Most of the time, I feel like I totally fail at blogging over here. I swear, it’s for a combination of completely legit reasons:

1. I really haven’t had much time this last year (gulp!) to make much stuff. Sadly, both Josh and I are slammed with various work projects, and so it’s hard to make the time to do much creative stuff.
2. Since we had to move into a smallish rental condo near downtown last year (which completely and totally sucks), we just don’t have a lot of space to do stuff. When we were living in a regular house with a garage, yard, etc, it was a whole lot easier to make stuff and experiment creatively. Fortunately, this isn’t a permanent living situation.
3. Similarly, we don’t have a great space for staging photos. We always enjoyed taking most of our project photos outside, using trees, etc, as props, so the project photos have kind of sucked this year.
4. I blog about fabric-y stuff for my work, so it’s hard to feel motivated to come home and blog about fabric-y/sewing stuff for fun. Even though I enjoy it, it’s still odd when work/hobbies collide. Furthermore, this summer I also wrote some crafty roundup posts for PNCA’s Summer of Making, so I kind of feel like I’m already everywhere, more or less.
5. I’m bored with writing about projects, unless it’s something that’s new/different or featuring a designer or company with which people may not be familiar. I’ve spent quite a bit of time mulling over what direction–if any–we should take this site.

All right, enough navel-gazing, let’s get on to some crafty goodness…

I’ve mentioned that my mom is an embroidery superstar, and earlier this year, she picked up some amazing vintage embroidery patterns at Knittin’ Kitten here in Portland.  This weekend, we were over at her house letting our dog get to know her new dog, and she off-handedly mentioned that she’d been working on a project and pulled out this amazing handkerchief that she’s almost finished stitching. Good grief, she’s amazingly skilled with the needle and floss. I think this would make a gorgeous center to a pillow based on a log cabin block, incidentally. (Speaking of log cabin, did you know that Susan‘s next book is already available for preorder from Amazon? I’ve seen all the projects and they are absolutely fantastic!)

Incidentally, this is probably my favorite picture of my mom and I ever… This is the two of us before we went to the first Blazers game of the season–just had to share that one with y’all.

In additional tales of my mom’s craftiness, she recently asked me to teach her how to knit. I taught myself ages ago, when I was in college and before there were all the cool books and websites about contemporary knitting. I literally knew one other person who knew how–my archaeology professor at American U. I asked my friend Michelle (Remember her?) for a bit of guidance, since I’ve never taught anyone how to knit and she’s the most skilled fiber artist I know. We met up with Michelle this weekend over at Happy Knits, which is a newer shop (about a year old, I believe) that’s a breath of fresh air over on Hawthorne. We helped my mom pick out some gorgeous Delft blue alpaca-wool blend bulky yarn and some nice, big circular needles. She’s really making some progress and I imagine will be bitten by the knitting bug by the time she finishes her first scarf!


I also picked up some yarn for myself so I can finally make a hat to go with this coat (I can’t believe how short my hair is in those photos, by the way–it’s nearly reaching my elbows these days), which I still wear all the flippin’ time. (And it still gets all kind of unusual reactions–that’s what happens when you wear around the most badass coat ever–people say stuff.)  I’m making Natalie Larson’s Spring Beret pattern, which I found over on Ravelry. Of course, I had to pick out some crazy violet and magenta hand-painted yarn to go with my crazy poodle jacket.

When I was at Quilt Market in late-October, I got to catch up with a several of my favorite peeps, including the wonderful and gorgeous Rachel & Melissa. (You’ve bought Melissa’s awesome book, Small Stash Sewing, right?) Also, I got to hang out with Antoinette for the second time this year (!)–and meet her fabulous son, who is quite possibly the coolest little boy ever. I’ve said it about 8,000 times, but I love that the internet enables us all to connect with one another, regardless of distance, and then actually translate that into real life.

Finally, I’d love for y’all to check out my friend Cherri’s recent blog post about how her wonderfully generous son is collecting gifts for troops stationed with him in Iraq. If you’re able, this would be a wonderful way to get into the spirit of the season and spread some joy to folks in our military who don’t have families and friends sending them gifts.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

~Sarah

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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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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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And I hate snow. As has been well-documented here.

Fortunately, when we had friends over to watch the Christmas Ships last weekend, I invented a pretty stellar new drink–I call it the Twisted Caipirinha. When I got home this evening, the first thing I did to seek solace from the snow, was make myself one–and I thought I’d share my recipe with y’all.

I first had a caipirinha at one of our favorite restaurants several years ago, The Lumberyard in Cannon Beach. (True confession: we call it The Logjammer, which is a Big Lebowski reference; I’ll just leave it there for those of you in the know to snicker about.) I got a little obsessed (I know, shocking, me obsessed.) with re-creating a caipirinha, but we could never find the special Brazilian booze that goes in it, cachaça (theoretically, you can substitute rum, but I hate, hate, hate rum, so that’s a non-option for me). We finally found some a few months back at the wonderful liquor store near Josh’s work (liquor stores in Portland tend to be creepy places whose primary focus is lottery tickets and generic brand gin, so this place is a treat–if you’re ever in Portland, you’ve got to check it out). So, after tinkering quite a bit and messing with recipes from my two favorite cocktail books, I perfected the caipirinha.

The Twisted Caipirinha Team

Ask anyone who hangs out with me regularly, I’m not a big drinker. Sure, I enjoy a trip to Thatch with Rachel when she visits (Uh, by the way, Rach, when are you making another journey to PDX?), love Portland’s vast selection of microbrews and really love the fancy bourbon Josh buys me every Thanksgiving (another one of our funny traditions–my favorite is Blanton’s single barrel, which is not hugely popular, but works great the way I like it: over ice, plus a teeny, tiny splash of soda water; it also has a badass bottle), regardless, I’m not much of a drinker.

(Geez… Was that a long enough intro to this cocktail recipe?)

Assemble your ingredients. (Makes one cocktail.)

• Cachaça (I prefer Leblon. It’s smooth, and tasty. You could substitute rum, but I wouldn’t recommend it–track down the real thing if you can. Cachaça is made with cane sugar, rum is made with molasses, they’re quite different in flavor.)
• One Lime
• One clementine, “cutie” or mandarin orange; you could also use half of a tangerine
• Simple syrup (I cheat & buy mine at Trader Joe’s. Here’s a recipe, if you want to make your own. Hint: If making your own, use a natural, organic sugar.)
• Ice

You’ll also need the following:

• Cocktail tumbler
• Sharp knife
• Muddler or pestle from mortar & pestle
• Shot glass or other measuring tool that measures down to the 1/2 ounce

Make your Twisted Caipirinha.

First, slice your lime  into quarters, but do not completely sever the skin. Basically, you’ll have two halves that are almost divided into quarters.

A way to make sure you extract the most juice out of your limes is to roll it on the counter before slicing.

Repeat with the clementines.

Mmmm... This is funny, because it's a tropical drink, but the clementines are only available in the winter. I love it for a surprising holiday cocktail.

Toss all, cut sides down, into your tumbler.

The juice will squeeze out better if you take care to make sure your fruit is cut side down.

Next, add a half an ounce of simple syrup to your fruit. (I tend to like things sour, so if you do too, add less syrup. If your taste runs to the sweet, add a bit more.)

I think the store-bought TJ's brand simple syrup is just as tasty as the stuff I've made, and it's a whole lot less messy.

Now it’s time to add the Cachaça! Pour two ounces into your fruit and syrup mixture.

Mmmm... So much better than rum!

Now take your muddling tool (I use the pestle from our mortar and pestle that we’ve had forever (Josh got it for me for a birthday, 21st  or 22nd, I think) and mush everything together in your tumbler. You don’t need to be too aggressive, just mix the liquids and gently push the juice out of the fruit.

It's funny that we don't own a muddling tool--but this has worked well for ten years or so...

Fill your tumbler with ice and give it a quick stir.

Your Twisted Caipirinha is ready to drink! Enjoy!

Twisted Caipirinha! While I love the original, which is a sour lime drink, my version with seasonal clementines is really festive and tasty.

~Sarah

P.S. For a traditional caipirinha recipe, try this one. (And please, consume your caipirinha responsibly, and make sure your guests are responsible as well–don’t drink and drive.)

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This Labor Day we piled into the car, along with our friend Bryan (check out his beautiful new photoblog, by the way) and went down to Sarah’s hometown of Canby to check out one of the cooler annual events in this area–the Swan Island Dahlia Festival. (Locals: Even though the festival is technically over, you can still visit the flowers for a few more weeks–actually, it’s kind of more fun when it’s not the official festival. If you go, the Canby Burgerville is one of the best. Just sayin’…) It’s simply acres and acres of dahlias of all sizes, shapes and colors–it’s a real visual treat.

If we had been smart, we would have grabbed the handy sheet they had available and made a note of the really fabulous ones, since we’re definitely going to plant a few at our new house (more on that in a future post). But, we didn’t do that until we were leaving–whoops.

Our favorites are the reds–red translates in dahlias in more wonderful shades than any other flower. This one is a fabulous medium-size dahlia that has flowers that are almost spherical, and the individual petals are shaped like cones that collect water. How cool is that?

We also saw lots of happy bees. Not all bees are happy, you know. Bryan totally geeked out, which happens when you put a former environmental educator in a field of flowers. We’re pretty sure that Bryan was as excited about the bugs as the flowers…

Bryan is totally taking bug pictures in this photo.

Have you ever seen a dahlia that looks like this? We sure hadn’t. It looks almost like a sea creature, a starfish maybe…

How bad-ass is this two-tone dahlia? It’s bright red on top, pale yellow on the underside. Wow.

So this one’s called “Rip City.” It’s red and black. Yep…

We had a great time–even though we had some nasty food at a place that used to have pretty good pie and decent hash browns… We also tried to go to the cool architectural salvage place in Aurora (it was closed) and had a great time at St. Josef’s Winery (the winery is right behind Sarah’s mom’s house). You can see more of our photos of our day in this Flickr photoset.

But since we’re talking about gardening, we thought this would be the perfect time to mention that Sarah’s mom has started a nifty new gardening blog! She’s done all the work on it herself, and is still learning how to work with WordPress, but it’s looking good. Check it out if you’re a plant geek.

~S & J

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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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Inked rollers...

Inked rollers & locked up type.

Hot pink ink. (Not ours.)

Hot pink draw down. (Not ours--but a fabulous color!)

Green ink--this is a gorgeous transparent green that another student mixed. It's lovely seeing something so vibrant also be translucent.

Green ink draw down.

Back of my type project.

This is an ink-stained table in the print studio.

~Sarah

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Josh printing for the first time.

Josh's first printing project--some calling cards for his dad.

Letterpress gears--this one's on "Tony"--the larger of the Vandercooks at PNCA.

Josh's type.

The type in the corner is six point--so tiny, and so lovely. This is from my project.

~Sarah

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Josh's intro type-setting project. The stag is actually an impala--like would be used in an old Chevy ad.

Times 12 type--this is from my project this spring. I have quite a bit of type set from that project that I still need to print. I plan on finishing that up in the next few weeks.

More type from my spring project--the script is Raleigh 30, which is a beautiful italic type. It's very difficult to set because you have to use "wedgie things" to make sure everything's straight.

Ornaments. It boggles my mind how many unusual ones there are.

88 - Spartan Bold Condensed 72. I love this type so much it kind of makes me hyperventilate. This is a piece of a block from my spring project still needing to be printed.

California job case. This is where type is stored. I believe this one was for Bank Gothic.

This is from my summer project--it's part of the lyrics from a favorite song of mine, "Portland, Oregon" sung by Loretta Lynn and Jack White.

Brackets--you just can't reproduce this with a computer.

Punctuation. Did you know that printers invented punctuation?

One of my favorite types, Ad Sense.

I also experimented with the “Chroma” setting on my camera. I love how it makes the images look like they were taken with a lomographic camera. Type is perfect for photographing on this setting.

The two blocks of type from my spring project still needing to be printed. I am really proud of the type-setting on these.

The song lyrics for my summer project.

I’m going to keep my camera with me all weekend long, so I’ll have more photos of type and projects to share…

~Sarah

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Today’s our 4th wedding anniversary. Last year, we celebrated by screenprinting weird T-shirts, Josh creating a bizarre–yet appropriate–fake commemorative poster for the Moon Family Band and by making new outdoor lights for our patio.

This year, we’re taking a four-day letterpress and mail art class together, this Thursday through Sunday. It should be loads of fun–and what a treat to get to spend four full days just making stuff and learning together! Undoubtedly, Josh will make something crazy and Sarah will shoot for something entirely overly ambitious. Should be a great time.

Cheer, everyone!

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