A Few Disappearing 9-Patch Blocks

[Scroll down two posts or click here for the SMS/scrap bag giveaway]

Two nights ago I had to watch Goodbye Columbus for class (or rather for the class I'm teaching for, so I could effectively meet with my students about their papers on it). This offered me a nice opportunity to spend 1.5 hours doing something crafty as well. My best multi-tasking occurs while I sew and watch things. Given the short amount of time (and the tiny amount of crafting time I have in the next 3 weeks), I wanted to start and finish something during this period.

Therefore I decided to make some disappearing 9-patch blocks to send to Rachel for her Irish Flood Quilt efforts. I've got other donation quilts to finish, but a few blocks was a do-able thing, so I grabbed some remnant fabric, made some 9-patches, and chopped them into disappearing 9-patches. I used mostly medium primary colors so that they will hopefully blend more easily with the blocks other people make. I really love the turquoise/brown/red/yellow combination, and I need to remember that for future projects. The blocks off in the mail today, and I'm back to work for the near future.

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Hippos! Birds! Fish! Monkeys!

If you're here for the SMS Giveaway, scroll down or click here.

Michelle brought another giveaway to my attention. 

First Step Photo is offering a $50 gift card for their wall decals through Grosgrain. Vinyl may not be the most environmnetally friendly material, but I think wall decals are probably not the worst thing in the world. And they're cute and fun.  And they even make hippos! And loads of other fun animals and designs.

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SMS Giveaway Day

Happy Giveaway Day! And welcome to everyone, but especially to any new visitors -- I know you're probably scurrying through all the links and opportunities to win, but I hope you'll return and look around on a day with fewer giveaways to enter.

I've done a fair amount of quilting this fall and have a fair number of scraps to show for my efforts. 

My offering is this bag full of scraps, to which I'll add a few larger remnants from my fabric collection.

A few of you may recognize some of these fabrics as some of the scraps come from making the Miracle Foundation quilts for which some of you so generously contributed fabric. If you win the giveaway, I'll make a special bag for you from the rest of my fabric stash.

This bag o' scraps includes a variety of fabrics -- in color, design, and manufacturer. You'll find some Amy Butler, Alexander Henry, Michael Miller, and Heather Ross alongside some Timeless Treasures, Benartex, Joanns, and who-knows-what-provenance scavenged at thrift stores and garage sales. There's a range and I've made stuff from all of it, but some meets the "quilt shop quality" standard and some doesn't.

The Fine Print: 
Since I know there are plenty of giveaways to keep you busy for the next few days, I'll keep this one simple: leave a comment telling me your favorite animal.

This giveaway is open until Dec 6, at which point I will select a winner randomly.

Make sure your post provides a way for me to contact you.

One entry per person.

Open to those with US and Canadian addresses.

Coming Soon!
The Festival of Lights, aka Chanukah, starts next Friday, December 11. Check back here for some giveaways over the 8 nights of the holiday.

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Wowzers!

Wowzers was the first (not) word to come to mind as I unexpectedly learned that I won Keyka Lou's scrap bag giveaway!

I was standing at one of the computer clusters on campus, browsing my Google Reader after checking email before class and, lo and behold, there is Two Hippos listed as the winner of a 1/2 pound of beautiful scraps. I love scraps!

You can buy scrap bags from the supplies section of Keyka Lou's etsy shop. She also makes beautiful clutches, wallets, and bags and sells her patterns as well.

Check back here tomorrow for a giveaway from me!

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A Little Rake Debacle

Rake image from charm4you's etsy shop.

Before I went to bed last night, I made myself a list of all the things I need to do to day. I love making lists, but more than making the lists, I love crossing things off the list. To scratch items off the list alas requires actually doing them. And here it is, at about half past noon, and I have very little to show for my morning. Not for lack of trying, however.

First, there was the burnt oatmeal. Don't start making oatmeal and forget about it. The scorched pot, the acrid smell, and the lack of breakfast are not good things. That's what I get for becoming distracted and trying to take care of some other things while making breakfast. In other words, it's what I get for attempting to multitask in the morning.

And then there was the rake. Tomorrow is the final leaf pick-up day for my town and, in an attempt to be a good citizen, I waited to move the leaves from the curb to the street until today. Also I'm lazy and procrastinate, so all that good citizen stuff is cover for just not dealing with the final step of leaf removal until the last possible moment.

Because I waited for the last minute and did not check on the supplies necessary (or the one tool necessary, a rake), I didn't realize that the better rake had disappeared from the shared garage. I pulled out the less-good rake, which is less good for a reason. Or was less good until it died. Yep, midway through transferring the leaves from the grass to the street, the rake handle split in half. leaving me with about 1.5 feet of handle attached to the rake. I did the best I could with what I had -- and used the snow shovel as a plow of sorts -- and am content to have a not totally leaf-free yard. Ehh, so it goes. At least trash pick-up is today and the trash truck came by after the rake debacle, so the rake is no more.

Despite all this, the day will move on. The sun has come out, which makes any day a better day, I've cleaned the scorched pot, and I just had a cup of hot chocolate with whipped cream. As for the errands and work that need to be done, there are still some hours left in the day. I can cross off leaf duty from that list and maybe I'll be able to cross off another item or two by nightfall. Or not, who knows.

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Polar Bear Warmth

About a month ago, I mentioned the most recent Craft Hope Project for Margaret's Hope Chest. While I intended to make a couple quilts to send, I ran out of time and could only complete one before the November 15 deadline. I felt bad about this turn of events, so I added a fleece-backed scarf to my package. I figured that if homeless students needed quilts, they could also use a scarf. While it's not the same as a quilt by any means, I wanted to add a little more than one quilt and this was the best I could do with the time I had. In addition, it was a great way to use up some of the remnant fleece I have, and I plan to make some more in the near future.

In another bit of news, the above picture might have been the last taken with my old dying camera!

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A Not Very Black Friday

While many lined up at stores during the wee hours of the morning or even pitched tents yesterday to stand in line for "Black Friday" specials offered by retailers across America, I slept in (for the the first time in a long time!) and then got started on some of my weekly reading. I generally separate my student/work life from this blog, but one of the books I'm currently reading for class resonates well with many of the messages, posts, and pleas I've seen from the handmade/crafty community.

For those who make things, the holiday season can be both joyful and frustrating. The holiday season offers a potential boon time to those selling their handmade wares (through their own websites, at craft fairs, on etsy, on artfire, or any other platform). But it can also be exasperating as people reject their wares in favor of mass-produced stuff [or fill in your favorite noun here]. There is no doubt that almost all of us living on the grid buy things that are mass-produced and sold for cheap; few of us have the money to always buy the most high-quality goods made from well-sourced, fair-trade materials by equitably-compensated artisans. At the the same time, however, consumption breeds a mentality that favors more over better, which is why, to betray my leanings on this matter, I avoid malls and shopping to the best of my abilities (with fabric stores being the most obvious exception!).

For those interested in the dominance of Wal-Mart in contemporary America (and the consumption ethos and service ethos it conveys), To Serve God and Wal-Mart: The Making of Christian Free Enterprise (2009) provides a corporate biography in which Bethany Moreton reconstructs how Wal-Mart ascended to the top of the world's corporate mountain as a global retail behemoth.

I'm only midway through the book, but so far it is quite readable and engaging -- a laudable characteristic of any book published for a primarily academic and business audience.  Detailing how the northwest Arkansas business turned the region's anticorporate populism into its own brand of procorporate populism, To Serve God and Wal-Mart delves into the companionate roles of business tactics, rhetoric, government subsidies, entrepreneurial aims, free-market gospel, Sunbelt migration and buying power, and missionaries to describe the potent mixture of faith and profit in the growing service economy.

It's not a quick read, but no matter where you stand on Wal-Mart, this book offers a different -- and thought-provoking -- twist on Black Friday.

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Posts will continue to be sporadic through the end of the semester, but I hope to have some more crafty things to show you in the next few days. Also, I'll be participating in Sew Mama Sew's December Giveaway Day, so check back here on December 2 to win something fun!

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Opportunities

An opportunity to help...provide a kid with a quilt this winter. Go here to get the details.

An opportunity to win....Free Market Fancy fabric. Head over here to enter.

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The Goat-Faced Girl

It's not often that I get to plug a children's book created by someone I know well, but a good friend of mine from college has happily provided me with such an opportunity. The Goat-Faced Girl updates and reinterprets a classic Italian folktale, offering a non-preachy lesson in the intrinsic and extrinsic rewards of hard work. Written by Leah Marinsky Sharpe and illustrated by Jane Marinsky (a mother-daughter pair), the book wittily winds its way through the forest and the palace.

The foundling raised by a lizard-sorceress appears destined for the perfect life of princess sloth, until her wise mother intervenes. Torn from a world of lazy luxury, the would-be princess doth protest; yet through a series of trials emanating from the transformation into the "goat-faced girl," the wisdom of her mother prevails and, moreover, reveals the importance and power of hard work and self-reliance.

From the opening lines on, the book invokes, mimics, and drolly engages classic folklore motifs and language: "Once upon a time, long ago and far away, a baby was left in the forest. This event wasn't so strange in itself, for lost children appeared in this particular forest every third Thursday. But this foundling was an infant girl who was far too young for quests, unable to understand talking animals, and even too young to interest the witch in the gingerbread house." Of course, the baby can't rest in the forest for long, and along comes a lizard to save the day. But the forest residents -- which must, the gingerbread reference implies, include at least a few gossipy old hags -- can only look on in wonder as the lizard rescues the child and spares the animals "a tripping hazard" that leads the group "not to interfere with the lizard's plans." Raised by a magical lizard, Isabella grows and approaches adolescence and maturity with but one flaw: laziness.

To see how the lizard mother helps transform Isabella into more than a lazy young woman attracted to an equally lazy Prince Rupert, read the book! Leah first told and refined this tale while babysitting, and its sophisticated yet clear prose shows the strength of time-tested modern story-telling. Accompanied by rich illustrations, The Goat-Faced Girl is a visual and linguistic treat. Jane Marinsky's illustrations are vivid and detailed, offering much to delight in, linger over, and savor.

Find it at your local bookstore, library, or online here. For less than $12 (on Amazon, anyways), it will make an excellent holiday and/or birthday gift.

Update: Go here for the book-signing events calendar and here to see Jane Marinsky's website.

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ISO: Red/Black Mingle (Robert Kaufman)

I disappeared last week, thanks to germs and work. No swine flu for me, just your basic cold, but it made me lie low while trying to get other work done. I'll probably be a bit slow to post for the next few weeks as the end of the semester rush builds and time for fun things (temporarily) dimishes.

In the mean time, I'm hunting for some fabric for a project. Specifically, I am looking for Robert Kaufman's Mingle by Monaluna in red/white and black/white. It looks like this (in black/white, since I'm having trouble even locating an image of the red, though I've seen it before):

If you have any in the black/white or red/white colorways, please be in touch (2hippos [at] gmail). I could use anything from a fat quarter to a yard, and am open to buying it or trading for it. Thank you!

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