Friday, September 28, 2012

Sewing + Yoga + Poetry = ?

Back in the spring I started going to yoga classes at my gym fairly diligently. You know, because I needed an activity that WASN'T sitting down / stationary, like my job is and like sewing is and like pretty much everything else I do is!

Anyway, occasionally the gal who teaches the class will read us a poem from her little book of yoga poetry. Generally the reading will have something to do with one of the poses we did that today. While we didn't do this posture today, the poem really struck home.

Sutra Hasta Majariasana
"Threading the Needle"

Untangling a knot
that is my life
the knot becomes my teacher.
Gathering the threads into one,
unraveling the closed-up space
a glimmer of light
surfaces between strands.
The needle that is sharp
at dawn
might be broken by dusk.
The thread that is straight today
doesn't know
it will be knotted tomorrow.
The knot
that is tangled today
could be woven into gold
ten years from now.
That is why
I thread the needle,
honoring the odds
steadying my arms
softening my breath
working the knot,
trusting.

If you're interested, this is a video showing you how to do the posture that the poem is referring to. :)


Namaste!

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Shopping suggestions

Don't have a heart attack, but yes indeed, this is me blogging two days in a row! WHOA!

I'm very excited to be playing the role of sewing mentor very soon! The gal I take yoga from at the gym is having her second little boy in a few months, and we're going to make a quilt for him! She picked out this bundle from Fabricworm:



Vikings! How cute is that?? I can't wait to see it in person.

My folks have decided to come for Christmas, so I figured it's probably best that I make something for them as well (which really means something for my mom, since I'm pretty sure my dad's not huge on interior decorating). My mom pointed out several blogger bundles from Pink Castle Fabrics that she likes - unfortunately, most of them are out of stock!

They do have Hawaiian Sunset in stock:


And she also liked the Sea Glass Bundle and Summer Blooms (both out of stock!)...But I'm looking for a few more options. Where do you shop for pre-put-together FQ bundles that aren't necessarily from the same fabric line?

I may go with the Sea Glass Bundle - but rather than get the bundle, just get a couple prints, since I already have a TON of the Salt Air collection...hmmm....

Monday, September 24, 2012

Serenade for Matilda

I recently finished up another commissioned project - for the same coworker that got the last one! She asked for something girly with butterflies for her granddaughter, Matilda. Kate Spain's Serenade line seemed to fit the bill quite well, so I paired it with one of the gray Konas and went to town! I had a good time with this one - small and quick but very satisfying!

Before I get to photos - Fresh Squeezed Fabrics is having a contest where, if you get enough people to repin your favorite fabric bundle on Pinterest, you can WIN the bundle! I aimed low and went with a $15 bundle of Bella, so I need 15 repins - help! :) Check out my pin here, and repin to help me win! Check out the details to win your own bundle here.

On to photos!











There's my attempts at artsy quilt photography. Except that last one, where my leg got in the way. Whoops.

The pattern for the quilt is from the Moda Bake Shop - very fun/easy way to use charm packs, particularly ones with prints that you'd really like to feature. I think I might use this for a couple more charm packs I have, especially those where I have some yardage from the line too (like Little Apples or Guising, where I got matching solids).

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Sold!

I'm a very happy gal right now. I just sold another one of my quilts to a coworker. Now, I'm no fabulous Etsy salesperson, making a ton of money on each quilt or anything like that, but I figure as long as I cover the cost of materials, I'd probably make the quilts anyway for fun, so my time doesn't really need to be paid for at this time.

Anyway, the latest finish that I've sold is this one, which I last blogged about on my big fat WIP post.

Here it is, all finished and on our bed for scale (it's a futon, which is roughly full-size - and sorry they're Instagram photos, it's the only way I can make myself take any these days!):


I called this one my cross-hatch quilt. I started it similar to a jelly-roll-race quilt, but cut it into pieces and used those as "blocks," which I sashed together in alternating directions.


This also marked my first attempt at free-motion quilting! The results weren't fantastic, but the whole thing definitely seems more feasible now, and with practice, I'm sure I could become okay at it. I mostly did straight-line, stitch-in-the-ditch quilting, but used these little swirlies across the big berry-colored, otherwise-plain section in the middle. 

And a close-up of the fabrics. They were mostly Joann red tag or remnant choices. The back is flannel, mostly teal with a stripe of barely-polka-dotted-pink across the center.

Overall I'm really pleased with the result, happy to have another quilt finished and out into the world, and excited to have a little more fabric money in my pocket!

Friday, September 7, 2012

Gilmore Girls Reading List

So my dear friend Dianna, who has moved away to go to graduate school, and I both seem to have found this list (probably via Pinterest - follow me, here!). It is a list of all the books that Rory is seen reading in the TV show Gilmore Girls. We are considering having a long-distance readalong of some of the books! I've separated out the ones I've read (only 45, I'm not a very good English degree-holder, am I?!) so that we can compare and figure out where to start. ;)

Read:
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Beowulf: A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney (perhaps not this version, but some version)
Bitch in Praise of Difficult Women by Elizabeth Wurtzel
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer (not in their entirety, though)
The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
Daisy Miller by Henry James
Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Empire Falls by Richard Russo
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
Iron Weed by William J. Kennedy
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
Macbeth by William Shakespeare
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Owned:
Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson
House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III


1984 by George Orwell
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Archidamian War by Donald Kagan
The Art of Fiction by Henry James
The Art of War by Sun Tzu
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Babe by Dick King-Smith
Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women by Susan Faludi
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Bhagava Gita
The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Built a Village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews by Peter Duffy
A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays by Mary McCarthy
Brick Lane by Monica Ali
Bridgadoon by Alan Jay Lerner
Candide by Voltaire
Carrie by Stephen King
The Children’s Hour by Lillian Hellman
Christine by Stephen King
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse
The Collected Short Stories by Eudora Welty
The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty by Eudora Welty
A Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare
Complete Novels by Dawn Powell
The Complete Poems by Anne Sexton
Complete Stories by Dorothy Parker
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas père
Cousin Bette by Honor’e de Balzac
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Crucible by Arthur Miller
Cujo by Stephen King
David and Lisa by Dr Theodore Issac Rubin M.D
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
The Da Vinci -Code by Dan Brown
Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
Demons by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Deenie by Judy Blume
The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band by Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Mick Mars and Nikki Sixx
The Divine Comedy by Dante
The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells
Don Quijote by Cervantes
Driving Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhrv
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems by Edgar Allan Poe
Eleanor Roosevelt by Blanche Wiesen Cook
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn
Eloise by Kay Thompson
Emily the Strange by Roger Reger
Emma by Jane Austen
Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective by Donald J. Sobol
Ethics by Spinoza
Europe through the Back Door, 2003 by Rick Steves
Eva Luna by Isabel Allende
Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
Extravagance by Gary Krist
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore
The Fall of the Athenian Empire by Donald Kagan
Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World by Greg Critser
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
The Fellowship of the Ring: Book 1 of The Lord of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien
Fiddler on the Roof by Joseph Stein
The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce
Fletch by Gregory McDonald
The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger
Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers
Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut
Gender Trouble by Judith Butler
George W. Bushism: The Slate Book of the Accidental Wit and Wisdom of our 43rd President by Jacob Weisberg
Gidget by Fredrick Kohner
The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels
The Godfather: Book 1 by Mario Puzo
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Alvin Granowsky
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford
The Gospel According to Judy Bloom
The Graduate by Charles Webb
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
The Group by Mary McCarthy
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling – read
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry
Henry IV, part I by William Shakespeare
Henry IV, part II by William Shakespeare
Henry V by William Shakespeare
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
Holidays on Ice: Stories by David Sedaris
The Holy Barbarians by Lawrence Lipton
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer
How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss
How the Light Gets in by M. J. Hyland
Howl by Allen Gingsburg
The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
The Iliad by Homer
I’m with the Band by Pamela des Barres
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee
It Takes a Village by Hillary Clinton
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
The Jumping Frog by Mark Twain
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
Just a Couple of Days by Tony Vigorito
The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar by Robert Alexander
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Lady Chatterleys’ Lover by D. H. Lawrence
The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000 by Gore Vidal
The Legend of Bagger Vance by Steven Pressfield
Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis
Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
The Little Locksmith by Katharine Butler Hathaway
The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Lottery: And Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
The Love Story by Erich Segal
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
The Manticore by Robertson Davies
Marathon Man by William Goldman
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir
Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman by William Tecumseh Sherman
The Meaning of Consuelo by Judith Ortiz Cofer
Mencken’s Chrestomathy by H. R. Mencken
The Merry Wives of Windsro by William Shakespeare
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
The Miracle Worker by William Gibson
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
The Mojo Collection: The Ultimate Music Companion by Jim Irvin
Moliere: A Biography by Hobart Chatfield Taylor
A Monetary History of the United States by Milton Friedman
Monsieur Proust by Celeste Albaret
A Month Of Sundays: Searching For The Spirit And My Sister by Julie Mars
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall
My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and It’s Aftermath by Seymour M. Hersh
My Life as Author and Editor by H. R. Mencken
My Life in Orange: Growing Up with the Guru by Tim Guest
The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin
Nervous System: Or, Losing My Mind in Literature by Jan Lars Jensen
New Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson
The New Way Things Work by David Macaulay
Night by Elie Wiesel
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism by William E. Cain, Laurie A. Finke, Barbara E. Johnson, John P. McGowan
Novels 1930-1942: Dance Night/Come Back to Sorrento, Turn, Magic Wheel/Angels on Toast/A Time to be Born by Dawn Powell
Notes of a Dirty Old Man by Charles Bukowski
Old School by Tobias Wolff
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life by Amy Tan
Oracle Night by Paul Auster
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
Othello by Shakespeare
Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan
Out of Africa by Isac Dineson
The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition by Donald Kagan
Peyton Place by Grace Metalious
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Pigs at the Trough by Arianna Huffington
Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain
The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby
The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker
The Portable Nietzche by Fredrich Nietzche
The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill by Ron Suskind
Property by Valerie Martin
Pushkin: A Biography by T. J. Binyon
Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
Quattrocento by James Mckean
A Quiet Storm by Rachel Howzell Hall
Rapunzel by Grimm Brothers
The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
Rescuing Patty Hearst: Memories From a Decade Gone Mad by Virginia Holman
The Return of the King: The Lord of the Rings Book 3 by J. R. R. Tolkien
R Is for Ricochet by Sue Grafton
Rita Hayworth by Stephen King
Robert’s Rules of Order by Henry Robert
Roman Fever by Edith Wharton
A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
A Room with a View by E. M. Forster
Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin
Sacred Time by Ursula Hegi
Sanctuary by William Faulkner
Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford
The Scarecrow of Oz by Frank L. Baum
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand
The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette by Judith Thurman
Selected Letters of Dawn Powell: 1913-1965 by Dawn Powell
A Separate Peace by John Knowles
Several Biographies of Winston Churchill
Sexus by Henry Miller
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Shane by Jack Shaefer
The Shining by Stephen King
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
S Is for Silence by Sue Grafton
Slaughter-house Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Small Island by Andrea Levy
Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway
Snow White and Rose Red by Grimm Brothers
Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World by Barrington Moore
The Song of Names by Norman Lebrecht
Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos by Julia de Burgos
The Song Reader by Lisa Tucker
Songbook by Nick Hornby
The Sonnets by William Shakespeare
Sonnets from the Portuegese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Sophie’s Choice by William Styron
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov
The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
A Streetcar Named Desiree by Tennessee Williams
Stuart Little by E. B. White
Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust
Swimming with Giants: My Encounters with Whales, Dolphins and Seals by Anne Collett
Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Tender Is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Term of Endearment by Larry McMurtry
Time and Again by Jack Finney
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway
The Tragedy of Richard III by William Shakespeare
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
The Trial by Franz Kafka
The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson
Truth & Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
Ulysses by James Joyce
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath 1950-1962 by Sylvia Plath
Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Unless by Carol Shields
Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
The Vanishing Newspaper by Philip Meyers
Velvet Underground’s The Velvet Underground and Nico (Thirty Three and a Third series) by Joe Harvard
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
Walt Disney’s Bambi by Felix Salten
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
We Owe You Nothing – Punk Planet: The Collected Interviews edited by Daniel Sinker
What Colour is Your Parachute? 2005 by Richard Nelson Bolles
What Happened to Baby Jane by Henry Farrell
When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka
Who Moved My Cheese? Spencer Johnson
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee – read
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire
The Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum
The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole