A Shower for Baby Wombat

Today, my little brother spontaneously complimented me on a design, rather out of the blue.  I hadn't shown it to him yet, and so was surprised he'd seen it.
I was deeply touched, because it's rare for him to offer me an unsolicited compliment. (It's my own fault: when I finish something new I tend to shove it at various loved ones until they Give Me Opinions.)

The thing he complimented me on was the design for a second baby shower invitation.

My sister and my sister in-law are due within two weeks of each other, and another sister is due in September. My parents are surprisingly chill about it all.  For how much they love babies, you'd think they'd be over the moon.  Instead, they are totally laid back.  You see, unlike most grandparents, who love that they can spoil the kids and then give them back, my parents would much rather keep the babies.  Yes, they love babies that much.

I've been calling my brother's baby-to-be "Baby Wombat" because, well, first because it's fun. Second, because have you ever seen a baby wombat? Stinkin' cute (and I don't normally go for the whole look-at-small-animals-and-coo sort of thing).

Chipper as h*ll pillows, and weather to match

The sky is a chipper blue, and my mood matches it.

Incidentally, so do my new pillows.

I finally finished my "bubble wrap" pillow.  I got all of the bubbles done, and the intricate quilted panel I decided to do on the back.  And then I forgot about it, more or less, for about 7 months.  All that remained to do was some quick machine stitching and uncomplicated hand finishing for the seams  on the front (the front panel has a vintage hanky behind all the "bubbles").  Still, it took me all that time to get from "I should work on this" to "I'm going to work on this tonight."
The bubble wrap pillow makes me smile every time I see it.  It's just so absurd. And pretty.  And I didn't make it for anyone else but me, which is rare.

The second pillow I made out of a men's shirt, when the first pillow looked lonely.  So now they get to hang out together until I get the room assembled that they're going to go into, and refurbish the chair they will be on.

Here's a few more photos, so you can see the details, and the other sides of course:

The quilt I photographed them on is a vintage one that mom got somehow, but she doesn't remember it.  I'll show it to her and see if it jogs her memory.
I suspect she inherited it from her side of the family at some point, put it away in her closet (because kids destroy things if you leave them out. Who knew?) and then forgot about it.  With all the upheaval and room moving, it's surfaced again.

It's completely hand pieced and hand quilted.  I think the fabric is 1930s feedsack prints.  It's in excellent condition except for a tear in the middle from being folded so long.  I think I can mend it, but before I do that, I've got to finish another set of baby shower invitations, mend my brother's star wars pajama pants, and make oodles of baby bibs.
I love the fabric that went into making the fan blocks.  I'll alternate details of the quilt with pictures of other things that have been improving my mood lately.

Oh, this kid!  I found his cut mug on kirtsy, and envy the photographer who captured it.

Yes, V-Day is just around the corner, but I like Valentine graffiti better than the typical stuffed animals and cheesiness.

I'm working on designing a logo and business card for my photography.  This business card is just too delicious!

 A happy strawberry from Elsa Mora.

Let us go in; the fog is rising.

Reportedly, those were Emily Dickenson's last words.  How very obscure, rather like both fog and Dickenson herself.

There's a lovely fog on tonight, lingering in the streets from this afternoon when it silently settled into the river valley.  I'm sure it's not lovely for the people driving in it, who are all moving extra slow like the whole city is in one enormous funeral procession.  But it's lovely for me, and my camera.

I couldn't resist.  I went out and took pictures while the light was transforming from an underwater-afternoon light, to a unworldly evening light, punctuated by glowing tungsten and florescence.
The mist made even my neighborhood look dreamy, which is no small trick, as it's a mix of abandoned homes, unkempt rentals, and owners trying to keep up appearances.

I wended my way towards the river, expecting to find it quite dreamy in the fog.  Instead, I found it next to impossible to see at all.  It just disappeared into one quiet meditation in Middle Grey, rather like a Whistler nocturne.  The camera actually picked up more detail than my eye could without straining. It was...beautiful.

The pictures have a temperature to them: the same misty cold that was seeping into my sweater while I was taking them.  So grab yourself a cup of something warm while you peruse.

I thought about adding little notes, saying things about where each picture was taken, or what I like about them, but it seemed rather besides the point.  I mean, the whole thing about fog is how disorienting it is, how each familiar place and object is rendered strange, sublime, and unreal.

Now I'm off to pour myself a steaming cup of chai.

Print Design for Sarah's "nest egg"

I've been ignoring various projects I'm supposed to be finishing (can we say really late Christmas presents anyone?).  Instead, I've been working on a braided rug for my new room (more on this later), and designing the invitations for my sister's baby shower.

The invitation is very pink,  especially once it's combined with the pink envelope and the pink-and-black bird sticker I designed to seal them.
I forgive it because I really like the nest I drew.

The most interesting part for me was the evolution of it as a graphic design.  I have digital documentation of almost all of the stages because I was emailing back and forth with my sister.

I started with an image I created as part of a future wedding suite.  It's meant to be on the back of the RSVP postcards.  (The frame for the main invitation is an adaptation of the frame in this post.)

Then I added an egg I created digitally and filled in the background.  It ended up blue because I was thinking of robin's eggs.

The mommy to-be pointed out the inappropriateness of blue, seeing as how she's having a little girl, so I turned it pink.

Somehow that was less than thrilling. I tried making it even more pink.

I kind of liked it, despite a sincere aversion to pink.  My mother and sister didn't.

I tried to tone it down.

I tried pink with blue flowers and almost heaved.  Baby pink and baby blue really don't look good together, which is probably why almost all designs incorporating both incorporate another color, such as grass green.

Finally, I tried pink egg, black floral design, and a pink border.

viola.  Something everyone could be happy with.

Here's what the inside looks like:

I'll show you what it looks like all printed out tomorrow, when there's better light to photograph by.

Winter texture

It finally snowed!!!

As I was photographing the snow, it was already melting and sliding away.
The temperature plummeted in the hours following, and we still have snow on the ground, but it's not  clinging to every little hummock and detail of the landscape the way it was when it was fresh and wet.

Silent, Soft, and Slow...

This Longfellow poem always gives me a frisson.  I took these pictures almost exactly three years ago, and feel that they match perfectly.  I always think of them both, together, at this time of year.

Snowflakes

Out of the bosom of the Air
Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent, and soft, and slow
Descends the snow.

Even as our cloudy fancies take
Suddenly shape in some divine expression,
Even as the troubled heart doth make
In the white countenance confession
The troubled sky reveals
The grief it feels.

This is the poem of the air,
Slowly in silent syllables recorded;
This is the secret of despair,
Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
Now whispered and revealed
To wood and field.

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

how I wish it would snow.

ewww! gross!

The Christmas flower arrangements have gone bad, and today I got rid of them, with the exception of some mums and greenery that are, against all odds, hanging on.
There are few smells more disgusting than putrid flowers.
It's smells warm, and slimy, and gag-inducing, and... icky.

While I was emptying the vases and trying to hold my breath, I realized that there was an odd, morbid, picturesque quality to the arrangement I was about to dump.
So I decided to take pictures of it.

Every once in a while, I get the urge to take pictures of truly gross things.  Sometimes I decide not to, but other times, I give in.  I wind up with these photos that I have had no idea what to do with.  However, I now have a blog, so no I do have something to do with them: inflict them on you!

In addition to the dead flowers, I've included pictures of a burnt cookie sheet, a dead pet fish (he's in the plastic bag because I was about to return him to the store for a refund, but then my mom lost him in Meijer. True story. ), and a house that burnt down in my neighborhood a couple winters ago.

enjoy! (insert maniacal laugh here)