Tidbits

I used to think my mom was a little strange for sitting, all by herself, in the car in silence before coming in the house. Somtimes she's just sit in the driveway for 10, 15... 20 miutes. I get it now. Take the silence where you can get it.


Hearing your 2-year-old say words like "abomination" and "destruction" makes the frustration of trying to keep him quiet during 4 verses of family scriptrue study totally worth it.


Carter just learned how to take off his own diaper. As in this morning. Combine that with his prior knowledge of how to take off footie pajamas and it made for an extra load of laundry for me this morning. And an unhappy, favorite-blanket-less kid come naptime (its possible mommy forgot to close the washer lid, so the cycle did not run while we were at church). *sigh* No more footie pjs for Carter...


I'm looking forward to getting our garden planted. We don't get the frost "all clear" around here until after Memorial Day, but I'll probably plant the week after Mother's day anyway and hope for the best. I want to add an extra box and fill it with stawberries this year. I have dillusions of having enough strawberries to make a year's supply of homemade jam... becuase it bugs me that most jams are more corn syrup than fruit in them.


I'm too tired to write a real post. Does it show?

Upcycle Sewing

Allison is a skirt girl. Have I mentioned that before? And skirts are easy to sew and don't require much fabric so I've been trying to make her skirts from leftovers and scraps in my stash.

Well, late last week I noticed these two shirts in my donation pile:

I haven't worn them in a while and don't love them anymore (actually I do love the red one, but I don't love the holes it developed in the front). And looking at them I realized that it would take almost zero effort to turn them into skirts for Allison.

I like the maroon one much better than the red. Its a heavier t-shirt knit and just behaves much better as a skirt than the thin knit from the red shirt. I also was able to keep the exisiting hem on the marron one, but had to cut it off on the red one to get rid of the aforementioned holes. Allison likes them, she's worn them and they'll make good play clothes for this summer. I'll call it a success.

A Hello to...

ballpoint pen on my freshly painted wall!

Grrrrrr!!!

And it won't come off! Magic erasers are just taking off paint, not pen. Guess I'll just have to paint over it...

Farewell to Pinks

Or at least, farewell to the pink in the dining room. I finally picked a color and painted my dining room. My friend Natalie helped me out getting the first coat on, but I had to put the 2nd on by myself. The corners still need to be touched up a little, but otherwise its done.



I like how the colors turned out. The cream color is nothing special, but I love the chocolatey color on bottom. It looked like chocolate milk going on the walls. I was relieved to start painting to bottom and realize that I like it... I was terrified that I wouldn't since I skipped the samples this time around. I also straighted up and reorganized our bookshelf... its possible that some books that we've (ahem *Brian*) owned for at least 5 years and never touched did not make it back onto the shelf... we'll see if anyone noticed in the next year...

Oh, and by the way... I NEVER want to paint around crown molding and chair rails ever again! Even with an edger, what a slow, painfully annoying process!

An "Everyday" Dress

Allison is a girly-girl. In fact, she is such a girly girl that she has recently decided that pants are out. Especially jeans. If she must wear pants they should be pink sweats if at all possible. She'll consider other varieties if you ask very nicely, but no promises... espeically if they're not pink!

And since pants are out, dresses and skirts are in. She has several skirts that are fine for playing in, but no play dresses. I made the mistake of asking her a few weeks ago if she would like to have some "everyday" dresses, which she apparently took to mean that she should ask me everyday for one.

She was finally able to stop asking yesterday morning.

I found the pink tree fabric last week before leaving for Manhatten for $3/yard at JoAnn's, and Allison picked the green to go with it. Took me two good evenings to put it all together... I think sewing for kids is a good way to ease myself back into it. Whaddya think?

UFO Month Winner

Thanks for all who played with me during UFO month in March. All told I got 10 and a half (I'm SO close to being done with #11) projects off my list during the month, many of which are being put to good use already. I didn't finish everything on my list, but I'll get to them. The only really long-term UFO I have left (I think) is the crochet baby blanket I've been working on since I was pregnant with Carter. I'm just not motivated to finish it because 1) I'm more excited about other projects and 2) he already had a favorite blanket to love (thanks, Grandma!). It'll get done someday, right? So, I put all the names in a bowl, one entry for every reported project (including lists for those who posted them).

And I let Allison draw a name out...

Yay, Sarah! Email me your address (yes, I should still have it, but I'm just not that organized... I think an organized address book will be a project for my 30's) and I'll send you a $10 gift card to JoAnn's! Thanks for playing, everyone! Maybe I'll host another challenge here soon. Or I'll get really ambitious and host a sew-along... hmm...

I {heart} NY

Can I just say that New York is amazing? I took a long weekend off to meet my mom and aunt in Manhatten for a fabric shopping tour through the NY garment district. It was amazing!

Peggy Sagers (owner of Shilouette Patterns and tour organizer) took us to several retailers (including Mood Fabrics!) and designer wholesalers, which aren't open to the public. There was so much GORGEOUS, amazing, DESIGNER fabric. I'm talking fabrics tagged with names like Elie Tahari and Prada, events like "Fall Runway 2010" and "Spring Runway 2011". Chances are I spent too much, but I found some amazing things and I'm all re-inspired to get back to sewing again! I found fabric for a new winter coat, 2 dresses, a few tops, a pair of bermuda shorts and somethings for the kids too. It was so much fun!

And here's part 1 of my haul... including a few piece for my mother-in-law. Can you believe that most of this stuff was actually free? Marcorp (a designer wholesaler... they had the most beautiful Elie Tahari silks in their warehouse!) had a big laundry cart just full of pieces that were going to the dumpster. We were welcome to dig through it and take what we wanted. The grey fabric (future pencil skirt with box kick-pleats in back), black & blue one (either a top or a skirt), the bright pink (hello... play clothes for Allison!), black & orange sheer and the two floral sheers (Mom Thornock... do you want any of the last 3?) in the corners were all free, rescused from the fate of a dumpster.

The big piece of black & purple will be a new dress coat for me, the blue polka dot will be a dress for me and a skirt for Allison, the light fabric (its a striped pale purple shirting weight) will be either a summer skirt or a top for me and the purple & white impressionist floral is for my mother-in-law. I say part 1 because one of the wholesalers we went to had just moved their shop and were not cutting yardage for us, just taking orders that will ship next week. I'll take a picture of that box when I get it... I'm super excited for it. I found some great stuff there...

After 2 days of fabric shopping, we headed to Manhatten for some sight-seeing on Saturday.

We went to Rockefeller Center

And took the elevator to the Top of the Rock

We made our way to the Gershwin Theatre for our matinee of Wicked(Best. Show. Ever!)

Then walked down to Times Square after the show.

It was an amazing weekend away. And I can't wait to go back. So... anyone wanna come visit me and Manhatten? :)

UFO Month Linky

THANKS FOR PARTICIPATING! I'll draw a winner a little later today... one entry for every project you finished and posted/told me about during the month. Come link up your finished projects! Remember, one UFO Month participant will win a $10 JoAnns gift card!