Life is a journey.
Always taking the scenic route--and sewing along the way
Search This Blog
Bula!!
That's the all-purpose greeting, toast, war cry, etc., in Fiji where Randy and I just met for a wonderful 10 days. 10-11 hours from LA and same from Seoul. Perfect! Except for the 10-11 hour flight, ugh, making a total of 20 hours of travel for me and more than that for Randy as he had to spend about 24 hours in Seoul before heading back to Mongolia. Enough whining! It was a glorious time. We snorkeled (and lunched on that itty bitty island that surely must disappear at high tide), we tried the local Kava served in wooden bowls, we para sailed (check out the 92-year-old champ who was with us--he got a standing ovation from our boat :), enjoyed amazing sunsets and sunrises--but mostly we did a lot of mouth breathing by the ocean and pools. ...and, I love palm trees almost as much as I do camels. They have a personality all their own and when they wave in the breeze I am always reminded of Isaiah 55:12
And all the trees of the field
shall clap their hands
Is that Indiana Jones--or Jack Johnson? ;)
My new handbag made by our guide, Paul--he played guitar and sang, too
I'm so tickled to be a part of this year's Bloggers' Quilt Festival ! My entry was done in Outer Mongolia (literally! --read on). This quilt is one of my favorite recent projects that I named "Renegade Geisha's" --renegade because two of the geisha's don't conform to the rest (mainly because I ran out of coordinating fabrics!). Can you find the two renegades? ;) The quilt incorporates fabric origami and the quilt itself is from Fantastic Fabric Folding --many projects from this book were a big hit with the Mongolian class pictured below. Due to my husband's work, we live in Mongolia; and I was privileged to teach classes at a local quilting studio. I've included a picture of the class where we were working on the geisha blocks. The students spoke almost no English and I speak what I call Monglish--a lot of English sprinkled with Mongolian. Regardless, we all had a blast! ...and, I'm very pleased with this quilt of mine!
Last spring I chucked my 20-year-old bathrobe, giving me no choice but to replace it come winter. Granted, I never took it to Mongolia, so it only got worn when I was home in the US. But still. For summer I made several light weight robes, but I knew I liked the style of my old RTW one. When I saw reviews for Vogue 9232--on PR (all 3 of them), I knew I'd found my pattern. Interestingly enough, the pattern is actually for a caftan-type dress; but all 3 reviews were done up as a robe. Sham's review in particular had great tips. On a trip to Colorado Fabrics in early summer I spotted a beeeuuutiful pink sweatshirt type fabric. The outside is more like a thick knit and inside is dreamy soft. And it's baby pink! Which is hard to tell in the pics as we in Colorado have had lots of rain and no sunshine. And OK, I'm no photographer. But seriously, this is like stepping into a pink cloud. I made a small through the neck, shoulders and sleeves
My husband had meetings come up quick in Dubai and of course I tagged along! We were going to be there a week and I wanted a lightweight kimono-type pullover for the pool and getting out of the shower. I had snagged a gorgeous white linen/cotton (guessing on this) here in UB that was perfect. My inspiration came from Lisa's over at Lisa's Carolina | Handmade . I'm not good at pattern drafting and this was a quick FREE measure and cut tutorial of Stitch Sisters--find their Patternless Pattern Link here . I'm so happy with this! It basically took me an afternoon. The directions are great--and they include 5/8" seam allowances--yay!--as I wanted to turn under and top stitch them since I don't have a serger here. I left off the ties. Shapeless worked for this. I also raised the neckline by about 1.5" The neckline was a little trickier as I didn't have any bias on hand and there is no "running out" anywhere here. So, I used
Comments