I Heart Snow

Before you start grumbling about how it's easy for me to love snow when I don't have to live with it for months on end, I want to reassure you that I have difficult weather to endure. Come visit in August and you'll encounter the real definition to sizzling. But, right now, allow me to give you my naive, fresh perspective on snow.
We don't get snow here very often and, truth be told, it doesn't stick around either, but when it comes we are so grateful to see it.
I was awakened this morning by a phone call. It was a recorded message from the school district letting me know that school was canceled because of the snow. Stop giggling. This is Austin, we do not have the resources to deal with even this amount of snow. I'm not saying this as a criticism. We don't get snow very often, so why would the city have a team of trucks to spread salt? Actually, being the environmentally-friendly town we are, we spread sand instead. It's completely useless, but we feel really good about it.
Anyway, as I staggered over to the phone, I glanced out the window.

This is what I saw.
Like I predicted in Wednesday's post, the town has shut down including the mighty University of Texas which is officially closed today. What that yields is a lot of people in their homes, but not necessarily in their cars and that means the streets are wonderfully silent. Even better, all of us snow novices including the neighborhood children for whom this might be their first encounter with snow are out and about and marveling at the beauty of it all.
Today's high temperature is predicted to be 36 degrees, so it will probably all be gone by this afternoon. No matter. It's fleeting nature only makes me appreciate it all the more.
Now...don't you love snow too?

Baby, It's Cold Outside

Brr... it is seriously cold here in Texas. 18 degrees this morning. Which apparently felt like 5 degrees. Add to that the State's sudden mandate of rolling blackouts and a forecast of snow at week's end and I'm telling you, this town will shut down. We can handle 112 degrees and drought, but we are powerless before ice, cold, and snow.
I find the temperature change particularly disconcerting considering that on Sunday, at the start of the half marathon, the temperature was 63 degrees and that was at 6:45 in the morning.
I'm not dyeing any fabric today as my dye studio is in my unheated garage and the heat generated from my melting wax pot and my daughter's swim team parka are not enough to protect me form the bitter cold.
What I am doing is writing to you all and announcing the winners of last Friday's Stitch giveaway. The winners were picked randomly by the all-powerful, all-knowing random.org random number generator.
They are:

Linen and Tulle said...I would like to sew clothes, either for myself or for the children. I've been wanting to buy Stitch but haven't had the funds yet. I can't wait to see it either way!

and

piece peace said...I aspire to sew alot this year, but on my immediate agenda is a monochromatic quilt, a quilt along at CHQ and some sassy hair bands for myself (and maybe a backpack for myself, too). Thanks for asking!


If you all would email me your addresses at malka@stitchindye.com, I'll get you your magazines faster than the city can scatter worthless, non-ice melting sand on the roads.

Also, since I never sign off without a pretty picture because for me it's all about the visuals, I'm including an image of some fabric I made back in the day. That would be last Thursday when it was 70 and sunny.

Sew Excited

I  know, I know. It's such a cliche to use the word sew in place of so, but, first off, I love cliches and, secondly...well, there is no secondly. I just love cliches, sew there.
I didn't start the day particularly excited. It looked to be a pretty regular day, but then I opened my email and read today's Sew Daily published by the good folks at from Stitch magazine and Interweave Press and written by Stitch editor, Tricia Waddell. The focus of her article was sewing clothes for yourself and the joy she takes in making simple, beautiful garments to wear and, don't we all do this, have admired by our friends, family, and co-workers. Tricia wrote about what she called a fabulous weekend of garment sewing:

Friday night after work: cut out pattern and fabric

Saturday: sew all the major pieces together

Sunday: final fit tweaks, complete finishing, add embellishment details

Monday: wear it to work and impress my co-workers

I couldn't agree more. There's little better than sewing up something new and wearing it to the accolades of others. I'm not going to lie, the accolade part is pretty fabulous. Everyone loves receiving a compliment on what they're wearing, but it is so much better when it gives you the opportunity to bat your eyes, smile demurely, and say," Oh, thanks. I made it myself." 

Sew :), imagine my joy when I opened up the current issue of Stitch and found an article all about sewing with knits complete with some terrific and simple garments to make. Some of you may remember that I said that overcoming my nervousness about sewing with knits was one of my sewing goals for 2011. I think this dress:

and this skirt:

are just the motivation I need. That and the fact that my 16-year old recently made herself a costume out of knits and anything that a teenager can do, I can do too. 

Sadly, I'll probably have to defer some of that excitement, maybe even until next weekend, unless I'm so buoyed by Sunday's race-day experience that I feel I must sew a skirt rather than take a nap. Nevertheless, I'm psyched to do this and I want you to get psyched too. There are lots of great projects in the current issue of Stitch and, though I'm a huge proponent of sewing for yourself, you selfless types are welcome to make anyone of those projects for someone else.

 As a contributor, the folks at Interweave generously send me 3 copies of the magazine. Add to that, I never have the patience to wait for my contributor's copies so I always buy a copy at the newsstand and simple math tells you I currently have 4 copies of the Winter issue. I've promised one to my lovely neighbor who is an avid sewer in her own right and, of course, I need one for myself, but that leaves two copies that I could give away. And who better to give them away to than you? But, I'm going to want more than just a plain, old comment. I want you to tell me what you'd like to sew this year. It doesn't have to be something you've never tried before or something for yourself, but it does have to answer the question, " What are you planning to sew?" No need for a topic sentence and three body paragraphs, a simple short answer will suffice. 

Good luck!

Wrandom Wednesday

Yes, I know the word random doesn't start with a W, but I was wanting a little faux alliteration today so I added the W. Also, I know that alliteration means the words should sound the same at the beginning, but I'm calling this faux visual alliteration, so work with me.
Mostly, today's post is random or wrandom, whichever works.
I thought I'd start with happenings of the past and move to plans for the future. A little organization to the randomness, huh?
This past week saw two somewhat new items exiting my shop. Well, one really new one and one that I just hadn't made in a long time.

 A sweet customer asked me to make her a little pillow with my squiggles fabric.

I saw it as an opportunity to go knuts with machine quilting.

Someone else put in a request for this baby quilt:

 I'd made quite a few of these in the past, but now only make them as custom orders. The top is part of an IKEA duvet cover. It's recently been discontinued, but, needless to say, I  purchased a few of these when they were available.

Another bit of wrandomness that appeared in my inbox yesterday was this:

 Erin, customer and crafter extraordinaire, emailed this picture of her latest sewing creation. She made it with a combination of commercial prints and solids as well as some she'd purchased from me, but, even better than that, the pillow features Erin's first ever zipper. She mentioned that she followed the directions in Fresh Quilting to add a zipper to her beautiful pillow and has since made several more. As sappy as this may sound, I so love seeing the things folks make either from patterns I've written or with the fabric I dye. It really completes the circle for me. So, keep it up people.

I'm needing to knit a hat by Sunday morning. Well, not needing to exactly, but really wanting to. Sunday morning I'm running my first-ever half marathon and, me being me, feel I must commemorate this event by making something. I made this hat a few weeks ago while my daughter was home from college, but ended up giving it to her to take back to Atlanta. I have yarn to make a second one, but am a little worried that I'll run out of time and have to wear, perish the thought, a store-bought hat. A hat is probably a necessity as word has it the temperature at start time will be in the mid-30's. I can't help but imagine myself running the race with my new hat on my head and my ipod tuned to Alison Weir's The Lady in the Tower. Last Sunday I ran 11 miles listening to that story and made it home just in time for Anne Boleyn's unfortunate beheading. I could purchase a new book to listen to during the race but I'm worried the other 5,000 plus people running it will distract me from the story, so it's best to stick to one I already know.

If you happen to have hat or race-day advice, by all means, let me know.

World Peace at Hand

Eureka! I have it. I think I know how to get everyone, and I mean everyone to get along. And, to prove my point, I'm going to try this experiment in my own home.
If you have the current issue of Stitch magazine then you've seen the feel good pillows I designed. If not, here they are:

I plan to use these for more than just cushioning my couch. They will be part of a grand experiment. In keeping with the scientific method, my hypothesis is that once placed in my living room these pillows will subliminally work their magic and put an end to bickering about borrowed clothes, arguments meant to hash out whose turn it is to wash the dishes, and all other sibling based disputes that I am expected to referee. These pillows will bring about the very virtues they extol.
If my experiment works I propose we, sewers of the world, set about making and placing similar pillows in our homes, the halls of Congress(really needed there), the UN, and anywhere else people feel the need to gripe at each other.
Who's with me?!

More WIPs than you can Shake a Stick at

You know what I love about working on commissioned projects, other than the getting paid to sew part? I love that the folks who ask me to make them a quilt don't care whether I talk about it or show off bits of it before their big reveal. There's none of this keeping a lid on things until I'm given the green light to show it off here. The green light is always on. That's the case with the work in progress I posted on Monday and that's the case today as well.

This soon-to-be twin sized quilt doesn't feature a new design, but it does have a new-to-me element. The customer that commissioned this quilt for her teenage boy came armed with 24 photos that she had transferred on to fabric. She wanted the improvisational squares design and asked that the photos be incorporated into the quilt.

 I have had so many "awww" moments looking through these photos. They span the boy's life from infancy to age 10 or so and include pictures of him and his folks, his pets and several adorable portraits like this one.

When I was first asked to make this quilt I didn't think it was exactly my style and I guess I'm still not completely convinced, but when I think about this quilt finished and laying on this boy's bed, I'm a bit swept away by how special it will be.
Another thing I've discovered in making this quilt is that its future specialness adds to my enjoyment in making it.  I always like the process of creating and oftentimes I create with an end recipient in mind, but these photos provide a more concrete sense of the end recipient and make the specialness of this quilt more tangible. It just goes to show you that sometimes when you take on a project that's not exactly your "thing", you just might find something new and wonderful.

Monday, Monday

Remember hearing The Mamas and the Papas sing that song? Yeah, neither do I. I wasn't even born yet. But it is Monday and I've listened to enough oldies stations to at least be familiar with that song, so there you have it.
What today's post may lack in pictures it more than makes up for in shameless self-promotion, but, before I get to that, I need to announce the winner of the fabric/pattern giveaway. I've always loved the way they announce the Olympic gold medal winners as "Your Olympic Champion", sort of like we can lay personal claim to this person. So, in keeping with that spirit, Your Giveaway Winner is...Ally!!

Ally commented:
Thanks for the giveaway! Love Solids and never have enough!

Congratulations Ally! Email me at malka@stitchindye.com and I'll see to it that your fabric, pattern, and gold medal arrive faster than Micheal Phelps can swim the 200 meter butterfly despite his goggles filling with water.
On to the self-promotion part of our show. The earlier radio reference was actually pretty apt because I'm going to be interviewed on the radio. Not exactly the radio, it's actually a live internet radio show called Creative Mojo with Mark Lipinski. The show happens every Wednesday at 3:00 EST and runs for two hours. My segment is scheduled for this Wednesday, January 19 from 4:28-4:40 EST. I've been told though that I'm supposed to be available via my phone line throughout the two hours, so I guess you shouldn't try to call me then. You can listen to the show live at Toginet Radio (www.Toginet.com) by clicking on the listen live button on the right-hand side of the page. Obviously, my appearance is supposed to promote my book and I would expect that the questions will be about sewing, quilts, fabric...all the things you and I love to chat about. The show does have a call-in component, so I would love to hear from one of my super-wonderful blog readers.
Also, I'm having another book event this Saturday at a new local space, Walker Hall Design. This place is new to Austin, but has features carries some beautiful fabrics as well as amazingly crafted home furnishings and home decor items, many by local artists. The signing is at 2:00 and I'd love to see you there. The store is located in the wee little shopping center behind the Tavern on Lamar. Remember, the Tavern is air conditioned (local joke, don't fret if you don't get it).
Due to personal prohibition #1,362,175, I cannot press publish without some kind of visual, so here's one of my current WIPs:

 A soon-to-be twin sized Twinkle Quilt