Bibliosophy Handmade

The Birthday Party

By John Singer Sargent, in the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

Such was the scene at our house last weekend as we celebrated a first birthday!  We had a cake, a great car from grandma and grandpa, and some Mommy-made toys.  Before DH and I were married, I purchased a panel of Alexander Henry fabric thinking it would be perfect for a nursery.  I found it recently, and decided it would make the perfect safari playmat, with it's bright graphics of jungle animals.  One playmat and some knitted toys later (purchased from mamma4earth), Little Guy has a great animal play set, complete with matching drawstring bag. 

He even had his own piece of homemade chocolate cake, but he didn't enjoy it quite as much as I thought he would. 

Needless to say, I am now enjoying the rest of the cake for him!

The Humble Workbasket

After babyproofing my workbasket in our family room to make life easier, I was taken with the utility of the humble workbasket.  Created for ladies of old to keep all their mending and creating supplies, it helped them maximize their resting time in a productive way, keeping all their tools at hand.  Do you remember in Cranford when Dr. Harrison bids on a lovely little table at auction, only to find when he brings it home that it's a woman's work-table?  And can't you picture Miss Deborah and Miss Mattie with their workbaskets companionably by their sides in the candlelight?

Thus inspired, I did a little searching, and found this excellent tutorial on how to make your own workbasket.  This is mine, a little funky Kaffe Fassatt version to match my kitchen.  It has a pretty white linen lining, and I'm working on some accessories to match.  Wouldn't this make the sweetest gift for a crafty friend, or for a little girl interested in the domestic arts?

And, coming in at just around $10 and a couple hours of time to make, it is an adorable and affordable gift.  And now, I just need to make one to match every other room in my house!

Serendipitous Circles

It's always nice to finish a project and start planning the next.  Look at these books I picked up from my library reserves the other day; they just happen to have covers that mimic each other!  The one, a Georgette Heyer mystery from the '30's, and the other, the new Quilt Romance, by Kaffe Fassatt, et.al.  There is a whole lot of inspiration to be found in these quilts, and though I still prefer to make up my own designs, I can appreciate the time and work that goes into these.  My Kaffe fabric stash is slowly growing, little remnant by little remnant, and perhaps eventually they will all be put to use in a quilt.  I hope so.

But first, a "bookish" quilt is in the works.  More later...

At the finish

I present...

....my finished friendship quilt!  I sewed the binding and appliqued our names on last night, and it now awaits those good books to curl up with!  To all the ladies who contributed blocks, thank you again, it is now most definitely my favorite quilt!

 A close up of the back too; I like it almost as much as the front.  And because I quilted as I went, I actually enjoyed the quilting process this time, instead of having it be a frustrating and self-esteem-sapping experience.

My thank-you's are wrapped and ready to go out, and I'm already cutting into fabrics for the next project!  What new projects are you working on right now?

Thank You Very Much-es

These little needle books will be making their way to my quilting bee friends as small tokens of gratitude for making the friendship quilt such a success!  I had fun yesterday combining my felted sweater stash with fabrics, buttons, and some embroidery to make these (and I should have made one for myself while I was at it!).  They were simple to make with a rectangle of felted wool for the cover, some flannel rectangles for pages, a simple line of sewing through the middle for the spine, and then the joy of embellishing them.  The perfect use for small scraps of fabric too small to be sewn with, but too precious to discard.  Same goes for the oddly assorted buttons, looking for a special home.

The quilt is so close to being finished, but all of a sudden I'm in no hurry.  It was great fun to work on, but when it's done, it's done, and an exciting project over.

I'm savoring these last few stitches, and can't wait to share the finished product tomorrow!

Snow day sewing

We continue to be snowed in here, but are resuming our normal activities; which is to say that I made it to the quilt shop yesterday for their yearly sale!  Have to plan ahead, right? 

Work continues on the friendship quilt, and I'm almost ready to put on the binding and curl up under it with a good book.  The quilting as you go has worked perfectly, and is much less stressful than trying to quilt a whole top in one big piece.

Some other random thoughts:

• What kinds of shopping do you do on the Internet?  We went to look at double strollers this morning, and I must say the thought of grocery and household shopping with two babies became a little daunting.  Does anyone grocery shop online?  What about household goods like toilet paper and cleaning products?
• The movie The Young Victoria is out at the local independent theater and I'm dying to see it.  The costuming alone looks to make it worthwhile; and I cannot resist a good British period drama.  Anyone seen it?

Collaborative Quilting

Over the past several months, I've been working on a virtual quilting bee with some other crafty friends.  Each person mailed out their fabric and some general guidelines about what they like and don't like, and each other person created 2-3 quilt blocks for them.  It has been so fun to see how people put fabrics and patterns together, and to see each person's style emerge in their work.  And even more fun was being given the challenge of creating blocks with fabric that I did not choose; it was a great path to creativity to be given random materials and asked to make something new.  Fabric that I would never have purchased for myself became suddenly inspirational, and I've learned to appreciate all different colors and styles.  This arrangement above is a brainstorm for how I might put my quilt blocks together.  In the meantime, I'm quilting each block as I go, and am excited to reach a finished product, sometime in the new year!