My sewing machine is happy

The skirts started it all. The truth is I had not even looked at my sewing machine in the last 4 years. It had been stored in a closet, snuggled up next to old books and camping equipment, neglected and dusty. Even when I used it 4+ years ago, it was only to make pillows [...]

bag lady

Yesterday I whipped up a purple gingham bag for my daughter. Look at me tossing around words like “whipped up” — like I’m some kind of pro or something!

But if “whipped up” = less than an hour, then I have officially whipped!
My daughter loves her new bag. I finished it up just before we left [...]

plums and eggplants don’t mix

So the eggplant shirt I have that was going to match the drapery fabric so perfectly? Not so matchy. At all.

Turns out my shirt is not eggplant (eggplant, eggplant, EGGPLANT!). Or the fabric isn’t. Maybe it is more plum-ish?  Or something. But not the matchy wonder I thought it would be.
I bought the fabric and [...]

ribbon pillow

More ribbon! I can’t pass up ribbon! Especially when it is only 99 cents a roll.
I cut the pieces ~12 inches each:

played around with different weaves:

and made it in to a pillow for my daughter’s apple green & hot pink room:
total cost = $2.00 plus a little stuffing and scrap white cotton. Love it!

preschool peeper

On the way home from dinner, my 3.5 year old daughter said “Let’s not go home yet”. I asked her what she wanted to do. She said “Let’s drive around and look at pretty houses…..:”.
I am training her well!

do these drapes make my butt look big?

Can I wear drapery fabric as a skirt? What are the rules on that? Can only Scarlet O’Hara and the kids in The Sound of Music pull that off?
I bought this fabric a year or two ago and covered a rescued piano bench top with it. The piano bench was awful – black chipped paint [...]

cock a doodle doo

 
I got too cocky with the skirts.
I was still riding the skirt high. I was all “oh this is easy! I can follow patterns! Look at me go!”.  I bought an easy (no zippers!) pattern for my daughter and naively thought I could whip up a pair of shorts and maybe even a shirt as [...]

Big Skirt, Little Skirt

The last time I followed an actual pattern I was in my 8th grade Home Economics class. I made a rockin‘ prairie skirt. It was brown and had an eyelet lace ruffle. So very Little House on the Prairie, and trust me, LHOTP was hot in the 80s. I like to sew, but have no [...]

accidental pockets

I always forget to bring gloves. My fingers risk frostbite while my gloves sit nice and toasty in the closet at home. I finished up this scarf and decided to put pockets in the bottom to hold my gloves. Actually, I didn’t decide to. That makes it sound like I knew I was going to [...]

Big ‘Ole Mess

Apparently WordPress is having some (ahem) ‘issues’.
It appears that some themes are not loading correctly. Including mine. Of course the place is a mess right when I have all this company coming over from Apartment Therapy.
WordPress suggests trying a forced reload to remedy the problem.
(Mac – shift-reload or Apple-R)
[A HUGE thank you to Heather at [...]