Monday, August 28, 2006
a Quickie
Welcome to "As Luck Would Have It."
It's another example of what I'm going to be teaching in my Fabric Collage Class. Angela is taking it. Any other takers? I'm getting ready to write the supply list. It's going to be a great class! I working on getting some projects ready to take to Missouri with me next week on vacation. I'm spending my vacation with my ma and pa out in the country. I'll be sure to send along some loverly pics of the girlhood home.
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Quilts on Parade
My mama came down from ole' Missouri to see me, and to see the quilts at the American Quilt Society Expo in Nashville. And it was a great time. Ma brought my cuz Lynn with her, who, incidentally looks more like my mom than me, and was a virgin Nashville visitor, so we really took the tour around town. Opryland Hotel, Mafiaoza's, the aRThOUSE, the Bluebird Cafe, and Radnor Lake. I love showing new people the city. I see different things everytime. Maybe I'll post a "This you gotta see" list sometime.
The quilt show yielded some lovely purchases. Among them this quilt frame for only $75!!! That saved me and ma about $15,925. It's like a long arm frame but for the average machine, so NO BASTING!! My fingers are saying thank you right now. I mean, literally, my hands are saying "thank you" because I'm typing those words. Get it? Anyway. We both wanted a long arm, and I think this will help me, er, we in our common goal to take over the quilty quilt world. And she doesn't know it yet, but my little Bernina, Wanda, will love it! No more stuffing her throat to within an inch of her life, and still trying to move a quilt "freely".
Oh, and I bought the most fabulous Japanese patchwork book. I'll take some photos and post it soon. It's mostly in--well--Japanese, but that's okay. Who reads destructions, anyway? Not this girl. No sir. I'd rather spend my precious little crafty time making a little camera pouch with quilted accents just to realize that the very last corner is poking out in a most un-appealing way. There are some hilarious "english" interpretations. I equat it to how we sometimes throw around or stitch a French word or Chinese character, thinking it's tres`chic. But this book says things like "It's easy to use, being so cute." I don't know why, but that is totally cracking me up.
On another note, everyone...I mean EVERYONE....must go see Little Miss Sunshine. Jason and I were laughing/crying for a SOLID 10 minutes at one stretch. I can't say enough about it. Go see it. Right now!! Rilly!
Labels: sharing
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Flexing some rusty skills
In a former life, I ran a tiny but relatively successful business out of my teenage bedroom in my parents' house. (My dad to this day thought all I did up there was talk on the phone and paint my nails.) Ok, so I did that too, but mostly I made lovely little brightly colored things out of polymer clay. I made "canes" in any image that struck my fancy, then sliced them up and made beads, covered glass bottles, and made lots and lots of jewelry. I sold all these things in a little gallery in Columbia, Missouri called Poppy. A wonderul boutique. And still lovely even today.
There was something so strange about doing all the same movements that I used to do all those years ago. The rolling, the squaring up of the clay. I repeated those movements so many times. Muscle memory is a real thing. I read about it in the Creative Habit (on my "books" to the right >> Isn't there something you haven't done in years and years? I'm thinking of making a friendship bracelet. I had another little business making them for friends in the 4th grade. Almost got in big trouble for that one. Let's just say there may have been some investor fraud going on. Ooohh, that Tressa. I'm still mad that she made me go to the principal's office for the first time in my life. And I was such a do-gooder! I still remember my mom saying "Now don't let it get in the way of your school work." Sheesh! I was in 4th-freaking-grade!! How serious must one be? If you can't focus on a friendship bracelet business then, then when, I ask you? I was a pro at the knotting, too.
I've often wondered how my designs would be different if, after a college education and almost 10 years (ack!) exactly what I would do differently. I would hope to at least have better design and taste in color. Who knows.
So I decided to try it out again and here are the results. Not too bad. I'm not sure what I'm gonna do with them. I may make some beads to embellish a quilt. We'll see.
Gonna go make a friendship bracelet. Well, maybe tomorrow.
Labels: handmade, try, try again
Sunday, August 20, 2006
Inspiration..
Listen up, people! i've got a new digital camera, and I know how to use it! I'm going to be taking much more lovely pics from now on. Here is an example.
Doesn't everyone just love zinnias? They're abundant and easy to grow. I'll have to incorporate them into a painting, quilt, something. 
I'm between projects right now. I should say I'm betweens inspirations right now. I guess I could work on those darn quilt blocks for my ole' round robin quilt. Actually, I did hand-piece my very first block yesterday.Jason and I took a little detour to Crossville, Tennesse to visit his lovely grandmother. Also a quilter, I must add. So we chatted around her kitchen table for most of the day, which I adore. Most people's real life and their history is much more interesting than anything you could read. And she's got some great insight into the lives of those around her. Enough gushing!
Here's a pic of myself & Jason today at the the local greasy spoon. It's on Hermitage Ave., near downtown. I swear I moved to the south for the biscuits!! One of those open 10pm to 1pm place. Delectable. Definitely greasy, but with a 98 health score rating!! Very important!
Labels: obsessions, sharing
Thursday, August 17, 2006
If it's stinky and slinky, it's probably double-knit
Ah, man! I just wrote this message, only to be a total dunce and exit out of it. Now i have to re-write oh well. Call it a 2nd draft.
My boss recently gifted me with a literal carload of fabric from a neighbors' garage sale. What a great gift!! But then I had to go through all the boxes. And man, were there some "beauts" as my cousin Kim would say. (Hey, Kimmie!! Hey!!) I'm pretty sure that this woman had a late 80's teal and peach wedding. You know the kind. I found large amounts of teal tulle and peach faux silk/satin. Any takers? Halloween is just around the corner!
On the other hand, I found lots of lovely cotton lawns, cotton solids, and calicos and maybe feedsacks? from the late 70's. And i mean lots. And I'm designating 3 trash bags full of misc. fabric for a yard sale. Maybe we could have a huge fabric sway here in Nashville? I know we've all got fabric out there we'd like to free ourselves from.
My fav by far of the lot is the art-nouveau of the woman. also the pepsi and 7-up prints. But look at the 3rd pic! Seriously good stuff!
I'm working on tinkering with the site. Have a really hard time chooseing colors, header, etc. Please bear with me and check back ofter--pretty soon I'll have something tasteful and semi-permanent. At least until i change my mind. Again.
Labels: obsessions
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Site construction
I'm working on this site, so bear with me! I just can't stand all the html. It will one day be a thing of beauty, promise!
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Glad tidings
Okay, soes if you didn't know, it was my birthday Saturday. Thank you, thank you, I did have a very happy birthday. A lot of mama's cooking and my boyfriend and sister making me laugh hysterically. Not too many family dinners are kicked off with a sisterly fight over an "inside" (less crust) roll which caused a youngest sister to clank the other sister's teeth with a steak knife in an fit-of-rage-attempt to gain back the disputed roll. Anyway, i digress. This here quilt was made over the weekend. It goes along with my Fabric Collage Class that I'm teaching next month at the the aRThOUSE.
It's about 18"x 14" I'm undecided about name for now. And i have another one almost done--more pics soon. Golly, i thought I wouldn't have anything to write, and now I just don't have enough time to write it. I guess I'll just have to clean house a little less....mmmm. yes. less cleaning.
Too. Tired. Must sleep.
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
News! of the Exciting type!!
I had a meeting yesterday with the aRThOUSE Nashville, it's on 12th Avenue, and I'm going to be on the fall roster to teach some classes. I love to teach, and since I (not so) secretly am trying to recruit a quilting group for those under 80 years old, it's great news! I'll keep it posted on here the exact classes, etc. once they are officially on the aRThOUSE's website. I do know that I'm teaching 2 workshops--Fabric Collage and Fabric Printing--like what's in the pic above. And later in the fall, I'll be teaching a beginning quiltmaking class. Hooray! Keep checking up here, and on the aRThOUSE's website, for class info. They're super nice people there, and have a great gallery, as well.
Labels: handmade, sharing, try again, who I am
Monday, August 07, 2006
Mmmm...
So I'm going to go a little vintage. I mean the bridge-playing, doily using type, not the worn-edges pink and brown vintage.
Here is my favorite recipe for drinks. And it doesn't even involve liquor (although, a little old lady, er, birdie, told me it might be delicious with a tiny hint of Malibu. Just don't tell everyone down at Wednesday Night Supper Club at the 4th Baptist Church)
Pineapple Banana Slushie Punch
Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups sugar (or Splenda)
1 12oz. frozen orange juice
1 large can Pineapple-grapefruit juice (good luck at finding this. I used Pineapple-Mango juice which was really tasty)
1 1/2 Quarts water
4 bananas
Directions: Mash bananas in blender. Blend in and mix all ingredients. Freeze for at least 8 hours. (although, you can cheat, because it's good not all the way frozen, too.) To serve, you can either freeze them in an aluminum cupcake cup with a maraschino cherry on top and eat them with forks, or my preferred method--Serve in a highball glass with a little lemon-lime soda poured on top. Or champagne...or malibu...or more pineapple juice, or sparkling grape juice....... This is my Mama Jane's recipe, and I've been enjoying it since I was little, or in my case, just smaller than my current 6' height!!
Enjoy!
Oh, yeah, and here's a teaser for my appliqued garden quilt. I finished quilting it this weekend on my machine. I'm pretty proud of my first large-scale machine quilting effort. I'll shoot more pics and talk about it more when it's bound and I have some better day-time pics of the whole quilt.
Thanks for stopping by!
Labels: a little something, who I am
Thursday, August 03, 2006
New Design Board!
My teeny little studio (at least I have a studio, I know, I know) was crying out for a design wall. Something that I could use to put up little parts of projects and step farther away than the length of my own two arms to get a grip on whatever tedious process it was desperately in need of. This process is how I got into making 18 more blocks...yes, that's DOUBLE the original number of blocks...for my RRound Robin quilt Thanks, Kim. Ugg. Oh well. She and Lauren helped me make a couple of more blocks as part of a labor trade.
So anyway, the design wall is cotton batting tacked to my wall. And on the other wall, I've used some big ole hooks bolted in the ceiling that are supposed to be used to hang a bike from your garage ceiling. I'm so clever! Unfortunately, it was actually my dad's idea. Unfortunate because he thinks he's sooooo smart. It would have been better if he had just done it for me. Anyway, so I took dowel rods and ran them into the sleeves of the quilts, leaving their original dowels in there also, and voile` I have a great way to hang my quilts out of the way, all organized and not bunched up in a closet. "Parade!" I mean "Hooray"! My sister babysat a little girl who had the two words mixed up. But they both sort of carry the same feeling, no? Anyway. I'm making myself late for work....ta-ta!