Friday, May 31, 2013

It's Kind of A Long Story.

So, say you're a gardener. You love to garden. And you love fruit, and so you decide to go get yourself a fruit tree. You drive to the plant-store (clearly, I am not a gardener), and you say, "Plant guy! Please direct me to the fruit trees! I would like a peach tree, because I love peaches!" And the plant guy takes you to the peach tree, and you find the one you think looks healthiest, and you take it home.

And you plant your peach tree, and do all of the things that loving peach-tree-owners do: you water it and prune it and fertilize it and protect it from whatever it needs protected from. You do it because you love your peach tree, and because you know that these are the things you have to do for your tree to bear fruit. Fruit trees, after all, are not sources of instant gratification-- it takes three years for a peach tree to bear fruit, but those years are made easier by your eager anticipation of what is to come.

Then the long awaited season arrives, and you are excited; you start pinning peach cobbler recipes and researching canning and jam-making, and promising your neighbors that you will share your peaches. The time has come! you think, and you can already taste the peach juice.

And then your peach tree starts to blossom, and fruit begin to grow, and DUDE, THESE ARE CHERRIES, NOT PEACHES! WHAT? Seriously!?! THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A PEACH TREE!

(Ok, so I don't know if those trees actually look enough alike to be mistaken for one another. Maybe not, but you're an inexperienced gardener. It's an analogy, folks.)

So you shrug your shoulders and you tell yourself to buck up and you recycle all the peach-based recipes you printed out. And you're ok with it, because you still have a fruit tree, but it takes you a while to get used to the fact that this season is going to TASTE DIFFERENT than you thought it would. You're not unhappy, but you're not quite happy yet; it takes a while to shift gears.

But then one day you sit down on your porch with a handful of newly picked and washed cherries, and as you sit there spitting out seeds and staining your fingers with sweet cherry juices, you realize that you like cherries more. You don't remember why you chose peaches-- you liked them, and you still like them, but when you imagine sitting on your porch with a peach, you think what a lucky duck you are to have cherries instead. Cherries are expensive, and the season is short, and the cobblers are just as lovely.

And you think about how much you learned about fruit trees, and how it would be pretty easy to go to a plant-store with a more competent staff, and get a REAL peach tree, and start your own little orchard. And maybe if you would have gotten peaches, you never would have considered going back to get a cherry tree. You would have enjoyed the peaches, and made the cobblers, but you never would have started googling recipes that have both peaches AND cherries. They would be tasty together, you think.

---

Ok, sorry, enough with the fruitiness. If you know me well, you know that I can barely manage any complex thought without turning it into some sort of over-long analogy, that eventually leads to me forgetting what I was talking about. Here's the facts: Until a few months ago, I thought that I would be hugging bolts of freshly-printed fabric right now. I thought I would have gone to Portland for market, and worn some sort of Mrs-Frizzle-esque dress made of that fabric. I planned on cutting enough fat quarters to roll around in them like Scrooge McDuck. (Ok, I didn't think of that one until now, but it would have been nice.) Them's the peaches I was hoping for.

But it wasn't to be. There was no great disaster, no horrible mistakes, no drama-- everyone did their job well, but it just didn't happen. It's not uncommon, I guess. And I'm fortunate that the previous years of tree-maintenance prepared me for this, because I always knew that some trees don't bloom when they should, or at all, or they die, and I learned to be cautious in my optimism, and kept from defining myself as a peach farmer. I just had a peach tree, and I hoped for peaches someday, and when I got cherries, it took some getting used to, but it didn't crush me.

What's the cherries? There's lots of them. One particularly juicy one is that I am fortunate enough to be writing patterns for my fabulous friend, Shea Henderson, of Empty Bobbin Sewing Studio. And I'm in really good company; you can read her blog post here about the new designers that will be putting out new Empty Bobbin patterns in the near future. These are some very skilled ladies, and I'm excited to see what they are going to do, and eventually to share the secret-cherries I'm working on as well.
Another big bunch of cherries is that I am selling fabric, in fat quarters and yardage, on etsy again! Right now I have all of my previous designs, birdies, feathers, bikes, ships, and sign language up, but I have a LOT MORE coming soon-- I have a HUGE backlog of designs that have been hiding in the design-portfolio-basement, soon to be exposed to the glorious light of day. I'm rather fond of them, and happy that so many prints that had been stamped as "rejects" will get an opportunity to shine.

And there's more cherries where those came from, but I won't go into all of them now, because already, there are SO MANY WORDS in this post-- but I want you to know that I am loving the cherries. Don't cry for my peaches, guys, I'm not worried about them. Maybe I'll have some someday, but if not, whatevs. Right now, I have cherries, and they are sweet.

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

So I guess I have to do this?

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

You been bloglovin'ed. Sorry. Everybody's doing it, so why can't we? And by "we", I mean "I", but I'm making a reference to an album by an early nineties Irish rock band. What of it?

In other (non) news, here is the most attractive picture of me ever taken. YOU ARE WELCOME!

I have a REAL post that I'm working on. It has a lot of words, though, so it's taking a while to squeeze out. It has nothing to do with owls, though. I am sorry.

Also, according to bloglovin', I have two blogs? One with .se instead of .com? Whatever. I shall claim them both. But you should click on the top link, not this one. This one is a mystery.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin


Tuesday, May 7, 2013

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?