Sunday, September 29, 2013

Bloglovin

Whelp, I finally got on the bandwagon...you can now follow my blog on Bloglovin.  Kind of like Pinterest, it's easy to fall down the rabbit hole with all of the cool blogs on there. 

You can find the link to Bloglovin on the left side of the screen underneath the Portland Modern Quilt Guild button.  Enjoy!

Friday, September 27, 2013

Work in Progress: Urban Ninja

Every now and then, instead of doing another sample for the shop, I want to dive in to something that doesn't have a deadline...something frivolous and ridiculous and for no other reason than I want to.

A few years ago, Mom gave me three of the pared down charms square packs of Andover's Swoon line.  I say pared down because when one says "charm pack," one usually thinks of Moda's Charm Packs that have 40 or more pieces in it.  Thankfully (for so many reasons) there are other companies doing these packs instead of just Moda - the difference is, is that their packs don't always have as many pieces in it.  These packs from Andover were small - 3 colorways with maybe 5 or 6 pieces per colorway, and only one piece of each per pack. 

I loved this fabric but never found a good pattern for it, and the yardage of it is long, long gone. I decided it was time to just wing it and use it.  I wanted to do a quilt of Friendship Stars, the stars that to me always looked like ninja throwing stars



 Friendship Star (Left)

                            Ninja Star (Right)


Totally the same thing, amiright.




After I sewed all the blocks, I was one block shy of a 5x5 quilt...so there's an empty space for the block that will feature the owner of all those fancy pantsy throwing stars....the Urban Ninja!  I haven't drawn him out yet...but soon. 



Other than being able to be silly about the ninja theme, the thing I'm enjoying most is that even though the pattern itself is simple, it's forced me outside of my comfort zone.  Typically, I wouldn't just put all those colors together in the stars themselves - I don't usually work with an orgy of pattern AND color together, so having all that business in the stars was a little something different for me.  Also, I'm a big fan of tonal prints in unexpected colors for backgrounds, and I don't usually use solids, but this one I did use just solids for the backgrounds.  And, I prefer applique to piecing, so winging even a simple pieced block without a guide is different for me too.

The Urban Ninja snuck up on me and changed my style for this quilt! I don't know when I'll be getting it quilted...hey, maybe I'll try my hand at quilting a bigger quilt too!

Thursday, September 26, 2013

Finished Project! The Easter Bunny Stocks Up

When this pattern came in to the shop, it was too cute to pass up...who would have guessed the Easter Bunny was a trick or treater and thrifty Easter Basket shopper?  It made me giggle, so I had to make it.

It's called "The Easter Bunny Stocks Up" and is by Cranberry Designs' Rockin' Redwork line.  I'm not much for doing embroidery - it's gorgeous but I don't have the attention span for much of it - but this was adorable and simple.  And, I had a total blast quilting it! I don't have a picture of the finished product (just finished the binding yesterday and neglected to take a picture of it), but the binding is purple and I'm pretty psyched about the whole thing.  It feels good to start and finish a project within a week...it happens so rarely!




Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Another International Quilt Market Anecdote: Nancy Zieman

It's been a while since I made any real effort to write about what I saw and did at Spring Market this year, but lately at the shop one story has been thrown around more than usual in the form of either John or my mom busting my chops about it.  Not in a bad way, don't worry, but I'll get to that...It's kind of funny!

But it seems like as with any celebrity in any field, when you meet them in real life their star shines even brighter for you, or they get knocked down a notch or two.  For those of you all that have been reading this blog for a while, you might remember how I met Kaffe Fassett at Fall Market in 2011.  To paraphrase, he kicked me, noticed, looked at me, didn't say a word and then was extra snooty with people when he was in his booth signing books.  Looks like as his notoriety in the quilting world grew, he got too big for his britches and the rest of the quilting community peons like us. By contrast, his partner Brandon Mably was really friendly and fun to talk to, but for me, Kaffe unintentionally knocked himself down a peg or two for me.

This year, I met Tula Pink (who was very friendly and talkative), Verna Mosquera (also very nice) and Nancy Zieman.

John and I took a Schoolhouse class from Nancy, and it was fascinating to see her in person.  Sure, I'll admit I was a little star struck by thee Nancy Zieman.  I remember sitting there with mom when I was really little watching her show...and being a little kid (4ish or 5), slightly scared by her facial paralysis.  Once it got explained to me that she had an illness that caused it, I was cool with her. But I remember her show from the early 90s.  She's the one person I remember from quilting fame as a kid.

As we were walking around Market, John got to meet  Nancy face to face.  I was elsewhere, but according to him she was warm and friendly. He said that she told him she liked him because, and I quote, he looked like her kids.

I met her on the last day of Market in her booth.  I told her that I used to sit with my mom and watch her show and "help her quilt" by cutting up her scraps, and how nice it was to meet her.  Obviously Nancy was totally done with being friendly for the day because she delivered a gem of a response.  I swear to God, she just looked at me, expressionless and said, "How nice for you."  No smile, no thank you, or nice to meet you or I'm glad you have a nice memory of my show...just "How nice for you."  Looks like someone else has gotten a little too big for her britches too.

Meeting a few of the biggies of the quilting world has sure been an interesting experience!

It's Almost Time!

It's almost time for Lovely Frankenstein's 31 Days of Halloween!  Got LOTS of very cool quick and easy projects stored away, so stop by daily for a your sewing/quilting/crafting Halloween fix!

Monday, September 23, 2013

Gray Days.

While it's no secret that fall is my favorite time of year, like so many other people around the world, the change from summer to fall wreaks havoc on my brain.  Fall just barely hit but the trees are only just starting to blush, the mornings are a little crisper, and it's getting darker sooner.

I have lived in Oregon for 8 years now.  One thing that I have never, and probably will never, get used to is the long rainy season.  It has taken me this long to figure out why I dislike the rainy season so much, but I finally got there.  Unlike southern CA where it's bright most of the time, and the mid-Atlantic where you get the most spectacular fall displays and winterscapes, Oregon simply gets rainy.  When it rains here it rains for days and everything is gray - gray skies, gray streets, grey leafless trees, gray gardens, gray people, gray everything.  It's like the color gets sucked out of the world come October and it stays drab until June with little teaser days of sun sprinkled in sporadically.

Every year at the end of summer when Mother Nature stops taking her meds and throws all four season of weather at us in a week, I start to resist the change.  I love the changing leaves, but I inwardly groan at waking up to another cloudy sky that threatens rain.  It's the third day of fall, aaaand....Guess what it looks like today?  Gray with a chance of rain.  Rainy, with sometimes sideways rain. So what do I want to do?  SEW.  I want to sew.  I don't want to work, I don't want to grocery shop or pay bills or cook or do chores or anything I need to do, I want to sew on something frivolous and bright.

I think that's what I'll do tonight...time to pull out the brights and make something wonderfully garish.






Wednesday, September 11, 2013

A Non Quilting Post - A Good, Short Read for "Unconventional" Twenty-Somethings

The other day, I was asked during a conversation if I had graduated college yet.  I have, I finished classes in December 2010, and walked in June 2011.  I have a BA in Anthropology hanging in my sewing room.  My thesis was on the importance and role of quilting in contemporary American society. I was the first woman in my family to graduate from university, degree in hand. While jobs are scare in my chosen field of Anthropology without a PhD, I am lucky enough to be able to work in the quilting community.  I get to make quilts, help people make theirs, help reach out into the community and talk quilts, and design patterns...one day I'll be designing fabric too (once Photoshop stops kicking my ass).  But without hesitation, when I said yes, I had already graduated, she looked me up and down and asked, "well, when are you going to get a real job?"  The look on my face must have been incredulous, considerably mild in comparison to the insult I felt.  A real job. What was that supposed to mean? All I could do was tell her I DO have a real job, I have two real jobs in fact!  I cited my position at a local financial planning office in addition to my place at the shop. Why was the fact that I have two part time jobs instead of one full time render what I do as being less than "real?" Why did I feel the need to justify myself?  I don't know.

I am not married, nor have I ever been, and I have no kids, my don't have a conventional "career" even though I have a BA, and I'm staring down the wrong side of my 20s.  Many other women are in a similar situation, so it's not all that uncommon.  But there are comments that have started becoming more frequent, and I know other women hear it too: Shouldn't you at least be married by now? You're not getting any younger, when are you having kids?  Why don't you have a real job?  I of course get frustrated by it, but what can I say?  It's part of adulthood, and in the economical environment of the past 15 years it's not surprising, or at least it shouldn't be.  So I don't say much...what is there to say?

Today my friend Laura posted the following article on Facebook, and finally someone put into words what so many of us twenty-something women feel when these things get pointed out.  If you're a twenty-something in a similar position in your life, it's worth a read, and even if you're not, it's still a good article that speaks to the perceptions of what is expected of women at any age.  I know for me, it gave me a different perspective.

My favorite part of it was where she asks about whether the her plans for her life are okay. It drove home to me the fact that how we always seem to look to other for a measuring stick for where our lives should be - if it's "okay" to have goals, plans and desires that differ from what women are still expected to do in their lives as women - and we ask for that approval:

"What if my ultimate goal has nothing to do with marriage or kids or a career? What if my aim was to love people well, and to fully embrace the gifts I’ve been given? Would that be enough? What if my life goal was to simply run the race, to be called a good and faithful servant at the end of it all? Maybe that would mean marriage and children and a thriving career, but maybe it wouldn’t. Is it ok if it doesn’t?"

We've all asked those questions of ourselves and of others, but should we have to?  That answer is up to you.  For me, this was really good (and needed) food for thought.

Read on below:
26, Unmarried and Childless

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Here We Go Again: The Tuesday Edition

Technology hates me. Seriously.  While my boyfriend, friends and family have a fair time with their technologies, I have a rap sheet a mile long of mishaps and mysterious breakdowns.  My phone freezes all the time and has umpteen issues, which my Dad who has the same phone just a year older, has no problems.  My tablet doesn't charge unless you tape the charging cord to the table with a piece underneath the plug in to make it higher than the tablet (and maybe do a "please freakin charge" dance), while John's is older than mine and has no issues. Sadly, the list goes on. 

Today my techno-curse reared it's ugly head and set it's malicious sights on my sewing machine. While finishing the last of the napkins for Isabelle's wedding, my machine freaked out, made a loud terrible noise, jammed with the needle down and flashed an E6 error...a motor failure of the burn out/thread tangle persuasion. I had to take off the foot, take out the needle and disassemble to figure out the problem...

If you ever wondered what the inside of your machine looks like, it looks like this:


But even after  all that, I couldn't access the fried motor because Brother, in their infinite wisdom, put it in place where, in order to access it, one must pull out all of the moving parts in front of it to get to the motor in the back...no access panel, nothing. Zilch. 

I haven't even had the machine a year!  It is going to cost more to fix it, than the value of the machine. So, once again I find myself eyeball deep in projects that need to be done NOW and in the new machine market.  Lord love a duck.

So I went to the shop to finish the napkins - hey, at least one victory - and then, when I came home  I found in front of the house, a lady yelling obscenities at NOTHING.  I get parked, get out and she starts yelling more.  I thought she was on the phone, but nope, that yelling got directed at me as I walked inside.  I watched her for a few minutes to see if she'd move on, but she didn't, just kept on coming into the yard, walking across the street into my neighbor's yard and yelling more.  As I was on the phone trying to get an officer to come down, two showed up and apprehended her.  I wonder what the real situation was...was she distraught?  High?  Crazy? 

Who knows.  All I know is it's time for some tacos de lengua and some TV.  I'll tackle the machine problem tomorrow.