fun things friday: 5/25

{photo from my first ever real photo shoot!}

fun things friday: where i post bits and pieces of things in my life, or interesting things found on the interwebs. enjoy this week's random smattering:

- i'm a real photographer now! i did a photo shoot of a friend and her adorable family last week, and i'm super happy with how a majority of their photos turned out. last weekend i took some not-engagement photos for some friends (who afterward got engaged!) and BAM- third photo shoot scheduled!

-on a related note, mom ordered a camera and decided she doesn't have time enough to learn to use it before her trip overseas. she sent it to me to play with. YAY.

- apparently, it's a thing to ride bikes without brakes. they're officially called 'fixed-gear bikes'. i call them moronic.

- sari bari (the organization i'm making my second quilt of the year for) and secretary of state clinton!

- MY BROCCOLI CAME UP! remember this post about our garden? none of our seeds ever germinated in the dixie cups. it had me feeling like a failure. on a whim, we planted some outside, hoping our luck would change and IT DID!

- did you know that domestic turkeys are unable to breed? i feel a little funny about eating something that can't physically reproduce, even if it is a holiday tradition. read more.

- freedom weekend aloft in simpsonville, SC reminds me of my childhood. hubs and i are heading to a week at the beach with his family, and i was bummed to find out we'll be too far away from the festival to catch sight of balloons in the air.

year of the quilt: quilt #2

year of the quilt update! 

leila's quilt- front and back- is finished and awaiting a little extra income so that i can buy binding and not feel badly about spending money on what is essentially shredded cotton balls. then, a little free-motion quilting and i will have completely finished my very first quilt.

next up is a little project for an organization that i've written a little about here. sari bari works with women in calcutta who want an alternative income to prostitution, the former profession of many of the women who now work for them making gorgeous katha stitch blankets, bags and other textiles.

 they're having a quilt auction this fall to raise money for a new building. one of these quilts is in pieces pictured above! i'm super excited to be working on something for an organization whose cause i deeply believe in (as if i ne

i'm making the cover quilt from this book, a gift from my parents-in-law for my birthday a few weeks ago.

how does your garden grow?

our garden grows indoors, currently.

while hubs and i were living and traveling overseas, i definitely wanted a garden, but what can you do when you live in a different country than your backyard?

our building manager recently gave us permission to turn the dirt piles in the backyard of our apartment building into a garden. the next day, i bought a handful of seed varieties and plopped them into cups. as we're a little late in the game ("they" say you should start seeds 4-8 weeks inside before you intend to plant outside. we started about 3 weeks before), i'm getting super anxious for these to sprout!

only our serrano peppers have recently turned from seeds to tiny little green shoots.

and then we have these butternut squash seedlings from a friend who was way more on her game than we were.

i may or may not have impulse bought a tomato plant. this one is an early girl. about 80% of the rest of our garden will be heirloom and we'll have started them from seeds ourselves.

these herbs are the only other things we didn't start from seed ourselves (/ foreword thinking friends). i'm currently debating about whether or not to plant our rosemary and mint outside. mint takes over a garden year after year, and rosemary can sometimes survive a winter outside. we kept ours inside last winter and it grew mildew. what to do?

when i lived in a little house down the street with two friends, we had a massive garden that grew tomatoes, tomatillos and lettuce like they were going out of style. i've wanted a garden since, but it wasn't until i read this book that i got the push i needed to ask permission to garden in our backyard. i'm glad i did- our building manager even used to farm (so i have to call my mom and MIL less often asking stupid gardening questions/ google fewer things) and several people in our building are helping us compost. we're hoping to put at least the herbs and the plants that are already plants (and not seedlings/ seeds waiting to burst forth from soil) in this weekend. more on this later!

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side note: if you garden, or care about organically grown, local food or even just food at all, i highly recommend the book animal vegetable miracle, by barbara kingsolver (link above).

i will pin ALL THE THINGS!

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who doesn't love them some pinterest?

i do.

i also have a whole slew of recipes, sewing tutorials, knitting projects and gardening to-dos stashed away, begging me to dust them off and do something with them.

kay over at chronicled issued a challenge to move from inspiration to creation of one of these little bookmarkies, and a handful of us took her up on her challenge.

check it:
again, kay at chronicled
kristina at le fabuleux destin
pam at cherish toronto
davida at davida chanel
and renee at rb squared

i'm looking forward to seeing what these ladies come up with, and hoping that group accountability will result in not just one, but several things on my pinterest boards manifesting themselves in real things this week!

now i just have to pick something(s).

breathe.

things are quiet in blog-land. i feel as though i should have lots of interesting, exciting and insightful things to say after returning from india, but i don't. not really, at least. other than that we're starting a garden and trying to eat locally and consume less in general, but more on that later.

my mornings lately are filled with reading, coffee, and yoga. and today, some homemade pumpkin challah.

practicing inversions: bound headstand. 

near a wall, so i can kick up- but i don't need the wall to stay up!

hummingbird. terrible form (but how great are the books needing a bookshelf in the background?). not bad for a real first successful attempt though, no? 

another headstand, this one with a backbend. i'm working towards scorpion, but my back doesn't bend that far, and i don't have enough control to not come crashing down backwards. yet. (but i'm not touching the wall, i promise.)

as much as handstands freak me out, headstands don't. i love how i can feel my back and shoulders getting stronger with each practice.

just a little update on the goings on here. 

i made a quilt!

here it is! leila's quilt top is finished. and i am quite happy to report that sewing the pieces together hides the wonkiness of each individual square. not completely, for sure, but enough that i can feel ok sending it to its intended recipient. 

that's all for now. just wanted to share the top! 

i'll take a better photo when the sun isn't setting in blazes of glory (aka turning my quilt goldeney yellow). (no promises as to when.)

year of the quilt: leila's quilt update

things have been a little quiet in these parts lately.

we've been busy job searching (hubs got one! starbucks = lots of free coffee in our future. and health insurance!), moving back in and, i've been working on this:

leila's quilt! my year of the quilt kick-off!

i love it. i love the patterns, the fabric, the colors. i'm continually surprised by how leila's quilt is not as pink as i thought it would be. in my head, it was 85% pink and 15% other things.

not so.

these are my quilt squares all sewn together, ready to be cut up, mixed up and sewn back together.

let the cutting commence! i'm working with 7.75 inch squares. or, what should be 7.75 inch squares. turns out sewing with thin, sneaky fabric means my lines aren't all that straight and my seams don't match up perfectly.

see what i mean? if you look, you'll see there are gaps, even with the squares just lined up next to each other. i'll call this a wonky bento box quilt?  my dear facebook friends have been kind in telling me that the boldness of the fabrics and colors makes the wonkyness look almost intentional. i can't decide if they were serious, or just being nice.

i seriously love these fabrics. i have maybe 8 photos that look almost identical to this one. :)

and i've started sewing! unfortunately for me, i'm both a perfectionist and someone who sucks at math, which means i'm doing a bit of ripping out seams, resewing and then piecing back together. but all in all, for my first quilting project and for sewing on a machine that doesn't have any sort of ruler or measurements (other than a piece of fabric i taped to my needle plate), it's coming along quite well!

for those who are interested, i'm using this tutorial for a quilt that will resemble this one.

i'm hoping to have it done by the time the sweet little recipient of this quilt comes home from india.