ruby crowned kinglette

another wip friday

it seems like the week flew by - hardly had a chance to mess up the pit studio...

here is a combination of little works in progress, some are super secret, a couple of felt birds, some zippered pouches - that very well might languish in etsy with some of my other things, and a little softie (the butt end of a little softie), also a tiny bit secret...  i will post about these later as they are finished, i am sure of it...

hope everyone has a wonderful weekend, and holiday - if you are of the american variety...

i heart john hiatt*

*i heart early john hiatt more than i heart his newer stuff, but i heart him nonetheless....

ok, i was going to post only about the wonderful concert i saw tonight with friends at marymoor, good food, decent wine (expensive, decent wine), spectacular weather, good bird sighting (osprey) - and also some really ugly hair and some questionable dancing too.... but here is something even more exciting....

Dear EarthLink Subscriber,

We've approved your request for the following credit to your
EarthLink account:

   $249.90

i am pretty sure i already got two $49.95 and one $51.19 credit... so i ask you, my bloggy conscience, what would you do????  i did tell the guy who finally helped me last friday to find someone at the bar to buy him a drink and 'have one on me'.... but, do you think the beer was that good?

apparently i will be their customer for the foreseeable future... now, if only they sold concert tickets, i was hoping to see neko case and los lonely boys....

a quick chat

i spent my lunch outside in the sun today.  the contractors goof-asses are still working on the houses across the alley from me, so that meant that i got the hear all kinds of wonderful conversation for an hour... conversations from loogie hauking, shirtless, toothless, pants without belts, goof-asses.  frankly, it was not as much fun as you might imagine...

they started working on 'sherbet alley' over a year ago.  i call it 'sherbet alley' because they - and these are all men - decided that the three houses should be painted the colors of sherbet; raspberry, orange and lemon.  some days it looks charming in a lovely mediterranean kind of way, other days it looks garish in a cross-dressing gay lounge kind of way. 

today i was serenaded by chris - the phlegmy one, and the one who insists on letting his pants fall WAY BELOW what is acceptable in polite society - with the few words he could remember to 'car wash' ...

    "car wash, going to the car wash yeah. car wash, yeah yeah yeah"

yep, that went on the whole time.

they don't work very hard - which is why they are still working on the houses a year and a half later - but it also means that they start at 8:30 or so and knock off at 5, and rarely work weekends or holidays....thankfully.  today it looks like 4:03 is quittin' time...

wip friday - or so....

this was going to be titled, wip friday, or how i love those plastic bins, but - since i spent 4 - FOUR!!!!! - hours and 21 minutes on the phone with earthlink yesterday, my friday post didn't get posted yesterday, neither did i make much progress, or much of anything else....  despite their efforts to anger me to the point of quitting them altogether, i am back in high speed internet business, and for now, still their customer - at least until the three month credit runs out...

ok then, wip friday - that is work in progress, inspired by Fiona and this post.  you can see other wip's here.  the organizing of the pit my studio is my constant work in progress, although I decided yesterday thursday afternoon that it was time to reorganize the fabrics; by color mostly and content for some.  in order to do that I needed more plastic storage bins so I headed to costco and bought 8 more big ones and 3 smaller ones.  I already had 12 or 15 but i needed more - it turns out i have a lot of fabric, A LOT.  I think I might have enough now, bins i mean, not fabric, but I am still in the process of tidying so I am not quite sure yet. what i am sure of is that i won't have the fabric i need for a future something and will need to buy more - that is always the way it is... always.

that is my work table up there.... it is nothing short of spectacular, 5 feet wide, 11 feet long, padded and covered with a heavy duty table canvas.  it is necessary for the work i do - custom fabrication of window treatments, bedding, pillows, stuff like that - but, it is essential for crafting... my friend debbie - the fencer - helped me build this several years ago.  it was during that project that we knew we did good work together....  right now the table is piled with a whole lotta polar fleece - i have just the bin in mind for that...

these are the bins so far:

    wool
    linen
    felt
    red
    yellow/orange
    green
    blue/purple
    black
    brown
    white-ish
    stripe
    floral
    polar fleece
    quilting/craft cottons
    dolls
    4 more that still need sorted  see below
    10, or so, small bins for smaller stuff; thread, sewing supplies, buttons, ribbon, paper, beads, more beads, needlepoint wool, dcm      cottons, colored pencils, glues, linoleum cutting stuff (so far, not ever used) millinery flowers… and so much more I can’t even remember.
    smelly stuff - like lavender, balsam, cedar tips, essential oils…. that one is hard to open without getting a headache
    and, a few that i don’t even want to open yet

    and these now...

       leather/suede/ultrasuede
       linings
       sweaters/blankets
       terrycloth/toweling
       metalics
       another wool
       velvets

and, since we are taking a cruise around the pit the studio, here are a couple more shots.

sewing machines - and some things that need to be put away still... and a little bin that i am storing scraps of fabric in for a future give away, a la blair.  it is filling up fast, so i am going to need a bigger bin....i hope i have one left after i get this place in order.

serger - and other stuff including a grommet setter - that also will work to make some covered buttons too once i get the setters and goodies for that, but not yet... those shelves, believe it or not, are pretty organized...!

so far, these bins are still not sorted...it is possible i can get to them today, but it is supposed to be sunny and i have a patch of lawn that looks a whole lot like this, again.  and some other outside, and inside, things that need my attention too....

ok, got some work to do....

farm report

the crop is coming along nicely.  now that they are bigger i count 14 apples, so hopefully i will have at least enough for a pie when september rolls around.  i am especially liking how the two flower petals are still hanging on to the blossom end of this particular apple, so until or unless they fall off, these two will continue to be the on-line representatives for the other 12.  they are doing a pretty nice job so far, and have not let the duty, or fame, go to their heads. you can see their first appearance here, and their second here.  these are red delicious.

cate's backtack3 bunny

white bunny Moe now lives in canada with the lovely cate....  he is my backtack3 project.

the following were the criteria for participation:

1. They must be made from black and/or white materials. How much of either you use is up to you. It can be plain, or patterned.
2. 1 additional colour - and one only - may be used, but it cannot comprise more than 20% of the final piece.
3. The softie cannot be any higher than 20cm.
4. You must attach 5 buttons of your choice, in locations also of your choice, to the softie.
5. You must include on your softie somewhere the first initial of the person you are sending this to.

i decided to go very spare, i liked the idea of not getting too fussy with pattern. white bunny Moe is linen with exposed and pinked seams and black stitching.  the five buttons?... one for the nose, one at the tail, one attaching each arm and a little glass heart at his tummy.  i used a scrabble tile for cate's initial.  white bunny Moe's little pal is made of black wool felt and stitched in white thread.  he has the appearance of the devil; i did not mean this to happen....

 

 

 

there were over 100 participants in the swap.  check out the bt3 flickr site and see the great things everyone else made!!!

white bunny Moe had an adventure on his way to canada.  i suspect he even got to the the street cate lived on, and was turned away by the authorities due to bad juju.... or, if one wants to be specific, a bad address.  so, last saturday morning (June 10 - the day they were to arrive at their recipients home) he made his way back to me, suggested a better address, and was on his way again...  it pays to confirm spelling, addresses, postal codes, things like that....

i was beginning to worry of course - the threat of the blackball was looming large on the horizon. 

bonus (for me): in today's mail i recieved a nice surprise from cate, i will post about that lovely later in the week - that girl has my number!

a little something is finished

this was a little sneak peek a while ago... i finished and gave it to my sister at her baby shower a couple of weeks ago...it was my very first quilt and it turned out quite well.  i used some cotton velour terry, in my stash for years, for the back and some wonderful japanese cotton for the front.  no middle layer of batting because the thickness of the terry. 

i decided with a blue color scheme maybe something to do with rain would be in order - i am here in seattle after all....  so i sketched out a design and cut it out of the crafters best friend - freezer paper. we will get back to the virtues of freezer paper in a little bit.

once i liked the placement of the design i ironed the freezer paper on the corresponding fabrics cut them out with a 3/8" or so allowance to turn under and then appliqued them to the face fabric.  the little bear was copied from one of my japanse craft books.  i marked some quilting lines with an disappearing ink pen and began hand quilting.  to hold down the  larger areas where there was no applique, i quilted rain drops.  the piece isn't big, about 34" x 34", just the perfect size for my first go at the whole process. 

here is the finished product.  i am happy to report that my sister loved it, which is what i was hoping for, so that turned out nicely for me.  got another one up my sleeve now, so i will have to start on that soon.

ok - now for the wonders of freezer paper.  i first learned how great it was several years ago when i signed up for an online doll making class.  the instructor said to cut the pattern from freezer paper, iron it on the fabric and stitch around the perimeter - leaving an opening.  once done, you pulled the paper from the fabric, cut close to the stitching line and then turned it right side out.  it works best with pancake style dolls making anything else is pretty complicated.  the greatest thing about it is that you can use the pattern over and over and, best of all, you don't cut the small pieces until after you have sewn the seams!  just about everything i make consists of a freezer paper pattern somewhere along the line.

and there is more...amy at angry chicken posted a great tutorial on freezer paper stencils. 

and it really is a great thing to wrap food in, things stay much better in the freezer wrapped a couple times in freezer paper than they do otherwise.... how about that?

color

friday :: red

Dortmund is one of a race of exceptionally hardy roses hybridized by Kordes of Germany.  Its flashy single blossoms are bright red and have golden yellow stamens smack-dab in the middle of eye-blinking white centers.  Dark green, glossy foliage resembles that of holly (and is similarly tough).  If you want a second crop of blossoms, it's important to harvest the first crop of seed-bearing hips.  (Seedling xR. kordesii), Kordes, 1955. 

Rayford Clayton Reddell - The Rose Bible, Chronicle Books, 1998

color

thursday :: blue

blue - i see it everyday, i sometimes wonder if i see the world differently than someone with brown eyes, or green?  i do know that they are less blue when i am under stress, and a whole lot more blue after a night of drinking margarita's. 

my left eye, unadorned, june 2006

this old man

i was encouraged by the good folks at whip up ...

"...to upload a link to your favourite handcrafted item, that you have made recently, by way of an introduction to your blog and your crafting specialty/personality."

this old man was made during my week at arrowmont school of arts and crafts.  i have blogged about the greatest place on earth before, and if you are interested you can hop back and read about this most spectacular place.  this figure is the result of my experience in tennessee and i like him quite a bit.  his head is cotton t-shirt jersey, filled with polyfil, needle sculpted, stiffened and hand colored.  i learned that when you are needle sculpting, at least as a beginner, you shouldn't start out with a face in mind, but let it develop - i was going for a young gal when he emerged...  his body is raw silk and sculpted, once it was stuffed, to resemble the kind of posture i imagined my old man to have.  he is temporarily (permanently?) tied to a piece of bark that i picked up off the floor in the wood shop.  i loved that place so much, i can't imagine i will find a better piece for this guy to stand upon.  i lashed his head to his body with raffia and with linen thread suggested pockets into which his hands are dug pretty deep.

i  like his plumpness, where his belly sort of rolls to the side.  it makes him look a little soft, like the years have been good to him.

so, what does this man say about me, and my specialty?  i suppose that i love to make things, i do it for a living and i do it for fun.  he doesn't represent a particular style though, as i don't think i have one.  there are just too many things to try, to test out and to consider.  i suspect one day i might find a niche, but not a specialty... i have the site to encourage myself to continue to try new things, to hold myself accountable and to have fun.  this is fun.