today's oops moment, and baby gifts!

whew! things are just the slightest bit ridiculous for me at the moment, so please excuse my lack of posting! i'm start a graduated return to work schedule in two days, i'm in the process of moving, and a million other things are going on as well. life gets so complicated sometimes!

i've been in a spraypainting mode the last few days, which is so difficult for me that it's pretty much ALL i've been able to do. but i bought a stool for my kitchen at the thrift store, to sit on while i'm cooking, and it was a very dirty white, so now it's a bright green and i had a bunch of shelves that i want to put up together in the new place, so now they're all bright pink, and my blue scratched filing cabinet won't be hidden in a closet anymore, so it's on it's way to being a glosay black.

i haven't been crafting much, since i'm trying to sort and organize and pack and find things (i KNOW i used to own a can opener!), but i have several needlework pieces that i've finished recently that i want to frame and post. i found incredibly ugly gold frames, but with really awesome shapes, and since i'm already spraypainting, i thought i'd paint them fun colours and they'd be perfect.

i painted them yesterday (i even primed them first! i NEVER prime!) and they turned out awesome! they are so perfect! one's bright pink, one's bright green, and the other in a turquoisey pale blue.



this morning i decided to mount the embroidery pieces..... and they didn't fit! the frames said right on them that they were 8"x10", but i never ACTUALLY measured....

the inside of the frames is only 8" x 6.25"! of course my 8x10 pieces don't fit! i'm so disappointed, i was so excited to get these pieces framed.

let this be a lesson to you, ALWAYS doublecheck the actual open part of the frame!



in other news, i know, i know, i'm so far behind with posting. i have some charity crocheting, the gelatin prints, some awesome mail, the amazing present a friend made me, so much to post! in the interest of trying to get even the slightest bit caught up, i'm going to post the oldest first, and try to get caught up soon!

as i'm mentioned before, the mod girls over on craftster have started having kids in the past year or so. it's been a influx!

the most recent addition to the mod babies was chase, who was born at the beginning of the summer. for each of the mod babies, i've sent hand embroidered bibs, and chase was no exception. i had 4 or 5 bibs embroidered, just waiting to be sewn up... but when i went to make the bibs, they were gone! i searched EVERYWHERE, and they were nowhere to be found. i had one bib that i was still embroidering that i finished up and made, just to be able to send A bib, but i felt bad! (i didn't find the rest of them until last week, they were in a bag in my studio, of course)




i thought it was awfully cute, and now i just need to get moving on finishing the rest!

(the pattern is sublime stitching, and it's all chainstitch, except the backstitch used for the "reflection" on the rocket window)

luckily, i had more to send than just the one lonely bib!

i made him a quilt! i actually made two quilts with the same fabric, and gave one to my mom for a friend of hers, so there are two in the pictures below. the backs are both solid blue flannelette, and they're both tied with red embroidery floss.

i fell in love with the robot flannelette, and went searching for other colours to match. i kind of wish i'd sewn it with some of the striped squares going vertical, just to add a bit more movement to the quilts, but i still think they turned out cute!





by the time i finished the two quilts out the same fabric, i felt like they'd taken FOREVER, but i had a super pretty purple floral flannelette that i want to use, that i thought would be perfect for anne marie, so i made another! (anne marie was born in february, and i posted before with the embroidered bibs i sent her)

i found pink gingham flannelette and pink polka dots, and used them along with the purple i already had. i did an actual pattern with this one, one of my absolute favourites ever, a rail fence quilt, and i'm much happier with the movement in it. the backing is the same purple, and it's tied with pink embroidery floss.








(hemi felt the need to help!)

recent ATCs

i had the most wonderful day today. i got together with a very dear friend and we played. it had been quite a while since i'd seen her or her partner, and even longer since we'd had an art day, and it was so so good. we played around with gelatin monoprints, and talked art and queer politics and everything in between, and she showed me the various steps she took in making her wedding thank you cards (mine arrived while i was away - i'll definitely be posting it soon, it's so amazing!). we had a little show and tell, and oohed and awed over the amazing pieces i received in last year's chunky pages swap and tip in page swap.

i want to experiment a bit more with the gelatin prints before i post pictures, because today i mostly just started on the base layer of what i'd like to do. i was inspired by an article in the most recent issue of quilting arts magazine, and did a bunch of research online, and our results weren't quite as we expected, though still pretty damn fabulous!

however, in the meantime, i wanted to post the first ATCs i've made in months and months! on wednesday evening i went to the ATC trade group at the richmond art gallery. it was only my second time there and i hadn't made any more cards since i went in may, so i was busy for a few days before, working on some ATCs to take.

i'm feeling very scattered right now, and my supplies are all roaming about the house, so i basically sat myself down and told myself that i was ONLY allowed to use the stuff that was on the table. i pulled out ink pads and some stamps to go along with it, and got to work. i'm quite happy with them.


bluebirds

vintage sheet music, strip of pink tickets, strip of page from a vintage medical book, and blue birds scanned from a vintage card

snip

asian language paper with a blender marker transfer, stazon ink applied through punchinella and part of an invoice ticket.

music/language

stazon ink applied with a netting mask onto vintage sheet music, small pieces of the asian language paper tinted with stazon, pink coupon and vintage silver leaf

admit one

vintage sheet music with an overlay of a left over german/russian dictionary page, punchinella stamped invoice ticket, purple triangles inspired by the fabulous phizzychick, pink coupon

oedipus

the background for this one is from a very old medical book, the paper is extremely fragile until it's glued onto a sturdier surface. the particular page used is talking about the oedipus complex, so i chose postage stamps with a "father" type figure and a "daughter". it's over stamped with two different designs, in green and in blue stazon. vintage silver foil leaf in the centre, and a blue resister glued on using glossy accents.

constitution

the background is a dictionary page, punched out invoice tags, british postage stamp, a scrap of patterened paper, and vintage hole protector thingies (they have a very cool texture in person, they're fabricy!), finished off with blue ink

family strength

transparency image of my great grandmother overlaid on sheet music, b&w film strip along the edge, vintage dictionary snippet, and stazon detailing.

obsolete

vintage photo found on my most recent trip, scanned and printed out. sheet music and asian language page, vintage silver foil leaf, and an office supply stamp "obsolete"

royal command

sheet music stamped with red stazon polka dots, british stamps, cigar band, and vintage pharmacy label

queen 997

stazon inked over netting mask onto a page from a vintage german children's book, triangles cut from canada post labels, punchinella mask stamped invoice tag, and a british stamp

contempt and contemplation

dictionary page stamped with green flower design,asian language page cut with a fiskars scalloped punch and stamped with stazon, then the small praying hands cabachon was glued on with glossy accents. small bits of yellow paper, and part of a vintage card with sewing snaps.

15 cents

vintage sheet music, a vintage ticket, green strip and triangles cut from canada post mailing labels, and a stamp with a neat design.


what do you think? i was quite happy with them.

the group was fairly small, but it was fun. mostly people i hadn't met yet, and a neat mix of styles for trading. i had more cards than there were people at the meeting, so despite trading for 2 cards with a few people, i still have some left for next time. i'll slowly be building up my stock!

Attn VANCOUVER CRAFTERS!

i was invited to vend at this event, but my life is way too stressful at the moment to add to it, unfortunately!

it would've been fun though, and it's so inexpensive that i'm sure it'll totally be worth your time (you know, unlike the expensive craft fairs where you barely make back the fee!). my fabulous friend pinky pam sells at her school's student union on a weekly basis and does super duper well. remember, student loans are on their way! ;)

even though i can't go, i said i'd pass the info along, and hopefully someone (or someones) else out there will check it out! as far as i know, they are still accepting vendors.


The Capilano Students' Union annual Harvest Moon Festival
20 vendors, three bands, and a bbq

Sept. 10th, 2009
2055 Purcell Way,
North Vancouver B.C.
In the Maple Field behind the students union bldg.
It will be a sort of inspired by under the volcano type of event, and they hope to make it annual. they're only charging $10 for a 60 cm by 150 cm table, which is so super awesome!

if you're interested, you can contact Sarah Silvester at ssilvest@capilanou.ca or at 604-983-7561

and pass the info on, if you know anyone else who might be interested!

i am home!! home home home!

obviously, i'm home. i've actually been home for a week now, slowly trying to get caught up on things.

it's lovely to be back with my mom, my sofie-bean, my own bed, friends and high speed internet, but it was good to be on the prairies as well. the trip was a bit ridiculous with family, and went by really fast, but i managed to spend a bit of time with a few friends, and find some time to myself as well.

i spent a few gorgeous days up at our cabin, with no extended family present, which is super rare! i picked 3/4s of a gallon of wild saskatoons and froze them, and spent an evening sitting around a campfire talking union gossip, and took lots of pictures, though not nearly as many as i'd wanted, and went o way too many thrift stores. i spent lots of time driving, breathing in the landscape.

i don't have the words to explain how i feel about the prairies. everything i try to say sounds incredibly cheesy, but oh, how i love it. i look at the sky and feel like i'm breathing it in, it sustains me. the sky is so incredible out there. and the colours are so gorgeous, the light on canola fields at dusk...

i took a bunch of TTV (through the viewfinder) photos, which i hadn't played around with much since last year. i finally got around to building a better way of connecting the two cameras and cutting out light (using scotch tape and a toilet paper tube!), and the pictures i took after that turned out much better. there are a lot of them, so i'm posting them pretty small, but if you click on them, you'll be able to see them better on flickr.


i love grain elevators! i wish i'd taken this one later in the trip, so that it would have turned out better!



this church is a heritage building now, though apparently my great grandparents were married there.




these ones were taken at the Old Church Pottery and Gift Shop up near our cabin. i stopped in there and couldn't resist buying a few pieces of pottery!









the fountain in minnedosa, mb


barn near the road to our cabin.

a small ukrainian catholic graveyard kinda out in the middle of nowhere






this graveyard had a lot of stones with crosses attached, which i've never run across before.







hopefully i can catch up on more posts soon!