Candlelight and Stitching

Relaxing a bit and thinking of setting up a simple knitting project for on the go, maybe some mitts.

Also thinking of making a bold move and taking over the dining room table with my sewing machine.  It would involve kicking all the Lego builds off and praying that nobody stops over to visit my house.

Should it do it?  It would be so much fun.

In other wanderings: 

Can I have this swing set in my back yard?

Can I learn to screen print my own eco-friendly project bags?  I'm sure another hobby like screen printing would not take up much space, right?  Ok, maybe I'd better wait on that one.

Loving this busy little star quilt over at Blue Elephant Stitches.  It makes me want to dive deeper into working with prints.


Keeping a daily 1-liner journal - it's been fun so far.  Just a few words every day, over 5 years.  Call me in in 2018 and I'll let you know how many days I forgot to write in.  I like it so much that I'm worried I'll need another one in 5 years!


Not sure I'll need more than another dozen more of them.  I'm an optimist though with some longevity genes on my side.

Block City: mini-architecture

One of our favorite things to do on the weekends is to pull out all the wood blocks and build a small city.

Most are from vintage playskool village sets that I've collected, but there are a fair number from other sets that have come my way.

Our little one has a lot of energy and often cannot sit still for more than two minutes.

This time it was different.  

He carefully created the most elaborate layout that I think I've ever seen.

I didn't do a lot of quilting while this was going on since I was helping, but it was quality time spent together and it was really a lot of fun.

Amazing how even the most energetic of kids can relish some serious detailed work.  I wonder where he gets the urge to organize tiny things?  

Ahem.


In other news:

I am listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast.  It's awesome, it will make you cool.  Listen to it, listen to it now.  Download it on your phone using the Downcast app, and you'll thank me.

We are feasting on Chicken Paprikash - a Czech delight that my DH's parents created for us.  Not sure I have heard people talk about this dish before.  It's really quite simple and amazing.

Facts and Rumors from Stitches West 2013

 

 

Tonight I attended the opening of Stitches West in the San Jose Convention Center. 

It is the biggest knitting event in the western U.S. and many sheep have 'donated' fibers from many a haircut in order to make it all happen.

 

There is more amazing color here than I think I've run into in a single place.

 

This was just the shopping preview, and I couldn't stay long, but I did bump into a few very interesting things along the way.

 

In the A Verb For Keeping Warm Booth I found the Verb girls in their beautiful booth (complete with succulent plants!) surrounded by an amazing amount of color and yarns to die for.

 

At the register they had small packs of Liberty of London fabric, as well as scissors by Merchant and Mills.  It was a quilter's British dream come true.  These scissors deserve their own blog post really -  more on them later.

Kristine (Verb owner) has also been working with indigo dyes and fabric.  I am starting the rumor that she will be teaching classes on it soon in her shop, mostly because I personally want to enroll.

Romi Hill, who makes the most amazing shawl pins, was also in the Verb booth and had an impressive collection of pins that were not to be missed.

 

I also stopped by the Becoming Art booth as well with the motivation to ask knitting designer/podcaster/goddess Alana Dakos to create more knit patterns for little boys.  I'm not sure she's about to write an entire book devoted to boy knitwear, but call the idea seed 'planted'. 

I did buy her pattern for the Little Oak sweater which I have good intentions of knitting.  We'll see how that goes.  I also picked up her book called Annie and the Swiss Cheese Scarf which we read for storybook time with the kids tonight.  It was a huge hit!

I'm taking a knitting class on Saturday morning.  It's on using more than 1 color of yarn at a time.  Maybe I'll pack some hand quilting in my purse in case the going gets tough.

 

Either way, enjoy a couple more photos and stop by Stitches West this weekend for some serious color inspiration if you have the time.



 

 

 

 

 Above:  Kristine and Aday from in the A Verb For Keeping Warm booth

 

 

Above: Hard to believe that the above yarns were ALL dyed with naturally based dyes, no acid dye.  It's true, and it's a sight to see in person.

Mochimochi Plinky the Piano

I decided to knit a toy.

It's in the shape of a piano.

For a person who is pretty good at quilting and still learning what to do with yarn, the pattern was a bit of a tall order.

Thankfully my quilting friend Susan knit the tough part for me.  I felt a twinge of guilt, sort of a Mark Twain / paint my fence kind of a thing.

The feeling quickly passed, however.  Eyeballs have been ordered and a finished stuffed toy plinky the piano will likely be on the horizon.

Playing to Win

Not that we're competitive in our family or anything, but a good game of chess always gets the brain cells going.

Academic chess tournaments present an interesting opportunity for mom's to sit around for 3 hours making progress on hand work.  Games were not always won, but the chessmaster talked about 'winners and learners' instead of 'winners and losers.'

I've been looking more closely at quilts that look like a chess board lately.

Specifically, this scrappy trip around the world quilt by Monkey See is for some reason super attractive to me.  

I wonder if I can muster the energy to start making one of these quilts.  Lots of little squares involved here.

I'm also loving the look of the zig zag version of a similar quilt I saw over at A Quilt Is Nice. 

You probably wouldn't need a lot of the same fabric to pull off something like this, just a good sense of color value. 

Ok, and about one thousand and eighty tiny squares cut, there's that.

Creativebug: I've been bitten - Make Your Own Stamps

There are several online learning / crafting sites out there.

I decided to sign up for 3 months of access at Creativebug mostly because they had classes by Natalie Chanin, but also because the rest of their video classes looked pretty good.

I have been very pleasantly surprised at how cool their videos are.  Some of the classes that they have relate to sewing and I think they are planning to have some quilting classes soon.

For now, I took some classes on ceramics and knitting, but my favorite one was on making your own stamps by Christine Schmidt of Yellow Owl Workshop.

It isn't hard or expensive to make your own stamps.  You can get started for about $20, and have a really great time with it.

I asked our kids to write their names out in their own handwriting.  I then transferred this to a signature stamp for them and glued the stamp itself to a vintage wood block in the shape of a house.

Kids love that they have their very own signature stamp.  Capturing their little kid handwriting is fun, and having a stamp is super cool.  It's like a snapshot in time of their writing.

Tokyo Great Quilt Festival 2013 - More!

Photos are still being posted of the Tokyo Dome Quilt show.  

All of them are a little different, and in their own way amazing:

Julie of My Quilt Diary has several posts. They are all 'do not miss them'! Part 3 has the most blue and white quilts - some of my favorites:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

Cynthia at A Quilter By Night has photos of different quilts, equally amazing.
My favorite quilt of the show may be this one - called "To Those Who Have Become The Winds" - so Japanese, so beautiful.

I do also love the octopus quilt though.

Part 1
Part 2 
Part 3

Thank you to those lovely photographers who let us feel like we were there too.

I'm doing a little spinning of some merino and silk fiber from A Verb For Keeping Warm.  We'll see if I can make something interesting out of it. 

Verb has started to dye indigo fabric.  I'm looking forward to running into it in person sometime.  Would make for some awesome quilting.

Put A Bird On It

I'm not saying that the TV show Portlandia is 'G' rated, or even that all their material is funny, but sometimes they really crack me up.

One of my favorite skits is Put A Bird On It, where they take regular objects like T-shirts, and coffee cups, and make them 'cool' by putting pictures of birds on them.

It was so super funny. 

Before I saw that skit, I had the quilt label for my niece already created and of course it is made out of a couple of birds.  Does that make me 'on target' with pop culture, or should I consider moving to Portland in order to fit in?

Either way, a quilt label on the quilt means it's 100% complete.  I'm a happy camper.  I hope that the baby girl likes it.

Tokyo Dome Great Quilt Festival 2013: Eye candy

Are you looking for quilting eye candy, or real candy?  

How about a photo of some Japanese lollipops make in Kyoto to kick off my favorite post of the year about (duh!) the Tokyo Dome.

Did you visit the biggest quilt show on the planet this year?

Or did you want to?  That would be me of course.

The Tokyo Dome Great Quilt Festival is perhaps the most bountiful feast for the eyes that a quilter could hope to come upon.

Although I didn't make it there this year, one of my best friends did go, and it looks like a lot of other people went too!


- Lynett Anderson visited and posted several really great photos at her blog.

- Queenie also was there and took some incredible photos too.

- eQuilter is another good place to stop by for some Tokyo Dome eye candy.

 - Blossom Heart has a photo matrix that may blow your mind.

- Robots-Dreams flickr set has a awesome collection of images from the show.

If you went, and you're posting photos, please do let me know so I can add your link the list here.

For those of your keeping score at home, this is the 7th year I've been blogging about other people's photos from the show!

Next year it will be MY photos you're looking at.  I'm going to find a way to get there.  Beware, I might be hiding in your luggage.

Too Much Noise & working with Pigeonroof Studios Fiber

One of my all time favorite children's books is called "Too Much Noise," by Ann McGovern. 

In the start of the story, the protagonist is complaining about all the noise the leaves make when the brush against his roof from a nearby tree.  He also doesn't like how noisy his tea kettle is.

The wise man of the town tells him to get a dog, and later a cat, which eventually escalates to a cow, a pig, a donkey and so on.


He ends up living in a zoo.

When the wise man tells him to let all the animals go, the noise of his leaves doesn't seem so serious anymore.

Lately our family has been so busy it seems almost as if we have a cow and a pig already present and accounted for here in our home.

I think it will eventually quite down, but my bet is that it gets even more interesting first.

We're keeping it all in perspective and enjoying the quality moments.

On Wednesday evenings my knitting/quilting group meets at my house and we all work on projects.  I recently completed spinning a silk/merino fiber blend by Pigeonroof Studios.

It's not a huge amount of yarn, but it was spun with friends and I'm proud to have a little something completed.

Here's to little victories.

Possession is 9/10th's of the Law

They say that if have your hands on something physically, it's easier to keep it. 

This little beanie I knit recently has been fought over to the point where if it's on your head, you feel like you're something special.

I was the lucky one today.  I wore it out while the competition had to fend for themselves.

A second one is on the needles but sadly coming along slowly as times have been quite busy lately.

Looking to surf up some of the latest quilty/stitchy awesomeness out there on the web?

Have at it:


Check out Nifty Quilts incredible scrap quilt - a masterpiece of color value in progress.

See more fabric scraps than you probably have in your own collection over at The Design Center.

Falling in love with cross stitch again over a Sew Take A Hike. 

I'm not usually one to post about food, but I will tell you that I'm secretly dreaming of eating French Toast sometime soon. 

Evil evil toast...evil evil carbs!

Winter Wonderland

Snow is something that just doesn't happen in the California Bay Area unless you drive to the mountains.

This weekend there was a rumor that it might be cold enough to snow, but it didn't ever happen.  So much for our snowball fight plans.  

I'm amazed by this guy who made a multi-colored igloo for his girlfriend.  Check out the cute story - link to video.

Building an igloo is probably not on the menu in my backyard, but hunkering down to do some handwork certainly is.

I'm in the thick of quilt binding today and making some progress.  Starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel on this quilt.

When it's finally finished, you'll be the first to know. 

Quilt Binding: Little Pieces of Heaven

Is it a normal practice to use more than 10 different fabrics when binding a quilt?  

Have you ever used more than one?

I think the most I've ever used has been around 6 different fabrics.

For the quilt I'm working on, I have a ton of cool fabrics that I'm going to combine together for perhaps the most funky binding of all time.  

Is that crazy?  Maybe.  Why not though.  Life's short.  My work is starting to get a bit more crazy the older I get.  Stay tuned for the results!


There are a lot of 'how to make quilt binding' tutorials out there.  I couldn't find one that was exactly the same as the method I use, but the one by Crazy Mom Quilts is a pretty comprehensive one. 

In searching around, I'm getting tempted to create my own 'Ultimate' binding tutorial.  Hm...adding that to the to-do list. 

If there is a guide out there that you use every time, let me know your favorite!

SFMOMA: Family Day

We had an awesome time on Family Day at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

There were tons of activities for kids, and we got to walk through this cool installation by Tauba Auerbach that looked a lot like a quilt to me.  It consists of these extremely bright lights spinning around on the ceiling slowly and a floor that is 50% white and 50% black.

Makes for good running around for kids.

We also did a bunch of art projects with the kid docents.  

The highlight was an installation called Frequency and Volume by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer.  You can run around in this shadow room and different radio stations are played according to your orientation in the room.  We had to basically drag our kids out of there.

It's been a busy year so far, even though it's just getting started.  I'm working on a quilt binding, and I finished a funky scarf/shawl think that my beautiful friend adopted.  She is so pretty that it makes my slightly odd perhaps poorly executed hand knit look like a million bucks.  Nice to have supermodel-esk friends.

Finally, since this is my first post this year, I'm picking out a theme for 2013.  Not a resolution, but a theme for the year.  This year it's 'Togetherness'.  More time with family and friends is on the agenda.

A Warm and Cozy Send Off for 2012

Are you out there in Time Square this year watching the glowing ball drop?  Are you going to ring in the new year with a million friends at a big party?

If you are, enjoy a bit of the wild rumpus for me too.  I'm here in my warm and tiny home with my warm and tiny kids celebrating in a much more quiet fashion.

It's nice to look back on 2012 and think of all the things that happened.  So many incredible moments.  

As much as I love excitement, my favorite times over the last year have been spent with my family, often at the dinner table.  We often like to ask each other to share the best and worst part of our day.

The worst part of this year was the pace at which it flew by.  I guess I'm starting to sound like an old person here, but it's true that time passes too quickly for my taste.  My little small kids are already not so small.  The 7 yr old is starting to wonder how much longer it will take to become taller than me.  I'm thinking, not that long.

The best part of 2012 for me was the family vacation to Japan.  Sometimes it's not easy for me to find a clear winning part of the year, but this year it was pretty easy to pick.

Here's hoping that your New Year's Eve is cozy and that 2013 brings you peace.

Snowflakes

When we have more than a handful of guests over for dinner, it's handy to have some place cards to let folks know where their spot at the table is.

This year for Christmas, our 7 yr old son cut out snowflakes and I wrote names of the guests on there in my funky writing.  People liked it, and we have fun making them.

Maybe next year we'll up our game and make them in the shape of Star Wars figures.   That would be too cool for skool.

We are still eating left-overs and enjoying playing with our new toys.  My favorite Christmas gift is a new drop spindle that is super light, allowing me to make lace weight yarn.  It was a real surprise to receive it since it's almost impossible to get.  My DH was pretty clever this year.

Merry Christmas 2012

Christmas this year was good and full of family and friends, as it should be.  

Our little one was a bit under the weather, but he has come back full force with enough energy to play with all the toys he got and also with those that came for his brother.  

He was up coughing on Christmas Eve, and was very worried that because his cold was keeping him awake, that Santa would not come to our house.

I assured him that Santa is very VERY fast, and that there was no way our house would be skipped by the jolly old elf.  He of course did come and visit us and the happy smiles and shouts of, "I always wanted that!" were music to our ears.

I'm already starting to think about 2013, and what it will hold for our family.  I hope that it will allow for a bit of creative time for me in between all regular life things.

 

Christmas Calm 2012

Just before Christmas comes, when all the wrapping is done, all the Christmas quilts have their binding already sewn on, and all the food is in the frig just waiting to be put in the oven..... you can capture a glimpse of the Christmas Calm.

In my house....we are not quite there yet.

Some years, our Christmas Calm last for about 30 seconds.  Other years it might be as long as 24 hrs.  

I've got a little (ahem) wrapping still to do, and a teenie bit of shopping still pending.

I'm here hoping that my own Christmas Calm is longer than 30 seconds, and that yours is at least more than a whole day.

Holidays at Home

Some travel for the holidays, and some stay at home.

As much as we miss the family that doesn't live in town, we opt to stay right here, curled up in our own tiny house. 

I wouldn't say that we are totally prepared for the holiday yet, but we're getting there. 

I know some of you are still wondering if I'll ever finish hand quilting the baby quilt.  I am unfortunately still wondering the same thing. 

Other activities have jumped in the way of my creative time lately, but I won't see the baby girl until after Christmas.  I'm clinging to a small glimmer of hope that I'll have some time next week to put the final touches on it.

If you're busy addressing Christmas cards, like I am, you're not alone in the world.


In 2005 we Americans sent 1.9 billion Christmas cards.  Not sure how many will be sent this year, but let's just say that I'm doing my part.

Guess What I've Been Up To Lately

Does the photo give you a clue of what I've been up to for fun lately? 

Some of you may be thinking - is she going to audition for Stomp?  



Perhaps you're wondering if I'm considering becoming a waste management specialist?

Those of you who have played around with ceramics may recognize this as a firing technique called Raku. 

We basically put a few small clay pieces that we had previously thrown on a wheel, and took them up to 1800 degrees F inside of an hour.

When the ceramics got super hot, our instructor took them out and put them in these trash cans full of newspaper in order to expose them to carbon and darken them in color.  

There was fire, smoke, glowing hot ceramics...when I showed the below video to our 7yr old, he asked if he could come and take the class too.

More photos of the finished pieces later.  Once they cooled off, they looked quite pretty.  Dark, almost black in color, with rainbows all over.  Pretty cool...or maybe I should say pretty hot.

If you live in the California Bay Area, had have an urge to throw some clay around, Higher Fire is the place to be.  Awesome studio, super friendly students, good dirty fun.