Softie has arrived

My backtack softie came! It traveled to Farmer City all the way from Australia (and a town with "roo" in its name). Christabel at mrworkswell knit him up for me. He's a bot. I particularly like like the arm pose, but what's really neat about this guy is the yarn. I don't know if yarn is the right word. It looks like it might be fabric strips and the fabric has tiny dots on it and feels a little like fuzzy paper. It's kind of like what a pillow on an airplane might be coved in. What is it? Tell us Christabel! Very cool.

The cute teapot card was a bonus extra. Thanks Christabel!

6!

Happy Birthday to Beebs and happy day-my-child-was-born to me. She is six, but swears she doesn't feel any different. May is such a great month that if you have a birthday in May, you are pretty much gauranteed a nice birthday day.


Elie and I finally got the climber (swingset) up that we'd been meaning to erect since we moved in. That's right, Elie and I. I was very hands on in this wood-based project. Wood isn't really my thing, but it got done a lot faster with the two of us working on it. I was Saw Girl and he was Drill Boy. Go team. It came out well, and it's highly functional, but so far, it has not had any safety consideration applied. Railings? Bah-who needs 'em.

Oh, and in the background of the first pic is "The Edition". Gigantic box circa 1975.

See the Señorita

I've been meaning to post this one for a while. I saw this fabric at Cia's Palette a couple of months ago and loved it. I thought it would make a perfect something for Beebs because it had both pink and sculls. (When I was a little girl I thought sculls were yucky, but than again, my Dad didn't sport them on his pants every day.) I also really liked these skirts at Boden with their contrast trim and waistband. And so, the copy skirt was begun.

The contrast trim is done with bias tape, so I got to use my cool Clover bias tape makers that have been sitting in a box since I discovered that applique gives me a tremendous headache. They're really instant gratification fun--you shove one end of a strip of fabric into this metal taper, and then you iron it flat as it comes out the other side. Pretty cool. The other thing I like about this skirt is that I figured out how to make the front of the skirt waist flat with elastic in the back.

Beebs is standing in my kitchen. The kitchen is one of the Work In Progress rooms. Some rooms make quicker progress than others, and the kitchen is at a complete standstill. More on that some other time.

I get to actually give the Jolly Roger shirt tomorrow. We going out for goodbye drinks!

A Big Ball of Yarn Rolls Into the House

(as the octopi look on in horror)



This week's whiplash worked with the theme "yarn". There is just so much cool stuff you can do with yarn, but I'm still a yarn beginner and not really good with the quick yarn projects. So, my yarn submission is a stitched picture of yarn. Specifically, it's a picture of a gigantic ball of yarn which is about to strike the little house of an octopus.

Beebs helped me with this one (an appropriate Mother's Day activity). It was her idea to put the octopus in the house. All the materials used are scraps from other projects. My scrap basket threw up all over my living room and we went to town. The yarn ball is machine stitched and the other pieces are machine appliqued to the quilt. It was a lot of fun. Thanks whipup!

Happy Mother's Day

Moms of the world, I hope you're having a great day. I got oatmeal in bed and more hand-crafted cards and gifts than one could ever hope for. I'm so fortunate.

Beebs likes to visit craft blogs with me, so I think that this whip up post is her source of inspiration for this lovely flower. She whipped it up, man. I'm so proud. I especially like the side bud.

On a different note, when Hillary tells you to pin, you had better pin. Being a quilter (though you wouldn't know it from this blog), I'm really into not pinning my work, and I'm accustomed to working with flat objects. Three dimensional softies need pins. Progress is good in this area.

Bathroom demolition

The room-that-will-be-the-bathroom is getting torn up. The drywall is down, revealing some very old wallpaper behind it. I think finding the wallpaper is one of best things about renovation. Most of it is so sweet that it makes me wish it was in good condition and hadn't been covered over by all sorts of other stuff. It seems our future bathroom was somebody's nursery-- Look, a little girl with her dolly!

Surprise?

I've been on and off in my head about whether or not I'm supposed to keep my backtack project until the end and then post. So I went to the backtack website and it says, "We expect you to post regularly, show us what you're doing..." So that's what I'm going to do. Here's Ticky Kitty getting ready to be cut:I'm planning on heading to the Third Sunday Market next weekend to see what sort of odds and ends I can find for kitty. I'm going to the market myself this time so I can get while the gettin's good (early), and so that Beebs doesn't have to be the most bored child ever, and so Elie doesn't remind me again about the set of wooden folding chairs that we didn't buy that one time because the thought toteing them to the car was just too much (see above about bored child).

Big Love

Thanks to everybody who put in a good word for me on last week's whipup whiplash. I feel so great! I am a fairly obsessed newcomer to the online craftblog scene, and it's just so cool to participate in these types of communal craft activities-- also very cool to be recognized.

I was talking to my friend Jeanne about it, and I think that whatever fuels my craft-along obsession is the same thing that drew me into quilting--It's the idea that there are endless possiblilites for rearranging materials within the same parameters. I am a rules-based person, and all of my favorite activities involve being creative within some set of rules: coding, quilting, renovating the house, and now craft-alongs. Speaking of which, I'll be working on my backtack project this weekend!

Finished Munki Munki dress

And here's Beebs sportin' some fine Munki Munki. I like it, she likes it, and we're all happy. Beebs had more input on this one than on past dresses because when I finished the last one I made her, she told me that the waist was too high and it bothered her stomach, and that basically she wasn't into baby-styled dresses anymore. Fine. I can take it. This was in the same week that she told me she wasn't into unicorns and sparkly stuff anymore and she was more into "you know, science".

So, you will notice that this dress has a suitably low waist and that a girl who was maybe even nine might wear it. I followed a Simplicity pattern that kind of sucked because the directions really were written for those who have sergers (I don't and probably won't ever), but it didn't really say that anywhere. My inside seams, they are not so pretty on this one.