Hide your disappointment for my dog's sake.

Because today I present... the owl bag!

In a photo essay, narrated by Winston.


I can't believe she's making such a big deal out of this bag.


I mean, so it has an owl on it--who cares? It's not even comfortable to sit on!


Mother says I have to mention the three owls on the other side and the long strap for wearing shoulder-to-hip across the body.


For this you kept everyone in suspense for a week?


My mother is so embarrassing sometimes.

And so it grows...

(or, "Wishful Thinking")

We recently had some landscaping done in our backyard. What was once just ivy is now a terraced little yard, and what was once a deck that belonged to a monstrous 1980s party hot tub is now refinished and furnished with barbecue supplies.

Because of this, and also because of books like Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and The Omnivore's Dilemma, I have taken a keen interest in trying to grow some plants. Some edible, some not.

I have a history of killing plants. Or, more euphemistically, not keeping them alive. So I decided that maybe growing things from scratch would give me more of a sense of involvement and responsibility. I bought some seeds and planted bell peppers and oregano in a couple of little pots. Two bell pepper seeds sprouted, but the oregon was silent. So one day, when I was bored, I took a few garlic cloves that had sprouted in the kitchen and stuck them in the oregano pot. Naturally, four days later, hundreds of little oreganos sprouted out of the soil.

Last weekend, I transplanted some things and planted some new things, and now we're playing the waiting game.

I was right about being more invested, too. I water those little buggers every day.

Here's a tour of how things look right now.



This is my shade garden, at the side of the house where the hammock (a $15 cloth number, criminally comfortable) is... mostly shady, especially later in summer as the sun goes off behind the trees. This is all new planting. The tall guy at the back will be a fern; so will the terra cotta round pot. The two in the foreground should be begonias. No, will be! Will be begonias. Positive thinking.



This is a place under the overhang of the downstairs balcony where I dropped some of the oregano sprouts. I can't believe that so many of those seeds sprouted at once. Talk about an embarrassment of riches, and poor planning. I stuck this ball of dirt here as an afterthought, hoping it might decide to fill in the awkward area between the ivy and the little curb. That big green thing is new; it's not oregano. I don't know what it is. I am also trying to grow a leather strap, apparently.



These are my sunny plants. In the back are Peruvian Daffodil and asparagus; then some garlic (thriving! go figure), mint, and oregano (assuming they pull through); the rectangle is my bell peppers, although I'm losing hope because they've been that size for weeks now; and in front is another Peruvian Daffodil.

The front daffodil pot is notable because something has dug through it, and I'm not even sure the bulb is still in there. Apparently skunks will root around in pots and eat bulbs. This makes me exceedingly sad, but I don't know how to check without potentially destroying it, so I'm just going to keep watering it and then maybe eventually plant some basil or something.

So that's the excitement in my life. It's amazing how much more fun this stuff is when you're a grown-up than when your parents force you to do it as a child.

I'll provide updates occasionally, and if anything exciting happens. Cross your fingers, and we may have a full-blown leather strap plant before long!

Oh, and the big news, thanks to this post by Jemima Bean is that we have a peach tree! I saw the photo of the flowers and asked her what they were, because we had some. She replied that they were peaches, and sure enough when we looked more closely at the tree, there were fuzzy baby peaches on it! Hundreds of them, actually.

The guy we bought the house from knew there was a peach tree but never remembered it bearing any fruit (probably because it used to be so shady in the yard). But now... peaches! Peaches! Peaches! We pruned the tree ruthlessly, as apparently is the way to maximize peaches, and now we are just waiting... waiting... waiting...

"Say SNEEZE!"

There's a piece of Southern California urban wisdom that says, if you had hay fever when you lived on the East coast, you won't have it here. If you were fine back east, invest in tissues because, brother, you're in for it. This correctly assumes that everyone in LA moved here from somewhere else.

Well, I never had seasonal allergies when I lived in Florida, and I guess you can figure out where that leaves me. A few weeks ago, I noticed that Winston seemed to be snoring more emphatically, and it wasn't more than a day or two before I started to completely fall apart. If left unmedicated, I turn into a sneezing, red-eyed, pathetic-voiced mess.

(And my sneezes are exhausting, because they always require an explanation. I sneeze quietly, like a cat, so people have to ask me if I've sneezed or what, and by the time I start to answer, I sneeze approximately eighteen more times in quick succession. At which point the person is so entranced by my alarming display that they forget what they were asking about. It's like the grand finale at the fireworks show. I still surprise my husband, nearly every time, with how many times I can sneeze in a row. He'll say, "Bless you!" the first time and then just sit there, watching, and saying, "Geez," every few sneezes.)

I don't think it helps that the giant oaks in our backyard are so pollenated right now that they look fuzzy. Plus, the house is on a hill, so the fuzzy tops of those trees are basically nose-level when you're in the house. And we love leaving the windows open (the better to allow the pollen to infiltrate) and sitting on the balcony. And we walk up the hill and shortcut through our newly be-staired backyard, which means huffing and puffing right underneath the oaks. And I drive home with my windows and sunroof open, because even though I'm not an outdoorsy type, Santa Monica in the late afternoon is just too pleasant to box myself in from. (--"in from which to box myself"?)

So let's be clear: I'm not taking any precautions. I'm just popping allergy pills (the non-drowsy kind) and hoping things get better before I accidentally blow my ears out.

How does this tie into publication? Well, seeing how all the fun stuff is happening with laying out the book and designing the cover and all, I needed to take an author photo for the inside jacketflap. (It goes next to the bio.) So even though I swore up and down a year ago that I'd lose those pesky *cough* few pounds before taking the photo, it was time, and I had to go for it.

If you're still wondering how this ties together, let me simply say: the world will now know me as a girl with one squinty eye and one normal eye. Because for some reason, my allergies settled in my right eye and wouldn't let go yesterday. (My right eye is always slightly squintier (just about everyone has asymmetrical eyes), but not to this extent.)

HOLD THE PRESSES: That's my LEFT eye that's all squinty! My right eye looks normal. I am so confused right now. Apparently I just AM that squinty... which is cool, right? Because perfection is boring and squintishness is awesome. Even though natural selection would condemn me for my asymmetry, my friends will just find it quirky... right? Right? Right?

So that totally negates the whole point of the post. Don't tell anyone who hasn't read this far. Anyhoo, here's the picture we chose:


Photo credit: Mike Clark

Cheerio! Happy sneezing!

Ultimate nerd confession bonanza!!! + a little rambling.

(Winston photos dedicated to Tom; please note that they do not reflect the tone or content of the preceding and successive paragraphs.)



First of all, I lied a little, inadvertantly. I did finish the draft yesterday, but then this morning I went back and re-finished it. I figured it doesn't break the two-week wait rule for revisions because it was the end. It turns out Tom was right, and less leprechauns needed to be squashed than I'd previously believed.



I ended up adding a thousand words, but seriously, don't ask me how. But now, it's done. For real. For real real.



The party last night was cool. The young woman being feted was turning 24, and being around a bunch of 24-year-olds reminds me how easy it is to feel old. Like, "when the timer runs out and the kitchen light goes out, everybody scream! AAAAHHHH!" I am young enough yet to appreciate the high-spiritedness that prompts this behavior, but too old to actually join in the screaming.



I ended up leaving rather early, mother-in-law in tow, which worked out nicely. Although it's so windy here! I hate this kind of wind. It feels spiteful. And Winston spent the night at daycare, because I had no idea I'd be such a party wuss. So I missed him. Apparently I am a pack animal.



Happily, the giant tree next to our bed didn't crash into the roof (it never does!) and the pieces of destroyed hot tub in the backyard did not fly through our neighbors' living room windows, so that's cool.



The husb had told someone I was late coming to the party because I'd finished another book, and the very kind recipient of this information congratulated me heartily, which made me feel like I was cheating. It kind of feels like I've finished clearing the rubble at a construction site. "Congratulations! You did it!" It's kind of like, well, I made this mess, I had to clean it up eventually.



But I do appreciate the sentiment, for sure.



Now I shall confess my ultimate nerd-dom, and for anyone who wonders what it takes to make someone complete a whole novel, I say: make yourself a chart.

What? A chart? Yes, a chart. Preferably with some graphs and some mathematical functions.

Be ready. Put on your pocket protectors.

Here is my chart.

Column A is the date.
Column B is total word count.
Column C is the number of words I wrote on any given day (Excel does the math for me)
Column D is the average number of words written at any point, based on the final daily average word count, which can be found at the top of Column C

The first graph reflects both actual words written and the average slope of words written (column D), and I still don't totally understand that violet line, but the husb wanted to see it. And I am nothing if not accommodating. The second graph is words by day.

Let me tell you, nothing will motivate you to write more words more effectively than seeing that your word count for the day looks like a ranch house next to a bunch of skyscrapers.

Okay, I'm feeling a little loopy, so I'm going to go now.

My day got better...

...when I saw this:


moar funny pictures

Like, seriously. Come on. This works on so many levels. Well, two.

Happy Friday! I'm pleased to report that I'm still burning through Project X!

From the sewing room...

Crafty time! I started this quilt in June and finished it in the twilight of 2007. It's for a baby boy... It came together kind of freestyle, because I'd wanted to do something with weaving stripes... but weaving ended up being a little out of the range of my ambition, when the time came, and I decided to continue the diagonal checkerboard.



Here's a closer look (that backing is the checkerboard dog/cat fabric, but I don't have a photo posted):



Hope everyone is having a great Friday!

Making, making, making... (kind of)

I have quilt pictures to post, but I have to mail the quilt off first. I don't think the recipient reads this blog, but just in case, I'll wait a few days.

In the meantime, we didn't get our family Christmas card out this year, but the night after that big photo shoot, we did a little one with Winston for our annual Winston Alender Calendar. And of course, the calendar made it out the door while the Christmas cards fester in iPhoto.

Here's a link to the photos, if you're interested in checking them out.

Dog show and book are really pressing down on me lately, but both of those should be lifted by week's end... Hope everyone is happy and healthy in the new year!

Fun book find & Halloween

At the thrift store adjacent to my office (which got a monster donation of sewing patterns and magazines the other day, properly culled through immediately by yours truly), I found a 1983 book called "I Haven't a Thing to Wear!" by Judith Keith (her quotation marks, not mine).



I got it because there were illustrations (and because paperbacks are 35 cents), but it's actually a very good, timeless book of advice. Apparently Ms. Keith, beginning in the 1950s, traveled all over giving presentations to women about how to dress and how to build a classic wardrobe. There's a section discussing body types and what silhouettes work and don't work, a little bit of color theory, and just a lot of all-around advice.

You could probably find a used copy if you looked.

And yesterday, of course, was Halloween! With the work schedule, I've hardly had time for sewing, but I did manage to put together coordinating Halloween outfits for myself (Sew U skirt, Built By Wendy) and Winston (McCalls 4686).


Sorry I haven't been blogging much... who knew work was so much WORK?

Cloth napkins: the sordid truth.

No, just kidding. I just thought "Cloth napkins" by itself was kind of a boring name for a post.

A few months ago, I decided that I was tired of wasting paper towels. When we ate at the table, we'd grab one each, just to kind of have, and 90% of the time, it would go into the recycle bin with maybe a smudgy fingerprint on it. We use the kind that are cut into smaller sizes, so you can get a half a paper towel, but it still felt wasteful.

So next time I was at the fabric store, I found two gingham remnants (with different size checks, though you can't see it in the photo) and brought them home. Gradually, I sewed them all into cloth napkins, which I then stuck in a napkin holder and set next to the paper towels, like so:



The bin to the left is for dirty napkins, although the nice lady who cleans my house every two weeks thinks it is just a place to stash whatever weird stuff happens to be on the counter. Any time I'm doing a load of laundry (except whites), I grab the dirty napkins and toss them in.

I've found that we definitely use a lot fewer paper towels this way.

There's quite a variety of shapes and styles. At first, I ironed every hem, all the way around each napkin, but that got old really fast. Then I tried making a double-layered napkin, but that burned through the fabric too quickly (and now, using those as well as the single-layer ones, it's a level of protection I really don't need). Then I decided just to fold them hems as I sewed. Voila!

The sizes are varied, ranging from about 9" square, to the about 13" square (I like the bigger ones better). I just keep them all folded together and don't try to match up sizes or gingham square size when I pull them out to use.

Here's a top view:


Even though it's a napkin no-no, my gingham fabric is 100% polyester. Cotton would be more absorbent, to be sure, but for my casual crumb-catching use, the polyester works fine. Also, it doesn't wrinkle (like the single 100% cotton napkin I did make, which I always feel like I want to iron), and it doesn't attract lint in the dryer. Plus, it was half-price.

The husb and I are trying to take stock of our lifestyle and make little changes that we hope will add up. I recommend cloth napkins to anyone who finds themselves using a lot of paper goods and throwing them away barely-used.

Happy Tuesday!

PS - Stephanie contacted me and we really do think we want to start a "One Project From Every Book" mini-movement. So start browsing those pages! More info soon.

Baby quilt: "Adelaide's Birds"

Once again, displaying my creative use of the word "tomorrow"... here's part 2 of baby Adelaide's gifts, the quilt.

Birds!


My inspiration for this was a tablecloth pattern from The Big Book of Quick Rotary Cutter Quilts, by Pam Bono Designs. The tablecloth was just blackbirds gathered around cornstalks, but instantly I started imagining a scrappy quilt of colorful birds. Eventually I decided to set them on a tree, and the rest is history.

The birds themselves were pieced using a method that mimics foundation piecing, mixed with the traditional flying geese piecing method. In short, put the little piece of fabric on the big piece and sew a diagonal line Then unfold, cut off the excess seam allowance, and voila. You gradually combine your pieces and eventually you get a bird. Or sixteen (although four didn't make the final cut).



In this photo, you can see the details of construction. I quilted this by outlining the birds and then using variegated thread to make "bark" on the tree, and a zigzag stitch for the grass.

I played with all sorts of color combinations to get my sixteen birds. Eventually it became obvious that they turn out MUCH better if you use the lighter fabric on the wing and the darker fabric on the body. All of the rejects were light body/dark wing. They just didn't look quite right. Thus we were left with 12, which I think works better for the size of the quilt anyway.

I used 100% cotton batting, which I don't always do. For the non-quilters, cotton batting, unlike polyester, shrinks (some say 5%, though I don't believe it) when you wash it in warm water. So if you sew everything together first and wash later, there's a chance the shrinkage will look wonky. Ideally when you do this, you will get a sort of rumply-wrinkly antique effect. All of the quilts I make should stand up to warm-water washings (how could they not, when they're for babies and dogs?).

Luckily, this quilt did not disappoint. Here's a closeup after the washing:



So you can definitely see where the texture is a little different. I also used this batting in Ida Millie's pig quilt in June:



I've heard that some very hardcore quilters don't even preshrink their quilting fabric in order to amplify the shrinkage effect. I'm not that brave yet. Nor do I have any unshrunk fabric, since it all goes right into the washer when I get home from the store.

I handed this quilt over last week with the sushi dress, although why I didn't bother to get an in-focus picture of the whole thing I'll never know.

(search term: bird quilt)

Sushi dress!

I've had this sushi fabric bumping around for ages, and could never think of anything to do with it. Our good friends recently had a baby girl, and I began having visions of a baby decked out in sushi print. A fortuitious discovery of lots of uncut baby patterns at a thrift store left us with this:



The pattern is Simplicity 7486, out of print, a basic little girl's dress with lots of collar options. I decided just to leave off the collar, though. There are lots of gathers at seam of the yoke and skirt, so I made a facing and used it to cover them up, so they wouldn't rub on the baby's skin if she decided to wear this without a shirt underneath:



The black detailing is all just bias tape.

The size is "1/2", which I initially took to mean "6 months", but this dress is definitely too long for a baby who isn't walking. Based on the sizes listed on the envelope, I'm thinking it'll probably fit her when she's about a year old.

My friend was thrilled and now I'm a total baby clothes addict. They're so small and quick and they eat up the stash like nobody's business! Plus baby clothes are like dog quilts... you can use fun and funny fabrics and the baby doesn't complain at all.

Tomorrow, part 2 of Adelaide's gifts: the bird quilt.

Heck yes, I am on top of the latest trends.

This is McCalls 5328. It was pretty easy to make -- I messed up the notch collar (and forgot to interface the underside, whoops!), but you can't tell unless you know to look for a problem. The fabric is a thick black cotton, with almost a duck or light canvas feel to it, and a big weave. This fabric basically shredded itself during construction. Too much handling and I would have been left with a fringe. But I pinked the seams and that seems to be holding.

The bubble sleeves took forever, especially gathering the two layers at the shoulder (which would have been much easier if I'd used a lighter fabric). My thread kept snapping and I kept having to go back and redo.

I didn't add the button yet, because I kind of want to keep it versatile. I was thinking of hiding a hook and eye or using a frog closure.

I'm excited to wear this... it's the perfect light cover for a summer evening. But due to the cut, it must be worn with something that shows where your hips are -- anything baggier and you look like your body follows the silhouette of the jacket!

I've seen these trapeze-style jackets around. In fact, we went to a very hip little barbecue party thrown by some very hip design folks we know, and a girl there was wearing something similar to this. Being by a long shot one of the two least hip people there (the other was the husb, but don't tell him I said so), I was pleased to see her, because I knew I had this pattern at home waiting for me.

Then someone complimented her on it, and she practically blushed and said, "I got it at The Gap!" And then I felt REALLY good, because I have the same jacket as a very hip girl, only nobody else in the world has the same one as me, and everyone else at The Gap has the same one as her.

One point for our team!

Dotty dress triumph!

So I was absolutely right that sewing the stretchy knit would send me to the madhouse. Fortunately, I made it there and then back in time to finish the dress and wear it to a wedding!

This fabric was the devil's own. I used a special needle for stretchy fabrics -- it's supposed to keep the machine from skipping stitches. I don't think that was accomplished, though. I found myself going over seams two and three times (which, I discovered later, is what you're supposed to do anyway). I didn't read the directions very well, or I would have seen the part about pulling the fabric as you sew. This is what allows the seams to be stretchy. Apparently that would have prevented the "maybe all the seams are going to pop open" feeling every time I pulled the dress over my shoulders.

So, without further ado, here she is:



Yes, I look very smug, and I think I have every right to. Every step of this dress was a pain in the neck. I kept thinking, "This will be the last seam I sew," planning to give up, and then I kind of realized that even though it was pure torment, the dress was actually getting made. I remember the feeling of sewing the darted pleats (my name for them) in the bodice and all of a sudden seeing that it looked real.

The pattern was Simplicity 3678, from the Threads collection. I actually really like the dress. It was comfortable, easy to move in, and the gathers under the high waistline were perfect for camouflaging the old tummy. I know it's black, but I thought the dots made it cheery enough for a wedding. And the feeling of looking around and knowing that absolutely no one else at the party will be wearing the same thing as you is addictive.

The cons were mostly related to the fabric. Despite the rocky start, I was sewing pretty well by the end. I don't know if I just started handling it better, or what, but there did seem to be fewer skipped stitches. The fabric itself, being fully synthetic, was just not that great to wear. It was fine once the sun set, but at one point I was a little warm, and the dress didn't breathe at all. So it was a little strange feeling. Like wearing a wetsuit.

And lo, does this stuff smell! I thought it was my washing machine, but Sue told me that this stuff gives off a strange synthetic scent no matter what. No cottony fresh scent here, that's for sure. And after wearing it on the dance floor... let's just say I'm glad it was a pretty chilly evening. To have sweated in this dress would have been a stinky disaster.

Speaking of Sue, I have yet to break it to her that I wore this dress. I don't think she will approve. Especially since she lined my closet with several beautiful dress options, one of which left her nearly speechless, saying, "You look so... fashiony," in this hushed, awed voice.

Alas, I guess I am more of a stinky polka dot homemade girl than a fashiony girl.

I'll blog again soon, because I finished what is, in my opinion, an extremely cute little unlined jacket, and I need to brag about it.

Things I couldn't do if I tried.

I'm sorely tempted by Wardrobe Refashion. Basically, you pledge for 2, 4, or 6 months not to buy clothes from a retail establishment. The idea is to work with what you have (dye, alter, etc.), to make clothes for yourself (buying fabric is okay), or to buy stuff in thrift stores and either wear it or make it into something.

You're allowed to buy ready-to-wear work clothes (but my work clothes are the same as all my other clothes), undergarments, shoes, and one item of clothing per month, but you have to post on the blog and confess.

I haven't been buying much lately in general, and I am definitely in favor of cutting back on (1) cheap items of clothing that everyone else in the world owns, and (2) items of clothing made in less-than-ideal conditions, say, by the fingers of tiny Chinese children. (No, I don't know who makes my fabric, but I'll look into it eventually.)

As for #1, one of the most surprising moments of my life was when I showed up to a wedding wearing the exact same dress as another girl. And it wasn't your basic black shift, either. I actually got really embarrassed and annoyed, a much stronger reaction than I would have thought I would feel. Erica B. blogged about this and proves that pictures are worth a thousand words. (Here at katiesews, we get the 1,000 words.)

We have a family wedding coming up. I don't want that to happen again.

I'm also trying to keep an eye on trends, since fashion is all of a sudden fascinating to me after having ignored it for, oh, 30 years of my life. And in doing this, I learned that for Fall 2007, purple is the new whatever-was-the-new-thing-last-year.

That is why I bought purple fabric to make the new and improved, smaller and all-around better pineapple dress (that's what it will always be called, no matter what fabric goes into it). I labored over this new dress with the help of my dress form, Katie Jr., adjusting pleats and pinning and basting and safety-pin sewing and trying my hardest to be worthy of wearing the season's hottest color.

When the husb got home, I tried it on for him, even though there's still no zipper because Sue made me promise not to do to this dress what I did to the last one, and that means I have to wait for her to come over and show me how to sew zippers.

He said, "Maybe you should wear that to the party."

"I want to wear it to the wedding. Purple is the new hip color, and I want to wear purple."

"You could wear that to the party, though..." (wait for it) "...and get something... nice for the wedding."

Grr!

Especially because I went to the website of the company where I bought a dress last year for a different wedding, and no lie -- out of six pages of dress options, two items are pantsuits, two are knee-length, and the rest must be stapled to the poor model's underpants. They are so. so. so. short. You can't show that much thigh at an outdoors Pacific Northwest wedding. I'm pretty sure it's just not done.

I do have another pattern and another fabric that I'm going to try to whip into a garment. This one doesn't have a zipper so it doesn't depend on Sue's whims and/or schedule. It's a really stretchy, heavy knit, though, so perhaps my next blog entry will be about my nervous breakdown caused by dealing with a stretchy, heavy knit.

Speaking of refashioning, here's an old picture of Winston wearing his tough-dog sweatshirt. It does have a heart, but it's still a tough-guy shirt because, cough, whoever appliqued the heart did a really terrible job. The actual shirt is the cut-off leg of a pair of sweatpants I cropped to be capris.

Clearly, he loves it.

A very balanced weekend.

No, not in the sense that I accomplished anything other than sewing. I mean balanced between myself and Mary Lou.

My part of it is McCalls 5315, constructed with my very finest pineapple fabric. Sue, my real-life Mary Lou, hates this fabric with the fieriest passion you can imagine. I ordered it online and took it to her desk when it arrived, and she stopped speaking to me for the rest of the day. Apparently the problem is not the concept of pineapples -- it is in the execution.

Sue would like to execute the pineapples, but I used the fabric to execute a dress. So there you go.

And here it is (you would think that someone with a basket of dirty laundry in the background would not look so smug):



So this dress was notable in many ways. Sewl Sista #1 down there on the blogroll made this as well, although I didn't realize that until I hit an impasse with the instructions and Googled the pattern number (more on that at the bottom of the post).

Notability justification #1:
Zipper. My first ever. And I did a pretty respectable job. I mean, it hasn't fallen off the dress yet, so I must have done something right.

Notability justification #2:
Based on the sizing chart, I made a 16. I ended up taking in seven inches from the top of the bodice piece and five from the bottom, then about two inches on either side of the skirt, plus straightening out the ginormous hip bubble they included. Mind you, I probably should have tried to keep the bodice pull-up at 6.5", but a little not-being-able-to-breathe never hurt anybody. When there are pineapples involved, we must suffer for our art.

Alas, I'm no good at alterations and I messed up the lining in that I sewed right through it as if it were just another seam. Therefore the pinked edges of that new seam are just the weensiest bit painful. I'm thinking about getting a packet of bias binding and encasing the whole shebang.

So that was my fun. I also sewed the straps on, when they were supposed to just tie behind my neck, but I'm starting to realize that I hate the feeling of anything pulling on that part of my body.

Now, as for Mary Lou:

While I sat upstairs drinking imaginary mimosas and wondering why the air conditioner had to break yesterday for only the length of time it took for the repairman to show up this morning, at which point it whirred into action...

Mary Lou took on the sewing room. And when I say took on, I mean took apart.

No, no, forget Mary Lou, I want credit for this.

Every single piece of fabric that wasn't stashed in the door organizer got refolded and put away. Including all the pain-in-the-neck leftover double-layer blocks of fabric I get when I make wrap skirts.

I even went through my scrap box, mainly because the scrap box had turned into a scrap heap and had infected everything around it with a horrible irredeemable messiness.

I also did something that I happen to think is a pretty good idea -- I made a stack of "fun" scraps -- a lot of fabric from I-Spy quilts, anything with an interesting shape or color or just something that caught my eye -- and made a "kids' scraps" box. This way, when friends bring their toddlers over, we can hand that box to the child and off they go.

I'm really happy with my new clean sewing room. Now I've decided that I want a magnetic bulletin board -- or maybe just a long magnetic strip -- so I can hang pattern pieces, instead of dropping them on the floor and standing on them.

This is getting long. I will leave with this parting thought:

"FINISH SKIRT BACK (7) self-facing at top and long edge" does NOT mean "Finish skirt back by self-facing at top and long edge." Thankfully I figured this out before self-facing the top edge of the piece. I did, however, finish the whole thing with a nice stitch on a quarter-inch seam allowance. Fortunately, most evidence of this is gone now due to the alterations.

Commas, who knew they were so useful?

Diet Coke skirt (aka, "pop panties")

I love craft blogs and I read them when I can. I especially like those with lots of pictures -- double especially if they're things I think I might be able to figure out how to make by myself.

I've only been sewing for about a year -- I got my machine in May of 2006. It doesn't seem like I've done a lot, but the volume of things I've produced is actually pretty impressive. My first projects were dog quilts -- miniaturized machine-pieced quilts for my dog and the dogs of friends. Since then, I've moved on to human quilts, wrap skirts, coasters by the dozen, and various random projects like purses and skirts for Diet Coke cans.

I'm hoping this blog will be a place I can express my creative visual side, ranging from sewing to photography to things that inspire me.

Grab the RSS feed and I'll try not to be a bore!

First project: the Diet Coke skirt.

Conceived because every day when I get to work, I take my warm can of Diet Coke out of my bag, tape a Post-It over the tab, and put it in the fridge. I started to feel bad about wasting Post-Its, because they can't be reused (they get messed up during the mad frenzy to drink the cold Diet Coke).

So my crafty friend Sue (that's a pseudonym because Sue has hinted in the past that she doesn't like being blogged about) and I were joking about making little outfits for our soda cans. That would ensure easy identification -- both in the fridge, where unlabeled sodas are liable to get claimed by the masses, and out of the fridge, because who besides a select few would want to carry around a Diet Coke wearing a skirt?

I'm actually quite happy with it. The colors are so cheery. I'm probably going to make one or two more, because sometimes just one Diet Coke won't do.

I'm Thirty, I'm Wordy, and Here's a Birdy

I wasn't actually planning on adding a photo until I needed a third rhyming word, but okay.

I made it to and through my 30th birthday. Nothing has bothered me about it, except that people around me KEEP throwing surprise celebrations, which is startling and basically gives me the vapors, AND that I realized I'm "in my thirties". There's something about being in one's thirties that is thuper different from being in one's twenties. Pretty soon I'm going to be in a different advertising demographic -- ouch.

For the first time in a long time, I'm working on a short story. The marvelous Backspace has a monthly short story "contest" (quotes are misleading -- it really is a contest, it's just kind of low-stakes), and I wanted to give it a try. For a long time, I thought I couldn't write short stories, and maybe I can't. But I suspect it just takes the right idea, and not some book-length something or other mangled down to 3500 words. So anyway, I have to finish that soon. I'll report back on how it goes. (If it goes well. If not, crickets chirping.)

A girl I went to film school with is on "On the Lot". She's the girl in the red jacket and black puffy beret (the only other way to describe it is "Fievel Hat") that they couldn't take the camera off of the first day. Go, Tamela D'Amico! I didn't plan to watch that show but now I suppose I have to. Watching that show, where they have to pitch the ideas, made me think that if any one of them had read through Miss Snark's Crapometer exercise, they would have had a huge edge. God bless Miss Snark.

Aside from the short story, I've realized that it's time I start writing on the new project. I have a few thousand words I put down to get my head in the game for the synopsis, and now those are getting consigned to the "OLD" folder while I move forward without them. Gone but not forgotten.

And I had the most frightful idea yesterday for a sequel to TGLL, of all things. I never ever thought about that before, but there you go. So we'll put that one in the back to simmer for a while and see what bubbles to the surface.

Birdy (this is one of the three or so Cooper's Hawks that sail around our neighborhood and cry in their surprisingly girly voices):

Duets: Frank Sinatra and Winston, Together At Last

1. Can I Steal a Little Turkey?
2. Every Day I Love Food
3. That's Ball
4. When I Was Seventeen Months Old
5. Send In the Bones
6. The Kennel With the Fringe On Top
7. When Somebody Loves Shoes
8. Ain'tcha Ever Comin' Back (and Feedin' Me)
9. Guess I'll Lick Those Tears You Hung Out To Dry
10. Fly Me to the Dining Room Table
11. Hugo Be a Lady
12. MY WAY! ARF ARF ARF DID YOU HEAR ME? I SAID MY WAY!

...and, of course, wrong Sinatra, but...

13. These Boots are Made For Chewing

What would YOU do...

...for 1/16 of a Wheat Thin?

Slowing the crafty brain.

I love sewing. I love writing. But between feeling like I should be sewing or I should be writing, I'm starting to feel like there's no time left in my day where I'm NOT supposed to be doing something. Add to the mix the horrific prospect of working out and it gets even messier.

Even if I do a bunch of writing, I still have that feeling that I'm slacking off. It seems like there needs to be a bit of a schedule to it, or I'm going to lose my mind.

Especially having spent the day looking over 20-something pages of dog names.

Especially if Winston doesn't stop barking. Oh, pardon me -- if Rock Creek's Winston Churchill doesn't stop barking.

He's barking because I locked him in the bedroom because the delivery man will be here soon, and he turns into a raging guard dog when people ring the doorbell. He sounds much bigger than he is. The other night, when the pizza man came, Winston was "roh-roh-roh-ing" in the front hall, and I was running around like a cowboy in one of those contests where they grease up a pig and tie a bag of money to it and make a hundred people chase it around a muddy pen.

(I made up the part about the money -- there must be something good tied to the pig, though, or what's the point? Maybe it's a gift certificate to a fabric store.)

Anyhoo, so Winston is impersonating a mastiff in the front hall and I'm trying to get him, and I shout to the pizza man, "Just a second!" and he shouts back, "GOOD!"

So I'm all smugness and light, knowing that my dog is scary enough that pizza men are scared witless of his manly barking.

Um, what else. Got me some Netflix, gonna watch it and eat Chinese food. Assuming Winston doesn't scare off the delivery man.

As promised, Leo's quilt (with inquisitive Winston in foreground):