I'm going to try to make my first quilt

I've been itching to try quilting for a while now actually. Then when I heard that the Stitch House in Dorchester is offering a free quilt workshop, I decided now's the time to start on my very first quilt. I won't be able to make it to all three of the workshop sessions so I'll just be doing it on my own with the help from a couple of friends, but I think it's a pretty good class idea. The workshop/guidance is free but they require that you buy the fabric from them (approx. $55) which seems reasonable when you're buying 11 different patterns of gorgeous Amy Butler fabric.

So here's the pattern I'm going to try to do:

I already had some fun Amy Butler fabric on hand (it's the same fabric of a bag I bought in Seattle during our honeymoon), so I'm going to use that as my base. I also had some coordinating fabrics to go with it, and then I found a couple more in solid tones to match at the Fabric Corner the other day. So now I'm at 6 out of the 11 different patterns needed cut into 18 - 4.5"x7.5" rectangles.

And of course, knowing me, I already have my 2nd quilt idea planned out. (I know, crazy doesn't even begin to describe it.) For this one, I wanted to use the black and white fabric I have on hand. Some of the stuff I had at home had some yellow in it too, so I picked up a couple of fun, bold patterns at the fabric store. I am in love with this particular pattern and may have to go back to get more to make up the backside of the quilt.

I don't have a particular pattern to work with for this quilt idea, so I've just cut the fabric into 4" squares and a couple of larger 8" squares. I'm looking forward to just playing around with this configuration.

Wish me luck! I'll be sure to post progress photos as I go.

Happy crafting! :)

foiled saturday plans due to rain

Oh rain rain ... it's good to have you here because it has been uncomfortably hot, humid, and muggy this past week. But why did you have to ruin my Saturday plans? I was going to go to the craft show in Union Square and then have some yummy drinks and food at the Indo afterward. But to think about walking there in this? No way.



I suppose there's always Sunday. Sigh.

a week full of cards

With Somerville Open Studios right around the corner (eeeeek! next weekend! oh my!!), I've been trying (said very lightly, I'm afraid) to keep at the card making this week. Although, my husband will tell you, I can be distracted quite easily ("what? a glass of wine? sure, why not?!" ... "a date night? okay okay."). Okay, make that very easily.

But I have to say, I'm proud of myself for being able to churn out a few new designs this week. And here they are ... also available in my Etsy shop.




Something a little new that I've been doing lately are these mini note cards. They're 3" square and perfect for my littler stamps.




Okay, so wish me luck that this weekend will turn out to be a productive one! I've got so many new stamps to play with from Papertrey Ink's latest release, so I hope I can make some cute cards. Stay tuned folks ...

... and TGIF!!!!! At last!!!

:)

north shore yarn crawl 2010

"A yarn crawl? What is a yarn crawl?" That's the reaction I had when I read online about the North Shore Yarn Crawl, and I'm sure it was what my friends were wondering when I sent them the info. Think of it being like a pub crawl only there's no beer involved, just yarn!

We started our day of yarn shopping at a store called Seed Stitch Fine Yarn in Salem, Massachusetts. It's a nice, spacious store with tons of beautiful yarn choices. I really liked how they had a lot of knitted samples next to their yarn to demonstrate ways to use the yarn.

I found this really cool ribbon yarn by On-line Yarn that knits up in ruffles. One of the ladies that works at the shop was kind enough to explain how to pick up just the edge of the yarn (the yarn itself looks like it was knitted) to create the effect. I bought a few skeins to make a scarf in a fun, bright orange shade (in the picture below, it's the skein at the far left) plus some in a grey scheme (the skein underneath the pink knitted sample) for a more conservative palette.

I actually managed to knit up the orange scarf with the two skeins within a few hours. I'll have to take pictures of it and post it later because I like how it turned out, even though it's a little shorter than I had planned.

A few more pictures from this store:


Then we drove up to Marblehead and stopped at a shop called Yarn Over Marblehead. It's a cute little shop where my friend Jessica found a lot of pretty Noro skeins.


The owner suggested this place called Shubie's for us to stop at for lunch. What a great market! They have a huge deli counter full of yummy dishes to choose from, plus a sandwich counter where you can order a custom sandwich. There were some pretty neat food items in the store as well as a huge wine selection. Renee ended up having their udon noodle soup which came in a enormous bowl (she said it was quite yummy), and Jessica and I both had the grilled cheese sandwich.



Our next stop was at the Abbott Yarn Shoppe in Beverly. It was a tiny little shop with tons of yarn crammed into it! The ladies running it were really sweet and even gave us the pattern to these honeycomb mittens (I can't wait to make a pair!).


What really cracked us up was this set of rules for the shop. One of the owners' grandchildren made it and I think everyone should follow these rules.

Then we stopped at Yarns in the Farms which is also in Beverly. Despite the pouring rain, we managed to find a parking spot in some muddy grass and trekked into this cute shop. It's small, too, but packed with tons of yarn.

We saw this little dog at a couple of the stores that day. At least he was well dressed for the rainy weather!

Our last stop was at Coveted Yarns in Gloucester. It was a fairly large store that had a ton of gorgeous yarns, but the lighting was rather dim inside so it was difficult to see the difference between shades. What is neat is that they sell the "seconds" skeins of Lamb's Pride yarn, which honestly, you can hardly tell are "seconds". I grabbed a couple skeins of the bulky weight yarn, and found some pretty teal ribbon yarn (which ended up being a drop-stitch scarf).

I was thoroughly impressed by this wall of Noro yarn:

And here is what ended up being added to my yarn stash at home:

Now if I can just get myself back on track with completing some knitting projects! :)

butterfly wreaths

I was sick last weekend but for some reason, that didn't stop me from doing something crafty. I came across this idea on Elsie Flannigan's blog where she made a cute butterfly wreath. So despite my runny nose and a throat that felt like it was on fire, I trekked out to Michael's and bought all the materials to make not just one, but two of these wreaths. I wasn't even on cold medicine so I can't blame the insanity on that!

It turned out to be super easy and I managed to get both done within an hour. I love little side projects like this because I can just do them quickly and actually complete something. I gave the colorful one to Renee and kept the green one for myself (hmmm, now that's shocking, eh?!).

Honestly, the hardest (read: most time consuming) part was wrapping the wreath bases with the yarn. Elsie used a chunkier yarn (I just had this thin cotton stuff I didn't know what else to do with) so it took a while to get every inch of the base covered.

Michael's had these packages of 12 butterflies for $5 each, so I grabbed two and a couple of larger ones to add for accents. I also got a little green bird to put on mine. Yes, because it was green.


Gotta love the hot glue gun for things like this. :)


There was no real rhyme or reason in the way I glued the butterflies onto the wreath. My wreath ended up being rather sparse in terms of butterflies, but I kind of like the simplicity of it. The large butterfly is actually a clip so I can add more butterflies later if I feel like it and move him around ... but for now I kind of like it like this.



Now hopefully this will make spring come sooner. :)

making valentines

My coworker came up with a great idea: making valentines at work! So we both pulled together some of our crafting supplies, booked one of the conference rooms last Wednesday, and let our coworkers drop in anytime during a three-hour period to make valentines. It was such a great success! We work with some really creative folks, and it was fun to see what people came up with.

I divided up some card bases, envelopes, stickers, glue, ribbon, and decorative scissors amongst three tables and set aside some rubber stamps, ink pads, paper scraps, and foam self-adhesive conversation hearts (found those at Michael's) for people to use.



Here are some of my coworkers busy making their valentines ...


And here are some of the beautiful cards that people made (click the photo to enlarge it so you can see the pretty details) ...

I found one on my desk later that afternoon, pictured here next to Pistachio ...

And speaking of my desk, there's been a new addition (see the cute striped fella) ... Gus Gus. He's made friends with Spike.

It's funny because I feel like we're so much more festive around this holiday than we were back during Christmastime. I guess there's a lot of love to be shared right now, which is a good thing. :)

christmas card book

I was inspired by something that Ali Edwards demonstrated on her blog last May (just one of many links I've had bookmarked as 'favorites' under my 'to do someday' folder) that was basically about taking stuff that you already have on hand and using it to make a mini book.

I put the concept to use for an album of pictures from our west coast trip last November (pics of that project soon to come, once it's finally completed!) and thought to do something with all of the great holiday photo and greeting cards we received in 2009. It's as simple as punching holes and adding a simple cover. So simple that I wish I would've thought about doing it before. Alas, I think this will be a new tradition I'll look forward to doing during that week after Christmas.


I made the cover pieces (6" x 8" each) out of heavy mat board which I covered with some pretty paper that a friend had used to wrap a bottle of wine in for me. I added some American Crafts thickers to spell out Christmas 2009 and recycled the ribbon from the same wine gift as a finishing touch. Not too over the top.

I lined the inside of the covers with some red and white paper, and then adhered our holiday photo/card to the inside. I think it'll be a nice, easy way to look back at the holidays over the years, especially to see the children in the photos grow year to year.

come to the design hive on sunday

If you're in the Cambridge area this Sunday be sure to stop by the Design Hive Market to explore one-of-a-kind creations from local emerging designers and artists. It's from 10 am to 5 pm at the Maria Baldwin School at 28 Sacramento Street (at corner of Oxford Street off Mass Avenue) between Harvard and Porter Squares.

I'll be there with my handmade greeting cards along with a few of my crafty friends (click on the photo above for details). Believe it or not, there will only be 82 days until Christmas by this Sunday - what a great way to get a head start on your holiday shopping and gift giving needs! Hope to see you there!

catching up

Whew. I'm in that stage after I do any type of event where I feel like I have a million other (read: non-craft related) things to catch up on. For instance, posting things on my blogs, chores around the house (sorry, Tony!), and simple things like getting in touch with friends and family (sorry, Linda!). So here's a quick synopsis of the past weekend at the Boston Arts Festival, and then it's off to get some zzzzz's so that I can stop feeling so tired during the daytime.

I have to say that my overall experience during this event was awesome. The crew that organized every detail and helped out the entire weekend were amazingly great. For the registration fee, I received a huge industrial quality (water proof!) tent to use, a 6-foot-long table, two chairs, and they even made each of us a vinyl sign displaying our business names. They provided a really nice bagged lunch each day which consisted of a sandwich, cookie or brownie, apple, and chips as well as gave us bottled water throughout the weekend. The people that worked the event were also available to stand in your place if you needed to take a break during the day. They provided huge containers on wheels where we could pull up on Atlantic Avenue, unload our gear, and they would wheel it to our booth for us. Outstanding help, really ... I couldn't get over how cheerful and polite everyone was despite the icky weather on Friday.

Two people that I found to be extraordinarily helpful were a lady named Marquis and a man named EJ. It was quite windy all day Friday and my sign had blown down twice. Each time, they came by with a tall ladder and fixed it without me even having to ask them for help. I was so touched by their gestures of kindness and willingness to help throughout the day on Friday that I baked some chocolate chip cookies and gave them to them on Sunday in appreciation. I got two very big hugs and smiles which totally made my weekend. :)

Okay so enough of my sappy story telling! Here are some photos from the weekend (click on any of them to enlarge):

This was my booth all set up and ready to go on Friday despite the rain and crazy wind.

This was the sign that they made for my booth. Isn't it nice? I mean, yes, it's plain but having everyone's with the same format really made the entire show look orderly. Unfortunately, they wouldn't let me take it afterwards but it sure was nice having something to use during the show.

A view of the Financial District from where we were with a shot of the Custom House Tower on the left. Tony used to work in the glass building on the left, and we both used to work in one of the buildings on the right (that's where we met!).


To my right was Claudia Kaufman and her beautiful still-life paintings and prints. My favorite piece of her work was this painting of a loaf of challah bread in a plastic bag. Doesn't it look like it's a photograph?!

And to my left was Connie Barbour of Migrant Wind Prints with beautiful silkscreened prints. I met Amy Hitchcock who was across from me with her gorgeous pieces of assemblage and collages created out of found items. Brian from Boston Coasters was there with his neat stuff, and not too far down from the Dyslexic Press who had this t-shirt that I was so tempted to buy for someone. My crafty friends Amy Casher, Bren Bataclan, and Beth Gaertner were also participating in this year's event so it was nice to spend the weekend amongst familiar faces.

I tell you, I feel so lucky that we live in a community where art is really thriving these days. I mean, being surrounded by so many talented artists that weekend was quite inspiring and uplifting in many ways. And then to see people out and about enjoying art through various mediums just makes it all come together.

Speaking of familiar faces, I had a few friends stop by to say hello. Of course, I only remembered to take a couple of photos.

Here I am with our friends Mike, Chris, and Lynn. We all used to work together (which is how we met) and it's funny to think that I've known them for almost ten years now. My goodness how time has flown by!

Our friends Norma and Johnny came by during their lunch break on Friday with a little treat: a raspberry cheesecake from Lyndell's Bakery! The downer was that I couldn't eat it because of the raspberries but believe me, Tony was delighted to eat it for me. (Thanks you two!)

And then on Sunday, my boyfriend favorite visitor during the weekend (no offense anyone but come on, after you saw this photo you'd have to agree with me!) stopped by for a visit: Henry! Oh and of course, I was very happy to see his mommy, Lorena, too. LOL Gosh, I could just eat that little cutie up. I hope he helped bring in some sales with his adorable smile. Hee hee ... such a happy baby!

So of course, the people I didn't photograph and would like to thank for stopping by to visit ... Kate and little miss Sophie, Allen, Amy C., Kathy O'B., Tara G., Chris D., and Janice. Thank you all for stopping by to say hello!

Oh and the entertainment throughout the festival was great! Here's a shot of the Boston Gay Men's Chorus singing their hearts out to tunes from the '80s despite the crappy weather. It was awesome how the crowd simply whipped out their umbrellas and got closer to the stage when they started to sing.

In contrast, this is what the main stage area looked like on Sunday when the sun was out.

Speaking of rain, they decided to cancel the event on Saturday because it was supposed to pour all day. And the weather people were correct this time. It was a mixed feeling for me when I found out that morning because I had already stayed up until 3 am the night before making new cards based on requests on Friday, and I was pumped up for the day's events. But in hindsight, I know we (artists) would've been miserable there in the cold, wet weather. Friday was quite gross but once the winds died down it seemed like more people came out.

The plus side to Saturday's cancellation was this nice surprise from Stephanie:

She had planned to see me at the festival on Saturday so she went by one of our favorite bakeries, Flour, and bought me my favorite pastry: brioche au sucre! So having that with fresh French pressed coffee made by my wonderful husband (and being in my pj's all day in a warm apartment) made me feel better about the cancellation, plus I managed to get more things together for Sunday.

So what's next? Besides sleep and a little bit of catching up? More posts to come! Seriously folks! I have yet to tell you about The Killers concert, seeing Heart and Journey up in Manchester, and tons of food-related posts on the other blog. Not to mention gearing up for the next show (the Design Hive Market) on Sunday, October 4th. Busy busy busy, that's for sure.

But until then, goodnight everyone! This girl needs some serious zzzzz's!