Thursday, September 30, 2010

Tired, stupid and happy

I bonked my head on some scaffolding when I was getting off the bus this morning, and I blame it on a baby shower gift.

A lot of the staff at the company where I work are young and female, and there's always a baby or two on the way. Much as I would like to, I couldn't possibly make a quilt for all those babies -- instead my standard shower gift is a set of 3 large (42" x 42") flannel receiving blankets. Hemming a big piece with the fancy stitches on my sewing machine is quick and fun, and I get to buy lots of bright colorful flannel prints for which I would otherwise have no use. (It's always about the fabric at my house!)

Instead of wrapping paper or paper gift bags, I use tote bags as my gift wrap. I use Alicia Paulson's "Jane Market Tote", which is fun to make because it allows for lots of different fabric arrangements. I usually have a few on hand, but had run out and needed one for today, so I made this last night:

I'm pretty happy with it -- it was a great way to use these two fabrics, and it went together pretty quickly, but - I didn't realize I needed to make one til 10 pm, which meant I didn't get to bed until 1 am -- which meant I was still feeling tired and stupid when I got off the bus at 8:15 am. But at least I was tired and stupid and and full of post-fabric-handling endorphins...

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Clear skies and fabric


This has been, without a doubt, the least summer-like summer I've ever experienced - cool and gray and damp more often than not, and generally nudging me into Crankyland on a regular basis. Today, though, was glorious. Clear clear blue skies (I have a friend who calls this "Frank-Sinatra-eyes blue" and says she moved to Seattle because of skies like these) and 73 degrees. I did some work in the garden, deadheading dahlias and spreading mulch, but mostly I played elsewhere today - Quiltworks Northwest. I hadn't been there in a few years, and I'm happy to report that, since their move, it's no longer so crowded that you have to worry about tripping over a bolt of fabric and breaking a leg.


This is part of the display of vintage yukata fabrics from the Okan Arts trunk show - the ostensible reason we made the trek to Bellevue. I actually own three rolls of yukata, given to me several years ago, but have never been able to successfully incorporate them into my quiltmaking. I love the designs, but many are just so insistently themselves that they don't play well with others, and fabrics playing well with others is what my quiltmaking is all about. The stuff Okan Arts has is lovely, though, and I did buy a few pieces that are going to become part of Christmas gifts.

But did I really think I was going to get out of there without shopping?




Having an active fantasy life is probably a good thing, but the no-shopping thing? Probably better leave that out of the fantasies.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Ambushed by memories in the ribbon room

I am going to have a new purse made by the fabulous Laura Bee Designs, and needed to find a piece of ribbon for the trim. The place to go for ribbon in Seattle is Nancy's Sewing Basket, on the top of Queen Anne Hill. I used to live near there and visit often, but haven't been there in awhile, so I had forgotten how pleasant the ribbon room is -- a west-facing room with a window bringing lots of sun in.

Standing there looking at all the patterned ribbon, I flashed back to the days when I had really long hair. My mother had fine curly hair that she wore very short, but she insisted on keeping my hair long, straightening it with a heavy iron comb that she heated in the flames on the stove. And she took care of it every day of my life until I went off to boarding school. I don't know that this would have gone on so long if I had had sisters, but my other four siblings are all male, so there was only one head of hair on which my mother could lavish her attention. I would sit on the floor in front of her, and she would comb, braid, and tie it with ribbon -- no rubber bands for me! We moved a lot, and wherever we went -- Raleigh, Tunis, Montgomery, Kinshasa - she would hunt out a shop that sold fancy ribbon, and we would go and buy a wardrobe of ribbon for my hair. I couldn't have cared less about having long hair, but I loved the ribbons she used to buy to tie my braids.

It was a pain to take care of long hair, though, once I was in boarding school and had to deal with it myself. I gave up the ribbon pretty quickly -- too difficult to tie myself -- and resorted to leather barrettes with wood sticks through them, but my hair was not only long, but very thick, and routinely broke the wood sticks. I can't remember how long I put up with that, but eventually, I let someone in my dorm cut my hair... and that was the end of long hair and ribbons. My mother kept some of them for years -- I would come across them when I was rummaging through her fabric and notions -- but somewhere along the way they disappeared.

Standing in the ribbon room at Nancy's, I found it impossible to choose just one ribbon for my purse -- which I knew was going to be the case. The three ribbons at the bottom of the photo are the candidates for that. But I couldn't walk out without also buying a few inches of the two ribbons at the top of the picture. Not to wear in my hair -- which is now fine and curly and worn even shorter than my mother wore hers -- but to stitch into a quilt one day, a little reminder to myself of what it felt like to sit between my mother's knees while she combed and braided and tied my hair with fancy ribbon.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Sunday Stash


Valori Wells - Nest (Free Spirit
American Jane - Punctuation (Moda)
Crosswovens (Moda)
Bella Solids (Moda)
American Jane - Punctuation (Moda)
Ta Dot (Michael Miller)
Princess Mirah leaves (Bali Fabrications)
City Sparkler (Exclusively Quilters)