festival quilt

Hey! I made another quilt. This one is being donated to the Big Bottom Festival raffle that we are attending this coming weekend. I decided to make a bright and colorful quilt because everyone who attends this festival is bright and colorful. I hope the winner likes it!

Husband holding quilt not included.

Past quilts I've made can be seen here and here. 

finished product

As promised, here are the final products Anders and I made in our glassblowing class. Anders made the bowl on the left and mine is on the right. Anders' bowl is much larger and thinner while mine is smaller and thicker. I think this has to do with the fact that he probably had more wind than me. I love them both, though.

Anders and I have been trying to buy each other experiences for gifts rather than things, and while we did actually end up with "things" from this experience it really means a whole lot more to me that we went and did the workshop together. These bowls will now always remind me of that afternoon. 

If anyone is interested in doing this themselves, we went to the Seattle Glassblowing Studio downtown.

252 bottles of wine on the wall

Anders and I decided to glue wine corks to our wall because we thought they looked cool. And while we didn't actually drink all 252 bottles of wine that it took to make this wall (our favorite Italian shop, DeLaurenti, helped us out), we did put back a few in the process. 

Before and After!

quilt #2

Hey there! I finally made another quilt (see my first quilt here)! I'm pretty attached to it. Like my first quilt, this one also seems to have very bright colors, but I guess that's what I naturally gravitate towards. Oh, and, full disclosure, Maggie is not happy in this picture. I made her get up from a nap to take it. Ha.

tie dye party

Tie dyeing attempt two (first attempt here). This time we went all out and hosted a little party with our friends, and  we came with a whole bag of white clothed goodness to unleash the dye on. Sure, it may have taken us until 2am to complete the dying and until 4pm the following day to get everything rinsed and washed , but what we ended up with was well worth it. We rocked it. Anders and I are developing some mad tie dye skillzzzz.

Dye master 

Getting their spin on 

Spun and ready to dye! 

Dye time

Aftermath 

2am and tired 

Rinsing completed

BAM! 

 Pile of awesomeness

Showing it off

knit to gather

Now that summer is winding down and fall and the cooler weather will soon be upon us, my friend, Jen, decided to start a knitting club that meets every week at Miro Tea. Now, I've never really thought much about learning to knit, but I'm an experience junkie and don't often turn down the chance to learn something new. Turns out, it's super fun...especially in a tea shop! Jen was a great teacher and very encouraging. For example, instead of saying my work looked like a kid's crappy craft project, she would simple say it was "adorable!" Woo! My work is adorable! I'll take it!

 Tea samples!

No idea what's going on here, but this pictures makes me smile. 

Dina is making a washcloth and Jen (right) is making a neck warmer for her daughter. 

Sticking your tongue out helps to get it right. 

My first attempt! 

I'm pretty proud of my first little practice knit.

birds welcome

We have been working on our yard all summer. We are getting close to being finished, but we had this one blank fence wall that needed a little something. I had this vision of adding a bunch of colorful  birdhouses to it, so I went to Michaels and found some plain birdhouses and some paint, and we went to town. I even got Anders to paint a few of them! He said it was relaxing.

My friend, Mollie, works in a nursing home and she told me we would fit right in because her Seniors painted birdhouses last weekend too. Clearly it's the new must-do project.

They're cute, but I think I need more. I want a birdhouse city like this.

tie dyed

Anders bought some DIY tie dye swim trunks from Vans awhile ago. Neither one of us are experienced with tie dying, so we had been putting this project off for awhile. We finally figured, what the heck, they are either going to be awesome or suck. Whatever. So, we finally just jumped into the project. Turns out, it wasn't so hard after all. The shorts came out great. And we figured since we already had the dye out, we might as well have a go at every other white shirt we could gather up in the house. For first timers I would say they turned out okay too (although does anyone know why I ended up with so much white? Please advise!). In a weird way it was kind of addicting. I liked the surprise untying at the end. Sorta made it seem like an extreme sport.

 The Vans before

 Dying in our cast iron. No judgement.

about a coat

I went to the U-District Street Fair today, and I bought the coolest coat ever in the history of the coat world. The coat is SO cool that I'm dedicating an entire blog post to it. It was handmade out of thrifted wool sweaters by my friend, and it makes me smile every time I put it on!

So, here's to you, new coat. I think we'll be very happy together.

The coat was made by Cosmic Garden Designs, and you can find them on Facebook here.

draft luck

Remember when my little sister made Anders and I little crossed-stitched people that looked like us? Well, not to be outdone, my older sister made us these super cute little Seahawks themed monsters and penguins! Maybe you are wondering what penguins and monsters have to do with the Seahawks, but they showed up right before the draft tonight, so I’m thinking they are like those old troll dolls. You know, for good luck and all. We’ll probably get awesome draft picks this year all because of my sister.

My family is seriously so crafty. I think my Mom and my sisters should have a contest to see who can send Anders and I the coolest crafts! Ready...GO!

this is not a fashion blog

I keep a fashion board on Pinterest, and I use it to save pictures of outfits that I like. However, I have to say that I do run into a lot of problems with the board. Usually when I pin an outfit one of three things happens...

1. The outfit is out of my price range. 2. The piece of clothing in question is no longer available or in my size or 3. The picture is simply of a pretty girl in a pretty outfit with no information about what she is wearing! 

Earlier in the year, I had pinned this dress that I absolutely loved and, sure enough, there was no buying information that went along with it.

(source)

Every time I opened Pinterest, I had to look at this dress I couldn't have. So, I decided there was only one thing to do. MAKE IT!

I looked and looked for black and white fabric similar to the dress and had no luck, so I had to settle for this textured black stripe, but overall I'm pretty happy with the end result.

Here's a side by side!

Hmmm...maybe the side by side was a bad idea. Why is this girl so tan!

spring mittens

Hey there! I finally finished my mittens from this post. Better late than never, right? 

surprise ball

Apparently surprise balls have been floating around the web for a few years now, but I just heard about them last month from the Cakies blog. The concept is simple. You buy 10-12 small gifts and then wrap them up one at a time in crepe paper until you have one big giant ball of wrapped gifts! The receiver has to start at the beginning and slowly unwrap the ball. Gifts start falling out the closer you get to the end. It's a bit time consuming to unwrap, so it makes the gift last a long time! I think it's the cutest idea, so I made one for Anders for his birthday. I also think it's a waste of crepe paper, so I did save all of it and plan to reuse it for my next surprise ball. I think my nieces and nephews would get a kick out of this, so I might be making surprise balls for their birthdays all year long. I can't wait.