get back on track...a bit

ok, so i was looking through my blog today, and i came up with a couple of notions...

1, are you out there? i mean, ok i know a couple of you are out there, but is there anyone out there that i do not talk to in my day to day life? if so, say hi, cause i cannot tell you how excited i get when a "stranger" comments on the blog! it's nice to know that you are out there, ya dig?

2, i have gotten a bit side tracked. not really, but, this whole re-decorating thing is totally sucking me in. however, with it i have decided to sew some really great projects, which i hope come out well, hell, i know will come out well. (gotta be positive!) such as a hand-dyed new vintage canvas union jack wall hanging...ooooh!

2.5, with my love of the fdr chic, i thought i should get back to showing some quilting...

this is a quilt i made from remnants of some anna maria horner fabrics, mainly from my bed quilt. i just thought, hey the palette already works, let's make something quick and easy, hence the triangle pattern.

like i have said before, i always want the quilt to have something going on on the front and the back.don't bore it up by only taking time with one side. of course, you don't have to go nuts on the reverse side, but a little something is nice. here i was able to cheat by using one of anna's drawing room designs that have a book stacking vibe. it gives a bit of patchwork feel on its own, dontchathink?

maybe you wanna snuggle up with a quilt and a good book, fall is coming you know. (course it was 95 out today here in philly, such is life.)

yellow is the new awesome!

holy be-ge-bus. i am tired. tired. italicized. that is pretty freakin' tired, i tell you. why? because they were here. who? well, my edward may be joining a fancy-shmancy club where you do fancy-schmancy things that i don't know about. and they had to come and visit us. so we had company. and i had hell in a handbasket, as of course, i decided a couple days ago that i was going to completely redo the living room, remember? ugh. saturday night i find out said visitors were coming monday, ahem, today! so, i panicked. i cleaned, i scrubbed, i spray painted! did i mention i'm tired?

it's ok though, after their short rendezvous, i am back to staring at the room, thinking how its gonna be. and, well, it's gonna be like this...

 ok. not exactly. but did i mention i love emily henderson? you know, hgtv awesomeness. um, hello, look at this book shelf... see the cute little white vase in the bottom corner? i bought it yesterday, seriously! before i saw the show. whoa.

the amazingness will continue. i promise. it's just that, well, yeah, you know we have one window in practically our whole apartment, so inside photography is short lived. i'm gonna get up early tomorrow and shoot my bookcase, so you can see said vase in action.

my palette is going to be a bit different though... i'm in a navy/slate/grey world with pops of yellow. why? cause yellow is the new awesome! for now, check out these awesome sconces i bought on etsy. did i mention they are awesome? yeah!

(pssst...i totally used pictures from the brasspetal blog. please take note of that. 
a, because her blog is amazing, and b, cause i don't wanna get in trouble!)

stitch it up!

ok, so i decided to switch it up, but now i have to stitch it up! deciding on a room composition is hard. especially when you wanna run to home depot and ikea and god knows where, right now, and change your entire habitat. whew. breathe. but i have a vision...

bah.

right. so what better thing to do than embroider, si? for my birthday this year, a pal o mine, the pal o mine, bought me an awesome little book called doodle-stitching. it has great little designs, and more importantly, has awesome step by step to show you how to make the different stitches. it's so what i needed, cause so far, everything i have looked at made no sense. i am a visual person, words usually doesn't cut it. but her directions are easy as pie!

a while back, i did this little piece from anna maria's website, v.v. cute....

 but that was a while ago, so i thought... what better way to sort out my thoughts than to practice with a bit of clover embroidery...

(do you like my 70's style photography...how...yellow.)

i think it is cute. three simple stitches, back stich, split stitch, and satin stitch. i did learn a very valuable lesson too... when you iron on a pattern, check to see if it's washable or not... i didn't think to look, and now other patterns surround my design, can't really use it for anything. 

whatcha gonna do...

switch it up!

uh-oh. something has happened. it's not bad, it's good. i'm redoing the living room/entire house cause the friggin' apartment is like one big room anyway, and the rest of the house just a make shift sewing room.

so far, not too much has happened. i moved the furniture. i don't even want to show you, it's a mess. and since edward is at work, i am forced to sit here and wait to see what he thinks..."baby, i need my gaming chair." aka the old blue lazy boy my parents bought me for my 16th birthday. remember, just turned 29, so, yeah it's kinda old.

now, an important thing to know about me, and anyone who does know me knows, i want things now. like, i do not want to wait. i want my living room to look pretty, and darn it, it better be done by sundown! that is obviously not going to happen, as i want to make all sorts of new fabric art for the walls, new curtains, new pillows, new couch! oh, and the painting of furniture, making a new carpet, etc. etc. ugh. but i will be done quick, i can tell you that. or i will fall apart in a pile of misery...you know, one of the two.

what i have learned so far though is, alfie loves the new arrangement! he can now jump up on the chair and be only inches from the window, to enjoy the great big city world. (sometimes i think he wants to be a cat... if he didn't go on those nightly kitty hunts, i would think it was true.)

so hopefully by milling around on the brass petal and oggling anna maria designs, i should be able to come up with something that is us. us being me of course, as my darling will live with anything i choose. ahhh, bliss. where's the yellow spray paint?

rainydays and mondays...

just wanted to share this with you...it's rainy out, kinda cool for august...and my puppy is an evil couch ripping beagle...but...

i pulled out my ever so cute new linen cloth that i got on my trip to maine...my awesome frances palmer teapot and cute birdy cream and sugar...sit down, read my new issue of everyday food and everything is hunky dory! (maybe i'll pratice some embroidery too, check me out!)

ah, victory...

ok...silly little post...but yeah!!! emily won on design star!!! i am happy. you know, when someone who you actually think represents you and your style is the winner of a design show, well...that's just plain nice. can't wait to watch the show next week!

riding through the city...

...on my bike all day cause the filth took a way my license...

ok... not exactly, lily, but i did do a lot of riding today. about 16 miles, we think... whew! then, of course, i came home to having my couch torn apart, again, more so, etc. etc. by the evil alfred henry dog. the sofa is so disparaging that i cannot show you how awful it is. and the worst part, we are afraid to buy a new one, for fear of future beagle attacks!  bah! at any rate...

today, as it happens, is my bestest friend in the whole wide world's birthday! had some breakfast together, did a ton of riding all over...(oh fyi, check your tire pressure kids! turns out, should have been at 75 gauge, or whatever you call it, was down to 20, eck!) but that is all fixed now thanks to the bike coalition people! gave them a little donation, then rode 20 feet, found 2 bucks on the street, went back and gave them that too! (please karma, give me something good! though, i am pretty sure wanting something defeats the purpose of karma. bah, whatever.)

right, where was i supposed to be? erm...oh yeah, ripped up couch, bad dog, finally tried this yogurino stuff everyone is yapping about...oh! and i made a mini gift for my pal...

 she had an absolutely horrible acme tote, you know, the reusable bags you get at the grocery store, good in principle, ugly in everything else...so i thought, perfect! it's a cotton bag, with the feel of nylon, and it rolls up very small, so she can tuck it in her purse and use it when necessary!

i wanted to do some applique...never have before...so i did a very simple hexagon, like honeycombs...

 i pressed back a 1/8 inch seam, or there abouts, and sewed them on to the front of the bag...very easy, if you can sew a line, pivot, and sew some more, you got it! added a top handle accent of the same honeycomb pattern, and tah dah! happy birthday to cathy!

now that i'm home, i gotta get some laundry done! ride on...

my day off...

was gonna get up, tidy up the house, and get to work! funny that. it's the middle of the afternoon now, and i haven't done anything. i've watched some tv, which i don't get to do often, (thank you xbox, and your devilish hold on my darling.) and i've been perusing the internet....



basically, i have spent far too long on the brass petal blog, emily henderson's blog, one of the two finalists on design star on HGTV. ok, so i may now be in love with her in some rustic colorful way, as you should be with a designer like her. what have i learned today? she loves navy...i love navy...she loves leather goods, me too! yeah yeah blah blah, she is kinda famous, and i am kinda, well, i have 5 followers of my blog. still, i love her work so much more now that i have seen her blog, and i will so watch her show!

i then went back to the couch, sat, thought about how i really need to add some storage to my sewing room/dining room/half of the apartment, got depressed, cause i can't exactly run out to the store and buy all kinds of nonsense, i promised myself, keep up the new kayhart mantra, we are savers, we will live poor, (temporarily,) we don't need that!

so what's a girl to do? i could iron that pile of fabrics from the washing machine? that would be constructive...

just keep going

you know, sometimes you wonder. you wonder about all sorts of things. is it going to rain today? did i remember to defrost the chicken? how often do i really have to vacuum with this dog anyway? other times you wonder, should i feel guilty that i didn't sew a single thing today? though it doesn't happen often, i definitely feel that way sometimes. i know i have absolutely no reason to feel that way, but i am from the class of people that, well, i want what i want, and i want it now. always have been, probably always will be. my darling tells me that i am always jumping from idea to idea, and i do. but not too quickly...

as i sew, making the designs up as i go, i am usually doing more than one project at a time, and all the while wondering if i should make my own patterns, design my own fabric, and i am so new to all of this! it's a lot to think about.

i guess i feel like rambling today, better to grab some thread and sew...

whew!

boy, am i tired, i'm depleated!


(get it, de-pleated, pleats! ruffle on!!!)

that's miss kayhart

ok, so i cannot say how excited i am! i am starting my first teaching class at Spool this september!!! yeah!!! i will be teaching the wednesday night beginner quilting class, which is so cool because, i took that class! yes, back in january i took the beginner's class, just to get myself settled, and to see exactly how to put things together, basting, quilting, binding, i had no clue. luckily i had a great teacher and now, well check me out!

this is going to be great, i just know. and hopefully, in the months to come i will be teaching more. fall is coming...time to quilt! yah-hoo!

psst...so hanging on the wall there, that's the quilt i made in that class! the bed was my second quilt...so just see what you can learn!!!

she's not lazy, she's my sister

ok, so i didn't work on the pop, pop, fizz circle quilt tutorial at all last night, whah-whah. but that's ok, cause i decided to make it better, more like a pdf pattern thingy. i think. unfortunately, that is going to take me a few days...

but as to show that i am not lazy, i have visual proof that i have been working! i have this great idea for a ruffley/pleaty baby quilt, and i love these colors that i picked up at Spool! so cute and girly! (of course, if you ever met me, you would know that i am so not girly, which makes the quilt idea extra cute!)

like i've mentioned, i have these ideas, and since i am self taught, it's a trial and error system where i try to figure out sizes and folds and whatever else i need to know. but i'm pretty sure that's part of the whole reason i do it! hopefully this one will work out. in the meantime...visual proof...

pop, pop, fizz!

it's summer. time for fun and relaxation. and time for quilts! ok, maybe not bundled with a quilt and a hot cup of cocoa time, but quilts can be fun for summer, in fun colors to take to the park and play! have a picnic, play checkers, well, have fun! hmmm...wonder how many more times i can say fun?!? FUN!



while perusing patterns one day, i saw this great print from heather bailey's pop garden. i had to have it! by adding in some basic free spirit colors and some great dots and grids in red, i had my color scheme. now i had to figure out what to do with it, and what can be more fun than circles!


now hopefully within the next day or so i will have up my first tutorial, my version of a circle quilt. and to keep you in suspense, i will ask this riddle, what do washable pens, strait pins and measuring tape, and broken house fans have in common?

now, as you bubble with anticipation, don't forget to have fun!

maine, maine, gone away

i have returned from my little trip to maine. see the family, enjoy the cool air, eat way too much....

now that i have settled back in, tidied up the house, made the iced tea, (god help us if there is no iced tea in this house!) i am back to my old life again.

like most people's vacations, they are always too short with not enough time to see and do everything you want to do, and certainly not enough time to relax! i was no exception. for my short 3 and a 1/2 day trip i was able to do some antiquing with mom, watch some tv with dad, and hike with my baby brother...

(baby, ha! i'm 12 years older than him, but while forced into our yearly photo session, with mom at the ready, she said, "put your arm around your little sister"! yes, somehow i have become little sister, as i am a meager 5'8" while he is closing in on 6'4"! little indeed!



we did some hiking in york, at mt. agamenticus. southern maine's own little mountain.



they have some great hiking trails there, and each time we go there is a new discovery...



like the old machinations of a ski lift dating back to the 60's from a failed ski resort. (for those who don't know southern maine, it's far too coastal for the kinds of snow you see up north on the resorts. the lodge only lasted a few years).

and sometimes you just see the way the light hits a branch, and it's, well, lovely.



back to reality, and much sewing!