May
19
There is a shelf in our garage with all of these unglazed pots on it.
My favorite is the bird house. It’s the third one I’ve made, and I learned a bit about designing them after a momma bird built her nest in one of the others. For example, that little perch would have been really helpful to her… as it was she had to land on our clothesline (yes! we are that low tech!) and then sort of hop-fly into the opening. Precarious at best when you’re carrying a big fat bug in your mouth for your obnoxiously chirping babies.
I’m not nuts about the canisters, but they are pretty well balanced and probably actually useful (as opposed to some of the wonkier ones I’ve made). I love the bowl, and there is a tiny bud vase that isn’t shown in these pictures that I also love.
They’ve been sitting there for years just waiting for me to finish them. Actually, there were lots more, but I decided to only keep the best ones with the hope that someday I will either start taking classes again (in all my voluminous spare time), or I will drive my butt all. the. way. down. to the clay store and buy some glaze. Then I’d only have to find a place to fire them.
On the other hand, they’re really pretty where they are, and I really like seeing them whenever I walk into the house. A little bit of beauty in an otherwise totally and completely trashed out garage*.
*Ok, maybe it’s not really that bad.
May
18
Wordless Wednesday
Filed Under Parenting, Sewing | 2 Comments
May
16
My First Quilt
Filed Under Quilting, Remembering, Sewing | 1 Comment
Yeah, you read that correctly. This is the first quilt I ever started. Eleven years ago. ELEVEN. That’s more years than Alexis has been alive. It’s mind boggling.
So anyway, I got my first sewing machine for Christmas in 1999. That was a really big year. First real job out of college, getting married, buying a first house, and then the sewing machine. I mean, a really great year… but I digress… again.
Honestly, I was really embarrassed when I opened that box and saw the machine. I guess I thought everyone (my family for pete’s sake!) would think I was a great big wanna-be. Which I was. Of course, no one even thought twice about it. I was really excited to get the thing home… A White ‘Jeans Machine’. Not a really high quality machine, but heck… Chris didn’t even know if I would actually use it… Boy did he not have anything to worry about.
I started sewing with a few tiny projects. I think the first thing I ever “made” was a tiny little pincushion using one of these fabrics, but true to my style it wasn’t long before I decided to take on a (much) larger project. This quilt is queen sized! I was trying to knock off a pottery barn quilt, but I’d say I didn’t really succeed this time. Obviously I wasn’t great at putting fabrics together back then and I didn’t have a stash at all. So what’s a girl to do on a whim? Just start cutting apparently.
So it’s not gorgeous. Hell, it’s not even pretty. Pretty ugly maybe.
I started quilting it in straight lines along either side of the seams. I had no idea what I was doing, so I would lay the quilt on the floor and cut these enormous lengths of thread and start stitching from the center out in big fat stitches (I knew enough to start in the center at least!)
Even back then I wasn’t really that fond of this thing… so it would get put away for weeks or months on end because it just seemed like too much trouble to finish. At some point in the last six years it surfaced again… Probably when I redid my sewing room the last time. That’s when I decided I would never finish this thing if I had to continue with that awful quilting. So I started picking. And picking. And picking those stitches out. I’m still not done with the picking… but I started with the quilting again… this time with a much neater, tinier stitch, and in freehand stars that you can see below. (please ignore the orange chalk lines!) It is more interesting, but still a bit overwhelming.
Remember when I said it was queen sized? Well, it was… but it had this awful white border that just looked cheap to me. So I cut it off before I started picking stitches out… Now the quilt is probably the perfect size for a picnic quilt… not that I ever go on picnics.
She lives on the back of my sewing chair in the loft. Every so often I pick her up and add a few more stars… At one point last spring when I was nesting, I probably got another 1/4 quilted. I was so determined to finish all my UFOs before the baby arrived… ha ha.
Ugly as it is, I think I’ll finish it… some day. I’ll probably even love it when it’s done… but only because I’ll know just how much time and effort has been put into it. How many places it’s traveled with me. And how many things we’ve been through together. Yeah… there I go getting all mushy again.
So… does anyone else out there have an ancient UFO that you just can’t seem to part with? Please share!
May
12
Blogging 101
Filed Under Nothing, Writing | Leave a Comment
Yesterday’s Wordless Wednesday was my 100th blog post (for this blog anyway). But since it was, well… wordless I didn’t mention it. For post 101 I’ll share a few things I have learned about blogging since my first post.
1. Posting anything controversial will get a eleventy billion hits and comments… and most of them aren’t nice. But it will also get your blog the #1 spot on google for those search terms.
2. Creating a tutorial that seems to be missing from the intertubes also earns eleventy billion hits and a #1 spot. Even if the pictures do suck.
3. Posting any pictures of your kids will results in pervy search terms leading to your blog.
4. Putting google ads on your blog will make you a jillionaire… in about 40 million years.
5. Eye candy + sarcasm = a winning combo.
6. Almost any topic you can think of can lead to side stories about your childhood.
7. Ranting blog posts are therapeutic, but you better know your audience… and hope your boss doesn’t read your blog.
8. Ironically, writing about failure to write has resulted in some really long posts.
9. Re-reading old posts can make you cringe, but it might also make you smile.
May
11
Wordless Wednesday
Filed Under Crying, Laughing, Parenting | 3 Comments
