Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!

It's Sunday! Well, the day I'm writing this is Sunday, who knows when you'll be reading this - that's one of the wonders of the blogosphere. It can, in many ways, be like putting the wrong microfilm cassette in the reader and reading from a newspaper twenty years before the time you wanted.

But today, for me, is Sunday, April 18th. I went to the local Lutheran church's Flea Market yesterday with a pile of crap from my house and did rather well. I only stayed five hours (instead of the scheduled eight) because the combination of 45-degree-F temps and 20 mph wind gusts beat me into submission. Even with woolies in my wellies! So I packed up early, dropped my leftover household goods at the local charity shop, went home, turned on electric bed warmer and snuggled up to thaw out.

Half an hour later my beloved tells me that on Sunday (then, tomorrow; now, today) he's going to visit his father - without me! Now, my in-laws and I get along quite well, but I know I can be taxing and occasionally they'd rather have a visit without me.

The ramifications required an immediate trip to the local fabric shop. I mean, a whole day to myself? Score! Little did I know they were having their annual 50% off sale of thread and notions. Little did I know I would get home in time to go back out to fetch my beloved's inhaler from the pharmacy - but that second trip is a small price to pay for a whole day of not having to pay attention to anyone besides the cat.

In addition to a trunkload of thread, I got this:

A three and a half yard jelly roll. Talk about a bag full of possibilities!

I haven't broken into it yet, though. It's only two weeks until the From Scratch Market in Allentown, PA, so I spent the day (well, before my nap) making more Well-Versed Accessories:

Like this mini clutch - just the right size for an iphone (or lipsticks and a compact):

Or this notions folio, made from a sweet little copy of 'A Compendium of Household Hints':


and this shopping list folio, made from a ridiculously pink copy of 'Life According to Maude'


and this sales folio made from a copy of 'Quotable Hollywood' that's already been promised to the brilliant, Ms. Anne:

There's a few others in the works as well - including additional needlecraft cases and research folios. It has been a very good day! (We'll see how I feel about that tomorrow when I realize there's no clean laundry!)

The Well-Versed Purse - new pieces to share

Good Morning, Interwebs! I know it has been awhile, but I've been busy-busy-busy! No, I have not been too busy for you, but, well, life sometimes gets in the way of my life!

In addition to the pieces below, I should have more pieces from the Welcome Home quilt collection to show as soon as the weather clears up and the sun comes out.

For now, enjoy these little lovelies:

New Quilts

I put two new quilts up in the Etsy shop over the weekend and somehow missed putting them up here. My apologies!

They are:

A bright white reversible, featuring random strips of delicate florals. This looks much better in person than I was able to achieve with the digital image:




The first to be posted of my new 'Welcome Home, Little One' collection. I have a few more of this style ready to go and am working on a rowhouse design to come as well.

It never fails that when I hang a quilt on the line, the wind picks up. And, since it is March, I may well be photographing indoors for the next several weeks!

The Welcome Home collection will be at Hyattsville this year.

The Well-Versed Purse on Artfire

I listed another piece from the Well-Versed Purse collection in the Artfire shop today:

Click on over and check it out!

New post in the shop - Last Light

This piece went with me to Hyattsville yesterday, and while it was touched and admired by many, apparently yellow is not one of the hot colours of the season, so it's now up for grabs in my Etsy shop.

Reminder: you can follow my daily works in progress, get my word of the day and the occasional recipe at twitter.com/imatarabu. And if you get on my case, I may get around to setting up that facebook fan page for me, too.

Ilsa - a new rag doll

I have a new rag doll to share - Ilsa.




She is sweet, quiet and humble. I quite like her, with her stumpy little legs and lumpy little ears. Her face is a little disarming, though.

Productive baby steps

I accomplished several small things today. Here's a sampling:

Lillians and Lumpies

Wednesday afternoon I finished a few more Lillians (worry dolls) and a couple of lumpies. One of the Lil's has her head on backwards, so the back of her dress has the great blue highlights that match her eyes. I forgot how much I enjoy making lumpies - they are all stitched freehand, which I enjoy as much as the fascist structure of topstitching.

They'll both be available at the Hyattsville show May 16th. If you must have one now, convo me through my Etsy Shop and I'll make a listing for the ones you'd like.

Finished a Work-In-Progress

In the midst of the stress of preparing for spring/summer shows, I have taken a stab at finishing some of my WIPs/UFOs. The current record for UnFinished Objects is seven years, but it's a huge (okay, twin-size) blanket being crocheted in half-double. The family record is a pieced quilt my great grandmother started long before she died (almost twenty-five years ago) that my mother has worked at quilting off and on for the last twenty years. It was recently agreed that at some point I will be the one to finish it - but who knows when.

In comparison, this piece that I started last fall seems like a mere babe. You would certainly feel like a babe wearing it, too!

It is currently available for sale in my Etsy shop, larger sizes available by custom order.

New Blanket

I'm still relishing the reprieve from the CPSIA enforcement - it means I get a chance to sell my blankets and make some money (so I can turn around and make more for Project Linus!)

Here's a photo of the one I completed today:

Glitter makes me smile.

Finally!

Finished MrsB's bag, that is. I started a week ago, but then the good weather came (which involved laying in the rest of the onion bed, moving the chicken coop, pruning and fertilizing trees, etc.

The size came out a little larger than expected, although I am more than pleased with the result:




The body measures 12" wide, 16" high and 2" deep. The flap closes with a pair of magnets.

The interior is the ridiculously mod 'los novios' print - I adore sugar skulls (not just because they're sweet!) and this fabric tickles my heart. The inside does not feature my usual pen pocket, and I know a slash pocket for a library card would have been appropriate, but every time I tried to lay a pocket over the interior, I just cried at the idea of laying thread lines over that perfect fabric!

The strap is adjustable, up to 6', since Mrs. B is so very, very tall. (Although at 5'4" I think Queen Elizabeth II is tall, but that's probably just because she always wears pumps!)

I am so tickled with the way it turned out, I am going to have to make one for me (come July when I get a break in craft fair season.)

Fred

This is Laid-Off Middle Manager Fred. Most Fred's are, if not excessively honorable and kind, at least generally civil and productive members of society.



This Fred is a total yutz. Because he has an MBA he feels entitled to a six-figure income in any company (screw whether he knows the difference between a widget and a sprocket) and he resents that he a) has not been headhunted with a contract that includes ridiculous options and bonuses and b) was not offered one of the six-month severance packages last summer, but was summarily laid off with two months notice last fall.


He also does not understand that the reason he has not been headhunted or had any hits on his resume on all those job-hunting sites is because he has accomplished nothing since college, except managing to get laid off.


This Fred buys his suits off the rack (which is fine if you bother to get the fit tailored, but that never occurs to him.) He spends most weekends boozing with his fraternity brothers (he's the creepy older guy but, hey, he brings the keg and tap) and will probably never figure out that spending all day Monday regaling various coworkers with his drunken exploits, belching the alphabet in the breakroom or telling bawdy jokes is most of what led to his dismissal.
Do you work with this Fred? I bet, if you work in an office you have worked with at least one. Hell, I used to work in a bookstore and I worked with one.


The Unqualified Middle Manager Fred is approximately 11" tall by 5" wide - He has no mouth, so he won't be able to burden you will tales of his inebriated adventures, and he has no arms so he won't be able to pinch your stapler. He's suitable for sticking pins into.

New Lillian Doll

I love making Lillian Dolls - they are so sweet and floppy. I have a new one up in my shop:

She's got tiny beady eyes (which you can barely see) and a truly adorable psychedelic cows print dress.

There's going to be a new 'Executive' Fred doll coming soon, too!

a new skill for me!

I have to share how tickled I am with my latest acquisition - a darning foot for my sewing machine. An outrageously priced bit of accessory (not that bad, but we keep me on a limited allowance, otherwise the spare bath would be full of books and fabric) that allows me the joy of free-motion quilting.

I have currently only attempted stipple effect (as opposed to patterns and such) and am more than pleased with my success. I only feel bad because if I had known how easy this was, my niece might not have gotten a tied quilt for Christmas!

This is what I made first:

It is really, totally over quilted, since the very dense needled cotton batting will hold it's own with quilting as much as ten inches apart (and I think the farthest I stippled was 1")

My next effort was this:

It is difficult to see the stitching on the face, but it is a much more reasonably spaced, looser stipple. It shows up much better on the back:

So far I have finished three pending blankets with this technique and am at the moment taking a break from a fourth. As soon as they are washed (I have never looked forward to doing the laundry as much as I am today!) I will photograph the finished items and probably put them in my Etsy shop.

Oh, and in my search for advice I found this video from Crazy Mom Quilts - just as helpful were the comments (as I could not get any sound to come up on the video) particularly the one that spoke to the extreme counterintuitiveness of free motion quilting: you slam your foot down on the pedal and make the needle sing, while moving your hands at whatever steady pace you can achieve. Very weird.

Obviously, several of these little darlings will be appearing at my spring Craft Fair in Crofton, MD.

Pirate Purse

A few weeks ago a tummy bug left me in the irresolute position of leaving the television on for nine hours and having the futon occupied for the entire time as well. What does one put on television for nine straight hours? Why, the Disney Company's Pirates of the Carribean trilogy, of course!

I, of course, have a variety of skully fabric, and a book with the lovely title 'The Importance of Being Ernestine' - together they were demanding to come together in a Pirate Purse. Because really, if my name were Ernestine I would probably run away from home, looting and pillaging and taking out my angst on the unsuspecting people of Kingston Bay.

Having said that, I am just tickled with the way this turned out!

The back reads "Damn to the depths whatever muttonhead thought up 'parley'" and "That would be the French"

The inside includes my usual slash pocket, deep pocket, and privacy flap.

Unfortunately, there is a little bit of damage to the cover, so unless you are willing to pay for that, you will just have to wait for me to find another title with silver foil on the spine to make one for sale. (and if you do want to buy the first tarabu pirate purse, even with a little damage, just let me know!)

There is a Gold Dust bag and a spirograph bag in the works, as well, stay tuned!

ME it's all about ME!

I need to be doing substantially more shameless self-promotion, and there are days when I just do not have the energy. I do actually have a variety of things in progress, but I haven't taken pictures of them, so I do not have any half-constructed bits to show you.

So I will shamelessly re-promote some of the items currently residing in my Etsy shop. These include my BagBook from Clive Cussler's Black Wind (which I am particularly fond of!) and some wool earrings reconstructed from a charity shop sweater:



You know, a great way to support the arts is to actually by new creations. hint, hint

ATC Swap! a tropical treat

So I mentioned a very short time ago that StephG at d'arte board is presenting an ATC swap. Having been totally uninspired with all the random things I sketched (including a cartoon pig, a very good thought bubble (leading from nowhere) and a rather dour skull and pair of cutlasses) I put away my pens and pencils and turned to my sewing machine.

This is partly the fault of Erin Wilson, who I met the weekend before last at the ACC in Baltimore and who made pieced quilt blocks of 2" square look so simple. It turns out the back of my head has been doodling with fabric ever since!

The result is this, my first fabric Trading Card:

The front is pieced with orange dots on yellow, two ranks of fuscia hibiscus, two ranks of orange hibiscus on brown that are not shown to full advantage, and the files are green palm fronds.

The back is my favourite macaw print, with a blue and gold macaw taking center stage. I 'signed' it with a chain-stitch 't' in the lower right. I know it looks kind of like the dancing dandelions from the Nutcracker Suite portion of 'Fantasia' but that's because my cursive embroidery is not so hot. It's lined with a medium-weight interfacing to give it some body.

Thanks to this exercise I am now, finally, smitten with piecing and will be making a dozen more!

Huzzah!

Meet Iggy

I'd like you to meet Iggy - he's very sweet, a little shy, and all bloody red teeth. He's not a monster, though, well not the kind that eats people or housepets - he's just really, really fond of red popsicles.

Iggy really needs a home and someone to take care of him. You see, he has no arms, so he can't feed himself, and he has no feet, so he can't stand up. He can't sit up by himself, either, so he needs a comfy couch or chair, or even a bed pillow. He's also very self-conscious about his varicosities - you see his inseam is a blanket stitch and he'd much rather have a blind seam. All the cool dolls have blind seams, he says.

He's 16" tall (not counting his hair), 5" wide and about 3" deep.Iggy's really quite chill - he likes to lay about and lay low; sometimes he likes to let his hair down, sometimes he wears it up.

He mutated from an old sweater, so although he's got new stuffing, he's probably got some old stories to tell. Unfortunately he doesn't have a jawbone or voicebox, so we may never know what they are. That's probably just as well, you don't want your secret life witnessed by someone who might blab.

Look out for future posts of Iggy's adventures - including Iggy's Bad Day and Iggy's train ride adventure.

New Scarf Listings

New items to keep you cozy and warm through the long winter to come:

All these items (and more!) are available in my Etsy shop, and are included in the holiday promotion - that's right every purchase includes a free notemarker bookmark/notepad and the purchase of two or more items is automatically upgraded to Priority Shipping.

New products

It's time for a little shameless self-promotion.


I've added a variety of smaller shawlettes and poncho-style capelets to my shop. They provide warmth and beauty in a small package. The worsted weight capelets (shown below in dark blue twist) are a practical solution to chilly offices - they add a layer of warmth to your shoulder while permitting full movement of the arms.


The fancy capelets offer a practical way to spruce up a plain dress, while keeping you warm and perhaps minimizing trouble spots (triceps flopping, anyone?)


All these items are avilable in my Etsy Shop, and custom orders for larger sizes are welcomed.