Crafting Envy

We were tricked a couple of weeks ago into thinking that spring had come and that it would be warm for a while. Lies, utter lies. Here is a pic from this past Saturday night....this all came after a week of 60-80 degree afternoons....sigh




It was a good opportunity to build a snowman with Lego parts for eyes and nose tho.





Here at long last are some pictures of the Spiderman costume. I finished it a bit ago but the boy child phased Spiderman out of his life and I was waiting for it to come back around. I didn't actually have a pattern for this one and it's quite a bit too big. On the whole I think I did a moderately awful job on it. The lines are hand drawn and they bled in the wash :( Oh well, live and learn I suppose.








This is another recently finished project, an Easter dress for the girl child. This one I'm a lot happier with. I think it's my best wearable garment yet. Not risking putting it on her till the day we need to, she is exceptionally skilled at ruining clothes swiftly.










My next project is 3/4 cut out and 1/3 sewn already. It's a princess dress for a certain blonde niece of mine. Birthday isn't until May-ish but I know if I don't get it going now, it won't be finished. I think I've been promising her one of these for 3 birthdays now, gotta deliver this time. I guess that's one thing cold weather is good for, keeps me home and at my sewing machine instead of prepping the back yard for green beans and watermelons.

Utterly, completely bored. Blah..
Spring is on it's way and little signs are popping up but it is coming so slowly...sigh. I have basil seedlings that are stretching and desperately in need of transplanting but I don't have room for all of the ones that came up. I hate to kill perfectly good seedlings so I haven't transplanted any yet. I'm going to have to set up my card table in the kitchen to keep the baby away from them.
Been working on the Spiderman costume and have a fair bit done. Just have to stitch the pieces together for the most part. It looks a bit wonky but that's what you get when you have no pattern or sweatshop labor to sew it like store bought costumes...I'll post a pic when it's all done.
I've been watching the heck out of Netflix since it's rainy and horrible outside. I've watched almost all 4 seasons of Doc Martin. It's a British comedy and it kicks serious ass. Still bored tho.... (yawn) Sleep now...too bored for anything else..

   The present my husband ordered me for our anniversary was this awesome cookbook. I absolutely LOVE it! I watch the show on PBS whenever I can and I'm thrilled to have the recipes written out in front of me so I can really use them.
   I wanted to try out a recipe from it so today I made the Chocolate Bundt Cake. The recipe was well written and really insightful. Very clear instructions on mixing and technique too. I haven't gotten to slice into it yet but it baked up beautifully and if the finished product is half as good as what I licked off my fingers I think I'll be in heaven...le sigh. I'll let you know how it turned out soon. *








   In other news, I'm following the Celebrate the Boy month on MADE. Interesting so far, I might try the pants if I slog through some of my other projects. One of those being painting spiderweb lines on fabric and trying to make stuffed muscles...Oy...
  I have a redesign for my bedroom sewing space jangling around in my head. It desperately needs some attention and I'm hoping me and hubby can get to it this spring/summer. The kid's room has some work scheduled too so we'll have to see what gets done.
   I'm pledging some skirts for myself and to try really hard to destash everything I can. I am easily seduced by fabric. Normally I'm the epitome of restraint and refinement but once I walk into a fabric store I'm like a sailor on shore leave... Well, we all have our little faults.

   I'm off to a military ball of sorts this evening. I'm going for a pinup girl vibe. Here's a sneak peek for ya....





See ya!

*It was incredibly awesome......my thighs are not thankful for this cookbook.

   It's been a bit of craziness round here. Valentines Day was our 7th anniversary :) and I was up the night before tossing my cookies into the toilet :( Not a lot of celebrating got done, but my sweet sweet husband took care of me and the children and still managed to load me up on chocolate and flowers. Thanks Sweetheart!



There were lots of little chocolate bars with flowers tied to them all over the house.




And then these.



   Other than illness, I have a deconstructed Spiderman costume I am working on for the boy and a couple of spring dress patterns to work up for the girl. Who, by the way, got her first haircut last week. I know most people don't cut a little girl's hair for a long time but she was getting a mullet and I just couldn't take it anymore...she looks much better now :)
   The weather here this week is going to be mild and sunny so I'll be starting my seedlings and getting my hands dirty, I can't wait! I'm ready for spring as you can tell by the blog redesign. No more snowflakes for me, please.    That's the news for now, stay tuned for a Spiderman costume debacle which is sure to be coming soon....

   Hello again! I've been busy working on an anniversary present for the hubby. Seven years on Feb 14th!
   When he was deployed to Iraq I crocheted him an immensely heavy blue and gray blanket and mailed it to him. I haven't made him much since then (except for a baby) so I thought it was time to make him his own quilt ;).



Me, Momma? Was I that baby?



It was me wasn't it....?

   The starting point for this was his love of dark colors and asian culture. I consulted with him and dug into my stash. The black front piece was a nice linen that I had been saving for a dress. I took that and did an imitation of Sashiko embroidery on it. The sun/moon/circle thingy is hand stitched. I couldn't leave it like that since the whole thing looked way too empty.





   We have always like the art of Hokusai and I remembered The Great Wave. Perfect! Now to execute...hmmm.

   I roughly drew it on the fabric first to get a feel for how much space it should take up on the bottom, then I taped together some freezer paper and drew it on there.



   I cut the shape of the wave out and started hunting for blue fabric in my stash. Right away I knew I didn't have enough of any one fabric to make the wave so I decided to piece it.
   I rounded up some blue canvas napkins, one of his old t-shirts and a scrap of blue cotton blender I had left from another quilt. I'm lazy and find traditional quilting boring so I pieced it all crazy like with knit pieces lying on top of canvas pieces and as few seams as possible. It was a bit challenging to get enough fabric to fill the bottom but I squeaked it out. Keeping with being lazy and my husband not liking raw edges I grabbed some white packaged seam binding and sewed it all around the wave.



   When that was done I pinned it on the black and took up my Sashiko again. I stitched the bold white lines by hand till it looked filled in enough.




   After that all I had to do was cut the grey border, sew it on, make the quilt sandwich and quilt it, trim the edges and sew the binding on. I used matching thread on the back and white through the blue waves, I switched to black on the linen which is why you can't see the quilt lines in the pictures.



   Whew! That was a really long winded post for me! Sorry if it bored you to tears. I promise I'll go back to my terse nature soon.

 Happy New Years!




   With two children it seems to be a low-key affair these days but fun none-the-less. It's also a birthday, hubby is 29! Eek!

   We had a lovely Christmas and the handmade gifts were well received. I demanded a handmade gift from my husband and he made me this on a pillowcase:



(Yes, we are gaming nerds)


   Still it was a lot of effort for my manly man to sit and patiently stitch it out. Lol.

   He also bought me a Husqavarna Huskylock s15 Serger. It's a little bit intimidating and I haven't quite managed to get the tensioning right on it yet. I'm going to scour google and pick the brains of all the sewing people I know to get it fixed up. Then I shall conquer the world! Mwahahaha!

   I'm working on a Sashiko stitched quilt for my husband and after that I'm thinking I need to try another garment for myself. Maybe I'll actually wear this one.

   Hope everyone had wonderful Holidays and feels ready for the New Year! See you, around.

Oh my, where have the days gone? Part of them were spent on Holidays....




Part of them were spent on finishing projects......







And the rest of them were spent being sick sick sick. Stomach flu, regular flu, strep throat, eye infections, diaper rashes....oy. Don't worry no pics of that ; )

Speaking of projects....I have a few Christmasy type projects going on right now. Can't say too much on that subject till after Gifty Day. Definitely not killing myself with crafting tho, glad I decided to take it easy this year. It wouldn't have gotten done due to sickness anyway.
We finally bought an artificial tree this year (yay! no more needle messes!) and got it decorated with some kid crafted snowflakes, some candy canes and a few sweet little Target ornaments (I am in love with the little owl! So cute!)












I finally cleaned out our little (not sure of the architectural term here) inset this year, so we got to decorate it too. There is a second snowman to turn into a snow-woman that hasn't gotten made quite yet. Having lots of good ideas for other holidays for that spot too.





There is about a ton of laundry and cleaning to catch up on so I must bid you adieu for now. I'll try to make it back a bit sooner this time.