Falling off the Fabric Wagon

It's that time of year again, when I'm either busy making Christmas gifts, baked goods, etc., or feeling guilty about NOT doing those things.  So today I made a trip to The Needle Shop with my friend Brittany, where I fell off the hoarder wagon once again.  Here's what I bought:

Bright Boy Elephant Fabric by Robert Kaufman

Bird Stripe (Green) by Echino

and Camera (Cyan) by Echino

Kenyan Tea Leaf by Alexander Henry

and Outside Oslo, Skiff by Jessica Jones

Hopefully I can stay motivated for enough more time to actually do something with them.  Anyway, glad to be on vacation and have some time for projects again!

The Easter Bunny Strikes Again

Sorry I've been away from my computer.  I was off in Los Angeles last week being fabulous with my old friend Mary.  If you're interested in what all I did in LA, check out my other blog, futurearchitectwicky.

             But anyway, back to Chicago and normal pianoteacherwicky things.  After flying home late late Friday night (you might even call it Saturday morning) I was greeted with a package from Mama Wicky, my original Easter Bunny.  She sent the best of Connecticut in a box: Munson's chocolates.  And she included a cute little Nantucket basket which I think I'll have to use for non-Easter purposes because it's too sweet to be put away.
             On Sunday I hosted my 5th annual Easter Pot Luck Brunch.  We were 16 strong again.  This year, instead of baking a ham as I have for the past few years, I stopped in to the Bleeding Heart Bakery, just a mile west of me on Belmont Avenue and picked up a few cupcakes and some french toast cake balls.  And boy, did they go like hot-cake[ball]s.  They are basically like an amazingly yummy donut hole.  While picking out food at the bakery I also tried a jelly bean cake ball, which was scrumptious.  I still have one carrot cupcake and one "pretty pink princess" cupcake left, which I will eat over the next few days.

            Some other welcome, new additions to the brunch menu were a mimosa bar, supplied by my friend Abby:

A beautiful fruit salad from my friend Katie (okay this isn't anything new, but putting the fruit on skewers made it way more exciting to eat!)

And some homemade macaroons (chocolate with salted caramel filling) by my friend Brittany.
            It was a beautiful day, so we enjoyed a post-brunch chat on my back deck, and some of us went for a little walk around the neighborhood.  As I gear up for architecture school in the fall, I wonder if I'll be able to host some more parties like this in the future.  I think that as long as they're pot lucks, I should be able to squeeze in a few here and there.
Otherwise, I will sure miss these lovely gents.

Meet Brittany

I have mentioned my friend Brittany a few times in previous posts.  I'm very proud to have her as my friend because I count her to be the first real friend I've made in Chicago all on my own.  Since I don't have co-workers really, I've relied on my college friends to pal around with, and made new friends with them.  Brittany and I met in the screenprinting class I took last spring at the Lill Street Art Center.  If you need a refresher on what we did in that class, click here.
I knew we would be great friends from the very first day I met her because she mentioned she does lots of crafts and, as you know, so do I!
A few days ago, I got this very cute card in the mail, handmade by dear Brittany.  I like it extra much because you can enjoy it two ways.

In regular lighting, it's very textured:

And then if you hold it up to sunlight, it's almost sparkly:






So here's Brittany, saying "hello" to you (and me), and you can say hello to her on her new blog:
The Plaid Owl.
You may like it because she actually instructs her readers on how to be crafty, whereas I just blab on and on about my life . . .

Printerlude

I thought I'd give you a little update on my the screenprinting course I've been taking.  I've had 4 classes, and my final class is this weekend.  (I have to rush home after the class to get cleaned up for my student piano recital, in the afternoon!)

            The first week we made a print of just some normal shape (for me it was red toast).  The second week, we added to our prints with another image (yellow, then orange, tomatoes - which ended up, of course, looking like lemons and oranges - don't know why that didn't occur to me before I did it).

            The third week we all brought in a black and white transparency, photocopied from an image we liked.  I decided to trace/draw my own version of Hokusai's Waves.

We set to work cleaning off our screens from our first prints (toast), then applied the emulsion and exposed the prints on the light table.  All of that took up most of the 3-hour class, so I came back for the Sunday open studio time with my printing buddy Brittany to make many many prints of it in dark blue, then teal, then both.

            Last week, I added a few little purple birds to my waves.  This week, maybe a sun, or some clouds?  We shall see.

            Oh and here's one of Brittany's prints - I'm such a fan!