6 the big bowl.

Just wanted to share a little story about my family with you today.  My cousin Brock Rumohr, an amazing ceramist, sculptor, and teacher, was asked to develop and implement a community collaborative sculpture event to commemorate the Munising Woodenware Factory, in Munising, MI, which is where my dad's family is from.  The factory was where timber from the area was transformed into bowls, rolling pins, and clothespins, among other things by local artisans.

Photo by LAREfurbish on Etsy

If you've read the little blurb on the left about why this blog is called Bijou Lovely, you know that this blog was named after my great grandmother.  She was a talented artist who worked at the Munising Woodenware Factory in Munising, MI where she painted wooden bowls with flowers, ivy leaves, fruit, and other designs (the bowl shown above is one of hers, I just found it while writing this post and immediately bought it!).  My grandmother also worked at the factory for a while, making wooden clothespins.

Obviously, this was the perfect project for my cousin Brock, since the area and the factory have such deep ties to our family.  He finished his "The Big Bowl" sculpture over the 4th of July weekend with the help of the public and some other family members.  I'm biased of course, but I think it's pretty awesome!

Photo by Brock Rumohr

Here's a little video documenting the process.

If you ever happen to find yourself in Munising, stop by the Alger County Heritage Center and check it out.  I hope to be able to visit the sculpture myself very soon!

19 meet Jackson.

This weekend we added a new member to our little family... a puppy!  Meet Jackson.

He is a 12 week old Morkie (Maltese/Yorkie mix) and he is just the sweetest!  Lots of snuggles and puppy kisses happening in this house.  He seems to be adjusting to his new home pretty well.  He is taking a nap in my lap as I type this.  We couldn't be happier! :)

14 senior pictures.

My sister Gaby in a senior in high school this year, I can't even believe it!  She wanted a few of her senior pictures taken before the leaves start turning, so we went out this weekend and took some shots.  We took mostly serious ones this time because she doesn't get her braces off for another month, but there are some smiling ones too.  I apologize for the picture overload, but she is just so darn cute!

Gaby has such great style!  She insisted on taking some pictures with her backpack, which she wears pretty much all the time.

 

Here's a shoe glamour shot just for fun.  Gaby is the queen of high tops!

I have so much fun taking pictures with my sister.  She knows how to pose herself so there's basically no need for any direction, and we're of course super comfortable with each other so there's lots of laughing and silliness involved!  I'm excited to take more pictures once the leaves start turning!

12 girl's night.

Yesterday my niece spent the night and we had a little crafty girl time!  She has three brothers and has spent the last few weeks with them and her two boy cousins, so the girl time was much needed.  We had pizza for dinner, she swam for a bit, and then came inside to color her little heart out!  I had made the outer portion of this bag before she arrived and it was just waiting to become her masterpiece.  We took out the washable markers and she got right to work.

The fabric is from the Color Me collection by StudioE Fabrics.  I had received it in a swap awhile back, and I'm really glad I hadn't used it yet, it's perfect for this project!

We used Crayola washable markers, with the hope that they will come out in the wash if she wants to start over.

 She had a lot of fun decorating her bag!

I made up the pattern of the bag as I went...it's just a fat quarter of the coloring fabric basted to quilt batting and muslin with some FMQ doodles, then sewn together with gussets and a black accent piece sewn along the top edge.  When she went to bed, I quickly sewed the rest together... added a lining, strap, and button (and a magnetic snap inside to close it).

Then I decided to practice some FMQ writing, and added her name and some hearts to the strap for fun.

She was so excited to see if finished this morning and to show it off at her dance camp today!  It was a wonderful way to spend time with my only niece.

 

Looking forward to another girl's night the next time she's in town :)

p.s.  Tammie is giving away two copies of my Colorblock Quilt today in her Sew Full of Summer series!  Click here to enter.

9 this week.

This has been kind of an unusual week for me.  My husband is at our camp for the week deer hunting, so I've been left to hold down the fort at home.  My sister Dani is home from school for a little while, so I've been spending a lot of time with my family.  Not much sewing has been done, but I've been doing other fun things like making Christmas decorations with two of my best girlfriends, cooking, and trying to remember how to knit.

I made 5 little trees on Saturday (not the bottle brush trees in the back!), and I really like how they turned out.

I made this little plaid tree by wrapping strips of plaid fabric around a styrofoam cone.  The gray tree was made using paper for the cone and just wrapping gray yarn around it.

The white tree was paper wrapped in burlap fabric, the green and white one is crochet yarn that looks like baker's twine around styrofoam, and the little gray one is crochet thread wrapped around paper.

After a day of holiday crafting, my friend Kate and I enjoyed some wine and cheese...

 roasted some veggies...

 and made bowtie pasta with chicken, cherry tomatoes, and pesto cream sauce for dinner.

 Last night my mom and sisters made homemade pizza with spinach, artichokes, olives and tomatoes.

I've been practicing my knitting with this simple scarf, but I really want to make one of these!

My little sisters are kind of crazy, as proven by this picture.

 Here we are all together.  I love these two girls so much!

It's been a pretty good week so far!