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  Today, needlepoint is on my sewing list.  I am working on some bag patterns that will include needlepoint panels in their design which has me incredibly giddy.  If you are familiar with how to sew a needlepoint into a pillow front, then sewing one into any other sewn good is not much different.  And even if you're not quite sure, it really works out in the most logical way, keeping your machine sewing seam line right into the last stitched row around the perimeter of the work.  This is easiest when you have the wrong side of the needlepoint facing you as you sew it to a pillow back, bag back, etc.  Just pretend like you're sewing with really thick fabric, which is really all it is... so use a bigger needle, take your time, and all those things.  I also think that velveteen is the perfect pairing with a needlepoint as a pillow back or otherwise.  The weight and textures are perfect together.     So if you needed any suggestions about...

Hi Folks! Anna here. And by Anna, I mean Anna Michelle, not Anna Maria. That's right, today while Anna Maria Horner is in crazy-person-writing-a-book-on-a-deadline mode you get to sit through the ramblings of her intern Anna Michelle Johnson. Some of you may have read our interview from this past summer, and know that I started habitually reading this very blog several years ago - which means that I was completely, totally and absolutely over the moon when I had the opportunity to become an intern. I had a general idea of what a day in the life at designer's studio would look like, and the thought of working alongside someone as known and recognized as Anna Maria was literally a dream come true for me. So naturally I felt every initial fear and insecurity that would expectedly come from a young girl meeting and working with her role model. Luckily for me, those feelings were all completely unnecessary, and quickly overcome. Unlike my expectations, AMH has made it evident from ...

En bonus: Tyler/Game Martians vs. Gobelins OU Tyler/Syd Tha Kyd

If I were to only ever go on about love of family, or admiration for the act of pulling needle and thread through fabric I might misrepresent myself. There are actual things, you know as in they don't speak or hug .... (or do they?)... but things , that make me happy. Anyway, this week feels like a bonus week. Like another MrsPacman appeared on the screen and told me to keep playing (did you know I held the high score at the local roller skating rink in the 6th grade for like 3 weeks? Why do I put such information in question form, as though there is a chance you would know?) Back to my bonus round. Juliana was meant to be boarding her flight back to school right about this very minute. But a few days ago she decided ohhhh, let's just switch it to Thursday. So we did, and that was great, though it cost me a little to switch it (I would spend an embarrassingly dumb amount to have her for an extra hour.) Yesterday when all the other kids were off to their schools and Ju...

Post Disclaimer: All photos reference the THAT of which I am thinking and not the THIS of which I am doing. There are too many THISs to photograph. Doing:: Replacing six 10 1/2 ft structural porch columns on the front of our house :: waiting impatiently to have this installed in the dining room :: and two of these and one of these in the hallway :: attending to the lingering details in Nicolas's room and the girls' room after having renovated both :: considering which day to buy our Christmas tree and therefore decorate the whole house Thinking:: About picking up all the little sunshine crochet squares I started last winter on the couch with Juliana and lots of Whoppers :: Wondering if I need all those things again to be able to do it :: Yes, I do :: I was originally inspired by an amazing blanket that I saw either on etsy or flickr or both.... I think by a talented (Northern?) European woman.... and she had it styled on a modern gray couch.... anyone? I have seen sever...

I typically gauge the success of any time off with how happy I am to be back at work. Our time away was perfect, though we always wish it a bit longer. It must have been just enough, because I am happy to be back. Before I left, I had meant to mention a giveaway of some of my loot over at the Cloth Paper Scissors blog that I think is being announced today, so do hurry over! It helps to celebrate my moved-into-studio being featured as the cover story for their STUDIOS winter issue. So honored. Hope you're glad to be backatit today, xo, AM

I sometimes feel that settling back into the routine of the studio after Quilt Market is as taxing if not more than preparing to leave, because attaining that settled state is a more elusive goal than the concrete preparations we make to get there. Jeff and I had such a smooth go of traveling there, most especially when compared with one year ago . I think that trip will forever make all subsequent market experiences seem like a breeze. Though this time we had a unique little emergency that came on slowly, ramped itself into near panic, and then resolved itself quite gracefully. Huh? Yeah. So. After a the smooth beginning to our setup on Day one, I woke up on Day two with a sort of fuzzy spot in my right eye that grew as the day went on. I kept ignoring it as though there must be something in my contact lens and went on about setting up, giving my first school house talk (thank you if you were there!) until soon after in the late afternoon, the fuzzy spot seemed to be growing at...

Do you know that your beautiful coat inspired my floor color? Nutty, creamy, beautiful, soft. I wuvvssu Weo. Thank you for running faster than me (aka kicking my butt) today. This weekend I will be serving in the appetizer booth at the Greek Festival (she's going to kill me for that link), so come and say hello if you get a chance. The food is so good, and I have a whole gaggle of folk dancing children who will be performing too. One of these days I'll have to share all the costume making I've done for them for years. Which I should be getting back to now.... ps. you can see all of my bare white pre-moved-into studio and read about my inspirations in this quarter's issue of Studios Magazine . They are also going to follow up in the Winter issue with the moved-into studio feature. It was clean for like 2 hours. We took pictures. It hasn't been picked up again since. I am just glad there is printed evidence in their forthcoming issue. sunny, cool days to yo...

Here is where I explain some stuff. A Janome sewing machine has been on my sewing table for more than 13 years. I don't mean one or another Janome sewing machine, I mean the same one. Until recently. I was approached by the company almost a year ago about the prospect of working together, and was immediately excited and encouraged that selling me on their machines would be no work at all. I was already in love. But they almost laughed when I told them I was still sewing on a Memory Craft 5700. Regardless of having the opportunity to sew with many machines (they just sort of show up here) nothing could ever make me stop sewing on that machine. Honest to goodness. I would always go back to it, ignoring whatever gadgets were suppose to be the latest and greatest. And I think that does say something, it says that my machine has filled a need for me that I didn't need to or want to replace.... it never gave me a reason to look around for anything else, so we have a his...

Roman challenge: occupying oneself while most siblings are off to school. Mom challenge: see above. Roman challenge: balancing a yardstick in the dump bed of a toy truck. Mom challenge: resisting talking about things like physics with a 2 year old. Roman challenge: wearing pants. Mom challenge: finding pants. Roman's pants that is. I found mine. Roman challenge: finding the nesting cube that fits head the best. Mom challenge: deciding which family member to send the picture to first (subject line of "blockhead", natch). Roman challenge: deciding on exact Anna Maria sticker placement for maximum awesomeness. Mom challenge: trying not to sing at the top of my lungs with Dolly to " I will always love you ". (Singing, in general, is a challenge for me.) over and out, anna & roman (And from the looks of the photo I would have to add that vacuuming is a challenge.)

Thank you so much for all the kind birthday wishes, and also for the bit of commiserating regarding age and the disbelief of such. But I gotta say, looking back over so much in my life, its a wonder I'm not 79. My age shock doesn't lie in wishing it were different, its just that I am amazed how life goes by, its so surreal and almost intangible.... no other words. I wouldn't trade places with any twenty year old, though, that I can say for sure. But speaking of, I am so glad you enjoyed my chat with Anna. She was blushing through the whole thing, it was kind of fun to torture the intern (that's the whole point right?). Well I've corralled Crista, my other intern, to answer some of the same and some different questions. This is sweet Crista above wearing my new almost printed pattern, the Painted Portrait Blouse & Dress- wuuhhhl obviously she's just wearing the blouse version not the dress too. I like explaining obvious things like that, b...

The above are recent portraits that Eleni and Isabela did of me and for me. I am entirely flattered by both. I turned 39 on Sunday. I did not turn 40. But still. I haven't blinked since then. I am stunned at how life goes by. I should still be about 12, in my book. I am in no state to write today about me or anything related to me, really. I am befuddled. Flabbergasted. Confused. Floored. Not only that, I'm even 39. Please someone older than 63 tell me shut up and enjoy it. Lets concentrate on someone else. Today I am interviewing one of my humble interns, Anna Johnson. That's her above slaving away. She is cute and spunky and smart and wonderful to be around. She pronounces her name like most Annas and not like me (Aw-na) so I thought that would avoid confusion. Or I thought we could call her by her first two initials but her name is Anna Michelle so that doesn't work. Sometimes I just call her Bob. I have a real way with people. I asked her st...

My friend Kathy was kind enough to ask me to share a look at my sewing space, so you can see that over here today , as well as lots of other very inspiring sewing spaces for the rest of the month! Anyway, it goes without say, that I have been chomping at the bit to get this place in order enough to share some looks at what the new attic studio has been turning into. I am a firm believer in slow realization for any kind of living space. In other words I think the best spaces are those that get decorated, adorned, furnished, over time after use and function come to light. You can certainly fill a space in a matter of days, but really making it come together in the best possible way for me takes time and doing it wrong a few times, shifting, etc. The only problem with this method being that it makes me and my room a bit camera shy until it gets where I want to be....wherever, or whenever that is. But you know. Every space in my house is a work in progress. So with this new space ...

Patchwork and these two got together extremely well. Amen. I'll be back soon with a new quilt pattern for you to dance to. xoAM

Here's today's bullets, look out: :: I am so thrilled, honored, humbled, excited (and all those other things that make me sound nice and modest) to be over visiting with Amanda for her soulful mothering series today. I wrote about my messy kids. Ha, no not really. Well, sort of. :: I have a new blog banner, get outta your reader and get over here to see it, you. :: And a new front page. :: I updated my FAQ page :: I updated my about page to include the facts that I have actually written two books, not one, and have 6 children not 5. Hasty, you say? I think it was time. :: I created a new slide show of my Quilt Market booth :: I (finally) have slide shows for Innocent Crush and Loulouthi up on the fabrics page . :: I now have a Loulouthi flickr group waiting for your projects. :: There's a Little Folks and Folksy Flannels sale going on in the shop now (yay!) :: I have a Sample Room ! I do, I do, I do! At least while it lasts. :: I love tabouli. :: The kids capt...

We had a beautiful Easter weekend, lots of joy, lots of meat, lots of red eggs, morning church, afternoon church and midnight church. As Orthodox we celebrate every last detail of the Resurrection. Exhausting, but gorgeous and fulfilling. And then the fast breaking. I think I have officially eaten almost every form of animal that roams the earth and am now ready to start fasting again. I might have eaten 10 pieces of bacon yesterday. I found a small piece of bacon in Roman's crib this morning. What does that mean? I guess it means Lent is over. Anyway. I am wiped out with so many quilt market preparations, and you know how I hate/love all this stuff. It consumes me for a few weeks (actually more) but is also sorta like the biggest craft project ever, so there is definitely fun in that. Right now I am in the midst of painting a 5 x 8 wall with giant roses, and butterflies which is really just an exploded version of one of my Loulouthi prints . I know that you can get ext...

:: These new voiles and beautiful ribbon will-be dresses for my girls. By tomorrow night, naturally. :: And in a daring act of selfishness, this half-muslin-draped, half-sewn number of new voile & cotton will-be a dress pour moi . :: This corner of the white room will-likely-always-be just what it happens to be already. Comfy, sunny and a little scattered. Though once everyone is to bed tonight, those colorful pieces will-be put back together into something sweet for celebration. I hope your weekend will-be beautiful and new!! lots of love! xo, Anna

Because I felt like I wouldn't see it like this again until I'm 85, I thought it would be good to take photos of the white room completely finished but completely empty. Jeff insists we call it the white room. It is both obvious and descriptive and its what I called it when I was trying to figure out what to call it, but somehow still wasn't obvious to me. I'm like that. Above is the view as you come up the steps and turn to the right. This is the mid progress view of the same. On the left there are fabric shelves, broken in the middle with a nook that has a closet rod for hanging pattern samples and such. Just beyond the fabric shelves you can turn to the left to see..... ...this. My nook. This is the dormer part of the renovation that builds out over towards the backyard. I love this spot so very much. It almost didn't happen. Roof angles came in every which way here, and it wasn't clear for a while just exactly how to use the space. I literally ...

I will be shaking my tail feathers today to begin the move in. This is the very fanciest little thing up in the attic/loft/cloud/studio/atelier/moneypit/place. It hangs above my drawing/office nook where we were actually able to have standard height 8' ceiling in one spot. Its built by a local guy (who has no website or I would give it to you) from vintage lamp parts, and the amber glass is from the 20's. I love it so much and I think I asked my guys about 1,789,375 times when it would be time to put the lights in even though I knew not until after painting. I'm gonna give you some clean slate shots next, week, then share some moving in views too I hope. Lots more details to come, promise. have a great weekend! Anna ps. Eleni told me as we were painting the floor last night that at school that the cafeteria lady quickly offered her "soup or beans" but she said it so fast that Eleni followed with surprise "we have superbeans?!" I know, right? She sa...

It is getting pretty exciting up there in the attic/studio. Still don't know what to call this room. We already have a room called "studio" and saying something like "upper studio" sounds, uhh, kinda lame. Any ideas? I have a feeling we might just call it "upstairs" since this is really the only room we have that is up . I have never paid anyone to paint for me in my whole entire life. But my builders have this groovy airless sprayer and they can cover the whole room in about 90min. There are so many, many nooks and crannies and shelves and drawers and trims and such that it would really take me an entire day to give the room one coat. So I decided to give in this time. The color is called "Glass of Milk" and its one of Martha's colors for Home Depot. Have you guys used her cute little color swatch cards? They are a nice large swatch, and a narrow strip of the top and bottom both fold over the main color to reveal a color sugges...