Another new tattoo. This one is to commerate my black belt, which I just received in April.

New tattoo. Not really crafty, I guess, but craft-inspired, to some extent.

New (to me) spinning wheel

I'm posting this mostly because I want to share these photos somewhere else and I can't get it to work! But, that being said, isn't she a beauty? She needs a little TLC (and a name) but I can't wait to play with her.

Christmas catch-up

I did a lot of sewing for the Holidays. I didn't get pictures of everything, but I'll share what I do have pictures of!

First up, and probably my favorite - DD's Christmas outfit. It was meant as her dressy outfit for church on Christmas Eve, but she wasn't feeling well and it was snowing hard so we ended up staying home and she wore it for Christmas Day.





The vest is Simplicity 2484 and the skirt is the Insa skirt pattern from Sewing Clothes Kids Love. (the white blouse and red hat are from Gymboree) The skirt is made from red and charcoal satin taffeta with a second "overskirt" of pin dot lace and trimmed with black velvet ribbon all from Jo-Ann's. I ran out of the red taffeta and couldn't get any more so the best is actually two layers of red satin, shiny sides in with the black lace overlaid and more black velvet ribbon. Oh, and cover buttons covered with the charcoal taffeta. I LOVE this outfit. I'll be hunting for more special occasions just so she can wear it!

I had planned to make Mokey a tie to match, but it didn't turn out well so I scrapped it. Maybe later.

Next up, Christmas jammies! Our tradition is that the kids get to open one package on Christmas Eve and it's always new pajamas to wear that night (I admit, it's so they have cute jammies for Christmas morning pictures, but they both love pajamas, so it works out for everybody). This is the second year of mama-made pajamas and I don't think the kids would let me go back to buying them!



Princess first: I used McCall's 6239. It's a touch big, and I need to hem it, but this way she'll get a couple of years of wear out of it.



Mokey: I used McCall's 5965. It's kind of my tried and true pajama pattern for him.

The pajamas are flannel from JoAnn's. I actually bought the brown flannel last year to make myself a robe, but I never got around to it and I liked it better for this anyway. The cookies and milk print was all the store had left but I loved it so I made it work. Then....someone on one of the message boards I belong to found some more at her JoAnn's and so...



Family jammies!!! I made pj pants for DH and I from McCall's 5992 (and "cheated" and bought t-shirts for us - I was just running out of time!)

Yo Ho, Christmas cards sent (a long time ago)

I totally should have posted this a long time ago, but you know how busy the holidays get. Here are the adorable Christmas cards Shutterfly sent me for free for blogging about their new line of cards:

Slate Snowflakes Christmas 5x7 folded card

Create beautiful photo Christmas cards at Shutterfly.com.

View the entire collection of cards.

I was completely thrilled with how they turned out! And the quality was really great - these were printed on card stock, not photo paper.

"Yo Ho, Sending Christmas Cards"

Yup, it's that time of year again. There's a reason sending Christmas cards made it into the list of the pains of Christmas (an old Bob Rivers song, in case you haven't heard of it - it's funny 'cause it's true). Picking out a card, addressing all the envelopes, writing a message to make those cookie-cutter boxed cards more personal, or, conversely, trying to get the kids to both look at the camera and smile at the same time so you can put a cute picture of them either on or in the card...um, yeah. Well, as much fun as sending the cards isn't, receiving the cards is one of my favorite things in the whole year. Cards with photos are the best, of course, because, well, I love pictures!



Shutterfly is making it a little easier for me this year. Yeah, I still have to see if I can get the kids to cooperate with picture-taking, but I know the cards will be cute because Shutterfly has so many great options. Plus, this year Shutterfly has this great program for bloggers - just blog about their cards and they'll send you 50 cards for free! There's something about that word that makes everything more exciting and fun! You can find the details about the offer here.



Now the hard part, picking out which card to use. There are tons of options - from the more traditional red and green Christmas photo cards to holiday cards with more modern and free-spirited color combinations. I haven't gotten mine picked out yet, I might have to wait until I get pictures wrapped up to decide, but I know it'll be awesome.



So - what are you still reading this for? Get cracking, it's almost Thanksgiving! If you're a procrastinator, you might want to look at these cards instead: New Year's Cards.

King Mokey and Princess, um, Princess

I'm finally getting around to posting about the kiddos' Halloween costumes.

Mia declared, quite definitively, that she wanted to be a "Pintess wif boo tat" (Princess with a blue hat) for Halloween.



I used Simplicity 2569 for her costume. The sizing was a bit wacky with this one. By measurements, she should have needed a size 2 for length, but it should have been pretty roomy. When I was doing my "tester" I thought the pattern looked tiny, so I cut the size 3 and it wouldn't zip! The costume ended up a shortened (in the skirt and sleeves, but not the bodice) size 6! The bodice and underskirt are royal blue poly satin and the skirt is royal blue and gold tulle. There's gold tissue lame (no fun to work with, by the way) for the bodice inset and puff sleeves. I couldn't find royal blue sheer ribbon for the sleeves, but I did find a pretty trim that had royal blue, turquoise and gold all together so I substituted turquoise sheer ribbon on the sleeves and used the trim around the inset and added turquoise tulle on the hat to tie it all together.

Mokey originally wanted to be a mummy, but after Princess decided on her princess costume, he changed his mind. He decided to be a king because "the king's the boss." So a king it is.




I used McCall's 5214 for Mokey's tunic, belt and cape and Butterick 5161 for the crown. The tunic fit wonderfully, except for the length, I added a couple of inches in the torso (as usual). It's all poly satin and the buttons (all 21 of them) are from my mom's stash. The cape is poly satin lined with crepe back satin and underlined with corduroy to add body, the clasp is my mom's stash as well. The crown is my favorite part. It's made of metallic crinkle pleather over cardboard for stability, poly satin and the band across the top are metallic trim on ribbon covered wire. There were boot covers too, made from black vinyl using a pattern my mom drafted for me last year, but I broke the elastic on Friday getting Mokey dressed for his class party and didn't get around to fixing them before trick or treating on Sunday.

Drive by posting

Drive by posting to share what I completed for the One Thing One Week Challenge over on Amy's Creative Side:

Yup, Halloween costumes, done. Well, except Mokey's belt was too big, so I have to fix that and remember to put his boot covers on him next time. I'll be back later when I get good pictures (this is a action shot from trick or treating at the campground Saturday night) to share more.

Boo!

It's the most wonderful time of the year.....no, wait, that's Christmas, isn't it? Well, I think October is the most wonderful month of the year, anyway. We get nice cool days, crisp nights that make cuddling up under a warm blanket feel heavely, beautiful colors in the trees, cheerful orange pumpkins (have I ever mentioned that orange is one of my favorite colors? It totally is). It's the best TV time of the whole year, too. They really beef up on the ghost stories in October and I love a good, cheesy ghost story. (and my husband would be embarassed to know this, but the cheesy teen Halloween movies on the Disney Channel - they're just fun). And then you get Halloween - picking out costumes (in my case, making the costumes - they're under way, I'll post as soon as they're done), making jack-o-lanterns, trick or treating and trick or treaters and parties. Ahhhhh, love it. So, it isn't any wonder that my kids always have Halloween themed clothing as well as their costumes. Mokey's Halloween t-shirts from last year don't fit anymore and I had some Halloween fabric down in my stash, so I decided to make him a shirt this year. And.....since he still loves it when he and Princess match, well, I found a way to make a matching skirt for her out of the scraps from his!

Voila!


Mokey's shirt is Simplicity 3852, changed just a tiny bit to make it more of a bowling shirt than a Hawaiian shirt (i.e. I made the collar, pocket and sleeves black instead of the print and added a stripe of black down one side). Princess' skirt was made from the dresden plate skirt tutorial on crafterhours. Mine is a touch less full, simply because I ran out of the print! Oh, and I did a full lining, instead of the facing so I didn't have to worry about finishing any seams. If you can't tell from the pictures, the print is tossed candy corn with little purple spiders and the black is actually from a set of XL twin sheets I found in the damaged area at Ikea for $3 or somethig (I think, now, that it might have been there because it's missing the flat sheet, but I can't remember if I stowed that part someplace else to earmark it for something special or not). I used pretty much the whole pillowcase and a chunk of the fitted sheet.

Oh, and, can anybody tell me who that 12 year old girl in that picture up there is and what she's done with my cute little two year old? Oh, wait, nevermind, found her:

Whoohoo!

See that pretty little brown and pink button over there - right there, on the right. Yeah, the Princess' cute little first day of school dress was featured on Sew Much Ado (one of my favorite blogs to read!) for this week's We Did It Wednesday. I'm so excited I could bust!

One Thing One Week Challenge 2

Amy over at Amy's Creative side hosted a one week challenge. Challengers were supposed to choose one thing to accomplish over the week and link back today if we got it done.

My challenge for the week was to cut fabric for my very first quilt and I got it done and then some! I've actually got the blocks all pieced and ready to assemble into a quilt top! I don't have the border fabric cut yet, but I figure that's okay since I really need to have my blocks connected to get the proper measurements. Maybe I'll get that done this week.

Here's my quilt so far:

Bloop bloop

You don't know how close you came to being subjected to a cheesy pun about the Princess' first day of preschool dress. Seriously, it has fish on it; that pun was just sitting there staring at me, daring me to use it. Ha! So there pun!

Anyway....this was a big week for our household. Mokey started Kindergarten on Monday (but since this is mostly a sewing blog and I sewed nothing for his bts outfit, I'm not posting a picture) and the Princess started preschool today.

My original plan for her first day outfit was the knot dress I posted a little while ago, but then I realized that it's still in the 80's here (and what a blessed relief that is from the 90's we've had most of the summer) and that dress is just a touch too big to wear without a top under it (planned that way so she has growing room, of course, don't know why that had't occurred to me before). So, on Sunday I took a little time (while the hubby was out mowing) to go throw my pattern and fabric stashes to see what I could whip up in time. I had a different pattern picked out, but the Princess latched on to this fishy print (from Playdate by Patty Young) and was adamant that she wanted a fishy dress. Only one problem: when I bought this fabric, I was intending to make a bag with it and so I only bought a half a yard - not exactly enough to make a whole dress!

Enter Simplicity 3511. This pattern is my go-to pants pattern for the Princess, at least when I'm making pants to go under a dress or tunic, but I'd never tried the dress. I didn't have quite enough for the dress based on the fabric requirements printed on the envelope, but I eyeballed the pieces and I was pretty sure I could get it all out of that piece. I just happened to have a piece of cotton in the perfect shade of orange so I was all set (well, minus some ribbon and buttons).

I was a little afraid that the print and the orange would be too bright together, but the aqua ribbon separating them makes it work. Fit-wise it's a little shorter than I would like, but it can be a tunic in a month or so when it starts to get too short. It is a little hard to put on and off, but I think it has more to do with the fact that it only opens about an inch or so in the back rather than too small (I think any bigger and it would fall off her shoulders). We'll have to get better at getting it on and off because we both love it; it might just be my favorite so far!

Sassy

I made this weeks ago, but I'm just getting around to blogging about it. This was meant as a "muslin" of this pattern to test my fit before I made it out of expensive fabric, but it worked out well, so it's wearable. It's McCall's 5882, designed by the Kay Whitt, of Serendipity Studios. She makes great patterns and they are very easy to follow. I ended up having to take this one in quite a bit in the bust and waist and tapered slightly differently in the skirt portion. Next time I think I'll make it a size smaller so I don't have to adjust so much. (please excuse the messy mirror, I did't realize how smudgy it was until I looked at the pictures ad I'm not that great with PaintShop).

Tinkerwho?

Okay, I admit, my daughter is slightly obsessed with Tinkerbell. Almost every morning she asks to wear a "sweeshie shirt", of which she only has two - one is long sleeved (and thus, too hot when it's 90+ outside) and the other seems to always be in the wash. So I thought she needed another Tinkerbell something so I don't have to say no 6 days out of the week. Wal-mart happened to have the Tinkerbell fabric I used on the Patsy Ann Apron top a few months back and even a couple of coordinates for about half the price I paid at the quilt shop back then (of course, isn't that how it always works), so I grabbed about a yard of each and settled on McCall's 6066 as the pattern. The pattern is technically too big for her, since she's so skinny, but the length actually worked out well and it has an elastic waistband anyway so it was fine. I love the tulle underskirt (although I think I'm going to trim an inch or so off - it just looks off). I think, too, that I'm going to end up making a flower pin out of the tulle scraps to pin on the loop. It's got great twirl.

Pwetty Dwess

I love Lila Tueller. Love. Especially her Woodland bloom collection. But, well, designer quilting cotton can be pricey. I thought it would be perfect for a knot dress a la Matilda Jane but you know, with the number of different fabrics you need for one of those, we're talking $30 or so, um, yeah, so not putting that much into a dress for a two year old. So, I grabbed a small bit of two of my favorites and went searching for other fabrics that would coordinate. Hobby Lobby to the rescue! I found a cute green print that worked perfectly and then two nice solids that picked up colors in the Lila Tueller. Fabulous.

I've made one of these knot dresses before. In fact, it was the first thing I ever sewed (with a lot of help from my mom on that one). I used the tutorial from Everyday Chaos but added an apron and a hem band. Then I made my tried-and-true toddler pants pattern: Simplicity 3511 and added a matching hem band to pull it all together. She loves it! She kept wanting to she daddy her "pwetty dwess." I think it's going to be her first day of school outfit (my baby is starting preschool in three weeks *sniff sniff*), as long as it's not too boiling out that day.

UFO no longer

I started this skirt back in, oh, February, I think. It was supposed to be a practice skirt and then I would make it again in Tinkerbell fabric for Princess' birthday party. Um, well, that obviously didn't happen. About 12 hours into this I wasn't done, completely sick of it and since I only had one week 'til Princess' party I knew the Tinkerbell version wasn't going to happen. So, I ditched it in favor of the outfit I actually used for her party and it sat in the unfinished pile for months (and months and months). I took a little break from sewing for awhile this summer, mostly because I was sooo behind on housework. Well, I'm all caught up now and back in the swing, but I had a million other projects that I wanted to do instead of this.

But... Amy over at Amy's Creative Side has issued a little challenge - pick one thing to challenge yourself with for the week and get it done. So....I decided that this skirt needed to get done before summer is gone and here it is!

It's the Nie Nie skirt from Pink Fig and I made it in gingham and eyelet (honestly, what's more perfect for a super girly, ruffly skirt than gingham and eyelet?). I think it's super adorable and Princess loves how twirly it is, but I don't think I'll be making it again any time soon, at least not until I have a serger and I've mastered my ruffler. There are a lot of edges to finish and sooo much gathering.

Testing, Testing - part 2

Here's the second of the two patterns I tested for Trish of Two Peas in a Pod Designs, the Patsy Ann Apron Top.

My version evolved several times before I actually sewed a stitch. I had picked out some fabric from my stash for the main body but I didn't have anything that I loved with it for the straps. So, Princess and I went to the fabric store to find something to go with it and she found the Tinkerbell fabric you see and latched on to it. (we're watching the second Tinkerbell movie as I type this). I found some pretty Tinkerbell green fabric with little white stars for the straps and brought it home. Then, as I was cutting the fabric, I cut the green fabric in the wrong dimensions and had cut it so that I didn't have a big enough piece in what was left to do the straps, so I dug out the white fabric to make the straps and then I cut the chest strap the wrong dimensions, too (lesson: never cut fabric when you have a headache) and so the green fabric was officially not included. I love the results (although that white fabric is pretty thick and it made the button holes kind of difficult).



It's a very simple pattern and such a cute top and I loved how it turned out (all except the buttonholes - I'm buttonhole challenged).



If you're interested in the pattern - you can contact Trish through her site here for ordering information or the patterns will be available in June in her etsy shop.

Testing, Testing

Fellow blogger, Trish Preston of Two Peas in a Pod Designs is getting ready to introduce some new patterns to her Sprouts line very soon and lucky me got to be a tester! They're great patterns and I was honored that I got to be one of the first to try them out. Part of getting to test, though, was agreeing not to post any pictures of what I made until Trish gave the go ahead. It's been rough because both of my testers turned out really, really well. The purse - the Madison Bag, has been especially rough because I'm just so in love with my version. Trish says the patterns are almost ready to head to the printers and so now I'm allowed to share!

I'm going to share the bag first, because I've just been on pins and needles to show it off and I'll put up the other in the morning.

So, here it is - my version of the Madison Bag:



This bag was made entirely from my stash - some of it from various sized scraps and remnants that used to be part of my mom's stash (and likely some that had been my grandma's) but the two main fabrics in the body of the bag were from fat quarters that I picked up new here and there with no real plan for them (and no real idea what they are). I guess what I'm saying is that this purse is completely one-of-a-kind and cannot be replicated (since I used pretty much all of the two main fat quarters and wouldn't know how to find replacements). The shiny fabrics aren't satin - they're both cotton woven with metallic threads - the solid has silver threads and the textured one has gold threads (I do have more of both of those - I may have to find something else to use them in, they're so pretty).

It's a great little pattern - really very quick to put together and Trish's instructions are so clear and easy for even a beginner to follow. It's a nice and roomy bag, too, so I can get lots of my junk in there and since it's cross-body style, it's easy to deal with when I've got the kiddos with me.

If you're interested in the pattern - you can contact Trish through her site here for ordering information or the patterns will be available in June in her etsy shop

Coming tomorrow: my version of the Patsy Ann Apron Top. Alert - serious cuteness ahead!!!

Bragging on my Hubby

Several weeks ago, hubby made a video of his lawn mower creation - lawn mower on a rope tied to a stake in the yard. It makes a perfect spiral pattern and mows a large portion of the back yard all by itself; it actually cuts about 30 minutes off his mowing time, which he usually uses to do the trimming. He sped the video up a bit and stuck it up on YouTube. Well, the silly thing took off! He's got almost 300,000 on the original posting and it's been reposted several other places (including a couple of sites on the Cheezburger network - you know the LOLcats folks) and has racked up the views there, too. Apparently, it's really popular in Spain.

Anyway, today it was featured on CNN! We had no idea and we wouldn't have know at all if some nice people hadn't commented on his YouTube page that they saw it.

Here's a link to the CNN blurb:
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/tech/2010/05/03/nr.levs.whats.hot.cnn?iref=allsearch

and the original YouTube posting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tNVOhtvPEw&feature=popm02us0f

We don't have a garden

Today I decided that we don't have a garden. A garden is something that belongs to someone who loves digging in the dirt and playing with flowers and vegetables; someone who dreams all winter about what they'll plant and where. Nope, that's definitely not me.

What we have is landscaping. We have trees and plants and flowers because a house looks weird without trees and plants and flowers. We hired someone to tell us what to plant and where (well, for at least one bed) and we only change something when it gets over grown or dies (which happens quite a lot, actually, but less often since we put in that irrigation system - I'm terrible at remembering that plants need water). I think so little about our plants during the off-season that it was almost the middle of April before I got around to doing the spring pruning (most of which probably should have been done at least a month ago).

Ah, yes, spring pruning. That's what I did this weekend. Saturday, I spent the afternoon cleaning up the back yard beds. One of them looks pretty good (considering things are really just starting to come up) and the other looks pretty bare, but I know it'll be decent in a month or so. I spent this morning butchering the bed along the garage side of the house. When I say butchering, I mean butchering. I was nice to two of the clematises (clematii?), but I took the mini hedge-clippers to the middle one and chopped it off down to the ground. It's probably a little late for an aggressive pruning, especially considering there was green all the way up to the top of the trellis, but this particular clematis seems to want to take over the world, so I'm sure it'll be back. (I'm not kidding here - we dug the sucker up and sent it an hour away three years ago and it's still here! - If you have a tendency to kill plants, get a Sweet Autumn clematis, if you have a green thumb, stay far, far away). Then I took the hedge clippers to the lavender, whacked them all off and decided they were far too woody and crummy looking so I set the hubs on them with a shovel and he dug them all out. They've spread like wildfire and I left the blooms on last fall so I'm thinking they'll be back from the seeds and if not, we'll figure something else out.

That picture up top is the bed under our deck from last year. It needs some thinning out, but it's not a bad little flower bed. Below is my little fountain - my favorite part of the whole yard. It was a Mother's Day gift a couple of years ago.