Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Wedding invitation reveal!
Now that my sister's wedding is just a couple of weeks away, I think it's safe to post her invitations here.
I have to say that this is my favorite and most hi-quality bit of letterpress printing that I've done yet. For some reason the blue inks just go down like a dream.
She opted to do a map/info/rsvp card without having the mail-in card.
And to give credit where it's due, this is the way the design process went: Allison and her fiance found this invitation online by Wiley Valentine (via Style Me Pretty) that they liked.
This design that I did is definitely not the same, but I drew inspiration from Wiley Valentine, and it's only fair to mention it.
So I purchased some clipart books from Dover (Do you know about Dover? Awesome!!) and went about trying to adjust the design and find an appropriate bit of clipart for the borders so that I wouldn't be copying their design. I hand drew some options, but in the end, what you see here is what the bride and groom chose.
I have to say that I would NOT feel comfortable selling this design to an outside client, because I feel like it's too similar to the "inspiration" invitations. But it's my sister, and I wanted to do something that she was happy about.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Wedding, Birthday and the In-Laws
This has been a marathon 2 weeks for travel, family, and friends. And with a crazy weekend on the horizon for next week, I'm trying to catch up during the week.
Saturday was my cousin's Laurie's lovely wedding.
Sunday was Jason's 29th Birthday. His mom and aunt came a long way to help celebrate with him. Check out that vest! They took him clothes shopping while I went to the wedding.
We rounded out the evening by playing a lot of Wii-this is Mario Cart. Lots of laughs were had! I wish they lived so much closer!
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Back from Corn College
I've had a crazy couple of weeks, but I'm back and hope to be posting some of my escapades here. They including me driving a very big tractor. Now tell me that's not a good time. And I shot lots o' photos of corn and farmy stuff. Fun!
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Last Days of QuiltFest '09
Ah, another QuiltFest come and gone. A lot of sewing happened in those 5 short days. A lot of sewing and a lot of eating. And an ocean of laughing. Oh, how I love these ladies! I'm thinking that I'm not doing a great job of explaining the goodness that happens here, but I hope that the photos show what I can't put into words.
Here is Erin on her victory lap. Last year she did the entire top to this quilt, and this year she quilted and bound it. She is a very focused crafter. I never even saw her on the dock sunning and swimming. This was my vacation for the year, so I took time to relax a little.
An antique quilt I saw on the home tour and loved the color combos.
A new project I'm starting against my better judgment. I'm pretty excited, but don't know when I'll quilt again now that I am home and near my letterpress. I'm trying to get a design wall up in my studio ASAP. I love to sew strips! not really, but I love the outcome and love to play with the fabrics.
Kim's AMAZING Cinco De Mayo quilt. I think it is her major life work of quilting.
Before we left for the annual banquet, Kim hooked us up with fake tattoos that read "Born to Quilt"on them. Even Gran joined in!
Saturday was Lauren's 21st birthday, so at Midnight on Friday we had a champagne toast with Kim and Allison.
Allison made 4 aprons while we were there. It was her first quiltfest and it was a success!
Elaine tried to steal Jessica's round robin blocks right off the wall!
Finally, I have the wedding log cabin quilt sandwiched with batting and the guestbook squares and ready to quilt. Whenever I get time. Like in 2012.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Quiltfest Day 3 in photos
We're pouring one out for our Germany homey Jessica. We miss you!
We went to the farmer's market in Johnson City on Wednesday morning.
Here is Kim's newest project. I'm so jealous because it looks so beautiful, and I NEVER would have picked out those colors. It's just amazing. It's true art.
Wednesday I had the lunch assignment. I made this delicious tomato salad from Better Homes & Gardens' website. YUM. 
We exchanged this year's Round Robin blocks! We cut the center blocks out of fabric we liked/had and passed 2 out to each person. We all did 2 block of the same pattern (Aunt Dinah) for each person in fabrics from our stash.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Quiltfest Day 2: in Photos
Show and tell!
Allison's Indian dinner
Elaine's Steak Salad with Bleu Cheese.
I'm finally sewing together all of my wedding guest book blocks.
Finally I'm printing more states!
These are the prints I got knocked out right before I left for quiltfest!
This is just the first round--the wording and outlines comes next.
Labels: printing
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
It's that time again!
I am writing this so late at night from QuiltFest 2009 in Johnson City, Tennessee. (Here's last year's post) We woke up at 4:30 in St. Louis and after a 10 hour drive, a quick dip in the lake, I've been sewing blocks together for 4 hours. We're all here for the whole week this year! What a rare treat. We went straight to the quilt store this afternoon.
I'm too tired to really get a cohesive string of thoughts together right now. The good news is that I have internet access and will try to be posting this week along the way.
The view from dinner on Aunt Susie's deck.
Gran reads up on the Snapfish book that Elaine made of last year's quiltfest memories.
Homemade blackberry ice cream. Mmmm. I best be doing some more swimming and kayaking every day. If anyone knows of any great hiking trails around here (Johnson City, TN) please leave a comment!
Thursday, July 09, 2009
My favorite photo of the year--so far
On Tuesday I went to a Field Day--not the kind with hurtle running and other fun events, but the kind where a bunch of farm equipment dealers drive around in their big ole tractors and make hay bales. It's a veritable baler pageant. I would make more fun of them, but honestly, most of those guys were darn good looking in a strapping farm boy way.
So this is my favorite photo from the shoot and probably from the whole year. Get it? It's a hay bale that looks like a field, or sort of like one of my quilts.
I also took photos of hay rakes, the insides of balers, wind rows (the rows of raked hay) tractors, square balers, round balers, and lots of pressed steel for textures. I have to go out and gather images that we're going to need at the magazine for the next year, 'cause in December in Missouri, it's pretty hard to come by a green hay field.
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Don't cook this at home
Last Spring I went to Sevilla Spain to visit my sister and we indulged in many churros--sugary loops of fried dough dipped in dark chocolate goodness.
We went to a Sevillian grocery store where I bought this mix--it even came with the pastry bag!
It was pretty entertaining to try to figure out the directions in Spanish. I just added agua until it seemed like the right consistency to pipe through the pastry bag.
Sadly, it was not at all tasty. Not worth the effort, and it ended up in the trash. I'm keeping the pastry bag, though. I might make my own mix sometime.