Sewing Girl is here!

Isn't she cute?!?!?!

I love her! Best $3 I have ever spent :) Abby is thrilled because I put her on her side, and is doubly thrilled that she is *purple*. That kid cracks me up!

Now that you need one too, I got her here.

Recent Work, and my favorite thing to make!

I just finished up another custom order, with some very fun things included in it!!


This customer requested one of my very favorite things to make, a bamboo velour baby lap tee:

I just adore making these. As many of you know, bamboo velour is the softest and silkiest fuzzy fabric ever. It's so nice and snuggly. And making these tiny little tops out of it just gives me baby lust!


Some other things for the same customer included this VW mock layer tee:

And an Ooga Booga mock layer tee:

I love to do these mock layer tees with the last bits of my popular and super cute fabrics. It allows me to use the final scraps of these great knits, and I just think they are adorable!

I am excited for my stocking tomorrow evening, I can't wait to see what my next custom customers design!

Do I need another hobby?

Here we are again, it's September. And in our high desert climate, there is a good hint of fall in the air, especially on those chilly mornings. And again this year, that hint of fall is making me think, "I need to learn to knit!"

I have daydreams of knitting up beautiful things out of my yarn stash (what's that you say, why do you have a yarn stash when you don't know how to do a thing with it? Yeah, well, everyone has their issues, let it be!). I have beautiful colorways that really inspire me....my most recent addition was "Snow Angel" by Nurturing Threads. It's gorgeous, a mix of blue and purple. My oldest girly would look fanstastic in it!

And I wander around knitting blogs, including Jessica's, and I get this little burn of desire to pick up my non existent knitting needles and crank out beautiful things.

I have tried to knit before, I have! So far, I have not been good at it! I think taking a class would help me immensely, I am very visual, and I need someone that is patient! I have been waiting for my local yarn store to offer a beginning class again, should be very soon.

Of course, the question is still nagging me - do I need another hobby? I mean, really? Especially a hobby that validates my need to collect fibers of different sorts? Something for me to ponder on this chilly Saturday morning.

Stripes!

So, I admit, I have never been a huge fan of stripes, or sewing them. There are often a pain in the butt to line up, especially if they are not perfectly perpendicular to the grain!

But for some reason, right now, I LOVE stripes. I adore stripes. It's just crazy! My last post, there were the stripe/solid combinations for the girlies. And then I got in this euro bird knit that had a matching stripe. I just adore this:

I am also trying to be a better sewing mommy for this fall/winter. We moved here last year, and it was definitely colder than the mild climate we came from, and I did not have the girlies prepared well. My mother, thank goodness, ordered me a bumch of velour fleece for leggings and pants for the girls this year so they are warmer. When it's 8 degrees in the morning, jeans are a little cold!! I was so excited when I went to the box of velour fleece and found the *perfect* shade to match that shirt:

It was quite the sewing nerd moment, but I was *thrilled* and my husband was not nearly as excited as me when I showed him. Hopefully someone out there can understand how this was all meant to be, and the excitement of it all!

I usually don't like pictures of the clothing just laid out when it is for my kids, but Abby protested trying these on the day I made them, since it was over 100 degrees. She is obviously not made to be a runway model.

Over Labor Day Weekend, my husband went hunting with his father, and the girls and I hung around the house and got a lot of stuff done! One of the best things I did that weekend was delved into the world of felting wool interlock and dying (dye-ing?) it beautiful colors! Oh my, what fun! Now if only wool interlock were not so expensive.

I loved wool interlock pants for my daughters when they were younger and cloth diapered because they are just normal pants that happen to double as a cloth diaper cover! But of course I was too afraid of wool until now, when we are done with diapers for the most part!

I got over that regret pretty quickly, and put my energy into turning the wool interlock into sets for my shop:

They are all dyed with acid dyes from Dharma in the washing machine with very hot water, and set with vinegar. They are all felted to a super yummy medium weight. I was shocked, though, I bought three yards of wool interlock from a coop and this is all I got out of it! LOL! I do have some large scraps, but still! It's a super yummy wool/lycra blend. I can't even pick a favorite out of these outfits, they are all so different. Although to make it more fun for me, I paired them with some of my all time favorite knits. Those hedgehogs from Japan (courtesy of Shanna a couple years ago!) are so soft and just lovely. I am hoarding the ones on pink for Draya this winter!

Speaking of sewing nerd moments, someone on Sewing Mamas linked to these fab car decals on Etsy, made by Holly. Now, that is a really cute sewing nerd, but when I saw the Sewing Girl, I had to have her, in purple, for my car. I can't wait for it to arrive! Funny thing, my husband just kindly laughed when I showed him. I am not sure he understood that I was serious, I was getting one! :) Good thing he doesn't drive my car all to0 often!

What? This is the most neglected blog you have ever seen?

I know, I know! This IS the most neglected blog in the world, poor thing. Many of you probably ask - why does she have a blog?

But I have excuses, and good ones at that!

I got a little overwhelmed with orders in April/May/June. Well, that's an understatement. I extended myself too far, didn't take any new orders at all after the first or second week in May, and did not finish up the current orders until the end of June, and that was sewing my fingers to the bone. I was doing it for a reason, though, I knew we would need extra money when we moved into our new home!


That's right, we are now homeowners! Or will be after what seems like a million more payments, but don't sweat the small stuff, right?


It was very poetic, we signed papers for our home on July 14, our seventh wedding anniversary, and then got the keys on the 18th. I have a few things to say about home buying, and none of them positive. It is the most frustrating, unclear, horrible process I have ever been through and the thing that irked me the most was that all these people who are supposed to be "helping" you along the way act as though nothing is a big deal. And I understand that to them, because they see it every day, it isn't a big deal, happens all the time, blah blah blah. However, for us, first time homebuyers who have very little clue what to expect, it's a HUGE deal. That was so frustrating for us.

But all is well, we got the house, we have moved in and settled, and we are very happy. Buying a home here also gives us a sense of permanancy we have never felt anywhere else. The first place we lived after being married we LOVED, and probably would have happily died there, but it wasn't logistical. My hubby was driving an hour one way to work, and I was driving half an hour the opposite direction. It was not a good long term situation. The next place we lived, we learned a lot there, so all of you know the types of experiences that you"learn" from. Enough said. But now we live where we always have wanted to live, and we are both so happy and ready to just stay here forever. It's a good calming feeling.

So, see, good excuse!!

We took a short family vacation over to the Oregon coast after we were all settled in, to sort of destress and unwind before my husband had to return to work. We flew kites (Draya's kite lasted all of 30 seconds before it blew into trees, not to be retrieved), ate clam chowder, went to the Oregon Coast Aquarium, and all around had a great time.

The girls loved the sand on the beach!

And kites while we still had two:

Then, on the way home from the coast, we took Highway 242, which is a historic highway that is only open part of the year, and it's so pretty and such a fun drive. The best part of the drive is the Dee Wright Observatory.

It's on a huge lava flow, and the house is made out of obsidian. It has peeking holes you look out that point towards each mountain in the Cascades. It's such a fun place. My husband and I enjoyed the history and everything there, but the girls? Eh, they were ALL about the chipmunks!

Isn't he cute? Brave little suckers, too....they came right up to the girls and were begging for more crackers! They had no shame!







It was a fun little trip!

And we also lost our minds enough to get the girls a new puppy - he was a housewarming present!


He is obviously horribly abused



"MOM, he was COLD!!!"

His breeders had called him Whip, and so we adopted the name of Cool Whip :) I love pembroke welsh corgis so much, so I am very happy with our new addition.

So, as you can tell, I basically took the whole summer off of sewing, and it was lovely. I even had intentions of just closing down my business, never to return. I think all that sewing in April/May/June majorly burned me out. But about the beginning of August, I started feeling that itch to create. After sewing up some cute stuff for the girls, I decided that I would in fact stock my cart again, but on a much smaller scale. Another reason I got overwhelmed this spring is that I not only stocked custom slots in my store, but I also accepted customs via email. It was just.too.much. So now I am having be a meany butt and tell everyone to stalk my store if they want a custom. It's very hard for me to say no, but it's also so much healthier for me to say no. I think I have struck a good compromise.

My favorite outfits for the girls so far for fall:

These were made from this great interlock my sister picked up at Hancock's last year. It's striped on one side, solid on the other, and that stuff is THICK. It will be so nice and snuggly when it's cold here this winter. And aren't they just too cute?

That is my quick and dirty update with a peppering of excuses as to why this blog has been soooo boring. I am also planning on making this blog not just about sewing, but about all fun things we do!

Starting to think of Summer

Abby has been in desperate need of short sleeved shirts and other warm weather wear. But she has been eating like a hog, so I have been trying to wait out that inevitable growth spurt that always conveniently happens after clothing is set for the season.


I recently got this tinkerbell on green knit in, and her eyes just lit up when she saw it (being a typical four year old, obsessed with all things princess and fairy). So, I turned it into a cross front top for her (and sister is of course in the picture):

Those girls can be so goofy together: After finishing that up, I remembered how easy and nice looking those cross tops were! So I made her a new dress out of her favorite pink fairy and kitty fabric to wear to Daddy's Banquet. Again, sis is in the pic, in a mama made tank and headband, the rest is hand me downs!

And also some tanks and boxers sets for KandF Shops stocking. I love these for summer. Abby wears them with a skirt or shorts in the summer, and then just wears the tank and boxers straight to bed for a comfy nighttime outfit. I love these prints!

Pattern Testing

I was pretty excited to have an opportunity through Sewing Mamas to test out a pattern for a fellow mama.

That*Darn*Kat created a pattern for a very cute round neck top and called for testers. With fast fingers, I was able to snag a spot. Yay!

I made it up today, following her instructions and using the pattern pieces emailed in PDF Form. It is sooo cute on my baby girl: (Okay, I may be partial, but it is really cute!)

Her instructions were clear and very easy to follow. I would highly recommend this pattern for any seamstress, and beginning seamstresses can really benefit from some of the little techniques learned through making this top!

I believe she is planning to list it in her etsy shop as soon as possible, so check it out!