A Zig Here, A Zag There?

This is a smattering of the fabrics that I’ve been collecting recently. I’ve noticed that they go together rather well. So, I’m thinking that maybe they’ll become the queen-sized quilt for our master bedroom.

The question is: Which pattern should I use? At the moment, I’m leaning towards something like Anna Marie Horner’s Folk Dance pattern or, along the same lines, the Zig-Zag Quilt from The PurlBee. On the other hand, I’m really really drawn to the quilting on this one over at Red Pepper Quilts. Whichever I choose, I think I’m going to need to go fabric shopping. Oh darn.

 

Surprise!

We are having the most gorgeous summer-like weather here in Seattle. It’s fabulous! My little family has been running errands and finding excuses to be outside all day long and now we’re all pooped and ready to nap. I was pretty sure that the sun had zapped all of the energy out of me and then I checked the mail only to discover this little surprise awaiting me:

I won this embroidery kit from the lovely Jen over at IndieFixx. If you recall, Jen is the brains behind the Feed Your Soul project, which offers art free to download. (Seriously, the new one from Mara Girling is almost tailored to my livingroom’s decor!)

I’ll have some more things to post about this week. Just as soon as I finish my nap…

 

Are you feeling lucky?

Today is a totally lucky day for me. I mean, aside from my wonderful little family unit and the georgous late-spring weather, we knocked two items off our home’s wishlist.

First, we picked up this gorgeous mid-century chair for $10! That included the little Ikea footstool. The previous owner made some cute little slipcovers for the cushions in the same plaid fabric as the stool, but I really like the green, even though it’s a bit faded. I’ll eventually recover the cushions and stool and also maybe refinish it, since she had (*gasp*) painted over the teak. (They really didn’t know what they had.) For now, though, I’m going to be happy with my super little find. I’ve wanted one of these chairs for so long and we sort of stumbled over it today.

Our second great find today was at Ikea. They were having their rummage sale, which amounted to nothing of note really, but we did run through the as-is section while we were there. And, to my surprise, we found the rug that I have been dreaming about for our living room since I started dreaming about our living room. It was half price because of some tear on the back, which is a) easily repaired or b) easily ignored.

We’re going to finish off this wonderful day with dinner and drinks on our balcony. Hope your weekends are going as well!

 

Random Bullet Points

I’ve been sitting on a few things, so I’m going to do this in one long-winded post. Bear with me.

• First: I did not win the apron contest. (*awe*) But I did win a great consolation prize, a copy of Sew Darn Cute. (*yay!*)
• If you’ve visited the blog, beyond your feed reader, then you may have noticed that I am now an active Tweeter. I’m @Ahavajora, of course, so head on over and add me. Direct a tweet my way and I’ll add you back.
• I have added a new Pyrex casserole dish to my collection:

• I’ve been keeping a list of links. Let’s start with this adorable Smocking/Shirring tute over at Pretty Ditty.
• Lolly Chops has a ton of free downloads, including these embroidery patterns. They also have really great recipes. A wonderful resource!
• How wonderful is this frumpy-shirt-turned-chic-blouse at Jezze? The instructions are A+ too.
• I have the perfect place to hang one of these kusudama, via Folding Trees.
• The next time I head into the city, I must go over to Stitches. It looks like a very hip place.
• Last summer, in the thick of my eye issues, I was forced to wear an ugly wide-brimmed floppy hat. It was bad. If only I’d had this tutorial from Weekend Designer for a beautiful cloche hat.
• Do you love miniatures? Me too. Now you can make your landscape pics look like miniature villages and such with the TiltShiftMaker tool.
• I always love it when my world of math and world of crafts collide (which is happening more often these days, it seems), so of course I enjoyed this article over at Division by Zero.
• Finally, I was overjoyed to find some fold over elastic today at Pacific Fabrics. So of course, I had to re-visit this great video tutorial from Angry Chicken. How cute are those stick Amys?

Well, I hope that my links keep you entertained and busy. Now I’m off to get ready for the Grey’s Anatomy finale.

 

Bzzz…

I joined my very first virtual (or any) quilting bee. Kat over at Ripping Out Seams pulled this thing together and (thanks to Twitter) I got in on it. I always only hear about these things months after they’ve begun, so I’m excited to have been at the right place at the right time.

If you’re interested, it looks like she might have enough interest to do another one. So, go drop her a line you’d like to join. In the meantime, checkout the other ladies’ blogs on the right.

This is going to be a fantastic year!