March Project -- Check (and giveaway!!!)

Modeled here by my patient and all-too-willing husband is the Cup Half Full apron from Anna Maria Horner's Seams to Me, March's Craft Book Challenge submission.

And then everyone else wanted to get in on the modeling action.





The pattern was awesome, as is the rest of the book. My only issue was figuring out where the 1/2 inch seam allowance line is one my sewing machine. (Hint: it's the 4/8 line. Coffee would’ve helped with that monumental insight.)

I love this apron but after making it, I had a ding ding ding moment: I really don't wear aprons.

I adore them from afar. I collect vintage ones. But apron-donning is not my thing.

So, if any kind, caring apron-wearing readers out there happen to fancy this apron, leave me a comment and it may be yours. It needs a good home! I'll draw a random winner at the end of the week and mail it out to you in time to bake up a storm of easter bunny cookies (or whatever your little baking heart desires!)

on colors

This picture denotes our current knee-deep-in-paint-samples status around here. We're picking colors for our new-to-us, soon-to-be-moved-into house and it looks like Benjamin Moore threw up in our dining room. Picking colors for one or two rooms is frustrating and stressful, but in a fun way. Picking colors for a whole entire house, inside and out, is pure idiocy.

The funnest part has been reading through all the paint names. I admit, I gravitate toward (and yes, sometimes choose) paint colors based on their charming/witty/snarky names, like rectory red, wasabi and enlighten mint. Sadly though, our chosen trim color will be the inaptly named 'mayonnaise.' Just, ick!

I'm lucky enough to have one small room dedicated to crafting and thought this would be the easiest to choose a color for, but its not. I've flipped and flopped between most of the brazenly bold colors that scream to me from the palette sheet: "pick ME! I'm original and unique and so unlike cream and sage and sky blue! I promise not to repulse or annoy you or decrease your resale value," but I don't believe them one bit.

My husband keeps having to remind me that we're choosing room colors, not quilt colors. But wouldn't life be so much more interesting if we painted our homes like we design our quilts? I wonder if Ben Moore would be interested in a "Craftgirl Crazy" line?

OK, enough about paint. But before I return to the insanity of picking a porch ceiling color, let me leave you with a list of my favorite paint color names so far (and be sure to let me know if you have any good ones I've missed!)

Arsenic
Sweet marzipan
Heirloom quilt
Approaching dusk
Dried chervil
Blackened (which is a very light gray)
Elephant's breath
Dead salmon (I kid you not)
Ointment pink
Pale hound
Gervase yellow
Sulfur
Antique glassware...

...and my all time favorite...

Smoking pants (ok, I'm kidding. my husband made this one up!)

mom, can you knit this for me?

pretty please? (i adore this. from here).

OK I haven't just been goofing around on the internet all day. I did manage to complete Tracy's block for 12 square.



I loved all her fabric choices, warm grays with pops of color, but I stressed out a bit on the design. She asked for some textural elements so I cut and sewed strips of the light grey, included some raw edges from the linen and rust fabrics and incorporated the silver embroidery thread that the fabric stacks were tied up with when they arrived.



I loved working on this block, I hope she likes it!

for fun, see here

Not sure how/where/why I found it, but this site is my latest waste of time obsession (just start clicking colors on the palette). If you like fiddling with colors and checking out a multitude of cool flickr pics, take a peek. But please don't go there if you value things like being productive. It's not the place for you.









Consider yourself warned ;-)

Bad hair day

If you have curly hair, take heed...



...if remote control helicopters are overhead.



Yet another case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong hair texture.

Family of faces

This is my brother with his newest freaky beard-thing. I love that he always has a new facial hair-do every time I see him. He even has names for them. He told me the name for this one but I was too intently focused on the big beard-void in the middle of his face to hear him.

He was even nice enough to try making little curly ends on his mustache at my request but we didn’t have any mustache wax so used lansinoh instead.

Turns out, lansinoh is not an appropriate substitute for mustache wax (go figure).



This is the face of someone who hasn’t napped in 3 days. Esme is ready to enthusiastically throw her afternoon nap to the wind.

Not pictured: my very unenthused face over saying farewell to afternoon craft time.



Finally, the mud-splattered face of a very happy boy after a rainy day bike ride. Boy + bike + rain = all is right with the world.



And one last peek at the ‘face’ of this quilt before it’s backed, quilted and bound…the home stretch!

on my sewing table

More red-threaded embroideries destined for quilt-dom. I've mentioned that I'm predictable, right? I offered to make a custom quilt similar to this one for a school auction. The winner provided the drawings (well, her daughter did) and chose the colors/style of this quilt. So light blue linen and red embroidery thread: we meet again. Mwah, ha haaaaaa.

I love tracing and embroidering children's artwork. With the multitude of big-headed stick figures I receive on a daily basis, I sometimes forget to appreciate the clean, simple line and form that the under 5 crew are capable of. Check out this sunflower:



Isn't that SO a sunflower? I love it.

And for the grandparental reader types: playing hide and seek with a 3-year old, for your amusement: