happy stuff.

yesterday was the library’s second annual summer library (huge, enormous) carnival. with the help of 22 volunteers and seven paid performers/artists, we entertained about 1350 people between 9:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. there were games, prizes, crafts, jugglers, facepainters, balloon sculpture towers, and this hilarious duo:

my could-do list has a few things on it that have been there for quite some time.  today, i had the distinct pleasure of finally crossing one of those things off my list–making new cushions for the chair in my living room.  here’s the before picture:

in this photo, it doesn’t look that bad, but you can’t see how threadbare the cushions are and … they’re just kind of blah.  and kitty hair gets really stuck in that textured fabric.   gross.  i searched high and low for upholstery that i liked.  there is not really very much out there for modern decor (at least not at the places here in town).  after exhaustive searching, i finally went online (for some reason, i’m loathe to buy fabric online–hard to really see the true colors of the fabric, you can’t feel the weight of the fabric, you have to pay shipping…) and after a long search (how in the world do you search for “modern, neutral-ish, not too wild, but not boring upholstery fabric.  preferably something with dots, but not silly looking”?) i finally found a blog (sorry, can’t remember which one.) that had some examples of modern upholstery-weight fabric and one of them was exactly what i was looking for!  it was available for sale at maine cottage and, miracle of miracles, it was on sale!  (from $50/yard down to $15/yard)  the name of the print is “hotty dotty” (hey, i just checked and it’s still available if anyone wants it…) and as soon as i saw it, i knew that it was what i was looking for.  so, i had the fabric, i’d bought the other necessary supplies (zippers, cording, new webbing for the seat of the chair) and i was ready to go.  but i procrastinated ….. until this weekend!  and i learned a new trick!  i wanted to make my own cording (or piping or whatever it’s called) from the same fabric as the rest of the cushion and i wasn’t sure of the best way to do that.  did i have to cut a big 45 degree slice through the fabric and try to squeeze the rest of the pieces out of the leftover triangles?  so i did what i always do when i’m stumped with a sewing question.  call mom.  she told me about the bias tape tube trick.  whoa!  did you all know about this?  with only a half-yard of fabric, i was able to make about 16 yards of 1.75″ bias strips!

(this photo is what i had leftover after i was done making both cushions!)

with that hurdle soared over, i plunged right into making the cushions today.  it took most of the day and they’re not even close to perfect (how do you get that “overstuffed” look?  i have a theory that it has something to do with being brave enough to sew the cover just a teensy bit smaller than the cushion itself, but i’m not willing to rip these cushions apart to check that theory.  i can live with their flat surfaces.

and here’s the final product!  although the color in this photo looks a little strange, this is more or less how it really looks.  what do you think?  i like it much better than the original cushions.

remember my blogiversary giveaway? i finally finished the last part of the prize–a tote bag, featuring my most recent original needlepoint piece. this is the first time that i’ve combined needlepoint and patchwork and i love, love, love the way it turned out! 

here’s the back:

and the inside:

the strap is actually a belt that i thrifted for this sort of project awhile back.  mona jean was thrilled with it when i gave it to her tonight.  she mentioned something about me supporting her “bag fetish…”

the needlepoint pattern is now available on my “free patterns” page above (or click here).

on thursday’s bike ride home from work, i got a flat tire.  i wasn’t even halfway home and i didn’t really want to walk six miles, so i called mr. happy stuff to see if he could come pick me up.  i have changed my own flat tires in the past, but the sheer physical strength needed to pry the tire off of the rim means that it usually takes me at least 45 minutes.  assuming that i remember how to do it.  and assuming that i have the right replacement tube with me.  very luckily, mr. happy stuff was willing to come rescue me.  i’d gotten the flat within a block of a friend’s house (i’d called him first, but he wasn’t home), so mr. happy stuff agreed to meet me there.  i walked the bike to the friend’s house.  while i was waiting, i noticed that the house was surrounded by enormous, productive hydrangea bushes.  my friend has been house-sitting across town and although he wasn’t home for me to ask, i was pretty sure that if i clipped a few blooms from inconspicuous places, he wouldn’t mind.  so i got this great, huge bouquet!  ah, the tiny perks of having to cut my ride short…..

so i thought about titling yesterday’s post “you learn something new every day” and then decided not to.  but then i learned something new again today and couldn’t resist using it for today’s title.  here are some of the new things i learned today:

1.  backlit photos are not necessarily a bad thing.  which do you like better?  today’s sunflower photo or yesterday’s?

2.  when put to the test, i can come up with a relatively decent storytime in less than 5 minutes that will (more or less, anyway) entertain a crowd of up to 110 people for about half an hour.  longer if need be.

3.  larabar has some new flavors!

and here are the stories behind the lessons:

1–well, really, no story.  i was taking some photos in the early morning today and i tried this shot thinking that it would be too dark since the light was behind the flower, but i really like the way the sun shines through the petals.

2–today was tuesday, which meant that it was the day for my surprisingly popular “tuesday at 2″ series at the library.  something outside of work came up at the last minute and i had to be gone until a little bit before 2:00, but since it was a hired performer (and one we’ve had multiple times in the past with no problems, and one i’d contacted to confirm just last week) and all i was responsible for was opening the doors and counting all the people stream into the room, i didn’t think this would be a problem.  i returned at 2:00 to find the room dark, no performer, and a line of people from the meeting room to the front door.  ack!  i called the performer and the program director said that he thought there was someone coming, but he’d check and call me back.  in the meantime, i invited folks to make themselves comfortable with a good book and i’d let them know when the performer arrived.  at 2:10, i’m starting to be very concerned that we’re not just dealing with someone stuck in traffic and one of the moms points out that the kids don’t reeeeeeally care what they see, they just want to be entertained and don’t i have lots of puppets and things?  i figure that at the least, i could read them a story or two until the performer shows up, so i go and start pulling a few things together.  i tell a co-worker that i’m still expecting a status call back from the program director and could she just give me a signal as to whether they are or are not coming when he calls back?  i invite the horde of people into the meeting room and we begin with a book (during which my co-worker sticks her head in the door and solemnly shakes it back and forth signalling that i am the main event after all), we sing “head, shoulders, knees and toes” (after they vote down b-i-n-g-o), read another book, then invite the puppet mouse to come out of his house (it’s a prop i have) and then…i happen to have the movie version of “officer buckle and gloria” and since it’s about a dog and since the performer was supposed to be bringing along a dog, it was as perfect as it could be in the circumstances.  i showed the movie and took a head count.  at least 105 people, plus the few that wandered in and out with cranky kids… yeah.  it was a packed house.  but at least they got a show, right?

later, i learned that the performer that was supposed to visit us had been in an accident the day before and in all of the panic and confusion that goes along with accidents, they’d forgotten that she was supposed to do a program at our library today.  so they weren’t just being flaky.

the good news out of all of this?  i learned what happens when a performer doesn’t show and i have 100+ people wanting entertainment.  and it wasn’t a disaster.  and i even got some compliments.

3–later this evening, when i got home after saying sad goodbyes to good friends who are moving 5 hours away (5 hours isn’t thaaaat far away.  especially when there’s pie in the middle and the world wide web to build a bridge between our houses.) there was a package on our mail pile from larabar.  (look at that cute party fluff!)

longtime readers may remember my hearty endorsement of this fruit/nut bar from awhile back.  at the end of that long-ago post, i mentioned that i thought i might possibly receive some free samples.  well, today i did!  (come to think of it, i think they also sent me a whole box of my favorite “cherry pie” bars soon after the post, so this is my second shipment of goodies from them!)  apparently, they have four new flavors and they sent me three of each.

how cool is that?  i’m pretty full from supper right now–otherwise i’d totally eat one.  they look delicious!  what a great surprise at the end of a day that had a few other less great surprises.  in fact, i’m inspired to do a spontaneous giveaway to spread the joy.  leave a comment below saying which of the new flavors sounds the best to you and i’ll do a drawing and send the winner a bar or two.  here are the new flavors:

larabar–peanut butter cookie

larabar–coconut creme pie

jocalat–chocolate cherry

jocalat–chocolate hazelnut

no, they still don’t have the apricot flavor that seems to me to be such an obviously good fit to their product line, but a girl can still hope, can’t she?

so send in your favorite flavor choices by… let’s say noon on friday and maybe you’ll be able to enjoy a fun food package in the mail too!  in order to maintain the “surprise!” factor, i won’t announce the winner on this blog.  happy tuesday, everyone!

hooray for restaurant week!  we experienced our first restaurant week last winter, and apparently there’s also a summer week.  after drooling over all of the menus offered, we finally chose quivey’s grove stone house restaurant.  maybe not the most glamorous of all the options, but the one menu that made both of us equally hungry.  and it was delicious!  i started with a spinach and mushroom salad (surprisingly bright and fresh!), enjoyed the duck schnitzel entree (very delicious and about twice as much food as i could conceivably eat at one sitting) and had the door county cherry turnover for dessert.  mr. happy stuff enjoyed the smoked whitefish cakes (they came with a green salad),  the trio of medallions  (quite tasty),  and ended his meal with the key lime martini (tart and smooth at the same time).  the restaurant itself is in an old stone farmhouse complete with tiny nooks and crannies of rooms, a labyrinth of staircases, and decorated with quilts and other antique memorabilia.  the room we ate in had fabulous floor-to-ceiling windows with wooden shutters that could open and close for privacy and light.  i wisely chose to save half of my entree for lunch tomorrow (i’m still stuffed after only the first half!) and when the waitress wrapped it up, she brought it back in a most curious package.  picture a paper tray (the kind that french fries and hot dogs sometimes come in?  white with a red lined plaid pattern?) wrapped up in a small white plastic baggie.  on the bottom side of the baggie, i found this:

it reads “since my meal has been replete/i’ll conserve what i couldn’t eat/to serve myself another time/or feed that dog or cat of mine.”  i finally understand the term doggie bag!  how quaint!

my weekend sort of started on friday this week (i say “sort of” because i had to work a few hours on saturday) and i spent the friday morning taking pictures of a friend’s children.  it was a new experience for me to try to photograph three mobile children.  usually, at least one of them is new enough to not really move a lot and the others can all sort of orbit around the stationary center of an infant, but in this case, all three are very active and i was happy to take on a new photography challenge in exchange for a loaf of the mom’s fantastic homemade bread.  here’s my favorites:

the photo below is the only picture i got of all three of them actually looking at the camera and nobody making a weird face.  normally, i’m a fan of “weird face” pictures, but that wasn’t quite what i was going for.*  i ran this photo through some strange color filters in photoshop elements, but i think i need to learn more about photoshop actions.  hey all you photo-buffs out there–what would you do to this photo to improve it?  i like the more relaxed and genuine smileyness of the photo above, but the girl’s head is sort of hiding and i’m not sure what to do about that.  any ideas?

segue to saturday:

my farmer’s market is a-ma-zing.  we hadn’t been able to go last week (and maybe not the week before that either?) so i was on a stock-up trip.  i bought:

zucchini (regular and “italian”)

potatoes

tomatoes

onions

corn

bell peppers–green, red and yellow

parsley, dill, mint (both a bunch to make tea and some little “starts” to plant) and garlic

5 of the pollen-free sunflowers like you see above

golden beets

haricots verts

blueberries, raspberries and “black cap” raspberries

carrots

shelled peas

broccoli

bacon

usually, mr. happy stuff and i go together, but he was busy doing something else on saturday morning, so i was on my own and boy were my arms tired by the time i got back to the car!  i had to be at work by noon, but i wanted to get some of those veggies processed ASAP, so between the market and work, i pickled a batch of beets; washed, blanched and froze the peas; froze half of the raspberries, made a batch of granola and another batch of rhubarb sauce (from the rhubarb that was a gift from the owners of last weekend’s cabin–thanks!)

today’s (sunday’s) domesticity project was sewing!  (finally!)  i finished the totebag from my long-ago blogiversary giveaway, but i haven’t properly photographed that yet, so you’ll just have to wait.  i wanted short, easily finished projects today, so i also did my common threads block.  liz wanted straight (or at least not diagonal or curved) lines in her block and had some lovely inspiration quilts so i combined two of the designs to create this block:

it was a bit scrimp and pinch on the fabric (i think i had less than 4 square inches of fabric leftover at the end) so that took some creative piecing on my part, but i enjoyed the challenge.  i didn’t enjoy realizing that i needed to rip off seven strips and re-do them when i slightly altered my design plan, but i do think i like the final result better for changing it.  i am a huge fan of the “red cross quilt” that was the inspiration for one of the inspiration quilts and maybe someday i’ll make one of my own.  i hope you like this block, lady harvatine!

*although this photo did crack me up:

i rode my bike to work again today. i’ve been averaging twice a week bicycle commuting and since i only work four days a week, i think that’s pretty good! anyway, this morning, when i left the house, it was cool enough that i wanted to put on my sleeves (tubes of fabric that i wear on my arms but can remove more easily than a long-sleeved top). by the time i got to a stopping point, i was warmed up enough that i decided not to wear them after all, but it was practically chilly this morning! in july!

at lunchtime, i took my magazine and a throw pillow outside to the big grassy playground/soccer field that ’s behind my library and laid on the grass in the shade of a tree and soaked up some sunshine. delicious. and i didn’t burn to a crisp in the half hour i was out there.

before i moved to wisconsin, i couldn’t comprehend the need for a “summer sweater.” now, my favorite weather is slightly cool summer nights with fireflies and cicadas and light-weight long sleeves to keep away the shivers.

i just got back from a very relaxing weekend at a cabin that belongs to the parents of some very good friends. we went there two years ago for the first time and i had such great memories that i was very much looking forward to this trip and it did not disappoint. we drove up on thursday night after work, speeding our way to osseo for pie where i spotted this fun restaurant sign:

we barely made it to the restaurant (not moe’s, see link above) before they closed, but we got there just in time to buy a banana creme pie, a dutch apple pie, and a blueberry pie (the pie of the month!). it was worth the speeding! anyway, we pulled into the cabin late that night and sleepily rolled into our beds.

the next morning, we woke up, ate some yummy homemade granola (my recipe, but made by another friend) then made a master meal plan for the weekend. after some epic grocery shopping, we came back and made a large pasta salad for lunch and then had pie for dessert (actually, i think we had pie for dessert for almost every meal while we were there.). after that had had some time to settle, it was time to swim across the lake. if you read my post two years ago, you remember that after one false start across this 1/2 mile stretch of lake, i discovered the trick to overcoming my fears of deep open water–a pool noodle. so, once again, i grabbed my trusty noodle and this time swam all the way to the point and back! the noodle is mostly there as a “security blanket” and to give me something to hang onto if i need to adjust my goggles or just want to rest for a minute. when i’m swimming, i pretty much just push it ahead of me with my fingertips on each stroke or sometimes with the top of my head.

i realize that i will likely never get into the ironman competition with this technique, but it works for me for now. as you can see in the photo above, i am not the only one who uses a noodle to get across the lake. i was just thrilled that not only did i swim both there and back, but i wasn’t even exhausted at the end of the swim and i did it on both friday and again on sunday! on saturday, i paddled the paddleboat across (along with mr. happy stuff) while other friends swam. (you need a boat escort for safety so that other boats on the lake can see you.) they had a little too much fun during their trip across the lake:

after their “somewhat synchronized” swimming show, they also did some hand puppets. we were in stitches!

our friends’ dog also enjoyed her time at the lake. she was in the water pretty much the whole weekend. by the last day, she was finally slowing down (she’s getting up there in years) and moving rather stiffly, but i love this series of shots of a boy and his dog:

she refused to jump off of the dock and would run back to an easier spot to jump from and then…

run down the beach and into the water!

she was one happy dog!

but then again, we were all pretty happy dogs. at one point, i asked mr. happy stuff why i liked this cabin and this lake so much and he said, “it’s because there’s nothing that we have to do.” and i added, “and yet so many fun options of things we can do if we want to.” there’s no sight-seeing, no rushing around to try to cram a whole lot of stuff in, there’s just the lake and the cabin and nice places to nap or play cards or read or just sit and chat with friends. oh, and one other awesome thing:

the sauna. what could be better than a deep, drippy, sweaty warmth produced by a wood-burning stove in a small wooden hut and a glass of ice water, followed by

a plunge into the cold lake? many, many thanks to you, dear friends, for inviting us up for a most relaxing weekend.

p.s. i also had a lot of fun cooking while i was there. we made homemade tortillas and grill pizza among other things. so much yummy food!

*this blog post title refers to a misunderstood lyric from the car ride up to the cabin. we were listening to the refreshments and i just heard a snippet from one of the songs and i said, “did he say ‘minnesota, por favor’?” and mr. happy stuff drily replied, “no, he said, ‘i can’t drink cervezas anymore, una soda, por favor.” but then i couldn’t stop giggling.

thanks for all of the quilt love!  it is a different (and bigger) sense of accomplishment to finish a long-term project like this one instead of the ones that that i usually finish in a week or so.  but i love both kinds of projects for different reasons and will probably continue to do a mix of the two.

i promised to show you the quilt fabric that i’d bought on our recent trip, so here it is:

i don’t often buy this much yardage without a very specific project in mind (although my stash may have something different to say about that) but this fabric store was having a sale and all cut fabric was 25% off and they had some designer fabrics i’d been specifically looking for (the wee play pieces on the bottom of the stack above).  the birds are a robert kaufmann print and i just love their kooky, collage-y feel.  some of these prints may find their way into my common threads quilt, but i don’t quite think i can put all of them together.  too busy, no?  i bought enough of the birds that they could be a quilt back someday.  now, i just have to decide on a front.  i’ve got some ideas cooking up in my head….

in other quilty news, i decided to work on my common threads block-o’-the-month today.  i wanted a quick project that i could finish in one day and since everyone’s been posting such fabulous blocks, i decided i needed to make mine before someone else had the same idea!  here’s how it turned out:

i loved the leafy ribbon melissa used to tie the bundle together, so i decided to incorporate it into my block (hmmm…. hope it’s washable!)

and lotta’s printing book has been inspiring me lately, so i wanted to do some printing/painting on this block.  i traced the bird pattern onto freezer paper and then used that to stencil the bird onto the dark gray fabric.  the tail kind of blends into the gray and his head might be a little too close to the seam, but…. other than that i’m pretty happy with the way this block turned out.  maybe next time i try printing, i’ll do something a bit less literal….  i do like the way the scattering of “birdseed” turned out on the white fabric.

(oh, and i also got the selvedge dots on my cut of the bird fabric and couldn’t resist incorporating them into the design!)

thanks for the fun fabric, melissa!