Relentless Toil

Re-Stash a Crafter

I haven't been free during the too-few hours we get good light in the house lately, so I have not been able to photograph anything pretty for you -- not the totebag in progress, not the pretty fabric from Spool, not the exciting yard of thomaspaul aviary fabric soon to become cushions. But: in my small way of helping my brother-in-law and sister-in-law furnish their new home, and get some extra breathing room in my home, I have been de-stashing a bit, emptying my 2 desks of fabric and scrapbooking scissors and beads and sequins and yadda yadda. This comes right at a time when somebody in the world can probably use and love the craft supplies I want to give away.

I've just sent an inquiry to the coordinator for "Re-Stash a Crafter" (make sure you read all the teeny text on that page, and in the sidebars -- it's a little hard but let's understand they had to put the page together in a big hurry. Or maybe my browser is just weird). I'm hoping Re-Stash can take my excess and give it to a crafter who lost his or her stash in the bushfires in Victoria, Australia. I reallyreallyreallyreallyreally love my stash. Sometimes, I have to admit, I just like visiting it and having it near and I'm sure I'm not alone in that. Imagine if you were a book-lover (which, hmm, you may well be) and ALL of your books were up in smoke. You may not need to read any of those books at the moment but you'd miss their nearness and their presence in your life. So. Re-Stash. I hope I can be part of the goodness.

ETA: This link is actually super duper helpful!! I'm sorry I didn't manage to find it before but I think the fault is my own. Anyway, there are instructions, there is a shipping address, and they will take my stuff!

My sweet valentine took me to Spool

Seeing as how the family was presented with a TRULY RARE weekend without any one of us being ill, we decided we'd better celebrate Valentine's Day early. I mean, chances are we will each be laid up in bed with mad cow disease, rabies, and jock itch next Saturday. Maya and I went on a date to Dunkin Donuts. Then we bought Sam some beautiful new shirts and ties. He has a pink one now, thanks to our little girl's insistence. Then Sam and I went into the city, just the two of us. He took me to Spool. In the picture above, I look so judicious and conservative with my one bolt of fabric, but that's only the beginning of the story. That one bolt was soon joined by 13 others... all by fancypants designers to which I rarely, rarely treat myself. Do you want to see what I got? I'll take photos.

I know where the daffodils are sleeping

Well, I just checked, and the economy: still crap. (Although at this very moment the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P are each up a tiny bit.) Yesterday I got an oil bill for $790. That is a 7 and a 9 and a 0, each before the decimal point. Yeah. So today I am in a rather cool house, covered in snow and impressive icicles, though full of happy daylight, and I'm trying to do happy and hopeful things. I drew this image (above) which has been in my head for weeks, and I watched The Art of Quilting documentary by PBS. I got it from Netflix. It's not a how-to, not at all, but an exploration of art quilts. I was so mesmerized by seeing and hearing the voices of these artists I have been reading about for years that I forgot about being hungry, forgot about my pause button, and burned lunch but good.

It was worth it.

I am sending a print of the daffodil bulbs to my sister who is on an amazing journey in South Dakota. I would say that in the I'm-colder-than-you pity party, she wins!

I think I had also better tell my mom, who reads this blog, that we are not freezing to death and that we can certainly pay the oil bill. I think it is just time to conserve, is all. Would you like some hot tea and a rice pillow?

I think that was the most artsy-craftsy weekend we've had yet

Friday evening, our buddy Jason came over with his guitar and a new original song, which Sam learned (he plays violin). Meanwhile, Maya and I were upstairs painting watercolors and listening to the music they made. It's how I picture ourselves on the very best kind of day, really. And then Battlestar Galactica had me on the edge of my seat, so good! I'm glad to see it take an exciting turn again. I called my friend Julie immediately after it was over to get her take on it and she actually hadn't seen it yet; she was DVR-ing it and working on a new quilt, which she wanted to tell me all about, and poor Julie, I -- her best friend -- said to her, "I CAN'T POSSIBLY TALK ABOUT QUILTING RIGHT NOW! [which is major for me; I love quilting] GO WATCH AND CALL ME BACK WHEN YOU'RE DONE!" And she did; I don't think she minded how totally rude I was. Seriously, it was a good BSG episode.

Saturday morning, I made pancakes. One of us makes pancakes every weekend, it is a highlight of our week for sure. This time it was apple-blueberry for Maya, apple-banana for Sam and me. I forget where Sam got the idea to shred a little bit of peeled apple into pancake batter, but DO IT. The effect is really good.

And I found this really hot chick on our griddle during the process.

Maya insisted she needed to do more acrylic painting, not with watercolors again but painting paint, so we went off to Michael's with one of their 40% off printable coupons (thank you, internets!) and outfitted her with more canvas.

Julie came over; she and Sam messed around with cameras while Maya and I did painting painting with painting paint. You can see the pretty things Sam and Julie did here and here.

Then after the kiddo went to bed, I taught Julie free motion quilting! She did very well. She has requested a quilted totebag tutorial from me, which I am slowly working on. I have decided I want Sam to film me while I am working on the tote, so I had to stop at step one, basically. But this is the patchwork front of my tote in progress:

I liked these fabrics so much and had so much left over -- plus that yearning to finish something good, and fast -- that I made a quilted pillowcase for one of our formerly very shabby couch cushions on Sunday. It's much happier now.

(That is a remnant of blue sari fabric in the background which Julie and I are "auditioning" for another pillowcase. Maybe. We shall see!)