In the Studio Today: Appliqued Butterfly Project & New Art

It's been kind of a weird week here. Some of you may have seen on Facebook that I got called for jury duty on Tuesday. I arrived at the courthouse at 1 pm as instructed, and was met with a line out the door for people just trying to get into the courthouse. Hmmm... that seemed odd. Then they ushered us into a room in the basement which was about 100 degrees and standing room only- at least a hundred people in there and they were bringing in more chairs. Curious-er and curious-er.... I was getting the feeling that this wasn't a breaking-and-entering sort of trial. When they announced that they were running over an hour late because the judge was still with the morning's groups of potential jurors, I knew for sure something was up.

After waiting 3 hours, we went into the courtroom. First I saw a group of people which I assumed were family members, then we met the judge, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and 3 defendants, and found out it was a murder trial. I will be honest and tell you that the whole thing made me really uncomfortable... a little too "real life," you know? The defendants were all young men, about my daughter's age, it's possible that she even went to high school with them. When they turned to address the potential jurors, I got a little choked up... I wondered if they were born into different families in a different city where they might be right now instead of here....  I was relieved to be excused during the first round (due to a scheduling conflict on my part.) I think I would make a terrible juror. I don't know how objective I could be, I think I would spend the rest of my life second-guessing my decision. I frankly don't want the responsibility of deciding whether or not these young men would spend the rest of their lives behind bars. Or what if I voted to acquit them- would that mean justice for the victim and their family??? So while I sat there I just prayed that I would be put on the jury if God had a purpose for me being there, or that I would be excused if not. So I got my answer. Then I said some prayers for the judge, lawyers, defendants, and of course all of the families involved. It will weigh on me over the next few weeks as the trial progresses......

Has anyone ever been a juror, especially on an important trial? How did you feel about it- did you find it fascinating? exhausting? confusing? All of the above?? How did you handle it? I'm just curious- I think it would have been really interesting, but the fact that there are real people involved, instead of actors in an episode of Law & Order, puts things in a different light.

Anyway, onto happier news.... I have actually carved out a little time for painting this week, which I haven't done in it-seems-like-forever. I started this back in the fall, and then I got busy and set it aside. I forced myself to work on it this week, and as soon as I got started, I remembered the joy that I feel when I pick up my brushes and paints and colored pencils.... ahhhhh... the world just melts away.... I really needed that this week....

I also squeezed in a little time for sewing and started to work on a project for my next newsletter. Machine applique- instant gratification, ha ha. Click here for a tutorial on machine applique if you'd like some tips on how I do it, or if you've never done it but would like to give it a try.

What do you do to relax when the world is weighing heavy on you?
I hope you all have a good week and a Happy Easter!

Snow Day!

So, it's the 6th day of Spring, and this is what it looks like:

Unbelievable! We got hardly a flake of snow all winter, and on March 25, less than a week from Easter, this is what happens.... weird. I had an appointment today which I cancelled; daughter's school is actually in session today but I kept her home (she drives herself to school and I didn't want her out in the weather.) So she is baking cookies and I am drinking tea and doing all of those cozy "snow day" things that we didn't get to do all winter :) When my kids were little, I used to look forward to snow days, when we would all just stay in and read and watch movies and do crafts and drink hot chocolate and eat soup.... and then the kids would go outside to play in the snow, and you know you spent more time getting them dressed and then undressed than they actually spent playing...

(Remember A Christmas Story? 

Ralphie: "My kid brother Randy looked like a tick about to pop.")

So daughter is using her Snow Day to make biscotti (no complaints here...)

We've been busy working on the next newsletter which will come out mid-April. It has a late Spring/early Summer theme. There is a wonderful cookie recipe which I am including- we had a family dinner yesterday after church and everyone sampled them and thought they were delicious- so apparently we have a winner!

Last November, a lot of you gave me suggestions for a new newsletter name... we are still thinking about changing the name, it will probably reflect my new tag line... but I am still mulling over the possibilities. I will have to make up my mind by mid-April when the next issue comes out!

For now, I am doing 2 versions of the newsletter- an email version which you can read right in your inbox, and a magazine version which looks like a real magazine (I love the magazine)!

If you'd like to see our last issue of our digital magazine newsletter, click here.
To see the email version, click here.
You can sign up for your FREE subscription to both versions by clicking here.

What's the weather like where you are today? What are you going to be creative?

Pressure....

I have been working (and working and working….) on my first e-book, called Child’s Play. In my newsletter, I advertised that it would be out “around February 21.” Boy, am I glad I wrote “around”! My daughter questioned me on that- “Shouldn’t we just say February 21?” 

“No,” I told her. “Trust me. ‘Around’ is fine, and it is appropriate….”

Actually my original goal date was February 7, but I thought, I’ll give myself 2 extra weeks, that should be fine. More than enough time.

Wrong.

I keep coming up with ideas to make it better. I keep thinking of things to add. I want it to be just right. I won’t say I want it to be perfect- because I know that as soon as I hit the send button I will think of something else I should have done differently.

The truth is…. It’s just not ready yet, and I don’t want to put it out there simply to stay on schedule. I want it to be great. I want it to be, like, the best book you’ve ever read! OK so it’s not Shakespeare and I’m not Martha Stewart, but you know what I mean.

I am struggling to not put pressure on myself. Most of the stress that I feel every day is self-induced, based on expectations that I place on myself. I think of everything that I want to do and everything that I think I should do and everything I could do if only there were 10 more of me….. and I get so overwhelmed. Last night I was making a list of things that I “needed” to do by the end of the week, and I started to hyperventilate a little. How in the world was it all going to get done??? And then I stopped and asked myself- what will happen if you don’t get any of it done? Will the world end? Probably not. Will you get fired? (Only if I fire myself, which, trust me, has crossed my mind on occasion….) Will God or your family or friends stop loving you? Absolutely not.

Now, I do have things that would be prudent to take care of- for example, I have paid someone a rather large sum of money to help me build a new website. So I should work on that, so I don’t throw that money down the toilet. And I probably should try to get this book done in a reasonable amount of time…. But the world won’t stop spinning if I don’t.  (And of course there’s the pressure of: once it’s done, will anybody actually buy it?? But that is angst for another day….)

So today I am taking myself out for lunch at a cute café with lovely salads and free wi-fi and I will probably just hang out. And I will probably get myself one of those fancy 4,000 calorie drinks (with whipped cream, thank you very much.)

And I won’t feel bad about it. Not one little bit. (OK, honestly, maybe I’ll feel a little guilty about it, but I’m working on that.)

Weekend Happenings

How was everyone's weekend? Mine was pretty busy and fun. Friday night my daughter was at a sleepover so hubby and I went on a date to California Pizza Kitchen which was nice & relaxing and the food was really good. While at the mall, I had to use a gift certificate that I had for Williams and Sonoma and this is what I got- a big red "batter bowl" with handle and pouring spout, in my favorite color, of course! (It only came in red, lucky for me.) I also got one of those long skinny scrapers for getting the last bit of jelly or mayo from the bottom of the jar:

I recently saw someone on TV, or maybe it was in a magazine, who had a ceramic egg holder. And I thought, Why would someone need that? The eggs come in a perfectly good cardboard container at the store. But I walked into Anthropologie and what did I see? You guessed it. And somehow at that moment I decided that I needed one too. And I got some cute dish towels too.

Saturday night, my husband and I went to see a Tim Hawkins comedy show with some of our friends- I laughed so hard that my cheeks hurt by the end :D He did 2 shows and the place was packed. If you don't know who Tim Hawkins is, you can see a couple of his YouTube videos below. We own a couple of his DVD's- very funny and clean so the whole family can watch.





We also helped with a spaghetti dinner that we had at church on Sunday as a fundraiser for the Youth Group. Sorry I didn't get any photos, but imagine spaghetti & meatballs, garlic bread and salad on white plastic disposable plates in a church basement and you get the idea, ha ha. It was tasty, but of course the best part is just hanging out with your friends.... And the kids made some money for their upcoming retreat.

Also, somewhere in there, I made and photographed 3 recipes for my next project. Have I mentioned this here on the blog yet? Oh I don't know I really can't keep track! Anyway, I am going to be releasing an e-pattern in February- it will be my first one in a digital format, which is nice because I can include lots of full-color step out photos to make the patterns easy to understand. And you will learn how to roll an egg roll, in case that is something you are interested in....

Did you do anything fun this weekend??

Painting, Writing, Baking & Trying to Focus

After all of the sewing that I did last week, this week I am writing patterns- sooooo, there's not much exciting going on here!

I did find some time to do some quick illustrations for the February Newsletter (sign up for your free subscription here)....

And I finished up 2 quilts for my next pattern so I could get them off to the quilter.....

Today, I am planning on working on some recipes for the newsletter, too. I tried one out over the weekend, and it was kind of a fail. So back to the kitchen. Good thing my family and friends don't mind eating the "mistakes."

How is everyone's 2013 going so far? So far, mine has been..... pretty much like 2012! Meaning, no huge changes. I don't make resolutions anymore- I resolved to give them up a long time ago, ha ha! I never kept them for more than 3 days anyway :). I do have some new things planned for this year, though. I mentioned in my last post that I am going to do my patterns differently, so that will be a little bit of a challenge but I am pretty excited about it- I hope you will find them to be beautiful and an excellent value for your money.

I am also looking to re-do my blog and website this year- which let me tell you is really overwhelming! Like..... I lay awake at night bed wondering how I am going to do it, in the midst of getting everything else done. You know how that is- that you feel that you really need to move on, but you can't seem to find the time for the new stuff because there's still so much stuff in your day-to-day life that you have to handle? And that is when you start to feel like you are just running on a treadmill- working and working and working but not getting anywhere. That is how I have been feeling.... so I have to figure out a way to find make time for the new stuff I want to explore.... Of course that means that some old stuff is going to have to go- and that is scary. I have ideas that I have been turning over in my head over the last several months. Oh there just aren't enough hours in the day to do everything I want to do! Maybe that is the hardest part- deciding which things to focus on, and letting the other things go.

Of course there are some things that are just a "no-brainer"- like I could watch a little less TV. Or get up a bit earlier. Or spend less time on Facebook.

(Brings to mind a saying I heard the other day:
Don't give up what you really want for what you want right now.
Yes!)

How do you get past the "planning" stage into the "doing" stage? When you have lots of ideas, how do you decide which is the best to focus on? And what have you given up in order to make more time and energy for those things?

Newsletter LUV & Visit to the Christmas Tree Farm

Thank you for all of your suggestions! While the intention of my post was not to elicit compliments, you all warmed my heart and showed me some LUV! I am overwhelmed by your kindness and truly appreciate your nice comments and encouragement- we spend a lot of time making the newsletter the best that we possibly can, and it's nice to know that people like it... I have really enjoyed reading over all of your comments and suggestions, and over the next several months I am sure that we will be implementing many of them. (By the way, if you haven't entered the giveaway yet, you have until Tuesday at 11:59 pm EST. Click here for details.)

And by "we," I mean my whole family works on the newsletter in some capacity. I develop recipes & projects, write the instructions and the rest of the "copy," and do the illustrations and artwork that we use to "decorate" the newsletter. My husband handles all of the technical stuff- laying out content, scheduling, following up on statistics, etc. My oldest daughter, Samantha, who is also a guest blogger here every Friday, does the beautiful color celebration collages for every issue and also helps develop recipes and projects. My youngest daughter, who is 17, does some graphic work in PhotoShop and also helps with the recipes. So you see, it takes a village to write a newsletter! My many, many thanks to them for helping out with "Mom's project."

On Saturday, we went to the Christmas tree farm that we go to every year. The weather was warm- a little too warm for Christmas time activities, if you ask me- but we were happy that daughter Samantha and son-in-law Jeff were able to go with us. We chose our tree, and Sam and Jeff picked out their very first tree together.

When you get to the farm, you climb on a wagon pulled by a tractor. They drive you out to the middle of the farm and drop you off. It smells so good and pine-y! Then, you start looking for your perfect tree....

 (My 2 favorite girls in the world....)

(Jeff and Sam look for their first tree....)

When you find your tree, one of the workers cuts it down for you (they don't trust the general public with chain saws.... gee I can't imagine why....)

Then they put your initials on the bottom of the tree, and throw it on the wagon for you, and you get back on the wagon and ride back up with your tree...

(Someone had a nice suggestion for Sam and Jeff, that they cut the bottom off their tree when they get home, put a hole in the wooden disc with their initials, and have an ornament from their first tree forever...)

They put the tree in a bundler. It goes in like this:

And then it comes out like this:

All bundled up and ready to go on top of your car.

While you are waiting for them to bundle your tree, you pay for it and have complimentary coffee, hot cocoa and cookies.

When I was a kid, we always had a fake tree, and I never visited a tree farm until about 10 years ago- now it is one of our favorite family traditions.... I can't imagine a Christmas without it.

What's your favorite holiday family tradition?

Get Away From It All... Lancaster County, PA

Today, guest blogger Samantha takes us on a tour of one of my very favorite places, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania (aka Amish Country):

Earlier this week, my husband and I went to a conference at Willow Valley Resort in Lancaster.  While we were there, we had some down time and decided to visit some of my favorite places in the area.

We visited some shops, saw some of the lovely farmhouse architecture, and of course, went to Kitchen Kettle Village, which is a tourist village that has some of the most delicious food and drinks.  We stopped at The Roasted Rooster for some cider and pumpkin spice lattes...

And oh myyyyyy, was it good.  We also visited my very favorite place in Lacaster, The Jam and Relish Kitchen, where jams, jellies, relishes, and salsas of all varieties are jarred and sold.  You can actually peek into the small kitchen in the back to see the Amish girls working on the batch of the day! It is really fascinating.  The best part though, is that there are samples of EVERYTHING sold in the shop!  It could quite easily be a full meal...

Visiting Lancaster really is a special treat for me.  I love getting to be out in the country with all of Pennsylvania's rolling hills.  It is truly inspiring to see the simplicity of the Amish way of life, and it reminds me to slow down sometimes and enjoy all things beautiful.

By the way, if you are not familiar with the Amish- they are a religious sect which eschew modern ways of life- they dress "plain" (women in dresses, men in black), they drive horse drawn buggies instead of cars, and don't use electricity. If you are interested in learning a little more about them, you can read an article here and here.

Last, on our way home, we stopped at Terrain, which was a very special treat, since there are only 2 locations in the country! (Terrain is a garden/home goods shop that is owned by the Anthropologie folks).

They are getting ready for Christmas! I can't believe the holidays are here this soon, but I am delighted that they are.  I am hosting Thanksgiving this year, and then comes Christmas shopping and Christmas baking and Christmas music!  I am a junkie for it all!

Are you ready for the holidays? Extremely excited, or totally terrified? How are you finding ways to rest before this hectic season begins?

Happy Weekend!

Samantha

A note from Jacquelynne: Congratulations to Christine in Australia and Karrie in Michigan who won the giveaway last week!! Your prizes are on the way! And thanks to everyone for their very nice comments about my block tutorial. I was not able to respond to everyone, but I did read each and every comment (with a big smile on my face.)

Also, I have had to turn on the captcha again for comments. I really hate to do it, but spammers somehow found their way past the filter, and in a 48 hour period, I had no less than 70 spam comments posted to my blog- all for prescription drugs. (If anyone out there needs Tramadol or Ativan, let me know- I have a long list of sources for you now....) Sorry for the inconvenience- I hope you will still leave comments!!  :)  Maybe I will try turning it off in a week or so and see what happens......

Giveaway! And other fun stuff....

My friend Sandi at A Legacy of Stitches is giving away fabric from my Fruitful Hands collection! I love Sandi because she is so kind and really, really generous with her time and talents. She is always sharing photos of her enviable quilt collection, organizing quilt retreats, and just generally being a really nice person. Take a bow, Sandi!

I want you all to you run (OK, click) right over to her blog and enter her giveaway, Pronto! It ends on Friday.

Go on, enter the giveaway. I'll wait......

OK Welcome back! Does the change of seasons put you in the mood for certain kinds of projects? For me, autumn is the unofficial start of baking season (my own personal equivalent of Football Season...) In addition, it seems as soon as the temperatures drop below 70 degrees, I am ready to dig into my wool pile........

A few days ago, I got a hankerin' for a cozy project, so I pulled out the pile of wool and started on a really simple project. I think I will share the finished project and pattern in my next newsletter. It shouldn't take me long to finish- as I said it is simple as can be, and I have enjoyed working on it while watching TV in the evenings. I am using yummy Valdani thread for my stitching.

And there are those ubiquitous magnifying glasses again. Yes, it seems I need them more and more! Today I was trying to read something, and realized that I really need to start carrying a pair in my purse. But I resist. I am being dragged kicking and screaming into middle age!

Finally, I have a cute story to tell you. Last week I was upstairs cleaning up one of the bedrooms. I heard a thud on the window (as I often do- our birds aren't particularly intelligent it seems- because my windows are dirty and they really should be able to see them!) Usually when I hear a thud, I look out the window and the victim has flown away. But this time, I saw this pretty little yellow bird lying on the porch roof, feet up in the air and twitching. I held my breath and walked away, hoping that he'd hop up and fly away. When I returned to the window a few minutes later, he was still lying on the roof, feet up, but the twitching had stopped- bad sign! I walked away again and continued my work. I checked back on him every few minutes. After about 10 minutes of no movement, I figured I'd be climbing out the window to retrieve the body for proper burial. But then, I found him like this:

Isn't he cute? The yellow finch happens to be our State Bird. He remained like this for another 10 minutes- I was even able to open the window, and hang halfway out to take his photo. The fact that I got so close to him proves how stunned he was! I'm sure he had a terrible headache! I continued my cleaning, checking on him from time to time. Finally, I approached the window and he was gone. Poor little dear! I guess he flew away to find some Excedrin....

The Great Cat-sby

Daughter and guest blogger Samantha is introducing her new kitten, aka my Grand-kitten, today! Isn't he sweet? And when you get short on ideas for a blog post, photos of babies, kittens, and puppies always seem to do the trick, somehow....

As you heard last week, we have a new addition to our little family.  Gatsby has been such a sweet boy to us these past few weeks, and I have to admit I love having him around, even if he makes a few messes and unpleasant smells...

I don't really consider myself a cat person (my heart is truly for any kind of puppy), but my husband has had cats since he was a child, and when we were killing time at a pet store he made me take a look at the kittens for adoption.  And once we looked, well, we had to ask to pet one.... and then once we pet one, we had to fill out an adoption application... It's the "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie" phenomenon (did you ever read that book? It was one of my very favorites when I was little).

And before we knew it, we were thinking of names, picking out toys and treats and preparing for the trip back to the adoption center to pick up our "son."  I even joked with my friends about having "a baby on the way," which they did not appreciate once they figured out what I was really talking about...



And now Gatsby has been with us for three weeks.  He has had a little bit of a digestive issue, that got so bad at one point, we wondered if we would have to take him back to the shelter, but things seem to be looking up.  He is playful and inquisitive, const]ant[uil1q finding new things to do, as evidenced by that typo, which he "helped" Mommy type.  I miss being away from him while I'm at work, but we make up for it when I get home.

I made these little bowls for him really quickly by drawing with a sharpie onto the bowls, and then baking them at 400 degrees for 40 minutes, letting the bowls heat up and cool down with the oven.  They've survived through 2 hand washings with no sign of wear yet.

What's new in your lives? Pets? Babies? Weddings? Dishes? (I think new dishes are almost as important as new babies. Right?)  Let us know what's making you smile right now...

Happy Weekend!
Samantha

In The Studio Today...

..... I am wearing socks, for the first time in probably almost 5 months. I love the change of seasons.... it's like a fresh start 3 or 4 times a year. Just when I start to get tired of a season and the weather, it changes. There's always something to look forward to.

(I have wide feet, don't I?!? It looks like someone forced a pair of socks onto a duck. Quack.)

I got a couple of quilts back from my quilter the other day. One went right to a quilt shop for a sample before I had a chance to photo it. But here is a sneak peek of another that I got back:

I love the Honey Bee block, don't you??

If these blocks look familiar, it's probably because I started showing them to you in August 2011- yeah.... it took me that long to get it done and get it to the quilter. Sometimes it is nice to take your time on a project and just let it "evolve". Oftentimes when you are making samples for Quilt Market or for shops, you feel like you are just slapping them together to get them done because you are in such a hurry. This quilt, because I took my time on it, was very enjoyable and relaxing to make. It will probably be featured in an upcoming book. (If you want to jump into the time machine to August 2011, click here and here and here.)

I love how my quilter did this quilt- it's perfect! Take a look at the back:

If you don't know it already- "Quilting Makes The Quilt".... Daniella (aka Danny) did such a wonderful job with this one. Please do not ask me for her contact information- I don't want her to get too busy to keep taking my work (ha ha). A good quilter is worth her weight in gold (or thread..... or chocolate.... whichever happens to be more precious to you...)

I just found out that October is National Cookie Month. I have to admit- I have not been this excited in awhile! Even though there's still a week left in September, I might have to start celebrating a little early. I found a recipe in the local paper that I want to try, and today is a perfect baking day. I'll share the recipe if they turn out well.