Bee Happy loves our Bee Babies!

Last year, when Melissa had a baby, the girls from Bee Happy all whipped up some quilt squares, sent them off to Natalie and she finished the quilt so we could present it to Melissa at a LAMQG meeting.

So when we learned that Janice had a baby, it was only fitting that we came up with something for her too. Now Bee Happy is notoriously chill about our deadlines, but we CRANKED on this! It was only about 6 weeks and we had a completed quilt out the door for new baby Emma.

We learned her nursery's color scheme and shared our fabrics and we all made squares in the Mod Mosaic pattern. Lori whipped up the top, Alison quilted it at our favorite shop, Sew Modern, and I finished the binding and label and sent it out the door!

Yay bee girls!

Here's another pic of me showing the almost finished quilt to the guild at our last meeting.

Old Artwork - post 2

I made 4 of these silk stained glass banners to hang in a church we attended in Chicago. They were 5'x6' long and a lot of work, but I hear they are even still in use!

My very first textile design experience was a silk painting and batik class that I took in Florence, Italy one summer. I haven't painted on silk in years, but it was how I got my start, how I got my first job - and I even ended up using my knowledge to write a curriculum that our company used for years on how to teach people about silk painting. 

I need to go dig those supplies up somewhere...  if you're ever offered the chance to paint on silk, it is an experience that is like no other painting. I highly recommend it. These are only the biggest ones I made - I also made probably 30+ other paintings that are in various places and uses right now in people's lives.

The pics below are from 2 years ago when I revisited my old studio in Florence and found my teacher was still there and remembered me! Not only did she remember me, but she had photos of me (completely dorky) with my work. That was a very amazing day for me to revisit this place that 12 years earlier had formed a major foundation for who I was to become.  These pics were really special to take.  The studio was in a converted convent and was exactly how I remembered it.

Old Artwork - post 3

More installments in my "old artwork" series:

I grouped these two together because they may or may not have happened around the same time, but it's clear the inspiration was the concept of embroidering scenery.

 This tiny piece was what I spent a rainy winter weekend on as we escaped the frigid Chicago winter for a visit to Arizona.  We stayed in a friend's vacation home and though it was rainy, the desert was gorgeous and I sat there inside, overlooking the endless pool as it dropped off into the cool and green valley. The desert had never looked so pretty to me.  Even looking at this now, I can remember more senses and feelings than I normally remember about that trip. Isn't that one of the great reasons we make art?

 This piece also was made on a vacation. It was the view of a valley below us at the home we stayed at in Hyderabad, India. I found it so funny that there were boulders in the yards of the homes below that were larger than the houses. I imagined this would be called, "The Boulders Come With the House" - I'm sure that the doors were probably that color, too - knowing India.

Typewriter jewelry

Recently I got it in my head that I wanted a necklace made out of a vintage typrewriter key. So I popped over to etsy and found a ton of options! But far and away, my favorite was the one that I ended up with. It's made by IvieRidge and I absolutely love it. I wear it all the time and get so many people asking me about where I got it.  Thought I'd share the source and the etsy love.

Scraps finding a purpose - Rebecca's quilt

Remember how every few months I get freaked out by my stash and send out a call for people who want scraps? Well I LOVE LOVE LOVE it when the recipients send me pics of what they've made. I gave some scraps to a neighbor, Rebecca, and she made this quilt almost a year ago and I keep forgetting to post pics of it!
Well, now I remembered... Sorry to have forgotten this long, Rebecca!

Didn't she do the greatest job? I'm so happy to see these fabrics from my skirts get a fresh and happy life.
If this inspires you and you want some scraps (and are either local to pick them up or willing to pay shipping) let me know and I'll get some off to you!

Old artwork - post 1

I was looking through photos tonight and saw that I have a ton of cool artwork that I did 7-10 years ago that I have never posted about here. So here's installment #1. I made this 8"x10" embroidered skyline of Chicago for an auction. I can't remember who bought it, and I doubt I even signed the piece - but I do remember being so proud that it sold.  This was back in my days as a textile designer when I lived in Chicago and was involved in the interior design industry in the city, so the buildings all meant a lot to me.

These days I wish I'd kept this piece! Or at least taken a better picture of it.

Another easy camping craft

Here's another craft that I did in about 10 minutes while we were camping. I saw that there were tons of snapped twigs around on the ground in various sizes and spent almost no time collecting these to make our cute little sign.  I think it will end up being framed in our home.

No twigs were hurt (or even broken!) in the making of this art.

Camper Camp Crafts

We just went to Sequoia National Park on a camping trip with some other local families.
My responsibility was crafts and t-shirts. When I wasn't sewing in the car or giving their moms quilting lessons, I was making fun projects with the kids.

Though I love crafts and I love kid's art... I despise "puffy paints" and hand-drawn t-shirts that end up only being good for sleep and painting shirts. I knew my access to facilities and materials would be limited, so I tried to think of the best way to assure each kid of a cool shirt.
"Stencils!" i thought... "how could i use stencils?" Lucky for me, since the last time that i decorated t-shirts, a new product has come out.  These Tulip brand spray paints are awesome. They're not cheap - but it only took 4 bottles to make 11 t-shirts and 9 pillowcases - with about 1/3 bottle left over in each bottle.

Any stencil would work, but I wanted a custom one, so I printed out a clip art image I found of an RV and taped it to a discarded cereal box. I used an xacto knife to cut out the design and saved both parts. The RV alone ended up being a cool one for the adults (even the dads wanted them!) and then I drew and cut out the words "CAMPER CAMP" on the rest of the box for the kids' shirts.  Since I knew I would be using the stencil a bunch of times I actually coated both sides with Mod Podge to make it more durable. Acrylic Medium would work too.

Once we were on the trip, we laid down some plastic tablecloths on the ground and we got to spraying. One point to note is that the more intensely sprayed shirts ended up looking better after a wash.  The kids had a hard time working the sprayer, so I had them direct me which colors and how to spray.

Once the t-shirts were a big hit, everyone wanted to move onto the pillowcases that I had asked them to bring. But the girls, who'd been playing fairies in the woods all morning, wanted fairies and mermaids... so I drew and cut out of more cereal boxes some other designs - rudimentary, but all stencils are - I made dolphins, mermaids, hearts, pirate ships and fairies.  They sprayed the body of the pillowcases and used Sharpie markers to write their names along the hemmed edges of the pillowcases.

As I was making them - I realized, not only is this the perfect camping craft - it's also a great one for a birthday party.
I think we will be revisiting this process in the near future. With more fairies.

and just because I can't write about Sequoia and not show the giant trees... Here are some pics for inspiration and size.

 

(one big Sequoia with two cute 6 year olds.)

(see the tiny people down by the base of "General Sherman"?)

WIP- quilting the beast

Okay I am not going to name this quilt "the beast", but it's big enough to earn the nickname for sure.
I was so ambitious tonight. Got my machine out and everything. Then I realized that spray baste doesn't hold awesomely when the quilt is kept folded and shoved in a box for a few months. So tonight I pinned and taped. Maybe I quilt tomorrow night?
(my friend Melissa calls herself the sewing vampire - only sewing after her kids are asleep. I'm the same way. Only I don't know about the blood-sucking part. Maybe a vegetarian vampire quilter?)
Okay quilt. See you tomorrow night. You. Me. Here.

Mimi presents her quilts at the LAMQG

In February, I took Mimi to Sew Modern and as we bought fabrics for my birthday, she picked out a bunch that she wanted to make a bag with. I told her that if she made the bag that she'd get to present it at a guild meeting and that I would let her stay up really late to attend.
Well, you saw the bag. Now you get to see the awesome pics that my guild pal, Nichole, took of the Design Director showing off her work. (THANKS,  NICHOLE!)


Here she is saying, "This one I designed but I didn't sew it, because I was only 4"


"This quilt I did everything except for the owl and the binding. My mom helped me with those"


"Here is my bag. I did everything on it except I didn't do the snap or the button on the pocket and my mom attached the ribbon to the straps for me before I sewed them on"

Everyone was freaking out. She was pretty cute, even if she was my own kid. That little 6 year old got up in front of everyone and said exactly what she wanted to say in front of 60 adult strangers. Talk about proud moments. I was so high on that kid that night. She rocked it.
Then after the meeting she showed me the fabrics she wanted to make a dress out of and asked for a lollipop.