I think I just poo'ed a little.

Ok, so, I feel the need to explain my day on Wednesday: furious amounts of last minute gift-makery, endless burning with irons, the need to photograph at least SOME of the presents before they disappear into small sticky hands, packing, wrapping, general mayhem.
No blog-checking. Google Reader, you were neglected. How foolish I was. But.
I got home today, and was finally checking the backlog and.
Holy Poo.
Holy Moly.
Holy Moly Poo.
Everyone is going to hate me now, but I won a camera from the
AMAZING
FABULOUS
EXTREMELY GENEROUS
TALENTED
BEAUTIFUL
Did I mention extremely generous?
REE
of PIONEER WOMAN!
And, pretty much, I am still hyperventilating. Thank you, Ree! I can't even think of things to say! Especially not smart or interesting or funny things! In fact, at this point, I am still dizzy!
And have I mentioned that the camera is not just any camera. It's a
NIKON D2x?!?!?!
You are all free to hate me now. I hate me a little bit now. But I think I will eventually get over it. It is troublesome hating the person you live in a head with.
Did that make sense? No. But neither do I right now.
Thank you, Ree!
AHHHHHHHHHHHH!
( and I hope this doesn't seem gloaty! I really, really, don't want to seem gloaty, because I hate gloaty, but when someone gives you the awesomest random-prize-winning-draw of your life, or ever, you feel the need to mention it. At least. Ree rocks. Ree can come over to my house, any time she wants, and put manure covered feet on any of my furniture. Not that your feet are covered with manure. I don't think they are. But if they were, you could do it anyway. I have sponges. Somewhere.)

Last minute? What?

Rice Bags, Fabric Strips, Etc.

So, yesterday I got the idea into my head to make some rice bags, because, you know, it isn't like I don't ALREADY have 14 holiday craft projects to complete, and everything else to wrap, and, oh wait, I said I would screenprint our Christmas cards? Yeah. So, I decided to make some, because I was chilly, and it seemed easy, and there are always those people who you
a) don't know what to buy for
b) didn't know they were going to give you a present and so had nothing for them, or
c) need to give one more thing to, in order to justify not spending enough money on them.
So, essentially, these are the B team of presents. Not to say those who recieve them are B-teamers! You're fabulous, you to-be-determined folks, you! But these presents are not that difficult, but rather functional. I followed the instructions found here, and made two different kinds.
These are the girly ones, the bottom one with the bunnies on it is MINE! And you can't have it! (Although, at this point, it has already spent one night covering my feet, so I doubt you WOULD want it.)This second group is the manly man bags, made of some beautiful wool suitings I got a few years back at a vintage clothing sale.One word of caution with the rice bags though: You might think you're being smart by microwaving them for an extra 30 seconds, but you are not. Unless you want your special sitting parts to be burned off. Do you? DO YOU? Not smart, people.Also, I SO enjoyed reading about all of your failed or semi-failed crafting experiences! There was a lot of giggling around here, but then I asked the Random number generator "Who gets it?" and he said:Congratulations, Heather! You're a winner! Also, the first thing I ever tried to "sew" was a pillowcase skirt, and I thought I could use stitch witchery too! Fail! I wonder how many awful projects have been a direct result of the allure of fusable webbing strips? Also, I feel obliged to mention, that there was a death in the family today. Beloved carrot toy has finally bit the big one. Fortunately, a new beloved carrot was already purchased a month ago, when I thought that this one had been thrown out, but was, in fact, only hidden. Newer carrot is still in commission, although he has already lost both of his leafy ears in combat. A moment of silence?

I Equals Bad Blogger.

Seriously, I have been in a crafting rut, and I am blaming it all on crayon rolls. So, I finally finished one of the two I was planning on doing for Christmas, and I have already lot the will to live, because I HATE doing parallel lines of topstitching, and I STINK at it. So, yadda yadda, here is the picture of the thing I have been grumbling about, and I don't want to talk about it anymore.
However, when I cut the strips for these things, I thought that I would love making them SO MUCH that I cut TWO piles of rainbow fabrics. One pile has been sewn together, but you, my lucky friend, can have the other, if you want. And these are looong stips two, cut from one selvedge to the other. All you have to do is leave me a comment that says what your most ill-fated gift-craft experience was. I will cackle at these, and then draw a winner who will inherit from me the hell that is crayon rolls. Sound good? No? I haven't made it seem appealing? Mneh.
In other news, I continue to take way too many pictures of my cat, and post them indiscriminately on my blog. Here you are, Gratuitous Baxter Photographs, known from now on as GBP's.(I should mention, so no one suspects me of favoritism, that Rufus is very cute to. But he is much harder to photograph, and also doesn't pose as much, and I am lazy.)

Fabric Lust.

I have been waiting for Erin Michael's new fabric line, "Lush" to be available for MONTHS, ever since it was mentioned over at True Up. So I can't WAIT to get my hands on some, but it would be bad to buy some right in the middle of the time of year when we should be thinking of others more than ourselves... Right? Do I sound convinced yet? IS there seriously anything better than paint by number fabric? Or, better yet, paint by number palette fabric? I think not. At least, as far as fabrics go.
And now that I'm snooping around the Moda site to scavenge some screen-shots, I can't wait until "Hello Betty" comes out, and "Arcadia", and "Neptune"! I usually think of Moda as a slightly more conservative company when it comes to pattern, but it looks like next year they're really putting some fabulously modern stuff out.
Also, thank you everyone for your overwhelming response to my little video! I was kind of worried, having never even put a picture of my FACE on here, to have a whole little video of me being semi-ridiculous, but I decided to get over it. I hope it was more helpful than confusing!
(Images screenshotted from Tula Pink. I hope that's ok. If not, I sorry!)

How I Quilt Quilts.

How I Quilt. from lauren hunt on Vimeo
My favorite part about this video is when I have to make an L with my left hand, and you can see me trying to figure out right from left. Because, yes, I am that classy.

One of THOSE Posts.

Sorry for the long blog break, it's been a long couple of weeks. Spent a lot of time with family though, and finished this quilt. You know when I do those self-indulgent posts with way too many pictures of one quilt? Yup. Here it comes.

My New Best Friend.

It's garden gloves. The garden gloves I bought to pull down sheetrock with are my new best friend when quilting. Three dollars, and they have changed my entire life. Seriously. Get some garden gloves.
Yesterday turned out to be a pretty productive day, quilted a baby quilt for the shop, finished two bags, painted a plate, and (re)made a quilty scarf. Back soon, I have lots of Christmas projects in the works.

More Stuff.

I'm trying to be a holiday factory over here, and failing miserably. Who knew crayon rolls were so time consuming? Not me, is the answer. But, aside from my crayon roll failures, bowls and scarves have been produced for the etsy. I'm helping rip down a friend's sheetrock tomorrow, wish me luck! (I have a poor safety record...)

Orange, Green, and Gray Quilt.

Sorry these are not good photos, but in my defense, the light here lately has been lame. Today was much better, but I didn't think to re-shoot these terrible photos I took on Sunday. This quilt is just a simple tie- quilt, made to rest on the back of our couch, and on top of people. It seems, however, that it most commonly resides wadded up, under the four-legged members of the household. What can I say. If I was a better person, I would iron it to take photos, but, I am not.

Scarf Day

Well. I'm glad I'm not the only person with woodland creatures living in my head. Should we start a support group, do you think? Moving on, today is scarf day. We have a lot of scarves here in the Hunt household. I'm guessing, and this is conservative, that we own approximately 12 home made scarves. I wear different scarves the way that most people wear different shoes, which is good that something is varied, because, I am lazy and I wear the same nasty shoes everyday. Anyway, another reason we have such a surplus of scarves is because when I started sewing, they were the first thing I made that anyone liked. Not that people didn't PRETEND to like the other things I made, but, honestly, it was pretty obvious. Anyway, I had put aside my scarfmaking for a few years, but the weather has been miserable lately, and so I have started sewing up some new scarves. Not to everyone's liking, but extremely soft and warm! So, this is the first of several I'll be posting on etsy in the next few days, hope you guys like them!

Etsytastic.

Finally I finished some of the bowls that have been sitting around my house half painted for, oh, 4 months? Yay, me, yay, etsy.

Few Things Can Get Me Out of the House By 6am.

Looking forward to a night of sarcastic election coverage, and big, fancy maps.

Chalkboards and Wool Coats.

I apologize if I have nothing very Halloweeny to share today, I was a bit lame this year and didn't do anything special except order pizza and buy candy for the holiday. I did spend several hours yesterday getting paid to... draw on a chalkboard? It was for a photo shoot for my former boss, and it was quite fun. This morning I woke up and saw the adorable jacket Rachel made for Stimpy, and I was swept with a wave of guilt. Poor Rufus didn't get dressed up for Halloween, and he has no dapper jacket! So I downloaded this pattern and made a little wool coat for Rufus too. Now the boys just need to have a playdate so they can compare their swank new jackets!