Since my blog was occupied for the month of February, I have some catching up to do.

This was Barry’s Valentine’s day present. He loves coming home to a yummy dinner and often comments that I need an apron to go with my domiesticity. When Meg published this pattern I knew it would fit the bill! I tried to work on it as a surprise, but when my best sewing time happens at night, well, he knew it was coming. We still had a fun Valentine’s day. We just had soup and grilled cheese (because I spent the day sewing this apron!!), but the kids made us a restraunt– set the table with a table cloth and fancy napkins, took our orders (for soup and grilled cheese, of course) and served us while they ate at the kid table in the other room.

It is so hard to buy presents for my husband. The things that he wants but doesn’t have are too tricky for me to buy. I just do not have mountain bike part expertise. I have come to accept that fact. Anyway, all he really wants doesn’t really cost me any money. Just being happy and forgetting the sewing machine, book to be read, blogs to surf, etc. etc. after the kids go to bed. Focus on him, and all us right with the world.

Good excuse to make an apron? I think so!

Brenna got a little sewing machine from Santa. Once a week or so she’s been setting it up and working on the little lessons in Winky Cherry’s My First Machine Sewing Book. The genius of this book is that it has kids starting by sewing on paper, just tracing lines. Brenna loved the curvy lessons so much she did them several times. I was pretty surprised at how quickly she really caught on to steering. I had taught her to sew a little bit on my sewing machine just doing double layer flannel baby blankets which just entailed long straight lines, but watching her seam allowance was tricky for her to do. Punching holes on a drawn line with her needle has been much more fun for her. Since she’s mastered pivots and curves I thought we’d break out Amy’s Bend the Rules Sewing. I have several baby gifts to get made, so I thought I’d enlist some help. I made some bibs a while ago and just can’t get over how cool it is to trace the pattern onto a rectangle of fabric, sew on the line, and trim after sewing. I copied the patter on a few pieces of paper first, and once Brenna had perfected the curves she wet at it on fabric. Having a layer of flannel was perfect because it has enough grab that she didn’t have to think about her layers shifting because having them pinned bugged her. I helped a tiny bit with trimming them and turning the right side out. I also lined everything up right for her to hammer the snaps on, but for the most part she did them by herself. She can thread her machine and wind bobbins and everything.

She’s got two done. We’ll keep this polka dot one forever and ever. Hopefully someday her babies will wear it while eating Cheerios.

I just think she is so awesome– just the coolest kid ever!

It’s been a long time since I’ve done anything with my precious metal clay experiments. I made necklaces for my moms for Mother’s Day out of leaves. I got the pmc paste and painted it on the veiny side of little leaves and let it dry. After about a dozen layers of clay paste I added a loop of clay to the top, then fired the leaves in my little hot pot. The real leaves burned away leaving perfect little fine silver leaves. Once I did two leaves I just couldn’t stop. They were so easy and sew delicately beautiful. Well, several of those little leaves have been sitting in a little container up in my art room for a long, long time.

I’ve also had some strings of beads waiting to be combined with my little leaves to make some finished jewelry. The first one I made was for my sister in-law in Idaho– and it got lost in the mail. I haven’t made any for myself because Ian is in the necklace-pulling-off stage, so it just hasn’t seemed worth it, but the other day I just couldn’t stand it any longer. I had to try hooking some beads together and dangling some little leaves from them.

I really, really like it. The beads are jadeite stones and the wire, chain, and jump rings are all sterling silver.

I’ve been trying to just wear it around, but Ian can’t keep his hands off of it. I guess it’s a date necklace for now.

Oh and I found a photo (from my old camera) of the lost-in-the-mail (which is our fault because we sent it to the wrong address) necklace. I had never seen tulip tree poplars until we moved here to Ohio. Our neighbors have 2 of them, so all spring I was picking the baby leaves off of the branches that hung over to our side of the fence. They are such a pretty shape.

This one has green German glass beads and sterling silver beads on a sterling silver chain. I hope whoever ended up with it opened it and likes it!! Tiffany, a new one will be coming soon!

Before it gets too far past Christmas I need to post about some hand made gifts. These are the only thing I managed to get made this year. After seeing Amy’s Aunt Sarah Dolls I’ve had this idea in my head and finally got it out this year.

They are hilarious. I drew the bodies, then had the kids color their own. I just used our printer to copy them onto the injet iron on stuff I found at Hobby Lobby. Simple enough. It did take me quite awhile to get them done, though. I made 4 sets, so that was printing, ironing on, cutting, sewing, stuffing (my mom was visiting, so she actually did that part),and closing up– times 16. Anyway, I don’t think about things that way when I embark on a project, so things always take me longer than I think they will.

I kept a set. It is pretty funny to see Ian chewing on himself!

On Mondays from 12:30 to 4:00 or so I have a babysitter to watch the kids so I can hide in my art room. Here’s what I did today:

I’ve filled up all the journals I didn’t sell last year (last year?! that long ago? yikes!), so I need a new one. I drew up a design on graph paper and used my little gocco printing press and stamp kit to print my big sheets of paper.

I’ve been thinking and thinking about how to get patterns to repeat right, how exactly I’d go about stamping designs without smearing ink, what kind of jig I’d need to get things lined up right for a long, long, time.  I have printed this paper a gazillion times in my head.  I used mat board strips with marks that had corresponding marks on my stamp screen, then held everything in place with pretty blue masking tape.  It worked like a charm!  I just barely mis-marked everything for the vertical repeats, but oh well.  It’ll all be totally perfect next time I try it.  And it looks hand made, right?  That’s my mantra.  Perfectionism is out the window.

Not bad for a days work! This certainly makes for a happy mama.

Here’s a project I’ve FINALLY finished. I’ll have to post more details about it later…

I was hoping that I would be posting amazing photos of my bed adorned with a new Denyse Schmidt quilt beneath a wall of freshly framed Karl Blossfeldt photogravures, but alas… my quilt is backordered. Which is okay, but I wish they had told me that fact when I ordered it and not over a week later when I was expecting it to be here. What a let down!

and now the wait…

My Little Mochi has organized her second post card swap, and I got in on it this time. I’ve had ideas swimming around in my head about making art experimenting with transparency and layers and sewing and torn edges, but I have a hard time getting myslef to do it unless I have an assignment.

So, the assignment is:
10 postcards
saying Happy New Year
with a dog somewhere (for the Chinese year of the dog)

I get to send them to Sweden, Ireland, Australia, Hawaii, to name a few.

I’ve got a few more to finish, which I’ll do in my hotel room in peace and quiet as I travel to Denyse’s workshop this weekend.

See ya when I get back!

I’m actually working on something! Actually two things.

Here’s the beginnings of “One Tote Fits All.”

And I decided I needed a bag based on “Big Zig.” I’m very excited about the fabrics. Brown corduroy, pink cotton, and an Amy Butler lining!

Since I just haven’t been able to fit in a big quilting project, though I really want to, I can do these bags in between hexapi

Well, school today was “watch mom cut.” I put my new tools from Margie to work and made some stamps. We’ve had little wrens in the japanese maple right out of our dining room window. They are so cute with their tails straight up. I love having a yard with trees. I love my dining room window. I love the wrens and cardinals and chickadess and gold finches and other feathered visitors just as we sit at our kitchen table. Oh, yeah, stamps– that’s what this is about. I made some wrens, and of course, some bunnies. It’s fun to be a printmaker again, even if it is just stamps and not anything glorious and artsy. I need more ink colors. As much as I love brown, it’s just not doing it for me here.

So, back tack II has come full circle for me. I made a bag and craft kit, I received a bag and craft tools, I sent a bag, and I used my tools. What a fun game to play!

I’ve had the bag done for quite a while, but collecting and crafting the goodies inside concluded Monday, and today I was able to steal some time with good lighting to take pictures.

The bag is pretty simple in its construction. It’s made of some thrifted wool fabric that I felted (the technical term for “washed it in hot water so it would shrink”) and lined with Amy Butler Charm fabrics. There’s also a little pouch made to match the lining, and both have rug flower pins to add some fun.

Table of Contents:
* “Hook Tiny: tips for rug hooking on a very small scale” — a little card with, yes, a rug flower

* a little rug hooked pincushion, which is a little wonky and imperfect, so I hope she likes it

* a pocket journal that fits right into the color scheme

* linen rug backing

* a little book of how to hook

* an emroidery hoop

* a rug hook

* glue for finishing little projects

* and some of that wool I dyed all cut up and ready for rugs

I hope my partner likes it. It has been really fun making this bag and filling it with stuff. It’s got me thinking about Christmas gifts. Hmmm…