Hand Quilting and Steel String Guitar Practice

After hand quilting way more than my usual amount, and having not developed calluses yet, my son asked me to play a little guitar for him.

Ouch!! Sheesh, boo boo fingers did not like those steel strings.

The wall hanging quilting is finally done and I have an awesome binding picked out. Now to have some time to just put it on there.

We had a nice weekend here. All healthy for once, that's a new one around here. Maybe the dry weather is doing us some good.

Meanwhile, I'm loving:

the fashion of Rick Owens, such cool designs....
these roses photographed by Quaint Handmade...
this kitchen (beautiful) as photographed by Lara Cameron of Kirin Notebook

Keeping Calm

The Keep Calm and Carry On quilt top is done, and I'm in process of quilting it.

I decided to use black thread to quilt it, which is a little funky, but after all it's an odd little project.

In a desperate effort to polish off the veggies that we get from our CSA, a place called Two Small Farms, my husband discovered this cool site called RecipePuppy.

Enter items in your frig, and the puppy comes up with recipes for you.

I tried snails and chocolate just to test its limits, and it didn't find anything. But, what it found for coffee and chocolate was definitely worth some thought.

And what is with this knitting site called KnittingHelp.com? Why are knitters so very cool? Where is the quilting equivalent of this site?

Continental Knitting blows my mind. I might have to invent "Continental Quilting".

Continental Quilting: Twice as fast as regular quilting with less movement of your fingers! Now...how to implement that...hmmm...

Mother's Day project: Silhouette Necklaces

Yesterday my friend Sharon, of Knits are for Kids blog, and I worked on our Mother's Day silhouette necklace project.

She turned me on to a cool web site: http://www.photojewelrymaking.com/ where we got a lot of our supplies.

Overall, the final results are ok. I would NOT recommend doing this project on a hot day, and I would also recommend that you use some kind of sealer like modge podge perhaps, on your photos. We didn't do that and some of the papers took in resin.

Anyhow, think moms and grandmothers will not notice small imperfections, they will probably just love the fact that we made them something personal.

Fabric from Singapore

In my post office box I got the most lovely package.

Mona, from Singapore, sent me the most amazing Victorian inspired fabric complete with silhouettes as part of the print!

It was such a sweet gesture and it really warmed my heart so very much.

Thanks a million Mona.

The fabric is designed by Micci for Yuwa fabric company. I am not too familiar w/ this designer, but I am off to read more about it.

I'll be working more on the silhouette project tomorrow so stay tuned for updates! My first adventure with resin.

Happy Easter!

Hope that this Easter finds your family together, happy, healthy and relaxed.

I made this bunny ages ago from Hilary's pattern, found on the beautiful and famous Wee Wonderfuls blog. Her patterns are adorable and very easy to follow.

If you don't have a copy of this bunny pattern yet, you might want to pick one up. I loved making it and I'm usually not a huge fan of stuffed dolls.

We will be hunting eggs and eating our usual Easter breakfast treat. Best wishes to you.

Inspiration

This is one of those weeks where I could just use a little inspiration.

The "Z" key broke of my beloved work laptop (from signing my initials too often at the end of my emails most likely), the baby has picked up a tummy virus, and my sweet mom left us to go back home (we tried to keep her, it didn't work!).

While my mom was here I did get some late night work done on the Keep Calm wall hanging, so should have that done quite soon.

Where are you getting your bloggy inspiration this week? Got some tips for your fav new blogs? I'm always looking to learn about more. Meanwhile, I'm clinging to:

Decaf, please

Home Spun Living

Quilt It

Quilting with the Past

Visit From Gramma

How nice is it to have my mom visiting for along weekend?

Um...how handy do you think it is to have an extra pair of hands to juggle the 3 yr old, 6 month old, and entourage of plumbers traipsing through here giving us quote on our currently leaking kitchen sink.

Talk about pulling fat out of fire...perfect timing, Mom!

As if her hands are busy enough bouncing babies and making tents w/ 3 yr olds...she is working on the above cathedral windows quilt in her spare moments. I love the indigo fabrics she's using.

In other news, "Goodness", a Japan-based online fabric shop, is closing their doors and leaving Japan. I say "Badness" to that, since it's one less beautiful source of fabric for us....(boo hoo), but "Awesomeness" to the fact they are currently hosting a liquidation sale of 40% off everything.

Quilted Undergarments

This is a photo of a quilted pantie that I designed and made.

Little did I know that I would eventually get a contract from Nordstrom to mass produce them.

They loved them so much that I've been offered a part time position on their board of fashion directors as a quilted undergarment designer.

Good thing I'm not the only one designing quilted undergarments for people who love to do quilting.

Today I also heard back on my application to be a Project Runway contestant next season, and they accepted me! I've always wanted to be on that TV show.

And for those of you still using those pesky old needles and threads to hand applique, please check out Quilt Flap's new method of using glue instead. What an excellent idea and time saving measure.

Anyhow, today's April Fool's day, and of course NONE OF THE ABOVE IS TRUE, but isn't it good craic to have some fun once in a while.