From This to That

The past few months of my life in one big stack...

I *finally* finished my semester last week and am thrilled to be able to divert my attention to other things for a while without feeling guilty...even just being able to listen to whatever I want on my laptop as I type without getting distracted is completely freeing! I really enjoyed my classes  and feel I've found the right path, but have been eagerly awaiting the freedom that the summer months offer to a student. Between the gallery and the historical society, I am still working a ton but at least have some room to breath a bit between projects now and am geared up to spend as much leftover time as possible sewing up a storm and getting my etsy shop ready for the holidays so that I don't have to worry about it once the fall semester starts up in August.

Curling up with all good things in the falling light
(ahem, yes that is the new special edition of DOMINO!!! Hark, do you hear the angles singing?)

Since submitting my last research paper, I've been indulging in so many of the things  I love that I haven't gotten to enjoy much of these past few months...lots of extravagant cooking, a weekend camping get-away to the cape, a little lot of fabric stashing, and staying up late with my favorite magazines, embroidery, and darning work, while curled up with my cats, husband, and several seasons of How I Met Your Mother. The rewards in life certainly are so much sweeter when you know you've earned them several times over!

 

A little bit of this, a little bit of that...some yardage and fat quarters of AMH's loulouthi velveteen, cotton laminate,
and quilting cotton, Heather Ross' FFAIII in the  pink colorway, some Liberty of London from my Purl Soho trip,
AMH's pastry line and rare centerpiece, and a whole yard of Michael Miller's Vintage Stroll

Ok, so yeah, the above stash hoard is a bit more than I was planning on when I began picturing the reward I'd planned for myself upon the completion of a successful and utterly crazy semester. Luckily I was able to hunt down some sweet deals and it is lovely, ya?! It pretty much just has me smiling every time I look over at the freshly piled stack on my worktable and all I want to do is fondle it and ignore all other responsibilities. THERE, I admitted it!

   Soupe å l'Oignon Gratinée

One of the more elaborate cooking adventures we've managed as of late was Julia Child's recipe for cheesy onion soup, or Soupe å l'Oignon Gratinée, if you're feeling fancy. It's the third recipe I've tried now from her classic "Mastering The Art of French Cooking" and every single one has been superb..of course. The other two were the ratatouille and the riz a l'orientale, which is basically a rice bowl (but o so much more than that and my favorite so far)—who knew such a thing as French comfort food existed and was so completely amazing? Umm...ok so probably lots of you but yeah, I'm learning here folks.

I'm looking forward to being able to blog more often again now and hope to be sharing some finished pieces with you soon...until then, wishing you all just as many good things to be distracted by!

Weekend Projects

My new blueberry colorway

There's been gorgeous autumn light streaming in through my studio window this morning and it was enough motivation to get started on a slew of pillow making for the shop. So far, I've got my Liberty of London patchwork pillows back in stock and now the design is available in a raspberry and new blueberry colorway. I've got enough for a few of each so if you love this tana lawn as much as I do, act fast.

Ok, ok, enough shameless self-promotion. What does this weekend find you working on? Anyone out there starting in on holiday projects? I could use some motivation in that department but for the time being I'm going to force myself to finish a midterm assignment and then whip up some indian for dinner tonight before we settle in for popcorn and a movie at home (popcorn on the stove of course which has my mouth watering already...). I find it's always good to have a reward to look forward to after devoting precious weekend time to productivity!

Pillow Bonanza

dresden plate + liberty of london tana lawn = o la la!

Those who follow me on facebook or flickr got a little sneak peak at the makings of this pillow before the festival, but here is the final product in all it's glory! I am quite happy and relieved to be able to have a tangible version of my vision (isn't that always the most satisfying thing?!) and am itching to keep one of them for myself...still considering that. Either which way, the first is live and in the shop now though, just waiting for someone to snag it up and give it a proper home.

Why so relieved though? Well, turns out that dresden plate is a DOOZY! As I found out the night before my last day of prep before the show, there are a few snazzy methods (including english paper piecing, needle-turn applique, and raw edge machine applique with fusible webbing just to name a few) that make the whole process a lot easier but found myself with none of the tools necessary and I must confess this is the first sewing project that has made me swear and cry this much. C'est la vie, it happens sometimes right? I finally decided to trim my rounded petals to be triangles and as 2 o'clock in the morning rolled around,  I called it a night so I could get up early and take another stab at appliqueing the inner circle in the morning. It's not perfect, but I will remember that I am capable of conquering any scary new sewing project every time I see that slightly crooked top stitch. In my mind, that is exactly what makes handmade so very special and unique: an automated machine just can't allow for such a story and the items made with them don't carry that kind of history.

"The popular name for this quilt, Dresden Plate, reflects the romance of the Victorian Era with it's love of elaborate decoration on household items and décor. Dresden, Germany was a center of 19th century romanticism movement in art, one that included the fine decoration of porcelain. The plates were embellished with elaborate design using flowers, fruits and foliage. The beautiful plates would surely have been admired by women of the early 20th century." —www.patternsfromhistory.com

As I worked on this, I fell harder for the Liberty tana lawn. The prints are the perfect blend of old and new, of nostalgic and fresh. They feel like a very British version of the brightly colored scraps of feedsack that women of the 1920's and 30's in America would have been using when they popularized this quilt block. I ended up using another chunk of it to do a couple patchwork pillows, one of which sold at the show and the other pictured below. All of these are now up in the shop as well:

Clockwise, left to right: Yo-yo Rosette Pillow on White Linen,
AMH Square Dance Pillow (with pastry line on the back!), Yo-yo Rosette Pillow on White Linen,
Liberty of London Patchwork Pillow, AMH Little Folks Patchwork Pillow

So many shiny new things, I can barely handle all the excitement! Now that I am back to focusing on my etsy shop, I can work at a slightly more leisurely pace and I do have a few new things up my sleeve that I'm planning to release this June/July. The feel of summer is beginning to take hold and is influencing my thoughts about new embroidery patterns and sachets, but no sneak peeks just yet. I'm off to get some of these thoughts on paper and will share here as soon as they are presentable...

A Little Liberty Fix

 I was tempted to make a bad old man joke with the title and call this post,
"Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death," and then decided to stop being such a total cheese-mobile, sigh...

When it came to gathering up materials for my upcoming show, I knew it was the opportunity I'd been looking for to pick up some of the Liberty of London tana lawn I'd been pining for. It's going to make some gorgeous pillows (a few of which will end up in the shop after the show so everyone can enjoy!) and fits in with the look I'm going for just right. I can't believe the prices on this stuff so I ended up just getting a mini rainbow bundle from Purl Soho (and definitely planning on stashing some of the leftovers for my own projects...this job's gotta have some other perk apart from working in one's pajamas after all, ya?).

all bundled up

I was not at all disappointed by the quality of this fabric—both the feel of the fabric and the look of the prints makes it some of the most luxurious that I've come across and I can see now why I'd want to roll around in yards of it it's so coveted. The prints that I thought were just so-so in the pictures, I've ended up really liking in person and the prints that I thought I'd like in the pictures, I've ended up loving in person which is such a nice surprise when going through a bundle of several prints from one line. I had never been able to feel tana lawn in person before this either and I would compare it to the delicate softness of voile but with slightly more of a structured drape. If voile is like handling butter, then this tana cotton lawn is like handling refrigerated butter. But not margarine, cuz that would kinda be a drag.

I'm off to go take the scissors to this stuff (the greek chorus standing in the wings just shrieked, i know) and buckle down for my last weekend of work before the show, eeks! I hope each and every one of you has a fabulous holiday weekend with lots of good weather and relaxing and I'll see you back here next week with a brand spankin' new embroidery pattern for you to maul.