croque-choux

Current mood: blue-green

I finally broke down and bought this book on eBay, if only to see what all the fuss was about, and you know what? It's a great book! Nice clean modern designs, fab colors, and a logical approach to quilting. I wish this book had come along earlier... I actually stopped making "traditional" quilts because they took me forever to make, what with the thousands of little triangles, points to match, and sore fingers from hand quilting. Maybe I'll get back into it later (much later is my guess), because I still have a soft spot for the "oldies but goodies". Sigh... Now if only I could afford some Danish modern furniture to go with the future mod quilt I hope to make some day :o)

Japanese craft book Wishlist

I have been fiddling around my sidebars, adding some things and taking away others. It's a little busy and still isn't the way I'd like it to be, but I'll fix it later. I have been meaning to add a wishlist of all the Japanese craft and sewing books that I have been fixating on, and I finally did this. I'd really like to have a peek in this book on embroidered bags... I have a feeling the list is going to be pretty long! I'll post the ISBN numbers too, as soon as I can. I've also added 2 or 3 blogs to my list of daily reads, so have a look. And while we're on the subject of Japanese books and blogs, Crafting Japanese is a must-read!

A little art nouveau, s'il vous plait

I scored this Art Nouveau quilt book at a discount book store near my house about 2 weeks ago. It was sealed with shrinkwrap so I couldn't peak in and see if it was worth buying, but I figured it was such a deal that it didn't matter. Less than 4€! While it does have quite a few nice projects, it's the kind of book where you wish the author would have taken the idea a little further. It's still a good book though. Art nouveau/deco inspired quilts... so many unexplored possibilities, but I think that maybe people prefer 70's style or Japanese style quilts at the moment.
I have been thinking about silhouettes a lot lately anyway, so when I saw the cover of this book I had an "aha!" moment, and a few of days later I made this fabric postcard. The background was a lot of fun to make because it gave me a chance to use all those snippets of hand dyed fabric, various fibers, and metallic threads floating around my sewing area. My mother used to call this making something out of nothing :o) The background was a little busy, so that's when I thought I'd try appliqué-ing on top of it in black. Oh, before I forget: here is a sample page from the aforementioned quilt book. This makes me think that I should not be stupid and remember to take my camera with me next time I drive into Paris because a lot of times you do see lovely architechtural details in unexpected places like balconies and windows. Well, at least I always carry a little drawing pad in my purse. Even if I don't use it to record a a design idea or a brain mouvment, at least it keeps my little boy busy when we go to a restaurant!

Random personality test time!

Harry Potter Personality Quiz by Pirate Monkeys Inc.

Which reminds me, I should hurry up and finish reading the Moonstone so I can start reading "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince", which I bought before going on vacation. I can hardly wait to find out "whodunit" in the Moonstone, so that I can curl up with 600 pages of Harry Potter!

Test found via Lisa's blog "Musings of a Procrastinator Extraordinaire".

Photos

I'm headachey again, so I probably won't be able to upload all my photos from Denmark into iPhoto today, but I promise to share a few as soon as possible. I wish I felt better. Too many migraines and so little time...
In the meantime, I added a Craft Book photo album to my side bar, which is where I will be putting pictures of Japanese craft books (or magazines) that I own, as well as other crafty books bien sur. I'll be adding their ISBN numbers too.

"Maman, je t'aime"

Mother's Day was Sunday here. This is what I got:

- an adorable handmade card from my son
- a lovely exotic bromelia plant from my daughter
- a cool book off my wishlist from the DH
- a migraine headache

Well, 3 out of 4 isn't bad...
I even managed to drag myself into class Monday morning (this week: InDesign). More on the Embroidered Purse book later. I didn't even get a chance to go through it yet because my head was imploding on Sunday.

The benefits of tiring one's self out

knackered [from knacker*] adj (British slang):
tired, dead tired, worn out, “I’m bloody knackered”, also broken beyond repair, “that car’s knackered”

A handy word indeed. Commuting to Paris everyday in overcrowded tin cans and sitting for 8 hours in front of a PC trying to cram a lot of knowledge into my little brain in a short time is taking its toll, but I won't bore you with the state of things (i.e. moi) here.
The good side to all of this is that I'm learning a lot (Adobe Illustrator this week, yay!!), and that I have an hour all to myself at lunch time to wander around Paris! I don't spend much of the time eating either- I just grab a sandwich or something and walk around shopping or window shopping. I haven't done this in years and I'd forgotten how many people do this on their lunch break. Okay, it's bad for digestion and I can hear you say: "no wonder she's too tired to update her blog these days!", but it's a rare treat for me to have an hour to myself in Paris. No kids, and nobody saying 'but I don't wanna go here or there' :o) Yesterday I went here and then I went back to one of the Japanese book shops I mentioned the other day, and bought this little Wachifield book! I fell in love with Akiko Ikeda's wonderful illustrations when I visited Japan about 12 years ago. I still have this Wachifield illustration of Dayan cat waiting with his suitcase in poster form on my bedroom wall. (I wish I now that I had bought other Wachifield things while I was there.) My poster reminds me of my trip and of all the adventurous cats I used to share my life with. This image is the first page of a neat little Flash animation presentation of the wonderful world of Wachifield by the way. Watch it!

*knacker n : buyer of old horses for slaughter.

Souvenir, souvenir

When I make presents for people, I'm usually in such a hurry to give them the gift that I almost always forget to take a photograph. Then I kick myself later. I once made a beautiful crazy patchwork bag for my ex-boss (who was also a friend), with black beaded fringe and hand embroidery. It came out really nice, and now 5 years later I can't even remember what it looked like... The sad part is that she's probably forgotton what I look like by now, but that's another story. People change.
Sigh... That's why I was so happy to see this little flower purse again! I made this for one of my daughter's best friends, for her birthday last year. Her friend came to spend the night last week, and I noticed that she brought her little flower bag along with her. She uses it as a jewelry pouch. The nicest thing about seeing the bag again is that I know she uses it and loves it. This made me really happy! My daughter and her friend suggested that I take a picture of it for posterity- well no, for my blog actually, so here's a photo. Anyone who has Kumiko Sudo's lovely book Omiyage will recognize it. There are some really beautful things to make in her book, and it is one of my all-time favorites.

Bear with me

The lack of updates and general chit-chat here lately is due to the fact that I finally started the training courses I mentioned awhile back, which means that I am too braindead afterwards to do much of anything. (This also explains why I am behind in my e-mail, and why my postcards are late...)

Today was my 2nd day of Quark Xpress. Yesterday my head was spinning, but today was better. I'm no longer used to commuting to Paris everyday either, which can be very trying... The nice part, besides the classes of course, is that the classes are in an area of Paris I especially like. Near the Louvre and Opera (not like I have time to go to either!), where I can find English bookstores, a fabric store, plenty of Japanese restaurants and food shops, and best of all- I discovered 2 very cool Japanese book stores in the area! I am so stupid for not having gone there sooner! (^.^#) Junkudo's even has a downstairs which is supposed to have toys and other goodies, but since they were closing I only had time to drool over all the craft books on the ground floor. I saw at least two that I am definitely coming back for, because I haven't seen these anywhere else. The place is a little confusing because the prices are in yen and you have to look up the Euro price on little flyers on the wall, but who cares. The second shop is called Book Off which I guess must be a chain store, and I couldn't believe they opened one in Paris. Why? Because it's a bookstore with friendly staff and great prices on (now this floored me) 2nd hand books, dvds, mangas, etc- all in great condition. I almost lost my mind when I found this place. I'll have to check the craft section frequently. The other day I scored this Handmade Felt book for a 2 Euros (less than 2 bucks)!

a Danish stuffed animal book

Yesterday I wrote about some of the Japanese books I have, but I'd also like to mention this one. It's a Danish book called "Sjov Med Patchwork". Here is a picture of a little chick I made from a pattern in this book.
Inside are patterns for bugs (a dragonfly!), chickens, and barnyard animals, mostly. The book is written in Danish, but like the Japanese books if you can figure out a diagram you can work through these patterns. ISBN 87-7905-165-0. You can check out other Scandinavian quilt books here, and here they have others (including a few knitting books).