books and baseball and blazers
April 30, 2009 at 1:35 pm | Posted in books and mags, chatty, oregon | Leave a commentI’m finally feeling better and I’ll be back with an actual crafty post tomorrow, but for now I wanted to make a quick announcement to any fellow Portland sports lovers: my father-in-law Paul Dickson will be at Powell’s tomorrow night, May 1, to read from and sign his Dickson Baseball Dictionary!
If you’re a baseball fan, I hope you’ll stop by and say hi… and I heard that Stitch ‘n Pitch is making a Portland stop this year, at the Beavers game on June 25. I got to go to a SnP Dodgers game a couple of years ago and it was a lot of fun! I’ll definitely be there, probably embroidering instead of knitting unless my skills improve in that arena.
And since I’m apparently on a sports-o-rama theme today, I’ll mention this too… Sarah and I sewed up some black-and-red pennants last week, which was super fun,
and mine are proudly flying on my porch as our Blazers hang in there through the playoffs.
Pearl is a big fan too!
Go Blazers!
spring flowers
April 27, 2009 at 11:24 am | Posted in bead simple, I love to make things..., recycled crafty, vintage crafty | 1 CommentWow, after a super busy week and a lot of things I’m excited about and wanted to mention (mason jars! inventing some hanging flower baskets! estate sales! garden! making a cookbook!) I am suddenly feeling horribly under the weather so I’m going to save those bits and pieces for another day. Bummer.
I do have one thing to show before I crawl back into bed: a little flower-embellishment project to resparkle a plain vintage handbag over at CraftStylish. I took some assorted rhinestones in two different colors
and mixed them into a floral pattern in the spirit of my favorite handbag designer ever, Enid Collins.
It is also a bit like the Blossom Book project from Bead Simple (same color mix — I love those deep-gold rhinestones) and a bit like the Treasure Box I made for CRAFT: 05 (yes, same center rhinestones again! I am a creature of habit, I guess.).
I like it!
Okay, I’m heading back to bed for now… I need to rest up so I can cheer on the Blazers in Game 5 tomorrow night.
terrariums + tea kits
April 20, 2009 at 1:11 pm | Posted in I love to make things..., recycled crafty | 4 CommentsI am still completely obsessed with terrariums and I’m always on the lookout for Mason jars… but this week I branched out and made one on a smaller scale, using a baby food jar!
I think it turned out pretty cute.
I wrote it up for CraftStylish: how to recycle baby food jars into a teeny-tiny terrarium and a mix-it-yourself chai tea kit for good measure.
And of course I had to work buttons in there somehow.
Don’t forget to check out Jenny’s original post for all the terrarium-making details!
things I like this week
April 17, 2009 at 12:00 pm | Posted in chatty, craftivism, house crafty, oregon | 2 CommentsI just snapped up Diane’s FANTASTIC new e-book, Making a Great Blog, and I am happily reading it. And I just got to a very sweet surprise, a mention of Bead Simple, among all the other fabulous bits and pieces decorating Diane’s clear, thoughtful and inspiring advice — she works in so many lovely things, from vintage buttons to necktie quilts, as examples and colorful flourishes within her information-packed chapters.
Yay Diane! Find out more in Rachel’s thorough review post, and get your own copy here.
Rachel also wrote a wonderful post this week highlighting some of the amazing things up for grabs as part of the new online auction to benefit Baby Ike…
so be sure to check out the whole vast and varied collection of over a hundred items if you’re interested. People have been so generous in donating and I love the mix of crafty pieces, vacations, cupcakes, massages, candles and even an Obama quilt (!) among many, many other great things.
And around here I am happy that we planted our first mini-round of vegetables this week!
I put in Red Russian kale, snap peas (with trellis in progress, made from old yardsticks), collard greens, and cabbage so far. And I moved all of our herbs in containers from their spots far and wide to one friendly hangout right next door.
And of course we have the
playoff games to look forward to, too!
this week in pictures
April 15, 2009 at 1:15 pm | Posted in chatty, house crafty, oregon | 4 CommentsArtisan bread in 5 minutes a day!
And
a
raised
bed!
sewing euphoria!
April 13, 2009 at 2:54 pm | Posted in chatty, craft to wear, crafting with kids, holidays, I love to make things..., new writing! | 9 CommentsMonths and months go by and I don’t manage to get anything sewn at all, but this one little week has been so exciting sewing-wise! Two fun tutorials I did just went up, and I made Pearl a crafty little Easter basket, too. Triumph x 3 after a very long drought! If you’re in the mood to sew some little things for the babies in your life here are some fun, easy projects you might like to try.
On Friday, the always-awesome CRAFT: blog posted my Woodgrain Baby Gifts article and how-to. I loved doing this one and I am so happy to see it out in the world!
I made two sets of apple-and-branch appliqued muslin swaddling blankets, burp cloths, shirts, and matching pants (using my beloved Burda 9772). I love appliqueing and mixing fabrics, and it was nice to make some cute things for Pearl to grow into… and the swaddling blanket and burp cloth combination is my go-to new baby gift, so now I have some all set for the next baby-to-be in our world!
And on Sunday, my CraftStylish tutorial for making a soft, baby-friendly felt owl with a bonus crinkly surprise inside went up, too.
Pearl loves grabbing things that crinkle and crackle, so I recycled two wipes packages into the secret ingredient inside… and when I surprised her with it she immediately grabbed it and squeezed away so I knew it was a success.
And he fit so nicely into her Easter basket yesterday morning, too!
I seem to be kind of a holiday-crafting mother so far, and as usual I am loving felt above all other materials. I used it for the broom and Griffyndor emblem for her Harry Potter Halloween costume, and for her Christmas stocking, and now it’s the star this time around too. The Easter bunny stopped at Powell’s for some favorite books and then scooped up my treasured chocolate bunny from jekbot and last week’s owl, and added some new little treats: pinked felt Easter eggs I decorated with ribbons and rick-rack!
These are super simple to make. I just cut out matching ovals in different colors with pinking shears, used tacky glue to add ribbons and rick-rack, and sewed them together (leaving a space at the bottom for stuffing), trimmed the edges, and finished them up on Saturday afternoon.
Then on Easter morning, Pearl had the best time pulling every single thing out of the basket and playing with it all! I’m sure next year she’ll want to hunt for eggs and gather them all up, but this year she is all about taking things out of larger things, and having a lot of fun doing it. And of course relaxing with a bottle afterwards.
One more thing to add to this super long and very baby-centric post is that the yellow dress she’s wearing in the picture was mine as a baby, and the appliqued whale dress is the one and only thing I made for her while I was pregnant, so it’s been extra fun for me to see my big girl crawling around cheerfully grabbing owls and Easter eggs wearing some of my favorite things. She is so sweet lately.
I hope you had a lovely weekend too!
handmade nation weekend, portland style
April 9, 2009 at 1:06 pm | Posted in art and craft, chatty, oregon | 3 CommentsI thought I’d try to collect some favorite bits and pieces from the Handmade Nation weekend and write about what I loved the most. Instead of posting photos one by one by one, I put 16 favorites (from me, Lee, Kim, and Diane, all collected from the excellent flickr pools here and here) into a patchwork quilt and hopefully they’ll speak for themselves a bit…
I feel very lucky to be part of a big and bustling craft community with a lot of people I love and admire. And being in one place for a few hectic, colorful days was really special. Diane and Lee have written some lovely posts about it all and I’ll just add that from start to finish it was filled with laughing, beautiful things to look at, cool surprises and handmade magnificence.
Seeing the film for the first time was incredible. I am very honored to be part of it and represent my Super Crafties and my craft fair and magazine peeps. A huge congratulations to Faythe on a fantastic accomplishment!
We had breakfast at Cadillac Cafe, a lengthy hang at Knittn Kitten, a quick stop at Queen Bee, a lovely evening at the museum premiere, a very fun afterparty at Namita’s, multiple trips to the waffle wagon, a super-interesting panel, a relaxed little crafty afternoon back at my house, a tiki evening of mai tais and pupu platters, a trip to Crafty Wonderland to find first-birthday (!) treasures, a sunny lunch outside, a Blazers-make-the-playoffs-meets-Japanese-craft-books wind-down, and a thrilling Final Four victory in the middle of it all.
Thank you to everyone who came to to visit us, to the museum for hosting the movie premiere, and to Crafty Wonderland for three awesome years of Portland craft this month!
catching up…
April 8, 2009 at 2:27 pm | Posted in chatty | 2 CommentsThis weekend (the Handmade Nation premiere and panel, Crafty Wonderland‘s big 3rd birthday, lovely crafty friends in town, the Final Four games and Carolina’s victory, the Blazers clinching the playoffs) was amazing but I am in a whirlwind of tying up loose ends and finishing work and planting things, and my writing just for fun has taken a back seat… so I am very eager to write up the movie and the craftiness and everything else but I think it’s going to be tomorrow. Or Friday. Or sometime soon!
Anyway, here is what I do have to say in the meantime…
I made a fun little mini-planter project for CraftStylish that I really like — the little row of sugar star peas and red Russian kale dudes look so cheerful on our porch!
My beloved North Carolina Tar Heels won it all on Monday — congratulations to Michigan State on a great season and a fantastic tournament run, but I was happy to see my team have a phenomenal game! Pearl and I celebrated wearing our finest Carolina t-shirts on a lovely sunny afternoon in the front yard. She is getting so tall and I cannot believe she will be one (one!!) next month.
And in addition to all the other wonderfulness going on, Pearl learned how to crawl (yay! cutest thing ever) and my life just sped up accordingly. Here she is, wearing a sun hat that was mine as a baby, en route to untying my tantalizingly tied sneaker.
Anyway, I’ll be back soon with crafty (and hopefully even gardening) updates and I will see you then!
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