Thursday, July 16, 2009

Comments

I just changed the setting for comments to include all users. You should not need a google account! Try it out and see if it works.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Sigh of Relief

I don't want to give too much away. But for those of you who are aware that my brother is getting married, you may have heard that "Jazz Era attire is encouraged"! And so the projects began! I decided to make my boy a newsboy outfit. I made the pants too long and was debating cutting the band off the bottom and starting over. I was doing a little show and tell for my husband who came up with the ingenious idea to just fold the cuff over! It's a good thing I have this guy around because that right there just saved me a whole lot of time. And sew - newsboy pants are almost done. A few buttons and button holes and I'm calling it quits. But for all you curious folks out there, here's a little sneak peak. You'll have to wait to see them in person at the wedding or for me to post pictures after the wedding. But don't worry - that's only 1 WEEK from tomorrow!! Moving on - I decided to take on yet another project that had a pre-wedding deadline. This one was to solve the problem of what I am to wear to the wedding. My mom brought be this beautiful art-deco-y dress that was completely sheer. And well, I don't wear sheer to a wedding, or anywhere else for that matter. So I needed to make something to wear underneath. So a quick trip to Jo-Anns yielded some charcoal gray fabric that was perfect. Next problem was I had no pattern. I'm not very fond of working without instructions. But I have to say that I impressed myself this time. I used a slip that I had as a guide and matched the straps to that of the dress. I'm not going to say this is the best sewing job I've even done, but come on - it's being worn under another dress, so it will do. The fabric I got was seriously immune to ironing, which made it a major pain. But my serger pulled through for me, making it just a little easier and cleaner. Again, I'm only giving a sneak peak. You'll have to wait another week for the whole thing! Goodnight!

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Garden Bounty

Just had to share what I picked out of our garden today. Wyatt and I ate the raspberries and strawberries before I could even think of taking a picture but here are some beets: My parents were kind enough to bring us some goodies from their CSA, which included a large bunch of basil. I decided that instead of letting in rot in my fridge (since there is no way we'd eat that much basil alone) I'd make some pesto. And so I did. It turned out really good and I made enough to freeze and save for later. I looked into canning it but it's not recommended. Excuse the horrible picture. YUM!

Photoshop

I did a little editing of some of my most recent favorite pictures of Wyatt and came up with these: Which then turned into this "window" art for my new desk. I've got some freshly painted frames drying at the moment that I plan to transform into some sort of picture/ pin board for the wall. I'll share when they are done.

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Treasure Hunting

For those of you who don't know - I love garage sale finds. I love to get up on Friday mornings and scout out my route of garage sales and then hit the road early so I can find the best stuff. But even better than garage sales are estate sales. On Friday I found an estate sale that was a total score. It was a huge house and huge woodshop that had lots of treasures. I found this desk that I was super excited about. It was really big though and I needed to 1) measure my room and 2) get my hubby's approval (since I would afterall need his help!). So I did and we went back on Saturday morning to find some guy loading MY desk into the back of his truck. I was so sad. This desk was awesome. I was told that it was an old reference desk at the LA Library! It was 6 feet long and nearly 40" wide and PERFECT for sewing projects. But *sigh* I guess it wasn't meant to be. So anyway we started looking around and there were quite a few other desks, or rather drafting tables. We spent a lot of time in the shop (where my husband oggled all the tools) and in the back corner I found a drafting table that although dirty, was in much better shape than all the other ones I had seen. So I brought it home. It is HUGE! It spans and entire wall in my craft room but will be even more PERFECT for sewing projects because it is tall. Therefore I don't have to bend over anymore to cut! Yipee! An added bonus is that Wyatt isn't yet tall enough to reach anything up here. I'm barely tall enough for that matter. We cleaned it up and took some old english to the top and I am loving it! But back to the estate sale. The drafting table was not the only treasure of the day. I swear I think my husband enjoyed it more than me. I don't think he'd admit to that but really - I had to drag him home and Saturday night he was still talking about some of the things he wished he would have gotten. It's a good thing we only had a little cash! Dennis scored some tools and jars and canisters and cans and boxes FULL of findings like nails and screws and nuts and bolts... So today in honor of his Estate Sale treasures he cleans out his shed. (Maybe I should take him to Estate Sales more often - I've been trying to get him to do that FOREVER!) I leave you now with a picture of my new desk:

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Changes

After much fussing this morning I finally figured out how to change a few things on my blog. What do you think of my "new look"?

Oh Deer!

The deer were at it again. I had some beautiful, lush green beans that were doing so great and yesterday I caught a buck mid-afternoon just munching away at them. I'm so disappointed. I had so much in store for those beans. sigh. Hopefully I'll still have a few beans despite their sorry looking shape. See for yourself: On a lighter note, the deer didn't touch my bed full of carrots and beets that is currently doing beautifully! And my dahlia's are blooming and are so pretty. Fresh cut dahlias are one of my favorite things and it makes me happy to have them in the house. Other flowers that just started blooming are hydrangeas and cornflowers. My flower garden is looking quite lovely now!

Thursday, July 2, 2009

A bowl of cherries

Our neighbor was kind enough to share his cherries with us. So Wyatt and I went over and picked a couple of buckets full. Besides just eating as they are, I 'm wondering what else we should do with them??

chickies out, chickies out mommmmmmmmmy!

All day yesterday Wyatt repeated this: chickies out, chickies out mommy! So finally when we got home, we let the baby chicks out and Wyatt had a blast chasing them around.