dolin bliss

Like I need another time suck!

But OMG, I just joined Ravelry and spent over 3 hours browsing around on it.  I love it!  So much fun just looking around and finding new projects, ideas, groups and anything knitting/crochet related.  I don't know why I waited so long.  I have never been one to join "networking" sites, it is just not my thing (I have never joined Myspace and don't plan on it).  But since this one is craft related, I am behind it all the way.  I was waiting for my invitation to join and was so excited when I received it today, my name at Ravelry is of course, lulubliss.  Look me up there, sometime (not that I have a whole lot on there yet).  

On that note, I started a crochet project yesterday... the Hourglass Jacket from Stitch Diva.  I sat and watched the broomstick lace tutorials that are posted on the Stitch Diva website and couldn't wait to download my pattern.  It is a lot of fun and pretty fast.  I am using a vintage peacock blue wool yarn that is called Nubbee and really liking the way the stitch looks with it.  It gives it a more vintage look than the recommended silk yarn.  Fun stuff this Saturday!  

A quick weekend trip...

to the 104 temp of Modesto, CA!  Not my first choice of a weekend trip, but we had a wedding reception to go to.  One of Matthews ex-co-workers got married in August in Buffalo, New York.  Her family is from Modesto, so they had a wedding reception out here this past weekend.  It was a nice evening and a pretty early night.  So the next day we decided to hit the Modesto thrift stores!  There were some treasures to be had, here are some of them:

This is a gem, it is a paper craft book for kids, published in 1944.  I love the illustrations inside.  Take a look at the inside cover:

I found a great covered pyrex divided casserole dish.  I am not sure if I am going to keep this one, but is sure is cute:

Then what thrift store trip would be complete without some vintage linens:

A fun set of 4 orange flower print napkins, that I will be selling and a fabulous turquoise/green sheet.

And this unopened orange/gold Vera sheet.  

I also found a ton of vintage patterns that I need to go through and decide which ones I am going to keep and sell the rest.  I have way to many vintage patterns but I can't seem to stop buying them.  So I have decided that I need to weed through the entire collection and sell the ones I don't love or have repeats of.  

We had a wonderful day together.

New Show at the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles.

With every new exhibit the museum shows, they give a walk-thru and talk for all the volunteers before the museum opens.  It is a great chance for all of us to see the exhibit, learn about the artists and ask any questions we may have.  

The Main exhibit is called Charged Sites and it is the first west coast retrospective that spans 40 years of feminist art quilter Radka Donnell.  

Her quilts are abstract expressions and most of them were made to be used and not just hung on walls.  The title Charged Sites refers to the how the bed is a charged site; a site of birth, sex and death.  Seeing these 30 quilts (of her over 700) was amazing and made me really appreciate work of artist like this.  They want their work to be used and enjoyed, while providing beauty and meaning to our environment.  The opening reception is this Friday (9/5) from 5-8 pm, the artist will be there and it is free.  Saturday (9/6) Radka will be giving a gallery walk of the exhibit, that costs $15 for non-members or $10 for members.  The image to the left is a detail of the quilt "Dedicated to the Women of Sowento", from the musuem website.  

There are other artists in this show and all of their quilts deal with the highly charged topic of quilts and beds.  

 For the more traditional quilt lover there is a smaller exhibit called 'Til Death Do Us Part: Wedding Quilts from the Collection.  These quilts all are examples of a tradition that has been passed down for hundreds of years and celebrate a wonderful moment in life.  There are quite a few examples of the double wedding ring pattern and one amazing whole cloth white work quilt.  The image to the left is a detail of one of the double wedding ring quilts.  

The show is up until November 2nd, check it out if you are in town.

Color inspiration for my studio

Since my life is now getting back to normal, after all the wedding festivities, I can start thinking about my studio.   My studio now was set up very quickly so I could work on my wedding dress, but it really needs to be redecorated and organized.  So I am starting with my color inspiration... Granted these aren't the greatest pictures, but you get the gist:

This is a beautiful vintage scarf that my friend Lynn gave me years ago.  She gave it to me because the sewing theme, reminded her of me and I have treasured it ever since.  I want to paint the walls of the studio the pale turquoise background color, all the trim white and then decorate with the pops of other colors in the scarf.  

Here is a close up the dressform and little emery strawberry:

And a close up of the center sewing machine, with some hooks and eyes and a thimble:

I just got another very important tool for my studio...

(image from the Apple site)

Yes, a MacBook Pro!!! I am so excited, this is my first ever computer that I have bought and I feel so grown up.  So now I can finally download my Adobe software that I have missed since leaving the corporate job.  I am going through a bit of a learning curve with this computer, since I have only used PC's before, but it is fun.

How to Make Your Own Embroidery Pattern Video...

is up on Craft! Thursday after work Natalie filmed me showing how to create your own embroidery pattern from a photo. This is the first time I have ever been filmed for anything, so please excuse the goofy, nervous rambling.

Yes, this is the same embroidery of Mikey that I started almost one year ago. What can I say, I have crafting ADD.

Let me know what you think. Also, please feel free to share any tips you may have for creating your own embroidery patterns.

SOOOOO EXCITED!!! Check out Craft Zine!

Yup, that's me in Craft! I did an article for them on embroidery. Guess what I came home to today and found in my mailbox? The brand spanking new issue #6! I have been waiting for months for this to come out and it is finally here! I can't believe it... This is my very first article I have ever written and I was so lucky to get it published.

I love Craft and have been a subscriber from the beginning. Get yourself a copy and tell me what you think. There is crafty stuff in each issue for everybody.

New Year and gifts from co-workers

HAPPY NEW YEAR!   

I am really looking forward to a super jam packed 2008.  A lot of changes will be happening, but they are all good.  There are many things that I really want to accomplish this year, here is the short list:

-Get married! We do know it is happening this year, in July, we just aren't sure of the exact date. 

-Plan our wedding... We haven't done a whole lot of this and we need to get cracking if we want to make it happen in July.  What we want is VERY low key, so it shouldn't be to crazy.

-Make my wedding dress.  This involves taking the Couture Sewing School from Apparel Arts in SF.  I am really looking forward to this!

-Do the light renovations to our house before the wedding, since we want to have our reception at our place. 

-Start my own business. 

-Craft a whole lot.

-Last but not least, post to my blog a lot more.  I am sure I will be posting a lot about all the above.

WHEW!  I am going to be a very busy girl.  But these things are all things that I REALLY want, so I don't mind putting in all the effort in them. 

Now for the pictures... Over the years my co-workers know I love all things vintage and since we are all in the garment industry their gifts revolve around fashion:

Gorgeous late 1950's or early 1960's fabric pumps from Cheryl.  These were her mothers and they were barely worn.  They fit me perfectly! 

Vintage pattern from Lori, this pattern she found while cleaning out some stuff and belonged to her aunt.

The below were my most recent gift from Holly.  This gift is amazing and very generous, she gave me 33 vintage patterns all from the 1940's!  They had belonged to her grandmother and Holly wanted them to go to someone who would appreciate and use them.  Thank you very much, Holly.  I love them all.  I couldn't get a good picture of them all, but I took a few pictures of my favorites.  I need to take some time and document the rest.

Short and Sweet...

I am going to keep this post short, because I have had this nasty cold and I am really far behind with work (since I missed both Monday and Tuesday).  The long Thanksgiving weekend was nice and pretty mellow, which was what I needed.  I didn't get a whole lot done, but I managed to squeeze some shopping in and get some craft organizing done. 

I don't usually go to any of the after Thanksgiving sales, because I just can't stand the crowds.  Saturday morning I needed to kill some time while my Sweetie had a work obligation.  So I stopped into Joann's, just to browse!  They were having an amazing sale and I came away with all of this:

Gingher pinking shears, a pinking blade for my rotary cutter, glass head pins and a 1/2" bias binding maker (not pictured) - these were all 50% off!  The Vogue patterns were and even better deal at $3.99 each, so I had to buy up some of the Vintage Vogue styles that I have had my eye on.  I normally wouldn't buy these patterns at $25.00 each, but at $3.99 each, I couldn't pass them up.  I got 3 full skirted 1950's patterns (V2561, V2902 and V2960), that I may combine certain elements from them for my wedding dress and a 1940's dress pattern (V2876) that has some great details at the neck and waist.  I am so happy with my purchase. 

I am going to a craft supply swap this coming weekend and needed to get together some craft supplies I want to swap.  I didn't have time to go through all of my craft supplies and decided to focus on just my yarn stash.  I have wanted to organize it for a long time, but since my move to San Jose, most of my craft stuff is still in the basement, so I haven't been to motivated to organize any of it.  This was the perfect chance to get a big portion of it done...

Before/During:

After:

What a huge difference!!  The two bags of yarn are what I am taking to the swap.  The rest is now put in plastic containers and I can actually see what I have!  There are still two cardboard boxes of yarn (not pictured), but I labeled what was in them so I know exactly where all my yarn is.  It is a great feeling.  Now, I just need to get the rest of the craft supplies organized.   

I am still here, barely!

What a whirlwind life has been lately.  There is no need to bore you with all the details, but my biggest stress is still work.  I get home and have barely enough energy to cook and pick up the house, let alone to actually craft.  But I have been sneaking in a very special project, for a very special man in my life.  It was supposed to be his Father's day gift (after all he is a doggy dad to Mikey), but it is still far from finished.  He has seen it, so now I can post about it. 

This is one of our favorite pictures of Mikey (Matthews sweet, sweet dog), it was taken on the ride home from our first trip away together:

He was sitting in the backseat with his head on my shoulder, drooling all over me.  I don't know how, but Matthew took this picture while he was driving.  Anyhow, I decided to capture this image in embroidery!  Here is what I got so far:

The embroidery looks darker in the picture than it actually is.  I am liking it so far, we shall see how it turns out.  While I am working on this project it puts somethings into perspective... basically, I really can't complain about all this work stress, because I have to admit I am one lucky girl!  I have the most wonderful and very patient (all of the gifts that I have made him have been late) boyfriend, who has a fabulously sweet dog, I still have a job, my family, friends and I are all healthy.  What more could a girl ask for? 

Embriodery Done!

I finished my Mother's Day airstream embroidery card over the weekend and sent it out to Mom today:

I think she will like it.  I always forget how fun embroidery is, it is like painting with thread.  I haven't quite figured out the best way to attach the embroidered piece to paper when making a card.  I don't want to glue it down or anything.  I normally sew it down with my sewing machine, but that never turns out to well.  Last night I decided to just hand-stitch it to the black paper with a running stitch, then I glued the black paper to the turquoise card stock.  It isn't perfect, but she will enjoy it.

On a non-crafty note, I just celebrated a birthday on Sunday!  It was wonderful and amazing, due mostly to my thoughtful fabulous boyfriend.  He goes all out, which is very sweet.  I LOVE birthdays, especially my own, and anyone who does anything thoughtful for me on my day (or week, or month) gets an A+ in my book.  I love to celebrate birthdays and try to do fun things for my friends and family.  Tonight two of my really close girlfriends are taking me to a fancy pants dinner at Boulevard as a belated b-day celebration and I am just counting down the hours until our reservation.  I am even wearing my new birthday shoes (I bought the emerald ones)for the occasion.  That is one of my own traditions, buying a fun pair of shoes for myself every year!  YAY for birthdays!