06
Feb, 2008

more snow!

another teaser from my work in progress (fabric by alexander henry):

wow.  it snowed all last night and most of the day today.  lots and lots of snow.  i got this link in an e-mail today.  any weather buffs out there might be interested in the graphs found there.  be sure to scroll down!

so i kept expecting to get a phone call that the library was closed, but… apparently we don’t close for anything.  or actually, i found out today that we stay open as long as the city buses* are still running.  not sure if there’s a direct correlation, but that was the rumor i heard anyway.  so, i shoveled the driveway, bundled up and made my way out into a white, snowy, blowy world.  here’s what the parking lot at work looked like when i arrived:

can you see the snow blowing sideways through this photo?  oh well, if you can’t see that you can at least see the drifts.  i went in, not sure if anyone would show up for my infant and toddler programs this morning. sure enough, some die hard (or cabin fevered) folks came to each program.  we even had some fun!  i had no other programs or meetings scheduled for the rest of the day and my throat was a little sore so… i decided to leave work a little early today.  i stayed long enough to give my co-workers a lunch break and left around 1:30.  by the time i left, the snow was up past my ankles (and no, i wasn’t wearing snow boots–brrr!  snow in my shoes!).  no one had shoveled the back sidewalk or the parking lot (we park in a private school/church parking lot behind the library and since there was no school today–no plowing!)  i called mr. happy stuff (who had chosen to work from home as he is fighting off a cold and, well, the weather thing) to let him know that i was on my way home early, wiped the ice off of my windshield wiper, the snow off my windows and headed out.  hooray for vehicles with a high ground clearance!  i successfully maneuvered myself out of the parking lot and onto the street.  the highway between work and home was moving slow (perfectly fine with me!) and there really weren’t very many cars out at all (even more fine with me) but about halfway home, the ice on my wipers started building up and i was forced to scrunch down in my seat in order to see out of the one clear spot.  i decided to take an earlier exit than usual (to avoid several potential awkward merges) and although visibility was so low that at times i wasn’t absolutely sure where the road was, the car in front of me seemed to be doing all right and i could see its taillights, so i followed them.  at the first stoplight, i looked over at my passenger side windshield wiper and realized why it had been even less effective than the driver’s side.  i hadn’t wiped the ice off of that one before i left, but i think it built up a bit more on the ride home:

(that big chunk was between the wiper and the window)  whew!  i finally made it home.  the trickiest driving was probably on my own road, but they always plow that last anyway, so i wasn’t taken by surprise.  hooray for being home!  here’s my doormat (isn’t it pretty with snow?):

i shucked my snowy duds and went to see how my hubby and my cats were doing.  one of my kitties is definitely a cuddly homebody.  the other one is more of an intrepid explorer.  she always begs to go outside, regardless of the weather.  when the snow is this deep, i feel a little less nervous about setting her loose (the snow slows her down and i can catch her if she tries to make a break for it) so i thought i’d give her a treat and let her walk around in the cold stuff.

she didn’t get too far, but then again, i didn’t let her go as far as she wanted to.  the rest of the day was dedicated to coziness.  i baked malt-o-meal magic muffins (recipe’s on the box).  they smell (and taste) so good and the ingredients are so simple that i always have everything i need on hand.  then, while i was waiting for them to bake, i curled up in the hammock chair with a pillow, two blankets and a bag of “tart apple snitz.”

i’d never heard them called anything but “dried apples” before i found these in virginia over christmas, but i like the term “snitz.”  i read a book and then took a long nap during which cuddly homebody kitty jumped up into the hammock with me and we were warm and cozy together.  mr. happy stuff said he talked to someone who talked to someone who is having to spend the night at her workplace because the roads are too bad to travel.  the snow plows are only doing the major roads and they can’t even keep up with that.  so glad i came home when i did.  i’d much rather be stuck here.

to extend the cozy just a little bit longer, i made easy black bean soup and cheesy grits casserole from the more-with-less cookbook.  my mom made this a few times, but always served it with pintos.  we eat way more black beans than pintos, so i thought i’d give a try.  super yummy.  very cozy.

okay, i can’t stand keeping you in suspense any longer.  my work-in-progress is actually done!  i finished it while i was waiting for the cheesy grits to bake.  wanna see it?

it’s a lap quilt!  this is the front.  it was inspired by this photo. i think they did their quilting a little differently than i did mine and if i made this quilt again (which is not particularly likely–i don’t like to repeat myself when there’s so many good ideas out there!) i would probably do the quilting much differently than i did here.  from this far away, you probably can’t see the large amounts of puckering, but since i just made it to cuddle with, i don’t really care.  i also had considered putting the binding on in a more correct manner, and i’d even considered making my own binding, but when it came down to it, i was too impatient and just sewed ready-made red quilt binding straight on with one seam through all of the layers.  no hand-stitching.  i am certainly a slapdash seamstress, but i looooove the way it turned out!  here’s the back:

the main fabric on the back is is what’s pictured at the top of this post.  i bought all the yardage they had at the store and it wasn’t quite enough to cover the whole back, so i pieced a strip that incorporates some of the colors from the squares on the front and used the pattern on the fabric to inspired a hand-painted strip of the pattern, enlarged.  what do you think?  i really need to learn how to take good pictures of finished quilts (is that possible without special lights?), but i hope you can get the idea here.  i’m so excited with the results.  i’m going to try washing it now.  cross your fingers that the reds don’t bleed!
*that word always looks wrong.  shouldn’t it be “busses” so that it isn’t pronounced like “fuses”?

Posted in crafty stuff, library stuff, photography, winter, yum | 1 Comment
05
Feb, 2008

done!

so i think i’ve mentioned before that i’m now a needlepoint fan.  well, i finished another piece!  this one features eye-bendingly bright colors (much to the horror of mr. happy stuff) but it pulls together some of the disparate colors i’ve been trying to link in the living room and it’s cute!  the pattern is (roughly) from the book great knitted gifts which has great patterns that i would never attempt to knit (way too comlex) but which make wonderful needlepoint patterns.  i took a few liberties with the color suggestions.
here’s a close-up:


and here’s a funny story for the day:

last weekend, i attended an event called “celebrating youth*” for work.  i thought it was going to be a boring series of workshops where i sat at an info booth for the library (as i had done the day before at a different event) but i was sooooo wrong. it was a day full of performances by local kids doing all sorts of things–dancing, singing, unicycling, juggling, lots of different stuff–and it was great fun!  so, on tuesday, when one of the parents at my infant/toddler program at the library asked me how my week was going, i thought i’d plug this annual event.  i said, “on sunday, i went to ‘celebrating youth’–have you heard of it?” and the dad replied, “no, i went to ‘bemoaning old age’ instead.” but he said it in such an off-hand way and then continued the conversation as though he hadn’t made a joke, that i didn’t even pick up on what he’d said until a few beats later and then i laughed, but it was too late.  the moment had passed.  but i still giggle about it whenever i remember it.  i keep imagining what sort of performances might be at an event with that name.
*although this is a great event, i think it’s a poorly named one.  i mean, even if they’d add the word “festival” or something to the end, it would more accurately reflect the atmosphere and (i think) attract more participants.  although there wasn’t a dearth of participants, so what do i know?

Posted in crafty stuff, laugh, library stuff | 1 Comment
04
Feb, 2008

‘druthers

today was the last day of a four day weekend for me (i still love working 80%!) and last night, mr. happy stuff asked what i had planned for the day.  i said, “well, there’s a big list of things i could do, but if i had my ‘druthers, i would read and sew at some point tomorrow.”  apparently, i do have my ‘druthers!  i finished reading a whole (kids’ chapter) book while sitting in my hammock chair, and i got a little further on my current work-in-progress–a quilted throw.  here’s a teaser of the quilt:

granted, i got lots of other things done as well (cooking, laundry, dying more things brown, a few snail mail cards written….)  but i was so glad not to have to go out during the drippiest part of the day.  boo, cold rainy sleety stuff!  although i do like the way it catches the light on the tips of these branches:

i’ll end this short post with a cute picture of two of my young friends curled up in front of… the baby monitor!  (what a great show!  she’s sleeping!)

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments
04
Feb, 2008

new techie toy (and a few other happy things)

today i discovered photoshop brushes. now, many of you might be thinking, um, those are really old news and where have you been, ms. happy stuff? hiding in a hole and singing “la, la, la, i don’t want to learn photoshop, i just want to stumble along blindly and try to make it work using the three tools i already know how to use, thank you very much!” and you’d be sort of right. photoshop has always been a little intimidating to me. there are sooooooo many mysterious terms lurking within its menus like “rasterize” and “color dodge” that i just figured i would never be able to learn how to use everything (and even if someone showed me, i’d forget how to do 98% of it) so i just learned how to convert photos to black and white, crop stuff and use the eraser and clone tools. ok, maybe i learned how to do a few other things, but really, that was all i ever did on any sort of regular basis. then i made my discovery of the day. apparently, there are artists out there who (like fonts and desktop wallpaper) like to create “photoshop brushes” that you can download and use for free! some of you might be thinking, “i don’t get it. aren’t the photoshop brushes just different sizes of circles? maybe some with solid edges and some with blurred edges?” and you would be sort of right. there are brushes for those basic and very useful shapes. but there are also very fancy “brushes” that are sort of like clip art stamps that you can add to your photos and make them look (i think) really cool. here’s an example–

the picture by itself (lovely and simple):

the picture with photoshop brushes called “floral swirl” (and some text):

what do you think? i think they are lovely and i see so many fun potential uses for these! they come in all sorts of different designs and design styles and are as easy to install as free fonts. wheeeeeee! now, if someone out there has been using these for a long time and can tell me if it’s possible to rotate your brush and how to do that, i’d be very interested to hear that information. i figured out how to make it bigger or smaller and how to change the color and the opacity (another fun word!), and i even figured out how to put the brushwork additions on a different layer (another milestone for me. i had a prejudice against using layers ever since trying to use them in website design with dreamweaver (or was it “fireworks”?) and ending up swearing and throwing things around the room.), but rotating the brush i havent’ figured out yet.

in other news, this weekend was apparently the “winter festival” downtown. for some reason, i missed it yesterday because i thought it was at the university, so i went downtown today to see the snow and ice sculptures. i should have gone yesterday. the snow sculptures were mostly destroyed already, except for one “shoe house” which had a little person peeking through the window:

and i wandered around forever and finally found the ice sculptures. they were mostly intact, but one had broken. here’s one of them:

so that was a little disappointing, but never fear! serendipity is here! while wandering around looking for the ice sculptures, i happened to notice this sign:

he is a favorite artist of one of my best friends, so i had to go inside to see the exhibit. the prints weren’t quite as colorful as i remember his stuff being, but there were definitely some familiar elements and it would be so cool if my friend could be here to see this! (you know who you are!)

on the way back to my car, i finally decided to visit fromagination. there was a guy standing outside with a big cow bell thing hollering that there were free samples of hot chocolate and mulled wine inside and i’d been wanting to check this place out for forever, so i jumped at the chance. the hot chocolate sample was simply delicious and if i had thought it was a low calorie drink, i might have purchased a whole cup. as it was, i decided to try out one of their natural sodas and a sandwich from their deli case (made with neuske’s smoked ham and some freakin’ delicious cheese–the guy told me what kind of cheese it was, but honestly, in a store with that many cheeses, i couldnt’ remember which one he said was on the sandwich.) he wrapped it up in white butcher paper and a piece of tape (i’m a sucker for that kind of classy packaging* although i suppose i would have been even more impressed had he tied it with string instead of clear tape. ooooooh. that would have been super classy. the sandwich also came with a side of cornichons.

when i got home, i toasted the sandwich in the toaster oven and i have to say it really was a delicious sandwich. whatever kind of cheese it was, it was smoked and drool-a-riffic.

because the soda is natural, they have a note on the bottle to help offset the settling of solids that occurs:

(in case this is too small to read, it says, “gently shake my hips before placing bottle to your lips”)

i hope you had a good weekend too!
*”classy” as opposed to the papers they wrap sandwiches in at burger king.

Posted in fun stuff, photography, winter, yum | 3 Comments
03
Feb, 2008

baby shots

so many fun things to blog about today.  i visited the winter farmer’s market for the first time at the senior center.  not many of the things on my list were there, but i did find italian sausage for my spaghetti sauce!

i went out to play pond hockey, but by the time i got there it was snowing pretty heavily and the ice was completely covered with 1 or 2 inches of snow.  also, only a handful of friends showed up to play, but i actually enjoyed it!  the snow slows down the puck to a speed that i can (almost) keep up with.  and i enjoyed carving patterns through the snow on my skates.  or at least looking back at them to see what shape i skate in (apparently parallel wavy lines).

i tried out the new creperie in town.  i hope to blog more about them in the future, so i’ll just say for this time that i ordered a few “to-go” crepes and took them home for lunch–yum!

i enjoyed homemade pizza and ice cream sundae bar with friends for dinner this evening.  had some wonderful conversations with a dear friend that i don’t get a chance to chat with nearly enough and saw some great you tube videos that were new to me.

and i took pictures of babies.  two in one day!  the first baby is a little guy i’d photographed a few months ago and he looks a little different now.  what a cutie!

the second baby is brand new.  she is eight days old and arrived a bit earlier than anticipated.  these shots were taken in the nicu with the kind assistance of the nurses who agreed to remove her feeding tube for this photo session.  isn’t she beautiful?

Posted in photography, winter | 1 Comment
02
Feb, 2008

cablopomo

i may regret this, but i’d like to try my hand at a month of daily blogging. i realize that nablopomo (national blog posting month) is november, but i was really busy in november and adding another thing to my to-do pile might have toppled it right over and made a big mess and no one wants to read about that sort of mess every day for a whole month. so instead, i’ll try february. ah, the shortest month of the year (although i seem to have picked the wrong year to really benefit from this decision)! my reasons for doing this are that i would like to get back into the habit of posting more often, and i’d also like to try out carrying my camera around with me on a more regular basis. it seems like every time i go anywhere, i see photos i wish i could take, but i have no camera. this may prove to be a fruitless goal, but i’ll try it nonetheless.

of course, i say that and then… today i forgot to bring my camera out with me. i would have loved to take some pictures at the ma-cha teahouse. i returned to my favorite study spot today now that classes are back in session and discovered that there is a new room! the room that used to be the kids’ toy room has been refurnished as the “zen cave.” they painted the walls a lovely very dark gray, raised the floor and added grass mats, a low table and a few floor cushions. it was a wonderful place to enjoy my lunch (a curry-ish “grains and veggie sandwich” that apparently was vegan–down to the “vegannaise”!). The proprietor threw in some bonus cookies (not sure if it was because i’m a regular or because of free cookie friday, but i don’t question free cookies) that were amazingly delicious–ginger and green tea, i think. they were about as big as a quarter, rounded on top and buttery-crumbly like a butter cookie, but with a twist of flavors. they were covered in a fine coat of sugar that melted beautifully when dunked in my chai tea. then, after i’d eaten a bite, there were two or three sparkles of salty taste on my tongue after the cookie was swallowed–mingling with the sweet and buttery taste of the cookie still lingering. a-mazing.

i found these mini calla lilies at trader joe’s for less than $5 for a dozen. i know they’re not local and i know they’re not in season, but… i splurged. when i trimmed the first stem after i got home, a little spider crawled out! (eek!) i wondered how far he’d traveled…. callas are such a sculptural flower that i just had to take some pictures. ginger really wanted to help.

Posted in photography, winter, yum | 2 Comments
30
Jan, 2008

yep, i’m a foodie.

so yesterday, mr. happy stuff forwarded me information about “restaurant week.”  i hadn’t heard about it before, but apparently, for one week in january, restaurants across town (and generally pretty high end ones) offer a 3-course meal for $25 per person.  the menu is usually limited, but we were both thrilled to see the best restaurant in town was listed as a participant.  now, you might be adding this up in your head and thinking, “hmmmm…. that’s not really that cheap, especially once you add in drinks and a tip” and normally i’d agree with you, but meals at said best restaurant can easily normally cost 2-3 times that much so we jumped at the chance.  by the time i called to see if there were any available reservations, there was only one–at 9:00 on tuesday night.  the weather was forecasted to be “bitterly cold.  colder.” with strong winds and blowing snow and ice all over, but we decided it was worth it.  so, we snacked a bit when we got home from work at 6:00 to tide us over (we don’t normally have dinner at 9:00), then, when it was finally time to go, we put on slightly nicer clothes than we’d worn to work and headed out into the cold.  and it was cold.  very cold.  bitterly cold.  colder.  and so worth it.  here’s the prix fixe menu for tonight:
Appetizer

Cherokee Farm Bison Bresaola “Involtini”
with Pickled Mushrooms and Arugula topped with Shaved SarVecchio

or

Sweet Onion Soup
with Pleasant Ridge Reserve Croutons

Entrée

Black Earth Valley Exotic Mushroom Crêpes
with Winter Root Vegetable Ragoût and Red Currant Gastrique

or

Artesian Farm Pan-Roasted Rainbow Trout
with Snug Haven Spinach, Willow Creek Farm Bacon Lardons, Toasted Pine Nuts and Balsamic Reduction

Dessert

         Ela Orchard Apple Crisp
with Vanilla Bean Ice Cream

we also got an “amuse bouche” (a new phrase for us–we are such newbies to this fancy food thing–which apparently means “an extra little thing the chef gives you as a bonus to whet your appetite”) which was a tiny espresso cup full of parsnip soup with a honey and balsamic reduction drizzled over the top and some bacon.  it was sweeter than i’d expected parsnips to be (not sure what i was expecting, actually) but the saltiness of the bacon was a delicious contrast.

i ordered the top appetizer and mr. h-s got the soup.  i didn’t know what “bresaola” or “involtini” were, but the waiter was kind enough to explain it to me and i enjoyed the dish greatly.  it turned out to be three little rolled up bundles of thin, matchstick cut veggies, wrapped in a thin slice of cured bison meat and a little pile of fresh greens with a delicate and simple but surprisingly yummy dressing (oil, vinegar and fleur de sel?)

for the entrees, we chose different meals as well (can you guess who picked which?).  i got the mushroom crepes which were much nicer than any crepes i’ve made at home.  so many different and yummy flavors!  like a happy dance in my mouth.

and, of course, mr. happy stuff was thrilled to pieces with the dessert (i thought it was tasty too, but apples+caramel+crumbly topping+ vanilla ice cream is pretty much his favorite dessert ever–how lucky can you get?).

the staff there made us feel so comfortable.  they took our coats and were friendly and chatty with us and didn’t make us feel foolish for asking things like “what’s a bresaola?”  we also learned that apparently they do a $35 prix fixe menu every week tues-thurs all year round!  since their menu is based on what’s in season, we’re looking forward to going in the summer sometime for a completely different kind of meal.

if we’d been seated somewhere other than the exact center of the restaurant, i might have felt comfortable enough to take some photos of our food to show you, but as it was, i thought that the photos i’d get with the cell phone might not have done justice to the food anyway, so (sorry) you’ll just have to imagine it.

we barely managed to make it back to our car without getting blown off of our feet by the wind or slipping on the ice (a small miracle!) and now we’re home, warm, cozy and very well fed.  hooray for spur-of-the-moment splurges!

Posted in winter, yum | 6 Comments
28
Jan, 2008

dye, dye, dye!

ok, that blog title was in honor of my nephew who, over christmas, had chosen that syllable as his favorite and babbled it frequently and sounded a lot like that title (or, if you prefer, “die, die, die”).  i also chose this title because i’ve finally fixed my bathmats!  i have two sets of bathmats–one that is slightly newer and that i put out when guests come and the older set which i put out at other times,  i do a rotation rather than a replacement because these bathmats are white and get kinda yucky looking pretty quickly.  here is a photo of the white mat:

this is actually one of the newer ones and it’s been recently washed, so it’s looking perky and fresh, but trust me when i say that the other set was not so pleasant to look at.  i finally decided something had to be done and i bought two bottles of dark brown liquid dye.  liquid dyes (and bleach) make me nervous–they permanently change the color of things and they’re splashy and a bit unpredictable, but i braved my fears, donned some dark, old clothing, and got out my giant canning vat and tried to follow the directions.  i failed to have the patience to leave the rugs in the dye bath for the proscribed 30-60 minutes while constantly stirring (more like 10 minutes while half-heartedly poking at the fabric with tongs) but i was actually getting worried that the rugs might turn too dark so i took them out early.  after squeezing, rinsing, putting it through a spin cycle and then a hot dryer for a long time…. i looooove the way they’ve turned out!  here are some “after” photos (pick your favorite lighting situation–they’re both accurate in their own way…):

apparently ginger approves.  hmm….. white kitty, dark brown rug…. i think i may see the drawback to this plan…

oh well, let’s end with a pretty sunset shot from this evening.

Posted in Uncategorized, winter | 2 Comments
23
Jan, 2008

stuff on my walls

so there are some new things on my walls that i’ve hinted at, but now i finally have some (gray, wintry day, indoor) photos to show you! first, a print that i bought from modern art everyday last fall. i finally got it into a frame and now it has pride of place on my coat rack “mantel.” the background is actually a very dark brown (not black).

next, here’s the calendar art work in the plexiglas frames i made the other day:

and the finished necklace box/rack/thingy that i made with my dad over christmas. it’s kind of wonky (the doors dont’ shut all the way) but it’s hidden behind my bedroom door and serves its purpose wonderfully well. maybe if i ever get the doors adjusted so that they close correctly (help? dad?) i’ll add some sort of embellishment to the front–paint? a vinyl decal? so many options! but for now, i’m afraid to call any more attention to the doors than necessary.

this isn’t officially on my “walls” but here’s the other woodworking project i made with my dad–a wooden frame for the marker board on my refrigerator.  do you know how impossible it is to find something as simple as this readymade in the stores?  i had to buy extra-strong magnets, but now it works beautifully.

and my real art purchase of 2007 is this wonderful painting by jane fasse. i admired it everytime i went to the macha teahouse (which you may remember was pretty frequently this past fall) and finally just had to buy it. isn’t it gorgeous?

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on stuff on my walls
21
Jan, 2008

aaaaaaahhhh

i finally had the day i’ve been craving. it snowed most of the day and i didn’t have to go to work. or leave the house for any reason. i played with the circular saw and made some crude acrylic “frames” for some art (i’ll post photos later this week sometime) and only had a few mishaps (one piece of acrylic broke off before i’d cut it all the way off–no biggie, plenty still left for the frames; lots of little pieces of plexi-dust (as opposed to sawdust, but then again, it’s not really the dust of the saw and they don’t call it wooddust, but you get the idea–is that stuff toxic?) all over everything in the furnace room (hooray for hand-held vacuums!); and a slight nick in the saw’s power cord (i set it down while the blade hadn’t stopped running and the front edge of the blade that is not protected by the blade guard brushed against the cord.)–oh well, a little black tape and now it just looks like a saw that someone actually uses, right?)

i also baked bread and roasted some root vegetables to throw into food for the rest of the week (sweet potatoes, carrots and beets)–that’s my new technique to get me to eat vegetables during winter. they mostly taste pretty good in things with black beans which we eat all the time.

i also began reading a book called “in praise of slowness” which i’ve had checked out for an embarrassingly long time and *ahem* haven’t had the time to read it. it’s all about not speeding through life. a great read from the hammock chair in my sunny dining room. also a great prelude to a nap–not because it’s boring (which it’s not) but because it makes you believe that taking a nap is a completely justifiable use of your time.

i then went back to my pillow project in the sewing room and that’s where i am now. i’m working on making some pillows for the living room with orange accents and using a denyse schmidt quilt pattern called “ice pops.” quilting is my current “thing”–except so far, i’m much more excited about the piecing part than the quilting part. in order to satisfy that craving, yesterday i made a duvet cover for my bed and pieced the top and the bottom. since it was a duvet cover, i feel totally justified in not quilting it (that would be overkill, right?) and i love the way it makes my bed look just a little more… finished. the kitties like it.

closer detail:

here’s the other side:

we had just been using the comforter by itself and it has a big blue ink splot on one side. mostly, i just wanted a duvet cover because that’s easier to wash than a comforter and since the kitties sleep there all day (and half the night) and get fur all over it and since i’m allergic to the kitties (but unwilling to kick them out of the bedroom–they look so cozy!) i thought i’d just make it easier to wash. i love the way it turned out! i’ve been inspired by some blogs of non-traditional quilters like lady harvatine, glittergoods, my aunt june, and probably a few others i’ve forgotten. i’ve spent waaaaay too much time browsing flickr for keywords, “denyseschmidt” because i’ve found that it leads me to like-minded quilters and quilting bloggers. i’ve also been introduced to the concept of free-motion quilting and want to find out more about how it works. today, i looked through my sewing machine manual and learned how to lower my feed dogs (one of the first steps to free motion quilting. isn’t that a fun phrase?) which was much easier than i’d thought it would be (hey, there’s a switch on the back of my machine that lowers them! no screwdriver or swearing necessary!) and then i played around with the tension and the presser foot and… short story? it’s going to take some practice and probably a few more tutorials of some kind, but i definitely want to play with it more. could be fun! swirly quilting–not just straight lines anymore!

check out this falling snow picture i took–can you see the 6 pointed snowflake in the center? (all the other snowflakes ended up just being circular blobs–isn’t this cool?!)

one more funny/embarrassing story for the weekend. yesterday, i was cleaning out the kitchen sink and realized i apparently hadn’t cleaned it for a few days. i found this:

it’s a black bean that sprouted and was putting down roots in my drain. embarrassing, yes, but somehow also feels like a hopeful sign of springtime. but for now, i’m so very happy to drink cocoa and read a book in my hammock, watching the snow fall outside.

Posted in crafty stuff, winter | 7 Comments