krylon, one of their clear glossy coats with UV protection. It isn't sitting in front of me, so I'm not completely sure what it is. But there you have it. I'll have to retake pictures of the eggs I still have, since most of them were too close, and my camera doesn't have a zoom feature, alas. I would like to do more exploring the Pacific Northwest style, since it seemed to translate well into the wax resist medium. I have some traditional Ukranian designs(there, in the top corner is one with acorns, and the stars are pretty traditional as well), but with out more practice, I know I'll never truly get the hang of it. Very popular were the eggs I did showing scenes from "The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe". There was a young fellow being baptised on Easter, and I made an egg for him of Peter fighting Fenris Ulf. He has two younger sisters... so I thought, oh, let's have a little fun with this, so they are on there as well, as Lucy and Susan...

442 days

2010-06-07T10:11:00.000-04:00

well, this is what you get when you forget your password. Lets see if I can bring things up to speed in 500 words or less...
-Was hired by an acting company as an actor to do social issues drama in schools this time last year. My contract has long since expired, thanks to the lagging economy. But they were an awesome company to work for, and I got to combine three loves: working with kids, acting and traveling. And I got paid. Not a bad first real job.
-Started - hah, I say started as if it was last week, when I've been going there since the day I moved - attending Church of the Ascension, with a large community of active artists, both professional and ametuer in attendance. My only gripe is we get together once a year to celebrate this.

okay, so I think that sums things up. Oh, and I want to go back to school for my teacher's certificate in music. Rather than try to cram 9,739 things into one post, I'm going ot break this massive update into several smaller ones.

forty days

2009-03-13T10:44:00.000-04:00

It is that time of year again. The days are getting noticeably longer, clocks get set forward an hour, dizzying displays of everything concievable in a nauseating array of pastel colors screaming at you everytime you walk in the grocery store for some milk, yes it's... LENT!

Being protestant, I generally don't mark the passing of Lent with much thought, though I do realize the forty days leading up to Easter are symbolic of Jesus' time in the wilderness when He was being tested by Satan. An Anglican friend was visiting a few weeks ago and commented on the fact that we were having a worship arts festival at the beginning of Lent. The atmosphere in the sanctuary was highly charged, the singing shaking long idle dust from the rafters. Aparently, Anglicans don't say Allelujah during Lent. It's not a time for praising God [that comes Easter Sunday]. Forty days out of the year, that leaves 325 days... but I digress.

My point is until recently, I didn't pay much attention to the whole Lent thing. That is until art suddenly got involved. Years ago when my mother was single and my grandmother still alive and not crippled by arthritis, they stumbled on pysanke. My family is not Ukranian. Or Russian, for that matter, or any of the other ethnicities from whom pysanke came from. We're Welsh and Scottish and Sicilian [my mother and I are]. My mother was an art education major, and learned pysanke from a fellow student's mother, who was Ukranian. A few years later, my brother and I were born and she quit doing eggs because we'd get into the dye and smash the egg shells. When I was in college, mom pulled out her materials, ordered some new dye and taught me how to decorate eggs. And I'm not talking about hardboiled eggs and food coloring.

This year we tracked down some farm eggs, which had harder shells and are generally prettier than any brown, free range or organic egg you could find at a grocer. 7 dozen eggs later, we left the farm with duck eggs, Easter eggs [a lerger than jumbo size with a pale bluish color], Banty eggs, and button quail eggs [a dark speckled mocha color, no bigger than the end of your pinky - and too cute for words]. We lost a dozen, which had been stored on our back porch when the temperature plunged to the low teens one night. Ukranian eggs can be decorated raw, but traditionally, they have two holes pierced through the shell - one at both of the elipse ends - and the contents of the egg are blown out either mechanically with a tinsy bellows or by one's own breath. We will not be blowing out the quail eggs, of which there are a dozen, and we lost a dozen to the frost, so there's five dozen eggs that need to be blown out. What do we do with all the egg? You guess is as good as mine, but I saw a custard recipe that called for a dozen eggs, so that might be a good place to start.

funk

2009-01-04T16:01:00.000-05:00

I have this quilt I've been working on for time immemorial. It's the first one I ever attempted, and I'm down to quilting the last 4 corners. The agony! What to put there?!

This should not be as hard as it is. Ugh.

baby brigade

2008-12-25T20:18:00.000-05:00

mailed the baby blankets out. they probably won't make it for christmas, but that really wasn't the point. they got mailed. finally. and i forgot to take a picture of one of them. but meh.

stormy seas

2008-08-27T16:24:00.000-04:00

This past weekend when I was with my grandparents, I had quilts out that I had been working on. I'm sure I mentioned this in the last post, but at present I'm having a major ADD moment.

I need to remeasure it, but I think the Ocean Waves finished out at 108"x115"... somewhere in that neighborhood. (what was I ever thinking?!) I need to put a back on this sucker, but I kind of don't have any money to invest in fabric right now, as it stands, I'm going to have to take out a loan from the bank of mom to get binding for the three baby blankets (I might have enough flannel from a previous project to cover the back of the cherry blossom.) Initially I thought it might be really nice to try to get some extra wide fabric, but I'm having a hard time finding anything I like. I'm thinking that cotton or wool batting might be nice to try. It took me two summers to piece that sucker together, it spent this summer out of mind hanging out in a suitcase while I digested other things. A few days ago I went on a mad search for it, thinking I had lost it, and truthfully, wondering if my parents had read my mind and sent it off to be quilted for me. Not so much with the last part, but now that I've had it out, I've been easing back into the murky green waters of this project. I'm going to quilt the triangle sashes in a wave pattern, and put mariner's compasses in the squares. I'm still not sure what to do about the outside sashing, but that comes last anyway, so I'm sure I'll have something figured out by the time I get that far. And as much as I didn't want to quilt the whole thing by myself, I'm thinking that's my only option. It isn't going to get done any other way. I have to finish the other projects at hand first, but it needs to be next in the queue.

hearts and gizzards

2008-08-25T08:24:00.000-04:00

spent the weekend with my grandparents and parents at the Crook Farm Country Fair. We had excellent weather, thank God. I was gifted with a bag full of fabric to add to my stash, which included two half completed quilts. One is a double irish chain in mauvy pinks, the other is a hand pieced hearts and gizzards with a white packground and a wide variety of pre 1970's calicos. Some look to be from the 1930/40's. There's five rows of completed blocks that, when stitched together, will be in the neighborhood of 45" wide. I think the pattern says the quilt should be 70"x90"... 98"... I was never very good with numbers.

The weaving shop was set up for the weekend, and the Bradford area spinners and weavers were set up. I think the name of their guild is Enchanted Mountain. I wasn't there last year, but aparently the Bradford area quilters had been set up and they decided not to this year, my best guess is for reasons of foul weather last year. At least the weavers had a permanent structure around them, the quilters were probably in a tent on the lawn.

Today is the first day of class. This time next year I won't be here.

I hope.

Why it's Gabriel, Gabriel sayin!

2008-08-19T18:00:00.000-04:00

wow it's been a while...

I got hired at the costume shop as assistant for the spring semester of 2008. It was awesome. Then (even better!) I got a summer internship at Kent State University with Porthouse Theatre in the costume shop. It was their 40th season, they presented Anything Goes, Alice... (and origional adaptation of both "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking-Glass") and The Music Man, a personal all time favorite. Delight of delights, I actually got to stay for the production of Music Man because the director needed band members, and I play tuba!

I learned a lot this summer. A plethora of new sewing skills. I had such a wonderful experience at Porthouse. The people were fantastic. There were two women in the shop from Cleveland Playhouse that were fonts of information (and patience, God bless Clare and Estelle). I wasn't sure initially whether or not I would even want to come back, but as the summer progressed, I started praying that they would hire me back. I used both my comp tickets for Anything Goes and went back three more times as an usher to see it again... and again. I loved watching everything come together. Okay... maybe not loved. This small part of me was dying that I wasn't up there singing. I was kicking myself that I hadn't auditioned after all, but let's face it, I'm pretty rusty in the dance department. I was much happier as an active participant in making the whole product come together, which I was so blessed to able to do at the end of the summer. Am I "good enough" for an MFA acting program? We'll see.

So when I get some things together... which means I have to find my camera again... I'll upload photos of some of the projects I worked on. My favorite costume, and by far the most intensive, was a red and black trumpet specifically for the song "Blow Gabriel" from Anything Goes. I also found this awesome King Arthur fabric that has Stone Henge on it, and I made matching baby quilts for a set of twins in the family. Just finished a red sashed blanket for a little girl due in December. Gotta find the camera and take some pictures. Also have to abandon the 'puter, there's a caller here I'm being rude to.

new developments

2008-01-31T19:05:00.000-05:00

Costume and Make-up was canceled on Wednesday and one small voice beneath the cheering cried out "Nooooooooooooooooooo!" I love costume and make-up. My new favorite past time is hanging out in the costume shop.

The mesh bag is done. It's a little wonky, not gonna lie. The blue quilt is still on the hoop. I reupholstered a footstool and slip covered it last weekend.

I found these long lost patterns in the garage and repurposed an old choir dress for a new life:

getting into the swing of things

2008-01-16T16:32:00.000-05:00

I started this semester with a quilt on the hoop and a knit mesh bag on the needles, and an as yet mystery project for Costume and Make-up. Let's see if they get done before the semester does.

just keep swimming, just keep swimming, what do we do? we just keep swimming…

2008-01-09T13:17:00.000-05:00

well last week was the push to got all the pieces sewn together and have one finished, complete top. Mission accomplished.
When I bought the sea foam green (which, incidentally, matches the living room carpet) I had done some rudimentary math and figured I needed a yard and a half - at least, I think that's the number I came up with- for the squares and large triangles along the edge. At any rate, I was standing in the shop and realized I had forgotten to include borders and binding. The shopkeeper sold me the entire bolt, which I think origionally totaled 4 yards, it's by Moda™, under the blackbird quilting line. I was going to do a pinwheel border, but I discovered a bunch of presewn units stuffed in a forgotten corner. I think what I've got now is Broken Dishes. By some happy accident I cut the first sashing larger than I intended. It accomodates the Dishes perfectly.
there's old Bill, of course, constant kitty quilter assistant and quality control the Dishes border is kind of visible in the top part of the picture- it's a Kodak EasyShare I'm working with, so the resolution isn't great.

I'm an island, you're an ocean...

2008-01-04T18:14:00.000-05:00

surf's up dude. it's a frigid 18º out thar, but the ocean view sure is pretty:

I have to stop working on it frequently, all those sparkly colors and I get dizzy after a while.

blue, oh so lonesome for you.

2007-12-31T13:56:00.000-05:00

well, here's a look at the blue boy:

I can hear some people cringing about the cat being present through this process, but honestly, I didn't feel like arguing with a 20 pound cat that growls. The recipient has pets, so she will understand.

Martin Luther King Jr. arts contest... thing

2007-12-30T18:41:00.000-05:00

ta da!

the result of over 40 hours of toil and labor, sweating and bleeding fingers. The black stuff in the upper left corner has stars on it- I bought it a few days before Halloween, hoping I could use it for something. Obviously, not a great picture, I really need a shot of each block besides the whole piece, but something is better than nothing. Most of the fabric was lying around the house. I did the applique with wonder-under, to keep it stationary. This was one of those times I wish I had a serger- the machine applique would have gone better and looked nicer. The little people are all hand appliqued. The sun is machined, but the beads (if you can see them) in the center of the sun are all hand done. I put a knot every three beads, in case one got pulled off, they wouldn't all come off. Also not really visible, some of the quilting and applique was done with variegated thread, to mirror the rainbow children.

I hate describing what I intended it to represent, because every time I've shown it to people, I get a slightly different response every time. My grandmother said the people were "the children of the world", someone else said they were the freedom marchers. So, it's up to interpretation I guess. Obviously, the rainbow people could be any one, at any time, from any place. It is my hope that it's obvious the top right is "day" and the top left is "night", that the jumbled stippling in the bottom indicates chaos, and that there is no chaos in the upper panels. The people are separated from the new day above them because they are not there yet- the New Day is when all peoples are truly free, not just in word but in deed. It is for that same reason the people are not to the gold rectangle: We're not there yet. The observant (okay, any one who can actually see the quilt) will note that nothing grows from anger hate and fear, but peace, joy, mercy, tolerance, and hope. I was going for a sort of Faith Ringgold feel, sans painting- that would have required gessoing the muslin, and I have no gesso, and I couldn't find my acrylic paints. So I did what I could with the materials I had on hand. Which is obviously a ridiculous amount of fabric. I'm sure the prof has absolutely no idea who Faith Ringgold is.

Right now it is in the hands of my professor, and I am more than slightly concerned for it, as it was not packed for traveling very well, and he seemed to treat it as one of those "oh, that's nice dear but I'm not really impressed because it's * insert a word indicating inferiority *". face turns red with rage I worked just as hard as the person who turned in the song, the casting or the graphic design, just in a different way, so please don't treat it as a quaint, cutesy, folksey project. I refer you to Michael Kashey, an Edinboro resident who won the National Quilt competition in Paducha, Kentucky. I have no idea if the prof is going to pass the quilt on to the contest or not, but I got an A in the class, the requirement category the quilt filled was something like 15% of my grade. Hurray.

festivus for the re'stuv us

2007-12-29T17:33:00.000-05:00

The semester ended well. Very well, considering I had two lingering contagious diseases in the space of three months, plus a musical. Plus a pizza delivery job, a church choir gig and full time course work at the local university. All A's, yes, even in French, and a B+ in piano, for lack of a jury.

Best part of the semester? Being able to make a quilt for class. I beaded, appliqued by hand and machine, and finished the sucker of with some hand quilting. This project was brought to you by the History professor, who, if he liked what you handed in, was going to pass it on for consideration in a Martin Luther King Jr. arts contest. I am slightly peeved at the thought that my quilt, which is about half the size of a crib, is sitting around his house being shed on… all this AFTER I read an article about submitting quilts to judges which included all kinds of shipping advice like acid free tissue paper between the folded layers to discourage wrinkling, double bagging, writing the full address of the maker on the quilt, et cetera. *headdesk* I have pictures somewhere*… *addendum 12/30/07 here's a picture

Every time I find the camera, I can't find the card reader... ugh ugh ugh. Now I can't find the camera. The latest quilt I'm working on, since no semester break can be with out a quilting project, is a simple charm in shades of blue, thank you eBay. The blocks are 3 1/2" finished, set on point with a piano key border. It is for a friend who is having open heart surgery this summer… again. Not sure if I want to quilt or tie it, but it will have batting, as soon as I can get to the store for the fluff stuff. It has been pet tested and approved. There are copious quantities of purple charm blocks, 7 1/2" that have to be dealt with yet, and the pieces of the ocean waves that are stuffed in an Amazon box that also require attention. The summer kimono is done, and I finally found the obi fabric, so that will be finished (finally). It turned out very nice. Mom said something about making a short one for dad, but I highly doubt he'd appreciate the crap load of work I'd have to put into it, let alone where'ma going to find quality black silk for the sash without having to sell my kidney on the black market?

Last but not least, I figured out how to cable this semester, and made mom a cabled scarf to match a hat she bought at a craft show years ago. I originally started out with three cables, but it was more of a baby blanket than a scarf, so I ripped and settled on two - worked out perfectly. And she loves it. Two skeins of Lion Brand Wool Ease Thick n Quick. Again, when I can find the bloody camera, I'll provide some pictures.

Quilting goals for 2008:
quilt the jewel box
finish the ocean

be be or not to be... mmm yeah. totally to be.

2007-11-03T17:04:00.001-04:00

so I announced my intention to be a theater minor. they want me to be a major of course, but I seriously don't think I can squeeze out another two or three or four semesters. I really want to move on with my life, go to grad school maybe... some place far away from this guy in the department that... well, he's into me and I'm not into him... and it's awkward right now, to say the least. I have to reach a point that I'm not creeped out being around him to tell him how I feel. Which could take a while, because we've been through this before. I'm not sure how our friendship is going to weather this, and it isn't as though there's another guy I am interested who is reciprocating the feeling... When did this turn into a blog about the emotional messy stuff? Agh!

I started the Irish Hiking Scarf in Lion Brand Wool Ease Think n Chunky "fisherman" because it would work fast, and my mom has a hat that it will mach. I need another two skeins (at least, maybe four), and I had to take out a couple stitches because otherwise the darn thing would have been a baby blanket and not a scarf. Live and learn. It will be ready for Christmas. Now if only I can keep it a secret...

long silences

2007-10-30T10:29:00.000-04:00

September 27 was the last known communication from me... And I can totally explain.

I was in a show on campus. Not just a show, a musical, whee!! "The Roar of the Greasepaint, the Smell of the Crowd" We had a great time, we got nominated for some awards, fantastic-ness. now if I could only convince the assistant sage manager I am not interested in him...

I started working on the Irish hiking scarf about a month ago as something to do while sitting around during rehersals. The first eight inches or so were fine, but by the time I added another ten inches, the sides of the scarf had begun to curl. Hmm... Not entirely happy with this turn of events, I ripped the whole thing out, and have started a hat with three baby cables. I had made myself a baby pink wool hat a few semesters ago, and a matching scarf, but it has gone missing. No doubt one of the school mates took a shine to it. Back to the scarf, I'm going into the city today, and I'm going to stop at the store and try to pick up coordinating yarn for a new scarf to match a hat that we already have lying around in the coat closet.

Much better than personal projects are school sanctioned projects. For a Martin Luther King Jr. celebration at my school, there is some kind of creative contest. The prof said we could do what ever we wanted, as long as it expressed something to do with MLK Jr. and what his work means to us. So I'm making a quilt. Soft sculpture.

the next greatest thing

2007-09-27T12:05:00.001-04:00

Two posts in one day, what is the world coming to?

I haven't got OW completely pieced, and I have my next project all lined up:

http://www.jasa.net.au/quilt.htm

OMG, gorgeous…!!! doesn't hurt being a Jane Austin fan either!

with a will...

2007-09-27T08:20:00.000-04:00

I have a history test in an hour, and I still have to pull myself together for that...

Am very excited about stage craft- we're starting our first project on Friday, huzzah! Power tools are so much fun!

Ocean Waves is stalled right now beause I have been super busy with, surprise, the musical on campus. I have one half of the quilt finished, it's just all in random shaped rectanlge and square pieces waiting to be put together. Somehow in this process I have lost every single straight pin that I own so at the tale end of the last work I did on it, I was using sharps and very large tweeners. What a pain. Somewhere I saw pins with glo-in-the-dark heads, and I think that would be genious, especially given my track record. The professor for the test has a list of public service/community awareness things we have to do, and if I get this quilt done, I might just enter it in the art contest he's got listed. I don't remember all the specifics, but it has something to do with anti-racism. I would probably have to submit something with the quilt about why I submitted it, and I have a few good reasons for that. I just need some time to do it! and some pins...

I also just joined the Irish hiking scarf knit along. next time I get into town, I'll have to pick up some supplies. Oh darn, that means yarn shopping...

The missing piece

2007-09-12T10:03:00.000-04:00

It's a little crisp this morning, but that is to be expected in September in the Northeast.

I started out the sewing machine to patch a pair of jeans initially. they're pretty worn out, and I need a crappy pair for Stage craft anyway- we're doing a "lab" with power tools today- and why wear a nice pair that doesn't have holes? Now they look like those trendy ones you can by brand new that are already distressed, the kind I don't have money for, and wouldn't want anyway. The hard work was done! There's no great story involved like, well, the rip in the knee was from this hiking trip... anyway, I digress.

I was poking around in the scrap bin and what should I find but the large sea foam triangles that went missing a few weeks ago. Huzzah! Production can begin again.

And I found the fabric for the dog bed. That'll have to wait for another day.

the end of completion

2007-09-04T18:19:00.000-04:00

I was leafing through my photo album last night, looking at all the empty slots for pictures and thinking that now the England and Paris scrap book is over, I can fill in the pages with other stuff from school, like my senior recital and all that stuff, sort of a photo portfolio, plus programs of the stuff I did, if I have extra (since performers really should have a portfolio, just like art majors…) and I discovered the White Tower… and the Tower Bridge, and… could that be the tower housing Big Ben and the Houses of Parlaiment?, and oh no, there's the Beef Eater tour guide and Traitor's gate. Looks like it isn't done after all. Alas.

I miss London. It's such a beautiful city. Much cleaner than Paris. Paris got nasty gross.

So that meant stopping after an appointment at the craft store, where I got extra page protectors… and then I saw all the little Jolie's and I though oh why not, I'll just grab some stuff and start my senior recital page; the piano with the lights and the sheet music, the sparkley music notes (why can't they just be black, eh?) and a little white dress, which I'm pretty sure is supposed to be a flower girl's or a bride's or something, but mom and grams always said I could get married in that dress anyway.

And then I saw that they had music paper. Ugh and a sigh. This project means an e-mail to my lovely accompanist, to see if she has any pictures, and a new scrap book…

Go Jane!

2007-09-02T08:13:00.001-04:00

My best friend A was in town this weekend, she's been off and away at the Grad School. So the two of us spent Saturday together doing what we do: going shopping and watching Chick Flicks. I had to get material for my obi, and I settled on a pale orchid purple. I got a few other pieces, too, that I didn't exactly need, and enough paper to keep a doctoral theses alive. The yukata jst needs to be hemmed, and the obi sewn, and it will be finished.

We saw Becoming Jane. It was wonderful, fairly accurate and slightly depressing. A was certain that the amount of kissing that went on in the film wasn't the least bit accurate for the time. I argued that it was improprietous, née scandalous, to mention anything concerning, heaven forbid, a fiery romance. Just because they didn't write about it doesn't mean it didn't happen. Case in point, the two of us were living and breathing, the details of which, especially at that time, were not polite for conversation, civil or otherwise. A laughed and said I was probably right. I knew that Austin had never married, and I was very glad that the film makers decided against changing history. As Wistley said, the good seldom have a happy ending. Sigh.

We interrupt this regularly schedueld program…

2007-08-30T18:26:00.000-04:00

stop the presses…

…it's yukata time

toasty toes

2007-08-28T19:27:00.000-04:00

classes have officially started. I have one, maybe two more to add, and I'll be up to 16 credits. Not terrible. I have two part time jobs also.

About a year ago I was visiting a friend who lives in the Cleveland OH area, and i was knitting my first pair of socks at the time. I was keeping my yarn and needles in a cigar box to keep everything contained. Aparently, I left it there by mistake, and they just found it, because it appeared on my front porch. The yarn is self striping... I think it's called Sassy Stripes but I don't remember the company, it started with an M. I gave them a look over and realized I was doing a very bad job of knitting these socks, so I've ripped them apart and will start them over again. It's a nice project to do waiting for class to start, or sometimes ...mmm, never mind. Sufficit it say, it won't, no, shouldn't take too long to get them done. If I find my needlework book, I may even work some kind of fancy stitch in.

Now if only I could figure out how to read and knit at the same time...

fa la, fa la

2007-08-22T08:49:00.001-04:00

hah! got the camera to work!

so that's one of the corners, and the result of 4 months of toil at the cutting board and sewing machine! I do have a few other, larger pieces, the other corner to this end for example, but the front porch isn't big enough to lay everything out.

yay!

2007-08-21T14:50:00.000-04:00

ocean waves is lying in pieces about the living room. Doc says I have bronchitis, so all I'm good for momentarily is coughing and laying around in my pajamas. Thank God school hasn't started yet, or I'd be dead.

I had two other projects I wanted to do this summer, and I'll be darned if I can find either of them. The one hasn't even been cut yet, its still in the yardage phase. I got two pieces of batik fabric in England this summer, and I can't find the rest of the batik stash. The other project was a purple charm quilt. It was a chain letter, and I did it because I love getting *not* junk mail, and for the fun of seeing where the fabric might come from. I know some people look down their noses at such things, because "God knows where the fabric might come from", ie, not from an exclusive designer like Moda, God forbid trash be run through the pristine bernina or viking. But seriously. Prewash it. Re-cut everything if you must, sew it up and give it to Project Linus, or the local women's shelter, or donate it for a raffel to benefit a cause you support. Someone, somewhere in this world would love to have a warm blanket. Or a quilt, even though they know nothing about the craft. I understand the why and the what concerning quality fabric. However, I'm a college student. I worked part time this summer, and the only thing those wages will cover is my books. College tuition went up almost 50% since I started four years ago. Where is my money going?! The college professors are complaining they aren't paid enough while climbing into brand new volkswagens, or bmw's. I don't have money to spend on fabric that's $15 a yard, because that $15 dollars just heated the practice rooms in the music department I attend. I'm using my mother's 35 year old White, and yes, some of my fabric came from wal-mart, or Jo-Ann's. Some of it I have no idea where it came from because people gave it to me.

This is something like what I wanted to do with the purple fabric. I've been buying remnants for sanshing and binding... but I don't know where it got off to either.

progress progress progress

2007-08-16T23:40:00.000-04:00

the ocean waves quilt is definitely coming along. I'm not entirely sure about the directions though.

for a while I was keeping track of all the patches I had done on a scrap of paper. The case my machine sits in has a cubby off to the side, so I kept a pencil and the list in there, and every time I got something done, I'd make another hash mark. One day I went gang busters and finished an entire group of patches, just so they would be done. I keep trying to make an example using Apple works, but some genius in their programming department decided you shouldn't be able to draw and paint at the same time, so I'll just have to wait till school starts and borrow someone's camera. Grumble grumble…

What I shouldn't have done was start to piece the middle together before I got all the sashing things done. Sashing is certainly not the best word to describe the outside half row of patches, but it's the best I can come up with. There were no yardage specifications in the directions, so I sat down and tried to figure out exactly how much coordinating fabric I'd need for the center squares, and two rows of sashing. I'm pretty sure I'll have to find something else to use for binding, but as long as the colors are close, I really don't care what the calico is. The fabric I bought is a sea foam color - appropriate, eh? - that almost exactly matches the carpet in my parent's living room. I had everything laid out in pieces one day, and accidently left some of the sea foam squares lying on the carpet. It has a light print on it that looks like crackled glaze, so it blended right in like camouflage. Anyway, about the yardage…

The first yard I bought covered all the center squares, but as I was trying to figure out the half squares, a 2 1/2" and 6" floater sashing, I got completely confused, as there is going to be a flying geese sash between the two floaters(yeah… went a little crazy with the foundation triangle patches, so I have tons extra and even more loose triangles floating about) , and I couldn't remember how wide that was going to be, or what the seam allowance was supposed to be if I wanted such and such a size sashing… I even drew myself a diagram, a big rectangle with 45" at the top as a reminder of how wide the fabric would probably be, and hashed out the squares, writing in the pre-sewn size as I went to have an idea of the cutting lay out… and I still got screwed up. So I went to the store and just bought that one yard, said a prayer it would still all be there when I went back for more, and went home to cut out squares. A week later, after I'd gotten that all done, I went back to the shop and bought the rest of the bolt, all 4 1/4 yards. I still have no idea how much I'm going to need for this project, since I couldn't keep the seam allowances straight in my head or on paper, so I just bought the lot of it. The guy- yeah, a guy, working at a quilt shop, he does the free arm quilting, and it's gorgeous...- told me that moda redoes it's line every six months, so if i ran out of fabric, I'd be able to find it on the moda site only if it wasn't popular … gulp. As it turns out, I ended up with a strip of fabric from the first yard that is 2 1/2" wide- don't remember if it goes selvage to selvage or is all selvage on one side, I'd have to look at it. I think it's 2 1/2" wide, it may only be 1/4" but what ever it is, that's going to be my first floater sash. Waste not! So that's all folded in my sewing machine cubby waiting to be attatched.

And what am I doing right now instead of cutting out large triangles, pinning finished squares or sewing more dog eared trianges together? blogging about it! I've been really busy at work- there was a wedding two weeks ago that I worked, and a craft show with my dad last weekend. I work at the college cafeteria, and there's three shifts a day that are about 2-2 1/2 hours long, with about 2 hours in between. Working several shifts in a row is sort of like riding the bavarian swings and and not giving yourself enough time to stop being dizzy. For example, I worked breakfast, lunch and dinner yesterday and today, and I'm doing it again tomorrow. All I've done in the last 72 hours is sleep and work, and during the down time I've been working on the quilt, because I'm really not a napper. Napping just doesn't like me or something. I just finished a 22 hour week, I have another 22 hour week starting tomorrow, and school starts again in less than two weeks. I really hate school. I can't help thinking it is terribly inefficient and that there has to be a better way to prove to the world I know my stuff… maybe it's test anxiety, but I'm pretty sure I amaze people with my retention rate. My fellow students sure are amazed. Most of them memorize for the test and forget it all the next day. I, on the other hand, completely bomb the test because I can't remember half the stuff on it, but by God ask me theday before and the day after day, or two years later, and I could give a dissertation on the subject. Its great, people look at me like I just sprouted turquoise pigtales out my ears. I actually had a teacher tell me in a suprised sort of way that here they thought I wasn't paying attention in class.

Right now, I really just want to go to bed, but I'm pet sitting for a friend, and they live across town. It's dark, and I'm tired and I don't want to ride my bike because it's dark and up hill the whole way to their house and my mom has the only working car at a meeting somewhere. So I think I'll make myself a cup of tea and pin some more things together. Hopefully she'll be home in the next half hour, and I can go feed the cats before I fall asleep sitting up.

28 days left

2007-07-30T19:06:00.000-04:00

it's a rock and roll kind of day. i didn't listen to greed day or the goo goo dolls in high school, I was the one listening to public radio and james taylor. i still tune in quasi religiously for a prairie home companion, car talk and what do you know.

but today, definitely a day for goo goo dolls and flogging molly.

the stool with the paisley and green paint looks great. there's just a few more places on it that need sanded and scraped. i don't know what comes next.

the ocean waves quilt has been the only top this summer to consume my sewing energies. it's totally scrappy, except for the center squares, which I haven't cut yet. I'd always thought the pattern looked really cool, but the idea of set in seams really turned me off. then I found these directions at http://quiltville.com/oceanwaves.shtml and off I went. i thought for sure, naively, that i had enough half triangle squares sewn, but no, half the time spent on this top has been purging odd size and cut pieces of fabric from my stash and cutting them down some more. it's really been a great stash buster, since i get a lot of random pieces from people that came from their sewing projects, mostly clothing. since a lot of the pieces i had didn't exactly finish out into triangles, I've been saving any usable scraps bigger than an inch on either side for ugly quilt. more on that later, it's truly hideous, but I'd rather not ship fabric off to the land fill that I don't have to.

so I'm following the directions from quiltville, and I'm down to sewing together wing triangles and half squares. I also just figured out that I need, if i did the math right, 1.45 yards of fabric from which to cut the triangles larger than 1 1/2" and the squares for the middle. that doesn't count a border. I'd like to do a 1.5" floating border, the pin wheels ( or something) and the 6" border, because with all the movement in the piece, it gives the eyes a break. i really don't do math, but I have to figure out the borders now, since there were no remark es on the website about how much yardage was used. ugh. i don't want to buy something until i know exactly how much a need, because I've gone and bought things before that end up crazy popular, and when i get back tot he store a day or so later to get more, they apologise and say "oh, gee, we don't have anymore" ugh ugh ugh.

and in 28 days, i want my room clean, i want the top finished, i want the stool finished, i'd like the chair finished, but i doubt it, and i want the hutch for my desk done. to the lumber yard. and... go!

antiqueaholic

2007-07-07T16:17:00.000-04:00

I just bought a chair. Two chairs. why? WHY??

College students don't have money to spend on stripper and paint brushes and chemical resistant gloves, masks, sand paper, finishing wash...

But it was so cute. Little rush bottom chair. Abused. Negelected. $3. In need of a good sanding, a new rush bottom, some stain and finish. It has amazing potential. I know nothing about rush work. Zero. Or refinishing... sort of. I got a Hoosier cabinet a few summers ago that I've been stripping red bunnies off of with citrus stripper. It needs a new bottom, and new hinges for all the doors.

The other chair is a little less sorry. It just needs new uphulstry. I have a lot of homework to do now.

sigh…

if my friends ever want to know why I don't have an iPod, or a music or dvd collection, this is why.

rewind

2007-07-01T18:25:00.000-04:00

I was interrupted last time. I already have a blog elsewhere. But it's not specifically for my work, it's more a log of life. I've been trying to update it with my journal from England. I sent post cards home, I wrote of trains and Paris galleries. Now if only there was a special someone to drag over there with me... alas.

I bought a skein of yarn from a shop in Wells, Somerset, England. It's raspberry pink, it's wool, and it matches harmoniously with a scarf I bought the first day I was there. England was experiencing some unseasonably warm weather, but I used that scarf the whole time I was there. The body is raspberry pink and black celtic knots, and the pannels at the ends are cream and tan, zoomorphic birds. The wool is for a hat to match, as one cannot possibly live near Lake Erie and expect to survive the winter with out a hat. Or five. I'd like to try intarsia, but I may get too cold or too impatient and just knit the hat and be done with it. I paid £1.25 for the skein, it was in the bargain bin.

There was a fabric shop in Canterbury, Kent, England. It was just a chain store, not like the yarn shop in Wells, but they had fabric, and they had a remnant table. I couldn't afford anything at £10 a yard. There were two pieces of blue batik that I couldn't leave sitting there. Collectively, that bill came to £5 something. I try not to think in terms of the American dollar, which meant I had paid $10 something American for fabric I probably could have gotten here in the States for a lot cheaper… but how often are you in England??* $2.50 for a skein of high quality wool is a little easier to swallow. I'll make a kitty pi with the left overs.

Just what is kitty pi? http://wendyknits.net/knit/kittybed.htm. That is kitty pi.

looks like this is going to be cut short again…c'est la vie.

*don't answer that question of you have family you see there every summer, or you are swimming in money and can afford to go on a whim.

premire 2007

2007-06-01T13:05:00.000-04:00

ahh... summer.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do next year when I don't have summer. Summer is quilting season. And by quilting I don't mean from start to finish, I just mean tops. Last summer I made... oh now let me see... Irish Sticks and Stones, Postage Stamp, Denim Rag, Star Struck, and a Triple Irish Chain. Oh, and there was that other one, what was it, Jewel Box, I think. This litany reads like a coffee house bill of fare or the list of ice cream flavors at the dairy shrine. Jewel Box actually looks like pink and blue cotton candy, or Superman ice cream... I love Superman more than coffee or french roast or latte or what ever the company happens to call their flavor, but coffee ice cream is easier to find than Superman, so it's still my poison of choice.

Fall and winter are knitting season, and if there's space, that's when I quilt, assuming I have the top, the back and optional batting. My mother put a proverbial hex, taboo and padlock on the sewing machine case and forbid me from sewing during the school year. I was never fond of algebra. Don't ask me to figure out sales tax or percentages in my head it's just not going to happen. I understand the abstract concept of numbers, but to hold them and manipulate them raw in my head doesn't work. Geometry was heaven.