Stilt Man

I think I actually printed this in 2006. I had grand plans for it, but it was overtaken by this print, instead.
Ah well, it's long gone to it's new home. The ink is such a lovely clean blue, and the print was a relatively successful recovery from an aquatint gone horribly, horribly wrong.

2 Weeks Until Our Trip to Capital City!

It's amazing how "true" these little a-la-carte avatars can be. Though A) my eyes aren't really that wonky, B) there's no option for two-tone hair, and C) it's really a shame that they don't have this guy as a T-shirt icon. (I know, it's not the Simpsons, but...)

Try it, it's fun!

Summery Green Vintage Goodness

This top just looked so fresh and summery (and easy!) that I could not resist.



The fabric came from here (a remnant) and the pattern came from here (a treasure trove of affordable patterns sold by a very nice lady--don't mind the utilitarian site design and tiny images).

While viewing this photo I am beginning to see the wisdom of tucking this style of shirt in (as per the pattern illustration), but I guess this is what the kids are wearing these days.

Amber Waves of Grain

Today was harvest day!




No purple mountains here, but still...pretty all-American for the 4th of July, no?
I left a few heads of wheat outside for the birds to snack on.

Before & After

(Before)

Egad. Is this anyway to store your knitting needles?
Um, no.
How about this?
(After)





I have a cheap-ish plastic set of drawers that used to hold art supplies. These have grudgingly been giving way to my growing collection of sewing/knitting/crafting supplies. My organizational skills within these drawers is sketchy at best, which explains the “before” picture. Finding the right sized needles has always been a bit of a thankless task as I wrestle with flailing circular (all the better for subway-knitting) needles and stray double-points.

I have always longingly eyed needle organizers such as these, but I’ve never been 100% in love with any particular design and being the ever-practical gal, I always think “Oh, I can make that. (Famous last words.)

I believe the black and white fabric came from Superbuzzy. It’s been cut and sitting in my closet from a year or so. The cross-stitch print is from purlsoho and also sat around for a while. I often have a hard time cutting into my small pieces of fabric...as if I won’t someday find another piece of fabric that I will love as much as that particular one.
So after having the fabric stare at me for (at least) months I hopped on the train a few weeks ago to spend the afternoon here. There, on the scraps-sold-by-the-pound
table in this booth, I found this little strip of red, sewing-themed Japanese fabric which turned out to be the catalyst for this project. Months of tentative cutting and fabric piles sitting around turned into one day of sewing and completion.

And no, I don’t really store my needles in the grass, but it made such a nice background.

Speaking of Renegade, it was a lovely day. I also picked up this little cutie

from my friend’s wife’s (which makes her my friend, too!) store booth for a friend who is expecting this fall. I also got a lovely tiny crocheted daffodil bobby pin from here.

And finally, one other installment of Before:


And After:


Yum.
It was perfect with homemade vanilla ice cream.

Don't Go In the Water

Yeee-Owwww!
The smocking tease has blossomed into a full-fledged pocket. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. I had wanted to add a button-on cephalopod-themed towel, but...I set this aside about a month ago and only picked it back up this week. At least I planned ahead enough to have finished the smocking and assembled the apron part. The actual fish involved a lot of last-minute improvisation. I actually sealed a pin inside it somehow, so I might someday be saying "Ouch" for real whilst wearing this.



Yeah, the lemon wedge is supposed to be for the fish, you know...? I wanted to be holding a shrimp kebab, but that would have involved a little more planning.

A Little Pocket Tease

The May/June Tie One On theme is "Pocket". An idea sprang to mind almost immediately. For once I started working before the weekend prior to the due date. I did this smocking while relaxing with friends out in Long Island over Memorial Day weekend and...I haven't really touched it since. I just need to set a little time aside to finish it so that I'm not mailing the picture in on July first saying, "I'm sorry this is late, but..."

Nobody wants that.



And yes, those are beads. On an apron. Sometimes I'm a little crazy like that.

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

OK, so the first week of June is not technically summer, but it was (some of) my vacation.

I have done some silk screening in my day, and I have been etching/printing copper plates at the Art Student's League off-and-on for 6 years or so, but I had never tried letterpress. I honestly didn't really even know how it worked until I set foot in the Center for Book Arts. I was a little apprehensive because I had signed up earlier in the year but the class was cancelled and they seemed a touch scattered when it came to refunding my class fee. But all was forgiven as I began to drop heavy, dingy, little pieces of type into my composing stick, added leading, set up my form on the galley and then locked it into place on the press bed. Oooh. It was a thrill in a totally Luddite, nerdy way. I have no doubt that any future letterpress printing that I do is far more likely to be done with polymer plates (I doubt I could afford the rental time it would take me to typeset anything worthwhile), but I was surprised at how much of a thrill I got from the simple act of printing. It took 2 days to typeset 3 short paragraphs of text, but it was totally worth it. I was actually sad when I ran out of paper. That's why there are a few prints that are only "black" (It's really blue with a little black). And did I mention how fun mixing the ink was? A couple of base colors and a (Pantone) "recipe card." It was like cooking and art all at the same time! Oh, cleaning the press? Not so much fun, but ehn, what can you do?

I am a huge fan of Guys and Dolls, as can be seen here, and a few years ago, I learned that the story that it is based on was written by one Damon Runyon. (And where was he born? That's right... Kansas!)

One eBay search and a few days later, I was the proud owner of this book:


I got this one because of the cover illustration. It was my first little foray into pulp fiction printing.

I feel like a bit of a dork for saying so, but I'm really proud of the print. My teacher called it "a masterpiece", but I think she was just being nice.



Thank goodness for employers with generous vacation plans!

I'm smocked, smocked, to find that, um, smocking is going on here.

Several years ago, when I was simultaneously making my wedding dress and some pillows for an art show/sale, I came across a sewing book in the public library. It caught my eye so I tossed it on my "to check out" pile. It was just one of many sewing books that came home that day. I did not know at that time that I would soon feel compelled to buy my own copy (after checking it out for a ridiculous number of times in a row) and that I would, in fact, often take it to bed with me and occasionally have to wipe a bit of drool away. And what book was it?
This book!
Yeah, maybe it's just me, but I love, love, love, looking at all of the textures and techniques over and over (though tracking down the proper diagrams to go with the instructions is a little difficult.) I'm a girl who loves color, so I'm sort of surprised that a book so full of monotones/neutrals excites me so, but it does. Which brings me to this. Again, gasp. I saw this book after looking at this blog and after a little frantic online searching, remembered that I work fairly close to a giant Japanese bookstore that would probably have it in stock.
And it did! So I had a little less cash and a little more happiness that day. The ISBN is 4579110714 if you don't work a few blocks away from such a bookstore.

All of this is a roundabout way of saying that I sat down and made some pillows using these elements as inspiration.
Some version of them may end up over here, if I can get my act together.

And I almost forgot, but this was also very inspiring.
Subtle, no?

Strange and True Indeed

Do You Have the Time?

My grandparents had a cuckoo clock in their living room. I remember the sound of it tick-tocking down the hall at night after everyone had gone to bed.This guy doesn't make any sound, but he is a little cuckoo.
This is my contribution to Craftster's Challenge #18, Felt inanimate objects.

April Apron

A fun trip to Chicago curbed my last minute sit-down-at-the-machine sewing time so a lot of this guy was hand sewn on the go. I am pretty happy with it's overall springy look and I seem to have anticipated the May/June Tie One On theme of "pockets". I am surprised how "mod" my tastes are at the moment. My friend Christie made that kooky little beaded owl staring out at you from the detail view.

Chicago was lovely. It went from winter (though I know 40 degree temps don't really count as winter in Chicago) to summer (91 degrees?!?) in 2 days. We saw some friends, some bookstores (this is awesome and now it's mine, too), some music (the point of the trip) and some culture here and there. This painting was really my favorite, though. That blue...it is really wonderful to see paintings in person that you have only seen in reproductions. One fellow there was determined not to forget his experience. He moved methodically from painting to painting, snapping a picture of each one. I don't recall seeing him look at painting except through the viewfinder.

A drink in a fancy place. (Palmer Hotel--now a Hilton, but I'm ignoring that modernization.)



Some appealing public modern art.
(We're not the only ones taking our picture there.)

My kind of town, indeed.

Sweaters...Oh, We've Got Sweaters

I thought that knitting a two children's sweaters would be easier...or at least faster than making (tall) adult clothes.

And...I was wrong.

But they turned out cute and their little twin owners live in San Francisco, so the springtime gift of sweaters is not quite the idiotic idea that it might have seemed at first. The pattern is from Knitty and the Rowan yarn colors are “Military” and “Ravish”. Not exactly the first words that pop into my head when thinking of children’s clothing, but whatever.

I also thought posting more than once a month would be easier.

ha.

I have been making stuff...I just haven't been photographing it. That should change with a new camera now in the household.

Oh, and I got my very own copy of The Spirit of the Beehive for my birthday, so I can watch it whenever I want.
Yay!

Yummy Fuzzy Bunnies

I made little white bunny cupcakes to celebrate the season that celebrates bunnies!
It feels nothing like Spring at the moment, but that doesn't mean that we can't eat lemony bunny-shaped cupcakes.
Yum.

My model.

(he's rather shy, as you can see.)

Meringue ears and tails ready for the oven.


One lonely fellow, waiting for his pals.


And please, this is a little late, since Easter has passed, but bunnies are thinking, feeling critters with personalties (and needs) of their own. As fuzzy and cuddly as they can be--they are not stuffed animals.
Therefore, regarding bunnies and Easter...

The Spirit of My Beehive

A few weeks ago, I mentioned to my boss that I wanted to see Pan's Labyrinth. Her response was that I should really see this. And she was right (and not just because she's my boss.) While I enjoyed Pan's Labyrinth immensely—at least I enjoyed the parts where I was not cringing in my seat and shielding my eyes from the violence onscreen—I think I enjoyed Spirit of the Beehive even more. I am a sucker for anything remotely melancholic--which this is; the scenery is starkly beautiful--hello nostalgic feeling for wide-open, wind-blown prairie/plains land; I love bees--1985(?) Douglas Co. 4-H Champion in entomology, thank-you-very-much; and little Ana has to be about as cute as it is possible for a human being to be. There are lots of parallels--this was obviously an influence for Pan's Labyrinth, but it is much quieter, sweeter, and the conflict is more internal. Watch it if you can find it.

Oh, and if you are ever in Lawrence, KS, go to the Natural History Museum up (literally) on campus and see the bee tree

Anyway, the whole point of that is that I seem to have been influenced lately by the honey-colored lighting and the honeycomb shaped windows in the movie. Curt called me on it after I showed him the etching that I did (above) and the fabric that I became nearly frantic to lay my hands on last week. I was too slow at Superbuzzy and PurlSoho, but Reprodepot came through for me.

It's going to make one fine fashionable gym bag. Buzzzzzzz

Making Progress

Argyle
Originally uploaded by Luck(x8).

Argyle2
Originally uploaded by Luck(x8).

I am still on a slight roll from the weekend.
The end of this vest draws nearer. It is my first steek-cutting experience and I am apprehensive. I kind of like how the knit-the-whole-thing-in-the-round process turns a vest into a funny skinny worm.
Speaking of skinny...I hope that it's not too skinny. The pattern said it's a close-fit but it really seems awfully close-fitting.
I guess I shall see once I get up the nerve to take my scissors to those pretty stripes.