Delicate domestication

So what do you think of my studio progress above?? And the new do? Do you like my hair?

Okay sillies, this is the most beautiful, blissful picture though right? This happens to be Miss January from Bernina's 75th anniversary calender. One of the many little gifts I received as a result of spending some time with them earlier in the month. Such a gorgeous picture though, and there's that birdcage of mine too. If I could manage this studio with nothing but that swank wallpaper and those three items on her table, what simple days I would have. It will stay January here for the rest of the year, as I cannot bare to flip this dreamy image away!



So in the non-imaginary life of the studio I am making a little progress on some details here and there. In the old European tradition of fanciness that Miss Bernina lives in, I am using some otherwise stored away handmades from my Yiayia. Both windows that face the front yard have a special layer of delicate gold and emerald embroidered linens to boast now. This is a table runner that was so badly stained in the center, that it was never used.



And of course it was with a trembling hand that I actually cut into this. But I wanted to actually see this beautiful handiwork of hers. I wasn't enjoying it or putting it to any use in the drawer. Yiayia put everything to use. And the gorgeous work and color inspired the art deco style motif that I painted across the top of the shades.



The third window on the east wall has this sweetly appliqued and cross-stitched tablecloth filtering the morning sun now too. It's a square tablecloth that has nowhere to rest in this house of giant farm tables that feed masses. After receiving this as one of many wedding gifts from Greece almost 14 years ago, I think I'm pretty sure I won't have a square table anytime soon. Even on the most overcast day, the way the daylight looks through these fancies gives me a feeling of hand-washed linens drying in the sun.



Alot of the tables in here have also gotten a white bath as well as had their tops cozied up with a quilt of fabric swatches. This is the his of the his and hers computer tables. They make me feel a bit like I'm under a comfy blankey when I work on the computer. Happy yaaawn. More soon sweeties.

xo,AM

If it ain't Baroque...

So I've been coming across lots of odds and ends in the studio as I gradually reorganize and liberate my work space from ignoredom. Some of those ends have gotten more odd as they are subjected to this house of many little curious hands.



My mom has not a small obsession with gift shopping at the MoMA. Totally fine by me! I've been showered with delightful little art-y things over the years including this smart art history lesson of a folding meter stick. The glory of which should not be in two pieces as shown above. Alas, it be ever still. Perpetrator yet to be pinned with certainty.



I've tried to fix it. No luck. But a funnier luck, guess during which period of art it broke? Yup. I don't make this stuff up people. It b-roke in the Baroque period. Luckier still for the assumed perpetrator as I was so completely amused by the perfection of coincidence that I forgot to finish my interrogation and punishment. It's fine I suppose the way it is. The kids are now familiar with the Baroque period of art where otherwise they wouldn't have been. Some things don't need fixing.

Reminds me of a thread of conversation that went on over here about whether or not some new crafters think they're reinventing the wheel. There's speculation of a mood in young or new crafters that is ignoring the precious heritage of crafting with phrases like 'this ain't your grannies such and such'. I chalk up most of the scabuttle as a reaction to what businesses, not crafters, do to market their goods to someone who wouldn't otherwise take notice perhaps. I was in Joann's last week for some batting and saw soooo many younger, hipper than normal shoppers milling here and there and nabbing up lots of stuff. I thought what took you guys so long? I'll go ahead and say I was sewing before sewing was cool. I've done it since I was 5 whether it made me a dork, a weirdo, an eccentric or a professional. I've always done it. I do love the new company though.



Mostly I am thrilled that people care enough about making to talk about it passionately. I don't care what brings people to learning handiwork, or what frame of mind is fueling their interest. I'm just glad they're here. I'm thankful for all the things my mother and grandmothers taught me. And though I may look at those same techniques with a fresh set of eyes, cleverness is nothing new. Some of the reasons I do it are different than their's were. I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel. (Although I believe Kath already helped us do that for certain!) There's no need to change or fix some things. You know, if it ain't Baroque.

xoxo,AM

Super Circles

Well I can't spend all my time working on the studio, I do have to work in it too! So today you're getting a (horn sound) tu-tu-tu-tut on achieving the perfect folded edge on a circle!! My Lollipop quilt is in the works and my amazing friend Kath of Material Obsession has made me the happiest woman alive with this little trick! I am really so easy to please. Kath is way too busy being an amazing quilter to take the time to blog this, so I'm doing it for her. I know its not the most complex concept, but in my entire lifelong of sewing this one has escaped me somehow! So have a seat at the sewing circle pals!



*1* Determine the diameter of your circle, draw it onto posterboard and cut it out. Then cut your fabric larger than the circle by about 1/2 an inch all the way around. Good news, the fabric circle doesn't have to be cut perfectly. BUT the poster circle does.



*2* Lay down a modest length of foil, then your fabric circle right side down, then your poster circle centered in the middle.
*3* Fold the foil towards the center of the circle all the way around, letting the fabric fold in tightly with it. Smooth the edges of the circle with your fingers to get out any bumps.



*4* Now press the the foil down all along the outer edges with your iron on a med-high setting.
*5* Turnover and repeat until you've gone all the way around.



*6* The foil edges will be hot, so fan yourself from the excitement and say 'super circles are simple' six times.
*7* Now in happy jiffy-pop mode, peel back the foil and remove (you could use the same foil once or twice more).



*8* Gently pull out the poster circle from the newly creased fabric circle.
*9* Now turn it over and just look at it and feel happy!



Now you can machine stitch, hand stitch, or applique your circles onto whatever you please!! This also would work well for other shapes, ovals, leaves, flowers, etc. Now go tell Kath how cool she is.

OH! And Happy Birthday Mommy! You love nothing if not perfection in sewing, so this tutorial is hereby dedicated to you. Although you probably already knew how to do this and didn't tell me yet. Or likely you told me but I wasn't listening. I love you.

xo,Anna Maria

Clean Monday

Okay so thats it. I'm a minimalist now.

Oh alright, you obviously know I'm lying. I couldn't be even if I wanted to. But I must say I do like the look of a simple, clean space now and then. Doesn't happen often around here of course. Friday night, what started as Jeff saying he needs a better spot to work in the studio turned into a weekend long renovation process that is still just in it's beginnings. He started by building a new sewing table for me so he could have the old one that he built that I stole from him (I know). Then the whole room needed reorganizing. Such a troublemaker. Then I was whining (again) about the horrible carpet which we've yet to think of the most sutiable replacement for. Jeff lifted up a corner and found vinyl tile! We had no idea.



I am of course aware that I might be the only person to dance with joy at finding dirty avacado green school floor tile under their carpet. But for a studio that sees it's share of stain and spill acrobatics, it couldn't be more perfect. Every surface in this used-to-be rec room whether it was trim, door, wall or rug was the shade of ecru dying. And I do like a good neutral really. I know its hard to believe me. But everything? Ish. I was so excited that someone put a color in here once, any color! I've held off on painting for the first 3 years of living here though, thinking that an almost canvas colored room was a perfect enviroment to create colorful things in. Nope, its not. Not for me. That beautiful ugly floor has given me lots of thoughts on the color of this space & it'll continue to tell me what to do. I am only painting one wall at a time, because each wall serves a different task in my work, therefore I think they should all be different.

So I will share over the coming weeks, how this place gets transformed. One wall, one color, one space at a time. For today though, the first day of Great Lent for us Orthodox known as Clean Monday, this glacial blue is perfect. I'll be cooking meatless dishes for 40 days and I am so thankful that the vegan diet started trending on several years ago. All those cookbooks are a dinner saver around here. Not to mention the ever growing vegetarian sections at the market.

Whew, all that indulgence last week happened just in the nick of time!
xoxo, AM

Flicky Friday

Well my little samples of Chocolate Lollipop are settling in just fine with their new friends. This is a shot of my sewing spot that is at the end of my fabric wall and my sorting table. So its a toss up between needing even more storage space or more time to sew up all those supplies sitting on the shelf. Both, I think. I am currently working on my husband to build me a new table from some old doors leftover from the kitchen remodel. I'll keep ya posted on that one.

In other news, I am FINALLY flicking! with the rest of the world (see fun flickr badge in right column, I am so proud) It's gonna take me a while to upload everything there, but it'll be tantalizing to organize all those photos. And so many intriguing groups and photo pools there too! What took me so long!? Oh and I already started a Chocolate Lollipop group to chronicle all those lovelies that you'll no doubt be whipping up this spring. I'm early on that and late on starting a Bohemian Beauties group...but I've gone ahead and added that one too. I've seen so many wonderful things out there, and now you have a spot to share them. You know who are! Upload those flickin' photos!

Have a great weekend! xo,AM

Heartfelt...

...thanks from me to you.



I am overwhelmed at the sweetness of you! I can't say thanks enough for all the enthusiasm you've shared with me for the new line. The only thing I hate about the Oscars, are those acceptance speeches where the tone feels a bit like the winner believes they have saved the world somehow by acting. So I don't want to go on and on here about how delightful fabric really can save the world, but just want to say thank you in the most sincere way I can. Knowing that you appreciate what I do enough to want to drag home a few yards for yourself and play with it is just super.

Gina-bobina has chatted it up a bit too, so go and see her at Quilter's Buzz.

Now I have to get back to the original contents of the heartbox....and some sewing.
Bliss. xoxo,AM

Indulge

Here it is friends. You're getting chocolate for Valentine's day.
All the fun. None of the fat.



Oh, how to talk about this!? I am so pleased with this collection. No, I really don't say that about everything that I design. Promise. But here I did what I set out to do, which is a challenge. The design process is a wonderful, frustrating, emotional, invigorating and gracious thing. I am working with the best there is and am grateful. Love you guys!



The fabrics are grouped into two colorways and in general by warms and cools. I am giddy every time one fabric sits against another, and a combination happens that I hadn't thought of yet. Oh the joy that will be had! I've included some words here with the groups that I found scribbled amongst my early sketches for Chocolate Lollipop. I often play the word game with myself to help me conjure up some imaginary world. It spurs my palette concepts, and gives me tangible things to play with in my mind in terms of form.



Truth be known when I very first etched out a few drawings for some of the elements in this collection it was called Licorice Lollipop and was intended to be all black and white. With a shot here and there of color. Isabela asked me what I was making so I told her the title and she said 'eewa, I don't like lick-arush' Then she told me she'd rather have a chocolate lollipop. I complied.



It was that simple gesture of her preferences that got me going on thinking of this in a childlike way. I remembered what the little flowers on my wall and my bedsheets used to look like. Pure colors. I thought about what it felt like to walk into a candy store when you were little. Do you remember? Remember those very few times you got candy from a whole store devoted to just that and not from pestering your mom as she wrote a check for groceries at |insert your grocery name memory here|? I don't know about you guys, but my heart would jump a little and I would get bamboozled with a flurry of indecisiveness. The only time I still get that gleeful and hurried feeling anymore is when I go to the fabric store. For real. I don't know what direction to go in first, and I don't want to look at my watch and I want to have a bite of everything. Make that a fatquarter of everything. Yes, and a sprinkle of ribbons and buttons too please. Thank you.

I will likley share my ongoing thoughts on these little fancies and all the ideas I have for each an every fabric as the weeks roll on. I'll be busy sewing up my quilt that will be a free downloadable pattern from Free Spirit. I do want to say thanks for your sweet anticipation of this line for me. What a lucky lucky girl I am. I hope it's a treat for you to be here as much as it is for me.

Oh and fair warning, I would suspect the very earliest these goods will hit stores would be around April or May. I ofcourse will keep you updated. Now I need to go do some situps. You know that thing I do when I'm hard at work? I had quite a delicious photoshoot yesterday.

Happy Valentine's Day!
xoxo,AM

Make Way

I feel spring coming. Not in the weather...it's just a feeling. I'm nesting like a mother bird (and no, mom, I'm not pregnant). Though I am preening and cleaning like I am expecting something for certain. Hmmm. What could it be?



Each and every piece of my stash was subjected to snipping and folding this weekend. It was time to cut off those dangley weird strips leftover from random quick cuts & tidy up the shape of every length of fabric. Oddball pieces went into the scrap bowl for sorting. I just cannot throw away anything that might be big enough for a yo-yo or some other little fancy. Translate to I throw away nothing.



Ahhh much better. Tidy 9"x6" rectangles fit just right in these shelves. Some little storage boxes have cozied up next to the stash. I thought outside the box too. The felt box has a new little label made of embroidered felt (a'course). A box of miscellaneous items is covered in fabric. A box of embroidery materials is covered with the bodice of an old garagesale smocked girl's dress. And two big boxes to house all the misfits of scraps.



So any guesses on why my stash would want to look it's best?? And why a bit of room has been carved out here and there??

Yup. Chocolate Lollipop is on the way! Save room for dessert and be ready for sweetness in my next post! My newest collection of yummy fabrics for Free Spirit is about to be delivered. I am a proud new mother. I can't wait for big sister Bohemian to meet her playful new little sister. I think they will get along famously! If all goes as planned you will have Chocolate for Valentines day!



Stay tuned! xoxo,AM

Circles of Love

Here's a little present for you! I added lovely hearts to one of my designs for a Valentine spin on Bohemian. The print is the perfect interlocking X and O too! So no need to rush out this weekend and choose between SpngeBob or Barbie cards, you can stay at home and print these out. Of course I did a boy version for the too-macho-for-pink-punks.

So you can save the above 8.5x11 image to your desktop then print it out on card stock. Cut once across the middle, fold cards and you are in business! Glue on butttons, glitterize it, tie it up with ribbon, tape a sucker to it! Have fun!
xoxo, AM

+35 in -28

More than a week has passed since the last birthday, and we got so bored that Jeff decided to have one too. We snuck off to Chicago (alone!) to celebrate. Just so we wouldn't relax too much there was a jumpy windchill of around negative 28 to keep us awake. It also put us in the mood to melt into a warm enviroment and enjoy some of the most amazing food we've had in a while.



We stepped into a spicy oasis and put flavors to our tastebuds that had never been there before. Toxic rhythms filled the air and gorgeous paintings kept us company. I was particularly enamoured with the constellation lovers that hovered across the room from us. That trio of martini glasses was filled with brightly flavored seafood concoctions. We kept taking turns at imitating tv foodies who describe what they're tasting while their mouths are full. Obnoxious romantic fun.



No homemade cake for sweetie. No complaints or flour on my nose either. A charming scoop of homemade rasberry and rustic praline ice cream waiting to jump in that pool of bittersweet chocolate sauce was a more than suitable replacement.



So with warm bellies and heavy eyelids we stepped from those Oaxacan floors to a glistening winter night in my birthplace. And before you think it was purely a luxurious spree of fun, there was a bit of daytime business involved. It just happened to be good timing with Jeff's birthday.



And the business also just happened to involve a collection of some of my favorite people. Are we so mysterious!? We don't mean to be. But don't you like our self portrait in purses? We made some new friends too. Suffice it to say the sewing world is an evergrowing and diverse place. Manufacturers are paying attention to the excitement out there (including all you bloggers) and want to move along with it. And we want to help them.

You can mix business and pleasure.
Oh good!
xoxo,AM

There I go Again

Can you believe after all the hullahbalooh from my husband I would dare make another pillow!? My friends tired of playing truth or dare with me as a kid because I would do or say anything. Oh and the "a" stands for another pillow. He loves this one though, more than any of them. Because this one is a gift! (haha, I'm not that obnoxious, I'll wait at least a few months before I make another for me)



And the "a" stands for a baby Abigail who is due in about six weeks. If you're my friend and you're pregnant you will likely get some sort of homemade baby something or another. Usually fabric inclined, of course. But the real fun in this was gathering up a charming little assortment of things that have collected around the studio...vintage buttons, leftover felt pennies, scraps of fun things past, and a'course a smattering of my bohemians. I played around with the elements and arrangement for a few minutes, then went to it. It was whipped-up on the couch last night while my sweetie and I watched the world's weirdest movie.



The kids fell asleep quickly after all day in the snow. Having the gift on my makelist this week was something to really look forward to. So I saved it for a scarce quiet time-pocket. Sitting and sewing reminded me of how much I used to cherish nursing all the babies, because it meant I could get my feet up for 30 minutes and no one would expect me to do anything else. Small beautiful interludes. The pillow went to one of the most deserving mothers-to-be I know. Clearly deserving of my stitching time, but really deserving of motherhood. Enjoy Abigail's sweet mommy!

xoxo,AM

Peter the Great

Last night Joseph informed me 30 minutes before bedtime that today was to be book character dressup day. He wanted to be Peter. About 10 minutes and some quick (kinda sloppy) snipping later he was. Susan, Lucy, and Edmund all dug into their wardrobes this morning, only to find our first snow of the season on the other side. No school. No character day. Or is it? They've been in Narnia for awhile now and will likely need cocoa soon. Oh and maybe turkish delight.