The Bag

Once there was a sad & lonely dishtowel. Discolored and forgotten, it went to live at a crummy antique mall. Then, one day, it was rescued and put on a clothesline to have its picture made:


Realizing that amputation was necessary, the towel underwent the necessary surgery, and got to meet some exciting new friends called "salmon bias tape" and "pinking shears":



The towel underwent a bit of hibernation, and rested up for the next exciting portion of its journey. Now that the striped sides had been sliced off to make straps, and the embroidery pinked out as an accent piece, the towel went looking for its soulmate. Where, you might ask, does a dishtowel look for a soulmate? Hancock Fabrics Memorial Day Sale, of course!

Once the towel had met the turquoise fabric for which it was destined, it was only a matter of time until the bag came together as a tote. If I had it to do again, I'd strive for a bit more width to the bag, but I'm satisfied with this for now. Please notice how well the stripes turned into straps, providing me with great practice in stitching a (GASP) straight line.


(Sorry for the funky picture arrangement - Blogger said NO to my plans for it.)

Now that you know the story, don't you just love it a teensyish bit more?

Thanks to Barb over at the Purse Project for the inspiration. Can't wait to see what's on tap next!

c'est fini

(Should be ce sont finis, but despite the French love of grammatical correctness, they use the singular to discuss things in the plural. Now you KNOW I'm a big dork.)

So I braved the swamp fire smoke that lingered in our part of the atmosphere this morning just long enough to snap a cutie pie clothesline shot of these babies:


2/3 of the Highway 36 Band of Mr. Robotos have found a permanent home. These will be delivered post haste to the little darlings for whom they were intended. (I foresee some mommies being even more impressed than some kiddies.) Mwahahahhahahahah. Mad props to Laurie for creating these super-easy yet very impressive iron-ons. I am seriously considering buying some more in green. And now she has ninjas, too. SHEESH. What's a girl to do?

Now, some of you have been following the new roommate saga with bated breath. True to the "intervention" form, as discussed by my buddy Chuck Klosterman, I ditched the first roommate and picked up a second one yesterday. Since my second roomie cost some serious dough, I expected better behavior, and she has not disappointed. She is, in truth, such a good roomie that she has already helped me finish this:


The Purse Project challenge dishtowel bag is complete! Tomorrow, I'll take some real pictures and give y'all a play by play of how it came together (sort of). Tonight, I'm just thrilled it's done (mostly).

Today is my daddy's birthday. We went down to Macon and visited the family. He grilled & Mom made him a cake. And, in true Blascovich style, he got underwear for his birthday. Just like Christmases growing up, he always reminds us. As for our gift, Lindsey & I plan to take him to a Sox game in Chicago this summer, which will be his first trip to the "new" Comiskey. (We don't call it by that other name.) It's funny that I've been there & he hasn't, but these things do happen.

Till tomorrow...

Good News!

One of our favorite people in the world is getting married! Chip, who is Lindsey's longtime friend - they were even at band camp together, and was Lindsey's pinch hitting best man in our wedding, proposed to his girlfriend this weekend. This is Lindsey getting the good news:

That's the water heater behind him - I can't wait until we have a normal house again, where such things are NOT in the middle of the kitchen.

Other eventfulness:

*In 6 more school days, I will no longer have a classroom to call my own. Sad? Not me. I will have a cubicle.

*There are chocolate ice cream sandwiches in my freezer. Did you know they make those?

* If you go to Crafty Daisies, you can learn how to crochet for the next 15 Tuesdays. I learned how to crochet from a girl who studied with us in Paris, but I have forgotten much, and what I remembered, I misremembered. This the fruit of last night's labor. It looks like a ratty bookmark, but I'm quite proud. It's about half of an afghan square, and I swear it took me two hours to finish. Caro was always a much better crocheter than I, so this is definitely an improvement. One square I made in Paris ended up looking like a triangular fuzzy coaster. Not cool.

*This arrived in the mail today. Now, you might not know this, but I LOVE the mail. My brother once made me mad at him for weeks by telling me that we had gotten mail on Sunday - I thought it was a gift from Above. Every day, I expect great things in the mail, and usually I am disappointed. Today was magical. First of all, there was an envelope addressed to Aunt Sarah & Uncle Lindsey, which made me giddy. Then, there was a letter from my favorite kid (for pics of said precious baby, see Melissa's post from Sunday). And finally, there was a watercolored masterpiece. I think he shows a great sense of design, in a well-rounded way, of course. THANK YOU RYAN!!! We love you, too, buddy.



If you want to read some really sweet sentiments, head over to Melissa & Julie's blog. :) Made my heart go all fuzzy. <3

Mr. Roboto comes to Highway 36

Today, after a week of anticipation, this little gem arrived from Laurie's ModDots shop. You might just be able to see that there is a tiny robot on the top, thanking me for ordering. And that's Laurie's face that you see on the tag. Just in case it's unclear - that is blue and white twisty string holding the whole shebang together. (You had best believe it's already rolled up in the ribbon organizer, looking for a good scrapbook page to call home.)

What might it be, you ask? Let's just say that a couple of truly stupendous baby gifts are in the offing, thanks to these pieces of graphic design brilliance:


Yes, friends, those are robot iron-ons. In bright cherry red. The one on the front is mine, and the two behind it belong to a couple of sweetie pies, who just don't know it yet. Stay tuned for updates!

In other news, we had an eventful trip to Florida for my sweet baby cousin's high school graduation. We still call her the baby, even though another uncle went and had an additional kid while most of the rest of us were in double-digits. I would love to show you some pictures of the family, but my mother reconfiscated her camera. I will prevail - fear not - and at least repossess the memory card.

Hopefully by this weekend, you'll have photos from last weekend.

survival tactics

Plans are brewing with these lovely materials:


They began looking a bit more like this:

That's right, I finally sliced up my dishtowel for Bag Assignment Numero Uno at the Purse Project. Normally, I would be wracked with guilt for cutting into anything older than I am, but this particular towel had already faced some challenges, judging by the rust stains & mysterious splotches that look like it was used to polish silver and then not ever washed. So, the gorgeous saltbox embroidery and the festive 50s pastel stripes will become a new bag for yours truly, when combined with fabric I have yet to find, and the fabulous salmon-colored bias tape that was thrifted in the same expedition as the towel. I was very excited to see how easily the stripes folded into perfect shoulder straps. While the tucked under the arm styling is a bit close to the bags I carried in my sorority days, I think it will work for a summery embroidered deal as well. Stay tuned for details... (This time next week, the plan could be radically altered.)

In other news, the new roommate is causing us increasing trouble. We might have to have an intervention. (OOOOHHHH, relevant non sequitor: if you haven't read Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman, do. Anyway, he has a brilliant chapter on the intrusion of MTV's The Real World into our real lives, and includes a bit about how the roommate interventions on the show have taken over our real relationships with our real roommates. And by "our," I mean everyone born between 1973 and 1983. Now, talk amongst yourselves.)

And, finally, since this craftiness kick did start off with scrapbooking, here are some scrapbooked goodies for you from Lee's retirement fiesta. Not great pictures, but Melissa had best appreciate the bright green color.



So clearly I need help in taking & cropping identical pictures of a two-page layout. Will address that.

In case you're still reading, this post is called survival tactics because at this point in the school year, if I weren't doing something for myself, I'd be crazy. Not to mention that a giant tire fire is raging in our town right now, and I'm trying not to think of the noxious fumes I'm breathing. (FYI: It was a tire recycling plant, so until the whole thing caught fire, they were actually doing good work.)

If the air is clean where you are, take a deep breath for me.

new friend

A new friend has come to stay at our house, courtesy of one of my mother's coworkers/PTA cronies/friends.

She is lovely, in a mid-century kitschy kind of way. She is blue & white, & mounted in a cabinet. She is also very temperamental, but boy can she create a straight seam! And, aside from some moments of true insanity when she refused to thread the bobbin, and another moment of my insanity when I realized that she didn't have a foot pedal, it's been nice to have a new roommate.

On the tie one on challenge, they're doing pockets for May & June. I think my new friend will be very, very helpful on that front! Yahoo for pockety apron goodness.

Weekend Update, sans Tina Fey

Friday:
*Lindsey graduated (yahoo!)
*First Friday in Macon: forced to wear campaign sticker by brother (not as bad as I'm making it sound); bought fantastic art (badly pictured below); saw high school folks that I thought had fallen into a very large hole.



This lovely piece is by one of my favorite people on the planet, Eric O'Dell. (The link is to his studio; he won't exist on the web. Philistine.) We worked together at the museum in Macon eons ago, and I love his work. So it hangs on my walls. :)

Saturday:
*Slept in.
*Cooked/made stuff for upcoming event: Lee's retirement fest, courtesy of her "daughters."
*Retirement fest 2007: there was riding in the back of a truck; there were beverages; there was even a festive pinata. GOOD TIMES. This was our treat to Lee, since she'll have the official retirement thingiedoo later. We wanted our own time to thank her & honor her.


Sunday:
*Slept in. (Theme is emerging, hmmmm.)
*Visited the Cotton Pickin' Fair in Gay, Georgia. (Oh, the irony.) Came home with some lovely photography that is not quite ready for viewing, but it will be soon. Keep your eyes peeled.
*Laundry/dishes/cleaning that didn't happen all week.

Not a bad weekend; great weather that Lindsey & I got to enjoy for a change. Good food, good friends, good times. **ahhhh**

hedgie love

Yesterday was May 1st, and since I don't know the words to the Internationale, I figured I'd unite with the workers, by, um, working. Only this was very, very fun work. If you go to this lovely website, you can learn how to make yourself a heart pin from felt. I jived mine up with some pinking shears (on the interior plaid heart), and the darling little hedgehog from Superbuzzy. I don't know if you can see the red whipstiching around the outside of the heart, but if you can't, please know that I did it, it looked like crapola, and I took it all out and did it again. I should probably buy Whipstiching for Dummies. It is definitely just proof that I need to sew more.

And to that end, if you'll please notice the button down and to the left. The felt pin is part of a month of projects from Shimelle, a seriously talented gal who I found thanks to the wonders of the scrapbooking Internet. Run over and visit her blog; it's fantastic. Today's project was great, too, just not quite right for me tonight.

I think the birthday cake ice cream in the freezer is calling... (Yay for husbands who buy such things on a whim.)