Three Kitchen Fairies

Christmas preparations/ Preparaciones navideñas

We're only fourteen days away from Christmas, and my Christmas spirit is having a hard time trying to kick in. Call it the warm weather, the stress, or being “homesick” but what's certain is that I have to do something. After all, most of the responsibility of creating wonderful childhood memories falls on me. In the end, it's me who has to come up with the Christmas crafts, the Christmas stories, and the Christmas food too. To make things worst, our Christmas decor in a container in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, and it will arrive right after the Holidays.

In the meantime, we bought the girls a purple Christmas tree, very shine indeed. And we're making our own paper decorations. So far we had made some origami wreaths with recycled magazines, and we also made some paper lanterns.

One of the websites I'm sure feel thankful for is Pinterest for the tons of inspiration, and links I've been able to find there. Hopefully, this week we'll start making some more Christmas decorations.

If you have any other idea I can use, please let me know. I'll sure appreciated.

One more thing! Don't forget to participate in my giveaway. I'm giving away a "Wonky Little Houses" pattern from SUCH Designs here.

Estamos solo a catorce días de la Navidad y mi espíritu navideño se niega a aparecer. Dirán que es el estado del tiempo, el estrés, el estar extrañando la nieve... pero lo que si es cierto es que tengo que hacer algo para que sentirme inspirada. Después de todo, la responsabilidad de crear recuerdos memorables de la niñez en mis hijas cae mayormente en mí. El caso es que al final, soy yo la que tiene que inventarse las manualidades para que ellas hagan, seleccionar los cuentos, así como también tengo que planear la cena de Navidad y todas las cositas ricas que se comen en la temporada. Para colmo de males, todas mis decoraciones Navideñas están en un contenerdor en medio del Océano Atlántico y llegarán a tierra firme después de la fiestas decembrinas.

Mientras tanto, hemos comprado un árbol de Navidad morado, todo brilloso!! Y le hemos hecho algunas decoraciones de paper como coronas navideñas de origami con papel de revistas reciclado y tambien hicimos unas linternas chinas. Uno de mis websites favoritos es Pinterest. Estoy tan agradecida por la cantidad de inspiración que encontré. Esperamos hacer mas cositas esta semana.

Así que si tienen alguna idea que nos puedan compartir, cuénten! que se los voy a agradecer tanto.

Ah!! Y por favor no olviden el sorteo del patrón de casitas de SUCH Desings, esta acá.

 

 

 

 

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Recycled crayons/ Crayolas recicladas.

Last Sunday I made it a mission to stop all the packing and to-do's lists to spend some quality time with my girls. They have being asking for a craft to make, and cake to bake, a game to play, and what not. Luckily, while clearing our basement I found two big boxes of crayons that the girls weren't using anymore. I remembered something about chunky crayons I once read in a craft magazine, but we never actually got to make them then.

This time we gave it a try. I'd say that we peeled crayons for an hour and a half more or less. I also took the opportunity to take a few pictures. We had such a good time talking about colors, color harmony, opposites, and the 'they look pretty together" category. Since these young ladies are not nearly preschoolers anymore, they themselves decided we're sharing our forty something chunky crayons with our super cute next door neighbors who are only three and one year old, and with the rest of the little ones that come to our back door to play in the afternoons. If you feel like recycling your good old crayons here is the link I followed.

Now in Spanish!

El domingo pasado me hice a la misión de dejar de trabajar en la mudanza y pasar un rato lindo con mis niñas que me habian estado pidiendo hacer algo lindo como hacer alguna manualidad u hornear un pastel, jugar algún juego de mesa y mil cosas mas. Mientras limpiaba el sótano el otro día, tuve la suerte de encontrarme dos caja grandes de crayolas que las niñas ya no usan para colorear. Me acordé de unas crayolas redondas y grandes que alguna vez vi en una revista de manualidades y que nunca hicimos, así que lo intentamos. Diría que pelamos crayolas como por una hora y media más o menos. Aproveché para tomar unas cuantas fotos.

La pasamos súper hablando de los colores, sus armonías, sus opuestos y también de la categoría "se ven lindos juntos". Como estas señoritas ya  pasaron del preescolar han decido que compartirán sus cuarenta y tantas crayolas con las vecinitas de junto que solo tienes tres y un añito y con el resto de los chiquitos que vienen a jugar al patio trasero por las tardes. Dejo acá el link que use por si es que les dan ganas de reciclar sus crayolas viejitas.

 

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3KF third blog-a-versary, and an amazing giveaway!!

 

Hello!! I'm finally here ready to start celebrating with all of you my blog-a-versary. Three years ago I started this little grand space of mine. I dare to say 'grand' because it has given me the opportunity to grow as an artist, a quilter, and a crafter in general. This space has given me a chance to meet wonderful and talented friends with whom I get to talk, and share the greatness of the creative process. The mosaic above is just a tiny sample of what I've been doing here. In three years I have posted 224. I have uploaded 905 pictures on Flickr; that without counting the swaps, the comments, the e-mail, and the best part: fabric shopping.

As this day approached, I decided that in this occasion I wanted to celebrate big time. Not only I want to celebrate my ability to keep up with this project, but also your recurring visits to my blog, your comments, and your advise in my sewing projects and in life in general. You are the ones that make this blog such a special part of my life.  

That being said, let me introduce the six generous sponsors that have graciously accepted to join us in this celebration with lots of wonderful prizes for this massive giveaway. Here we go:

The Sometimes Crafter is sponsoring us with her lovely Amanda Knitting Bag pattern from her new pattern store.

Nicole, from Follow the White Bunny is sponsoring us with a $10 gift voucher for embroidery patterns from her delicious store.

Chikipita has graciously joined us in this celebration with two lovely cupcake wine stoppers. Aren't they adorable?!?!

Another lovely etsian friend, Sew Deerly Love is sharing with us an eight fat quarter bundle!! How awesome is that!?!?

The Fabric Shoppe is generously sharing with us an Alexander Henry fat quarter bundle.

And last but not least, Fresh Squeezed Fabrics is participating in this blog-a-versary giveaway with a $25 gift certificate. Awesome!!

Wow!! thank you so much to all our generous sponsors for making this blog-a-versary such a great event. I, myself feel like participating in my own giveaway for a chance to win one of these prize.

No catch on this giveaway, just leave me a comment. Since there is lots of prizes, I'm going to leave these giveaway open until Friday, August 12th, 2011. This way we'll have plenty of time to spread the word and have lots of participants. In the meantime I'll keep posting usual. Winners will be picked via random.org, and I'll match the winners to the prizes in the order the generator picks them out.

Thanks again for these three years, and please feel free to join me on Facebook, and Twitter for lots of sharing, chatting, and blog updates.

Truly yours:

Paloma

 

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Volkswagen pillow.

 

I finished this new pillow last night. And I've been patiently waiting for the moment to get a picture and share this pillow with you. My brother's birthday a couple of weeks ago, I didn't know what to get him, and since he just moved into his new place I decided to make something homey for him. He loves Volskwagen bettles. We actually learned to drive in one of these. We were very young: he was 10, and I was 12 years old. My mom taught us, and we loved to drive around the park that was right across the street from our home. Our street didn't have that much traffic, and those were the times of the Generation X kids.

 

 

I used a picture I found on the web and turned it into a embroidery pattern. I loved working the details, such as the interiors and the shadow bellow the car. New and recycled fabrics, and a simple log cabing pattern helped me create the 18 by 18 in. pillow front. Can you tell which are new, and which are recycled?? The back is light weight denim, that fabric was new...

 

I was intimidated by the idea of sewing a zipper in the back, but still I went ahead. I used this tutorial , and I have to say it was pretty easy. I stuffed the whole thing with an 18 x 18 in. pillow form, and ta- da!!

I love how it turned out. I hope he likes it as well.

One last note: I started a list of tutorials I've used in the past on my sidebar. I'll keep listing any good tutorials I use in the future as a way to thank the crafters, and quilters that shared their skills, and time with the rest of the community. Thank you ladies!!

 

Collections.

 

Last weekend, while we were is St. Louis, MO, my mom left a baggy with lots of pretty vintage buttons for me by the porch.

 

 

 

I inspected them, and arranged them in different ways. The more I look at them, the more I think it wouldn’t make sense to rip them apart from their little vintage cards they are attached to. I love the graphic quality of these “vintage button” cards: the typography, the ink, the paper; even the creases, and the time damage quality make them specially treasurable. They simply wouldn’t be the same without the buttons on them, don’t you think??  

 

Next collection: towers of books around the house. We’re having some pipes fixing in the living room, and a couple of books cases needed to be emptied and moved away from the wall. . I thought it was a good occasion to take some pictures.

 

My last collection for today: A small collection of pretty fabrics.  I got them last week from one of my favorite esty fabric stores. They're even more beautiful in real life. I wish I could spend the rest of the day, petting them, and planning all the little quilting projects that I have in mind. But no, not really… I have to tons of stuff to do :(

Hope to be back soon!

Disconnection

 

I put together a bunch of tiny scraps, some are leftovers from other projects, and the others pieces are from recycled t-shirts that I keep for backing patchwork projects. I cut, and sew a little, then I go check the dinner cooking on the stove. I’m back to the sewing table. I get up again and check the computer, don’t you do the same??

 

I’m almost done with my second jacket.  The last hand stitches of theses jackets come to me with a bunch of memories of our friendship and they start cascading like pictures through my mind. The way she looked when we were in third grade. The way she talked, her funny overrated jokes, the scary ways in which she told us about the horror movies that we weren’t allow to watch in elementary school. I remember that in our early teens, I secretly envied her because she got to wear a bra while I was still flat as an ironing table.  Ten years of memories came to my mind and hit me as if a bucket of cold water was dumped on me by surprise; ten years in which we went from sharing as classmates to being best friends at times, to growing up as teenagers, and to even having a crush on the same guy.

 

And then to come to the conclusion that life is such a beautiful and fragile gift. I wonder when was the last time I saw you?? I wish I had one more chance to talk to you and laugh out loud about all those years. I raise my hand and wave to you, so long my friend. Now rest in peace.

I just learned that she passed way. 

 

Fresh fish

 

This week I found the time to work on the “Fresh Fish” pattern by Mimi Kirchner. I loved the making of this my first fish. The instructions were so easy to understand and follow. It even includes a listing of the different fabrics and kinds of wools that can be use for this project , this makes it easy for anyone to work with pretty much whatever is at hand. I’ve been thinking about the making of my fish since the beginning of the year. I decided that for the body of the fish I wanted a funky sweater, something "Bill Cosby": an out dated kind of sweater. I got an extra large sweater at our local thrift store, its so big that I think I can get the whole fish school out of it!! The head is made out of felt, and the fins and tail are made with fleece scraps from past projects.

 

I followed the technical parts of the pattern by heart but I played a bit with the size of the body. I wanted my fish to be longer than what the pattern size so I placed the pieces farther apart and re-drew the body. I think this project has endless possibilities for fish with different looks and personalities: rounder bodies, bigger and fancier fins and tails…I love how this project turned out: such a serious, well behave fish, really nothing fishy about it … Thanks to Mimi Kirchner for sharing her talent with of us; for getting into the trouble of writing this pattern and making it available to the rest of this crafty world.

 

Now it is seating at my living room, where I can admire it with out being “caught” not paying attention to the rest of the gang.

Thinking big.

 
From my little pincushion...to a big comfy cushion. I had one of those moments of excitment in which I felt I wanted to try a new idea. I spent sometime drawing the pattern, and it was worth! My first try didn't come the way I wanted, I decided to persist. I love the out come, and they love it even more. Now "it" belongs in my studio where they can comfortably seat, and spend time either talking, or reading, or just seating by their mom.

This big cushion was made of recycled shirts, thrifted doilies, and some fabric from my stash.

My skirt!!!

During the last couple of years I have enjoyed so much learning different sewing, quilting, and embroidery techniques. After working on other many authors' tutorials, and patterns I got the feeling that it was time to put all these knowledge together, and to try to come up with something of my own, something that I haven’t seen before.

As many of you, I also have an endless list of projects that I dream of the day I can tackle one and each of them in exchange for that instant gratification to makes my daily routine more exciting, beautiful, and sometimes ridiculously cute.

One of my projects of my endless list was the “A” line skirt from “Sew What: Skirts”

This time I got my book from the library. The tracing of the pattern was incredible easy although I had to draw it twice. I kept on adding extra inches to the pattern to make the fitting of the skirt easier. I had feeling the pattern was too small, and that it wouldn’t fit me, but it actually did!!

 
 
I used a beautiful Alexander Henry fabric that I bought two years ago for this specific project, and the skirt was made. I was right,it fits beautifully. The “A” line skirt definitely is my kind of skirt. But the more I looked at it in the mirror the harder it was to be pleased with it. It was just a skirt, the fabric made it pretty but I found no excitement in it, nothing to be proud of. I felt so puzzled by it… I wanted a skirt but a special one. I went through many different fabrics, and finding myself empty handed I tried to find some inspiration in my “clothes to be recycle” stash. There I found them: my husband’s old shirts. Right there I started cutting and sewing in a improve style kind of work. At that moment I only knew that I didn't what long horizontal lines, and that I wanted a main line running from top to bottom in the middle of the skirt.

  

What inspired me greatly for this work were boro textiles, and sashiko stitching. Before I started this project, I've been enjoying this blog. Dee's textile work is very inspiring. I would say that she uses stitches and fabric as a way to express in an artistic way, very unique, and very special. She told me about this other blog which I found incredibly inspiring, thank you Dee!

Then I made some research on my own about sashiko embroidery  and I even found a tutorial for it.

Finally my skirt is finished

 

I can't believe how hard it's to take a picture of myself!! anyway, I think you get the idea of how it fits.   
It took me almost a whole month to finish this skirt, I recycled three shirts, and I used two skeins of embroidery floss. Moreover I found the time to work on it without loosing my momentum, very important... I backed the patchwork for this skirt with the remaining shirts fabrics which gave the skirt just the right "weight" to fit nicely. This a the skirt I wanted: I feel excited, and proud about it. It's unique. It ended up not being so much as "instant" gratification,but it makes me happy.

A new direction

I'm craving something new created with my own hands, a new direction for my quilting and my love for fabrics. New fabrics, old fabrics, recycle fabrics, it doesn't matter. I'm looking for a way to express emotion and ideas, and at the same time I'm wishing to use all I've learned during these couple of years about sewing and quilting.

 

 I want to witness a friendly conversation between the threat, her inseparable partner the needle, and the fabrics. A dialogue I haven't yet heard about.

 They will lead, and I will follow. I want to be inspired by unique pieces, and at the same time make my own version of it.

Finding the time to meet with the protagonists of this plan is key. I don't want lack time, and mother-work fade this excitement with boredom, lack of energy, and frustration.

In pleasurable stitches I want to retrospect, to introspect, and to meditate... about who I'm, and how to get back in track with my "art" because after all I'm not only a mother. The possibilities are infinite...