Crafty Jennifer

I got home from class tonight - it's supposed to be from 4:30-9:30pm every Monday but we have yet to stay much past 8pm, I'm not complaining! - and was reading some of the blogs I follow to unwind. Mr. Crafty busts into the office/guest room and says "You're looking at quilt porn, aren't you?!"

I actually had just finished checking out the latest post on the Coast to Coast Block Party blog of Wendy's wonky log cabin block for Ebony when he busted into the office. I really need to check my mailbox to see if Ebony's fabric made it all the way from Maryland to Tucson...

This Saturday, I went to my friend Asma's henna party. She is getting married next month and I will lose my last work buddy since she is moving to Houston, which makes me very sad. But I am really happy for her. Asma is originally from Pakistan and henna parties are part of the pre-wedding festivities. the photo above is from just after the henna was applied to my hand and the one below is what my hand looked like the next morning. The color actually got darker after I took the picture (and was a little darker than it looks in the photo).

The women at the party all wore gorgeous brightly colored traditional silk outfits and I was definitely jealous that my sweater and dress pants just were not as cool. I took photos at the henna party but cannot show you any of Asma and her sisters. They wear scarves on their heads in public but were un-scarved at the party. The photo below is Asma's hands. I don't know if you can see the peacock or not.


And these two little girls were soooo freaking cute and well-behaved!

This morning, I finally dragged my lazy butt out of bed for a run. I headed out to Sabino Canyon to meet up with some Team In Training folks (they are training for a 1/2 marathon, I just tagged along). I LOVE running at Sabino Canyon, even though it's 7.4 miles of hills if you run all the way to the top. I do not love hills but I love Sabino Canyon. It reminds me why I love living in the desert. And today's weather reminded me why I tolerate the summer heat (but it's a dry heat!!!).
Yes, that is water running over the road we ran on! How did I cross it, you ask? I ran straight through it, splashing all the way!!! I channeled my inner child and had a huge smile on my face. (OK, if it didn't actually show on my face, I was definitely smiling in my head). The photo above is one of the bridges where the water was deepest yesterday. There are 7 or 8 bridges and all but one had water running over it. They are actually designed so that when there is a flash flood or just a decent amount of rain, like we've gotten over the past several weeks, the water that can't go under the bridge goes over the bridge.

Now you might be asking, didn't your feet get soaked? Wasn't the water cold? Yes and yes! That's part of the fun. The water in your shoes warms up within a few seconds but it is mountain runoff so it is a bit cold.

(Other people about to cross the fun way.)

I have been reading The Sometimes Crafter's digital photography introduction this week. I have been wanting to get a SLR digital camera but haven't exactly had the funding. So I emailed my brother, the photojournalist, about The Sometimes Crafter's series and asked if he had any suggestions about where we could get a decent SLR camera inexpensively. He offered to let us buy one of his old cameras, a Canon EOS 10D SLR camera for dirt cheap. Call it the sister discount if you want but I'll take it. (This after he sold his old unwanted toys to me when we were kids!) It's currently his backup backup camera.

Mr. Crafty Jennifer loves photography and is very excited. He took photography in high school and loved it. He has his parents old Pentex camera and my Canon that I got when I tried to take black & white photography in college (horrible instructor, I ended up dropping it!). But he hasn't been using these film camera so he is very excited to use something other that our point & shoot Olympus camera. I asked him if he can take the pictures of my quilts and stuff so I can FINALLY get my Etsy site up and running :-)

Now, we just need to find a decent lens cheaply. My brother offered to sell us one of his but it's a little outside the budget for what we planned to spend.

Just before lunch, my co-worker tells me a package arrived for me. I wasn't expecting anything so I gave her a puzzled expression until I looked at the return address. It said "Quilts for Kids"!!!

I opened up the envelope and look at the beautiful fabric that was staring back at me. (I snapped these photos with my phone. Luckily, it's another sunny Tucson day!)


The fabric is from the Cherie by Masha D'yans line from Clothworks. I found the rest of the collection here.

I'm supposed to hit the gym and then read more in my Adult Psych book when I get home from work today... it's going to be hard to concentrate!

I also need to dig through my stash and see what fabrics I have to put together at least one more quilt to send to Quilts for Kids.

Earlier this week, I heard about Quilts for Kids. They take fabric that was destined for a landfill and make quilts for sick kids. Right now they are sending some quilts to Haiti too.


If you are a quilter, you can request a kit from them. It comes with all the fabric you need, you just supply the labor and the batting and send it back to them. I also plan on raiding my stash to see what kid-friendly fabrics I can put together to make another quilt too.

If you are not a quilter (or do not have time to make a quilt), you can make a monetary donation too.

I stumbled across this awesome tutorial on how to make your own shrinky dinks - using recycled plastic!!! And even better (at least for me) is the type of plastic - #6 - isn't one recycled in my community so I am currently throwing it away.

I just discovered (via Craftster) that there are Modern Quilt Guilds starting up all around the US. Sounds like my kind of thing! I checked out the Modern Quilt Guild website and found there is a guild in Phoenix (only about an hour & a half to two hours from Tucson). Perhaps someone will start up a group in Tucson...

Check out the Modern Quilt Guilds website!