Back from vacation, full of yarn

Sorry for the lag in posts a week ago, but I was away on a short vacation to scenic Blacksburg, Virginia. My husband and I both graduated from Virginia Tech, and he was going to be in that general area on business anyway, so it seemed like a good time to introduce Lazy Kid to the college she will be attending (in 15 years).

It was a good trip, full of hiking and eating and swimming in the hotel pool. And no trip to Blacksburg would be complete without a trip to Mosaic.

After a (blissfully child-free) hour of cogitating over which colorways would work best for my projects, I came away with two yummy yarns:

First up, Ty-Dy 100% cotton from Knit One Crochet Too, in color 795. As you can see, this sucker hit the needles fast - before I even was finished with my current sweater project - and after three failed attempts at getting the gauge right, I think I'm pretty close now. It's about the same thickness as kitchen cotton, but it's the caviar version - so soft and drapey it will probably bag out as badly as the bamboo version I made of the same sweater. This is being used to make the "ballet" sweater from the July 2006 issue of Magknits (which is kinda beside the point since Magknits went kaput and took their archives with them). Luckily, the designer has made it available elsewhere, so you can find it here.

Exhibit B: Ranco Multy in Color 314 from Araucania Yarns (75/25 wool/polyamide). Check out the link for a much better photo of the colors ... it's much prettier in person than in my badly-lit kitchen. Once I invest in a ball winder these babies are going to turn into the Clover Lace Wrap from Stitch N Bitch Nation (link to the picture on Ravelry here). Good thing I was looking up a link for that ... found the errata page with some major sleeve renovations ... it would have sucked to find that out after I had already turned out Gorilla Sleeves (or Pygmy Sleeves).

And that current sweater project? "Jessica" designed by Jennifer Thurston. It will be done tonight, as I only have one sleeve left to sew in, if I ever get off the darn computer and start sewing.

Guess that's my exit line :)

Sand Art for Small People

We picked up some sand art kits from the $1 bins at the front of Target a few weeks ago, and they've been a big hit ... except that it takes me longer to peel off all the stickers than it does for Lazy Kid to pile obscene quantities of sand on the resulting sticky patches. And she gets frustrated when the color doesn't go in the tiny little spots she's targeting ... which is why I came up with my own version of sand art that's easier for small kids to handle.

Safety warning: This project isn't for kids who still put stuff in their mouths all the time, unless you REALLY want to be cleaning multi-colored sand-filled poop up for several days. And you don't, trust me.

Materials:
Contact paper (clear or colored)
Colored sand
Optional: scissors and paper, or photos cut from magazines, or other flat stuff to stick down
Outside area to work that you don't mind having covered in sand

Technique:

Cut Contact paper to be about the size of a sheet of printer paper. Peel backing off to expose the sticky side, then tape it securely sticky-side up to a table or work surface. I found it was easiest to use one of my trusty craft trays for this (makes it easier to pick up and knock off the excess sand at the end).

Stick down any paper or other flat things you want to use. If you want to mimic a "real" sand art page, cut shapes out of construction paper and then cut inside them to form just the frame of the shape, so that the child can sprinkle sand inside the outline. Or just stick down pictures, or sequins, or glitter, or random sticks that blow onto the sheet from the windstorm that has kicked up since you started the craft.

Let child apply sand to the sticky parts of the Contact paper.

We still had the sand in the little bags it came in, so I just cut the corner off the bag and let her pour it and spread it out with her fingers.
You could also put it in small bowls and let them use spoons or their fingers to sprinkle it on the paper. You can get really creative with this - put their hand down and sprinkle around it to make a handprint, then fill it in with a different color; trace letters or pictures you slide underneath the clear Contact paper; etc.

When you've finished all the sand stuff, pick up the paper and knock off the excess (and trust me, there WILL be excess). We did this by just picking up the whole tray so I didn't have to deal with floppy sticky sandy Contact paper much.

If you want to preserve the sand art (i.e. not have it dribble sand all over your kitchen floor for the next three weeks), stick a piece of clear Contact paper on the art so the sand is sandwiched between the sheets. If you want, cut the outside of the sheets to be even, or into a shape, but remember - the sand is going to REALLY dull the scissors fast, so don't use your good sewing scissors for this!

If you used clear Contact paper for both sheets, you can hang the art in the window as a suncatcher. Otherwise, it looks great on the refrigerator, or as a small placemat for snacks, etc.

Hope you have fun with this project! Now, let's just hope I can find a cheap source for more sand, because we're going through it at a fast clip around here ...

A cautionary tale

Once upon a time (Tuesday) I bought one of those squishy U-shaped neck pillows for my daughter to use with her new carseat, which otherwise seemed to propel her sleeping head forward at a dangerously lolling angle that looked worrisome (and uncomfortable). But when we got the pillow home and tried it out, it was way to overstuffed to work around her little nubbin of a neck.

"Not a problem!" I thought, getting out the seam ripper. "I'll just take out some of the beads and redistribute the rest of them so it's more comfortable for her."

The seam ripper was, of course, in my sewing room, so I sat down and started working on the project. I had a plastic bag all ready to catch the beads, and the three-year-old was safely engaged in some diverting activity far, far away. I had forgotten how much fun it is to work with polystyrene beads ... and these were literally the size of pinheads, they were that small. I should know, since they're now spread all over my studio. See that stuff on my jeans? It's not dandruff. Thank you, ceiling fan.

Thank you, static electricity.

(Hee - that looks like my hand is being swarmed by albino aphids)

Thank you, Lazy Kid, for the photos, especially the action shot of me attempting to milk the little monsters out of the nipple that was obviously their entry point during the original construction process. If anyone needs any help milking nanny goats or heifers, let me know - I had an hour of practice this afternoon.

Eventually I wised up and took the project out onto the front porch, where I ended up spreading beads all over the porch, sidewalk, and flower bed. I'm going to be vacuuming the little buggers out of my house for months. Grrrrr. At least the significantly smaller pillow works - that would have been the kicker if I went through all that and it still didn't work. Now I just have to find a place to store the beads where Certain People can't find them or reach them.

Note to self: All projects involving fake fur and/or polystyrene beads must be completed outside the house, preferably outside the county.

And now for something a little different

This is what the mindless stitching turned into - a set of four framed mini quilts, one for each season. My favorite is fall:

Now available in my etsy shop - get 'em while they're hot!

I don't think I ever showed you how this turned out

Remember the matchy-matchy borders I previewed for you a few weeks ago? Well, that was the MoYo Throw prototype. I've sold the quilt already, but I had the presence of mind to snap a couple photos before it headed home on the plane with my mother-in-law:

I really love how this one turned out. This was a project where the dimensions were fudged to match the amount of fabric available, the yo-yos were cut using my Corelle dinner plates as templates, and the fact that the border ended up presentable was a freakin' miracle, as I totally didn't measure it before I started. So basically I did everything wrong, and it still looked good. Behold the power of the yellow/blue/white combination!

Trivia: The original title for this design was "Puckered Plates" because I thought the blue/white yo-yos looked like porcelain and I used my dinner plates as the templates for them. I still like the name, even if I like "MoYo Throw" better ;)

Come, learn from me!

I'm now officially in the Birds of a Feather online catalog:

http://www.datasponsor.com/boaf/classes.htm

Boy, do I feel better about my stash now!

http://www.yarnharlot.ca/blog/archives/2008/05/23/stash_toss.html

WIP Monday

So, what are they? Not telling yet ... but I will give you a hint. The next step involves a hammer and an awl. Any time I get to whack holes in stuff with pointy tools, I'm a happy, happy girl.

Genius at work

Proof that my daughter can now draw almost as well as I can ... and she's three.

Not bad for her first attempt at drawing a person, huh? I love the feet - they crack me up. Now, just wait until you see what I have planned for Lazy Kid's first portrait masterpiece ...

Buy me!

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=11896591

Awwww...

Lazy Kid shows off some of the results of our craft binge:

The individual-sized-cereal-box puppet, which is significantly more complicated than the construction paper ones that inspired it (find them in Incredibly Awesome Crafts for Kids by Better Homes and Gardens). We added a polar fleece sleeve to make this look more like the "alligator" it's supposed to be ... the hot pink fleece Lazy Kid picked out kinda takes away from the effect, doesn't it?

Next up: Using glitter glue to make prints for birthday thank you cards.

This was supposed to be "use glitter glue to make pictures on craft foam," but Lazy Kid prefers to make huge blobs of color, and I thought those would take forever to dry. So we pressed pieces of paper onto the craft foam and made prints from the blobs, like these:

We got about four prints from each set of glue blobs, and the remaining glue washed off of the craft foam really easily so we can use the foam again next time. We got a couple extra prints by pressing paper onto the first (somewhat globby) print from each series.

Still in process: Salt clay figures, most of which are painted a hideous Pepto-Bismal pink. Yum.

Keeping the kiddy crafts corralled

Lazy Mama HQ was Kid Craft Central yesterday, with no fewer than three ridiculously involved craft projects begun and sorta finished. Go, us!

While we were in the thick of it, it occurred to me that my method of keeping the kid craft projects corralled might be of interest to my readers, some of whom might not have come up with it on their own. Our house is somewhat small, you see, and while we managed to find a small closet to house all the kid craft supplies, Lazy Kid doesn't have a dedicated craft table or anything like that. Instead, she's got sort of a corner of our kitchen counter, and for larger projects we spread out on the dining room table. So being able to keep the craft surfaces clean - and pick them up quickly when we're done - is important to my sanity.

Enter the plastic serving tray. We bought several of these from Target a few years ago, originally as a way to contain the cat food that our messy eaters nudge out of their bowl when they're famished. Then the trays got cleaned up and actually were used as serving trays when we ate out on our patio. And now they've been drafted into duty as craft stations, keeping crayons from rolling off the table, paints from staining the tablecloth, and cotton balls from blowing all over the house when the door opens.

They wipe clean easily, and best of all, when I need room on the dining room table or kitchen counter, I just pitch all the craft supplies onto the tray and throw the whole thing back in the closet. Cleanup doesn't get much easier than that, unless you count the old "fingerpaint in the bathtub and hose the kid down afterward" trick.

So if you're doing kid crafts, keep your eyes on the clearance rack at Target - they change plasticware designs every month or two, and when they do, you can get one of the older designs at a significant discount.

Class - MoYo Throw, June 22 and 29 2008

The lovely folks at Birds of a Feather in Avon, Ohio, have graciously invited me to teach a class based on my MoYo Throw pattern. In case you've been living under a rock this week, the MoYo Throw features yo-yos that are almost 5" across, made from fabric from the Benartex line "Gilded Opulence." I am in love with that fabric, and I think you will be too when you see it in real life.

I'll be covering the whole quilt from start to finish - the only out-of-class work will be the initial cutting and maybe some of the hand-gathering on the yo-yos. It should be a lot of fun, and the quilts should be showstoppers when we're done.

Liz is selling kits for the project in two different color ways - one lime/fuschia like my sample, the other a more muted one based on the red/gold colorway for the yo-yos. Kits are available either as part of the class, or separately if you don't feel like being social while you work on the project. I understand. Just remember, though - where I go, chocolate follows, so you might want to think about that class after all :)

Anyhow, if you're in the area and interested, I'll be teaching the 2-session class on June 22 and June 29 from 1-3pm each day. Contact Birds of a Feather at 440-934-2374 to register or to order a kit.

Hope to see you there!

MoYo Throw Pattern Page

MoYo Throw Pattern

What do you call yo-yos that are almost 5" across? Mo-Yos! They're "mo" simple, "mo" fun, "mo" quick, and "mo" stunning than any yo-yos you've ever seen. What a great way to showcase a couple cool fabrics (or make a unique gift in record time!).

Approximate finished dimensions: 40"x50"

A person with average sewing skills should be able to finish the machine sewing in about two naptimes (4 hours). This project requires several hours of additional time for handsewing, but this time can be squeezed in whenever you have a few minutes.

Photos from the pattern directions:

Closeup of the yo-yo

Sewing the yo-yos before gathering them:

Pattern includes illustrated directions and suggestions for additional variations on the project. It is packaged in a resealable plastic bag (6"x9"), ready to hang and sell.

Wholesale price: $4.00/pattern
Suggested retail price: $7-$9, or whatever the market will bear in your area

Free shipping on your first order! Shipping charges for subsequent orders will be the actual charges for USPS Priority Mail to your destination.

I am willing to make free samples to display in your shop, if you are willing to provide the materials. Please contact me for more information on this service.

For more information or to place an order, please contact Gretchen Woods at Lazy Mama Designs: lazymamadesigns (at) yahoo (dot) com.

NEW!! You can also place orders through my shop at etsy.com - just convo me with a request, including the number of patterns you'd like to buy, and I can post a custom listing for you at the wholesale price.

Thank you for your interest, and I hope to hear from you soon!

Teaching a young child to sew

Yeah, okay, maybe I'm a little ambitious here, but Lazy Kid has mad skillz when it comes to small motor play, and she's bored with sticking laces through beads, and the laces on her lacing cards are so long they get tangled or so short she pulls them all the way through each hole. Plus, she just sort of laces the cards in a random order from random directions, so they don't look like anything when she's done. She gets really frustrated when she ends up with this tangled ball of nasty yarn with a cute cow lacing card buried in the middle. So what's a crafty mommy to do? Get all DIY with the problem, that's what.

And so, I proudly present a free tutorial on making your own learn-to-sew card for really young kids. Please note that this is a supervised activity - young children should NEVER be left alone with needles, even blunt plastic ones.

Materials:

• A piece of cardboard (preferably corrugated, but definitely sturdy) about the size of a sheet of notebook paper
• A pair of scissors sturdy enough to cut through the cardboard
• A hole punch sturdy enough to cut through the cardboard (mine's a cheapy from Office Max, and it worked fine)
• A marker/pen/pencil/crayon
• A scrap of yarn about 2 feet long
• A button that's larger than the holes the hole punch makes and that has holes large enough for the yarn needle to go through
• A BLUNT tapestry needle, yarn needle or plastic canvas needle - preferably plastic

Steps:

1. Punch a series of holes along one side of the cardboard, about 2" apart and as far in from the edge as the hole punch will go. Label the holes with numbers, either from left to right or right to left.
2. Cut two smaller pieces of cardboard, each about 3-4" square. Punch two holes in each piece of cardboard, at approximately the same distance you used in step 1. Label these holes with two consecutive numbers, as in the photo below.
3. Thread the yarn scrap through the needle, then even up the ends and tie them so that the needle will not come loose from the yarn. Thread the needle and yarn through one hole on the button, pulling the knot snug against the button. This will keep the child from pulling the thread all the way through the holes.
4. First show the child how to sew on just the larger piece of cardboard, with the needle coming "up at 1" and "down at 2" and "up at 3" and so forth across the piece.
5. Next, show the child how to "unsew" the yarn by backing the needle out through the holes, "down through 3" "up through 2" "down through 1" etc.
6. Finally, show the child how to "sew" the smaller cardboard pieces onto the larger piece by holding them over top while sewing. You may need to make the holes in the smaller pieces a little larger (two hole punches side by side) so the child can easily see to put the needle through both holes at once.

Lazy Kid "sewed" the cards in the photo above with only minimal guidance from me - mostly I just had to remind her that the needle didn't always go in from the same side of the board (which wraps the yarn around the edge of the card instead of making a nice running stitch).

After she completed this she wanted nothing more to do with it that day, and the next day she just wanted to hold the needle and swing the yarn around, which was all fun and games until the button on the other end of the yarn hit her in the face (which is why you NEVER leave a child alone with a needle - did I mention that before?).

So no, my three-year-old won't be entering any embroidery at the state fair this year, but she DID have fun with this the first time, and I think it will be popular in the future once she gets over the button-to-the-face incident. And once she gets good with the cardboard, it's on to more floppy materials like felt (and quilting cotton!).

Let me know how this works for you!

Looky where you can find me now!

http://ecraftclass.com/about/quilting/

more on this later ... it's way too late to be blogging right now. And yet here I am - it's a sickness, I tell you, a sickness.

What's on the way?

Giant (almost 5" across!) yo-yos, fussy cut from "Gilded Opulence" by Paula Nadelstern for Benartex. Thanks to Birds of a Feather for providing the fabric - you ladies rock!

I'm calling these giants "mo-yos." snort So fun, so easy, so cute when they're done!

The sample quilt is complete, and the pattern should be ready to release early this week. And I'll be teaching a class based on this pattern at Birds of a Feather in June, so check back soon for dates and times if you're in the area.

Look, someone actually made my yo-yos!

Thanks to the anonymous block of the month participant who allowed me to photograph her beautiful block, which features pansies made using my yo-yo technique. Huzzah!

Sign that it's time to go buy more $0.10 stamps:

Yup, that looks professional.

How I'm milking the system for all it's worth

Yesterday I put into place the first part of my plan to mooch as much free cash out of my purchases as I can. It was easy - I went to the grocery store and bought a combined $100 in gift cards to other stores where I was planning to shop.

My grocery store shopper's club keeps track of your purchases, and every $50 you spend gets you $0.10 off per gallon of gas at their stations. Given how expensive groceries are now, it doesn't take much to whack quite a bit off the price of a fill-up ... especially since the gift cards count as double points toward my gas discount. So $100 = $0.80 off per gallon, which if I wait until I'm on fumes and almost fill my gas tank translates to as much as $12.

And I paid for the cards with a credit card that gives me cash back on my purchases ... where I earn twice as much for grocery purchases. That means I earned about $2 from the credit card company.

And when I made my purchases today, anything in excess of the amount of cards I purchased went onto the same credit card, which is the one linked to my UPromise account. I earn UPromise money at Bed Bath and Beyond for any purchases made with that credit card, so that's another $1 or so. And I get the cash back on the credit card purchase, too, which is another $1 or so.

So basically it boils down to this: Buying the gift cards at the grocery instead of just paying with the credit card at the store earned me up to an extra $13, in addition to the $3 I would have earned if I just used the credit card linked to the UPromise account. Not too shabby, considering I was at the grocery store anyway, and I was going to buy the same stuff at the same stores whether I had gift cards or not.

Now, I know why the companies offer their cards for sale at the grocery. They're hoping that if you spend $25 on a gift card from Bath and Body Works, and your total comes to $22, you'll throw in an extra purchase so you won't have to carry around a piece of plastic that only has $3 left on it. If you buy one extra thing in addition to what you would have bought if you weren't using the gift card, they're making money off of you. But if you have the willpower (and purse space) to walk away from the extra purchases, gift cards that earn you extra grocery store credit can be a very deal.

Now I plan to go clean the store out of Home Depot cards so I can buy a new sink for our bathroom ... bwahahahahahahaha!

Porn for crafters

from http://www.filly.ca/blog/?p=144

Crafty birthday

LazyToddler is now officially LazyKid, having turned three years old earlier this week. We had the party today, complete with garden-themed birthday cake and food. I'm not usually a theme party kinda girl (last year she got cheap pizza and an ice cream cake, and the year before that we gave her a Kroger cupcake three days late), but I had fun this year. The cake was the best part ...

LazyKid helped make the "seed packets," and she helped mix the cake, but I decorated the whole thing after she went to bed so the final product would be a surprise. Decorating a cake after 10pm leads to flights of fancy that may include (but are not limited to) ...

... giant worms ...

... and bunny turds.

I was a little bit worried that the cake was going to be awful - I monkeyed around with the size of the pan so I'd have plenty of "garden" to decorate, and it took almost twice as long to bake as the original recipe suggested. I even had to wrap the edges of the pan in foil partway through to keep them from getting overcooked. That worked pretty well, actually, and the edge piece that I had was just as moist as the middle.

I was also a little bit concerned because I didn't notice until I was halfway done making the frosting that it never gets cooked or heated after the raw egg is added. But I solved that problem by feeding a healthy dose of extra frosting to LazyHusband last night and watching him carefully for signs of food poisoning. It's excusable to throw your spouse under the bus in an effort to keep kids from dying of salmonella, right?

All in all, it was a fun party, even if I didn't get to do some of the more elaborate things I had planned. I guess if I had gone all Martha Stewart on the decorations and games, my friends would have had to slap some sense into me, and that would have been unfortunate. So we'll just save the "pin the center on the flower" game we made for next year, and thank our lucky stars that the "toss the bunny in the rabbit hole" game never got finished.

And if there's any lingering doubt about my ability to give Martha a run for her money, you need look no further than my attempt at Ladybug Pizzas to see ... I'm not even in her league.

Who knew canned chopped olives looked so disgusting? Oh, well, at least they tasted better than they looked.

Out of retirement

I retired my large rotary cutting mat a few months ago when I switched to using a piece of antique furniture instead of my wobbly cutting table. Since then, it's been languishing in the attic ... until our friend forgot to bring his terrain maps when he came over to play Dungeons and Dragons minis with LazyHusband.
Yes, they were so desperate for "adult" game time that they made a war map out of a rotary cutting mat and some of LazyKid's blocks. I wish I had a photo of last weekend's Bristle Block cavern of doom, or whatever they were calling it.

In retrospect,

... maybe it was a bad idea to let LazyChild help pull out the stuffing I needed for a project for her birthday party this weekend.

Maybe this will finally push me over the edge and give me an excuse to buy a Dyson. Yeah, right.

aren't these cute?

They're from the same person who's custom-making table cards for my sister-in-law's wedding.

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=10742826

I might have to invest in these - surely I've got somebody I need to thank this much, right? (ahem, Kylie-Ann)

WIP Wednesday

I haven't decided what it's going to be when I'm done with the embroidery, but I'm having fun with the mindless follow-the-line stitching. Just what my brain needed this week!

snort - giggle

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=11164500

I swear, sometimes it's like my sense of humor got stuck in junior high.

More Burchy goodness

I'm still in destash mode around here, and the next project on my list was to use up more of the Laurel Burch flannel I had left over from a quilt I made before LazyToddler was born. I've finished the second tummy time activity quilt from the fabric, and I only had to use a little bit of the extra flannel I bought last weekend (I can't believe it's still available! Hooray for slow sellers and/or reprints!).

There's a good chance this one is already spoken for, as a friend recently lamented that the first quilt made from these fabrics had sold before she could snap it up. But if she changes her mind, it'll be in the etsy shop soon, along with a couple of other designs from coordinating fabrics. So keep your eyes peeled!

More gifts for the kiddo

LazyToddler's third birthday is looming on the horizon, which means I've been sneaking off to Toys R Us instead of crafting, and I've been spending waaaaay too much time browsing on etsy. I have to admit, etsy is a little short on non-clothing gifts for the toddler set - lots for babies, lots for older kids, not so much for those who are short on attention span and long on destruction. So with that in mind, I've been trying to find things I think she'll enjoy, at least until she breaks them into (hopefully) non-lethal pieces within 20 minutes of opening them.

Not really. I have found a few things that I think are age-appropriate and fun. In the order in which the packages made it to our door:

Pixie Dust star-shaped goat's milk soaps from abreathofFrenchair. These arrived super-fast, in great condition and in the cutest packaging I've seen yet. Yes, there really is that much pink packing paper in that adorable black-and-white box! I think LazyToddler is really going to enjoy using these in the bath, and the small size means that we won't be stuck using one yucky bar of soap for weeks and weeks. And she's going to smell yummy, just in time for the stinky sticky summer season. Bonus!

Handpainted ceramic pendant from LisaEverettDesigns. They're available in all of the colors shown above - I ordered the white one, figuring that it's likely to match more outfits that way. Of course, we're dealing with a three-year-old's sense of style, so that was probably unnecessary :) I'm going to pick up some ribbon to use to make the "chain" for it, which I'm hoping will prove more durable (or at least more easily replaced) than the regular link chain on some of her dearly departed jewelry. If this one works out well, I may pick up some of the artist's other paper-covered pendants for the kiddo or myself - but these looked more durable for now.

"Pink PJs" ribbon wand from (who else?) ribbonwand. I think this is soooo cute, with the stripes and the pinkness and all. I'm hoping that the "Brass swivel hardware to ensure ease of movement" will prevent some of the tangling problems we had with a stationary-mount silk streamer we got for Christmas last year. Plus, the stick is shorter, so it's less whackable than her current rain-stained, knotted, pathetic-looking one. I wasn't sure this would make it here in time for LazyToddler's birthday, since it was coming from Canada, and Canada Post is notoriously laconic when it comes to getting stuff to the lower 48. But it showed up today, a little more than a week after the order was placed, so, Go, Canada Post!

That's it, at least so far. I may keep trolling for a while to see if any t-shirts strike me as must-haves, even though LazyHusband will kill me if I bring one more item of clothing into her room. It's okay if she never wears anything more than twice, right? Back me up here, peeps!

The Goddess of Craft - she is a vengeful, spiteful thing

1. You are happy because you sold eight of your SWAK blankets in a week, so you bought a lot more fabric to make new ones for the shop? Okay, now you won't sell anything for three weeks. Bwahahahaha!
2. You have a deadline looming and a sample quilt to make? Okay, your stash no longer has three fabrics that coordinate. Bwahahahaha!
3. And you're out of chocolate! Bwahahahahaha!
4. And your toddler refuses to take naps! Bwahahahahaha!
5. You get up early to get some work done before your toddler awakes? Okay, now she'll get up at 6:40am, but only on days when you wake up early. On days when you sleep in, she'll sleep until 8:30am, thus depriving you of 90 minutes of time that could have been spent in the studio. Bwahahahahahaha!
6. Trying to entertain the kid for an hour while you get some work done? Okay, now the portable DVD player is broken ... but only when you try to use it in your studio. Anywhere else it works fine ... but all of the work you have to finish requires that you be in the studio. Bwahahahahahaha!
7. You have no deadline and a huge pile of scraps you're trying to use up? Okay, your stash is now chock full of fabrics that coordinate with the scrap blocks ... but you don't have enough yardage of any of them. Bwahahahahahaha!
8. Oh, and the cat puked on the pile of fabric you stored on the floor because you were too lazy to file it. Bwahahahaha!

Stay tuned - later this week I plan to slice off the end of my finger with a rotary cutter, then set my studio on fire with a shorted-out iron. And, if things go as planned, the kid will pee on a finished quilt that's ready to ship to a customer. Should be fun!

Oh, and Block of the Month folks:

Here's the recipe for the cookies I brought on Saturday:
http://www.cooks.com/rec/doc/0,173,144170-236207,00.html

Enjoy!

Ruffled Yo-Yo directions - as seen in Birds of a Feather April block of the month

Greetings, Block of the Month quilters! As promised, here are the directions for the ruffled yo-yos we used to decorate April's block of the month. Hope you enjoy making these as much as I do!

In all the photographs for the yo-yo construction, the lavender fabric is the “body” and the yellow fabric is the “contrast.”

For each ruffled yo-yo:
1. Using either scissors or pinking shears, cut a 5” circle of body fabric and place it face-up on your work surface. Now cut a 4 ½” circle of contrast fabric and place it face-up, centered on top of the body fabric.
2. Cut off an 18” piece of thread that coordinates with the body fabric and thread it through a handsewing needle. Knot the end several times so you’ve got a decent-sized knot.
3. With the pair of fabrics in front of you so that the contrast side is up, fold the closest edge of one yo-yo up toward the center of the circle – you should mostly see the body fabric. Push the needle through the body fabric and contrast fabric about ½” in from the edge of the larger fabric circle, pulling the knot snug against the body fabric.


4. Fold the edge of the fabrics toward you near where the thread comes through, forming a hem that is a little more than ½” wide on the largest circle. You only need to hold about a thumb’s width of the edge folded over at one time – if you try to fold too much, you’ll run out of fingers to hold it in place and the folds will end up straight instead of sort of curved.
5. To lock the knot in place, push the needle down through all four layers of fabric near the fold about 1/16” to the right of where the thread comes through the hem. Now push the needle back up through the hem and body, about 1/16” to the left of where the thread comes through. Pull the thread through so that there is no slack.

6. Hem the edge of the whole circle with a running stitch, making the stitches about ½” long and as close to the folded edge of the fabric as you can. The longer the stitch, the smaller the hole in the middle of the finished yo-yo. The fastest way to do this is to rock the needle up and down a few times, taking several stitches before you pull the thread through.



7. Leave the stitches loose so there’s plenty of room to work while you sew. When you make it all the way around the yo-yo, take one last stitch to the left of the original knot, then pull the thread tight to gather up the stitches in the center of the yo-yo.

8. Squish the yo-yo flat so the hole is in the center of a gathered circle and the ruffles are spaced evenly around the hole. Take a small stitch in the edge of one ruffle near where the thread is coming out from your last stitch, but don’t pull the thread taut yet. Now put the needle through the small loop of thread you’ve got left from your last stitch, and pull it taut to make a knot around the edge of the gather. Repeat this to make a second small knot.
9. Now push the needle through the hole to the inside of the yo-yo, feeding it along one ridge of a gather until the point comes out near the edge of the yo-yo. Pull the needle through and pull the thread snug. This should have buried the tail of the knot inside the yo-yo.
10. Knot the thread on the edge of the yo-yo by taking a tiny stitch and putting the needle through the loop formed by the stitch (as in step 8). Place the yo-yo in the desired location on the quilt block.

11. Take a tiny stitch into the surface of the quilt block and then back through the edge of the yo-yo, but do not pull it all the way taut yet. Push your needle through the small loop of thread you have left in the stitch and pull it taut to make a small knot.
12. Secure the yo-yo all the way around the edge at approximately ¼” intervals, using a whip stitch that catches the edge of the yo-yo and travels along the back of the quilt block from stitch to stitch. 13. When you reach the beginning of the stitching for the yo-yo, take another tiny stitch, pull your needle through the loop of thread, and pull it taut to make a small knot. Now feed the tip of the needle into the edge of the yo-yo, pushing it along the ridge of one gather until it emerges in the hole in the center of the yo-yo. Snip the thread near the center of the yo-yo.

Guess what

So guess what's printing, even as I type?

Despite a (temporarily) dead computer, a dead DVD player, and a toddler who's lucky to be alive after what all she pulled today, I finished the pattern for Saturday's trunk show! Four printed, twenty more to go. Come on, ink cartridge, don't fail me now!

New pattern will be available here and on my etsy shop Saturday evening ... gotta give the Birds of a Feather folks first dibs on it.

Well, fine. Be that way.

Dear LazyToddler:

Okay, fine, you're almost three. I get it. You don't want to nap, you want to stay awake and become increasingly cranky as the day wears on, finally dropping from sheer exhaustion around 7:30. That's fine with me, as it gives me time in the evening to spend with your father, time that can be spent completing sentences and not speaking in the third person or telling stories about a fairy named Liza.

But I need time to work on Lazy Mama stuff, and since you aren't taking a nap with any regularity anymore, I thought I'd be smart and get up an hour early to get work done before you wake up. You get up around 7:30 am most days, so I'd get up at 6:30 and get a whole mess of stuff done despite still being in my pajamas. And it worked great ... the first day.

But now you've decided to start waking up earlier and earlier, no matter what time we put you to bed. Yesterday I woke up at 6:40, and you were up at 6:49. That's not even enough time to pee and get the computer turned on and operational, much less make any significant progress on the pattern that I HAVE TO HAVE FINISHED BY FRIDAY NIGHT. And when my alarm went off at 6:30 this morning, you were already stirring and making up stories with your stuffed animals. I just gave up and laid in bed for an extra 15 minutes, reveling in the hard rock station you apparently tuned my radio to sometime yesterday. Nothing like "BBBBBBBBBBad to the Bone" to start your day off right, I always say.

So now you're at preschool, and I have one and a half glorious hours to finish this darn pattern ... only I don't feel like it. I feel like blogging about your annoying sleep patterns, and the deer tracks I found in the backyard, and the yummyness of the pork roast I made for dinner last night. Oh, I'm going to get around to the pattern - I always do - but I'm not happy about it.

So you'd better be ready to take a nap this afternoon, kiddo, so I don't have to pull out the Sesame Street video again (although you're getting ridiculously close to being able to read, thanks to the darn video, so it's not all bad to have a DVD player as a babysitter, right?). Because despite my name, Lazy Mama isn't feeling so lazy today.

Sincerely,

Mama, aka "George Gershwin" (don't ask, Internet, it's not my fault that she's decided I'm a character from a stupid bedtime story involving Rhapsody in Blue and a little fairy named Liza ... at least I'm not Herr Drosselmeyer anymore)

A whole new world ***

I've always made my first contact with potential customers for my patterns in person. That way I can schmooze and show samples of my projects and generally look pitiful, er, professional enough that the shops buy my patterns. It's worked pretty well so far, especially since I was able to cram a few shop visits into our recent vacations (Hello, San Diego! Hello, Ocean City! Hello, Fruitland!). But there's a limit to how many stores I can visit, especially with an increasingly impatient toddler in tow, so I've decided it's time to try a new approach.

Yesterday I mailed pattern catalogs to a select group of quilt supply stores that I think are a good match for my products. I put some research into this, trying hard to find shops that seem to have a decent customer base and a selection of fabrics that mesh well with my style of crafting. After all, there's not much point sending my catalog to a shop that specializes in country colors and Civil War reproduction fabrics, is there?

If my success rate with the catalogs is anywhere near my success rate in person, the mailing will have totally been worth the effort. Ideally, of course, I'd love to sell to all of the shops I've contacted ... but I know that's a long shot, especially since a lot of craft-related businesses seem to be tightening their belts. Stupid recession ... But at least now that the catalog is written and my research is sort of down pat, I can expand my mailing list pretty easily if I want to send out subsequent mailings. Wouldn't it be nice if I had to worry about making sure I wasn't selling to competing stores in the same geographical area? Squee!

Anyway, I don't get nervous about approaching store owners in person, even without an appointment, but sending a catalog out cold gives me pause. I'm not sure if it's worth the effort - who knows how many of the catalogs will end up in the trash can, unread, no matter how well-reasoned and insightful they are? And I'm not sure if this approach comes off as amateurish, too forward, or just normal business. And, of course, agonizing over it on my blog is soooooo professional, right?

Right. I'll just shut up now. If you're visiting from one of the shops I mailed, Hi! I'm really not as neurotic as I seem!





*** Can you tell that I've been forced to watch waaaaaay too many repeats of the stupid Little Mermaid song on YouTube, all in the name of brushing a Certain Someone's hair without listening to indignant screams?

Dear Copyright Infringer:

http://weewonderfuls.typepad.com/wee_wonderfuls/2008/04/definitely-not.html

I won't even mention your company name here, for fear of driving up your spot on google's search ranks. You know who you are, and if my readers don't, they can read your name on photos of the toys you made at a factory in the Philippines after stealing the design from an independent artist and trying to pass it off as your own.

You're a fraud, a fake, and a liar. You suck.

Sincerely,

The entire legitimate Internet crafting community

Come meet Lazy Mama!

When: Saturday, April 12th, 10am to 5pm
Where: Birds of a Feather, 36840 Detroit Rd., Avon, Ohio 44011
Why: I'm going to be showing off my new ruffled yo-yo technique, as featured in the shop's April Block of the Month design. I'll also have a trunk show featuring samples of all of my patterns for sale in the shop, as well as some goodies to share with my adoring public.

Have a question about one of my quilts? Hesitant to buy a pattern when you've never seen a sample in person? Curious about whether I really am as drop-dead gorgeous as you imagine? Stop by and mention that you read the blog and I'll have a little something for you!

I'm sure you understand

In order to accommodate the higher prices I've had to pay for fabric, paper, ink, plastic bags, and just about everything else on the planet, I've decided to adjust the wholesale price of my patterns to $4 each. Prices for individual patterns purchased through etsy for personal use have not been changed.

Thank you for your understanding - now, go sew something!

Button, button

I just spent 15 enjoyable minutes sorting through a box of buttons my mother picked up at a yard sale last summer (I think it cost $1). It's one of those squat round metal boxes that used to house butter cookies, but now it's the repostitory of two pounds of the Ugliest Buttons in Ohio.

I have found that if you need a button sorting cohort, a potentially OCD not-quite-three-year-old is the perfect answer. I'm telling you, she was picking up on MY mistakes ("That's blue green, Mom, not green blue!") and was fascinated by the whole experience.

The tackier the button, the better, as far as she's concerned, which makes the whole process more interesting. Rhinestones, spangles, sparkle-embedded-resin ... she's all in favor of it, and she has to show every "coooooool!" button to me for inspection and approval. This gives me plenty of time to muse about the rest of the mundane buttons, trying to figure out what sort of outfit they might have come from. I mean, there aren't that many uses for 2.5" purple plastic buttons that would end up leaving them with huge deep scratches across the front (and who would save such a thing, which would only be useful in the case of a Huge Button Emergency). And why are there a dozen teal shirt buttons in there, each still attached to the metal bale that stuck it to the display card in the store?

Any suggestions on how to store these suckers once they're sorted? I'm thinking one of those hardware caddies from Home Despot, but I'm open to other suggestions. I need room to store about a handful of about a dozen colors of buttons.

And now, if you'll excuse me, she's shouting "Let's play the button game again!" so it looks like I might get to finish sorting out the navy buttons tonight, after all.