Etsy Profile

When I redid the Call Ajaire Etsy banner recently I thought I'd use a few pictures to represent where I am and where I come from. Sort of my life in seven pics. 

It took longer than I thought.

Since it applies to this blog as well I thought I'd repost the bio here:

I started with twenty MUST includes and through gritted teeth whittled it (ooh i should try whittling) down to seven. So here goes...

(in no true order other than eye-pleasing)

1. I hadn't embroidered in years, but decided to give it a go for some christmas presents this year. This is my parents' house and where I spent most of my younger years. I love quilting and the way the little scrappy pieces sort of wander this way and that yet are clearly framing the emroidery in three even rows. I had a lot of fun with these projects and am excited to have found my way back to embroidery.

2. This is one of the candy dishes we used at our wedding. By far my FAVORITE colors of green. I love the pink jelly beans contrast. Plus they taste good!

3. Though I don't think I'll ever truly love any color the way I do green, pink has caught my eye the last few years. Maybe it's the girly side of me trying to break it's way free or maybe pink just makes green look so much better (see the candy dish pic...really go look at it again...so maybe it's complement and not contrast)

4. I love knitting and crocheting. I taught myself about three years ago and I wish I had started sooner. (on ravelry as Ajaire) It's so satisfying to make something using just your hands. Well and some needles and yarn, but you get the idea. I've always been a sewer (eew that looks wrong...seamstress?) but knitting is so portable that I haven't done nearly as much sewing lately. I had a LONG bus commute when I lived outside seattle so I was knitting up a storm. That's when I started knitting and crocheting my coffee handlers. Essential programmer tool... way to carry multiple cups of coffee back to your desk at once without spilling on the stairs or in the elevator. I used to be called "a spiller."

5. Wedding present from my mother. LOVE the color. Basically Le Creuset doesn't sell the right shade of green for me so I went with flame. Sounds cool huh? This and the dutch oven I got in the same color are the greatest. I use them almost every night and the color just makes me happy. I do a lot of cooking and baking. My metal bundt pan is jealous of the dutch oven... so flashy, so useful.

6. I am thirty-something and married July 25, 2009. My husband is wonderful and the reason I'm able to spend more time knitting and less time on a bus. I knit and felted my wedding flowers and it was my first try at felting. I think I was afraid to try felting because of the wet-dog wool smell, but was so happy with the result that I should have started years ago. Plus I won a ribbon at a county fair in PA for the flowers so that was worth getting over my fear of smells. I made my dress too. (Refer back to the part about being a sewer)
I didn't mention it on etsy, but you can see i'm holding my grandmother's hanky in my hand around the flowers.  My mother gave it to me to use on my wedding day because she had carried it when she married my father.  This was my paternal grandmother and she was pretty special.

7. My older sister gave me this hand-me-down chair when I moved from MA to WA years over 10 ago. I remade some cushions with a piece of old-ladyish fabric that I love. There is something magical about this chair. It is sort of low to the ground and since my legs are very short it's one of the only chairs I am really comfortable in. And it rocks. Like it rocks back and forth... ok it rocks! It's a perfect yarn-craft chair. I can even tuck my legs up under me and sit comfy since it's pretty wide. The cats like it too so we have arguments over who it really belongs to.


Anything else you want to know?  I'd love to hear how you found your way to my page and what you think so send me a message. or a massage.