Today is the last day of school.  Well, really, tomorrow is the official last day, but the girls won't be there.  We will be on a plane, headed to the beach on tickets bought before we had all those snow days this past winter.  Last night, while I should have been packing, I made something to take along with us.

My parents gave me a new camera for my birthday  (thanks Mom and Dad!).  I really wanted a small point and shoot for those times when it is not practical to carry my trusty rebel.  I picked out this little Canon that easily fits in my pocket.  Of course, the camera did not come with a case and I didn't think to buy one.  So I grabbed some fabric, batting and bias tape and made one.

Well, make that two.  The flip needed one, too.

I did some free motion quilting on the pink one and used the walking foot on the yellow one.  The coordinating print at the top of each bag is the lining, which I made longer, brought over the top and sewed down to make a casing.  It was hard to maneuver such a small item on the machine, but I plowed ahead puckers and all.  If I do this again, which I doubt, I will try a different method.

So there you go.  Classic Erin procrastination.  I really should have been packing.

We'll be gone for a week - I doubt I will post while we are away, but you never know.  See you soon, friends.  Take care.

The local craft swap was on Monday night.  This round there were five of us swapping, so we each had to make four things.  Here's the loot:

Marcia made the resin necklace which came packaged in the little fabric bag.  She made earrings to match, too.  Super cute!  Caroline blew me away with the notecards!  She secretly drove by all of our houses, snapped some photos and had her final drawing printed on cards.  I love these so much!  Lisa made a wonderful sugar scrub and bath mitt.  I am surprised no one in our group had done this before - it is a great craft and I can just keep adding sugar and olive oil as the supply goes down!  Gotta love that!

Suzanne made the mirrored sconce on the right!  She used small framed mirrors from Ikea and a lamp from Target (right, Zanne?).  She wired them and added the washers - really cool.  And me, well, I took a cue from Courtney and made gourd birdhouses.  A big thank you for sharing your idea, friend!  I bought the cleaned and drilled variety and painted them.  I replaced the leather loop for hanging with wire to give it a more modern feel.  I'm bummed that I didn't get a photo of them all together because they were all different colors:  green, blue, white, orange and yellow.  I kept the yellow one for us.  I will be making more to have as gifts - they were fast, easy and a really nice change of pace.  Plus, I find mindless painting soothing.  Bonus!

Thanks, ladies!  I love everything.  I can't wait until the next swap.  I'm already plotting....

And mostly for my own use:  past craft swap entries can be found here, here, here, here, here and here. 

Over the three day weekend:

I read this book.

I watched this movie with Fatty, the girls and one of Jane's friends.  Scarier than I remembered.

I pieced the back for the x quilt.

I ran three miles two days in a row.  Woo hoo!

I helped the girls cut and sew nine-patch pillows.  And then ran out of stuffing.

I wanted to chuck the little machine out the window.  I hate it.

I made ribs. And corn salad.  Twice.

We went to some friends' house and let the kids stay up too late.

I made my craft for my local craft swap.  And then swapped.  Details to come.

I took lots of photos of peonies.

It was great - hope yours was too!

I just finished a piece of birthday cake for breakfast.  I think it's going to be a good day.

Thanks for all the sweet birthday wishes!  I had a great day - a little sewing time, reading to the kindergarten class (they sang happy birthday to me!) and dinner and cake with the family.  The 38th year of my life is off to a great start - I ate my cake sitting at the table and not under it!

I finished binding the hourglass quilt yesterday, too.  I'm super happy with the finished quilt.

It's about 37" x 42".  I wish I had added another two rows to make it bigger - oh well.  I used a charm pack from the American Jane Wee Play line by Moda and added in some other charm squares from the Look and Learn collection.  None of the fabrics repeat - some are the same print in different colors, but no two squares are exactly the same.  I cut these squares in half on the diagonal to get my triangles.  Then I cut 5" squares from white and did the same.  I chain-pieced them - that was a huge time saver.

You can get a peek of the backing fabric here - it's the blue one with the bars.  My favorite part, though, it the quilting.  I used my walking foot and machine quilted a line 1/2" from each diagonal line on the quilt.  I love how it made little tiny pinwheels where the four fabrics meet.

That's all I've got today.  I'm looking forward to the weekend.  It's pretty much summer - only three more days of school!  Hope you enjoy yours.

Happy Birthday to me!

I found this polaroid at my parents' house last month.  It was my fifth birthday - I know because there was another picture with the cake and candles.  I'm at my grandparents' house - the one at their dairy farm, not the newer one up the road.  I remembered the chairs when I saw the picture.  My brother Ryan and I used to have milk drinking races with our uncles - we always had milk straight from the barn in those small blue plastic cups.  At the time, I didn't know it, but I was learning important life skills for college survival:  I can chug.  And speaking of beer, someone was having one here - my dad or grandpa, probably.  I'm guessing it was Miller High Life.  I don't remember a time in my life when I didn't have bangs, but, apparently there was a time.  I'm pretty sure that I got a small treasure chest (out of a cereal box,no doubt) full of pirate's booty, including a genuine plastic pearl,on this birthday.   Ryan promptly took the pearl and stuck it up hisnose.  32 years later, I still hold it against him.  My mom was always good about getting me redheaded dolls and our cakes always had lots of roses on them.  In our family, if you talk while you are eating your first piece of birthday cake, you have to finish it under the table.  That's a big piece for a five year old!  But I didn't talk - I know that.  I've only done that once and I was twenty-five and out at a nice restaurant with my parents'.  They still made me go under the table.

I wonder what I will remember when I look back on thirty-seven.  Good things, I hope.  That I ate the cake Fatty's making me while sitting at the table and not under it would be a start.  Fingers crossed and lips sealed.

Hello!  I finished piecing the hourglass quilt top this morning.  There was amoment last week when I thought that I would have to rip out a numberof squares and re-do them, but it came together surprisingly well.  Phew.  I'mhoping to get this basted and quilted this week.  Then it's back to thestring-x one.  I've been (over)thinking about what to do for the back.  I've got a quasi-plan so once I get the backing finished, I'll be ready to quilt it, too.

Also, I am looking for some vintage sheet scraps.  Nothing too big, say from 6" x 6" to 10" x 10".  If anyone has any they are willing to part with, I'd be happy to send you something little in return.  Drop me an email and I will forward on my address.  Thanks.

but I knew the word before I received the envelope.

Really.  Truly.  I told my friend, Caroline.  She'll back me up.  I just had a feeling that Jen would choose this word.  And I am super excited she did!

Bloom!

Gossamer is a great word - soft and ethereal.  But, man, it is challenging, too. I looked up the definition right away.  I knew the sheer gauzy fabric part, but not the bit about cobwebs.  That little part stuck in my head.  I could not get spiders out of my brain.

My first thought was to knit something super lacy out of soft mohair yarn.  There was that problem of my wrist and how I really can't knit right now. Then I planned to use the yarn and fabric and make some kind of multi-fiber collage/web thing, but I had to give up on that too.  I couldn't find a suitable fabric.  The closest I saw was a silk chiffon, but I didn't think it would hold up to applique.  In retrospect, I probably should have at least tried. In the end, I turned to paper and my sewing machine and my gocco.

My inspiration came about two weeks ago when looking out the kitchen window, I saw the teeniest, tiniest lime green spider, suspended in mid air.  Looking closer, I saw that she was suspended from her own thread right there behind my screen.  At first glance I had seen right through it.  And there she was, getting ready to spin a web perhaps.  Maybe not - she may have been traveling from one point to another.   Regardless, gossamer popped into my head.

First, I drew a graph to make the window screen.  I printed this on vellum using the gocco.  Then, I stitched the spider on a piece of muslin using free motion quilting.  After I copied it, I made my second gocco screen.  I printed the thread portion in white and the spider in green.  The white is hardly visible, you really have to look to see it. 

I printed the screen grid  on one side of the paper and the spider on the other side.  I was going for transparency - I hope I got it.

When Shari gave us this word, I would have never imagined it would lead me here.  In my head this word is so floaty and ethereal and what I made is not.  Plain and simple, I am a bit disappointed with the outcome.

I tried amending this print - adding to it, mounting it, but I think it is best its simplest form.  I know that part of my disappointment stems from uneven printing.  And because I am a procrastinator, I didn't have any time to try it differently.  But, as Emily reminded me, wordplay is about the process.  It's interesting to look back and see how I got to this point.  I can't help but wonder if I didn't have tendinitis, would I have gone a different route?  If I hadn't spent half of the six weeks down in the dumps, would I have seen inspiration elsewhere?  What if I had bought the silk chiffon?  If I hadn't seen that spider, what would I have done differently?

The next word is in an envelope I received from Jen.  I'm going to open it tonight.  I can't help but wonder where it will take me.  Emily and Tracy, are you ready?