I Like Pie

I have spent two very enjoyable evenings making first pie crust and then an apple pie with my son. He is taking a cooking class at school and they had to bake pies for the teachers to judge. I didn't think it was quite fair that we would have to smell that yummy pie baking and then he takes it to school and we don't get to eat any of it, and by we I mean me! So of course we baked two pies and I hope he got to eat some at school because I have eaten half of that pie so far! Yes, half, all by myself, and I must say he is a very good pie baker!


I would like to be sitting out here eating my pie under my quilt but I think I missed my chance.



We have had the tree trimmers from hell next door for the last four days taking down one tree--and they're still not done! It has been absolutely beautiful all week but between the exhaust fumes from the obnoxious truck parked right outside my kitchen window and chainsaws buzzing I haven't really been able to enjoy it much. Of course, now that they are gone (Hopefully for good, but I know no such luck!) it's cold out!

The quilt up there is the first quilt I made. I say first like there is a second--someday--just have to find the right one. For my first I thought it went pretty smoothly-thanks to the girls at the sewing center where my machine came from. Couldn't walk into a big chain and have them unpin your whole quilt back and help smooth and straighten and spray glue (who knew) and all the other tips and pointers they had for me! They're awesome! The quilt was a free Amy Butler Belle quilt pattern. As usual, the pattern was very easy to follow. I did everything myself. It was probably a good pattern to start with because it was a nice size and easy to handle. I went pretty quickly. I think I'm ready for the next one--just have to figure out what that will be! Oh yeah, and that little detail I keep trying to forget about--the dreaded craft room cleaning!!

Still trying to get back into the swing of things. Thinking it will never happen! I haven't been in my craft room in months. It needs a good cleaning out. I keep waiting for the fairies but I guess they are as unmotivated as I am!

Last weekend was party weekend. We celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary. Yep, 25 years of wedded bliss! We started the celebrating with our good friends on Friday night here. On Saturday night our daughter (with a little help from her grandma and great aunt) threw a beautiful party for us. She put this thing together in about a week--She is awesome! This is what 25 years have produced!



It was such a nice party, we are so lucky to have such good friends, neighbors and family! It really was a fun night. Greg, our best man, whom we haven't talked to for way too long just happened to call Saturday morning. He lives about an hour away and managed to come down for the evening! I love it when weird things like that happen!

These are the cute table decorations and party favors my mom made. She always make everything looks so fun and festive!





By the end of the night the table decorations and party favors were accessories! What a fun, special night!

Back In The Swing

Trying to get back into the swing of things. Early mornings, schedules, homework, driving and all the other fun things that come with school starting (yuck). I take our son to school which is about 35 miles from our home. I am in the car about 3 hours everyday, Ugh! For three years I have done this with just a radio in the car and not a huge selection of radio stations in our area.For my birthday, I got a new stereo for my car. Now I can listen to Cd's and my i pod. Well, I plugged my i pod in and ...nothing! Something has happened to all the files or something like that. Don't ya just love technology! The one radio station that I did enjoy I now cannot get on the new stereo. I did go to the library and get some books on Cd and that's been really good. I don't feel like I'm wasting so much time just sitting. I do love the time I get to spend with Nick in the car (when he's not sleeping or has is headphones on) and I keep trying to remind myself to really appreciate this time we have together because I know how fast the next three years are going to go and then he'll be gone.
This is about the closest thing to craftiness going on around here! I love having a husband that likes to cook and make yummy things. He made this jalapeno jam the other day and since we have about a bazillion tomatoes I think canning those is next on the list!

A Little of This and That

Nothing crafty has been going on here at all. I need motivation! My sewing room is a mess and I can't make myself go in there and just start. So, since I haven't been up to anything new I thought I would share some old-cause it's all new to you, right?



This was a Christmas gift I made for my family a couple of years ago. I scanned photos and printed them out in sepia tones, sandwiched them between thin glass I cut to fit the pics, copper foiled the edges, and and ran a bead of solder around them. Soldered a ring to the top center and tied them to a wire tree I purchased (I think they were a Halloween item) from a local store with sheer ribbon. I love it and I think my family appreciated them also. It was a fun project to do.

This was dinner last night. Fifty pound King Salmon caught by my son when we were in Alaska. He was so proud when he found out that he beat my sister's prize winning catch of 47 lbs. Didn't matter to him that she caught hers in a different river and won the fishing derby in the town she lived in at the time! Nope, he's got bragging rights and he's gonna use them every chance he gets!
` Can't get much fresher than this!
We grilled some last night and had it over angel hair, garlic, fresh tomatoes and basil. YUM!


These are also in our freezer now.

Alaska is so beautiful, words or pictures cannot do it justice.

We just have a few more days of our summer left and then back to the dreaded old routine. We've been doing a lot of nothing. Hanging out on the back porch, reading, eating too much, but mostly just sitting and not feeling a bit guilty about it! That's what summer's all about, right!?!

Where To Begin

I'm not quite sure where to start it's been so long!

We have just returned from a wonderful vacation visiting my sister and her husband who live in Alaska. We had such a great time; there was paragliding off mountains, hiking to glaciers, sightseeing/wildlife watching, kayaking, salmon and halibut fishing and way too much eating. Mike,whom I have declared the Barbecue King of Alaska, smoked ribs and a brisket it was the best barbecue I have ever had. We have been researching smokers since we've been home. It was that good!

Our first day there we were having lunch in Girdwood watching people paragliding off a mountain and I jokingly said to my 15 year old son (we affectionately call him bubble boy because he would rather be in front of his computer than anywhere else) if he would like to do that. Never in a million years would I have thought he would say yes. You guessed it, he said yes and he was dead serious and never had a second thought about it, didn't even act nervous! Luckily I had pictures to take, so that kept my thoughts occupied! He was a changed boy on this trip! We had so much fun. He got a digital slr for his birthday, so our trip was very well documented. Yep, that's him, 3000 ft off the ground!

It was fun to actually see my sister's house. I can't even tell you how cute it is! When they bought it everything was white, not anymore. I'll try to post pics.

So now back to reality and figuring out what that is! We started a landscaping project before we left and it's almost done ready to be planted but that's where I'm stuck. I'm not sure what I want to plant. I could visualize the wall and stone edged bed but now I can't figure out what I want in them!

Here's the only new crafty thing I have to share. My sister had a bag she liked and wanted me to make one similar in some cool fabric. So here is a really crappy photo of the bag. I snapped it as I was packing it. Thought I'd get a better one with her, but didn't. I sorta made it up as I went using Amy Butler's Geisha Fans and Moon Dot Lime for the lining.




I suppose if I would do this a little more frequently, my posts wouldn't be so long! I guess that's more than enough for now!

It's Done!

It's done! I got this bag done this morning, it's for my mom for her birthday. I didn't get it started until last evening cause we had to go get one of these, much quicker and easier for guys than girls, one stop shopping! It was a surprise when he decided to go! He has become quite the social butterfly lately. Anyway, finished the bag up this morning. Love those quick, instant gratification projects.
I used the Metropolitan pattern from Indygo Junction. I thought the instructions were pretty good, a little vague on a couple things, but it could be me. I tend to over think and over analyze pretty much everything. I got the fabric for body of the bag the from Etsy and the top and handles from here.

B

A Closer Look

Here is an up close view of the High Street Messenger Bag. Like I said yesterday, the bag went together much easier than I was anticipating. Because there are so many pieces keeping them marked with masking tape was definitely a must. Linds took it to work yesterday and said she had so many complements on it! That's always nice to hear!


Here is peek inside the bag. There are three zippered pockets in the bag (that may have been where some of the dread was coming from before I started the bag). I just followed each step of the directions very carefully (not that I don't always do that!) and it went pretty smoothly. I had only done two zippers before these.


Off to clean the sewing room up. I need to start on a bag for my mom, her birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks.

B

Lots of Catching Up!

Spring break, Easter, sick, husband gone six weeks (eek!), driving to school, daughter moving back home after 5 years (eeeekkkkk!!!). OK, so just a few things changing and happening since my last post!



I wanted to share the cute little chicks my mom made everyone for Easter. She hand felted them from roving. She also made everything else you can see in the background. She always has the table set so beautifully, but of course I didn't get a picture of that.

It was a relaxing break, didn't do much of anything. Then I got sick and had to play catch up on everything I hadn't done over break and while I was sick. Not so relaxing!

Bill who has been home since November, everyday, all day, helping cook, drive (our son goes to a school 40 minutes from our home and I drive him to and from everyday), and just being here had to leave last Sunday for six weeks. Just got used to having him around and now he's gone again. This has been our lives for the last 24 years. He is in the environmental business and travels a lot! No fun. We miss him!

Our daughter, who has lived away from home for the last five years, has decided to move back home to save some money. She has been renting a little house but her roommates have moved out and it's a little pricey for her to stay there by herself. She has decided that she wants to save up and move to Nashville. We moved into this house about a year and a half ago, so she has never lived here. She also needs to move into one of the last rooms to be redone (meaning I haven't done it yet and need to get motivated, and since it was the last room, it ended up being the room that everything that you don't know what to do with went there). This will be a big change for us all. A good change, but still change. We celebrated her 24th birthday yesterday.
Here she is with all her birthday swag that I made for her.
Amy Butler Wide Leg Lounge Pants, Madison Bag, and High Street Messenger Bag. I think she loved them all, and the best part of her moving home is they'll be here for me to borrow! I made the lounge pants and kept the length they called for in the pattern (for me I had to whack about 2 inches off the bottom for them to fit), She is 5'10" so I was hoping they would be long enough, and they were!
I was dreading making the messenger bag there were 36 pieces and it is lined with canvas. but my machine buzzed right through all those layers like it was nothin'!

I made these butterflies, they were a lot of fun to make. Quick and easy. It made it look springy even though it didn't feel like it (yes that is a fire in the fireplace).




I guess that's enough for now, sorry for the long post, will try to be a bit more regular in my posting.

B

Madison Bag

I've just entered my Madison Bag in the U-handblog's Amy Butler Monthly Contest . Now, I've had this bag done for a few weeks now and I knew I wanted to enter it, so why do I wait until 9 p.m. the day the contest ends to try and get a decent photo, figure out flickr and how to upload photos and all that good stuff? I guess that's just the way I roll.

Oh well, here's the bag.



I used Amy Butler's Madison bag pattern and Amy's Lacework for the exterior and Full Moon Polka Dot for the lining. It was a fairly easy bag to make. I had a little trouble stitching the lining around the top of the bag. I got a new sewing machine for Christmas (I'm such a lucky (spoiled) girl, thanks Mom and Dad) and I love it, except my old machine had a free arm (?) that made it so easy to get to awkward spots, and this machine doesn't have that. Other than that I love this machine! The bag was a fun one to make and I think it's got such a cute shape.

Migraines Suck

How lame am I? I've only been blogging for a little over a week and I've already gone a week without a new post. Three of those days I had a migraine so nothing got done. Then when I did feel better I had to play catch up. Migraines suck!

I did finish the Wide Leg Lounge Pants from Amy Butler's, In Stitches.

I am much happier with the cardigan now that I have the pants done. I think they look pretty cute together.

I've been trying to straighten up the sewing room so I can take some photos in there. I have a couple projects finished that I would like to post some pictures of and I'd like to enter one of my bags here (she seems like such a fun, cool chick). I just finished the Madison bag for my daughter's birthday gift. so I think it might be that one if I can get a good pic. I think I just need to get over the not taking good photos thing.

I have a couple friends that have had babies and I need to get moving on those gifts, I have some ideas it's just the executing it part I need to work on. One involves free motion quilting so I've been practicing that. I've never done it before, and it's kinda hard, but I think lots of practice should help.

Snow Day

Woke up this morning to this view! Sorry about the poor quality photo, in fact I will apologize in advance for all the photos I post, obviously photography is not one of my talents, my sister got that gene! Unfortunately it's Saturday so we don't even get a snow day. I still feel like I did when I was in school waiting to hear our school announced on the radio. So when you get this much snow and it's not a school day it just feels like you got ripped off!

I have not accomplished one thing today except polishing off the almond bark from this awesome place. It's a local favorite, they have the best candy and ice cream. The dark chocolate covered pretzels are the best. I went here yesterday and picked up this fabric for the wide-leg lounge pants but I just haven't been able to motivate myself to get up there and get busy on them. Maybe that just did it. Hopefully there will be pants to post tomorrow!?!

First Post

After lurking around all of the creative, crafty blogs out there I've decided to put my two cents in. So here goes!
I'm hoping this will be a motivating, inspiring experience.

I come from a very crafty family. Growing up there was always something crafty going on at our house and I guess it stuck with me. I've done everything from knitting and sewing to stamping, paper making, stained glass, lamp working, wire working, along with home remodeling and all that goes along with that.

My latest binge has been fabric and sewing. I haven't done a lot of apparel sewing, but lately I've been inspired by all the cool books, patterns and beautiful fabrics out there. I just finished the cuddle-up cardigan from Sew Everything Workshop by Diana Rupp.


I used a polar fleece and I don't think that was the best choice (bulky) but, as Tim would say, I made it work. I trimmed the front down and made a bias trim out of some Heather Bailey fabric I had. I wanted something cozy and cute, but when I put it on I feel schlumpy, like I'm wearing a robe not a sweater. My husband, Bill lovingly calls it my "schmock", probably not a good sign! So now I'm thinking I'm going to make some of the Wide Leg Lounge Pants from Amy Butler's In Stitches and give it to my daughter for her birthday. She's 5'11" and thin so everything looks good on her.

Enough rambling. I'm excited about this new journey, there is a comedian that has his Secret Public Journal, I kind of feel like that about this. I'm going to try not to edit and second guess my self on the things I write-just wing it (as I am editing this post for the third time).