things (and pouches) that i love

hi you guys!

have you had a good weekend? i know you americans still have one more day - i've gotten so many e-mails about memorial day sales! i'm not even opening them now, cause i read one on friday and ended up buying fabric, mere hours after i told myself that i was going to take a break from buying new fabric and actually start using my stash!

in my defense, how often do you find gothy quilt cottons? i HAD to buy Tula Pink's new line, Nightshade! and now i'm DEFINITELY on a fabric buying break.



in other news, i'm very excited about an upcoming swap! the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild (and a few friends, cause the numbers were off) are doing a group swap with the Portland Modern Quilt Guild, and it's going to be AWESOME!

we're swapping pouches, which are an excellent opportunity for fanciness! they're little, so they're perfect for techniques that you wouldn't want to do any entire quilt out of, like english paper piecing, or to showcase more detailed techniques, like hand embroidery or intricate paperpiecing.

active flickr users will be familiar with the multitude of pouch swaps that have been organized, such as the Pretty {little} Pouch Swap, which has had 4 rounds, and the Mouthy Stitches Swap. even non-pouch-specific swaps have included some gorgeous pouches, such as the For The Love of Solids Swap. needless to say, there is a TON of gorgeous pouch inspiration out there!

the guidelines of our swap are pretty flexible. we're to make a pouch that's somewhere between 4"x4" and 8"x8", and it has to have a closure of some sort. that's it!

in addition to the basic guidelines, it was also recommended that we make a mosaic of pouches that we like and post them to the guild flickr group, in order to give our partners some inspiration.

as demonstrated for the Trim the Tree Swap i did last fall, i tend to get carried away with mosaic making!

i think i did pretty well though. i made three mosaics in total, with just one mosaic of pouches.



it's kind of a a big mosaic, but hey, i fit them all in! (for further notes/details/credits, click on the photo and go see the picture on flickr!)


my other two mosaics were about my style in general, and they were really fun to do. i do have a page of info for swapping, written back in the days of craftster swaps, but really, mosaics are more interesting!


one of the mosaics was all about fabric patterns and prints that i love.



everytime i look at this mosaic, it makes me happy, which i think means it's a pretty accurate portrayal of patterns that i love. i realized after i made it that i should've added a brocade print of some sort, like vintage wallpaper, but oh well. everything else is there!


the other mosaic is of things that i love, and it was prompted by the obvious patterns in my flickr favourites. there are, of course, things that i love that i don't really care about the imagery of, like grape flavoured candy, memory foam, or the television show NCIS... they're not in the mosaic! this mosaic is things that i love that i ALSO enjoy the imagery of!



woodgrain! especially awesomely coloured woodgrain!
chevrons! and typewriters!
crows, ravens, magpies, and red-winged blackbirds.
glasses AND paperpiecing. (i really love the imagery of glasses. i have a pillow on my couch that says "glasses are sexy!" glasses are totally hot!)
vintage buttons!

virgin mary, lady of guadalupe, etc.
neon signs!
pyrex, fire king, JAJ, milk glass, etc. (i love all of them, but i particularly love those particular mugs, they always reminds me of the flinstones!)
typewriter again!!
cuckoo clock! (i am so excited that they're so popular and on everything, i've loved them for so long!)

mail! envelopes and stamps and postal love.
more pyrex!
sacred hearts, modern and traditional.
more typewriters!
and boler campers! (that's what in the blank spot, cause that pic didn't work)

anatomical hearts!
birch and poplar trees. so lovely.
more glasses imagery!
wooden grain elevators. love so much.
vintage typewriters! and mid-century illustration styles!

chandeliers, especially bright coloured or black ones.
doilies, in their natural state and dyed
tuxedo kitties like my sofie-bean!!
elna grasshopper! vintage sewing machines!!
and another mid-century illustration! on a stamp! with an owl!!



i love so many things. what do you love?

i'm stressed. just a bit. and babbling.

it's 6:20 in the morning, and i'm wide awake. i know WEIRD, right? i am so not a morning person.


however, since i've been lying in bed for hours stressing out, i decided i might as well get up. i'm leaving on a trip in oh, about 48 hours, and i am so far from being prepared that it's frightening. i'm not worried about clothes, i'll throw them all in my suitcase at the last minute, and inevitably i'll have to do a walmart run for something i've forgotten, or because my socks aren't warm enough, but i do know that i have a winter coat out there, so if the -3 projected turns into -30 (as it did one trip in march! brr!) i'll be covered. if it sticks with -3, i'll be boiling my head off, as the aforementioned vintage coat is wool with fur lining. yes, wool AND fur. there's a reason why it's never come out to the coast to live! but really, -3 is hoodie weather out there anyway, because it's a DRY COLD. people from the coast have no idea what we're talking about when we say that because they're so accustomed to the damp cold that soaks into their bones and doesn't let up until june, but really, wet and dry colds are very different.

anyway. wow, i'm rambly this morning. i'd edit, but i'm kind of amused by it.

(it's okay that i tell the internet that i'm going away, because someone will be house sitting the whole time, and besides, sofie is a ferocious guard cat, didn't you know? ha! she'll be hiding in the closet, i'm sure. however, the house sitting part is true, even if the guard cat part isn't)


back on point! i'm not worried about clothing, but i AM worried about projects. i don't know what to take! i don't know how much time i'll have to work on things, it might be very little time, or it might be a ton of time, depending on how much time i'll be sitting in my grandma's hospital room bored senseless. though i suppose i won't be as bored as she is, since she's already been there for a month and has 2 more weeks to go. i feel like i should bring multiple projects, but that means prepping multiple projects, which requires time. i have a couple of never ending projects that are somewhat prepped, but there are more urgent things on my to-do list. and i have to bring the supplies for christmas ornaments for the Trim the Tree Swap on flickr, but they require a sewing machine, so they're not as portable as handwork.

i've also been thinking about a mini quilt that i'd like to work on that will incorporate embroidery, but it also requires that i find my copy of Word Play Quilts, and i have no flipping idea where that is.


plus, there's always the "do i really want to explain this project to family members?" issue, which is why i won't be stitching the bloggess sampler while i'm there!

or the personal letters project. or the feminism project that i'd been planning. or the imagery from the Collective Tarot that i've been dying to stitch. or Andrea Zuill's fat lady. thankfully, the Louis Riel portrait is finished, because that one SO wouldn't have been family appropriate!


jeez, my family's a pain in the ass when it comes to picking embroidery projects. at this rate i might be making hexies for two weeks straight.


but anyway, i've rambled long enough that i can get dressed and go to the grocery store now, so i'll stop. however, everyone knows that a post without a picture is pretty much the most boring thing ever, so here you go.



this is my inspiration mosaic for the Trim the Tree Handmade Ornament Swap. i'm not going to tell you how long it took me to narrow all of my "favourites" down to those. trust me, you don't want to know. but aren't they fun? i can't decide what my absolute favourite is, but i have to tell you HOW FREAKING EXCITED i was to find that holiday themed typewriter advertisement. that's bloody cool, even though it's for an electric typewriter. maybe i'll find a new typewriter while thrifting on this trip!?! that would be awesome, since the typewriter luck wasn't with me this summer. let's hope that the pyrex/fire king luck isn't as good this time though, cause it's a bitch to bring home on the plane.

(other mosaics i made before narrowing it down to this one? Christmas Birds, Tiny Trees 1, Tiny Trees 2, Christmas Critters, Festive Folks, Blue Snow, Multi-Coloured Snow, Felty Goodness, and More Felty Goodness.
i also made mosaics of colour schemes that i use for christmas decorating: black, silver and red (for the gothy tree), a purple palette (for the bathroom), wintery blues, and of course, pink and aqua (for everywhere else!). and i made a mosaic of my own trees, cause the pics were buried in my photo stream. i made a lot of mosaics.)



hey! i just looked at the weather network and snow is only forecast 2 days of the 12 days that i'll be gone! that's no fair! does that it mean it's not worth the suitcase space to bring my fancy new winter boots? damn. last year i decided to suck it up and be a grown up and buy a pair of real winter boots - no platforms, no fake fur, no high heels, practical, warm, winter boots that will probably last me my entire life if i don't lose them first and won't kill my back to wear. since i usually wear my crocs slingbacks with thick socks as long as the snow isn't too deep, the winter boots are a definite step up. maybe i'll compromise and bring hightops.




(also, i JUST figured out how to do spellcheck on blogger! jeez, that was easy! i always write my posts in the "html" setting, because i'm so used to writing my own code, but if you write it in the "compose" setting, there are so many options available! my goodness. maybe i should start getting up at 5am more often!)