pamgarrison

Italy travel journals in progress

Last night I got out the two travel journals I'm working on for my Italy trip, and started trying to assess the situation. I couldn't resist taking a photo today of my growing pile of travel journals, each one representing a trip to another country. I have two for this past trip because Amy and I decided we wanted to have one to use as an example; ideas and different techniques used, and one we'd make alongside the class, using the exact supplies in their kit. One would include the days before and after class, and one for the week of class. 

As always, I have succeeded in making a good mess, if nothing else. It's one of my gifts. ;) Unfortunately. I brought out all I had gathered on the trip and started to sort which book it belonged in. This trip was no different than others I have taken in that I hardly got to work in the books. I wanted to get back to them before the pictures and stories I wanted to add left my noggin for good. 

This is the cover of my Orvieto journal, the one made during the week of class. Amy gifted each of us with an Orvieto shield she made. So love it Am, thank you! 

The first journal I picked up again was the one for our days in Florence before class, and Rome after class. 

I truly can not believe that it has come and gone!

Time plays tricks with my mind on the regular. 

Since I haven't uploaded the thousands of photos I took (hard drive storage issues), I just used post-its to mark what I was thinking. 

Of course, time flew last night too, but as least I've re-started, often the hardest part for me. I had to cut some pages out of my signatures already, I didn't leave enough room for fodder collected to be added. 

I'll be sharing the finds brought home soon. the Fabriano Boutique in Florence was a favorite for sure. 

Can't wait to get to the week in Orvieto. Here's the book I made in that class, with marble papers bought while there used on the edges. 

Off to either press on or move my mess...;)

 

 

Related articles

Orvieto: Beautiful day trip from Rome (Photos)

italy travel journal 1

join us for class in Italy!

Italy on the brain

project life • may highlights

Goodness, I'm very behind! But every time I get back to working on the Project Life album I'm doing for my family, I'm happy to be back at it. Every.single.time. Right now I've just finished May, (thus the highlights), and I'm working on catching up all of June all at once.

And, using this ink on these monthly dividers has been one of my favorite things I did this year overall. I'm happy every time I get to a new month. 

When catching up on this weekly spread method, I might have to resort to more "filler" content than photos and stories, but it's ok with me. I like the filler stuff too. I've always been a collector of ephemera, nice to use some of it somewhere else in life. And I agree with this post by Ali. The whole of it being the point of this project for me. 

I love that this project makes it so easy to keep track of progress, like succulent cuttings and their growth.

And seriously, I would have never ever taken a photo of my son's school shoes on the last day without PL for motivation...and that photo captures so much for me. I know it's likely an ugly photo, or one that has no appeal to others, but tells a few different stories for us Garrisons.

I recently bought some of these big stickers from MAMBI and they do not dissappoint. that's what the awesome is from above.

The everyday things of life, love including those. 

And the special moments of life too.

I'm taking pictures, printing pictures, and putting them somewhere. Hooray! Takes a lot of mama guilt off me for no baby books, or slideshows or...all those other wonderful things people do, I just feel good about doing some sort of documenting for our family. 

Dentist appointments, garden flowers, unexpected run ins with friends and daughter's study snack all included in the everyday of May. 

Love making my own cards, with script words (hooray), and the "yes" above, (using the L Letterpress system), love the Studio Calico cards like the you make me happy...and the let it go card I cut down from Life Love Paper's prints. Oh, and "selfies" are most flattering when totally blown out by the light (ha). 

Taking note of the special in the every day...and having fun writing on photos still. 

I couldn't resist. ;)

May, done and done in the 'ol PL...and June is started and in my sights! 

To see my full spreads from May, you can check out my gallery on Studio Calico site. For such a personal project, I sure do enjoy seeing other people's spreads myself...guess it's like blog reading really...fun to see what other people are up to.

 

crochet blanket progress report: finished!!!

Hooray! I've finished the crochet blanket. {I used belladia's pattern found here} And I love it. It's officailly become my blanket, which I use when on my spot on the sofa. Technically, this project could have no ending, as there is no border or different stitch all around the edges, one could choose to go on until it's any size you want. Or until you are sick of it ;). I went with the size for my couch sitting comfort, using the "does it cover my feet and go above my waste with extra to spare?"measuring method. 

It's crazy and colorful and fun. Since my last progress post, I changed just a few things in my approach. I started lining the yarn up on the back of the couch so I could see the colors together, like this:

and this:

That way I could make sure I liked the ongoing color pattern developing, as well as have easy access if I had a little time to add a row or two. It saved me from disliking colors in the morning light by eliminating the dark of night next yarn choosing.

The other change was my crochet hook. Same size, just a hook I liked better. I hated the look of the purple irridescent metal hook. I like all my crafting supplies to be pleasing to my eye while I'm using them. I am sure that sounds super silly to some, and makes perfect sense to others. Which are you? Anyway, I'm a major lover of white craft tools. (Well, white everything really.) It works very nicely, I enjoy crocheting with it. This is the hook I bought. 

Other than that, I've been proceeding as before. 

 It's sized 44"x44", a nice little lap blanket size. I have an average of 20 rows for every 6" of blanket. 

I'm looking forward to more crochet projects. And I'm still shocked, amazed and a little saddened by how many hand made afgans you see at thrift stores and flea markets for such little money. Maybe I'm a slow and other people whip out blanket after blanket so those that inherit them have plenty to share?  

I know some of you were making one too. How's it going for you? Any progress to share? It's nice to finish it and have someone to celebrate with. 

Here's my post with all the details on the pattern used  {pattern is found on belladia's blog post here} and materials, and here's a previous progress report post. 

project life • 2014 • april highlights

Well, now that it's almost June, I'm reporting in with my April Project Life hightlights. I really love this project. It's fun. I get to play with photos and paper and little embellishments, and the very best part is that at the end, I feel SO GOOD about doing a little documenting of our life in a way that gets those photos off the computer. 

Just today I caught up to the current date (week of May 26). Hoo-ray! being caught up is my favorite feeling. I most enjoy the game when I'm not behind so many runs that it seems the game is lost. Even though I know I did it all last year, and caught up, it still intimidates me when I get far behind. Like everyone, life seems to be full, and I'm still learning how to keep it simple so that I stay caught up. 

I love capturing the everyday. The phone photos are so great because it's just so easy to take the phone out and catch a moment, a little everyday story or routine, and of course the non everyday too, but I tend to have my bigger camera for those if I can help it. 

Having a place for emails and texts is great too. Above is our mother/daughter b'day event for us December b'day girls. We both love JT. Who doesn't? Don't tell me if the answer is you. ;) We'll have to agree to disagree on that. 

It was great to have a place to put the racing bibs from the half marathon my husband and daughter ran. Those would be something I'd be compelled to keep, but who knows where, ya know?

Inserts to capture big things like Easter weekend and oversize photos are still a favorite go-to technique for me. This year I think my PL is a lot simpler and a lot more photo heavy and I'm liking it more. Even though I've done it for a year and a half, I'm still finding my way. I like that. It's still a little creative puzzle, two of my favorite things; puzzles and creative pursuits.

You can see all my April spreads in full over on my Studio Calico gallery page. 

Project Life is a pocket style system created by Becky Higgins to simplify and encourage everyday documenting. You can learn more about it here. 

 

rug hooked pumpkin!

I mentioned in yesterday's post that my rug hooked pumpkin was so cute he deserved his own post. Don't you agree? He just makes me smile, he's such a goofy, happy guy. 

Here is is with his cousins that inspired his very existence. I bought the two pumpkins on the right from my friend Mary Stanley. I adore her version of modern folk art rug hooking, I can hardly resist them whenever she makes a new patch;). She makes all sorts of rug hooked animals and shapes, and she'll be teaching her rug hooked creations again soon.

Anyway, when we knew we were going to be meeting up for a little art-friend fun, I started asking her what materials I needed to purchase so she could get me going on my own. Mary, being the sweet spirit that she is, brought everything I needed, I just brought a little bit of wool felt I had on hand. 

After my doodling a rough pumpkin, and asking Mary to sort of improve on it a little, she gave me a few tips and tricks and I was off. I was instantly in love. 

By the end of day 2, it was really adding up. You can see a few changes I'd made from previous hooking. It's such a forgiving art form: you don't like a color or texture or location? Pull it out!

Once home, I got it to a point of alllllmmoooost done (above)...and then decided I needed to move the eyes, and replace a few colors that were a bit too distracting. 

A few more switches and I was ready to really call it done and stitch it into a little stuffed pillow. 

I sent Mary some late night photos sking if there were any obvious no-no's I wasn't seeing...

I found it suprising how different my pumpkin looked from hers, even though she had added some of her touches to my rough sketch. Of course, color choice has an impact, and the rug hooking itself, but still, beyond that, I see a very obvious difference between Mary's and mine. Hers have much more of a folkart flare than mine. I really, really love that about art. 

Finally, stitching it up! When making projects, specific crafts; those with a beginning, middle, and end, (different than when engaging in art that's all about the process, the play that's open ended), I love completeing them. The closer I get the more excited. At this point, I was feeling unstoppable, so close...

I do wish I had machine stitched on my label before sewing it on the back; but I didn't. Frankly, it's pretty much made to sit on the couch, so I'm sure it's fine. I imagine a future where my children have it in their houses, and their children become familiar with his appearance each fall, looking at him and flipping him over to see their grandma's (my!) name. I want them to know I made it with love for them. (Of course, this is all imagined, my kids might not even have kids I know, but one can dream...)

I guess I best make a second so both my kids will have them in their homes....oh darn! ;) 

 

progress report: crochet blanket

Checking in with a project update on the crochet blanket I'm making, previously blogged about here and here.

I thought I would be done by now, after starting out like gangbusters, but then I got that weird virus, switched mostly to the hand quilting while sick, and the crochet blanket was sort of forgotten about for a bit.

Besides the usual things of life, I think my waning interest was partially due to wishing I'd made it a little wider from the get go. I realized that this could only be a lap afgan, not one for the bottom of a bed say, which totally disappointed me, because I think it'd look so great at the bottom of my son's bed. Another "issue" I was having was that I had started looking around a little bit at yarn online and fell in love with some of the colors, and descriptions, (but not the price!). I haven't bought any new yarn for this since the previous posts, but as I crochet with all the different inexpensive wools, cottons or blends that I bought, I am learning a bit about the differences, and know that the next blanket I make (oh ya, I'm hooked) will have more carefully selected yarns. 

That said, the pattern I am following (here) clearly states it's intenion is to put those leftover yarns to use, so, really, it's as this blanket is supposed to be I think; a hodge podge of color and texture. It's got that in spades I'd say!

I'm very glad I got over all my self manufactured "issues" with the afgan and got back to work on it. Super happy to be closing in on the finish line. 

Last night while putting the project away for the night I started rolling the threads around the remaining skeins to make these little yarn flowers. They make me happy. 

One of my favorite parts of this project (probably holds true for most creative pursuits with me), is the colors. How they interact with each other. 

Now that they are in little stackable flower shapes, it's easier to make little piles of different combinations. Each time I finish a row, I am choosing the next color based on it's interaction with the color before it. I am trying not to repeat any color combinations. If I put hot pink next to burnt orange somewhere on the quilt already, then I will find another color to put next to it each time I use it. Every so often (probably about every foot or so), I make sure to have used black and the same with the whites. So that there will be somewhat equal and balanced streaks of  light and dark throughout the blanket. 

I talked about it in the previous post, but I am still surprised to see how much the quilt changes each time I add different color combinations. It's so interesting to me. 

 

Very fun to discover new color combo loves, and even some dislikes too. I'm sort of a fan of color clashing in general, and this quilt has got a whole lot of that going on!

 

I wish I could get a photo of that hot pink, hot pinks and reds are so hard for me to photograph. 

I'd say I'm 3/4's of the way there. Hope to be back with a finished report soon! 

 

progress report: modern quilt

Hooray!!!! 

it's so hard to photograph quilts, ha! 

I am pleased to report that the modern quilt I've been making (for too long) is done. done. DONE!!! 

In case you couldn't tell, I'm super excited about it. Super. Excited. 

I love it. I think it's perfectly imperfect, hand made by mom (me!), to be loved up now, and handed down later. It's my first time making a modern quilt design. I pieced together the front using hand cut pieces of fabric that I then sewed in strips. All those fabrics together make me so happy. 

The back was pieced from larger pieces of fabric:

I'm still in the madly in love with it phase of a completed project ;).

Adding this one to the quilts-I've-made-for-our-family pile feels great. 

It's been a long time coming, that's for sure. This year I'm really wanting to finish up a lot of long ago started projects, and this one is a huge check in the finished column for me! 

As you can tell by my dedication stitching above, I machine pieced the quilt top and bottom back in 2013. Here's one previous post on it. 

At that point, after creating the top and bottom pieces (made up patterns in my head), then pinning the batting between, I did a lot of thinking about how I wanted to proceed; whether to hand quilt it (sewing the three layers together) or machine quilt it. I have made quilts before but never hand quilting any of them. After a lot of thinking (and even asking on IG), I knew that the truth was I wanted to hand quilt it, but was sort of dreading it. I began to work on it a little, but it got put to the side eventually and remained there until I was sick recently. 

As I lay there, sick in my bed day after day, it suddenly felt like the perfect time to hand quilt. It was quiet, and close, and clean, and I could have it on top of me keeping me warm as I worked. I made a lot of progress. As I've been getting better, I've been inching closer to finished one long (7.5 ft) row at a time. 

This weekend the "I must finish it" obsession kicked into overdrive. I sometimes stitched it on the floor, but mostly stitched with it on my lap. I didn't use a loom.

Stitch by stitch with that tiny needle I went along...it's so tiny it's hard to see there in the "ditch" as stitchers say. See it?

You can see above on the far right side I only had about 5 more to go. As I get to the end of a big project like this, I keep counting and recounting how many more.

I didn't measure, just eyeballed it. I figured since I was hand quilting it, the imperfection was part of it's charm. 

Finally, this weekend the handquilting was done. Time to square it up and bind it then. 

I decided to use a vintage binding that I had been hoarding for years. That pretty checked pink. Oh, and I also decided to do a couple of machine stitches over my hand quilting for good measure. I just did this on the two ends, in case the knots that were on the end were somehow cut in the squaring up. I have no idea if it will actually help, but it couldn't hurt, so I did it. 

Seriously, how sweet is that binding?!? The fact that it was ready made was an extra plus. I could feel my patience for this project waning...if I had to make my own binding, I might have set it down again...I was too close to finished for that! 

Late last night I finished hand stitching the binding edge and could not wait to get up and wash it this morning. Washing a finished quilt is my favorite step. It totally becomes a quilt at that stage. (Pre wash above, washed below)

Well, you might not be able to tell from the photos, but if you quilt, you know what I mean.

It just gets softer and a little bumpy from shrinking a little.

Even though I'd hand embroidered on the back, I couldn't resist adding one of my labels on the front, since I already have them...(labels bought here).

And now I just want to stare at it and touch it, turning it over and around, examining all the different combinations. Do you ever do that? Keep looking at something you've made that you like? I might even bring it in the car with me as I drive to the baseball game, haha!

I know, I have issues. 

RESOURCES:

Ok, I am no quilting expert, but here's what I used:

*I treasure this book and find it endlessly inspring. 

When I want to know something (like how best to start your thread when hand quilting), I first google it. I don't mind doing things "wrong" and making up a method as I go. That's what works for me. But, I know there are lots of quilting courses on the internet and also these books look fun and informative to me:

*book 1, book 2, book3

*I tried different thimbles, at the end of the day, this thimble (I have no idea why it's so expensive here, I would recommend going to JoAnn's or local sewing shop), and these were lifesavers. 

*I used this needle and this thread in white. 

I think that covers it!?! 

Oh! one more- I LOVE my new black cutting mat. It's thicker than the green standard and it's black. I have always found the green to be so displeasing. I wish they'd come in white or grey even.

changing things up for the fun of it

This is for sure one of my Project Life highlights for February. I decided to do an insert just for Valentine's Day itself and wanted it to be different somehow. At the first of the year, I saw Elise's title page for her PL 2014, and it inspired me. I adore things that inspire me to think differently than I have been. It's one of the many different kinds of inspiration I find, and it feels as if the inspiration unlocks a new door in my brain. I never know when it is going to happen, how long the idea will percolate, or how it is going to translate in my creating, but I can usually trace it back afterwards. I definitely like using ordinary materials in new ways. That's inspiring for sure. And really, isn't it cute? Wait, can pocket protectors be cute? 

 

I'm still working on the spread that it will live between (seen behind it), but you get the idea here. (total side note- Target dollar spot has really good stuff right now for PLifers, for example, see that dotted card middle left? It's a pack of cards for $1.00 that I just cut up to size to make a journal card. Nice and heavy, not like thin paper, love it- they also have alpha stickers, labels, paper packs with cute designs, rolling date stamp, etc. Not that you likely need encouragement to stop by the dollar spot if you go to Target, but if you try to avoid it at all costs unless you know there's something good, and you do journaling/PL, you might want to stop by...I know I always appreciate a head's up.)

To make it, I cute a piece of paper to the size of the page protector, then folded as the pocket protector is, in other words, not in the center. I intentionally wanted a lopsided heart, of course, you could sew up the page protector so your heart was symmetrical. I then drew a heart shape on my piece of paper to determine where I wanted to sew the page protector. I sewed the pockets before I cut the edge off, this makes it easier to keep your pocket flat. When sewing page protectors, I treat it just like fabric. I do a little back stitch at the beginning and the end. On my sewing machine, I find that the middle size straight stitch looks most like the regular pocket protector stitches. I then cut the photos to fit the pockets, cutting the paper template first as practice. For the top two photos, there was no sewing involved, I just picked the photos and freehand cut the heart tops with the photo inside, so it'd be super easy to match up the shapes. 

I haven't decided on a back yet, here are a couple different versions. 

For Valentine's Day it seems the three of us at home have started a tradition of going to dinner and a movie with a stop at the photobooth for dessert. ;) (Well, if two years in a row a tradition makes.) Since my daughter is at college, we sent a care package and she sent me photos of her during the day and night. Always so grateful for technology when I recieve a photo text or email from my girl. (Of course, that's balanced out by a cursing of it when my son wants to "finish this game" before fill in the blank. ) 

Anyway, there you have it, a quick and easy idea for changing up pocket pages! I'll share more Feburary favorites from my PL next week. 

Elise did a video tutorial on how she did hers. And also, LOVE Elise's new business venture, make29, and was happy to support it by purchasing her February art. You can still get one too if you like, I thought $14.00 was a great price. There she goes, thinking differently again...love it! 

 

project update : crochet blanket

Popping in with a progress report on the crochet blanket first blogged about on this post.  I haven't had too much time to spend on it, but do find it such an enjoyable project for bursts and start type crafting. It just seems to add up to something pretty quickly in my mind even if you're doing a row here, a row there. I love when it's time to add a new row, because the entire blanket changes in my mind due to the new color. I was looking at it and if you take sections of the blanket, and just repeated those sections, you'd have a pretty blanket by itself, totally different than the other segments. Like this:

I love colors, but I especially love color combinations, how they play off each other. the exact same chartruese green above, looks totally different next to white as it does next to orange. I have no particular order, I'm just trying out new combinations as I go, occasionally making sure I've got some dark or some light every so often. I don't usually use black regularly, it's not a go to stitching/creating color for me. I'm enjoying the stretch of incorporating it in this blanket. I decided that I really wanted a mustard and a pink that wasn't purple or hot, so I did add a few new colors:

My favorite addition to the quilt has been that deep green. I also wanted a creamy-er white. Still not sure about the bright turquoise blue. In case you want to know: 

On an instagram post I did recently, someone commented about how they liked the look of the rows of colors, but didn't want to weave in all the end threads afterwards, to which someone else suggested holding them on the blanket and crocheting over them as you go to hide them. It was a total "duh Pam" moment, as I have done that in embroidery before and it makes perfect sense. Also, the hanging thread tails were starting to annoy me too. So, after reading that, that's what I've been doing, as the picture shows:

So much nicer to work on without the tails there. Now, remember, this is my first crocheting ever...don't look too closely! I'm sure you're eye is catching some glaring mistakes on the strong colored rows, but also remember, I'm going with the attitude that home made isn't about perfect, it's adding charm, right?!? ;) As long as it's not in danger of coming apart (which it's not), I'm happy to plod on, one colorful row at a time! 

Like I said, it's a pretty satisfying medium for seeing your efforts add up substantially as you go. I'd say I'm 1/3 or 1/4 done now, but I'm in no rush, I'm enjoying every minute of it. I think this is a super easy starter project because it uses the same stitch (dc) row after row....just in case anyone is tempted to join me on the adventure...report in if so, we want to know!