Peas In A Pod

Lil Journaling Project

I decided I need something to help me deal with my stress at work a little better.

I would love to do some yoga.  But honestly, getting to a gym at a specific time in the day, especially the limited times that they have classes, is next to impossible for me.  I don't know.  Maybe that's just an excuse on my part.

But then, I saw Ashley's blog post about the Lil Journaling Project.  She will be giving journaling prompts once a day....starting two days ago.  I've always wanted to be good about keeping a journal, but I've never been able to stick with it.  Too much work.  Too boring.

She promises this will be fun.

So, I'm giving it a try.  It will be my way of doing something creative every day, even if it's just for a few minutes.

  For day one, we had to write this with our nondominant hand.  And draw our pencil with our nondominant hand.

  For day two, we had to draw a map of the first classroom we remember.  I drew my first grade classroom at Ernest Horne Elementary School. 

Although we didn't have to write anything, I had a few memories that I wanted to quickly write down.

1. I remember having a huge crush on Bobby.....I forgot his last name.  Oh, I think it was Stewart.  Isn't it funny how that just comes to you?!   I wonder what he's up to now.
2. I remember walking to and from school with Brian.  I really miss him.
3. I remember that my dad used to surprise me now and then.  He'd just show up and take me out for lunch every once in a while.  It made me feel really, really special.  I loved it.

I couldn't remember much of the classroom.  I sort of have a "feel" for it in my mind, but I am having a hard time remembering a lot of details.  I do remember one side was full of windows.  And it was always sunny in the room.

  Sweet Pea wanted to join in the fun, too.  So, this weekend, we went to Barnes and Noble and each bought a journal.  She picked a Justin Bieber one.  LOL.

  She had a lot of fun trying to write with her nondominant hand.  She didn't want me to show you her whole pages.  She was worried you all wouldn't think her writing was good enough (because it was messy--according to her--with her nondominant hand).  Isn't it sad how fast that self-consciousness develops?  She agreed that I could show you little snippets....

 

Last night, when I got home from work, she grabbed my computer and said, "Mom.  What's that website?  Let's see what today's prompt is!"  She's into it.  I love that she cued me to work on it with her.  So, we sat down and did our classroom maps together.  She did a map of her 3rd-grade classroom.  It's really nice time together.  We are enjoying it.

I'm keeping all my supplies in this puch that Terri gave me at our Gruber's retreat this summer.  I love surrounding myself with beautiful things.  Thank you again, Terri!

Maybe you'll be interested to check it out and join in.   Just sayin'.....

While you're there, you might be interested in checking out Ashley's story.  She's kind of amazing.  Her cancer chronicles are....interesting, sad, uplifting, joyous.  I don't know Ashley.  But for some reason, I am addicted to her blog.  She sort of inspires me and gets me thinking about being a better person....

Until next time,

Katie Blair Designs: Shop Good Plan now

via blog.katieblairdesigns.com

I have purchsed some hand silkscreened notebooks from Katie Blair Designs before. In fact, she even custom designed them for me. You might remember the Eleven Rules of Success notebooks she did for me.

Well, she's got a whole new line of notebooks and cards out for spring. They are great colors. I totally want the striped notebook you see in the center.  There is good color inspiration for your quilts here, too!

I like Katie Blair Designs so much, I'm just trying to help her spread the word that her new line is out. Maybe you'd like to hop on over to her etsy shop and check it out. her notebooks would make great sketchbooks for your quilting ideas! ;-)  See you there!

Until next time,

Mama Pea

Gentle Curve Piecing--February Challenge

Ahhhh---Spring Break!

At first, we had planned to go to Arizona to see my parents.  But that didn't work out.  So, we decided to have break at home this year.  Then, Papa Pea thought we'd remodel a bathroom this week.  But the weather is so crappy that it would be hard to haul drywall around without it getting wet.  So, we decided to wait for spring.  So...Ahhhhh...Spring Break!  I do have a little schoolwork to do this week, but I'm going to try to get in some sewing and R&R this week also.  I haven't had a spring break at home in years!

Today, I'm going to reveal my gentle curve piecing project/challenge project that I'm doing with Lynn, Alamosa Quilter.  Lynn posted hers earlier this morning, so you'll want to go check that out for sure.  She has a completely different take on it, which I love!  You will recall that we are working out of Jean Wells' book Intuitive Color and Design.  This is the second "assignment" in the book.

I was a little less than enthusastic about this second challenge.  Why?  Well, I felt like my first one went pretty well, and I was afraid it would be downhill from here (how's that for confidence?!).  And this involves curves---scary.  And I didn't have an inspriational source I was as excited about as I was that photo of our skating paths.

Then, I found this picture in a magazine and thought, maybe I can do something with that.

I mounted it in my sketchbook, along with the greeting card I had received and was going to use as color inspiration.  I sketched an idea and colored it on the right side.  I thought I'd make some gentle curves on top, put a solid piece of fabric on the bottom and appliqué some colored spots to represent the marbles, and do some pebbling for quilting (something I've never tried before).  Okay, now I was getting excited.

I grabbed my pile of fabric.

I cut a bunch of strips.

And I started piecing.  I did okay as long as I kept the curves pretty gentle.  If they got too swooping, I had trouble.  See in this photo above how the darker blue curves into the green and causes puckering?  I left that one in, but I had another one that was much worse, and I cut it out.  I also didn't like that straight line of orange, but I ended up leaving it in.  I struggled with two things.

1. I found it REALLY hard to make this look just like my drawing.  So, I gave that up and just pieced what I thought looked good.  That was an easy fix.
2. The book was pretty clear on how to do a gentle curve from top to bottom (like the light blue to white on the far left).  But it didn't really tell you how to get those curves in that go only part way up...for example the white to the blue on the lower left...see how the blue then goes into the green?  I really had to play with that for a while to get it.  More on that later.

I was starting to get the hang of this.

I kept on piecing and then trimmed it up.  I then attached this darker blue to the bottom.  I trimmed the whole thing to about 12.5 x 15.5".  (Lynn and I agreed we would shoot for sizes around 12 x 15" finished.)

Okay.  Now, I had to figure out what to do next.  I started thinking about using appliqué to sew on some circles of color to represent some of the marbles.  Then, I got an idea...

I looked at this awesome pile of scraps I had and thought, "What a shame to waste some of this cool piecing.  I wonder if I could sew these scraps together and come out with something.

And I ended up with this.  I thought it was pretty neat.  I looked at my inspiration photo and back at this. I  thought, "Gee, this sort of reminds me of the swirlies inside of the marbles.  Wouldn't it be cool if I could somehow cut circles out of this and appliqué them on for the marbles?!"  But, there are so many seams on this, I thought that would be REALLY challenging...to cut out, to turn edges under, and to sew on.

So, then I thought, "What about reverse appliqué?"  (For those of you who don't know what this is, this is when--instead of sewing a piece of fabric on top of your background fabric--you cut a hole in your background fabric and sew your other fabric behind it.)  I have never done reverse appliqué, but I've seen it done.  I looked to the web for some inspiration on technique.  I found this tutorial from Textiles4you that was quilte helpful.  I adapted it for my purposes.  More on that later.

I used a bobbin and traced some circles in random places on my dark blue.  I cut out the holes, put the stripped fabric behind, and sewed.  (I'll give more details in another post.)

I am starting to dig this.  I really like how this turned out.  I trimmed off the extra fabric underneath.  Now, it's time to quilt.  Big, deep breath.

I quilted the top with my walking foot.  I just followed the lines of the piecing with matching thread.  I used my Aurifil threads (some 40 wt, some 50 wt) for the quilting, except for the pebbling.  That is a King Tutt variegated thread in a 40 wt.  The pebbling was really scary and sort of hard.  I practiced for about an hour before I did it on here.  I still need a lot of practice.  There are tons of mistakes on here (like pebbles that overlap, a few funny stitching lines), but overall I am really happy with it. 

I told Sweet Pea that while I was doing it, I felt like a kid on a high diving board, standing there, looking down, holding my breath, and being so scared to do it--scared to belly flop and that it would hurt (and be disappointing).  But, I didn't belly flop.  I did okay.  I think I would have liked more big circles quilted in, but that's okay.  The mroe I did this, I found I got better and better at regulating my stitching speed, and I got a lot better at retracing where I'd been when I needed to backtrack along my stitching line.  I am really, really proud of myself for jumping in this scary pool.

Time to choose a binding color.  I really liked the orange and the blue on the right.  Tough decision.

I opted for the blue.

Still excited about the pebbling.  You can see some of my mistakes here, but I don't care!  I am still proud of myself!

And here's the back.  I sewed a little hanging sleeve on, too.  There's a quilt show coming up in Marshall.  Maybe I'll put these little quilts in it...

To be consistent with last time, I'll do a what I like and what I don't like about this:

WHAT I LIKE:

• I love the color scheme I chose.
• I love how the quilting turned out, and I'm especially happy with the big leap forward I made with the pebbling.
• I like piecing gentle curves.
• I found I can draw inspriation from pretty mundane stuff.

WHAT I DON'T LIKE:

• Not much to say here.  I am so happy with how this turned out!
• I would like to have had some larger circles in the pebbling.  Note to self, do this next time.
• I still need a lot of work on deeper curves.  I should explore that sometime.
• There's so much quilting on this, it's pretty stiff.  I guess it's a good thing it's a wall hanging!

What do you think I should name it?  I am thinking of "Finding my Marbles" (instead of "Losing my Marbles").  :-)  These exercises are really helping me to learn so much about myself as a quilter and "artist" (if I dare use that word).

I am so happy with how this turned out.  I am excited to move on to our next challenge.  I guess Lynn and I will have to talk about what that will be.  :-)

I hope you enjoyed this little walk through of my project.  I was thinking that tomorrow I could post some more detail on how I dealt with some of the curves and how I did the reverse appliqué.  I was afraid it would make this post too long to include it here.  Even then, I might need to break that down into two additional posts.

Hope you are all having a lovely day.  Be sure to stop over and see what Lynn did with her project.  You'll like it, too.  Thank you, Lynn, for helping me grow and stretch myself in new ways!

Until next time,

Mama Pea

Random Acts of Kindness--Life is Good

Yesterday, after I finished my post and drove to work, I realized I was whining a little about how busy this week was, and I got to thinking, I really love my job.  I do.  I really do.  I have sort of forgotten that in the past several months, because it's just been so blasted busy.  But I am so lucky to have a job that I really enjoy doing; where I have a lot of freedom to do the things I want to do; where I get to work with all these really neat, creative, and hardworking people (students and faculty alike); where I am challenged every day by new things, etc.  It really is fun.  It sort of hit home for me when Terri posted her comment that she loves her job, just not so much of it.

About two days ago, I was engaged in an e-mail exchange with a colleague at a different university.  I told him sometimes the merry-go-round gets going a little too fast for me and I just want to get off for a while.  He said, "Yeah, but then it's too hard to get back on [because you're even further behind!].  I think I'll just throw up a little and stay on."  I thought that was a pretty good extension of the metaphor.

Sorry to throw up on all of you yesterday!  LOL

Not too much quilty to report....too crazy at work.  Here was the extent of my quilting engagement yesterday:

I took the liberty of doodling a quilting design on my agenda and notes from faculty meeting.  I had watched a video on Leah Day's blog, where she showed how to quilt this design.  She calls it Hot Candy (referring to Hot Tamales candies, I believe).  It sort of intrigued me, so I gave it a try on paper.  When I pulled this piece of paper out of my bag at home that night, Sweet Pea said, "Wow, that's really good, Mom.  I like that!"  It was quite cute.

If you haven't checked out Leah's blog, you should.  She has come up with 252 quilting designs so far and has little videos of each one.  I think she's shooting for 365, one for every day of the year.  I have found it sort of inspiring for getting going on free motion quilting.

Also, a gal in the local art quilting group posted a really interesting link to a blog about Zentagles.  Have you ever heard of that?  I hadn't.  It looks really interesting, though.  It's sort of about doodling as meditation...very "Zen."  Click on the link and check it out.  I'm interested to know what you think.

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I'd like to share a little story and a tip with you that's totally unrelated to quilting, if you don't mind.  Just 'cause...

I'm really happy to still own this (go here to see my post about making these cozies):

Here's the back story.

As I was wrapping up my first meeting with a student yesterday morning around 9:00 am, I saw an e-mail from my dad.  The RE: line read YOUR PHONE.  "Hmmm...," I thought, "that's sort of weird."  The e-mail read:

Just had a call from the Kalamazoo police who said they found a cell phone.  They called hoping that I was a parent and could tell them who the phone belonged to.  The caller ID said “Stephanie-Cell” so I believe it was your phone.  I told them who you were and what department you are in.  She said, “Oh, she’s staff.  Then we can get it to her.”
 
Hope you hear from them soon.
 
Love,
 
Dad

I started typing a reply:  Dad, can't be my phone. My phone's in my purse...

Then I thought..."Well, I think it's in my purse...."  I turned and looked...gasp!  No phone!  I know I had it in the car, because I was calling one of our secretaries to let her know I was running a couple of minutes late and to let the student know I'd be right there.  I remember putting it in my little cozy before I got out of the car!

Then my office phone rang and it was Papa Pea.  He said that my dad had called him to see if I was okay because the police had my phone.  I said I was fine and I had no idea how they got my phone.

Then, one of the secretaries came down to seem me, and she looked really shaken up.  She said, "Oh!  Good!  You're okay!  Your dad just called me and told me the police had your phone.  He was nervous that maybe you got mugged or something and he asked me to see if you were in your office and if you were okay."  She was pretty freaked out to think something had happened to me.

I called Dad and reassured him I was okay.  Dad said he got worried that maybe the people who called him weren't the police but were someone who found my phone and wanted to find me for not-so-good reasons.

Then, one of my graduate students e-mailed me saying the police had called him and for him to tell me they had my phone.  He was checking in to make sure I was I okay.

Then, another secretary called me and said the police had called and my phone was at campus police if I would come and pick it up.

I drove over to the campus police.  The gal at the desk told me that one of the custodial staff had found my phone laying on the sidewalk outside and had turned it in for me.  Not knowing whose phone it was, she called the first person on my favorites list, hoping it was a parent (which it was).  So, she found out my name and realized I was staff.  She also called the person who was on my recents list and was someone I called a lot.  That was my graduate student.  When she realized I was staff, she called the secretary in our department and told her where I could pick up my phone.

I was so happy to recover my phone.  I was grateful that the custodian who found it was kind enough to return it to me (iPhones aren't cheap!), that the gal at the police station worked so hard to find me, and that so many people cared and were concerned about me! 

I tried to figure out how I lost it.  I was concerned that my workmanship on the cozy was bad and the strap broke.  But no, the strap wasn't broken.

I had it looped around this piece of hardwae on my purse.  I am guessing the clip got bumped open and the strap just slid off.  When I looped my strap on there, I wondered if that was a bad idea.  Someone with a Ph.D. should be able to figure that out.   LOL.  I now loop it through that big ring with the metal around it instead of the clip.  I'm just glad my workmanship was solid.

So, here's my tip.  The next graduate student I met with was in my office as all this was going on.  Her husband is in medical school and is doing a residency in the ER right now.  She asked me who my "ICE" people were on my phone.  I said, "HUH?"

In Case of Emergency numbers.  "OH!  I get it!  ICE"

She said that on her phone, she labels her husband as ICE1 [followed by his name], her dad as ICE2 [followed by his name], and her mom as ICE3 [follwed by her name].

She said that if you ever get hurt of in a car accident, and the paramedics find your phone, the first thing they'll look for on your phone is ICE numbers.  They will call these numbers to find out who you are if they don't know who you are and to notify your emergency contacts.

I did not know this.  I think I'll be doing some editing on my phone.  I thought this made good sense.  Maybe you want to consider doing the same.

I am very grateful for individuals who display random acts of kindness like this (the custodian, the police, my colleagues and staff, my family).  It means a lot to me.  While I'm certainly glad to have my phone back, it's more about restoring my faith in humanity, really.  I plan to do something nice for that custodian, just to make sure he knows I noticed.

I hope I can pay it forward in my own way sometime.

How 'bout you?

Life is good.  Love my job.  Love people.  Life is good.

Until next time,

Mama Pea

P.S.  I was at the gym yesterday and on the back of the door in the toilet stall was a sign that said, "The best way to chase away the winter blahs is through regular and consistent exercise."  I have started doing the elliptical machine three days a week with a fellow colleague at work.  I have to admit, I really do feel better all the way around, and it is helping to chase away the winter blahs.  So, if you're not exercising regularly and you feel blah, maybe that would help you, too!

Doodling in the Sketchbook

Hi Everyone!

I hope you all had a good weekend!  We had a fun time.  It was busy, but I don't feel like I accomplished much.  And today is a Federal holiday, so the university is closed.  Funny thing, though, if you don't have classes on a day the university is closed, it really isn't a day off.  I still have all this work that needs to be done before tomorrow, regardless of whether or not the university is open.  So, I'll still go in and work while Sweet Pea is in school.  It's really only a day off for me if the university is closed on a day I have classes...then it's one less prep for me.  Oh, well!

When I worked at The Ohio State University, it was kind of fun.  We would do an all-faculty get together in our department on MLK day to reflect a little.  We would have some traditional foods from some of our African American colleagues and some fellowship with our graduate students.  That was kind of nice.

You may have noticed my button for the Sketchbook Challenge over on my sidebar (it's down kind of low).  (If you click on that button, you can go check out the website.)  I saw Lynn, Alamosa Quilter, was following this on Facebook, so I decided to follow it, too.  It looked interesting.  They are having a theme each month, and people are submitting photos of their drawings according to that theme.  I doubt I'll submit anything, but I thought it would be fun to follow.

I figured, if I'm going to try to break out of my "pattern-following" box this year, I need to start coming up with some designs that are my own.  What better way to do that than to get serious about my sketchbook?!

Well, I still hadn't had the kick in the pants to get the pen to paper (although I had pasted in one magazine cover I had kept from an airplane magazine...it had a great design on the front that I thought was pretty inspiring).

Then, I read this post from Lynn, where she gave a link to a doodling video and some tips she had learned through an on-line quilting class she had taken.  Go check it out.

Last night, Papa Pea was watching the Pope of Greenwich Village.  I didn't feel like doing handwork.  So, I got the sketchbook out and tried the exercises Lynn described.  (Lynn, I hope you're a believer that imitation is the best form of flattery!)

Here's my first 25-boxes exercise.  I just started doodling in each box as I saw something in the movie that got me thinking (another strategy Lynn shared).  The first box was a take off on Charlie's (played by Mickey Rourke) shirt.  I like how that one turned out!  Next, were the curls in Julia Roberts' brother's hair (what's his name?  Eric Roberts?).  He was the co-star.  Then, a badly drawn face (they are so hard!), then a pattern in Charlie's tie, then a brick wall.  The first drawing in the second row was from a ruffle on some lady's dress, a then a stairwell, then the big sunglasses Eric Roberts wore, then a mermaid (because Darryl Hannah was in the movie, too), a chain link fence.  Etc.  I took a couple of drawing classes in college, where we learned about crosshatching and pointelism, and I tried to practice some of that here.  It's okay.  I also like to practice getting perspective and shadow correct.  Not always easy.

Over time, I got bored with that and just started doodling quilting designs.  I've never been good at feathers, so I was trying to practice them. I had seen that Linda over at the Quilted Pineapple was practicing hers on her new long arm.  I was so impressed with how good she was at them already, I figured I should start learning them!  Really, you should check out her posts here and here.  She's only had that machine for a week or two, and look at her go!  She's my idol!

Then, I went to the exercise described on the video.  (Draw a line that doesn't cross anywhere on the page--I goofed that a few times; harder than you think--and then start doodling around your line.)  Here's my start at that.  For some reason, the part on the lower left told me to draw circles inside it.  I like how that turned out.  They remind me of a dragon's skin.  I thought the doodle at the top looked like wonky buildings, so I gave them windows.  Then, I thought the squiggle below them looked like Lombard St. in San Francisco (the crookedest street in the world).  So, I drew cars on it (seems like it's always packed with cars).  Then, I figured, well, it's San Fran, so how about some beach and ocean?  I just doodled some fish in the ocean.  Got bored again...especially with the fish.

Went back to the 25-squares activity.

Tried to practice more quilting designs.  Started practicing stippling.  Needs work.  Then, went to leaves and vines.  I am SO BAD at those, and really struggle with them.  Then, tried feathers again.  I really started enjoying that.  I finally started to get the hang of it and tried to move from box to box without picking up the pen, just like you'd do on a quilt.  I then wanted to make some longer ones, so I went up the side of the page and across the bottom.  I tried to take my pen right back over previous marks, just like you'd try to stitch over previous stitching lines.  I think we can see I have a long way to go on that.  But this was really fun.  I enjoyed this.  I'm not sure I am forming the feathers correctly (need to check that out), but I sure feel looser and more comfortable with it now than I ever did before.

What I liked about the 25 boxes was that they were small and not intimidating...like trying to fill an entire blank page can be.  And if I didn't like what was happening, I just moved on to the next box.  Not too much invested in a little box.

If you'd like a copy of my 25-boxes page, I have made a PDF of it.  You can download it here, print it out, and start playing if you'd like.  I don't know how big Lynn's boxes are.  I just randomly drew a box I thought I would fit 5 across and 5 down on a page.

Download 25 Boxes Drawing Page

So, thanks, Lynn for your great ideas and help getting me started!  Can't wait to do more of these.  Hop on over to Lynn's blog and check out some of her doodles from the weekend.

Lynn and I are working on something together, but I'll share that with you more toward the first of the month, when we have our first posts ready on that.  But maybe tomorrow I'll give you a little sneak peek on that, okay?

Until next time,

Mama Pea