Sorry I haven't updated in a while!

FIRST AND FOREMOST..... I do not know why in the world my pics have been loading to blogger looking like CRAP!! These in particular don't look that great to begin with, but they look much worse in blogger. And ya see my last blog post with the collage? Why in the world does that look like pixel city?!?!?!?!?!?!?! I'm going to get to the bottom of this!!

I've got lots to cover in this blog!

I just finished up a custom order a couple of days ago. It's such a cute set! These are matching dresses for a baby and her big sister. It's a baby shower gift. They are reversible criss cross pinafores. Since they're on hangers it's hard to see the criss cross in the back, especially with the damask. The fabrics used are Michael miller, disco dot and a damask... don't remember the name of it.



I've been crocheting a lot lately. I've learned a lot! The scarves here are my first two completed projects.


This bag was quite challenging... but once I got the hang of it, it came together pretty easily. I used cotton yarn and I LOVE it! I am now in love with cotton yarn! I guess because I almost always sew with cotton it just feels more "me". I love crochet. It's as rewarding as sewing yet doesn't take as much work! Not that crochet is easy.... but sewing takes a lot of work. Ya spend 30 minutes to an hour or more pinning and cutting the fabric (some things take less, but you get the idea... it takes time). Then you spend an hour or three sewing it all together. It takes less time to complete a project with sewing, but you're kinda bound to the sewing table. With crochet, I can sit at my breakfast table and do a row of stitches while I'm waiting on a pot of water to boil or something. I can do it while I sit in traffic (for an hour each way to and from work... I only do it when I'm sitting in the most miserable parts where I'm practically completely stopped for like 15 minutes). I can do it while I'm laying in bed or watching tv. I can do it just about anywhere! Sewing... I can't multitask in sewing. I might be able to cut some fabric while I'm cooking, but that's only because I now have a rotary cutter/mat/ruler... which I L-O-V-E!!!


I made this top for Kaytlin last night. Her daycare flooded last Friday and throughout the weekend, so they were closed this week. I think they may have reopened yesterday. We had no choice but to take her up to my moms in the mountains for the week. We don't know anyone who is a SAHM who could have kept her for the week. The first couple of days were nice. But we started really missing her Wednesday. I made her this last night as a surprise. It'll look much cuter when she's got it on. Shirring just doesn't photograph well when it's not on a body!



I'm working on a new design for my blog. I'm designing the banner and buttons, colors, etc. and I'm having someone put all the HTML together for me.

I'm going to be making Kaytlin a bunch of outfits for vacation, I'll be posting them as I go. I'm also working on making her a really cute... umm... thing. Crochet. It's like a throw pillow sized alien girl thing. It's an amigurumi.

Everyone have a great weekend!!

Kaytlin Modeled

Isn't she lovely! She modeled these for mamanme.etsy.com. I can definately vouch for the quality of this persons work. All items are awesome. They all fit perfectly and actually stay in her hair! My faves are the blue spiral ties and the purple hat. For some reason, lately all of my image uploads look like CRAP!! Is anyone else having this problem? They look all pixel-y. They are on flickr and look great on there, but for some reason the quality just isn't there when I load the image to blogger. Click here to see what it really looks like. The full size photos are also in my flickr. I threw in the last one because I needed something to fill the empty spot :P

Showing some love... best spots in Atlanta

I've been meaning to do this for a while now....

A1 Sewing Machine Co. - I love them. They are such kind and sweet people. They have serviced my Brother sewing machine and my Singer serger. There prices are unbeatable. I paid $40 to have my Brother serviced and $50 for my serger. Well... I actually paid $80 but it needed the timing adjusted which is not part of any repair shop's list of services done in a basic "tune up". With by Brother, I needed it fixed FAST. The tension needed to be adjusted and therefore unusable. I had it back in less than 48 hours. With my serger, I was just eager to get it back so I could actually use it for the first time. I dropped it off on Friday and picked it up the following Wednesday. I could have had it sooner if I had told them that it was really necessary to rush it. No rush fees on either occasion either. They are the best and I'll always use them to service my machines. They also sell tons of great sewing machines at great prices. Brands like Janome, Pfaff, Singer, tons of embroidery machines, notions for all of them. They sell used/refurbished machines and vintage ones too.

Intown Quilters - A fabric shop located by North Dekalb Mall. Granted, there are many other quilt shops between this one and my home. I'm actually located a good 35-40 miles from them... but it's sooo worth the trip. They have EVERYTHING. All of my fave designers and lines. It's all organized so well. I've been to a couple of other quilt shops who CLAIM to carry suchinsuch designer... like this one up in Dahlonega... they claimed to carry Amy Butler... they had maybe four bolts of Amy, and none of them were the ones I was hoping to find. I know a shop can't carry every colorway of every line of every designer, but c'mon.... four bolts? Intown Quilters is great though. They may not have every colorway of every line, but they still have TONS. It's so well organized. Calicos are arranged by color, batiks by color, then the stuff like Ginger Blossom, Sis Boom, Amy Butler, etc. are all separated out by designer and line.... something that some shops don't do. The people are very friendly, helpful, and they offer classes. If you call and ask if they have a certain fabric or line in stock, they won't reply with "Who? Huh?" like some places... they actually know there stuff. I called one place and asked if they had Freshcut by Heather Bailey and they actually had no idea what I was talking about and said that Freshcut is patterns, not fabric. I got there and looked around, sure enough I spotted some Freshcut.

Soooo.... Two thumbs up to A1 and Intown Quilters!

And one more thing.... since I've already blogged once today I'm going to stick this in here.

Here's why fabric designers should blog:
Folks like me connect with them. I enjoy reading those inspiration filled blogs, looking at the gorgeous photographs, sewn creations, etc. There are some designers who don't do this and honestly I'm more likely to buy fabric from a designer whose blog I read than I am one whom I don't. It's that personal connection. And BTW... check this out... that's Jennifer Paganelli who left a comment here!! :-P

I'm off to celebrate my Birthday for the next... oh... 3 days.

The Mod Bird

I'm still admiring my Drawing Room fabric. I showed hubby last night and he just had this expression like "Umm... it's fabric."

Since my birthday is coming up very soon, I've been browsing at things I want. Mod little birdies keep jumping out at me. No, not the ceramic bird nick-knacks your grandmother used to collect, these are modern contemporary little birds. I particularly love the ones that are silhouettes. I just love the way they look! If I were building a treasury, these items would be included.

Here are some little tid bits that I've come to love.

All of these are from TheIntuitiveGarden

From Brownington Forest

From yumiyumi

From Urbanharmonie

From Baileydoesntbark

All sew, no show

I sew lots, but somehow I manage not to load photos of my creations onto my blog! So this blog is all about sharing my recent goodies! Well... some of them... but hey at least I'm loading something!

These are 5 of a 6 outfit order. She took pics of her daughter wearing them for me!

And because I was in my flickr and she's just too darn cute.... here's my Kaytiebug. She's modeling a hat for mamanme. She modeled some other accessories, check my flickr for more.

I picked up some Drawing Room yesterday, I'm so in love. This print is so absolutely beautiful... the whole line is really. Two thumbs up to Anna Maria Horner. I want to post some of her photos, but I just read on her site that I would need to message her first and... well... I'm an impatient person :P. So... check out the Flickr group dedicated to Drawing Room. Here's my little tid-bit... I'll be whipping up a handbag for MYSELF as soon as I finish making K this cute little top I've had laying on my sewing table for... oh... a week now.

What's after the handbag? I'll be putting this Ginger Blossom to good use. Sandi Henderson is another one of my faves. We're going to Myrtle Beach in August, so I gotta have my kiddo some cute goodies to wear!! I'm thinking ruffly, twirly, girly....

I'm still working on my crochet. I'm almost done with Kaytlins scarf. This is the bare bones of it. I'm going to add fringe and ribbons and maybe some beads. I've still got to add a couple of inches to it, then I'll be DONE! It's a little out of season, but I had to start somewhere!

Africa

I want to volunteer in Africa. Being a working mom means I would only be able to do it for two maybe three weeks. I'm not planning on going NOW... but it is my goal to go to Africa and volunteer within the next two or three years.

No time for details because I've spent my break time reading about it. You can check out this if you're interested in info on volunteering. Sorry this is so short... I'll explain more on the reasoning later.

Here's an inspiring flickr group dedicated to Africa... it won't take long to see why I want to go there.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/images-of-africa/pool

Jackpot! As if I needed another hobby....

I dropped one of my new (well, new to me) sergers off at the repair shop to get a tune up. I wanted to go to the quilt shop down the road while I was in the area but I didn't have time and traffic was bad, so I went to the goodwill next door. Check out my serious score for $8!! Tons of embroidery floss, lots of yarn and whatever the skinny yarn is called, and two pairs of knitting needles.

My mom came down to my house this weekend and she showed me how to knit.... but knitting is NOT my thing. It took me HOURS... literally like 5+ hours over the weekend (looong car ride) to get this far....


So I went on youtube and watched a tutorial on how to make a scarf. It's a series of several videos by this gal named Alyssa. She was an excellent instructor. Very clear. If you click "Watch in high quality" you can see everything in the video very clearly (I never noticed the little link for higher quality videos lol... I just thought youtube compressed the vids or something). Here are the links to the tutorials. I've put them in order and everything (because it took a little work to dig through the thousands of vids put on youtube by expertvilliage to get all of the ones in the series.

Introduction

Chain Stitch

Single Stitch

The Next Row

Double Stitch

Triple Stitch

Finishing Stitch

Adding Fringe

Another one on fringe

Extra: Specialty Chain Combo part 1

Specialty Chain Combo part 2

I watched several videos on youtube and she really explains it the best. See... look what I've done so far! PS- sorry for the horrible pics, I took these late last night so there was no good lighting. My scarf looks kinda crappy (yeah, I can be honest with myself) but oh well, it's my first project! It started out as like 15 stitches across the bottom, and I've lost so many I think I'm down to like 9 and don't know how to add them back in. LOL Oh well, this is just for practice. Kaytlin can use it for dressup or something.

We just decided when we're going to Myrtle Beach, mid August (it's a lot cheaper!). So now I'm all motivated to get busy on some beachy stuff for the kiddo!

The Game

The Game, originally uploaded by Kaytiebugs.

This was so much fun!! I have seen them before but never knew how it was done until I found it here. It was fun! All of you without a flickr... you should get one... I love it.

Here's mine!

I HAVE A SERGER! Love for bird fabric

Two of them actually!

The blue one needs a foot petal, they both need to be serviced. I was sooo stinkin eager to use it last night that I grabbed four spools of regular white thread out of my stash and threaded it. I don't have serger thread, and I intend to get a bunch, but I didn't get home with it until like 6:00 last night and didn't feel like driving or shopping. I used the white one. It worked fine! I don't have the manual for either of them, so I don't know what all it's capable of doing. I'm hoping and praying it'll do a rolled hem, mostly for things I make myself, but if not no biggie... a free serger is a free serger!! The blue one is supposedly more "professional" but I don't see the difference between them. This thing is so great. My sewing machine isn't terrible, but it is so loud and clunky sounding... plus it rocks my table whenever I try to go fast. This serger was like a dream! It just quietly humms as it stitches and cuts. It doesn't move the table at all and it goes so stinkin fast! I'm going to be able to finish things much quicker now!

So now for my birthday (which is coming in 14 days!!) I can get all of the other goodies I've been dieing to have.... I want a rotary cutter, cutting mat, pinking shears, and maybe either a ruffler foot or a gathering foot. I also need to have my serger serviced and a manual for it.

I've been really in love with fabric that has birds on it lately. My fave is Nuala by Sis Boom (in the girlfriends line). This little snippet here does it ABSOLUTELY NO justice!! The fabric is so freakin gorgeous.. I bought a fat quarter of it originally and saw NO pattern repeat... there are large birds, and little tiny details like a little spider web in the corner of a branch, acorns, all kinds of adorable stuff.

My second fave would be this one from Anna Maria Horners new Drawing Room line.... Oh I love it, but honestly I don't know what I would do with it. It's home dec weight, but I'm not exactly sure how heavy it really is. I'd love to have this as a wall hanging (like she had at quilt market)

Then there's this little Alexander Henry ditty. I would love to make something for my kitchen with this (it's part of the "In the Kitchen" collection... no, it's not home dec weight... same line as Apples & Pears).

We had a nice peaceful weekend. I didn't get much done craft/sewing wise, but I did clean house a lot in hopes that one day soon I'll be back into my etsy business. I got my business cards, magnets, pen, and stamp... pretty good. Cute, but the colors are more pale than I thought they'd be. Oh well, still a good deal. Alrighty.... TTFN!!