Friday/Sunday Felicities!

Felicity #1 - i'm HOME! yay!!!

ohmygoodness, am i glad to be home. the week that i was away was simultaneously the longest week ever and much much too short to get everything accomplished in! this trip was super sudden - i bought my plane ticket on monday, and left on wednesday! my grandma (who i spent almost a month with last winter) got into a care home, which we weren't expecting it for at least another 3-6 months, and it was right in the middle of a super busy time for my mom.

it worked out really well for my grandma though, the time was about right, health wise, she got settled in before winter really started, and it was her first choice location, so she didn't have to go to another town to wait for a space in the town she lives in. and the lady two rooms down from her is that type of goodhearted busybody often found in small towns (she wants to know everything first!), and she's already taken my grandma under her wing and helped her get settled in.

however, it was a super stressful trip for me. my family can be frustrating at the best of times, and this definitely wasn't the best of times! my grandma has gotten a lot more confused, so there was a lot of repeating the same questions over and over, and they were all questions that i couldn't answer, since i hadn't even seen the room at the care home! she obsesses over specific things for weeks on end, and gets herself really anxious about them, and i felt so bad that i couldn't reassure her enough to calm her down. my bachelor uncle came out the day before she moved to help, but wasn't a whole lot of help - you can definitely tell that he's a bachelor!

in addition to his general obliviousness (he's a nice guy, i'm just not sure how he's lived more than 50 years without knowing some stuff!), we also had to deal with things like her last wishes, a DNR order, living will, etc. sad stuff, but at the same time, she's lived a long time, been widowed for more than 20 years and she's at peace with whatever comes next, so it wasn't as sad as it might have been. however, as her son, my uncle had a harder time with it, and he had a lot less understanding of things like the medical repercussions of CPR, palliative care, etc than i'd expected.

add in a lack of internet, three different cell phone chargers before i got my phone to charge (of all the things to forget at home!), a flat tire, not nearly enough time to rest, overweight luggage, etc, etc....

i'm so glad to be home!

Felicity #2 - melmac!

the teaset! i think i paid $3.50 for this set, and i actually had to convince the lady that it was okay to charge me that much! it's actually melmac brand, and it's not in pristine condition, but i don't care, i love that turquoise blue!

i didn't even see the teaset at first, i'd picked up a piece of pyrex, and was busy convincing myself that i didn't need it (why would i need a gravy boat, really? and pyrex is such a hassle to bring home on a plane!), when i looked over and saw these tucked away on the back of the shelf. love!


i also picked up these two mugs and a random saucer/bowl at a different thrift store a few days later. they're three different brands - i'm an equal opportunity melamine lover! the colours aren't as exciting, but they're still a great $.75 addition to my collection. and i love the little lip on the bowl!


these are the three cup styles that i found while i was away, along with one from a set that i already had (the bottom one). i love how they've all got different shapes and different handles!


i'm barely squeaking in under the deadline for this - i'd definitely say that i'm the president of the last-minute club today!

but that's actually Felicity #3 - my siblings. i meant to post this on friday, but i ended up having a long talk with my sister. we live in the same apartment building, but i hardly see her, she's always so busy. i ran into her when i was going to put my laundry in the dryer (because the washing machine on my floor was full of kitty litter - seriously! gross, huh? shared laundry is NOT a felicity!), and she was just getting home, so i went and hung out with her for a bit.

and then i thought i'd post it on saturday, but i had a long phone chat with my brother instead. he's living halfway across the country, getting his master's degree, and we've had so many great chats since he moved away! we talk so much more when he's not around to irritate me in person. ;)


i have a few other felicities, such as TUTORIALS that i'm working on, but i'll save them for next week!

stuff i've been working on....

oh hai.

it's WIP Wednesday. i haven't done one in foreeevvveer!


i haven't been posting much, as you can tell, and i haven't decided if i should post about not posting or not... hm, i'll keep thinking about that. i definitely have a backlog of finished quilts to post! in the meantime, here are pics of projects i've been working on the last few days.


if you know me at all, you must have known that i'd be obsessed with this fabric. i was just waiting for Spool of Thread get it in, and now i want to put typewriters on EVERYTHING I OWN. seriously.



what do you think it is? it's a secret till it's done!



i tried making pincushions today. i was so proud of myself that i actually knew where a glue gun was, but of course, it didn't really work anyway. glue guns never work, honestly. do you use glue guns? eugh. i prefer glue like goop, or silicone sealant, but my goop was all dried up and i have no idea where my silicone is.





when i come across neat mugs, i pick them up to make pincushions out of, and then i never get around to it. they'll be fun door prizes for guild., once i pick up some more glue!





i put some fancy rocks into the bottom of the mug to weigh it down. partly cause that orange one above is rather top heavy, and partly because i find that pincushions have a tendency to slide off the table right when you need them to stay. you could use anything, really, but i found those at the dollar store by my house.





magic!

i put something else at the bottom of the mug, below the rocks. magnets! it's handy when you drop pins, or if you have a hard time picking up tiny things.





i love this mug. isn't it cute? i bought it ages ago and it's been sitting on my counter ever since. my sister tried to tell me that it's an easter mug cause the little girl is collecting eggs, but upon further inspection, i think she's full of crap.





what do you think is in the little girl's basket? i think she's collecting mushrooms, not eggs. the yellow one has a stem! those are mushrooms, right?

a flowery message for the future (iron craft #18)

this week's Iron Craft challenge was "May Flowers".

there were so many possibilities for the theme, i contemplated making a quilt or apron out of flowered fabric, a painted art quilt, flower brooches or hair clips, a button flower bouquet... so many options!

however, this has been a pretty shitty week. on sunday i did my taxes and realized that i had severely underestimated how much i would owe this year, so that was kind of scary (i'm now officially banned from buying any more fabric!). and then monday was election day, which was heartbreaking for intelligent, socially conscious Canadians. (as my mom says "stupid people's votes count just as much as smart people's votes") my little brother has been massively cranky and is being rude to everyone, and today i had a bit of a fight with my sister. on top of all that, i've been feel super crappy for weeks now, and i'm beginning to suspect that what i've been optimistically referring to as a flare up is more likely a new reality, which anyone with chronic pain can tell you sucks royally.


with all of that in mind, i decided that i wanted to make something simple and fun for iron craft this week. i wanted to sit on the couch in front of the knowledge network, watch documentaries all night, and make something pretty.


so this is what i made -



i started with one of the awesome vintage embroidery hoops that i love, the kind that have a rubbery outside ring, and stretched some kelly green linen in it, because i've been obsessed with linen lately.



i ran across these vintage plastic flowers in my jewelery supply stash a few weeks ago, and was thinking that i should use them for something. i had three different bags of them, and i don't remember where all i got them from. i KNOW the biggest bag came from snapcrafty, and there are others on etsy that sell them as well.



i used purple and clear beads to hold the flowers on, and added a few individual beads to pull it all together.



and then i picked a shade of purple embroidery floss that matched the flowers, and embroidered the word "trust", alternating between chain stitch and stem stitch, just for the hell of it. i thought it suited this week specifically - we have to trust that the groundbreaking NDP opposition will be enough to stop Harper and the Tories from ruining Canada anymore than they already have, because if we don't, we'll never get out of bed in the morning. and it suits my life overall, because trust is something i still struggle with a lot of the time, trusting that people will be true, trusting that my health will be manageable, trusting that things happen for a reason. i thought about "faith", but knew it could be misinterpreted as a religious belief, so "trust" it was!


i'm really happy with how it turned out, it's been a long time since i've done a simple project that could be finished in one evening, just for the hell of it.

happy valentine's day!

valentine's day ends in about 15 minutes, but you know, it's the thought that counts. i actually sat down at the computer to write several blog posts hours ago, but between the distracting powers of facebook, a fabulous long chat with a friend, a heart breaking but also heart opening film (which i'll post about tomorrow), and way too many links to be checked out via bloglovin, here i am, half asleep, but determined to post some valentine love before going to bed.


so here are a few vintage valentines from my ephemera collection. if you'd like to see them bigger, or if you'd like to save them yourself, you can click on them to go to flickr. and you are TOTALLY welcome to download them, because it's very very frustrating when people upload vintage ephemera to flickr but don't allow downloading. it's completely illogical, and makes me very cranky. but that's getting off the point. (though if you know WHY people do that, please advise!)

anyway, aren't these freaking cute? i <3 vintage valentines.



and here are a few antique valentines - most of the postcards i have are from 1900-1910, so these ones most likely are too, but i can't actually remember if they were postmarked or not... several of the postcards actually have writing on them, i'll update flickr tomorrow with any info i find on them.

the Easiest-Peasiest Draft Stopper Ever! (with tutorial!)

i have lived in my apartment for over a year now, so for over a year now, i've been thinking that i need to make a draft stopper for my front door. there's a rather large gap below it, and for some reason, the hallway outside my door is really really freaking cold. (other hallways aren't, just mine. there's this darn vent right across from my door....)

i've had a few ideas. i bought a cute pair of stripey leg warmers that i was going to sew together and stuff. i eyed beautiful draft stoppers like the wool tree branch in Betz White's book "Sewing Green".

i had a few requirements for a draft stopper.

number one, it MUST be washable. i live in the land of dustbunnies, thanks to hardwood floors, my cat sofie, and the amount of work that i do with various fibres. that pretty much tossed out lovely wool stoppers, or anything in a light colour!

number two, it had to stay where i put it. sofie LOVES the hallway for some incomprehensible-to-humans reason, and sits at the gap at night. i knew that anything i tried to put down, she'd just pull away. plus, i wanted the door stopper to be in place when i wasn't home as well, so that meant it had to somehow lay against the door, even after i shut it behind me.

a few months ago, i found an awesome vintage towel, and it worked fairly well for the first requirement, but less so for the second. i kept thinking i'd sew it up and stuff it, and maybe add some straps, but i never got around to it.

fast forward to last wednesday, when i discovered the blog "Iron Craft" through a random post on facebook. Iron Craft started out as two friends in different parts of the states challenging each other to create cool things on a regular basis, but this year they've decided to open it up to anyone who wants to participate.



from their FAQ -
"Every Thursday one of us will post a creative challenge to be completed by the following Wednesday. The challenges maybe as specific as a particular pattern or as vague as a theme. They'll cover the gamut of crafting skills: knitting, sewing, quilting and so on. Every Wednesday we'll spotlight the results of the previous Thursday's challenge from our Flickr group."

they've had two challenges so far, challenge #1 was "lighting the winter gloom" and challenge #2 was "staying warm!", which translates to draft stoppers!

(be sure to check out their blog and their flickr pool to see what folks have made for each challenge, it's an amazing variety!)

reading their challenge info totally inspired me to get my butt in gear. i don't know if i'll be able to follow along all year, but i think it will be an interesting thing to attempt! i didn't manage to get my entry completed in time for this challenge, thanks to the need for a zipper (and if you saw my zipper collection, you'd see how ironic that is!) and only discovering the blog around supper time on wednesday, but i'm still super happy with it, so i thought i'd share, even if it is a week late. (today's deadline is a "bunting" themed project, which was the inspiration for my hoopla bunting pillow)


the first thing you need to know is that i LOOOOVE vintage towels. there's a specific kind that i like, and i'm not even sure if people in other countries have them, because 9 out 10 of them have tags that say "made in canada".



they're always two tone, with really fun brocade style prints (or random prints - i have a yellow one with buttons all over it that's my pride and joy!), and i've been collecting them for years. you occasionally see newer versions, but they're always cheap and thin. the ones i love are thick and lush and are pure cotton with none of that satin-finish crap, they actually DRY your hands and hair.

i have them scattered around the house, blue in my kitchen, purple in my bathroom for a bathmat, and pink toned ones in my old bathroom at my parent's house. i occasionally find ones that don't match anywhere, and i buy them anyway, because i have plans to one day make a big picnic/beach blanket out of them.


(note the kitchen towel with the vintage jantzen ad - it says "lure him... away from the poolboy!" how homoerotic is that? i love it! the 50s were so weird.)

so when i decided to use one of my cherished kitschy towels for my draft stopper, i really didn't want to cut it up at all.

my original thought was to make a tube and stuff it, and i thought about ways of sewing it with the excess on the inside, so that i could always take it apart later and use it as an actual towel if i wanted. and then i started thinking about washing it. stuffing take forever to dry, and after awhile it starts to get lumpy, which is no fun at all. what if i didn't stuff it at all?

and then the easiest-peasiest draft stopper was born! no stuffing, minimal sewing, and easy washing!

you'll need:

tools:
- pins
- matching thread
- sewing machine

supplies
- a towel, preferably one that's about 36" long, which is a standard for doors (handy, that!) if your door or window is wider, you'll want a bigger towel, or two to sew together
- a separating zipper the length of your towel, but if you can't find that, it's okay if it's a bit shorter. mine was 30", and it was fine.
- a piece of waistband width elastic, either to match your towel or your door, depending on how concerned you are with what your neighbours think! ;)


step one:
measure your towel and your door
if you need to sew two towels together, or shorten one, do it now. don't forget to finish the ends and seam allowances, cause toweling totally frays.



step two:
cut a piece of elastic the width of your door, minus about 10-15" (in my case, 36"-10" = 26") if your elastic is super duper stretchy, you may want to cut yours shorter, but mine's a pretty standard waistband elastic, with minimal stretch. if you're being especially perceptive, you'll be thinking "but amy, your elastic doesn't look like it's 10" shorter than your towel..." and you'd totally be right! the photos are all taken with a longer piece of elastic, because it wasn't until it was done that i realized i needed to shorten the elastic. i went back and unpicked one end and took about 12" off, and i still could have cut it a bit shorter.



step 3:
zigzag the ends of your elastic to keep it from fraying, which is kind of a pain. it's usually easiest if you start in the centre of the edge and backstitch, rather than trying to start at the corner.



step 4:
sew the end of your elastic to one end of your towel. you want the elastic to go along the long side, NOT the short side of the towel! making sure that you haven't twisted the elastic, sew the other end to the other side of the towel.





step 5:
lay your towel down and start rolling it up, starting with the edge that has the elastic sewn on it



step 6:
when you've rolled the towel into a tube, pin the edge to the roll



step 7:
now go along and pin the towel just beside the edge, to mark where it meets



step 8:
unroll the towel, and you'll see your line of pins



step 9:
now take your separating zipper and sew it along the line of pins, with the teeth facing the elastic side of the towel



step 10:
take the other half of your separating zipper and sew it to the long side of your towel that doesn't have elastic sewn onto it, with the teeth facing out. you want to sew this zipper face down on the opposite side of towel that the other zipper was sewn on.



this is confusing to explain, but very easy to do! basically, you're going to end up with your two pieces of zipper facing opposite directions.



step 11:
roll your towel up again, like in step 5. once it's fully rolled, do up the zipper.



step 12:
slip the elastic around your door, and put your draft stopper in place.



ta-da! draft stopper!

and to wash, just slide it off the door and unzip it. you can toss it in with your regular towels, and it'll wash and dry just like a regular towel, making it super easy to clean!


cool, huh?


this is seriously the quickest, simplest draft stopper ever. it's taken me at least 4 times as long to edit photos and write it out than it did to make it, even with my seampicking (oops!) and photographing every step. if i had a second door, i'd make another one to time it, but i don't, so just trust me when i say it's super quick, kay?

quilt-a-long progress...

i'm puttering away at the quilt-a-long project, working on it in snippets as i feel up to it, and i'm actually doing pretty good, considering how crappy i've been feeling!

i finished sewing and pressing all of the blocks, like i mentioned in my last post, and then i had to think about how i was going to lay them out.

i don't have a design wall, or room to put one up, and while i know lots of people use their floor, there's no way my back would've handled that this week! i decided to try laying it out on a smaller scale....

i took the pattern drawing of the quilt top, and played around with it in photoshop. i'd divided my blocks up by the main colour, and had piles of white, pink, green, blue and purple. i counted how many i had of each, and then coloured in that many blocks on the pattern drawing. i had some blocks that were stripes, and i wanted to make sure that i kept them right side up, so i added the little stars on those to keep myself organized.



then i took the pattern drawing and played around with it a bit more. i decided to go with the idea suggested in the flickr group and alternate every second block, and i wanted my diagram to indicate that, again so that i could remember to keep the stripes going the right direction.



i printed out both pages, and used my paper rotary cutter to cut out the coloured blocks. i played around with them, arranging them on top of the pattern diagram.



once i was happy with my layout, i transferred my decisions onto the blank diagram.



THEN i laid the blocks out on the floor! i knew i was going to have to at some point, but as it was, i did one or two rows at a time, taking breaks in between. i followed the colour order i'd decided up with the paper, and tried to mix up the fabrics and shades.



because it was laid out on the floor, it was hard to get a good view of it from a distance. i took some pictures of it, and used a filter (palette knife) in photoshop to make the designs less noticeable, so that i could focus entirely on how the colours looked together.



i decided there was a bit too much pale blue in the middle, and switched a few blue blocks around to spread it out more.

once i had the order i wanted, i labeled them all with masking tape. i could have just piled them up in rows and labeled the top block, but i wanted to be able to chain piece them, working on all the rows at once.


and then i stitched the rows up, pressed them, then stitched the rows together, again, a little bit at a time. i pinned the rows carefully, so that my seams would meet up, and actually basted a few stitches at each intersection, to be sure that it was right before i sewed it with my 1.8 stitch.

and the top was done! huraay!!



this is a kinda crappy photo, but it's the best that i can do for now. i don't have much free space in my apartment to take pictures! the seams definitely won't be as noticeable, when the top is laid against batting instead of a dark green fortrel curtain!



after all that, i can't decide if i like it or not. i think i'll probably end up liking it once it's all finished, but now i'm kind of feeling blegh about it. we'll see!

Quilt-A-Long!

in other quilty news....

i jumped into Fat Quarterly's Quilt-A-Long!



i've been working on so much stuff that's required planning and thought and MATH lately that i was super into the idea of a project that had instructions and would be simple to do, and when i ran across it, i instantly wanted to join in. i started late, but i'm almost caught up!

the first blog post talks about what materials you'll need, the second post a week later gives you cutting instructions, in the third post they gave the assembly instructions, and yesterday's post was the top assembly.

i've spent a bit too much on fabric lately, so i didn't want to go buy more, but i really wanted to use fabrics that fit together, ya know? the idea was to use a jell roll or fat quarters, but none of the quilt stores near me sell jelly rolls, and since i was already late i didn't have time for shipping anyway. and i didn't feel like my fat quarters were cohesive enough.

someone at the guild meeting on thursday showed a piece they were working on using vintage sheets, and a lightbulb went off in my head! of course! i have TONS of vintage sheets, because i've been collecting them for a few years now (i even joined a swap of vintage sheet fat quarters last year!). i keep planning on making quilts with them, but never seem to think of them when i'm starting a new project. though they're different colour schemes, most of them are fairly similar in style, perfect for this quilt!

so i off i went to my parent's house, where the majority of my fabric is stored, and i went through my sheets and pillowcases. this quilt uses so little of each fabric, really, and since i have about 2 rubbermaids full, i had lots of variety! i skipped goldy yellow/green/brown toned sheets, and any that had super flower powery bold prints, and still ended up with a great selection.

this is where i was at yesterday afternoon -

my 39 finished blocks


and the remaining 41


by the time i went to bed last night, i'd finished sewing the last 41 blocks, but they still need to be pressed. (that's tonight's job) then i'll need to plot out which ones will go where, and start sewing the rows! some folks in the fat quarterly flickr group are talking about rotating every second block, to reduce bulk at the joins, and i think i like that idea... we'll see!

crochet, yarn + vintage fabric = perfect flowers

another little project i did in the past few months were these festive little flower brooches for a friend's birthday.

i'd been looking for an excuse to make more covered buttons (i <3 covered buttons so much), and while i was trying to decide how to finish these, buttons seemed like the perfect idea.

the flowers are crocheted, and were actually crocheted ages ago. i have a bag full of flowers that i never did anything with - they were just something to keep my hands busy in front of the tv before i started doing so much needlework.



i went through my stash of vintage fabric pieces, mostly stuff i've gathered lately, and pulled out pieces that matched the colours of the flowers i had. i chose the brown shades because they suit the recipient so well, but there are other brighter flowers too - as you can tell by the different fabrics i used!





i stitched the buttons onto the centre of the flowers, and then stitch a pinbacking onto the back. i could've glued them, i know, but that kinda feels like cheating!