Stop staring and start sewing!

Orange again

Macaroni and cheese is definitely finger food. 

Oh how I love this boy.

New fun with old clothes

Here's a top I did a little refashioning on.  My daughter liked the top but we don't really  need sleeves in Arizona (well maybe for about a week in January).  It took all of 5 minutes and voila'!, (sometimes I say "walla!" just to irritate my husband) a new lease on life.

Here it is before:

I cut the first sleeve off (making sure to curve it up at the top so the cut was nice and rounded instead of making an upside-down "V"):

Then I put the cut off sleeve on top of the other one to make sure they are both cut the same (I learned to do this after having a few lopsided sleeves!):

And walla! (heehee), here is the finished product (after a simple zig-zagging of the edges):

The sleeves came out with a bit of lettuce-edging (which the owner of the shirt did not like, hmph!) so I simply steam ironed it and it was more to her liking after that.  Cute (and free)!

More orange

Here are a couple little outfits I'm shipping out to some very sweet customers.  I really love the different ruffles (I think they will too) and the goofy grin on the jack o' lantern.  I have just enough of the orange fabric left to make a fun stripwork skirt to go with my pink sample t-shirt so I'm hoping to get that done this week.  Fun stuff!

She's leaving, on that midnight plane to...

...D.C.?

My friend Kelly is moving back east (back to where she came from).  I don't have too many friends who share my love for all things Mary Engelbreit (I actually had a friend say "What's Mary Engelbreit's Home Companion?  I've never heard of it."  She's still my friend but things changed a little bit after that.). I'm going to miss Kelly (and Mike too!) dreadfully.  And darnit, she's taking her kids with her!

Anyway, she was over here a couple weeks ago and was lovin' on my stack of Freshcut fabrics (and of course she picked my favorite as her favorite!) so I knew what she needed as a going away gift (even though I don't think that sort of behavior should be rewarded).

She is certainly the hostess with the mostess so I did up one of these beauties:

You can't see it but I made it extra long since she's very tall.  It turned out so cute I couldn't help but make these for her girls:

I think I snipped the last thread as the doorbell was ringing (and ringing, since her girls like to ring a lot!).

Anyway, here they all are and now they will think of me everytime they make cookies, right?

I'll make her a handbag out of it if she promises not to go!!

Orange you glad??

Orange is great.  I'm in a serious orange phase right now (I'm wearing orange sweat pants right now!). 

So I hit my favorite thrift store last week with my sweet husband Joey, who loves a good bargain as much as he likes nice clothes (well he used to be a clothing snob but 5 kids on one income can cure that pretty quick).  I can't remember what he got (oh yeah, a practical joke garment for a co-worker, and that's all I've got to say about that), but I left with a nice pile of clothes and fabrics.  It wasn't a discount day (5 days out of the week are discount days, it just so happens I went on one of the other 2) so that sort of stung but I did have a coupon for a free item which I received when we made a previous donation (I hope I didn't accidently buy my own stuff back).

Here are a couple of goodies I found.   The orange fabric was 99 cents and feels like some sort of lightweight drapery fabric.  My 15 year old daughter tried to claim it for herself.  Now I'm a nice mommy, but that ain't happening.  I'm going to make a skirt out of it FOR ME.  The embroidered fabric needs to be finished (my 13 year old is a whiz at embroidering so I've appointed that task to her) but the hard works been done already.  It will give me 4 panels (another skirt!).  Oh, it cost me a whopping 2.99 I think.

But here is my favorite item!! It had no price tag so the kid at the counter said "Hmmmm, uh, how about 99 cents?". "Sounds good" said I, nonchalantly (all the while screaming in my head "Dang! I would've paid 2.99 for it!! Woop woop!").

Isn't it gorgeous??!! I won't tell you what Joey said about it (something about a kid in a craft class throwing up his mayo and ketchup) but true art is rarely given the appreciation it merits. It holds a place of honor atop my folded fabric organizer right next to my first edition of Mary Engelbreit's Home Companion magazine (which has a great story behind it).

Anyway, I'll post my skirts when they are finished.  I really find it disappointing when bloggers say "hey look at this fabric and this pattern" but don't show what they did with it so I will soon be posting a cute little (cheap, as in 1.00yd) blouse I just made while I get to work on my orange stuff.

It's pronounced "John-uh"

jonakid
Originally uploaded by cactus blossom

I'm Jona and this is my blog. I thought I'd start it out by giving the correct pronunciation of my name. It's Jona not Jonah. Don't ask me why it's spelled that way. I mean my dad's name is John so why not just tack on an "a" or an "na"? My mom still defends her decision ("It was less complicated that way") after all these years. My sisters Jill and Jennie both have double consonants in their names but my consonant stands alone (maybe they weren't just teasing when they said I was adopted, and maybe the whole name spelling thing is a subtle clue?). So anyway, that's how my name is pronounced. I'm off to find my birth certificate and give it a thorough look-see now.

It gets more exciting after this.

I hope.