26 August, 2008

Catch Up

2008-08-26T00:10:00-05:00Sewing & Design|Comments Off on Catch Up

Time to catch up with summer projects. I went around and took a bunch of pictures of thing I have finished recently that never made it to the blog. Here are some of the highlights:

My new laptop sleeve. It is lined with cute japanese dachshunds fabric.


Fishy Skirt. I need to hem this still so I can wear it on Friday. Bright tropical fish and three stripes of ric rac.


Some cotton yarn that I dyed this weekend.


Coral and crystal earrings.


My very first fabric design from Spoonflower.com. I am a beta tester. I haven’t done a thing with this fabric since it arrived. I will post as I investigate.


A pillowcase top made with a little fabric from this great vintage fabric swap I participated in. The elephant (yes, it’s an elephant) from the previous post is more vintage fabric. A flouncy skirt from random clearance fabric. Simple tube with a drawstring and a flippy flounce.


Finally, a skirt made from two remnants picked up at Crafty Planet. (Thanks Rachel for making me get them). I appliqued little bits of the lacy print on to the polkadot print to create the illusion of a border that goes all the way around.

17 June, 2008

Vacation!

2008-06-17T01:31:00-05:00Classes & Teaching, Sewing & Design|3 Comments

I have been away from blogging, not because I was really on vacation, but because of…

…aka the Shibori Symposium. Many fantastic artists from all over the country descended upon my art center in a frenzy of shibori goodness. As Overseer-of-all-Things-Shibori, my presence was greatly in demand.

Just before that happened, I found a fabulous sheet at a thrift store and whipped up this dress, while Andy was kayaking with a friend…

…I wore it to the opening reception for the shibori show. The bonus of making a dress from a sheet is that it cost me all of $1 and it is a nice poly/cotton wrinkle free blend, so no ironing. But just before I made that dress, I worked on this shirt…

… with the help of Dolores the Dummy. She is new to me but has “seen a few seams” if you know what I mean. She isn’t pretty but she is amazingly helpful. (Dolores was named by my friend Nancy, who had her over for a visit before she came to me.) It took me about 5 weeks to make the shirt – not because it was hard, but because I only had the opportunity to work on it for 45 minutes at a time for that long.
And finally, somewhere in there, Andy and I celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary. I took him to see “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at the Guthrie (totally fantastic) and he bought me these charmingly silly shoes as a present.


I can just see them with black tights and cute skirts this fall. Love it! (apologies for crummy pictures. I just didn’t feel like photo styling today.)

23 April, 2008

sneak peaks!

2008-04-23T21:01:00-05:00Sewing & Design|2 Comments


Here’s a sneak peak at some new enamels! I just found a source for some thinner copper that I can easily make in to my own shapes! Tra La! Coming soon to my etsy shop.

(I have been dreaming about these for months!)

21 April, 2008

worlds largest textile garage sale

2008-04-21T23:23:00-05:00Sewing & Design|Comments Off on worlds largest textile garage sale


Our big fundraiser at work is a ginormous garage sale. Tables piled 3 ft high with fabric and yarn and 1000’s of tools, gizmos, ufo’s patterns and more – all fabric related. It’s like Brigadoon – we bring it all in and set it up one day and the next day it’s gone. Sounds like fun, huh? So that’s why it’s been quiet around here. Because just after I got back from ID, then we jumped right in to garage sale mode. We had rotten weather for the drop-off days, but it still turned out great. I got myself a $5 dress form (named Dolores). I spent the weekend fixing her up with some duct tape and darts and now she matches my measurements. I also got a treasure trove of vintage fabric scraps. I am not a fan of little scraps. Never enough to do something with. But this was a bundle with a couple of larger pieces of vintage yardage and a bunch of scraps. Knowing that if I put them in to my fabric bin, I would never do anything with them, I did a little flurry of quilting on Saturday and transformed scraps in to doll quilts. I love them. I posted a few of them to my etsy shop (check them out!) I can just imagine something like this having been a greatly treasured possession when I was a little girl, and I hope someone else will too.

31 March, 2008

the end is in sight….

2008-03-31T05:41:00-05:00Classes & Teaching, Embroidery|Comments Off on the end is in sight….


* Thanks to some fantastic macro photography by my superhubby, I have finished some of the nicest handouts I have ever done for a class. (At least I think so.) It is hard to take photos of yourself doing embroidery. Not enough hands.

* We finished our taxes. TurboTax tried to tell us we made $332,000 last year (so not true) but we tracked that down.

* We cleaned the house from corner to corner. I would say top to bottom but we didn’t do the basement. That’s for another time. The main floor is spiffy and so needed to be done. Spring = muddy puppy feet! Still need to vacuum and find someplace to put a dining-room-chair-full of books.

* Walked and walked. It got up to about 45 degrees here and I wore my sunglasses. It was heaven. Our poor old dog was a little stiff when she got done with her first real hike of the spring. It’s supposed to snow tomorrow.

* On our walk got to see the grand re-opening of one of my favorite local fabric stores – Crafty Planet They moved to a new location (still within walking distance – hooray!) and the new shop looks fantastic!

* Off to bed.

12 February, 2008

Freezing our $#@%)* off!

2008-02-12T00:57:00-06:00Embroidery, Sewing & Design|Comments Off on Freezing our $#@%)* off!

First bit of news is that my mini-quilt was not chosen for the show in Brooklyn. Disappointing, but it is part of the online gallery, which is cool.

I got inspired by that one and my hummingbird piece (posted previously) and have created a couple of mini quilts that I will be posting in my etsy shop soon. This is “Bean”


Hand embroidered on pieced cotton and silk, from an illustration I did from a photo of one of my brother-in-law’s puppies.

And “Stops Traffic”

New and vintage fabrics, hand-embroidered illustration from a 1960’s pattern envelope, vintage buttons.

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