Tis' the Season

Eight days until Christmas! Wow. I have so many little gifts to make! We're kind of opting out of lots of gifts this year, we're doing more handmade gifts or gift donations. Think about it, how many gifts from the past few years do you remember? Exactly, I remember some of them, the cool ones or the things that I really wanted. Isn't making a charity contribution a gift that someone else will really remember? Or something that was made just for you, not mass produced? Besides, mass commercialism isn't even close to what Christmas is actually about.
So, I've been pretty busy lately doing stuff with the kids and making everything from ornaments and cookies to sheep, yep, large sheep (for a play). I've been doing some embroidery from a Japanese book series that I love. I think, if I had time, I would embroider everything from these books onto everything in my house. Of course my husband probably wouldn't be quite as thrilled with that as I would be.
I signed up for a PIF over here. I really thought it was a neat idea and I had to be a part of it. So what exactly is this PIF? It's “Pay it Forward” - blog edition, and it goes a little something like this: “I will send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this PIF exchange. I don't know what that gift will be yet and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week, but you will receive it within 365 days, which is my promise! The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog.” So there you have it! I was quite delayed in getting this post up, but now it’s here! (I’m a HUGE procrastinator, but in the end I get the job done. Usually, hehe.) If you are interested, please leave a valid email address and I will get in contact with you!
Merry Christmas!!

So the past two months have been a blur. How were we that busy?! Now that we are entering the holiday season there's no slowing down for quite a while! Several of our friends are having babies, which means my sewing machine has been doing a lot of work! My only problem is that I forget to take pictures of the gifts before I give them, I did take some pictures of a couple of shopping cart covers. There are plenty more projects lined up! I'm hoping to get started on several things this week. I have intended to sew Amy Butler's Birdie Sling pattern since May, I am happy to say that I will be starting it on Wednesday! It's about time, though I think that limiting factor in this project for me is trying to decide which fabric to choose! I suppose if I like it as much as I anticipate I will, I can foresee making many more of them so I use all of the fabrics I have in mind!

Another year, another number

So today is another birthday, another year older.
My mother-in-law, who is awesome, made this apron for me! I cannot tell you enough good things about this apron. I love it, I want to wear it all the time. She used the flirty skirt pattern. The fabric is from the Morning Call line from Blank Textiles.

It was a nice day, complete with flowers and rings from my sweetie!! Yeah!! Happy birthday!

The doll

She seems to like the Olive doll. Although she seemed to like the dolls hair bow better. This is from the Wee Wonderfuls Olive doll pattern. It was really straight forward and easy to make. I didn't make the collar or the sleeves . I have it in my mind that the doll will eventually have some clothes and what if the collar or the sleeves didn't match the other clothes?! Oh no! We can't have mismatched clothes on our doll, can we? Obviously a dilemma for the adult , not child...

Garden Party Frock GIVEAWAY!!!!

I just ran across this blog while looking for cupcake liners of all things! I am in love with this dress!! How pretty! This blog is getting bookmarked!!

Garden Party Frock GIVEAWAY!!!!

A nice break

After making way too many totes, we had a lovely time at the beach. We have returned home and are trying to fall back into a state of normalcy. Though with A starting preschool yesterday, there's nothing normal about it! He loved it, and asked to stay longer. I had a little harder time, almost bursting into tears when the cashier at our grocery store asked where he was. So silly, I know. I have orders for a couple of slings that need to be taken care of this week and hopefully I can start some of the felt pumpkins and squash that I'm itching to make! Fall is just around the corner and I can't wait!

Another day, another tote

So we're heading to the beach with friends in a few weeks and I have been in a tote bag frenzy. I feel compelled to make a tote bag for everything. I used the two hour beach tote tutorial from here. It's ridiculously easy and takes much less than two hours to make. I actually started making two of them since I couldn't decide which fabric I liked best for the main part. The other bag will be finished as soon as I get some black webbing for the handles. It's a very no frills tote, it isn't lined so the raw seems are showing, which slightly bugs me. I suppose for what it is though it doesn't really matter. It's a nice in between bag; it's not huge, but it can still hold a few towels, water and sunscreen. I have a few more planned for the trip a snack bag, a toy bag, etc. After the trip is over I think they'll make great shopping bags. I'm all for reusable grocery bags, the less plastic bags I accumulate the better!

I knead dough

The "big" boy wanted to make bread today. Rainbow bread to be more specific. So we opened the new cookbook and set off on our daily adventure in making something. The dough was so pretty and vibrant before it was baked! Afterwards, it turned a lovely golden color and the inside was toned down a bit. It's really great when the food tastes as good as it looks!

There's a really neat giveaway happening here. It involves an issue of Cook's Country!! (My personal favorite cooking periodical!!!)

My blue sky

I fell in love with Amy Butler's Blue Sky hat pattern immediately. It took many, many months for me to actually make it. Once I decided on the fabric the hat itself came together very quickly. It was an easy pattern to make. I like the look of the hat. I think that if I were to make another one, I would make it a little bigger, I think I would just like it better if the hat were a little bigger, not the brim part though it's huge as it is. The three layers of cotton canvas seemed quite excessive to me. I'm sure that it was for the sake of the brim drape, but it's so thick and heavy. I might try using an interfacing and fewer layers of the canvas next time. It's so thick that you hear your own voice much louder than anyone else's!

My latest obsession

I am the worst about obsessing over things and not being satisfied until I have mastered it. Well, my latest obsession is the French macaron. After seeing the macrons from here, I couldn't rest until I had some of my very own to enjoy. So I found a recipe, well several recipes but the one that I decided upon was for Chocolate Raspberry macarons. I love chocolate and raspberry anything, so what better way to try making macarons?! The recipe can be found here. It was pretty straight forward and relatively easy to make, a little time consuming, but aren't most things that are worth anything? I would have liked the macaron to be a little more pink, the batter was a lovely shade, but alas faded as they were baked. I wanted to make sure that there was a distinct raspberry taste so I added some raspberry extract to the batter as well. You'd think that being a recipe that I have never tried, or even a type of cookie that I've never made, that I would actually stick to the recipe, but no... I did find that the second batch I made were better, I think it was because the batter was room temperature and had rested longer. I plan on making many more of these with lots of other flavor combo. I hear they're better if you wait a day to eat them, but how can you resist?

My three year old told me that they looked like little hamburgers. I guess they do, sort of.

Good Intentions

I do truly wish to update this page on a regular basis. I just tend to get bogged down with stuff, stuff like the load of clean clothes in the dryer right now that's just waiting to be folded. So here's to wishful thinking for the future.

This was a birthday gift made by A for his dad. Well, drawn for his dad. It was then transfered to the shirt using fabric crayons. I truly wasn't impressed with the crayons. I followed the instructions on the box and it didn't really do anything other than make a very light transfer. I ended up heating the shirt with my iron and tracing it on allowing the heat to basically melt the wax onto the fibers. Oh well. It still looks cute, let's hope it holds up after washing!

Such a slacker

How long has it been? Way too long. Just finished the Amy Butler blue sky hat, I will post photos soon!

For the love of cake!

I found myself absorbed all weekend in making a felt cake. Yes, all weekend. I did enjoy it very much, and it was also a gift for a dear friends first birthday! I hope that she will enjoy it as much as I did.