Cosmo Cricket

Three Random Things: Halloween, Quilt Market, Winner

Happy Halloween everyone. I got in late last night and so my kids had to kind of make-do this morning. We are simple this year!

Abby wanted to be a rockstar. Tonight she'll be sporting a purple wig, but it was too itchy for an entire day of school. Her rockstar name is Ani Deville. You can find yours on this handy internet rockstar name generator.... I swear the interenet has EVEYRTHING!!!

Next we have Jackula who will attackula if you don't give him a sweet snackula.


So, how was quilt market? Well, it was super fun. I am in awe and quite a bit intimidated by all the talent at that show! But everyone was super nice and I got to see all the Moda sales team dressed up in Halloween costumes. I am saving the video footage I got for future blackmail needs! But, Joanna Figueroa took some great pics that she promised to email me, so maybe we can upload those in the coming days.

For those of you not on facebook, here is a really blurry phone-photo of our Salt Air quilts (sorry I didn't get a better one). My sister Emily, of Aunt Ems Quilts, made these. She's fantastic and will be making patterns for you all! She's got some great pics on her blog of the construction.

And last but not least, I think I promised a winner! Congratulations go to Julie M. who said, "I love that layout - and the hexagon template is the coolest thing - I want/need/have to get one of those!!!"

Julie send your address info to julie at cosmocricket dot com with Clementine Winner in the subject line. Thanks a million!

Have a great Halloween!

Laughing More and a Hexagon Tutorial

Yesterday Lindsay told me I need to laugh more. He said he misses my uncontrollable laugh... the one that makes my eyes water and my smile hurt.

What he doesn't know is that I do laugh like that. All the time. It's just at him and I don't want him to hear! Just kidding. He is right. He hasn't heard my laugh as much as usual.

I am kind of caught in this funny little place right now. I am worried about lots of things like my kids and stuff. At 37 years old, I feel like I am still, in some ways, finding myself and parts of that self I'm not really ready to share with the world. So dramatic, so cryptic, so not me!!!

But I do still laugh... just at things maybe other's think I shouldn't be laughing at. This graph really explains it well.

Those of you who know me very personally, will appreciate this more than the rest of you. The rest of you will just have to take it at face value. I'm sorry. I hate those darn inside jokes too, but at least this one is funny on the outside as well!

Here's another bit of funny that had me rolling.


And one last one for you that sums up Ethan's ordeal!


So there LINDSAY MOORE!!!

OK, onto hexagons. Let me tell you they are way easier to deal with in paper than fabric! And super fun to use in projects. To cut them you will want to get this handy little quilter's template.

Cut your paper in a strip the width is says, for the size hexagon you want.

Then trim the end and flip the strip around 180 degrees.

Now cut the next end. You will have one hexagon. Take the template and position it for the next cut.

Cut shapes like this until you run out of length. These are fun to play with too and make cute banners!

To finish off the hexagons, you will just take this shape and trim the other end with the template.

Layer them up, use them as a background, embellishment, whatever. I love them!!!

Leave us a comment today and we'll enter you into a contest to win some Clementine.... it's the paper featured above. Good luck, lots of laughing and happy hexagons today!!!

Tags In Advance and My Crazy Life

Hi Everyone,

Sorry for not posting yesterday. My life has had a lot of those unexpected things come up that make you appreciate all your boring days!

Ethan, the boy that is rarely seen here on the blog, threw us for quite a loop. It all started the other day with a headache, high fever and stiff neck. Anyone know what those are the symptoms of? Well, let me tell you it's enough to get even the doctors nervous! But, his spinal fluid culture did not grow any bacterial meningitis! YEAH for Ethan!!! We still have a few concerns, but right now we are all feeling a lot of relief!

At the moment, he is following doctor's orders: relaxing with the day off from school, rest (which means video games to teenagers) and large amounts of caffeinated beverages. Yep, you read that right... caffeine! Sounds like a teenagers dream come true doesn't it?

Anyway, I had planned to show you a layout using a fun technique, but it is sitting half completed in my newly cleaned craft room. So, let me show you a fun and perfect way to store tags instead.

I love making tags. They are fun for gifts, layouts, cards.... you name it. My tag method of choice at the moment is a simple background, a Gluber flower and a phrase sticker or two from our Tiny Text stickers. I can make dozens in minutes with that simple recipe! And, they fit perfectly and quite cutely in an antique sewing drawer. Here they are, just waiting to be used.

Organizing Creative Spaces

For the last two days, my facebook status has read: Plan for the day: Step away from the computer. Quit procrastinating. Organize my space.

You see, I have been using my office desk as a double for my craft desk. I've always felt cramped and frustrated. The really ironic thing about this is that I have an entire other room that has been completely empty for two years. When we first moved in, we had an air hockey table in it that our kids never used. After dusting and vacumming around it for the millionth time, with no good reason to even own it, we donated it to good will. Then the room sat empty. Until now!!!

You know when you see really beautifully cleaned craft rooms and you think to yourself, yeah, but where is all the stuff?! Well, the really great thing is that I have a large walk in storage room nearby that is housing all the unpretties, so the room can look uncluttered. I love it!

While on my dejunking rant, I have taken three car loads of cast-offs to our local thrift store. Another space I conquered is this weird little room we had at the foot of our stairs. Orginally there was an old dresser here filled with fabric and quilts. Now it looks like this.

I was tired of my dining room table being covered in art and homework projects. This room has a little closet to the side of it where I put all their school supplies along with a shelf for each one to keep all their masterpieces and paperwork.

So, I'm feeling pretty, darn awesome at the moment.... with the best intentions of maintaining it all. We'll see how it goes!

And, we need to announce a winner! Congratulations Deb Routledge. Send your info to julie at cosmocricket dot com and I'll make sure you get the Dear Mr. Claus goodies!

Have a happy Monday everyone!

Fried Mac & Cheese

Lindsay has been telling me that the way to eat one of my all time favorite foods... Mac and Cheese... is to fry it up like pancakes. He came over last night with a bowl of leftover Mac and Cheese for us to try this morning.

Well, I don't know what we did wrong. I heated the griddle, sprayed it with Pam but as you all know, cold mac and cheese doesn't really pour like batter. I had these big balls of the sticky stuff on my griddle. We tried to spread it out. It stuck to our spatela. We tried cutting, kind of like you would with meatloaf. It just fell apart as it got hot. We ended up with something more like mac and cheese hashbrowns than mac and cheese pancakes.

Well, I guess it doesn't matter what it looks like. How did it taste? I put some on a plate with apple slices and a slice of banana bread and served it to my kids.... except for Ethan who is still dead to the world. (no school today)

From the above photo you would think it was a hit. Kate has eaten it all gone and just has her bread left. But, what you must know about Kate is that she eats everything, even spaghetti which she absolutely hates. She worries she will hurt my feelings if she doesn't eat what I cook. In fact, whatever she eats first is most likely to be what she likes least. She likes to get the yucky stuff out of the way and then enjoy the parts she does like.

Here's Jack's plate. Notice no apples and he's holding his mostly eaten bread. Hmmmm. Is he just not finished yet?

Abby tried to eat hers. When I asked her if she liked it, she tried to be diplomatic. She's just not as good at it as Kate.

So, Lindsay, did we do something wrong or did we just need you there to sell us on it?

And, speaking of Lindsay we haven't had a giveaway for a while. How about one today! We'll announce the random winner on Monday. Leave us a comment... anything you like... and we'll enter you into a contest to win some Dear Mr Claus goodies.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Simple Collages using Masks

Before we get to our collage, I have to tell you a quick story about my kids. If you don't like to hear stories about other people's kids, then please skip down a bit!

Since it's October and since my older kids are getting a bit older, we decided to do a scary movie each weekend. This all started when Kate told me everyone except herself had seen Jaws. Now, I saw Jaws when I was around nine years old and had nightmares for a month! So, I have sheltered my kids from the horror... maybe to their detriment.

To see if she really thought she could handle the move, I let her watch the trailer on youtube first. She thought I was ridiculous for thinking it was scary. According to her, you could totally tell the shark wasn't real and the music wasn't even scary. But, she still wanted to see it and so last weekend Ethan, Kate and myself sat down to watch it together.

You know the first scene, right? Well, Kate's reaction went something like this, "I can't believe they would kill someone this early in the movie. That's horrible. The movie is barely starting."

Remember the scene with the kid in the red shorts, the scary music, the legs under the water. She was totally freaking! It was hilarious! It seems that the music was scary afterall!

And, when the scientist guy goes down in the cage Kate exclaimed, "I don't think that's a machine shark, that is a REAL shark."

This weekend we are watching Wait Until Dark with Audrey Hepburn.... with the lights out of course! I am debating showing them Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1970's verison) because I think that one may be a tad bit too scary, although Kate has told me it doesn't sound scary at all. If you have any for us to consider, we'd love recommendations!

OK, onto the collage. I got a swinging deal on some wooden plaques and decided to give this technique a whirl. This was my first attempt. I have made two others and although they are much cooler, they got stuck in customs in Holland and have never been seen again! So, this one will have to suffice.

I'm going to tell you just what I did and then you can experiment and make even neater things!

Cover your plague in cut up paper bits. This is a great project for using up your scraps. I like to use acrylic medium for the glue and to coat over the paper. You really do need to seal your paper with something before painting on it for best effects.

After the plaque is covered, cut a piece of adhesive vinyl to cover it with. Stick this down over the whole plaque. Now cut away any areas you want to paint. I did one where I cut out the areas around Abby's name. Keep in mind the areas you cut away will end up being painted and the areas that are left covered will end up being your collaged paper. It's the opposite of what you think. If you have a Cricut or some other kind of cutter, you can use it to cut your vinyl into letters, shapes, etc. I prefer to just freehand it though.

Paint the areas you have exposed. I have painted solid black here, but you could paint anything, obviously!

Now carefully remove the remaining vinyl. Ta-dah!!!! The paper now shows everywhere you didn't paint. You can even go back over the paint and add more collage on top, or repeat the entire process. It's super fun and they make great gifts! I hope to be doing more of these, and if I do, you will be the first to know!!

Mermaid Doll: Proof of Perseverance!

I was 19 when I got married and so all my girlfriends were busy living their single lives. Combine this with the fact that Eric worked nights and I worked mornings and you had one lonely and depressed Julie Comstock!

For my 20th birthday, my mom bought me a Bernina 730 at a tag sale for $20. Although my mom sews like a pro, I had never had much interest equating it with dowdy, old women that had nothing more important to do. Well, that sewing machine became my best friend (and maybe I became that dowdy old lady!).

My first project was to make throw pillows for our apartment. I went to the local thrift store and bought some really ugly pink and green fabric that I tried to convince myself would be beautiful after I got done with it. Then I dropped by the fabric store and bought some batting... at this point in my crafting career, I didn't know the difference between batting and stuffing. I would learn the difference later that day when my pillows turned out really lumpy after being stuffed with the batting I had pulled apart into bits!

When Eric got home, he made me promise never to sew anything for him because he didn't want to hurt my feelings if he didn't like it.

18 years later, I can draft my own patterns and sew most things... except beautiful button holes! It has been a long work in progress that is best summed up by Albert Einstein who said, "It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer."

For every successful project, there have been dozens of throw aways. For every perfect seam, there were hundreds of un-picked stitches. I am not a natural!!! But I am Perseverant! And, maybe because it hasn't been easy, I really appreciate everytime something turns out well.

So, here's to not giving up. If I had, this little mermaid doll would never have been born!

Holiday Craft: Gluber Holly & Berry Garland

For those of you that aren't quite up to sewing a beach bag, here is a simple fabric project. You can use these fun Holly and Berries on cards, tags, layouts or like I did.... to make a little home-spun garland.

I used some green linen fabric, cut in rectangles.

Pair this with a one inch Gluber.


Fold the squares in half diagonally. Then pleat them around the glue like in the photos.

Just keep pleating, just keep pleating.

I use a dab of hot glue to secure the berry-button in the center.

I made twice as many and stuck them back to back with the twine in between. In the past, I have used them on cards and tags like the one below (it's the same, just with fancier materials for a fancier look).


This is a super-quick and simple project. I don't know what I'm going to do with it yet, so if you have any ideas, let me know!

Beach Bag Tutorial: Not for the Faint of Heart

It's been a long time since I really focused a lot of attention on sewing. But, after coming across some old Halloween costumes I had made years ago, I was feeling a bit of confidence. So I decided to tackle an idea I had for a beach bag using the new Salt Air fabric.



First I'll tell you what I did and then I'll tell you what I would do differently. If you are brave, you can make one of these yourself! Please keep in mind, I am crazy and just make it up as I go. Here's the honest truth of what I did. I'm sure that those of you who really know what you're doing will get a kick out of my "techniques."

Here's what I used:

Body of bag: 36" x 17" rectangle
Top border: 36" x 3" rectangle
Backing: 36" x 19.5" rectangle
Pockets: (2) 40" x 5" rectangles
Base: (2) 12" circle
Batting: 36" x 19.5" rectangle and 12" circle
Binding: Approximately 36" of bias tape

Here's how I cut my pockets. I overhung the edges of the strip by 1/4" for seam allowance. Then I folded the strips onto themselves until they were about 5" wide. Then I found a spool of ribbon that was a good size. I often use plates, tin lids, etc.

Trace the edge onto the fabric and then use really sharp scissors to cut through all the layers.

After everything is cut, sew the border strip to the body of the bag. If you are using a fabric that is directional, make sure it is going the right way! The first time I sewed mine, all the star fish were upside down.

Second, lay out the backing, then batting, then body. Pin together. Quilt as desired. I used a walking foot and stitched along the stripe edges.

Then you will need to sew your scalloped strips across the top with the right sides together. After this is sewn, you will want to trim and notch the curves to make them lay right.

Turn this right side out and press.

Next you will have to pin this to the body of the bag. I did this by pinning both ends, then the center and just kept going until it was spaced as even as humanly possible without having professional pattern markings.

Then I sewed from the bottom raw edge, up to the peak of each wave.

After that was done, I pinned each pocket along the raw edge in the center, with approximately equal amounts of extra fabric on either side of the center. I took the extra fabric and made a little pleat on each side of the stitching I had just sewn.

I basted this in place.

After that, you can sew the body of the bag into a cylindar by bringing the short ends together with the right sides facing. I zig-zagged over the raw edges to finish them off. Normally I would use my serger, but it wasn't threaded at the moment!

The trickiest part is putting in the bottom. Layer the base fabric, batting, fabric and pin together. Now pin this into the body of the bag so the raw edges will be on the outside of the bag after it's sewn in place. Baste it all together.

I made my bias tape out of the same fabric I used for the body of the bag. Bind the raw edges with the bias tape. I did this by stitching the tape onto one side, opening it up so that the raw edge of the bag and the raw edge of the tape were even. Then I pulled the tape around to the other side and hand stitching it in place leaving this edge folded so that the raw edge was on the inside. (I hope that makes sense!)

To finish off the bag, I just rolled a narrow hem on the top edge and stitched in place.

For the grommets, I went to the hardware store and bought a heavy duty grommet setter. I have found that the ones at the fabric store do not work for me. Follow the directions on the setter you use. Then just thread your rope through the grommets.

That's what I did, but if I were to make one with my new experience in mind, here's what I would do the second time around.

1. Make the bag an inch or two shorter. My bag was too long. I had planned to bind the top edge, but to make the dimensions better, I took a hem to shorten it up a bit.
2. Make the pockets 2 inches taller and add a couple inches in length to make them pouf out a bit more.
3. When placing the grommets, consider that you want an even number to make threading the cord work best. I wasn't thinking and just placed them evenly apart. I will be adding additional grommets in between each of the ones I placed to make the bag cinch in a more attractive way.

That's what sewing with me is like. If you are up for the challenge, enjoy. If you aren't.... I totally understand!

Sorry for the Delay. Here are the Winners.

So, yesterday I was greeted with ear infections, flu shots and complete craziness!

I apologize for the delay in announcing the winners. Here they are!

Katie M who said, "Love the coral!! I would most likely making a knitting case to hold all my needles. I would probably mix the yellow and the coral :)"

Candy who said, "Oh, the Deep blue! I've been dying to make my son a quilt and just struggle finding the right fabric. This is so perfect!!! And I loved these papers from the day the paper line came out. Thank you so much!!"

Emilie Keaton who said, "Gosh, these are beautiful!! Tough choice. But I'd have to say SAND, if pushed. What would I make? These would be perfect in a quilt I am planning!!"

Tammi Daubenspeck who said, "Absolutely scrumptious fabric! I love them all, but if I had to choose - Sea Foam, because I like all shades of aqua. I would make myself a quilt, so far I have given them all away."

Ok, you lucky four.... send your info to julie @ cosmocricket dot com and I'll send you the goods. I spent the afternoon cutting and prepping it all for you. I do have one confession to make though. I don't have the solids that I showed. When I got the fabric, I was so excited to share that I didn't even go through the whole box before making the post. I just posted the images Moda had sent me weeks ago. So, if you don't mind, I have created slightly different sets than what I showed. You will still each be receiving 9 fat quarters. If you do mind, I'll bet we can find another winner! ;)

Have a great Friday everyone. What are your plans???? Mine are to sew, sew, sew!