Life is a gamble :D

If life isn't a gamble, this composition book cover is! ;)

The fabric is from Susan in KC (thanks Susan!) - I've already made 2 zipper bags with it, and I still have a few bits and pieces left.  The lining inside of this is ... hehe ... American money fabric from Joanns :D  This is a Christmas gift - ready well in advance!

Two more pillowcases completed for Blue Hills - these make 10 of the 14 I want to have ready for them for Christmas.  I need to get more Christmas fabric ;)

Heehee post edited to add --- that's 14 pillowcases, not 141 --- the word "I" looks like a number 1, LOL!!  I may be crazy, but definitely not crazy to commit to 141 pillowcases - HOLY SMOKES BATMAN!!! :D

Roll the dice, baby :D

 Today's finishes - two roulette zipper bags (lined with money fabric, similar to this) and a floral bag.  I have die beads coming from ebay to use on the roulette bags - these will go in my gift box for Vegas visiting friends :D  The floral bag will go to Blue Hills.  

Here's a sweet little pillowcase embellished with gifted multi-coloured ribbon (thanks Nancy!) and some stash satin ribbon.  This is for Blue Hills as well :)

How to shoot yourself in the a$$ :D

Language not all that SFW - but quite entertaining ... and then just downright sad!  Thanks to the delicious Helen Killer @ Regretsy for posting the link :)  My personal opinion - Jacqueline needs to ask for all of her tuition fees back.  Just sayin!! :)

My favourite comment, lol:

j_d_hastings said... 

I'm just glad she didn't misspell "seaman" 

March 28, 2011 3:58 PM 

 

A wee Christmas present :)

Last summer hubby and I went to several Lens Mills stores over in the Cambridge area, and I bought some soft book panels because they looked like fun.  They are!  The order of the pages is rather odd to assemble but once you get that figured out (I made a draft out of paper) they're easy!  I need to dig out my box of panels and get cracking on some more, lol.

I also made a few snowman book thongs but when I took the picture I realized that one of them had a couple of "order errors" on it :D  One error I could ignore, but two bugged me too much, so I have to restring that one.  Will photograph them when I make the corrections :D

Why aren't butter STICKS more popular in Canada?

I've been buying our butter, whenever possible, in the States in sticks for the last 10ish years - I ran out last week so I went looking today at Walmart - the only sticks were a name brand (I forget which brand) and the 1 pound package was $6.07!!!  SIX DOLLARS FOR BUTTER!  I ended up buying a package of Great Value (WM brand, not in sticks) butter for $3.47, but it always surprises me that more Canadians don't demand a format that our American neighbours enjoy so readily (and inexpensively) - stick butter!  I can't wait for my next trip Stateside so I can stock up without paying an arm and a leg for the convenience :D

 Today's completions - ladybug and puppy zipper bags ...

and 2 snowman bibs - these are backed with red fleece with SNOWFLAKES - so absolutely perfect, lol!

A good day sewing, and now it's time to watch TV :D

Here's a gift set I finished up today - I posted a close-up of the beaded zipper pulls the other day - the set came out beautifully!  The bag in the middle has a boxed bottom - the pattern is from Craftster, and the boxy bag (bottom right) is from Patchyapple.  The round bottom bag (top of photo) is my own design!

Here's another bag I made today to use up the last of some lighthouse fabric I was gifted - this will go to Blue Hills :)  The zipper pull is a charm of a little boy - I got it from ebay :)

Itty bitty seed beads ...

make pretty little beaded zipper pulls :)  I'm working on a set of zipper bags, and made 3 zipper pulls today to go on the bags.  Here's one of them - that's a crackle bead in the middle, with small clear beads on either side, then little seed beads to complete it.  I'll get a photo of the set when it's completed - 2 of the bags are done, and hopefully I can get bag #3 finished tomorrow :)

Here's a set of gift bags I made as a gift (it's the gift that you give away, lol!) :D

This cat has issues, LOL!!

Blue, purple and green - a lovely combination :)

I think I got this remnant of fabric at a quilt store in Buffalo sometime within the last year.  It was a lovely piece of fabric - a locwly weight, and it washed up so nicely.  It gave it's life, bravely and without complaint, to make this gorgeous (if I do say so myself!) boxy bag :)  The lining is the same fabric as the outside, and the batting is warm and natural.  The bag measures about 10" x 5" x 4" and I'm ever so pleased with how it turned out - it went right into my gift box :)

Here's the zipper pull I made to go on the bag - it's a bit bigger than I normally make but the beads in this strand of beads (thanks, Susan!) went so well with the bag that I had to use them all.  Bigger is definitely better sometimes!  ;)

Here come the cactii :D

 Here are 2 composition book covers I completed today - fabric is from Joanns :D

I love this fabric - I think it was only available in fat quarters as I didn't see it in yardage when I found it (possibly in Ohio?) a while back.  I think it would make a cute zipper bag too!

One more zipper bag completion - this is the pattern I drafted myself based on projects I've seen online.  Notice the sweet little beaded zipper pull - I wish I could get a nice close-up with my camera, but that's beyond me (or perhaps just beyond the camera, LOL!).

I'm running out of "kits"!

5 more wee bags completed for Blue Hills - I've used up most of my "kits" (projects cut out and bagged with all needed notions, making it easy to grab a kit to work on a project!) and have started cutting out more :)  Tonight I kitted a project made with CACTUS fabric, lol!  I'm going to work on it tomorrow so will post a photo :D  Kit idea courtesy of Lish @ Yahoo group 25weeks - thanks Lish!

It's in the bag :)

The boxy bag, that is, lol.  Here are 3 more bags (for Blue Hills) made to use up the last of my Kasey Kahn and bagels fabrics :)

FNSI for March :)

Our FNSI projects:  Nancy and I did our FNSI (Friday Night Sew-In) together tonight - she did the little Kokeshi doll in the middle of the bottom row (front is embroidered on a thrifted linen shirt sleeve!!!), then did the hearts (future lavender sachets), then worked on a tote bag (not pictured).  I worked on two bibs for a nephew who will soon be moving to the Maritimes (hence the lobsters, hehe) and two initial taggies :)

(I finished the M after she left, lol).

Toilet Paper Roll "art" - my NSH opinion :D

To those people who cut and fold toilet paper rolls and stick the pieces to their walls as "art" -- kindly remember it is TOILET PAPER ROLLS.  Unless you are 4 years old or younger, it is not art.

I'm not posting any pics so as to protect the guilty parties and the people who blog and boast and post pictures of that CRAP.  I will say, though, that Helen Killer from Regretsy needs to diatribe on your a$$!  (And her site is NSFW so proceed with caution, if indeed you were planning on proceeding!)

A bit of sewing :)

Here are several zipper bags I've completed in the last few days - the golf one is for a golf customer [;)] and the other ones are for the counselling centre.  Bottom right is a gift bag I made to use up some scraps! 

Triplets, part deux :D

Introducing the Tomte triplets - completed today, in all of their jingly glory, lol!  The pattern is from Kajsa Wikman's Scandinavian Stitches
:)  These guys are obviously not related to me - they're tall (23") and skinny, LOL!

Here's a better view of their different - yet surprisingly co-ordinated!! ;) - outfits :D

As pointed out by webbsway, I didn't mention what these are or what they're for!  They're stuffed dolls and all 3 of them are Christmas gifts :)  I'd like to make a few more but the skinny bodies are somewhat difficult to manipulate (especially when trying to sew the side while shoving the legs up inside, LOL) - I may rejig the pattern so the body is fatter and easier to work with!  I don't want them to be any longer, but sometimes ... FAT IS GOOD!!!

Triplets :)

I made 2 more boxy bags to match the one I made the other day - these are so much fun to make, lol.   It looks like I need to stock up on 14" zippers ;)

One pretty pink boxy bag :)

Here's a boxy bag (10 x 5 x 4) I made this morning with some upholstery weight fabric I bought in the States during a trip a few years ago.  It's lined with pink gingham from the same line :D  This is a Patchyapple boxy bag, and I link to a freebie pattern in my sidebar under Crafty Tutorials :)

 Here's a side view - the only thing I would change next time is to make my little pink ribbon tabs a bit shorter - maybe 2" finished :)

Just for fun, a pony under construction - will post book name later - right now I have to go work on supper, LOL!  I'm not sure why the colour is so "off" - the fabric is actually a medium yellow and orange tie dye pinned to a white background!  It just needs to be stuffed and have the opening sewn shut :)

(Later)  Perry the Pony is from Sew It, Stuff It by Rob Merrett - an absolutely FABULOUS book!

(Even later :D) And here *she* is - finished - Miss Petunia Pony :)

Janitor's revenge :D

See video here - SFW - not naughty :)

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!

Just taking a few notes ...

in my new notebook covers :D  Good way to use up small amounts of stash!

A few zipper bags completed, also using up stash - the zoo bags are lined with black TOT fabric, and the veggy bag is lined with orange TOT :D  Note the beaded zipper pulls ...

... on the veggie bag ...

... and on the zoo bags :)

One last project - a 12x18" gift bag made with the last of this blue/yellow tie dye fabric :)

Working on Tomtes :)

I decided to work on some Tomte dolls today (pattern is from Kajsa Wikman's Scandinavian Stitches book) - I stuffed their wee arms and legs on the weekend while watching a movie with hubby and DS2, and today I added some rick rack and attached their appendages to their skinny little bodies :D

 These will be Christmas gifts when they're completed :D  Thank you Nancy for embroidering their faces - embroidery is a skill I haven't mastered, but one that Nancy is a black belt at! ;)

The laundry basket is almost empty ...

Today I finished up 2 pillowcases (for B.H.) and 4 gift bags - that's about 3 1/2 metres of fabric and 2 metres of trim finished off :D  There are only 5 smallish pieces of fabric left in the laundry basket that I've been trying to empty since the beginning of the year - my evil necessary plans to destash before another shopping trip to Joanns have been very successful, although I'm not done yet, LOL.  We just applied for our passport renewals so Buffalo and 4 Joanns stores will likely get a visit next month :D

 These gift bags will come in handy for the items I'm making for friends who are expecting their first grandchild (granddaughter, actually) in June :D

I pity the fool!

Hubby, DS2 and I watched The A-Team movie tonight - I loved the series when it was on, so I knew I'd love the movie too, lol.  So campy, so much fun - it doesn't get any funnier than flying a TANK!!  I worked on stuffing 3 Tomte dolls while the movie was playing - I'll have to name them BA, Face and Howlin' Mad when they're finished (Hannibal will understand) :D  No chick flicks for me - I prefer action movies ... HA!!

I got 3 pillowcases done today - these will go to Blue Hills :)

Last but not least, here's a gift bag I made for a friend - I couldn't post it until I gave it to her, lol.  She actually gave me the scraps of silk, and I ended up using them as a project for her :D

Girls night out tonight :)

Going out tonight with Nancy and no-blog Amanda - quilt store shopping @ Evelyns, thrift store shopping in thrift store alley (3 thrift stores almost side by side!) in Newmarket, and dinner @ The Buttery - no boys allowed, LOL!!

Here are a few small finishes - a zipper bag ...

a girly pillowcase for Blue Hills ...

and a boys pillowcase for Blue Hills :)

A new challenge --- "LANT" :)

My friend Wendy and I have challenged each other to learn some new techniques - I challenged her to do zippers (and she did! YAY!), and she challenged me to do buttonholes.  Well, it took me a while but I finally got off my duff and - long story short - I was successful at creating a beautiful buttonhole on a machine that doesn't have an automatic buttonholer :D  The one on the far left is my final - and most perfect (lol!) attempt :)  I still prefer to do zippers, but now I've conquered the dreaded BH!  I've decided to LANT (learn a new technique) every month, so buttonholes are my March LANT!  Here's my February LANT :)  Hey Wendy and Nancy - we should pick a LANT to work on next month - Wendy, you should have your new feet by then! ;)

And here are 3 gift bags I made to use up that last of my Oriental fabrics - they went right into my gift box, and I suspect the intended recipient might realize they're for her, if she happens to read this blog post, LOL. 

Criminal Minds: Suspect Behaviour is on ...

so this will be a quick post - I don't want to miss a second of the show, LOL!

Here are a couple of book thongs (bookmarks) I finished today - the square glass beads in the b.t. on the left are actually yellow and blue - I'm not sure why they're showing up orangey :D 

Two more pillowcases for Blue Hills - these are #'s 7 & 8 of 14 I'm doing for them for Christmas.  I have 2 more kitted up, then I need to buy more fabric, lol.

OK back to the TV! 

How *not* to answer a freecycle offer

A couple of weeks ago I offered up a huge bag of sewing items on our local Freecycle group - fabric and blocks and magazines and more fabric and notions - lots of fun stuff.  I got quite a few replies but this one blew my mind away:

When and where can I pick up?  Thanks!

Talk about making assumptions - sheesh!  I didn't even reply to that one!  A simple " I'd be very interested in this fabric, and could pick up at your convenience.  Thanks for considering!" would be a lot more effective!

Here are today's finishes - a gift bag (left) and a zipper bag for Blue Hills (thank you Susan for the fabric!) - I'll be seeing my Blue Hills friend on Friday night so I can give her the stuff I have ready, including this zippy :)

I've been adding carabiners or other "hardware" to the bags when I had something that would work with the colour scheme - I found and purchased about a dozen at Christmas but ran out of them last month, and have been unable to find them again for a good price.  A few days ago I found a new similar product - book rings for binders, available in the stationery department at our local Walmart stores.  8 for $2, with 2 each of 4 colours in the package.  I've already bought 2 packages - you can see the goldy yellow one in the zipper bag above!  SCORE!  :)

And now I'm going to settle down on my couch to watch NCIS and to read through a gorgeous book called Sew It, Stuff It, by Rob Merrett.  I got it on Amazon.ca and posted a review of it - it's a GREAT book - full of gorgeous must-make eye candy!