Project Z: Baby Memory Quilt

Project Z: Baby Memory Quilt

approximately 65" x 88"

Top patches - combination of onsies, t-shirts, sweaters, pants, receiving blankets, burp cloths, hat and a sock.
Top border - Carolyn Friedlander Architextures Crosshatch in Grey (wide) purchased from Gather Here.

Back - Alexander Henry 2D Zoo in Multi.

Binding - Michael Miller Cotton Couture in Royal Hawthorne Threads.

Filled with 100% cotton batting. 
Pellon SF101 interfacing.

Machine sewn with 100% cotton thread.

Machine washable (cool wash, tumble dry low).

Let me introduce to you, Project Z. This was a quilt for my good friend's son, Z. My friend has been saving articles of clothing with meaning over the last 2 years. And I got to put them together into a quilt! I'm not going to lie, it was a lot of work, but it was worth it. 

Starting point.

I worked loosely off of Coconut Robots tutorial, I choose to use Pellon SF101 as my interfacing. SF101 is not only woven, but also 100% cotton. The woven texture would allow the quilt to fall and drape naturally. And anytime I can work with natural fibers, I do. 

The width of my blocks were mostly determined by the size of each clothing piece. Newborn sizes yielded smaller blocks, as one would expect. In other cases, the height of the graphic print dictated the height of the piece. I avoided cutting off images as much as I could. At the same time, I tried to maintain equal spacing on all sides of the image. Damn my OCD/Type A ways!!

Most of the pieces interfaced, cut out, and ready to be arranged.

There were a few tricky pieces that I had to get creative with. The yellow car shown below was just a tiny thing on the front of a zip-up hoodie (like a logo on the chest). I faked a larger block by cutting it out and appliqueing it onto the back of the sweatshirt. The "My First Christmas" block was actually cut from the backside of a footy pajama like piece. Seriously cute, right? To keep the flap from being accessed, it was sewn shut. 

Some of the more difficult pieces.

To add another layer of personalization, Z's mom wanted to incorporate his initial onto one of the quilt blocks. We chose to applique a "Z" to one of the receiving blankets cut into a large block.

Hand cut from interfaced Michael Miller Cotton Couture in Cherry. 

Chubbs the Penguin was called on to help with the basting process. He wasn't much help.

Lots of stitching in the ditch happened.

It took some finagling, but the blocks came together with minimal resizing. This was one of those times that I had a quilt design board so that I could move the blocks around upright. Instead, I kept rearranging them on my floor. Watch some Law&Order: SVU, move some blocks. Watch another epsisode, move blocks again. And so on until I realized that I had to stop or the quilt would never be finished. There was a method to the madness. I tried to alternate dark and light blocks, stripes with small prints, and break up like colors. In the end, the quilt utilized 80 of the 81 pieces I was given! 

Since I couldn't being myself to quilt over the all the super cute graphics, I quilted around each block. There were a lot of threads to bury. It was a conscious and totally worth it, but wowzas! It's hard to see in the photo below, diagonal quilt lines were added just in the grey borders. 

The backing fabric was not only chosen, but also supplied by my friend. You see, this was leftover fabric used in Z's nursery!

I LOVE how it all came together. Truth be told, I was sad to send it off to Z. I got a chance to experience it's coziness as I was sitting on the couch with the fireplace going... and tucking in the quilt tails. 

Thank you so much V (and M) for trusting me with Z's keepsakes. I'm so glad that I could bring your idea to life and create a completely one of a kind quilt for Z. I can't wait to see it on his big boy bed!

Dear Boston Logan TSA bag inspection agent

An open letter to the TSA agent at Boston Logan that inspected my bag on 3/23/2015 between 3:30pm and 5:15pm.

Dear Boston Logan TSA bag inspection agent, 

First of all, I'd like to thank you. Thank you for inspecting bags and keeping flights safe. 

Now I understand you have a lot of bags to inspect. And I assume that you don't have much time to inspect them. I'm a realist and have zero expectation that you will place things back exactly the way you found them. Ain't nobody got time for that shit. I've had my bags searched plenty of times. It's not a big deal. But this time, it was different.

When I picked up my bag from baggage claim at my arrival destination, I was dumbfounded and angry. You didn't even give me the courtesy of zipping my bag completely closed. Were you having a bad day or something? Did you want someone to share your bad day with? (You can't blame this on someone else. I flew direct from Boston to Portland. It only makes sense that my bag was inspected preboarding at Boston Logan.)

You left the bottom of my bag unzipped. Not only was the internal luggage straps hanging out, but half of one of my necklaces was dangling from the opening. A necklace that I carefully packed in bubble wrap and placed in a foam shell in order to protect all the stones. Which was all put inside a camera bag along with the rest of my jewelry and other odds and ends.  

When I opened my bag, I found that you had dumped half my jewelry out. The felt bag I had carefully placed my watch in was empty. I found my watch in the bottom corner of my bag dangerously close to the open zipper. Items were strewn across my bag haphazardly. I don't even know how you managed to remove the backing to one of my stud earrings. Luckily, I found all the parts floating in my camera bag, along with my bracelets that had been dumped rudely from their protective cloth bags.

Really?!?! You couldn't have thrown it all back into the camera bag from which you extruded it from? I'd be less pissed if you had at given me that courtesy. Just in case you are wondering, my necklace is now marred. You managed to chip one of my stones. Trust me, it wasn't like that before. Thanks. Thanks a lot buddy. 

Now lets move on to the missing items. Yes, items with an "s." Where are my glasses? My prescription glasses? Those were also in the camera bag. Seriously, why are they not at least somewhere in my suitcase?!?!?!?!!?!?!?! I've had those for 8 years and you manage to lose them for me. Thanks. Not like I need to see or anything. Maybe you needed new glasses and can't afford new ones? But I'm pretty sure your health insurance covers you well. And I'm pretty sure my prescription won't help you.

And where is my backpack? My $100 Northface backpack? It was right on top of all the other items in my bag. It would have been the first thing you would have seen upon opening my bag. Perhaps your kid needs a new bag for school. There are other ways of acquiring one. Maybe you thought my bag was over packed (it was pretty full, I'll admit) and you didn't want to exert the energy to get it back in. If I can get it in the bag, it wasn't too much. My backpack was mostly empty. But I never went through the pockets, so I don't even know if you took something of value. I needed that bag buddy. I was planning to use it for my trip to the Grand Canyon. It would have been handy for things like my camera gear, water, granola bars, SPF. But you decided that I didn't need it. Thanks. 

People like you give TSA agents a bad rap. You won't have to deal with the repercussions of your actions. If you were trying to make someone have a bad day, well, congratulations you succeeded. You single handedly started off my trip on a bad note. 

Thanks so much for not respecting my things, 

Celia

Home Improvement: Floor length curtain FAIL

This looks a lot like our kitchen/patio door area with the white cabinets, white backsplash, white trim, and dark floors. When I first saw this image, I loved the geometric print curtains, but after staring at it for awhile, I was hesitant. I just wasn't in love with the print (or any similar print).

(via HGTV)

Then I laid eyes on this photo:

(via BHG)

Bold, bright, horizontal stripes! Only I wanted them in royal purple (to pick up the bits of purple in our granite countertops). Unfortunately, my sleuthing skills failed me and I was never able to find premade curtains with horizontal stripes in purple.

DIY it is! They can't be that hard (I'd eat those words later). Since I'm making them myself, I have full control of the fabric choice, the finish, and budget. I wanted the look/feel of silk dupioni, but I didn't want the price that came with it. So I went cheap and just picked up some of that fake shit from the apparel section at Jo-Ann. What was I thinking? 

After procrastinating for a year, I finally decided to just sit down and knock them out as my first home improvement project of the year. Not to mention, finally sew something for myself. It took 3 days, a hell of a lot of fabric; 6 yards; 12 if you count the lining fabric, and a shit ton of cursing. Damn my perfectionist ways. They looked great and exactly like I had pictured it...until I threw them into the wash. 

Why, oh why did I think that was a good idea? I didn't prewash before sewing. And clearly, I hadn't thought about how cheap polyester does not hold dye well. Yeup, and in just 15 minutes, I had ruined 3 days of work. The purple dye had migrated and tinted the white stripes a pink/purple hue. The off-white that I had painstakingly picked out and matched the trim so perfectly was no longer white! 

Oxiclean failed me. I love the stuff when I'm cleaning my white dinner napkins, but it only made my curtains worse. The tinted white stripes turned completely pink! I tried Shout Color Catcher, but to no avail. I'm done trying to save these things. I'm just going do what I should have done in the first place; BUY the damned things.

Anybody want these?

Day 14: Giverny/Paris

I'm the worst! It's been 2 whole years since my vacation. 2 YEARS! But let's close out 2014 by finishing up with this final recap.

On the last full day of my stay in Paris, I woke up an hour late with a nasty head cold, but I dragged my ass of bed and down to the train station. First on the agenda: visit the Village of Giverny to see Monet's Gardens. Which was to be followed by catching the sunset from the top of the Eiffel Tower. 

Thinking that I had plenty of time, I made a quick stop at Poilane. The interwebs had told me that this was THE BEST bakery in all of Paris. It conveniently just happened to be down the street from my apartment. 

If you are planning on visiting the Eiffel Tower, buy tickets ahead of time. I made the dumbass mistake of just showing up. I stood in line FOREVER. And, only made it part way up. In my defense, all the signage at the base said that the top was closed. But what they didn't tell you is that you buy tickets to get access to the 2nd viewing deck. And once on the deck, there is a ticket booth where you can purchase tickets to go up to the very top. Just save yourself the time and hassle and purchase ahead of time. 

Monet's house in the background.

The famous lily pond.

The bridge.

Gorgeous blooms.

Perfect dahlia.

Colorful ivy in the village.

Gateau millasson (french flan).

See, "closed." Maybe I misread it?

View from the 2nd balcony.

Dear Paris, I love you.

In 2005, I sat at the end of the green and took pictures of the tower with my Minolta Dimage X.

Truth: I'm huddled behind a bus stop trying to get this shot.

And that my friends, is the conclusion of my 2012 European adventures. 

Previously:
Day 13: Paris
Day 12: Paris
Day 11: Versailles
Day 10: Edinburgh/Paris
Day 9: Edinburgh
Day 8: London/Edinburgh
Day 7: London
Day 6: London
Day 5: London/Greenwich
Day 4: London
Day 3: London
Day 2: Cambridge/London
Day 1: London
Day 1: London - prefunc

*All photos taken by me with Nikon D7000.
**Don't steal my photos. It's not nice and makes you an asshat.

Hello Kitty Quilt

Hello Kitty Baby Quilt

approximately 35"x44"

Top - wall hanging panel purchased from Fat Quarter Shop (no longer available).

Back -  Free Spirit Voile in Rose Pink purchased from Hawthorne Threads.

Binding - unknown cotton from my own collection.

Filled with 100% cotton batting.

Machine sewn with 100% cotton thread.

Machine washable (cool wash, tumble dry low).

This was my first try at whole cloth quilting. I'm not going to lie, I'm a big fan. Not having to piece the top together made the job go a whole lot faster. Although, really, I just ended up using the time to draw in the diagonal quilt lines. And even then I screwed it up. Luckily, I caught it before I started quilting. 

Technically, the quilt top is not considered quilt shop quality material (read: not soft). To balance it, I chose a voile which is  silky and soft. I love this stuff. Hey Free Spirit, please re-release the voile in Sky. Thank you! For the binding, I was able to pull a print directly from my stash (woohoo for making more room). I think it was a Riley Blake print I purchased from Pick Your Plum eyons ago. It was a subtle teal with green dots, a perfect complement to the green already in the quilt top.

My Autoimmune Protocol (AIP) experience

It's been almost 2 years since my RA diagnosis. Some days are better than others. And some days just suck. I haven't been able to figure out what triggers my flare ups. It's obvious when I do manual labor. But it's not obvious the rest of the time. I've had a sneaking suspicion that it has to do with my diet. When I cheat and eat dairy and gluten, I go hog wild. If I've had a little bit, what's a little bit more? 

Before, during, and after our tropical vacation (Caribbean cruise), I had a perpetual flare up that went on for weeks. It just would not go away. I made up my mind  to take care of myself. (Another deciding factor was that I may have eaten my weight in food during the cruise, woops).  Of course, I never just ease into things. I decided to go full boar start both Cross Fit AND the Autoimmune Protocol at the same time. More on Cross Fit another time. My hope with this "diet" challenge was to see if my RA could be managed through diet (whoohoo, no meds?). Let's see how I did, shall we?

Week 1: September 2-8
Piece of cake. I chalk it up to being a 4 day work week and having prepped enough food in advance during the work week. I ate the same thing for breakfast everyday and have yet to make AIP porridge again. I didn't notice any changes or major cravings. Although I could have used a chocolate chip cookie. Rookie mistake: not packing enough food on the first day. I was starving by the afternoon.




Week 2: September 9-15
I was very gung-ho about researching recipes and cooking my food in week 2. But at the same time, it began to feel like I had lost my life to working out, grocery shopping, and food prep. This is also the week that I cheated during one meal. We host a monthly dinner club, which happened to land during my challenge. I tried to give myself a free pass, but I felt SOOOO guilty about it. It made me stop and realize that I can't be so hard on myself; it's OK to cheat. I did notice that the morning after cheating (not like a ate a lot), I woke up with a minor headache. Tip: don't EVER offer to pick up fresh donuts when you are on a restricted diet. Just say no!




Week 3: September 16-22
This is where things start to breakdown. While I was still excited to find new recipes, I failed when it came to execution. I found myself making the same things as week 1. Frankly, I was tired of eating meat and salad all the freaken time.



Week 4: September 23
Yup, I didn't even make it through the first full day of week 4 before I finally gave up. I had been hemming and hawing about giving up through the weekend. I'd experienced flare ups every week so far and the bloated belly had returned. So when a box of Wondermade marshmallows arrived on my doorstep and I said to hell with it and promptly tore the box open and devoured the sugary treat. Tip: don't order yummy treats while you are on a crazy diet. Hell, don't even look at regular recipes or food blogs. It'll just kill you.


Final thoughts:

• Whole30 is hard. Whole30 AIP is really hard. If you are going to do it, be prepared. Have recipes ready and make time to prep food. 
• It is possible to dine out while on this crazy challenge. Sushi, if you eat that stuff, is really safe. But I was able to go to an American Bistro and have them customize a salad for me with no problem. My only complaint was that I asked specifically for no pepper on my grilled chicken and they didn't listen. Thankfully, black pepper is safe for me.
• With only salt and herbs allowed as seasonings, I learned how to properly salt my food. Previously, I had under salted everything. I have an irrational fear of over salting after an incident when I was 15. 
• I'm getting really good at cooking meat: sear it in a pan, throw it into the oven, but most importantly use a temperature probe! Don't be guessing at how much time you need. 
• Coconut milk is not my friend. Thanks to the reduced diet, I was able to figure out that drinking full fat coconut milk (steamers and smoothies) has adverse affects on me, aka bloating. 
• I think I may have figured out a trigger food: sugar! Raw honey, maple syrup, cane sugar, etc. I'm pretty sure that when I eat too much of it, my finger swells up and becomes tender. I need to experiment more with this, but for now, there are cupcakes to be eaten.

Oops, I did it again.

My poor HTC DNA.

Oops, I did it again. I dropped my phone one too many times and finally cracked the screen. Hmm, that photo kind of looks familiar, right?

Oh yeah, I broke the screen on my last phone in the same fashion almost 2.5 year ago! It was even the same corner!! Oy, I'm such a klutz.

HTC Incredible circa 2012.

Maybe I should stay away from phones that has the glass going to the edge of the phone. Better yet, maybe I should use a case on my phones. Oh wait, I have them. (I love the Seidio surface cases.) But for whatever reason (cockyness?) I remove the cases and thus end their lifespan prematurely. 

At least I leave the Zagg Invisible Shield on. After my first breakage, I swear by them. Unlike Bill Hader in the Tmobile commercials, I was able to continue using my phone while I waited for the phone I wanted to be released. 

And just like last time, I will continue to use my phone as is (I looked up how to replace the glass, and it's a pain in the ass) for the next few months and hope that the Google Nexus 6 gets released sooner than later. Maybe since the glass is cracked so badly, I won't reach for it so much. I'll take any reason to break my internet habit.