To Market!

Seriously? It's been almost a month, which is ridiculous because I have had a million things I've wanted to blog about, but also a million things to keep me from blogging. Husband recovered from tonsillectomy very successfully, the doctor stating that it was probably because his body was SO HAPPY to get rid of the things, because his tonsils were diseased. Who knew? (Not us.) Have I ruined your lunch? Sorry...

But I have been getting ready for MANY THINGS, one of which is almost here! Spring Quilt Market just happens to be in Kansas City this year, and like, 7 minutes from my house. It's pretty awesome. So I've spent a lot of time gearing up for that, and am planning to send out lo-fi dispatches, semi-live!

Semi-live? What a weird-looking fake word. What I am trying to say is that I will probably do a lot of instagramming, and post fabricky goodness to the Aunt June facebook page of here on the blog. Because I am lazy, and because it is quicker, and because I do not want to spend most of Market looking at my phone, which, who am I kidding, I probably will do anyway. My shameful and corrupt generation, that is how we roll.

Instagram, by the way, is one of my favorite things in the world, despite its being owned by the Devil Facebook, which I also use regularly. Social media is a strange thing... it's mind-junk Twinkies. I like it, and I think it's ok to have some every now and then, but I know that it really isn't great for me. Which, all of this is a very bad follow-up to "Hey, I will have good stuff on my Facebook page!", but whatevs. I will continue to have brain Twinkies. Instagram is superior because it is prettier, essentially a lo-fi love child of Flickr and twitter. I use it mostly for pictures of my cat.

In summation: 1) Social media, it might be evil? 2) But let's use it anyway! 3) I have a cat!

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/auntjune.etsy

Instagram: lauren_hunt or http://followgram.me/lauren_hunt/

XOXO,

Abe

 

Mug Rugging. (And My Nursing Career.)

No one has ever, ever, ever said to me that I should be a nurse. When I was younger, my father had this insane idea that I would be an ophthalmologist, I guess the reasoning being that surely people who have eye surgery will grow up up wanting to inflict it on other people? I don't know. In any case, but it became clear pretty quickly that it was nevahevahgonnahappen, firstly because I am a FAINTER; secondly because I am not the type-A, competitive-studying, workaholic that it requires; and thirdly, because I am not what you would call nurturing. I am not UN-nurturing, and I don't lack empathy, but it's just not a trait that I ever really display. (At some point, my father started hoping I would become a lawyer. Poor guy. Eventually he'll get used to the fact that the golf-course retirement I promised him when I was five is probably never going to materialize.)

WHAT is the point of this, you might ask? Well, friends, this week I am playing nurse. My poor husband had a tonsillectomy/UPPP (because apparently he has giant freak-tonsils), and this equals a long, miserable, painful recovery. So my duty as wifey, which I gladly accept, is to be nurse-y. My job mostly consists of refilling the humidifier, administering pain meds in magic-red-liquid-form, pushing apple juice and jello, and attempting to come up with remotely tasty, non-acidic, non-sticky preparations of mushy ramen. I am honestly not-sucking at it, I think. I would say that perhaps my inner-nurse has come out of its dormant phase, but just the thought of actually looking at the healing tonsil-scars makes me pukish, so probably not.

But I digress. Or, am I disqualified from having digressed, because I was never on topic in the first place? Wow, I'm digressing again. Or for the first time. STOPIT.

Mug Rugs! KCMQG had a mug rug swap, and I didn't plan on doing it, because to me swaps = PRESSURE, but then I got my fabulous new feet, and I wanted to play around more with free-motion. So I made one in about an hour, and it was deeply satisfying though definitely not perfect.

I improvised. I am not a big improviser (to my shame!), but I did it. Woot.

And I haven't taken a picture of it yet, but I received an amazing mug rug that was PERFECT for me, because it is a rainbow. I looooove rainbows. If you know me, you know this. Left to my own devices with unlimited time, I would probably arrange everything I own in color order. H'Anyways, I'll take a picture of her Mug Rug later, if I don't forget. If I do, I'm sorry; it's my nature.

Feet Don't Fail Me Now!

So, you know when people find awesome stuff at estate sales/thrift stores/garage sales, and they tell you about it, and they're very apologetic that it wasn't you but also kinda smug because it WAS them? I hate that. And now I'm going to do it. Soooooreeeeeeeeeeeey.

I don't go to a lot of estate sales, because I am both poor and lazy and hate to leave the house. Hermit! But I do like to cruise craigslist for good ones, and my favorite search terms are vintage, fabric, and Bernina. So when a listing pops up with all of these delightful terms, and happens to be conveniently located and scheduled, I just can't keep myself away. This sale had all of these things, and so not only did I drag my lazy-poor-hermit self out of the house, but I showed up at the sale WHEN IT OPENED, and WAITED IN LINE and ALMOST DIED FROM THE MOBBING. That last one might be an exaggeration, but I did get jostled by some potentially unsavory characters and experienced a marked rise in my blood pressure. So.

And it was rewarded, but not how I expected. I was anticipating mad stacks of vintage fabrics, and hoping to find a decently priced a sewing machine for a friend of mine. Thumbs down for both of those, but perusing the button/notions/junk table, I found a small tin box full of SOLID GOLD. And by that, I mean brand new, in-box, old style Bernina sewing machine feet. $5 each. And a ruffler. $15. WHAT.

For the gathering! (Not the Magic kind.)

And I had been wanting a #38 for a while, (since Jaime discussed different feet on her blog last August), but the others were not feet that I would have really thought much about. But, dude. When you put on a new foot, it's kinda like, oooh, what does it doooo? And then, when it does the thing that it's made to do, it changes to Looookie!! Look what I can DOOOO!! And a mazillion new projects pop into your head, because think of how much EASIER they will be now, and how AMAZING they would look with pintucks or ruffles or piping! It's intoxicating, the new-foot-feeling-of power. 

For the pintucking!

Oh! The ruffling!

If you had asked me a few weeks ago if I wanted a ruffler, I would have said, Eh. And I almost didn't buy it, because I am not the ruffle type. But I did, because I knew it was a good deal, and who knows? It turns out, I LOVE RUFFLES. I am a ruffle-holic. I want to ruffle everything. It is tricky to put on, and it makes a horrible sound, and it is really quite menacing when it's doin' it's thang-- but it makes these amazing, tiny, perfect ruffles. I could make them all day long. I'm open to suggestions of things to make that consist almost entirely of ruffles.

For making the piping!

For the free-motioning!

And, ok, the open-toed free motion foot? Incredible. If you do free motion, and you have a closed-toe foot, try one of these things. I have never been very good at free motion, but I spent an hour just practicing on the night I first tried it. And the quarter-inch foot! Ack! I knew they weren't perfect, but never realized EXACTLY how NOT quarter-inch my seams were until now. They were VERY NOT.  Which, whatever, but now, they ARE (ish).

Also, there were little scissors and tweezers and some vaguely surgical-looking things that I don't know the names of, taped together in bundles of $3 and $4. I can pull so many tiny things through so many tiny spaces now, you don't even know.

I picked up a few more goodies, but they'll have to wait for later posts. This post has already reached blogger's gloating-limit. Leave your own awesome-thrift-find story in the comments, and I promise to feel jealous and secretly resent you when I read it.

Sign Language By The Yard.

Heya. What is this, like, three whole posts in two weeks? Ding ding ding! It's a record! A sad, sad, sad record!

 I'mma be brief though- I just wanted to stop by and let you know that I have the ASL Alphabet fabric available as yardage. It's printed by Spoonflower, like my other digitally printed fabrics, on silky, luscious, Kona cotton. I'm selling it by the yard only, since smaller quantities are available in the screenprinted version.

Some of you might notice (but probably not, actually), that I have finally gotten a NEW PROP. That's right, scissors, you have been temporarily replaced! Measuring tape RULES THE DAY! (It's made by Bohn, and it's the best measuring tape ever. Just trust me.)

There are eight colors available for your consideration: Olive Green, Tangerine, Red Orange, Eggplant, Sea Blue, Turquoise, and Dark Charcoal. The pictures are obviously not in order. And I don't know why I capitalized the color names, but I'm too lazy to go back and undo it. Worst. Blogger. Ever.

Fabric in zee etsy shop. Linkage!

It is SO PRETTY in Kansas City right now, people. It is DISTRACTING, and awesome.

(Just kidding, scissors. I could never live without you.)

Winner! Other Stuff!

(The following photo is totally irrelevant to this post. But I love it. And I never talk about happy little woodchuck, but he deserves his day in the sun. )

Ok, really, your haikus were awesome. And I should have mentioned, probably, that I was going to draw randomly and it was not a poetry-dance-battle... so hopefully the fierce competition didn't keep anyone from entering. In any case, the random number picker has spoken, and it doth declare that the winner is...

Abby, of the delightful blog Orange Peel! Who write this lovely little ditty:

(Can a haiku be called a ditty? Is that the way ditty is spelled? The world is indeed full of mysteries.)

So! Thank you all for entering, I wish I could send you all the things, but I do not have that many pouches. And, speaking of pouches, I made another one from Jeni's awesome pattern, and wrote about it over here on Bon Bon Atelier's blog. I made some minor additions to the pattern, so check it out if you're so inclined- they really are fabulous and quick-ish little things to make.

Also, I have been On The Internest! I am calling it the internest from now on, because I like it, and because isn't it TIME for another ridiculous thing to call it? Do you guys remember when we all called it the World Wide Web? Which, I guess we still do, in URL form, but we said ALL THOSE WORDS to describe it, all the time. No longer: it is now the internest, to me anyways.

Wait, I was talking about something? Yes, I was tooting my proverbial horn. Sorry. I was on True Up, which is awesome because I love Kim and I love True Up. Here on the Visual English Alphabet, and here, on the custom fabric, including the Theo pattern. Also, Jennifer of Secondhand Dinosaur did a mention of my ASL fabric, as well as Samarra Khaja's. (Which, ok, when her fabric came out several months ago, I was all, DRAT, I am TOO LATE! But then I decided not to trash all of my sad little hands, and went ahead with it. The world can hold approximately 50,000 cat fabrics, it can handle 2 ASL prints.) And Ara Jane, of you know what I love? posted some lovely photos of the fabric, as well as the fabric that her adorable daughter Ingrid inspired.

Also, can we talk about how happy this makes me? Someday I hope to see my name on selvedge, but it is just as satisfying to have my name be a tag on True Up.

OK! I am done showboating. But thanks for listening, and for haikuing, and for generally being awesome people. Your hair looks nice today, did you get it cut?

Yes, I Am Very Very Late. But I'm Gonna Give You Stuff, Maybe.

I am lame and sometimes disappear, but this time I come back bearing gifts. So, I said I was going to do a giveaway, and then SOMEHOW the prize did not make itself (lame!), and SOMEHOW the photos did not take themselves (double lame!), and SOMEHOW I did not write the post. It's all very unfortunate.

But the time has come, and I have THINGS for you to WIN! In honor of having 1000+ etsy sales*, I am giving away this little drawstring pouch, made with my new ASL fabric, and it comes with a delightful stash of  Aunt June scraps to boot! (I love saying "to boot". So Canadian, so hilarious. Eh?)

I made the pouch from this AMAZING tutorial written by Jeni of In Color Order. I've made four of them already, that is how delightful they are to make- super sturdy and really satisfying to pull closed- unlike most drawstring bags, they actually STAY tightly closed without having to tie any knots!

Anywayyyyyys, This IS a giveaway post, so I suppose I should tell you how you can win Zee Prize... To continue my tradition of ridiculous entry requirements, leave a comment on this post in the form of a haiku. It's WAY easier than limericks, and you really put out some fabulous limericks in the last giveaway. If you need a refresher, a haiku is a traditional Japanese poem that consists of 17 syllables, in three lines that follow the pattern of 5 syllables, 7 syllables, and 5 syllables again. Sometimes they're very deep and meaningful, but usually not when I write them. (When I write them, they tend to be about things like farts. I am classy.)


So! Haiku onward! I shall draw the winner on Monday, and contact them via email. In order to allow me to do this, PLEASE make sure that your email is entered in when you make a comment, otherwise I get a no-reply email address, which makes me sad, and you sad, and the world cries. SO, in your blogger account, go to your dashboard> edit profile> and click "show my email address". The world sighs in relief!


*By the way, do not be very impressed by this. Most of the sales are from the calendar, which, while I love it dearly, makes approximately $3.25 per sale. Which is AWESOME, and I am super fortunate for all the sales, but to be sure: I am not rolling about in my giant pile of etsy moneys. Do not be impressed.

New Fabric, What? The Visual English Alphabet.

Ok, so this fabric has been in the works forrrrrrrEVER. Gestation period of an elephant, folks. Back story, commence!

When I was a kid, I saved up for months to buy an ASL (American Sign Language) Dictionary. I had this idea that I would buy it, become fluent, and be super-awesome. I had a lot of these scenarios in my head when I was a kid, and I don't know where some of them came from. Weaving Kente-cloth! Making pottery out of mud! Learning Egyptian hieroglyphs! I was weird and dorky, and spent a lot of time alone in my room, none of which I regret.

But, back to the story- I learned to fingerspell, (or the ASL alphabet, or Visual English) and would do it when I got bored, secretly spelling the words  being spoken to me as fast as I could. I'm sure I was sloppy, and most likely wrong, but as it was never actually used as communication, it didn't make much of a difference.

As far as signing actual words, though, I didn't get very far. Firstly because I am INFINITELY better at starting things than following through with them, and secondly because I didn't actually know anyone who used ASL. Learning a language is difficult enough, but becomes exponentially more so when you only have yourself to "talk" to. Muscle memory (like they say, riding a bike), is powerful, though- so the alphabet stuck with me.

So over a year ago, I drew out this ASL alphabet, scanned it, and then abandoned it. I was working other more "pressing" designs, and so it sat. But when I decided to have some fabric screenprinted for the etsy shop, I knew that this was the design to start with. I love the many different hands, the subtlety and gracefulness of the gestures and how they play together. They communicate; they are a sign, they point to meaning. (But they don't spell anything. I checked: gotta be careful with random letter placement.

 So here it is, my first foray into the world of screenprinted textiles! I'm kinda partial to them, so I hope you dig them, too. Info, including size and care instructions is located on the etsy listings. Six colors are available, though the supply of some colors is fast dwindling. The prints were hand screenprinted right here in scenic Kansas City by Printosaurus, fine folks as well as fine printers. Check 'em out.

Red Orange

Orange

Yellow

Pea Green

Blue

Slate

And in other news, I am currently sitting at 999 etsy sales, which means it smells like giveaway time. The 1000th (non-calendar) customer will be getting a little something extra, and tomorrow (or thereabouts) I'll be giving away a cute little something I've whipped up here on ye olde blogge! (Yeah, that's how medieval villagers spelled blog. I dare you to find evidence to prove me wrong.)