sailing the seas of cheese

I DID IT! I finally finished the book I've been working on (on and off) for the past 2 weeks, at least! It's a masterpiece that I've effed up several times only to do it way better the second time. It may not look as impressive as I'm making it sound but let me assure you that an enormous amount of work went into this baby:

...and immediately I'm on to a new project, though I haven't figured out what it's going to be yet. My youngest neice's is turning one tomorrow (or in 3 years--she's a leap year baby) and I have yet to figure out a gift for her. I've been thinking I would make her something and now with less than 24 hours until her party I need to get on it. And I have no idea where to start. A cute little dress? A game? A plush something or other? I've been scouring the interweb for a tutorial for SOMETHING but I can't decide on anything. Any suggestions?

victoria is...

1. Taking a little break.

2. Eating the best cheesecake in the world, brought to me by my sweetie as a little surprise pick-me-up.

3. Listening to Goldfrapp

4. Missing my boy (but so grateful to Grammy for offering to take him out of the blue so I can do more work!).

5. Going back to work!

spoonful

fI worked hard today and, though I didn't get everything I was hoping for done, I did do a lot. I spent a lot of time with spoons today, completing these for a very wonderful customer:
That's a book full of spoons and a scalloped spoon quilt, measuring about 13" long. I've been singing "Spoonful" by Willie Dixon (and many others--here's a good version) all day. I also finished this:
Milk carton quilt, measuring about 20" x 9".

And, I almost forgot! It really was a crazy day for me to forget this: I was featured on Cookie Magazine's Nesting blog today! Check it out.

where will I put it all?

I admit it, I've been buying a bit of fabric lately. But, in case you haven't heard, I do have this business where I use a lot of fabric, so I'm feeling justified. Still, even my business couldn't justify the amount of fabric I bought yesterday--good thing it was all 50% off at my local quilt shop! Check it out:

Actually, at that price I probably should have gotten more...

And here's a picture of my handsome boy, just because (disregard the teetering pile of laundry in the background):

donning my fairy wings

Well, my little girl's growing up. Today she lost her first tooth and she couldn't be more excited.

In fact, she was too excited to sit still for a picture. Her tooth has been wiggly for about a week and everybody said it would take a while longer so I wasn't rushing the preparations. Luckily she was at a friend's house after school today when it happened and called to tell me to news. That gave me enough time to stop what I was doing and make a tooth pillow for her.

It's a bit misshapen but she recognized it as a tooth and it will do the trick.

I finished up a book today and am plugging away on a big order which I'll hopefully be able to show you tomorrow. Here's the latest:

wine, women and song...and Pictionary

Last night some girlfriends and I got together to celebrate the 30th birthday of one of our own. It was a much-needed night of wine, excellent vegan food (including some amazing quinoa and chik pea-stuffed zucchini by our resident chef, some delectable leftover Valentine's Day sweet potato-based truffles by the birthday girl, and black bean and sweet potato burritos by yours truly) and so much laughter (Pictionary was played. Enough said). Man, we need to do that more often.

Today has been really chill. While Skye and some neighborhood buddies enjoyed some serious man-time sheetrocking the ceilings of our soon-to-be apartment the kids and I enjoyed a delicious breakfast at the monthly cafe at the Free School. From there Tigerlily went to her friend Aurora's and Lyric and I read books until he fell asleep in my lap and I took the opportunity to read some hand-me-down tabloids (my secret pleasure). I've been working my butt off and this was a much needed respite. I hope you're relaxing this weekend, as well!

performance orb

We live in the shadow of the Empire State Plaza (or we would if we lived north of it...). Part of that enormous monument of extinct marble is The Egg.

In general The Plaza is ridiculous and The Egg is not the most attractive structure, but I'm not going to complain that I can walk a couple of blocks and see the likes of David Byrne, Andrew Bird (his show this fall was UNBELIEVABLE--this clip is not the show I saw but similar, he does all the parts and loops them. And he's adorable) and They Might Be Giants, who just happened to write a song about The Egg



LOOOVE John Hodgman, too.

making things pretty

I'm trying to make my blog prettier. I discovered the color tool which is really neat, but I'm still trying to figure out how to make a new header. I don't really have time for this kind of thing but I'm really getting into the whole blog thing. Thanks for reading it, all 5 of you!

Two more books done today, lots more to go. My goal is to make some serious headway on my custom orders this week and next so I can focus on developing some of my own ideas for books and quilts. Sooo many ideas, so little time.

Here are the newest:

And:

plugging away

A few more packages went out today...

Here's the newest rock 'n roll book, completed:

More to come soon!

sunday explore

We had a pretty sweet day. Though I really just wanted to curl up and go back to sleep this morning I got my butt moving, bundled everyone up and headed out for a couple hours of chillin' in the 'hood.

First we went to the "basketball park" (little pocket park right behind our house which is basically our backyard) where we ran around on the court a bit, hit snowballs with sticks and made snowcastles with our beach buckets:


Next we went across the street to another little pocket park, known as the "swing park." There we rode horses, climbed trees and, of course, took a swing:
Then we went for a little walk around the block, visited the chickens, said hello to the bread oven in the People's Park, and took a little rest on the school steps before heading back up the block and home for lunch.

We even found a few little treasures along the way. Here's mine:

Could it be a Christian Bale/American Psycho Uno playing card? You never know what you'll find on a Sunday Explore in the city!

"can we go again, mom?"

Coraline was AWESOME! It was really so beautiful, the 3D was really cool and the story is great. Tigerlily did fine, the only thing that really scared her was the trailer for Land of the Lost. There were kids younger than her there and they all seemed fine as well. I was thrilled that one of my favorite people, John Hodgman, was the voice of the father and was excited to discover a little song by John Linnell in there, too!

Also, the glasses were SO cool.

If it wasn't so expensive I would definitely go again!

3 more books

It's been a fairly productive morning despite the fact that I couldn't fall asleep last night and instead stayed up well past midnight watching Across the Universe. And here are the fruits of my labor::Three books done and another close behind them! Rest assured that I did not make these from start to finish this morning, they're just part of the batch that I've been working on all week.

Now it's back to work because this evening I'm taking my girl to see Coraline! I definitely debated whether or not I think she'll be okay watching this but I showed her the trailer and she was unphased (though I was kinda freaked out, in a good way!), so we're gonna go for it!