I created this fabric! Yup, that’s right- I designed it myself and now I can purchase it by the yard on a variety of fabrics! And so can others!

If you watched Project Runway last week, you saw the designers creating their own fabric. Well, Spoonflower is one of several websites I have found that let you do the same thing on your own!

This is very exciting for me because I am just learning art quilting. I’ve tried fabric painting- and it is not working out how I want it to. I’ve discovered that with this new web technology, I can create my own designs, or use photos, or photoshop, upload my image and have it printed as one big panel or as a print!

Spoonflower also serves as a bit of a design community- as they hold challenges and contests. In addition, designers are able to sell their fabric to the public if they wish.

I’m working on making a painting in photoshop. From a blank white page. Never to be on canvas- just to go right into print and fabric! How’s that for something new and creative?

I found these vintage doggies on a share-site and made them into a fabric. Wouldn’t they make cute pajamas?

I know there were other sites available, but Spoonflower seemed to be the most popular at the moment, so that gave me a little trust… and the community is inspiring!

Hey Hey Sarah! We LOVE that hopey-changey thing. It’s working out pretty well. We have averted a complete depression, stimulus money is helping our communities and there is humor and optimism in the White House!

I’m proposing we all write HOPE and CHANGE on our hands to show our support of the USA!

Tonight I made a warm & comforting simple Polish American dish called “Lazy Pierogi”. It is called lazy because it’s sort of a skillet-casserole meal.

If you acre from a Polish family you will know that it takes all day to make the real thing- pierogi. The dough needs to be mixed and rolled out. The various fillings prepared- potato, sauerkraut, cheese, etc…
and then you have to boil your pierogi and wrap it up to be frozen.

This dish captures the flavors of pierogi, (at least a little bit), and yet you can make it in less than an hour with little preparation.

Here go the instructions:

Ingredients:
1 pound cooked egg noodles
1 pound bacon
1 onion, diced
1 can (14 oz) sauerkraut drained & rinsed
1 can (8 oz) mushrooms, drained
1 lg. can cream of mushroom soup condensed

Fry bacon, set aside. Discard all but a little bacon grease. In same pan, fry sauerkraut, diced onion, and mushrooms. Break bacon into pieces and stir into frying pan. Add the most important ingredient to any meal, love. In separate casserole dish, mix cooked noodles, cream of mushroom soup (condensed), and fried sauerkraut mixture (once onions are tender). Cover and place in oven for 35 to 40 minutes. Serves a big Polish family.

Call it a hiatus, a holiday break… a seasonal slump, I just haven’t been writing much and I don’t really know why.

Maybe it’s my first really serious bout of Blogger’s Block, but for the life of me I just haven’t had any idea what I want to share here or how to get started writing again.

I was reading Brian Clark’s article, Blogging Is Dead (Again) and it motivated me to just sit and type something, anything into this blog and publish it.

I can agree that social networking has taken some of my steam out of the blog. I share my daily life on Facebook and Twitter with the folks I know and that sort of fulfills my need to explain what I’m doing.

In addition, it’s winter. Just damn winter. I don’t know what to do about it. I’ve spent a lot of energy on crafting and art. Cleaning the house and struggling to stay awake in between. This is the time of year when we are all getting into a slump here in northern climates. I predict within three weeks almost every office will have a controversy and every organization a disagreement.

My theory? People just start to really really dislike other people when we have to see too many of them. In the warm months, we are looking at the sky and the trees and the grass. We are travelling and gardening. We are walking and swimming. In the winter, we are trapped indoors dealing with other people.

I am a paradox. I’m an extroverted people disliker. I claim not to like other people then I can’t stop talking to them.

All I can say is: I’m still here. I suck. Oh well.

“Daddy, why do people say Happy Holidays in the store?”
“Well, because we are only going to see them probably once and that means Happy Thanksgiving, and Merry Christmas and Happy New Year all combined. Unless maybe you celebrate Hanukkah, then it’s Happy Hannukah too, so that’s just the shorter way to be polite and wish Happy Everything!”

That’s the true conversation I had with my father when I was about 7 years old in his store. As a small businessman, my father was meticulous with his manners and polite to the extreme. He taught us that the customers paid for our dinner and breakfast and school clothes. He taught us that you have to be polite to the customers if you want them to come back and continue to pay for those things.

Not only that- “Happy Holidays” taught me as a child to wish well to all people- even if they were different from me.

That certain people in this nation think to wish people a happy set of holidays is in someway a malevolent, thinly veiled plan to undermine their way of life is not only anthropocentric, but also extremely paranoid… almost to a comic extent.

I can imagine a red faced guy hiding in his basement window, (with the NRA decal), cracking a beer and telling his son, “That’s it, Billay- I kin see them librals cummin and thayz gonna trah to take away our plastic baby Jeezus. They’ve already outlawed the plastic jeezus in californie!”

Guess what?

The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought (Hardcover)

is on sale at amazon.com, down from 24.99 to 4.99.

Maybe people just aren’t “buyin it”.

Look, here’s the reality: some folks are trying to make Happy Holidays an issue for no other reason than to use fear as a tactic to influence people into behaving how they want them to behave. Don’t fall for it. When someone wishes you Happy Holidays, they really mean it. They really are wishing you are going to be HAPPY during this holiday season.

-
You know, the season that includes many holidays? Okay? Great. So take a deep breath and don’t worry- there is no real plot- it’s just people trying to be nice. Nothing suspicious going on.