cherry tomato

spring is in the air

I'm so happy Spring has finally arrived. I love Spring in Seattle. Oh sure, it can be frustrating when the weather takes the opportunity to demonstrate just how little meteorologist really can "predict", but I don't mind the uncertainty because as long as I get a little sunshine, I'm satisfied.

My mother is fortunate to share her birthday with the first day of Spring. She has developed quite an affinity for birds over the past year or so, so I decided to make her a little nest for her birthday this year.

I had this vision of what I wanted to accomplish, and while this didn't turn out exactly as I had envisioned, I'm pretty pleased with it. I cut pieces of wire into various sizes and tied and wrapped torn fabric strips around the wire. Once I wrapped the pieces of wire, I formed them into the nest shape. Finally, I filled the nest with some marble eggs I bought at a local shop. It was much more challenging than I had anticipated, and I have a new appreciation for the talent of all those nest-making little birds out there. However, Mom was happy, and that's all I could have asked for.

Happy Spring!

yikes

It doesn't seem possible that it's been so long since my last post. This year, more than any in recent memory, I've really spent the winter hibernating. However, just as the spring buds are starting to burst open, I feel my creativity waking from it's wintry slumber. I've been a terrible blogger - so bad that I haven't even been keeping up with others' blogs.  I have a lot of catching up to do.

I went to Portland to visit my sister last weekend and had a wonderful time going to antique shops and fabric stores, and I picked up some fabric for some home projects.

For the first time in what feels like ages, I spent the afternoon in my studio while listening to some of my all time favorite music. A perfect Sunday.

I'm not quite ready to jump into a huge project, so I just started with something simple. I made two sets of curtains for rooms in our basement and some napkins. Eric and I regularly use cloth napkins, and some of ours are starting to get a bit funky. Plus, most of our napkins are just solid colors, and I wanted to make something a little cuter.  I feel a  twinge of guilt about using nice designer fabric for napkins, but I'd much rather be using that gorgeous fabric than have it collecting dust in my studio. Here are the ones I made this afternoon:

As soon as Eric saw these, he said, "These are so nice. We'll have to use them when we have people over", to which I immediately protested. I'm not one to save things for a special day. I'm all about using what you have. I don't mean this in a morbid way, but I know that if you save something for a special day, that day may never come. I think it's better to use the fun stuff instead of saving it and make every day just a little special.

It's good to be back.

the small projects continue

It's already Sunday evening, and I feel like I haven't had nearly enough time to accomplish everything I wanted to this weekend. The weather has been pretty dreary, so I've spent most of the weekend inside. We have floor to ceiling windows in our living room/dining room, and it's nice to be inside and look out onto the activities in our yard. The grey sky makes all the other colors jump to luscious life. The impossibly red apples are spent and lying in the impossibly green grass. A squirrel dashes around in the rain, samples a clothespin to make sure it isn't food, and scampers off to find proper food. It's nice to witness these things from my warm, dry living room.

I awoke this morning thinking about making some plush pears. Frankly, I have no idea where the idea came from, but I had to act.

I used natural linen and mixed it with some cotton fabric, then threaded some fabric through the pear from top to bottom and tied knots in both ends to mimic the stem.

I've also been busy making some autumn pillows for the house. I still have some more to make, but I've made a pretty good start.

This is our new old sofa (referred to in the last post). I thought the pillows would detract a bit from the tattered upholstery.

Work is stressing me out a little these days, so I really need these little projects as a release. As much work as I have to do, I'm making a point of keeping some projects going in an attempt to maintain more of a balance. I have workaholic tendencies, so these projects help me keep things in perspective. I also like having the house decorated for the season. Silly, I know, but it's one of those little things that makes me happy.

Have a lovely week, friends.

when cats rule the house

One of the myriad projects I've been putting off is making new beds for the kitties. We're fortunate that our cats don't scratch up our furniture. However, we recently bought a new-to-us but old mid century sofa. The upholstery has reached the end of its life, and we're going to tackle reupholstering it this fall (we're still trying to find the perfect fabric). For some reason, the cats seem to know the fabric is on it's last legs, and they've taken to clawing at it - not much but just enough to irritate me. So, we've had to set some new rules around the house, and the cats are no longer allowed on the sofa. I feel so mean, but I don't want to do all that work to reupholster the sofa, only to have the cats destroy it within weeks.

So I've been feeling pretty guilty about it, and I feel so bad when I kick them off the sofa, that I felt like I needed to tempt them away from the sofa by making them some squishy, soft new beds. I remembered some black plush fabric I bought years ago at a thrift store, and was so happy to see there was plenty to make them some beds. I tested it beforehand to make sure they would like the fabric.

They approved.

Then I used some fabric my mom gave me for the bottom, loosely filled them with stuffing and scraps of the plush fabric, and arrived at kitty-heaven. I put one of the beds into a doll bed my grandfather made me when I was a child. I haven't used it for years, but the kitties seem to approve. It took them less than 10 seconds to discover and claim the new bed.

Now on to reupholstering that sofa. If only we could find the right fabric...

inertia

Newton's First Law of Motion states that objects in motion will stay in motion and objects at rest will stay at rest unless acted upon by a net force. For me, it seems, the arrival of autumn has been that net force I have been waiting for. It's taken me awhile, but I've finally accepted that I am just simply not very productive in the summer. It's not that I'm lacking for ideas, it's in the execution that I fail. I just feel like I need to be outside in the evenings, and on the weekends, we head out to the lake. This summer, I've done little things here and there, but really, I just couldn't find that spark of motivation to keep me going. But that all changed this week, and I can only attribute it to the change of season.

I love fall. I've been eagerly anticipating its arrival for at least the past month, and now that the weather is tinged with cool crispness, I'm suddenly flooded with motivation. I attended a baby shower yesterday and whipped up these burping clothes before going:

It was just the quick project I needed to ignite my creative and productive spark. My weekend was filled with these sorts of quick projects, many of which I have been procrastinating on for months. I made some new cat beds, new fall pillows and a skirt with some fabric I got a couple of weeks ago. Here's a close-up of the skirt (sorry, I won't be modeling it for you):

It's just a basic A-line with a diagonal swath of yellow fabric. I adore this fabric. The colors and design are great, but, most importantly, it's soft and light. I think this skirt will be a fall favorite.

I'll share more finished projects this week.

Oh, and I was tagged by Dacia for the 8 things meme, but I'm being lame and just directing you to my responses from last month. Last month I forgot to tag people though, so I'll do that now. I feel like just about everyone has been tagged at this point, so I'm going to tag friends and family I know have not been tagged: Lily, royc, andi.

finally!

i am pleased to finally present you with the baby quilt i have been working on. according to the date on my sketchbook, i sketched this out nearly 3 months ago. i can't believe it's taken me so long to finally finish it. it was the applique. i've decided i don't really like applique. Oh, i love the way it looks, but it's really a pain. don't get me wrong, i like hand-stitching when i'm doing embroidery and cross-stitch. I guess I just don't like quilting by hand. Lesson learned.

thank you for all of the kind comments about the mudroom. i'm sorry i haven't been able to respond to each comment. i have been having computer problems, so i've only been online very sporadically over the past week or so. please know i am extremely grateful. i love that yellow even more now that i've had nearly a week to live with it. i was really worried the color wouldn't turn out the way i had envisioned it, so i am now breathing a huge sigh of relief. i know it's not a big deal if the color didn't come out they way i wanted. i just didn't want to have to go through paining it again.

i also whipped up this little thing to put in the mudroom:

i used a swatch from the fruit fabric to select the yellow for the room, so i wanted to make something with it to go in there. our plastic bags have been a little out of control for awhile now, and this seemed like a cute, easy solution.

now, i've moved on to painting the kitchen. after that, i'll just have the living room in the interior before moving on to painting the outside of the house. of course, that is contingent on the weather cooperating. so far, the weather is being pretty nasty, so it may be awhile...

exhausting description of a silly little shirt

Ever since I saw this on Angry Chicken awhile back, I have been itching to make a similar shirt. The pattern really is scary, but, like Amy, I liked that it reminds me of my favorite Forever 21 shirt. it's nice and basic, so you can do all sorts of things to it to make it slightly different and build a whole wardrobe of adorable shirts! I think I'll add some cute buttons to the collar of my next one.

mine looks like it's a little bit longer than Amy's, but it could just be the angle of the photo. I was sitting on the ground looking up. Although, I did make it long, because I wanted it to fall below my waist (just like the aforementioned forever 21 shirt). This is now my one and only yellow shirt. I've always loved yellow clothing, but, at the same time, I have a strong aversion too it. i have fair skin that seems to look washed out in most tones of yellow. I bought this same fabric for the baby quilt I'm working on, and I thought it was mellow enough to be all right for me to wear, but it's still bright and sunny.  Plus, by sticking in a different fabric at the top, I was hoping to to break up the color a little just in case.

It's been awhile since I've sewn a garment for a grown-up (I made a dress for myself last summer), and there was a little seam ripping and swearing involved, but in the end, it turned out the way I had envisioned. That's always a good thing.

I'm getting ready for another weekend of home projects. I doubt I'll have much time to work on the never-ending vintage stripe blanket and baby quilt, but I'm going to try. I simply HAVE to finish that quilt this next week.

Have a great weekend, friends!

it works!

thanks for all the studio-love yesterday. since getting the it put together, I have actually been reluctant to work in there  because I know it won't last. once i start working on something, it seems i am in such a frenzy at times that i just sort of forget to pick up after myself. i want to get better about that, because it ends up being way too counterproductive since i simply can't work in a messy studio. if i pick up after each project, i'll be all set for the next and i won't have to take the time to clean before i get started on the next thing. the only problem is that i rarely just have one project going at once. i'll need to come up with a space for my "works in progress".

i went into the studio this morning and got to work. i felt the powerful surge of inspiration and got to work drawing and designing some new things. i'm very excited about some of the new projects i have in the works.

i have been working on projects that are taking awhile to get finished, so i needed something quick. I sat down this morning and made this spring scarf. I have this impossibly soft cotton voile fabric with hot air balloons that i've been hoarding for awhile and waiting for the perfect project. I pulled it out along with a few other fabrics and got to work. on the back i used another paper thin swiss dot fabric. the result was a nice, light scarf perfect for the warmer days.

it also works in my hair...

(please forgive the lack of make-up and messy hair). it's so nice to actually complete something. i feel a productive period coming on.

on a completely unrelated note, i thought i'd share a couple of things i'm loving right now.

* the new blog for Blueprint magazine called Bluelines.
* this chair from CB2. Oh, i am in love...
* this game. thanks to megan for the tip.
* this book, which i just learned is being made into a movie.

sugar is good

Ooh, what a splendid Friday it is. I'm watching Rear Window, working on a quilt and eating smarties. It's not wrong to eat smarties for a meal, is it? I certainly hope not because I can't stop eating them! They're just too yummy for words.

Here Madison is monitoring the progress of the striped blanket.

He approves. I think he thinks I'm making it for him. I suppose in a way I am. Everything in our house somehow eventually gets taken over by the kitties. Occasionally it bothers me, but I can't really stay too upset. After all, these are our babies, and with Madison thinking he's a person and all, we couldn't very well get rid of them.

Short post today. Just wanted to drop by and say hello. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

I'll leave you with a photo of one of my most recent thrifting acquisitions. I squealed when I found this, which completely confounded Eric. But I don't care. I adore it.

winter is definitely here

i know the snow throws everyone into a tizzy around here, but i just can't get enough of it. i knew it was supposed to snow overnight, so i sprung out of bed this morning and raced to the window to see what was going on out there. there is nothing quite like that feeling of anticipation. the view was magical. there was a fuzzy, white blanket of snow covering everything, and it was still coming down. it was early enough that there were no footprints, no tire prints on the street, nothing. just the calm white snow silently falling to the ground.  The sky turned a stunning violet as the sun began to come up, and I wish I could have captured it to share with you.

I'm happy I was able to see all of that because the snow is already melting.

I am very sorry for all the people suffering through the ice storms in much of the U.S. right now and particularly those who are out of power. What a strange winter we are all experiencing...

I stitched up a few tubes of thrifted wool fabric and filled them with rice to make some window snakes. We have the original windows on our old house, and with the temperatures as low as they've been, it's been a great help to have these little snakes.

Thank you to Stephanie for this wonderful, simple solution to that draft.

I've been spending a lot of time in the house, and I've started a new project that I can work on in the evenings. Cassi put up this tutorial for a vintage striped blanket a little while ago, and I've had it in by brain since then. I  have accumulated many bits of yarn left over from other projects, and i love the simplicity of this project. I am more of a knitter than a crocheter, but this is definitely something I can handle. Here is a sneak peek of my progress:

Finally, I'd like to direct to you a couple of really great new projects I've come across. 3191 is a beautiful photo project involving Stephanie and Mav, and Lisa and Shari have just started a project. They will select a word each week and delve into the meaning of that word through different mediums. I'm really looking forward to following both of these projects for the rest of the year. They are great examples of finding the beauty in the mundane, and It will be fascinating to see a little of the world through their eyes.

have a great tuesday, everyone!