creativity

The Creative Life: How-To Sew a Reversible Quilted Coffee Cuff

July 1, 2009 By heather 6 Comments

On my hunt for all things and people creative, artsy, and whimsical, I met Erin Teske, artist extraordinaire and fellow Cheesecake Factory lover. At some point in our cyber (and one real-life meeting), I discovered that she makes and sells Coffee Cuffs. I love these things! I keep mine in my purse, ready to whip out at any Starbucks. And I’ve gotten more compliments on it than the Queen of Sheba got in her heyday.

Erin agreed to share with us her secret of the Coffee Cuff.

Supplies:
Sewing machine that sews a straight stitch and a zig zag stitch
Medium loft polyester batting
Iron and ironing board
Thread
Fabric that you love (2 fat quarters, or scraps of fabric to make 1/8 yd. for front, 1/8 yd. for back)
To-go cup and removable insulation cuff from your favorite coffee shop

Approximate dimensions of the end product: 3” X 4.75” Which will fit a medium to-go coffee cup perfectly.

1) Select several scraps of fabric that you love. I’m making this coffee cuff for my daughter’s dance teacher. She is a hep cat kind of gal, so I chose funky, high contrast fabrics with sassy space cats as the focus.

2) If you’ve chosen fabric scraps, lay the pieces right sides together and sew into a 5” X 12” strip using a straight stitch. (Pink arrow)
(If you’re nervous about getting the seams straight, go a head and pin each pair of pieces together before you sew. These pieces are fairly short though, so its easy to hold them together with your fingers.)

3) Open up your fabric strip and use your iron to press all the seams flat. Your strip will be quite jagged and off-kilter, but never fear, we’ll trim that all off eventually.

4) Carefully take apart the insulation cuff from your favorite coffee house and use it as a template to cut your batting. (blue arrow) Keep some extra batting all the way around your template, as you’ll lose some size when you stitch the cuff. (In this photo you can see that the batting I cut is much wider than my corrugated cuff. I like a lot of coverage between my fingers and my hot drink, so I make my coffee cuffs cover a larger swath of the to-go cup.)

5) The top and batting for your coffee cuff are now ready to go! It’s time to cut the back layer of the quilt “sandwich.” Using the just-cut batting as a template, cut the fabric for the bottom of your quilt sandwich.
Here I used a fat quarter of that funky space cat fabric for the back layer of my sandwich. There’s enough fabric here that I don’t even need to piece scraps together. Just cut and place.

6) Lay each of your three pieces out on the table to make a “quilt sandwich” in this order:
Bottom: Fat quarter fabric facing right-side DOWN (green arrow)
Middle: Medium loft batting (blue arrow)
Top: Pieced fabric strip facing right-side UP (pink arrow)

7) Pin all three layers together along the length of the cuff so the layers won’t shift as you sew.

Begin at one end of the cuff and sew a straight stitch along the length of the cuff.
Repeat about ¼ inch away from your first line of stitching. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat until you’ve got the entire cuff covered in quilted lines of stitch.

9) Here’s my space cat all quilted up. To make your quilting stitches wander around the edge of an image on the fabric: Be sure your machine needle is poking down through the fabric and lift up your presser foot. Orient the cuff in the new direction you want to stitch. Put the presser foot back down and continue sewing.
This fancy little stitch is completely unnecessary though. Trust me, the cuff would look almost just as cool if I’d stitched straight over space cat’s face instead of around it.

10) Open up the layers of the cuff along one of the long sides and get a feel for where the edge of the batting comes to in the sandwich. (pink arrow) Switch your sewing machine to a medium-length zig-zag stitch.

11) As you feed the cuff through the machine, run your finger along the ridge created by the batting (pink arrow) and make sure that ridge is going right under the needle. (The zig-zag stitch is sealing up the long side of the quilt sandwich. (Blue arrow))
Do one zig-zag stitch on each length of the cuff.

12) Trim the excess fabric from the outside of each zig-zag stitch, being careful not to cut the stitches you just made. (blue arrow) Sew 3-4 more zig-zag stitches along the length of each side to overlock the quilt sandwich edges.

13) Using a to-go cup from your favorite coffee place, wrap the quilted cuff around its perimeter to check for fit and to make sure you won’t be cutting all the images you love in the printed fabric. You can see my cuff is plenty big, and I want to be sure that the space cat doesn’t get trimmed off so I have to manipulate the cuff a little here and there to make sure I preserve all the details I like.
Pin your cuff in place along its short edge. (pink arrows)

14) Switch your stitch back to a straight stitch briefly and sew one straight stitch along the short edge of the cuff, just to the side of your pins. Slide the cuff back on the to-go cup to check the fit. If you’re happy with how it fits on the to-go cup, trim the excess quilt sandwich off the end of the cuff. (pink arrow)

15) Switch back to the zig-zag stitch and do 4-5 zig-zag stitches along the short end of the cuff to overlock the layers. (blue arrow)

16) Slide the cuff back on your to-go cup to check the fit.

17) Rush right down to the coffee shop and model your new coffee couture.

Thank you, Erin. These make great gift ideas. I’m starting to think about Christmas gifts now–it’ll take me a while to get all the projects done!

Psst–If you find this post interesting and think others might as well, would you mind taking a minute to stumble it? It would mean a lot to me.

Filed Under: coffee cuffs, creativity, fabric, living creatively, sewing, the creative life

The Creative Life: Seeing His Voice

May 28, 2009 By heather 1 Comment

Two years ago I attended a retreat that would have been dismally disappointing had it not been for two things: (1) a close friendship that came out of that retreat and (2) a breakout session on visual prayer.

Brenda Gribbin, an artist who attends my church, taught the breakout session. She armed us all with thick, 8×10 sheets, charcoal, and erasures. Then she taught us how to pray visually. For those of us new to the idea, she gave us some practical suggestions for images and symbols. But she also gave us the freedom to pursue this in our own ways. I left that session with peace and joy about a situation that had been nagging at me. God used it to allow me to feel his presence.

Since then, though I’ve used different methods (collage, sketching), I’ve made visual prayer a regular aspect of communing with God. I’ve asked Brenda if she would write her method here for us. Obviously, she agreed, so I’ll hand the mike over.

Simple drawing tools can be used to shed new light on God’s activity in any situation. This exercise creates a picture of a prayer.

“For nothing is hidden except to be revealed, nor has anything been secret, but that it would come to light” (Mark 4:22).

Align your mind and spirit to allow the creative part of you to speak…acknowledge your ability.

"But we also need to be reminded in the do-it-yourself age that it is indeed God who has made us, and not we ourselves. We are human and humble and of the earth, and we cannot create until we acknowledge our createdness" (Walking on Water by Madeline L’Engle).

As you pray and work, memories will be a part of the finished image. Let your hand be guided by God’s inspiration and encouragement. No one else can make your mark on this moment.

Reach for solitude–quiet, prayerful, meditative–and ask God to speak.

"This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin" (I John 1:5-7).

Pray for insight from God’s perspective. Ask for Divine Light. Expect His love to soften your heart and allow forgiveness to make room for a new solution.

The supplies are simple: Charcoal, colored chalk, an eraser, and cotton pad or tissue.

Chose symbols to illustrate your issue and draw them on the paper with charcoal.

People – Circles, stick figures
Places – Square, triangle
Pain – Sharp, jagged lines
Confusion/Mystery – swirling, twirling lines

Spread charcoal over the page using a cotton pad or tissue in a horizontal motion until the page is covered. The original lines should be visible.

Erase spaces that “hold the light” or need light. Erasing symbolizes freedom from pain and worry. It represents the forgiveness necessary for God to work.

Choose a color to represent God’s action and add it to the image. It is more visible when it appears in the light spaces, where forgiveness has been applied.

Spread the colored marks in a vertical motion–God’s intervention from above.

Repeat the process of drawing, smudging and erasing until you are satisfied with the result.

Consider the finished image. Can you see a relationship that was hidden? Is there more weight in one area? What insight have you gained? Do you see a different perspective? Journal your discoveries and thank God for the gift of creativity and that He makes Himself available to us in so many ways!

Psst–If you find this post interesting and think others might as well, would you mind taking a minute to stumble it? It would mean a lot to me.

Filed Under: art, creativity, drawing, spirituality, the creative life, visual prayer

Imagine You Are a Blue Alien

May 26, 2009 By heather 6 Comments

It’s a tricky thing convincing two boys you are a blue alien. Five- and six-year-olds ask a lot of questions.

Hiking through Palo Duro Canyon, I discovered blue marks on my hands and arms. Of course, I told the boys, "Look! My fake human skin is coming off. You can see my blue alien skin."

"You’re not an alien," they insisted. After all, they’ve known me for most of their lives.

"How do you know?"

And so it began. I didn’t have antenna, they argued. Not all alien have antenna, I said. Plus, I’ve had to hide what I really look like under this human skin. Did you know I have four ears?

So ensued the barrage of questions that tested my mettle. I’m from Zircoff (which, for those of you interested, is 236.2 light years away from Earth). I mainly eat fruit (Zircoff fruit is much better than Earth’s), but I also eat little boys who disobey their parents. And bullies, yes. My three best friends are Lala, Rae, and Geep. Also, my name in Zircoff is Abema. (Pretty, no?) And I’m 802 years old.

They wanted to know the language. What do you call ears in Zircoff? (Leeleelee, for you linguists out there.) Eyes? Nose? Etc., etc., etc. Not only did I have to come up with words on the spot, but I knew I’d have to memorize everything I said. I’d have to remember the Zircoff word for neck (zulu).

Here’s what I learned: hanging out with two boys, ages five and six, exercises the imagination. We told round-robin stories on our hike (mostly about the village people who lived there protecting a secret; when an evil villain attacked to steal the secret, which would allow him to take-over the world, of course, and when his forces became to powerful for the village people to fight, the village people [who do not sing any rendition of YMCA] had to call on the curse of the gods, which turned everything and everyone into stone, which we then pointed out [that's the sentinel who warned the people; those are the warriors with their bows and arrows; there are the people's homes]), and I convinced them I was a blue alien. They believed me until one of their moms blew my cover.

The next time I discover blue marks on my skin, I may reveal my inner fairy.

Psst–If you find this post interesting and think others might as well, would you mind taking a minute to stumble it? It would mean a lot to me.

Filed Under: aliens, creativity, imagination, storytelling

The Creative Life: That's Sketchy

May 13, 2009 By heather 5 Comments

“I can teach anyone to draw,” my new friend, Gina (pronounced “Jenna”), told me. We sat at T.G.I.F.’s one evening during a writer’s conference.

“Obviously you haven’t seen my attempts at stick figures.” I drew one in the condensation on my glass for emphasis.

She took a napkin and her glass and proceeded to explain her process.

I’ve been trying it out. My sketches may not be masterpieces, but they’re identifiable. And they’ve provided a new way to be creative, to pray, and to work through life.

So I asked Gina to guest blog about how to draw. Gina, I hand the mike to you.

When Heather asked me to guest blog on drawing, I wondered if I would be able to explain in blog-form what I teach everyday to the kids in my classes. After all, I have them there in front of me to mold their minds of mush art into what it should be.

All you have is the words on the page without the benefit of one-on-one guidance.

But we’ll give it a whirl.

First let me tell you my philosophy on this subject. I believe anyone can draw. Yes, you, the person that says, “All I can draw is stick figures.”

You only say that because you haven’t met me.

When I stumbled into started teaching high school art, my husband and I debated this idea. He thought that natural talent would play a more important role in the success of my students. I thought drawing was a technical skill that most anyone could do.

Have no fear, I am right.

Anyone who knows me could’ve told you that would be true. Heh-heh.

Every single student that wants to draw comes out of my class knowing how to draw anything they want. And I teach them everything they need to know on the first day of class.

Don’t you wish you were getting paid all year for one day’s work?

The secret to drawing is this, always draw what you see. It’s 90% looking, 10% pencil to paper. The problem is most people draw what they THINK they see instead of what’s really in front of them.

For instance, do you remember the first time you drew a 3D box? You know, you drew a box overlapping a box and then connected the corners. Then you marveled at how it looked like the box was jumping off the page?

Most kids come into my class thinking everything they need to know they learned when they drew a 3D box. So I start their education with boxes.

I get shoe boxes, new boxes, old boxes, skewed boxes, perfectly straight boxes . . . you get the idea. No box really looks like another box.

The students all start with their 3D boxes in mind but quickly learn that is not what boxes really look like.

Drawing is very mathematical. Before you freak out at that statement, let me reassure you by saying I suck at math. Truly suck. So, when I say that I don’t mean you need a firm grasp of calculus, I just mean you have to pay attention to things like proportion, angles, lines and shape.

Take the boxes for instance, if the box you are drawing is twice as tall as it is wide, then the lines on your paper must be twice as tall as they are wide. I know this seems stupid to say that, but you’d be surprised at how often someone will draw that shaped box like a square. It really is all about what you see. I spend the first four weeks of a class walking around saying things like, “Gee whiz, is that REALLY the direction that line is going?” or “Wow, I didn’t realize that coffee mug was the same size as that tea pitcher. I thought the tea pitcher was three times larger. Hmmm.”

Yes, I’m sure I’m a little annoying, but they usually get the point.

You must train yourself to see what you are really seeing instead of what you imagine you see. That’s why you look 90% of the time and draw 10% of the time.

That really is the key.

Then you practice.

I’m not going to tell you that the first time you try you’ll get it right and I suspect the students in my class really do have an advantage because they have me right there seeing what they should be seeing and correcting them right in the middle of their mistakes, but if you try to draw something and it doesn’t look right, I PROMISE you it is because you are not looking at it closely enough.

Start with cups, Tupperware, boxes, baskets and other things that are simply shaped. Don’t worry about shading anything until you learn how to draw the shape correctly. It doesn’t do you any good to know how to shade if the cup you’re drawing ends up looking like a frying pan.

Maybe one day you can come back and find a quickie how-to on shading. Who knows?

Until then, if you want to draw, you can.

Just make sure you know how to see.

Gina Hernandez is an art teacher, writer, minister’s wife, and mother. And she’s not afraid to speak her mind (which makes her a great friend but borderline minister’s wife). She blogs at Blame It on the Loudmouth Gene where she makes me laugh on a continual basis.

Psst–If you find this post interesting and think others might as well, would you mind taking a minute to stumble it? It would mean a lot to me.

Filed Under: art, creativity, drawing, sketch, the creative life

The Creative Life: Gardening

April 21, 2009 By heather 7 Comments

Those crazy peas. Look at them winding around each other, clinging like they can hold each other up. I shake my head with an amused smile and guide their limbs so they can grab onto the trellis.

The squirrels–not so amusing (although I’m sure after I’ve covered my beds with cayenne pepper, they’ll provide plenty of entertainment). More holes! And my poor seedlings. Another two bite the dust.

Today is Earth Day, as you may well know, and the perfect way to celebrate Earth Day is with gardening, a joy I’ve recently discovered. Gardening combines the fun of getting your hands dirty with the wonder of watching seeds become ripe tomatoes with the pleasure of beholding beauty you’ve helped cultivate.

In gardening, we work alongside God. We can’t make our flowers grow (50 points for song and musical reference), but we work in joy as we create spaces for their beauty. I can’t point to the tomato and claim that I made this, but I can claim to have grown it.

We taste the pleasure that Adam and Eve must have felt in their garden, and we foretaste the beauty of the new earth, lush with healing fruit. God never intended us to sit back and watch. We participate, and my hands submerged in a mix of soil, compost, and, yes, cow manure, I feel a bit of what God must have felt when he pronounced his creation good.

A new tradition: the past three years, my mom has come up for a week to help me with my garden (she knows I’m hopeless without her!). The first year, we started a small flower garden in the front yard. The second year, we added containers of tomatoes, peppers, and herbs (and one of artichoke, but since nothing came of that, I prefer not to mention it). This year, my husband built three raised beds, we ordered dirt from the city (did you know they deliver?), and my mom and I sprinkled in seeds of peas, squash, cucumbers, peppers, spinach, corn, green beans, cantaloupe, watermelon, carrots, lettuce, onions, and half a dozen herbs.

(Okay, so technically, a couple of the above were transplants, although most were seeds, and while my mom and I did quite a bit of it, not all of those could be planted in the week she was here. If you must know the truth.)

Daily, I visit my garden. What seedlings will I find? What new growth? You think me impatient (and, yes, I have impatiens). You think me naive to look for something new everyday. But it’s there: a new daily joy. Ah, I love my garden.

As an added bonus, a sneak peek into my raised bed vegetable garden:

Psst–If you find this post interesting and think others might so as well, would you mind taking a minute to stumble it? It would mean a lot to me.

Filed Under: beauty, creativity, cultivation, Earth Day, flower garden, flowers, fruit, gardening, the creative life, vegetable garden, vegetables

The Creative Life: The Thrift Store

April 8, 2009 By heather 6 Comments

The thrift store is the Velveteen Rabbit of clothes. Well-loved shirts, jeans, and skirts find themselves re-racked.

I’m not a shopper (except for books, of course), but once a year, maybe twice, I get my wild hair (or is it hare?). Time to hit the thrift stores! I have a good friend (who loves shopping, especially thrift, consignment, and resale), who drops everything for my annual hair (or hare).

Yesterday was my hair (or hare) day.

Shopping at thrift stores requires a bit of creativity. Mannequins don’t stand in the aisles telling you what to wear. The retailers don’t sell the clothes in matched pairs. In fact, the clothes may not come from the same decades.

LONDON - NOVEMBER 28: A worker looks at cloth...

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

All the more fun.

It requires an eye for opportunity. I bought a shirt yesterday that will need some loving care to fix some of the beaded pattern. But this shirt will be a tunic for the ages when it’s ready (again)!

And, if you’d like to take it to the next step, it can employ re-creation. You can take an old pair of jeans (which you acquired for $3.98) and embroider a pattern on the pocket, perhaps incorporating beads. And who knows what you can do with that old bowling shirt? A veritable treasure!

As an added bonus, thrift store shopping is economical (something more and more people need these days) and earth-friendly. Instead of discarding into a landfill, instead of encouraging slave-labor environments, instead of new chemical dyes running through the rivers (not to mention rubbing against our skin), you have salvaged a perfectly good piece of clothing and re-saw the possibilities.

Note: Some thrift stores have dressing rooms. Some don’t. For those that don’t, I suggest wearing a skirt and a tank top so that you can pull up pants under your skirt and slide on shirts over your tank top.

Get thee to a thrift store!

The Creative Life: Round Robin Storytelling

March 25, 2009 By heather 5 Comments

We sat around a table on the patio long after dark, sangrias in hand. The sound of the ocean lapping the rocky beach provided background music.

"Once upon a time, there lived a girl," someone started, perhaps Miguel. Miguel had a habit of starting things.

"Her name was Lola. She was a showgirl." That was Ben, without a doubt.

One by one, we passed along the story, each adding something, maybe a sentence, maybe several paragraphs, until the happily-ever-after.

Image via Wikipedia

I thought it fitting that I begin this new weekly (semi-weekly? bi-weekly?) series, The Creative Life, with storytelling. After all, stories are how I work through life. Heck, my life is a story within a Story.

Also, today is Flannery O’Connor’s birthday. What better way to celebrate?

This specific practice, round robin storytelling, combines the magic of storytelling with community. The story develops as you go. No one person has any control. It may take a turn you never intended when you introduced Lola the Showgirl, but that’s the beauty of round robin storytelling.

It’s the perfect after-dinner affair, as you relax, belly full, mouth happy. Perhaps as a friend or family member unfolds the next section of the story, you’ll learn something about them–about their life, values, struggles.

If you try this, I’d love to hear some of the stories you come up with!

Filed Under: creative life, creativity, storytelling, the creative life

Ketchup and Mustard

November 24, 2008 By heather 4 Comments

I’ve been slow responding to two tags, one an award and one a meme. So today’s the day I reveal all to you.

Yes! I’ve won an award. Drinks on me. Fellow writer Danica bestowed the Kreativ Blogger award on me. (Picture me kneeling in humbleness as she sets a crown on my head. It’s a sparkling, red crown, by the way.)

It’s fitting that I post about it this week because in order to officially win my award, I have to tell you six things that make me happy. Six thing’s for which I’m thankful, in other words. Without further ado, I give you the six (in no particular order):

1. My sexy husband for being sexy, supportive, loving, godly, and all-around amazing

2. My church, for accepting and loving me though I often make them furrough their brow

3. Claire (my piano) for inviting me to play (and takes a pounding without complaint)

4. Scarves and soft yarns

5. Working from home, whether it be teaching flute and piano lessons, writing/editing for Solomon Summaries, or working on my fiction–I love setting my own schedule and getting to be alone for the most part

6. My online community–you let me be alone when I want to be alone and keep me company when I want company, and you get me

Bonus: Christmas music! (And by the end of this week, Christmas movies!)

Tag number two: a meme. This one comes from Tina Howard. She’s created a meme inspired by the book, Me, Myself, and I AM: A Unique Question and Answer Book: The Story of You and God. Though I haven’t read the book, I’m happy to participate in the meme. Basically, she asked that I link to the book (which, you can see, I’ve done above), answer one or more of the following situations (to be listed below), and invite others to join.

The situations are thus:

If I’d been Mary or Joseph holding Jesus for the first time, I’d have been feeling:
If I’d been a disciple traveling with Jesus, I would have asked him:
If I’d been at the Last Supper, I would have said to Jesus:
If Id’ been the first person to the tomb after Jesus rose from the dead, I would have:
If I’d been with Jesus after the resurrection and realized he would be returning to heaven soon, I would have:

Here are my answers:

If I’d been Mary holding Jesus, I’d have been feeling this slipperyness and nasty film–someone needs to give him a bath. And speaking of baths, when’s the last time that donkey’s had one? Wshoo! My poor nose. And where’s the Tylenol? Don’t they give out Tylenol in this place? And will someone stop that incessant drumming? Can’t this guy see I need my sleep? Oh dear, here come shepherds. What the heck? Hasn’t any one heard of privacy?

If I’d been at the Last Supper, I would have said to Jesus, "Please pass the wine, man."

If I’d been the first person to the tomb after Jesus rose from the dead, I would have said, "Whoa, man. What’s the fuss? Tell me what’s a-happenin’!"

In the tradition of not following directions, I tag no one and everyone. If you’re still around this Thanksgiving week, join me in what if. If not, Happy Thanksgiving!

Filed Under: awards, creativity, giggles, meme

Inspired Bliss: God in Color

September 24, 2008 By heather 3 Comments

Blissfully Domestic has a new channel: Inspired Bliss. But wait! There’s more! I’m a weekly columnist for Inspired Bliss.

I know what you’re thinking. Domestic? Heather? She can barely keep her fish alive. Her shower grout’s permanently pink.

Somehow I slipped in. (Don’t tell the editors about my real life.)

My first post is up today: God in Color. My weekly column is about the intersection of Christianity and creativity, and this post tells you why I have a heart for it.