Secret Holiday

The first scarf of the season!

Almost Autumn!

It's rainy and chilly here today, and I am quite enjoying it! I'm wearing socks and a warm sweater, but my fingers are still cold. I made this larger hooded animal today:

I think the fabric is perfect for fall! I wish I could make myself a hooded suit from it!

Horse Feathers

This is what I am listening to non-stop these days. 

Name that tune

I have been spending weeks and weeks trying to sit down and make a new drawing or two for the Paper Girl Northampton project. It kept not working out because I think it's been too long since I have worked on anything not having to do with sewing and fabric, and because I just didn't have the patience. 

Suddenly, tonight, as I was listening to my new 90's hit list (a surprise present I have been putting together for a friend - am I giving it away? Is the recipient reading now?) I listened closely to some lyrics while playing around with these bird cut outs that I've had for months and months, and it all just clicked. 

These are not the amazingly detailed deeply personal conceptual pieces I was imagining contributing to Paper Girl, but they are exactly the kind of project I have been needing to make - fairly quick and simple, and funny. Most importantly, they make me giggle. I hope they have that effect on some others too!

Now I want to get my hands on more library cards and keep making these! These cards are from my old and dwindling paper stash - I think I found these in someone's garbage in Portland, OR five or six years ago? I actually can't believe it was that long ago!

Oh, what a week...

This past week seemed to have slipped by in a blur. I am quite embarrassed to say that the most prominent reason for that is that I started reading the Twilight series, and it completely consumed me. Yes, it's true, I got totally and completely sucked in and spent waaayyy too much time reading! I just couldn't stop! I would lay in bed reading until 3:30 in the morning, wake up groggy at 10, roll over and start reading again. It's really kind of insane. I guess I have gotten this caught up in books before (a couple of my favorites that come to mind are Beyond the Pale, The Time Travelers Wife, The Kite Flyer), but I think since I spend most of my days alone, and had no one forcing me to put the book down and have a conversation or make me get any work done, I felt so much more guilty about this. Probably also because when I went to find the third book in the series, it was in the teen section. Ha! 

Well, now I am waiting to get my hands on the fourth and final book, and it's kind of nice to not have it quite yet so I can take a bit of a breather and catch up on some work! The frustrating thing is I spent the whole day on Saturday (yes, literally the WHOLE day) reading all of book three, running around in the early evening, packing a couple orders, and getting my things together to go away for a couple days. I was going to visit Justin, and then Alice and Francesca - a much much needed get away, some much needed friend time - I knew I needed to finish the book to get it out of my head. 

Flying down the Mass Pike, I was still thinking about Twilight Land, but it felt good to have my window down, listening to music. Then, all-of-a-sudden, the car just shut down. I pulled over - to not the safest area, but I thought maybe I was imagining the feeling of the car, that I would be able to move it again, get it back on the highway once I checked everything out. But it wouldn't start back up. It wouldn't even turn over. I was stuck on the side of the Mass Pike, just as the sun was setting, all by myself, and with no AAA. 

I won't go into the absolutely miserable experience I had with the tow company, because really they were such insensitive jerks, they don't even deserve my thoughts at this point. But today, I have to go back down to Springfield, where my car was towed to, gather up my things, and say goodbye. Really, it's a piece of junk car anyway, and I knew this day would come - I'd already been thinking about the idea of maybe getting a new one, but I have had that car for over five years.... is it weird to feel a little attached to a big metal thing? I have been thinking about how it will actually be really nice to not have a car for a while, walk and ride my bike more. But I will miss driving around with the windows down, alone in this little metal bubble, with the music turned up, singing as loud as I can to Whitney Houston or Mariah Carey - because obviously I cannot do this in my house, or even with someone else in the car! I'll also miss driving standard.

Oh well, time to move on... At least this will push me and Justin to actually try to save up for a newer car. We've been wanting to anyway, but couldn't justify getting a new car when mine still worked perfectly fine. It felt too frivolous. 

Well, that's that. Twilight sucked me up, and my car died. What a week... Now, it's back to business! I'm going to try to focus again, and post regularly. I am so embarrassed at how distracted I allowed myself to be all because of a silly book about vampires and werewolves! HA! 

Seriously, though, the books are soo good! If you have a week or two to devote to doing nothing but reading, you should try it out. They are definitely not the best written books ever, and there are some really annoying things about it, but the romance and lust just grabs a hold of you, and keeps you wanting more. Do it and let me know if it derails your life too! Okay, off to say good bye to my sad little car...

An unofficial unannounced "vacation"

This is why I haven't been blogging for the past week:

Jessica made this super cute shirt for me to give to Amelia for her second birthday. I think she loves it! We got to spend the whole weekend together last week - it was great!

This was one of the most beautiful beaches I have been to - - it's in Gloucester, MA. I went to spend some time with Jessica while she hung out with her son Lincoln and his friend Velia. 

I drove under this rainbow on my way to pick my Mom up from Logan Airport so we could go meet my new tiny nephew Elijah! 

His body is tiny, but his hands and feet are huge!!

Tomorrow I'm off to visit Justin's parents for a couple days. So much family in the final weeks of summer! It's been great, but I have to admit, I am going a little crazy because I haven't been sewing! (I am looking forward to getting back in the studio on Monday) I'll enjoy a nice little family weekend first though! Hope you do too!

Amazing.

Via Something's Hiding In Here. Thanks Shauna and Stephen! This is inrcedible.