sew. hip. baby.

If you could be anything

2009-02-23T12:35:00.001-08:00

So, I saw this post and thought it was really intriguing. The question was asked if you "could be anything when you grow up" what would it be? Good question! I think that the person who gets to choose the crayon color names would be great! "Hey what do you do?" "Oh, I name crayon colors." "Oh...I see."

Burda Style

2009-01-27T13:38:00.000-08:00

If you've never been to Burdastyle.com, stop reading this and go there now!
This is a great resource for sewers! There are so many wonderful patterns available and best of all many are free or very inexpensive! Plus you can download them and use them immediately. I just downloaded the Vivienne jumper. I look forward to sharing the finished product with you in the future. Happy Tuesday.

A little crafting

2009-01-21T13:22:00.001-08:00

I had a chance to work on a few little presents last week, one being the Kit doll. The clothes are almost finished, the birthday girl will even receive a reversible smocket to match the dolls reversible dress. S has really enjoyed playing with the doll, so much that she is getting her own doll as soon as the gift doll is completed.

Also completed over the weekend was a little crayon roll and drawing pad for another little birthday girl.

I just bought this fabric to make curtains for my living room. I'm currently envisioning matching pillows and place mats for the dining room table that is in close proximity to the window. The fabrics for those will be made from this, this and possibly this. I can't wait for it to get here! The colors are not in my usual color palette but, I really liked the print, we'll see how it all pulls together!

The Kit doll (in progress)

2009-01-13T19:54:00.000-08:00

We have a somewhat busy next few weeks, and I've been itching to make a new purse! I've been searching through my patterns and some online patterns, and nothing is jumping out at me. Plus I have a few gifts to make and a sling for a friend, not much time to make something on a whim! Tonight I started making the Kit doll from the Wee Wonderfuls pattern. It's quite cute. The yarn hair was interesting, but it really makes the doll. I'm looking forward to getting her finished and making some clothes for her! I'll post more pictures when she's finished!

Christmas time is such a blur.

2009-01-05T18:39:00.000-08:00

You can spend so much time preparing for a date, and then it's over...so fast. That's how it went for me anyways! There were lots of handmade goodies this year. I will spare you too much explanation, and just post some photos instead! Happy New Year.

Tis' the Season

2008-12-17T07:03:00.000-08:00

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!!

2008-11-17T10:23:00.000-08:00

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

2008-09-17T19:08:00.000-07:00

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

2008-08-27T10:27:00.000-07:00

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!!!!

2008-08-20T12:52:00.000-07:00

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

2008-08-19T11:18:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-25T05:33:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-22T19:26:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-16T13:01:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-15T06:56:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-03T10:51:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-22T13:34:00.001-07:00

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!

2008-01-17T12:16:00.000-08:00

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.

Sew, Mama Sew!

2007-12-18T11:54:00.000-08:00

My previous post was featured on Sew, Mama Sew! today much to my surprise!

For those of you interested in the homemade marshmallows there was an article in a Martha Stewart magazine last year that gave a recipe for them. Well, her recipe had eggs in it, I personally didn't want to use eggs, so I searched for another recipe and happened upon this... http://www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe/106/Marshmallows
It is so user friendly and makes the greatest marshmallows!! I decided to make a few flavor modifications and a had several different kinds of marshmallows. You will never want a store bought marshmallow again after you try these!! Just think a nice hot cup of cocoa with a peppermint vanilla marshmallow...yummy!

Oh and the picture was taken by my two and a half year old. One of the best photos ever taken of me! (Or at least one of my favorites!)

Holiday Meme

2007-12-10T07:10:00.000-08:00

Sounds fun. I always love answering those questionnaire kind of things!

Do you have a favorite gift that you love to give?
I love to make gift baskets of homemade goodies! Last year I gave gifts baskets filled with marshmallows, hot cocoa mix, cookies and chocolate dipped pretzels, all handmade by me!

This year, I plan on changing it a wee bit to include little apple cider mixes that are in a little pouch that I've made to look like an apple! (Photos of those to come soon!)

What do you like least about the holiday season?
All the commercial glitz. Doesn't any one remember what the real meaning of Christmas is? Seriously, break our your dictionary and look at the definition... Does it say anything like Christmas is the annual holiday that celebrates the birth of Jesus? How many people actually remember that or even know that?

felt tasties

2007-10-27T19:01:00.000-07:00

Ok, so this is what I seem to do after the kids go to bed. I just can't hide my new love of making felt food. It is so cute! I'm going to make an entire felt feast for the kids Christmas presents! Yeah!

This is me.

2007-10-08T04:56:00.000-07:00

1. I'm a wife
2. happily married for over 5 years
3. I have two wonderful children
4. one boy
5. one girl
6. I have blue eyes
7. both of my parents have brown
8. my husband and children have blue eyes
9. I'm not a morning person
10. my children do not sleep late
11. I am a Christian
12. I am not perfect
13.I am obsessed with Japanese craft books
14. and fabric
15. I love to sew
16. I prefer big cities
17. I was a vegetarian for 7 years
18. Now I eat chicken
19.I will not eat beef,pork or fish
20. Why is chicken ok? I don't know.
21. I love tofu
22.I prefer milk and sugar in my tea
23.I love coffee
24.Indian cuisine is my FAVORITE
25.I always have room for chocolate
26.I grew up in East Tennessee
27. I do not have a southern accent
28. My entire family does
29. My husband is from California
30. He loves living in TN
31. We lived in Connecticut for 4 years
32. I loved it
33. He didn't
34. Our son was born there
35. his name means happy
36. he is ALWAYS happy
37. Our daughter was born in TN
38. her name means princess
39. she lives up to her name as well
40.Fall is my favorite season
41. it's beautiful here in the mountains
42.I love to cook
43. my cookies won first and second place in the county fair
44.I find myself constantly singing Thomas the train songs
45.I don't like spiders
46.We have big ones in our planters
47.they inevitably emerge when I start weeding; I don't weed that often
48.I procrastinate
49.I have a hard time making decisions
50. It's taken 3 months to publish my first post