CHICKPEA SEWING STUDIO

October 05, 2011

Quick Things to Sew GIVE AWAY

Have you ever read Quick Things to Sew? it's published by Threads magazine. A little while ago they asked me to contribute a pattern for a ruffled curtain. I was really surprised/delighted to be asked. Working with such an experienced sewing staff is exciting to say the least.

my article in Quick Things to Sew

The curtain is sewn out of Kaffe Fasset shot cottons and it was so lush that we loved pretending for an instant that it was a Gypsy skirt!

I have had the issues they sent me for a few weeks now and couldn't find the Finn-free time to take a picture or blog about it. Nevertheless, I want to give away the second copy in following with blog cannon. So live me a comment and come back in one week to see if you won!

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And the winner is:

Susan of Dragonflies eat mosquitoes!

Posted at 07:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (23) | TrackBack (0)

October 02, 2011

Happy Sunday Play Dough.

Firstly before I forget, I would like to thank the lovely moms that left me words of encouragements when I needed them badly. Thank you, so much.

Happy Grunge Sunday

My mom used to call it Grunge Sunday (dimanche poubelle). You stay in your pjs, you don't shower and you generally do nothing productive.

Thomas is off somewhere at a Golf tournament so we are having our own Grunge Sunday, using play dough we made together in the kitchen with Kool Aid. (recipe at the bottom). It's some fierce bed hair we are sporting!

Happy Grunge Sunday

Now it's only 9 am, what on earth are we going to do for the rest of the day! Did I mention Finn has already had two fruit pops? (slight panic mode).

Kool Aid Play Dough

1/4 cup table salt

1 1/4 cup bleached flour

1 package Kool Aid

1 1/2 tablespoon vegetable oil

1 cup of boiling water

Mix the dry ingredients together first then add the oil and water, mix well until smooth.

Store in plastic bags in the refrigerator.

note: I was worried that the kool Aid would stain our hands, it doesn't.

Posted at 09:03 AM in CRAFTING, Kids | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

September 29, 2011

Finn, what am I going to do with you!

Finn and I have been having a rough go of things. He is three and a half now and knows what he wants: the complete opposite of anything we/I might ask or need to do. In all honesty I am tired, of fighting, of yelling, of bargaining etc... as he puts it, sometimes we are just not friends anymore. I know though, deep down, that most of this is my fault. I am paying twice for all the times I/we say yes when it should be no. I am too emotionally attached to "the nap" and when it doesn't happen, such as almost every home day, I just want to cry. In fact I want to just sit on the carpet and cry, way too frequently.

Often, if I just let go of things; scrap the program and start something new, we can make it through the day without tears (on my part). Last week was extremely trying and in the end we baked this little cakes with lavender oil and strawberries.

I even made these tiny flags to decorate with crayons. The drawing didn't really happen but the playing went on and on.

Posted at 10:07 AM in Baby | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBack (0)

September 27, 2011

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The Sewing Republic is no more, in its place the good people at Bernina have created a blog to which I will contribute. It's great to be given the opportunity to keep working with such a dynamic team, it keeps me sewing when life would surely convince me to do otherwise.

To kick it off I just wrote a short article about my thoughts as a sewing teacher. You can read it here, on the We All Sew blog.

the sewing lesson

For the article I recruited my friend and student, Savanna. She is 14 years old and has sewn with me for 4 years. She was in a cute sewing school before that called The Finishing School, here is Holladay, Utah. I would have to say that at this point she needs very little help with her sewing but requires a "project manager" to check measurements and the order in which to do things.

The sewing lesson

We had a lot of fun taking the pictures, since it's always awkward to take self portraits. The temperature in the room was quite high and I kept getting redder and redder which means that in the end I had very few good shots to work with. Sav though is always gorgeous. She has a little blog too by the way.

Posted at 05:25 PM in SEWING, We All Sew | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

September 19, 2011

And now we're back!

It's been a week now that I came back and only today does the world look plumb. It's amazing how turned around we can get on those long trips. I only now remembered about Ravelry if you can believe it, I had completely forgotten it even existed. It's just too weird to contemplate.

Bons Baisers d'Australie

I did go thrifting on my second day back, for good measure and because it was the only thing I new I could do with my eyes closed and look! a koala linen towel and a cute table cloth.

It's good to be back, I do love it here, in the USA-Utah etc...

Posted at 12:47 PM in Shopping | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

August 17, 2011

We're off!

We are leaving tonight for France, Brittany to be precise. I am so excited to see my family again... it's been too long. Sometimes I wonder what could possess me to move away so very far. It's a feeling most acute when my cousins have babies. I do long for proximity then.

Port de Locquemeau

While looking for pictures for this post I found this very unlikely Flickr set of the park where my father lives and where I grew up for a few years as a child. The white house is where we are staying, it's surrounded by the ocean ( cold, cold ocean!). If you keep the windows open you hear the waves all night.

Port de Locquemeau

Since my smaller NIKON is in the shop I will have to lug around the big guns... That means more photos to bring back and share.

Off to finish those huge suitcases and see you in a month!

edited:

I wanted to add this song here, it's one of my favorites and I want to try and memorize it on the plane. I like singing Finn lullabies that are just ours. This is another one I croon.

Posted at 07:33 AM in Travel | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)

August 07, 2011

A really good surprise

What's this? a fabulous book I ordered from Alibris last week. It came so quickly. It is full of color illustrations, I mean full, unlike this other book that was a complete disappointment. Take a look at the amazing vintage goodness:

Mushrooms! I need to say more.

I took a few more pictures and placed them in my Flickr if you are interested.

I am not a skilled hand embroiderer but in the fall I will be lent an embroidery machine and my first goal after learning the basics will be to adapt those sketches for whichever software come with it... It's very exciting just thinking about it!

Posted at 04:36 PM in CRAFTING | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

August 06, 2011

cut and paste

I spent a good two hours making this collage today, it's a variant of this one. It was much harder than I imagined, cutting perfect triangles is not apparently my forte. I am not sure it's worth trying again... maybe if I had some sort of cutting machine.

Posted at 02:49 PM in CRAFTING | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

August 05, 2011

Day 5: completed!

The grand, ambitious project worked! The quilt top is completed. I almost fell asleep in the shop's office after turning it in for quilting. It was definitely time to move on after a week of thinking of nothing else.

I made some modifications, such as this alternate triangle and narrow pieced borders. I can't help but not follow patterns, it's pathological. I have this irresistible need to change things, on every single quilt I sew that is not my own design.

Twelve yards of pieced binding ready when the time comes to be sewn on by someone from the shop while I am in France. They promised me pictures and I in return promised postcards.

I sent the small(er) Nikon back were it came from for service again, so all I had was a totally inadequate phone camera and 'shake it' app. Pretty quaint.

Posted at 08:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

August 02, 2011

Day two: contemplation

Yesterday's trimmings.

Triangles.

strips.

Things went pretty well so far but I am worried. Even though I got much more done than anticipated it only showed me truly how much there is to do. I went home early to prepare diner for a few girlfriends and while I was busy doing just that Thomas discovered that our basement flooded from the heavy rains we had yesterday. Our carpet is soaked and two doors are damaged. most everything else is fine. Still, it's a huge worry and we have very little time to face it as we are going to France in two weeks to visit my parents... We have had three different floods in the basement this year and our patience has ran out. Thomas was lobbying for tiles when we can afford them and I have come to the conclusion that he is right. Even if they are cold to the feet.

Oh! and did I mention that my new Nikon P7000 broke (again) yesterday? When it rains it pours...

Posted at 10:03 AM in sewing republic | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)