Recent Projects + Some Ramblings

Most of the time, I feel like I totally fail at blogging over here. I swear, it’s for a combination of completely legit reasons:

1. I really haven’t had much time this last year (gulp!) to make much stuff. Sadly, both Josh and I are slammed with various work projects, and so it’s hard to make the time to do much creative stuff.
2. Since we had to move into a smallish rental condo near downtown last year (which completely and totally sucks), we just don’t have a lot of space to do stuff. When we were living in a regular house with a garage, yard, etc, it was a whole lot easier to make stuff and experiment creatively. Fortunately, this isn’t a permanent living situation.
3. Similarly, we don’t have a great space for staging photos. We always enjoyed taking most of our project photos outside, using trees, etc, as props, so the project photos have kind of sucked this year.
4. I blog about fabric-y stuff for my work, so it’s hard to feel motivated to come home and blog about fabric-y/sewing stuff for fun. Even though I enjoy it, it’s still odd when work/hobbies collide. Furthermore, this summer I also wrote some crafty roundup posts for PNCA’s Summer of Making, so I kind of feel like I’m already everywhere, more or less.
5. I’m bored with writing about projects, unless it’s something that’s new/different or featuring a designer or company with which people may not be familiar. I’ve spent quite a bit of time mulling over what direction–if any–we should take this site.

All right, enough navel-gazing, let’s get on to some crafty goodness… Continue reading »

Winner! City Quilts Blog Tour

Hi all! We got a little lax around here and completely spaced drawing a winner in the City Quilts blog tour. Better late than never, eh? Thanks to the wonders of Random.org, we picked a number and our winner is Susan Spiers, who said,

I live out in the country, quite opposite from city living! I always am inspired by the colors of nature, shades of greens in the bushes & trees and the bright colors of flowers!

Susan, we’ll be emailing you to get your shipping info for all the goodies you’re getting!

Thanks to everyone who participated in this and all the stops on the tour. If you haven’t read through the comments about when people drawn their inspiration, please do–they’re truly wonderful. And, of course, if you haven’t yet picked up a copy of Cherri’s wonderful book, City Quilts, please do. (It was recently #1 in its category, so, clearly, all the cool kids are buying it) It’s a must-have in any sewer, quilter or fabric lover’s library. And I’m not just saying that because Cherri (and her wonderful daughter Lizzy) is one of my favorite fabric-y friends.

~S & J

A Few Things That Are Awesome

In case you were wondering, of course we coordinated our outfits so we'd match. (Not really.)

On my list of things that are awesome, the opportunity to hang out with people I’ve met through this blog, Twitter, Flickr and all the other social media and web platforms that I’m part of is way up on the list. I’ve met Rachel, Kim, Melissa, Caroline, Susan and a whole slew of other folks thanks to the internet, and I’m pretty grateful for that. How did sewing dorks meet other sewing dorks before the internet?

A couple weeks ago, Josh & I drove up to Seattle for the day to meet up with Antoinette, who was in the Pacific Northwest for work. (Read all about her fun weekend meeting up with bloggy friends over here.) We had a lovely dinner at our favorite Seattle restaurant (which is both vegetarian and vegan friendly, by the way) and had a fantastic time chatting like old pals. Of course, being the dorks that we are, we forgot to take pictures until we dropped Antoinette off at her hotel.

Really, this may be the worst photo that's been taken of me this year. No lipstick, crazy hair, weird posture... Ugh.

Also, awesome is my authentic Yummy Goods Unicorn You=Awesome T-shirt. I’ve been waiting for what seems like forever for Melissa to start offering these online–who doesn’t need a little Unicorn love in their life? I screwed up and ordered a size too big, but I love it nevertheless. The best part is watching people read the shirt and then kind of grin. Unicorn makes people happy. What made me happiest, though, was the sweet way Melissa packaged my order. Continue reading »

Cool PDX Event: Heather Ross at PNCA

If you didn’t get a seat in Heather Ross‘ fabric design class at PNCA this weekend (it filled up in no time!), here’s your chance to meet Heather and learn about her design process. Come hang out at PNCA (12th & Johnson in the Pearl) on Friday, July 23 at 7:00, meet some cool local sewers & sewists and some folks who have come in from out of town as well.

See you there!

~Josh

City Quilts Blog Tour: Cherri House, Awesome Creative Entrepreneur

Update: Comments are now closed. Thanks to all who commented!

Welcome to our stop on the City Quilts blog tour! We were thrilled to chat with the delightful author, Cherri House, about her book, her design process and the joys of being a creative entrepreneur.

"City Shops" by Cherri House -- Inspired by a Barcode

Continue reading »

Join Us on the City Quilts Blog Tour

We are thrilled to be hosting a stop on our friend Cherri House‘ blog tour for her beautiful book, City Quilts, published by C & T under their new “Stash” imprint.

Each blog host will also feature a Q&A with City Quilts author, Cherri House. Here are the participating blogs and dates–there’s a great mix in here.

• July 12th – Cheryl Arkison
• July 13th – Amy Lobsiger
• July 14th – Stefanie Roman
• July 15th – Pat Sloan
• July 16th – Spool
• July 17th – Robert Kaufman
• July 18th – Fat Quarterly
• July 19th – Emily Cier
• July 20th – Sewer Sewist (That’s us!)
• July 21st – Jaybird
• July 22nd – Vickie Eapen
• July 23rd – Jessica Levitt
• July 24th – TrueUp

Images from City Quilts (Image Courtesy C & T Publishing)

Cherri’s book is a wonderful for non-quilters (or seldom-quilters such as ourselves), because she pays so much attention to concepts such as color values and the way fabrics interact with each other. Furthermore, city-lovers will adore how Cherri translates the urban environment into cloth and stitches. We’ll be talking with Cherri about her book, men who quilt and stitch and the joys of running a business built around your passions.

We also have a sweet giveaway on this–and every–stop on the tour.  C & T is giving away a copy of the book on each stop and Robert Kaufman will be awarding the lucky winner a gorgeous stack of fat quarter solids (yum!). We’ll be adding something to this giveaway as well.

We’re looking forward to seeing you on the 20th–and make sure to visit all of the stops on the tour while you’re at it.

~S & J