dolin bliss

What a lucky girl I am!

Surprise I am finally back!  Whew, it has been a whirlwind the past year and a half.  No need to bore you with all the details.  So let's get down to why I am so lucky...

I can finally mention this lovely book!!!  It has been a long time coming.  I had the honor of helping Jennifer Paganelli of Sis Boom write, illustrate and create the patterns for this beauty.  Jennifer is such an inspiring person and I was so honored that we got to work together.  We have never met face to face, and were put into contact with each other via Chronicle Books (they must have known), how great we would get along.  The book is available for pre-order and will be released at the end of April.  

More book info to come and maybe some catch up posts, on what I have been up to.

A little peak at the reorganized studio

A little peak at the reorganized studio, originally uploaded by lulubliss.

- Finally getting a chance to organize my studio. This is the fabric
wall. There is a lot more fabric in my basement, my small studio can
only fit so much.

For more pictures check out my interview on the Craftzine blog.

My First Quilt!

So excited to have finally finished my first quilt.  It is nothing fancy, just a string pieced number.  But I still love it. 

I did this along with the workshop I coordinated for the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles with participants from Next Door Solutions to Domestic Violence, mentioned here.  I figured if I am going to continue on with being the project coordinator I needed to have actually gone through the whole process.  It was so much fun and I can totally see making more quilts in the future.  This one was pieced and quilted by machine.  The SJMQT purchased this fantastic machine and I am now trained how to use it.  I still need to learn the computer component, but I do know how to run this fancy pants machine, doing free motion quilting.  Right now, we are teaching all the women that went through the entire workshop how to quilt on it too.  They are having a blast with it.  

This evening we are heading up to SF for Frances and Greg's reception at Flora Grubb.  Can't wait to see the bride and groom in their custom made apparel.  I will post finished pictures of the green couture dress I made for her, next week.  

Finished Mikey Embroidery!

A little reminder of what this looked like before it was finished.  Not such a great picture of the work in progress and photo it came from, but you get the idea.

I realized after a couple of years of being a work in progress, having a previous blog post about it AND being featured in a Craft video... That I should post a finished image of my Mikey embroidery I made for my sweet and very patient husband.  I finished this up quite a few months ago and it just kept slipping my mind to post it.   So here it is:

- I wanted most of the focus to be on Mikey, so he is really detailed and the rest of the embroidery is more simple.  Then, I framed it with 2 different fabrics and put a hanging sleeve on the back, so it can be hung up on the wall.  

Matthew was very happy to finally have the finished object.  

Monday, I delivered a very special wedding dress and cocktail hat to the fabulous Miss Frances, but you will have to wait until next week to see that finished project.  We are going to their wedding reception Sunday evening and can't wait to see her all gussied up in her green dress.  

Canning and Quilt Crazy

Over the long holiday weekend I wanted to get some canning done, with the veggies I bought at the farmer's market and also some veggies from my garden.

 

All of the above were picked fresh from my crazy prolific garden.  I canned the beets, zucchini, some of the jalapenos, lemon cucumbers and crystal apple cucumbers.  I didn't want to waste the beet greens, so we sauteed those on Sunday night.  YUM.  I had big plans to can all afternoon, but our little Domino pup, decided to eat a black widow spider, that I had poisoned the night before.  So we spent the afternoon at the vet.  He is just fine and never even showed any signs of being sick, but I would rather be safe than sorry.  Once we got back home I settled into my crazy night of making pickled vegetables.  I was up until midnight getting all of this done.  I know, what a wild way to spend your Saturday night!  

Everything turned out pretty good, but I am in love with the green beans and the beets.  I used this recipe for the green beans from Sunset Magazine.  Soooo good.  I want to make more of them.  Sunset has a great guide to canning, if you have never done it before or just rusty at it.  This guide has been very useful to me lately.

For the past nine weeks, every Monday night I have been going to a quilt workshop that I planned in partnership with the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles and Santa Clara Valley Quilt Association.  We were trying out this workshop for the first time with participants from Next Door Solutions to Domestic Violence.  There have been 5 women who have come every week to work on making their own quilt.  Most of them have never sewn before, so this has been a great skill building exercise for them.  It has been great fun for all involved and we are all almost finished with our quilts (I got to make one too).  

 

Here is a little peak at mine:

 I will post pictures of the finished quilts, in the next few weeks.  We have a few more sessions to go, before everyone will be done.  

New Adventures in Canning!

Last week was my first try at canning and I had a blast.  We were overflowing with zucchini, lemon cucumbers and crystal apple cucumbers.  I needed a way to preserve it all so it didn't go to waste.  A few weeks ago I found a 1964 copy of The Farm Journal Freezing and Canning Cookbook at a thrift store for a buck.  Then my sweetie found the Burpee Way of Home Canning booklet for .25 cents.  The stars were aligned for my first canning experience.  I tried two different recipes, a dill pickle one and the sweeter pickled zucchini one.  They were both a great success when I had some friends over to try them out.  But the favorite was the pickled zucchini.  Here it is:

I did the dilled version and made these adjustments: 

-only used 1 1/4 cup sugar

-added about 6 jalapenos, sliced into rings

-used a bunch of fresh dill instead of the dill seeds

They are so good!  My zucchini plants in the garden aren't producing much right now so I went to my local farmers market this morning to get more supplies.

I got a about 7lbs of squash, 1 bunch of dill tops, 4 bunches of dill and a couple of red bell peppers all for canning.  The rest is ready for eating now.  Fun Fun.  

If anyone has some great canning/pickling recipes, please feel free to share.  

Robin's Egg Blue Dress Featured...

You remember this dress:

Well, it was featured yesterday on the fun blog, Tales Of A Retro Modern Housewife.  She paired it up with some fabulous accessories.  I really love her sense of color.  She does these posts combining interesting colors and makes outfits out of them.  Great fun and inspiration.  A big thanks to the Glamorous Housewife!

A Wedding Dress for Miss Frances

So much has been happening and as usual, I haven't blogged about it.  I will need to catch up on everything.  But for now, here is one of my big projects that will be finished soon.  

- A little sneak peak at the wedding dress I am making for the adorable Frances.  The dress (which is all hand basted together, at this point) is on the left, it will have an overlay of silk crinkle chiffon.  On the left are the options of what the overlay will look like and she gets to choose.  

Today Miss Francis is coming over for her final dress fitting, before her big day on September 26th!  I am so very excited.  She is a dream to work with and I can't wait to see her on her big day, dressed in her signature color.  

- Here is the proof of the poster version of their invite.  Photo courtesy of the talented Olivia, who also designed our wedding invites.

I am also making a cocktail hat for her, that will incorporate her dress fabric and peacock feathers.  So pretty!

My other really big project is a bit of a secret for now.  But I can tell you that I am working with Jennifer Paganelli, the fabulous designer behind Sis Boom.  More to come on this.

Have a great weekend.

Humble beginnings to fun summer top!

I know, I know... I haven't posted in ages.  I won't bore you with any excuses and get right into the fun stuff.  I have been crafting and will share what I have been up to in upcoming posts.  The first thing I wanted to share with you is this fun summer top I made from an old pillowcase that I bought for a buck.  I followed Betz White's tutorial on the Craft blog.  The only thing that I did differently was add more of the shirred stitching.  I totally recommend this project!  It was easy and done in a couple of hours.  Some great summer almost instant gratification.

- Here is what I started with, a vintage pillowcase with a sassy floral print.

- Ta-da!  A great summer top for those hot days, which we have been having a lot of here in San Jose.

- Here is a close up of the shirring and strap.

- I even put in bra strap holders on the under side of the straps.  I hate having to adjust visible bra straps all the time.

Check out this tutorial on Craft and try it out.  You don't need an old pillowcase to do it, either, you can use any piece of fabric that is large enough.  

I also wanted to give a big ol' THANK YOU to the ladies at StyleSubstanceSoul!  They were kind enough to feature my Refashioned Crochet Embellished Tank on their site, here.  

New Tutorial is Up on the Craft Blog!

Things are happening behind the scenes here in my studio.  Sometimes it is stuff I can't talk about while I am working on it, sometimes it is stuff that has taken me forever and a day to actually finish (so embarrassed) and then there are those ongoing projects that I just wish I could snap my fingers and be done with them.  

I recently wrote a fun tutorial for Craft on how to refashion old or ill fitting tee shirts, into this tank top:

The tutorial went up onto their site today, so check it out when you have a chance.  It is a pretty quick project, some basic sewing and crochet skills are necessary.  

Remember this post from way back in October, about starting the Stitch Diva's Hourglass Jacket?  Well, it is finally finished!  Geez, took me long enough.  I love it.  I did need to rejigger a few things, but I am happy with the end result.  

Oops, I just realized I forgot to button one button, before taking the picture.  Typical.

Another, sort of ongoing thing I have been working on has been reorganizing the studio.  It has been a challenge, since I also still need to work here, but it is coming along!  I hope to post some before and after shots soon.  I know I always like to see where people create, especially when they have small work spaces.  My studio is not huge, it is only 9' 6" x 8' 6" and I have a lot of crafting crapola.  Don't get me wrong... I know I am lucky to have a room devoted to just me and my work, but I still can't fit all of it in here.  I have been able to bring more of my stash out from the basement, which has triggered some new ideas.  My next project for the studio is to make fabric valances (is that what they are called), to hide my rolling window shades when they are up.  I will keep you posted.