Wednesday Pink - Fabric Bundle

My mom got me this gorgeous bundle of pink fabrics a while ago and I just haven't had the heart to mess it up. It's so cute!

But I am thinking of making a quilt with it sometime this year because, really, it's too cute not to use.

Thanks, Mom!

Patio Update

All the junk is gone! My boyfriend is coming home today with a big broom so we can sweep away all the leftover dirt and get the patio looking spiffy.

We also have a pepper with more on the way, it looks like:


And the hibiscus tree I thought was dead has come back very well:

My First Art Quilt

This quilt depicts the Egyptian Goddess Nuit. I made it for a quilt swap on craftster.org and it turned out pretty good for my first art quilt.

I pieced the background with different blue/aqua fabrics for the sky and a brown fabric for the earth at the bottom.

The Goddess was appliqued onto some muslin then appliqued again onto the quilt top. I left the muslin unfinished so it would fray into an interesting texture when I put it through the wash.

The "hieroglyphics" were quilted by drawing the pictures onto tissue paper and quilting over the paper.


It wasn't the best idea I've ever had, but it worked out okay in the end. There's got to be a better way to do it, though, because picking all that tissue paper out of the quilting lines was a big p.i.t.a.

This is what the quilting looked like after the paper came off - a little underwhelming:


Then I detailed the lady with some quilting:


To make the quilted symbols stand out more, I painted them in. Here are some of my favorite little parts:




I added some stars to Nuit's torso:


Here's the quilt from her perspective, where you can see the beads I added to her arms:


And here's a gratuitous extreme headshot closeup:


The next art quilt I want to attempt is a landscape quilt. Probably of some mountains. Like the ones in New Mexico. Yes! I am still talking about New Mexico!

What a Great 4th of July Weekend!

Friday, July 3rd, my boyfriend and I drove over to Magician Lake, Michigan where we stayed for the weekend with friends of his who have a lake house there. Magician Lake is just north-north east of Dowagiac, MI, in the south-east corner of the state and it is one of the best places I've ever celebrated our nation's Independence ever and this past weekend did not disappoint.

Friday night we took in some local flavor at the Hartford Motor Speedway:


They have stock and modified dirt car racing there. The first race we saw was won by a 13 year old driver! He was very cool about winning. When asked how it was he said, "It was fun." He did remember to thank his sponsors and he split his hundred-dollar prize with his dad.

The speedway put on a fantastic fireworks show for us and then we called it a night.

Saturday, the 4th, was the day of The Annual Lake House Challenge. This year was a cornhole tournament.


Cornhole is a game also known as bags. Two inclined boards with a small hole at the top are set up opposite each other. Two players try to toss bags filled with corn into the hole. I was out of the tournament quite quickly as I am not very good at this game. There were 22 people participating in the tournament so it went on all day. We had our final players lined up to play under the lights after dinner.

Saturday was our turn to cook (so many people stay at the lake house during the 4th that we are split into groups of four and given a certain night to prepare dinner for everyone). Well, it was our friends' turn to cook and my boyfriend and I helped. Our theme was Texas BBQ so we made brisket, which got started at 3am! That was the main event of the meal and there wasn't a single piece of it left after dinner. We also had grilled pork roast, two kinds of homemade bbq sauce, homemade coleslaw, southwestern potato salad, Texas toast, green beans, and, for dessert, apple cobbler with vanilla ice cream. Everyone was impressed and very full.

The night game was a lot of fun. My boyfriend decided the players needed to be announced "professionally" and given nicknames, a la professional boxing style. He also provided a running commentary on the players and the game. It was very entertaining, but his voice is still, two days later, pretty hoarse.

After the final game was won, we decided to visit the local bar, where the promise of riding a mechanical bull was too great a temptation to resist.


The Legacy was the place to be that night. It was packed with mostly college-aged kids who all seemed to be from Chicago or the Chicago area, just like we were. Orland Park, Illinois was the most common denominator between everyone.

Me and three other ladies of our party were the only ones brave enough to ride the bull. The hardest part was getting on the thing! It was a lot of fun and I will do it again if I ever have the opportunity - and it is free like it was at this place. I wouldn't pay money to be in such a potentially embarrassing situation.

Sunday, the sun decided to come out in full force which made for a great day to be on the water. My boyfriend and I rode the wave runner (which is kind of like a jet-ski) a bit and I even drove it - a first for me. We got wet just enough for it to feel good and it was a lot of fun. Later my bf rode the wave runner with another guy there and they tried very hard to flip each other off. They succeeded at last, going about 50mph, making crazy turns - both of them went flying and flipping into the air. I only heard about it second hand, but I wish I had seen it. I would have laughed.

We left Sunday afternoon so we could pick up Basil the yorkie, who had been staying at my bf's parents' house, and get home before dark. We got back to our place around 6pm and we were so wiped out we barely moved off the couch all night.

Yep. It was a great weekend and I'm already looking forward to next year. Happy 4th of July everyone!

I'm in love with New Mexico

Last night I returned from meeting up with my parents in New Mexico, who were there for the PGA 42nd Professional National Championship (a golf tournament).

My mom and I mostly hung out together taking in the sights and we spent two days at the Santa Ana golf course where she did the calligraphy for one of the score boards. Here we are at the golf course:


The mountains behind us are the Sandia Mountains. Here was the view of them from our hotel balcony:


The culture there is very artsy and we saw lots of great expressions everywhere we went - like on this old washing machine:


She and I hit quilt shops in the Albuquerque and Santa Fe area as well as the Georgia O'Keeffe museum. We really went off the beaten trail when we decided to drive over the mountain instead of around it one day.

Everywhere we went was a wonderful experience and I am already planning on visiting again as soon as I can get away with my boyfriend. We'll probably go hiking/camping in Taos, which seems to be the place to visit for mountain lovers like me.

Sock Progress

My first sock is coming along!

I did a short-row heel which was not hard, but I think I may have made some mistakes in there a few places. There is a bit of gapping where the short rows connect with the ankle, but I can live with them. I'm so excited about being on the home stretch for this sock that all the little errors are completely forgiven.

Wednesday Pink - Garden Gloves

We did gardening recently. We have this...area...in our back patio that contains dirt and used to contain weeds.

I cleared out the weeds and got it looking a little more respectable.

After digging out the weed bushes that I couldn't pull out by hand, we put in some sod and plants. I wanted irises so I got irises.

We also wanted some shade plants so I put in a hostas, foxglove, and, in the pot, Lily of the Valley.

My bf wanted some herbs and peppers. We put basil, serrano, and another kind of pepper that I don't remember in a separate container. They are doing great!

We also planted some peas and we got a peapod the other day!


The gardening isn't done yet. Next to the irises I put in some hydrangeas I rescued from the garbage at work and we have a hibiscus tree - we aren't sure if any of those are going to survive. We also got three types of flowering vines we hope to use to block out our view of the neighbor, but we haven't planted them yet, and I want to get some trailing flowers to hang off the balcony.

Hopefully we'll get all that done soon so we can enjoy the patio more when summer finally gets here!

My first sock!

I've knit my first sock toe using the short-row toe method from the book "Socks from the Toe Up" by Wendy D. Johnson.



It's a good book and it taught me the provisional cast-on as well as short rows. It took careful reading and re-reading of the instructions for me to get it right. The photos are gorgeous and inspiring.

The yarn I chose is Berroco Comfort Sock in the color 1816, Cosmopolitan, and I'm using size 2 DPNS.

I think I ripped this toe at least five times until I finally got it and I knit this toe during a non-stop two-hour period while watching TV the other night. Now, if I can find my fifth needle, I will be able to continue with the rest of the sock.

Kitchen Mess

I love to make messes. Something good usually comes from my messes.





On Mother's Day, I made a mess in the kitchen and a great veggie lasagna came out of it.





The recipe is the Freeze-Ahead Lasagna Primavera on the Martha Stewart website.

I didn't follow the recipe exactly. Instead of frozen spinach I used fresh baby spinach which I chopped very well in the food processor. I also added chopped red bell pepper and used Romano instead of Parmesan.

It turned out great and it was the hit of the Mother's Day lunch we had at my bf's parent's house.

This recipe is a keeper!

Wednesday Pink - Crafts for me!

A little while ago I participated in a craft swap and my partner sent me some really cute, cool, and PINK hand-made things.

She made me this gorgeous pear pin cushion:

I love it and it fits into the color scheme of my craft area perfectly. The pattern can be found at Retro Mama's etsy shop.

She also made this fabric coiled bowl that totally blew me away with its crafty coolness:



I like it so much I decided to find a tutorial for it so I can make some more. I found one at Craftstylish.

Thanks, C'lest, for these wonderful gifts!

Wednesday Pink - Craftroom

For today's pink fix, I am highlighting my personal space. It is my craft/exercise room and it's got a lot of pink in it.

The most noticable pink thing is my chair. My mom bought this for me for my birthday a few years ago. It is really cool and I love it.



I also have a pink Ott-Lite that I bought for myself when I saw it on sale. It's pretty cool, too.



But my favorite thing in this area is the lampshade. It's not 100% pink, but it has pink in it. I splurged on it during a visit to Ikea. The pink rug is also from Ikea and it is made out of woven plastic.




Doesn't it just make the room? Yes. Yes it does. And that is a pink Rubik's snake in the shape of a dog next to the lamp. Cute, eh?

Here's the other side of the craft room:


It sure did come quite a way from before!

Baby quilt

I started this quilt back in November of 2008 for a baby that was due February 23, 2009. That was plenty of time to finish it before she was born.

This quilt was started during a quilting retreat weekend with some of my best friends in the world. We all went shopping for fabrics and supplies, then we holed up in a hotel suite and had a blast cutting, sewing, talking, eating lots of junkfood, and drinking bad hotel coffee.

During our initial quilting shopping trip, I bought the pattern book for the pattern I used for this quilt. It is "New Cuts for New Quilts" by Karla Alexander and there are a few patterns in there I'm looking forward to making in the future.

Although this quilt is technically finished and sent (the baby had been born a couple months before I sent it), I am thinking the quilt needed more quilting. All I did for quilting on it was stitching in the ditch along the columns and a criss-crossing wavy line on the thick border areas.



After I had sent it off, I found out the sewing machine I recently got for Christmas from my boyfriend can do free-motion quilting! I'm practicing and getting better at it, but it's still not a walk in the park for me. Either the quilt is too heavy, or there isn't enough space on this machine, or for whatever reason(s), I can't do it consistently well. I can't move the quilt around under the needle with any kind of finesse so doing a free-motion pattern on my sewing machine seems to be completely out of the question. I suppose all I need to do is practice more. Practice and work out my arm muscles so I can push and pull 10 pounds of blanket around like it's nothing.

Introducing 'Wednesday Pink'

I don't know if it's a little-known or widely-known fact that I like the color pink, but I think, since I do like it so much, I should dedicate a day of my week to pink. Why not wednesday?

Yesterday I bought some new shampoo and conditioner which are supposed to make hair really shiny, but I think I bought them just because they are pink.


The liquid inside is a light shimmering pink and it is a tad bit on the runny side. It has a nice fresh floral-y scent - just what you would think pink is supposed to smell like.

A while back I bought another pink bath product - Neutrogena's Pink Grapfruit Body Wash.


This smells great and the little beads feel nice on the skin.

I love this topic of pink and I am thinking of all sorts of pink things I will be writing about every week. Fun!

Free-motion quilting

Now that I know how to do free-motion quilting on my little Kenmore sewing machine, I have been quilting it UP!

I tried to free-hand some wood-like quilting on these pillows. Not too bad for my first try.

Then I went crazy on the border of a quilt I made for a friend.





Quilting is a blast!!!