Fricknits

In Which I am Resolved by Accident

Well here's something to love about Sundays: I've eaten, coffee-d, showered, and put on fresh pajamas, and I feel totally ready for my day.  And more coffee.

I talked a little in this post about how overwhelmed I feel swimming in the craft soup that is our corner of the Interwebs, and I have now come up with a method that's fresh and crazy-making in a whole new way than the older crazy-making methods.  This tried (for a week) and true(ly insane) method is to keep dickety-nine tabs open in my browser until I'm ready to write a blog post, at which point I can enter all of the links in one handy place, archiving them until Typepad revokes my charter for forgetting to pay the bill forever.  So far, so good, until the Fricklet decides to whomp the laptop with his new favorite whomper (one of my acrylic quilting rulers), sending all of my carefully compiled tabs into Interwebs oblivion and me into a fetal knot on the dining room floor.

The only upside to that eventuality is that I promise to take a self portrait of it.

Anyway!  I'd really like to increase the degree to which our house feels like our home.  Really, really US.  I kicked this plan off a year ago when I bought Mr. Frick this fabulous vinyl decal for the holidays, and then the plan ate a crapton of acorns, curled up, and went into hibernation until reemerging almost exactly a year later.  Let's hope this year I can keep it awake and active.

(How-to-acquire-one-for-oneself info here on Flickr.)

Our house has for too long felt like a neutral or generic "home space" rather than a place that's uniquely ours.  So Mr. Frick and I have begun work on, among other things, an embroidery wall (inspiration!)- he's currently at work on a tiny Mexican wrestling mask from Jenny Hart's Lucha Libre series.  I have plans to make one of these, inspired by Allison's at Cluck Cluck Sew:

(photo used with permission)

Maybe I've just got home on the brain, because I'm so attracted to little houses lately.  Like these that Maritza is making over at KnottyBits:

(photo used with permission, tutorial here)

I have BIG plans for this project, perhaps in a paintbox-style quilt.  (Oh, and speaking of paintboxes, GAH- Elizabeth has started a new Quiltalong on Oh! Fransson and I think, despite the fact that my blocks from the last QAL are still sitting in a cupboard somewhere, that I must do it, because another one of my Big Plans is to work from the stash as much as possible, as Caro admonishes me and um, yeah, I totes have all the stuff I need for this one already.) 

And also I WILL be making one of these, because O.M.G.  But mine will be hello-yellow.

One thing I will NOT be making (though it turns out it's not hard to find instructions for how to do so) is a macrame owl.  Instead, in the grand tradition of entitled children everywhere, I will steal my parents' one.  

I know my sister doesn't want it, because it terrifies my nephew.  Hurrah!  Poor little fella! My Aunt Carol made it, so big tip o' the hat down Greensboro, NC way.

Another little something I'd like to do more of in 2010 is make more of my own clothes.  I have nowhere near the talent or ambition you'll see here on The Sew Weekly, but I'll definitely be reading along because that is an incredible project.

Aaaand now my tabs are but the usual four.  Phew.

Wow, look at that.  Despite my best intentions, I might have made some resolutions after all.  Did you?

To-Do

Something I inherited from my mother: the love of lists.  And for all its useful tools, the Internet has totally let me down in this department by simultaneously offering daily if not hourly inspiration and ideas, and no one good way to keep track of them all.  I've used Internet bookmarks, "faved" tweets and photos on Flickr, "starred" posts in Google reader...but it's still too scattered and I can't see it all at a glance. 

Hence the new category (and I have big plans to clean up my categories soon- what a mess), where I can keep all my ideas and inspirations and tutorials in one place, and also share them with you!

1.  Must finish the boys' quilts in January.  Tops are done, backs are done, all that remains is the scary basting/quilting/binding part.  It's plow-through-it work, but there's glory at the end.  It'll also get me that much closer to my overall goal of getting the house together, but that's for another post.

(Fricklet's 9-patch top.)

(Biscuit's modified (to fit a single bed) Little Bits quilt from Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts by Joelle Hoverson.)

2.  Get to work on a crochet cushion.  I love the idea found here on Attic 24 for using an old sweater for the back, especially as my trusty grey cashmere hoodie recently gave up the ghost (or, more accurately, the elbows).

3.  Make Julia Child's beef bourguignon with Mom, preferably while wearing aprons I sew myself.  I made one for my little sister for the holidays and I love it!  Used the pattern from Amy Karol's Bend-the-Rules Sewing.

(Jess doesn't cook much, but she does have tattoos, so I think it all evens out.  She's trying to figure out a way to wear it out to bars.)

Wouldn't this fabric be perfect for sporting while undertaking a little French cooking mastery?  I thought so.

4.  Make homemade marshmallows, because the marshmallows are the best part of the obligatory January hot cocoa.  Adrian says Martha's recipe works a charm.

5.  And speaking of Adrian, there's a project in the works for a swap with her, and a little gift I'm cooking up for Ms. Bestitched as well.  (Schmoley, they both have such beautiful projects the the tops of their blogs right now- go! Go!) So they go on the list as well, though I can't show photos yet, so they have to sit here at the bottom, even though they are first in my heart.

Keeping the lists to 5 Items Only will be hard, but is necessary.  Gotta have time to actually accomplish the list, and roam the Internet searching for more!  (That, of course, doesn't mean I won't be back tomorrow with another list.  Just keeping 'em bite-sized. Like caramels.  Delicious caramels made for me by Grey Moggie Melanie.  That await me in the kitchen.  Nom.  Bye!)