she's at it again

2011-05-11T15:55:00.000-07:00

I haven't been sewing much because I started a new hobby... portrait photography!

pear peril

2010-11-27T22:21:00.000-08:00

I mentioned my failed craft show a few post back...

I wanted to make my niece a play food set for Christmas. I'd made her a cheeseburger that went over great, so I thought I'd add to the set. Then my best friend got a table at a local craft show that we do every year and I figured what the hell, I'll do it. I went back and forth on what to make for a few days, but decided just to go with the play food since I was in manufacturing mode already. So I stocked up on fleece and two weeks later had a nice little pile of goods. I had some cheeseburgers and fries, a bunch of produce and some other random foods. I was pretty proud of myself.

The first day, I sold three things. One to my best friend's mom. One to my best friend's grandma. One to my boss.

The second day, I sold zero things and a lady told me my stuff was "cute, but totally useless." Sounds like some guys I've dated.

So I left totally disheartened, $50 dollars poorer than I was 2 weeks before and I still had a HUGE pile of fleece and no motivation to ever make anything cute and useless again.

But this week I decided, screw that lady! Unless you can eat it, most things are useless so I should just get over it. She's right. BUT, cute and useless is fun! So many people stopped and looked at my stuff. Every kid that walked past picked up the burger and pretended to eat it. A little boy used two carrots as cheerleading pom poms. The guy working in the booth next to mine went home and had steak the first night because he sat looked at my plush steak all day and got a craving for it. I wasn't just letting her ruin my craft fair, I was totally down on crafting in general.

So I got back to my machine and started sewing hardcore this week. I started listing some stuff from the show on etsy and even making more. I'm drafting all my own patterns, which has proven to be interesting and increasingly frustrating. Case in point, pears.

The first one was too weird at the bottom. The second one was too boxy. The third one was somehow more boxy and had a weird thing going on up top.

So I decided to stop using my good fleece and use some junky stuff. Which, of course, was the time that I got the pattern right.

One of these things is not like the other.

So the moral of the story is this: when life hands you grumpy people, make lopsided pears!

currently listening to:

wonky stars taking over my liiiiiife

2010-11-23T22:16:00.000-08:00

Unemployment affords me the luxury to sew all day (it's really the only thing I can afford at this point!) So for the last two days, I've been working on this quilt top that I started last year. A majority of the blocks came from my month of sew connected 3 last September.

There's a combination of 12, 9, 6 and 3 inch blocks which has led to me being incredibly indecisive and nitpicky about the placement. A lot of time goes in to giving something the appearance of randomness! I've decided to piece the blocks in to 24" blocks. One down, eleven to go!

I had a stroke of genius/moment of insanity where I decided that my foam ikea mattress would make a great design wall, so I leaned it against the wall and so far so good. It's squishy enough that pins go in without a problem but it's sturdy enough that it stands up on its own. This mattress fits the bed that the quilt is intended for, so it's been nice to see how the placement looks in relation to the size of the bed. And should I need a nap mid-sewing, I just need to tip it over and I'm good to go.

Working on this quilt has given me more inspiration than I thought possible. I haven't sewn in pretty much a year. I woke up in the night thinking of things I wanted to make. It feels great.

I also woke up with an extreme affection for Jon Bon Jovi. Been listening to him all day... I'm pretty sure it's impossible to not rock out to this jam:

is anyone out there?

2010-11-22T11:09:00.000-08:00

Hello blog land? I'm back!

Since the last time I blogged I...

-graduated college
-moved out of San Francisco and back with... my parents
-got a full time job
-stopped sewing
-ended my 5 year relationship
-had the most epic fun summer ever in the history of my life
-lost my job
-started sewing

So, now that I'm unemployed (but diligently looking for work) I now have time to...
-go to the gym, which I hate more than anything
-sell a bunch of junk of craigslist and ebay
-finish some quilts I started, and of course start some more
-do a craft show, which was an EPIC FAIL
-list all my unsold things from the craft fair (um, all of them) on etsy
-make some Christmas presents
-do my hair fancy every single day! This brings me great excitement.
-blog. See?

I was hesitant to start blogging again because my interests are all over the place these days. I read as many fashion and music blogs as I do sewing ones. So my genius plan is to smoosh it all in to one blog. Maybe cover what I'm sewing, what I'm wearing and what I'm listening to in each post. That sounds like a surefire way to alienate every reader in some way but I'll give it a go and see what happens.

and because blogs are no fun without pictures, this is the thing I miss most about San Francisco... watching the sun set over the ocean every single day.

where does the time go?!

2009-10-13T21:31:00.000-07:00

It's amazing how fast time goes. I think the last post I made was about 4th of July and it's almost Halloween!

In the last few months, a lot has happened.

I turned in my petition to graduate. I will take my last ever test as an undergrand on December 17th. Woohoo!

I got a new roommate; this one from Australia. It's fun!

I had another birthday; celebrated with a gallon of Mitchells chocolate ice cream and a scoop of avocado ice cream for good measure.

More recently, I cut off about 8 inches of hair. It feels great to chop off a ponytail. It's so liberating.

Frankenstein got a new hat:

Today, we had a fanatical wind and rain storm, which somehow snuck inside my house in the form of a massive ceiling leak. This happen before (last year) and my room is (once again) tarped and unusable. The best part is that I don't even have a roof; there are other apartments on top of mine. The wind was blowing the rain sideways, which seeped in through the window frames. Why do these things only happen during midterms or right before a vacation? The last leak happened the day before I left for a week in New York. Today we also had an earthquake and a bunch of big trees falling all around where I live. Apocalypse, much?

So that's pretty much a recap on life at the moment. I feel like such a weiner that I don't update often for my 7 followers. I check my google reader every day and get irritated when the bloggers I subscribe to don't update. Then there's Perez Hilton who updates 50+ times a day... and I read every single one of them. Anyway, the point is that I haven't been updating because I haven't been sewing, but there is a lot more to life than sewing. I'm in my last 2 months of this great city, living with someone who is quickly becoming one of my best friends, enjoying having a car, cooking real food every day, packing for my move, getting ready to graduate, laughing until I can't laugh any more and working my little buns off on Wii fit. So maybe I should get out of my blogging box and open up a little, huh?

5th of July

2009-07-05T20:54:00.000-07:00

Let me be honest here and say that I HATE THE FOURTH OF JULY. I love America, I love history, I love my freedom, I come from a military family and support the troops, I love Obama, I love barbecue, but I can't frigging stand fireworks. I am scared of fireworks. Besides the fact they they are disgustingly polluting they are also frigging loud. It all started when my parents made me go to one of those 30,000-people-in-a-stadium firework extravaganzas when I was a child called 'Stadium of Fire.' That year, the event coincided with a freak lightning storm and I was pretty convinced that the apocalypse was happening right that second. The combination was enough to make me hate fireworks forever. I even boycott the fireworks that you buy from the stand on the side of the road. I hate them.

But I didn't let those stinky, loud, expensive fireworks ruin my day. I put on my best blue dress and red lipstick and went to the local farmers market where hotdogs only cost $1, but my heirloom tomato cost $5. San Francisco, you never fail to amaze me! Here is what $20 got me at the farmer's market:

And yes, those hotdogs were both for me. The boyfriend had 2 also. I couldn't pass up that awesome deal in a city where one stinking tomato costs $5!

Anyway, I hope everyone out there in blog land had a nice 4th of July whether you celebrate it or it's just another day.

feeling so hexy

2009-06-28T16:03:00.000-07:00

So when my roommate moved, she didn't have enough room to take all her fabric with her. I know, my life sucks, huh? Among the treasures left behind was a Gypsy Rose jelly roll. It's not my normal color scheme and it's not something I would have normall bought, but I really like how this quilt turned out.

Using comforstitching's half hexagon tutorial I made this top over a few days. It went together really easily and I only flipped a directional print a few times. Gah. The flickr pool has some really nice quilts getting added daily as the quilt-a-long comes to a close.

I thought about buying another jelly roll and making it longer, but I decided against it. It's a nice size--about 44"x56". It's the right size for me to comfortably stipple so that's what I'll do.

Thanks for the fabric Stephanie :) I promise I'll finish it soon!

summer summer summertime

2009-06-14T17:09:00.001-07:00

Ayyy. I love summer despite the fact that I'm in summer school. I only have classes 2 days a week right now, so I've been spending a lot of time cooking, sleeping, sewing and all of the other things that I don't do very much during the regular school year. Somehow my camera is lost in my apartment, which makes me think I should replace some of my sleeping with cleaning.

Highlights of the summer so far:

-getting a brand spanking new Kitchenaid stand mixer for $163 out the door at a department store closing. I told the lady that was ringing me up that I thought I'd have to get married to get one of these mixers. Thank you, recession; you came through for me again.

-while walking to my apartment, Matt saying "look, an Irish flag in the window," and pumping his fists in a fit of Irish pride; when I looked up at the window, a naked man jumped on to the windowsill and shook his junk right at us while Matt was still pumping his fists in the air. Talk about delayed reaction!

-getting to spend 2 weeks with my dogs while my parents were on vacation. I really miss those stinky little monsters. I also miss living in a house, with a yard, and a barbeque, and a car. My life in SF is great in it's own way, but I spent 19 years in the suburbs and it's just such a comfortable, easy way of life. I can't wait to go back on a more permanent basis.

-on a high note, I finally saw the bird that wakes me up every morning. I've been trying for a year to see what bird(s) made the song. I finally did when I was walking home from the bodega. It's a tiny little thing--I was expecting something bigger.

-seeing 'Up.' It was pretty heavy for a kids movie, but I really liked it. Matt went to the bathroom and proclaimed that we were never seeing a kids movie in public again, even if we have kids. Apparently, unsupervised little boys don't keep a public bathroom very tidy.

-starting and finishing an entire quilt top in 4 days using comfortstitching's half hexagon tutorial.

-did I mention the sleeping, sewing and cooking? WOW. I just love it.

I hope that in the next few days I can find my camera and post some pictures. Nobody reads posts without words so I better find that camera!

and the winner is.....

2009-06-01T08:58:00.001-07:00

So last week I had a giveaway to reward the person who came up with the best name for this photo:

aaaaaaaaaaand the winner is:

"We be canoodling" by jules@mooncarfarms. 'Canoodling' is one of my favorite words and it is far underused, so for that you are rewarded with thread snips and quilting gloves!

but good news for Lisa, because she is the runner up with "failure to cytokinese." I thought this entry was really witty and it also appealed to the science nerd in me, so you will both get a prize! Lisa, you didn't leave your email address so I will try to hunt you down. Please email me if you see this!

I will try to email you both and get your information, but if you beat me to it you can go ahead and email me at flashleyashley@gmail.com to give me you mailing address.

Thanks for playing, guys! There were some really funny entries and it was hard to pick a winner.

RIP Al Pal

2009-05-27T11:33:00.000-07:00

the giveaway is still going on--check the next post for details!!

About 2 months ago, the family dog of my boyfriend passed away. Alex was the only dog that I ever met who actually knew how to get the newspaper in the morning. He was the nicest and sweetest dog and is very missed. He was well until the day he died, so it was a horrible shock for everyone. I asked my best friend ever, Amy, if she could help me with a project to remember him by. I gave her a picture of Alex with my boyfriend and asked her to screenprint a bunch of squares so I could make a quilt. She made an excellent line drawing, made a screen of it and went to town printing dozens of squares for me. I love it. The picture reminds us of a happy time and I think the drawing captures the feeling perfectly.

Amy is the recipient of the Recess quilt posted a few weeks ago. I think it worked out to be a nice trade! I love having friends who are so creative and awesome.

giveaway!

2009-05-26T23:06:00.000-07:00

Hooray--it's time for a contest! I have never hosted one before, so it's exciting. Make sure to read the rules and enable me to see your email address so I can notify you if you win! :)

THE CONTEST IS OVER NOW, but you can still name the picture if you feel so inclined.

Up for grabs are some notions that aren't glamorous, but very useful: gripping gloves for machine quilting and thread snips. I know, I know...not handmade and not creative, but I find that I am always lacking some basic supply when I sit down to do a project. I thought I'd try to help you guys out.

To enter, you need to leave a comment on this post giving the following photo a name. I will pick my favorite answer on Sunday afternoon:

It's my dogs in a rare moment of cuddling. These girls have a love/hate relationship. The one on the left is insane and the one on the right is blind and sweet and mellow.

*ETA: Please make sure to enter your email address or enable people to see your profile so I can track you down. Comments that don't name the picture and just say that you want to win will get deleted-- I know, I run a tough ship here. There have been so great entries, so keep them coming! Good luck!

bird block, bird pattern

2009-05-09T14:36:00.000-07:00

So when I got Sunnynole's fabric for sc3, I knew I wanted to make a bird block. I didn't see any patterns on the internet that I liked and I still don't have EQ6 on my new computer, so I was a little stumped. I decided to make my own pattern. I figured that all patterns are made by someone, so I should be able to figure it out....right?

Kinda. She sent a little piece of Park Slope fabric with birds on it, so I used those birds as the inspiration. I drew a bird, and then tried to figure out how to chop it up. Where the tail meets the bum is a little wonky and it has no legs or eyes. It reminds me of the birds that I see downtown who are a little bit rough from living the hard life.

If anyone wants to make a legless, eyeless bird then it is your lucky day! Here is a pattern for you. I also made a .pdf for easy printing, but don't have a place to host it. I can email it to anyone who wants it, though. My bird block was a little over 4" square.

guinea pig parenting at it's finest

2009-05-08T23:19:00.000-07:00

I'm so lame for not posting in 3 weeks!

I've had a really long, tiring few weeks getting ready for finals. On Wednesday, I had the biggest presentation of the semester and got to play business lady for an hour. Just when I thought I could rest easy, Frankenstein got sick and kept me up literally all night with a horrible choking sound. I spent Thursday at the vet watching him get violated in every oriface possible. He made so many poops that they had to change the towel FOUR TIMES. I was half way expecting them to charge me for all the laundry they were going to have to do.

In the end, Frankenstein doesn't have any internal problem (that she could find) but she thinks maybe he choked on his food and had an irritation in this throat. He did have a skin problem and got some medicine for it. He acted very unlike himself the rest of the day and I was pretty convinced that there was still something very wrong. I really thought that he was going to die from the stress (2 cab rides, nails clipped, his mouth washed out with solution, a phsyical examination, skin scrapings, eye exam, his temperature "the hard way".) Guinea pigs handle stress 2 ways: they freeze or they stampede. Frankenstein spent all day at the vets trying to stampede, and all night frozen at home. He wouldn't look at me and when I turned his house around so I could see him through the door, he would turn it back around so I couldn't see him. I just cried and cried and cried. Today he is back to his cute, squeaking, carrot-loving self so hopefully things will keep getting better. I just hate giving him medicine and I can't stop thinking about his tiny little liver trying to metabolize the drug. Ugh. It kills me.

The only highlight of the day was the cab ride home.

Cab driver: I never see a bird that looks like that before.

Me: It's a guinea pig, it's a rodent...kind of like a rabbit.

Cab Driver: ...So what kind of bird is it?

the song in my head

2009-04-21T14:57:00.000-07:00

The TV in my house is always on for some background noise. I was half sewing, half watching an MTV show called 'Taking the Stage' the other day and this girl song came on it. Never mind the actual high school drama and general lameness of the show, this girl so so talented and this song has been in my head since I first heard it. I can't get it out. I don't even like this kind of music, but I still love this song.

Mia Carruthers: Breathe You In

Recess quilt--check

2009-04-20T15:04:00.000-07:00

The entire time I was working on this quilt, it was reminding me of my best friend. I think it was the ruler fabric that did it. Regardless, I decided that I will give it to her next time that I'm in town. I thought about waiting until Christmas, but I'd rather give her a present for no reason because everyone likes a present for no reason, right?

I quilted and bound it in a few hours yesterday. It's so fun & easy to quilt a small quilt. This one is only 36x60" so it just flew by. I took the time the baste, baste, baste and I got no crinkles on the back for the first time ever. I don't think I said one bad word--it's a miracle!

childhood beverage of choice

2009-04-18T15:18:00.000-07:00

So to answer the question from the last post: I did make the pattern. I googled for some Mario sprites and then mapped it out in EQ6. I then flipped the image and changed the red to green to make Luigi. I fully intended to post the pattern on here, but I'm having issues doing it. I can't install EQ6 on my mac & therefore can't open the images from EQ6 that I salvaged from my old computer. Frustrating!

Anyway.

My mom used to take me to Baskin Robbins after school sometimes when I was a kid and she would order an ice cream soda. It's definitely something that isn't for everyone, but I love them. I was feeling homesick yesterday and had to make one. I went to the bodega and bought a basket full of ice cream, soda, chocolate syrup, cans of soup and a Kinder egg. There is usually nobody there, but it was Friday night. There were 10 people in line in front of me and all of them were buying alcohol and/or cigarettes. I'm pretty sure my night ended better than theirs did!

1. squirt chocolate syrup around inside of cup

2. fill cup 2/3 full with club soda
3. top with a scoop of chocolate ice cream
4. watch the fizz, cause it will over flow if you aren't careful
5. drink to your hearts content

Mario and Luigi head to Utah

2009-04-14T21:55:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the motivation of my roommate, I finally finished the Mario/Luigi quilt. It was supposed to be done for my nephew's birthday in February, but I got sick of the quilting and kind of gave up on it. My sister's family lives in Utah and it's often cold and snowy so I wanted it to be warm. It has 2 layers of batting, so it was SUPER fun to squish it all in to the machine. See how much I looooved it? Anyway, this weekend Stephanie was my cheerleader while I did the last bit of quilting and the binding. And now it's done and I'm so happy to send it to it's new home. It's somewhat of an awkward sized twin (45x90) but I think he'll like it. The front is old school pixelated Mario & Luigi, but the back has some new school Mario action. He's only 13 so I'm not even sure he's payed a NES Mario game. Kids these days are really missing out.

jelly roll madness

2009-04-04T00:20:00.000-07:00

I bought a 'Recess' jelly roll on eBay a few weeks ago for $15 and here is what I've done with it so far. I just bought it because it was cheap and but I no idea what I'd do with it. I decided that since the strips were already cut, maybe I'd practice a quarter log cabin quilt before doing my Mendocino quilt in the same pattern. I changed the order of the quarter blocks about a million times. It started out randomly placed, then the outside square was the same color and the inside squares were different, then I hated that so I ripped a bunch of seams and made each block have just 2 colors. I have to finishes sewing the blocks and then rearrange them more logically tomorrow. After 9 hours of looking at this fabric, I'm so sick of it. We watched Edward Scissorhands, Juno, Little Miss Sunshine and 3 episodes of House while working on this thing...

bushfire blocks

2009-03-31T11:52:00.001-07:00

I am loving this new computer. Everything is easier. Well, almost everything. On my old computer, I could just stick my camera's memory card directly into the computer and I didn't need the USB cord. The new computer doesn't have that feature and being that I have no camera cord, I have no way to transfer photos for the moment. I'm hoping to replace the camera, but will probably have to replace the cord since I spent all the money yesterday. I can't win them all!

So since I can't post any new pictures, I will post one that I meant to post a long time ago! Like a lot of you other bloggers, I made some blocks for Tia's bushfire quilt project. The quilts that are coming out of this project are really, really awesome and I'll be excited when I see my blocks in one (or a couple) of them.

new laptop = human again

2009-03-30T18:27:00.000-07:00

YAY ME! Today I got a new laptop. I am now a Mac girl.

For the last 3 months, I've been struggling with my Toshiba laptop. It wouldn't hold a charge. I bought a new power plug and a battery around Christmas and all was going well until about 2 weeks ago. It got to the point where I had to wiggle the power plug around until I found the sweet spot...and then hold it there...for hours... It took me an HOUR of wiggling to get the little blue 'charging' light to come on the last time I charged it. It finally just straight up died this weekend. Thankfully I was able to get my external hard drive from my dad and back up all my pictures, music and documents while it was on it's last leg.

It took some serious convincing but my dad gave in. Today I finally got to the bookstore and bought it. I'm so, so, so happy.

See you in Hell, Toshiba!

giving eq6 a workout

2009-03-11T23:36:00.000-07:00

My big excitement on my 21st birthday was getting EQ6. That was 6 months ago and I haven't really used it. After getting another yard of Mendocino fabric in the mail today, I though I'd plot of a general idea of what I want to do with all of this lovely fabric. After doing 3 rounds of LQS on Craftster, I have 3 sampler quilts in the works/done. For my month in sew connected 3 I decided that I will ask people to make me a specific block: the quarter log cabin. It's easy and fun to put together (I think so anyway!) I figured that they could either make a few 'quarters' that are each 6" or sew 4 of them together to make a 12" block. It would be nice to have both so that I could arrange them easier since I want each 12" block to be different.

Anyway, here is my rough idea of that I want it to look like. I used the solid brown and white as my basic lights and darks and then went over them with the Mendocino fabrics. I haven't picked out all of the fabrics yet, but am enjoying the hunt and trying really hard to stop hating orange.

would you like some cookies?

2009-03-10T16:38:00.001-07:00

My parents have a sign in their window that says ‘no solicitiation…unless you’re selling cookies, then it’s ok.’ I made it and put it up because Girl Scouts truly are the only people welcome at my door without an invitation. When I was growing up, it was normal for people to come to the door to sell you food. Most of my summertime calories as a child came in the form of half-melted ice cream from a one-armed Indian man that drove a rusty truck full of freezers down my block. It was fantastic. Sometimes the doorbell would ring and I’d look out the window and see a little man with a dolly laden with boxes of un-ripened strawberries waiting patiently at the door. “Fresas, lady?” Sometimes the door-to-door tamale lady would come by but that is where I draw the line. I do not buy tamales from strangers that come to my door. That’s just ridiculous.
Anyway, I digress. Imagine my shock and awe when I opened my apartment door and found two little girls with a basket of cookies greeting me. This was an awesome surprise since I live in a security building with fancy key codes and secret cameras. How did these girls find their way in? Maybe they live here. I didn’t have time to learn the logistics; the point was that they have cookies and they were AT MY DOOR. I asked if they had any Caramel Delights, to which they replied, ‘no, but we have Samoas.’ What? Samoas? WHAT?! Just a week before, Matt’s mom had emailed me to tell me that the Girl Scouts had changed the name of my most favorite cookie ever, the Samoa, to ‘Caramel Delights’ for some unknown reason. She even bought me a box to 'Caramel Delights' to show me. It was then that I realized that these girls just looked like regular girls, not scouts. They were wearing Hannah Montana shirts and no green sashes or berets. They had no badges and I had no reason to believe that they were anything but Disney loving girls who robbed some legitimate Girl Scouts of their cookies and then broke in to my building to sell the black market confectionaries.
I bought a box… but not the Samoas. I just felt weird. I got the shortbreads instead. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. However, these girls needed to be praised for their bravery of doing door to door to all the crazies (myself included.) I have been eating one cookie a day so that of they were poised by these “Girl Scouts” maybe I wouldn’t die so quickly. These cookies have been a constant source of paranoia for me for a WEEK now. A whole week.
Imagine my surprise and relief when I was riding the train this weekend and happened to look out the window at the perfect moment and saw MY Girl Scouts in uniform with a table full of cookies. I will probably eat the whole rest of the box of cookies today.
I looked in to it more and it turns out that the name of the cookie is dependent on what company the troop buys their cookies from. So 'Caramel Delights' are legit, though still not as catchy as 'Samoas.' I remain suspicious about that whole situation, though.

sunday stash

2009-03-08T14:38:00.001-07:00

wow, so I really am terrible about updating this thing! But rest assured that I frequently update in my head.

Yesterday, my housemate and I went to the SF Quilt Guild show. It was fun. I took a bunch of pictures that I will post tomorrow. The best part about it was that I FINALLY caved and bought the fabrics for my month (September) of SC3. All of the fabrics (except one) are from the Mendocino line and I loooooove them. I know they're not exciting or new and everyone and their mom has made something with them, but it doesn't stop me from wholeheartedly loving them. This line is also one of the few that my boyfriend likes too. He (strangely) has a taste for SUPER kawaii and ridiculous novelty fabric, so this is a good middle point for us. I'll be getting a few more prints from the line, as well as adding some solids and maybe some orange prints. I am trying to force myself to get over my distaste for orange. Mixing it with my two other favorite colors, aqua and brown, really makes it easier.

it's Sunday, time to tidy up

2009-02-15T23:28:00.000-08:00

Every Sunday night (before Rock of Love, of course!) my roommate and I pick up the living room and clean up all of our sewing messes. It's depressing when there is nothing fun going on in there. By tomorrow afternoon it will be back to normal.

Before I forget, I feel the urge to tell everyone I know (and apparently all you strangers in blogland) to PLEASE see 'Slumdog Millionaire.' Really, it's so worth the $10.

This week I...
-machine stitched the binding on my apple quilt and started handstitching it on the back
-finished piecing my Mario/Luigi top and started quilting it
-finished up my last 8(!!!) blocks for the craftster swap
-made 4 squares for the Bushfire Quilt Project. I have a bunch more in the works.
-loom knit a cowl for my former roommate...it was supposed to be a Valentines present but that didn't happen

Here I am being oh-so-frumpy-and-in-my-pajamas-in-3-in-the-afternoon quilting the Mario/Luigi monstrosity.

quilting--check!

2009-02-06T22:45:00.000-08:00

As I suspected, school has been crazy. So far, my classes are pretty difficult but a little bit enjoyable. I think I'm better at math than I thought I was because I'm really loving my finance class right now. We'll see if I still love it when midterms roll around...

But in the meantime, I found time to quilt my top from LQ3 I posted a few weeks ago. I had stippled placemats and a doll quilt before, but nothing this big. I had some serious issues with the back getting all creased and terrible. I pinned a million places, but still ended up with puckers and creases all over. I think I'm going to have to find a better method of basting--any ideas??

Anyway, here is the quilt. I haven't decided on a binding color yet. I have some other more important projects to think about so I will hold off on that. I was thinking that the blue from the apple fabric would be good, but my local fabric store doesn't have the right shade. I was also thinking white, but who knows. Decisions, decisions!

the end of freedom...

2009-01-24T23:00:00.000-08:00

I start school again on Monday, so I've been trying to finish up some loose ends before I get busy beyond my wildest dreams.

Firstly, I worked on some blocks for round 4 of the lap quilt swap for maremare, gordongirl and 1boy1girl1kitty2. The first two are from Carol Doak's book, Simpy Sensational 9-Patch Stars and the other block was just improvised.

Then I finished putting together my quilt top from round 3 of the lap quilt swap. I'm SO glad to have this project semi-done. For the sashing, I pulled the greenish-yellow from the inside of the apples. I used scraps to make the cornerstones, which I've never done before and really like the look of. I'm working on putting together the pieced backing and will hopefully get around to quilting it some time in the next few months. I plan on taking it to my parent's house and putting it on my bed there, since it's a twin and the room is green.

So now I've crossed off two of the biggest projects of my list for the year already. Now, back to real life...

.best.weather.ever.

2009-01-17T10:43:00.001-08:00

While most of the country is freezing, San Francisco is more gorgeous than normal. We went to the Golden Gate a few days ago, which was fantastic. I've driven over the bridge about a million times and every time I see a peep of the towers as I round the hill on 101, I always squeal with delight. Every time. But I'd never actually stopped to take the time to walk on the bridge. With the arrival of the new roommate and having the car this week, I decided that it had to be done. We walked almost to the first tower and stopped to take pictures...it was then that I realized that the bridge is shakey! I was fine with the height, fine with the water under me, fine with the cars passing at 45mph, but the shakes? Nope, not cool. It was worth it to do, but I think next time I will just not stop walking!

Here's a picture from that day of me and the boy. It's not a great picture of either of us, but check out that background! I think it looks photoshopped.

new roommate, new fabric

2009-01-15T11:31:00.000-08:00

I think the best and worst part of being a college student is having a roommate. Lucky for me, I have a 2 bedroom apartment, so I have more of a 'flatmate' than a 'roommate.' Anyway- my first flatmate was a disaster. She was a disgusting, stinky crybaby (no exaggeration here people, it was bad.) After the longest semester of my life, she left and I had the pleasure of having the best ever flatmate known to man. My second flatmate was from Germany and didn't have any furniture here, so I wrangled up some extra stuff from my parent's house and made it a furnished room. When she left last month I was very sad (and still am) but opted to find another international student because I didn't want to move the furniture. And I did. And she arrived from France yesterday...BEARING GIFTS!

She sews and knew that I did also, and brought me 5 half-meter pieces of some really lovely cottons. This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

cross one off the list!

2009-01-14T21:41:00.000-08:00

I really want to make a legitimate try at this blogging thing. Besides the obvious new and exciting things, like the new president and the ever-present economic crisis, it should very well be an interesting year on a personal note. This is the year that me and Matt both turn 22, graduate college, move out of San Francisco and (hopefully) get real jobs. I just signed up for not 1 or 2 but SIX terrible upper division business classes and I'm counting on it being pretty rough. When thinking about this upcoming semester, I am not worried about the time spent studying or the $800 I'm about to spend on books or how in the world I am going to stay awake for corporate accounting...I'm thinking 'when will I have time to do crafts?'

I want to do the 50 projects craft-a-long that I saw on craftster, but instead I just made a list of goals/projects that I'd like to work on for this year. So far there are 31 and I've gotten to cross one of them off the list! On this list are several quilt tops that I'd like to finish, quilting said quilt tops, finally learning to knit, making some clothes from the Built By Wendy patterns I bought years ago, and sewing about 15 buttons off of various shirts and coats. The latter is not really a craft project, but I get satisfaction from crossing things off of lists and if I put it on the list I might actually do it.

Anyway, the first thing on the list and amazingly, the first thing crossed off the list is a quilt top for my mom and dad. I started this quilt about 3 years ago when I took a class by the pattern designer, Tracy Brookshier. I worked really hard that day...and then didn't touch it until this December when I decided I wanted to finish it for Christmas. I put it about 30 hours on it during the last week before Christmas and intended to finish it up at their house on Christmas Eve, only to find out that the sewing machine at their house has been stipped of all of it's feet! The sad part is, I think I was the one who did it. Anyway, I gave the top to them unfinished and finished it this week before I left back to the city. My mom seemed to really love it. She and I picked out the fabrics together over several months and at several shops, so she better like it! The pattern is called 'Japanese jigsaw' and like I said, is written by Tracy Brookshier. It's not a hard quilt to make, but it is assembled on the diagonal and requires a bit of planning ahead. Oh, and this one is over 86" on each side. Ouch! This will be sent out for professional quilting some time in the next month, I hope.

Anyway, here it is. Ignore the jagged edges as they will but trimmed off before adding a border. It's on the king sized bed.

back with a tiny, tiny quilt.

2008-12-14T11:55:00.000-08:00

I've been meaning to get back to blogging for MONTHS, but I've lacking motivation (and things to blog about!) Since the semester is rapidly coming to a close and Christmas is approaching equally as fast, I've been getting a lot of sewing done over the last few weeks.

Over the last two nights I made this doll quilt for my niece, Isabella. I love tiny patchwork and instant gratification, so this project was the perfect thing to keep me occupied between studying for finals. I plan on making a little doll (maybe a black apple doll) to go with it. I used an Aunt Grace charm pack for the patchwork, which is how I discovered that I hate sewing with fabric with pinked edges. Because I just couldn't match up the edges well enough, I trimmed the blocks down and made even tinier patchwork than I'd originally intended to.

Here is the finished product. It measures about 18"x16" and has a tiny 1/4" binding. After I'd done a bobbin's worth of quilting, I flipped over the quilt and realized that I had quilted over a big crease in the fabric. So I ripped it all out and re-did it. Again, I quilted a crease, but not as bad as the first time and there is absolutely no way I am fixing it. Sorry, Bella.

I am trying to get my free-motion confidence up before tackling a full sized quilt. Besides the giant creases on the backing, I think I can do it. Maybe if I basted, pinned or started from the middle like I'm supposed to things would be easier!

still alive!

2008-07-17T22:05:00.000-07:00

I'm terrible about remembering to update my blog. That doesn't mean I haven't been busy making things, though!
My favorite thing I've made recently is this pincushion for the 'pretty little pincushion swap' on craftster. My partner hasn't gotten it yet, though I doubt she'll see this so it's safe to post.
I've been inspired by the recent influx of dotee dollsI've seen lately. I like things that can stand up on their own, so I made her look like one of those toys from the eighties that weeble wobble but don't fall down. The hair took a while to do, as I was sewing it all from the inside after I made the body; I learned my lesson on that one!

aebelskivers or bust!

2008-04-08T22:33:00.000-07:00

going car crazy

cuteness surrounds you in Solvangmmm aebelskivers!

why yes, I do have rather large clogs

big bird
little birds
the obligatory giant sunglasses shot

So I'm finally used to life without pastries for every meal and windmills on every corner. Oh Solvang, how I miss you! Me and Matt had lots of fun getting fat[ter] and gambling away the casino's money [and some of my own, because I am a big loser] and can't wait to go back. I am a super bad protographer and didn't even take any pictures of us with Casey and Lindsay, but it was a blast feeding ostriches and drinking free casino soda with them. I want to go back in the summer time.

back on the horse

2008-04-05T14:52:00.000-07:00

After a long time of not sewing, I finally had the time and energy to make something. This is the first pattern I've used in atleast 6 months. I got it from a supply swap box from my crafting pen-pal Marie over on http://craftster.org .

I used Butterick 4822, but I added a zippered pocket and keyring on the interior. I like how it turned out, but I remembered why I hate using patterns. I have a serious problem following directions and I did quite a bit of seam ripping.

Colorado

2007-06-06T22:33:00.000-07:00

Matt's mom was amazing enough to give us her frequent flyer miles and let us take a vacation to celebrate our very recent graduation from Community College. FINALLY.

For various reasons we chose to go to Denver, Colorado.

I'd planned it to the max, and made reservations at the Hostel and set up an itinerary that was all within walking distance. I'd added up all the costs, and the whole trip was supposed to cost $300.

After taking a bus for an hour into a city that we'd never been to and walking with all our luggage on out backs, we got to the hostel where we were informed that they'd lost our reservations. An amazing barista from the cafe down the street found us a hotel and even gave us a ride there in the bakery minivan. After waking up at 4AM to get to the airport, it was sufficiently the longest day of my life.

But the rest of the vacation was awesome. We went to the Denver Art Museum and saw some amazing work. I got to see some of Georia O'Keeffe work, which I adore. We also saw some Warhol soup can screen prints which was my favorite part of the whole trip.

We went to the Colorado History Museum, where we met a bison.

We went to the US Mint and saw pennies be made. The US Mint is one of the few government agencies that isn't funded by tax money. They make a profit, and help pay off the National Debt. They told us to use gold dollar coins instead of paper dollars because it makes a big profit and helps stimulate the economy. Carrying gold dollars makes me feel like a pirate, so I will oblige.

It might be ridiculous and cliche, but I was absolutely dying to see the "Real World" house. I found it! It looks pretty rundown and desolate, but I didn't care. I actually went to it twice, as it was conveniently right next to Coors Field.

We went to a Rockies game, and went early for autographs. Because I forced Matt to see the MTV crap, I obliged and even had fun. Fun until I got the worst sunburn...ever. But before the burn, I got to see my favorite baseball player and the handsomest 43 year old, Steve Finley, play in his last game before getting sent down tot he minor leagues. Our seats were right behind Ken Griffey, JR. and it was all in all a good time.

It was fun, I'm glad I'm home now. I missed my dogs and my g.pig and my mom and dad. I don't know how I'm going to move away.

2007-03-23T19:32:00.000-07:00

I filled out my application for www.thebizarrebazaar.com but my pictures were too big, so it didn't go through.

I guess it's a sign that I can't really afford $125 for a table anyway...

Puppy Love

2007-03-18T18:30:00.000-07:00

This is my dog Evita. She's blind and we just found out she has cancer. She's having surgery on Thursday and I wanted her to have a fun day so i took her to the park to play. She can run pretty fast for being blind.

Frankenstein, you blow my mind.

2007-03-13T18:05:00.000-07:00

This is what my sewing room, also known as "kitchen" looks like right now:
and this is what Frankenstein looks like taking a bath:

Which, of course, means that it's midterm week and I'm procrastinating.