i heart linen

Oh, Whoa is me.

*Insert most sarcastic tone possible* Unfortunately, part of my advance for the book has to go towards buying supplies.  *sigh* Ugh, I can't believe I HAVE to buy fabric! It's just so inhumane.  How can people live like this?  Shopping?!  For FABRIC?! Ugh!  Yucky!  Ew! 

Seriously though, my stash was in serious need of an update.  We're in the middle of selecting colors and fabrics for the projects that will be featured and some of my stuff was just not going to cut it.  So this is what came in the mail this week.  About 20 lbs of new fabric.  The lucky bamboo is about 3 feet tall, just to give you some perspective on how tall that stack is.  *sigh*  I just don't know if this lifestyle works for me.  Tee hee. ^_^

*edited to say* Thank you for all of your comments on the previous post! You guys rock! I feel a lot better about it today.  I know it's for the best all around. 

Yellowing

Happy Monday!  Hope everyone's weekend was divine!  Mine was busy, busy, busy! Ikea run, grocery shopping, spring cleaning, laundry, rearranging some of our rooms, worked on some projects, and the weekend is over.  *sighs*  Weekends should be 3 days long. Maybe I can start a petition to change that.

Huge thank you to you all for your comments on my last post!  Some really great suggestions as well, I took some notes! Thanks! And thanks to the folks at Craftzine for posting about my calendar. If any of you make a calendar I'd love to see it, let me know!

Sssoooooo.  I've fallen for yellow!  I know how can you not when it's all over the place these days.  I guess I'm a little late, but I'm finally hopping on the yellow bandwagon.  We even painted one of our walls yellow.

Some newly acquired 'yeller' stuff. The pot and the plant are from Ikea, I chose a succulent because my thumb is every color in the rainbow but green. Please don't fear for this little plant's life! I'm keeping my fingers and even my Technicolor thumbs crossed that I can keep this plant alive. 

The fabrics are mostly from Sew, Mama, Sew from a few weeks back so I'm not sure if they're all in stock still.

I think I've been so apprehensive with it because it's such a hard color to pull off.  I just can't bring myself to wear yellow clothing just yet, I mean I'm 5' 10". I feel like I'd look like a big ol' giant walking banana or something!! Not cool.  I'm sticking to fabric, accessories, and housewares for now. 

Some Spring Sewing

Been doing some sewing for my little Bella-boo.  She's such a girly girl and loves to wear dresses and skirts, so I just had to add some more to her wardrobe.  The spring has made me a sewing machine!
*sings to the tune of "Dancing Queen"*   "I am a sewing machiiiiiiiiiine, young and sweeeeeet only thirty ooooooooone!"

  Don't you wish you could take your machine outside and sew?  How can I do that?  How can I drag all of my fabric and my tools and notions outside and sew?  Can someone help me figure that out?  Anyhoo, I digress.........where were we oh yes.......Bella, clothes.

I have several Japanese craft books for sewing kids clothing and got some inspiration and a pattern or two from them.  This top, I used a lovely Tana Lawn print that I found on Ebay. I started out with a pattern from one of my books as a base. (Onna No Ko No Oyofuku - ISBN 9784529044370 see below)  I wanted it to have some smocking at the top, so I did that, then it seemed really plain to me so I decided to stitch over it with one of the fancy pants stitches on the machine.  After I did that I tried it on Bella and it was too big!  So I ended up tacking the front and back and made inverted pleats.....added two buttons and voila!  At least I can undo the tacking when she gets older and she can still wear it! Yay! *runnin' man*

Pics of my boo boo smocking and the back.........

A little skirt made with some of the left over Alexander Henry fabric from her dress.  I sorta winged it on this one too.

I used a pattern for this dress from The Clothes of Koharu (ISBN 4579109708)....and I'm sure we all know the fabric used for this. ^_^ (Amy*cough*Butler*cough*)

I love the back of this!  So cute!  You can see her tan line from Miami too...tee!

And this one.....no pattern .....just went for it....this one looks like it could be a nightie or a sun dress....hahaaa.....I can put her bed after she's been playing outside in it.  I know! eeeewwww! haha!   I know. I'm a dork.

If you like making clothes for little girls and you don't have these books in your library, you should. Some really easy to follow patterns and as usual the photos are just wonderful!

Customizing

My mother-in-law Mom-The Sequel (mother-in-law just sounds so awful doesn't it?) paid us a little visit.  Really awesome lady! It was nice to get to know her better and learn more about my husband's family and his childhood and such. 

Mom-The Sequel and Elijah

We're very much alike, which I sort of already knew. (His Grandmother, his mother's mother, was born on December 28th, my birthday is December 29th, and his mother's birthday is December 30th.  He still manages to forget one of them somehow.  Luckily mine isn't one of them. *huge grin*)   It was funny to have someone in the house who would say what I was thinking of saying before I could say it.  Mel's always saying how I'm just like his mom and I never knew if that was a good or bad thing because I really didn't know her very well.  After spending some time though, I'm confident that  he's paying me a compliment when he says it. Mom-The Sequel rocks!

Her visit also allowed me some "catch-up-on-my-sewing" time.  I was happy to finish up some custom orders. I was quite apprehensive about doing custom orders in the first place. They can be quite difficult custom orders sometimes.  You never know if your vision will turn out the way you'd like or if the customer will even like it.  One in particular:

Heidi of Pinksparrow loved the design of one of my previous bags, but wanted different fabric.  So she chose the Alexander Henry "Bird Seed" in yellow, asked for a pocket and said to surprise her with the lining.  Well, you know I can be quite indecisive so........

..I used a yellow polka-dot for the top half, more of the "birdseed" for the bottom and.......

...black damask for the pocket!  She received it and loves it.  I was a little worried that it would be too much, so I'm happy it worked out.  Thanks Heidi!  So happy that you are pleased!  I guess this custom order thing isn't so bad after all. I really enjoyed doing this one. 

Heidi makes these really super cute felt pins by the way!  I'm so amazed by all the cutie-pies she makes. 

These two are my favorite! *swoons*
She has many other lovelies in her beautiful Etsy shop.  So run over and check them out before they're all gone! ^_^

*Update*

I've gotten a few inquiries about the fabric I used in the previous post.

It's a Japanese fabric by the company Kokka. I love, looove, LOVE, L-O-V-E this fabric. I fell in love with it when I saw a bag made with it by Luii Accessories on Flickr.  Which lead me on a crazed, obsessed, fabric addicted manhunt for it.  (I couldn't just ask the designer where she got it, I had to do it the hard way.  It's more fun! ^_^)  Unfortunately, I couldn't find it in this colorway anywhere stateside. So, I ended up ordering it from Australia and bought the last half yard in the shop!  I do know that Purl does have some left in different colorways here.  If anyone finds other places to buy it please let me know, I'll spread the word! ^_^ That's if I don't buy it all for myself....*wicked laughter*   >=)

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.

nuno.plus

Yay!  Miki and Eri of nuno.plus at Ebay e-mailed me today to let me know that they launched their new website! Congratulations on the new site guys!

I posted about them before because they're one of my sources for Japanese fabrics. They plan on adding a gallery so customers can post pictures of the kawaii creations they've made with their fabric.  I'm so there  when it's finally up.  They're also having a promotional sale, so run over and grab some fabric before I buy it all! ^_^

Busy Work

How was your weekend? ^_^
Mine was pretty quiet.  Did some sewing for the shop. Then I realized that I couldn't finish all of the lovely things I was making until the rest of my supplies arrived from Create For Less. I'm basically at a stand still until Thursday!  Everything I want to complete relies on the arrival of that package.  Ugh.  Don't you hate that?  I had all of these plans for the weekend and the first few days of this week.  Oh well.....*shrugs*....better find some busy work.  I'm sure the kiddles will keep me jumpin' though. 

Speaking of kiddles, it's 'Kids' Clothes Month' over at Sew, Mama, Sew. I love making little clothes. I made this little dress/top for my Bella with some Alexander Henry fabric I've been hoarding. 

As if she needs another article of clothing.  I swear she has more clothes than Mel and I combined!  But how can you resist dressing up your little one?  It's like having a life sized baby doll! ^_^ Love it!  I figure I might as well enjoy it now.  In no time she won't want me dressing her ever again.

Received this lovely stack of scrumdillyumptious fabric bundle from Sheree's Alchemy today. 

This color combination just makes my heart flutter.  I've been searching for the Flea Market Fancy in this colorway for a little while now and was so pleased when I found it at Sheree's Etsy shop! Yay! *dances the jig* It seems her shop just opened and she's editing her fabric stash by selling some of it on etsy.  She has some really nice bundles available. Go check her out!  There are so many things I want to make with this bundle, I hope I can make it last!

I've been digging through my stash, making little bundles for some items I'm making for the shop. 

Choosing fabrics for several projects at once is not as easy as one would think.  Especially when you have a toddler and a 5 week old both screaming for your attention at the same time.  But I think I managed pretty well. The colors are making me want to eat candy.  Jolly ranchers perhaps?  No! Candy buttons!

Ebay find!

I just realized I failed to share the places on Ebay where I got some of my fabric from the previous post.

Shame one me! *smacks hand 

• The first place I posted about before.  It's Nuno Plus! 
• The second place is new to me.  It's design_cafe.

Very, very, very, very small selection of things at design_cafe.  So you have to be quick!  ^_^  No fighting now.

Some of the things that are listed there:

Happy shopping!

Stash-a-licious!

Was "playing" with and organizing my stash today.  It hurts my heart to have to cut up all of these yummy piles of textile delight.  But at the same time it's such a treat when you make something and you're happy with the result.    

I'm sure I'm not the only one that feels this way.  I just can't seem to stop buying them either!!  I'm addicted to fiber!!! I love when the mailman rings my doorbell.  It only means one thing.  New fabric in the house!  Yahoooo! Is it okay to kiss your neighborhood postal service employee when they come to your door?  Probably not. 

These cuties just came this week:

• 5 yards of linen
• Lot's of japanese fabric
• Some organic Japanese thread
• and 2 dozen adorable wooden buttons with flowers carved into them

Zakka makin' anyone?

And then this came as well. 2 yards of groovy vintage fabric. 

I'm loving the leaves, especially since I'm so ready for fall to arrive.  (Is it hot enough out there for ya?  Sheesh!) I won it off of Ebay, my nemesis.  I made a promise not to go onto that site for a little while.  But I'm sure I'll break that promise.....probably as soon as I log off of Typepad!  ^_^