chimesblog

You may remember this quilt top from 2009 when I originally had it slated to become a finished quilt for my niece’s first birthday.

Well, as you may know I’m really bad about finishing quilts. Mostly because it isn’t cheap to get them quilted professionally and up until I got my new sewing machine recently it was a huge pain to quilt them myself.

So what I’m saying is that my niece didn’t get this for her birthday in 2009.

It ended up being a lovely baby shower gift for my friend Adria who is due in February. Adria made me a quilt a LONG time ago and is responsible for my slightly expensive fabric hoarding obsession.

Also, I posted the photos on my flickr last week and cutable.com picked one of my images and featured this quilt on their flickr Friday on December 1. I couldn’t share until after her baby shower for obvious reasons.

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I’ve been really busy lately making a ton of new stuff! Last month I made new wallets, zip bags and then decided to make a big box full of new dishes. Free shipping to Ames and Des Moines and Christmas orders must be placed by December 20 to receive them on time.

Here’s a small taste of what I made (click the link to go to the etsy listing):

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OM nom nom nom nom!

What could be better than combining chocolate and beer? Frosting it. With cream cheese frosting. Oh, and putting it in a portable and cute cupcake form.

Last Sunday was my b-day and my friend Danielle and I made Guinness cupcakes for our friends to enjoy at my little gathering.

I used this recipe for the cake and this recipe for the frosting. These were super super naughty, but soooooo good!

Here is my lovely cupcake display — of course, I frosted them hot pink. Would you expect any less? And Naked Michael Jackson had to come to the party too. It’s not a party without naked michael jackson.

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She’s gettin’ a tattoo yeah, she’s gettin’ ink done.

Wow that’s an old song.

Anyway, I posted a while back about beautiful body art, and I’m excited to say that I’m now the proud owner of some.  I’m going back to get a couple of things added and a little touchup work with the pink. He didn’t want to overwork the skin because he  knew I was going for a lighter look — I wanted this to look almost like watercolor.

I’m kind of excited to see how it heals. It’s pretty awesome. Looks like brush strokes just the way I wanted it.

Here’s some photos from start to finish …

bye bye naked foot!

Bravery glasses. Courtesy of Shelly.

getting prepped

linework

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I’ve been working through my fabric scraps and I came across the Heather Ross Mendocino scraps that Adria had given me a while back.  She had leftovers after making a really cool mendocino quilt.

Here are a few of my favorite ones … They’re 5″x6″

I’m going to add 5-6″ of white fabric around each block to make it look like they’re floating and make a larger quilt out of these.  So excited! 

If you want to see all the blocks, I’ve got them posted on Flickr.

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FYI I started writing this yesterday afternoon (4/6/09).

So to keep myself busy for 12 minutes on this bike I’m bloggig from my iPod.

Read: yay! A short entry!

So now that i’m well on my way to recovery, I finally made myself go out and buy swimming gear and go for a dip.

Got a pink (what else?) swim cap and goggles and a plain black one piece. I was ready to go.

Problem: how do I put on a swim cap?
Solution: ask a random girl with wet hair in the locker room — she’s a swimmer.

Apparently putting on a swim cap is harder than it looks. She showed me and 15 minutes later I was ready to figure out my goggles.

So 20 minutes later I made it in the pool. And, sadly, I had iPod withdrawl.

And lo and behold, swimming isn’t as easy as I remember. My stroke: breast stroke. Can’t do it. No frog kicking allowed during my rehab. Ok well um what else can I kinda do? Side stroke… Check. Freestyle… Check. Dog paddle? Mega check.

I alternated those few “strokes” for a half hour and went to the deep end to water jog and tread water for a while.

Then I went into the locker room to shower off — the guys’ locker room! Oh boy. Sadly I didn’t realize it right away. Only after I discovered my clothes weren’t where I left them did I realize there were men walking around.

Sooo I bolted. Into the right locker room his time. Shoot. Forgot my towel. Ran back out to get that and reminded the lifeguards that I’m not a swimmer… just a poor injured runner that has no business in the pool.

I snagged my towel, went into the LADIES locker room, showered off and started changing. The naked older lady next to me started talking to me (or maybe I started talking to her? I don’t know). We had a convo while we changed (and yes, I got naked in the locker room).  THEN I realized my underwear were missing. Which wouldn’t be a big deal except I JUST CAME FROM WORK!  

Frantically, I dumped my bag fearing that my underwear were somewhere on the 3rd floor of Old Main … or even worse … on the 2nd floor (that’s where the president’s office is!).  

FOUND ‘em!  That was kinda scary.

Anyway, after a very interesting experience… I went off and started biking. Wet hair and all.

Swimming=fun, but awkward … my body=tired.  This morning I felt like I ran 10 miles…except without the “my appendages are going to break off at any moment” feeling.

yay.  Hoping to swim tomorrow. I dunno tho.  I stayed home from work today because I felt reallly…. off.  I guess. I felt like crap when I woke up and continued to feel like crap all day. So here I am. in sweatpants. 6 PM and no shower today. I rule.

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