Dishtowel for Heike...

I embroidered this dishtowel for Heike. Mom made one for her too. We both did a "cappuccino" theme, because Heike loved to have her Cappuccino every day. I do a mouse theme because when Heike and Levke came to the U.S. her husband Jörg said something about his two little mice going to the big city. Moms towel has a cup of cappuccino and a cookie on a plate.

Continuation of the Sexy Librarian Embroidered Dish Towels

These are the last of the dish towels I made for Annie; the first one is at this blog post:
http://debrasvedberg.blogspot.com/2009/05/sexy-librarian-dishtowel.html
My Mom had a conversation with someone at work who said no one under 50 knows what a dishtowel is. Apparently nobody dries dishes anymore.
My quilt group buddies from Cave Women said the towel with the Library of Congress Classification number looks like something from a concentration camp!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Slipper design problems...

I've been working on fine tuning the design of making slippers with felted wool sweaters. I haven't gotten to the finish line yet.
Below are the slippers for Eric. Mostly done, but I need him to put them on to figure out what I can do to make them fit him. This particular design isn't working because it's too open over the top of the foot and the back of the ankle leans in too much (isn't 90º to the floor).
The positive point on this design is the pattern shape of the fabric it takes that is conducive to cutting it from a felted sweater. I have blue suede leather on the souls, hand stitched.
Now I've been proto-typing a different cut. A very simple cut using a long strip, which is not easy to find in a felted sweater and would need to be pieced in most cases. In the attempt below I am not using wool, but a 'quilted' style of upholstery fabric.

The strip gets the ends rounded off:

Cave Women Christmas Party

Sharon, she's always stuffing her bra... LOLOL! Can you guess what she's doing?
Below Edith waves hello...this was before she put her reindeer antlers on.

Above is Theresa, Sarah and Kathy, below is Peg, Wendy and Sam.

Below is Sharon B modeling her scarf she made with a recycled sweater and some sexy cowboy fabric! Modeling is such serious business.

We also had Wanda and Vivien, but I didn't take very complimentary pictures of them...hee hee hee hee.

Cave Women Christmas Party

Two Sisters and a Grandma having fun.

Cave Women...Row Robin

Some in the group are participating in a Row Robin, completing a row for each member. Above is Pegs. Below is Sarahs. Sarahs is now done, the blue and yellow rows being folded in half because of floor space. Sarah started her row robin with her red scrappy row. I believe this evening she told us that her own row is her favorite out of all of them (smirk). LOL!

These two don't have as many rows YET. They need to be passed around more. I think above is Sams and below is Kathy's.

See all that 'dirt' on Sharons carpet? Well, a bag of scraps was put on the floor for everyone to pick out what they might like. Have you ever seen a pack of hungry wolves over a dead animal carcas?

Jack Frost

Grocery Totebag made from Birdseed Bag!

I put the instructions at http://www.instructables.com/id/Grocery-tote-bag-made-out-of-40lb-birdseed-sack/

Pillowcases for Jenna

I finally got a picture of the pillowcases today.

Back to crayons

Ach Tannenbaum, Ach Tannenbaum, du bist ein edler Zweig!

The Christmas tune "Oh Christmas Tree" originates from Germany, all the way back to 1550.
I'm not saying my nascent postmodernism attempt at using ugly-fabric strips to create trees is any comparison, but heck, Minneapolis woke up to snow this morning. Not a big dump of snow by any means, more like a fart; but atleast it was pretty for a short time.
One of my memories of driving through the mountains of Idaho is when the sun and the mountains were at the right angle and I was looking into the sun, the mountain would be in the shade except all of it's pine tree tips and limbs would be highlighted by the sun as if beautifully luminescent against the dark. I've always wondered how I could interpret that in a quilt. This is my first attempt at figuring out some type of structure for the trees....obviously I haven't worked on the tips and limbs being illuminated by the sun and this form might not be conducive to that. But it's a start.

Christmas Gifts, Sharpies and Death!

I seem to be visiting my own blog just so I can check on the list of my friends blogs instead of blogging myself. I've been working on gifts, so I'm not interested in blogging about it until after I give them away. Karens blog, "Giddy Up" shows her use of black and white "Zentangle" drawings for the Art Every Day Challenge, and I thought they look pretty fun. I have always used crayons for drawing but being inspired by Karen I decided to break out my pack of Sharpies.
After each time I sat down to draw I got a headache; presumably from the fumes of the markers so I think I'm going back to crayons! The color won't be as bright but atleast crayons smell good.
While working on gifts I've been listening to cd's of Abbott and Costellos radio show...the whole "Who's on first, What's on second" and hours more. Being a live radio show, there were glitches and sometimes an ad-lib didn't quite work and the other would humorously say "What script are you looking at?"

Altho' I did tire of hearing the ads for the sponsor: Camel Cigarettes. "More Doctors smoke Camels than any other brand." I wouldn't mind hearing the ad just once for historic sake and would have been happy if they'd remove the rest of them.
What today do we think is acceptable to put into our bodies that in 10 - 20 years we'll know as poison? Even the herbicide "Round Up" can claim their product will disappear when it dries but now we know that the "inert ingredients" will kill us. But our laws don't govern the 'inert ingredients', only the ingredients that directly relate to the purpose of the product.

I'd love to go on about antibiotics and hormones in milk, why we should be eating organic produce, the war of 1812, but I'd just depress you. Well, the War of 1812 isn't depressing actually (not the way I tell it) but I'm going to get back to creating gifts and listening to my next book on tape: "Abhorsen"
Do you know how to cut a paper 5-pointed star with one cut? Click here