Friendly Friday

Hello, dear friends. I'll update you soon on my happenings and non-happenings, but in the meantime I have another "Friendly Friday"  for you.

Terry is a dear family friend, a mentor in womanhood, who continues to inspire me with her intentional and artistic endeavors. This post has been long in coming, so I'll just give you what she sent me:

A luna moth quilt!

Terry writes:

For a long time (decades) I have wanted to make pictures out of fabric. Until three years ago, I had no idea there was such a medium as "art quilts." I began taking a class here and there to gain some basic skills and learn what others were doing. When I found a 4-day workshop on making pieced art quilts, and I knew this was how I wanted to work. The luna moth is the first art quilt I made with these new skills, following the instructions of my talented teacher, Sheri Alcorn.

 

It is based on a photograph, but the design, piecing, and quilting are all my own work—from selecting fabrics to adding original appliqued "eyes" and antennae. How can I describe the fulfillment I experienced as I worked with hundreds of tiny pieces to create what had been latent in me for so long? I enjoyed the process of abstracting the photo, cutting and piecing original patterns to fit my design, adjusting color choices as the moth began to take shape on my sewing machine. The pieced design was finished in four intense days of class time, but the finishing (adding a back, quilting, binding, and applique) took me several months more. Each step was a little scary: What if I did something that "ruined" my work? Would I still like my quilt if my novice skills did not match my aspirations? The outcome has been a delight to me and to my family for years now, and I have made two more quilts since then.

 

The most valuable lessons I learned from making this first quilt are these: It's never too late to learn something new. (I'm 50-something!) Taking a class does not negate creativity; it empowers it. Learning by doing is the only way to master a skill, so just do it!

Thanks Terry!

Friendly Friday: Chainsaw Art

One of my co-workers, Mike, paints old chainsaw bars and crosscut saws as a hobby. I commissioned a saw for the boyfriend, since he used to lead a chainsaw crew. With a little brainstorming, Mike and I came up with the concept of a vista over Lake Tahoe. I think he did a spectacular job.

The boyfriend loves it too. 

Friendly Friday: The Sum of the Parts

Happy Friday! I am thrilled to feature this storage idea from my friend Tim. Tim love bicycles, building bicycles, riding bicycles, and apparently, organizing his garage with bicycle parts. I think it’s a genius idea.

Thanks Tim! Remember these days?

Friendly Friday: Mer and Ben Part 2

For some reason I thought I had scheduled this post to go up yesterday, so I apologize for the delay. At long last, I have Meredith’s Christmas Craft, a supplement to Ben’s woodwork last week. It has been a long day of sanding (more on that later), so without further ado: home made candles.
Mer writes:
Meanwhile, I tried my hand at candle-making! After failing to find any local candle supply stores, I ordered soy wax, wicks, and fragrance online from Rustic Escentuals. While there are a plethora of materials made specifically for home candle making, I went low-cost. I bought a $6 stainless steel pot that I knew I could use as a double boiler with another pot I already owned, and got a $3 candy thermometer.

I started with the candle containers – found this eclectic mix at an antique store downtown – Two Gals’ Junk.

Then I had to secure the wicks perfectly straight in the middle of the containers. I used needle-nosed pliers to guide the wick, with a dab of hot glue on the end, into the bottom of each container.

Use a clothespin or tie the wick to a pencil laid across the top of the container to secure the wick firmly in the middle.


Now comes the messy part! You can use a scale to measure out the perfect amount of wax, but again: I went low cost, and I don’t currently own a kitchen scale. Instead, I just used all the wax I had bought and figured I would fill as many containers as I could. The soy wax flakes generally melted to about half their original volume.

I read over and over again how important it is to be cautious when melting wax – it has a flammable point, so I used a double boiler and this candy thermometer to monitor the temperature as it melted. I also covered my workspace with old sheets just in case I spilled anything!
Here’s where you can add fragrance and coloring if you want – I added just a few drops of pumpkin scent, but decided to go natural with the coloring. I’ve read that while crayons do work for coloring candles, they can sometime harden differently than the wax and make candles more difficult to burn – so I think I’ll probably buy the coloring if I go that route in the future.
Once ready to pour, I used a plastic measuring container with a spout. It takes 24 hours for the wax to dry completely.

I packaged each candle a little bit differently – some I decorated with cloth and ribbons and gave as a pair, others I sent separately as a small thankyou for the light that my friends are to me.
The only candle I didn’t end up giving away is the strange blue one that is a hand holding a cup (review candle pic #2) – I thought it was so fun and funky in the store, but the longer I looked at it, the weirder it seemed. My husband and I laugh about it now, and shoved it behind some other decorations on a bookshelf. Ha!


Isn’t this a great idea? I will probably channel this next year for Christmas. Also, I was the loving recipient of that teacup candle in the bottom left corner and it literally brightens my day every evening when I light it.

Want to post on Friendly Friday? Email me at sitwithmeawhile(at)gmail.com.

Friendly Friday: Meredith and Ben, Part 1

Happy Friday! Today’s Friendly Friday comes from my dear friend Meredith and her husband Ben. This week I’ll feature Ben’s Christmas crafts and next week I’ll unveil Meredith’s creativity. Meredith is a beautiful writer, so I will just leave you with what she wrote up.

Now that the Christmas trees are departed; the lights stored in attics, I think a short reflection on the beauty of gifts that still provide meaning is in order.

Gifts like the pear jam that my college roommate, Emily, made from her grandmother’s pear tree that my husband Ben and I now savor on toast and biscuits.

Or the plaque with mod-podged old music sheets and a cute bird stencil that my friend Leticia designed, now hanging in our bedroom.

I love the time that went into these gifts. It puts a little bit of the giver into it, and I am reminded of that every time I see (or taste) the gift. It brings to mind the best of the Christmas spirit.

It was based on this sentiment that my husband Ben and I attempted to make 2011 a good year in the Bergstrom household for gift-making. My husband is a carpenter and has been blessed with a great shop he can use at work. As for me…well, I have no specific talent or workspace, but I do have a willingness to try!

Ben spent a good number of his December evenings working on these projects for family:

An 8” x 10” chalkboard – so fun for the kitchen or living area! Ben used cedar fence planks left over from our summer garden to make the frame. The backing is thin masonite from the local hardware store, painted with leftover chalkboard paint from when he made a larger version of this for our kitchen.

Coasters: I love how simple these are, perfectly accentuating the beauty of natural wood. Ben made three sets, experimenting with leaving or removing the bark based on the type of wood and finish. He found the oak logs at his workplace – a camp set in a pretty valley just west of Siloam Springs, Arkansas.

Napkin holder: This one is super fun. We agreed it looks like an alien. Last year, Ben made coasters with this white finish for his sister and brother-in-law, and they had requested a matching napkin holder. The dowel rods and tiny log cross-sections tie this together with the coaster design. Lift up the tamp and you can fit a good stack of napkins in here!

Here’s the crown jewel: a lamp! Ben has wanted to try a lamp for a while, and this white oak log proved to be really beautiful sanded down. The base is also white oak. The wood has two coatings of paste wax, buffed before it dried completely to ensure smoothness. We cheated on the lamp shade and got it at Lowe’s!

All gorgeous, right? Stay tuned for Mer’s creations next week. I can’t wait to see more from these two!