Does your to-do list ever get completely out of control? Mine seems to have developed a mind of its own, but I’m showing it who’s boss and whipping it into shape, although I may soon collapse from exhaustion. I may be exaggerating a little, but still, sheesh, I have a lot to do right now. I even had to add ‘clip fingernails’ to the list, because I kept forgetting and I just don’t do long nails, and they were getting annoying.

I did take a little time out for a couple nice activities, however. First of all, I took some pictures of the ornamental plum trees at our post office, which are currently fully in bloom. I think I’m going to send one of these to my sister for this week’s Photoshop picture, and see what she comes up with. I played around a little with giving it a cross-processing effect, which I kind of like.

Before:

After:

I like them both. The sky was so brilliantly blue this morning, it was just perfect for taking pictures.

I also needed to make an Easter bunny egg cozy, because I didn’t have one.

The pattern is from an Yvestown/Cherry Menlove collaboration. I used a felted angora sweater, which I thought was apprpriate. And notice the egg cup matches Yvonne‘s (from a previous Christmas swap). My bunny is quite startled by the fact that he has an entire egg inside him.

You can see more bunnies in the Flickr pool.

So now, for the rest of the month I have to buckle down and finish two quilts for a new book from Lark. I was just looking at their website, and the one with my little yo-yo quilt is coming out soon and it looks really good.  Two quilts in one month? No problem. Heh.
   

I joined Elsie Marley’s mobile swap and finished up my mobile this weekend. I have to say, mobiles are not easy to photograph, but you can sort of get the idea.


This is going to live in a little girl’s room, so I decided on butterflies and hung them from blossom covered branches which you may remember from last Easter.


It was a bit tricky getting the butterflies to hang straight, but overall I like how it came out, although the photos don’t really capture it very well. Now to find a box to ship it in…

So many unfinished projects and so little inspiration. That’s how it is around here right now. Above is an apron I started in December. All I have to do is add a pocket, but I just can’t seem to get to it. Here’s the pile on of unfinished projects on the sewing machine:

And speaking of unfinished, I still haven’t painted this room, although the great de-cluttering project of 2006 and 2007 continues into 2008, and I did get a little more cleaned out of there last weekend.

What do you do when you get like this? I have so very little inspiration, and zero motivation. I feel like I’ve been coming home from work and staring stupidly at the TV, and there isn’t even anything good on. I hope this rut doesn’t last much longer.

I have continued taking pictures, however, and since January is yearly bonus time at my place of employment, I treated myself to a Photoshop upgrade (from v6-super old skool-to CS2)! And I have been playing around with it a bit, because I can do that while stupidly watching stupid shows on TV, so I guess that’s something. I picked up The Photoshop CS2 Book, which I highly recommend. So far I have learned how to apply a vignette, and to lighten too-dark photos using Curves, and create a dreamy glow-y effect. And some color adjusting stuff.  Reading Pioneer Woman has introduced me to the world of Photoshop actions, which are just brilliant, and now I want some. Better yet, I want to make some. I better go learn how to do that now.


My pins and needles are ready and waiting for me to get my mojo back. Even the addition of a squirrel lamp isn’t enough to get me going.

Since we’re in the middle of this bathroom renovation and life sucks right now (for example, it’s 6:30 a.m. and I couldn’t hold off any longer and had to go visit Spanky and the outside temperature? 25 degrees, that’s below 0 to you Celsius  people. Not fun at all.) I think I’ll try to divert attention elsewhere, and direct you to some other pretty things out there in internet-land.

I swear, one of these days I will take all the adorably cute ideas I have in my head (and in my book) and just make them and add them to my etsy shop, to join the two sad, lonely monsters that have been languishing under my neglect there for so very long. In the meantime, however, you can visit some other lovely shops at etsy and pick up some really wonderful stuff. I think I may do a big chunk of Christmas shopping there this year. Doesn’t that sound delightfully un-stressful? And with so many great designers, artists and hand-crafters there now, I bet I could really find some perfect gifts for all my special peeps. Meanwhile, although I’m not spending much on myself right now, I have recently splurged on a couple items there. Sheesh, I sound like a paid advertisement.

First of all, as soon as I saw this pillow, I knew it was meant to be mine. I was sure it would be snatched up quickly, but miraculously, after saving my egg money for a few weeks (hee hee), it was still there and now it lives in my guest room. Janet Clare draws charming pictures with her sewing machine, as well as designing lovely quilts, often with a barnyard theme. I just love how she captures the personality of this chicken and all the creatures she creates. In addition to her cushion covers, you’ll find mini quilts and quilt patterns and embroidery patterns in her shop.

Next up, I bookmarked this seller earlier this year, when I saw her 2007 letterpress calendars, which had long since sold out. I was determined not to miss out on her 2008 version, and as luck would have it, I checked the other day, and there it was. I just checked again, and she’s still got lots in stock. I just love the designs for March, August and November so much! I’ll probably pin all the months up on my cubicle  wall, so I can enjoy all of them all year long.

Not  on etsy at all is artist Emma BrownJohn. I’m really loving her landscape paintings. The colors in this  one really speak to me. Actually, I just picked up paint this weekend for our living room, bathroom and laundry room, and they are all really similar to the ones in this painting. Isn’t it so very dreamy and soothing?

And one more link that is giving me perspective: Renovation Voyeur, a new site where you can see lots of before and after pictures of renovations.  I think I’m hooked. And are you following along with apartment therapy’s fall cure? There’s always lots of inspiration to be found there.

One last little matter of business, once upon a time, a long time ago, I was going to give away some pamphlets. And then I took a long blog break and completely forgot my promise. I could blame my ADD or my falling down tree or the fact that there’s a porta-potty in the driveway, but the fact is, I was stressed out and being selfish, and totally forgot. So, I hope you will forgive me, and I’ll draw a number right this minute. Actually, I’m going to use a random number generator. And the lucky number is: 7! That would be Dawn. I’m sure the lovely nine commenter’s that participated in that post are probably no longer reading my blog, cursing me for my thoughtlessness, but I’ll be sending you an e-mail, Dawn, to get all your info :o)

Once upon a time this was a blog about making stuff. Let’s bring the creativity back, shall we?  Remember how I had big plans to install a clothesline? Well, I actually did it and have been using it the past few weeks. I just really love it. It’s just lovely to go out on a sunny Saturday morning and hang up my freshly washed clothes. I’m not sure how nice it will be in the Winter, but I still plan on trying. Here are not my clothes, but a selection of pretty fabrics, many of which are soon to be a quilt for a nephew who is on the way. I’m pretty excited to get started on this one, my craft room was overtaken by goslings for a few weeks, but they are happily living outside now and I have my very messy space back. For the quilt, I’m using Denyse Schmidt’s What a Bunch of Squares pattern (I think it’s slightly different than the one on her site), and lots of bright, graphic prints, like the numbers fabric on the left, and the green with black printing in the middle. The solid blue that you can just see towards the left will be used for the outside of each block. I hope it works. Her quilts are usually more solid, so I hope it’s not too busy. I plan on working on it all week, so I should have more pictures soon.

And here’s a little something I did a while ago. I bought this cute vintage table cloth on etsy. I love it, but the outlines around the daisy flowers were really faded, so I decided to fill them back in with a little backstitching. I added a cute red border and plain linen back, and viola! A pretty pillow! I like it on my rocking chair, but it will probably spend most of the time in the living room on one of the wing-back chairs, once I recover them with some linen I picked up a few weeks ago for $2 a yard. That’s no typo people, two dollars! I thought it was $4 when I took it to the cutting table, but it was on clearance, and another 50% off. Score!