What I have been up to

I am really bad about blogging, I have many things to write about and post but time gets away from me and I leave it for another day, which in turn this time turns into a month and a half.

But I have a good excuse, my beautiful little girl turned 6 on Friday and I have been spending the better part of July and August frantically finishing her presents.

I had this idea to fill a picnic basket to the brim with felt food. I had seen some from Pinterest, and I thought how cute, and I started off like a rocket, with a couple of slices of bread, some eggs and pancakes, but then I moved on to another gift that wasn't technically from me, but I was informed I was going to do. And since it wasn't really my plan I was hesitant and unethusiatic about it, so of course I messed up a bit on it and decided to wait until the night before her birthday to fix and finally add buttonholes, which I had yet to do, but I went for it and the giftee was happy with it as was the reciepent
here a few before and after shots of what I am talking about

A nurses smock turned into another dress for my Bella, however like I said this wasn't from me, this was from Grandma. I all worked out and I am not afraid of buttonholes now, which is good for upcoming pajama sewing.

As you may or may not see, my Bella is wearing another handmade gift around her neck, it is her very own shawl, the http://www.petitepurls.com/Winter12/winter2012_p_princess.html

except I didn't do the crown stitch I just did a garter stitch, my yarn wasn't be helpful.

So onto homemade gift #3 her felt food, I found many tutorials online, but I mostly just saw the pictures and went from there, pretty self explantory. I must say I had just as much fun making these as my Bella will have fun playing with them.

I plan on making more, I have more bread to finish, and pancakes, and I have to stuff and ice some donuts, but I am happy with what I was able to get done. For Christmas I am hoping to have turned an old $5 desk into a little kitchenette, wish me luck. I was even more surprised at how much my 10 yr old little niece was enjoying the felt food, I have a feeling she maybe getting a box for christmas.

So I have been a very busy girl, and I have several yard sale items to share but will leave it for another post.

Happy Crafting to all.

Logical thinking

The weather here as been hot as everywhere else, and its the yicky, sticky, sweaty hot that makes you not want to do anything but lay in front of the fan and not turn into a puddle. So for the most part I am not making much, no dresses no nothing.

Turning on my iron is not what I want. Sitting down is not even fun when you stick to the chair.

So what is the best thing to do in the heat, well for me it was baking, (did I mention I am a bit crazy in my thinking)  and baking the one thing that I have been wanting to bake for over 4 years and that is bread. I made bread once and it was hard as a brick and did not taste very good, so the other day I said screw it and I started the process of making Challah bread and let me tell you the satisifaction of watching simple ingredients like flour and yeast become this thing that you can eat, it was different then making dinner or a dessert, it was so rewarding that I danced with my Bella over the rise of my dough, and I had a good laugh with my mom at the fact that I had just made bread, I concered my fear of yeast and I made bread, by hand no machine and it tasted good.

The smell was enough to say I must continue making bread, and it put so many ideas in my head of gifts to give to friends and family, and of desserts and breakfasts' to make, and the one thought in my head was "Holla, I made Challah"

So to everyone out there I hope there are little things, and big things that you finally say I am going to do it and you do and you are proud not because you did it perfect, cause trust me I didn't but that you quite telling yourself you couldn't and faced failure and you learned something new, and you danced a bit, even if in your heart.

Happy Thrifting

What is a better way to celebrate the birthday of our wonderful country then to go on a yard sale/thrift store spree and find a bunch of wonderful things to take home, well I tell ya that is exactly what I did and it was a wonderful time.

On Saturday morning we ventured out and first headed to a family friends yard sale where I saw with great delight and in very good condition an old-fashion and literally old Apple corer and peeler. Luckily I got the family friend discount of $7 dollars and I snatched that baby up and am soon putting it to use making  apple pies. (I totally spaced takeing picture, which annoys me cause I took a picture of something else and my new apple peeler was right behind me)

We ventured some more and found lots of wonderful little things, and I even got to chit chat with a wonderful lady who makes a living doing mosiac art pieces and she complamented me on the dress my daughter was wearing, that of course I had sewed myself. I love crafty conversations with people.

After the last few yard sales where I scored on fabric, (no pictures for they are in the wash) my daughter and I could not longer handle the muggy heat, and let me tell you that is all we have been getting this summer, and it is horrible, I could not live in Florida or Arizona. We headed to a few thrift stores, and I am so happy to show a few things I lucked out on.

                                  

Yes patterns, mostly from the '70's and a few from the late 60's, and all children patterns. There was a lady who after seeing me go through the whole filing cabinet wanted a chance to scour through herself. They were 5 for a $1 and I got roughly $7 dollars worth, but I have 3 ultimate favorites

Unfortunately they are sized 4, but I am hoping to figure out how to size them up a bit for my Bella, Here a are a few close ups

I have gone through and luckily these 3 all have there pattern pieces, and so do the few I have checked in the basket. Its plain to see I will be extremely busy for a long time, which I have found I prefer.

Friday night to help relax and get ready for a day of treasure hunting we went and saw the new Pixar film Brave

 and I got to tell ya, I loved it, we where laughing so hard my stomach hurt and I even cried a bit in the end. My daughter and niece said it was better then Tangled, which I did not agree, but I thought was as good as Tangled then again I like any movie where the only way to solve a problem with a little needle and thread, and of course loving your mother. Don't want to be a spoiler alert so I will stop right there.

So to sum things up had a pretty good weekend with my girl, and will now be spending the next 2 days working on her surprise 4th of July dress, any reason to make a dress for my baby is a good reason.

Happy Crafting everyone and Happy 4th of July*

*(Please be safe out there)

All is well that ends well

I finished my quilt, I cannot believe I did it, I am so freaking stoked about it that I just wanted to hop in my car drive the 200 miles to my Aunt Judy's house (she is the one who taught me) and squeal   "look, look what me and my sewing machine made" however I can not so I will happily squeal here.

Look, look what I made, yay me.

Happy crafting everyone

I just can't seem to stop myself

I just can't seem to stop myself from crafting, everyone who knows me knows I love to make things, its what I do, its how I relax and take my mind off of the burdens of life for a moment or more, and I have found yet another craft, of course for my Bella to fall in love with doing along with about a million other things in progress.

Like the moms before me who have created such wonderful projects this is to become a Birthday/Christmas gift, whenever I complete it of course for my Bella. Not just the pizza but a whole bunch of play food.

So once again to everyone, Happy Crafting

P.S. I watched a tutorial on Youtube on how to make the pizza, I think it was Lilybean.com

A different take

Maybe, but lets try it a different way

That's better.

I think I'm getting the hang of this

I am no professional, and it wouldn't take long to look at the things I made and find about a million errors, but who cares I am loving my sewing machine and the things that we make together, here is a new little dress for my Bella, its her Father's Day dress, its only called that cause I made it and Father's day was coming up. It could have been easily her Friday dress.


she knows how to strick a diva pose

I found the tutorial via pinterest. I love that website, everything I make I find from there, plus the wonderful bloggers who creat such wonderful projects, this is the blog for this pattern http://thisismeinspired.blogspot.co.nz/2012/04/recital-dress-tutorial.html the only thing I did diffrent was the strap placements, I think it would have bugged her and she wouldn't want to wear it as much. What I love about the dress and what my Bella loves about the dress is that it is twirly, and every girl loves a twirly dress

Every mother wants to hear right when they are done with sewing their daughter a dress is, "I want to try it on, I want to sleep in it, can I wear it tomorrow too" So who cares about errors, it passed the one test it needed too, and I thinkg I got an A. Happy Crafting!


(Oh and regarding my horrific lawn and the apparent lack of mowing, we have been getting rain for weeks now with only a moment of sunshine. So please ignore the jungle that is growing around our house as soon as the sun is out for more then a moment we will be attacking it. Happens every year)

I am still here

Wow, I am really bad about blogging. I have a reason, I have been somewhat busy with weddings, traveling, knitting for babies, birthdays, graduations, attempting to garden and lots of sewing. Since my last post I have been loving my new sewing machine, Rose, yes I named my sewing machine, and let me tell you we have been busy. Here is a quick update of all that Rose and I have been doing. One of my many cousins was getting married, on Mother's Day weekend. So I wanted to make my Bella a dress and so I went straight to my ever growing fabric pile and grabbed the fabric I have been wanting to make a dress out of since I got it last year, and I had the perfect pattern for it. I was taking my time and not expecting much, but then like in a blink of an eye I was done, and I was very happy with the results. In case you didn't see it. Doesn't my little beauty look wonderful. The shoes where a splurge, but a happy splurge, she loved them and has been walking in them since we got them. Then next I came across a wonderful lady in florida doing a bit of crafting charity, and I couldn't say no. She was asking the online community to make pillowcase dresses for girls in Africa, when she told me the story behind it, young girls in Africa have no real options for clothing, their families could buy them but the cost of clothes is the same about of what food cost them for a whole month, and with that being said, food in a belly is the more important of the 2,and being a mother who is making her daughter clothes for the pure enjoyment and not out of neccessaity I couldn't refuse, and I signed up to make as many dresses in 2 months as I could. Luckily I had a few pillowcase dresses on hand, and a lot of bedding so I went to work on cutting a lot of sheets into large pillowcases and after 2 months was proud to be done with 14, 7 for the little girls and 7 for the taller girls, and I must say it was great breaking in my new sewing machin with such good karma. That was pretty much 2 months of work right there, along with my knitting which I have no pictures to post. 4 of my cousins were all expecting babies around the same time, 2 have had theirs and 2 are still in the oven. I love to knit for babies and I must be honest, girls are more fun, they have more options, and when babies are born in the summer well wool is not the best of options. So I have come to the last week of what has been happening around here, and that is my beautiful Bella graduated from Kindergarten, and I must admit I feel silly about getting emotional about this but I have been very emotional. On Thursday she graduated and as I saw my little girl standing on the stage singing the song she has been practicing for 2 months, so proud I was and as I looked at her, the past 6 years flashed in my mind. The ultrasound, the day of her birth, all the little milestones that have happened up to this point and I cried like a baby, if your a parent you know, and if your not yet a parent, you will know and it will be one of the most happiest cries you've ever had. So enough of all that, this is a crafting blog so lets talk crafting. I asked my Bella if she would like me to make her a dress for her graduation, and she said yes, (I love that) and rather then attempt at reducing the size of my fabric stash I went to a repurposing project. When we attended my cousins wedding, which was an out of town event, we went to as many Thrift stores as possible, cause that is how we roll yo, and way and I found a skirt right before leaving and I thought that it would make a cute dress, and I was right. It was very easy and was done within a night, I didn't take pictures of the process but you can kinda tell what I did. The patterned portion and the black on the bottom are the skirt, the black in the center and the straps are what I added, she loved it cause it was twirly, the little cardigan was found the weekend prior at a yard sale, I love it when things like that happen. She was the Bella of the ball, I mean graduation and I was very happy she liked it. She wore it a few days later to her graduation dinner, of all the places she chose to eat, Olive Garden was the place to be, I can only assume it was for the bread sticks, she ate 4. and yesterday I finished yet another Bella related project, what can I say she is my muse, and after much realization I need to practice shirring, was happy with the results. I found the tutorial via Pinterest, I am in love with Pinterest, it is by far the one website I can not go long without out viewing, and here is the blog, crafterhours.blogspot.com I want to make another Romper but first I have to get better at shirring, I ended up cutting a piece of elastic to her waist measuremetns minus half an inch and sewed it around the waist, for without it kept falling down and looked like she was wearing a sack, and will increase the top portion a bit more. So I am off to sew more things, I have a few finished knitting things I may share but those are for another day. I am hoping to attempt to post blogs a bit more often, so to whoever may read this, Happy crafting

New member of the family

This Sunday is my birthday, and I will be 29.

There are a lot of people that say once you turn 21 there is no real joy in celebrating birthdays. 30 is considered a horror, for you have all these ideas of where one should be when they are 30. 40 is too far off to even think about at this point. So it seems that birthdays should be just a child's party and adults don't get the fun from them anymore, well I have to say, wrong.

I love being an adult on my birthdays, and even though I am some what fearful of my next birthday turning the big 30. What I love is that I am at the point of I know what I like and what I want, and even though I don't expect a large showering of gifts from family and friends, I can shower myself with gifts. Its the one time of year where there are no real rules on how celebrate being you. So I went out and purchased the one thing I wanted for my birthday.

Introducing my new family member



for the past 2 years I have been sewing with my mothers old sewing machine, of which I named Daisy, she was from 1972 and has orange and yellow flowers. Now Daisy will still be used from time to time, and actually I am a little nervous to use my new machine, but now I have 2 girls at my ready and I am one happy birthday girl.

Hopefully I will get some sewing done, but at the moment I am in knitter mode, I have several cousins all having babies, and some have chosen not to know the sex, which is so unfair to the knitters in the world. So I must be ready to cast on once the wee little ones have arrived.

Happy Crafting everybody

All snuggled in love

A few weeks ago I planned on making my Bella some Jammies using Butterick pattern B4910, which is the cutest and most comfy looking jammies for little girls, I plan on making several of theses jammies for many years to come. Any who, I planned on making my Bella some jammies for Valentines day, found some really cute flannel on sale at Joann's and purchased weeks before V day, washed and pressed fabric, then I spaced it, kept telling myself oh I need to do that, but I have time. Well I had time, and it got a way from me.

So yesterday morning, as soon as my Bella was on the bus, ran to the store to get dinner, came home and started working at said jammies and I have learned many things.
1. Do not wait till the day of to make someone jammies, duh!
2. Do not try to sew while suffering from a headache
3. Do not try to talk on the phone while cutting fabric
4. Do not cut the sleeves first

So has you may have guessed I did all these things yesterday, and by doing so, I messed up slightly by cutting the sleeves into the fabric which messed up cutting the back on the fold. Luckily I am feeling more confident in my sewing that I just cut the back into 2 pieces and sewed it up the middle. I also made the largest size, 8, and my Bella is just now getting into a 6, but I really want her to be able to wear it for a long time, I just love the fabric. I will be making 2 more pairs in the weeks to come (fabric already purchased washed and pressed) and hopefully I will have learned from my mistakes. So here it is my Bella modeling her new Valentines day Jammies.




The bottoms are also a part of her present but they are just a pair of adult jammies purchased at a thrift store I sized down to fit her.

Hope everyone had a great V day and spent it with the one, or ones you love.

Also I wanted to share my other crochet items I am very happy with







The top is a rose necklace I just love, and the others are hair clips one set with butterflys the other bows, they are so cute, fast and easy to make. I can not wait to make more in so many more colors.

The butterflys I found on pinterest (great site) and the bows Ravelry. I take no credit in making the pattern, just in loving them.

Falling in love, again.

I have fallen in love, again. With crochet.

My first steps into the crafting world was when I was 14 and my Aunt taught me how to crochet, she only new of a few stitches and couldn't read a pattern to save her life, but all the same I was happy to learn.

For many years after the only thing I did was make afghans to fit a giant, all in single crochet, I didn't even have to look at what I was doing I could just go, but then I got bored with it, tried several times to read a pattern all to no avail, so I stopped, entered into young adulthood not thinking twice about it, then I had a baby, wanted to make her things, but I only knew crochet, so I tried again, and it was okay, it was familiar but it didn't have the look of what I wanted, plus I was using Red Heart Supersaver, and the end look just wasn't pretty for me. So I learned to knit, started going to the local yarn shop and found wool, and cotton, and many other actual fibers and truth be told I became a yarn snob. I denied it of course. I feel in love with knitting and dropped crochet like a hot potato.

Years passed and didn't even think of crochet, almost detested it for some reason, then I walked into my local yarn shop, and the owner asked me if I knew how to crochet, I said yes (I had through knitting, learned how to read a crochet pattern and became quite good at crocheting even though I didn't care for it) and was asked to become a instructor, I taught a few classes, and switched yarn shops, but all the while secretly not wanting to teach crochet, but then at the start of the new year, wanting to make some quick projects, I made a few hot pads and doilies. It was fun, wonderful in fact, so then I moved onto some projects for the Yarn store, and made a few samples, and I realized how much fun it was to crochet, I was actually looking for crochet projects on Ravelry, and now I am spending my days knitting, sewing (am currently learning how to do that) and crocheting. I have a large selection of Crochet Thread I have gathered at Thrift stores and Yard Sales and am making many things and loving every minute of it. I purchased yarn yesterday and plan on make a granny square blanket, one of I am sure to be many.

What I love about falling back in love with crochet is I already know how to do it, and because of that I can jump right into the deep end and have all sorts of fun with it without many road blocks that learning a new craft can bring. So I share with you one of my new labors of love with my newly found love of the craft Crochet.



Hopefully later this week I will show you the few pieces of jelewry that I have made with my crochet.

Am wishing everyone a happy week of love, whether it be a partner, a child, friend or just the love of life. Happy Valentines day

The snow has landed

It was bound to happen eventually, snow has landed in Northern Idaho. The last few winters have been pretty bare, and not complaining, but there is a sense of comfort in snow, as long as you don't have to drive in it, I find that is the number one reason people hate snow.

It gives me a sense of comfort and home, for when the snow is falling that is when you stay home, and eat, drink and cozy up to all things warm. I am planning on make a few warm treats, chocolate chip cookies, blueberry pie/cobbler and a big pot of chili with cornbread with butter and honey. So let the snow fall, as long as I have all the comforts of home.



Another thing I am loving about the snow is I am stuck home, and there for have no reason not to be working on all the projects I have piling up in my head, and I have one finished project to share. It is the Libby Top from Craftinessisnotoptional.com





Here is my Bella cheesing at the camera she was very excited about her new shirt, and even asked to wear it to school, a mother loves to hear these things. It was pretty simple to make, and for me that is saying something. I love Jess' blog, she is quickly becoming the sewing teacher I have so longed for, and now that this one is under my belt, I have many more projects in the works, currently a womans blouse to be a dress for Bella, and of course the Junebug dress from Jess' blog, which is going to be Bella's dress for an upcoming family memebers wedding in May. So to everyone, whether you are burried under feets of snow, or enjoying some sun, I wish you happy crafting

Welcome 2012

The beginning of a new year, I still am in a bit of a shock that it is 2012, last year went by in a blink. Hopefully time will slow down a bit. Probably not.

So the number one thing everyone is doing right now is thinking about what they want to do this year, what they want to accomplish, who they want to be, or not be, and for the crafters in us, what we want to make.

I don't make New Year's resolutions, but I do make Crafting Resolutions, those are always fun.

Sarah's Crafting Resolutions for 2012

1.As always, finish what I start.

2.Make more things for the house

3.Make more things for friends/family

4.Wear what I make

5.Stop procrastinating

Simple enough but we will see what happens in a year.

So far I have been productive, but then, it is only day 2 of the new year. I have fallen for a fun craft that I am quite surprised about. Doilies. I am mesmerized by the simplicity of them, especially the vintage looking ones.
I have been grabbing all the crochet cotton I could find at yard sales and thrift stores and am hoping to have a nice little pile here soon of finished coasters, table runners, hot pads and potholders.



So to everyone I hope 2012 is a prosperous year and that all your crafting endeavours are victorious.

Any Resolutions you'd like to share?