Yeah for batteries!

The camera has batteries again! I've been busy, but my sister Joyce has been busier. Here is a photo of my brand new niece, Kara Elizabeth.



I get to see her next week. I just finished making her the snuggy wrap blanket from Amy Butler's Little Stitches for Little Ones.



It has a hood and everything. My baby blanket had a hood. It was white with bunnies on it with a silky yellow trim. Here's hoping Kara remembers this blanket when she's 36. The hood is key. It allows you to play super hero and run around with your "cape" flying behind you.





Here's a picture of my baby lounging on her favorite chair.



Corey and I had out back porch painted white. My dad also painted my porch swing (my birthday gift from Corey) when he was here a few weeks back too. I ordered some outdoor fabric and made a seat cushion and a few pillows for it. I think it looks nice.

I bought a few purple passion flower vines and got lucky and found some black and white pots at Home Depot. Hopefully, by next summer the vines will be crawling all over the trellis. Next is to hang twinkle lights and maybe install a ceiling fan. A rug and a few chairs and we'll be ready to entertain back there. I wish I had taken some before pictures. It was pretty bare. We had the deck built when we bought the house. There was just a 10'x10' patch of concrete at first. That's it. I love it back there now. It's so peaceful.






I also did a little rearranging in my craft room. In his book Apartment Therapy: The Eight-Step Home Cure, Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan of Apartment Therapy talks a little bit about his aunt (I think) and how her book collection ended up being a burden over the years. If you had asked me a year ago, I would have NEVER been swilling to give up books. But I did a brave thing and donated all but a few that mean something special to me. Now I haver room to display a few things on the bookcase.






I just got the Audrey doll from Little Big Pants. Isn't she adorable? I was going to put my hair in pigtails and take a picture of Audrey and Audrey wearing my red with white polka dot skirt. I may still. I am such a dork.

I love Austin

Sorry guys. I have been meaning to post, but the batteries are dead in my camera and posts without pictures are boring. But I had to share this tidbit.

I had an "I'm not in LA anymore" moment this morning. I went through the Tuscany coffee drive through (in the Tuscany Shell station on the 360). I ordered a large sugar-free non-fat latte and a blueberry bran muffin. I got to the window to discover that my wallet was not in my bag. It must have slipped out somewhere yesterday. I apologized to the man at the window. Do you know what happened next? He gave me the coffee and muffin anyway! He told me he'd ring it up as cash, and to bring the $6.44 by sometime today. That would NEVER happen in LA. People actually trust strangers to do the right thing here. I love Austin.

By the way. I found my wallet. I left it in my gym bag yesterday. I will pay back the nice man on my way home from work today.

I hate mosquitos!

I have 36 bug bites. I am sad and itchy. Waldryl and Caladryl aren't working. Does anyone know a good remedy? I look like I have chicken pox. (*sigh*)

Happy Labor Day!

My parents left today after a four-day visit from California. It was really good to see them. As usual they helped out on several household and garden projects. Photos to come soon.

I finished several things while they were here. The first is a blouse from Sheila Brennan's One Piece Wearables. She is a big fan of avant garde design and creative draping and has created a book of clothing patterns made from one pattern piece each. The piece I chose was fun to make, but not the most flattering on me. It has a cute pouch pocket in front and I do love the material. Here are a few photos of the blouse on my new dress form and on my mom. It looks better on her. The bust dart fold up making the front look wrinkled in my opinion. Oh well. I'll try something different next time.







I also made my mom a patchwork bag like the one I made in the class at Craft-O-Rama. I took her to JoAnn and had her choose fat quarters. I was going to make her one for Christmas, but thought if would be fun to do together while she was here. Roni thought either the batting was comfy, or that I should stop sewing and pay more attention to her, or both.







That's all for now. Good night.

Finger Puppets Again

I thought I'd post some photos of my finger puppets on their new displays hands. I still need another one for the butterflies, dragon fly and lamb.

My wallet hurts

I spent a ridiculous amount of money this weekend. First at Stein Mart. They had so many beautiful colors, plums and marines and oranges. My wardrobe has needed a shot of cheer.
Then I went to JoAnn's Fabrics and bought all kinds of supplies for future projects. I bought such pretty embroidery thread. I hope it inspires me to make a few creations.
Then I bought fabric to make the cheeky monkey laundry bag from Amy Butler's new Little Stitches for Little Ones book.




Here it is completed. It is going to be a shower gift for my sister Joyce and soon-to-be niece, Mason.

Holiday gift idea

There are always so many pretty things that I want but don't need - like these striped salad spoons available from Orange Lola. So cute! Only $15. I know they'll make a great Christmas gift for someone...like me, perhaps.

Finger puppet display

I just bought these jewelry display hands from ebay to display my collection of finger puppets. I think they will look great displayed this way. I hope they arrive quickly.

Fabrics and Lampshade Longing

Here are just a few things I am longing for today.



Look at all these fun fabrics so neatly and prettily organized from quaint handmade. Mmmm...organization. It makes my OCD happy.

And I love, love, love the products from UK company Lush Designs.

So unique. The colors are so bright and happy.

Pillow Fight!

I was tired of watching TXRD pillow fights with dirty white caseless pillows, so I decided to make a sham for each team: the Hellcats, Cherry Bombs, Putas Del Fuego, Holy Rollers and Rhinestone Cowgirls (natch).

Here are a few in process.





Here are the Hellcat and Cherry Bomb pillows in action.

My First Failure

I got the Built By Wendy book, Sew U for my birthday. It has so many great ideas on how to personalize patterns to make them your own. It has patterns for a skirt, button down shirt and pair of pants. I decided to try the shirt. Oh boy.

I was used to the easy-to-follow instructions in the Amy Butler books and patterns. I think Wendy assumes you know more than I do. The instructions are really pared down and not incredibly intuitive. I decided to add a ruffle to the front and was happy that it came out well. Although I tried to use the new ruffler foot I got for my birthday and just ended up breaking a couple needles. I went back to the instructions which said to baste a row of stitches and then pull the thread to make the ruffle. That worked.

I then struggled with the collar for awhile and finally went online and found these easy-to-follow instructions with pictures. It helped a lot. I made some pretty puffed sleeves and eventually got them in the armholes without any bunches. But then, alack, alas, now that I could actually try on the shirt, I noticed I had accidentally sewed a bunch of extra fabric into the seam of the collar. The front of the shirt pulled at a weird angle because of it. And the collar, after ripping out the seams and resewing them so many times was finally on for good. Chock that one up to lesson learned, I guess. I am so bummed. Look how cute it would have, could have been.

Future Projects

I have discovered this wonderful blog: Pretty Little Things. Lori Marie has to be the most talented, crafty person ever! Everything she makes is amazing. I want her entire Etsy store. Her site is full of so much inspiration. I am getting all kinds of ideas for things to try to make. Especially for my yet-to-be born niece who I have nicknamed Mason.

I had a dream that my sister Joyce was pregnant with a boy named Mason before Joyce knew she was pregnant. I got the boy part wrong, but I still call her Mason. Even though Joyce and Scott have picked out a name that's...uh...not Mason.

But while I ponder on what to make next, I'll leave you with a mosiac that I saw in the Dallas airport. Isn't it pretty?

Patchwork

I took another class with Molly at Craft-O-Rama. Hayley, the owner of the shop taught the class. She's awesome. I highly recommend Craft-O-Rama! They have a ton of classes I want to take right now. This time it was a patchwork bag class. I decided to make a Rhinestone Cowgirl bag with western fabrics and one tattoo print to keep it from being too sweet. I am really please with how it came out.



I think I will make one for/with my mother when she comes to visit at the end of the month.

The Big Bad Wolf

I promised Skate Wolf that I would make ears for her helmet. I drew a couple sketches and made a pair out of fuzzy gray and white fabrics. I forgot to take a close up of the ears before I gave them to her, but here they are in action.

Skirting The Issue

Tired of pillows, I bought Amy Butler's In Stitches and made these fabulous pajama pants.




Corey calls them my Aladdin pants. You can't really see in the crappy picture I took in the mirror, but they have gold sparklies running throughout the fabric.

Then I made this fun sleeping mask.


This was my first quilting piece. I now know why quilting rulers exist. Drawing and sewing lines one inch apart is time consuming and hard to do. I learned some lessons on this one. I trimmed the seam too close and sewed the ribbon too close to the edge.

I saw and loved the Barcelona skirt:


in Amy Butler's Midwest Modern that I got for Christmas. I bought the pattern and made the tiered skirt from a beautiful batik fabric that I bought from Cia's Palette. Didn't it come out cute?






I then made the more simple A-line skirt from the same pattern with this owl fabric I bought a few weeks back. I wanted to put pockets on it and didn't have a pattern so just made one up. The curved edge was really, really hard to get to lay flat. Now I know about bias binding tape. I may go back and redo the pocket edges with orange bias tape so they look better.




More to come.