Trogdoooooor! (A little baby dragon quilt)!

Greetings from Missouri, where I am right now for family Christmas shindigs!
The super exciting thing I want to talk about has absolutely nothing to do with Christmas, however. My sister Miriam's having a baby! In February! Her baby shower was yesterday, so to get ready for it I got to crafting as soon as I got home from school last week (I survived finals- can you even believe it?!)

When my sister Sophie had her baby Felix my mom and I made a quilt for him and that was my first semi-major batik project. It was all adorable and sailory, so I batiked an anchor center piece. This time around I made the quilt by myself and dyed all of the fabric on the front, and I'm really pleased with it! Miriam and Danny decided to go with a dragon theme for their nursery, which I think is awesome.

The batik pieces are all left overs from other projects in my etsy shop and the kind of mottle-y pieces were dyed using the method described in this tutorial. It's really nice because it's a fun way to dye fabric without having to go outside, which I certainly appreciate given all the snow. The back is some fun cotton I found at Hancock Fabrics and the center piece is a dragon my dad helped me design (hence the Celtic knot work stuff).

Now that I'm home for all of January, I have all sorts of crafty ideas to keep myself busy, so stay tuned!

Oh, and here's TROOOOOGDOOOOOOOOOOOOR, in case the title got you all excited. 

What I actually want to do for my whole life

I ended up being the poster person for the student theatre group I'm in at Mac... these are the posters I made for our two festivals. Needless to say, I'm super proud of my artistic skills. I'll be expecting the emails to do graphic design work any day now.

(The last one is my favorite).

365 Days of Gratitude- The Conclusion

So, last year on Thanksgiving I started doing this thing called "365 Days of Gratitude" on my tumblr.
...I never finished. I even stopped regularly using tumblr.
But that's only because my life has been so full that I haven't had time, and I'm thankful for that.
This year I've fallen in love with people, ideas, music, and myself.
I've been sad and angry.
I've been happier than ever.
I've been homesick.
I've made new homes.
I've grown so much,
and realized just how much growing I still have to do.
I've figured some things out,
and realized that I'm never going to completely know what the heck is going on in this world.
My cup has overflown, and for that I am truly thankful.

And I'm home this weekend, so I've been eating yummy food, reading my nephew bedtime stories, and snuggling lots with my cat.
Life is wonderful.

Guys, help!

...I'm slowly...quickly becoming a crazy cat lady. And I'm not even 20 yet.

I discovered Animal Planet's Kitten Cam this week... and it's bookmarked next to all of the things I need for my classes.

On Friday night when my friend/honorary younger brother and I went to eat Korean food and then went to the Korean market I bought these adorable little ceramic rice bowls... just because they have cute animals (one was a cat) on them... even though I already had like, 4... and even though I don't usually cook rice when I'm at school because I'm on a meal plan... and then I had to force myself not to buy all of the other cute cat bowls/platters/plates that they had.

And my mom's posted a couple pictures of my cat to my facebook, which always makes me just a tad over emotional...

What should I do?!

Translation: I can't wait until I go home for Thanksgiving so I can see my cat (and my family too, I guess) again!

How could I forget?!

So, she must have added more things to her shop since I wrote my last post... or I was blind or something... but I just found this:

Oh. My. Goodness. I want this shirt, and I'm not even three years old. Ahh!

Too cute!

I don't even have any children, but I can't get over The Trendy Tot! Crafter/Mom/I'm sure awesome human being Jen makes all of these adorable little girls' clothes... With all of the bright colors, patterns, and animals, I'm sure these would be clothes 4 year old me would have loved... and, if I ever have a daughter, what she'll probably end up wearing as well... 

What I especially appreciate is the fact that the leggings have those felt appliques on the knees- so smart for little baby children!

Whip it real good

So, last week (two weeks ago?) my friends were taking part in GISHWES (the Greatest International Scavenger Hunt the World has Ever Seen)- and one of the tasks they had to complete was to get a church choir to sing a 30 second beautiful, moving, remix of Willow Smith's "I Whip My Hair Back and Forth." I found out about it when I was at their house for Halloween, and figured that I might as well use my music major for something... so I threw together an arrangement Halloween night (while dressed as a tiger, of course), invited my music friends to come sing it in our campus chapel, and this is the result:

Watch the video here because I couldn't find it when I tried putting it in this post!

Terrible voice leading... but I arranged it at 11 at night... just don't tell my theory teacher.

Thanks for helping me sing it, guys!

Seasons Greetings! (Etsy feature)

Just kidding, not yet!
As much as some people might like to try to deny it, it's after Halloween, and so the holiday season is upon us. I really don't like the commercialism surrounding all of it... but I'm actually kind of excited now that I've found these awesome greeting cards from robotic creative!

I've always had kind of a morbid/weird sense of humor. Always. So these greeting cards are perfect! They're a wonderful blend of dark wit and silly fun. Look at them!

I think my favorites are the yeti with the Christmas box and the monster with the cupcake... but they're all so wonderful!

Finger Painting

So, over Fall Break I went on a retreat with a group I'm in called Worthy Questions. Basically, we just dig into really difficult/profound/provocative questions we come across, sometimes finding answers, sometimes only finding more questions. The retreat was great!
Anyway, at the start of the retreat we did this fun activity where we all finger painted something on a piece of paper that somehow represented something that had been on our mind lately. We then moved to the paper of the person next to us and added to their painting, and the next one, etc. It was really cool, because what started out as a cartoony self portrait of me ended up being this super cool painting of a lion.
As fun as the activity was, I found myself being frustrated with the lack of control I had with the paints we were using... and the fact that I couldn't do anything super precise painting with my fingers.
But look at this super cool artist, Judith (she has my name!) Braun... Yes, I totally found this because someone posted it on someone else's facebook and it turned up on my newsfeed... but I'm in love:

In these exhibitions, she dipped her fingers into charcoal and then drew directly onto the walls. So beautiful!

And I have no idea what her process was for this one, but it's too beautiful for words:

Look at her website for her other amazing art!

Exams, Features, and Some Mean Girl Named Amaryllis

No time for an Etsy feature this week... As you may or may not already know, I've secretly been doing all of my blogging on the weekends during my building monitoring shift for work... but on Monday I have my first test for Medieval to Mozart, so I really only have time to listen to tons of Madrigals.

But! Check out this blog feature!
http://wist-etsy.blogspot.com/2012/10/fridays-featured-fabricator-judith-of.html

And, listen to this hilarious piece by Monteverdi. At least, I think it's hilarious...

Maru Wool Designs

I'm still on my it's getting cold thing from last week... and I will be until May, probably.
Yes, it's cooling off here... and I realized recently that I probably didn't plan very well when I was packing for school. It was hot, so I didn't really want to think of it cooling off! I brought enough warm clothing to get by, but now that I think about it, I didn't bring any scarves, hats, or mittens, which might be a problem.

So check out these cute things to keep you warm from Maru Wool Designs!

So cute! So toasty!

O del mio dolce ardor

Guess what. I'm a music major! Which means I sing a lot, basically. I'm singing 4 songs this semester (and possibly one with jazz band?) and this is the one I've been working on most recently. Give it a listen!

I'm not sure if Teresa Berganza sings this song with as much emotion as it should be; the song is from an opera and it's Paris professing his love to Helen of Troy. What I love so much about her rendition of this song though, is that she manages to keep her voice so light and smooth while she's singing it... something I'm working on, and haven't quite been able to manage yet.

I don't know how to decorate my dorm room (but Sonia and Kendra do)!

Okay, the title isn't completely true. I have some nice pictures hanging on my wall and some lanterns hung on the ceiling. I have crazy bright turquoise sheets... but that's about as creative as I get. My friends Sonia and Kendra, on the other hand, have all the cool ideas. Having tea parties or awkward 3-6 person dance parties in their room is always the best... because they are so sweet, but also because their room is just so darn spiffy looking. Check it out!

I love their color scheme. What I especially admire, though, is their creative use of fabric. The organza(?) hanging from the ceiling is so magical looking (don't worry- they never turn that light on... so no fire hazards!), and the fabric they taped to the front of their drawers is certainly more exciting than the boring wood that would show up otherwise.
Keep being cool, guys!

Impressionism?

So in French class, we watched this super bizarre movie called 8 Femmes (8 Women)... Which I guess some critics have described as being impressionistic... I'm not sure if I agree, but I'm no expert, so maybe it's a possibility. For me it has all the weirdness of impressionism, but without any of the finesse and subtlety that makes me usually love it so much.
Anyway, in French class we did this activity that Mme Sauret claims was used by the impressionists to help them write poetry... I'm not sure how true that is, but it was fun anyway. We each got a piece of paper out and wrote a noun down (this was all in French, of course). We then folded the top of the paper over and passed it to the person next to us. Then we wrote an adjective down, folded it, passed it, and then wrote a verb and an adverb using the same process. My favorite one that was generated was:

La couleur rouge a chanté doucement. (The color red sang sweetly).

Friday night I went to this year's first poetry slam... I love going to slams and I keep trying to write my own poems... but I've just been writing analytically for so long that it's almost like I've forgotten how to be creative and symbolic in my writing. It's not like I can make the audience members sit through 3 minutes and 10 seconds of every single problem I've had in my life, systematically written down in chronological order.
So, I try to come up with metaphors. But my brain can't figure them out...

So, I was thinking maybe what I'll do someday is put a few jars on my desk with different parts of speech in each one... I'll then pick words out of the jars to make sentences like the one above... most of them will be dumb. (Like, the depressed lamp rolled languidly... which is funny I guess, but not that applicable to my life, usually)... but maybe something beautiful will happen...

Or maybe I'll just write a poem with as many stupid sentences as I can.

How do you get over creative writing blocks?

Lake Street Dive

Saturday was one of those days where I had things lined up back to back, but they were all wonderful things, so I didn't mind!
I had a read through for For Whom the Southern Belle Tolls, a really funny parody of The Glass Menagerie that I'm doing with MacPlayers this semester... It's super super hilarious.
Then I went to a talk given by a local music therapist, which was super inspiring and made me consider this career path again (4 years ago I was convinced I wanted to be a music therapist. Convinced).
Then I went to see PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION. I got super lucky that some of my friends had an extra ticket and invited me along... It was super fun to hang out with them, and I've been listening to that show on the radio since forever, so seeing it live for the first time was hilarious. And it was the 3rd time seeing Garrison Keillor live in a year (one of the many perks of going to school in St. Paul). The show was hilarious as always... they had this awesome blues singer from Rome... I don't remember her name, so maybe I'll have to post about her later. But, they had a super super super good band called Lake Street Dive play... give them a listen!

I keep talking about how I want to be a bass so I can sing Erlkonig by Schubert, or a coloratura, or Kristin Chenoweth, or Aretha Franklin. But now I just want to be Lake Street Dive lead singer, Rachael Price. Can't I have it all?
And let's just talk about how crazy awesome bassist Bridget Kearney is.
And super cool Mike Olson and Mike Calabrese.
Thanks for the great show, guys!

(After Prairie Home Companion I went to a gala concert given by the music department faculty in honor of our shiny new building... So good!)

Siamese Dreams (An Etsy Feature)

So, here in beautiful St. Paul, MN... it's cooling off. Fast. For some this means snuggles by the fireside, cups of hot chocolate, and lots of cheesy facebook statuses about how they love fall... but for me it means that winter is coming, so my days of happiness will soon be over. (Cue dramatic piano music while I drape myself dramatically over the settee and gaze wistfully out the window. The lights are off and it's raining, of course.)

But, all melodrama aside, there are some advantages to the fall... namely that you can wear super cute boots that don't even have to be waterproof because there isn't snow reaching to the roof of your house yet!

Which takes me to today's feature, Siamese Dream Design.

I love everything about this shop ever... so instead of incomprehensibly squealing adjectives with too many exclamation points, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves:

Buy me all of these and we can be best friends for at least a week.

Exciting Etsy Week!

So, this week has been super cool!

This photo got featured in a Scandinavian weather treasury.








I got featured in 2 wonderful blogs: here, and here.

And I sold 2 items! They're no longer with me... but in new homes:

I feel incredibly blessed. I also am adding some new items to my shop this week, but more on that later.