A Sack to Carry Stuff

I've been on a hiatus for a while. Work has been demanding and we've been planning a vacation. 

I finally got some time behind the sewing machine and made a couple coloring bags for a friend's boys. The idea is that you stick your crayons in the front pockets and store your coloring books in the bag. But really, you can put whatever you want in them. Knowing the two boys that will be receiving these bags, I'm guessing they'll carry rocks and trains at some point. 

Never mind the Cat in the Hat's hand sticking out of bag #2. 

I think my stitches are getting pretty good, if I do say so myself.

Funky Pillows

Step number two of adding some color to the living room is some new pillows for the couch. And, bonus!, I sewed them myself. Of course pillows are easy, but I'm still pretty proud of myself. I mean, I sewed several straight lines! These pillow cases are envelope style. Maybe one day I'll be skilled enough to sew a zipper.

I currently have four pillows on the couch. I can't decide if they should be two of each pattern, four different patterns, two of one pattern and one each of two other patterns, or what. (Was that confusing?) So, for now, I have two of each.

For the record, the two smaller pillow covers-- teal with dandelions, were purchased on Etsy for $20ish each. I paid less than $20 for the two yards of fabric for the two bigger pillow covers that I sewed myself. So, boom. DIY savings.

And here's the whole living room view. Up next, I'll be turning some drawers into shelves. That's a much larger project and might take a very long time to happen. Also, now that I look at the room, I'm thinking some kind of valance and curtains may be in order. I loooove those blinds, but I'm not realizing that they're pretty cold. 

Yes, that's a wagon. And yes, it's a pretty boring room. Remember, I have a two year old. All the tchotchkes have been removed for child proofing purposes. Even our lovely coffee table has been relocated to the other side of the room so E doesn't gouge an eye out on the corner. 

I hope we'll be able to have a normal house again someday. Maybe in, what, 16 or so years?

Gifts for Kidz

Both of these are things I've already written about. However, I've honed my crafting skills a bit and these are both better than the previous versions.

I made these for my friend's 5 and 4 year old.

A tutu for Maddie:

This one is an improvement on the one I made for my niece because it has an elastic waist. 

And a robot crayon roll for Cameron: 

This is an improvement just because I can sew a little better. Plus, I actually measured this one so it holds an 8-pack of crayons. These crayons, by the way, are not the ones I gave Cameron. These are just a terrible baby-chewed collection that I was able to find around the house.

Crayon Roll

So, there was no way I was staying away from my anniversary sewing machine until my class next weekend. Mr. S and I read the manual and threaded that sucka up. I sewed some really bad lines and then decided to give something useful a try. Enter the crayon roll. I've seen plenty of them on Etsy. Seemed easy enough.

Sewing requires some thinking. How do you need to fold things? Do you sew outside in or inside out? So after a little thinking, I figured it out. And here you have it. It's not perfect by any means. I still need to figure out a few things. Still, I love it. I'm going to toss it in my purse so I have crayons for E anytime we're out. Yay!

All rolled up

Yay, a New Hobby

Guess what!

Our 10 year wedding anniversary is this weekend and we're the "I can't wait to give this to you!" type when it comes to presents so we exchanged a couple days ago. Mr. S got me a sewing machine!

One of my goals for the year is to a.) learn to sew and b.) sew E's receiving blankets into a quilt for his big boy bed (when the time comes... oh, I'm tearing up just thinking about him in a big boy bed.) That might be ambitious to accomplish in 10 months. I don't know. I've sewn before, but it's been a really long time and I never really did it enough to get good at it. It'll be an adventure, that's for sure.

The sewing machine is super fancy and I'm not familiar enough to even thread it so it's sitting in the box until I can redeem my free lessons/tutorial/orientation/whatever... which isn't until the 16th. Eek! I'm so excited to get started. I don't know how I'm going to last until the 16th.

So now, I have a new addiction-- pinning quilts on Pinterest. Wanna follow? Here's my quilt board.

In the meantime, maybe I should make it my goal to finish a scrapbook. For example, E's first year... which is 7 months past due. I don't know though... finishing one project before starting another? That just sounds like crazy talk!

What projects do you have waiting to get started? What long term projects are still waiting to be finished?

Is the sewing machine the traditional 10 year anniversary gift? Maybe the modern version? Haha... yeah, I doubt it.