Curious Bird

Happy Monday, ya'll

My grandmother made us a wonderful owl quilt. Yep, an owl quilt that's warm and cozy and covered in hand painted owls. Good grief, we feel lucky. 

it was a good year

Another year is coming to a close. It's hard to believe {something I'm finding myself saying more and more}. So much has happened in the last 365 days. There were ups and downs, as with any year. There were BIG moments, like a wedding, a honeymoon, and a holiday trip. I made new friends, took lots of photos, cooked new recipes, created some art, and rambled about it {or most of it} here. It was a good year. Thanks for stopping by this silly blog to share it with me.

Happy 2008, friends.

Fondly,
Leya

tis the season

for making new stockings...

These were just completed and shipped out to D's parents. His mom and I talked about stockings during our visit in October and I surprised them with these. My plan is to make two stockings a year until everyone has one (no, not everyone, I mean all the people in our immediate family, which totals six people).





As promised, I wanted to link a few more gift ideas from Etsy.

This great shopping tote. 
Always a fan of owls, this is cute.
For the tea or coffee drinker on your list.
A lovely photo. 

Stay warm, folks {I'm freezing over here}

leya

a new hat for zee husband

because it's no fun to sew only for myself.
because he made me a lovely dinner.
because he cut some pants into shorts and the blue material leftover really wanted to become a matching hat. (he has already informed me that he will not be wearing them at the same time ever).
because two months ago today we got hitched.
and mostly just because.

be well,
leya

round two

Hello,

We just returned from a lovely weekend away celebrating our getting hitched. This time we whooped it up with all of our family and friends who couldn't travel to our wedding in New York in September. Dustin's parents graciously hosted this sweet little shindig in their backyard, complete with our favorite kind of cake: carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. Happen to recognize the design? 

Lots of travel delays later, I'm finally home and ready to get back to regular blogging. Wish me luck.

More very soon,
Leya

a nice afternoon

I love summer, don't you?

:sky:

gratitude

This weekend my boy made me a lovely breakfast. He did a very creative twist on a french toast recipe from epicurious by omitting the milk and sugar that was called for and instead he added egg nog. {good thing because there was no way I was drinking any more of the nog we had. that stuff is serious} I think the recipe switch was a brilliant idea based on how good the sweet, but not too sweet french toast turned out. 

After having a pretty sad week thinking about life and loved ones and just how impermanent every thing really is, I couldn't have asked for a better treat. Although the french toast and strong coffee was super tasty, I think sitting in the chilly morning sunshine quietly sharing space with someone I love was the thing that I needed most.

stay warm,
l.

I should eat mango everyday

As promised, here are a few photos of items I've been working on for Art Star. I've made a ton of bags of all shapes and sizes -- the three above are some of the latest ones. I just love each of those fabrics, especially the floral one on the far right-- it looks hand-drawn and then partially colored in with colored pencil or something.  How cool is that?
A new item I've been making ( I've made almost 20!) are snap closure pouches perfect for coins, cell phones, smokes, you name it. See that drum major fabric in red? I found it recently and let's just say I was thrilled. I mean, drum majors, c'mon... I thnk I remember wanting to be a drum major when I was in third grade.

And last but definitely not least, I simply couldn't attain blog balance without a few vacation shots. I'm not one for posting photos of my family and friends on here too much. I do occasionally, but mostly it's me, my art, and sweet ol' Dustin. How could I? I almost forgot about Mortimer and Motown. What's wrong with me, they get more air time than anyone, but you already know this, don't you?
Anyway, below are some shots from our lovely trip. I want to send huge amounts of love and thanks out to Dustin's family for coming to NC and sharing such a great mountain vacation with us. We had such fun.  Maybe we should have another one, say, next month??

Dustin and his mama.

The beginnings of a great fruit salad...

Ahhh...berries


The light in the cabin was so lovely I couldn't resist.

Have a sweet day, my friends.

steam is crucial

Hello friends!
It's good to be back  after a long weekend. I hope you found some time to relax. I certainly did.  Here's a funny tidbit for you: D's parents bought me a top of the line, super fancy Rowenta iron for my birthday, but due to the fact that Dustin's father has a shakey handle  on online shopping principles, it's a little behind schedule. Here's the kicker:  upon finding out I had been gifted with an outta site iron, I promptly returned my newly purchased, cheapie iron (dumb move, I know) back to the store.  So, I've been without an  iron for a week and by yesterday I was getting a little crabby. One needs steam to sew, right? Luckily, Dustin intervened and took me to purchase another (only to be returned upon receiving my Rowenta) iron so I would quit looking lost and panicky and get back to the peaceful calm of sewing. It worked. Thank you, Dustin. What on earth would I do without you?
Disclaimer to Dustin's parents: This is not your fault. I have a sickness and it requires me to sew and steam fabric almost daily. I also have problems with being overzealous and doing things like taking irons back before new irons have arrived. I will learn a valuable lesson from this, I promise.

Check out this new development:
I began a temporary (hopefully moving towards permanent) membership to my local Y today, which has me pretty psyched. I know it doesn't seem like a big deal (and maybe it won't be after a few days) but I can see the Y from my house, so being able to bike over and swim a few laps as well as use all those fancy machines to increase my heart rate has me sort of excited.  I used to practice astanga daily and since that completely slipped away and I'm tired of beating myself up about it, I decided to switch gears. Wish me luck. Now I can say things like, "I Y".

After that long iron rant, you're probably wondering what I managed to sew?

Case o' baby owls.


 
and a couple of placemat clutch bags.  Both of which have been added to the site.

more soon.