happy birthday!

happy birthday to me! it may very well be my last birthday, as i am now 29. ok, maybe a bit dramatic, and not true, but i find it, well, i dunno how i find it. i know that anyone older than me reading this will sigh and shrug and think i'm silly, but in a way, i feel like my life is finished, while i know that my life is just beginning. (being swiped by a bus not withstanding.)

today i am not doing anything terribly exciting. no big parties, no fanfare. right now it's the middle of the afternoon, and i have done some sewing, some packing, going to Maine tomorrow night! yah!, and i baked a cake.



i don't mind baking my own birthday cake. as you can see, it's simple. just a vanilla cake with vanilla icing. of course, summer birthdays are, well summery, so i make the icing yellow. i always color my icing, personal motto. (psssst....lindsay, see, we knew you could color buttercream! hehe)

tonight i go out for dinner with my gentleman, then i come home, watch some tv, and go to work tomorrow.

so what did i learn today? licking icing off a spatula is always good, no matter your age. i think that's enough.

today is my only day off this week. of course, next week i will have many free days, yah! birthday!, but for now, i have little time. went to the dmv this morning, with the license gods shining, i was only there for ten minutes! with new license in pocket, i rode my bike to Spool to do some quilting!

three hours of quilting, with some work to go, i have two new quilts almost finished. the actual quilting part is my least favorite, but it is very rewarding to see everything finally coming together.

for now, with the natural light dwindling in our apartment, one large front window, two small in the bedroom, i wanted to shoot the felicidades quilt that i did. i call it that because the front is very sunny and fun, bright pinks, yellows, and oranges, while the back is covered in a v. v. cute Alexander Henry international children print. It reminds me of a costume book i loved as a child. i chose felicidades because it means happiness and congratulations in spanish.



of course, when one is trying to play around with her camera and use the last light and coming shadows in her home, a feisty beagle just has to be a part of it. actually trying to steal the ball right after this photo, so you know it must be fun!

sit and think...

just going to sit and think... man am i tired. well, maybe not tired like, exhaustion, don't want to do anything but sit, eat the chocolate ice cream in the freezer and watch all my dvr episodes of Dateline. ok...maybe i wouldn't mind doing that... but i'm not that kind of tired. more like, gotta get my bottom in gear and change some things kind of tired.

i think i will go make some cute little something, get my mind moving... and maybe have a bit of that ice cream!

update: it's a bird...it's a plane...it's a mackerel?!?
(don't you love tests...i know, the mystery is killing you!)

so i already broke my first blog rule! it's been over a week since i typed a word! ugh. but, i kinda, sorta, maybe, have an excuse or two, like when i went to take some pictures of a very cute baby quilt i did, i found out that the memory card for my camera was still at work! (i did get it back, hence the photos here, though not of a cute baby quilt.)

second, oh i don't know. tiredness? i really have been working all week, ex: this post. i drew up an idea of an english garden quilt, from an overhead view. sidewalks intertwining around wild flowers that mingle freely. when i think of english gardens i think of untamed flowers and wild foliage. what i am doing with this color palette is taking greens and purples in a basic structure of 3 inch squares, but mixing them in no order, with no exact destination. like a wild garden, the flowers have been chosen, but their destinations are their own, twisting and turning.



i am not sure exactly how it will all come out, as there is no specific pattern i am following. only my rough sketch, which is terrible (of all the talents i got from my mother, drawing was not one of them), but i can understand it, and for now, i think that's all that matters.

so how did it come to be?

this is my second quilt. (my first, as mentioned in an earlier post, was created at Spool in a great sewing class, more some other time...) i knew i wanted to do something big, but i needed an idea. i must admit, i am not great at patterns. i am definitely a more visual person than instructional type. still, i knew i needed some sort of basic plan to follow. i searched around and found a great heather bailey design, the freshcut quilt...

i used that basic style, but changed the fabric to a mix of anna maria horner's garden party with a bit of amy butler's love and a dash of kaffe fassett.

the back is all anna, with some drawing room thrown in. i like to make all my quilts have a distinct front and back. even if the back is not nearly as intense, i want it to have its own design element. here i simply did some a large block bordered with a couple different patterns. this way if i'm feelin' a bit, oh, classic, i can flip it over for a simpler look.

do the math? 5 blocks took 2 hours. 56 blocks means 22 plus hours. plus basting, plus quilting, plus binding...ok so it was a lot. but it's done, and i have moved on to so many others...

what makes it special

what makes a holiday for me? i don't actually know. probably the chance to make things special, and specific, for no other reason than i can! so what did i do for this forth of july?

made a puppy craft and cupcakes of course!

those people...

I always wanted to be one of those people, the people with fresh cut flowers in their house all the time, with a frosted cake on a beautiful pedestal in the kitchen, and the ability to make everyone feel welcome all the time.... well, so far, i'm starting with the flowers.

i know nothing about flowers, nothing. go ahead, ask my mother, i'll say, "hey mom, i really like those yellow ones in the front, you know, next to the dangling red ones." terrible. but that doesn't deter my love of looking at them, taking in their smell, and thinking, isn't it amazing that something like this just pops out of the ground!

i'm told that women in my family spark interest in gardening after forty, so i've got a bit of a way to go, but for now, i'll just try to have fresh flowers all the time, including the ones above, whatever they are...

dive in

man oh man oh man! here it is, finally, i have decided to make a post on this thing! frankly, it's a bit nerve wracking, i mean, hardly a dinky diary under the bed, but rather a book the size of the eiffel tower, or some other massive structure, for the world to see... or rather not see, as i also know the odds of many people even reading this to be, hmmm, minimal.

it basically pans out to this. i need to do something. i've spent a long time not doing much really, and through the doldrum of daily life, a viewing or two of Julie and Julia, and a first time quilting class at Spool, (to be gushed about again and again, don't you worry), i am here. a couple quilts under my belt, a no longer kitchen table, but sewing area, and a passion to, well do something!


and who do i thank for it all? my mumsie? nah, though she is the root of every artist endeavor i have ever had. my lovely edward who lets me spend a fair share of the loot on stacks of fabric and hours of banging on my oh so decrepit sewing machine? nah. instead, i thank the one, the only, anna maria horner! garden party inspired my life! (a bit over dramatic, me? never! perish the thought!) but it did, and now, with my first major project finished...The Quilt...I have oh so many plans for the future, sewing, and crafting, and hopefully blogging.