Katy's First Orbit-Day! Invitation

I designed a baby invitation! My daughter is turning one in September, and we decided to do a space theme for the party. I'm still ironing out the details, but I want to have a round yellow cake that will be the sun, and then 8 cupcakes designed like the planets. Hopefully I'll be able to make this all myself. We're on a budget, so we really can't afford to spend a lot on food and decorations. As long as our guests have fun and enjoy themselves, we're going to call it a success.

Anyways, here are the invites! I'm really excited. My little girl is totally a space cadet. We watched a lot of star trek while I was pregnant with her.

Quilted Anatomy: decorative organ quilt

Hey All! I put some of the paper pieced organs I've made over the last few months together to make a mini-quilt. It's hard to believe that I only started sewing a year ago. I've certainly progressed far! I really enjoy quilting, and I love making quilts that reflect my interests. Hope you guys enjoy these!

 

I even used some of the fabric I designed on spoonflower!

I'm really pleased with how this quilt turned out. Next I've got to do some more organs, and maybe a whole system!

Quilted Anatomy: Lungs

Hello all! I'm continuing my series on quilted anatomy. This time, I give you: Lungs!


I wanted to make sure the colors would match the first two I made (P.S. I made a kidney), so I laid out my fabric and picked the colors I thought matched lung color IRL and also the nice palette I have going with the heart and kidney. In real life, the lungs are a bright salmony-pink color, almost neon. They're fantastic to look at.

Then, I had to cut up the pattern I made based on one of my drawings. The trachea was probably going to be the hardest, so I started there. I had a nice batik that makes a really good ligament color.

You can see the garden from my craft room

About halfway through, I realized the step between main color and shadow was way too steep. So I decided to start over, adding an extra color with fabric I got from The Stitchery.

 

Much better!

 

 

Here it is with the other two. I think it turned out great! I'm really excited to do more organs. I'm working on a pattern for a Uterus and a Liver, but I also want to do a brain and the cross-section of an eye. We'll see what happens next!

 

Non-quilting: Building Garden boxes

I've always loved growing vegetables. When I was younger, my parents didn't have a good backyard to grow a nice veggie patch, so I contented myself with growing tomatoes and beans in pots. In college, I expanded those pots to backyard porches and also grew cucumbers and squash using the back porch railings as trellises. Now that I'm grown up with a house that has a nice open backyard, I decided to grow a lot of veggies this year.

Only, I don't have a lot of money, and garden boxes are expensive.

However, there is this great place about 30 minutes from me that buys and sells old wood pallets. You know, the kind on which big stores get their shipments? So I cleared out the back of the mini-van and got about 5 of them for $5 a piece. Not too shabby.

Then I used a pry bar, hammer and reciprocating saw to break them down and build them into garden boxes.

I also used 2" square wood dowels as corner pieces for added stability and screwed the boards two deep into a square shape. They turned out pretty well.

 

So far, I've planted tomatoes, winter and summer squash, kale, peppers, okra, cucumbers, onions and beans. I'm also growing borage, thyme and sage as ecological pest controls. They're supposed to repel or confuse a variety of garden pests. Sunflowers and morning glories also are great at attracting predatory bugs which will eat the pests. I used this book to make sure everything was going to get along in their new homes (example: onions and beans don't go together). In fact, if you're planning on making a garden plot, I highly recommend making sure all of your plants will go well together. It will save you a lot of hair tearing-out in the future. I'm looking forward to a tasty summer!

Quilted Anatomy: Heart

So I've had this idea in my mind for a while - I want to quilt anatomically correct organs. It combines my background as a medical illustrator with my love of quilting. I spent a loooong time making my own paper piecing pattern of a heart (from one of my illustrations) and trying to get it down just right. It took a lot of tries to make the pattern, and I ended up having to chop the pattern into about 20 different sections and piece those all together individually. I made about a million mistakes and the first one I made had terrible colors. This is the second one I made. I increased the size about 50% and chose some better colors than the first (not posted here. Never will be).

materials all ready to go!

I think it turned out pretty well, considering how many pieces it ended up being. I missed part of the top left pulmonary vein over there, but I can applique it back on. I'm thinking of embroidering on the cardiac vessels next...

Quilted Anatomy: some new fabrics

Hey All!

Lately, I've been addicted to spoonflower.com, a site where you can create and upload custom fabrics. I've started making my own fabrics, mostly using my medical illustration background. Hopefully people will be interested in them. If not, it's still kind of cool to have them so I can use them for personal projects :)

organs!

adipose tissue

hearts

Since you have to have printed a few in order to make them available for selling, these won't be available in the shop until next week or so. But, I think they turned out nicely.

Please like my shop!

Quilter's Fuel: Pureed Lentil Soup

On a cold day like today, it's nice to have a good bowl of soup to warm you up. Soups are easily my favorite type of food in the world: they're liquid happiness.

This is a vegetarian soup that has a lot of flavor. I combined several different recipes, since I wanted it pureed, but I also wanted a lot of veggies in it. Enjoy!

1 large onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 large carrots, peeled and diced

2 large celery ribs, chopped

1 can crushed tomatoes

2 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp turmeric

½ tsp sweet paprika

¼ tsp cinnamon

1 tsp salt

½ tsp black pepper

½ tsp red pepper flakes

1 bay leaf

2 c. red lentils, rinsed and picked over

6 c chicken or veggie broth

In a large pot, sautee onions in 1 tbsp olive oil until tender. Add garlic and cook until aromatic, about 1 minute more. Add carrots and celery and cook for another 2 minutes. Add crushed tomatoes with juice. Add spices and cook for 2 more minutes. Then add broth and stir in lentils. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to med-low. Cook for about an hour, stirring occasionally.

Once lentils are tender, remove from heat and let cool. Remove bay leaf. Once the soup is cool enough, puree soup in batches in a blender. Then return to pot and heat until warm. Serve with plain greek yogurt.

For the Geeks - or - why are lentils so good for you?

Lentils are part of the legume family. They are native to the Mediterranean/middle east region of the world, and grow on bushy, foot-tall plants. For their small size, they pack a nutritional punch. Up to 30% of their calories are from protein, and they have an insane amount of dietary fiber in them (60% DV!!). They have high levels of slow-digestive starch (good news if you're diabetic) and folate (good news if you're pregnant or trying to conceive) and include a wide variety of minerals and vitamins.

These plants are incredibly drought-resistant, which is probably why they were one of the first crops domesticated and so widely grown today: from the Mediterranean and Middle East to Africa, India and China. If you haven't added lentils to your diet, this soup is a great way to start!

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lentil
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/legumes-and-legume-products/4338/2
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/lentils-beyond-soups-and-stews-have-you-ever-had-them-like-this/2014/01/06/2c2d401a-7484-11e3-9389-09ef9944065e_story.html
http://www.diningchicago.com/blog/2011/02/16/eat-this-lentils-a-prehistoric-foodstuff/

Non-geek: Table Centerpieces

I'm in love with scrappy-style projects. Something to bust up the stash, and get rid of all those fat quarters I seem to accumulate.

Lately, I've been doing some lone star tabletoppers for friends and family. I love the look of lonestars; you can get such depth and elegance from them.

This one was for my mother for christmas

Trying to figure out what orientation to use

 

 

For my sister's MIL.

They're actually not that hard to make, just a bit time consuming to get the corners pieced just right. They come together quickly at the end and are really impressive. Next one I make (which will be one for myself, since I haven't made one that I haven't given away yet) I will include a tutorial. :)

Sensory Blankets

This project started when I had a set of fabrics that I had been saving for something fun. I just absolutely loved the whimsical look of the pink froggy(I absolutely LOVE frogs) fabric, and wanted to make something for my daughter. I decided to make a sensory blanket

To make tummy time more interesting, I've made a few sensory quilts for my daughter and my sweet niece. These came together really quickly, and have lots of things for baby to do: taggies to grab and attach toys, ribbons to gum on, different types and colors of fabric to feel.

Minke, fleece, flannel and terrycloth make for lots of different textures for baby to feel!

The front, with taggies!

Possibly my favorite fabric in my stash! Far, Far Away by Heather Ross (this one is called Frog Prince in Pink)

I made the blanket too long. It was actually kind of cumbersome to lay on the ground while holding a baby.

Dogs loved it, though.

The next one I made was for my niece. She likes bears! This time, I kept a square layout. This made it easier to handle when laying it down.

For dear cousin

The reverse

K modeling the quilt for her cousin!

I thoroughly enjoy putting taggies on things. It shouldn't be as much fun as it is!

Time to Geek Out!

My name is Liz, and I'm a medical illustrator and a mom to a beautiful 5 month old girl. I learned to sew the summer before her birth, and I've been busying myself with sewing projects in-between jobs. I'm on a mission to change the way young kids, especially girls, see STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) subjects.

It started back when I was pregnant and began buying clothes for my baby girl. I noticed a discrepancy between boys' and girls' clothes. All the girls' clothes I could find were frilly, pink, and covered with objects like cupcakes, flowers and animals like kitties and bunnies. These are fine, but when that's ALL I could find for my girl, I soon found myself rifling through the boys' clothes, looking for dinosaurs, puppy dogs and outdoorsy clothing. Something seems wrong with this picture. Girls enjoy outdoors, puppy dogs and dinosaurs, right? These things can be pink and frilly, too!

So now in addition to making awesome crafted things, I'm on a mission to make cute kids clothes that re-define the way kids think about science and math.