i heart linen

Shop Update!

So I've postponed the shop update to Monday.  I've got some more things to make.  I'm trying my very, very, very best to get a couple calendars done in time (no guarantees on the calendars) and a few other little items.  Some little pouches I managed to crank out yesterday for the update.........

I know....I've been a busy little bee......I'm super tired too.

These remind me of Bonne Maman jars.......mmmmm.....Bonne Maman...yummy.

They're teeny pouches too......4 inches x 4 inches. 

They make me happy. ^_^ I hope they make you happy too.

Well, off I go to sew something else!  Have a super dee duper weekend!

Through the Looking Glass

Huge, huge, huge, tremendous, humongous, colossal, gargantuan (is that big enough? ^_^) thank you to all of you for your comments on my last post about my news!  It really means a lot and you've certainly managed to ease my mind a little, you've definitely given me a boost.  I was feeling a little unsure about it all.  I think it's going to be just great and I'm happy to "bring" you along for this journey with me. So stoked! Woot!

Have a good weekend?  I suppose mine was....hmmm.....enlightening.  Ever have one of those moments standing in front of the mirror, where you're sort of just standing there looking at the reflection, thinking......about.....well.....anything and end up having a sort of revelation?  I had one of those moments a few days ago, looking, thinking, watching, seeing, pondering.......so many thoughts ran through my head in that short moment in the privacy of the bathroom.

"Wow, I need to pluck my eyebrows......huh?! ANOTHER gray hair?!  Uuugh, this  over 30 thing is nuts!  Hmmm....heeeeeeeyy...a pimple....must be nearing that time of the month....I guess I have been a little bitchy the past couple days.....speaking of bitches.....haha.....no, let me not go there.......*sigh* ......I can't believe I'm writing a book.....wow......me the girl who hated to read books or even write book reports in junior high.....haha.....craaazzyyyy......my 8th grade teacher really tried to work with me, she was super cool.  I wonder what she's up to now?"

She was strict sometimes, but also had these funny little sayings.  She used to say, "That dog won't hunt!", whenever we tried to fib about our missing homework or something.  She used to make us show our work on math assignments to prove how we got the answer to a problem.  If we didn't she'd say,"Show me! I'm from Missouri, the 'Show Me' state!".  What the heck does that mean anyway? lol Anyone know the answer to that little bit of trivia? Why is Missouri called "The Show Me State"?  Anyhoo, I digress. She used to help me with my homework after school,  we played tennis sometimes,  I invited her to my confirmation......I had forgotten how much she helped me and how good she was to me.  She was one of those teachers that just really cared about her students and loved to teach.  She really left an impression on me.

Well, it occurred to me, as I stared at myself in the mirror, this person has played a part in helping build who I am today and here I am at a huge turning point in my life.....I need to let her know and say thank you.  So,that's exactly what I did.  I went online and actually Google-d her name and found her.  (Kind of scary that you can find someone via Google, but convenient, especially when you have good intentions.)  I called her and we played phone tag for a while, but I finally got to speak to her yesterday!  I just had to tell her about what I've been up to and how she was such an inspiration to me and just say thanks.   

It felt so good to tell her how I remembered so many of the things she taught me and that she was my most favorite teacher and well........geez louise, she rocks!  Why am I blabbering on about all this you say?  Well, I just think it's important to let someone know when they've really left an impression on you.  That's all. Our time here is so short, so let them know.  I wanted her to know that she was a damn good teacher.  Who knows if she's had other students call her up out of the blue or if I'm the only one.  But at least now she knows that she helped make my life super cool and that I appreciate her.

Go look in your mirror and then let them know.  I'll step down off of my soap box for today. ^_^

The little mirrors will be in the shop in my next update (this Friday?) if anyone is interested.  Happy Monday!

Geez louise!!

Okay, so I've gotten the go ahead and I can finally stop being Secret Squirrel and tell you my little bit of news!  Eeeeeep! I'm still in disbelief and can't even believe that it's happening, but it is!  Okay, okay, okay. Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh. Okay, okay, okay. Here it is, here it is, HERE IT IS! 

I have been given the absolutely, wonderfully, exciting, dream come true privilege of .....*drum roll* .......writing a book! I know!!!!!!!!!!!!!    *faints*  A book!  Nuts right?!  I still can't believe it either, but it's true.  I'm working on a book with Interweave Press all about patchwork(and linen) that will be due out in Fall '09! *backflips*

Yeah, it seems like a long time away, but we all know how fast time flies. 2009 will be here in no time flat and there is a lot of work to be done.  I'll be dragging you all on this journey with me, so I will post updates from time to time.

It's still in the early stages, so the title hasn't been decided on yet.  But we've got a pretty good list of projects that will be featured!  I'm so excited about this!  I feel ever so grateful to be given this opportunity.  I never imagined that starting a blog would lead to such things. There are so many talented crafters out there and it's hard for me to imagine why they chose little old dorky me for this.  But, I'm so thrilled and basically don't have the words to say how I'm feeling inside.   So I'll just shut up about it for now.   So there you have it....my news. ^_^

Oh! I almost forgot!  My bias tape! I was just telling Charlene a little while ago how I basically wake up in the morning thinking about fabric, sewing, and making things. So I got this kooky nutty idea to make some "patchwork" bias tape and put it away for future use and forget about it.  But they turned out too good not to share!

There will be some of these (minus the spools, those are mine, mine, mine, mine ^_^) in my next shop update (I'm thinking next Friday), for those of us who don't feel like making our own.  Trust me, if I wasn't in serious sewing mode like I am now, I wouldn't have bothered making them.  It's more work than I anticipated when I started. Duh.

Here is a green and yellow version that I'm working on. I kind of like how they look before I iron them up and make them all nice and neat.  *sigh*  I just love colors and fabric so much and I have such a hard time deciding which ones to use.....so I choose lots and mash them all together into patchwork.  Is that bad?  I think it's better that way.  Fabric mash.  That's what it should be called. ^_^ Yup, I'm a dork. Okay, I'll stop talking now.  *goes and sits in the corner*

Prairie Girl, Calendar Girl

Hope all you awesome Mom's had an awesome Mother's Day!  Being a mom has to be one of the greatest gifts in the world.  But I think the second greatest gift is being at home by yourself for a couple of hours.  Thanks honey, it was grand! Not exactly what we had planned for the day, but that's how it worked out. The silence was wonderful but almost deafening I must admit.  I spent much of the day watching old movies, finishing a project, and reading this lovely book that my hubby bought for me for Mother's Day.  "The Prairie Girl's Guide To Life" is the title and I absolutely love it!

Right up my alley I must say.  Such a sweet and charming book that I think should be in every crafter's library.  Learn to lay a fire, spin yarn, make candles, make rock candy, knit a shawl, bake a rhubarb pie, braid a rug, and heaps more!  What I love most about this book is that it almost gives me the feeling that I'm getting the chance to chat with my great-great-great grandma and learn all of the wonderful things she knew how to do.  It's a nice little read to say the least, my only problem with it is that there aren't any photos in this book.  I'm guessing the author is trying to stick to the old time charm of the simple pioneer life by doing that, which is wonderful.  But I'm a very visual learner and like to see how things are done.  So if you're like me and like to ooh and aah and pictures, then this book might not be for you.  I still find it so endearing and encourage you to swing by the bookstore and check it out!

So, I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to do some creating this weekend and managed to crank out this little pretty.  It's one of those ideas that's been in my head for a while and I just had to get it out of me before I popped!  It's a calendar! Weeeeeee!

I've had this idea in my head for quite some time now, so I went ahead and got all the supplies that I thought I would need........the stamps, the inkpad, the buttons, the velcro, the glue, etc.  I had everything I needed by Wednesday. 

I actually started making this at 2am Thursday morning!  I was tossing and turning and just couldn't sleep because I had this silly idea dancing in my head, so I got up and started picking fabrics, covering and stamping buttons, pulling the stems off the buttons and gluing velcro coins to the backs like a mad woman.  I finally went back to bed at about 5 am, satisfied that I started something worthwhile.

I finished it all up yesterday and here are the fruits of my crazed and frenzied late night labor!  I know! I'm a nut!  I'm telling you there was steam coming out of my ears from all of the wheels and gears turning in my head! Sometimes you just can't hold yourself back from creating when the notion really hits you!

I made enough buttons for 31 days + 7 blank ones for the "other days" of the calendar and for leap years. 

and then I stamped up some linen ribbon for the months!

I left the back very simple with some waffle fabric and some gentle embellishments.

I like my projects to be things that would be useful and not just sit around a collect dust.  Is this just fun to look at or would you actually use this?  You know I always welcome your feedback!   I love this so much, but I plan to pass it along to someone I know loves red and blue very much.  I hope she finds it useful! I think I'll make one in some colors that are a little more me next round.  I'm off to buy more buttons!! Ciao!

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!

Coaster-ing

How's everyone's week going?  Mine's pretty good....have some things in the works that I can't talk about just yet.......don't want to jinx it......ya know? teeheee!  Just cross your fingers and toes for me! ^_^
So let's see what can I share with you.....hmmmmmmm.....oh yeah! 
My coasters for the "Coaster Swap"! 

I'm ready for it to be Spring, as if you couldn't tell.  The greens, blues, & yellows make me super dee duper happy!

I thought it would be great to add a little something for my swap partner to hold her coasters.  So I made this little "dish" with matching fabric.

I also finally found a use to use for the flower buttons I bought last year! Yay!

Here's a shot of the back:

I used linen (of course) for the back of the "dish" and some fun waffle fabric for the back of the coasters.  I just love the texture of the waffle fabric!  I hope my partner likes. ^_^

Totes......finally

Did you have a nice long weekend?  I did, nice and quiet, sort of productive as well. Grocery shopping, laundry folding, rearranging the apartment, making homemade low-fat chili, sewing....you know...the normal weekend stuff.

It seems like I mentioned these a year ago, right?  Well, technically it was last year but almost this year. ^_^

Well, I finally got them all finished!  (I just can't seem to get the lead out lately.  I dunno what that's all about. *shrugs*)  Anyway, here they are.  I'll be posting them in the shop as soon as I'm done with this post.  All but the red one, which already has a new home! 

I like the size of these.  They aren't giant totes...just a a nice size for running out to the store really quick or something. Or if you just don't want to schlep a ton of stuff with you.

They have magnetic snaps and matching polka dot lining.  I think I'm totally polka dot obsessed lately.  So if you don't like polka dots, you probably won't want to visit me for a while.... teehee!

I'm shooting to add some more stuff to the shop sometime this week or the following week. I'll keep you posted! ^_^

100th Post!!

Yup, it's my 100th post!  *does the electric slide* Woot!
So yeah, I can't believe I've sat in front of my computer 100 times and blogged about little morsels of my life for you all to read about! Pretty cool!

I was actually going to hold off and save this post for the 31st, which is my 1 year "bloggiversary", and do like a super mega post.  But I couldn't even stand to wait that long and not share my newest creation with you all!  *moonwalks* (I know! I have no patience when it comes to secrets or surprises.....I'm the absolute worst!  I get so excited and want to tell so bad!  It's almost like when you have to pee really bad and.......okaaay...I'll shut up now.) Moving on....^_^

So, I haven't made a quilt since the Doll Quilt Swap last year.  I started to get the urge to do another recently, especially since February is Quilting Month over at Sew, Mama, Sew.  You ever have an idea and need to get it out of your head right away? Well, that's basically what happened to me on Saturday.  I wanted to do a another small quilt but had an idea to make this special little quilt a little more fun!

I'll show you the back first....tee hee.....

I was having my breakfast of homemade Honey Banana Bread and a glass of OJ and decided to stick them in the shot! haha Yeah, I'm a dork. 

I've been seeing all of the cutie pie hexagons around blogland and decided to give it a whirl....then I got lazy and decided I need more instant gratification!  Here's what I did with the front.......

Checkers anyone? Yellow polka dots vs. Linen!

I made a mini quilt measuring about 10 inches by 10 inches and used covered buttons for the checker pieces. Easy peasy, lemon checkers.....uhm....eesy. ^_^ Checkers is a fun game ....why can't the board be fun too?

I wanted the quilting on top to be invisible so I used nylon thread in the needle of the machine and put matching yellow thread in the bobbin so the color would show up underneath. (You can see the yellow quilting in the first photo.)

Who's going to win I wonder? Yellow Polka dots or Linen?

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! ^_^

I Heart......

Gamaguchis!

Gamaguchi means "a frog's mouth" in Japanese, which I guess is just what these little pouches look like. This is my first one and I love them!  I've been putting off making them because the frame always intimidated me.  But it turns out to be super easy!  Well not super easy, but a lot easier than I thought it would be.

Since this was my first try, I tried to keep it a little simple and not go all patchwork crazy on it.  But now that I know how to do it I'll definitely be making more! 

I just might throw a couple into the shop on my next update in a couple of weeks.  Haven't decided yet. (I know.  I'm always so indecisive.) 

Look!  It fits everything a girl would need.  Keys, phone, tunes, Mac Lipglass.......if you don't have Lipglass you're missing out, so go get some! ^_^