ocd, just a little

After seeing Heather Ross' gorgeous Mendocino fabric collection, I decided to make Zadie a quilt for when she moves into the toddler bed version of her crib.

I bought the Mixtape pattern from OhFrannson (who also has an amazing blog -- if you're into quilting, you should take a look).

And now I'm trying to choose fabrics. I'm going to use the Favorite Songs pattern because it will give me the largest blocks. Since I'm new to this, I think that's the best way to go (larger = fewer). The fabrics have some pretty big prints so the bigger the block, the more space they'll have.

Anyway, on the Freespirit site, they have swatches of 36 prints. When I was searching Etsy, I found a few more. Now I'm getting all ocd and feel like I need to see them all in one space before I'm able to make my decision. I wonder if someone can help me with this...

I often wish I lived in a city with a huge fabric store that would have everything. It is hard to buy fabric online.

Stripey and stuff

Look at this cool collage by Rebecca Kate on flickr. It's all stripes and legwarmers. Up there in the left corner is me and Anda and Sido and Zadie. We're all very stripey in the photo.

I took a screenshot of this.

I love it. I need to learn how to use flickrtoys.

BOGO sale continues

Due to some success, I have decided to continue the BOGO sale in my Etsy shop until Feb. 14.

Here's the deal:

Buy any one item at regular cost and get ANY item of equal or lesser cost for FREE! Please shop as you normally would adding both items to your cart, but do NOT pay, wait for an updated invoice reflecting your sale prices. ALL items qualify for the sale, even bean dolls and yetis, panties and rompers.

Let me know if you have any questions.

BOGO

I'm having a huge sale in my shop for the next week. I'm in the middle of a huge life change (no, I'm way too young for menopause). I'm just rethinking a few things around here so I decided to have a sale. Plus one of my YetiLovesSeamonster peeps, Tiddlywinks, was having a sale and I had a lot of fun choosing a bunny for Zadie so I thought it would be a good idea.

So it's Buy any item in the shop and Get One free. That's right. As much as I hate that acronym, I'm using it now.

So just buy what you want but don't pay. Wait for me to send you a revised invoice and pay then.

And no, this is not in response to the CPSIA CPSC craziness (I'm sure that will all get worked out). It's just me.

And no, I'm not doing any custom orders right now. (Unless you are JessT or the other yeti lover who I will not name -- yours are both almost done, I swear).

Oh, and Anda is sending me some things from a consignment shop in Brooklyn that was only open for like a week so I might have a couple of sizes in a few items not listed so ask.

Look at this!

When Zadie started eating all this baby food, we began amassing millions of glass baby food jars. Even though we make our own baby food, after a few outings we just got fed up with bringing along several Pyrex containers of different vegetables and decided that sometimes, it's okay to go with what's already been prepared. It wasn't long before our kitchen was full of little jars and lids.

We recycle just about everything but it seems like a waste to recycle these when they could be reused so much better.

Along came this Junior Society blog post. Now I'm going to put all my little jars in a box somewhere in the basement and spend the next year collecting little bits to make some fabulous snowglobes. I even have the glass etching stuff hanging around from a previous project.

I'm so excited about this. I made these as a kid but had completely forgotten. It's so much fun to be a mom. I'm filled with excitement for all of these cool projects I'll get to make for my little one and even more for what we'll get to do together when she gets a little more coordinated.

Read the whole post here. And spend some time checking out the whole blog when you have the time. It's very well designed and is organized into easy categories. I have to add that I get this blog sent straight to my email so it doesn't get lost with all the rest of the blogs in my Google reader. It's one of my favorites.

Happy New Year!

Last night we brought 2009 in with slightly less than a bang. Mr. Lemon picked up a bottle of Andre pink champagne (I had this at a wedding in 1995 or so and found it delicious -- it still is for $4.59!). We had planned to go to our favorite Japanese restaurant here in town, Ogawa, but we got some weird snow that turned our neighborhood to ice (the salt trucks don't like to venture into the student ghetto much) so we ended up walking just a few blocks to a newer placed called Solera. It was surprisingly good.

I got these mushroom ravioli things and Mr. Lemon had a tasty risotto that was even more surprisingly all vegan. They have a nice deck that overlooks gorgeous South Park (note hint of sarcasm) and we were seated by the big windows next to it so it was awesome and kinda romantic. Needless to say we were exhausted and home by 9. Mr. Lemon walked babysitter Grandma home over the icy terrain and we watched the ball until 10:30 when we just couldn't take Seacrest anymore and went to bed.

Such is life with an early riser. Zadie was up chatting with Camilla at like 5:30 so we brought her into the bed with us for a morning nip hoping she would crash back out like the old days and we could catch a few more Zs of our own. No such luck but Mr. Lemon took the morning shift and let me sleep a couple more hours.

Today I'm almost halfway into my 5 loads of laundry. Groucho is sleeping on one of the piles (we only have 2 laundry baskets). Sasha is nowhere to be found and Mr. Lemon is making gluten-and-just-about-everything-else free cupcakes for his sister who is doing the total elimination diet because her breastfed baby has eczema pretty bad. They are a bit gritty but with icing will be quite tasty.

I doubt that I'll have time to write more long rambling super parenthetical posts like these much this year as I'm begrudgingly back to work. So if you're still reading for whatever reason, I wish you a much better year than 2008 (even though we had a pretty good one what with Zadie joining us and all).

Handmade Arcade: a review and all the stuff I bought

Handmade Arcade this year was so much better than last year.

1. It was not in a filthy warehouse with absolutely no heat.
2. It was in an armory with a working bathroom and big huge tanks and stuff (and heat and lights and windows and doors).
3. I wasn't pregnant.

Because this is a two day show, I had time at the end of the first day and at the beginning of the second day to do some shopping. Also, because it's so close to home (about 1.5 hours), I had some helpers. I usually don't have much time at all to shop at craft shows so this is a big bonus for me. You don't get into this business if you don't like the whole movement (but that's a post for a different day which may discuss why I don't consider myself a visual artist anymore or maybe for just right now).

Zadie was being an absolute angel: sleeping in the stroller when prompted, eating solid food like a big girl, going home with Grandma at the end of the show so Mr. Lemon and I could actually eat a meal out together (Welcome to Moe's!), and being a gorgeous model of the yeti ringer onesie and bean romper lines SO I bought her tons of stuff.

First of all, this amazing elf hat by Sweet Pepita. She will wear this in the Spring.

This amazing horned yeti creature with a red bird on his head by Cutesy but not Cutesy. You gotta see the kid grab this beast by the horns and chomp on that bird. It's really cute.

The squirrel card to make the "S" for the alphabet in her nursery by esoule. We will probably frame the gnome. The wallet is for me and was made by the people at Get Felt Up who were very nice.

I got these cool legwarmers in a trade with Little Lumpkin who also made a Christmas present for my niece. I was so excited to finally be able to meet all of the family as Sarah and I were pregnant at the same time.

Finally, I bought some more fabulous Tim Gunn magnets from Tiny Rat who makes these really cool plastic canvas creations too.

If you didn't make it out, check out the vendor list on the website. Almost everyone has an Etsy shop so you can still buy their cool stuff.