Stop staring and start sewing!

Taking off to the great Northwest (it's the beauty way to go)

Well I had to get out of town.  My new iPhone (which I love!) became a source of contention in my marriage and I got tired of Joey following me around like Gollum trying to get his hands on my precioussss phone.  So I spent 6 wonderful days in Oregon (and a couple of hours in Washington) while Joey scraped together enough money to get his own dang iPhone.  Things are much better between us now (we can sit in bed and text each other in peace).

On monday I took a beautiful drive to the beach (beautiful except the part where I had to pee really bad and stopped at the skankiest gas station in the Northwest).  It was a perfect day, nice and sunny but not too hot so I propped myself against a piece of driftwood and just sat there watching the ocean for about an hour.  Then I took a stroll and made plans to come back next year with the family so I can spend a few days propped against driftwood watching the ocean (sort of like Weekend at Bernies except I'll be breathing).

Haystack Rock.  I was too late to get to the tide pools so I didn't get to poke any anemones (which they tell you not to do but come on).

I ran around town and got 2 pounds of salt water taffy here at Bruce's.  That all my kids wanted from my trip.  I love this place.

Here's where it gets really fun. I headed north to the beautiful town of Astoria (which is named after John Jacob Astor who was worth $20 million when he died, which translates into over $110 billion with a "b" in todays value, wow).  I drove up up up to the Astoria Column and climbed all 184 steps to get to one of the most amazing views in Oregon.  My legs were quivering for days and I'm deathly afraid of heights but this place is so amazing that I just swallowed my fear, snapped a few pictures and quickly hurried back down.

Lewis and Clark (and team) came down the river to the left as they were nearing the end of their journey (only to have to wait out a freezing winter before heading back).  My next stop was the highlight of the day (and just about the whole week)!  That arrow on the right points to the home of Monica Solario-Snow...The Happy Zombie (insert dramatic "du-du-dummmm" overture here).  And I got to go there!  Do not try to use the directions in the picture to track her down and stalk her.  You won't find the place.  I mean it. 

Here's her famous ironing board (as seen in Studio magazine!).  Sorry for the fuzzy pictures, I'm getting used to the camera function on my iPhone (have I told you lately how much I love that thing?).

And here she is!  Yes, that's a banana keeper.  I know you're thinking it's a banana phone but it's not so just knock it off!

Here's her cute little table with her perfectly folded fat quarters.  I was here. 

We had the best fish and chips at the Wet Dog (and heavenly clam chowder) and did some "tweeting and eating" so that all our twitter friends would wish they were us.  I think it worked (Monica's got in covered here, and you can see what my hair looks like after a day in the coastal humidity).  Monica showed me her back yard (1 acre folks, with trees!) where she wants to put a vintage camper and wouldn't you know it, I found the perfect fixer upper for her a few days later at Voodoo Doughnuts (and the color matches her "banana keeper")!  Dang!  And since zombies and voodoo go together I'm sure they can work out an agreement.

And here is Voodoo Doughnuts in all it's pink tackiness!  Exquisite!

Inside!  For some reason this place had me thinking about Rocky Horror Picture show (which I've only seen 8 times) and I was humming "Let's do the time warp again!" while snapping pictures.

The display case (sealed with duct tape)!

I sat here.

And enjoyed this.  A bacon maple bar (yes, that's right) and cup of Stumptown coffee.  Bliss.

I pretty much ate like this the whole week (plus 4 Burgerville hamburgers, 2 plates of fish and chips, gallons of coffee and oodles of salt water taffy).  Joining the fitness center this week and tired of the heat here already.  It was good to get away though!

Sometimes it's not about me

Well I promised I'd share picture of Joey's fishing trip because although he spent a lot of time here...

...catching these (8 total)....

....and drinking coffee in cool places like this.... (this place should be called "Gaston's", but I don't think it is)......

...oh, and hanging at fun retro places like this....

...he actually took some time to go to a couple of quilt stores (I know!  What a guy!) and got some great pictures from the Stitchin Post.

The Stitchin Post is owned by Valori Wells and her mother Jean and it's quite the fixture in Sisters, Oregon.  You can see why!  The place is huge (it has an upstairs) and just stuffed with great fabrics and goodies.  And check out the size of this cutting table!  Seriously!

Joey even found some new knitting needles for himself here.  He just finished another pair of socks and now he's working on a sweater.  I hope it's not dorky looking because he's going to want to wear it no matter what.

That was nice of him to get pictures for me!  And next week I'm going to get pictures of Burgerville (oh mommy!), Elmer's, Stumptown Coffee, Voodoo donuts and all sorts of great spots.  I'll probably even text him a picture of my toes in the sand at Cannon Beach.  Oh and I'll try to keep tweeting while I'm vacationing so if you haven't joined me on Twitter, I'm over here.  It's sure to be riveting, ha!

Keep sewing (because you know it makes you happy)!

It's a Woodstock thing

In honor of the 40th anniversary of Woodstock I took my hippie skirt and turned it into a hippie shirt.  I've had this skirt for probably ten years and I think I've actually worn it once (it ended up looking better on the hanger than on me).  But I really like the look of it.  The nubby fabric, the cotton crocheted lace, the ruffle.  All cute.  So I found a way to redeem it.

Here it is before.

I cut the waistband into two strips, each about 18" long.  I left 1/2 inch of the white fabric on them to use as my seam allowance when I reattached it.

Then I cut the bottom of the skirt about 17.5 inches long (including the ruffle).  I stay-stitched around the top because this skirt actually has two layers (a light cotton lining is under the outer layer).

I cut the armpit curves at the outer edge of the skirt bottom.

Then I bound it with some narrow bias tape (I just used a small length I had in my bias tape drawer (it was quicker than making my own).

Okay, I made two rows of gathering stitches across the top of the skirt pieces (both front and back) then pulled them up so they were about 1" shorter (on each side) than the waistband pieces.  Then I folded the ends of the waistband pieces under so the I can flip them around when they're stitched (I sure hope this makes sense!).  I stitched across the whole thing using 1/2 inch seam allowance.

This is what it looked like after stitching and then serging the seam allowance.  The end of the straps just get pinned in under those end "flaps" (sandwiched between the layers) then I stitched through all of the layers, encasing the ends of the straps there.

To make the straps I used the excess white fabric (the top of the skirt) and cut 2 pieces 3.5 x 13.5 inches long.  I folded each long side under 1/4" and then folded the whole length in half and stitched it closed along the whole length.  I pinned them in place and then tried it on a couple of times before I sewed them in place.

So here is my hippie top and I love it (sorry for the dirty mirror)!  Light and breezy (and no bra strap "peekage").  I left the drawstring intact and now I can cinch up the front a little bit.  This is going in my suitcase for my Portland trip!

I feel so much more productive after making this!  I hope you're having a wonderful weekend and getting some sewing done (even just a little)!

I vant to be alone

My office doesn't seem like my office some days and although it's a good size for one person, it's not so great when all 5 kids decide they want to be near me.  So I finally made a curtain for the door using some really fun fabrics.  I wanted a sort of McKenzie Childs look since this is the one room where I feel I can really cut loose. 

So the idea is when the curtain is closed you should leave Mommy alone.

Some are still catching on.  I was going to make him leave but then I saw that he was cute....and had Wheat Thins.

And I made some curtains for the window that looks over our backyard. I like the light coming in but the house behind us has new tenants (it's been empty for 2 years with this whole housing market). They have a view straight in and that creeps me out. The original owners were nice but they didn't have curtains in the kitchen and the man of the house used to wander around the kitchen in his birthday suit. One night Joey looked out the window and yelled "Oh no! He's naked again!" at which point I ran to the window and shreiked "Oh Noooo! He's drinking milk straight from the carton!!" So anyway, curtains are important.

The plants in the back yard that have survived the heat are growing like gangbusters and taking over back there. The sunflowers (seen in front of the kids in this post) are now at least 7 feet tall and have oodles of flowers on them.

The squash (which I found out are a type of butternut) are going crazy and I like this one that decided to grow in the old red wagon (the little curly-q's remind me of Cinderella's coach tires).

Joey just got home last night after spending nearly a week in Central Oregon. He was nice enough to visit a couple of quilt store for me (and he likes the yarn they carry) so I have some great pictures to share from the Stitchin Post. It's owned by designer Valori Wells and her mother Jean and it's pretty neat so I'll post those next time. Right now I'm just trying to recover from 6 days home alone with the grubs.

Run over here because Mary Engelbreit has a blog!  Go beg her to bring the magazine back!  I was reading her post on the magazine and I started crying (it's true).  You know how much I love that magazine!

Oh, and I have plane tickets to Portland next week so it had better rain while I'm there!  And I'm going all by myself!  Coffee, the beach, more coffee, walking downtown, coffee again, playing cards with my mom and sisters.  All sorts of good things planned. 

I'm leaving Friday the 21st so everything in the store is 15% off with the coupon code "august09" through the 20th.  I will be training my shipping crew in the fine art of processing an order from start to finish so they should keep things humming along just fine until I get back.  As soon as I get home we have to start preparing for Quilt Market (already!!).  Yikes!  Back soon!

While the cats away the mice will shop

The winner of the Martha Stewart towel collection (and Whimsy fat quarters) give away is Rebecca who left a comment at 8:45 on 8/7.  Yay Rebecca!  A lot of you loved the strawberries and if you haven't checked out Sandi Henderson's blog recently then you need to run over there because she has a sneak peek of her next line (Yessss!) and she's designed a darling strawberry print that you will love!

Well Joey is waist deep fly fishing in some river in Central Oregon while the rest of us swelter down here in the desert so we all decided to head to the mall.  I dropped the big kids off at the theater to see Harry Potter (with some free passes, yay!) and Skate and I then proceded to have a blast.  Ice cream, Build a Bear (he built a monkey with a batman suit) and then some Wetzel's Pretzels and lemonade.  He took a terrific nap when we got home and I got some terrific toys for myself too.

Look at this beauty! My iron pooped out this week and I saw this one at Macy's at a very discounted price so I made it mine.   I've been wanting one since Kay Whitt blogged about hers (Holy smokes!  She's got an awesome tutorial on installing an invisible zipper!  You have to try it!).  Now I see why she loves this iron.  It has 1750 watts of unending heat and steam (the Binford 2000 of the iron world!). I like a minimum of 1600 watts in an iron in order to get wrinkles out quick and easily. A lot of the cheaper ones are around 1200 watts and that just never seems to do the trick no matter how hard I press down. Not a problem anymore.

Okay, and then I took a crazy leap and bought myself an iPhone.  I love this because it's like a handheld computer so when I travel I don't need to take my laptop with me (and it fits perfectly in the phone pocket of my Joey bag!).  Unfortunately I'm totally confounded by the darn thing just like when I got my first Mac so I'll have to have Joey figure it out and give me lessons.

We did a bunch of school shopping for my 3rd grader, Asher. I don't call it "back to school" because he's been homeschooled up to this point so this is a whole new adventure for us all. I swear I think I got the last Ticonderoga pencil in the state of Arizona (after going to 3 different stores).  So tomorrow is a big day around here (I'm more nervous than he is I think!).

My poor UPS guy got sick while delivering (because of the heat, God bless him!) on Thursday so his replacement dropped 7 massive boxes off in the dark (God bless him too!).  I have tons of Valori Wells Home Dec fabrics as well as Joel Dewberry's Ginseng (home dec too) in the store for only 9.00 yd (full retail is 14.95).  It's stunning stuff and the colors are perfect for fall sewing (I'm going to make some skirts!).  I also received nearly the whole Chloe's Imagination line (by the wonderfully artistic Tina Givens) at a great price so I'm passing that on at 7.00 yd.  And I've restocked Darla and Ava Rose (with more coming!) so if you're working on a project and thought it was gone forever, it's not (yet)!

I'm working on a really fun project (well I'm liking it anyway!) and you can see a sort-of preview in the top picture.  I'll be back soon to show it to you!!  Have a wonderful Monday!!

I have not been on vacation

I've only been wishing I were on vacation.  After having the coolest June in about 100 years we were then hit with the hottest July on record (not complaining, just stating the facts folks).  The combination of the heat and my dental problems made July kind of crappy for me (and it's my birthday month which doubled the crappiness factor) and I am now shopping for airline tickets to head up to the Northwest (by myself!).  I'm hoping to track down some of my favorite Northwest bloggy friends and extol the virtues of great fabric over some great coffee (my definition of vacation!).

In the meantime I'm busy kissing this face.  This is his idea of playing dress-up (rubber boots and all).

I've also been sewing this cute little zippered pouch using this tutorial (it took less than 30 minutes and under 1/4 yard fabric). Great birthday gift with the gift card tucked inside (to my favorite coffee place in the whole world)!

We found an actual squash growing on our squash plant (actually we found a lot)! So we are going to be overrun here pretty soon. Yay!  Squash bread, squash gumbo, squash burgers, squash stew, squash pancakes.......

I made a cute little skirt using some of my favorite fall fabrics (because fall can't come soon enough!). I've added a kit for this skirt to the store with more to come soon.

And I'm having a "beat the heat" give away. Three Martha Stewart strawberry dishtowels (from my beloved stash) and 3 fat quarters from Pillow and Maxfield's Whimsy collection. You can use the dishtowels as aprons with the fabric for the ties. Or not. You can do whatever you want with them! Just leave a comment!

I've dropped the prices on the Nigella and County Fair to 7.00 a yard (!) and Vicki Paynes Home Dec line is 25% off until the 15th.  Pillow and Maxfield's Whimsy is 10% off through the 11th (I LOVE this line). 

Oh, and run over to Patty Young's blog to look at her studio re-do!  Gorgeous!!!  Okay, I'm going to run the kids to the museum now since school starts next week (the have a Lego exhibit!).  Fun!