Picture Day!

My life is crazy right now - busy at home, busy in the garden, busy with friends, and extra-super-busy at work. Whew! I need a vacation from my life. LOL

Anyway, because I'm so busy, today is going to be Photo Thursday (something I just made up). Hopefully, my nutty life will provide you a few minutes of entertainment today. Enjoy!

- Alex

Enjoying a gallery show in the neighborhood.

Having (many) good dinners with friends.

Trying to decide about siding and windows for my house.

Attending cool charity events with awesome people.

Going to conventions.

Dealing with my bees building crazy comb. (An experiment gone awry)

Marveling at my hive.

Meeting cool people (at conventions).

Attending graduation parties and EATING. 

And eating...

Enjoying my peonies and my bees (who are enjoying my peonies).

Visiting the company's "Corporate Art Sale". 

Having a sleepy, allergy-ridden Sunday.

Visiting the company warehouse to prep for another trip.

Wishing I had the time to just sit and knit (maybe next winter!)

Happy Accidents

In December, while feeling overwhelmed by the wretched excess of the season, I wrote about donating to a worthy cause. My donating bug started about 15 years ago. Back then, I was dirt-freakin' poor so I volunteered my time - and lots of it. I felt very fortunate for my life and I wanted to share my abundance even though it wasn't in monetary form. So, I found a few hours of time a week and offered it up to various places that I thought could use some help. Surprisingly, most places welcomed me and my meager donation.

Thus, volunteering became a part of my existence, even though today my fortunes have changed and I could probably just write a check and walk away. There's something viscerally satisfying about showing up and getting my hands dirty, so to speak. However, my volunteering is very cyclical. I go through bouts where I feel like I have tons of time and I sign up to do a bunch of stuff. Then I get burned out and feel like my own life is being neglected. So I stop volunteering for a while - usually about 6 months to a year - until my batteries are recharged and then a start back up again.

Recently, the HR department at Company X sent out an email about tutoring opportunities at the high school down the street from the office. The required hours seemed reasonable and working one-on-one with kids wasn't anything I'd done before. I replied with a tentative "well...maybe" email, making sure to put a big "I need to know more" caveat in my response. I guess when the Universe wants you to do something, it clears the way and makes it easy because, within a few weeks, I was having a background check done and they were talking about assigning me a student. Yikes!

Don't let the fresh faces fool you.

The first time I walked into the school was for my tutor interview - before any paperwork or anything. I guess they wanted to make sure I was relatively normal. As I entered the building, I was struck by how scary it was to be surrounded by teenagers. Do you realize that, if they decided to rise up against us, we'd be in major trouble?? It would be like Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Seriously. And a bunch of them just ooze attitude. It totally freaked me out. But, once I got into the tutor room and met with the head of the program (who is about 12 years old, btw - adorable, smart, organized, and amazing, but 12 none-the-less) most of my fears were alleviated. Then my background check came back clean. Why that surprised me is a complete mystery since I haven't done anything remotely "bad" since about 1986. Then I got an email saying that I was assigned a student. A girl who needed help with English and History - both subjects I can deal with. Math, not so much but give me the Humanities and Social Sciences and I'm good to go.


Yesterday was my first session. Honestly, I was nervous. I had no idea if she was going to be totally receptive to the tutoring or if she was going to give me attitude. Turns out she's a doll. Sweet and smart and a little lost. She requested tutoring in second quarter but they didn't have anyone to assign her to and she ended up failing three core classes. My heart aches for her because all she wants is to be a solid C student. I think I can help her as long as she actually does the work. I hope I can help her. Unfortunately, one of the classes she's failing is Algebra 2 and, as we've established, I got nothin' so we're going to try to find her a separate math tutor.

Here's the real kicker... We were reviewing her class schedule and I saw that she was taking something called Fashion Business (or some such). So I said, "Oh! Cool! That looks like s fun class."and then she said, "Yeah, it's pretty cool Right now we're learning to knit."

I guess the Universe put us together for a reason. :)

- Alex

Friday Finds: Pay It Forward

There's a person in Madison, commonly known as The Muffin Man, who makes homemade muffins every day. He then hands them out to anyone who is willing to commit to doing something "good" in return. He even carries around suggestions of things you can do to earn a muffin - like, "shovel your neighbor's driveway with no expectation of thanks" or "stop using your credit card for the weekend." This is a guy who's knows for "drive by good-works" - he'll stay in a town for a few months doing something good, then move on and do something similar somewhere else.

Then, today, I saw this:

It's brilliant in its simplicity.

Finally, I was reminded yesterday about a Facebook "game" where you promise to hand-make something for a small group of responders. For example, "the first five people who respond to this post will receive one hand-made item from me within the next twelve months." The catch being that, in order to receive your hand-made item, you have to post the same offer to your friends.

Lately, the idea of "paying it forward" has been coming up a lot. I believe that, if the Universe puts something in front of you over and over, you're supposed to act upon it in some way. I'm not sure what that means right now but, hopefully, all these "reminders" will inspire me to do something nice that I can encourage the next person to pass on.

Do something good today and ask someone to do the same.

- Alex

Give It Away

Just when we're all feeling the money pinch, we’re bombarded with stories about people less fortunate than us. From the radio, the tv, and the web, we hear story after story of people who simply have a lot less.

Unfortunately, for most of us, our pockets aren’t as full as our hearts are and, as much as we'd love to be extra-charitable, there isn't much left over, after taking care of ourselves, to take care of others.

Years ago, I had a mentor who used to say that giving was about “time, talent, and treasure”. You could be charitable without having to empty your wallet. He believed that each of these ways of giving had equal value and that none of them should be considered less of a gift.

Once you start looking at your giving in this way - that it's not just about cash - you begin to realize how rich you are and how much you can do for others.

Before I had any income that wasn’t already earmarked for bills and daily survival, the one thing I had an abundance of was time and some talents that I thought might be useful. So I started my giving there.

I’m sure many of you think (as I used to) that you don’t have any time available to volunteer for anything – what with running the kids to sports and having to complete your honey-do list - but I’m going to challenge that thinking. I'll bet that there is one hour a week that you could take away from chores or watching television. Or, how about one hour a month? Remember, it’s not the AMOUNT you give, it’s the giving that matters. Your community center could certainly use someone one hour a month to help with cleaning or arranging the food pantry. You could take an hour and spend it sorting donations at the local charity. Or how about one hour a week to help a child learn to read? The possibilities are endless.

Once I realized that my time had some charitable value, I got a little addicted to giving back. I would get excited about a particular opportunity to help and pledge a lot of my time – only to discover that I hadn’t left any time relax and recharge. So, just remember to balance.

Now, donating talent is a bit trickier because it also comes with the donation of time. However, you’d be amazed at how much your talents are appreciated when they’re volunteered. Your skills can make a difference in someone’s life or for a worthy organization – whether it’s something you do as a hobby or a job.  Let me give you some examples of how my talents have been donated over the years.

• I wrote the web site for a non-profit organization.
• I’ve done marketing consultation for my local community center.
• I MC’d a variety of charity auctions.
• I’ve used my crafting skills to create items to donate to various charities.

Donating talent is particularly rewarding because you’re providing a skill or service that the organization may not be able to get for free otherwise.

If I had my choice, I'd give away a lot of money. But it’s hard to part with hard-earned cash – especially when there are bills to pay and (even adult) kids to support. Every year, when I do my taxes, I’m pretty proud of how much I’ve given away and then my tax guy gives me a reality check. According to him, I’m giving away about half of what I should be for my income level.  Yikes! But then I consider that my time and talent are as important as my treasure and I figure it all balances out to a pretty well-rounded year of giving. 

So... back to treasure. You know how National Public Radio always says “give as much as you can, every penny counts”? Well, they mean it!  Think of it this way, if every listener gave $5 annually, they would have $135 million dollars each year.  I’m sure that would put a big dent in their budget. So, what are you willing to part with to donate a little cash to a worthy organization? One fancy coffee a week? Here's the coffee-math: $5 a week = $20 a month = $240 a year. That’s a nice donation to a small non-profit or an individual that needs to pay bills or buy food..  I’m sure that there’s something that you indiscriminately spend money on…  coffee, lunches out, impulse purchases at the checkout line, magazines, etc. All you have to do is find a few dollars a week or a few dollars a month and commit them to a charitable organization and you'll have joined the ranks of treasure givers.

Finally, if you absolutely can’t find a way to donate time, talent, or treasure, you should go out of your way to look for other options. There are a million ways that you can make a difference from donating your hair to Locks of Love to adding the URL to a charity’s donation page to your email signature. You could donate old bikes to The Bicycle Project or train a service dog. How about cleaning out your pantry and taking all those non-perishable foods you haven’t eaten to the food pantry – making sure that they haven’t passed the expiration date, of course!  Be a pen-pal for an elderly person or donate your old holiday decorations to a local charity organization. Just find something that constitutes helping someone who has less than you.

Regardless of how you decide to give, remember to give yourself credit for whatever you do. You made a difference in someone’s life. Like the old tale about the flap of the butterfly wings causing a tidal wave on the other side of the earth, every action counts - no matter how small or seemingly insignificant.

- Santa Alex

Crafts Gone Wrong

Y'all remember last week when I posted about doing our Crafting for Charity day? Well, let me tell you... our normally laid back event was an adventure in pure frustration.

As I mentioned, three of us decided to make baby kimonos this time around. We've been using the book Craft Hope by Jade Sims for months and have really liked everything we've made from it so far. For example, the Take-Along Quilt pattern was super-easy and allowed three non-quilters to get our hands wet with a new craft. So, the baby kimonos seemed like the perfect project - small supply list, weirdly simple pattern, and only a few steps in the actual instructions.

Lesson #1: Never assume that, because every other pattern you've worked from a book is good, that the one you're working on now is going to be good.

Seriously, the "pattern" itself should have been a big red flag.  I sew. Cassandra sews. Our third charity crafter sews. Why any of us thought that THIS pattern was remotely complete is beyond me:

Please note that the pattern instructions say to "Enlarge 500%". Yeah. This is all fine and good except that the average office copy machine will only enlarge 400% and there's no standard paper large enough to accommodate the full-sized pattern.

Now, I'm sure that our math-inclined readers (or our readers with better abstract analytical skills) will immediately have a solution to this little problem. In the aftermath of our sewing adventure, I've managed to think of a variety of ways we could have approached this dilemma. However, in the throes of having to have this pattern ready for a scheduled event, I took the "easy" route and enlisted the help of someone at Company X who has access to a plotter.

We arrived at our local fabric shop and set up in the big sewing room. Then, the three kimono makers started to cut our fabric. In the middle of cutting, we realized that something was amiss. The description of the kimono mentions "...special features, including fold-over sleeve cuffs that will protect a baby from accidental scratches." Unfortunately, there was no pattern piece for the fold-over cuff. No worries! We can improvise the pattern-piece. And we did.

Our next hurdle came when we started piecing the pattern together and begin sewing. The instructions were just short of gibberish - leading us to wonder aloud if anyone had bothered testing this pattern before it was published.  Let me provide a sample of what we experienced:

3. Lay the back piece right side up on your work surface. Note: if you're making the version with the envelope, lay the folded envelope on top of the back piece with the raw edges aligned. The fold will be facing toward the top of the garment. Lay the front pieces, right side down and one on top of the other, over the back piece (and envelope, if applicable).

Again, I'd like to direct your attention to the actual pattern pieces. Does anyone see instructions for a "fold" on the envelope piece?? So... how is the envelope supposed to fold and why? If we fold the envelope and align the raw edges, they'll be sewn into the garment and the envelope won't turn correctly.

Oh! and pattern has you finishing the the raw edges AFTER you sew the entire kimono together - which makes absolutely no sense.  Of course, we learned (the hard way) that, if you finish the edges BEFORE you sew this wonky pattern together, the pieces don't fit properly.

We are three, intelligent, educated women and yet it still took us about an hour and a half to figure out how to piece this craziness together to make something that resembled a giftable item. Once we divined the answer, Charity Crafter #3 managed to knock out two of them. I did 1.75 (I have to lay in the ribbon and fix the mislaid fold-over sleeve envelopes. Cassandra finished one.

Cassandra was so angry about the pattern that she, quite literally, couldn't blog about it. Once we've both calmed down, we're going to write to Ms Sims and suggest that she either remove the pattern or fix it before they publish another edition of this book. We also going to suggest that someone TEST every pattern before they go to print.

My issue is with the people who wasted over and hour of our time, including: a pattern designer who wrote a crappy pattern (inexcusable), an author who didn't bother to read/test the pattern before it went to print, an editor who either didn't know or didn't care that the pattern was crap, and myriad other people who touched this book before it went to print. They are directly responsible for putting out a bad product and creating frustration where there should have been harmony and good-will.

Is it wrong to expect people to deliver a basic level of quality? I don't think so. Maybe if we were talking about subjective quality - like, is the finished pattern pretty. But this is not "subjective" this is "does it work or does it not work." It's pretty simple to get that right and incredibly lazy to allow something so ineffective to be part of an otherwise brilliant book.

Quality is important to me and Cassandra. It's one of the things we bond over. This experience is the kind of thing that really upsets me (in case you hadn't noticed) because I know that someone, anyone, could have taken a 1/2 hour of time and prevented the ripple effect that caused us to have a bad experience.

So... my two cents... Always do your best to ensure the highest quality you can provide and remember that your output is going to affect someone, somewhere. Maybe even a little crafting group from Madison, WI.

- Alex

Giving It Away

Multi-tasking (note the iPhone for tweeting while I craft)

It's that time again, folks! Our little craft group at Company X is off to make stuff for charity this afternoon.


For the uninitiated, Company X generously gives its employees four hours each quarter to do volunteer work. They don't really care what we do - pick up litter on the side of the road, help out at the local retirement home, volunteer at your kids school for a day, etc - they just want us out in the community doing something for the greater good.


At the beginning of the year, Cassandra found the book Craft Hope by Jade Sims. Thus began our Crafting for Charity group. Every quarter a group of us get together and make something to give away to people in need. We've made quilts that were sent to Japan after the earthquake, little girls' dresses that were sent to Haiti, fleece blankets for a pet shelter, tiny knitted caps for preemie babies, and more. Today we're going to be working on baby kimonos.

We're making the envelope bottom so little toes can't escape

Doing this every three months has turned out to be one of the most fulfilling parts of our job. As a team-building activity, it's been great. I love doing something fun with people who I work with. All the politics and wrangling gets left behind and I get to know the real person. Plus, packing the boxes and envelopes to send off our finished crafts is a huge soul-warmer.

I hope that our group will continue and that our idea will expand. I'd love to see other groups form to do charity work like this.

Maybe next week we'll post some pics of our day and our finished products. Have a great weekend everyone!

- Alex

Quilts for Japan

No pithy title today - just a serious update on our last Crafting for Charity event.

These are on their way to Japan

As you may know from our previous posts, the company that Cassandra and I work for generously gives each employee a half day a quarter to do charity/volunteer work. It can be anything from Habitat for Humanity to volunteering at your kid's school. So, we formed a Crafting for Charity group that takes over the work room in our local sewing/knitting shop and spend a half day making stuff to give away.

We've made sundresses for an orphanage, no-sew fleece blankets for an animal shelter, scarves for the homeless, and knitted hats for preemie babies. At our event in February, three of us decided to take on a pattern called the Take-Along Quilt from the book Craft Hope by Jade Sims. None of us had quilted before so assume what you will... Needless to say, we weren't able to finish the entire quilt in one four-hour period so the remaining work was waiting for us last Friday when we took our next charity day.

A week before our charity day, someone sent me a link to a blog post by the editor of Quilters Newsletter. The exact post was as follows:

Quilters Newsletter has long enjoyed a friendship with Patchwork Tsushin, a leading Japanese quilt magazine. So when Editor in Chief Naomi Ichikawa emailed to say her magazine is collecting comfort quilts for those impacted by the recent earthquake in Japan, we wanted to join the effort. QN will gather quilts from U.S. quiltmakers then forward them to Naomi and her staff, who will deliver them to those in need.

This is when I start believing in fate or divine intervention or something. How perfect is it that, just as we're about to finish three quilts, we learn about a way to give to relief efforts in Japan? The idea that our small gift might bring comfort to someone who has been devastated by the events there is really moving.

I love how they look rolled up!

 So, we hurried to finish all three which I'm proud to say we accomplished. They were boxed up and mailed out two days ago with instructions to have them delivered to Quilters Newsletter today. Sadly, they got hung up in Colorado because of inclement weather but they're rescheduled to be delivered on Monday and then our first-time, rather amateurish attempts will be sent with the more serious quilts to warm someone during this crises. When something like this happens, it really solidified why we do this charity work.

I hope that whoever ends up with my little quilt doesn't look too closely at the stitching.

- Alex

Quilts for Japan

Happy Friday everyone!

This afternoon, Alex and I are lucky enough to be heading out to Stitcher's Crossing for another of our Craft Hope group meet-ups. Last time we started on some Take-Along Quilts and we are hoping (fingers crossed) to get them done today.



We will be shipping off our finished products to the Quilts for Quake Survivors organization. Here is a small bit of information about this group:

Quilts finished and received by April 22nd will be sent to Patchwork Tsushin in Japan who will distribute to those in need. Quilts finished after April 22nd will be listed in our etsy shop with 100% of the sale going to Mercy Corps and Peace Winds.

Luckily, I think we can get these mailed on Monday and they will be there before the April 22nd deadline. I can't think of a more devastating experience than having everything taken away from you within moments. It feels really good to be able to help...even in such a small way.

So, I'm off to be a good global citizen! Talk to you next week!!

–Cassandra

Charity Crafting Redux

Unlike my normal, long-winded posts, today's will be blissfully short.

This afternoon, ten people from my office will be converging on our local fabric/yarn shop, taking over their sewing room, and crafting for charity. We did this once before and had such a great time that we agreed to do it again.

This time, three of us decided to make the Take-Along Quilt from the book Craft Hope by Jade Sims. It's a simple quilt - using fat quarters (1/4 of a yard of fabric, cut a specific way) on one side and a single cut of flannel on the other, with some batting in between. The final product has a strap that can be used to secure the quilt into a bedroll when it's time to be put away. Together we decided to simplify the pattern a bit and use quilt binding to finish the edges instead of making an edge out of the back-side fabric. If you'd like a free copy of the pattern, click here.

Here's the issue... All three of us spent around $40 on materials, so each quilt will have $40 of hard cash plus four hours of our time invested in them. This smarts a bit when you're giving away the item. On our last charity craft day we made pillow case dresses so we had, probably, $15 each invested and we got twelve dresses out of the deal. Needless to say, we got a lot more bang for our buck as a charitable project with the dresses. This is something you have to think about when you're giving away your finished project. I want to be able to provide as much as I can for my time and money invested. All I can hope is that these quilts will be well-loved and used for years.

We'll take some pictures today and do a follow-up post on Monday. Have a great weekend, everyone!!

Monsters on the Sewing Machine

I'm a monster on the sewing machine!

Friday November 19, 2010, I and eight coworkers (including Cassandra) had a "charity crafting day."

"What does it mean?" you ask, in your very best Double-Rainbow sort of way. Well, let me tell you...

At our day job, one of the company benefits is a very generous, quarterly half-day off to use for community service. There are no real restrictions on how this time can be used. You could volunteer to help at your child's daycare center or go pull weeds at the local nursing home. As long as you're doing something for the greater good, you get 16 hours a year to do it - paid.

Buy this book! It ROCKS.

So, Cassandra and I were looking for something to do that would employ our crafty skills (and feed the need to make stuff) and still qualify as community service/volunteerism. That's when Cassandra discovered the book Craft Hope by Jade Sims.

This book is awesome for a lot of reasons:

• There is a large variety of projects, from knitting to sewing to embroidery to quilting and more
• All the projects are SUPER-easy
• The projects are, mostly, really tasteful and fun (not too twee or folk-sy)
• The book provides mailing addresses for the various charities that would like to receive particular items

Our intrepid band of coworkers took over the sewing room of our local fabric/yard shop. The shop provided the irons, ironing boards, outlets, trash cans, and cutting boards. We brought our sewing machines, knitting needles, fabric swatches, yarn, and whatever else was necessary for the patterns that we chose.

Those of us with sewing machines (four people total) were on task to make the Pillow Case Dress found on page 17 of the book. This dress is insanely easy to make and cute as a button. We managed to knock out 10 dresses in about three hours – even with extra embellishment added and a few mistakes along the way. I, embarrassingly, had to rip out all the bias tape on one dress because I didn’t sew it on properly. This set me back by a solid 20 minutes.

Folks without sewing machines did, mostly, knit work. Two people started the Star Stitch Scarf found on page 29 and two other people worked on piecing together the squares of an afghan that’s bound for a homeless shelter. Lastly, we had one scrap-booker who used her skills to make gorgeous handmade gift cards to go with our donations.

At the end of the afternoon, as we were packing up, the mood was really high. We all felt that glow that comes from a job well done. We’re lucky, I suppose, that, as co-workers, we all get along pretty well but being able to get out of the workplace and do something together that actually MEANS something has bound us together in a new way. We had fun. Real, laugh-out-loud fun. And, best of all, we have something amazing to show for our time spent together.



We’re already planning our follow-up day in February – and I think we’ve got a few more people interested in joining us. Who knows…if it keeps going like this, we might just have a charity handcrafting revolution!!

Viva la sewing machine!

- Alex

Night Night

Happy Friday everyone!

I am still in sweater design mode over here at "Chez Ooo! Shiny!". The design process is going well and I'm really glad I chose a project of this size to get my knitwear designer feet wet. Hopefully, next week I will have something fun to show you! And if all goes well, I plan on having the pattern available as a free download too. Stay tuned...

Today I'm going to take a break from posting about the doll sweater to talk about a charitable crafting opportunity I recently discovered. It never ceases to amaze me how handcrafted items can bring comfort to those struggling.

Project Night Night 

 

Here is an excerpt from their site...

"Project Night Night donates over 25,000 Night Night Packages each year, free of charge, to homeless children who need our childhood essentials to feel secure, cozy, ready to learn, and significant.  Each Night Night Package contains a new security blanket, an age-appropriate children’s book, and a stuffed animal -- all nestled inside of a new canvas tote bag.  By providing objects of reliable comfort, Project Night Night  reduces trauma and advances the emotional and cognitive well-being of the children we serve."

They accept newly handmade "crib size" blankets. The blankets can be quilted, knitted, crocheted, no-sew or purchased. Book donations should be appropriate from age 0 to pre-teen. And stuffed animals should be smaller than 30 inches and new. Way more information is available on their site. There is a lot of room for creativity under their guidelines.

I just love the thought of making a cozy blanket and stuffed animal that can bring a smile to the face of a little one in chaos. It's just a small thing to me, but if it can help a child through rough times...it's priceless. Also, I ran across this book the other day and thought it was a neat resource for making a little doll for this care package.

Please remember that this is but one way to "craft for charity." My blog-mate, Alex, and I have also done projects from the Knitting for Peace book by Betty Christiansen and we're planning a sewing project to make dresses that will be donated to children in Haiti.

Thanks for stopping by. Please feel free to email us with comments or questions. We'd love to hear from you!

Cassandra