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Isn't it weird how inspiration strikes?

I was scrolling through my reader today and saw these super-fun blocks that Nettie, of A Quilt is Nice, made for her virtual quilting bees. I really liked her second-to-last block and it was what I needed to get started on my next project: simple, fun and not painful enough to make me consider bodily harm like my still-unfinished blooming nine patch.

Meanwhile, a charm pack of Anna Marie Horner's Good Folks collection came in the mail from Whipstitch and bam... I knew what I was going to do.


I'm sorting through my stash for purples, pinks, blues, and greens and making nine patch blocks out of five-by-five inch squares. Since I'm obsessed with fabric by Amy Butler, Heather Bailey, Art Gallery and, of course, the aforementioned Anna Marie Horner, it will pretty be made up entirely of their designs. Of course, to make a queen-size bed spread, I need 508 blocks -- assuming my math is correct.

I'm hoping to get everything cut this week and then start piecing the squares into blocks to get a sense of what goes and what doesn't.

Woot for new projects! (Even if, er, the old ones aren't done yet.)

March can bite me.

In like a lion, out like a lamb, huh? Fat freakin' chance.

Want visual proof? Here's my neighbor's gate yesterday morning.


This shot was taken about 30 seconds before I discovered that not one, but two of my boots had sprung leaks. Of course, I'm karmicly challenged when it comes to snow gear, so, I spent the day with parading around in my caribou-emblazoned purple-and-blue socks trying to get my feet to dry between errands.

Remember growing up how your mom always said to wear good underwear so in case you were in an accident and you had to go to the hospital, you wouldn't be embarrassed? (Please, please, please tell me this was a universal Mom Lesson. If not, a certain someone and I are going to have a twee chat.) Well, it turns out that the same applies to ugly socks during snow/rain. Because I really LOVED walking around the hallways of the Old Town School of Folk Music in my socks featuring mammals of the Alaskan wilderness. (Also, come to think of it, you never know when you'll *meet* someone, so that alone is enough reason to banish the granny panties forever.)

The snow wasn't that bad _ even if it was heavy and wet. All told, we got about 3 inches here in the city. Totally manageable and at least it's _ hopefully _ the last snow of the season. I'm keeping my fingers crossed because I refuse to buy another set of boots. At least for the time being.

Word Nerd Alert

I may have a profoundly dirty mouth, but rest assured, I'm a total word nerd at heart. A grammar goddess. A lexicon lady. A worldly wordster. Er. Yeah.

So, you can imagine the audible screech o' glee I emitted today when I the interwebs lead me to the OED's "Ask Oxford" section. I was on a mission to find out the longest monosyllabic word. (The boss lady brainstormed "twelve." I drew a blank.)

OED says:

"the one most commonly cited is screeched (nine letters). However, one ought to mention also scratched, scrounged, scrunched, stretched, and the plural nouns straights and strengths (all with nine letters)."

Then I found more questions and answers:

_ Want to know what comes after "thrice"? Nothing.
_ The antonym for misogynist? Misandris.
_ The collective term for a group of cats? A clowder.

BAM!!!

Meanwhile, a lovely former co-worker tweeted about Schott's Vocab blog over at the New York Times. Among my current favorite entries: bossnapping; econocide; twitturgy.

Schott's has great fun phrases, which I live to make up. And OED has great trivia info as well as, well, just about everything else.

Outside of my job, words and language are important to me. And they're an important part of how I see and interact with people. True story: I once went out on a date with a guy simply because his e-mail questioned why "bling" was being added to the OED. I was smitten. Meanwhile, I have rejected dudes who can't use the correct it's/its they're/their/there or you're/your. (I know, I'm sometimes a bitch. It's just part of my charm.)

What's your favorite word nerd thing? Or do you have a pet peeve?

Oh, Etsy. I heart thee.

I freakin' love Etsy. It's true. I'm an addict. My list of favorite stores is stacking up big-time. Today, during a mid-afternoon break, I decided to buy this.

For the record, my mom is probably reading this now and rolling her eyes. Meanwhile, I'm cackling like a madwoman.


This, of course, begs the question: What's your favorite Etsy store? Send me links so I can add to my stash!

I am 12.

Why? Because I'm sitting in my jammies, watching Twilight. And I couldn't be more excited.

Although, as proof of my actual almost-28ness (btw, people, 54 shopping days until my birthday!), I'm also drinking wine.

Fuck yeah. Sometimes, adulthood rocks.

Wedding craftivity goes to the birds.

Currer Bell, my lovely bff, is getting herself hitched to the one and only Hot Pants. And I couldn't be more thrilled. (I cried like a baby on her engagement day. And that was BEFORE I started drinking myself silly on mimosa-fueled goodness.)

Since I love all things crafty, I've volunteered to help the auspicious bride-to-be with some projects. And I'm totally psyched. At the moment, we're going to try to make cute bird cake toppers much like these by Peonies and Polaroids.


Adorable, no?

It also looks like the awesome peeps (Ha! Peeps! Get it? Birds? Peeps! I crack my shit up.) over at Spool Sewing have a bird pattern that we could modify as well, adding some feet, eyes, glasses, veils etc.



Ms. Bell will be visiting next month and we're going to try to make the love birds then and banish the boys to the Wii. Watcha think? Got any suggestions of patterns or modifications?

Chances of being mocked?

My quest to make my pants fit has taken a dangerous detour, brought down by wine, Thai food, pasta of all varieties, pizza, cookies, and my No. 1 weakness: cheese.

But now that snow isn't blowing my face every day, I at least feel inspired to move more. Including movement that involves hauling my ever-growing ass the mile-long walk to the gym. To motivate myself, I did what any shopaholic would do and bought a sassy shirt while I was in Maryland this weekend.

But now I question whether this was really the best idea I've ever had. Especially when it comes to being in a public setting with my boobs flailing around while I huff and puff on the elliptical machine.



Thoughts?

Best. T-shirt. Ever.

'Nuff said.

Home and back again.

Photographic highlights from a weekend trip to Maryland and DC for the madre's birthday.


We spent a lot of time doing this:



We went over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, my favoritest bridge ever.



We went to D.C. for the day. I used to hang here.




Check it out! My high school was on the tippy-top floor here! Right by those square windows by the balcony.


I had to take this picture of the Court of Neptune fountain in front of the Library of Congress. Mainly because I thought it looked dirty from this angle. I know. I'm mature.


This bird made me smile and made me happy that spring is coming. The flowers were beginning to bloom in D.C., even though it's still a couple of weeks away here in Chicago.


Then we walked to the Newseum. I used to go to the old facility in Rosslyn practically once a month. But this was my first trip to the bad-ass new place. Of course, I also dug the gift shop. I'm a sucker for anything in typewriter typeface.


And check it out, the gift shop stocked my friend Jackie's book! You should buy it. It's good. And she's lovely.


And then, I loved this t-shirt. Almost as much as I love beer.

Amazing aprons.

I've been playing around with different apron patterns lately, since I've had a back-to-back-to-back-to-back few weeks of birthdays, house warmings, etc. I tried Jona's super-fun one-hour apron pattern. The first one took me 2.5 hours because I completely ignored the directions. The second was done in 47 minutes. BAM!

Best of all? The Grandma LOOOOVED it. See?


The fabric is by Alexander Henry and some bright-blue kona cotton solids. Yay!

New design.

Hey feed/reader peeps. Click out and check out the redesign. I wish I could take credit for anything in it _ other than the title font _ but it's a free template by the bad-ass folks at Delicious Design Studio.

I'll probably do something with more bells and whistles later and make this a little more funky. But I think it works for now. Especially for the price.

You should totally do this!

The always fabulous Elizabeth Hartman over at Oh, Fransson is starting a quilt-along. I'm a huge fan of Elizabeth's work and her designs (I also think she and I have the same brain when it comes to fabric) and her instructions are really easy to follow _ especially if you're new to quilting.

I'm not sure if I'm going to play on this project, but I just might. It seems like it should go really quickly. Plus, I've never done a quilt along.

For those of you (and you know who you are, ahem ahem) who've been all: "Oh Noodles! I'd LOVE to do that. I just don't know how..." this would be the PERFECT project for you.

Here's her link where she introduces the project. And you can find week one instructions, which cover basic materials, here. And you can check others' progress on the Flickr group.

So, sing up!

Lah dee dah.

Once, when I studied abroad, I went through a really and truly horribly 48 hours when I had nothing by the chorus of Pearl Jam's "Jeremy" in my head. Forty-eight long, long, painful hours. I don't care how hot Eddie Vedder is, that's about 44 hours too long for that song. (True story: an ex once said Vedder was the only dude he'd ever consider sleeping with. Since the chances of that are up there with the chances that I'll be a size 4, I did not feel threatened.)

I share because, well, I always share. And because I thought I'd illuminate how prone I am to brain worm songs. Because of this, my desk mate and I absolutely love to play the obnoxious song game. Mainly, this consists of me saying, "Hey Karen! Guess what song I have in my head?" before she gives me the death glare and puts her hands over her ears. Since I am oh-so-mature, I will often start humming the chorus, she shrieks and then, well, all bets are off because she'll launch a counter attack.

(For the record, there are few songs more obnoxious than Kelis' "Milkshake." "Damn right, it's better than yours!" AHHHHH. And, once, a few months ago, my exceptionally gay hairdresser turned to me mid foil and said "Damn girl, I bet your milk shake DOES bring all the boys to the yard." )

So, needless to say, when someone else in the office started playing Dan Fogelberg's "Leader of the Band" this afternoon, I knew I was totally, completely and 100 percent screwed.



Why they were discussing Fogelberg, who I insisted on calling Dan Fogenfloogie, is beyond me. Although, according to the all-knowing Wikipedia, he was from Peoria. My ears happened to perk up at the wrong time. Which explains why I am now in my jammies, trying to escape the 1981 song.

Le sigh indeed.

Me! Updated.

I mentioned last week that I was going to do some edits to my introductory profile. After showing the final edit to a co-worker, she told me it's perfect for a blog. Not so much for my online dating profile. Hum... reminder: edit for boys.

But here's the new version. More details later about a redesign.

Noodles: (NOO'-duhlz). n. 1. Pain-in-the-ass, fallen(ish), foul-mouthed 20-something belle and DIYer. 2. Also known as belligerent word nerd, avid reader and puppy fiend with occasional dreams of alternate career as a wine and cheese taster. 3. Your BFF, served with a side of smart ass.

Attack of the fat quarters.

No, no. I'm not discussing my ass. I'm talking about the cool cuts of fabric known as fat quarters. These cuts of fabric make up a huge selection of my stash and they're great for quilting. (Although, I have started buying half-yard and full-yard cuts. Because I have a serious shopping problem.)

The Sew, Mama, Sew blog devoted the entire month of February to FQs, and posted awesome daily projects and tutorials for neat things you can make. You can find the compendium of projects here and here is a list of tutorials. I can't wait to try the hand bag! (Seriously, if SMS isn't in your reader, you should add it. Because a) they rock and b) what fun!)

Also of note that SMS has begun selling FQs in their online shop. And since you, my dear reader, have only 76 days left to shop for my 28th birthday _ and therefore are most likely right in the midst of your birthday gift brainstorming _ I thought I'd mention it. As, you know, a wee suggestion.