Next Projects

I'm getting excited for my next few projects!  I have a bad tendency to start a project, get bored of it, then get excited by a new project and eventually lose interest in that as well.  I'm going to try my hardest to not do that with my sewing!  But here's a sneak peak of what I'm planning next:

I'd like to make a camera bag.  Even though I don't have a fancy schmancy camera, I do like to have all my accessories (extra batteries, battery charger, cables) all in one place while traveling.  I found a cute pattern in Meg McElwee's Sew Liberated:  20 Stylish Projects for the Modern Sewist.

The corduroy and navy cotton both came from the Goodwill store.  I paid $5 for 2 m of cordury, and the navy cotton is a queen bed sheet that was $3.  I can't go wrong with those prices!  I'm not super super in love with the color combination, but it's all I have on hand, so it'll have to work!

Next up is a skirt that I'm going to make out of a pillow case I found at, you guessed it, the Goodwill store.  I bought a second, plain white pillow case to use as lining.  I got the inspiration from a pattern in Sewing Green by Betz White.  Here's the pillow case I'm going to use:

When I finish this skirt, I'm going to enter it in Crafterhours' Skirt Week 2011!

I won again!

I was folding some fabric today when my phone told me I had a new email.  You'll never guess who it was...  It was Ute from durbanville.design telling me I had won her giveaway!  To be honest, I had totally forgotten that some of the bloggers who participated in the Sew, Mama, Sew! giveaway were still drawing winners.

I was so excited to win this prize!  My husband and I love to travel, and he frequently makes fun of me because I always like to have my travel documents in one place within reach.  So now it'll be so much easier with this amazing travel organizer!!

Many thanks to Ute for her generous giveaway!

Photo courtesy of Ute's blog

Hot Pad

I've moved up from making little coasters to hot pads!  I made this one out of scraps from an apron I'm working on and some old jeans.  I added some vertical stitching to the side for some fun.

I'm going to give this one to my aunt for her birthday today!

Mmm, caramel popcorn!

I was ironing today when I had a sudden craving for caramel popcorn.  I checked trusty allrecipes.com and found one that I had done before and was pretty simple.  The recipe calls for the caramel sauce to be made in the microwave, but last time I did it everything overflowed and made a sticky mess of the inside of my microwave.  This time I made the caramel on the stove and it worked waaaay better.  The only thing was I accidentally added 1 tsp of salt instead of 1/2, so it was a little salty.  But still, very tasty, and it satisfied my craving!

We Can Do It! Skill Builder Sampler

Since I'm pretty new to quilting and have 0 skills, I was very excited to come across Leila's "We Can Do It!  Skill Building Sampler" on her blog Sewn.

Each month she'll provide a tutorial, and we will make 3 quilt blocks practicing the new techniques.  By the end of the year we should have enough blocks to make a queen size quilt!  Hmmm, maybe I should make a few extra blocks and make it into a king.  My husband and I have a queen bed and fight over the covers - it might be nice to have a bigger quilt so we will each have more than enough!

It starts on June 17, so make sure you check back every month to see my progress!!

I won, I won!!

Sadly I was too late to enter an item to be given away in Sew, Mama, Sew!'s Giveaway Day, but I wasn't too late to enter to win other  bloggers' giveaways!  I was home sick with a stomach bug/migraine on Tuesday and spent the majority of the day checking out what other bloggers were giving away.  There was some fantastic stuff out there, and was excited to be able to throw my name in the draw!

The deadline to enter was last night, and slowly over the course of the day I saw other people winning items I had entered into the draw for.  My friend Jessy even won twice!  My hopes were fading until I got an email late in the afternoon saying I had won something!

Tiffany from Art Food and Motherhood was generously giving away these darling little bottle cap bird magnets:

(photo taken from her blog)

I am very excited to receive them.  We recently moved into a new office building and all of my office walls are magnetic.  It'll be nice to have some cute magnets to brighten up the place!

Hmmm, I wonder if the mail has come yet?

Someone's Jealous...

"I'm not impressed that you've been spending more time with your sewing machine than with me."

Coasters

I've been playing around with my sewing machine a bit more lately, and made some little coasters!  I adapted the pattern from a few other patterns I found and think they're kinda cute.  Here's how they turned out (just don't look too close; the stitching is a bit uneven and crooked...):

Cleo is doing a quality control inspection...

It's all Greek to me

Last night was my mom's birthday dinner party at my place.  Last year I did a Thai Extravaganza, and this year I decided to do Greek food.  I spent the day cleaning and baking and cooking.  We started with a home made greek dip, tzatziki, and pita bread.  We then had greek salad, followed by chicken lemon soup, and then greek potatoes, green beans, and souvlaki pork for the main course.  We then had lemon cupcakes and honey cake for dessert.  The evening turned out well and everyone had a great time!

Here are some photos:

Group Shot

Birthday Girl

See the rest of the pictures here.

Baby Blanket!

It's been over 2 months since my last post!!

I wish I could say I've been working hard crocheting, cooking, gardening, and hiking, and have a ton of stuff to catch up on, but sadly I haven't been doing much of anything - until last weekend!

I got a sewing machine for Christmas and finally finished my first project!!  I decided to make a baby blanket.  I went to Fabricland and they were having a sale and I was so excited!  I picked some beautiful teal fleece for one side and a swirly teal flannelette for the other.  I took the fabrics to the cutting table and got 1 meter of the flannelette and wanted 1 meter of the fleece, but there was only .6 meters!  Gasp!  Thankfully the cutting lady was super nice and experienced and suggested that I cut it into 12" squares and sew them together into a square.  Brilliant!

I got home, cut the fleece into squares and sewed 9 of them together to form a square.  I measured each side to figure out how big to cut the flannelette, and each side was a different size!  I'm not sure how I managed that because I thought I was being so careful!  The longest side was 35.5', so I cut the flannelette into a 35.5' square and just stretched the fleece to make it fit.  I sewed the pieces together inside out, then turned it right side out and sewed around the edge again.  I also sewed along the fleece seams to keep both fabrics together.

Here's how it turned out: