Don't Look Now!

Don't Look Now! is doing a giveaway. Here's what's up for grabs....

Beautiful isn't it?

There's also a few patterns up for grabs, too!

Want to enter in her giveaway? Click here for entry details. It ends on September 2nd.

Can you believe it?

I know... it's hard to believe, but it's true. I've been blogging for one year today!

I think I've come a long way in that last year. I definitely have learned a lot about blogging and the entire crafty community that blogging offers. I've discovered an entire world that I didn't know existed.

I had no idea about swaps and give-a-ways! Why didn't I start this sooner?

So, thank you to all of my readers for introducing me to this really neat community. Thanks for reading my stuff. Hopefully, I've been at least slightly entertaining and you'll keep coming back for many years to come.

Franklin

I'm totally over summer. Completely ready to just skip over it and get on with fall. (I'd really like to skip to Christmas, but that seems a bit extreme.)

So, to kick off my fall, I made Franklin. Franklin is a Thanksgiving Turkey who will probably sit on my dining room table if the Thanksgiving season ever catches up with me.

I made Franklin from McCall's Pattern 5492.


He started like this:


And turned into this:



I keep wanting to call him Harrison. Should I change his name? Jason and I decided he looked like a Franklin, but for some reason I can't get that in my head and keep calling him Harrison. Maybe I should stop naming objects. Do you think?

I forgot to add the link...

to the website I used to make the postcard in today's earlier blog. I changed the way I constructed it a bit, so I'll try to put together a tutorial sometime in the future.

The site I found the instructions for the postcard is craftstylish.com.

Enjoy!

Fabric Postcard

This is what I made from one of the scraps I received from Sheree.



It's a fabric postcard. It was super easy to make. Maybe I'll post a tutorial on it soon.

Sheree's Scraps

Sheree's scraps arrived a few days ago.





Pure awesomeness! Thanks, Sheree!

Check back tomorrow to see what I made with one of the scraps I received.

Row Robin - Alphabet Row

This is the second row I had to work on for this round of the Row Robin Swap.

It is for Sudi-Laura. Her two-year old son loves letters and numbers and this quilt will be for him.

The first row got lost somewhere along the way, so our group has moved forward without it. Valerie did the row for F-J. Mine is the row K-P

I tried to choose a fabric that had something to either 1: do with the letter it was creating or 2: had an image of something that started with the letter in it.

"K" is for Kites.

"L" is for Lettuce Green.

"M" is for Motorized Martians.

"N" is for Numbers.

"O" is for Ocean. Initially I had chosen this fabric because I thought it had an octopus to find out that, oops! That's a squid!

"P" is for Puppies.

Row Robin Swap - Stashbuster Row

So, even with a few twists in the initial plot, the row robin swap I joined several months ago continues.

This last round of the swap I had two sets of rows to work on. The first was a row for Darlene. She chose to have a "Stashbuster" quilt made in the swap.


Her initial row was lost in the mail, so we continued without it. I believe the first row was done by Sudi-Laura. The one in the middle is the one I made. The one on the right is the one Valerie made.

Darlene, I hope you enjoy the row I did for you. I think the colors help to pull the two rows that went before me together.

Studio Decorating

Jason and I had the remainder of the week off (we don't go back to work until Monday after our vacation), so we've spent time puttering around the studio, seeing movies, and taking care of things we've been putting off the last few months. How is it already the late/mid August?

Well.... Jason has had a shelf on his side of the studio most of the time we've lived in this apartment. We finally broke down and got one for my side, too. Here's a few photos of what I've chosen to display on my new shelf.


In college I took a printmaking class. These three prints are all my own work. They are the three I've chosen to hang on my side of the studio.

"Little Dipper" is a linoleum reduction print of my great Uncle Larry's pleasure boat, The Little Dipper. It's probably the print of my own that I enjoy the most.

"To the Natives" is the first print I ever did. I had just been to British Columbia the summer before and had fallen in love with the indigenous art there. I did this print in that style and each of the animals depicted has a story about my dad.

When we were at Uncle Larry's (who lives in British Columbia), my dad spotted an eagle. His camera wasn't loaded or was out of film (I don't recall exactly why), so he quickly used his teeth to rip open the film canister. In the process of opening that canister, he broke off a tooth.

There is a raccoon in the top right corner.
When I was a little girl, we went camping. On one of these camping trips, we had a raccoon incident. Somebody (go up two paragraphs if you've forgotten who these stories are about) forgot to roll up the window in the car. That same somebody woke up that night to hear raccoons playing in the car. They had climbed into the through the window and proceeded to eat everything that was left inside.

In the middle of the print is an otter and a fish. When I was seven, our family vacation was a trip to Yellowstone National Park. We stayed in the Madison campground near the river. My dad was trying out fly-fishing on this trip, so being close to the river was good for this new hobby.

One morning, he got up and was heading down to the river to fish. He was so excited when he saw "trout" leaping out of the water. Thinking to himself, "Wow! This is going to be some great fishing this morning" (or something like that) he hurried down to the water to cast. It wasn't until he got closer that he realized, those aren't trout (the fish depicted in the print), those are otters!

"Untitled" is a zinc plate. There's not much of a story behind this one. I really wanted to do a fairy print and this happened to be it.

Grand Lake, Colorado

Grand Lake is a really cute little town in Colorado.

We explored this little town. I would totally recommend stopping in for a visit.

We stayed in this adorable cabin.

It wasn't very big, but it was very cozy and very well designed.

I love the kitchen. Aren't faucets coming out of the wall brilliant? No dirt or grime or miscellaneous coffee stuck underneath the faucet from when the coffee pot didn't get pushed all the way in and it spit it's coffee all over the counter.

And the knife block on the wall. Why didn't I think of that one?

The living room was small and cozy. I wish it had been cold enough to turn on the fireplace. I love fireplaces.

The bed was so comfy! I totally came up with the shutter headboard idea after we bought our new bed at home. I decided it wouldn't work for us here because of the window and the height of our bed. Instead we have the electrical tape tree headboard. Maybe someday I'll make a shutter headboard.

They used these old beat-up chairs as night stands. I thought it was a pretty cute idea.

The bathroom was small but functional. Secret: The skirt under the sink is just a tablecloth on a dowel.

This is the link for the cabin Jason and I stayed in. It's currently for sale ($260,000 for this cabin and the other one it's shown with on the link. Aspen Grove Cottage is adorable!

It's up!

Singer has posted the tutorial I made for the sewing machine cover I entered in the Sewing with Nature contest last spring. Click here to check it out!



It's such a weird thing to make something and have people like it. Yes, my family is going to like anything I make (more or less), but to have a company who's been in the sewing industry since 1850 use one of my projects on their site is totally cool! It's a weird realization to have people who don't know me like my stuff.

Click here if you're interested in seeing the photo pool of the other entries into the contest.

Cabin Quilts & Stitches

Cabin Quilts & Stitches is a really cute quilt shop on the Grand Avenue in Grand Lake, Colorado. It's a two story building stuffed with all sorts of fun things.

Here's a few photos I snapped of the displays and other things in the shop.

Enjoy!

This is the check-out counter. Isn't it neat how they put all those old notions in the little display cases?

There was a mezzanine where this fabric was.

Across from the mezzanine with the merchandise was this other mezzanine. It was filled with this display. Do you see the old ironing board? Do you remember the similar one I got for $5 at the Goodwill?

They had a great collection of Christmas stuff. This was one of the displays I liked.

I love these little 2x wood block sayings. I actually just stole some wood from my dad this past weekend to make my own.