Craft Hope Project 5

I finished up my Craft Hope quilt this afternoon and got it mailed off, just in the nick of time to arrive Saturday (the deadline). The unanswered question as to why I am always such a procrastinator looms always over my head...




This quilt measures 36"x48". The top is made up of Heather Ross fabrics from her West Hill line (with a brown gingham thrown in for good measure). I had no plans for the fabric when I bought it, but I couldn't resist those horses and matroishkas and frogs and tadpoles and such. Plus, if you know anything about Heather Ross and her amazing fabrics, you'll know that not only does she draw the most enchanting designs, but her fabrics are the softest around. Think about the softest sheets you own, and that's what they feel like. This little quilt is oh-so-soft to the touch.

I knew I wouldn't have time to try my first ever free-motion quilting on this one, so I opted for the old-fashioned granny technique -- I hand-tied it. In my quilting group at church, all of our quilts that we give out are hand-tied, but I am always the "finisher" and not the one doing all of the tying, so I had no previous experience in this department. (As the "finisher", all this means is that because I am the whippersnapper of the group, cough, cough, the youngest, cough, cough, I am the person to hand sew the binding on. I am also the proud "needle threader" of the group since I'm the one with the keenest eyes, haha.) Thankfully though, I've paid attention a time or two to the hand-tying process, so I knew what to do. I picked a nice cotton yarn out in a sage/cream combo, and I really like how it turned out! So cozy!

Oh dear. Talk about getting my granny on. Can't you just picture the cutest, sweetest granny saying that phrase: "I picked a nice cotton yarn out..." -- ha!

I also used polyester batting this time. Polyester may elicit many a tsk-tsk from most experienced quilters, but since I was tying it, I decided that for the price (read: uber-cheap on sale) and the high loft that made it so much thicker than the traditional cotton batting I normally buy, it was the perfect choice for this quilt. I may have to incorporate more hand-tied quilts into my future. There is just something homey and cozy and familiar about the hand-tied quilts.

These quilts will be going to children in the Grand Rapids, Michigan area who are homeless at Christmastime. I prayed over my little quilt as I drew the needle up and down, praying that it will truly bring comfort and love to its little recipient. Sitting on my comfy sofa with my purring cat at my side, a roof over my head -- it really hit home to me that this quilt on my lap, this very same quilt I was holding, will be going to some child in America, for crying out loud, that doesn't have a home. May God help me to be ever mindful of the many blessings and luxuries I enjoy every minute of every single day, and I pray that He would continue to put opportunities in my path for ways I can help.

Won't you consider joining the next project with Craft Hope? This is my third project I've participated in, and seriously, even if you are not a crafter, sign up anyway and enlist the help of a friend or relative who is. You'll be so glad you did.

Exciting and new

Whew. I almost forgot to post today.

But I am busy trying to sew binding on my Craft Hope quilt so I can pop it in the mail tomorrow so it can arrive just in the nick of time...

that I'll have to leave you with this.




(And no, I have absolutely no explanation whatsoever, other than the fact that occasionally I sing the theme song in my head.)

Nothing short of amazing.

Check this out.




Taken straight from the blog post above...

"Autistic artist Stephen Wiltshire took a twenty-minute helicopter ride over Manhattan. Then he sketched the entire skyline from memory. Every building was correct and drawn to scale! He's also done panoramic memory drawings of Tokyo, Rome, Hong Kong, Frankfurt, Madrid, Dubai, Jerusalem and London. How mindblowingly incredible."

If money grew on trees...

I {heart} this yo-yo quilt from my beloved Anthropologie.


Oh yes, this quilt that three people somewhere in this very universe (according to the product reviews) have already shelled out $498 for and bought (plus tax, people, and maybe shipping, who knows).

How these people apparently have a $498+ budget allowance for Anthropologie bedding is beyond me.

On the other hand, the sick and twisted part of me thinks that $498 is not all that far-fetched.

Not that $498 isn't a boatload of money, but hear me out. If that Oklahoma quilt took my mom and I countless hours and hours and hours to accomplish, can you imagine how many hours it would take to make a yo-yo quilt? Those babies have to be made by hand, every last one of them.

Regardless, since there is not a surplus amount of $498 in my piggybank specifically earmarked for only one single Anthropologie item, I have a very strong feeling that this might be on my list of things to try and duplicate in the coming year. Don't hold me to it, but if I don't try to replicate it, it probably isn't going to be living in my home any other way.

What's interesting is that the furniture store, Ethan Allen, came out with a yo-yo quilt a few years ago. My mom gave me the ripped-out catalog page to drool over, and one day this summer, I got the guts up to walk in there, bypass the feeding frenzy of sharks (i.e. salespeople) and head straight to the bedroom furniture to see it for myself. It is covered completely in smaller, same-size yo-yo's that would take even longer to make since you would need somewhere in the ballpart of a kajillion of them to make a quilt. And the Ethan Allen version is priced at the low low price of $749. Oh yeah. See, Anthropologie is looking more and more affordable now, right? Pshaw.

Moving on...

I {heart} this crochet tablecloth from there as well.



It is the low low price of $128.

For that low low price, my four-year-old would need to keep himself and his ten little sticky fingers far far away from it. Maybe my husband, too, for that matter.

Now picture my own smiling face after hearing the news from my dear mother who informed me that she has an entire drawer full of crocheted doilies my grandmother made.

Cha-ching. The money tree in my brain just sprouted some leaves.

Replication is a form of flattery, don't you think?

The cat's meow

*I am well aware of the fact that upon publishing this post, the chances of me turning into the Crazy Cat Lady are quite high, especially once the blue hairs start sprouting on my head. With my quilting and NPR-listening and feline love, I really don't stand a chance, do I?








I tell you, I never thought I would love those crazy kitties as much as I do. Even if you are not a fan of cats, there is no way you could meet Harry and Sally and not think they're halfway cool. I had wanted a cat for several years, but my greatest fears were getting a cat that would either hide under the bed all day or have a terrible personality. As my husband, a new fan of cats himself, pointed out, you can't force cats to love you. Dogs might be easier to manipulate, but cats, not so much.

I had no reason to worry.

Harry and Sally are such good kitties. They both are very outgoing and affectionate. They both have super soft fur, almost like mink, which is so nice. They both love to purr and purr and purr. I don't know about you, but I think purring is one of the greatest things about cats. They are both mostly laid-back, and they both are fine with all the dogs. Getting a second kitty was also a great idea, hands down. They are best buddies and don't like to be separated.

Having a both a female and a male has been fun, too. They are so different from each other.

Harry is a true male. He walks like a hunter, slinking around ready to pounce on any prey that might come his way. (Sorry, Harry, there's not too much to hunt as an indoor kitty, huh?)

Harry is downright obsessed with my ponytail holders. That boy can sniff them out anywhere, and once he finds one, it's toast. In fact, as I type this, I realize I need to pick up another package of them next trip to the store because he has taken almost all of them.

Harry also seems to have a fascination with water. He loves it when the bathwater is running, he loves the dishwasher, he loves a sink full of dishes, and numerous times I have caught him with his head down the garbage disposal, hoping to find something tasty.




Crazy cat.

Harry loves boxes, paper bags, and any nooks and crannies he can possibly stuff himself into. The crazier the place to roost, the better.




Unlike Sally, Harry has already morphed into a true feline, perfectly content to snooze most of the day away once he finds the perfect roost.






But he also makes time for television.




That boy loves him some primetime goodness.

Sally, on the other hand, is such a diva. She this amazing strut, swishing her little rear end like she is Tyra Banks. She also loves walking past the dogs and running her tail all over their faces likes it's her own personal feather boa. Yowza.

She is my purring machine. They both purr, but Sally really purrs. Sometimes she is purring so loud you can hear it in the next room. She also will let you know when she has not received adequate love. Almost every five or ten minutes, she will let out these crazy loud meows, calling for you to shower her with more attention. It's so cute.

She loves to lay on her back and have you rub her belly while all four paws are splayed out in every direction. The more kisses you can provide on her little nose, the better, as it just makes her purr even louder. She is definitely a little lover, and her favorite place to lounge is on a warm lap.




They both love two places in the house and will often fight over who gets to lay there -- either the shelf in the kitchen where all the paper bags are, or the tray in the living room where our paper recycling gets stacked. They've both grown so much since we got them, but I'm hopeful that Sally will still remain a bit smaller since she was the runt of her litter. I miss the tiny kitten phase, but notsomuch the crazy tiny kitten phase. They've both been fixed so there will be no baby kitties in our future (whew!), and Sally was declawed since she was constantly sharpening her claws on the furniture. Harry has never done that, so we've allowed him to keep his claws, although the verdict is still out on that one. There have been two times I've seen him get that gleam in his little eye and reach up quickly for a quick sharpening session, so we'll have to see. I am hopeful he was just testing me, haha.

I know they both see me right now as the "FunSucker". Oh yeah, I suck the fun out of everything for them. Sally has a penchant for toilet paper.




Let me just say it was cute the first time to be picking up teensy bits of shredded toilet paper all over the house. And Harry had a penchant for climbing up and practically knocking everything off the shelves. Yipes. This fascination seems to have ended, but let's just say I'm already nervous about Christmas trees and am planning a strategy including water guns. They also love the crafting.










Oh, the fun fabrics they can cover in their fur, the spools of thread they can bat all over the house and under the furniture, the straight pins they can carry around in their mouths (wish I was kidding) -- it's pure kitty heaven for them, kitty h-e-double-hockey-sticks for me...

Having kitties has also changed my husband. He went from being very anti-feline to very much loving them both. And talk about a naive new kitty owner -- the first few days we had Harry he gave him a bath (no joke), which is a crazy idea to most cat owners. Then he took it to a new level when one of the employees at Petsmart convinced him to buy these "claw covers". Oh yes, my husband was crazy enough to first TRIM Harry's claws (Harry was not on board with this idea), and then GLUE these silicone claw covers on them. Seriously. I was laughing my head off. But hey, they really work! And apparently my husband wasn't scared off by the experience at all and is planning on trying to replace them every two months. Oh my heavens...

Splendor in the Grass never looked so splendid...

Looks like this will be the second day of musical posts, but I feel it's my job to alert you to new music, to broaden your horizons and expose you to music you might otherwise pass up. Oh yes, I take this job very seriously, folks. I am an iTunes junkie, a library floozie, and a mix-CD mistress. I live, eat, and breathe music. In my little world, there is a perfect song for every situation, a soundtrack to every day. Just call me your own personal musical therapist. And I'm free! Who doesn't love that?!

Last week one of my most favoritest bands, Pink Martini released their fourth album, "Splendor in the Grass". (Yes, I know that "most favoritest" isn't speaking properly, thankyouverymuch, but I don't care.)





Just like their other three albums, this one does not look to disappoint. Every single one of their albums is so refreshing in the sense that there is a wide variety of songs on each one, making it more satisfying like an uber-cool mix CD that your most suave and sophisticated friend made just for you (if you have friends like that). Again, this is also one of those albums that would be a perfect backdrop for the ultimate in swanky dinner parties.

Honestly I'm not even sure how to describe Pink Martini -- I guess, to me, they are like a mini-orchestra of the world. Their music spans all sorts of genres, and the talent and education oozes out of this bunch. To put it lightly, although I am a big Pink Martini wannabe and would love nothing more than to go on tour with them, I'm not educated enough to even be their shaker girl, and I've got a bachelor's degree in music. My sister-in-law and I went to see them early last year perform with a local symphony, and the even the guys just playing the shakers had degrees from Harvard or Yale or whatever.




They just ooze cool. If you ever have the chance to hear them live, don't think twice! I love this quote I found on their band's bio page:

"Americans don’t really sing together anymore … except for church … or maybe the shower. At the turn of the 20th century, every middle-class American household had a piano. And it was the focal point of the house … people would gather around it and sing together. Music was something everyone participated in. Everyone played an instrument or sang … whether it was an American folk song like “Oh My Darling Clementine”or “Home On The Range”or an Irving Berlin song like “What’ll I Do”or Gershwin’s “Someone To Watch Over Me”, everybody knew the songs, knew the words, and could participate. But then the radio came, and then the television … and soon it was all over. For me, Pink Martini is partially an attempt to rebuild a culture which sings and dances."

Here's a YouTube video I found with one of the quirky songs from their new album, called Bitty Boppy Betty:



This album is also on my ever-expanding iTunes wishlist. I need to start a separate piggybank just for music purchases...

Normal as Blueberry Pie

Nellie.

Whoa, Nellie.




That girl has done it and come out with a fantastic tribute album to Doris Day. (And please don't tell me you don't know who Doris Day is. Please.)




I mean, come on, who doesn't love Doris Day? The lady who implored us with her sweet syrupy voice to "please, please, don't eat the daisies" -- yep, good ol' Doris.

I've been a fan of Nellie McKay for a while now. She first grabbed me with "The Dog Song", a clever little ditty about life with dogs. Boy, can I ever relate to that song...

Anyway, this will be my next album purchase on iTunes fo sho. Watch the little video below to learn more about our dear friend, Nellie. If you're yet to become a fan of this type of music (Doris Day, Frank Sinatra, etc.), I highly recommend it. It's great background music especially for dinner parties, etc., but watch out -- you might find yourself a big fan quicker than you think!




And here's a nice little write-up about Nellie in Vanity Fair Magazine if you want to read more...