twin cities

Quilt Market in the great twin cities has been on my mind this weekend.   And for the past hour, I have been cruising again.  Cruising Flickr.  Looking at all of the wonderful pic's from Quilt Market.



Right now, that is where my sister Mary is.  Buying fabric for her shop in Grand Forks.  I am so jealous.  But this is what I can do instead.



Look at everyone else's photo's plus my own from Fall QM in Houston.  It is more eye candy and a ton of inspiration that I love!



I just want to go on line and shop for fabric right now.  Buy up some of the fun stuff that I can't get locally.



If you do look through my Flickr, look through my favorites.  There is some fun stuff in there too!  I have been looking especially at using up my scraps again!  Making a little log cabin quilt.  Stay tuned for that.



p.s. please remember to leave a comment to be entered into my book giveaway!  It ends Monday.

vintage sewing patterns

I wanted to share some of my collections with you.  And vintage patterns is something that I look for when I go to thrift shops.  I haven't been great about taking pictures of mine.  But here are some fun ones from flickr.



I just love seeing not only the clothes, but the hairstylyes and makeup.  The patterns made for guys are usually great ones too! 

I used to always buy the Brooke Shields patterns when I was in high school.  My Senior Ball dress was a Brooke pattern.  Am I telling you my age?

a jump for joy

I dance, sing a little song, jump, and just make my kids laugh at me for acting like a goof.  And today that is just what I did!

It was so simple.  My jump for joy.  I got my flickr back today! It makes me so happy!  I love the flickr community.  The photos, friends, inspiration.  I have been cut off from it all for almost three weeks.

[caption id="attachment_1369" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="on vacation at Lake Tahoe"][/caption]

My hub did some upgrades to my computer.  Which was great, because it was going really slow.  It was Murphy's Law.  Whenever something gets fixed, something else will break down.  My computer forgot my flickr password, and so had I.

But today it is all good.  My kids got to see my little dance, and hear my funny song.  And now I got my flickr back (sounds like a Justin Timberlake song).  So to celebrate with me check out my flickr.  I will be on it all day, probably not getting any other work done.  I'll be sharing a ton of photo's that have been waiting very patiently for their day of flickr fame.

craft and me

I won honorable mention from the CRAFT contest and giveaway!  I am so pleased that they liked my little vintage inspired swim suit cover up.  I was actually jumping up and down I was so excited about it!!



I think a big part of my win was my fabulous model :)  I just love her!  Thanks also to all of you that sent me congratulations, you're the best!

cover-up

I love flickr.  I used to really be addicted to it, and be on there all morning while my kiddos were at school.  Well while roaming around flickr a few weeks ago, I found a contest that I just had to participate in.



Singer was sponsoring a swimsuit cover up contest.  Sew up a cover up and if Singer chooses your creation, you win a sewing machine.  A perfect little summer sewing challenge for me.



I had this fun vintage terry cloth (from The Tin Thimble) and a cute vintage pattern (thrifted), I decided to enter.  I also found that since I had a limited amount of terry, I had to omit the hoodie.   I found how forgiving terry is to sew on.  And I did find the perfect model!



It is a totally cute vintage look.  Wish me luck!

pictures

My computer was getting overloaded with all my pic's.  So, I was cleaning it up.  Then my hub was cleaning it up.  They always want things to go faster.  And he messed it up. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!  Now I can't get to my pic's at all.



But, here is my collage!  I don't know what happened that I couldn't find it.  So I just tried again and here it is.   I also wanted to show you the few photos from my crazy weekend.  But I can't.  boo hoo.  So instead you can look at this flickr group.

Next up for katie jean is Handmade Parade.  I have been looking forward to this event for weeks!  There will be a ton of new vendors there that I haven't met yet.  So lots of fun shopping will be had by all!



It will also be a family event!  There will be facepainting, make & takes, and demos.  I really do get a kick out of seeing kids at these events.  They are usually really surprised by how many things people make by hand and sell as part of a business.  I can see the wheels turning in their brain, wondering at this alternative career.  My own kids do this to me quite often too!

See you there!

march with heather

I hope you know Heather Bailey.  And if you don't, you really need to get to know her!  She is the designer and creator of some of the most beautiful fabrics.  And the inventor of trash ties.  She is super model beautiful and a mom to boot!

Since it's March, Heather is hosting a great blog play along called March of the Tools.  Where everyone is sharing photos of their favorite tools.  Crafty or not.  Which sounds like so much fun.  I hope you're into it too.  There's even a flickr group.  And you know I'm a flickr addict.



As a matter of fact, my birthday was in January.  And guess what I got?  Tools!  So, you'll see some of those soon :)  Join me in the fun!

the girls

I had such a great time at Indie Sac.  Thanks to all of the girls (aka Amy, Lauren, Tamie, and Stacey) who helped make this such a successful day for all involved, the vendors and the shoppers.   It was a cold and foggy day, but that did stop anyone from coming out to support all of this handmade goodness and to support shopping local. Over 700 plus people attended!  And over a barrel of food for the Sac Food Bank was collected!   I even picked up a few cool gifts myself.  And made a crafty trade.  Such a fun thing to do!

http://www.flickr.com/groups/indiesacramento/pool/show/

Click above to check out all of the great photos.  And if you weren't able to make it... here are some of the cool crafters that I met.  I'm sure you will love them as much as I did!

Cori Crooks, Artist and writer

Nancy at Queen Puff Puff

Julie of Zuiliblu

Nicole of blue bicicicletta

Rain, jewelry designer

Tram Truong, photographer

shopping

We have been waiting all summer for Anthropologie to open. The closest one to me is in Berkeley. Which is a great place to stop on the way home from the Alameda Flea Market. But now there is one in Roseville at the Fountains. I bet it is packed with shoppers there everyday. I know it was when we went there.



So when "the girls" Katie and Maggie were going, I tagged along with my girl. And I didn't forget my camera this time! I was pretty sly, because I heard that some shops don't allow picture taking in their stores. I'm a rebel. My camera takes decent indoor pictures without a flash. Other shoppers were wondering what I was doing and I'm sure they thought I was weird. Why is that girl taking pictures of that curtain?



Hasn't everyone heard of flickr? Isn't everyone addicted to flickr? I have gotten better and don't post pictures everyday like I used to. But I do go check it out in the morning while I have my coffee. Great inspiration. So check out all of the pictures that I took at Anthroplogie. There is a ton of inspiration there, and they have decent sales.

quilt market and flickr

www.mellyandme.typepad.com

I just posted my last picture onto my flickr account of my trip to the Houston Quilt Market. I thought I had at the most 50 pictures of my trip. It was actually 113 pictures. That explains why it took me so long to get it done. But I am so glad that I did finish it. I took a trip one year ago to visit my other sister Judith in Japan and I never did post all of my pictures to flickr from that trip. And now I feel like there is no going back. So many other pictures have been taken.

Now that Christmas is over, I am so ready to sew! I will be in San Francisco on January 27 for a special craft market. And after getting at least 4 new craft books for presents there is so much for me to do. It is hard for me to decide what to make next. I always need to fill in my inventory with my regular baby stuff like blankets and such. But there is a lot of stuff swimming around in my brain now. It has to get out. If you are the creative sort I'm sure you know what I mean! What are you busy making?

let me explain

oliverands.com

If you have seen my flickr pages you can see a serious pattern has developed. My first 30-40 (50?) pictures are all titled "Houston Quilt Market 2007". This was a trip I took with my sister in October and I still have pictures left to post. This was my first time to Quilt Market and since I am a flickr addict, I couldn't help myself. I even took pictures of my food. Why didn't I think of doing this sooner. It was a lot of fun and I am so thankful to have a digital camera and not have to pay money to get my pictures developed.

Well Quilt Market was really cool. My sister Mary has a quilt shop in North Dakota, Quilter's Eden, and invited me to go.  THANK YOU MARY!!!  She had the hotel already and I had a free ticket and my husband said OK. All was set, so I went. This is how most of my trips happen. They are always, well usually, spontanious. When I went to Indonesia, I had to leave in five days. Pretty cool huh?

I loved seeing all of the new fabrics, and learned a little bit more about actually quilting. My favorite thing to see was the crafty booths. Seeing the girls who were doing new things in sewing, patterns, and design. It's really cool seeing a new generation of sewers and how they are creating in new ways. Look at Melly & me. I met Susan Branch, whose illustration and books I have loved for years. She has a new fabric line. It looks like little watercolor drawings, cute. I saw the new Mary Engelbreit line, it looks very mary, although I didn't meet her. I did meet Amy Butler which I loved. I felt a little bit like a groupie. I showed her the eyeglass case that I made using her pattern and my sis took a picture of us together. Which is also on flickr.

So, I love flickr. I check my email first thing in the morning and then I look all over flickr. Everyday. Love it. Check it out. Hopefully I will soon post all of my Quilt Market photos and you can see more of what is up in my life.

Enjoy it!