And The Winner Is....

I meant to do this right, I really did. I pictured adorable little cards in a pretty bowl, a ceremonial drawing and photographs of it all. I blame most of what went wrong on the cable company, and also life. It ended up being post-its, in an ugly bowl, drawn by my boss, who was on the telephone and making a face at being asked to pull a post-it out of a bowl.
But congratulations, Capello, or, well, Laura, of no appropriate behavior, you have won a box o' stuff! And congratulations to me, because I happened to draw someone who lives in the same town as me, so, poo on you, USPS!
Really, I plan on being back up and running, with pictures and everything tomorrow. Really. As long as the cable guys show up.
(By the way, the cat pictured above is not my cat. It just likes to sit on my car. The look on its face is the same look on mine when I contemplate the innerworkings of Time Warner Cable.)

Box o' Fabric Goodness

All right, it is the last day to comment and enter into the drawing for the big box o' fabric goodness. Unfortunately, I was pretty lame about posting this week, but I blame it on the fact that the cable guys have not yet been here to install our, well, cable, and so we have been scavenging off our neighbors airPort networks, with very slow and unreliable results. Bad people, yes we are. Anyway, I'll draw tonight around 7 and hopefully have the bandwidth to post the winner then.
No picture. Sigh. Stupid cable guys.

Another Pouch, and Rotary Cutter Love.

OK, so, everyone else knows about this, but: rotary cutting has just changed my life. I thought, well, I don't know what I thought, but rotary cutting is the way to go. I'm a very, VERY lazy cutter, you see, nothing is ever straight and smooth like I see in other people's pictures, but now, NOW, I join the ranks of neat cutters. Or, well, neater. I would show you my beautiful stacks, but what I'm working on is a birthday surprise for someone I know will be reading this, so....Another little pouch!Big surprise. I seem to be stuck on these, most likely because they're a lot quicker than the tote bags and I'm running out of my good thick tan cotton. Tragic, because it's such a nice soft neutral. Tragic? Really? Did I write that? Getting a little melodramatic about the stash now, I really have to get some distance.Picked a few things up last weekend for the bathroom. Been wanting some old lab glass for supplies for a while now. And, who knew Vera had these cute little trays? Not me. Out of the loop.By the way, I'm in the process of packing up that box. And it's gonna be HEAVY.

The State of Things.

So, we are mostly moved in. Or, our stuff is here, and mostly out of boxes, and thats enough for us at this point. I have come to the conclusion that it is, in fact, possible to have too much fabric. So I am firing up the cleaning engines, and I've decided to make a game out of it. "Who wants a usps flat rate box o' goodness?" is the name of the game, and to enter, all you have to do is... uhm...
Wow. I hadn't thought that far ahead. Leave a comment! Yes, original, and I will choose someone at random (if, in fact, there is anyone to choose from) to receive a big box o' random goodness, and I promise, it will have at least a 60/40 goodness/crap ratio. I'm kidding, there really is no crap, I threw it all away before the move. Also, I'll probably put in something handmade. Why not? So, we'll do this for a week, if you leave a comment before next Tuesday, you're entered, and if you leave two, you're entered twice, but I know that you just want the fabric, because my blabbering on is, really, not that interesting. I know, I've been listening to it for a while.In other somewhat dull news, I finished this little clutch, but it almost killed me. I don't know why, I just managed to do everything improperly- like, really, how many times do I have to forget to leave the zipper open when I'm sewing the pouch together from the inside out? Insane. Also, for the Katie's "use what you have" challenge, I made this little pouchy. This little guy I liked. Still forgot to leave the zipper open, but, mneh. It'll make it's way to etsy when I have the time to post it.All for now. I'll be packing up that box, now...

Nails and Hammers

I have never put a nail in a rented wall before, but I think I'm ready to do it. That's commitment, people. And knowing that our landlord is amazing.

Moving

So we've been moving. A lot. Twice in the past two weeks. And no, we're not insane, we've got an excellent apartment now, we just had to live in a small studio for half a month. With no air conditioning. And a mini-fridge. And a tiny bed. But it's done with now, but for the fact that we currently live in a state of constant wonder over which box _____ is in. I thought it was that big box upstairs, you know? The one that has ______ written on it but really contains _____? You get the idea.
Fortunately, Baxter seems to like the new place, which is, let's face it, the most important thing.
And a few semi-craft-related pictures to help me feel like this blog isn't just about me getting to whine. (Although it is, mostly.)The sign said Yard Sale- Fabric Sale", and I almost killed people turning around to get back to the street.Patchwork Clutch in progress.

Workday

Short post today; this is where I work.(What I find hilarious is that I photographed a grayscale and then did not use it to color balance the photo. har.)

Mail!

Just a little blurb to tell everyone about the wonderful little package I received today from Jen of String and Scissor! She sent the little scrap bundle I ordered from her etsy shop as well as my "winnings" as a runner-up from her blog contest-thing. Isn't it cute? The little bundles with the cute string and the vintage button? Ah, how I love the mail. Thanks Jen! And you just wait- a scrappy package will come for you too!

Summertime.

Summer is officially here, and what says summer more than a giant tote bag so large that, when fully loaded, you can barely carry it? Well, I guess there are quite a few things that are a bit more summery, but, well, this says summer to me.It started out as just an excuse to use some of the new solids I picked up for another baby quilt, and a chance to try out the walking foot I also recently purchased to help with the quilting. I just started randomly cutting and sewing and ended up with a teeny little quilty thing, and thought, "I would like this to be my new tote bag. Enough of sewing for others. Me me me!" It went on longer, and included a few verses of the song Veruca Salt sings in the original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but I find it's best to summarize when externalizing my internal dialogue. The other side is a little bit simpler, A) So as not to be TOO busy and B) Because I am lazy.It really is so large that, if it had arm holes, I could probably wear it. And a head hole. That would also required. And now, on a completely different note, meet Jewell, one of the cats I work with. She is trying to keep her identity a secret, and, as you can probably tell, she's not very much help around the studio.

Just a little thing...

Just a tiny little update, before I go off to work, but remember all those quilt squares? If not, they're conveniently located up on the banner... Remember now? Well, over the hiatus the tiny-quilt fairy came and they all now reside with a 6-month old named Tess. Here are a few of the pictures I took before I gave it away.
(And, also- FIRST QUILT- BOOYEAH! I want to give a shout out to my sewing machine, my iron, Heather Bailey's binding tutorial, Alexia Abegg's quilt for Pierette, my husband for not killing me when my stuff was ALL OVER the house, and my cat, for trying to eat EVERY PIECE OF THREAD, ever, but never succeeding. As far as I know.)