introducing Everett
November 24, 2010 at 2:22 pm | Posted in books and mags, chatty, quilting | 16 CommentsI’m so happy to announce that my little boy Everett came along on November 8th and has been a total delight every minute since. He’s so sweet and cuddly and Pearl has been a stellar big sister! We’ve had our hands full trying to keep up with two kids but it’s been an adventure already.
Potter Craft sent me back the Bright Furrows quilt I made for him after the photo shoot (it’s the 25th and final design I made for Modern Log Cabin Quilting, which I started on after I found out I was pregnant) and I’ve never been happier to unite a craft project with its owner! The whole time I was piecing and quilting it, I pictured him using it as a cuddly nap blanket and for picnics and playing in the backyard, but seeing him with it for the first time was awesome. I think he likes it.
I hope everyone who celebrates this week has a lovely holiday! See you next week!
modern log cabin quilting
November 5, 2010 at 1:23 pm | Posted in books and mags, chatty, new writing!, quilting | 13 CommentsI’m so excited to announce that I have a new book coming out in March from Potter Craft – Modern Log Cabin Quilting!
I adore log cabin – it was the first kind of quilting I ever tried, and is still my absolute favorite. This collection includes ten full-size quilts and fifteen smaller patchwork projects, including pillows, zip bags, camera cases, handbags, and market totes, with a short history of log cabin quilting, lots of information on tools and materials, and beginner-friendly instructions for everything from choosing your fabrics to binding your finished quilt. Twenty-three of the projects are mine, and two are contributed by my lovely and talented friend Daniela Caine! The cover quilt is my favorite one – Modern Crosses, which I made for my button-loving Pearl. Each of the crosses is a different fabric, “tied” securely with a different vintage button. I found out I was expecting our new baby while I was designing the tenth and final quilt for the book, Bright Furrows, and so that one is his. I’ll share a photo of it next week – it’s in the hospital bag waiting for him!
my first-ever log cabin pillow
The book comes out March 22, and it’s already available for pre-order on Amazon (!). This has been a really beautiful and meaningful project to work on – I feel so fortunate to have had the chance to spend a year making quilts for my family, and fun projects for my home – and I am really looking forward to sharing more about it (especially some photos!) soon. In the meantime, just in case you are in Portland, like to plan way ahead, and actually have a 2011 calendar already (impressive), I will be doing a book event at Powell’s on Sunday, April 3rd and will have mini-quilting kits to give everyone who can make it.
my anniversary quilt
If all goes well, I’ll be meeting my baby boy early next week, and things will probably be relatively quiet over here for a bit (though I’ll definitely post an announcement when there is news!). But in case you’re interested, I set up a Facebook page for my craft writing and will definitely be doing more regular mini-updates there. I’d love it if you wanted to like it and get my little craft posts there. And thanks to the magic of scheduled publishing, I’m excited that my interview with Elizabeth Hartman will go up on CRAFT: next week – she shared tons of helpful tips and advice on quilting, along with some favorites spotted at Quilt Market.
See you soon!
ps: to everyone who liked my Pendleton patchwork quilt I made this month (thank you!), I am thrilled to mention that I have a full-size Pendleton log cabin quilt project in the book, too. That was an especially fun one to work on, their wool is a delight to sew with.
giving by hand and geek crafts
November 4, 2010 at 1:48 pm | Posted in books and mags, california, geek crafts, holidays, new writing!, oregon, washington | 1 CommentI wrote up two fun pieces this week that I wanted to share over here! First, I was so thrilled to spotlight four West Coast-crafted handmade holiday gifts for the brand-new issue of Venus. I picked a mix of my favorites – a striking Polaroid print from Yellow Owl Workshop (San Francisco), a leaf-embellished glasses case from Queen Bee Creations (Portland), lush and pretty flower brooches from Piper Ewan (Portland), and a rad coffee mug (made from corn!) by Sarah Utter (Olympia) for my round-up, and in what feels like a mostly digital world lately, it was a special treat to see all these cool things on an actual paper page.
Along with my regional picks for out here, Julie Schneider handled the East Coast, Amanda Mauer Taflinger covered the Midwest, and The Wondercraft spotlighted the Southwest – there is some awesome crafty stuff around these days, to say the least!
I’m also very happy to be posting weekly at Geekcrafts.com again, and I just fell in love with this sweet little amigurumi R2D2 pattern by Janama on Etsy. I need to get a refresher course from the super-talented Linda and start crocheting again…
Thank you, Venus! Thank you, geekcrafts! I have one more writing-related announcement tomorrow that I am super excited about as well, more on that whenever Pearl lets me have a little more laptop time.
my little cowgirl
November 1, 2010 at 1:07 pm | Posted in craft to wear, holidays, vintage crafty | 1 CommentI mentioned Pearl’s remarkable long and varied list of Halloween costumes she desperately wanted to wear last week (not counting my own pick, Laura Ingalls Wilder, the six I listed a few days ago had been joined by 7. Kangaroo and 8. Yoda – she got the hat from last year’s costume out of the dress-up trunk and wore it around the house for an afternoon before circling back around to 1-7). After all that, I’m happy to report that thanks to an absolutely beautiful vintage embroidered Western shirt that Holly surprised us with, we successfully went with 5. Cowgirl!
Andrew took this Polaroid earlier in the day, before we got the rest of her costume on, but I just loved it anyway. I found this 1950s bouncy horse on our street a couple of years ago with a free sign on it and lugged it home. Pearl LOVED it and she and her little buddies rode it all the time, until the day one of the springs connecting the horse to the base broke and it just wasn’t really that fixable. So now it’s been freed to live on as a lawn ornament and cowgirl photo destination!
Holly did a photo shoot with a group of mothers and children in September and October and Pearl and I were lucky enough to be included. On the last shoot day, she surprised us with an awesome gift: this gorgeous 1970s hand-embroidered Western shirt, a Sears size 4. It fits my lanky 2.5-year-old perfectly and voila, along with a $5 cowgirl hat we got at the stables in Sunriver the week before, the Halloween costume dilemma was solved! Who could possibly resist the chance to run around in a super cool shirt embellished with a ladybug, a goldfish, a star, a puppy, a turtle,
a mushroom, an enormous carousel horse, and a WHALE?!
Pearl really seemed to enjoy life dressed as a cowgirl, though she told everyone who asked her on Friday what her costume would be that she was going to be a dog, and everyone who asked on Saturday that she was going to be a kangaroo, and I had my doubts she’d cooperate so happily. But on Sunday, she was a cowgirl, and so was I actually! It was super fun. Even though I didn’t end up getting to do any actual crafting for the costume myself, and did end up carrying her little stuffed horse around all night, it was so much better than sewing three or four (or let’s be honest, eight) costumes and endlessly doing battle over which one might actually make it out for trick-or-treating.
p.s. Thanks so much for the super compliments on the Pendleton patchwork quilt, and to Rachel for posting about it on CRAFT:! I really, really, really love that project and it makes me so happy every time I see it. I wish everyone else who likes it too a big armful of beautiful wool fabric samples, a blissful afternoon sewing, and a cozy evening curled up under your new favorite quilt. Seriously, don’t miss the Pendleton Woolen Mill Store, it is a craft paradise full of unexpected treasures.
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