Just popping in

So I got off from work at 6am this morning, went straight to bed, slept like a rock, woke up around 2:30 pm, made coffee, and started working on the crochet hook case. I tried to take pictures along the way so I can post them for a pseudo tutorial tomorrow. I am working again tonight, 6pm to 6am, so I can't finish up everything obviously. But if we're slow I can probably hand sew the little button and yeah.  I'm actually pretty excited about this little case. I wanted the crochet hooks to be displayed almost like a makeup brush set like this:

                                                                              source
You know, nicely laid out so you can just be like, ah yes this is the one that I'd like to use blah blah blah. pshhhh I'm a dork. =)

ok, change of plans, isn't that how life goes?

I got the fabric pressed and cut for the little case for my crochet hooks. And yes, it sounds a little like an excuse buttttttttt--I got maybe all of two hours of sleep last night. I don't know why, but do you ever have one of those nights? Where you can't sleep? Okay well anyway, so that happened. Then little man had a snow day today, so we of course had him what was great by the way--and we played hard in the snow so that's good. Because you can't have a snow day from school and not play in the snow. =). Then, once we dropped him off, I actually tried to take a nap because tonight is a work night. (For those of you who don't know, I'm a 911 operator, I work 12 hour shifts overnight, so my sleep schedule is always a bit FA-CA-CA anyway, and then when I don't get sleep the night before I have to work I just feel like BLAHHHH.) Okay, so like I said, I got the fabric pressed and cut. I have it mostly planned out how I want the case to be. We'll just have the play it fast and loose and see how it turns out. hahaha. okay I totally am the only one laughing. Tomorrow my friends, tomorrow.
p.s. Do you ever wish you could bring your sewing machine to work?

not super creative the past few days

Well, I haven't been super creative or productive as far as sewing goes the past few days. Me and almost hubby had our days off and I decided to actually sleep and relax, because I've been feeling a little run down lately. I think I'm getting sick. Boo. But starting tomorrow I will go on full steam ahead and produce some (hopefully) good things. =) Alrighty then. Bye for now.

Ear Warmers!

Yay! I made ear warmers with the leftover fleece from the scarf for little man. Originally I got the idea from the awesome Delia Creates' ear warmers , but I made mine a little different. I didn't add a closure because the fleece is super stretchy, plus I was a little short on time. I cut out three similarly shaped flowers free handed and hand stitched them on, and I added a little blue fabric covered button to be the center, and to cover up my ugly hand stitches haha. For my first attempt I think it turned out alright. Next time I make them I will take more time to plan out any embellishments I want to add so it looks nicer. But they work! And they're perfect for a yucky/pretty snowy winter day like today.

a mini quilting session

getting approval from the boss on the thread color

Last night my friend Chelsea came over with a quilt that her grandmother had started for her before she passed. She asked me if I would help her finish it.. so I'm really excited and pretty touched that she thought of me, especially with something as special as that. I really had no idea in what state the quilt was in before I saw it, didn't know if the top was pieced, if it was quilted etc. So, it was a pleasant surprise when Chelsea came to see that it was already pieced, and the layers were all basted together, and partially quilted. Sooooo, I will be finishing the quilting up, then binding it, with binding that is already cut by the way. Chelsea was kind enough to take some pictures so I could share on here. =)

taadaaa!

a real sewing space =)

This little guy was on a garbage can, Leave it to me to be excited about that.

Yesterday almost hubby and I went off to Ikea in Philly. I was in search of a sewing table, and we were successful! Also, I don't know if you guys know much about Philly, but almost hubby informed me that the parking and bridge for South St were really close so we decided to go there. It was nice..cold. But it wasn't very crowded and we had dinner and a little random date night so that was awesome.

Okay, back to sewing. Soooo when we got home we (ahem, mostly he) assembled the table and then we re arranged the guest bedroom to accommodate the table.   I really like how it turned out and I'm super excited because now I have a good size workspace and I don't have to clear off the dining room table of all my stuff so we can eat. Yeah, so it's all good.

Oh, also, on a side note...I finished two washcloths the other night. I have enough yarn for at least one more so I'll be doing that probably on Friday.

some progress

I've been doing some thinking about this quilt top of mine..I don't know if I like how it's looking. I think I have to play with it some more. What do you think? It's definitely a simple design, just alternating between white and colored squares. Since I'm a beginner I wanted to do something that isn't overly complicated and just focus on practicing piecing and aligning seams, that kind of thing.
    Well, I decided that I would like to make ear warmers from the leftover fleece. Because they're cute and functional. =)
   I crocheted some more for the blanket. I bought  B-E-A-utiful large plaid wool (which was on sale by the way--awesome possum) which I want to make into a circle skirt. It will be great practice on matching prints and everything else so I'm excited.
Tonight I'm working on crocheting some simple little washcloths so we have extras around the house. I know I could go the easy route and just buy some, but isn't that kind of the point of what we do? You can buy ANYTHING now, I love being more than the purchaser in the process.  I remember the first time I started a crochet project,  a baby blanket for our friends Gary and Jen's baby Gavin. After the first few rows, when it actually started to look like something, I was like WOW! I'm taking this basically string and turning it into something beautiful. It was really a cool feeling. And I get that with everything I make now, so it's nice. Plus I love the feeling of being capable, feeling slightly more resourceful than I was before. yeah. How about you? Why do you do what you do?