Stop staring and start sewing!

I have a swivel chair. Take me seriously.

There is something very humbling about running a business (even if it is a little one) from a folding chair.  Even if it's padded it still doesn't feel "important".

I found this terrific chair in the AS IS department at IKEA.  It was 24.00 and it swivels, goes up and down, and has wheels (they're a little sticky, but I'm okay with it for now).  A chair that says "I mean business.  Really.".

Practical?  Very.   Exciting?  Not

It definitely needed some cutifying so I picked through my super-fun stash of fabrics (see it?) and came up with this:

The solid pink fabric is a sheet from Rachel Ashwell's Simply Shabby Chic line at Target.  It has a nice crisp crinkle to it and goes nicely with Heather's fabulous Freshcut fabrics.

My seven year old son took one look at it and said: "It's definitely not a chair for boys.".  He's catching on.

I even made some piping and put a big bow in the back. It kept pulling forward on the seat part so I attached some twill tape underneath and tied it on real tight in the back and that did the trick quite nicely.

What fun!!

A place for everything....

I'm working on re-organizing my sewing room (ahem, my "studio") and I will show the horrifying, blood-curdling scream producing "before" pictures soon (maybe on Halloween?).  But in the meantime, this is cute and for all you know the whole room is incredibly immaculate because I can show this picture without showing the floor or countertops.  So just imagine a clean, organized and alphabetized room surrounding this:

This is where I keep my thread and just looking at it makes me happy. Spools on top, bobbins on bottom (oh, and I keep my empty bobbins in the little drawer on the left).

I got this at a local furniture store called The Potato Barn and I think it used to be a potato barn (gasp, you don't say?!).  Every so often I just go there to walk around and see what's new (not in the summer though, they have no A/C)

I could put my thread in color order but how boring would that be? Sigh.

Say, I'd like to know where you got the notion.

This is one of my favorite little do-hickies that I use when pulling elastic through a casing.  This bodkin is so much better than the old, time-consuming safety pin method and doesn't come un-done like the tweezer-type of bodkins.

I just thread my elastic through and tie it in a knot (my bodkin is a little bowed from all the use).

Start threading it through the opening in the casing...

Walla! This took about 25 seconds! I love it!

Unfortunately, you still have to do it the old fashioned safety pin way if you are making something with a small opening (like the end of a sleeve or something).  But this is definitely a neat thing-a-majig!

Yards and yards and yards and yards.....

Two days ago I made a trek out to SAS Fabric By the Pound to load up on some goodies.  I was kicking myself for leaving my camera behind because that place is amazing.  It's a bit of a drive to a somewhat seedy part of Tempe but ooh-la-la, what fun! 

I got some great knit fabrics but mostly I got this:

Look at this Santa trim!!  It was a little yellowed but I oxy-cleaned it and it brightened right up.  And I loooove the polka dots.

Look at all these great colors.  It was like being in a candy store!

See the white teddy bears?  And blue tulips!

I totally splurged on this piece at a whopping 99 cents a yard.  It's 9 inches high and a gorgeous shimmering cream color.

Most everything was 10 and 15 cents a yard (yep!) and I walked out 66.00 poorer (and yet so much richer!!  Wheeeee!).

Oh, and I can't forget these. Aqua lace and chocolate brown eyelet! The perfect trim for this sweet little outfit.

2 dozen!!!

This was us 21 years ago today (dream gown from Laura Ashley):

This is what I came home to today. Some days he just puts the "charming" in Prince Charming.  How breathtaking.

And yes, we were of legal age.

Do you see what I see??

Okay, so I really wanted to do a nativity set to sell on ebay.  There's a lot of Santa outfits and I really wanted to do a baby Dear Lord Baby Jesus outfit.  This fabric was really hard to find.  It was way up on a shelf at JoAnn's and the poor little gal that works there had to drag one of those huge rolling ladder-stairs from the other side of the store to get it.  I finally got around to making this little set with it and I wanted to make it kind of fun so I used this gorgeous pink Freshcut fabric for the ruffle and as a backdrop on the t-shirt.

Well I listed the set and something about it really was bothering me but I couldn't put my finger on it.  Until this morning.  I looked at it again right after I got out of bed and my stomach just dropped.

Do you see it??

Look closer.......

It's Skeletor!!!!!!  Look!!!  It even has teeth!

The t-shirt's in the garbage now.  Icky.

It's velour, baby!

For some reason whenever I think of velour I start to hear Barry White in my head.  I finished these two sweet baby sacks and this is definitely not your mother's velour jumpsuit (sorry Mom, it was stylin' then)!

Once again, I used this pattern:

If I had a sweet little baby girl to put them on (I'm done people!) I would probably make the hat too since it looks so cute.  But since I don't have a little girl anymore (just 3 big ones) I will have to sell them on ebay in order to make more money to buy more fabric (it's a viscious cycle).  I'm curious to see how they do (6 days, 23 hours to go!).

The weird thing is I took the pictures in the same place on the same wall and the backgrounds are totally different (the one on the right is the correct color).  I'll have to play with my camera some more.

I'm not sure which is my favorite but the black one is perfect for a Christmas baby!  But owls are totally in right now so I don't know....

Frittering my morning away

Yesterday I picked up the 80 pounds of apples (yes 80 pounds!) that I ordered from the produce co-op I'm in.  So guess what we'll be eating for the next 2 weeks:  apple pie, apple cobbler, apple gumbo, apple burgers, pan fried apple, deep fried apple, stir-fried apple, there's apple sandwich, apple creole, apple ka-bobs......you catch my drift.   So this morning we started off with apple fritters.  This were quick and easy and didn't require any fancy ingredients.  I did add some orange zest and juice from half an orange to give it a little zip but I think I might try lemon next time to make it zippier.

Anyway, these are what was left when that little voice said "Hey, you should so blog this!" and I grabbed my camera:

And a standing O from one of the judges (he'll eat anything that's not nailed down so I wouldn't take his word on it)!

These are my favorite pajamas of his.  I used this pattern which is fast and easy and I can fit the shirt over his big ol' head (I've adjusted the pattern to make it longer next time).  This fabric is a super snuggly brushed cotton knit that I found at this wonderful store while on vacation (for only 5.00 a yard!  eek!).  Anyway, I'm working on some sweet velour sleep sacs made from the same pattern and dang! they're turning out cute!

Ahhh....apples and snuggly jammies....I love fall!

Smock me Amadeus!

I have some cute little projects I've been working on around here but nothing ready to blog/brag (blag?) about yet.  So I figured I would just post pictures of some of the things that have been keeping me busy this year (no, not pictures of my 5 kids). 

I have a little ebay business that has been lots of fun and a great creative outlet.  It has supported my fabric addiction and that's a very good thing!  So I'll start by showing you this cute cream puff of an outfit (because it's one of my favorites and I like to look at it!).

I really love smocking and it's very relaxing.  If you're a crafty person I highly recommend learning this skill (if you can do basic embroidery, you can smock!).

I really love this fabric combination (if I do say so!).  Kuh-yewt!

Here's a closeup of the fun stuff.  I'm very hit and miss with my bullion roses but am happy with the outcome.

Go forth and smock!

It's official...Fall has fallen (finally!)!

Boy I'd like to sleep in on Saturday, but my eyes are trained to pop open at 6:00.   Oh well, I just decided to carpe the diem and here are the results:

We went to the nursery in the morning. We told the kids we were going to pick out a new baby but we came home with flowers instead (much lower maintenance especially in light of our little guy Skate figuring out how to remove his diaper during nap time and the resulting clean-up yesterday, and no we weren't lucky enough to find it was only a wet diaper).

I'll keep posting pictures as it matures (so long as it doesn't all die first since my thumb isn't the greenest).

In the afternoon we made caramel apples with real caramels (not those wrap thingies). It was surprisingly simple, not too messy and tasty to boot! We ate those while playing Monopoly later (where I spent a great deal of time in Jail but came out with some pretty cool tattoos).

I can see my reflection!

And in the evening we did pie!! I have one of those apple peeler-corer-slicers so there are always plenty of volunteers for that job. I used a Martha Stewart recipe for the crust (from her Pies and Tarts book). I hope it tastes as good as it looks!

It's 8:03. Must be pie time!

I slept very well last night (oh, and I decorated my shiny new front door but I have to take pictures!)!