Suzuko Koseki Quilts

Suzuko Koseki publishes quilting books in Japanese, and also designs fabric.

She has a background in fashion, and was a student of my favorite Chuck Nohara. You can get a bit more bio info on Suzuko here, as well as see another one of the books she has published.

The lovely and talented Mrs Schmenkman posted about the above book by Suzuko Koseki and I ran off to Yes Asia to pick up my own copy. ISBN 4140311495.

This is the first time I have used Yes Asia, but it worked out very very nicely, and I would certainly order from them again.

The book has mostly pieced flower designs for small quilts and bags and things. Very very pretty. I really want to make some of these blocks.

The end is near....a sigh and a tear

The only other time I have felt this sad was when my maternity leave ended with our first son.

Next week is my last week off with our new baby, and I will confess I am a little more blue than usual.

I love each peach-fuzzy hair on his head, each teenie toe nail, each giggle and each fat fold. The last few months off have given us some incredible time together, and I have fallen in love.

My only comfort is something I learned with my first son. Even though you take them off to babysitting, they don't forget who their real mommy is.

I will do my best to enjoy this last week of fun with both my sons, and return to my job (which I actually do like very much) next week.

So what's a girl to do to cheer up?

Alex of Moonstitches also posted a wonderful slide show of the Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival 2009. Thanks Alex, and to all, please do pop over and enjoy her photos.

Kathie pointed me to Sew Unique Creations for Ecology Cloth. Mine just came in the mail. Now to plot what to do with it!

And lastly, for some quilty inspiration, I was looking at Susan McCord's Quilts. They are stunning.

Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival 2009

Each year in January I hope and pray that I can go to the Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival. I have yet to actually make it there; however, I will not wallow in agony.

No, no....no need to cry. We have the talented and generous Jennifer of Moving Hands Blog to thank for her awesome images and the incredible images on Flickr.

If you are a quilter, or an artist, or just a human being with a pulse...you MUST view these incredible photos. They are so inspirational. Jennifer, I cannot thank you enough for capturing these quilts so beautifully.

As you can see above, I am still working on learning to knit. This is my first attempt at a sock.

I spent my trip to Yosemite with a friend that said, "You know, you can buy socks, right?"

Yeah, thanks.

Yosemite in winter with kids

After several days of rest in Yosemite, I have discovered that it is indeed possible to enjoy some winter fun, even with kids along for the ride.

My husband and I used to be crazy wild ski bums. We would try to get up to the snow as often as we could.

Once the kids arrived, we did much less of it, but it turns out that Yosemite is a cool place for kids in winter.

We ice skated in the shadow of Half Dome on the outdoor rink. Check out a cool picture of it here...I hardly had a free hand to skate let alone photograph this place. That was probably my favorite part. We did some sled runs in Curry Village Toboggan Hill, as well as on the golf course at Wawona. Fun was had by all.

On the way there and back I made some progress on a sock I'm am learning to knit. Pix soon, I promise.

2009 Resolutions

I cannot believe it's already half way through January, and I still have not posted my resolutions for 2009! Here goes:

1. Find my desk again under all the clutter

2. Finish my Baltimore Album quilt (see un-done resolution from last year, ahem)

3. Make progress on the baby books / scrap books for my boys - oh, how I have procrastinated on this one, or at least get my sister to make the pages for me.

4. Finish quilting the quilt tops that I have waiting in the wings (house quilt, plaid quilt, antique quilt, and niece baby quilt).

5. Work out with my husband.

6. Do something cool with my hair. I think a cut is long overdue.

7. Write up a Do's and Dont's of blog photography to inspire folks to take better photos of their crafts for the greater bloggy good.

8. Knit a pair of socks. Yes, that would be 2 of them. Not just a half of one with a bunch of holes in it. No, the goal is 2 wearable socks.

9. Enjoy being a working mom.

10. Contine to eat local as much as possible, and use our CSA at every chance we get.

In other news, I don't think I can resist getting some Ecology Cloth to try with my quilts. Kathie mentions it's on sale!

Food Wars & Japanese Baby Quilt

As a make some progress on the hand quilting party of the Japanese Baby Quilt for my little darling niece (feverishly trying to finish it before her Baptism later this month), I wanted to share a photo of it in my quilt hoop.

Most of you either have or at some point had a picky little eater in your house...and I want to put some feelers out there for ideas of what to do.

I've tried covering things with ketchup, cutting things into cute shapes, bribes, games, and frankly I'm a bit out of ideas.

How does one get a 3 year old to eat something else besides mac and cheese?

If you have any brilliant nuggets or idea gems for me please do pass them along. Also, if you know of some good books that helped you, I'm not beyond a trip to my local library to get some help here.

Thanks in advance and best wishes for veggie and meat eating from noodle central.

Hand Quilting = relaxing

I'm having fun quilting my dear sweet niece's baby quilt these days. I will admit it isn't the most speedy process, but it is so relaxing that it helps me fall asleep quicker at night.

The photo above is the back of the quilt. I think it looks kinda cool with white fabric and red thread.

Today is "Little Christmas" when the 3 wise men visited the infant Jesus. Traditionally, my mom would give us a small gift to close out the season back when we were kids.

I thought that was a really sweet tradition, so I gave a little book called Balloonia to my son in order to carry it on. My husband surprised me with some Burt's Bees lip gloss (rockin!) as my little gift.

While I was in the mall today I ran into these rain boots by Tokidoki and I immediately fell in love. So Japanese-superflat-inspired and cute. I didn't try them on for fear I would buy them.

Let them eat cake

Traveling by car from the bay area to Orange County in Southern California is certainly an interesting undertaking with two kids. They were both on their best behavior, but it takes us about 10 hours instead of the 6 that it once took back in the days of yore.

It was a wonderful visit, and seeing our family & friends at Christmas was so awesome. On the way home we stopped at a little town called Paso Robles, on the central Californian coast. We discovered this amazing bakery called Two Little Birds Bakery, and fell in love. Amazing coffee and the red cupcake is worth fighting over. We met the girls who own it, and they were so very charming and didn't mind a bit when we did a little nursing off in the corner.

Also in Paso Robles is a quilt shop called Wine Country Quilting. We had a few moments to check it out. It was very friendly, although none of the fabric was what I'm personally really interested in, they had a lot of popular American designer's fabrics there.

My favorite surprise gift of this Christmas? It had to be my gift certificate to Purl Soho. Thanks Ray and Jen! How did you guys ever know that I would love that? Perhaps it will fulfill my craving for some alphabet fruit fabric!

What was your fav surprise gift this year?

The road is paved with good intentions

Looking back on 2008, I did have a humble list of 10 things I resolved to do during the year.

If I only accomplished 60% of them, am I operating at less than passing marks?

Maybe I'll implement a bell curve and say that I am doing OK since most people completely ignore their New Year's resolutions.

Either way, here's how I stack up.

2008 Resolutions and status report:

1. Devote more time and energy to our family (my favorite thing to do, this one is a gimme).
Status: Done. Duh, I produced a baby! If that doesn't cover the energy part, I don't know what does.

2. Finish my sister’s Dear Jane Dear Hannah wedding quilt (this will be a HUGE stretch)
Status: Pathetic. I will admit I hardly touched it all year, sorry sis. You were bumped for the baby quilts (above). You know that's a much higher calling.

3. Fine tune my humble little blog, have a freebee section of patterns and handful of some small things in a little shop section.
Status: Done. My amazing husband even helped me register a domain for my blog, www.quiltotaku.com, which I have aspirations to flesh out this year. Gosh, I feel another resolution coming on. I have so many ideas!

4. Write in permanent ink on my Baltimore album quilt blocks.
Status: Zilch. I am still too chicken to write on my blocks. Maybe I'll get up the moxie soon.

5. Hit the gym more.
Status: Sad, but can I pull the "I was pregnant" excuse and promise to repent in 2009?

6. Do something special for our house that it well deserves (new light fixtures? Paint the scary ugly kitchen?)
Status: Done. New light fixtures help out a lot.

7. Become a certified quilt appraiser
Status: Getting there. I realized it takes several years before you can get certified, so I'm well on my way by having appraised many quilts this year.

8. Attend at least 2 major quilt shows, photograph them, and post comprehensive flickr sets for all to all enjoy
Status: Done.

9. Be more green: seek out a CSA source for our family, grow more of our own food in the garden, and make an effort to buy locally as much as possible.
Status: Done. We used Two Small Farms all season, and are already signed up for next year. This was one of the highlights of 2008 for me.

10. In another environmentally friendly vein - Keep my over 10 yr old, 115K+ mile, beloved car even though it’s totally impractical doesn’t have a trunk and only holds 4 people.
Status: Done. I have even been known to happily cram my husband and two kids in there with me on rare occasion.

And to all, a good night!

Santa was good to us all this year. Hope your holiday season is peaceful.

My other holiday wish for you is that you sneak in some time to quilt!

This is a photo of my little Sonny Angels, I couldn't resist picking up a Santa from their holiday collection.

Visions of Sugarplums

Gifts are wrapped.

Holiday meal was done a day early in order to catch friends going out of town, and was a huge hit.

Handmade ornaments are delivered to the beautiful kids next door.

All we need is Christmas itself now.

Please accept my humble thanks for reading along tonight as always, and have an amazing Christmas this year.

Warmest wishes,
Marisa

Handmade baby gift

Yesterday I got a little knit cap in the mail from my quilting friend Diana, for our baby boy. It is the first ever cap that she has knitted. Wow, so super cute! It was the nicest thing I've gotten in the mail in a long time.

How special that my son is the lucky one to get to wear it on his sweet little head. Thanks Diana!

If you are just looking to relax for a couple moments, I would HIGHLY recommend taking a break from all your rushing around to view this awesome quilting video by Lauren of My Aunt June blog.

It's one of my favorite posts out there, and I really love her style of quilting. So modern, and done on machine. Not my usual cut of tea, since I prefer to quilt by hand, but the results are so beautiful that I just have to try it.

Hope we can squeeze some ice skating in before Christmas is here. I'm already feeling very merry.

What are you wearing?

What are you out there wearing for the holiday this year? Found a perfect little top that is oh so very cute to wear on New Year's Eve?

I'm hooked on LAMade, Michael Stars (picked up a new top to wear on Christmas by him), Splendid (got my best friend a little jacket thingy by them for Christmas, thank goodness she doesn't read my blog), and Ogle (my New Year's shirt from here!).

As you can tell from the above, the hand made ornaments are almost done.

If you decide to make them too, and also want to start a tradition of making them every year - a couple of things I've learned along the way:

- Use at least 1 solid fabric, or some fabric with decent white space where you can write the name of the owner on the ball with your pigma pen.

- Be sure to write the year on there too. It's fun to look back at past years.

- Something I didn't do off the bat, but should have - if you are giving these to kids every year, then write their age on there as well, so they can pick them up in later years and say - wow, 2008, I was 3 years old back then!

- Make a note of how long of a silk ribbon you use on top, you'll want to use the same size next year so the collection looks good. If you give them all away, you might not remember how long it was.

Handmade Christmas Ornaments - year 4

For the 4th year in a row, I am making my own Christmas ornaments.

This year instead of making 5 of them, (kids next door, and my son) I'm making 6!

One for the new baby of course. I can hardly believe he is already three months old. Time is flying too quickly for me with this new baby.

If you want to see pictures/posts from previous years, please feel free to check them out.

I use Jinny Beyer's book on Patchwork Puzzle Balls, and include a silk ribbon on top to be the hanger on the tree. I only stuff them with 100% cotton which I also order from Jinny's web site. This stuff is great, makes the balls really firm, and stands up over time very very well. It works for anything you want to stuff actually, not just Christmas ornaments.

More photos soon of course when I finish them. For some reason, I'm obsessed with making all my Christmas quilt projects with 1930's repro's. I just love the antique look of them in combination with the holidays. It's a very different twist on Christmas.

This year I am even using some real 1930's fabric - feed sack - in one of the balls. Think the kid will appreciate that her fabric is almost 100 years old? Um...probably not. I do though.

Quilt Top Mania - More!

Yes, the answer to my last post was "C" - blocks are antiques, and I used other repro's to put sashing on them. Working with other people's quilt blocks is always a challenge especially when said blocks are no where near square.

I'm still pushing my way through my stacks of quilt blocks and making them into tops. The above quilt top was also just completed last week and includes my collection of Oakshott fabrics that I have been working with lately. They are beautiful and very easy to work with.

Now the work to baste and back the little tops in preparation for quilting will start. Have you ever worked with Ecology Cloth? I'm curious to know, why is it different/better than regular muslin? Any tips for me? My local quilt shop didn't carry it, so I suppose I'll be picking some up online.

Who out there has worked with it before? I need the inside scoop!

Quilt Top Mania

You know I love quilt blocks as much as the next person, however, isn't it a lot nicer to have a quilt?

I am on a rampage to 'bust' my blocks, get rid of these little pieces of individual fabric, and whip them up with their friends to form quilt tops.

Can you tell me the date the above quilt top was made? Vote for the answer you think is real:

a) This quilt top is antique, made circa 1890, and was bought by Marisa and photographed for her blog.

b) This quilt top was made yesterday by Marisa, she used reproduction fabrics.

c) This quilt top is made from antique blocks Marisa bought from Cindy's Antiques, and she used reproduction fabrics as sashing since all the blocks were crazy different sizes and would otherwise not have fit into the same quilt.

d) This quilt top is not made of any Japanese fabrics, so I refuse to vote!

And if you've ever dreamed of being in New York City for Christmas (which I have only had the pleasure of doing 1 time in my life) then check out Cindy's blog - Quaint Handmade - AWESOME photos of the holiday window displays there. Thanks Cindy!!

Doll Quilt in plaids

Kathie of Inspired by Antique Quilts blog sent me a pre-cut out little quilt to be whipped together.

I could not resist these little blocks calling to me and brought my sewing maching out to turn them into a mini quilt.

Thanks a million Kathie! I LOVE the fabrics and putting them together has really be fun.

Lately my tummy has been craving an 'adult' doughnut from Dynamo. I've never had one.

Do you think I'm crazy to want to drive 1 hour for a $2.50 Maple-Bacon flavored doughnut? Maybe I've lost my mind.

NO THANK YOU, Thanksgiving!

Have you ever had such bad tummy troubles that you stayed in bed for the next 3 days and even 5 days afterwards still did not feel 100% like yourself?

If so, then you know why my Thanksgiving this year was what I will just call "less than fun" in order to spare you the juicy details.

The only thing nice about it was that my folks helped take care of the boys while I was down for the count.

Wondering what Christmas gift to get for the the quilter that has everything in your life?

How about a pair of scissors by Bagsmith? Made in France, with handles that look like the Eiffel Tower (or a bunny...or even mother of pearl!)....who wouldn't want a pair to just slip into their applique bag?!

Yarn balls above are from Purl Soho's Koigu yarn collection which I picked up when I was recently at their warehouse in Tustin, California. I met Jennifer Hoverson (sister of Joelle), co-owner of Purl. I must say that Jennifer is even more beautiful and lovely than her fabrics and yarns.

"Mommy, Gramma has a big big huge chicken!"

In the U.S. today is Thanksgiving, which means lots of turkey and goodies to eat.

My son woke me up this morning saying that his grandmother had just put a really big chicken in the oven. Boy oh boy did that 'giant chicken' (turkey) taste good.

Thanks for playing along with the guess that quilt date. Caron of Michigan Quilts! Blog, as well as Una of Samsy Blog hit the nail on the head regarding the quilt on my last post. It was from 1890 - well done ladies.

If you are still awake enough after eating all that turkey, and you want to chill out and watch some very cool videos, check out these posted by Keith Loutit. He is a photographer out of Australia, and puts together amazing and beautiful stop-action / time lapse videos using a still camera with a tilt-shift lens. It makes the subjects look like miniatures even though they are full life-sized. My favorite one is the 2nd link, "The North Wind Blew South."

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

"Date That Quilt" Game

This afternoon I visited the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, California.

They have an awesome exhibit there right now called "American Quilts: Two Hundred Years of Tradition," and it runs through March 15, 2009. If you have the chance to see it, I would very highly recommend it.

As I walked through the exhibit, I did not look at any of the dates on the info signs next to the quilts. Instead, I tried to guess the year the quilt was made by using the knowledge I have gained during my quilt appraisal studies.

For most of the quilts, I was able to date them with 10 years of the date the museum had posted. A couple of them I was a bit off, but it was the solid fabrics that threw me. I'm still learning to identify the dyes used during various time periods.

The log cabin above was especially attractive. That setting is so pretty and the quilt was just striking in person.

Any of you care to guess what date it was made? I know it's tough with the picture being so dark. Hint - fabrics are all silks.

In other news, my sister just gave me this crazy pretty "binky bling" pacifier clip for the baby. It is made of Swarovski crystal and is the cutest baby gift I think I've ever seen. Perfect for the baby that has everything. I think I'll turn it into a scissor leash or something after he gives up the binky.