d'oh!mestic

So that happened.

I’ve had this monster for about a month and I am a bad, bad person for not writing about it sooner, but hell, I had this brand spankin’ new Janome DC 3018 computerized marvel taking up my time and the point of hobbies is to spend time away from the internet, right?

Buying the beast was a one-and-done, and I’m almost (almost) ashamed by the lack of shopping around. But when the saleswoman proceeded to run eight layers of denim through the floor model with nary a snag, I was hooked. She reeled me in when she knocked an additional $150 off the price tag and threw in a spare food, five extra bobbins, two spools of thread and (and!) was nice to me.

Bob’s Sew and Vac has a customer for life.

I did what you’re supposed to do with a brand new machine: test runs, project completions, ritualistic blood sacrifices. It hums along, pleased as punch.

The old Singer has been relegated to a corner of the workroom until we can think of something to do with it. I’m reluctant to sell it. I wouldn’t wish that foul craftsmanship on anyone.

And speaking of foul craftsmanship!

In May, I will be inflicting my shoddy wares on the unsuspecting public!

The wonderful women of Hip Stitch have asked me to be their featured artist for the month of May. They’ll be showing off (and, ahem, selling) some of my handmade items, which will act as the soft launch of the D’oh!Mestic homewears-and-leggings* line.

The above photo is just a taste, just a hint of what I’ve been up to. I can’t wait to show off the project in full, but I want to built a little buzz, whet a few appetites and take some decent pictures in natural light. But believe me when I say that it’s going to be a good five seconds worth of awesome, and you might just want to call dibs now. Local readers are encouraged to line up starting Thursday, April 30. (What, we’re all geeks here. Geeks do line events.) Out-of-towners will either have to book their tickets now or wait until we roll out D’oh!Mestic, The Shopping Experience, sometime in June.

Or, y’know, not.

*I am kidding about the leggings. I am not Lindsay Lohan.

Hey, look! I finished another quilt, and this time it even has a binding and everything.

I wish that I had a couple of more days to really photograph the heck out of this sucker and take it around to the parents’ and show it off and take it to the Awesome Fabric Shop and show it off, but it’s a baby quilt for a colleague who goes on her leave tomorrow and we’re not close enough for me to do a post-delivery delivery.

Well, I do dawdle.

Tomorrow, I will give the quilt and the Sock Monkey away, which might explain why he looks a little forlorn.

Deets
The fabric is “Five Funky Monkeys” in cream from Moda. The binding and back piece is “Five Funky Monkeys Dots” in brown and red from the same line. Both were designed by Erin Michael. The brown was just plain ol’ brown cotton broadcloth.

Each patch was cut 12″x12″ and the binding was cut at 3″. It took about two weeks of puttering to complete the project. It’s my second quilt ever, and the first with a proper binding, but I may have said that already.

I hope the mama likes it. I’m honestly worried about it.

New feature! Friday Flaws is designed to be a space where I point out irregularities in my projects as an act of — I was going to say “love,” but that comes off as way too dippy — respect for my imperfections and impatience?

The first flaw I’m highlighting comes from a baby quilt I’ve worked on this week. I have one set of blocks that don’t quite line up, and I’ve decided to live with it. It’s a quilt for a baby. Just as an infant is incapable of judging its parents for not owning a 60″ flat screen, so (goes the logic, that) this particular infant cannot judge Anonymous Quilt Maker (me) for her inability to line up blocks.

I suppose I could rip out the blocks and repress and resew and re-rip and re-repress and re-resew until I had perfect alignment, but that does not fall within the D’oh!Mestic experience. We’re not aiming for groundbreaking design or craftsmanship which would leave Martha breathless. We’re (and of course, by we, I mean me) aiming for handmade objects which could survive at least three rounds in the washing machine, maybe, if the machine was set to delicate. And also, flaws.

We like our flaws and we embrace them.

My job is cyclical.

It goes from being busy to being dead to being JAMPACKEDINSANITY before coasting into another lull. Right now, we’re in a JPI period, and I can tell my stress levels have been jacked by the way my jaw aches from being clenched, by the basketball-sized stress hump that’s popped up between my shoulder blades and by the increase in off-the-clock craftiness.

I admit that I’ve been doing the rounds at lunch — in the last week, I’ve hit the yarn shop, the woefully undercapitalized but wonderful fabric shop and the Fascist Fabric Boutique, all. I bought engineering paper and colored pencils and started sketching, and in the evenings, I’ve been up in the sewing room/photo room, not doing a whole lot outside of pressing fabric.

Oh my god, there is something enormously therapeutic in pressing fabric.

Anyway.

Last night I decided that the kitchen cafe curtain had to go. It was a Pottery Barn 75% refuge from five years ago. It was yellow and brown and kind of ugly.

See?

OOog-lay.

I wanted to replace it with something cheerful, but not perky — or lord forbid, cutesy.

Let’s face it. I straight up wanted skulls.

Oh, look. Skulls!

The Fascist Fabric Boutique came through with this Alexander Henry pattern. It took a half a yard and a half an hour to whip a new curtain, which I like a bit more than the last curtain, though Adam’s still not sold. It’s cheerful. It’s slightly morbid. It . . . still doesn’t go with our ugly tract housing cabinets.

But it’ll do for now.