Ah yes! It's all coming back to me....
Sorry for the absence but I really needed to tie up some loose ends and gather my thoughts (it's hard to gather thoughts when you're busy trying to decide on which ones to share). But I feel like I've actually been pretty productive and have taken some time to be a mother hen and pull my little chickies back into my nest.
So I've been taking lots of nice walks with this great guy. He turned 9 a couple of weeks ago and I still need to put a party together for him. There's a riparian preserve near his school so we've been stopping there a couple times a week to walk, bird watch, and do "dinosaur digs". It's so liberating to be outside again after spending the summer cooped up. He's a lot of fun and he really likes me (it's very mutual).
And I've been sewing!! I put together this teeny tiny outfit for my friend Daria (she's the creative genius behind Boutique Cafe). She's expecting a little girl in December (she has four boys!) so I knew she needed something uber feminine. She was in town this past week so a group of us online friends got together with her and had a wonderful lunch. Joey didn't quite understand and he asked "Now just how do you know these gals?" and I said "Well they used to be my ebay friends but now they're my Facebook friends!" Makes perfect sense. It's always fun to spend time with friends who love fabric!
And today I spent nearly the whole day working on these flower girl dresses and I haven't been this happy in a long time. The bride-to-be is a young friend of ours and she has a wonderful, unconventional style so I knew I could talk her into some fun fabric! She is using fall colors (2 weeks until the wedding!) so this Laura Gunn print was just perfect and I was thrilled when she picked it. I even made little diaper covers to match (didn't have enough fabric for full bloomers) since the girls are under 2 years old. She had sent me pictures of some J.Crew flower girl dresses so those were my inspiration (they have beautiful wedding clothes).
The bow took about 2 minutes to make since I just ripped the fabric so I could have frayed edges and tied a narrow piece of fabric around it. It's pinned on so if she doesn't like it she can remove it (or move it to another part of the dress). This was a lot of fun and just the creative therapy I needed.
I even took time to play with some new software and I have one pattern nearly ready to put together in paper format. I'm almost past the "I'm painfully ignorant" stage and moving into the "I might sorta have the hang of this" stage. Soon.
But for now everyone is busy getting ready for the upcoming Quilt Market (next week! ack!) and there's a lot of hub-bub in the fabric world. Patty Young has a beautiful new line, as does Sandi Henderson and they are both amazing!! Paula Prass does too but I'm waiting for a better sneak peek from her (I'll grab some great pictures at market if she doesn't give us a better look before then!). Meg at Sew Liberated has some beautiful new patterns and a book coming out and Heather Bailey has some new patterns and fabric (and a lot of other stuff going on). There's a lot more and I'll be sure to take lots of pictures and get the low down on everyone for my post market blogging.
Here are a couple of things you need to check out! Monica (my favorite zombie) has a gorgeous free tutorial on her site and it's definitely worth making again and again (and sharing in her flickr group). Heather also has a beautiful tutorial up for you to try. And Amy over at Park City Girl is getting ready to do another Blogger's Quilt Festival and there will be lots of great prizes (Fabritopia is happy to take part!).
I'm trying to do a decent inventory count here because I'm getting dozens of new fabrics this week (your favorite collections at close-out prices, yay!) and I want to have my ducks in a row. Oh, and the Au.then.tic collection should be shipping out this week too. Happy!
Back soon! Have a wonderful week!!
