Happy Holidays from

the Craftys!

mug rug from the Tucson Modern Quilt Guild

holiday gift exchange

A gift to the family

This post is one that I am not really sure how to write...

Tutorial here

When I was 4, my Grandma Anderson (mom's mom) passed away. When I was 9, my grandpa remarried a lovely woman named Lorraine. For reasons I won't get into here, it took me a long time to think of her as a grandma person in my life, not any fault of hers. (Probably more to do with me being a teenager...)

She battled multiple myeloma for a number of years, in and out of remission, always such a fighter and the true picture of a survivor. I ran in her honor three times with Team In Training and raised over $10,000 for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society between 2008 & 2010.

She hinted every time I saw her how much she would LOVE one of my quilts. I started thinking about how I could make a really special quilt for her and then it hit me: what she loves most is her family, blood or not.

I emailed the whole family asking for pictures "of their family" for a project I was working on. I didn't mention the quilt to them at all. I printed the pictures on sew-in inkjet fabric sheets (thank you 50% off Joann's coupon!) and make this my project for the Coast 2 Coast Quilting Bee.

By June or July of 2010, I had all the blocks back from the other ladies in the quilting bee. Unfortunately, my time was consumed by work and school (plus there were some that were larger/smaller than the requested 10.5" square and I wasn't sure what to do). And I needed to make my blocks, plus figure out what I wanted to do with the extra pictures I wanted to use but did not send out to the bee.

In November 2010, Lorraine's health was getting worse and she ended up in the hospital, and eventually in hospice care. I knew that I was not going to get the quilt completed in time for her to use and enjoy it. I took all the blocks, extra pictures, and fabric with me to visit her. She got to see the pieces of it and showed it off to the other family members that were there. She passed away a few days later, just before Thanksgiving.

A year later, I finished the quilt Christmas eve, in order the give it to my Grandpa for Christmas.

Below are a few shots of the quilt. Somewhere, I have pictures of Grandpa opening it, taking in what it was, and enjoying it. I fear those were lost when Mr. Crafty's hard drive crashed but I know my Dad got video of it. (My photographer brother is supposed to bring my a CD of the images he took of the quilt when he visits from Beijing next week. Will post more/better pics if he does.)

Still alive. No really!

I know things have been awful quiet around here for a really long time... I don't really have a "good" excuse for that.

I finished grad school in May of last year and then enjoyed some well-deserved time off. Then I got a new job in September. And that new job is kicking my butt on a regular basis.

And every time I thought about coming back to this blog, I didn't know how or where to start.

So now I am jumping in the deep end with both feet! CANNONBALL!
 

I have been quilting some, running some, and enjoying my time with Mr. Crafty. And working 50-60 hour weeks since the end of July.

Above is a photo of a quilt I made for my friend Robin as a wedding gift. Robin was one of my bridesmaids in my wedding and I was devastated that I couldn't attend her wedding in San Juan this March. She was the last of my bridesmaids to get married (both the other two got married in 2007, which was a very busy quilt-y gift year). She saw the pattern to this quilt when I posted it on Facebook and mentioned that she liked it. She requested the colors. All the blues are from Sandi Henderson's Secret Garden line, as are some of the pinks.

The quilt & I had a lovely photo shoot in Flagstaff back in May. And then Mr. Crafty's hard-drive crashed and I do not have those fun photos :-( The above photo was taken with my cell phone & Instagrammed when I was working on this quilt. I have a couple others from my phone and from the ladies in the Tucson Modern Quilt Guild (the two photos below) from when I took it to show & tell.

I stitched a signature block with her wedding date, her ring, and some of the quilt colors using a pattern from Jenny Hart.

 

I'm on Pinterest if you want to see some of the fun stuff I've been pinning (not necessarily making).

Hope all has been well in your neck of the woods! Thanks for stopping by! More projects to come soon, I promise.

Happy/Merry Halloween/Thanksgiving/Chanukah/Christmas/New Years!

I know, I know, I've been gone a very long time. Lots has gone on over the past 3 months (in addition to the holidays listed above) and even a few crafts! I think about all of you often but have lacked the time to write a proper post. And even this is not a proper post, but I did want to let you know that I am still here.

And that it might be quiet around here for the next couple months. This week, I started my very last (yippee!!!) semester of my second masters program. I am soooo crazy that I am taking two classes over the next eight weeks and one of them is a research class. So don't expect to see too much of me around here.

I wanted to say hi and wish all of you a very happy new year. I am hoping to have a bit of time this weekend to show you the small projects I did over the past couple months...
An adult tutu in hot pink, lime green & purple with sparkly ribbons (worn for an entire half marathon)!
A wreath made entirely of ornaments that took 10 minutes and $7 to make!
And some great blogs that some of my friends are doing...

You like my teaser? Hope to see you soon!


P.S. For those of you that remember I live in Tucson, this week has been surreal but makes me proud to be a Tucsonan. This community has really come together to support each other and grieve. I still can barely believe that it happened or happened here.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I wanted to share this video with you because it really shows the Tucson I know and love, not the horrific tragedy. Mr. Crafty and I often refer to Tucson as a really big small town because we often get a small town feel even though we live in a community of a million people.

Please keep the vicitms & their families in your thoughts and prayers!

Crafty's in San Francisco

It's the end of a very long week... a very long training season... and a very long semester.

Mr. Crafty & I are in San Fran this weekend. Our first real vacation (not a trip to visit family) in... I don't know how long. I'm running th Nike Women's Marathon on Sunday.

We've had some fun today, I'll share the pics when we get back. Mr. Crafty has been using our dslr camera for most of the pictures.

Before we left, we had a hectic week. Cute, adorable, troublemaker Trixie decided to eat the elastic string from one of her toys on Saturday morning. And she had (not cheap) surgery on Monday to remove the elastic string. We had to scramble to find someone to take care of her while we're in SF...

I found this fantatic chandelier today. Mr. Crafty doesn't agree that we need it :-( For $4500, I guess I agree...

See you when we get back to Tucson!

The Craftys

Love this!

I totally forgot to tell this as part of yesterday's post. But I guess it deserves it's own post.

Last week, I got this email from my aunt:

Lindsey is Star of the Week in her class this week and today's activity is to bring in a special item and tell the class about it for Show and Tell. Lindsey brought in the crayon holder that you made her for Christmas last year!! Awww... :-)

Lindsey is my 6 year old cousin. My aunt and {former} uncle adopted her and her sister Hayley {age 8} from China. They are the cutest little girls ever. They love Mr. Crafty. He is their personal jungle gym when we see them because he flips them over and gets silly with them. {The last two times we saw them, he made the mistake of doing a tough arm workout at the gym in the morning and kept complaining to me how much his arms hurt. Hehe}

This is the crayon holder that my aunt is referring to {except that Lindsey's has an "L" on it}:

You can make your own by following the very first tutorial I ever wrote here.

And the owners of a wedding quilt I made last summer posted this on Facebook recently too. With the caption: "Thanks for the quilt, Jennifer! Molly loves it."

Just gotta love when people love the things you lovingly made for them :-)

Tomorrow, I am getting together with the Tucson Modern Quilt Guild ladies for a little sewing time. Yippee!!! We're each going to make a block or two for a Breast Cancer quilt that we'll then donate.

Still alive!

I assure you I am still alive. The past couple weeks have been busy ones in the Crafty household. Unfortunately, most of that busy-ness did not involve crafty-ness. Boohoo!

But I have some fantastic news! Mr. Crafty got a new job!!! In the past two and a half weeks, he's been a much happier Mr. Crafty. Which I am a BIG fan of!

He had the world's worst boss at his old job. He was sad to leave the people (except his boss!) but his new job has some fantastic opportunities. He's an Education Specialist for Cord Blood Registry. He's currently in training and learning all about pregnancy, stem cells, and lots of other information. He'll be helping families decide whether or not to store their babies' cord blood. So exciting!

I did get one project done recently. And it really made me wish I made the trip to Joann's and bought the specialty ruler. Ah well, live and learn!

My friends and coaches for Team In Training Ashley and Ryan are expecting their first child.
Ashley and Ryan are waiting to find out the baby's sex. And let me tell you, it is more and more challenging to find gender neutral infant stuff at the store. I did find a super cute duckie sleeper with ducks on the feet and a duck face on the butt and some cute onesies with zoo animals.

I made the family a fleece blanket. My mom had given me this fabric and I thought it was perfect. I made the blanket more of a rectangle than a square too.

Ashley is due basically any day now... her "due date" is October 26th but I keep advocating for a 10/10/10 baby! {I mean, seriously, how cool would that be???}

{Sidenote: Mr. Crafty's bday is 8/8/81. Pretty cool, right? We had a "Super Golden Birthday" party for him on 8/8/08. And yes, if you did the math, I am about a year and a half older than him.}

We also got a new member of the Crafty family... a new gnome from our alma mater!!!

The blue one we got last year at Homecoming. He's also my profile picture and his name is Tobias Archibald Anthrax. There is a story behind the name... The yellow gnome with the #1 finger is our new addition to the family. {We actually got 2 of the yellow gnomes because Mr. Crafty wanted one for work because he works with a lot of University of Arizona Wildcats. Boo!}