Ecuador & The Galapagos Islands

I recently went on a trip with my family and Axel to Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands.  It was an amazing trip.  The islands are ridiculous because they keep them super pristine.  Most of the islands are just the natural habitat which you can only visit by doing an excursion cruise where you hike on the islands, snorkel, and swim with the sea lions.  

All of the animals that you see on the islands have no predators so you can get ridiculously close to them which makes a lot of opportunities for some sweet pics.  We saw a lot of tortoises and they are GIANT!! Seriously like little dinosaurs.  Apologies for the length of this post but I couldn't cut anything else out!! Have a look:

The mini ship 

Ship deck 

 Iguana, look at those crazy colors! His face is so textured!

What a puff chest. 

Blue footed booby! They dance!

 Baby sea lion! Adorbs.

Grasshoppers doing their business

Look at this guy!

How is this even real?

 Axel stalking a tortoise. The tortoise isn't too thrilled.

Me in a tortoise shell, these dudes are seriously huge. 

The crazy squish ground and my toe shoes. 

 Sea turtle love.

After the cruise we were back in the actual country of Ecuador in a city called Otavalo.

I dig these poles.

Then we were off to this sweet lodge in the rainforest which took forever to get to but was SO worth it.

 Super cool foliage

Plants!

 More plants! How cool are all the colors?

 GIANT millipede (iPhone for reference)

 Monina flower: totally my fave.

 Oh hey, Toucan.

 Stick bug and frogs!!

 Hummingbird brunch party.

A fun flower and a sneaky bird!

Inside the lodge!

 Handstand at the old equator, kisses at the new (more accurate) equator

Some awesome colorful houses on hills in Quito

More fun colored buildings!

The End!

Cats and Meat

Cat prints galore!!  Featuring classic black & white and some fancy spring colors for the Spring/Summer 2013 season as well as some sneaky cat details that will be conspicuously placed on some future products.  Get ready!  Also included in the lineup is a juicy meat pattern because, whynot?

Mixed Fabric Mini Quilt

I was recently inspired by a men's sock ad in a magazine (weird).  I have been milling over making another quilt for some time but that ad just pushed me over the edge.  I made a mini quilt because who am I kidding that queen quilt took over my life and ain't nobody got time for that.

I wanted to use a mix of fabrics to make the quilt look like it was taken or reused from other garments, to give it that quintessential 'heirloom' look and feel.  I incorporated the classic quilting cotton as well as linen and wool in a variety of colors all of which I just happened to have in my fabric storage room (yes, it's a whole room now).  In the photo below I was in the beginning stages of placing the quilt squares and figuring out which ones to put where next & trying super hard to keep Teeny off the table so she didn't mess up my arrangement... challenges!

Some in progress shots of 2 of the squares that made it to the finished quilt.  I made a bunch of squares that didn't fit visually and they got canned (so sad).  Better luck next time squares!

Here's the quilt squares all arranged and ready to be sewn together!  Now that the creative thinking part of the process was over it was time to do some mindless sewing, yay!

Sewing one of the columns together:

Shazam, just like that the whole quilt top was sewn together.  I also cut out the batting and quilt back ready to go for some quilt magic.

A back image of the quilt top of all of the sewing and serging I did for each square, good times.

Then I quilted the 3 layers with vertical lines along the columns in the square seams with invisible thread (it's seriously invisible try threading a machine with it, lol).

Phew, now that the stress of sewing quilting lines was over I sewed the quilt binding to the edges and hand stitched it to the back.  I used a tiny quilt binding because the quilt is so busy it only needed a simple border.

And, done!  Here you can see the front and quilted back of the quilt.

Feast your eyes!  The full finished quilt!!

Here it is on the bed, it just blends right in.  Clearly it was meant to be.

Writing this blog post felt like telling a bedtime story.  Having a children's book explaining how to make a quilt would be awesome, just saying.  I would've loved someone to read that to me at bedtime as a kid, I'd be dreaming about clouds of puffy batting!

Color, Arrangement & Form

When I get really busy with work it's always nice to take a break to explore the internet for what everyone else has been up to while I've been working away.  Here are some awesome images/video from different artists/creators that I thought were super neat and inspiring! Enjoy!

Fredrik Paulsen Prism

PJADAD Food Campaign

Salao Coboi- The 9 Worthies

P Williams- Clusterfuck

Sara Lundkcist- Aura Cluster

GF Smith Print Test

Adi Goodrich Cast and Combed

Oh Yeah Studio

And this video gem: Stuff & Things from Jack Cunningham

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