i heart linen

Fall Flickr Fondness

*sigh* I love the fall! My absolute favorite season.  Makes me all warm and fuzzy thinking about it!
Some Autumn Flickr love. ^_^

Cheese?

Haha! Cheese! That's the way my dear little Bella pronounces "Please".  It's her new favorite word and she uses it whenever she wants something.  Even if she doesn't really want it......."Cheeeeeese?"  So I've heard that word in the sweetest little mouse voice the entire weekend.

How was your weekend?  Mine was slightly productive and also slightly frustrating.  I worked on this bag most of the weekend and I  have to say I don't think I enjoyed making it very much. My seam ripper and I ended up having a lot of intimate moments together in the past few days. I even cried a little bit over this bag....lol and can laugh about it now thankfully.   

I'm only somewhat happy with the result.  It's not as heavy as I would have liked, as I'm still learning the ropes about the different types of interfacing to use in handbag making.  I've read so many tutorial's about interfacing that I think I've just ended up confusing myself even more! Ugh!

I'm still on the fence about this bag, but it is indeed up for grabs.  I'll be adding this to the shop later this week.  I'm hoping to have a mini grand opening, most likely before the week is over.  I've decided to go ahead and do it.   Although, I really haven't managed to make everything I've wanted to make as of yet.  But I guess it's better to start slow.

The other reason for my weekend of frustration is a little pouch I made last night, my intentions where to put this in the shop as well. The pattern making, the cutting, the interfacing-ing (^_^), the vinylizing, all of these things went by extremely well.  For some reason once the sewing began everything went downhill from there! 

It's funny, this first picture makes it look waaaaaaaaaay better than it looks in person.  It's all lumpy and bumpy and can barely stand up on it's own!!  And then you turn it around .....I've officially dubbed this pouch "Frankenpouch".  The top looks like something is trying to bust out of it! lol  It really cracks me up.

I'm not sure what went wrong, but it seemed okay when I was sewing it and then I turned it inside out!  I think this could have turned out nicely, but I'm thinking I was just too tired when I attempted to make this last night.  So back to the drawing board I go.  The vinyl gets a little wrinkly when you turn it inside out as well.  But I guess that part doesn't look to bad.  Hmmm......Any thoughts on my Frankenpouch?

Oh the frustration!

Anyhoo, my little one managed to keep me in good spirits.  I've always got "Cheese" to make me smile.

Happy Monday! ^_^

Crafting Japanese

Just a quick note to announce that I,
(along with these fine bloggers)
futuregirl craft
kuky ideas
the many layers of kate
purple kappa
studio tamar
tricot methode frankenstien
domesticity
hambone and jennicakes

have volunteered to assist Maitreya of Craftlog in updating Crafting Japanese!

Yay!  Totemo koufun shiteiru yo! (I'm really excited!) Don't worry, no dancing in this post.  I'm still sore from the last one! 

Maitreya has been so gracious to start this site for all of us and it's popularity has grown so much that she
needed some help and I'm so very happy to do it!  If you're not familiar with Crafting Japanese, it's a resource for information on Japanese craft books and where and how to buy them.  Also, there are links to tutorials, projects, and free patterns!  Definitely a link you should bookmark.

^_^ Ja mata ne!

Last Minute Patchwork Quilted Gifts

Yay! I got my copy! Woohoo!  *dancin' dancin' dancin'*

Go get one too! Yay!

*backflips* Yay!

*Electric slide, running man, cabbage patch* Wooooo!

*more dancin', dancin', dancin'* Yipee!

*breakdancing, headstand, cartwheel* Woot!

Whew...okay now I'm tired.  ^_^

I love this book!  I just want to pack my things and jump in the front cover and move in.  Can I live in this book?  No?  Darn.

Mistakes can be good

I'm not even going to bother going into how tired I've been these days from the late night feedings. (It's 4:15 am now!) But I will say this.......you make a lot of mistakes when your sleep deprived!  One of the problems for me recently is remembering to add seam allowance when I'm drafting my patterns.  D'oh!  I know, I know.  *hangs head*  How do you forget something simple like seam allowance?  I started out trying to make a batch of these pouches for my little shop and I totally forgot the seam allowance.  I cut the fabric.  Sewed the pieces together.  It didn't hit me until I made twelve.  TWELVE. lol So the pouches ended up being too narrow. So, I had to figure out what to do with my twelve teeny, tiny, eensty, weensty mistakes.  After a bit of tinkering and some more screw ups......tada! Pencil cases! Yaaaay! ^_^

I suppose my errors paid off.  It's just annoying that I had to go through so much to get to these.  I wish I had just thought of doing these from the beginning!  But I probably would have forgotten the seam allowance on these too!  lol

I've been wanting to make a patchwork scarf from the Sew Mama Sew tutorial that I saw last week. (If you haven't seen it, run and look it's so cute!) The orange pouch is my favorite and I decided to use that combination of fabrics to make a scarf for Bella.

I gave it pockets so that her favorite pal Sophie can tag along.  (Sophie actually was a gift for Elijah and Bella decided that she belongs to her now!)

Well, this isn't the first time I've forgotten to add seam allowance and I'm sure it won't be the last.  I've gotten over being miffed about it since I was able to make some cutie pouches and a fun scarf for my Bella to boot!  I'm just happy that I didn't end up wasting any fabric.  Mistakes can be good! ^_^

Afternoon Stroll

So off to the post office I went this afternoon to ship some items from my Mini Sale.  (Thank you to those of you who purchased something! ^_^)  I decided to drag the Rebel along, not sure why, since the post office is just a block away.  Just in case Bella did something cute I guess.  But I'm her Mommie so everything she does is cute to me!

Such a lovely day out today so we leisurely walked back home.  The security guard to our complex was in his little blue box and as we walked by Bella just stopped and stared at him.  He of course tried to talk to her.  Getting her to smile at him or even just say "hi" was like pulling teeth.  Finally he whips out a dollar!  She took the dollar from him and gleefully exclaimed, "Bye-bye!"  and walked away!  I wish I had a man giving me money...er...oh yeah I guess I already do...I'm married...haha!  Love you hubby! ^_^

(Bella watching him walk away to do his rounds and hiding her dollar behind her back.)

(Little Elijah is such a sleepy head.  I love when he sleeps with his hands above his head. Too cute!)

(Part of the courtyard in front of our building.  Hard to believe this is Manhattan, so very green in this part of Harlem.  I still want to move out of the city though. ^_^)

Fall Cleaning Mini Sale

How was your weekend? I hope everyone stateside enjoyed their Labor Day!  I had a great weekend with the hubby and the kiddles!  It was relatively quiet but quite enjoyable.  Spent some time with my grandparents who returned to Florida today.  They've been here since Elijah was born 7 weeks ago!  *whew* Looooong visit, but I'll miss them.  On Saturday we packed the stroller full of goodies and headed to the park for the afternoon.  It was such a beautiful day, so nice to be out with the kids.

Bella especially had a good time out this weekend.  But my dear little daughter is suddenly afraid of grass!

She wouldn't set foot off of the mat. (See, even with some gentle nudging by my husband's smurf feet. ^_^)  It was quite amusing and perplexing to say the least.  How are we supposed to move down South and have a nice big yard if my little one is a afraid of grass?  Well, I'm sure it's just a phase and she'll grow out of it.

I have to admit September and October are my favorite months.  The weather is so wonderful this time of year.  The air seems to have this crispness to it and the sky always seems to be an extra special hue of blue.  The fall always means new beginnings to me, which brings me to the fall cleaning I've started.
I'm slowly eliminating some of my fabric stash and craft book library.  (Making room for the new ^_^)

I've set up a little gallery to show some of the items I've chosen to part with.  Take a look.