It's finished! Amy and I worked together and separately on this quilt...Cranes with an Asian influence. The pattern was designed by Amy and will be available soon for purchase. This is the second original design we'll be offering from Here2There. I can tell you that it was easy to piece and fun to watch it come together. This one measures in at 42-1/2" x 51".
I know that I'm not as green as I could be. But there's been a subtle and dramatic transformation in my awareness of "green" -- and more eco-savvy and responsible -- living in the past year. I've made small changes here and there, and I know there are more steps I could take.
No longer needing the cardboard sleeve for each and every coffee-shop coffee I buy may sound like a really small thing. But it has become an important thing for me. My barristas know that I almost always have my own coffee sleeve with me so that they can "save the cardboard."
We started making coffee sleeves last November. We spent a lot of time prototyping sizes and angles and templates to get a good fit on many major coffee chain cups. And since then, we've been selling our sleeves at the Camano Island Coffee Roaster in Washington.
The night we made the very first ones, they weren't perfect. The edges didn't totally match up. They were a bit shorter than we decided they should ultimately be. But... they were awesome. We were so excited, but we needed to see them in action.
My local Starbucks is, honestly, just down the (very steep) hill and around the corner. Unfortunately, however, it's only open until 7:30. We had just enough time to run out, buy three coffees, and give the new sleeves a try. It was an exciting moment in our collaboration - and a moment of us putting our vision for piecing and color together with something immediately useful and functional... and green.
The one problem with quilted coffee sleeves is that you have to be careful not to toss them out when you toss the cup into the recycling bin. It happens... and when it happened to mine, when someone accidentally tossed mine out and didn't realize it until much later, it was a sad moment. It had been my first one, my slightly imperfect but cherished prototype, the one with the perfect piece of dotted selvage in it. Such things happen, of course...
Now, Opal and I both have new ones (shown above).
For the holidays, I made and gave a number of coffee sleeves, even one very special one with a print of Matthew's Pokemon drawings. I have one I've been meaning to make with the logo of a company I work for embedded in the patchwork piecing. The ideas... are endless.
If you're looking for a simple way to go greener, consider a Here2There coffee sleeve. We don't have them at Etsy right now, but if you're interested, email us at here2thereart AT gmail.com, and I'll give you the info. It's a minimal investment. It makes a great gift for yourself, for a coworker's birthday, or for Mom for Mother's Day (with a sweet Starbucks gift card - the current design is even bird-themed).
I sent off a box of things for Opal to work on yesterday. In it was this project, a tessellation project. In truth, this may be the first thing we've ever made together from a pattern (that wasn't our own), but I saw the project on which this is based and loved it. So, we sort of spontaneously decided to try it. I thought we'd work on it as a filler over time, but instead we cut all the pieces during a recent collaboration visit. When Opal returned home, this was on my design wall, and in my free moments over many days I worked on seaming the 2 1/2" squares. It's beautiful. I can't wait to see it with borders added.
Amy and Opal both have fiber-art pieces this week in response to the latest Creative Therapy catalyst: Favorite Word. Take a look!
(For more info on Amy's piece, see her blog.)
We have a table at the Pleasant Ridge Gallery At Rexville. We have our totes, placemats, quilted wall hangings, pillows, original hand made cards, and Amy's pen pouches for sale. The venue is a grange building, the largest one in the state of Washington. Maybe you don't know what a grange is, like me just a few years ago. A grange is a community center for those living in rural areas. If you live in the area, drop in and see our work in person. But hurry, the show ends this Sunday, the 19th of April.
This is a peek at our Crane quilt which I just finished quilting late last night. Amy designed the blocks. We worked a bit together getting it started, and then each worked separately to finish the blocks. It needs a binding, the final step in the process, and the one I love almost as much as quilting. I'll post a photo when it is finished.
A funeral brought Opal into the Bay Area, and we were able to work together for a few days really unexpectedly. Opal always buys flowers to grace the space while she's in town, and this time, they ended up separated... the orange in one room, the pink in the other. But beautiful. All good collaborations, I'm sure, have such traditions as their underpinnings.
Taking a look at totes and placemats from the last several months.
At the opening of the Tulip Festival in Rexville, WA last week, two sets of placemats were the first Here2There things to sell. We have a series of placemats made by Opal. I'm quickly becoming a believer in them. They're so cool!
These are my ATCs for the CMP ATC Exchange for March 2009. The theme last month was "Luck." These are very different for me and yet very true to my aesthetic. They are, at the core, very much about luck, life-luck, in fact. (Typically I make four ATCs, often creating a series in which they all work together but are each different. This month, since they were all the same design, I only made three, two that I sent off, and one to hold in my personal collection.)
Opal and I actually met because of the Creative Mom Podcast and the ATC exchange, in particular.
She wrote in to ask if it was okay if the cards were created from fabric. Who knew that two years later we'd be fast friends, business partners, and collaborators on projects that range from writing projects to quilt design to fabric art.
When I started doing ATCs and the ATC exchange, I wasn't working with fabric as a medium for my monthly 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 inch cards. Gradually, I am turning to fabric more and more often for my ATCs and for my work with Creative Therapy.
Opal's ATCs, on the other hand, are almost always fabric-based. It's an amazing body of work she's amassed in those two years.
Amy and Opal are two artists living in different states on the west coast who have teamed up to create fiber art together. Their journey and process is captured here.
