In case you were wondering, of course we coordinated our outfits so we'd match. (Not really.)

On my list of things that are awesome, the opportunity to hang out with people I’ve met through this blog, Twitter, Flickr and all the other social media and web platforms that I’m part of is way up on the list. I’ve met Rachel, Kim, Melissa, Caroline, Susan and a whole slew of other folks thanks to the internet, and I’m pretty grateful for that. How did sewing dorks meet other sewing dorks before the internet?

A couple weeks ago, Josh & I drove up to Seattle for the day to meet up with Antoinette, who was in the Pacific Northwest for work. (Read all about her fun weekend meeting up with bloggy friends over here.) We had a lovely dinner at our favorite Seattle restaurant (which is both vegetarian and vegan friendly, by the way) and had a fantastic time chatting like old pals. Of course, being the dorks that we are, we forgot to take pictures until we dropped Antoinette off at her hotel.

Really, this may be the worst photo that's been taken of me this year. No lipstick, crazy hair, weird posture... Ugh.

Also, awesome is my authentic Yummy Goods Unicorn You=Awesome T-shirt. I’ve been waiting for what seems like forever for Melissa to start offering these online–who doesn’t need a little Unicorn love in their life? I screwed up and ordered a size too big, but I love it nevertheless. The best part is watching people read the shirt and then kind of grin. Unicorn makes people happy. What made me happiest, though, was the sweet way Melissa packaged my order.

Fantastic!

Orange tissue tied up with some Sugar Snap--you know I'm using this fabric as a headband right now.

The anticipation!

Some atomic fireballs--Josh snagged these. He & Melissa share a mad obsession with these candies.

I’m so glad that I photographed this, because it really made me happy on a day I was really stressed out from my hellish commute (I think it had taken me an hour to go 10 miles).

Saoirse has taken over these ottomans we made about three years ago–to the point that she gets irked when people sit on them. So flippin’ cute. Man, I love this dog much.

My world has been rocked.

A few months back, I finally sucked it up and ordered some fancy-schmancy earbuds. I have quite a few situations these days in which I need to block the world out. However, I had no clue how to actually pick out earbuds–despite being a certifiable geek, I always bought the cheapo ones. Finally, I settled on some thinksound extra-bass noise cancelers. Oh. My. God. That is all.

This summer Josh surprised me with the most awesome gift ever–a Kindle. I’ve always been a huge reader, but the last year or two I haven’t been reading much because we just don’t have the storage for books. Sure, I could use the library, but it seems like every book in the Multnomah Country Library that I want to read either has 100+ holds on it, or has been stolen. Josh got me this Kindle (which is a K2–a new one came out this week), and it’s literally changed me life. I’ve read a huge number of books in the two months I’ve had this thing, and discovered that a lot of my buddies who I know through the basketball geek community are also huge readers who love the same sorts of books as I do. I really hadn’t realized how much I missed reading every night, until I started doing it again…

Mmm... Echino.

Of course, I had to make myself a case for my Kindle, so I created a simple pattern (I know there are loads of instructions online, but it didn’t occur to me to Google) and made a sturdy case with some leftover Echino fabric I had sitting around. (By the way, have you seen the phenomenal case Quilt Dad made for Beth? So freaking awesome!) Of course, me being me, I neglected to think about how I would close the damn thing, so I have to keep it shut with a hair band. Oops. This coordinates with the awesome giant tote bag (the fabulous Jackie Clark‘s Junk Bag) that I carry everywhere (which I need to photograph for y’all).

TopPot Doughnuts in Queen Anne, Seattle.

Also awesome: doughnuts.

~Sarah

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Fremont Bridge

This spring, along with my friend Bryan, I took a wonderful digital photography class through PNCA’s continuing education program. (Shameless self-promotion alert: I’m still teaching there–check out all their wonderful, high-quality courses for the community over here.) I loved, loved, loved it–I did photography a million years ago back when I was in high school and it was one of my favorite things. (Okay, it wasn’t really a million years ago, but it was the early- to mid-nineties, before google and all that other snazzy stuff.) It’s remarkable how much I’d forgotten, but I have to say, I much prefer the digital darkroom to the “real” one I learned when I was a kid. Of course, now I’m jonesing for a fancy-schmancy DSLR. (Hey, Nikon! I’d be happy to “review” the D5000! And while we’re at it… Hey, Beats by Dre/some other headphone company! I’d also love to “review” some noise-reducing earbuds! [I obviously screwed up and never hopped on the blogger free stuff gravy train of the mid-2000s. Damn integrity...])

Some of my favorites that I took during the class are over here, if you care to peruse them…

This photo of my mom is one of my favorites I've ever taken. She looks pretty hot in that hat, right?

This bad boy's on sale right now--I receive no kickbacks from C & B, but I sure do love this couch.

In completely unrelated news, we got a new couch this past fall. (We really try to buy locally as much as possible, but this was from a chain, Crate & Barrel. And, I’ve got to say, I cannot explain how fantabulous they were, from the ease of order–we ordered online–to their wonderful delivery people. It didn’t hurt that we got a great deal on a really good couch that’s made with sustainable materials, in the United States. I have really bad reactions to the off-gassing from things like foam and the stain treatments that are put on fabrics, and this particular sofa had none of those issues. Plus is nice and wide and two people can sink into it comfortably, unlike our old, beat-up “small scale” sofa.) It’s been a great sofa, but the colors are a bit blandish–kind of a woven mix of olives, golds, rusts and sable. We have a totally funky rug that goes in front of it, so the sofa needed some livening up.

The blue in this Denyse Schmidt cheater print is one of my favorite colors ever.

Saoirse "customized" this pillow for us--do you see it? She's such a talented pooch.

These were the most ridiculously simply pillows ever. We had some of Denyse Schmidt‘s Patchwork Promenade from her County Fair home dec line laying around the house (Josh ordered a little too much from Kathy last year) and it had the perfect colors to match our funky circle rug that my mom got us for Christmas last year. I literally just cut the large 18×18 block pattern out, stitched them right sides together and stuffed them–it was certainly the easiest pillow project ever. And, they compliment our osprey pillows beautifully. I’m thinking of using the same fabric to create some large floor pillows using sets of four of those blocks and maybe some weird button action. We’ll see where that goes…

Mulberry silk fibers.

The afore-mentioned Bryan went on a really cool trip to Scotland this month, and being a totally badass friend, he picked up this bundle amazing hand-dyed mulberry silk fibers for me. How fantastic is it to have friends who know how delighted that I’d be to receive a little pouch of special fibers from Scotland? The thing is, I really don’t know what to do with it, and the tag isn’t that helpful…

"Suitable for any number of imaginative wool work and creativity projects!"

So while my first inclination is to just keep the fiber in its little pouch and play with it every once in awhile, I would love to know what to do with it, should I ever decide it wants to be something else. Ideas? Anyone?

Finally, some very exciting news–I met a BIG celebrity: Melissa Averinos’ Unicorn!

Melissa, Unicorn & I. I first met Melissa at J. Caroline's first Fabric 2.0, which Quilt Market was held in Portland in 2008.

If you haven’t watched Melissa and Beth’s awesomely quirky Unicorn Stories, you’ve missed out on something kind of mind-blowing. Stop reading and go watch right now! Turns out, I wasn’t the only person at Quilt Market who wanted to have their moment of fame with Unicorn… Unicorn gets around. Melissa has assured me that he’s just in it for the snuggles. Plus. since I now have a copy of Melissa’s new book, I can make my very own Unicorn.

Speaking of Small Stash Sewing, it is, as you’d expect, just wonderful and I love that Wiley really produced it so Melissa’s personality really shines through. I’ll write a longer review of it (urging you to hit up your nearest independent bookshop to buy it immediately) later, I swear! My copy, however, is pretty special… Look at the inscription.

I love the internet! It's amazing how the internet has allowed so many wonderful inside jokes to evolve--enough to fill up an entire book page. Though all the parts about my being "so pretty" are completely true!

Whoo! Isn’t that the best? Anytime you can slip an Atomic Fireball reference into just about anything, it’s is a good thing…

I also recently met (in real life!) the wonderful Cherri House, who it really seems like I’ve known forever, and her sweet daughter, Lizzy, who is such a talented and creative fabric designer. It’s always a treat to actually meet internet folks in real life–I love how conversations carry on like you see each other every day. (Actually, that reminds me of one of my current pet peeves; I went to a marketing seminar and the presenter talked about how “young people today” don’t make meaningful connections because they’re using the Internet and cell phones to communicate. I know that those technologies have enabled me to connect with like-mind people that I count as dear friends all around the world–and that’s a meaningful thing!)

Alrighty… That’s about all that’s up with over at Casa de Sewer-Sewist. Hope you’re heading toward good things this summer.

~S

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I was never able to print this type, but it was for the back of the Brandon Roy card--the header read, "The Reason." Because, when it comes down to it, B-Roy is the reason that many, many people came back to the Trail Blazers, after the team had some very dark days.

What I really loved about this project, is that I got to experiment with photopolymer and the results of using different ink and paper combinations. My original goal was to print an entire team set of basketball cards, complete with back descriptions. However, between limited access to printing facilities and my workload increasing, I didn’t make my goal. However, I was very happy with the prints I did make. The red were printed in open editions, but I limited the silver to a small run of 12 each. The cards are around 3×4, printed on acid free paper, with round corners. The silver ink is actually made with silver–so the metallic quality has a lot of depth, and I suspect that it may be oil-based–given how long it took to dry and how difficult the clean-up was. The variations in the red are due to mixing the red at different times (I have to hand-blend the rubber ink), I also learned that if consistency is important, you need to mix all your ink at once. I ended up only writing a few descriptions, again, because I ran out of time with the letterpress studio and hand-setting all that type is extremely cumbersome.

So, with all that said, here are the results (please keep in mind that these are based off of the 2008-09 team, not the current team)…

This is Rudy Fernandez–if he were traded, the collective heart of Portlanders would break, he is incredibly popular, and the showman on the team (he can fire up a crowd like I’ve never seen). I had a really difficult time creating the artwork for this one without Rudy looking like a zombie; he has smallish eyes and fine features, so I had to improvise a lot to get him to look “right.” Rudy’s probably the most enthusiastic person I’ve ever see play any sport, and he clearly loves his job, so I tried to replicate this in this letterpress portrait. This card is dedicated to one of my favorite people, my friend Michelle (who I met at a Blazers game last year).

Oh, Greg Oden. This was one of my favorites to design and print, because I really wanted to capture the funny, charming #1 pick that Blazers fans fell in love with before his ill-fated rookie season–and I think I did that fairly well. My mom and I were at the game earlier this season in which he broke his kneecap, and we were both choking back tears. All I can say is, in our house, we still believe in #52.

LaMarcus Aldridge’s portrait is the least portrait-y of them all, intentionally because I tend to think of him as only existing on the basketball court. I am actually grateful that I never got around to having to come up with content for the back of this card, I don’t think I would have had much material. It seems like there have only been a couple of in-depth interviews with the Blazers power forward, and we don’t know a ton about him. We do, however, know that LaMarcus Aldridge does not seek your popular applause.

Travis Outlaw and I have a strange history–he drove me nuts all of the 2006-07 season. And, I wanted the team to sign Ime Udoka instead of extending Travis’ contract (this has more to do with Ime being from Portland than anything–I’m very loyal to fellow Oregonians, it seems like there’s so few of us sometimes). However, over the summer, I started to feel guilty about it, and then I figured out that Travis was really, really funny. So, I actually spent the next season making amends with Travis, and cheered extra loudly for him whenever he took the court or really did anything–and he was pretty awesome during the team’s crazy 13-game winning streak in 2007-08. So, now I’m really fond of Trav, but, unfortunately, he too is injured. I love how he turned out in letterpress. He may look a bit like an alien, but it really looks like Travis. In a sense, this one is the most true-to-life card, right down to the look he has on his face. He always has that look on his face. I would have had a great time composing the back of his card–there is a lot of wonderful material out there featuring his “Travisms.”

Nicolas Batum’s letterpress card was the first one I made, and I was pretty thrilled with it. You can really tell how young he is, and to me the look of it illustrates how promising he is as a player. I can’t explain why, but it’s the way he’s looking upward that really does it for me. This was one of the few that I had time to do the typesetting for the back, and I’m sure glad. (By the way, the “Frenchie” nickname seems to have stuck, since Adidas now provides Nico with custom sneakers with it stitched on them.)

This was my only letterpress card that is of someone who is no longer on the team, Channing Frye. This card is based off of a photo taken by the extremely talented Brian Kroll. (Go check out his awesome photography!) I love that this image is very clearly a non-basketball portrait, since the reasons that I’m such a Channing fan have far more to do with the was he embraced Portland as his home and little to do with the sport (though, I don’t think you could ask for anyone to have a better attitude while facing adversity on a basketball team). While he’s having lots of success in Phoenix now (and playing with two of my favorites: Grant Hill and Steve Nash), I sure do miss his blog posts about living in Portland… Incidentally, my quasi-famous “Channing for Mayor” shirt still gets the occasional comment. In terms of the actual printing, I was really challenged with this one, since I wanted to have fine details that were true to Brian’s photo–which is hard to do in letterpress. After a lot of trial and error, I think I was able to capture that, and it feels the most “real” of all of the portraits. (Pats self on back.)

I really developed a soft spot for Martell Webster last year, when he was injured the entire season (oddly, it’s the exact same foot injury as Travis Outlaw has right now). That sounds weird, I know, but I went to a lot of games really early last year (to get good parking), and before most games I watched from my seat in the 300 level as Martell went from kid to kid (and a lot of adults, too) who clamored for a professional basketball player to say “hello” to them. You could tell that it meant a lot to those fans, but what really struck me was how he never rushed away, always looked thrilled to talk to everyone and was just the epitome of gracious to everyone to whom he talked. It was some kind of impressive. I know nothing about the circumstances of why he was so good to all those folks, and never saw an interview about it, but I certainly won’t forget it. Furthermore, Martell famously–while in his walking boot–pushed two people’s cars out of the snow during a storm. I just have a feeling that he’s a really good dude. Actually, this fall I saw Martell while he was driving, stopped at an intersection, and I was walking the dog. When I did a triple-take (I’m sure it was pretty funny) and realized it was him and smiled like a total dork, he very nicely smiled back, so there’s that too. I do fear that since I’m a big Marty fan, it will result in his being traded, since I have that awful Blazers karma. Anyway… Printing-wise, I am actually kind of disappointed in this one. Martell is a very good-looking guy, with very distinctive features, but I had a hard time translating that into the letterpress medium. I like the look of this print, but I’m just not thrilled with it actually being a portrait.

This is my favorite, Brandon Roy. I think I got really attached to this one, because I spent so much flipping time working on it. Brandon has very distinctive features, but they’re kind of fine, so translating that into the letterpress medium was a tremendous challenge. I actually really struggle with creating the artwork (I create it digitally, in Adobe Illustrator) for letterpress projects, because I’m not very confident in my ability in visual arts. So, I invested days and days and days of work into creating my first Brandon print, which was terrible! He looked, well, scary. Which was definitely not the look I was going for. Finally, when I was almost ready to give up, I hit on this design, and I love it. The eyes were the toughest part, like with the Rudy print, and I like how the eyes translated in ink and paper in this one–especially in the silver. I am really proud of this one, and it’s really the first thing that I’ve made that actually feels like it’s “Art.”

~Sarah

P.S. I know I’m preaching to the choir, but I have to remind folks to please not use my images without my permission. I have had a lot of trouble with that lately, particularly with sports bloggers stealing my images off of my All Rights Reserved Flickr stream and posting them on their blogs–without credit or permission. All of the thieves has had ads on their sites (one was an ESPN-affiliate blog), so they are literally making money off of my work without compensating me.  I’m sure many of you have been dismayed to find your work on other people’s sites, and I encourage you to combat content theft–it helps protect all of our intellectual and creative property.

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Saoirse's Helping

If you’ve seen the Denyse Schmidt Quilts book, you know that it’s not an ordinary quilting book. There are not strict rules, no precisely-matching corners, it’s all organic and free-flowing–akin to the quilt’s from Gee’s Bend. The designs and style have really captivated Josh and he’s actually done all of the piecing for a crazy (and huge) version of The Big Zig (progress on that has pretty much been thwarted by both our having to move across town–ugh–and the fact that the thing’s so big that it’s practically impossible for a mere mortal to quilt). Josh decided that the Hop, Skip & a Jump quilt from the book would be perfect for Viola.

This photo is the version in the book--it's hard not to straight-up copy the fabulous red and white color scheme...

Josh went with a gray and blue palette–most of them from random fat quarters from Bolt, some gray shot cotton (also from Bolt) and some bits of an old blue shirt (more on that adventure in a minute). A pretty nice combo, eh?

The small amounts of red and yellow in the blue fabrics kind of balance out the design, if that makes sense... It keeps it from looking too stripey.

The old blue shirt fabric proved to be a bit of a “challenge.” (“Challenge” always sounds so much more positive than, say, “pain in the ass,” doesn’t it?) Because the aforementioned old blue shirt was, you know, really old–hence, it was a good candidate for being hacked up and given new life in a quilt. However, there’s a minor detail we failed to consider: sometimes, when fabric is really hold, it doesn’t really have the structural integrity to hold up to sewing.  So Josh had a hell of  a time with those pieces, they just frayed and frayed as he sewed. Ugh. You can see in the photo below the nubby blue shirting that had to be whip-stitched to the gray fabric because it unraveled after the top was pieced together.

Aw, yes, the blue shirting was a good idea. Until it wasn't.

Once that excitement was over, Josh quilted the top. Since neither one of us is down with anything so insane as hand-quilting, Josh went with a free-form, random vertical strip for his quilting. It turned out pretty fantastic, actually. It’s funny, something so unconventional can really make a rather simple design like this quilt very distinctive and kind of arty-looking. The cheap-ish natural color cotton quilting thread helped too, since it looked kind of rustic.

Quilts are hard to photograph, but, hopefully this gives a decent impression of the meandering lines Josh quilted.

Oh, yeah, and then we backed the thing in a pretty dark red. (And put dark red thread in the bobbin, so the quilting on the back is barely noticeable.)

Is this quite possibly the most boring photo ever posted on Sewer-Sewist? Just maybe...

Finally, Sarah bound it in bright blue using a patented no hand-sewing technique that’s a combination of a trick Susan taught us and Sarah’s method for binding sleeves (it’s hard to explain, but it’s a two-step process and involves monofilament/invisible thread).

Here’s the finished quilt…

Finished!

It hung out on our Old Man Chair (Have we ever told y’all about the Old Man Chair?) that we found on the street last year (seriously–it even came with Old Man Smell) for a week or so, and we got really, really attached to the quilt. So Josh is just has to make one for us. Perhaps in Denyse’ awesome new Hope Valley?

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Yep. Me, Sarah, made a quilt. For years and years I’ve been adimently anti-quilting. I’ve had garment sewers’ snobbery, I guess. I just couldn’t imagine having the patience for all that cutting. And then the sewing all those little squares together. And then the actual quilting part–I couldn’t get my head around any of that. Well, on my trip to Pittsburgh for Quilt Market for work, Laurie–founder of the Fabric Shop Network–got me a wonderful quilt kit from Quilt Company (if you’re ever in western Pennsylvania, it’s definitely a shop worth visiting). Determined to not let my coworker, Mandi, finish her quilt from a similar, also awesome kit, before me, I got cracking on it and sewed the top up in no time. The reason it was so simple? Uh, because the Quilt Company had kindly cut everything in advance. How nifty! Seriously, I probably would never have made a quitl if that fussy, frustrating cutting wasn’t already taken care of for me.

I have to admit, it’s almost embarrassing to tell y’all how much stress the backing and the binding were for me. I was convinced that I would end up frustrated with the busy fabric I originally selected for the backing. I became obsessed with trying to line up the pattern vertically and horizontally and I could tell it was all going to end in tears, so I quit while I was ahead and headed back to Bolt for more assistance.  They helped me pick out another, less complicated fabric for the backing–a very pretty Vicki Payne (whom I met at Quilt Market and was totally RAD–she told me I was “fashionable”) 60″ cotton canvas sateen that coordinated perfectly with my quilt top. For whatever reason, this fabric behaved itself and I even managed to quitl it (nothing elaborate, just stitched in the ditch) fairly easily–especially considering that I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.

The binding was kind of another story, though. I used the fabric that I had originally intended for my backing and it looked pretty cool. However, I just couldn’t get my head around attaching the binding, mitering the corners and all that stuff. This was further compounded by the fact that most quilt books tell you to hand sew the binding on–because of my tendonitis, I simply can’t do much hand stitching. Not to mention, I kind of hate to hand sew. I mean, I sew buttons on with the sewing machine… I was convinced that the ‘Quilt Mafia’ was going to come after me for not hand sewing my binding. It was dumb and irrational, but I was panicking.

(Uh, I guess a real quilter would have ironed their quilt before photographing it. Oops.)

Anyway, as you can see, after all that angsting, I was able to get my binding sewn own. This is really thanks to my wonderful pal Susan, who has an incredible book that describes an easy one-step binding that worked well. (I didn’t execute it that well, but that has a lot more to do with my tiredness than the actual method.)

I’m pretty proud of my quilt–flaws and all. I’ve actually started another quilt, believe it or not. It’s a simple design from the beautiful book Material Obsession (worth checking out just for the stunning photography) for my mom as a retirement present. While I don’t think quilting is something I’ll take up on a regular basis, it is a satisfying diversion from my usual garment and accesories sewing projects. Josh, on the other hand, has been bitten by the quilting bug. He went out an bought Denyse Schmidt’s gorgeous quilting book (another book that non-quilters would probably enjoy having on their shelves because of the inspiring designs and Denyse’s unique aesthetic). In fact, he’s currently in the midst of a massive quilting project himself–The Big Zig. It’s wild and awesome.  In the meantime, he’s become very attached to the one I made…

~Sarah

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Josh's locked up type for his baseball project.

Josh operating the press.

Locked up type from Josh's project.

The first color on Josh's postcards--check out the names, they're awesome.

Both colors printed on fawn-colored paper.

And another--you can really see how the type cascades across the paper.

Detail of this beautiful type called Prisma.

Josh should probably write about this some more, but he radically changed the nature of his project over the four days. He started out trying to create a linoleum cut print about the demise of the economy of Dayton, Ohio, but he found that it was making him stressed out and frustrated. He then switched to this baseball-themed project and it really took off. I think that really speaks to the importance of thinking about how the subject will make you feel while your working on your creation, doesn’t it?

~Sarah

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This is a really useful little bag for me–I keep my wallet, phone (the rad G1) and lipstick in it and then just chuck it into whatever random bag I’m carrying that day (I have a lot of them–as has been well-documented here). It’s also pretty handy if I am carrying one of my bigger messenger-style bags and just want to grab this little bag to run in and get a coffee or whatever. I’m sure this will be the first pattern I will think of if more fat quarters wind up in my possession.

A couple of quick notes on this bag:

• I omitted the tab on the top section–it just seemed like it would be a bit much for such a busy design.
• I elongated the shoulder strapped a bit, so it would be  a bit easier to tote around–I probably added about three inches, which is what I’d do if I made it again.
• I enlarged the entire bag just a smidge, probably by a half inch total. I just needed a tiny bit more room for my stuff and knew that the design as is wouldn’t fit both my wallet and my rather brick-like phone.
• Like I do for all of my smaller, less structured bags (pretty much anything of the size of Amy Butler’s Frenchie Bag and smaller), I used fusible fleece for the interfacing. I find this adds a bit more body–and less stiffness–than normal interfacing. Works like a charm.

I finished it off with a cool little button that my friend Michelle gave me. Can you see the detail in this picture? Yeah, it’s an “I heart sewing” button. And I certainly do.

(This button’s made by Cathy, by the way.)

~Sarah

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Susan‘s sweet little girl, Pearl, turned one about two weeks ago, and since she’s just about the coolest kiddo ever, we had to make her something special. She’s growing like a little wild weed, so we thought that a year of unique hand screenprinted T-shirts would be just the ticket. Josh and I each designed two. Check them out below.

This T-shirt is Pearl's size right now, and my original design. Since it fits currently, I anticipate that it'll have maybe a month of use before she's bursting out of it. It's the Steel Bridge, which is my favorite bridge in Portland. I designed the artwork and screened it in a metallic pewter color. I'm planning on turning this design into a letterpress piece as well.

This is one of the shirts Josh made. It's a monkey/gorilla stencil from the Stencil 101 book, and Josh made it glow-in-the-dark. To work with glowin-in-the-dark screenprinting inks, you have to first put on a base of opaque white--we learned that the hard way. Once the white is dry, you overprint the white with the glow-in-the-dark ink. Everything's better when it glows, right?

This is my other contribution. If I timed it correctly, it should fit Pearl right around fall--the start of the next Portland Trail Blazers season. It's the phenomenal Brandon Roy, guard for the Portland Trail Blazers, All-Star, All-NBA 2nd Team Member and all-around fabulous player and person. Pearl has a Brandon Roy jersey that she wears on game days--which coordinates with her Trail Blazers socks. I'm thinking that at the rate she's growing, her jersey may not fit her all season, but the T-shirt can hopefully fill in the wardrobe gaps next season. I neglected to take a picture, but the back of the shirt has an appliqued Blazers logo on it. I owe Pearl a pair of Trail Blazers pants to go with it, but I want to wait until fall to make them, so I can get a better idea of the sizing. This is my original design, and actually part of my letterpress project. It's neat seeing the image in two different mediums.

Josh's second contribution was the biggest hit of all of the T-shirts--"I brake for hummus." Pearl's favorite food is hummus, so Josh made the largest T-shirt a snazzy gold printed shirt proclaiming her loyalty to garbanzos, tahini and garlic. 'Nuff said.

Happy first birthday, Pearl! Can’t wait to make you four more next year!

~Sarah

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Yes, Josh really made this flag.

Yes, it’s completely reversible.

Yes, he cut and appliqued the felt pinwheel.

Yes, he sewed the whole thing together.

And, yes, he hand screenprinted the “Don’t Tread On Me.”

Oh, and yes, that’s Josh holding it up and he’s about 6’2″, so it’s really, really big.

And then he informed me it was a gift for me.

Because my husband is just that awesome.

~Sarah

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Red, black & white banners flying on the stage outside the Rose Garden Arena before the Trail Blazers' first playoff game in several years. These semi-transparent banners are really beautiful rustling in the breeze with the cityscape in the background.

I’m hoping that “Josh per a tres!” actually does mean “Josh for three!” in Catalan, because that’s what the online translator said, and those things are never wrong–right?

I thought I’d share Josh’s latest screen printing project–an impromptu one, at that. (Although, let’s all agree that normal people don’t plan and execute a three-color screen print on an “impromptu” basis–Josh is weird.)

It’s been well documented that Josh has officially jumped on the Portland Trail Blazers bandwagon in a big way. (Although, really, he’s been on the bandwagon for about three years, but he’s reached the terminal stage of BlazerMania–emotional investment.) He has also sucked it up and finally become, like the rest of us here in Portland, a big Rudy Fernandez fan. Portland hearts Rudy, an flashy player from Spain–and people are wearing the T-shirts around to prove it. (Seriously, the now-defunct G.I. Joe’s sold them. First they were just women’s shirts, but then they started stocking men’s and you’d see a lot of very old male Blazers fans wearing them too.) I think the final straw was last Wednesday, at the Trail Blazers’ last regular season game, and Josh’s return to going to games after nearly a month of dealing with a nightmarish situation with regard to the horrendous customer service by the Trail Blazers season ticket staff and dealing with the thugish occupants of section 322 in the Rose Garden over the course of 41 games (and really, I’m pretty sure that I’m not quite ready to drop my complaint after the service folks’ pathetic reaction to our concerns). What was so special about Rudy’s performance that night? Well, he made six freaking three-point shots! Six! Which meant that he also broke the rookie record for most threes in a season. (You can check out some highlights of Rudy hitting threes this season here and if you’re feeling really wild and crazy, check out this phenomenal bit of play from Rodolfo.)

So, a bit more about Josh’s inspiration. Rudy makes a really unique and energizing hand gesture when he makes a three, and fans have started imitating him when he scores. It’s joyous, and it gets everyone fired up.

Portland, Oregon - Where the NBA Playoffs are finally happening again!

Josh got the idea to create a screenprint based upon the logo from the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain–you know, as a shout-out to that awesome city and country. (We went to Spain in 1998 and spent quite a bit of time in Barcelona, it’s one of the most wonderful places we’ve been–and we’d love to go back sometime.) Do you remember that logo? 

This is Josh’s re-interpretation:

A last-minute three-color screenprint? What a maniac!

Josh elongated the “face” to better resemble Rudy, and added Rudy’s signature “3″ hand gesture. The results are pretty nifty, if I do say so myself. 

The Trail Blazers put up this awesome banners of all the players all over the Rose Garden Arena outdoor concourse. They're really swell-looking. Here, Josh demonstrates Rudy's "3" sign under one of the Rudy banners.

Now, Josh would be the first to admit (actually, he did admit it to me yesterday), that he got all nervous about the playoff game on Saturday night (with good reason, apparently) and had to do something, hence the complexity of the three-color screenprint. He also printed me one. 

Josh tried to get me to take my picture under a certain players banner, but I thought that would be 1) a mixed basketball metaphor and 2) too Fan Girl.

Sadly, the Blazers lost their first playoff game, and I was–frankly–devastated. I never imagined that they’d lose, let alone get blown out. But, I’ve got to believe they’ll come back with a vengeance. So, I’m asking y’all a favor: If you currently have no NBA loyalties, or if your team’s not in the playoffs (I’m speaking to you, Phoenix Suns fans–I rooted for y’all’s team for a long while during the Jail Blazers Era and have even read :07 or Less.), please consider sending some positive playoff energy our way. It would mean a hell of a lot. For inspiration, here’s a video we shot at the Playoff Rally at Pioneer Courthouse Square on Thursday. 

15,000 of us showed up to cheer on the team just for making the playoffs! Look how excited everyone is! We need this here in Portland! So, please, send some positive vibes here to the Pacific Northwest.

~Sarah

P.S. You can check out my Flickr set for our pics from Saturday’s game.

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