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| Becka's Library Shelf |
| Becka's Games Shelf |
i like to enclose a little bonus something when i ship things off to the customers in my etsy shop. i love making all sorts of christmas tree decorations. they rank right up there in my top ten very favorite projects. inspired by some goldfish fabric i picked up recently, i thought a little fish bowl would be fun. of course this is non-christmassy enough that you could adorn most anything. made from wool felt & sequins.
becka on 11.29.05 @ 11:34 PM CST [link]
this is the loom that lives in my bedroom. this is the hubby, who is warping the loom that lives in my bedroom. to make a long story short, we are the new owners of a floor loom thanks to a generous donation and not enough storage space at its previous residence. we spent part of weekend before last fixing it up and replacing bits and parts. then it was several days of warping with much help from a library book. here is andy putting some carpet warp on the warping board that he built. more to come...
becka on 11.29.05 @ 11:28 PM CST [link]
it is puppet overdrive at my house, getting ready for holiday shows. i finished 10 last night while watching 3 episodes of west wing on dvd. this afternoon i am supposed to be sewing tote bags. and i am blogging. what would we do without procrastination?
becka on 11.28.05 @ 04:26 PM CST [link]
you may have noticed a problem with my page coming up blank lately. if you happened to have gotten here without noticing any trouble then great! i will skip the details, but the place that makes the address "beckarahn.com" point to where the stuff is actually stored is on the fritz and they are not being very helpful about getting it fixed. you can always use http://homepage.mac.com/arahn/blogold to get here.
becka on 11.28.05 @ 04:05 PM CST [link]
i can finally post a picture of this one because i finally got it in the mail to my friend amy. i did this illo for i-friday a while back and got requests for a print. i wanted to do something fun with a print so i decided to print on muslin and you can see what happened. yes, you may have noticed, it does look familiar. i scanned it and used it as my current blog banner, so you kind of got a sneak peek without knowing it. i am currently working on another art quilt with this illustration. it is pieced and waiting to be quilted.
becka on 11.22.05 @ 11:55 AM CST [link]
...i read about harriet on an australian blog i read and just had to share...
"Harriet is an ancient Galįpagos tortoise at the Australia Zoo. Based on DNA testing, she is believed to have been born around 1830, and is thus the oldest known animal alive today.
It was originally thought that Harriet was first captured by Charles Darwin in 1835 on the Galapagos Islands. As the tortoises were then dinner plate sized it is estimated they would have been six years old.
However, this story is most likely apocryphal. Though Darwin caught three tortoises and took them home to Britain aboard the HMS Beagle, genetic tests inticate that Harriet belongs to a sub-species endemic to one of the Galapagos Islands that Darwin never visted.
For over a century, Harriet was actually mistaken to be a male, and thus named Harry.
On November 15, 2005, her 175th birthday was celebrated at the Australia Zoo."
...then i had to look up the word apocryphal:
a·poc·ry·phal adj. Of questionable authorship or authenticity.
...which made me think of Methuselah, the 600 pound Galapagos Tortoise who lives at Reptile Gardens in Rapid City, SD. Methuselah was born in 1881 and is South Dakota's oldest resident. my mom and youngest sister went to his 120th birthday party.
becka on 11.17.05 @ 05:04 PM CST [link]
a friend at work is expecting a baby in just a few more weeks and as a baby shower for her we decided to have a make-a-quilt party. we did these blocks at the party. they are foundation pieced on pellon. i brought them home to finish putting the background "borders" on them and to give everything a good ironing. i also volunteered to do the little bits of embroidery so they can have eyes and tails, so that is my next evening's entertainment.
becka on 11.16.05 @ 11:26 PM CST [link]
we grew this pumpkin in our garden this year. there was another one equally as nice, but gremlins made off with it in the night. this one however has been safe and sound in the kitchen. we finally decided that it was time to bake it and make pie. we got 8 cups of pumpkin puree and a yummy container of roasted pumpkin seeds. plus we saved a few seeds so we can grow more next year.
becka on 11.16.05 @ 11:21 PM CST [link]
"Periods of rain before noon, then periods of rain and snow between noon and 4pm, then periods of snow after 4pm. High near 38. North northwest wind between 5 and 9 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New snow accumulation of less than one inch possible." yesterday on the radio i heard we were expecting between 6-8 inches. this is a little better. it is however 100% grey and gloomy, so here is a summer lily to brighten the day.
becka on 11.15.05 @ 08:31 AM CST [link]
a baby present for a friend who just had daughter #2. this is the second "art quilt" i have made by printing one of my illustrations on to fabric and then turning it into a mini quilt. this is about 12" x 14". i LOVE this new technique. i really like to make prints of my pictures that are unique. (i haven't posted pictures of the other one yet because i was supposed to mail it off to its new owner weeks ago and i wanted it to be a little bit of a surprise. i am pretty sure the baby's mommy doesn't have time to read my blog.) more art quilts to come and i am hoping to put them in my shop!
another new thing for the shop. i talked about foundation piecing a while back - it's a technique of sewing right to the fabric pattern in order to do intricate designs. i finally read the introductory chapter to the book that got me hooked on this and discovered that she recommends using very light weight non fusible interfacing instead of paper. no picking out little bits of paper. since i was teaching a group of people how to do this foundation technique last night, i had to give the pellon thing a try. the verdict is, it works like a charm and i have this little coffee mug mat to prove it. this is going in the shop along with 3 more coordinating companions.
becka on 11.10.05 @ 06:33 PM CST [link]
i spent the afternoon at my friend danielle's making cards. several of us got together and brought all of our stamps and paper crafty stuff and made cards. these are two that i particularly liked. i made sets of 4 cards like each of these plus some others. it was lots of fun and i really liked getting to try out other stuff. thanks danielle!
becka on 11.06.05 @ 11:23 PM CST [link]
this weekend, we went to see the Shakespeare Globe Theater touring production of Measure for Measure. The quote above is my favorite line from the show. it is odd for me to say it, but i think my favorite part of the show has got to be the music. they have a group of 5 musicians playing period instruments before and during the show. they are in costume and interact with the actors - it really adds a lot to the whole ambience. we also particularly liked the characters that the cast drew out of the words. there are many many ways to play a shakespeare character and still have their lines make sense. we have seen measure for measure twice before and i felt like this company really found some unique and charming interpretations of character that added a lot to the story.
becka on 11.06.05 @ 10:28 PM CST [link]
i was really stuck on this one. all i could think of were sad things associated with broken. by then andy saved the day and suggested a broken spell. i am so happy i got a chance to get back in to illustration friday this week. i was looking back through the archives and i am really pleased with some of my previous posts. i had a little vacation, and now i think it's time to start again.
becka on 11.01.05 @ 10:12 PM CST [link]
lucy says "ppppffffppbbbbbttttt!"