What I've been up to as of late...

I shared some personal thoughts on our family blog tonight.

For the rest of the update on current life events, I have been house sitting for my sister and her husband for the last couple weeks while they are out of the country enjoying a fantastic vacation and a wedding.  I brought my daughter with me, of course, and we are taking care of their 2 dogs and 2 cats.  It's been a WONDERFUL break from the heat that was already encompassing life in Phoenix.  I look at the forecast and compare Phoenix to Newport, Oregon frequently and smile as I set the heater here to 68 degrees.

The 2 dogs are beautiful black Russian terriers.  They require a lot of activity to keep them and me sane, and it has been a lot of fun to get out and go on hikes with them.  I throw Lola into her carrier on my back, and I am sure it's an interesting sight to see me hauling a baby and hanging onto the leashes attached to 2 big dogs.  I love when I can let them off leash...they wear each other out.  I really enjoy hiking along the coast on sunny days and in the wilderness on cloudy days.

In a couple weeks I will be back in Salt Lake City.  I really miss Utah.  It became my home.  After a visit there, I will head back to Phoenix and find a part-time job.  I am and am not looking forward to this. :)  I am looking forward to getting in a position to find an apartment or home to rent and to have our family together in our own little space.

Patrick is living in Salt Lake City right now, working diligently on getting some projects finished up in his shop and getting packed up to move his business to Phoenix.  It has taken longer than we expected, and it has been really hard to be apart for so long.  Long distance marriage is tough.  I miss our daily routine and sleeping so contently next to him.  We pray continually that things will go well for him and he will be able to join us as soon as possible.

I have been busy being a mom to the most amazing little girl in my world.  I can't believe she is 21 months old.  I see her legs getting longer and more lean, as well as her arms, and I just get a little sad that my baby is growing into a little child.  I love this stage we are in, though it exhausts me.  She is so alert and smart and has such a fun personality.  She's getting into her independent stage where anything I hand her is no good...she's got to get it for herself.  I make sure to breathe deeply and allow messes to happen for the sake of memories and her learning process being fulfilled.  Sometimes I want to just bite her cheeks, she's so cute!

I've also been crocheting a bit and keeping my creative juices flowing.  It's a nice outlet.  I made the beanie she's wearing in that last picture.  Not too shabby for my first beanie with flowers!

Anyway, life is stressful for sure.  But it is always so deliciously good.

beautiful dream catcher

Okay, I have to share a blog I love: A Print a Day


Yasmine has done a couple of dream catchers, and I LOVE THEM. So, I figured I should share them with whomever stops by my blog. :) Check out the rest of her great work at her website!

I'm labeling this post "projects" since I want to find a way to use the dream catcher in a craft or something. Hopefully an idea will creep into my head. ...in the meantime...schoolwork is calling...

Vintage Gift Idea

I'm pretty sure I've posted this picture before, but I need to remind myself of this project. My creative juices are flowing in regards to this one!!



This is a collection of vintage multi-stamp transfers of old cars. My husband is a vintage freak and an old-car freak. This would be an awesome project to do for him. I just can't decide if I should do a wall hanging or a quilt.

My mom and her neighbor have been playing with her neighbor's humongous quilting machine. This thing takes up an entire room, and they've done some amazing work on quilts my mom has made. She is finishing a project and asked me if I want it. I am so wishing I had a camera so I could have taken some pictures. It's so pretty. I just don't have a lot of space. So don't kill me, but I said no. She told me (and I knew) that she would rather it go to someone who really wants it and will treasure it. A lot of time has gone into that quilt.

So, I want to embroider the old car patterns, put it together as a quilt with some sweet vintage fabrics, and have my mom and her neighbor quilt it. I'm giving myself 12-18 months for this project. :) Either next Christmas, or a year from Patrick's birthday sounds like a reasonable timeline.

Embroidery pattern for a curtain

I know this is a tiny picture...I haven't yet figured out how to scan stuff and have it be normal sized. However, this is an embroidery pattern I am going to do on a curtain for our front door! I'll post pictures as this creation comes to life. The embroidery is going to be close to the bottom of the curtain, and I'm going to use ribbon the same color as the "Love Ribbon" I made for the living room. I'm pretty excited to have something other than a nasty piece of old fabric tacked to the door.

Damn cats

On Friday I got up the courage to pull out my sewing machine so I could turn the Bear and Bunny into stuffed dolls. It went pretty well, though I don't care for the shape of them. I stuffed them and started to stitch up the rest of the Bunny and a knot formed in the thread. After a few minutes of frustration I decided to set it aside for awhile.

A friend of mine came over for an hour, then I had to get ready and go to work...the Bear and Bunny were tucked away next to my sewing machine...

Saturday morning I noticed that the Bear and Bunny were missing!!!! On the floor was the poor Bunny...thread even more tangled, needle still hanging on. But where was the Bear? After looking for a couple minutes, I found him laying face down in the kitties little play tent thing. Those little shits! I grabbed the Bear and to my utter dismay, there are some pretty good claw holes in the fabric and a bit of embroidery floss pulled to the outside of the fabric. It's a good thing I like animals and it breaks my heart when people hurt them, because I seriously wanted to find Lunch (I'd bet a million dollars it was her) and yank out her whiskers or something. Grrr!!!

Several hours later after cooling down, I realized that:
1. I didn't like the shape of the dolls and would change how I did that
2. It was quick and easy to embroider both of them
3. I could pull out the stuffing and replace it with plastic grocery bags which would make a great crinkle sound and give the cats the dolls as new toys.
4. I'll make new dolls
5. The cats are smart little shits, and next time I won't leave the dolls sitting out.



I wish my camera was working so I could post some pictures. Oh well, this picture of NAUGHTY little Lunch will suffice for now.


She kept scooping water out of their water tank/bowl to make bubbles in the tank as it refilled the bowl. There was water every where in the kitchen. So to try to teach her a (unlearned) lesson, I mopped it up with her. (emphasis on unlearned)

Bunny and Bear Stitchettes in Progress

I'm half way done with a project! I decided to make the Bear and Bunny Stitchette Dolls by Wee Wonderfuls/Hillary Lang. Seems like most women I know right now are pregnant or just had a baby, so I may as well start making cute baby gifts! I started it today and finished the embroidery.

Here's the starting lineup of fabric and embroidery floss:



The embroidered Bear:



The embroidered Bunny:



The cute pair:



A few notes so far: I just traced the pattern with pencil (Bear) and pen (Bunny), rather than using a transfer pencil and ironing on a transfer. Tracing, being a little more simple, suited me today. The pattern says to tie bows on the Bear's shoes and on the Bunny's neckline. I was getting frustrated with the tiny little bows and didn't know how to get them to be permanent, as little hands and mouths would probably untie them. I know I wouldn't want to be responsible for 3" of embroidery floss being stuck in a kiddo's mouth or throat. Eewww. So, I omitted them on the Bear, and did French Knots on the Bunny's shirt instead. I'm satisfied with it. I think my bear's half grin looks a little smug. :)

Tomorrow I need to bust out my sewing machine. I'll be honest, I'm a little scared of it. I haven't used it in YEARS. My brother is super crafty and adopted my machine for the last chunk of years, so I am way rusty. I'm tempted to sew these dolls together by hand, but I know a machine would turn out a better, longer lasting doll. So, I'll be brave. I'll post finished pictures when they are ready.

I was crafty today!!!

I've been wanting to put up a "Love Ribbon" for awhile now. I found a great vibrant orange ribbon that matched the decor we're shooting for in our living room, bought some medium sized clothes pins, painted them a vibrant blue, and made some fabric pinwheels from fabric my sister-in-law gave me for Christmas (Thank you Ashlee!!!), and topped it off with some cute yellow and red buttons. I put it up over the entrance into the dining room, and I am so extremely pleased! Here are some photos:


I really think it adds good energy to our home to have love notes up on the wall. I love it. And, it feels good to have a crafty day!!!

P.S. Thanks Jana, for helping me paint the clothes pins!!!!! I love you!!!

How Could I Forget????

Last week I stopped by Heindselman's in Provo, UT and fell in LOVE with the store! They have all kinds of great craft supplies. I went there looking for Sublime Stitching patterns and found a few of them there. I'm excited to see what I can come up with using these new treasures! I found the cutest little embroidery needle holder...a wooden vile, painted black, with a floral design carved into it. It is so dang cute. A completely unnecessary, yet oh-so wonderful purchase. I also picked out a handful of Anchor brand embroidery floss. The ladies at Heidselman's were so cute...they were working on their current knitting projects when I came into the store. And they were so helpful. I accidentally left the embroidery needle holder on the counter, and without even calling, they sent it in the mail to me!!! The customer service there is superb! I'm not in Provo often, but when I am, I'll be sure to stop by. And when I'm not, they have a 1-800 number to call to order products...and they'll mail it to me in Salt Lake City. I love this place. I just wish their website was a little more helpful, but that's okay. I'll just call the cute little old ladies and chat with them. :)

I'll post pictures of my treasures when I find my camera.

Idea for my sewing book/bag!!!

I think I've found some good inspiration for a sewing book/bag!!! I found it on my daily email from Craftzine.com. (I love that daily email!!!) It's made by Elsie Marley



Tomorrow I plan to go to my local D.I. (Deseret Industries) to find a sweet old book that I can transform into a little case for my sewing supplies. I think I want a separate book for patterns, iron-on-transfers, and other things I cut out of my tissue boxes, calendars, etc. that inspire me. I can't wait to start working on this.

And I need to make a pleated purse to post on here too...Betty Ninja has motivated me. :) And there's no better time for a new purse than Spring, right?!?!


Oh! I starting working on a new little embroidery of a lotus flower, inspired by the last box of Yogi Tea that I bought. I swear, there are so many cute designs right now on clothing, packaging, etc. I'm loving it.

Embroidery stuff, plans, practice, etc.

I've been working on developing some of my skills with different embroidery stitches, and it's been a lot of fun. I bought a little gift set at Wal-Mart that had some Jasmine tea, a cute teacup, and a little calendar. The calendar and the box it all came in had the cutest floral design on them. I used the floral design from these to inspire a floral design to embroider. I'm really happy with how cute it looks!! Here are two designs:


I don't love the French Knots in the petals, but I wanted to experiment with that. That's been my focus...experimenting and developing my skills. I want to feel more confident when I do embroidery on REAL projects! :)



Last summer after we found my awesome bike at D.I., Patrick and I would ride around and hit up a bunch of yard sales. I found this embroidery work at a huge yard sale and bought it, because it's cute and has a great example of using various stitches to create a great piece.

My bike:




The piece I bought:


I'm also a tea lover. I opened up a box of Yogi Tea and noticed the awesome design they have inside the box. I want to tie this into an upcoming project:



Such a cool lotus design!!! I'm not sure what I'll do with it yet, but I'm sure I'll think of something.

And last of all, I really need to put together a cute little bag to hold my embroidery floss, current projects, needles, scissors, etc. This is my current "sewing bag." So sad...


So...I'm keeping my eye open for a cute design somewhere. If you know of any, please send them my way!!!

New Pattern/New Project

Today I received in the mail a pattern I bought from PatternMania on Etsy.com.

Here's the picture:

Description:

Design 413 transfers to make an embroidered 63" x 91" Old Fashioned Car Quilt. Each block measures 12" square.

Included:
1908 Chevrolet
1904 Oldsmobile
1904 Studebaker
1912 Packard
1896 Ford
1893 Duryea
1911 Model T
1908 Ford
1904 Ford
1903 Cadillac
1908 Buick
1909 Studebaker

Condition: Very Good, unused.


I'm going to make a quilt for Patrick. I'm super excited to join his ranks as a vintage products lover and consumer. As I complete blocks I'll post pictures. :)

My First Embarkment on Redwork Embroidery

I thought I had posted this on my blog, but apparently it didn't happen! :) I am so excited about this project I did for my mom for Christmas. It took quite a bit of time, and I loved every minute of it!!!

The pattern I used is: Aunt Martha's Sunbonnet-Mother & Daughter, Too 3948. I used embroidery floss #321. The main pattern part I used 2 threads and a normal stitch. For the outside border (square or circle) I used 6 threads and the split stitch. I didn't sign any of them, because I think I'm horrible with creating my own letters...something I'll have to get over. Anyway, this is the collection.


I liked this one because of the socks. I don't know if they're getting ready for bed and going to read a book, or what?? Doesn't matter...it's cute.



My mom loves to quilt, so this pattern was perfect to add to the collection.




Mom also loves to bake and cook and passed that passion onto me. So, I love this pattern, Mother and Daughter with their creations at a Thanksgiving (I guess) table.


My mom also plays the piano beautifully. I never took any lessons, but I enjoy listening to her play. This was my first time doing french knots (for the music notes). You can tell (or at least I can tell) that I got more comfortable toward the middle and end of the notes. The top left notes aren't as full and comfortable looking. Great learning experience!


So, that's my latest project. I can't wait to get started on my next one...once I figure out what to do. :)