What I am doing lately.
Lately my life is being consumed by pink. I know, how awesome is that! Sunday kicks off my Pink Week celebration. See, back when I started this blog two years ago I really wanted to celebrate something just for the sake of celebrating it. No religious symbolism, not tied to celebrating a person, place or thing. Just a good reason to eat ice cream and cupcakes and make pretty things for other people. And for myself. But completely low pressure. And since no one else I know in real life, or blog life is as into National Pink Day as I am, there is no external pressure to make this, be there, go to that, etc. etc. etc. It is the perfect holiday. Here’s a sneak peak.
National Pink Day is next Thursday, June 23rd. And to get ready I am writing tutorials, and trying recipes, and making pink things, and planning a Pinkalicious Party for what is turning out to be more than 100 people, and I’m sure I’ll hear back from even more as it gets closer. And that’s going to be a lot of pink cupcakes and pink lemonade. And it’s going to be awesome.
What that means for my blog friends is that next week is going to be all about pink. Just because I like it. I’ll post a Pink Week giveaway on Monday which will be open all week. And June 23rd (the actual National Pink Day, and my 2 year blogiversary)I’m having a big blog party. And you are invited. I’ll have 12ish posts throughout the day about all my favorite pink things. It has been really fun to work on and I can’t wait to share everything I have been planning for the past year! (Yep, I started writing things down for this year during my last Pink Week!)
Also, I thought I’d post a little reminder about one of my consistently most popular summer posts. I photographed this step by step on how to cut a watermelon on a whim last year. And I was completely shocked at the response. I’ve left a link on my sidebar along with links to some of my other tutorials, but I know a lot of you read my blog from a reader and probably don’t see the sidebar that often. So, if you are having a party this weekend, or next weekend, or whenever, and you want to know a very easy way to cup up a gigantic watermelon, check out my How to Cut a Watermelon post from last summer.
A Little Thursday Night Rodeo
My city’s summer celebration is this weekend. And when you live in the Great Wild West that means rodeo. Now, I’m not like a die hard rodeo fan. It is totally entertaining, and those cowboys have some seriously crazy skills. But I don’t have a cowboy hat, or pink boots or anything. Yet. But tonight Scott and I volunteered in the rodeo concession stand. Our town wants to keep the rodeo a family friendly place, so they won’t allow a tobacco or alcohol mega corporation to take over concessions. So they ask for volunteers to run the concessions so we can keep alcohol out of the arena. Which I love. Creamie will be old enough next year to really enjoy it I think. I can’t wait!
Anyway, tonight was three solid hours of dousing chips with nacho cheese (ew, so gross) and digging water bottles out of a bathtub size tub of ice. And then things started to get so busy I ended up on strawberry duty (Yay!). Different from most every other rodeo in America the snack of choice tonight was sliced strawberries floating in sweet cream. Yep, standard rodeo fare ’round these parts. Once upon a time my little city was known for growing strawberries. But things have changed and we have grown up, and those cups of strawberries and cream are in high demand. And we truck the strawberries in from California now. Last night alone they went through more than 300 cases of strawberries. And we still have four more nights of rodeo to go. Tonight I think it was closer to 500 cases. We had probably 10 people filling up cups of already sliced berries and we couldn’t keep up with the demand. It was incredible.
This was from my short stint as macho nacho maker. I seriously don’t know what boy outside of junior high can eat that polyester nacho cheese. Just the color of it gives me the heebie jeebies. But there are plenty of people that like them. I lost count of how many bags of corn chips got drenched in nacho.
This big old bull was waiting for his chance to knock a cowboy clear to the moon. They weren’t too big a fan of all the people trying to get close enough to take a picture either. In fact, everytime you got to close they stomped towards you. Scary. A big giant half ton bull with horns running toward you behind the fence is totally different than a pony running at you. Anyway, I’m covered with sticky strawberries and I’m going to take a shower before I collapse into bed. I am pretty sure I poured more than 10 gallons of cream tonight. My arm and shoulder muscles hurt in places I didn’t know I had.
Making Mustaches
I have no less than four tutorials in the works all over my house today. Plus a few more that are waiting in the wings. (National Pink Day, on June 23rd is going to be a big party over here. Yep, big party indeed!) We’ve been busy to say the least.
But that didn’t mean Creamie didn’t take some time out to sample the whipped cream.
Pucker up!
Four in Twenty Four
I’ve been collecting projects to finish. That is kind of the story of my life actually. And then I procrastinate them so long that it gets to be ridiculous. And that is how I ended up doing the handsewing on the bindings of four different quilts yesterday. Yep, I finished four quilts in 24 hours. And I am ridiculously proud of myself, and also, my thumbs hurt. Here they are.
This little train quilt is a sample I did for work. The shop I work at is having a big sale/shop hop event this week and we needed a lot of new strip quilts and kits. The strip quilt baby quilt kits are our best sellers, and so so easy. So I made this quilt, plus 10 kits to go in the shop. I love the turquoise jumbo ricrac on it and the solid brown binding.
And this jungle animal quilt is my new favorite. We’ve just started carrying solids in the store, and I decided to use a bunch of them that went with this Alexander Henry jungle animal print for another easy baby quilt. And I LOVE how it turned out. I love it a lot more than I expected to. Like, a lot. I used the Alexander Henry print on the back with my leftover squares.
This quilt lends itself to border quilting pretty well. Which I did not do myself, heavens no. I had Kellie who does the quilting for the shop do both of these for me. I finished writing up the pattern this morning and just need to finish putting together the 9 kits I made for this one before I go to work tomorrow. I am going to teach a beginning quilting class for the shop in August, and I’ll probably post a tutorial on my blog with all the measurements and everything else sometime later this summer.
I also finished the bindings on these two Russian flag quilts last night. My friend Melissa at Sew Shabby Quilting did the quilting on these two. And these two technically don’t have to be done until next Monday (when I will see the receipients next) but this week is already chock full of stuff to do. I figured I might as well get all my hand binding done in one fell swoop.
And then get all the pictures done in one fell swoop. You know, with a little help from my two three favorite helpers. Thanks to Scott for holding up all these quilts this afternoon, to Creamie for moral support, and to baby pantsless Penelope for officially freaking everyone out with your uncanny real baby looks. (This babydoll freaks people out all the time…. particularly when Creamie is carrying her upside down at the grocery store. Which is often.) So there we have my whole day yesterday. Four quilts bound in twenty four hours. And that brings me to a total of five quilts finished in one week, and six finished this year. I don’t know when I officially turned into a quilter…
New Friends
Scott got home last night from a week long river rafting trip with his brother. I was really glad he got to go and really glad I got to stay home (being in the sun for a week doesn’t sound like fun to me at all).
While he was gone I spent a lot of time outside with my neighbors sitting on the grass and talking while the kids played. She has come home filthy dirty and happy and tired every night. Which is fantastic for me. But the fantastic part for Creamie is shemade a new friend. I couldn’t help but laugh when they came around the corner like this. Cute, right? And now I am really glad that Scott is home and we get to spend the rest of the weekend doing exciting things like running all the errands I procrastinated while he was gone. You know, and then cuddling up on the couch for a good movie and some serious quilt binding time. (I have four quilts to bind before Monday! How did this happen?) Have a good weekend!
New Summer Dresses
I finished these little dresses a while ago, but this morning was the first opportunity to take pictures with both little girls. And two little girls in new ummer dresses are certainly better than one. I picked up this piece of blue plaid seersucker fabric at the thrift store for $1 a few months ago. And it was just enough to make the two dresses. Which makes them just fifty cents a dress, not too bad! I made one for my niece for her first birthday, and had just enough fabric to make another for Creamie. And considering I took more than 100 photos this morning I am showing great restraint in only posting 12.
You can not imagine the things she stuffs in those pockets. We stopped at our favorite soup and sandwich spot for lunch and when we got in the car I realized that she had 9 little packages of crackers, a mini cup of tortilla strips and a chocolate covered strawberry, which she had thoughtfully wrapped in a napkin first all stuffed into her pocket. Along with the stray red pom pom, a spongebob party blower thing, two hairclips, a plastic pig and a toy train. I should have known something was up this morning when I put her dress on and she said “I need to find some stuff for my pockets.” She wasn’t kidding.
Sick of pictures, these two took off with a package of fruitsnacks, which is the bribe of choice around these parts. Seriously, they are so cute!
Creamie insisted that this giant spotlight was a TV and she was pretty frustrated that the remote was lost. VERY frustrated!
Little A has the prettiest blue eyes ever. Just like her mama’s. Creamie’s eyes used to be this same blue, (check this picture of her when she was 3 months old) but they have since changed.
She is most definitely going to be a green eyed girl. Just like her mama. And that makes me happy.
I have big plans to have a great weekend. I hope yours is wonderful too!
The pattern for these dresses is based on this pattern from Dana at MADE. (I added the sleeves.)
Raindrop Chandelier
This project has literally been more than a year in the making. But when I finished part 1 15 months ago I really thought I was done. Turns out that I wasn’t. I decided sometime in March that I needed to add a few more things to it. And it took me three more months to get around to finishing it.
This my friends is a raindrop chandelier, or a paper rainstorm or something. I got the idea to make this from a pile of leftover scraps from an art journal page I made last spring.
![Be the change you wish to see [explored]](https://i0.wp.com/farm5.static.flickr.com/4036/4564189749_831f677c92_z.jpg)
You can see the awesome pile of leftover raindrops up in the corner, right? I guess I kind of went overboard on cutting them out. Anyway, they sat in a pile for a long time until I got the idea to sew them together and tie them onto a ring. And it hung up above my desk like that for a year. And then a few months ago I got the idea to add a larger ring of rain and a smaller one and turn it into a much beefier, rainier chandelier.
I used some chrome spraypaint one one side of my papers to add a little shimmer, and to cover up whatever was on the backside. Some of my paper scraps were double sided, and if the flip side didn’t fit into my color scheme I sprayed them chrome. After I sprayed all my paper I started cutting out raindrops. I think I spent one evening watching a movie and cut out about 300, maybe 400 raindrops ranging in size from .5 inches tall to about 1.5 inches. It didn’t take as long as you might think. I was surprised at how quickly my little pile of raindrops became a large pile of raindrops.
But the hardest and most time consuming part of the whole project was not the cutting out of a gillion tiny little raindrops. Assembling the three rings for the chandelier base was MUCH more frustrating. I bought thee sizes of rings at the craft store and then spray painted them chrome, they were originally gold. And then I think I tried about 8 different ways before I figured out how to hook them together and keep all three flat and level and evenly spaced between each other. It was totally annoying. And it’s probably a good thing I already had all my raindrops cut and sewed together into raindrop chains. Because if I had started with the ring base I probably would have given up on this project and thrown the whole thing in the trash long before any raindrops saw the light of day. But now I have it figured out and next time I won’t be nearly so frustrated. (I have another chandelier project in mind and when I get that one made I’ll take pictures and share my many trials and errors, and the long last successful route.)
But I love the end result. And I love that I still had clouds pinned to my fake dining room curtain from a baby shower a few weeks ago. (This is the same thrifted sheet turned curtain backdrop I used for Creamie’s birthday party.) The clouds were the perfect backdrop for my little paper rainstorm. Here in Utah we had a ridiculously rainy spring. And while most people think that rainy days (or snowy days for that matter) are “bad” weather, I think they are absolutely beautiful. And those are the kinds of days that I want to stay inside and bake bread and make something. I love those “bad” weather days!
This little rainstorm is currently hanging up in the corner above my desk. And everytime a little bit of breeze comes through, or the heater turns on and moves the air around a bit, or I open the door it starts to spin and twirl and shimmer. It is absolutely beautiful. Much prettier than I ever could have imagined. Besides, now I can tell people that I have a dancing rainstorm over my desk. And how awesome is that? Not bad from a reject pile of blue paper scraps, and a little spray paint. Not bad at all.
On Being a Twin…
This morning my very much identical twin sister posted a whole long schpiel about what it’s like to be a twin. And instead of writing my own twinny post, I’m just going to send you over there to read hers. Because it pretty much sums up how I feel too. If you are interested in what my life was like growing up with someone I shared a face with, head over here to read what she has to say.
[ June 2001, photo by Alyssa… whose new married last name escapes me. ]
I am the keeper of photographs in my family, and last night I was looking for old pictures for her. It was so much fun. And I am really going to try and refrain from posting like a million pictures of me when I was little. But I LOVED these ones.
[ 1985 ]
And I love this picture of me and Heidi and my mom. This was probably my very favorite backpack in the whole world.
[ Summer of 1985… maybe 1986, I don’t know. ]
Some New Thrifting Fun
I think I have finally decided what to do with all those vintage sheets I’ve been collecting for the past little/ longish while. You know, besides stack them up and put them in color order (not in this picture obviously) and look at them and hoard them and stuff. I’ve always planned on making myself a vintage quilt, which is kind of why I started collecting them in the first place, but then what do I do with the remaining 98% of this stack?
I will never have enough beds in my house to use them all as they were originally intended. And I am not about to make Scott sleep in a floral bed. The man puts up with enough of my crazy vintage hoarding/mess making/sewing projects all over the house as it is. He can sleep in a gender neutral bed. But I think I’ve decided to cut them into quilt kits and sell them that way. I might do fat quarters too, but I haven’t decided yet. Quilt kits seems like it would be a lot more fun for me. At any rate, I’ve had some great thrifting luck recently and have added quite a stack to my already very large stash. And look, there are blue and green one’s in there! Those have been my hardest ones to find, except for the lone lavendar gingham on the bottom of the stack in the pic above.
This is my newest recently purchased stack, washed and folded. When I buy sheets I always wash them on the Sanitize setting of my big front loading washer, which is a three hour soak and tumble in boiling hot water and good soap. I figure after that all vestiges of their previous lives have been effectively stamped out and they are officially mine. And clean. Clean is important. Their exact vintage is not as important to me. I buy the sheets that I like that are in good shape. Unless they are pink, then I’m buying them even if they are thread bare. Ahem, I should set higher standards for pink things. (Who am I kidding, that’s not going to happen.) The blue and green florals on the right side (3rd and 4th from the bottom) I am quite sure wouldn’t qualify as vintage, I think they are maybe 5 years old. But they are pretty, and I liked them and that’s all I really care about. I used one of the green floral pillowcases to make this shirt for Creamie last week.
So, lets get technical for a minute. There is no real time constraints for the term “vintage”. I remember reading in a fashion magazine in 2007 that the model in question was wearing “vintage chanel, circa 2004.” And I remembered it because I thought it was ridiculous. Vintage just means not new. And it has been slapped on items dating back for like 70 years. And somewhere in the 70 to 80 year old range they start meshing into antiques…. or something. But, on etsy, the largest purveyor of fine and not so fine vintage goods, for something to qualify as “vintage” the item in question needs to be 20 years old. That’s what they say, so it must be true. It’s on the internet. So, if the item was manufactured/made/worn/used/etc. before 1991 it now qualifies as a vintage item and can be sold on etsy with that label. Technically. So how do you know how old something is? You guess. That being said, I am 100% sure that this pink Pottery Barn bamboo lattice sheet is NOT vintage. And I am also 100% sure that this yellow striped sheet is. I literally squealed when I spotted it on the shelf. It was a brand new in the package sheet. And it had a date on the label, 1987.
I also look at any labels sewn on the actual sheet to see if I can figure out their era. Depending on what kind of fabric the label is made out of I can sometimes guess at it’s age. I also will look to see if a serger was used and what kind of stitch it made. Or how they sewed in the elastic on fitted sheets. But those labels that say Target on them? It’s a dead giveaway it’s not vintage, but sometimes cute enough to buy anyway. Totally unrelated: I don’t know why I love these two blues ones so much. They are a near perfectly complimentary match in color and pattern. The blue tulip on the top I really want to make myself a dress out of. I just love it.
Anyway, the point of this post is that I really need to figure out something to do with this stack. It completely fills up the space underneath my desk. I pulled them all out today so I could add my newest finds to the collection. And I decided that I might have enough to start doing something about the massive amount of washed and folded cotton bedding I have collected. You know, soon. Soonish. A little later.
Finally Finished!
The story of this quilt began more than a year ago. And while I’d like to say that it was my oldest work in progress, that’s just not quite true. I have two that are a few months older, but they should be done and delivered before the end of the month. Yay! Anyway, back to this project.
Scott’s dad passed away last May, and I decided to make quilts out of his clothes for Scott and his brother and sister. I started Scott’s quilt back in September. It was supposed to be done for his birthday, but I handed him a box with 1/3 a quilt top and a pile of squares. I finished the top in October, and the plan was to have it completely finished for Christmas, but his got put off so I could get the two others finished.
[ I love the sunflare on this photo! Yay for photo shoots near sunset! ]
I pieced the back together and actually got the quilting on this finished back in April. The backing is a green plaid heavy twill/duck cloth/light canvas. This quilt is more for picnics and lounging at the park than for cuddling on the couch (though it’s big enough to put on a queen size bed). But I didn’t have enough of the green plaid to do the whole thing, so I had to add a strip of scraps to make it work. And the fact that the plaids line up so well considering the back is made up of 15 different pieces of fabric? Do you want to know what that is called? Dumb luck. I literally have a scrap 10″x6″ of the green plaid leftover. Pure dumb luck! Anyway, Scott’s mom teaches highschool sewing and she has a long arm machine in her classroom. So in April I went up on a Friday afternoon and she showed me the ropes and I got started. I went back early Monday morning to finish before her students arrived. And guess what, long arm quilting was awesome and awful all at the same time. If I had more practice I can see myself loving it. But without any practice before I jumped right in I was frustrated at not being able to make myself do what I had in my head.
Of course in a photo you can’t see all the things that I see wrong with it up close, and I’m certainly not going to point them all out. It was my first quilt I’ve ever done start to finish (this little doll quilt was my second, or first, depending on how you look at it). It was also my first time using a long arm machine, and all things considered, I think it’s pretty freaking awesome. My good friend Tracey says that if you can’t see a mistake riding by on a horse then it doesn’t really matter. I’m trying to remind myself that in these pictures it looks just fine. But I might need to put it away in a closet for a while so I can stop looking at all my beginners mistakes. It’s fine, it’s finished, and Scott loves it, which is all that matters.
I made my binding (I don’t do bias bindings, I think it’s a waste of good fabric) and got it all sewed on a few weeks ago. I’ve just been waiting for a good long movie to get the handwork finished up. But today I sat on the couch for about 5 hours with my ipod instead (good movie hasn’t arrived yet, boo on you Netflix) to stitch down the binding and to do a little embroidery on the back.
I should have done the embroidered label on the backside BEFORE I quilted the whole thing together. But I didn’t really think about that at the time. My friend Elizabeth embroiders all her labels, and hers always look so pretty. Mine kind of looks like a kindergarten kid wrote it out. But I’m fine with it. Working with a finished quilt, and trying not to have any stitches show through on the front side gave me a few challenges I hope to avoid next time. My label just has Scott’s dad’s name, his birthday, his death date and a “made by” line. I was going to add Scott’s name to it too, but I was pretty much sick of stitching by that point and scratched that idea. Maybe later…. but probably not. It was a good learning experiencea nd I am really glad that I have a label on there, but it will probably drive me nuts everytime I look at it. I guess it’s a good thing it’s on the back, right?
So my quilt is far from perfect, but I’m happy with it. If I counted up the number of mistakes and divided it by it’s number of square inches, 90inches x 90 inches = 8,100 inches, I think mathematically I’m still coming out ahead. The quilt is not going to fall apart, the squares on the front are mostly straight and I will probably be the only one who notices all the things that are “wrong”. And, really it’s going to be a great place for summer picnics, perfect to cuddle up under the stars, and a cushy seat for our Monday night softball games. And that part is more important than anything else. (Also, can I just point out something hilarious about the above photo? OK, underneath her little striped dress she is wearing what appears to be a pair of pink ruffle edged shorts. Nope, those are pants that she wore when shew as just 2 weeks old. My 2.5 year old is wearing a pair of her newborn size pants that are part of her newborn sized babydolls wardrobe. And they fit her just fine in the waist, and make a cute pair of bermuda length shorts now. She puts them on All. The. Time.)
I don’t think I stressed enough the very best part of this whole memory quilting thing, it’s finally finished. Finally, finally finished! Yay! I I have two tiny little arms to stuff and sew onto a little dog for Creamie (I made little stuffed animals for all three little girls, and one big girl) and I will be done with this chapter of sewing projects. Finally.
Next up is making a few new skirts for me. I hate everything in my closet and I don’t wear shorts so a few new summer skirts are going to be very important. Happy Monday!
pinksuedeshoe 