little messes

yesterday was my colleague and friend joyce’s last day at the office. we shared an office and had such good times together. she really made my start there last november so much easier. at the time i had so many changes taking place in my life. a new job, a new city to call home, jeff and i got hitched just before my start date and having the opportunity to share an office with someone as exhuberent and inspiring as joyce (who also happened to just moved from nyc the year before) made all the difference.

she will be greatly missed.

to celebrate and thank joyce a group of colleagues and i were looking for the perfect gift to send her off with. what we got was so far beyond our expectations, and all due to the kindness of one talented lady. amy ruppel. so here’s to amy and to joyce who both are constantly blowing my mind with their unbelievable talents.

joyce and i trying to show off the painting:

you didn’t think i’d let joyce go without some sewn love?? so here it is. my first all applique quilt. “growth”.

sadly by the time i finished it, it was quite dark and i couldn’t really get a good shot of the detail

but joyce seemed to like it:

i was slightly out of control with my productivity this weekend. in a good way… but a bit crazy i’ll admit. first, inspired by the beautiful weather, we made a trip to the local nursery and got some new plants for the yard. my bulbs have been bursting this weekend and i planted oodles of seeds all around to keep them company.

we also got our long-wished-for lime tree. this baby will be spending the evenings indoors for the time being as well as during the winter next year… already 12 limes!!! so exciting.

next up, i finished up the quilt project adrienne and i started up a few weekends ago. this was a present for our incredible friend lynne. she’s an astounding woman and i feel especially lucky to have met her. here’s our fist crazy quilt:

the front:

some detail:

the back, you can’t tell but they’re little cherries:

and the back of one more special thing around here, mr. henry:

love that shot. ok, now i’m off to get the cookies from the oven. yes, i baked cookies too! ginger-chocolate chip! i’ve seriously lost my mind. oh oh and i got new handlebar for my bicycle, which chris graciously put on my bike today. yipee!! i can’t wait to get out on the road again. i love the spring !!!! can you tell?

thanks to some lovely family members i finally saved up enough ducks to get this baby:

and now i am a bit out of control. i haven’t really left the basement since friday and yesterday i went a tad crazy and made an entire quilt. it’s a late xmas gift for two of my very favorite people. here’s a few looks:

not bad for my first quilt i’d say. well, first finished quilt. and all in one afternoon. i will admit to being really afraid of the actual machine quilting. i was sweating it out for a bit, but i think it turned out well for a first try. love that walking foot.

after a day of hiding under the covers waiting for a migraine to find it’s way out the front door, it’s fair to say i was in need of some creative inspiration. lisa has been leaving me wide eyed in the glow of my ibook as of late and since i’ve been meaning to send some comfort to a few lovely ladies, i thought i’d give the log cabin some love. i think they came out quite well for my first go. i left the tops unquilted for this round but i’m ready for more.

i hope the ladies like em as much as i do.

i’ve made more progress on my quilt. i’ve pieced all of block 1 (there are two more “blocks” to go) and i’ve squared nearly all of them… you know, except for the ones i fudged up and have to redo.

so far so good:

in other news, i love my family:

ok i know i know it’s thursday, but most of the progress has taken place today so i thought it would sort of work, right?

well, for starters, while visiting the family in new hampshire last weekend (so wonderful to see everyone),my mom dug up a quilt my great aunt grace made close to a hundred years ago:

she moved to south dakota in a covered wagon and stitched this baby up by hand of course. it’s incredible. i love her fabric and colors. so fascinating to find this connection to your family so many years down the line.

i aslo found this incredible quilt top at a local antique store. it seems to be made of silk hankercheifs and i had to have it. it needs a little mending and to be backed, no sweat. (sorry for the wrinkles).

for my project, i cut all my pieces and begin piecing them together. a little trickier than i thought but is working ok. i even squared a few this morning and they look great. now i have about a gajillion more to make so i best get to it!

well, ‘i’m working on it’ is all i can say so far. i have cut the majority of my fabrics into shapely squares and i think i may have spouted some choice words at my big arse ruler for not being as well designed as it should have been. shouldn’t a ruler designer take into consideration that it would be helpful to read measurements from either end of the ruler instead of having to flip the darn thing over and over again. i mean, i can do math… well not really, but should i have to… really? if it weren’t for my shear love of the rotary cutter (it’s my first time using one if you can believe it) i might not have made it through… oh and there was the laughing and hilarity that ensued from adrienne and i’s bad bad math skills.

anyway, (deep breath) and woopie, i’m off to adrienne’s for more swearing, um, i mean cutting. i can’t wait to post some of the first pics of our newest creation.

kisses

as mentioned here, this past saturday took us to dc for to see some crafty bastards. while there were lots of wonderful handmades to see, adrienne and i agreed that it is difficult to spend money on crafts that you know you could quite easily make yourself. of course, within moments of that thought we found ourselves confronted with the most incredible bags from pistol designs. neither of us could resist their lure. pistol designs is the brainchild of fellow baltimorean, ali dryer. not only is her work is super clean and refined, she makes every bit of these bags, right down to the wonderful wooden handles and her fabrics are too dreamy.

the detail of the sides is what pushed me over the moon:

i also picked up some hand-spun and hand-dyed wool from the gals over at Woolarina.

So all in all I left with some wonderful finds. Here’s another view of my new bag, wool and the wonderful postcard i received from port2port last week. (it got buried in a pile of mail and magazines and resurfaced this weekend. thanks ladies it looks great!

after the crafts, jeff dropped adrienne and i off at G Street Fabrics so we could begin our search for quilt fabric. This store is insane, two floors of amazing fabrics. I don’t even recall how many hours we spent ooing and ogling all the goodies but we ended up with so many fabulous finds.

also, as this is my first foray into quilting (this perhaps i have stated far too many times) we decided to work on the same quilt so’s we can help each other along. so from now on monday nights are quilt nights at adrienne’s house. i’m so excited to get started and the quilt we chose uses about 20 different fabrics so it’s sure to be a doozy.

here’s what we went crazy for:

maybe this counts as quilt inspiration robin? what do you think?