365: Days Two-Six (actually just Day Six)

I'm discovering with this 365 project that I am very bad at taking photos every day. I had no idea that this project would enable me to examine myself as I have! Today was only my second day of taking photos in 2011, but I took a bunch today, which makes up for missing the previous 4 days, doesn't it!?!

I went on a bike ride today (Santa gave me a beautiful bike for Christmas) and stopped along the way to take photos. Here's a really cool bridge on the same end of the island that my family lives on:


Here's another view of the bridge:


The marina and marsh near our house:


Some creatively grown trees at the marina:


Classic low-country. Oak tree with Spanish moss:


The good news is that I am about to go on a trip, where it will be easy for me to take at least a photo a day. So stay tuned for some amazing photos!

Christmas 2010

I had so much fun and was only a little stressed making presents for people for Christmas. Handmade presents are so special to me and half the fun in making a present is planning it! One of the presents I was most excited about was also the biggest hit. I followed Prudent Baby's tutorial. It's a tea-party to go! My little cousins absolutely loved it! It was pretty quick and easy to make, which good because I was running out of time to make it.


I made a couple other handmade gifts, one of which I've made before. It's a really cool pincushion with a cubby hole in the middle. I got the pattern from Anna Maria Horner's Seams to Me: 24 New Reasons to Love Sewing. I made it for my aunt because at Christmas 2009, she mentioned that she would like to have one. So I felt pretty confident that she would love that present, yet I second-guessed myself the whole time. What if she doesn't like the colors that I picked? What if she changed her mind since last Christmas? I tend to second-guess myself a lot when it comes to giving handmade gifts. Time and time again people love the thought and the effort that goes into making the present and I just have to learn not to stress myself out over whether or not the receiver will like my gift. Chances are they will, or they'll at least say so to my face!


See . . . she loves it!

Okay . . . Christmas 2010 is over. Time to start planning for Christmas 2011!

365: Day One (actually Two)

So I decided this year to participate in the 365 project, where you take and post a photo each day for a year. I've heard that it will help you become a more proficient photographer, which I would love to be. So I decided the morning of January 1st to do that. However, January 1st was a very busy day for me because I babysat six little boys during a wedding reception that lasted 5 hours. I had the help of two wonderful high school girls and we actually had a blast. Now I know what works and what doesn't work for a handful of boys between the ages of 3.5 years and 6 months. All About Collection, Volume 1, the DVD, which features monster trucks and trains is a big winner with that demographic. As are stackable blocks. Food, surprisingly, does not attract them as much as you think it would. However, apple juice will bring kids to the table like nothing else. Also, when one is babysitting a bunch of little kids, who are strangers and cannot communicate that well, nametags (to stick on them and on their stuff) are very helpful. By the end of the evening, we had figured out who was who, but we forgot which diapers belonged to which kid. Still we had a fantastic time and armed with this newfound knowledge, I am ready to babysit a bunch of kids whenever I am needed.

As I was driving home, I realized that I had not taken my 365 photo yet, so I decided to take one of my car clock when I reached home. Technically it is from January 2nd, but let's just say it's from the 1st.

Favorite Baby Gift

Another post, so soon!

I couldn't wait to share my all-time favorite baby gift with y'all. I was looking through the photos on my laptop and I found these:

It's Peanut the Wee Elephant designed by Hillary Lang and included in Last-Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts by Joelle Hoverson. I highly recommend the book and the pattern. I've made this elephant at least 5 times already and each time people ooh and aah it. My sweet friend, Kelly, who I made this one for, even said that she hopes this will be her baby's favorite toy, but if it's not, it'll at least be hers. I love when people appreciate handmade items. It makes all the time and energy spent so worthwhile!

A cute braided tail!

Since I had made this so often before, I sewed it together without consulting the book and I ended up using incorrect seam allowances. So this is the fit and trim model instead of the pleasantly plump one, but still so cute! A fun aspect of making it for me was that Kelly and her husband had decided not to find out the sex of the baby ahead of time, so I had to pick fabrics that were gender neutral. This made it a little more challenging, but I am happy with what I picked. The baby has been born by now and he is wonderful, cute boy. I hope that he'll have years of fun playing with this elephant.

Welcome! Willkommen!

For years I have wanted to have a blog and I have spent countless hours reading other people's blogs. Now (finally) I am taking that step. I have to say a big thank you to Courtney, who, if she wasn't the only person to encourage me to start a blog, she was at least the most recent.

On this blog, I will mainly share what I've been making, but who knows into what territory we will tread.

One of the more recent things I've sewn was a dress using Butterick B5451. It was pretty quick and easy, which was fortunate. I've gotten into the nasty habit of planning a project in my head for days or weeks, but then not executing it until the last minute. One could say that I like to consider the project carefully before I forge ahead and possibly waste time and materials, but really I just don't start my projects with enough time to finish them properly. However, I will turn over a new leaf and start giving myself plenty of time to create good-quality items.

For the dress, I used a beautiful blue linen, which doesn't wrinkle so it must be some linen blend. In my stash I found the best dotted cotton to make the bias strips out of to bind the armholes and neck. The dots matched the blue of the dress perfectly. Unfortunately I don't have a photo of the binding, so you'll have to trust me for the time being. I made the bias strips using this tutorial. I think I'll continue doing them this way because it was so tricky for me to sew the strips together at the correct angle the traditional way.

I found the instructions included with the pattern pretty helpful. One of the only variations I made was to add pockets using this tutorial. I made this dress to go to a bachelorette party, where we went clubbing. Now this isn't really a clubbing dress, but it's a dress that I would actually wear again and I love having pockets in it.

Here's the front of the dress:

Here's the back of the dress:


Here's Michelle's funny photo (she giggled as she took it . . . oh to be thirteen again!):

I think Michelle said that she was cutting me up with her fingers like scissors or something like that. Notice the black nail polish. She sure does love to have black nails!

Right now I'm visiting my sister, Carrie, which means I get to do a lot of handsewing and knitting while visiting with her. Pretty soon I'll have some evidence to show for my time up here.