Hand Quilting: Beads and more Yoko Saito...in English!

Natalie Chanin's hand applique work often includes beads.

I have tried using them here and there on small projects, but I have it in my mind to try and make a larger garment with them all over it.  Either a tank top or a skirt probably.  I have ordered some of the beads from her site and starting to play around with them a bit.

One of the tricks is finding a needle small enough to get them on there but also with a large enough eye to get the thick button craft thread through it.  A delicate balance for sure.

Jennifer from See How We Sew blog recently alerted me to a give away she hosted some time back for Yoko Saito's new book.  It's quite rare to run into a publication by her in English, so I'm excited to get a copy of it.  it's called House Warming Patchwork.  Looks like you can already order it online.

Not sure I can wait for Santa to get my own copy of it!  ;)

Weekend fun: Polaroid

I took this photo around this time of year back in 2010 when my dad was visiting us and we took a trip to the California Academy of Sciences.  They have a Living Roof covered with all sorts of grasses.  Below the air vent windows you see here they have an indoor rain forest complete with butterflies that will on occasion land on you.

I got the wild hair to dig out some of my Polaroid Manipulation photos after downloading and watching the Timezero move about the end of film production and the last year of Polaroid. The movie also shows the hope of the future of the film and the 14 people who started the Impossible project to try and save it all...which of course they did.

Awesome movie, so easy to download for less than the cost of a pizza.  Highly recommend it.

There are lots of Polaroid manipulations out there, a process of using old Timezero film, heating up the developed image with either a blow dryer, or a heating pad, and smooshing the inks around with sculpting tools.  I went out of my way to create them for many years.  I keep saying I should do something with them all.  This movie inspired me to show them to the kids.  They really loved that.

I did too.

Hope your weekend has been as swell as mine.  I got some knitting done too on  the side of the soccer field. 

Hand Stitching

I've been playing around with another little swatch of fabric using hand stitching and Alabama Chanin jersey fabric.

Looks like they will have a sale on the web site on black friday.  Not sure what else I need, maybe I should look.  I think my knitting friend Sharon may be getting more into sewing.  She's making one of these small projects too.

Two colors of button craft thread on light fabrics gives it a little interest.  I think a larger piece like a table runner would be fun to do.  The light, white on white look, makes me think of snow.  I can see a little mini winter scene set up on here.  Mini lego houses and all.  

We are starting to look forward to Thanksgiving already.  Is it too soon to be doing that?  I hope not. 

I'm also still working on the hex quilt, but small amounts of time devoted to it here and there is making for progress at a snail's pace.  I'm still happy with the results so far.

In other news, I'm reading the twitter feed called "Today in 1963" which is pretty cool, a project by NPR Kat Chow.  Amazing what you can fit into 140 characters.  Today was an eventful albeit sad day with the anniversary of President Kennedy's assassination.

On a happier note, I'll be visiting the SF Heath store sometime this weekend to see what's brewing on their annual sale.

Time for Knitwear

Our older son had a soccer play off series this weekend and the little one was sporting a little congestion.  My solution to this was to pull out all the knitwear I could find for him.

This included a beanie out of Madelintosh in a yummy copper color, a scarf that I knit ages ago that is too short for me, and a Little Oak Cardi  - pattern by Alana Dakos. 

The socks are cheating, just from SmartWool.

Still though, this was one very wooly 5yr old.  It was early and cold, so was a lot more cooperative about it than usual.

I have been knitting up a storm today and made some progress on a gift for somebody special.  More about that in a couple weeks.

Hope you're all out there keeping warm too.

And by the way, have any of you tried making custom photo moleskin books?  I think they would be cool for holiday gifts, but I'm interested in a recommendation....anybody?

Ceramics Love

In case you are looking for something to do on Saturday, there is an incredible ceramics show and sale in Palo Alto, California. 

Hosted by Orchard Valley Ceramics guild, Art in Clay Sale 2013.

It's a great way to pick up some affordable and unusually beautiful pieces. 

I'll be there before you will though, so good luck getting the best ones.  ;)

Hexagon Progress: hand piecing

You've seen this quilt before, but it was a layout photo with pieces put next to each other, not sewn together.

The latest photo is a view of how the pieces look like sewn together.  Still using Oakshott fabrics.  I am not sure if their hand-made fabrics will continue to be available.  It looks like they may be cutting over to a machine-made process to create their colourshott fabrics.

The quilt is still quite small, but it's the start of something interesting.  

I'm having fun taking the project around with me - working on it mostly during soccer games, piano lessons, and tennis practice.

Some of the parents look at me like I'm a little crazy for sewing on the go, and others of them come over and ask me what I'm making.

Without a lot of time to do creative work in the evenings a take-along project is probably the only thing to get any of my attention these days.  



If you have a solution to finding more time in the day I'd love to hear it.  I'm probably not the only one on planet Earth that would embrace a 25 hour day.

Knitting with a friend

I ran into this old photo that my sister took two years ago of me knitting a sock while holding her darling baby.  

Quite moments are generally few and far between for me but this photo proves that they do in fact occur. 

This baby now talks to me on the phone, and chases after the big kids, keeping up with them very well.

It's magical to watch them grow, but all the same - they were so very cute as babies.

Here's hoping we all find a quite moment or two this week.

More Chalkboard Fun: How to track your weekend schedule

Weekends have been starting to get away from me a bit with both boys in a lot of soccer & tennis along with other fun things on our plate.


In my last trip to PaperSource I found an affordable/small chalkboard and a pack of chalkboard pens called Bistro Chalk Markers.


The pens only come off when you use water.

When you combine that with regular white chalk (my favorite is Sargent Art dustless chalk), it gives you a constant area and something that you can easily wipe away. 

During the week I can glance over to remind myself what's coming up on the weekend and it gives us all something to look forward to.

I also ran into this cool tutorial on how to make files that look like chalkboards through photoshop on Foolishfire.  Cute tutorial. 

Handmade Books: Listmaker's List of Lists

In my last post about bookbinding, I did some calligraphy on the outside cover.

I took another stab at it, pun intended, and sewed up another coptic style book based on what I learned in Jody Alexander's bookbinding class on Creativebug.

This time instead of using plain paper from the art store, I used paper from PaperSource.  I like this better than the first try and would like to make some more of these.

I'm using this book to make my to-do lists for all sorts of things.  It makes me feel better to make lists of things when it gets really busy and it seems like there is not enough time in the day to get it all done.  I found a poem about list making by Shel Silverstein that was pretty funny.  

I couldn't help but decorate it a little bit, so below is what the inside cover looks like.  I call it the Listmaker's List of Lists.  What a mouthful.


The gradient paper was made on my own personal printer from a file freely available for download at Mr. Printables.  Sweet colors.

Calligraphy Tutorial: Chalkboard Lettering

I have been getting fancy with addressing letters and put together a simple tutorial on how to make your calligraphy look like hand written chalk board letters.  


This technique can also be applied to fabric, but use Pigma Pens for permanent letters of quilt cotton.  Lots of sizes are available.  I like .05 size a lot.

Here are a few simple steps.  If you try it, let me know how it went for you.

1)  Write out the letters using handwriting on a dark piece of paper.

I used dark navy blue paper that I got from PaperSource and a white pen that I also got from there.  The specific pen I used is the uni-ball signo broad pigment ink in UM-153, white.  It is easy to control and did not cost a lot.

Some of the letters had some curly starts and stops.  Those are not very hard to make, but it's good to practice on a scratch piece of paper



2)  Put a second line to the right of your letters only when your pen stroke is going down.  Don't do this if you pen is moving up towards the top of the paper.  See the example of the letter H below.  In the second photo, you can see a lot of letters with the 2nd lines added.

3)  Fill in ink between the lines.  Use light small strokes of the pen.  Go slowly, don't rush or you'll end up with extra ink on there and it will get messy

4)  At this point you can drop it in the mail and the person will eventually get it. 

I conducted a test and addressed a letter with non-fancy writing and another with fancy writing.  The one with fancy writing took an extra 3 days to get there.  I think it may have been because the automatic postal system could not recognize the address and a person may have had to read it in order for it to get to the right postal delivery person.  Just an interesting data point for you.

5)  Making it look like a chalk board for digital use:  If you want your photo to take on that chalk board look, just snap a picture of it on your phone and put it in black and white.  On iPhone, you can go into your photos, choose 'edit' then choose 'tonal' filter.  You can also try the 'mono' filter to see which one you like better.

6)  Putting text on top such as the "Easy Calligraphy Tutoral" text above:  If this is something you also want to add for a blog post or for a Pinterest tutoral pin, you can download an app called "Over".  It looks like this app is made for iOS.

Good luck!

Embroidery with Kiriki Press

My order came in from Kiriki Press and instead of putting maps in the side pocket of my car door I now have an embroidery hoop floating around in there.

That is a sign as to how much I love these tiny projects.

They are bite sized and not hard to complete.  Even a beginner like me can have a pretty great time.  I ended up with 3 of them because you bounced into free shipping after you get more than 2.

I started with the Sloth since I think it's likely my kids will fight over the bear I decided to save him for last. 

The owl that I made back in the beginning of the month went together quickly.  I'm distracted with Halloween right now so progress is at a different pace.

Looking forward to a spooky evening later this week.

To get ready for it we carved some pumpkins this weekend.  More on that and my visit to The Makery in Los Altos in an upcoming post.

PIQF 2013: Favorites and Loot

PIQF was a cool show this year and it's almost impossible to pick a favorite.

That said...in case you didn't have time to get through all the photos I posted, here is my short list of really memorable and inspirational quilts - stand outs that caught my eye:


Octopus Garden by Carolyn Winfield

Anne's Quilt by Samantha Ricks - Hawaiian blocks

Wayside Strawberries by Nicole Pullman - hand applique, patterns by Jeanna Kimball - my favorite
My Mom's Jane by Carrie Britten - traditional Dear Jane quilt, beautifully executed, stunning reproduction of the original 1863 quilt

All in The Family by Nancy S. Brown - when Nancy puts a quilt into a show it is always hand applique, and usually the most interesting quilt in the whole show.  This was no exception.

Kingyo (Goldfish) by Naomi Yamamoto - incredible fish, I took tons of detailed photos

Moonbeam by Fumiko Matsuu - beautiful collection of indigo fabrics, super Japanese look

Life by Yoshiko Katagiri - beautiful spiral quilt with an amazing collection of Japanese floral fabrics

Let's Go Party! by Keiko Ike - beautiful machine work, won the best in country award from Japan

In terms of vendors, I had fun looking around and did pick up a thing or two, but not a lot of shopping for me this year.

My most exciting find was marbled fabric.  There is a fabric artist out of Oregon named Marjorie Lee Bevis who makes marbled fabrics by hand.  I picked up a couple of pieces and hope to make them into book cloth for some book covers.  They are unique, no two are alike.  I found them affordable for hand made fabric. 

The other thing I got excited about was the Seam Fix thread eraser.  You are supposed to be able to rip out a seam and use the tip of this plastic bee-hive shaped wand to collect the loose threads so they don't get re-sewn in the wrong place.

Given I have done my fair share of ripping things out, I'm interested to test this.  More news after I give it a try.  Looks like fun though.  Using the tool that is, not ripping out seams.

PIQF 2013: Pacific International Quilt Festival

PIQF (Pacific International Quilt Festival) 2013 has come and gone but not without the notice of myself and hundreds of other happy onlookers.

I took a lot of photos, not of all the quilts, but of the ones that really caught my eye and some that stood out as being really notable.  I was a bit more rushed this year than in other years.  It's soccer season with the kids after all.

When you look through the photo stream for the most part the photo of the quilt is first, and the name of the quilter and details of the quilt come after that with photo of ribbons awarded as well if they got one.

I did a small bit of shopping.  More on that and links to my personal top 10 favorites in an upcoming post.  

For now, enjoy PIQF 2013.

Oh yes, and if you're looking for eye candy from other years, you can find hundreds if not thousands of photos from the last nine years of this event in my PIQF Through The Years flickr collection.

Quilt Fabric: Organization by Color & Collecting

Collections.  Collections of collections.

I think most people probably have them.  People collect all manner of things from PEZ dispencers to tea cups, from Bundt cake pans to scissors, and in some cases even cameras (ahem, DH) .  You can probably collect just about anything.

If you're like me, collecting either virtually or actually is as satisfying as seeing all your shoes lined up under the bed.
Above is a photo of my Oakshott Cotton 5" squares before they became hexagons.  It's a collection for sure and I will confess to having really enjoyed organizing it. 

Our son was home sick recently so I gave him my button collection and told him to arrange it for fun.  He got really into it and the photo below is what he created.
Do you collect something?  I'd love to hear what it is.

Do you actively avoid collecting?  I'd love to hear how and why.

Some beautiful things I bumped into lately:

A video of somebody making a hand bound book - lovely

A video of sea life made out of jewels - sparkles, cool

A recipe for Chinese style Tomato Eggs - yum

English Paper Piecing On the Go & PIQF 2013

Before we get into the sewing, let me remind you that PIQF, HUGE quilt show in San Jose California, is taking place starting on Thursday and running through this weekend.  If you are near, it is certainly worth a visit as the quilts are many in number and each has its own beauty.

If you are not close by, don't worry, I'll take a lot of photos for you!

Now on to the stitches....

Basting the small fabric pieces to paper templates may be seen as a chore to some people but I find it relaxing and enjoyable.

Once all the pieces were sewn with giant stitches to the hex papers I fussed a little bit with color placement and starting creating stacks of rows to be sewn together.

A few post it notes stuck on the top of a row and a zip lock bag holding about 3 rows in one place was my solution to packing this project on the go.

I have worked on it on the soccer field and in the car.  Progress is slow since I'm a bit short on time these days, but progress is progress and it's looking pretty cool.

All the fabrics are Oakshott cottons and a real joy to work with.

Sewing Garments - Not

Am I interested in making more cotton jersey garments?  Yes.

Do I plan to sew them in an elegant non-messy fashion?  Yes.

Am I beneath trying to fix a hole in my son's jersey PJ's if he begs me to?  No.

Did I fix said hole while he was still wearing said PJ's?  Maybe.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

He's only 5 and really wasn't in the mood to take them off.

Wow, my stitches are messy!

Disclaimer:  No children were harmed in the fixing of these PJ's.  

Hand Sewn Bookbinding & Calligraphy

Making beautiful lettering has been a passion of mine for a while.

Writing on fabric, paper, wedding invitations (cannot find a photo of them all for you, sigh), post-it notes, chalk boards, and anything that holds still for too long is something that I picked up about 15 yrs ago when I was learning Copperplate Calligraphy for Baltimore Album quilts. 

Wandering around CreativeBug, I ran into some super cool classes on bookbinding by Jody Alexander.

I made the above book after taking her online class on Coptic Bookbinding.

The cover is just a simple art paper in light blue that I decorated with calligraphy after the book was all finished. 

I'm using this as a notebook for some of my creative thoughts and classes I've been taking. 

One of the other classes she has covers how to make a book cloth out of fabric.  My next version will hopefully be covered with Liberty of London fabric, with any luck. 

It's been a real adventure for me in learning about paper and glues, including how to make glue from methyl cellulose power.  Hint: dumping some powder in cold water is hardly the place to start.  Can you say sticky icky goop?  Oh yes you can, it's almost Halloween after all.

I have thoughts about making some of these for give-aways since I'm addicted to making them.  You get to sew paper!  It's almost as much fun as sewing fabric.

Kiriki Plushie Owl

I've never been one to delve into the rabbit hole of embroidery.

When I saw the awesome creations of Kiriki Press there was no way to avoid trying it.

Not only are the fabrics hand made through a screen printing process, but even they very box they come in is hand made/screen printed.

It's adorable from soup to nuts.

I made this owl as a gift for my husband to honor our 10th anniversary.  The time has flown by (pun intended).

Making the stitches was not hard at all and the instructions were great.  I'm not very skilled at this, but all the same I'm happy with the result and would like to try to make a couple more.

Got Yarn?

Here's a cheesecake shot of my plied yarn. 

It turned out to be 250 yds, so I'll probably make some Easy Handspun Mitts out of them.

That is if I ever put my quilting needle down. 

Golding Spindle & Indigo Targhee Wool

Just a quick post to wish you a happy Friday.  

I finally finished spinning the singles from the naturally dyed indigo wool (Targhee breed).

I'm in love with this wool.  I wonder if my yard is big enough for a Targhee sheep.

Fiber was dyed by A Verb For Keeping Warm, by hand in Oakland, California.

Ring Spindle by Golding.