maggie makes

blogs you might not know

I subscribe to a lot of blogs. Mostly I look at the pictures but there are a few that I actually tend to read as well. I don't keep a blogroll, part of that is laziness and the other part is my hatred of clutter. Maybe someday I will add one.

My favorite are blogs that post mainly on original ideas and experiences rather than focus on other people's ideas, designs, commercial products or things they see on other blogs. This does not include sites that aggregate ideas or projects like craftgawker and oneprettything, those I like and are a great way to learn about other great blogs! What I am talking about are those blog circles that if you subscribe to more than a few within that circle you end up seeing the same thing many times. Or the overly commercial blogs that are attempting to be more of an online magazine with side bars filled with more ads than content.

I subscribe to things related to my career in the technology field, art, crafts, food, flowers, product design, interior design, furniture design, photography, traveling, Seattle, my neighborhood, gardening and even stores or personalities. But I always find it hard to find new or exciting blogs off the beaten path or that are on a new interest all together.

So I wanted to share with you some blogs that you might not have heard of that focus on things that aren't really related to what I typically blog about but that still might be interesting to you. 

What reads do you follow that others might not know about?

Color Collective - Ok some of you probably know this one, but just in case you haven't checked it out.......color palettes inspired by artists, photographs and designs.

Coriander Girl - Adorable flower designer and her crazy antics. You shouldn't miss dance Saturday!

Erie Basin - Amazing antiques, mostly jewelry. Great photos and designs.

Fat of the Land - Foraging in the pacific northwest. Extremely educational, includes recipes and beautiful photos.

Messy Eaters - Babies and food. Nutritional information, healthy homemade recipes and experience sharing by my talented cousin Laura who is a new mom.

My Mom thinks I'm swell - Ok to start with the name of this blog is awesome! Follow the life of a collage art student. Textiles and printmaking + lots of talent.

hazelnut cookies

Second only to mushrooms, G loves hazelnuts. So when I saw this recipe on Smitten Kitchen, I knew he would be up for trying it.

So I worked on convincing S to make them, after all he is the baker of the group which requires following recipes unlike G and I who consider ingredients and their amounts mere suggestions.

Even though we didn't have a food processor (the nuts were broken up with a stick blender) or chocolate wafers (substituted with chocolate chips), they tasted so good. Sort of like a hazelnut shortbread cookie.

Our version turned out a bit more rustic than the original, but still perfect for enjoying with a cup of hot tea.

weekend in pictures

Photos from top:

1. Earth Hour gone bust. Time lapsed photos for 30 minutes, no change.
2-3. Scenes from outside Red Bicycle Bistro
4-5. Francisco's Barber Shop
6. Ms. Maggie Jane
7. Learning to crochet

earth hour

Tomorrow night is earth hour. People all over the globe will be turning off their lights for an hour tomorrow evening at 8:30 their local time to raise awareness for climate change. Businesses and cities also participate, including right here in Seattle where the lights will go out at a few of our major landmarks including the space needle, city hall and the arches at the Pacific Science Center.

I wish I would be able to see the lights out on the Space Needle, but I will be missing it. But I do intend a few photo opts for the evening that I will share with you if they result in anything of interest.

If you participate for the intended purpose or just to have an hour of family fun in the dark, consider taking some photos to share on flickr. Or just check out what other's have posted from around the world.

new site design

If you read this in a reader or via email, pop over to the blog for a second and check out its new design and let me know what you think.

I have a serious aversion to clutter and with all the new tutorials, flickr, archives, etc things were getting out of control. So I decided to simplify things with a two column design and pictorial navigation for top level objects.

Now with top level pages for different sections, I was able to consolidate pages, add larger photos and make it easier to access content, like the new tutorial's page. Typepad doesn't have a lot of these capabilities native to their application, so a big thanks to G for pretty much customizing the entire site.

I also changed my header which I have been wanting to do for so long now to make it more match my design aesthetic. Hopefully a little more modern but still craftsy.

I left the old pages so that links in archived posts don't break. I might go redirect them to the new pages someday, but its not high on my list. If you find any problems with the site or have an suggestions to improve it, please let me know.

good can come from bad

 

If someone had told me that good things can come from bad after the death of my mother I would have thought they were idiots. I am not the glass is half full type of girl and that kind of positive thought would have meant that I was a "the glass is overflowing" type.

But one good thing has come out of it. My father and I have gotten to know each other better. I think he has been able to finally see me for who I have become rather than the frustrating kid he never understood. And I have learned more about who he really is instead of the man with little patience for me. I think we both learned we are a lot alike. My mother always knew that, but neither my dad or I would ever admit it. Now its a little easier to.

My father won't admit this either but he is a lot like his dad. And one of the things he jokes about is being made a fool of in pictures just like his dad. My grandfather crocheted a nose warmer that somewhere we have a photo of him wearing. It was a little square with two strings that he would tie around his head so the square would sit on his nose. I loved this photo growing up because I never really saw the silly side of my grandfather, he was always serious.

That's the same reason why I love these old photos of my dad. They show another side to the man I thought he was and that there is still hope to get that photo of him that would even trump the nose warmer photo!

Happy Birthday Dad!

traditional crafts

I went to California College of Art and Crafts (sadly now called California College of Art and Design). I almost didn't because the name was so laughable to me at the time. Even though I knew it referenced the arts and crafts movement, I still thought crafts made it sound like a bake sale. I picked the college mostly because it was in the Bay Area. I was young and made a choice for a stupid reason. Luckily the choice was still a good one.

My first major was graphic design because I thought I should pick something that I could support myself with. But I quickly decided I had no interest in it. So then I moved to film, then to photography, then finally to printmaking and book arts. With each change I was trying to get closer to the process, more hands on. 

While at school I learned a few things, but the lessons I learned that were the most important were about myself. The first and biggest lesson was that there were other people like me. The second lesson was that I love traditional arts, techniques and crafts.

Fortunately for me, even though there aren't learning opportunities in my area for some of these, there is a wide selection of craft books from around the world with different techniques, traditional designs and motifs to learn about. And of course the Internet.

Currently my interests include embriodery, shibori, natural fabric dyes, kumihimo, crochet and native American bead weaving. What techniques, crafts, motifs are inspiring you? 

(photos from Swedish Patterns for Art Weaves and Embroidery) 

dessert for breakfast

Sometimes its good to mix things up. Today that's what we are doing so we had dessert for breakfast.

This baked raspberry custard is from the April 2010 Everyday Food. I have never had a baked custard before so I didn't really know what to expect. Its sort of chewy and eggie like the inside of a popover or a really thick crepe.

Not bad for breakfast.

plants beware

I am like the grim reaper of the plant world. The only thing I have kept alive for more than a couple of months is a cactus which I think is petrified because I haven't watered it in years and its still green.

A couple of months ago I decided to get one of these cute air plants from my house party thinking I could change my ways. Needless to say at this point it needs a trip to the emergency room. That's what happens when you don't give it water.

I was thinking about getting another, but maybe it would be more humane for me to tape the photos to my wall.

1226 millilitters

We both did it this time. G was terribly nervous but I am so proud of him for still going through with it and doing awesome! And apparently he is a super donor with big veins and fast flow. It took him about only five minutes to give the maximum donation.

I am at the other end of the spectrum. In fact they remembered me from last time, Apparently I have become the current reigning hardest donor in the Seattle area. They tried both arms this time and after about forty minutes they got a vein! After that it took just over twenty minutes to collect enough for a full donation.

All the ladies who work there circled around us celebrating, it was sweet. I was so happy, it was such a good feeling! 

Corrine - Thanks for the tip about extra hydration. I made sure to drink a ton of water before I went this time.

judging books by their cover

I abandoned reading anything other than parts of text books and magazines in the first grade. I had loved reading and was pretty good at it. In kindergarten I participated in 2nd grade reading and math classes and loved it. But when I was placed in first grade instead of my parents allowing me to skip two grades, my stupid stubbornness got the best of me and I was too short sided to see that by giving it up I was only hurting myself.

A few years ago I started having bad panic attacks and started using reading books as a way to calm my mind. It took a little while for me to even be able to concentrate on what I was reading for more than two minutes before my mind would be off thinking about other things. Now I can't fall asleep without reading first and I always have a book with me just in case I have some extra time.

I don't blog about the books I read, but I do list them here, here and here, in case you are ever looking for ideas of what to read. I just finished All Other Nights. I picked it up at the local bookshop because I really liked the cover even though from the description on the back I thought I would really not end up liking the book. I was pleasantly surprised, the book lived up to it's cover.

Yesterday I started searching for other books by the same author and found another great cover. I hadn't really thought about it before but book covers today are really a let down. I am glad to see that not everyone has completely abandoned art for "design".

st patrick's day

St Patrick's day sure isn't the same as a vegetarian. Sure they have veggie hot dogs, hamburgers and even some tasty spare ribs, but nothing, NOTHING comes close to corned beef. Which just happened to be my favorite growing up.

Tonight, we even made the cabbage and potatoes in a brine to try to recreate some of that flavor, but it didn't even come close. It feels like Christmas without the real tree smell.

I am going to go to the store, I hope they have some Guinness chocolate pudding or something else to redeem this holiday for me.

tutorial: flower adorned easter basket

G says the tutorial seems like a Fabri-Tac ad. Ok, maybe he has a point, but the stuff is awesome. I had never used it before but after sewing about a dozen flowers together I decided to give it a try and now I can't imagine why for craft projects like this you wouldn't use it.

While I am talking tools, let me also say how happy I was to have a loop turner. I wouldn't attempt the basket without one. It can get so frustrating trying to turn small things right side out. It took me only a tenth of the time it would have taken without one and your time is worth more than the $3.99 investment.

The tutorial covers how to make the basket, a flower, a branch and a leaf. I didn't give details on the decoration design I made, since I figured it would be more fun to make your own or use the photo on the cover as reference.

The flowers and leaves take very little fabric to make, so they are a great way to use up scraps. Experiment with a variety of colors, as well as large and small patterns for different styles.

If you are short on time and have kids, consider having them create flowers for you while you make the basket. While I don't have kids, I did experiment with a friend of mine who has no craft skills (sorry S) and even he was able to product a good looking flower. Or if you don't have kids, or they are seriously missing the craft gene, I think the decoration would look great on one of these chipwood baskets, minus the liner.

I hope you enjoy this tutorial! And don't forget to join the maggie makes flickr pool and upload photos of the projects you have made with any of the tutorials for a chance to win next month's giveaway.

decorative items

We made some decorative items this weekend. First up is a wooden sparrow mobile to hang over the bed. Remember back here when I told you all about a project made of wood that just wasn't working out? Well this is it!

We ended up using a laser cutting service to get the pieces just right. I stained one side of each bird the color of the ceiling and left the other side natural to give the mobile a little more depth. G created the hangers with anodized steel wire in about twenty minutes and we were all done.

I love how it turned out a perfect touch to the bedroom and well worth the wait!

The second project this weekend was a pair of potholders. The ones we have were falling apart and I had just gotten this amazing red and blue gingham in the mail and had to use it immediately in something. Every time I look at them they remind me of receiving air mail from my pen pal when I was in grade school.

and the winners are.....

Annette: But of course I'd love to learn to make some of those beauties! Thanks!

Christine Dubois: sooo pretty....sigh!!!!

Rosemary: Just lovely, I tell you! Have been wanting some of that fabric! Lovely give away.

Thank you to everyone for your sweet comments. I am really appreciate all your kind words.

i saw kasey keller

Last night I went to my first Sounders game. And in true Seattle style it was wet and cold. The game wasn't a part of the regular season so the tickets were general admission and lucky us, we got front row seats.

The game might have been the worst I have seen them play. While we were in the other team's half of the field almost the entire game, we were never able to pull off a goal. So many missed opportunities.

Even though we lost, it was a great experience. Seattle Sounder fans are truly like non other in the league. Dedicated, spirited and LOUD! It was nice to yell with others for once, rather than at the TV. My voice is still hoarse!

I am looking forward to another great season.

i hate perfume

CB perfume, by Christopher Brosius is so much fun. The scents names and combinations are outstanding. Especially the ones names for moments in time like, Memory of Kindness, In the Summer Kitchen and Winter 1972. Just brilliant.

So many memories of mine are related to smells, good and bad. Hyacinth reminds me of a summers morning at my grandparent's house, playing chinese jacks in their driveway. A musty cinnamon smell of trees reminds me of Caumsett Park where we used to play spy and ran from the enemy groundskeepers. The smell of orange blossoms reminds me of the only time I have seen my father cry when on this day 7 years ago my mother died suddenly. The smell of skunk reminds me of the summer vacations we took road trips to Nags Head.

While skunk probably doesn't make the best choice for a wearable scent, the idea of using scents to bring back memories and the feelings associated with them is just so beautiful to me. The connection makes a perfume have so much more meaning to an individual than some commercial store brand that is overly complex and ubiquitous.

I would love to find that Caumsett Park scent but I have never found anything close. Until then I will stick with To See a Flower which is an amazing replica of my childhood memories with my grandparents.

giveaway: fabric flower bags

I can't help myself, I love wrapping and packaging. So of course that means I had to make these sweet little drawstring bags for my giveaway kits this month! Each one includes everything you need to make your own set of fabric flowers, leaves and branches to decorate your own handmade basket or one you already own.

I especially love the basket weave fabric which is a part of Denyse Schmidt's Hope Valley collection. It is even more beautiful in person, has a really nice smooth texture and a little Japanese quality to it. Definitely one of my new favorites.

If you would like to win on of these kits, don't forget to leave a comment here.

sneak peek: flower adorned easter basket

I am excited to share with you the March tutorial project, a fabric flower adorned woven Easter basket. Making these flowers is seriously easy, addictive and a great way to use up your scraps. The woven basket is also easy and makes a great background for the colorful flowers inspired by all the cherry and plum trees blooming everywhere right now. I should have the tutorial completed and posted in a few days, so stay tuned.

The March giveaway to go with the tutorial is a kit that includes everything you need to make your very own fabric flowers. Perfect for decorating a handmade woven basket or one you already own. Three winners will be picked at random on March 14th, so leave a comment to enter.

Julia is the maggie makes flickr pool winner again this month! I will be shipping out your kit soon!

hair work

Have you ever heard of a hair wreath? I hadn't until a few weeks ago. G and I were in an antique store and come across one that was really amazing. Our photos didn't really turn out all that well, but Becky at Sweetie Press Pie took this great shot of one that was similar. Can you believe that is hair?!?!

Turns out in the 18th and 19th centuries using human hair was very popular to make things like rings, necklaces, pins and earrings. Victorian women would use the hair from their loved ones to make these mementos. I assumed hair work was mostly mourning works, but I learned that wasn't true. Certainly some of them were, but it sounds like just as many weren't.

Hair wreaths were often family trees of sorts. They are made from numerous people's hair and are kept open at the top to allow for the addition of new family members. Typically on the back of a wreath there would be a label with the donor's names.

The craftsman ship is amazing and the designs are beautiful, but I still can't help feeling creeped out. I read someplace that they thought it was similar to new parents keeping a lock of their child's hair. Some how it is just not the same to me.

alternative form of transportation: feet

It is a new month already! So that means a new habit to lessen my impact on my surroundings.

The weather has been great. Seattle translation = we had at least 1 hour of sunlight! Seriously, in the winter you wake up and its dark. You go to work, eat your lunch inside, because its dark, windy and raining. Then when you leave it's dark. After living here so long it has really started to get to me. But the summers are amazing, light all the time, so I put up with it. Besides it's beautiful. Mountains, lakes, forests, ocean........

Ok so now that the weather is getting better and it is light out by the time I leave for work, I am going to start walking to work again. I am going to shoot for three times a week. This way I will get to enjoy some of the lovely outdoors, maybe get some vitamin D every once in awhile and get some exercise while I drink my coffee in my ceramic cup. (So far so good on the cup, I only forgot it once!)