Incoming: Handmade postcards

Four out of the five of these I anticipate have arrived, and they're all so great I can't wait for the fifth to show them off.

First, a lovely and heart-felt collage:

"I started with a cereal box and went from there," says the back:

This one is entirely hand-drawn, painted, stamped and stitched, and I got it just days after its creator wrote me to say it would be late because her mother had just died:


This one I'm pretty sure had another word after "in a whole ..." which fell off in the mail, but I love it this way: See the world in a whole.

Incoming: Handmade pincushion

This thing is amazing, and so incredibly well-crafted. I can't believe someone made it for me, who she doesn't know from anyone. I am so, so happy to have it. Usually I just drop all the extra little strings on the floor while I'm sewing, intending to sweep them up later. I have little threads on me like other people have pet hair. But this invention keeps a pincushion right where I need it while the cushion's weight (and non-slip foam rubber bottom) keeps a thread catcher dangling next to my knee. I put it to work immediately.

January 25: Fabric postcard

Yes, I know, it's February 5 and I'm still writing about January. I got all my swaps out on time, I just wasn't writing about them in real time. I sorta wish I had, but I didn't, and now even if it takes me another month I'm going to get everything documented here. For the record, and so I don't feel like an ass. Or a half-ass. Plus, I made some things I like that aren't on here yet, and even if no one ever sees them I'd like to at least present an opportunity.

I didn't actually mail this postcard naked; I put it in an envelope. I'm not too good at the free-hand machine quilting, as you can see. But the seaweed was fun.

January 24: Six photos

I cheated at this swap by accident - I was supposed to send photos of places, not people, and hadn't read the swap description closely enough to see the "no people" rule. Two photos of people snuck in, but I've already heard back from all three partners I sent these to (they all got the same six photos) with no complaints. These are some of my favorites from travels over the last several years.


The first two photos are of farmers and their kids in Chiapas, Mexico, taken when I went to visit Fair Trade coffee farms there and in Guatemala. The farmers are members of the Maya Vinic cooperative, which sells its coffee directly to roasters, often members of a buying cooperative themselves, thereby skipping several aggregators and manufacturers who buy low and sell high at the laborers' expense (sometimes at such an expense that farmers sell for less than it cost to harvest, and they lose their land). Taking the photos on a digital camera and showing the subjects their images on the LCD screen was an eye-opener. We'd already established that the farmers earn about $300 per year from coffee, and that's with a Fair Trade price. When one of them asked me how much the camera cost, I thought "more than you earn in an entire year," and said I didn't know, it was a gift. I'm not sure he believed me. The kids loved it though; even the kid on the right smiled a little bit.

It's funny what you can find on the internet: While looking for a good link to Maya Vinic, I found this photo of our wonderful group on that trip. I'm third from the right, in front of the magnificent Bill Harris, founder of Cooperative Coffees.

The rest of these are from Europe. An electric votive stand at a church in not-terribly-religious Holland - drop in a euro and a candle would light up:


A happy bird and an unhappy moth just outside of Edam:


A mama duck feeding her only baby from a plastic bag that blew into the port at Hoorn:


And sheep racing to the Daubensse in the Swiss Oberland Alps, during the annual meeting of Walliser and Berner shepherds on the pass between the two cantons:


Wow, do I miss Europe right now. And Mexico. And just about any place that isn't Philadelphia, love it though I do. I've been in one place too long.

Incoming: No-spend swap

My partner for the no-spend swap, in which we were supposed to go around the house and stuff an envelope full of whatever we thought the recipient might like (see what I sent here), wrote in the accompanying note that she hopes I don't mind if everything in the envelope is handmade. I think it's brilliant. Owly earrings, decorative envelopes and a cool notecard complete the package.

January 23: Kitchen towel

I knew there'd be days when I couldn't find the time to make something, so I gave myself some freebies, like this kitchen towel swap. I found a whole bunch of vintage linen tea towels at the Hartville flea market last time I was visiting my parents, and since they're too awesome to use and hence still in a drawer, I thought I may as well mail one to somebody. Another freebie I gave myself is not bothering to make the photo special. I hear tea towels are really, really hard to catch in an interesting photograph, so I didn't even try. I did take a detail shot of a rooster in a soup tureen sweat bath though:

January 22: Year of the ox ATCs, hither & thither

Have I told you how excited I am about 2009? Officially it's now February 1, which means I'm way behind on posting about fun-a-day (but not behind in the actual project). But it also means I have a whole month of evidence to evaluate whether my faith in 2009 is justified. And the answer so far is yes! (I had a week there where I felt I was losing my grip, and then I figured out that in the grip lies the problem - I don't need a grip, I need to open up and let things happen.)

One of the reasons 2009 is my year is that, by the Chinese zodiac, I'm an Ox. A water ox even, so I'm really in my element. I love the ox attributes (truncated though the are on wikipedia); they are things I either am to the core or aspire to. This being the year of the ox, it seems like the aspirations should be within close reach, and I have the energy to work for them.

Naturally, I joined the Chinese New Year ATC swap! I'm still not keen on ATCs by themselves, but they give me a good excuse to collage, which I am keen on. Partners were supposed to make two ATCs for this swap; one for the ox and one for whatever sign the maker is. I didn't want to send my partner two oxen, so I chose to make a Rat. The year of the Rat will be when the Rats fight back. I think I got the beret wrong (it looked better in the sketches), but the idea is there.


Here are the ones I received (nifty 3D effect of the main elements only slightly detectable in the photos), with a genuine Year of the Ox card I like as much as the ATCs: