Christmas in a Box

I have loved Kreinik threads for years, using them as outlines on my smaller animal pieces and recommending them in classes to use with beads on embroidered pieces.  Recently I was approached by a representative for the company and asked if I was interested in playing with some of their product.  Of course I jumped at the opportunity and said yes. :)

Last week this wonderful goody box of threads arrived at my door:

You can see several spools of the newer thread designed for machine embroidery as well as samples of the embroidery braids and blending filaments.

And a color card of everything that is available.  I am also excited to try those iron on threads you can see in the middle there.  I can see using them to outline forms like I did with the bias tape on Safe Harbor.

They included some smaller samples of their trims, including some colors in the facets and chenille thread.  I can see using them to make some Christmas ornaments or cards, and maybe another elephant or two.  Won’t they make a gorgeous blanket on them?

I noticed a little bundle of what appeared to be threads inside each cone of the machine thread.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that they were the net thread bras.  How convenient!

Then, because I already had a piece in process, I decided to give it a try on this piece.  “Too Coy”, based on the painting I did for the Shoe Show at Ten Women Gallery. 

I used the ZTCO Fine Twist Copper thread to grid quilt.  Here you can see how sparkly it is.  I was really pleased with how well the thread worked with my Pfaff 2054.  I made sure to put in a new Metallica needle size 80, and adjusted the tension to 1.5.  I set the stitch length to 3.0 to maximize the glimmer of the thread line and sewed.  Smooth as buttah! 

Next up, freemotion quilting with the metallized gimp thread and the fashion twist thread.

Driving Lessons

Someone over at Plurk posted that it sounded like a car hit their building. Then someone else replied that at one time someone had run into their house. Which brought up a few fun memories of driving lessons I would have been happier doing without.

When I was about 12, my Grandaddy took a bunch of us over to the A&W at 15 and Mound for some ice cream. He had a little olive green Dodge Colt that we all squeezed into. For some reason, he left us parked in the lot and was standing in line when one of my crazy cousins, jumping around in eager anticipation, knocked into the stick shift and knocked the car out of gear.

The car started rolling into traffic on 15 Mile. Grandaddy was at the ordering window, clueless.

Me, being the big brain trust I was (hey I grew up in Detroit, I should have known cars!) jumped out of my door and grabbed on for dear life, trying to keep the little Colt from rolling into traffic and (dum dum dum) certain doom. Screaming the whole time for Grandaddy to come help.

Everyone else noticed me. Eventually he did too. And after he ran over to the car and pulled the emergency brake, he said "Why were you yelling for me? All you had to do was pull the emergency brake!" (Emergency brakes play a part in my future driving lessons too, now that I think about it, but first....)

My second memorable driving lesson came when my aunt was parked in our driveway. She left, yes, another of my crazy cousins, alone in the car while she said goodbye to me and my mom. My cousin climbed into the front seat, put the car in drive (this time it was an automatic) and plowed into the fence right next to our cranky neighbor's house. I guess it's a good thing he was too little to reach the pedals. (And yes, he is the little brother to the cousin who almost rolled us into rush hour traffic).

And finally, my bestest memory of all. I was heading out from Wendy's on Texas Avenue in Bryan, Texas, to go take my SAT. As I pulled out into traffic, I heard a pop, and suddenly I was left with no working clutch cable. I rolled into traffic because I had no choice, stopped the car (did not turn it off, this is important in a minute here), put on the blinkers and got out to go back into work and call my dad to come get me.

As I'm on the phone, I hear one of my co-workers shout "Hey Andrea, your car is driving down Texas Avenue!"

Sure enough, I had not put on the parking brake.

Fortunately my co-workers ran out and helped me retrieve the car without anyone getting hurt. And I made it to the SAT on time. But yeah.

That parking brake? There for a reason!

CHA Indie Craft Display

I have been chosen to display at the CHA show in Anaheim CA, January 25-28 2009 with this hat! I am over the moon with this and currently working on my promotional material that will be available at the display. My goal is to end up with a book deal or a design opportunity for a yarn company (Noro or Cascade would be really cool!) or a book and design opportunities, I am open to everything at the moment. I'd like to send a big shout out to Kathy Cano Murillo for posting about this opportunity.

The Award Winning Piece

Route 33, Summer Morning
Patchwork, cotton, applique, machine quilting.

2nd Best in Show, Professional Division

I knew all three pieces got in (the water tower series). I knew I'd won an award. I did *not* know it was this big! I am still in shock. And happy. And grateful. And happy, did I say happy? Yeah, I'm happy.

Anticraft is Here!

Well, I can show you what I've done for it, my copy is still in the mail.

While I wait for my contributor's copy, here is a sneak peek at one of my projects for the new Anticraft book (Midnight Star, made with a vintage Czech glass button, peyote stitch and basic bead stringing; buy the book for more details :)

When I can find where I hid the photos, I will post my other piece for the book, a solidly beaded shrine/Tree of Life piece. Enjoy!

What Came from FedEx Today

Plurtle and Swanson are on page 100! Very nice book, lots of great work from lots of fun artists.

Snow for my Birthday?

Ok, this hasn't happened in at least twenty years, and that time it had snowed on April 4th so we had residual snow (it takes a while for eight inches of snow to melt).

This is the view out my front door this morning. It looks like Ed's lights are on but that is just a reflection.

This is a tighter closeup of Jim and Lucy's driveway and the hillside at the end of my street. They razed the trees last winter, just in that bare patch you can see there. I don't know why, because the trees are still lying on the ground out there. But this gives a good idea of the snow cover. And if you look closely you can see the green in the trees right behind the houses.