Category: Books

Bags · Books · Pouches

Auction Items

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I’ve been working on some items for my son’s school’s auction coming up on March 10th at the Eco-Trust building.

Here are some zippered pouches made from Aqua and Green Clocks from Ruby Star Rising by Melody Miller. Love this fabric as well as the Typewriters from this line. It has been flying out of the shop! But I know we have more on order.

I also made another pouch from some Ikea fabric purchased a while back. Inside is lined with Garbo Black from the Circa 1934 collection from Cosmo Cricket.

 
I also made a matching bag! There is a small interior pocket to fit the pouch. The orange bird fabric and black dots really go well together. This bag is the Market Tote from one of my favorite sewing books of 2011 — 1, 2, 3 Sew: Build Your Skills with 33 Simple Sewing Projects by Ellen Luckett Baker. I have made 4 other bags like this and love them all.

 
Books

Illustration School books by Sachiko Umoto

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Here are some great little books I discovered surprisingly at Jo-Ann Fabrics a while back. They are by Sachiko Umoto from Japan. Unfortunately, most of her site is in Japanese. There are three books in the series — Let’s Draw Plants and Small Creatures, Let’s Draw Happy People, and my favorite, Let’s Draw Cute Animals. I feel like I always need help drawing animal bodies. I can get the head right, but the legs and haunches never seem in proportion. Sachiko’s books are so simply done and easy to follow. Her instructions are really clever and cute too. While I don’t want to copy her unique style, I feel like these books provide the basic forms and from there you can express your own style.

All three are available through Multnomah County Library is you want to preview them before making them a part of your home library. 

Here’s some sample pages:

Wizards and witches from Let’s Draw Happy People

 

 
Squirrels from Let’s Draw Cute Animals
Books

Puffin Classics

Ms. Chinchilla2 Comments
The Adventures of Robin Hood

We visited Annie Bloom’s in Multnomah Village today and saw these wonderful Puffin Classics hardcover editions of children’s literature. If you’re a fan of the Penguin Classics with covers by Coralie Bickford-Smith, then you’ll probably love these as well. One of my favorite covers is The Adventures of Robin Hood. Other titles in the series include Peter Pan, The Wind in the Willows, The Secret Garden, Anne of Green Gables, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Black Beauty, and The Call of the Wild.

Books · Quilts

Log Cabin Squares

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Several months ago I was able to get out on a crafty outing by going to see Susan Beal do a book signing at Powell’s for her most recent book, Modern Log Cabin Quilting. I was star-struck by seeing some of the well-known Portland bloggers that were there for the event. I am such a geek. 

After purchasing her book, I decided to give some log cabin squares a try. It’s pretty addictive and a great way to use up your scraps. Here’s a few of my experiments:

Playing with greens















Playing with browns














Playing with blues















I used the blue log cabin squares to make a little zippered pouch project that is included in Susan’s book. I’ll get some pictures up of that when I can.

Books · Quilts

Short Story Quilt

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The 49 squares for my next quilt are all made. I’m using two charm packs of Liz Scott’s Sugar Pop! and Kona Cotton in Snow. The pattern for this quilt is called Short Story and it is from Carrie Nelson’s Schnibbles Times Two: Quilts from 5″ or 10″ Squares. This is only my 2nd official quilt and the first one I did contained no solids. I liked the way it turned out, but it was very busy and there was nowhere to rest your eyes. So, using solids to offset my love of color is a new approach. I’ll get more pictures up once I sew the squares together and start adding the sashing and border.
Books

A Start of Something…

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This is difficult. I can barely share what I’m thinking with the few close to me. But I wanted to try and write about the things I’m enjoying, thinking about, wishing for, etc. Even if it’s just a list at first. Maybe this will force me to have an opinion about something.

Books

Something I enjoyed reading — I’m Sorry You Feel That Way: The Astonishing True Story of a Daughter, Sister, Slut, Wife, Mother and Friend to Man & Dog by Diana Joseph

Something I just started reading — A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World by Tony Horwitz.

Music

Before becoming a mom, I thought I’d never lose touch with listening to music. Now, I just get earworms from my son and sing songs from his preschool.

Crafting

I am craft supply hoarder and I love to make things. The problem is I don’t have time to work on anything. But I am going to try and do more. Right now, my interest is sewing. I am working on 3 totes. They are cut out, but I don’t have the right color threads to begin sewing.