Air

Here is my second ever art quilt. It's actually unfinished in this picture - too lazy to finish binding it before taking the picture.


The theme is air and I've been thinking about it since I made my first art quilt, which was more of a forest-y earth theme. I've also got a water themed quilt in mind.

Things I liked about this quilt:
1. The idea was stuck in my mind and it was starting to bug me, so I'm glad I finally got it out.
2. I used a piece of felt instead of batting, and that made it easier to work with.
3. I think the freehand embroidery turned out pretty well.

The thing I don't so much like about it:
1. I rushed it, I was really impatient to get it out and got kind of sloppy. I do that a lot.
2. It was super hard to sew the feather down without just mashing it down, so that wasn't so awesome.

Overall, I like playing with my fabrics, I like embellishing, and I like doing little projects just for me. So I'm going to keep exploring the idea of art quilts... and next time dedicate a bit more time to it, so I can be happier with the quality of it.

Quilts in progress

I'm really happy with how much quitling I've been doing since I've been back. I've finished five quilts in nine months. Not bad... and I've got a few more on deck.

1. Mystery quilt #1: It's almost finished, I just need to add the binding. I hate binding. =( But I love love LOVE this quilt, and it's another one I almost don't want to give away.


2. Mystery quilt #2: Just getting started, I've cut out a few of the pieces, I don't think it'll take too long to finish up though.

3. Rubies: It's well underway, I've done about half the quilting. If I just sat and did it, I could easily finish it up in a week... but see projects 1 & 2 above for why I haven't.

4. & 5. Flying Geese & Stripes: Both tops are done, and both need to be backed, quilted & finished up. I'm seriously considering sending the flying geese one out to be professionally quilted, I just need to find a professional quilter & get an estimate of cost. I'm hoping to find someone who will just take it as is and not ask me to pin or baste it first.


The striped one should be pretty easy, I'm not planning on doing anything fancy with the quilting. My goal is to have it done by Christmas to give to my niece.

6. Well, if I'm gonna give a quilt to my niece, I need to make one for my nephew as well. I've got an idea... but that's it. I should probably get workin' on it!

7. Gaaaaah! This thing was supposed to be a flower basket quilt for my niece... and when I started it she was young enough to like a flowery girly quilt like this but now that she's a 'Tween... not gonna cut it. I don't particularly want a flower basket quilt and on top of that, I made some design changes between cutting out the blocks and starting to sew them together. If I keep going as is, there's gonna have to be math. I hate math. =( So I may just cut my losses here and re-appropriate the fabrics for another cause.

8. I really want to make more 'art quilts' for lack of a better word. Really I just want to play with fabric & embellishments on a small scale. I have some ideas and am excited to try them out.

So that's what's going on in my quilting world. I hope to have all of these finished up before the end of the year. Which may be a bit unrealistic when I start taking classes again. But it's good to have goals. =)

Playtime!

I've been putting a fair bit of work on gift quilts and really needed some time to play. There was an inspiring article in one my old copies of Quilting Arts Magazine (February/March 2008) about collage quilts, basically embellishing quilted panels with a variety of objects. It's like the perfect play-time project to do with some of the scrap fabric I've been collecting. I designated Tuesday night as play-time and I can't tell you how excited I was about it.

On my way home from work I collected all of these goodies.

Then I sewed up some of my favorite green batik scraps, aiming for a 3" x 5" postcard quilt size.

I added the found objects using a kind of animal/vegetable/mineral concept. You can't hardly see the 'animal' component - it's the wool yarn tying the rock down. Then I embellished it with some embroidery threads.

I got most of it done on Tuesday... but finished up some of the embroidery and the binding tonight. Verdict = SUPER FUN! And I think I can call this my first official "art quilt" - whatever that means. ;) I already have some ideas for the next couple I want projects I want to do.

Snips and Snails...

Although I haven't been posting... I have been crafting. But again, more gifts (I have extremely fecund friends) ... so I haven't wanted to post them until I gave them away.


In addition to my friends reproducing like rabbits, they're all bringing little boys into the world. Which is lovely and all... except that my quilting stash leans heavily in the girly-pink-floral direction. I was really stumped about this particular quilt. I knew I'd need a quick and easy pattern, and I knew it couldn't be a 'scrappy' quilt because I just didn't have enough fabric for that.


So I'd been popping into quilt shops here and there looking for inspiration. It finally came when I visited the Oregon Coast back in... uh... May maybe? There were all these puppy prints in half-yard and yard cuts already wrapped up. The couple happens to have to dogs, and you know... snips & snails & puppy dog tails seemed appropriate. I picked up a healthy stack and called it good. Then I headed to the library and flipped through a whole stack of quilt books until I found this, basic, but really useful pattern. I may have even bumped up the size of the blocks a bit so it would make up faster. Yeah yeah... I'm such a cheater.

Anyway, no more chatting... here are the pictures. Here's the full quilt on a bright sunny day.
The puppy paw prints went well with the larger dog prints, but the doggy toy print didn't really go. It was too cute to pass up though... so it makes good backing fabric!
Close up of the doggies... I set them every-which-way so they wouldn't have to worry about the right side up, they could just throw it on the floor & it would be interesting from every direction. Yeah, that and I'm lazy. ;)
Despite picking an easy pattern, I still didn't have it done by the baby-shower, not by a long shot (stupid work & Spanish classes taking up all my quilting time). I finally mailed it off last week, and lo & behold she went into labor. The new dad sent me an email yesterday, when they came home from the hospital the package was on their doorstep. So I got it in just under the wire! He sent me a picture of the baby with his quilt. Which cracks me up because he's soooo small right now, he makes the quilt look gigantic. I guess he'll grow into it soon enough. =)
I hope he likes it!

Grandma's Peach Cobbler.... sort of

I was blessed to have grown up with a southern Grandma. She was, as is required by South Carolina's state law, an amazing cook. Biscuits and gravy, fried okra, and oh sweet lord - Peach Cobbler.* The peaches she could get were as big as my head, perfectly ripe, soft and so flavorful, they were just heavenly. My mom also made a mean peach cobbler, but living in NJ, then CA meant we never quite got the same flavor as grandma did. Nevertheless, this peach cobbler beats anything you'll find in a restaurant hands down!

When I moved out on my own, this was one recipe I made sure to write down. In fact I wrote it down in this cutesy little journal my mom had given me that ended up being the repository for all my family recipes and little bits of advice to myself as I negotiated the challenges of living on my own. I even pasted a picture of my 'dream home' in the back. It was that kind of journal.

Anyway this is one of the things that counted as a precious possessions when I left for Thailand and I was sure to save it. Unfortunately I didn't write down specifically where I packed it and haven't been able to locate it. =(Never fear! My sister is also a fan of grandma's peach cobbler and had written down a copy of the recipe and sent it to me in a care package at some point. So when a friend brought over a box of peaches the other day, I knew what I had to do.


The problem was... my sister had taken a few liberties with the recipe (replacing the batter with a bisquick batter & cutting down the butter a bit) and while I noticed it was different... I couldn't remember the exact recipe I'd gotten from my mom. Anyway... regardless of the specific measurements, the secret is in the method of preparation.

You start with three bowls, the fruit the batter and the BUTTAH!
The fruit: 3 cups of peaches (the better your peaches, the better this will be) & 1/2 cup of sugar mix them up by hand. I squirted a tiny bit of lemon juice on the, only because these peaches are good, but not superior and I wanted to bump up the flavor a bit.

The batter: my sister calls for a cup of bisquick 1/2 cup of sugar and "enough milk to make it the right consistency." I was chatting with her** while baking & she described it as "thinner than a biscuit dough, but thicker than pancake batter... about like waffle batter". I didn't have bisquick, so I used a cup of flour, 1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder & about 3/4 cup of milk.


The butter: Again... a difference between her recipe and grandma's... she said 1/2 a stick of butter, but I am SURE my grandma's recipe called for a full stick of butter to be melted in the casserole dish as the oven preheats (350F). I compromised and used about 2/3 of a stick.


Now what you do is wait until the butter gets all melty and bubbly and wonderful, then you POUR THE BATTER INTO THE BUTTER, and *then* you pour the fruit into the batter. DO.NOT. STIR. This is the critical part. I have seen cobblers where they put the fruit in the bottom, then put little rounds of biscuits on top. It makes me want to cry. That's not cobbler!! WTF?Because what happens is you put it in the oven for about 45 mins, and the batter will bubble up through the fruit and get all fruity & wonderful on the inside, and fry up in the butter on the outside and get all crispy brown and coated with awesomeness. When you take it out of the oven, it will be all kinds of bubbly and juicy... spoon some of the juices/butter up over the doughy parts while it's still warm.

I swear to you, having cobbler this way will change your life! Ok... or maybe it will just make you make a lot of intense yummy noises.


You can eat this pure (it's best a little warm, but good cooled off too), but naturally adding a scoop of vanilla ice cream or fresh whip cream will just take it over the top. I have had this peach cobbler for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and am pretty sure this is what heaven tastes like.

This cobbler also has magical powers. Or perhaps it was Grandma looking down on me and giving me a helping hand. But while the cobbler was in the oven I hunted through my boxes of books and on my second time through one of the boxes I *finally* found the book with all my recipes in it. =) So here is the actual recipe from my grandma... and the explanation for why my sister wrote it down 'wrong'... she was halving the recipe.

6 cups sliced peaches
1 1/2 cups sugar (in a bowl, set aside)

1 1/2 sticks of butter (melt in a casserole dish)

batter
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
pinch salt
1 1/2 cups milk

Put the batter in the butter, put the fruit in the batter, do not stir. Bake at 350 for 45 min.




*In the interest of full disclosure, I should probably tell you that she died of a heart attack, but the way I see it, life without peach cobbler wouldn't be much a life I'd want to live anyway. =P

**castigating her vehemently for taking liberties with Grandma's recipe.

Muffins

I'm getting reacquainted with my cookbooks here and have recently discovered the American's Test Kitchen recipe for Big Beautiful Muffins. I'm hooked!

The not-so-secret ingredient is yogurt, instead of milk or oil or whatever. The Apricot Almond version called for dried apricots, but all I had were... uh are these nectarines? I only ended up using two of them. And in addition to the almond extract I added some chopped up almonds for an extra crunch.


I'm really impressed with how well this recipe works out, it smells awesome in the oven. They smell so good I was able to tell when they were done even though my timer decided it didn't really want to work tonight. =( The tops are perfectly crunchy and the inside is nice and moist, using almond extract gives it a good flavor all the way through the muffin, and really compliments the fruitiness. I think it's the yogurt that lets it keep it's big fluffy shape.

Mmmmmmm muffins!

Making stuff

Hi Everybody! =) How do you like the blog face-lift?

Here's something I baked the other day. It's based on the Onion Boards recipe from my trusty-dusty Sunset Breads cookbook, but I've modified it quite a bit over the years. If you want a quick & easy loaf... this is not for you. If you want super awesome yummy sandwich/hamburger buns, strap on your apron and and get cooking.

Ingredients:
1 pkg active dry yeast
2 cups luke-warm water
2 Tbls sugar
2 tsp salt
4 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup white flour (plus more later)
1 sauteed onion

1 egg
coarse salt

Oven: 375F
Bake time: 20-25 mins
Overall time: 2 days.

Day 1
Chop up & saute a white or yellow onion in a little butter on medium for as long as it takes to get good and brown. Mmmmmmmm ... onions! Let 'em cool down.

In the bowl of your world-class superhero of a Kitchen Aide Stand Mixer, mix the yeast and water & a bit of the sugar. Let it sit a minute just to make sure the yeast is active. Remember, yeast is alive- pay attention to the expiration date on the package, and don't kill it with hot water. If the yeast looks good, add the sugar, salt & a cup of the wheat flour. Mix it well.
Slowly add the remaining wheat flour mixing for several minutes between additions of flour.

Seriously... let it mix well, let it rest a minute or two, mix it a few minutes more. You're trying to work up the gluten so it's good and stretchy. After adding all the wheat flour, mix in the onions. Again, give it enough time to really mix in. It should be looking a bit wet again, so then add the final cup of white flour. All told, I probably let it mix/rest/mix/rest for at least half an hour. (I was watching So You Think You Can Dance, I'd let it rest during the dancing, mix during the comments, then go check on it/add more flour on commercials.)

You should have a good medium-soft dough, turn it out onto a floured board, fold it over a couple times, shape it into a ball, and place it in a well greased bowl. Cover with plastic wrap (I didn't have any, I used foil... nothing bad happened. ;) ) and place it in the fridge overnight.


When you take it out of the fridge, it will have risen quite a bit, and it will be COLD. Punch it down, reshape it, put it back in the bowl. Let it sit out and get to room temperature. I left it out on the counter all day while I went to work. But you probably don't need to let it rise that long, but a give it a good 4-5 hours at least.

When I got home... the dough was well up to the top of the bowl here... although, naturally I forgot to get a picture. Empty the dough onto a floured board, dust the top with flour and gently degass it, shape it, let it sit for a minute or two to rest.

Using a sharp knife cut the dough into 10 - 12 equal pieces, depending on if you want bigger rolls or smaller rolls. Shape them into balls, but press them down good & flat. Place them on a well greased (or seasoned) baking stone. Let them sit for another half hour, hour or so. I went and got some dinner... when I got back I turned on the stove.

Preheat the oven to 375F and mix up the egg wash. Egg white is supposed to make crust shiny, egg yolk is supposed to make the crust soft, I just mixed up a whole egg and called it good. Brush the tops with the egg, then sprinkled some coarse salt on the tops. You could use sesame seeds if you want, but I like salt!Bake them for 20-25 minutes, until they sound hollow when you knock on the tops.

They turned out really really well, soft and a little chewy, a good wheaty-oniony flavor, very good for sandwiches and hamburgers. I'm planning on putting some pork & bbq sauce in the crock pot tomorrow... and that should make for some gooooood pulled pork sandwiches. =)

Code Durian

I've been watching events unfold in Thailand, and I have to say I'm just in shock right now. There had been, you may recall on and off protests for the past year or so. Mostly it's based on the division between the poor rural folks in the northeast of Thailand (generally the red shirts) who support the exiled former Prime Minister Thaksin and the middle/upper class urban folks in Bangkok (generally the yellow shirts) who support the current PM Abhisit (the side supported by the military, and it is rumored backed by the King). I believe most of my students were yellow-shirts... although Rayong was pretty evenly split between the two groups.

As far as I know, everything in Rayong is fine. The violence has been pretty focused on a few areas in Bangkok... and this afternoon I got a warning email from the US Consulate in Thailand (I can't figure out how to get off the mailing list) that said there's also been some violence in Chiang Mai (a city much more sympathetic to the red-shirts). About a third of the country is under curfew tonight though. And quite frankly, I'm very happy not to be there right now.

One of my favorite places in Bangkok was Siam Center... a complex of really high end malls. Just one BTS stop farther was Central World. I went there once after getting my Visa at the Vietnam consulate. Well, 'Wireless Road' where most of the consulates are, was the site of a lot of the protests, and they've now burned down Central World. Guys - this is BIG. It's not quite World Trade Center big. But it is like setting fire to a building in Time Square. Fortunately, most people have been avoiding the area for a while, and even the red-shirts had been given pretty fair warning that the army was moving in to disburse the protests. But I can't imagine the financial impact this destruction will have.

Bangkok Burning.

I'm just in shock about the whole thing. These are the areas where I felt safe, the NICE areas of Bangkok where I went to relax and have fun on my days off. The Thai people in general are so easy going and laid back, that this just seems unreal. But people were killed... right there in the streets, right at the BTS stop where I bought my tacky silver flip flops.

I don't have anything profound to say about this. I just wanted to bring it to your attention. It's one of the things about travel- obscure places that you only hear a 30 second sound bite about in the news become real places, places where I've shopped and eaten. Political struggles are not just among faceless others... but people I taught, shared meals with, held onto dearly on the back of motorbikes.

It seems that the immediate violence is over in Bangkok. But I have no idea if or when this situation will ever be resolved. But right now.... it's a nightmare.

A little less conversation a little more action please.

My mom (like most women of her age) was a serious Elvis fan. So while I am of course familiar with his music and I've seen the clips of the women screaming and fainting in the aisles...I never really got into him. He was just someone my *mom* liked ... you know, he was (or would be) OLD! But I was just watching some clips of Elvis in his prime and dude - HE WAS HOT! Like, seriously seriously hot. I get it now.


Anyway... my point being, in between clips of Elvis and all, I've been pretty busy in my real life and haven't been taking the time to update my blog.

I'm still plugging away at the red batik quilt... toying with the name Rubys & Diamonds, I'm maybe halfway done with the quilting, if I really sat down with it, I could finish it in a weekend. But I get tired of having to move the entire quilt around every time I turn a corner... so I'm taking it slow.I pulled together the leftover fabric from my Valerie Wells funky squares quilt and made up a quilt top that I like vastly more than the original quilt.
Still haven't gotten my good camera fixed, so the colors aren't great in this picture.




It's a bit narrower than I'd like it to be, but I'm about out of fabric. As it was, I was kind of improvising with the solid brown stripes on the sides. Fortunately my niece is a very skinny little girl, and I think this one will be right up her alley with the bright colors and floral patterns. Still gotta decide on a quilting pattern... something with long straight(ish) lines! But there's no reason this couldn't be done in time for either her Birthday (in July) or Christmas. We'll see.

I've picked up some knitting WIPs too recently, although I haven't made much progress on anything.

A quilt I actually like

I told you guys that I loved this green quilt so much I almost kept it. Instead I stocked up on batiks at a Fabric Depot and started making one for myself. I actually finished the top up a little while ago... can't remember exactly when. I love love love the colors, and the pattern. I'm wishing I had made it just a little bigger. But it's okay as is.

It's in the quilting stage, I'm doing the same echo quilting I did with the green quilt. It's slow going, but I'm plugging away at it. Again, lesson learned - only long lines until I get my hands on a long arm quilt.

What I've been doing when I haven't been blogging.

So you saw one quilt that I worked on but couldn't post about until after the shower... and here's another one. I'm pretty sure the mom doesn't even know I have a blog, but you never know!

This is for a couple I've known for a very long time. I went to college with the Dad to be, and met the mom shortly after that. They're another couple I know who tried for quite a while to have kids, and suffered a few setbacks along the way. So everyone's super excited for them. Of course I was going to make a quilt... but dang, this was the second baby shower I was invited to before I even had my own apartment!

For this one I used mostly fabrics from my stash, although I didn't have quite enough for the backing or border, so I picked up a yard each of red & blue at a Fabric Depot sale. I was a bit stumped for what pattern to use so I fell back on a basic 2x2 block in light & dark blues and red... the colors of the nursery.

I tried to avoid too much white because I didn't want it to look too patriotic. But truth be told, a lot of these fabrics went into my flag quilt, so there are blue fabrics with white stars and some of the reds are bandana-esque. Oh well.. this *is* America.



I like throwing together the back using left-over blocks.

The quilting is super basic ... just diagonal lines. But it works well.

So it may not be the most original or 'funky' quilt... but it's cozy and big enough to stay last through toddler-hood (40"ish by almost 60"ish). So I really hope he will like it!

Edited to add...

The shower was today, and the mom really liked it. She got a lot of awesome stuff... a lot of practical stuff that people who actually have babies know to give and plenty of 'aw cute' stuff. I felt pretty good about giving the only quilt. She also got a cute knit hat, mittens & matching blanket set from a mother/daughter knitting duo. But that was the only handmade stuff she got. That makes it nice for me... no other quilts to be compared against. ;)

In theory I get to start working on quilts for me now. Except that another friend just announced that she's pregnant. So there will be more baby quilts in my future. Oh well... keeps me busy.

Painfully ugly quilting

Ok... I finished up the Valorie Wells quilt. I thought quilting would help improve my feelings for it... but no, it actually made me even less fond of it.


I tried to do concentric squares around the boxes... but MAN it was a pain in the butt. My least favorite part of quilting is trying to shove half the blanket through the neck of the sewing machine while quilting it.... this one was brutal, every time I had to change directions the better part of the quilt had to get rolled up to go through the machine. The results are disappointing for the amount of work that went into it. It clearly needs more quilting - just to hold it all together, but there's no way I'm doing more squares.

I'm also not thrilled with the embroidery... again, it needs more. I mean... it's a nice touch, I don't think this part is ugly... but it didn't come out quite as well as I'd hoped.


I'm going to treat this quilt as a learning experience. For me at least I need to have a quilt in mind before buying the fabric. As much as I love some of the fabrics, they never really told me what they wanted to be. Or maybe they were trying to tell me something and I just couldn't hear it. It's also possible that I just needed to let them all sit and stew a lot longer. But I'm an impatient quilter. I want the finished quilt NOW. The other thing I've learned is that long straight lines are much easier to quilt than trying to do smaller, unconnected shapes.

I'm glad it's done. It's a good size, it's nice and warm. It'll do just fine. I'm eager to start making myself quilts I really love though.

Home sweet... uh...

I'm all moved in to my new apartment. There's no subtle way to say it... the place is ugly, like *spectacularly* ugly. But it's within my budget, in an awesome part of town, and didn't take too long to find. Considering I've been traveling / freeloading since OCTOBER* I was just not willing to spend a lot of time looking for something better.

I have a couple decorating ideas... and would love to get ideas from everyone else - so just consider these the 'before' shots.

Here's the living room. Items of note - mottled brown carpet , and shag-o-riffic fake fireplace. Can't take it down because the bottom part is actually the heater for the room. But I at least got rid of the plastic log.

(Mrs. J shown for scale. ;) Thanks for helping me move!!!)



The entryway of many portals:I really don't like that I need to close the front door before I can open the hall closet door, but I"m getting used to it.

That 70s kitchen:
Mustard yellow appliances that are quite possibly older than I am. It's impressive really that they're still working. In fact my landlord said that the only way they'll get replaced is if they stop working. So if you have any ideas..... ;)


The bathroom has a case of multiple personality disorder I think. There's pale pink tile in the shower... the floor is an off white linoleum, and around the sink is a grey/blue "marble". It's big though, which is nice. Considering my bathroom in Thailand had a resident bird's nest & occasional cockroach invasions... this will be a huge improvement.



There's a linen closet next to the bathroom which may end up being my craft closet... not sure yet. There's no shortage of closet space here which is nice. In fact there are two closets in the bedroom.

Not quite sure why one has a mirror and the other doesn't... perhaps another case of split-personality. You'll note that the carpet stays true through the whole place.... well that's comforting I guess. ;)

And in case anyone was wondering... this picture represents about 1/3 of my personal possessions. I had some crafty stuff stored at Castle5000 and some clothes, books & sentimental stuff at another friend's house.

You'll note... NO furniture... nope, none. That situation is slowly but surely getting sorted out with the help of some very generous friends and my credit card. I'm not thrilled about the fact that I'm back in debt after working so hard to be debt free. But I'm just not willing to sleep on the floor for the next six months.




*I've stayed in approximately 18 different places (more if you count spending the night on buses/trains/planes) since moving out of my apartment in Rayong. I am about ready to BURN my luggage, but I can't until I get myself a dresser. =(

Baby baby baby

A friend of mine recently adopted a little boy, she & her hubby had tried for quite a while to have a kid themselves before deciding to adopt. The process was unbelievably long and arduous... I believe they were looking into adoption before I left for Thailand, and they brought him home shortly after I got back. I'm absolutely thrilled for them and the little boy seems to be doing extremely well with them.

Well, naturally I dug into my stash and made a quilt. And since I wasn't quite sure how soon the shower would be... I kinda cranked this one out as fast as I could!

The pattern is "Blueberry Pie" from American Patchwork & Quilting magazine (June 2007) and is one that I've wanted to make for myself. It was easy and I really like the effect.

Obviously I made the baby quilt considerably smaller than the pattern... and I left off the flying geese blocks, frankly I don't think they fit with the rest of the pattern.


I just used some straight line quilting to echo the light diamonds. The thing I love about making baby quilts is that they are so small and so quick. Although this one is maybe a bit too small, since the boy is 20+ months... not a newborn. Oh well... I'm sure it's actually bigger than he is, and I cuddled under it on the couch... so it's usable. In fact I liked it so much that I had to embroider the little boy's name on it so I wouldn't keep it for myself. =P

But never fear... shortly after I finished this one I went out and purchased a bunch more batiks to make another one. =0

Progress!

I haven't been posting much, but a lot has been going on lately both crafty and otherwise. Just to get everyone up to speed.

1. I GOT A JOB! It's not my dream job, but there are definitely some positives... like getting a paycheck, and in a few months - health insurance. It's just a front office job, and pays less than what I was making before... but it should be far less stressful too. I like my coworkers (actually worked with one of them before) and everyone seems really well organized and helpful. So that's a good thing.


2. I found an apartment! Again, it's not quite my dream apartment, but it's in an awesome location. I'll be walking distance from the grocery store, the mall, and the MAX train. There's also a bus stop directly in front of my apartment that will drop me off directly in front of my new job in less than 30 minutes. I'll get to move in next weekend. Then comes the fun, but expensive, part where I buy all new furniture etc.

So things are feeling a bit more stable and less terrifying, but it's still going to take some time to get well settled. Next up will be looking into grad-school programs.

In crafty-news, I have been quilting a lot and knitting a little bit. I finished the embroidery on my Funky Floral quilt.It's not super fancy, but this square was a bit boring compared to the other center squares, so at least this adds a little something. Oh, and obviously I've finished the top & have started quilting it. I did a few lines of 'stitch in the ditch', and am planning to echo the square frames with quilting. It's a bit of a pain to try to get the body of the quilt through my relatively small sewing machine... but it can be done.


There are a couple other projects in the works, and I'll post on those soon. I bought a cheap new camera to replace the one that got messed up in Vietnam... but I'm really unhappy with the quality... I guess you get what you pay for. Now that I have a job, I'm going to take the good camera in for repairs, so that hopefully you'll get pretty pictures soon!

This is how UFOs happen

I decided to do a little embroidery on one of the blocks of the quilt I'm making. I sketched it out and did some basic back-stitching in a couple different colors. But it wasn't quite enough, so I decided to add a bit of this and that... and to do an outline in white. In looking for my white floss I found about four skeins of ecru and only half a skein of white. It occurred to me to go with the ecru, but no... I decided that only white would do.

And *naturally* it ran out about halfway through.

Back in the days of car-ownership this would have been no big deal, just drive out to a craft store and pick up some new floss. But now that I'm totally reliant on public transportation I've got to figure out a craft store along a bus route... which is tough because they're all out towards the suburbs. And even tougher on Sundays when the buses come about once every half hour. I went to a Fred Meyer nearby - they have yarn & some other crafty things but no floss. So yesterday I was out of luck. I was seriously tempted to just set the whole thing aside and start a new project... but I knew as soon as I did that I'd never remember to get floss and the top would languish for ages as a UFO.

Today I went on a near epic quest to find embroidery floss...and learned that the two likely shops downtown are closed on Monday. I continued on busing & walking through the dark and stormy night only to find that the yarn shop right down the street happens to carry a very small selection of embroidery floss. Success!

Now I just need to finish up the embroidery, finish sewing together the top, then figure out how I'm supposed to quilt this whole thing. Gah quilts always take about 10 times longer than I think they're going to.

In other news, I'm still working a temp job. It's so boring I kinda want to bash my skull in more often than not, but the pay is decent. I went on about a million interviews last week... okay five... but it felt like more than that. I have another sit down tomorrow and I am really hoping that I get a job offer soon. I have about the sweetest situation I could imagine right now, but I won't feel right until I'm on my own two feet.

Rebel has an idea

I have an idea. Not sure if it's a good idea, or a bad idea, or if it's a feasible idea at all. But the idea is there, a notion, an inkling. Stay tuned.

What was I thinking?

Remember these?



Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking. It all seemed like a good idea at the time. But now I realize this project started as a quilt-show impulse purchase and has just snowballed into a project that's just not in any decorating concept I've ever had for my home.

But... I'm itchin' to quilt and trying not to buy anything until my employment situation is well and truly sorted. So here I am....working on a quilt that is just waaaay too funky for me.

I've been thinking of making a quilt for my niece, so I may end up sending this one to her. But I'm not even sure if it's her kind of thing. So... we'll see.

I'm vowing to do a better job of stashing in the future. I'm going to get a clear concept of the kind of quilts I want in my home, and buy accordingly. No more impulse fabric purchases. Hold me to it!

Orange you glad

Right before Christmas I had the good fortune to stay at Castle5000, home of fellow quilter Michael5000. In addition to having a roof over my head (woo hoo!), I was reunited with my quilts, fabrics & sewing machine (WOO HOO!!)

I pretty much immediately started quilting again. Immediately as in, I pulled out some strips I'd cut down from the scraps of previous projects, started sewing them together and didn't stop until I had a quilt top done. *

(forgive the crappy photography - just bought a cheapo camera to tide me over)

I'd wanted to do a Stacked Coins quilt for a while, and had sketched out the basics a while back in my quilt notebook. So I already had a pattern, most of the strips, and even a couple yards of the orange fabric that I'd picked up cheap at the Fabric Depot summer sale back in the day. Stashes are good! I love my stash! =) The only thing I had to buy new was the binding, I am waaaay too lazy to make binding myself.

The plan was to give this one as a gift for one of the many new babies in my world. But in my haste to make something fast, I made a several mistakes.... one would be okay, two... is pushing it but after three I didn't feel good about giving it as a gift anymore. Not gonna point the mistakes out to you, but trust me, they're there.


Here she is, I'm calling her "Orange You Glad" - Orange you glad to be home, orange you glad to be quilting again, orange you glad that you have a bright orange quilt to cuddle up in? And the answer is yes. Yes I am!




* Well, there were potty breaks. ;)

Twenty ten.

When I was a kid I just kinda figured it'd be the 19somethings forever. I had a vague idea that I'd be around when the year 2000 came, It just didn't occur to me that the 2000s would keep going. Basic mathematical concepts have never been my friends.

Well, now that 2010 is here, it seems like some new resolutions are in order. What to do in 2010?

Career related goals:
1. My primary resolution is to find a job that I actually like. This will be a multi-phase goal, the first of which will be to find a JOB. But in order to keep from falling into a rut, I need to keep looking at job postings and applying for anything that looks more interesting that what I'm doing. Applying, or even going on an interview doesn't mean I'm going to take a particular job... but I need to keep looking until I find something spectacular.

2. Pursue a masters in teaching, with the goal of finding a job where I work with adults. Again, there are going to be a few parts to this, the first of which will be mostly information gathering... looking at different long-term career options and what it will take to get there. Once I figure out which program I want to get into, I will more than likely need to take some pre-reqs.

3. Learn Spanish...I've already seen a few interesting job postings that ask specifically for someone who is bilingual. I don't anticipate becoming bilinqual in a year... but if I don't start now I'll just be that much farther behind when I do start.

Social goal:
4. Spend more time and effort on real life relationships and activities. I love the internet, you know I do... but I think I pour too much of myself out into cyberspace and not enough of it into face-to-face relationships. I'm going to continue to go to knit-night and hopefully start bowling again, and make it a point to host something at my as yet undetermined home once a month or so.

Artistic / Craftistic goals:
5. Rebuild my stashes. I destashed quite a bit before I went to Thailand. It was good to weed out some stuff that I really wasn't going to use... but now I'm down to pretty bare bones. I have very specific goals for this stash building.
Knitting: Mostly buy yarn with specific gift projects in mind, for example something washable for a baby blanket, or enough pretty varigated wool for a hat / wrist warmers... that kind of thing.
Quilting: More batiks, more yellows and oranges, fewer calicos.

Hmm... I have quite a few more craft-related goals, so maybe I'll list those separately.


Hmmm..... twenty-ten. It'll be hard to beat 2009 in terms of 'adventure', but hopefully this will be a very good year for building & rebuilding my career, a home, relationships, my life!