a few favorite new things.

since the arrival of summer, i have been looking for inexpensive, pretty things to decorate our porch with and make it more useful. last night we had a few friends over for some kava (a traditional hawai'ian herbal tea) and got to show off our newest finds and our current favorite spot. i hope we get to entertain more before the summer is over (read: invite yourself over to laura's house!)

i love these four seasons tv trays!! i found them at savers for a mere $2 apiece (amy spotted them first, actually). it was so enjoyable to while away the hours with friends. as it grew dark, we decided to test out the new lanterns from ikea. i think they are so sweet! the chairs were a great find, too. i have thoughts about a white, loosely woven curtain. we'll see if they materialize before summer's over and it's too late.

i guess my projects lately have been of the sewing nature. i am currently working on a new sofa cover for the sofa at the studio and here are some little sachets i made to go in with my winter things. i think they are so beautiful that i wanted to share them before i put them into the plastic storage bins under the bed! i made them from upholstery samples i got from the fabric warehouse mel and i go to sometimes (we call it the "mood of minneapolis" and pretend that tim gunn is giving us fifteen minutes to find what we need, but of course we always take way longer than that and find more than we ever need). each sample cost fifty cents and i filled them with cedar chips, lavendar, and cloves, a recipe i found online that is guaranteed to get rid of mothball smells, although i am not old enough to have accumulated any of those, thank you very much.

mel's quilt!!

i can finally post pictures of mel's quilt (since she knows about it now). the wedding was so lovely, but i am glad it is over--partly because now we don't have to worry about slipping up about the surprise!

this is one of my squares! i printed one of my old plates onto the muslin, which i'm pretty excited about.
i especially want to show off the beautiful texture and swirls of the quilting, done by marylin ubel at northern lights quilting studio. she did such a fabulous job and was so great to work with.
this was the first view that most people had of the quilt, when mel opened it. she was so surprised and impressed (as she should have been! everyone did such a wonderful job on their squares!). i wish i could figure out how to post these two side by side. mel is wearing her other favorite gift of the night, her "just murrayed" shirt from ashley.

we wanted to somehow display our work at the reception so the other contributors could see the finished product. there happened to be an entire blank wall at the museum of visual materials and tim figured out how to hang it up. it fit right in with the other "visual materials" already on display. i had a picture to illustrate this, but i have not got the hang of uploading pictures to my posts yet. trust me, it was beautiful.