dontcallmebecky

Hello Koko!

2011-11-20T12:10:00.000-05:00

Lest you think the past few months have been entirely dreary around here, we'd like to introduce you to our newest family member, Koko the pug. After wanting a pug for more than 10 years, I am so glad that things finally aligned and we were able to bring this sweet little one into our family.

We got her from a rescue (after filling out the longest application ever) in August. She was 11 months old at the time and is now fitting in with our lives wonderfully. Nuku nuku is not as thrilled with her as we are, but they are slowly starting to tolerate each other.

As you can see, she is ridiculously cute! Whenever we take her out on the town, we can't go more than a few steps without people stopping to coo over her. She's the little instigator at the dog park and tries to initiate play with every dog that she meets, big or small. She plays tag with huge labs and weimeraners and is always the last one running. It's hilarious to see!

When she's not running around like a crazy girl, she can be found at my side 90% of the time. She's the the best cuddler in the world and I love it when she falls asleep and starts snoring away.

She's got the best sense of humor and a face that makes me melt! What a darling!

Goodbye Shinji

2011-11-20T12:00:00.000-05:00

We lost our dear, sweet Shinji to a brain tumor on Friday, July 22. It was a tough summer between the two weeks leading up to his death and the grieving afterward. I never realized exactly how much I cared about him or how big of a hole he would leave in our lives until he was gone. To this day, it's hard to walk around the house and not get choked up as I pass one of his favorite spots or remember that he's not around to greet me at the door anymore.

He was the nicest cat and always loved greeting visitors and making them feel welcome. He had the smoothest, silkiest fur and was always ready to be cuddled or petted. His love for eating Cheez-its and licking plastic bags was unmeasured.

Whenever I want to feel even more depressed, you can count on me to be looking at senior, special needs cats up for adoption on petfinder.com. Jon has pretty much banned me from looking at the site because of how emotional I get. I'm not sure when or if we'll get another cat. Shinji was just the best.

My library did the sweetest thing for me in honor of Shinji! They plated a picture book in his memory for our bookmobile collection. I was so touched! The book perfectly describes him and is a darling book if you are in search of a sweet cat book.

Balloon Fest

2011-06-26T18:14:00.001-04:00

We headed over to Howell, MI last night for the Michigan Challenge Balloon Festival. This is our second time attending and the weather was much better last night than at our previous visit.

I don't think watching ballons take off and examining their interesting color combinations and designs will ever get old! Hopefully I will overcome my fear of heights one day and take a ride without getting queasy!

See the rest of the balloon photos here.

Jon's bonsai tool wrap

2011-06-26T18:13:00.001-04:00

One of Jon's most favorite hobbies is bonsai. He is always fiddling with plants and acquiring new specimens. It's the perfect hobby for him because he is such a patient guy!

He had been begging me to make him a wrap for all of his tools for ages. I knew he was serious when he sent me links to wraps he found online that he liked and dimensions for his dream wrap!

I made this wrap for him for Christmas and it went together quickly (in 30 minutes!). This project requires:
Twill tape
Backing fabric
Sturdy canvas
Doublefold bias tape

I cut out 2 rectangles of fabric in his desired dimensions (one piece of canvas, one piece of printed cotton). Then I cut out a half rectangle of canvas and lined the top edge with bias tape.
I also cut a smaller rectangle in canvas and lined 3 sides in bias tape for the top flap.
I placed the half piece of canvas over the full piece of canvas and sewed pockets for each tool.
Then I sandwiched the canvas with the fabric and edged it with the bias tape.
To finish it off, I attached a piece of twill tape folded in half on one side of the wrap.

It was a super easy project and I should have made it sooner!

Milford, CT

2011-06-26T18:10:00.001-04:00

Our final stop on our trip was to Milford, CT. Our newly transplanted friends, Ben and Hannah, are from Milford, so they told us what to check out while we were in town. First we had dinner at Rainbow Gardens and then we headed over to the duck pond to check out the birds.

See the rest of the pictures here.

Gilette's Castle

2011-06-26T18:09:00.002-04:00

We traveled to East Haddam, CT to visit the home of Sherlock Holmes actor and director, William Gilette. I've visited the castle a few times before and knew that Jon would love it. He did and now would like to take a castle tour of Ireland, naturally.

William Gilette was an eccentric man and filled his home with lots of beautiful carvings, glass, and tricks for his guests.

Upstairs hallway

Gilette's bedroom

View of the Connecticut River

The sumptuous library!

A guest bedroom

The conservatory and wishing well

The great hall

View the rest of the castle pictures here.

Middletown, CT

2011-06-26T18:08:00.003-04:00

I grew up in Middletwon, CT, so I took Jon on a little tour of my old town. Our first stop was at the waterfall just down the street from my old house.

My dad used to take lot of pictures of us in front of here when we were growing up. I remember waiting in agony for him to get the settings right so we could just be done taking pictures already. Little did I know that I would inherit his annoying photographer gene years later!

The highlight of my visit to the city was seeing my old public library. My mom used to take us here all the time and I loved exploring the place! It was fun to see where the first seeds of my career as a librarian were planted.

The adult reading room.

The youth room. The picture book shelves are such a great way for kids to browse books. I wish my library could afford to install shelves like these.

My sister, Ruth, and I hung out on this rainbow sculpture all the time!

We had a lovely lunch at this fantastic vegetarian restaurant, It's Only Natural, before heading to our next destination.

View the rest of the photos here.

Portland, ME

2011-06-26T18:07:00.001-04:00

After Vermont, we drove through New Hampshire to Portland, ME. We had a fun time exploring the cute shops in the city, eating at delicious restaurants (Yosaku and The Green Elephant), and soaking up the bay.

We drove around looking for a good spot to watch the sunset and found ourselves on a tour of luxury oceanfront property before we ended up at this public beach. After shooting this photo, we were promptly eaten alive by tons of little black gnats and got the heck out of there!

The Portland Head Light has to be the most beautiful lighhouse I've ever seen in my life!

I loved these Portland banners.

We took a schooner ride in the Casco Bay. It was my first time on a sailboat and it was amazing. We were clipping along at a great speed and there was no pesky engine noise to spoil the atmosphere. We were able to bring along our own food and drinks and enjoy a picnic on the boat.

Jon loved it so much that he's looking into starting sailing lessons soon!

We headed up to Freeport, ME to the headquarters of LL Bean, which is open 24 hours a day. This is what happens when we shop while we're tired...Jon lays down to test out travel pillows and gets up minutes later.

View the rest of the Portland photos here.

Woodstock, VT

2011-06-26T18:06:00.001-04:00

We headed to Woodstock, VT after we finished hiking the trail and made a quick stop to buy maple syrup and check out the town. It was the quintessential New England town...so incredibly adorable!

Vermont is slowing making its way toward the top of our "let's move here someday" list. Perhaps it's just the nostalgia of the time spent on our honeymoon (we look so young in those pictures!).

View the rest of the Woodstock photos here.

Backpacking the Appalachian Trail

2011-06-26T18:05:00.001-04:00

We spent last week on a New England road trip - 10 states in 10 days!

Our first stop was in Killington, Vermont where we stayed at the Inn at Long Trail before and after hiking the Appalachian Trail. Thoughts of being able to eat their delicious French toast helped us get through our last day on the trail! (see more photos of the Inn here)

Ever the overachievers, we picked the "strenuous" hike and overdid ourselves a bit. In the span of three days, it took us 18 hours to hike 22 miles and climb and descend seven different 2500+ foot peaks. We were exhausted!

The trail was gorgeous and all of our pain and agony brought us many wonderful views and nature-y smells (mmm...pine needles!).

The trail was really steep at this point. Steep enough to warrant an extension ladder...such a funny moment to encounter this!

We saw lots of moss covered quartz - so pretty!

No foot bridges here...

I don't think I've ever been more excited to see a mileage sign...4.2 miles to go until the end of our hike!

On top of the last hill.

This is what 3 days of sweat and rain does to us!

Check out the rest of the trail pictures here.

If you're interested in backpacking the trail, here are the three resources we'd recommend:

A Walk in the Woods - Bill Bryson's narrative of the 6 months he spent backpacking the AT (get the audiobook if you can!)
Exploring the Appalachian Trail: Hikes in South New England - Lists a handful of segment hikes that can be done on the trail and outlines parking, lodging, and water options along the way
Appalachian Trail Official Maps - lightweitght, waterproof map with elevations

Backpacking in Manistee

2011-06-26T18:04:00.001-04:00

Jon has finally turned me into a backpacking lover! He started backpacking a few years ago, but I didn't have any time to join him on his trips because of my busy work and school schedule.

Jon, always up for a trip to REI, set me up with a new pack and some other random gear and we had our first adventure together over Memorial Day weekend. We drove up to Manistee and did a fairly easy 12 mile round trip, overnight hike along the Manistee River trail.

Now that I've gone backpacking, I'm pretty sure that I never want to go regular State Park camping again. Being so close to nature and so far away from technology is such a nice break from day to day life. And, setting up the tent in the middle of the forest away from other backpackers makes the trip much more peaceful! I'm pretty bummed that I didn't get into backpacking sooner but super excited to have a new hobby to enjoy with Jon!

Pillows!

2011-06-26T18:02:00.001-04:00

I've been in a sewing rut much of this year, but I always seem to find inspiration for another project when I attend Brighton Modern Quilters meetings in the Creative Quilt Kits store in Brighton, MI.

I loved this Tanis Keefe fabric and had to make two kitty pillow for our basement couch.

And, I combined some fun prints to make two pillow for our living room couch. It feels nice to freshen up the place with some simple projects like these!

Mail Sack

2011-06-26T18:01:00.001-04:00

I've had the Pink Chalk Studie Mail Sack pattern sitting around in my stash for at least a year now. In an attempt to use what I have, I decided to finally put this together a few months ago.

The pattern was extremely well written and I was able to put this together in a few hours. I'd definitely recommend it!

Now, if only I could walk around the neighborhood with a kitty in tow and not get strange looks!

Branden's Grad Quilt

2011-06-26T18:00:00.001-04:00

My aunt commissioned me to make this t-shirt quilt for my cousin. He's headed off to SUNY Geneseo this fall, so I used his school colors for this quilt. I know the colors are blue and white, but I couldn't tell if they are royal blue or navy blue, so I used both. Branden's super tall, so this quilt is huge! I used interfacing for the t-shirts, kona solids and stippled it with white thread.

Now I've got to finish making the college t-shirt quilt that's been sitting in my stash since 2003!

Kensington Metropark

2011-06-26T17:59:00.001-04:00

My dad had been trying to get Jon and I to join him on another photo/nature walk at Kensington Metropark for a few summers, but our schedules never matched up. Fortunately, we were able to check out the park in mid-May.

We didn't see as much wildlife this time as we had last time (probably because we actually had our good cameras with us), but we had a beautiful day for a hike.

The funniest part of the day was when we ran into an older man who is a nature walk regular. He looked at us with all of our long lenses and said,

"You guys are proving my theory wrong."
"I've always said the bigger the lens, the bigger the paunch."

I guess he's run into lots of bird photographers with large beer bellies?!

Happy June!

2011-06-26T17:58:00.001-04:00

I'm alive! And I'm dutifully following my mama's orders to "update your blog" so everyone in the family can see what I'm up to.

Lots of good stuff has been going on around here...

The 2011 garden is doing wonderfully! I am trying out a new biodegradable paper weed barrier and it is really keeping the weeds at bay. Now I have more time to play with and stare at the plants.

Here's what I planted this year:
2 types of heirloom tomato plants (cherry and large size)
4 cucumber (1 climbing and 3 picklebushes)
8 pepper plants (red, purple, orange, banana, green...)
8 basil plants (yay for pesto)
4 parsley plants
lots of lettuce, swiss chard, and kale
8 squash (acorn, butternut, crookneck, zucchini, spaghetti)
6 snap pea plants (which I will never grow again because they just don't do well here) replaced by
6 climbing bean plants
2 Rhubarb plants
7 Asparagus crowns (I will be so happy if these actually grow correctly!)

I have finally decided that I will no longer be growing seeds inside in the winter months. It has been too much hassle for me and a big waste of money because the plants just don't grow well. It's nice to finally free myself from that obligation. And it fits my instant gratification personality well, too!

I am also trying out black plastic in our squash bed. It's supposed to warm the ground and keep weeds away, so it should work out really well with these heat loving plants.

I've been aided by these 3 books that I would highly recommend:

Week-By-Week Vegetable Gardener's Handbook - This workbook will tell you what to do in your garden each week based on your calculated frost date. It's great help for getting second and third cycles of plants in the garden.
Grow Great Grub - Lots of great tips for growing food in small spaces.
The Kitchen Garden Cookbook - Answers the perennial question of "what do I do with all of this X." It's got lots great preserving tips and techniques and wonderful recipes (mostly vegetarian/vegan friendly)

Margaret's Hope Chest

2011-01-26T04:37:00.001-05:00

I was connected to Margaret's Hope Chest through Amanda Jean's retreat last summer. I am so impressed with the mission of the organization and the two women who run it. Carin and Carol are just the sweetest people ever and it is so inspiring to see how they have turned a family tragedy into an organization that helps so many people in need.

Here are the two quilts that I've donated. This is the second year of their Wrapped in Hope campaign, which gives personalized birthday quilts to children who have parents who are in prison. I made this quilt for Alexia who likes black, white, blue, purple and music. I used this pattern from a quilt I made a few years ago in the color scheme she requested and added some Alexander Henry music fabric for the binding.

I finished up this quilt in November after having completed the top at the summer retreat. The pattern I used is the Fair and Square pattern that Amanda Jean designed for Margaret's Hope Chest.

If you're looking for a great charity to donate to and have extra time to make a quilt, please consider making a quilt for MHC. You can find a list of children who have requested birthday quilts here.

Icelandic Knitting

2011-01-26T04:36:00.001-05:00

I went on a bit of an Icelandic colorwork knitting kick last year. I am now a huge fan of fair isle colorwork because it combines the ease of the knit stitch with the excitement of watching a pattern emerge every row.

I made these two cardigans before we left for Iceland so that we would have them along for photo ops, of course!

(ah, the joy of steeking!)

Jon's cardigan is pretty much my most favorite knit project ever. He picked out the yarn and pattern when we were in Toronto last spring for our anniversary. I love the chunky yoke pattern and the extra detail of the cables on the arms and body. Jon wears this cardigan all the time, so it warms my heart to see my knitting project getting lots of use. It has also insured that I will make him lots more knit sweaters because he is so appreciative! (ravelry link: craftr's Stapi)

I really like the yarn and pattern I chose for my cardigan...but I am so mad at myself for putting a white zipper in instead of a black zipper. Hopefully, one day, I will get up the nerve to rip out the white zipper and sew in a black one. (ravelry link: craftr's Hela cardigan)

I made these two sweaters with the yarn that I bought while we were in Iceland.

This vest more than makes up with my disappointment with the Hela cardigan. I wear this all the time now. Because it is short-sleeved, I never overheat while wearing it. And, I bought a brown turtleneck to wear with it to reduce the neck itchiness (Lopi is so itchy for wool to skin contact). (ravelry link: craftr's Vormorgun Vest)

Jon picked out the yarn for this pullover and it's another sweater that he wears frequently. (I guess wool really helps now that we've been turning down the heat this winter to save money). I'm so glad that Jon likes wearing sweaters that are interesting to knit and is somewhat brave with his color choices and patterns, too. Lopi patterns are so easy and enjoyable to knit! (ravelry link: craftr's Riddari)

2010 Projects in Review

2011-01-26T04:34:00.001-05:00

Umm...I really don't think I can top 2010's productivity ever again (nor do I want to). This is definitely proof that shopping for craft supplies and engrossing myself in projects are major stress relievers for me. I'm hoping to remedy this by working with only my stash (for real!) this year.

So, here's to a 2011 filled with relaxation, great books, and a handful of knitting and quilting projects!

For other year end recaps see: 2007 2008 2009

career change!

2011-01-09T12:16:00.004-05:00

I've been quiet on this blog lately because of a big change in my life. In November, I started my first official paid(!) job as a librarian. For the first time in my post-college working career, I can say that I actually love going to work! Every day at the library is new and different and my job really keeps me on my toes. I'm surrounded by books and people all day and it's the perfect combination of interests for me.

To top it off, I got a job at my childhood library, which is the library that inspired me to become a librarian in the first place. I'm so honored to have been chosen for the position at such a great library in the area!

Three years ago around this time, I was just starting my library school journey. I stuck with my unfulfilling day job long enough to get my master's degree (debt free!) and make a career change. While the last few years at my job were grueling and stressful, I'm glad that I made a new goal for myself and accomplished what I set out to do. Yay for much needed life changes!

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-25T06:20:00.001-05:00

Merry Christmas! I'll be back soon with some updates...sorry for the long silence!

ornaments

2010-11-07T18:08:00.001-05:00

I attended the SE Michigan Crafters Meetup, hosted by Rae of Made-By-Rae last Thursday night. It was so much fun to meet up with other local crafters and work on things with company, rather than in solidtude (I miss my weekly craft nights with Catherine now that she's living in Germany).

Photo by Rae (more photos can be found on her post here)

Every year, around November, I find myself signing up for some sort of holiday ornament/craft swap (2006, 2007, 2009). I always imagine myself having tons of free time to make cute little gifts to swap and it always turns into a time crunch to get everything completed in time. This year, I was determined to have things turn out differently and give myself extra time to prepare.

I brought an ornament project with me to work on for the evening and I spent lots of time with my trusty seam ripper because I could not get sew the ornaments perfectly in line with the template. Trust me...there were lots of very oddly shaped skate boot attempts. Fortunately, I finally got into the groove of things, though, by the end of the night.

After making a trip to Joann to get Pearl Cotton and pom pom trim, I was able to put the finishing touches on these ornaments (pattern and directions here). These little skates are finished ahead of time (yay!) and I'm hoping they reach their destination of the Second Annual Small Fox Ornament Swap safely.

Accessories Roundup & Jon's former hobby

2010-11-07T17:41:00.002-05:00

I've been knitting like crazy lately (if you couldn't already tell)! I'm so glad the cool weather has arrived because it's finally the perfect weather for knitting.

Here's what I've been making these past few months.

If I had to pick one favorite yarn, it would definitely be Berocco Pure Alpaca (used previously for my End of May hat and Zig Zag afghan). My favorite yarn store always has tons of beautiful colors in stock and I came up with this color combination during my last visit (mostly chosen to match my rain coat).

I finished the hat before the trip and finished the scarf mid way through our trip. I knit the scarf from side to side and, quite honestly, I think this is the only way I'll knit scarves from now on. Knitting lengthwise goes much faster than knitting short rows back and forth (at least in my head it does!)

Jon picked out the yarn and pattern for this hat last fall and started knitting the band of this hat. The hat sat around for many months before Jon declared that knitting was no longer for him. I don't really blame him because K2P2 brims are fairly tedious to get started with. He decided that I should be the sole knitter in our house and asked me to finish this hat for him to wear in Iceland. This is a replacement for the Koolhaas hat I made him a few years ago that is too big and "too nice" to wear hiking.

you can sort of see my new scarf peeking through my jacket here.

I've been lusting after The Fibre Company Terra yarn after seeing their beautiful ads in Interweave Knits and I finally got around to making a colorwork hat with it a few weeks ago. This is supposed to be an oversized beret, but I didn't do a gauge swatch and used the wrong sized needles so it ended up on the smaller side...now it's just a plain old hat.

Rav link: craftr's opus spicatum

Lapis Yoke Pullover

2010-11-07T17:35:00.001-05:00

This was my intended to be my official Iceland knitting project. I had lofty dreams of knitting every day in the car, but I was too enamored with the scenery to bother casting on. Because I didn't get started on it until the very end of our trip, it ended up being my airplane/jet lag recovery project instead.

I was able to finish the yoke, separate for the sleeves and start the body by the time we landed in Detroit. It kept me awake through some very cheesy airplane movies (Chipmunks: The Squeakuel anyone?)

This was such and enjoyable sweater to knit and now I'm totally sold on knitting from the top down. The yarn, Sublime Cashmere Merino Silk Aran, was a dream to use and I was fortunate enough to find a half off sale last winter to acquire it because it's on the pricey side. This sweater is so soft and silky and squishy and I think it will get a lot of use this winter.

Jon says that it's the most normal, store bought looking sweater that I've made so far and I agree. I guess I should make sweaters in this style more often.

Project notes and more info can be seen here: craftr's Lapis Yoke

sewing room update

2010-10-08T11:45:00.001-04:00

As soon as we were back from vacation, I started fall cleaning the house. (anything to conquer jet lag, right?)

It feels so good to clean each room from top to bottom and get rid of clutter. And, I finally paid someone to clean our wooden blinds for us (best *investment* ever!).

I also got around to cleaning out my craft room (see the original post about this room here). It was fun to go through my old treasures and find some long forgotten purchases. It was also a great reminder that I don't need to buy more craft supplies any time soon!

I rearranged my bookshelf to fit more fabric and more yarn and hung up the two doll quilts from DQS7 and DQS9.

Here is my room again going counterclockwise around from the door.

I added these pegs a few years ago and they have been great for organizing my bags of projects. I couldn't find a long board, so I bought two and painted them white (from Michaels). I like having the bins of yarn out in the open now so I have a visible reminder not to buy more yarn! The quilt hanging on the door was made by Jessica for DQS7 - I love the bright, citrusy colors she used! I love having something not made by me hanging in here for inspiration.

I painted this dresser green to add some color to the room. If I had to do it over again, I would probably go with teal instead, but it's too late now. I store office supplies, computer supplies and random cables and chargers in here.

I rearranged the cubes in my expedit shelf and got rid of the wooden storage boxes on top leftover from my scrapbooking ephemera days. Now I've dedicated a few more cubes in the shelf to yarn and fabric. Above the bookshelf is my new doll quilt from Emma. It matches my room perfectly and I just love it. You can read more about her process here.

Here's my sewing/computer desk area. If I had more space in here, I would have added a taller cutting table for rotary cutting, but there's just no room for another table so I will have to make due by hunching over while I rotary cut. The mini bookshelf came from our kitchen after we added the pantry shelf and stores my stationery collection, pen collection and more books.

On the final wall I hung a set of pictures from Iceland and an Icelandic sheep poster above my weaving loom. Jon thought I was crazy for wanting to hang a picture of sheep butts on my wall, but the sheep butts crack me up, so they're on the wall to stay!

Iceland: Part 3

2010-09-29T14:46:00.003-04:00

Here's the 3rd and final recap of our trip. Check out part 1 and part 2 if you missed them.

Day 7: Explore the 'Capital of the north'

Our first stop of the morning was at this gorgeous waterfall, Godafoss.

We had to walk over lots of rocks and streams to get close to the top of the waterfall and I was thankful, yet again, for hiking boots with grippy soles.

Harriet's demonstrating how easy it would be to fall into the waterfall. Steve's trying to save her from her imminent death.

A bathroom with a really nice view of the waterfall and scenery. I wouldn't mind having that view from our bathroom at home at all!

Next, we stopped for lunch in Akureyri, Iceland's "Capital of the North." We found these crazy puppets on the side of the street.

One of the highlights of the day for me was learning what the word "causeway" means (you have to drive over a causeway to get into Akureyri). Go ahead and look it up here if you don't already know what it means. I spent the rest of the trip trying to identify causeways and having Jon and/or Steve vote yay or nay.

Harriet and I would like to open a yarn shop in this little green storefront one day. We can dream, right?

A church in the old part of town.

We spotted this rainbow as we were driving through the mountains and got out of the car to take pictures just in time.

Our next stop was at Glaumbaer Folk Museum (an Icelandic version of Greenfield Village or Sturbridge Village). Any place with animals is a big hit with Jon and any place that reenacts life in the olden days is a big hit with me!

Admission to the museum included a map and guide with information about each room in the turf house and we got to see how Icelanders lived in earlier times. The rooms were all dark and musty smelling (probably due to the dirt walls, eh) and I was thankful that I don't have allergies while walking through the place.

My favorite room of the house was the main room in the front portion. It was the sleeping and living quarters for all of the occupants of the house (around 18 or so) and was where all of the spinning, knitting and embroidery was done.

We stayed at a really nice horse farm in the middle of nowhere on night 7. The hotel was filled with lots of neat horse themed art pieces and our room had a beautiful view into the countryside.

The separate comforters are our favorite part about sleeping in Europe. We're thinking about making this switch for the winter to avoid stealing each other's blankets/sheets during the night.

Eating vegetarian in Iceland was a lot easier than I anticipated. Each restaurant had one vegetarian dish on the menu, most soups were vegetarian, and there were salads and vegetables everywhere. Unfortunately, the horse farm where we stayed was known for its 5 meat buffet (horse, seal, whale, lamb, beef) and was the only restaurant in the area. Instead of paying $50/person for a meat meal, we had to eat at the only other restaurant in the area - the local gas station. Needless to say, we were really craving anything that wasn't orange to eat at this moment!

See more pictures from Day 7 on flickr here.

Day 8: The Northwest & Snaefellsjokull National Park

We spent most of the day exploring the Snaefellsness Peninsula on the east coast of Iceland.

Jon, bonding with the local animals. The museum owner was afraid that Jon was steal his kitty and yelled out "Leave the cat here" when Jon started walking toward the car, cat in hand. Jon really can't help it that every animal he meets is magnetically attracted to him!

We stopped at Skardsvik, which (according to a website I just read) is one of only 2 white beaches in Iceland (although we couldn't tell from our visit as it had just rained).

We had fun playing around with different drawings in the sand - I'm more of a tactile person than I thought (but, then again, what knitter/crafter isn't?)

Here's a popular Iceland pastry - the kleina, which is a twisted doughnut spiced with cardamom. Not too sweet, with a hint of spice...very tasty! Steve sweet-talked the lady at the bakery known for the "best Kleina in Iceland" (according to our guidebook) into giving us a giant bag of frozen, day old kleina. Apparently a bus filled with tourists bought out her entire stock of fresh kleina just before we arrived. She felt sorry that we missed out on her pastries so she made sure we were well fed for the afternoon.

We hiked up to Londrangar, which is two giant volcanic plugs made up of basalt and saw the remains of a former fishing village. From reading the guidebook, we weren't too sure what "remains of a former fishing village" meant, but as you can see here, it's a bunch of old logs and discarded boat parts.

See more pictures from Day 8 on flickr here.

Day 9: Back to Reykjavik

A view of the fishing town where we stayed on the peninsula.

We ran into a couple earlier in the trip that told us to check out Berserkjahraun while we were on the peninsula. Apparently, this place is the inspiration for the phrase "going berserk."

An Icelandic picnic table

learning to "tightrope" walk

Snow White and the 7 Dwarves seems to be quite popular among the locals. We saw paintings, murals and figurines all over the place.

We passed through the picturesque town of Borgarnes on our way back to Reykjavik.

Harriet's and my most anticipated shop of the trip was the Alafoss outlet, just outside of Reykjavik. We made sure to rush through the morning sightseeing so that we'd have enough time to shop (priorities, right?).

posing with the "yarnmobile"

Most of the outlet was devoted to selling handknit goods but a small corner of the store was filled with lots of different types and colors of yarn.

Don't let his look of boredom fool you! Jon picked out the yarn for me to knit him a sweater and a hat and is holding "his yarn" and a new pair of mittens while waiting.

All set to check out. They really should have shopping carts at this place! We were wishing we had brought more luggage at this point!

After visiting the yarn store, we made our way back to Reykjavik, had lunch and then drove out to the Reykjanes Peninsula to the site of the "Bridge Between Two Continents", aka the meeting of the European and North American tectonic plates. The bridge is much smaller than it looks and it's a bit of a letdown, but it was fun to jump back and forth between continents because you can't do that every day, right?

We ended our day with tickets to a lovely Iceland Symphony Orchestra concert. Listening to beautiful piano and symphonic music was a great way to relax and wind down from a busy trip! (BTW, the pianist has the cutest website here)

See more pictures from Day 9 on flickr here.

Day 10: Blue Lagoon

We returned the rental car in the morning and then took a shuttle bus to the Blue Lagoon. We were sharing the bus with a group of retired women on a tour of Iceland. Some funny comments overheard were:

"Did you see what he [tour guide] was talking about?" "No. I don't see half of what he talks about"

"We can't forget Delores"

The Lagoon was beautiful! The water was incredibly warm and we had fun wading around and checking out the massaging waterfalls, caves and steam rooms. We were fortunate enough to arrive right as it opened, so it wasn't too crowded at first. After a few hours of bathing (and overheating), the place turned into Cancun during spring break and was overwrought with people (it even had a walk up bar!).

After getting overheated in the geothermal pools, we had lunch and sat at the cafe knitting and reading until another bus came and brought us to the airport for our departure.

We fit a ton of things into our 10 days in Iceland and had such a great time checking out the scenery and wildlife in Iceland. The country is absolutely amazing and we are completely enamored with the scenery. We hope to return sometime soon!

See more pictures from Day 10 on flickr here.

Thanks for listening to me give our trip play by play!

The Lopi Haul

2010-09-29T14:45:00.001-04:00

Harriet and I went nuts in the Alafoss outlet store! We were literally running around adding balls of yarn to our baskets by the minute. All of the yarn we bought was around $2 a ball/wheel, so we bought as much yarn as we could fit into our luggage. It's a great thing yarn is so squishy!

Here's what I bought:

Wheels of Pltulopi to make a shortsleeved/vest version of this sweater for me (Lopi 120 pattern seen on this page).

3 balls of Ålafoss Lopi to make an earflap hat for Jon.

3 balls of Lett Lopi to make mittens and/or a hat with earflaps for me.

13 balls of Lett Lopi to make a long-sleeved Riddari for Jon (he's been asking for a green sweater ever since I started knitting).

10 balls of Lett Lopi to make a Spring Morning vest for me.

And, finally, 3 balls of Einband laceweight and this pattern book to make the scarves or handwarmers (patterns here on ravelry).

Knitting Iceland just published an informative article on knitting with Lopi. Check it out here.

Iceland: Part 2

2010-09-25T05:13:00.001-04:00

Here's part two of my Iceland recap. If you missed part 1, check it out here.

Day 4: Vatnajokull National Park and Glacier Lagoon

We stayed at a hotel at the bast of Skaftafell at Vatnajokull National Park and woke up to gorgeous blue skies. Our first stop of the day was the Svaenafellsjokull Glacier.

We took a walking tour on the glacier and were outfitted with metal crampons for better traction on the ice. (I'm always slipping whenever I try any type of hiking and I finally realized that hiking boots really do make a big difference compared to tennis shoes. I didn't have any falls on this trip and I was much more steady on my feet due to the grippy soles).

Looking back over where we walked. We parked on the dirt area and then twisted and turned up and over parts the glacier to get to this point.

This was the only official tour that we took during our trip and I'm so glad that we were able to fit this in as it was such a great experience!

Our next stop was the glacial lagoon, Jokulsarlon. The crackling sounds of melting ice were so intense. From all the pictures I had seen, I was picturing it to be a quiet and serene place. It was more like listening to Rice Crispies soaking in milk!

We had fun posing throughout the week in our new sweaters in front of Icelandic hot spots. I'll share more pictures in my official post about the sweaters.

Then we walked out to where the lagoon feeds into the ocean and saw the glacier chunks headed out to sea.

I loved checking out all of the pieces of washed up ice along the coast.

The beach was filled with dark, fine lava sand that made ripping sounds as we walked.

Our last, unexpected, stop of the day was this little horse farm along the road. Icelandic horses all rock the super 80's hairdos, complete with natural highlights and frizzy bangs (my hair was starting to look like this, too, after all of the wind we experienced during the week).

Here's a fun piece of trivia for the horse lovers reading (because Jon thinks all girls go through a horse phase): Icelandic horses have a two additional types of gaits that they only they are able to do: the tolt (seen in this youtube video) and the pace (seen in this youtube video).

See more Day 4 pictures on flickr here.

Day 5: Fantastic Fjords and Charming fishing Villages

We stayed at a Danish guest house in Djupivogur, which is located on the peninsula between two fjords. The weather didn't clear up for us by the time we had to leave, so we weren't able to get the full view of the town, but I loved checking out the coastline, nonetheless.

Our first stop of the day was at Petra's Mineral Collection (facebook page link), which is the largest private rock collection in Iceland. Petra is a collector of many things and when people kept asking to check out her rock collection after seeing her home along the road, she started charging admission for people to check out her collections.

There was an older woman in the "gift shop" and I couldn't tell if it was Petra or not and didn't want to ask in case of possibly offending the woman, so I didn't say anything. After looking around online, I see that it was her in the shop. She was selling hand knit doll clothes and now I wish that I had talked with her and bought one of her sweaters.

Her kitchen and bedroom were still in tact, but the rest of her home was filled with these display cases full of rocks.

She had so many collections around her home - matchboxes, pens, handkerchiefs, key chains, dolls, ornaments, spoons, etc. I loved checking out every nook and cranny of the place.

The gardens behind her home were beautiful and the rocks looked so pretty set off by all of the greenery.

She even had her own pair of painted stones in the garden (we saw these everywhere in Iceland).

Lagarfljot - home of the Lagarfljot dragon (similar to the loch ness monster). We thought this stylized dragon road sign was hilarious.

We spent a while checking out the lake and Jon taught me how to successfully skip stones. I got a few of my stones to skip three times in a row, while Jon was showing off with his stones that were skipping 15-20 times along the lake. Unfortunately, all of the hard work I put into spinning the stones correctly resulted in me having a sore right arm for the rest of the trip (man am I lame!)

Random reindeer spotting along the road!

Checking out a closed turf house museum along the road.

We were in the middle of nowhere during some parts of our trip today with just our car, and lots of rocky, treeless terrain. We stopped for gas, tea and pastries in the small "town" next to this church.

Overlooking the town of Myvatn.

our rental car taking a rest after the hill workout from our day's adventures

We felt like we were on another planet walking through Namafjall, a geothermal area filled with boiling mudpools and fumaroles. The sulfur (rotten eggs) smell was overwhelming, to say the least, but the landscape was stunning.

Our most favorite lodging of the visit was our stay at the Vogar Farm. We couldn't find the hotel at first and mistakenly knocked on the front door of a house down a driveway labeled "Vogar" and interrupted a teenage guy eating dinner. Oops! We were nervous that we were going to be staying in someone's house at first, but he laughed and pointed us in the direction of the real farm/hotel and we pulled up to a cow shed - filled with cows. We weren't sure that we were in the right place, but as soon as we walked in the door marked "reception," we knew we were in for a treat.

There's a cafe on one side of the barn and a cow shed adjacent to it. You can actually sit in the restaurant and look through windows to watch the farmers milking cows and look at the cows resting in the barn. We walked through the barn after dinner and got to see the new calves and let some of the dairy cows smell us. Jon and I were totally dying from cute overload!

We had our favorite meal of the trip here, vegetable crepes with a really delicious tossed mediterranean style salad. It was so good that we had the same thing for dinner the next night, too.

See more Day 5 pictures on flickr here.

Day 6: Lunar Landscapes and Lava Formations

We started the day off with trying to find the right road to our first stop. There were two roads marked on the map (one was forbidden and one was suggested with caution), but when we asked the farm receptionist about the road quality, she told us to use a newer, third road instead. She told us that the road was not marked, but it was paved and easily found.

We ended up driving back and forth and back and forth trying to find the new road and, what do you know, there was a highway worker installing the sign for the formerly unmarked new road on our third pass by the road. How ironic!

Our first destination was Dettifoss. It is the largest (by volume) waterfall in Europe and it did not disappoint.

We had to walk a few km through rocky terrain to get to the waterfall and we were covered in dirt by the end of our hike. I was really glad that I wasn't wearing contacts at this point!

To give you some scale, Jon is standing along the edge of the cliff to the left of the photo in the red jacket.

Here he is making his own spoof of the Double Rainbow video.

Selfoss (the waterfall upstream from Dettifoss)

Driving through Asbyrgi Canyon, which was said to have been formed in 3 days because of a catastrophic glacial flood. I had my camera out because sheep were everywhere!

Look at that gorgeous wool just calling out to be made into a sweater!

This picture makes me laugh every time I see it!

These two were content to sit and watch us take their picture. (fun fact: sheep like licking the roads in Iceland because they are so salty.

I was so excited to finally see what Icelandic water looks like when it's sunny outside. The depth and vividness of color is incredible.

We stopped in Husavik for a late lunch and walk around the city. Husavik is known for whale watching, but we missed the last boat of the day and were running out of time, so we spent most of our time walking around the marina.

We caught this hilarious picture of us with a self timer. Icelandic wind is so powerful. The wind makes it feel like riding down the highway with your car windows wide open is just a calm and relaxing ride.

We ran into a dairy cow crossing along our way. The farmer looked at us like we were crazy tourists (not denying that) after he saw Jon and I with our cameras out.

The last stop was at Skutustadir, these crater-like formations in the middle of Lake Myvatn. It was super windy and we were practically falling over trying to stand in one spot, but the water was dark blue and gorgeous!

Here's one of my mittens that I purchased at the Vogar Farm gift store. The triangles are actually two shades of green, which you can't tell from this picture with the sheep. One of the cool things about seeing so many hand knit goods in shops around the country was getting to examine the construction of each item up close. Every gift shop was like visiting a hand knit museum!

We watched the sun set from the comfort of the Myvatn Nature Baths. The water is geothermally heated and it was like swimming in a giant hot tub with a rocky floor. The mineral baths and hot pots (chlorine free hot tubs) were my unexpected favorite part of the trip. So relaxing and so warm!

We hadn't planned on looking for the Northern Lights, but we overheard the receptionist telling another farm guest that the best viewing times were from 2-4am and decided to set our alarm to wake up in the middle of the night. Jon got up at 3am to scope out the skies and then he got me out of bed so that I could see it too. Wow! The giant band went from one corner of the sky to another and was so much more vibrant (and less obstructed by clouds) than in this picture. By the time we got our camera gear in order, it was starting to fade, so this was the best shot that we got. I'm so glad Jon pulled me out of bed to see this!

See more Day 6 pictures on flickr here.

Iceland: Part 1

2010-09-23T06:18:00.001-04:00

Jon and I spent the first ten days of September on an epic road trip around Iceland with our friends, Harriet and Steve. To say that it was an amazing trip would be an understatement! I have never seen so many varied types of gorgeous scenery in such close proximity. Visiting Iceland is like visiting all of the national parks in the USA at once. We saw glaciers, volcanoes, lagoons, canyons, fjords, mountains, craters, waterfalls, and so many other intense geological formations. We're already talking about returning to do more camping, hiking and exploring.

The first thing that most people asked us after we told them that we were going to Iceland was, "Why Iceland?" We first learned about the gorgeous scenery in Iceland from the music videos of Sigur Ros, one of our favorite bands, who hail from Iceland (along with Bjork). Here's a video with a good example of the scenery. We were influenced by Helen's gorgeous photos and Tania's amazing trip reports.

Earlier this year, I stumbled across a self-drive tour company and asked my friend, Harriet, if she'd be interested in coming along with us. She agreed, and then we held off for a few months before finally committing to the trip.

Once we booked the trip, I started frantically knitting our authentic lopi souvenir sweaters. Now you know the reason for me torturing myself by knitting bulky wool sweaters all summer long...

So here is our trip in a (not so small) nutshell...The tour company we used set us up with a rental car, booked all of our hotels for the stay, gave us a cell phone to use for emergencies and outlined a suggested itinerary for sightseeing. From what I read online, going with a self drive tour company is a bit more expensive than booking everything yourself, but the extra hassle is definitely worth the surcharge. Other than a few museums being closed for the winter and not noted in our itinerary, the tour was perfect for us.

Day 1: Welcome to Reykjavik

We met up with Harriet and Steve in Boston's Logan Airport after a harried hour when we thought they weren't going to make the flight on time. But, the crisis was averted and their tickets were changed from standby (because they were late to arrive from CA) and they were able to join us on the flight over.

We got to our hotel around 7:00am, ate breakfast and took a brief power nap before setting off to walk around the city.

Our first stop was at Hallgrimskirkja, the "new" Lutheran church in Reykjavik. It's one of the simplest cathedrals I've ever seen - very stark and modern!

We walked up to the Perlan, a giant observatory/museum/restaurant where we had 360 degree views of the city from the viewing deck and got to see our first geyser. We were so excited to see the geyser go off and spent a ton of time taking pictures of it. Only after we went inside to check out the building did we realize that it's just a sample geyser that's set up to demonstrate how a real geyser works (oops!)

On our way back to our hotel, we ran into our first of many sitings of wild Icelandic animals.

Here's the picture Jon shot from the above angle. It just goes to show that changing angles in photography really makes a big difference!

We spent the rest of the evening trying to stay awake and trying to decipher all of the really long Icelandic street names on the map.

See more pictures from day 1 on flickr here.

Day 2: The Golden Circle

We got our rental car early in the morning and after a brief Icelandic driving/road sign lesson, we were off to our first stop, Pingvellir, the beloved national park of Iceland.

Just as we were driving into the park, we had our first sheep siting! Harriet and I, as knitters, spent most of our trip on the lookout for sheep and they definitely did not disappoint!

The valley in the park was beautiful!

We walked through these rock walls to get down to the base of the park...

...to get closer to this group of sheep.

Moss and lichens covered so many surfaces everywhere.

Our next stop was Kerid volcanic crater.

Then we were off to Geysir, the place where the term geyser originated. The geyser above is actually a secondary geyser close to Geysir that is still active and regular.

It took a lot of standing around with camera at the ready by me and everyone else watching up to get these shots.

Our last big stop of the day was at Gullfoss. It was absolutely stunning in person! I think I could sit and listen to running water all day long.

The picture above is at the end of the waterfall and we walked along the left side all the way up to the top to get a better view. If you look at the little red speck above on the ledge in the top corner of the photo, that's about where we were standing to get these next pictures.

This is looking back from where we walked along the side.

This is me with my feet steps away from falling into the waterfall (guardrails are just so American!).

And this is Harriet posing at the top of the waterfall.

I spotted these in the waterfall gift shop. I want to copy this color pattern for a quilt or sweater.

We ended the day with a delicious dinner at our hotel. We were a bit worried when the server said "yes, we can find you something vegetarian to eat." Fortunately, the meal turned out to be a super delicious homemade veggie burger that is one of the best I've ever had.

More pictures of Day 2 on flickr here.

Day 3: The South Coast

Today was filled with tons and tons and tons of waterfalls. Our view for most of the day looked like this along the road. We were joking that you can't really play the alphabet game on road trips in Iceland because there aren't many road signs or cars. Instead, you can play "spot the waterfall." We drove by so many houses with waterfalls coming down the cliff in the backyard during our trip. I wouldn't mind that view at all.

Our first official waterfall of the day was Seljalandsfoss. I've wanted to see this waterfall and hike behind it since I first started obsessing about Iceland years ago (I think this was on the Amazing Race, too). It was such a treat to be able to see it in person and get so close to it! Seriously, the trip could have ended here and I would have been happy (well, as long as we got to go to the Lopi yarn outlet store, too).

That's Harriet and Steve up there on the left looking at the waterfall.

That would be happy me up there in front of the waterfall. :)

A short drive down the road brought us to the next waterfall of the day, Skogafoss.

We climbed up this never-ending staircase along the side of the mountain to see the top of the waterfall and the countryside from above.

Then, because Iceland is so incredibly diverse (I still can't wrap my head around it), a short and rocky drive down the road brought us to Solheimajokull Glacier.

(The glacier looks so dirty because of the lava rock piles that are under the ice)

In our new, matching Turn a Square hats made for the trip. (on Ravelry: Jon's, Rebekah's).

We ended the day with a bang at this gorgeous canyon, Fjadrararglufur. (Cue Lord of the Rings soundtrack!). We had the place to ourselves (and the sheep) and were all just amazed by the beauty.

I tried to overcome my fear of heights by going out on one of the ledges, but this is as far as I got before wimping out (again, no guardrails in Iceland).

Harriet got out a bit farther than I did. Although you can't tell from this shot, she is hanging over the water on one of the ledges here.

If I could bring one place back with me as a souvenir, this canyon would be it! The cliffs, the greenery, the mist. I loved it!

(having fun with a self timer and animated gifs)

The rest of our pictures from Day 3 are on flickr here.

PS. I love that just as I was sitting down to collect flickr photos for this post, this was my greeting. Quite appropriate!

Happy Birthday, Jon!

2010-09-11T20:01:00.002-04:00

Thanks for keeping me laughing!

(Photo mashup by Jon's coworker, Jeff)

Jon, lover of all rodents, especially guinea pigs and capybaras. Known to some as Dr. Jon Doolittle, the animal whisperer.

Hula Hooping from Rebekah on Vimeo.

Jon, learner of new things, like Hula Hooping. (If you listen carefully you can hear me hyperventilating in the background because I am laughing so hard - partly because Um Bop is playing, and partly because of Jon)

P.S. I will try not to relive the cake disaster of 2005 again

August Quilt Blocks

2010-09-09T02:35:00.001-04:00

First up is Jess' block for the Mid Mod Quilt Bee. Jess came up with this fantastic sketch and sent each of us a different color printed fabric to use. I can't wait to see how her quilt turns out.

Next are these two blocks for Erica's quilt for bee beautiful.

Working with these vintage feedsacks and prints was such a treat! Every new piece I added to the quilt was like unearthing a new flea market find. I definitely had to incorporate this little strip that says "Patchwork Love."

I'm adding one of these style quilts to my ever-growing to do list now! But, then again, I want to make one of everything that Erica creates!

my sister cracks me up

2010-09-06T02:00:00.001-04:00

"I haven't received a speeding ticket in 3 years."

"Then again, it's been 2 years since my car started shaking when going over 70mph."

Margaret's Hope Chest

2010-09-03T02:50:00.003-04:00

(photo from Pam @ Mama Spark)

At the end of July, I made a little road trip over to Grand Rapids to attend the Margaret's Hope Chest Summer Work Party and to meet Amanda Jean of crazymomquilts. We stayed in this gorgeous bed and breakfast in the Heritage Hill area of Grand Rapids (right across from Frank Lloyd Wright's Meyer May house. side note: I'm a huge FLW fan, as evidenced here and here).

On Saturday morning, our group met up at a local church (if only I had this much space in my own craft room to spread out!) and got to work on Amanda Jean's pattern, Fair and Square, that was specifically designed for Margaret's Hope Chest. (you can get the free pattern here).

Amanda showed our group the quilts that she designed and made and walked us through cutting out the fabric, working with scraps, and gave us lots of great quilting hints and tips.

We all got to work making our own versions of her pattern. I used some squares brought by Pam and we both made the same quilt but with different sashing. It's fun to see how different colors of sashing look in a quilt.

One woman at the sewing day made this fantastic top with all of her blue scraps. She just sewed all of her scraps into small blocks and used pieced blocks instead of fabric squares for her quilt. I'm definitely going to use this idea with my fabric scraps.

Amanda and I

I had a wonderful weekend meeting these fun quilters and learning more about Margaret's Hope Chest. It was so much fun to work on a collective project with so many enthusiastic quilters!

If you'd like more information on Margaret's Hope Chest and how you can help, be sure to check out the MHC's blog and CraftSanity's Episode No. 105 interview with the founders, Carin and Carol.

well, that took longer than I expected...

2010-08-31T06:34:00.001-04:00

I am slowly getting back on track on the home front...

While I was away, Jon and I attended GenCon in Indianapolis with a few of our friends.

I innocently thought we'd be attending a board game convention and had no idea the nerdiness that we were going to encounter that weekend! There were tons of people dressed up in Anime, video game, and RenFair costumes, lots of very single and very socially awkward guys, and random booths filled with leather paraphernalia. It was definitely a great weekend for people watching! We did end up leaving with a few Euro boardgames, but I'm not sure if I can handle attending this again!

I was reunited with two of my very favorite friends, Catherine and Jodi, who were both visiting from Europe. Maybe one day we'll all live on the same continent again. Any idea how I can acquire a job in the E.U.? (kidding, Mom!)

And, thanks to ANOTHER kitchen fire last week, our entire first floor was scrubbed and cleaned from top to bottom to remove smoke and fire extinguisher residue. Jon is no longer allowed around oil and burners in our house! (all because he was innocently trying to season a cast iron pan with oil)

Between all of our summer plans and work busyness, I have been holed up in front of Netflix InDemand watching old episodes of Law & Order and knitting like a madwoman. I've got two (steeked!) colorwork cardigans, 2 hats, and lots of dishcloths that I've added to my finished objects pile. I am officially ready for fall to begin! I'll share the finished sweaters once it is cold enough to wear the cardigans. Right now, we only have the tolerance to try them on for 5 seconds at a time while strategically positioned in from of our A/C unit.

Doll Quilt Swap 9

2010-08-07T02:54:00.001-04:00

Here's my finished Doll Quilt for Round 9...

For those keeping track, I had started off with this palette and turned it into this quilt top until I realized that my partner doesn't like brown and turned attempt #1 into a pillow.

So, I slightly tweaked my palette and came up with this set of fabrics:

At this point, I gave myself a pat on the back for having cool fabrics in my stash and made a mental note to start sewing with what I have on hand more often!

I've been really inspired by all of the fabulous half square triangle quilts I've been seeing lately, so I jumped on the bandwagon and made a mini version. "Accurate" piecing like this gives me a bit of a headache, so the mini size was perfect for me to try out this design and not too many corners were lost with my sewing skills (or lack thereof).

If only lap quilts and bed quilts were this easy and quick to quilt!

For the label (I'm not showing the name yet!), I used twill tape and iron on transfer paper to include all of the details and sewed it in with the binding. The finished quilt is 15" x 15" and it's got me wanting to make a throw sized quilt like this with my fabric scraps.

Brighton Modern Quilters - Paper Bag Challenge

2010-08-06T03:29:00.001-04:00

I've been a member of the Brighton Modern Quilters group since it almost began. It's been fun meeting up with local quilters to talk about techniques, share ideas, and be surrounded by beautiful fabrics and quilts!

If you're local to the area (or semi-local, like me), be sure to check out one of our meetings! We meet at Monarch Quilts on the 4th Monday of the month. Our next meeting is August 23 at 7:00pm.

A handful of our members even have blogs...Rossie, Sarah, Debbie, Lynn, Angie, Bonnie, Lynn, and our fearless leader, Andrea!

At our latest meeting, we shared the results of our paper bag challenge. Back in May we each brough a paper bag filled with a fat quarter, some fabric scraps and some random notions. We swapped bags and then had a few months to turn our bag into a quilt or project of some sort. It seems everyone in the group put off this project until the last minute (myself included - I was up at six the morning of to finish sewing and stuffing my project).

Here's what I started with:

A great big pile of dark batiks! Batiks are so not my thing, but I was able to salvage one strip of green batik fabric to use in the challenge (we had to use at least one piece, so I stuck with the bare minimum :)

I combined my green strip of fabric along with some other greens and blues from my stash. (I should say right now that I was hoping to make a mini quilt for the Doll Quilt Swap and turn this project into a twofer).

I wanted to make a patchwork cutout strip (like in this project seen in my flickr favorites), so I cut the fabrics into strips and sewed them together.

I cut out some junk mail to make my template in the general shape I wanted to use.

Then I laid everything out on my base fabric and added the brown for extra contrast.

I pieced the brown to the fabric strip and then appliqued the other side of the brown down to the background fabric. At this point I went back to read my Doll Quilt Swap partner's preferences (just in case) and realized that I missed the fact that she hates brown. Oops!

So, instead of turning this into a quilt, I turned it into a decorative pillow for our living room. And now I have officially made a new throw pillow to replace the other pillows on the couch. This one is fluffier than the old pillows and much more suitable for Sunday afternoon naps!

2010 Garden: Week 10

2010-08-06T02:54:00.001-04:00

It's come to the point in the summer where I start my neglecting the garden. It happens every year around this time. I've finally realized that it's not because I'm sick of gardening. It's actually because my job is sucking up all of my energy. My big catalog deadline is looming (next week, Thursday!) and I'm working myself to the bone every day. By the time I get home at night it's all I can do to find something to eat and crash in front of the tv before falling asleep for the night. You'll notice that there was no update for Week 9. That's actually because I didn't go in our back yard at all last week (lame, I know!). Thank goodness Jon keeps it watered for me!

Needless to say, next Friday I will be reclaiming the garden (or what's left of it that the weeds haven't taken over!)

For now, I'm dreaming of fresh pesto made from my 6 thriving basil plants and lots of butternut and spaghetti squash this fall and winter (can you spot the tiny squash growing at the top of the trellis in the first photo?).

Ann Arbor Area Quilt Show

2010-08-05T03:12:00.001-04:00

On Sunday afternoon, I visited the Ann Arbor Area Quilt Show. As always, getting to see a wide variety of gorgeous quilt is is always such an inspiring way to spend the day!

Here are some of my favorite quilts from the show:

I've been drawn to traditional quilts in modern colors lately and I love the look of this Irish Chain.

Debbie's Traffic Pattern quilt is one of my most favorite quilts in a very long time! The pattern is for sale here. She's in the Brighton Modern Quilters Guild with me, so I always get to see what she's been up to.

This Bargello patterned quilt photo is for Christine. I read on the description that this quilt design came in a kit from a Quilt Shop in Illinois (probably why it's identical to this quilt seen at the Oakland County Quilt Guild show I visited earlier this year). The quilter actually enlarged the pattern by 1.5 times, which is why it's slightly different than the other quilt in the link.

Me really liking this quilt is just another sign that I am turning into my mom as I age! She had a thing for patriotic quilts back in the 80's. Maybe it's the antique background that I really like set off against the bright red?

I am really liking bright bright quilts lately (high volume, if you will)

I love this color combination. I will try an orange peel block someday!

I have a feeling that an amish style quilt is in my future! Black mixed with bright jewel tones? Yes, please!

And, finally, can anyone tell me the manufacturer of this bright floral or point me in the direction of a similar looking fabric? I feel like I've seen this before in oilcloth, too.

ahh...the memories

2010-08-04T07:11:00.001-04:00

Good news: I have friends living all around the world that I've been fortunate enough to visit.

Bad news: My friends live all around the world, so I don't get to see them too often.

Lucky for me, I was able to meet up with Kate in Grand Rapids last weekend. She was back from Nicaragua for her yearly visit home for the summer. Kate and I met in Calvin Band (surprise, surprise - I really am a band geek!) in college and we lived in a house together (and shared a room) our junior year. We are actually a Myers-Briggs type indicator compatible personality match and she is the perfect zany to my seriousness After all, only Kate would give me a large piece of smoked salmon wrapped up in a Victoria's Secret bag for my birthday! (for MBTI geeks out there, she's an ISFP and I'm an ESTJ)

For nostalgia's sake, I dug through my archives to find other trips and things I've done with Kate since starting the blog...exploring Jackson Hole, WY, learning how to play Guitar Hero, a Detroit-a-thon museum tour, visiting Ohio with a rainy trip to Cedar point with 4/5 house roommates, and, of course, traveling to visit her in Nicaragua with Jon two years ago.

My camera caught a picture of a car driving through our heads back in our old stomping grounds on 60th St. - perfect!

We caught up with each other over a visit to Frederik Meijer Gardens and Fields Fabrics and a leisurely dinner together. I really miss having close friends living nearby, so it was the perfect pick me up after my long week!

Dale Chihuly's glass sculptures were on display at the Gardens and I loved seeing how he incorporated these in with the garden landscapes. I wish they had shared details about how each piece of glass was physically added to the space (chains, buoys, long poles, etc.?), but it was fun to guess on our own.

bee blocks

2010-07-27T06:14:00.001-04:00

Here are the latest blocks I've completed for the various bees that I am participating in.

Common Threads

First up is a tall, sweater wearing girl for Wendy. I used light weight washable yarn for the sweater portion.

And here's a block of pluses and minuses for Amanda.

Maverick Stars for Jessica.

Jess' block (see her quilt inspiration here)

A textured block with a pop of color for Sarah (full shot of block was blurry so here's just a snippet of the block).

Bee Beautiful

Patchwork blocks for Audrie.

A tulip block for Penny.

Neptune squares for Julie.

And Spiderweb blocks for Natalie.

A few months ago, Rossie invited me to join the new bee she started with Cheryl (of Naptime Quilter). The bee is based on the mid-century modern design aesthetic and all of the blocks will be mostly improvised and pattern free.

(photo by r0ssie)
Her concept for the month is creating a kelp quilt with these varying shades of red and orange fabric that she flat dyed (simply robin tutorial here).

Here's the kelp block I made. The hand dyed fabric was really fun to work with. It's so saturated and full of interesting little variations.

Emily's baby gifts

2010-07-26T05:11:00.001-04:00

My college roommate, Emily, is expecting her first kid in September, and I've been planning on things to make for this this baby girl ever since I first found out she was expecting. After all, making baby stuff means getting to work with cute prints and small projects, so it's easy to go a little bit overboard.

...I made some bibs and burp rags. The bibs are backed with white flannel and the burp rags are quilting cotton backed with chenille and are 12"x18". I used the same fabrics that I used for Chikage's baby gifts, and was able to get one bib and one burp rag out of a fat quarter (with a small scrap left over).

...I sewed a nursing cover (tutorial here). My fabulous male nursing cover model is back in action! I finished 20 minutes before Emily stopped by for a little visit. Thank goodness I had the fabric cut out in advance or I never would have finished it in time.

...and I made this quilt/blanket. The fabric for this is the Porcelina line by Michelle D'Amore from Marcus Fabrics. I actually purchased this before Emily found out that she was having a girl because it totally screamed "Emily's daughter," so I was really happy that she found out she was having a girl so I'd have a chance to use it.

I stalled making the quilt because I was trying to come up with the perfect pattern to use for the quilt. I had toyed with using a raw edge circle applique pattern, but raw edge circles are a bit too unfinished for Emily. I was going to do a simple charm square patchwork, but wanted to step up the patchwork for this. Then I narrowed down the piecing options to a disappearing nine patch or a box in a box, which I ended up using. I went with the box in a box because the dimensions in this tutorial created the right size square for the size backing I was using.

For the backing, I used a 32" x 35" piece of minky fabric. This is my first time working with minky and I was afraid that it would pucker or bunch weird when quilting because it is so stretchy. Based on the recommendation of the quilt store employee, I stretched it out on the floor, taped it down and applied a generous amount of spray baste. Then, I laid the patchwork top on the minky and pressed it down with my hands. I quilted it with a walking foot in the same way that I quilt normal quilts with batting and a fabric backing. I tried to minimize the amount of quilting I did, because I didn't want to pull on the backing too much.

I made a scrappy patchwork binding with each of the fabrics included in the quilt and attached the binding using this technique.

The finished blanket has a really light drape to it and the backing is so soft and cuddly. Now I want to make a grown up sized blanket with a minky backing like this.

another 365 days around the sun

2010-07-25T13:41:00.001-04:00

In an attemp to relax and enjoy life more this year I will refrain from creating a list of 29 things to do before I'm 30. It's killing me not to make a list though!

This morning Jon treated me with a Nook and chocolate chip waffles. I hadn't ever considered getting an eReader until I realized that with the Nook you can borrow ebooks for free from your local library if they participate in the Overdrive program. I've checked out The Lacuna, Going Bovine, and American Taliban and hopefully I'll be able to finish all three before they're due in 21 days.

My friend, Harriet (find her on ravelry here), treated me with this amazing handspun skein of yarn (details here) that was such a fun surprise in the mail. Can you believe she's only been spinning for a few months? We met back in high school band and are very good at enabling each other with supplies crafty hobbies (I didn't think I was a band geek until I realized that I met all of my friends in marching band...busted!). If we follow our track record, she will be weaving and I will be spinning by the end of this year.

I treated myself with this adorable pouch made by Sarah at Hip To Piece Squares (picked up at the I-Art Festival in Redford today)

And, the best treat of all was finishing my urgent crafting to do list. That's right, I finished all 5 of my bee blocks, my Paper Bag Challenge Project for the Brighton Modern Quilters meeting tomorrow night, and my Doll Quilt for DQS9. It was a busy sewing day yesterday and this afternoon! I'll be sharing everything later this week.

Playing Catch up

2010-07-23T05:43:00.001-04:00

It's been a busy few weeks around here, so sorry for being light on the crafty posting these days. Here's the brief, bullet point list of some of what's been going on...

- I finished knitting and blocking my Hela cardigan. I tried it on for kicks and nearly died of heat stroke. The words "Get me out of this thing" may or may not have been yelled to Jon during the process. Once I pick out a zipper, I'll begin the steeking process.

- I (along with the kitties) cast on for Jon's Icelandic Sweater, Stapi, last Wednesday, but have not touched it since. He picked out the yarn colors and pattern on our trip to Toronto in March.

- Jon and I discovered the most fabulous ice cream bars! If you like Almond Joy, you'll love these So Delicious Dark Chocolate Almond Coconut Bars. Yum Yum!

- I'm a bit behind in my bee blocks, so I'm going to be busy this weekend playing catch up. If all goes well, 3 out of 5 of these will be on time!

- I'm also participating in the Doll Quilt Swap #9 this year. My partner likes bright colors and graphic designs, so it's right up my alley. I've been tossing around ideas in my head for quite a while now and hope to finish up the quilt this weekend. My quilt from round #7 was featured on Angela's favorites list on the Doll Quilt Swap blog last week. Thanks, Angela!

2010 Garden: Week 8

2010-07-23T05:31:00.001-04:00

The garden is finally starting to fill out! We're getting lots of cucumbers, zucchini, beans and peppers these days. It's always nice to go outside to pick dinner for the evening. Jon made a delicious green pepper and onion stir fry the other night and I'm dreaming about it again for dinner tonight.

I've been a bit lazy about training the squash plants, but I was able to tie them up on Sunday and now the butternut and spaghetti squash have almost reached the top of the trellis. Next year, I will be on the lookout for vining zucchini and summer squash.

Fenton, MI Road Trip

2010-07-15T05:40:00.001-04:00

My mom and I took a mini day trip up to Fenton, MI to visit Heavenly Scent Herb Farm. If you love looking at pretty flowers, gardening, or visiting cute boutiques, this is the place to go! The store is filled with herbs, fun kitchen tools, gift books, and home decor.

The greenhouse is filled with lots of basic herbs, plus a few unusual varieties thrown in for good measure.

The farm has a miniature faerie garden and has lots of supplies for creating your own faerie garden at home. Seeing this photo kind of makes me want to get into model train building, but I will never go down that road. :)

I loved this shade container garden. I think it's the first time begonias have ever looked pretty to me. There are begonias, double impatiens, ivy, maidenhair fern and one other type of fern in this container.

One part of the garden has this giant flower kaleidoscope. You can twist the kaleidoscope to see the flowers in front of it form really pretty fractured images.

I loved this area of the gardens most. The pergola and fountain look so formal, but the raised beds on either side are actually vegetable gardens. It's definitely the prettiest veggie garden I've ever seen!

Here's a picture of my favorite flower (an honor also shared with Baptisia) - Bear's Breeches.

If you're in the area, definitely stop by for lots of inspiration! They have a Summer Faire coming up at the end of August with lots of artisans, workshops and a delicious catered lunch. My mom and I will be returning to visit soon.

You can see the rest of my photos of the gardens on flickr here.

After visiting the farm, we stopped at The French Laundry for lunch. I didn't take any pictures at the restaurant, but it's a fun mix of Zingerman's Deli and a typical French Cafe and the food was delicious. They even had several vegetarian sandwiches on the menu, along with lots of soups and salads.

2010 Garden: Week 7

2010-07-12T14:13:00.001-04:00

The garden is in full production this week!

We've had lots of:

lettuce

beans (thanks for the tips, I did pick them right away last week)

and cucumbers! Here's how they looked 5 days ago. I think I shrieked when I first spotted this little vegetable on the vine.

Here's how they look today post-picking.

Now I need to do a bit of weeding, train some of the squash up the wooden trellis, and pull out some of the spent plants (mesclun, bok choy).

baking and knitting (or what not to do during a heat wave)

2010-07-10T03:45:00.001-04:00

The first thing that comes to mind when you think heat wave is "let's bake something in a 475 degree oven," right?

I didn't think so.

After a tough first day back at work on Tuesday (emergency data recovery anyone?), Jon was in serious need of some food for the soul. I found this recipe for soft pretzels on Tuesday night, so Jon and I made a batch of pretzels to try. The recipe involves a few steps and lots of time waiting in between, but it's not too difficult if you lose your perfectionist tendencies when it comes to shaping the pretzels.

I think we'll definitely be making these again. It's another excuse for us to try out fancy mustard and we're always game for that. And next time we'll get course salt for the top.

Along with the pretzels, I also made a batch of these Spelt Walnut Dark Chocolate Chip cookies found on the blog, Food Loves Writing. These cookies are so delicious. They are thick and chewy and and the sprinkle of sea salt on top gave them just the right amount of kick.

I have been devouring the food websites Foodgawker (via Knitter in the Kitchen) and TasteSpotting. These sites show gorgeous photos of food and you click on the link to read the recipe and see more pictures (they even have a crafting companion site, Craftgawker).

And because I didn't get hot enough baking in 95 degree weather, I've been torturing myself by knitting the yoke of my Icelandic Sweater. It's so addicting to work each row of the colorwork pattern (and our basement is fairly cool in the summer), so I can deal with the temperature as long as the wool doesn't touch my arms or legs.

I have about 15 more rows to go before I get to steek this thing and turn it into a cardigan...I will keep you posted on how cutting my knitting project in half goes.

remind me to never spend time sewing a cat bed

2010-07-09T18:29:00.001-04:00

Our little kitties would much rather sleep in a ratty takeout box (our remnants of Thai food on the 4th of July - sacrilege really).

2010 Garden: Week 6

2010-07-05T07:31:00.001-04:00

This post is a bit late, but here is the garden update from last week...

The good:
- The weeding is getting much easier these days (probably due to our summer drought right now)

- The pole beans took off. We put in taller bamboo stakes last week and the beans have grown higher than the stakes already. I am definitely growing pole beans next year! They take up so little space and yield lots of beans.

It's hard to tell from the photo, but on the left side the beans were halfway up the 4 ft trellis and on the right they are off the 6 ft poles.

- Our peppers are growing, slowly but surely! Jon and I are pepper-holics, so we planted 14 plants this year. We could eat these forever and never get tired of them (raw with hummus, on sandwiches, in salads, in stir fry, roasted, and so many other ways)

- We got our first banana pepper. I love the color of these.

- Our kale is looking so big and leafy. We made kale chips last week and they were surprisingly almost like regular potato chips. If you do make them, make sure to cook them long enough. The longer you cook them, the crispier they get.

- I finally got around to planting more seeds: 3 rows of radishes, 1 row of spring onions, 3 Swiss chard, 4 bush beans, and 1 row of mesclun. I'm trying to fill up some of the empty space in the garden.

The bad:
we lost a few plants (spinach, mustard greens, mesclun, bok choy) due to bolting. This happens every year and I never seem to find the "perfect" time to pick plants that can bolt. I'm afraid to pick them too soon because they might be too small so I end up waiting for them to grow fully and miss out on them completely.

The unknown:
Are these beans too small to pick? They are long already but super skinny.

The misc:
- We added two new plants to the garden last week, a nasturtium (for a spicy salad kick) and an heirloom chocolate cherry tomato. It's a little late for the tomato plant, but we had a spot open up in the garden (thank you, bolted bok choy) and added it to the mix. The tomatoes will be small, so hopefully we'll get a few by the middle of August.

The links:

- We tried roasted radishes last week (instructions seen in the NY Times here). They were so delicious! I'm hoping our new crop of radishes grows soon so we can have these again.

- Check out this gorgeous kitchen garden. I'm drooling!
- Martha Stewart has a free printable label for frozen fruits and veggies.
- have you heard about Basil Blight? I'm checking on my plants every day now.

- preserving herbs. I'm going to miss having lots of fresh herbs to choose from throughout the winter.
- a gorgeously photographed local foods recipe blog, Straight from the Farm

Drifty hat and mitten(s)

2010-06-25T03:11:00.001-04:00

Mandy @MyZigZagStitch, designer of the amazing End of May hat and mittens (my version here) put out the call for test knitters for her upcoming ebook, The Red Collection. The book comes out later this fall and is filled with such adorable patterns for hats, mittens, and handwarmers.

Test knit? Yes, please! I picked out the Drifty set to knit and got to work.

(I recently discovered Knitcast and was able to listen to quite a few podcast episodes while knitting these up).

I still need to knit mitten #2 and embroider the cardinals on each piece, so finished and modeled shots are forthcoming...

The stranded colorwork in these makes me want to get to the yoke of my Icelandic sweater already! Just one more sleeve to go before I can begin.

I saw this version from another test knitter, and I love the deep blue she used for the sky.

Binky Patrol

2010-06-24T03:53:00.001-04:00

A few weeks ago, my local Modern Quilt Guild branch, the Brighton Modern Quilters, had a charity sewing day to make some baby quilts for Binky Patrol (found via the book, Quilting for Peace).

I went on super sonic mode and pieced, basted and quilted both of these quilts during our afternoon together.

This one was made with scraps from my hedgehog quilt and backed with pink faux bois from Joel Dewberry

and this one was made with a charm square set from Joann and some Amy Butler mod dots. (Did I forget to mention that we visited the world headquarters of Joann in Ohio while we were visiting Scott and Melissa over Memorial Day weekend? Did I also forget to mention that Scott works in the warehouse? I think I did. The store was amazing, btw!)
Here are the details:
5"x5" charm squares
8 squares by 8 squares
64 total squares for each quilt
36" x 36"
4 width of fabric 2.5" strips of binding fabric
38" x width of fabric for the backing
This particular "design" is so easy to duplicate with any scraps you have in your stash (or pre-purchased charm pack + extra solids).

hits and misses

2010-06-23T03:31:00.001-04:00

I started my second weaving project last weekend. I was so excited to use this Noro Sakura yarn for the warp. Sakura is so pretty in the skein. Some parts of it are wound tightly and look just like friendship bracelets and other parts look like bi-color handspun.

I meticulously wound it on my warping pegs (extra long for good measure).

I got Jon to help me wind the warp on my loom - evenly and with cardstock, too.

And then I started weaving. My selvedge edges are much better this time around thanks to Angela's tip to use 2 threads on each end of the warp instead of one.

After a few cranks of the warping peg, a few warp lengths started coming
unraveled. While the scarf looks okay in this photo, it's much worse up close. Let's just say that Noro is not strong enough for warping and double knots or scotch tape will not fix broken length of warp! I should have given up when I first saw that scraggly threads coming through the rigid heddle, but I kept going.

After a few days of staring at this project, I've decided to rip it out and save the weft yarn (my precious Plucky MCN Sport!) for another project. Fortunately, I got the Sakura on super sale at my LYS, so I'm only out about $5 and a few hours of crafting time.

I will happily mail the unused Sakura off to anyone who wants to use it for a craft project of some sort (there's about 70, 3 yard pieces of this stuff). Just leave a note in the comments and I'll mail it off.

Garden 2010: Week 5

2010-06-22T07:24:00.001-04:00

We are slowly getting to that time of the summer where all of our hard work in the garden is paying off.

(I decided to weed the garden again on Sunday and now it's blog presentable once again).

Exhibit 1: Radishes!

Exhibit 2: French Breakfast Radishes!

You haven't lived until you've tasted radishes fresh from the garden. They are nothing like bland, store-bought radishes. They're super crispy and extra spicy and so delicious. I like to eat them like potato chips.

Our plants are starting to properly trellis...

pole beans (may need to bring out taller trellis poles for these)

cucumbers (on an upside-down tomato cage secured at the top with twine)

butternut squash

Zucchini (I'm afraid that we planted the non-trailing zucchini and squash varieties, so perhaps the right side of the squash trellis won't be used this summer).

All of the plants that we started by seed are popping up, too. We did
lose some leeks and green onions, but for the most part, everything is
doing well.

beets, parsnips, turnips, onions, carrots and purple carrots

The swiss chard, kale and okra are coming along nicely as well (I accidentally weeded 2 swiss chard plants that I need to replace soon). I've never eaten okra before...I'm accepting any great suggestions for okra dishes if you care to share!

And I finally cut into my row of precious basil...

...and turned it into fresh pesto for this delicious pizza we grilled:

topped with pesto, pine nuts, tomatoes, red onions, broccoli, mushrooms and roasted garlic. (Next time we'll make sure that the bottom doesn't char! oops!)

As you can probably tell, it's been a great week in the garden! The garden and I are back on good terms after last week's depressing post. :)

this and that

2010-06-14T16:59:00.001-04:00

I won this embroidery pattern giveaway from Rosamaria earlier this year (I'm too embarrassed to go back and see how long it's been!). She and her sister started up this darling etsy store, Mi hermana y yo, that sells bags, pillows and embroidery patterns. I got to pick my favorite embroidery pattern and I went with the Frida Kahlo pattern (of course, as I'm a big Frida/Mexico fan). The embroidery pattern came with three designs, and so far I've stitched up the first design in the set.

I patterned my Frida after this photograph and my favorite part of this design is all of the flowers in her hair and, of course, the unibrow. I think I stitched her nose around 8 times before stopping the madness and calling it good. I'm planning on turning this piece into a tote bag to house one of my crafting WIPs, so stay tuned!

It's been quite a while since I've done any embroidery, but I think it's such a fun warm weather hobby. I still want to do some more embroidery this summer and I even have a few Sublime Stitching patterns ironed on to some tea towels and in my crafting queue already (I'm thinking the Sexy Librarian pattern is definitely appropriate now considering my new degree). Plus, I still want to stitch up this adorable buffalo pattern.

I finished up my first woven scarf on Saturday night. I'm glad to have my practice scarf out of the way as the sloppy selvedge edges and uneven tension are bothering me a bit. At least now I know what I need to improve on for the next project, right?

(All of the details for this project are in my ravelry project page if you're interested).

Garden 2010: Week 4

2010-06-14T16:54:00.001-04:00

Not much to report this week. We planted marigolds and ignored the weeds. For this week, I want to tie some of the squash branches to the trellis, weed and plant more radishes and mesclun.

Pantry Upgrade (or Why we no longer face avalanches when opening our cupboards)

2010-06-12T05:30:00.001-04:00

We have a pretty small kitchen in our house and right now a kitchen remodel is neither in the budget nor wise in this economy. Our cupboards were packed to the gills and we had trouble finding things or even remembering what we had in our cupboards. We'd been wracking our brains to come up with a new way to add storage to our kitchen and when I saw this post by Amber, it finally dawned on me that we could add a hutch at IKEA to this one nook in our kitchen for extra storage. Before our pantry upgrade the nook had a tiny bookshelf for our cookbooks, our pan rack and the kitties' food dishes.

After looking online at IKEA, I wasn't able to find to a hutch that we liked, so we settled on getting this Billy bookshelf. Then when we got to IKEA, we found this Hemnes bookshelf with doors and decided to go with this option instead. The Hemnes shelf was more expensive, but it's made with real wood and is versatile enough to be used in another room in our house should we ever decide to remodel the kitchen or move to a house with better kitchen storage.

Ahh...much better! Ever since finishing up this project, we've spent a wee bit too much time staring at this cabinet and smiling. :)

We culled our cookbook collection a bit to fit on the shelves (we both have a fondness for collecting new cookbooks) and the cookbooks here are books that we use frequently. As you can see, our main cooking interests are smoothies, canning, bread, japanese food, vegan/vegetarian food, and baking.

For dry pantry storage jars we used:

1. Burken lidded canisters in the large and medium size for dried beans, nuts, fruit, grains, seaweed, pasta, and sweeteners.

2. Anchor Hocking 1-Gallon Glass storage jars for white and wheat flour, rice, dry cat food and oatmeal

3. Pint and Quart Mason Jars for everything else that was too small to put into the Burken jars.

I typed printed the contents of each of the jars on paper, trimmed the tags to size and attached the tags to the jars with clear tape to label each jar. We can easily peel off a label and make a new label if we ever have to switch around the contents of the jars.

Now that we have freed up so much space in our cupboards, it's so much
easier to keep everything organized and within reach. It's exciting to
cook again because we actually have an excuse to open up the new cabinet
and pull out a jar of food to use. We definitely should have done this
sooner!

P.S. That bright green binder on the bottom shelf is my organized recipe binder seen here.

little [yellow] corvette

2010-06-11T10:54:00.001-04:00

My dad has faithfully supported our family over the years by working long, hard hours to provide us all with great family vacations, braces, musical instruments, tuition, and many other luxuries.

He was finally able to reward himself for all of his diligent savings and money management by purchasing a Corvette on Monday (It's only been his dream car for the last 50 years!)

He's probably wishing that he hadn't taught me how to drive a stick shift when I was 16 because there's no excuse for me not to drive it now!

Bee Beautiful patchwork quilt

2010-06-10T15:41:00.001-04:00

Thanks to the crafty women in the Bee Beautiful Virtual Quilting Bee, I received 20 scrappy log cabin blocks to make up this quilt.

I sent everyone in the group a pile of my scraps (isn't it crazy how a single piece of fabric can bring back so many memories?) and a pink center square and each of the group members made me two scrappy log cabin blocks for my quilt.

The colors and patterns are wild and crazy, and while I could have added sashing between to tone things down, I decided to sew each block directly together for a true patchwork look. This quilt is a birthday present for a hippie and color loving person and I know that she'll love the craziness of it.

I added five blocks of my own to make it a square quilt. The final size is about 55" x 55" and each block was originally 12" before seaming.

I used a brown sheet for the back, pink thread for the stippling and a lime green print from the stash. I quilted this myself on my Janome.

Now I'm just catching a few more peeks at this before I have to wrap it up and give it away.

Garden 2010: Week 3

2010-06-05T04:00:00.001-04:00

The bad news: I am starting to regret that I publicly stated on this blog that my goal this year is to keep up with the weeding in the veggie garden! Weeds are popping up left and right and it seems like 2 new weeds grow for every one that I pull.

The good news: We have beans! The bush bean plant has two full-sized beans. Now, what can I make with 2 beans?

Lots of the seedlings are popping up. The radishes seem to be doing best so far, but there are little glimpses of onions, carrots, and turnips popping up.

I waited too long to plant the lettuce seeds, so they are still tiny tiny and this heat is not helping at all. Even though I missed the boat on an early spring lettuce planting, I definitely want to start another batch of lettuce seeds at the end of August.

The row of mesclun I planted is coming along nicely, though. The seed pack says to plant 5 feet of seeds every week to ensure a full summer of mesclun. I just planted row number two today, so we might stick to the one row every 3 weeks plan and see how that work.

I'm going to plant a few more rows of turnips and radishes this week (between the struggling lettuce plants) to get some more use out of the extra soil space.

Some of our plants are getting eaten up and these tiny holes are appearing on the mustard greens and turnip greens. Rosamaria posted a great natural remedy for bugs that Jon is going to set up this weekend to hopefully give the bugs something else to eat. One tip that I read was to add all soil amendments in the late fall and rototil the garden in the fall to break up bug larvae and reduce the bug population over the winter. Since we didn't know to do this last fall, our garden has bugs everywhere this year. We will definitely be preparing our garden better this fall.

Memorial Day Weekend in Ohio

2010-06-04T04:43:00.001-04:00

We spent Memorial Day weekend in Ohio visiting our friends, Scott and Melissa, and their brood of cute pets. It's always nice to find friends who enjoy (read: are a little too into) their pets as much as we enjoy our little kitties!

On Saturday we gathered up our bikes and rode along the Towpath trail in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Here's where I would like to apologize to the great State of Ohio for thinking of it only as one of two highways to drive through to get to a more interesting state! Ohio is really cool! The scenery is beautiful, the houses are cute and there is tons of stuff to see and do. I will never take it for granted again!

We spotted this bullfrog after hearing loud sounds coming from this old lock system situated along the trail.

After our bike ride, we drove over to Brandywine Falls to check out the gorgeous waterfall.

Jon bought a new dSLR that shoots video a few months ago (as part of his unofficial yearly video camera trade in). It's been fun seeing all of the pictures he takes and seeing his perspective on things, but now we've both been taking inordinate amounts of pictures of each other taking pictures.

one of many on each of our respective cameras

We shot this picture just before we headed back to Michigan on Monday. Thanks, Scott and Melissa, for a fabulous weekend!

Spring to Finish - recap

2010-06-03T06:23:00.001-04:00

Jacquie's Spring to Finish challenge ended on Monday and even though I didn't finish everything on my list, I'm happy with everything that I accomplished.

I was distracted by lots of other projects, so in addition to finishing what I started months ago, I also started a handful of other projects...

1. testing out my new weaving loom (a graduation gift to myself!)

2. Casting on for an Icelandic sweater and my first time using steeking and colorwork in a garment...

(pattern is Hela cardign and I'm using this speckled white and magenta for the yolk colorwork)

3. A May start and finish...this Eternity Scarf made out of Pigeonroof Studios superwash worsted yarn. The yarn is gorgeous and was a joy to work with. It's just too bad that I finished this just in time for 80 degree summertime weather!

(I should have staggered yarn from each ball in this project as there is a big variation in colors. Fortunately the color change isn't too noticeable when I'm wearing it).

Garden 2010: Week 2

2010-05-29T02:01:00.001-04:00

Here's my belated garden post this week...

In an effort to keep up on the weeding (one of my goals for this year), I had to do a quick run through of the veggie garden before taking these pictures. Those weeds popped up fast this year! Now I can see how weeding once a week is a lot more fun than a long 2 hour session once a month (ahem, yes we are lazy weeders!)

We lost one turnip green already and I accidentally weeded a pepper plant, so we've had two casualties so far.

The direct sow seeds are popping up already and their little blooms are so cute! I'm so excited for the radishes to grow. Home grown radishes are so much tastier (and spicier) than store bought radishes.

Last weekend Jon and I went flower shopping together (big mistake as we are both enablers!)

We did two part sun pots for our front porch,

two full shade pots for our back patio, and some more herb pots.

After reading a bit more about edible herbs and fun drinks that you can make with them in Grow Great Grub, I got some more herbs to plant in my neglected strawberry pot (Apple Mint, Orange Thyme, Peppermint, Spearmint, and Lemon Verbena).

I also got a few more varieties of basil (Thai, Spicy Globe, Purple), and a dark purple shiso plant (shown with a dill, oregano, and parsley pot, too).

Our big purchase of the day was this specimen, Korean Fir Horstman's Silberlocke. We're trying to add more evergreens to the front of our house so that the landscaping looks nice year round. This tree is about 3 feet tall right now and is a slower growing fir with a crazy shape. Once we move some of the perennials in the front garden around to make more space, I'll take a picture of the whole tree. This is a slower growing evergreen and it looks more like a giant bonsai tree than a landscaping tree, so Jon and I were both excited to add this to our garden!

I'll leave you with shots of some perennials that are in bloom in the garden right now.

peony

bachelor button

potholder swap

2010-05-28T10:01:00.001-04:00

Malka at a Stich in Dye hosted a potholder swap last month and she paired Susan at iamchickenfoot and I together.

Here's what I made for Susan:

Susan requested red and aqua potholders, so I dug through my stash to find fabrics that fit the bill. I quilted the log cabin and batting together and then sewed the front to the back pillowcase style.
Susan made me this cute hexagon trivet. It matches our kitchen and dishes perfectly.

Now I just need some fresh flowers to throw into that pitcher.

She even sent an adorable little log cabin pin cushion. Isn't it darling?

You can check out the rest of the projects for the swap in the flickr group here.

Spring Blogger's Quilt Festival

2010-05-21T07:27:00.001-04:00

Amy at Amy's Creative Side is hosting the Spring Blogger's Quilt Festival again and here's my entry this spring...

I couldn't pick one favorite, so here are my two favorites right now.

Kandinsky quilt (original post here)

Doll Quilt Swap #7 Quilt (original post here)
I am starting to get overwhelmed with all of the great fabric options appearing on the market, so these quilts are my throwback to the basics of quilting. Solids never go out of style, right? (But, of course, I'm always in the market for new and interesting prints).

I didn't use a pattern for either of these quilts and sort of improvised on my design, technique and color choices. I find myself enjoying working with solid fabrics the most and I love rainbows of color, so these quilts were really fun to make. These two quilts together also demonstrate my inclinations toward order and organization, with a bit of controlled chaos thrown in for good measure with the wonky circles and freehand stippling.

(I see a theme here too with my love for solids and past favorites that were entries for the quilt festival. Check out my Triangles in a Square Quilt here and my Plain Spoken Quilt here).

Garden 2010: Week 1

2010-05-18T04:37:00.002-04:00

Sunday was planting day for our garden. I'm going to try to post progress reports each week with photos to track the progress and to make notes to myself for things to try next year.

New things for this year:
1. 8 Basil Plants planted in the garden. We LOVE pesto and after reading Jacquie's tip about freezing pesto in a sandwich sized plastic bag (flattened), I've been freezing it in the summertime. For the past three years we've grown one plant in a container (the container was too small and the basil never flourished). We usually supplement with basil from the farmers' market, but this year we are trying to grow more of our own.

2. Jon built this amazing squash trellis based on these plans from Organic Gardening. The materials cost $38 and it's super sturdy. We are growing 7 plants of 4 different squash varieties (butternut, spaghetti, zucchini, summer yellow) on this trellis and hopefully everything will flourish and cover the trellis to make room for other plants in the garden. Melissa let me know last summer that you can store butternut squash in a cool dry spot for use over the winter. She also let me know that you can freeze shredded zucchini for use later on (my mom suggests freezing it in bags that are the correct amount for whichever recipe you plan to use - zucchini bread, anyone?)

3. We went from 4 rows to 2 rows and two wider beds for things like root vegetables and greens. I think the new layout will fit more plants than before. (here is the four row layout from 2009)

4. Our indoor seedlings grew well this year (well all but the pepper plants)! I supplemented our plantings with some plants at the farmers market to fill out the garden and we only had to spend $20 on new plants (40 veggies and herbs).

5. We didn't grow any tomatoes this year. Neither of us like them that much (heresy, I know) and they take up too much room. Now we have more space for other veggies to try.

6. We didn't grow any broccoli either. The plants are huge and we always accidentally let them go to seed. It's much more convenient to buy it at the farmers market.

7. For the walking paths between rows, we got rid of the black weed barrier cloth/woodchips and put down newspapers covered with grass clippings (tip taken from Animal Vegetable Miracle).

8. I removed all of the flowers from the last row of the vegetable garden. I moved the perennials to other areas in the yard and plan to plant my beloved zinnias next to our garage for summer bouquets around the house. Because we eat more veggies than ever, every bit of space counts!

This year our garden has:
Herbs (in the garden):
Chives
Thyme
Lots and lots of Basil
Sage
Oregano
Rosemary

Herbs (in containers):
Flat Leaf Parsley
Parsley
Mint
Dill
Oregano
Shiso

In rectangular bed #1 (5' x 10') - all direct sow seeds
Spring Onions
Leeks
Onions
Parsnips
Turnips
Carrots (2 rows)
Radishes (2 rows)

In Rectangular bed #2 (5' x 10')
3 Varieties of Lettuce - direct sow seeds
Spinach - from seeds started indoors
Mesclun - direct sow seeds
Bok Choy - direct sow seeds
Herbs

On the squash trellis (4' x 4')
Butternut Squash (1) - from seed started indoors
Spaghetti Squash (1) - from seed started indoors
Yellow Squash (3) - from the farmers market
Zucchini Squash (2) - from seeds started indoors

Under the squash trellis (4' x 4')
Mustard Greens (4) - from the farmers market
Turnip Greens (4) - from the farmers market

In Row #2 (2' x 16')
Okra (4) - from the farmers market
Swiss Chard (5) - direct sow seeds
Kale (4) - from the farmers market
Bok Choy (5) - from seeds started indoors
Bush Beans (6) - from seeds started indoors
Pole Beans (8) - direct sow seeds

In Row #1 (2' x 16')
Cucumbers (2) - from seeds started indoors
Green, Red and Yellow Peppers (11) - from the farmers market
Sweet Banana Peppers (2) - from the farmers market

For comparison, here was our garden
in 2007

in 2008

in 2009

Goals for 2010:
- keep the weeds under control
- prune plants as needed for bigger vegetables
- grow seeds in rotation for a constant harvest (I've never tried this before)
- take better notes to learn from past mistakes
- explore organic fertilizers/pest control

cute overload

2010-05-14T02:57:00.001-04:00

Jon called me into the living room on Sunday so that I could see this...

eek...those kitties are too cute! He couldn't get him to leave his lap for some extra space for his computer for the life of him!

NYTimes: felted rugs

2010-05-13T07:38:00.001-04:00

I came across this article in the NY Times (via Ravelry) about artist, Dana Barnes, and the giant rugs she crochets and felts out of wool roving...

I am drooling over this loft and those cheery rugs. But, oh...the dust they must accumulate!
See more photos here.

reFresh: California Salad

2010-05-13T02:55:00.001-04:00

Jon and I stumbled across this cookbook, reFresh, while we were in Toronto in March. We bought it as a souvenir of our trip and headed to the Fresh restaurant chain featured in the book for dinner.

The restaurant food was delicious and it looks like most of the dishes on the menu are included in the book, too. You can check out the menu here to get a peak of the types of dishes in the book. The book has lots of great sauce and dressing recipes too.

The cookbook has the most interesting set of salad recipes I have seen so far and this recipe, by far, is my favorite.

California Salad

Ingredients:
Spring Mix
Sliced Hearts of Palm
Sliced Avocado
Toasted Pecans
White Beans & Spinach Pesto
Marinated Tofu
Tofu Marinade
3 1/2 cups Tofu
1/2 cup Apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup Tamari
1/4 cup Water
1 1/2 TBS. Sunflower Oil
Mix and marinate a block of cubed tofu for at least 1 hour

bee blocks

2010-05-12T02:00:00.001-04:00

Here are my belated bee blocks for last month:

Audrie's blocks for BEE beautiful
Audrie set us up with lots of pre-cut pieces to make a block from the Material Obsession 2 book (her directions are here). I was worried about getting this block to work out after hearing lots of complaints from the other group members. I took things slowly and I only had to rip out one seam, so there are no complaints from me for these blocks. :)

Wendy's block for Common Threads
She wanted us to make a lady block that represented us. The block layout and overall quilt pattern is from the Material Obsession book. So I made a tall person wearing a sweater (that's a swatch of superwash sock yarn that I used for the boxy sweater).

Amanda's block for Common Threads
Amanda sent us this gorgeous teal fabric and told us to make a large block with pluses and minuses. You can see some of the other blocks she's made here. I had a hard time remembering how quilt blocks were constructed so there are some extra seams in the block. Once I got into the groove, I was able to make everything fit together, though.

PS. Aren't the stamps Wendy used on my envelope the coolest?

reading time

2010-05-11T02:30:00.002-04:00

I started a long to-read list while I was doing my library practicum last semester and as soon as I was finished with school I placed a bunch of books on hold. Now, I've been playing a game with myself by trying to read these books before they're due.

I've also been more diligent in keeping my goodreads page up to date. You can friend me and see what I've been reading by clicking on the goodreads link in the sidebar of my website.

It's fun to sit on the couch with Jon and the kitties at night and lounge and read instead of researching or writing papers on my computer.

PS. My Kandinsky quilt was featured on the blog, quiltporn, on Sunday. Wendy has been featuring gorgeous quilts on her blog. Check it out!

graduation!

2010-05-10T05:17:00.001-04:00

I walked in my graduation ceremony last Friday. It was a little on the long side, but it was filled with some fun and emotional moments for me so I'm glad I participated.

I have to thank Jon for being so supportive to me throughout these past two years. He has been such a champ putting up with me being gone for school or studying all the time and he always had time for a "you can do this" pep talk when I was feeling down.

Here is one of my dad's signature poses. A "look off into the distance so this doesn't look posed" shot. (We've been teasing him for the last 20 years about his photography).

baby shower

2010-05-08T12:05:00.001-04:00

I've had requests left and right from family and friends to update this blog, so here goes.

I spent this past week recovering from school and crafty commitments and now I'm wondering how in the world I got everything done that I got done while I was in school. It feels really nice to come home and read a book on the couch instead of working on a project. Now I'm wondering if I'll be able to finish my list of projects to finish by the end of May. It's starting to look doubtful.

I spent most of last week throwing a baby shower for my friend, Chikage. She's expecting a baby girl in the next few weeks, so I...

...made some bibs and burp rags. The bibs are backed with white flannel and the burp rags are quilting cotton backed with chenille and are 12"x18".

...sewed a nursing cover (tutorial here)

and knitted a Berry Baby hat (ravelry link here).

For the shower, my mom decorated the cutest cake ever...

And, she also decorated these sugar cutout cookies for shower gifts. (Jon and I helped, but my mom did all of the detail work on these).

The shower turned out so well and we were able to get everything finished within 2 hours because Chikage kept everyone on track with her super fast/turbo speed gift opening.

Now we just have to wait a few more weeks to see the new baby. I can't wait!

Kandinsky Quilt

2010-04-30T05:15:00.001-04:00

My friend, Shannon, is organizing the Recreate Project, an art show and silent auction to benefit Invisible Children and To Write Love on Her Arms. She put out a call to artists to contribute a project that recreates a famous work of art. All pieces included in the show will be auctioned off in a silent auction and the proceeds will go to both charities.

I spent a while trying to come up with a painting to recreate and I finally settled on this painting, Colour Study: Squares with Concentric Circles, by Wassily Kandinsky

I recreated this painting with a stack of Kona charm squares from Pink Chalk Fabrics and a few extra solids from my stash.

I attached the circles with machine applique. I had originally tried to use my free motion foot to do the applique but found that the regular presser foot worked better and allowed me to feed the fabric to stitch in a circular motion.

The final size is 18" x 13.5". I stitched in the ditch between the squares and binded it with a solid gray from the stash.

PS. Shannon writes the most delicious food blog, Bread and Jam. Check it out here.

Owl Quilt

2010-04-28T04:43:00.001-04:00

I finished the quilt top for this back in November (see here) and it's been languishing in my overstuffed craft closet ever since. I finally bit the bullet and sent it out to be quilted a few weeks ago (best decision ever).

The long arm quilter did a beautiful job and it was so nice to be able to sew on the binding while admiring her work.

I am officially in love with this color scheme...I started dreaming about redecorating our living room in these rich colors. Then, I came to and realized it would be too much work. (phew!)

Here are the construction details:
The blocks in this quilt are 5". I used 10 fat quarters from the Timeless Treasures Apple
Collection and 3.5 yards of fabric for the top. I was able to cut 12 five inch squares out of each fat quarter, for a total of 120 squares that were then cut in half. I cut the green fabric into 5" wide strips and cut out 120 squares from each strip and used the remaining fabric for a border.

The quilt is 14 blocks wide and 16 blocks tall with a 5" border of sashing around the edge. The final quilt is 72" x 81"

The kitties have been taking turns sleeping on it in this accidental, makeshift hammock I made. There has already been one fight (with growling and hissing) over who gets to sleep on it.

Nuku nuku won this time!

Maverick Star Charity Quilt

2010-04-25T15:06:00.001-04:00

This quilt was made by my fellow Bee Beautiful Virtual Quilting Bee members. Each member contributed a few maverick star blocks to the quilt in bright colors and I sewed the top together and had it quilted by a local long arm quilter.

I received the quilt back from the long arm quilter on Tuesday and sewed the last bit of binding on last night. I wish I would have taken a "before washing/drying"picture because the quilting is so pretty. She did a fun daisy pattern with some wandering loops.

I love looking at all of the different fabrics that everyone used in their blocks. Patchwork quilts are definitely my favorite and patchwork combined with crinkly fabrics always remind me of vintage quilts.

The quilt ended up being 70" x 84". I binded it with a teal flowery polka dot print and used a big pink polka dot print for the backing. It's such a fun and cheery quilt!

I'm passing this quilt and the hedgehog quilt along to my dad so that he can give it to his coworker for
the collection of quilts that are going to a teen girls living at Children's Village in Detroit.

Spring to Finish

2010-04-25T14:50:00.001-04:00

I joined Jacquie's annual Spring to Finish challenge last week and I got off to a great start so far thanks to a productive weekend...

1. Quilt and bind hedgehog quilt (see here)
2. Bind maverick star quilt (see here)
3. Bind owl quilt (see here)
4. Quilt and bind vintage quilt
5. Noro striped scarf
6. Knit purple baby blanket
7. Kandinsky art quilt (see here)
8. Bee Beautiful quilt
9. Pajama pants (x4)
10. Milkweed Shawl
11. Audrie's Block
12. Wendy's Block
13. Amanda's Block

I'm hoping to clear my "craft closet" of projects to do in the next few months so that I can pare down and use what I have.

My reward, should I finish everything by May 31, is two skeins of Pigeonroof Studio TLS Washed baby alpaca/cashmere/silk yarn. This is, by far, the nicest and softest yarn I have ever knit with and it will be the perfect reward!

Hedgehog Quilt

2010-04-21T05:25:00.001-04:00

After basting the big zig quilt I was working on, I finally sat down to start quilting a million parallel zig zag lines. I threw in the towel after one zig zag, ripped out the quilting, unbasted the quilt and made a quick trip to Joann's to pick up some solids to make a completely different quilt. I think the big zig quilt will be cut apart and made into quilted throw pillows (much more manageable).

I purchased a half yard pack of this hedgehog line by Michael Miller fabrics on etsy a month or so ago ago and it turned out to be the perfect set of fabrics to use to copy Erica's signature quilt pattern (seen here, here, here and here).

The blocks of fabric were cut to 8.5" x 8.5" (8" x 8" with seam allowance) and there are 8 columns and 11 rows. I used five 1/2 yards of the prints and five 3/4 yards of solids (just to be safe). The final quilt is 64" x 88".

The loopy quilting is much more my style than straight lines and I love how crinkly it turned out after a toss in the dryer.

This quilt, along with the maverick star quilt made by my Bee Beautiful quilting bee buddies, is going to a teenage girl at Children's Village in Detroit.

digging in!

2010-04-20T10:00:00.001-04:00

Ahh! The sweet relief finishing up my degree. Thanks so much for all of your congratulatory comments!

So far, I have enjoyed...

...sleeping in on Saturday
...going for a leisurely Sunday afternoon ride with Jon

(hello gorgeously pruned pear trees in ritzy neighborhoods)

...running errands with Jon because I have free time now
...reading new books that I've been wanting to read all semester (Jar City, The Glass Maker's Daughter)
...finishing up some quilts (more to come on this front)
...attending a super inspiring music seminar
...learning how to weave and starting on my first rigid heddle loom project

On Sunday, Jon and I were able to get our garden prepared for this summer. We weeded it, added compost from our bin, tilled it and rearranged the rows (ouch, my fingers and hands are still aching from all of that weed pulling!).

Our lonely chives are looking forward to more company. We need to start adding chives to all our recipes, stat!

We're hoping that our second try at growing seeds inside will prove to be better than last year's failure...fingers crossed here!

I stumbled across this super helpful gardening blog yesterday, digginfood, which is written by a master gardener. I think we're going to make her diy squash trellis and cucumber trellis to try and contain these plants better this year.

If you're into gardening, do you have any helpful sites that you frequent?

I'll leave you with Jon's photograph of his japanese garden. Jon is obsessed with growing his moss and will talk your ear off if you ask him for bonsai or moss advice...it's really cute when he gets excited about his plants.

local Quilt Show

2010-04-16T05:37:00.001-04:00

I visited the Oakland County Quilt Guild Spring Quilt Show last Friday. The quilts were amazing! Here are a few of my favorite quilts from the show. You can view the rest of the set here.

Such a cool optical illusion!

a fun space themed quilt in a sea of flowery, girly quilts.

This is a Turkish puzzle quilt (I think). The top six blocks are repeated in the bottom six blocks and the trick is to find the matching pairs of blocks. I love the rich colors in this quilt.

Incredible, incredible machine quilting!

Love the bold colors and geometric design on this handkerchief quilt.

I am always so impressed by beautiful applique in bright colors.

This quilt took pebble quilting to a whole new level! The quilting on this is unbelievable!

Again, I'm a sucker for beautiful applique!

These two quilts (peony and cross) were made by the same quilter. The cross quilt has been hanging in the church where the flute choir ensemble I'm in practices each week. I've been meaning to bring my camera to practice to get a picture of this quilt because it's so striking. I love the stained glass effect she created with the vibrant colors.

Such a cool kaleidoscope quilt.

And, for all of you hexagon lovers out there, I had to throw this one in. The tag said it was made with 2,585 hexagons!

As you can see, the show was totally inspiring. It makes me want to step up my quilting game a bit (or outsource more :)

Again, you can view the rest of the set here.

mini projects

2010-04-09T06:22:00.001-04:00

I will be done with my master's degree next Saturday(!) and I can almost taste the freedom! I've been finishing up little projects here and there lately because that's all that I can handle in my overused brain and overtired body.

Camera Case

I made this a few months ago to fit my new mini camera. I used this tutorial from Sew Mama Sew and made the dimensions a bit smaller for a snug fit. I actually made two cases because I wasn't following directions closely and made it too small. (The octopus print is facing in the right direction on the first case, but not on the final case). My only hint for the pattern is to sew the button on before sewing up the sides - it's a tight fit for a needle if you sew it on last.

Mittens

This is from a basic mitten pattern that I found on ravelry. I've been wanting to work my way up to stranded mittens, so I thought I'd start with a basic pattern first to learn the details of mitten knitting. These ended up a little "off." On one mitten, the hand is too long and the thumb is to short. On the other mitten, the thumb is too long and the hand is too short. They fit well if I make a "C" with my hands, so I'm just going to leave them as is. Here's a link to my ravelry project for more details.

Maverick Star Charity Quilt

My dad recruited me to make a twin sized quilt for teen girls living at Children's Village in Detroit (his coworker is collecting handmade quilts). I made this quilt to donate and I recruited the ladies in the Bee Beautiful VQB to help make a second quilt. We all made Maverick Star blocks for the quilt and then I put the quilt top together and dropped it off at the long armer earlier this week. This is my first quilt being outsourced for quilting, so I can't wait to see how it turns out!

I discovered that my Doll Quilt Swap Quilt was included in a mosaic of solid quilts on Whipup today. It was fun to see my quilt included in such an inspiring mosaic. I spotted Amy's Zen Mini Quilt in there too.

how don't call me becky came to be

2010-04-03T13:00:00.001-04:00

It was a momentous day at the library today because I ran into the person who inspired the name for my blog.

Picture me back in 1990...permed hair, big purple glasses, tight rolled jeans. You get the picture. My family started going to a new optometrist's office and the doctor's assistant, Annie, welcomed me at the start of my appointment.

Annie: Hi Rebekah. Do you go by Becky?
Me: Nope, just Rebekah
Annie: Okay, Becky

She continued to call me Becky throughout the appointment and introduced me to others in the office as Becky.

The following year at the optometrist's office
New receptionist: Hi Rebekah...
Annie: Oh, she goes by Becky
New receptionist: okay Becky, right this way
New receptionist now thinks my name is Becky

and the following year...
Optometrist: Hi Rebekah, do you go by Becky?
Me: No, just Rebekah
Annie: (jumping in) She actually goes by Becky
Optometrist now thinks my name is Becky.
Unfortunately, the optometrist's office was quite large and there were four doctors and countless receptionists and assistants on staff. Annie was very insistent that everyone in the office called me Becky, no matter how hard I tried to assure people that I really did go by Rebekah.

Annie was really sweet and always helped me pick out the cutest glasses and patiently taught me how to put in contacts for the first time, but she never caught on to my correct name. It's been about ten years since I've been to that particular office, so it caught me off guard to see Annie in a different environment at the library.

She's the only person that's ever called me Becky more than once. :)

Diorama

2010-03-26T10:43:00.001-04:00

Here's my latest finished knitting project (and one of a whole slew of purple projects that are in the works). I discovered Berroco Vintage yarn and it's awesome pattern support at my LYS a few weeks ago and bought three skeins to make this vest from Arts & Crafts booklet.

The project came together quickly and was a very satisfying knit. I finished most of this on the train ride to and from Toronto a few weeks ago. The yarn is great to work with and I'll definitely be using it on other projects once I knit down some of my stash.

Here are the pattern details:
Pattern: Diorama from Berroco's Arts & Crafts booklet
Yarn: Berroco Vintage, 3 skeins of Dewberry
Needles: Us 8
Ravelry Link: craftr's Diorama

Toronto

2010-03-19T06:02:00.001-04:00

We spent last weekend in Toronto celebrating our anniversary. Here's some random snippets from the trip

My first taste of beet (and ginger, carrot and other things) juice at urban herbivore. It was so tasty! Then again, I have been on a beet kick all year.
Me: It tastes so earthy
Jon: (trying a sip) Yep, just like eating a handful of dirt

It was so windy on Saturday night when we arrived. Windy as in the turning your umbrella inside out kind of windy. We broke one umbrella within 2 minutes of walking.

It was funny to see all of the broken umbrellas littering the street. (this mosaic would have been funnier if I had taken more pictures of the umbrellas I saw)

This cell phone ad was everywhere.

1. I want a dog
2. I want to knit a hat just like this (reminds me of the wurm pattern)

The Distillery District was so cute. We had fun walking into the different little boutiques and getting chocolate croissants at a cute bakery.

This garden store has me totally itching to start setting up our garden for the summer time. I can't wait!

On Monday afternoon we made the requisite journey up to the top of the CN Tower. We are both mildly afraid of heights, but that doesn't stop us from seeing cities from above...we just have to brace ourselves and firmly plant our feet before looking over the edge. :)

I didn't realize that the circular figure in the bottom row of the mosaic is actually a train turn table. I didn't know those things still existed (kind of like my sister didn't know that R.E.M. is a band)

We spent the rest of the weekend exploring the city, shopping and eating. Thanks for all of your great recommendations!

Here's our favorites:
One of a Kind Pasta - lots of great pasta dishes - the veggie fettucine was delicious

Salad King - excellent Thai food. And excellent eavesdropping opportunities as they sit you next to other patrons at long tables. We sat next to two girls having a major 20 minute fight over whether or not Girl #1 was being defensive or not.
Girl #1: Why would you say I'm defensive. What in the world would make you think that? I don't know what you're talking about! I'm not being defensive!
It was classic!

Big Fat Burrito - yummy burritos with lots of great toppings
Manpuku - lots of great japanese noodle dishes
Good Egg - cute cookbook/gadget store with some craft books thrown in. The store basically had every cookbook on my amazon.com wish list (and more) for me to see in person.
Blue Banana Market - lots of fun stuff to browse
Lettuce Knit - adorable luxury yarn shop with lots of fun yarn from indie dyers
Romni Wools - Insanely huge yarn store. So much yarn it was overwhelming! Jon picked out an Icelandic sweater pattern and Lopi yarn for me to knit a sweater. If we can't make it to Iceland, at least he can wear a sweater and dream of being in Iceland, right?
Things Japanese - cute Japanese boutique close to the University of Toronto
Ten Ren Tea - Jon stocked up on lots of loose tea here
Mountain Equipment Co-op - the Canadian version of REI. Made me want to buy some cross country skis and snow shoes for next winter

We were accosted by the customs officer on our way back into the USA. "Why didn't you go to Chicago for your anniversary?"

Why would we go to Chicago when we could go to Canada and take pictures like these?

I think that answers the question. :)

celebrating...

2010-03-18T12:01:00.001-04:00

...four years together.

We tied the knot in a tiny wedding ceremony at a cute old church near my parents' house four years ago. We've had a great ride together so far and are starting to settle into life together with all its ups and downs. Jon is such a great husband and he puts up with a lot from me and still humors me all the time with his quirky personality. I'm so blessed to have such a great partner in life!

Helleborus Yoke Cardigan

2010-03-16T19:00:00.001-04:00

The Olympic sweater is finally finished!

I ripped out the bottom edging last weekend and reknit it with a larger needle size to eliminate the 80's-esque gathering on the bottom. Then I tackled the collar on Wednesday night and made lots of adjustments to get it to fit my neckline correctly. You can read about my adjustments to the pattern in ravelry if you're interested (craftr's Helleborus Yoke).

I finished up the buttonbands and attached the buttons on Thursday night. The sweater hasn't been blocked yet, but that's not stopping me from wearing it! The cabling pattern is gorgeous and I love the thick and nubbly feeling of the moss stitch throughout the sweater. I was really intrigued with the side to side knitting construction with this pattern and it was fun to try a new construction technique for this.

The Universal Yarn Classic Chunky Tweed yarn was great to work with, but I did find 1 knot in one of the seven balls that I used. It's an acrylic and wool blend that is mostly acrylic, but it has a nice give to it and all of the tweedy chunks give some nice texture to the sweater.

Here are the details:
Pattern: Helleborus Yoke from Knitscene Winter 2010
Yarn: Universal Yarn Classic Chunky Tweed Burgundy, 6.5 balls
Needles: 9 and 10.5
Started February 13 and finished March 11 (with a brief hiatus in between)

Ravelry link: craftr's Helleborus Yoke

PS...yes, these photos are extremely cheesy but they crack Jon up so I'm keeping them :)

Mediterranean Olive Bread

2010-03-13T05:43:00.001-05:00

Here's the recipe for the delicious bread I made last weekend. I love all of the olive, sun-dried tomato and walnut bits in this bread and the olive oil makes it especially tasty.

Mediterranean Olive Bread (from The Joy of Vegan Baking)

Ingredients
3 Tablespoons ground flaxseed (equivalent of 3 eggs)
1/2 cup water
1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon dried rosemary
3/4 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup nondairy milk
1/4 cup olive oil
1/3 cup finely chopped walnuts
1/3 cup chopped pitted kalamata olives
1/3 cup chopped sundried tomatoes

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Grease an 8 or 9-inch loaf pan
3. Whip the flaxseed and water together until thick and creamy
4. Combine the flours, baking powder, rosemary, basil and salt.
5. In a separate bowl combine the flaxseed mixture with milk and olive oil
6. Add the wet mixture to the dry mixture and fold until most of the dry ingredients are moistened
7. Add the walnuts, olives and sundried tomatoes and fold until combined and all of the dry ingredients are moistened. The batter will firm and sticky.
8. Place the batter into the loaf pan and spread evenly.
9. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of the bread comes out clean (40-45 minutes)
10. Let cool for about 5-10 minutes before removing from pan and placing on cooling rack.

afternoon treats

2010-03-11T05:45:00.001-05:00

- Talking to Jon on his way to class

- catching a cat nap

- Discovering a new brand of Peanut butter (and a dairy free recipe for homemade Nutella - thanks Jodi!). I will definitely be trying the Cinnamon Raisin kind next.

- Finishing up another quilt top (in all it's wrinkly goodness) - made using this tutorial

quilting bees

2010-03-09T01:42:00.001-05:00

Here's a few blocks that I've made as part of the Common Threads and Bee Beautiful Quilting Bees. Joining a quilting bee is such a fun way to learn new techniques and try out new ideas on a small scale!

Book Quilt block for Carissa

Modern/Right angle blocks for Angela

Red cross blocks for Jacquie

Modern simple blocks for Nadia

String Block for Rachel