Curating Bulky Collection

The other day one of the folks who commented on the pink couch mentioned she liked the term "bulky collection". For those of us who live here, it's just the bi-annual big trash haul. But she thought the term sounded more like the city of Austin functioned as curator for a large scale art exhibit. I love that take on it. And considering how many people troll the streets during the week of bulky collection looking to embrace someone else's trash as their treasure, the idea of it being a curated collection of precious objects seems very fitting.
In that vein, I present what, in my opinion, has to be one of the most fabulous items set out for Bulky Collection Winter 2009:

A Wurlitzer upright piano.
It's not everyday of the week you run across a piano sitting on the curb, but that's exactly what I encountered when I drove home from swim team on Monday morning. I definitely did a double take and then decided that as soon as I got home, I'd grab my camera and record this for posterity. Best of all, I didn't have to get back in my car to take these pictures because this once "grand" piano was set out on my street just a few blocks away.

PS. Sorry folks, the piano's gone. A roving curator acquired it for his/her private collection.

Just a few

newly made items::

A new Twinkle pillow:

A new color way for a camera strap.

My new threads

Well not exactly threads and not exactly new, but a new-to-me thread holder. Yes, I know I just got the hanging thread spool thing and it continues to be man's gift to thread organization, but this was a gift. A fabulous gift.


My sister-in-law found it at a Dallas junk store and she and my mother-in-law bought it for me. Wasn't that nice?


I currently don't have all the colors listed, so I can't fill it up as it once might have been. I also have no idea what color pongee is, though I suspect it's in the yellow family. For now I'll just put random spools in random places.


And try not to open and close the case too much. I almost can't help myself.
My in-laws didn't know much about when this kind of display case would have been in use, so if anyone has information to pass along, I'd be very interested to hear.

Also, if you're interested, I did a little interview for the Lark Books online newsletter. I've got two designs in an upcoming Lark title, Quilts, Baby, and one of the quilts is pictured alongside the interview. For the longest time I referred to this book as "the baby quilts book", so I'm especially happy that the title they selected is pretty darn close to what I called this book anyway.
If you have a minute, you can check it out here .

7 days a week

I've not been present in this space as much as I'd like to have been lately. So, I'm going to try something to remedy that...at least for one week. I'm going to commit( I hate that word) to post a picture a day for one week. Yes, I know. That is quite a commitment, but considering the pace of my life lately, that's the best I can do. The reason I picked a week, other than the obvious shortness of the time, is that, I have definite opinions about each weekday. I have favorites and reasons for why I prefer them.

Sunday:: Lately not my favorite day. I take Saturday off, so Sunday is the day I start to think(read panic) about all the things I have to do. I'm not great with transitions and moving from day off to work requires transition.
Monday:: I've mentioned before that I swim on an adult swim team.My swim team workout is at 5:30 in the morning. This always puts a bit of a damper on Monday. By Tuesday I'm used to it. Refer to the point about transitions to explain why.
Tuesday:: Strangely, I love Tuesday. It's still early in the week, so I have the feeling that I have loads of time stretched out ahead of me. But it's not Monday, so I'm done adjusting to the new week.
Wednesday:: I'm OK with Wednesday, but usually by Wednesday evening it starts to dawn on me that my plans for what could be tackled this week might have been a tad unrealistic.
Thursday:: This day is a combination of panic over deadlines needing to be met and relief that I only have one more 5:30 am wake-up left for the week.
Friday:: Friday's a mixed bag. Acceptance that I got as much accomplished as I could and happiness that Saturday morning I'll sleep in. Of course, after a week of waking up at 4:30, the best I can do is 6:30ish. No matter though, the extra two hours are so sweet.
Saturday:: Oooh, I love Saturday. I lay around, knit, read, nap...so lovely.

Here goes then, a picture a day for one week...favorite days and otherwise.


This is quintessentially Austin. This week is the bi-annual trash event known as bulky collection. The city allows residents to put out just about any item of trash and they will pick it up and haul it to the dump. The city announces bulky collection week through postcard mailings, but they don't tell residents exactly what day during bulky collection week they'll be coming through your particular neighborhood. They advise that you put out whatever undesirable you have by Monday of that week and rest easy knowing they'll be by within the next 7 days to pick it up. Needless to say, bulky collection week is like Christmas to the scavenger's amongst us.
I ran into this couch the other day as I walked around my neighborhood. Apparently, Barbie and Ken live in my hood.

Whirlwind

That's what the last week has been like.
About 10 days ago someone from Etsy contacted me and asked me if I wanted to be their featured seller starting Monday January 5. For those of you who don't know what that entails, it means having your picture on Etsy's front page along with a link to an interview with you and your shop. Based on what I've observed, it brings in a lot of attention and business. They gave me a few days to answer the interview questions and send a photo of myself and advised me to stock my shop well.
Naturally my first and primary concern was...the photo. This was also a big concern for my middle daughter, Rachel, especially my eyebrows. Rachel has an opinion about a lot of things including eyebrows and according to her, mine were too bushy. I grew up in the era of Brooke Shields and my eyebrows were nowhere near that dense. But, Rachel was insistent that eyebrow amendment was crucial to this photo. So I agreed to let her "work" on my eyebrows. She proceeded to pluck my brows and between the involuntary sneezing it provoked and my exclamations of pain I vowed that I'm never going through that again.


And,don't tell Rachel, but I don't think they look any different.
My feature ran from noon, Eastern time, on January 5 to noon, Eastern time, on January 7 and it was amazing. Yes,I had a lot of orders, but they were dwarfed by the number of inter-Etsy emails or convos I received. So many lovely comments and congratulations. It was really quite stunning.
Thank you, Etsy.