Lady Scouts sock creature

In the middle of a snowstorm, we had our last Lady Scouts meeting of the year on 12/21. A new Scout, Hilary, led the craft, which was making these little sock creatures. Of course, I was sick that day. I didn't finish in our time allotted (these babies are hand-sewn) and when I got home I just threw the pieces, needle, and thread in a drawer and forgot about it. Finally, on New Year's Eve, I felt good enough to finish this little dude. My last completed craft of the year. 

Kinda silly, with that big smile. Pretty cute, though, too. And I had to add that argyle ribbon. Artfully mis-matched, I say. 

We had quite the photo session, this sock creature and me. Here's one I like of the two of us together. 

And you couldn't see in the other picture, but I was wearing my new wooden necklace that day. Here's how it looks on. Pretty awesome, if I do say so myself. 

Updates and a rambling answer

First off, I have to note that the cupcakes picture above is over a year old, but I'll get to that later. I'd love to show you some peeks of what I've been working on for the past week, but I can't. They are surprises that must remain surprises until they are received. I know I usually give a little peek of my Swap Til You Drop mini-quilt, but this month's theme is two-color quilts, so even a little peek will give away a large part of it! But rest assured that I'm making excellent progress. I pieced the top on Sunday and did all the quilting last night. I'm hand-stitching the binding on my commute today and hope to have it in the mail tomorrow or Thursday. Reveal to come next week! 

Also, I received a comment yesterday from sweetkelli (thanks for stopping by!) asking about Lady Scouts. I've mentioned Lady Scouts a number of times here, but I don't think I've fully explained my idea of it. Basically, it's a gathering of like-minded females who drink, eat, craft, and share. The end result is much more than the sum of its parts. In the beginning we were sharing a short reading, but that has fallen off. Hmm. I think it's something we need to resurrect. Below is a picture of what a Lady Scouts craft session looks like: 

This was from the cupcakes one late last summer. The end result cupcakes are in the top picture above. The second one from the right is mine and is sitting on my work desk. 

We've mentioned before that perhaps a manifesto is in order, but I think I've just been too lazy to come up with one. Lady Scouts got its name when I was thinking about getting together with friends and crafting when I was little and in Girl Scouts. What does one call a similar gathering amongst adults? Lady Scouts, of course! It's really lovely when we can all get together, but it's also a rare occasion. There are about five "core" members, and everyone is always welcome to bring friends, so we've had a number of different ladies attend one or two "meetings." Ideally, I'd like for this to be the second Tuesday of every month, but that just isn't possible, and lately we've gone months between meetings. 

So, I hope this explains my concept of Lady Scouts! Please, feel free to ask any questions, or to start up your own chapter! If you do, let me know! 

Also, I just have to note that I am going to see the Smashing Pumpkins on Friday AND Saturday night in Boston! I am super excited. I've been listening to the catalog pretty much chronologically this week, just to get ready. I had a hard time figuring out if I should listen to Earphoria or Pisces Iscariot after Siamese Dream, but I went with Earphoria because I was itching for some live stuff. It's been just over a year since I last saw the Pumpkins, and I realize I am incredibly lucky to be able to see them as often as I have. *sigh*

Some Christmas crafting progress

Here is the other crafty post I promised for this week. Over the weekend I was cleaning up post-Lady Scouts (yes, all of the craft supplies sat on the coffee table from Tuesday until Saturday!) when I was compelled to just sit down and play a little more with making some Shrinky Dink pins. People will tell you these are addicting, but then you won't believe them...that is, until you get addicted yourself! Anyway, what resulted from that session Saturday morning was about a dozen of these butterfly pins in a variety of colors. They were all drawn freehand (as opposed to the bees, where I made a pattern and traced it onto the plastic each time) and I really love them. 

Then on Sunday I took a few more steps to finishing some Christmas gifts. These are mini sewing kits in jelly jars with pincushion lids and handmade Shrinky Dink pins. This is also the last you'll see of them before Christmas--I don't want to spoil anything! But I will say that there are a lot of them, and that I hope the recipients like them as much as I like the idea of them. 

So, now that the election results are in (well, for Massachusetts, at least--sorry, Minnesota friends!) and the giddiness is starting to wear off, we can all get back to our normal crafting. Because, you know, I have no fewer than FOUR quilts I'd like to finish this month, including a two-color mini swap quilt (and a twin for me) and some surprise gift quilts as well. I have big plans for crafty progress this weekend; we'll see if I can follow through on them. 

What I've been up to....

I've been pretty MIA this past week--it's been a busy one. Here's a short run-down of what I've been up to lately: 

• Touring a paper mill, which was incredibly interesting
  
• Touring Gettysburg battlefields (photo above taken from Little Round Top) in the cold and rain
  
• Spending lots of time in rental cars and airports
  
• Seeing Johnny Pesky in Logan Airport

• Hosting a Lady Scouts wherein we made Shrinky Dink jewelry (but did none of the jewelry part, only the shrink part)
  
• Playing with Anna Maria Horner fabrics
  
• Ordering supplies for Christmas crafting
  
• Watching bad vampire movies and an okay superhero one
• Boning up on Of Montreal, who I'm seeing tonight
  
• Pulling together a Halloween costume for tomorrow night's party in Salem
• Looking forward to gaining an hour this weekend!

(Last) weekend crafting

These are the last of the projects that I've completed and not posted--I promise! The only thing close to that is my new dress, which isn't finished; the pattern is done, but the first actual dress in actual cotton needs a few adjustments before it's wearable. But it's close!

Anyway, by request from my mom, who is doing yoga now, I made these two eye pillows for her and her friend. I followed the dimensions and filling instructions for the Eye Will Survive eye pillow in Denyse Schmidt Quilts (which, if you haven't noticed already, is my go-to crafty book; I use this one more than any other!) but the patchwork is all me just throwing stuff together.

This view shows the back of the Japanese one. Those fabrics aren't actually Japanese, they just look like it. I really like this swirl but didn't want to chop it up for the front, so there you go. The one thing I'm not totally pleased with on this is the filling. I was running out of flax seed so I bought some from the Trader Joe's instead of the bulk stuff at Whole Foods. I saved a lot of $$, but when I went to use the flax seed I realized that it was roasted! And it smells roasted! I added some extra lavender in an attempt to over-compensate, but not sure how well that will work. So, um, sorry Mom! I hope the eye pillow doesn't make you hungry!

And I totally forgot to post this earlier, but here are two of the felted rocks we made at Lady Scouts last week! The instructions are from Last Minute Fabric Gifts and were very easy to follow. Our rocks all turned out pretty well!

So, it's Friday! Almost the weekend! And I get a summer Friday today, thanks to the wonderfulness of book publishing (and my working extra hours all week). I plan to make the most of it: Rob is meeting me for a late lunch, then we're going to mosey down Newbury Street (meaning we will spend oodles of time and probably $60 in Newbury Comics) before meeting our friends at the Boston Common Loew's for the 4:30 show of the Dark Knight. I'm very excited to see it! I think we all are. We'll probably be back on the North Shore around 8. I didn't even get home until after 7:30 last night, so when I get home tonight it will feel like I've already had a bunch of my weekend, when really it's barely begun!

On Saturday night Rob and I are going to see Salem State's production of Grease! We haven't been to live theater since...we left the midwest, I believe. Insanity. I don't know about Rob, but I'm really looking forward to it.

Those are our only concrete plans (and that's quite a few, but still leaves a lot of open time on Saturday day and all day Sunday), but I'm sure we'll think of something. Here's what I hope will happen this weekend:

• We have breakfast at Red's one of those mornings
• I finish my dress
• I cut and sew the muslin for a new Built By Wendy skirt from Sew U
• More Dear Jane progress
• I sew the Sew U skirt ?
• kitty snuggles
• I kick Rob's ass in poker
• We watch more Deadwood

Also, I cannot believe it's nearly the end of July already. Where has the summer gone?

Also also, I want to take a little break here to talk about some other arty (but non-crafty) things that have been near and dear to my heart recently:

1) Son of Rambow. Seriously--this movie is amazing. We saw it last Friday at 4-something in Salem and loved it. I actually got really teary at the end. It just reminded me how wonderful cinema is, how inspiring and uniting it can be, and why I love it so much. I want to own it. Go see it, if you can. Netflix it!

2) Billy Corgan. Okay, I know... If you know me, you know how intensely I adore Billy Corgan. Really, truly. I adore him. I love his music. The Smashing Pumpkins has been my favorite band since I bought Siamese Dream in, like, early 1994. So I've been a Pumpkins fan for more than half of my life. I sobbed when they broke up. I was ecstatic when Zwan formed and I saw them at First Ave to kick off their US tour (which they never finished because the band broke up) the night after the war in Iraq started. I loved Billy's solo album and freaked out when I saw him play at Avalon and I was only 20 feet from him. I own two copies of Billy's poetry book. I waited in the rain for two hours in October in Cambridge to have him sign my book at the Harvard Book Store. He said the most wonderful things to me and my photo of him signing my book hangs right above my computer at work (and is also framed and hanging above my guitars at home). When the Pumpkins reformed and put out Zeitgeist last year, I also freaked out. They came to Boston for three shows and I was lucky enough to see them at two of them. Two nights, in a row, of live Pumpkins! I really freaked out.

What brings me to this point is the fact that for the past couple of days I've been listening to the bootleg I have of the first Pumpkins show I attended. It's been just over nine months, but it still feels so fresh. Rob and I were in the very last row in the orchestra at the Orpheum, but I could still see really well, and the sound was amazing. I did really well and didn't cry until half way through the show, and then only once, during "To Sheila." I am still incredibly moved when Billy is singing, "You make me real." That show was the best. We got three encores! The band tore through "Cherub Rock" at the end and it was amazing. Billy's voice was so beautiful, but he also did a lot of rockin' screaming. They did a 17-minute version of "Heavy Metal Machine"!

Anyway, I've been listening to live Pumpkins and adoring Billy Corgan.

Happy weekend, everyone!

Recent crafting

Okay, still trying to get all caught up on my pictures and working long hours and watching Deadwood... But I'm close. I have some more crafting that I'm finishing and giving away tonight, and tonight is a Lady Scouts with a very special, fun project, so I should have pictures of all of that next week, but this is pretty close to where I'm at right now. 

My friend JJ just moved into a new place (congrats, Jage!) to go with her new job. She is quite the cook, so what better housewarming gift than some oven mitts? With whales, which she loves? These were made following Denyse Schmidt's pattern in her book Denyse Schmidt Quilts. She only calls for quilt batting and uses cotton canvas for a lining. I changed that up by using Insul-Bright AND Warm & Natural in the middle and only some muslin for lining. I hope she doesn't burn her hands!

This whale was my own design. Cute, no?

My assistant just had a birthday over the weekend and I wanted to do something nice for her because she's fabulous. I was going to make her an apron, but when I found this cute gingham one at Target, I couldn't resist. It was a little plain, though, so I added this cute cherries felt and ribbon applique. Perfect! 

But the apron wasn't enough (she's awesome!), so I also made her this big stuffed lizard from Let's Make Cute Stuff!: Cute Dolls. She really liked the Cute Book lizard (which I made her for Christmas), so I figured why not make another one? The gingham bow adds a lot to the wonky cute quotient (I'm still having trouble with knits, but holding off on the new Built by Wendy book for now). 

So, that's pretty close to where I'm at crafting-wise now. I'm checking out a bunch of new blogs to possibly add to the links on the right, but one that I'm adding right now is label-free. It is new but already SO great! Check it out. I'm also adding this Flickr album that I am obsessed with: the sewing tattoo pool. I am getting antsy for my next tattoo but just can't figure out where to put it. Stay tuned... 

Weekend Forecast + Miscellany

It's been a LONG week here, full of busy-ness at work, a little play, and lots of planning for my upcoming trip home! I think everyone is looking forward to a long weekend. That's all I could think about this morning as Rob was shaking me awake during the third round of my alarm's snooze. It sounds like a garbage truck backing up. Ugh.

So, weekend plans? We don't have much specific in mind. I have a lot of crafting I'd like to do (as always), and there are definitely errands to be run, including a trip to the quilt shop for needles and thimbles and maybe a yard of something and maybe some 1930s replicas for use in my Dear Jane? Hmm... I hope a diner trip is enough to entice Rob to join me.

The picture above was taken last week when these two books arrived in the mail for me. They are great! I'd heard a lot about how Quilter's Catalog is an excellent resource. I haven't had enough time to confirm that yet, but so far, so good! This may have to be my reading material for the plane ride (when I'm not hand-stitching my Dear Jane squares)... I've been wanting Easy Bias-Covered Curves since I saw this post on Craftster in February. Wow! I have no projects immediately in mind, but I'm definitely thinking about it...

Anyway, as promised, here are some pictures of the Lady Scout craft from last Tuesday, ten days ago already! How time flies. Most of us made the business card holders from this book out of felt. The blue one above is mine, and the green one below is my friend Jenn's, which used some extra flowers I'd already cut out.

They are so cute and easy and fun to make! And a good exercise in hand-stitching, too! They were a big hit with the Scouts, so I was glad for it.

So, drawing on the list in Monday's post, I can now cross a few things off:

• Belated Lady Scouts pictures (very few)
  
• Another weekend craft: fabric basket
  
• Crafty book shelf pics and reviews
  
• And hopefully some more Dear Jane progress
  

I don't have any DJ progress to show YET, but I did start stitching another square, C1, on Wednesday night. I am so in love with the fabrics I'm using for this project! I love these 1930s replicas.

As for my weekend crafting, I hope to:

• Finish Dear Jane block C1 and do a LOT of cutting so I have pieces ready for the airplane/my trip
  
• Finalize the dress pattern I've been working on (yes, it's still in the works)
  
• Whip up the Wasp bag from the pattern here.
  
• Continue making progress on the "(sort of) crazy quilt" from this book (I'm making it as a gift for a wedding that's a mere 4 weeks away!)
  

Wow, that's ambitious! What are your Memorial Day weekend plans?

Apologies

Apologies for the lack of posting this past week or so. It has been a busy couple of days, I guess, with minimal crafting and minimal picture-taking. Also apologies for the crappy camera-phone photos today. I just wanted to share some images of things that are inspiring me this week. First is an image of my Dear Jane mug from here. I know it's a little obsessive, but I wanted to have it and I'm so glad I got it. The color is not so great and the quilt is a little blurry on the mug (and even worse in the photo above), but it's been so nice having this little reminder on my desk all day every day at the office. It will be fun to mentally fill in the squares I've completed as I get more finished. 

Also inspiring me this week is Zadie Smith's On Beauty. I've had this book since it came out a couple of years ago, but I'm finally starting to read it now. I've just re-read E.M. Forster's Howards End in preparation, and it's been fun, almost gleeful, for me to see the similarities and divergences she's making from that story. 

Other quick bits: 

• I have had no working headphones for a week+ now, so no iPod on the commute. I really noticed it this morning when there were two rowdy pre-schoolers on my train. Ugh. NEED to get to Newbury Comics! 
  
• Lady Scouts met on Tuesday night and we had a great time. Pictures of the fabulous mystery project to come soon. My camera battery has been low or out for the last couple of days, so that's not helping things. 
  
• I have FINISHED the big secret family project, two and a half weeks early! Go me. 
  
• Still working on that dress pattern, though I've decided to take a different approach. Heading to the fabric store tomorrow to get more muslin. Hoping to finalize the pattern this weekend. 
  
• Also hoping to get a lot of crafting done this weekend. Last weekend was busy and full of allergy awfulness. I spent most of Sunday in a post-nap coma. Ugh. Not very productive. Looking to remedy that this weekend. 
  

Sewing Double

Sewing double, dress-maker's dummy, dress form... Seems like everyone has a different name for one of these. Regardless, I needed one that fit my measurements. I have a different one that was a sort of gift from a coworker, but it just doesn't fit my measurements. So, after seeing tutorials like this one all over the interwebs, I took an oversized tee, two rolls of Duct tape, and a willing husband to make mine a couple of weeks ago--maybe it was a month ago already!

It took us over an hour to do, and it was a funny feeling, being all wrapped up like that. It was kind of a nice little bonding experience for us, too. In a weird way, I suppose. Rob is never usually able to help me with my crafts, so it was nice that we could do something "together" for once (even though I wasn't all that helpful).

It is stuffed with lots of Poly-fil and also two cans of Great Stuff from the hardware store. Although at some point, despite my taking great care, I must have over-stuffed some parts of it. I can fit a good deal of my clothes on it, but the items that are very fitted (read: tightly tailored) to my bust and upper chest do not fit. I cannot zip them all the way up. Ugh. But instead of being upset and angry about it, or peeling out all the foam (which is hard as stone inside the form), I have decided to live with it.

I probably shouldn't be wearing clothes that are so tight, anyway.

Right?

Anyway, this is what I'm using to make my pattern for my new dress idea. Still working on that one, and waking from dreams of not having enough yardage for the sash or ruffle. After that dream, I haven't touched the project and now I'm afraid to find out!

As for the weekend past, it was kinda mellow and kinda busy all at once. We did manage to watch three movies: Lars and the Real Girl, Iron Man, and Hoosiers. I probably liked them in that order, too, with Lars as number one. Very sweet, very surprising.

I'm in a little bit of a rut and I've not been crafty at all until Sunday evenings. That's what happened again yesterday. Let's check out my continued list and see where I'm at, progress-wise:

• some super-secret Lady Scout trial runs DONE!
  
• finalizing my new dress pattern and possibly even sewing the first dress No progress
  
• big secret family project that must be finished less than a month from now I can see the finish line!
  
• and my new personal project, which I will refrain from mentioning until I really get started on it. Trust me, it's BIG and the entire process will be fully documented here. In case you hadn't guessed, this is my Dear Jane quilt, which I started last week. I added a box to the side where you can track my progress. I stitched another block last night, so now I'm at two. Woo-hoo! Two down, 167 to go...
  

Updated Dear Jane post TK. Otherwise, happy Monday! The sun is finally shining here today!

Weekend Round-up

It was a good and busy weekend. Friday night turned into dinner + beers + bar hopping with some girl friends, so that was fun. It was a spontaneous girly night out; I haven't had one of those in a long time. At the third bar, an Irish place the next town over, my friends walked in fine but I was stopped by the bouncer for ID. Ugh! I always get carded. When the bouncer gave me back my license, he said, in a thick Irish accent, "You look like a young Keira Knightley--very sexy." ??? Never mind that she's FOUR years younger than me, but, really?? She's like an entire foot taller than me and at least twenty pounds thinner. Maybe he'd had more beers than I'd had at that point. 

Despite it being a semi-late night on Friday, I was up early on Saturday morning. I was able to sneak in a couple of hours of TV before the draft. Rob and I went for lunch at a local diner around noon, and when I got back I started cranking on my project for him. In the afternoon I went to see Baby Mama with two of my girl friends, so that was fun. It wasn't a good movie, but it was nice to be with the girls and to chow down on buttered popcorn. Yum. Following the movie, I went back to the crafting and finished up the project for Rob. Go me. We weren't able to watch anything but Law & Order on Saturday night, then called it an early one. 

I was up and working again on Sunday morning. I did a lot of the preliminary cutting for my personal secret project. Then, after a conversation with my mom wherein I found out she'd TOLD on me (that I hadn't made any progress on the family project), so I really got going on that. I'm mostly finished at this point! Go me. Again. 

So, here's my list from Friday with accomplishments in gray; let's see how I managed to do: 

• something for husband's birthday coming up
  
• some super-secret Lady Scout trial runs
  
• finalizing my new dress pattern and possibly even sewing the first dress
  
• big secret family project that must be finished less than a month from now
  
• and my new personal project, which I will refrain from mentioning until I really get started on it. Trust me, it's BIG and the entire process will be fully documented here. 
  

Not too shabby! Two down and one started. I got a lot further on the family project than I was expecting to, so that's part of why I didn't get at those other things. Sorry that I can't post pictures of that stuff yet (though photo above is a sneak peek of the family project), but it must remain a surprise! Big reveals to come. This week is already shaping up to be a busy one at work, plus I have a work event on Thursday night, but I do hope to get working on the personal project and on the Lady Scout stuff yet this week. We shall see... 

Flea Market Finds

I had an interesting, busy, and lovely weekend this past weekend. I saw a lot of our friends Jenn and Daniel, which is always nice. Jenn frequents a flea market on the North Shore when it's nice out, and she was generous enough to invite us along on Sunday. Rob opted out, but I decided I was crazy enough to get up at 7AM the one day of the week I didn't have to, so I joined her and Daniel on the trip. It was really lovely on Sunday: a little cool, but sunny and breezy and, well, very spring-y feeling.

For whatever reason, I was drawn to these glasses, which the seller said were sour cream containers. I scored this set of four for $12. Aren't they adorable??

I don't know what I'll do with them, but they are the perfect size and shape for my hands. They feel so comfortable! We are bad with glasses around here, though--for whatever reason, they tend to break on us (mostly Rob, but, in his defense, he does most of the dishes). For that reason, I'm a little afraid to use them! But I will because they are just so cute! Perfect for sangria?

I also scored this little dresser for $10. It's very cute and had some sweet contact paper in two of the drawers, though it very easily fell out of one of them once I got it home. I was drawn to this the same way I was drawn to the glasses, though I didn't know what I'd use it for. We kept walking around and I thought about it for a while and then decided that $10 wasn't much and it would look so cute in our kitchen, so I bought it. I subsequently moved all of our kitchen linens (including dish towels and potholders and a bunch of place mats and tablecloths) into it and freed up our existing wire rack, to which I moved the bread products that had been cluttering our counter space.

So this is what the kitchen looks like now. It's about as tidy as it will ever get, though for whatever reason it still bothers me in some way. Oh well--it definitely is an improvement over what it used to be. I don't have any pictures, which is probably a good thing!

So, this weekend's forecast? Football. Rob has tons of end-of-semester grading to do, and he's already called dibs on the TV for the entirety of the NFL draft this weekend. Not only does that mean that we are not going anywhere, it also means I won't be able to perform my weekend ritual, which consists of many mugs of tea and parking my butt on the futon and watching whatever crap MTV or VH1 is offering (OR the good stuff that's on Bravo). Le sigh. Though, in actuality, this is probably a blessing. I have a lot of crafting to do, including:

• something for husband's birthday coming up
• some super-secret Lady Scouts trial runs
• finalizing my new dress pattern and possibly even sewing the first dress
• big secret family project that must be finished less than a month from now
• and my new personal project, which I will refrain from mentioning until I really get started on it. Trust me, it's BIG and the entire process will be fully documented here. 
  

Oh the suspense...