Mori Hats, Hair Clips, and Alpaca Bag :)

I've been caught up in my final edit.  Writing my cover letter next, then off to a publisher it goes!

In the meantime, I made some goodies for my store. :)

 

Another view of the Alpaca Bag, complete with dangly bag charm. ^_^

And I made a fun doughnut cushion, too!. ^_^

To Cap it All Off

The morning after my birthday, I woke up to find that I'd made my first Etsy Sale!!!  The order was for a pair of over-the-knee fairy key socks for 1/4 scale BJDs.  I popped a couple of freebies in the envelope and mailed that sucker off!  Postage has gone up since I last checked, and it cost more than I'd anticipated to mail my wee package, but I still made a small profit.  As soon as I got home, I bumped up the shipping on everything to meet the new rates.  I'm not a huge fan of the new rates, but I do appreciate the free tracking.

I've been having some creative fun in the last couple of days.  First off, I made myself a summery bag from some Flower Fairies fabric I'd been saving:

 This is the Elva Bag pattern from Bags, The Modern Classics.  I ended up tweaking the flap because it was too short -- maybe my 1/2" seam allowance was too large; I'll confess to not actually bothering to read that part.  Or maybe the flap is just too short for my taste.  Anyway, I love how it turned out in spite of the fact that I didn't have enough of any 1 (or even 2) kinds of interfacing, and then completely forgot to use the interfacing I'd cut for the side/bottom piece.  I ended up making a bottom stabilizer and LOVE how that works, because the bag is more collapsible than if I'd remembered the stabilizer, LOL!

I simply cut a piece of cardboard to fit, and covered it with the green fabric.  Win!


 Next, I crocheted a couple of summery BJD beanies for my shop.  Of course, now Pippa is asking for one of her own.

Now I really need to come up with a name for Pippa's little sister, who is on her way from China even as we speak.  Oh, and I should probably make her some clothes.  I don't know much about her yet, having not met her, but I'm pretty sure she's not a nudist.

Little Sweatshop of Horrors

OK, so there was, in fact, no horror, but I did force my kids into some sweatshop work for Craft Hope.






The idea met with enthusiasm from some, and slight reluctance from others, but in the end, everyone had fun, and 3 of them wanted to do MORE sewing (Fishy included!) We had a pretty nice assembly line of sewing, clipping corners/turning/pressing, and stenciling, and after 2 days (and a little bit of stenciling learning-curve on my part) we have all 26 letters of the alphabet. :-) All that remains is to fill the bags and close the tops.





In other news, Mollusc was excited to see the return of the Red-breasted Grosbeaks shortly after we put up our new feeding tray.


This weekend, we'll be sojurning to Toledo for the biggest birding week in the country. Mollusc hopes to see tons of warblers. Of course we'll have to take the camera(s), so hopefully we'll come away with some good pics.

The weather was gorgeous today, and I took some of the herd to the park after all the school-type stuff was done. Prawnie and I played catch with a tennis ball and her barely used baseball mitt -- a new and exciting interest for her since Daddy is starting softball on Wednesday. The tennis ball was a good choice as I beaned her a few times. :-P We made dandelion-chain crowns and peered into the creek, and of course there was the obligatory game or 2 of Poohsticks for all of us.

On the homeschool front, I'm looking into the "Key to _______" math series for Sluggie since she's hit the point in Algebra where it appears that Math U See is just not perfect for her learning style. We'll likely keep on with MUS, but I want to supplement with other things, and so far, the Key to___ series looks promising. There's nothing worse than rushing past shaky subject matter and continuing on to the next stuff in math, IMO. I have a growing "things to order on Payday" list. :-/ Oh, and while I was hanging laundry on the covert line I have stretched across the back deck (Shhhh! Don't tell the Nazis Homeowner's Association), Fishy made this comment about his copybook: "I can remember so much more at once now. I used to only be able to remember 2 or 3 letters, but now I can remember about 2/3 of what I have to write. I just remember the words now, because I'm a much better speller." He's right -- the copybook has been great for his spelling (as, I'm sure, has all his reading), but it was great to hear that he notices it, too. I know I'm not as unschooly as I used to be now that everyone's getting older, but we're still pretty relaxed and tend to do what works for us.

Tonight is my last soccer game until Fall, which is a bummer. I was really nervous when I first started, because I'd never played the game on any kind of team before, but now it's just plain fun! At least there will be pickup games during the summer. :-)

And finally, here's the kind of thing you tend to find lying around when you've created a houseful of geeks and happen to have alphabet letters handy:

Mother May I?

No, it's not May yet, but it's close enough. According to something I read in The Boleyn Inheritance last night, May is a time for putting off old things and taking on new ones (a la Henry VIII and his wives.) For me, it's more a matter of taking on something old again, but making it new. Again, close enough.

"Chateau Sur Mer"

We took our first actual vacation ever this year. Yes, we've taken time off to go visit family and friends before, but this was the first time we've ever gone somewhere just for the sake of going there. It was SO relaxing. Our destination was a beach house on the Outer Banks in North Carolina. (Yes, there were a LOT of stairs!) I'm not going to wax eloquent about it. I'll just post some pics now, and probably some more in future posts.

Hatteras Island Lighthouse

I'm getting back into the swing of normal life again, which (in my usual style) involves trying to do way too many things at once. One of my goals is to make a set of alphabet beanbags for Craft Hope's donation to the Liberia Orphan Education Project. It's a great project to get the kids involved in, as the sewing is very simple. I plan to use stencils from Dick Blick and fabric paint to do the letters. Looking online, I was despairing of finding anything affordable until I found those, and joy of joys, MuNKi can pick them up at the store in Detroit on a work day.

Prawn woke up barfy today. :-( I had her make a nest on my bed after a bath, and Enya immediately decided to keep her company.

Kitties make even pukiness better!

She just woke up, and is feeling a lot more chipper. Never underestimate the value of kitty therapy.

Kitty therapy x 4 = WIN!

"Scuba, Scuba, Scooby-Dooby-Dooba. . .

Here we go, scuba, come on!" Is it any wonder I have the Veggie Tales "Stuff Mart Rap" stuck in my head?

I am now hoping to keep my impossibly skinny Prawn from freezing to death and wanting to exit the water after 15 minutes of swimming. :-) I wish I'd thought of this for the other kids when they were wee like this. Actually, I didn't think of this at all BG did. She even sent me a link to scuba.com where I was able to get this for $29.95 and no shipping. Yay!!

The Prawn insisted I take an action shot, too:

There have been many forces at work intent on keeping me from the blogsphere. Sewing is one of those things. I had a heck of a time figuring out how to make a layered sleeve T without sewing the bottoms of both sleeves into the same seam, but the Sewing Mamas came to my rescue and voila!

Since I can never follow directions or do things as they're intended to be done, this is a rather modified mix of 2 different patterns. The 2 sleeves are completely independent of each other. Wait, the 4 sleeves? Because of course the 2 would be. . . Anyway, the long and short sleeves are attached to each other only where they join the body. The fabrics are SUUUUUUPER soft thermal and jersey from the $1 table at Walmart that just happen to match each other perfectly. I now have orders for 2 more shirts just like this. I hope I have enough fabric since I got all they had (which wasn't much.) I'm seriously considering swiping Sluggie's shirt from time to time. ^_^

I also did some more paper piecing. Now sure what I'm going to do with these squares I've been making, but it's fun.

This next one is made mostly (all but the border) from vintage fabrics from MIL and I hope to make her a table runner or hotpads or something from various Christmas-themed squares.

And I think that's all I have time for today since I have to: phone in kitty med Rxs, get gas, pick up Sluggie and friend from sleepover, get cash to pay library membership, pick up meds, take the kids to the library teen summer reading party and pay membership, take everyone to the Milford pool (the snake slide should be open today, huzzah!) and get everyone home in time for red belt classes! Somewhere in there I should probably remember to feed everyone a couple of times, too.

Maybe I can sneak in a trip to Stuff Mart to look for more fabric. Nah. Not today!

". . . and if you need an air compressor to blow fruit flies off your dresser. . ."

Sew Tiny

So today was a sewing day for me. First I made something I can't show, cuz it's for Mollusc's b-day and sometimes she reads my blog. :) Then I tried a new (free) pattern and did this:



That involved a lot of swearing and picking out and restitching and, finally, chucking the thing across the room and starting over. Then I did this:


Size 0-3 mos

and this:


size 3-6 mos.

By then it was time to kick back



and have a cup of tea. Here's some for you. Hope you like Blackberry Sage. :)

Come On In and see the NEWS!!!!!!

I made that yummy creme de menthe cake from the Chinaberry cookbook again. It's gone already.



But you can still have a virtual bite.



Then I made these from the King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion



They're basically just oats, brown sugar, corn syrup, butter and vanilla, with chocolate chips, cocoa butter (my substitution for shortening) and walnuts on top. They didn't get a great reception, but they're disappearing anyway. They seem better on the second day.

For our Ancient History class, Fishy made a scale model of the Ark. (Noah's, not "of-the-covenant.") He was going to make it out of Play-Doh, but changed to this paper print-out model when that proved too awkward. Whether you are into arky stuff or not, I find it fascinating that there are hundreds of cultures around the world that each have their own world-wide flood legend.


It's really hard to glue something made of paper that's so long and thin. ^_^

Sluggie compared 3 flood legends from different cultures (China, Egypt and Greece), Mollusc drew a scale model of the ark, and Prawnie made a lapbook about Paleolithic People.










I have a new project in the works: a Wheel of the Year quilted wallhanging. I have yet to decide whether it will be circular or octagonal. I want to be able to turn it throughout the year so that the current season's wedge faces right-way-up.

So far I have these fabrics for Mabon, and Imbolc or Ostara:



And finally, the BIG NEWS! Meet MY NEW BABY Xavier! He is soooooooooo lovely. He sews like buttah. I'm in love. :) The adoption fee was only $75. His mother had to give him up because he had too many siblings. He's currently slightly disabled because he has no feet, but I plan to remedy that tomorrow if possible. Welcome, Xavier!!



My other machine (a Singer from Sam's) has served me well for at least 11 years with no servicing at all. My big girls will inherit it, but it needs reconditioning, because right now when I use it, it goes DONK DONK DONK DONK DONK instead of hmmmmmmmmm. They have yet to name it, but I suspect it will be something like Boromir or Aragorn or Legolas. ^_^

Creative Streak

No, sorry, no streakers or other nudes here. Just this stuff:



I made sleeping bags for Prawn and her friend's Groovy Girls.


Then I turned these


into these. I wasn't thrilled with the pattern, because the seam allowance got in the way of the buttonholes that hold the elastic in the top of the shoe. I improvised and did the stitching lower down in order to avoid the buttonholes, and did a fancy scallop stitch just for fun. Of course, because I was dorky enough to use fabric with lines on it, everything looks a little wonky. :-P I used this pattern, but found these instructions a little more helpful. Next time I'll try the pattern from the second site. It looks like the buttonhole markings are in a better spot.


Then I made some sherpa and flannel washies to go with them.


Round about the same time, MuNKi was making this fabbo beef stew and bread.


And for Tori, the Webkinz Recipe Books I scrapped for Prawn's B-day. Clio the Kitty is here for size comparison. Of course, this only helps if you know how big a Webkinz is. >^_^<
The original album I had for stove recipes wouldn't fit them, so I had to redo the cover pic for the new, more expandable album. I stuck the other label inside the front cover. ^_^


And I loaded the album from back to front, so I ended up with a blank front page. Of course that was all wrong, so I hastily threw this together.


Random spread #1 (they're alphabetical, but what I'm gonna do when I add the new ones as they crack them makes me cringe to consider.)


Random spread #2


Blender recipes!


I just did random spreads because there are way too many to show.




And some from the sandwich book. . .





That is probably more than enough. :)