wise craft

look what i found!

What do you mean, what is it?

Why, its only the ugliest second hand beanbag chair in the city! Set me back a whole $3.50.

I mentioned when we were reorganizing and reclaiming our family room from the mini-Legoland that it had become, that I wanted to get a beanbag chair for the kids to put in there. They had been asking for one, and those that know me know that I get excited over anything I can recover in fabric I choose.

Then, stopping by a thrift store on the way back home from school drop-off the other day unearthed this lovely brown beauty. Peter is very skeptical, frankly, the kids are too (they gave each other one of those "mom's-doing-it-again look when they saw it). But I'm not wavering, and choose to ignore the nay-sayers. They don't know that when I look at it, instead of a brown blob, I see something more like this (from Amy Butler's Midwest Modern)-

With the pleather cover intact, the inner bag seems in good shape, although it could use a lot more stuffing. I'm going to take the pieces of the cover apart, make a pattern, find some fabric that will work (the best part), add some stuffing, and prove my lovely family wrong. Just wait.

winter trim

I had coffee with my friend Neece last week and she gifted me the trim bounty of the century. This is only about a quarter of it. I am so excited to use it. how? I don't know yet. I'm daydreaming about trimming some white T's and making some summer trimmed out skirts. Is there anything cuter in summer than a girl in a cotton skirt and converse sneakers?

That might be the image that gets me through the rest of the winter. February and March tend to get me a little restless. The twinkle lights of the holidays are all packed away and when its dark at 4 in the afternoon, its just dark. Blah! I've been thinking about our yard and garden a lot lately. I dusted off some of the gardening books we have, I think there are plans somewhere in my head. I also bought some great fabric at IKEA a couple of months ago and tucked it away for patio chair cushions.

Yep, I'll just be over in that big chair... dreaming about trees and potted plants.

wooly hearts and legos

I turned the idea of those wool wreaths I made over the holidays into wooly valentine hearts. These are easy to do, if you have a felted sweater lying around anywhere near a Valentine-ish shade (and I feel I'm speaking to a group of folks who actually might), give them a try. I cut one length of 28 gauge craft wire roughly as long as my forearm. I cut squares from felted sweaters roughly 1" by 1", but no need to be exact at all. Cut as many as you think you'll need (cause I bet you'll be making more than one of these once you have the supplies out), punch the wire through the center of each square. Just keep punching and piling them on the wire, pushing them together until you think you have enough. When you're ready, twist the two ends of the wire together to secure them and bend them into a hook (which will also help to bury those wire ends). With the wire at the center top, just shape your rounded form into a heart shape. I pinched the wire at the angled areas to define the shape a little. Hang if you want, or just place them around the house.

Kids will love this, I'm thinking about my Girl Scout troop. I have to credit Cassie with the original wreath idea, it sparked this version.

Okay, the Lego update is that they are now up in Ian's room (with Emma's special ones moved into her room). Peter spent a good part of his weekend organizing the pieces into drawers so Ian can easily find what he needs when he's building. Ian is thrilled, and his idea of relaxing is now being in his room (preferably in his pjs), music playing, with millions of Lego's at his fingertips. It will require maintenance on everyone's part, there's just no way to get around that, we will have to stay on top of it. The tradeoff is that we have a family room with some room now, its much nicer in there. I'm on the lookout for a couple of thrifted beanbag chairs I can recover now that there is space.

the gratuitous kitty picture

*For some reason, typepad is barely working for me right now. Been trying to post for 2 days. Hope the problem is fixed soon.

 

She looks even better in the sunshine. I took this photo the same day I took the one I posted over at habit. The sun was so welcome, I grabbed my camera and started snapping right away!

- I have to send you to see Sarah's printables, newly listed in her shop. I could not resist the Shiny Happy Rainbow, it gave me a good reason to clean off my desk today.

- Abby's new print and press shop collaboration.

- Listening to Throw Me The Statue. (Lolita is pretty catchy)

- I splurged on my eyebrows and bought myself a brow arching kit from Sephora the other day at my sister-in-laws suggestion. I *hate* to tweeze my eyebrows and they are badly in need of attention. This little kit did the trick, my brows have never had this much attention!

- You guys really got me thinking about our Lego situation. I actually took a picture of it to post and show you, and chickened out. I just can't! Peter and I have declared this weekend Lego organizing weekend. I will be putting everything else aside. Maybe I can stand to show you then.

inspiration

I spent a couple of evenings back before Christmas pulling together tear sheets I've collected, and finding new ones (the technical term on the design side for this Peter tells me is "pulling scrap", it was tear sheets on the apparel side, scraps were the fabric on the floor of the cutting room). Here's what I see on my wall (and what I like) these days:

- cyanotype "sunprint" shade of blue, especially against soft, pearly, muted grays.
- oil portraits of people (these used to scare me, no kidding, I feel this is a breakthrough).
- organically shaped, simple pottery (I am trying very hard to build a collection of Diana's pieces)
- wool texture in pillows
- simple quilts in strong colors (still crushed out on Denyse Schmidt, probably always will be)
- yellow and gray

What I am not presently inspired by? Lego's. Every.single.surface.inch of our family room has been taken over by Legos. I'm not exaggerating. I am told that when I enter that area, I immediately heave a heavy sigh, get schlumpy shoulders, and then walk out. Both kids are in full immersion Lego mania, have their own sets, and insist on no cross-contamination. We have had a dedicated Lego building table in there for some time, which has been covered, cleaned off, and recovered with pieces more times than I can count. We have a sorting system which worked until it reached its peak capacity over Christmas. Now I am at a loss as to exactly what to do so I'm doing nothing right now. I'm waiting for cheap, functional, divine inspiration. (Plus they hurt when you step on them.)

heavy sigh.....

***thank you***

A sincere thank you to all the kind and thoughtful comments on the last post. I won't go into detail about how last week, busy as it was, had me doubting myself in many ways. Just kind of a weird week. You provided me with reassurance that we are all a community of crafters, artisans, mothers, and families, and whether we dabble in making things, or just like to hear about making things, we all find a connection, and I'm so thankful to be included in that, in any way I can.

The necklace winner was announced at the bottom of the last post. I think we should definitely do it again sometime soon.

Today I am
- doing a little stitching with Emma from this book
- wii bowling with Ian
- enjoying some really nice coffee
- continuing to work on the twelve dancing princesses (can words express how much I love this project??)
- thinking about Obama's letter to his daughters.

Tomorrow, we make history.

giveaway for you!

As I cross things off my list, and muddle through my week, I thought I would pass on some links and offer up a Valentine's giveaway.

- If you have not seen The Beckoning of Lovely, go take a look.
- The kids and I are looking through this book and thinking up all kinds of crazy, recycled madness.
- I've rediscovered Dillon Fence this week, a favorite band from my college days. Its making me all goosebumpy (Frances was my favorite back then).
- I didn't pull it together for Leya's color week, but am enjoying it all the same.
- I bought this book on vacation and am really hoping to have time to play with it soon.

Oh! That giveaway. Lisa Leonard conversed back and forth last week about one of her new pieces, the hugs and kisses necklace. We thought it would be fun to offer it up as a pre-Valentine's giveaway.

Isn't it gorgeous? Here's Lisa's description-

"A kiss and a hug to keep with you always. An 'X' is hand-stamped onto a sterling circle tag and an 'O' is hand-stamped onto a sterling square charm. Each charm is about 1/2" in width. Strung from sterling ball chain with a cream freshwater pearl. Perfect for someone you love!"

Okay, here's all you need to do to be eligible for the giveaway. Leave a comment on this post, and in that comment I'd love to hear what you enjoying seeing most on this blog. Is it the projects? The mistakes? The endless blabbering? My house? My cat? I'm curious, plus it will certainly help me along on those days when the words just don't flow.

On Monday, 1/19, probably sometime around 9:00 am PST, I will close comments on this post and randomly draw one name, which I will announce shortly after, so please check back. In the meantime, thanks so much for your generosity Lisa, and good luck to all.

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Added 1/19/09

The random number generator chose:

42	

Timestamp: 2009-01-19 18:05:46 UTC

from Maggie.

Maggie, please email me your address at wisecraftblog@gmail.com and we will get your necklace off to you.

Thanks to everyone who left a comment and played along. I will plan some more giveaways like this in the future, everyone deserves a chance to win. Not to mention the comments you left made a crazy week (full of self-doubt I might add) so much nicer. Thank you so much for all your kind words.

the ebb and the flow

I have entered quite the whirling dervish of a week here in my little datebook. Filled to the brim of randomly placed, yet extremely important deadlines and activities. Look at the yin and yang of my desk. I chuckled when I saw that this morning (and realized I gotta clean my desk.) That's reality, a stack of brand new gorgeous wool swatches just waiting to be turned into something happy...and a W-4 form. All in a day here. Let's really hope I don't felt that W-4 form and turn those swatches over to our accountant.

Diving into new books will be a little reward to myself at the end of this week. I plan to plop down in my flannels, in my cozy bed, and just read and read. I love Amisha's resolution for the new year, to read for pleasure. Oh yes, that's such a very good one for me too.

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Thank you so much for the comments on the quilt top. For those who mentioned it, do not fear those curves. Those were the first real curves that I've done that required consistency and I took it slow and steady (and okay, profanity helped along the way) and that's what made it work. So, don't let them stop you. Erin, I can't wait to see yours.

See you soon.

resuming

This is the latest quilt to cross my studio worktable, the Denyse Schmidt "Single Girl" quilt I'm making for Emma's bed. I actually finished the quilt top before the Christmas flurry started, and put it away till the new year to work on other things. I'm really happy to pull it out again and refocus.

I started this quilt promising myself I would not buy any printed fabrics to do the piecing with, they would all come from my stash. Which they did. At the time, my fabric shelves were so full, I really didn't see many of these prints until I took everything out and put it all back, piece by piece. In the end, as I suspected, I had to choose between too many prints. There are 35 prints called for, and I gave very little thought as to how the patterns I did choose would work with each other. As for Emma, her only request was that there be lots of light blue and I figured, even for a 10 year old girl that color would never really fall out of favor. I chose a neutral background, a white with a very slight touch of gray. (I believe its Kona Cotton 'Natural'.)

I am really happy with how this has turned out so far. Those who have read this blog for any length of time may remember that I have already made a quilt for Emma's bed. That one is on her bed now, and has been used daily since I made it. Truth is, when a girl likes to make quilts, and she runs out of beds to make them for, she starts all over again. I guess that's what I'm doing. I will put a loftier batting inside (dream cotton), and will use flannel for the backing. It will be heavier than the 'simple' quilt, so we can switch them out seasonally.

The next step is quilting it and this time, I am planning to have it professionally done. I have juggled with going this route with every quilt I've ever made but always ended up doing the quilting myself to save money and to prove to myself I could do it. This time I've got so many other things going on that I thought I would just give the idea a try. It will be a relief to only have to concentrate on the binding, that's always sort of a cathartic process for me.

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Thanks for all the wonderful comments and kind words about Peter's art. You are such a wonderfully supportive bunch. I am still trying to get more pictures of my piece, but in the meantime here's the one he made for his parents. The man's got skills.

I have a giveaway planned here on Thursday, so please check in.

Soon!

received

a cross, handmade by Peter's Dad,out of barbed wire from their Colorado ranch...

wool felt pinecones made by Jenny...

We also got an amazing original print made by my niece Kate, which needs a proper frame and good home so I can show it to you properly.

And from Peter-

He made original art for family this year, and this is the one he made for me. He even made the frames for them. I can't tell you how happy I am to see this man do art again. For many years he's been too busy or otherwise occupied with his cycling, or small children, to have any time at all left over for something like painting. He was inspired by a series of tree photos he took in Japan several years ago that he's had in the back of his mind for a long time. The surface of the blown up photos are manipulated in a multi-step process. I've had trouble getting a good picture of it, I keep trying.

Here's an extremely close up shot of the pixelated bits of color. It taps into my love of paint by number artwork and the idea of the squares of color blending together as you move away from the piece. I just love it.

He has plans for more of them, in different sizes. Tell him if you love it, let's keep him motivated!

That's it for holiday handmades. It was fun to see what everyone came up with for handmade gifts. I love them all!

Happy Friday to all!