New Year

It's almost 2009! How exciting. Jessicah from Spinning a Yarn has dubbed this year the year of the quilt. Since I have already started a quilt of my own I'm hitching a ride! I very rarely make new year's resolutions, I don't like changing my life just because the calender says so; I prefer to change when I know the change is needed.

But some things that I need to change anyway:

• Finishing all the projects I start
• Being closer to my family that lives outside my house
• Being neater (haha like that's gonna happen)
• Taking better care of ALL the animals in the house, no picking favorites

I hope everyone has a good start to the new year! Don't drink too much and be safe!

J...

...for Jam and Jar. I've finished the jam part and am on to the cap for the jar.
Here it is so far. It looks a little wonky to me for some reason. Not sure why though.
Here's the jam - I used one thread of purple and one thread of fuchsia. I think the jam is either grape or raspberry.
Here's the cap. I've done satin stitch one direction and am now weaving the thread through on the other direction. I think it's a really cool idea, but I'm not sure how it's going to work out in the end.

Puppies

I haven't been getting a lot of sewing done. I am getting very tired of J for Jam and Jar - but I have gotten past the part I was having annoyances with and now I get to go onto the fun and weird part, which I will explain when I have pictures since I think it will make more sense. So I don't have any sewing pictures, but I do have puppy pictures!
Here's Mama, we've named her Katya. She looks a lot better, she's gaining weight and her energy is back up. She will be up for adoption after she is spayed. If anyone is interested in adopting her in the Anchorage area (you must be 21 or older) please let me know.
This is the puppy we're calling Tubby, he is a really big guy - he looks like he swallowed a grapefruit. He's real sweet and loves to lick. He actually is starting to respond to Tubby now.
This is Lil' Bit, she's a real sweety and is my favorite ;) She loves to cuddle and always tries to crawl into my lap. She is also very fond of tugging on pant legs.

This is Brown puppy #4 and she was posing for pictures just like a little model!
Brown puppy #3
Brown puppy #2
Brown puppy #1
And Bagel!

We just gave them all baths today, so they're nice and clean (for now)

I hope everyone had a great holiday season and is looking forward to starting fresh in the new year!

Happy Holidays!

See you on the other side!

Christmas Spirit!

My sewing has been slow because I'm trying to get a lot of 'Christmassing' in with my family while they're all home. I've also got a purse to make for an Etsy trade that I'm doing. A handmade purse for a really lovely ornament :) I'm excited about it. I hope everyone is having a good week and getting some holiday cheer of any denomination in! Here are some great moose pictures just for fun. I just want to point out that I am not as close to the moose as the pictures would imply - I have a really good zoom on my camera. I advise anyone who finds themselves so close to a moose to run in the opposite direction, they can and have seriously injured and killed people.

This moose was in the Arts building parking lot at UAA
This moose was right outside my bedroom window eating my tree!

I scream, you scream!

We all scream for ice cream! I did most of this in Satin stitch. There's strawberry ice cream covered in hot fudge, chocolate ice cream with butterscotch, and french vanilla/cookies and cream with strawberry sauce. Of course it is all topped off with rainbow sprinkles and a maraschino cherry!

2 down!

I finished 2 squares yesterday - F for Fish and H for Hand. I really like the fish and the hand is nice and simple. Next I get to move on to I for Ice Cream, which I want to take some more time on, it's going to be a sundae that dreams are made of!
I decided not to put scales on the fish, I thought it looked lovely just the way it was! I really like the bright colors, they seem very tropical and warm :) something I could use some of up here! It's too cold!

Hand is really simple, I don't think it needs anything else. If I wanted to I could at knuckles and such. I was very impressed with how good the hand shape is - hands are hard for me to draw but I think this one looks very good :)

C and F

I got a good amount of sewing done yesterday. I finished C for Cactus which took longer than expected because of the running stitch in the middle, but I think it was worth it. I've been deviating from my original plan for the pictures, instead of chopsticks for c I did cactus and a few others. I was planning to appliqué all of this when I started out, so I chose things that would have fairly simple shapes. But since I decided to embroider I've chosen some things that I though would translate well.


I also started F for Fish. I think it looks really cute so far. The only think I'm worried about with this is that I am using the wrong Japanese term for fish - I'm worried it means 'fish you eat' instead of 'alive fish'. I looked at some example sentences and it seems okay, so I'm probably just being paranoid. I'm also trying to decide if I want to add scales or not. It would take a long time, but I'm not sure if it would look too busy or if it would look awesome. Any thoughts?

It's the Holidays!

I didn't get as much sewing done yesterday because my Dad told me he had promised cookies to a meeting tomorrow implying that I should make some for him. I made some gingerbread cookies, 2 batches one with honey and one with molasses. I had one of each last night, they are subtly different and I think I prefer the stronger taste of molasses.

I did finish one square yesterday, B for Bee is finished!

Another one bites the dust

I have finished G for Grapes and started on B for Bee! We'll see how much I can get done today.
I tried free-handing these circles, but they looked stupid (except for the first one I did on the top left) so I gave up an used a dime to put some marks down to follow. Some of them are a little crooked, but I love them just the same!
So I have finished one 9 square and here it is, looking lovely! It's fun to get to move on to the next square.
Here is the little bee I started last night, I'm working on putting some little dots in his wings because empty wings seemed too boring for me. After his wings are done I'll add the little line of where he's been and maybe add a flower as his starting point.
Big picture just to show you how small he is, it seemed weird to me to make him big enough to fill the whole square - bees are big enough in my opinion, even if they are embroidered.

Pressing Forward!

I've finished A for Apple, D for Drum and E for Elephant. I'm doing these in the order of the 9 square patches, not Alphabetical. G for Grapes is left for this square and then I move on to the next one.
A for Apple - りんご (ringo)
D for Drum - たいこ (taiko) My mom said this looks kind of like a robot :p
E for Elephant - ぞう (zoo or zou)

For the elephant I used on strand of blue and one strand of white thread together, I don't have a gray floss so I used this mixing idea from Jude Hill of Spirit Cloth, I really like the way it turned out!

Puppies and Apples

I have finished A for Apple - this picture was taken before I added the Japanese which is りんご (ringo) It goes up and down on the right hand side.

The apple has a little bite out of it and some juice running down - I'm not sure it translates as well as it did in my head.
Here are some pictures of our fosters that I took last night. I don't think I'm going to have a problem adopting the puppies out, but I'm going to have a hard time letting go of Mama. She is so sweet and well behaved that it makes me want to keep her. But since we already have 2 dogs, 1 cat and 2 rabbits of our own...one more makes too many.

there are 7 puppies 2 that are grey, one that is brown with tan face markings and 4 chocolate and white. They're about 2 or 3 weeks old now.


This little brown baby was yipping at me while I was playing with Mama, I can already tell some of these puppies are going to have HUGE personalities.
This is Mama, she's really skinny, but she is so sweet. She knows 'sit', 'come', 'wait' and 'in'. I think the rescue is calling her a husky.
She has her ears back because they're sore, we think she has ear mites, not because she's being grumpy.

Onward!

I started embroidering last night, started on A for Apple. It's not very far yet, but it will get there.
One of the puppies has learned how to bark and they're all up and wobbling around. They're very interested in Mama's food. Some of them chewed on my fingers while I was playing with them (more like gummed) and one of them is getting a tooth! How exciting!

ONE STEP DONE!

I've finished all the letters :D now I take a day or two off and then start on the pictures for the letters. I've also taken my last final today! YAY!
Y has a great background fabric, it's Japanese and it has a nice 'natural' color with little blue and red rabbits on it. Y is a light blue fat quarter.

I love these rabbits :) they're so cute!


Z has a darkish red calico background and Z is a dark blue with a kind of 'sponged' pattern on it.
We also have a new foster family from Alaska Dog and Puppy Rescue, A Mama and 7 little babies - about two weeks old. They just started figuring how to walk last night and are still wobbly but just about to start figuring out how to cause trouble :p I'll try to get some pictures later, we had to give them all some worm medication today so they're a little weary of me right now.