Spring! and Guild! and Rainbows! and Embroidery!

SPRING. It's been here for a while, but it's been playing sneaky-hidey in Kansas City. Today, though, is LOVELY and the sky is BLUE and the sun is YELLOW and my thoughts, they are ALL OVER THE PLACE!

Ok, I had soooo much fun speaking at KC Modern Quilt Guild-- which is not surprising if you know me, because what is there that I love more than talking about myself? Ha. (It's funny in that half-joke/half true confession sort of way. Sigh.) But I enjoyed it, and I hope that the people who were there (the ones not my immediate family), enjoyed it as well. I only forgot what I was saying a few times, I think? Which is far less than in any un-rehearsed conversation I've ever had.

Anyway, I shared some newsies at guild that will be appearing here shortly, but I'm waiting on a few things from the postman; and some details take far more time to type than to talk about-- especially when you type as slowly as I do. But they are Good Newsies, and I am excited!

Along with tossing back vitamin D chewies like they're candy (which, they practically are), I have been soothing my sunshine-deficient eyeballs with this glorious thing... The Legendary Cosmo Floss Color Card. I know, I know, the Kona color card is the one that usually gets all the love, but, trust me, this one is SHINIER and FANCIER and has JAPANESE all over it. I'm in love with it, which is good, because it turns out, I am in love with embroidery.

How did I go so long without realizing it? Seriously? Embroidery is DRAWING with SHINY RAINBOWS on FABRIC, how did I NOT realize how incredible that is? I'm still working on my first project, which I've nicknamed the Shaky Shoddy Sampler, which I have vowed to make myself finish before I start busting into the gorgeous little stash of Cosmo floss from Lecien that I've been hoarding. (More on this later. I'm also enamored with a charming tiny Japanese woman. [Which, as a child, is what I wanted to be when I grew up. Sorry, child-self-with-limited-understanding-of-genetics, I have failed you.])

Do you guys know the feeling when you have delicious supplies for a project that you haven't started yet, and your whole body is like, quivering with anticipation and your chest feels tight like it just wants to hug all the pretty colors but it can't, and it's like your Very Soul is being forced to hold it like it's waiting in line at a movie theater restroom after a 3-hour film? Yeah.

Is that a real feeling? Or do I need to see a doctor?

I Am Being Paid to Talk? (To youuuuuuuuuuuuu!?!)

GUYS! I keep forgetting to tell you, but I am the official speaker at this month's meeting of the KC Modern Quilt Guild, which is, DUDE, this Thursday! (The hamster will be there, too, I guess?)

 I'd like to say it will be Interesting and Informative and Whatnot, and HOPEFULLY it will be be all of those things, but I make no guarantees-- but it will be SOMETHING, and there will be PICTURES, and I will probably embarrass myself in some way, but whatever. (And my MOM and 3RD GRADE TEACHER will be there so there will definitely be no cursing.)

I'm kinda going to meander all over the place, topic wise, but I will be focusing on what the fabric design process consists of, how I conned my way into the fabric design, my design inspiration, and the tiny crumbs of insight I've picked up along the way. I'm really excited.

(I know the previous sentence might have seemed sarcastic, because it had no exclamation point, but it was not. It just seemed redundant! To have an exclamation point! On such an exclamatory sentence! I AM EXCITED!)

 So! You should come, if you want! If you've never been to a guild meeting, that's awesome, it is totally not scary. (My default is to be scared of any sort of public assembly I have not previously experienced.) Do not be afraid! And it is free! (Unless you have attended as a guest before, and then I think it costs some money? But first times is free!)

DEETS:
Thursday, April 11th
7-9:00 pm
Roeland Park Community Center
4850 Rosewood
Roeland Park, KS 66205

And did I mention that Marmalade Fabrics is sponsoring this meeting? Meaning, there will be FABRIC for sale? It's a fact. Look it up. (There's nowhere to look it up, so just trust me.)

Friday Thread Rainbow.

 Thrift store thread. Don't ever use it! It is SEWING MACHINE POISON!

But it sure is pretty.

Someone was THRIFTY.

Stack O' Monday Fabric Sunshine.

Someday these will be a quilt. That's the plan. But for now, they're just really, really pretty.
That is all.

Free Shipping until Sunday- Pillowcases, Phone Paraphernalia, Tote Bags..

Just popping in to mention that society^ is having one of their periodic free-shipping periods, and I have some new goodies up (more on those later), but if you love your freaking cat, or find that everyday you're rippin', then perhaps it's time to... TREAT YO' SELF!

Past-Due Post: A QUILT?!?!

Blogging takes more time than one might think. Fellow bloggerses, do you agree? Maybe I'm just slow (I am), but I find that I always have a folder full of images on my desktop, destined for a post that never happened. Sometimes that's probably a good thing, but sometimes I dust these folders off and feign surprise and say, Hey, buddy, where have you been hiding? and feel guilty because obviously I knew they were there all along.

All this to say that I'm going to be putting up some not-so-recent photos, and all of them will begin with something like "Last summer at the National Clogging Championship..." or "When I was 12 and my family lived on a submarine..." Except, you know-- different and less exciting. Welcome to the start of the past-due posts.

GUYS, I ACTUALLY HAVE BEEN MAKING QUILTS. No joke. Last Spring, I participated in a gallery show at our church, where we were asked to make two 18" x 24" pieces- the first based on the concept of barrenness, and the second, flourishing. The first went up on Ash Wednesday, and the second on Easter.

So of course, being the thoughtful, introspective artist that I am, I came up with this deep, symbolic, and highly meaningful interpretation: Barren = gray! Flourish = colors! Hyuk, hyuk! (I promise, there was some thought behind it. Mostly because I was told I had to write a statement to hang next to it, but fortunately, that ended up not being necessary, which is good, because I have little patience with writing that sort of thing.)

I don't have any pictures of the first one, because I forgot, and it is boring, and it is currently at the bottom of some pile and covered in cat hair. Maybe some day I will unearth it? I actually do like it quite a bit, but gray quilt with gray quilting and gray binding isn't all that exciting.

And this was my first foray into hand quilting, if you can call it that? Utility stitch? Utility stitch by a four-year-old? I thought it would take a few hours... Ha. Haha. Hahahahahaha. THIS IS A WEEK OF MY LIFE. But it's colorful! So I'm ok with it.

There were actually multiple versions with different piecing configurations, but then Brian laid out some of the strips I had sewn together, and it was obnoxiously perfect. I feel a bit like a four-year-old tying my shoe when that happens, because it's like, Oh, thanks, that's awesome! but also, I AM MAKING IT, I CAN DO IT MYSELF (EVEN THOUGH I HAVE BEEN COMPLAINING THAT I CAN'T DO IT)! Do you know this feeling, friends? I still have a lot of those other pieces, though; so someday I might make a second COLORSPLOSION.

 So! That's that. Only a year late, that's not too bad... And, on a related note, if you live in KC and are looking for a place to celebrate Easter, Redeemer is having a big ol' shindig at the convention center that we're calling Downtown for Easter, because we are creative with names. You should come! It will be fun! I will be there! There might be chocolate! (I don't think there will be chocolate, sorry!) But there WILL be Jesus, and singing, and good coffee, I am sure of that.

Sharing Stories in Social Media, Things to Print, and Coming Soon.

I love Instagram. To me, it's by far the best social media thinger there is, because, PICTURES! I love them! Peoples' daily lives! I love to spy on them! Publicly sanctioned voyeurism at it's best, or, uhm, second best. (After blogs, of course.)

And most of instagram is purely fluff- mundane and silly and funny, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, because that's a big part of what relationships are made of. (Pretty much all of my instagramming falls into the categories: dumb jokes, cat photos) But sometimes there are pictures and notes that go beyond the fluff; people who share parts of their life that might not be easy, or funny, or pleasant-- who make themselves genuinely vulnerable, (and not in an obscure-song-lyric-pity-request on Facebook kinda way.) Sometimes social-media-blurbs do penetrate the surface level of engagement we chide them for being. And for lack of better words: that's really cool.

What I'm slowly getting around to is this story: I know a girl named Hope. A few weeks ago, her grandmother passed away. Here's what she wrote accompanying a photo of she and her grandmother:

This amazing woman died this morning at 94 years old. A constant comfort and inspiration, I'm gonna miss her so much until I see her again. Her last words were when I asked her for a Bible verse. She barely opened her eyes and said (in whispers) "thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee; because he trusteth in thee." -Isaiah 26:3. Then she said "I love you." Now she is with her earthly husband and her Heavenly Father. "Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore." Psalm 16:11

Which, yeah, made me cry. Even though I'd never met her. Granted, it's not super difficult to make me cry, but still. And it also inspired me to draw a little something for Hope, a visual reminder-- not that she would need it to remember her grandmother, but maybe to reassure her in difficult times.

 And, so, I instagrammed it, to show Hope, and because that's what people do. A few people were seemed interested in it, and so I've made a free printable 8x10 version of it-- you can find it on the "free printies" tab at the top of the page, or just follow this link. 

It's a PDF that contains both the black/white and gray versions; make sure to print it with page scaling set to "none" so it prints at 8x10 and not smaller. (If you're asked for a password in order to print it, it's "print", minus the quotation marks.)

Anyway, it's just a little thing-- but print and enjoy, I hope you can use it.

By the way, since I've been SNOWED IN FOR THE PAST WEEK, I've been working on a tutorial! Nothing exciting, but after making a zillion tea-towels, I've learned a few things the hard way, and really had trouble finding the answers to some of my questions on the interwebs. Hopefully I can help at least a few people out by shedding some light on the little tricks I've discovered. So, coming soon: 

"How to Make Tea Towels, with No Pinning and Hardly Any Ironing!"

Which includes the sub-tutorial:

 "Using a 6mm Hemmer Foot on Medium Weight Wovens, Without Going Insane and/or Throwing Your Sewing Machine Out the Window!"

 So, stay tuned? Or something like that? Yeah...