I’m part of a panel on Teaching Your Craft on Friday (2:45-4:00) and leading a discussion on Craft Activism on Saturday (1:15-2:30). I would love to see you at either one, or at the panels I’ll get to attend the rest of the time! We’re also planning on dim sum, a Bainbridge ferry ride, a park picnic, and a visit to the big beautiful public library.

Many thanks to Megan for her fantastic blog post this morning detailing a whole slew of great places to eat, shop, hang out, and enjoy yourself in the conference neighborhood. I don’t know Seattle well enough to confidently run around on my own (after a mere 13 years of visiting from just south) and her tips and links are super inspiring.

Hope to see you there!!

p.s. If you are into photography and looking for some new things to try, I wrote up my five favorite photo-related things lately over at CRAFT: for the July Bazaar round-up: Big Huge Labs, Photobooth Finder, Blurb books, Photo Transfer Fabric Sheets, and Qoop Calendars (here’s the September 2010 page of ours, featuring my teeny little Pearl in a big covered wagon at the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center in Baker City). Happy picture-taking!

I am so excited about the pretty, colorful package that just arrived from Katie, who organized the second Vintage Sheet Swap — perfect timing to receive on about the hundredth gray, rainy, dreary day in a row. I really needed the colorful pick-me-up! I sent in ten vintage sheet fat quarters and got these lovelies back from swappers all over the place. Katie was a magnificent organizer (with a super cute Etsy shop) and the variety of prints I got back is so cool — totally surpassed my expectations!

These two are my favorites of all, I was beaming when I saw them. The pink one is a print I especially love, that I have had in the blue/green colorway for years and have made many favorite projects with (like this sunglasses case for CRAFT:), and I have seen a photo of this other color palette, but now I own some! Heaven!

And the blue is Vera… heart. I actually have the matching pillowcases in my linen closet, they’re total treasures.

Here’s what I sent. I was too frazzled to take a photo of my actual 10 FQs but these are the linens I cut them from: I sent one of the one on the left (lightest floral, this was the sweetest pillowcase), and three each of the three on the right. I really do like these four together, very cheery.

Last, I would like to sincerely apologize to my fellow swappers — I got horribly sick earlier this month (which is also why I haven’t been posting, like, at all) and was just down for the count, and bedbound. My package went out late and Katie was so cool about it. I’m sorry, everyone else! I hope you’ve all gotten your packages and that you love yours as much as I do… and that whoever got some of mine is happy, too. And wow, for those who sent in and received the maximum 80 FQs, you must be on pretty-print overload!

Hope you have a wonderful long weekend!

Thanks so much, Nancy! I can’t wait to see who wins next week.

p.s. If you make something inspired by the book, I’d love it if you’d add a photo of your project to the Bead Simple flickr pool! Seeing what everyone makes is definitely the most exciting part of the whole thing. Six more days… I’m so excited!

I wasn’t really shopping for fabric this trip, mostly buttons and jewelry supplies, so it was nice to get a little sewing fix via my camera at least. I miss my sewing machine back in Los Angeles so much! I can’t wait to work on my coin quilt next month — I’ve already cut out all the pieces, so now I’m looking forward to the fun part: piecing it and seeing all 77 of the patterns together. I’ve been saving scraps from all my projects since I started sewing six years ago, and of course I had to mix in some of the new Denyse Schmidt prints too…

It’s my first quilt so I’m a little nervous I’ll screw it up somehow, but I’m really excited. Hopefully I’ll have lots of pictures in January — that would be a nice birthday present to myself!

I came home so excited to make my own altar after seeing so many incredible things, and choosing a few new pieces to add to my own mementos. I built my altar on my work table in what seemed like no time at all, and dedicated it mostly to my dad this year. I added my two favorite pictures of him from way long ago:

This is just a little peek at my shrine — the whole thing is about three times as big — but I really love that center part of the altar. I have more pictures of everything here if you’d like to see them!

I’ve just started writing for the Adorn magazine blog too, and my first post (earlier this week) was also on how to make your own Day of the Dead shrines — with links to craft projects to make, traditional food and drink recipes, folk art, photos, and all kinds of inspiring ideas. I’d love to hear what you think!

And last, in the spirit of recognizing the sweetness of life mingled with the sadness of losing someone you treasure, I made up a new Mexican-style hot chocolate with a spicy heat that has been my treat of choice this week. If you’d like to try it, here’s the basic recipe:

1-1/2 cups of milk or soymilk
3 heaping spoonfuls of sweetened cocoa powder (I used Ghiradelli)
a generous shake of chipotle powder
a generous shake of cinnamon

Warm the milk in a pan and stir the cocoa powder into it until it’s dissolved nicely. As the cocoa heats, lightly sprinkle chipotle and cinnamon into it and keep stirring, tasting it as you go to so it’s just spicy enough for you (I like it strong but I know everyone doesn’t!). Take it off the heat when it’s steaming and pour it into your favorite cup.

You can also mix it half-and-half with black coffee to make a delicious mocha-cafe con leche drink with a spiky, spicy heat underneath.

p.s. I’ll be posting my usual first-of-the-month getcrafty column tomorrow instead of today — a review of five amazing new craft books! Stay tuned.