greetingarts

make time for lunch

Last weekend we went to a 5-year-old's backyard bounce-house/double piñata birthday extravaganza.  We brought our own lunch.

The real gift was the Mimi the Sardine ladybug lunch bag, but that seemed kind of boring for a five year old, so I included a bag of felt chips and a felty sandwich (scroll down a bit and look in the sidebar on the right) with bologna, cheese, tomatoes and lettuce.

Everything came straight from my stash.  Yup, I didn't have to purchase a dang thing.  All the felt for the pink bologna, the yellow cheese, white bread, crust, light green lettuce, red tomatoes... all purchased on sale years ago and added to the stash.  The perle cotton I used for the embroidery, the batting, all of it was from stuff I had on hand.  Kind of cool, kind of scary the size of my stash, huh?

The lettuce is genius, and I love how the whole sandwich is life-sized, fitting perfectly into a Hello Kitty sandwich bag.

 
It was a big hit, with the adults and kids alike.  Thanks so much to generous bloggers out there, who give my gift-giving that extra flair.  I've had tutorials to share with you all inside my brain, but no time to blog or photograph them.  Some have been brewing for over a year, but who knows when I'll finally (if ever) get around to writing them up?  After the next holiday, the next event, the next vacation.  But things always get in the way.  Other obligations come up, things with deadlines.  So the creative stuff just gets pushed further and further back.  Most days I wish I didn't have to go to sleep, so I could get more done.

I already know that this week is going to be crazy, too; I'm in charge of the Book Fair at the elementary school running all week long.  I'll be there from 8 until 3, and Thursday is Open House.  Crazy busy, but I'm trying to savor every minute.  Jessie graduates from preschool this June, and next year will be in Kindergarten while Rebecca enters the 3rd grade.  It stuns me.  I remember the third grade, vividly.  And now my *daughter* is almost there.  I'm trying to take it all one day at a time, and enjoy the moment we're in, and breathe in and out, and hold on to it, tightly.

bunny bucket

I should have posted this like two weeks ago, but whatever, I haven't got the foggiest idea how today is my mom's birthday (Happy Birthday, Mom!) and last week was like Valentine's Day, right?  And tomorrow it will be Easter?

So here's a seasonal project, done on time!  I was lucky enough to test the Bunny Bucket pattern for Australian designer Helen Stubbings, whose embroidery designs I have long admired.  My photos are horribly washed out (it was too sunny!) but the colors are really rich and bright and I had a great time stitching the bunnies, flowers and dragonflies.  Embroidery is so soothing and magical for me.  I had a lot of success with my satin stitches this time, too, miracle of miracles.  I usually struggle with them so much, but this time it was simple and relaxing.  See the dragonflies?

 
The frill around the top of the bucket makes it nice and girly, and while my girls requested colorful embroidery, the original design is stitched in one color and uses a faux applique method described in the pattern.   For my embroidery fabric, I chose a batik leftover I had and the lining, frill and handle are lime green with tiny gold dots.  There's a circle of plastic in the bottom (from the lid of an old ice-cream container that was holding Legos) for stability, and the embroidery was done in a single strand of DMC Pearl Cotton #8.

 
For a while I was stumped because I didn't have any boning to use for the handle, and I knew cardboard would be too flimsy, but can you guess what I finally figured out to put inside my turned-out tube?

Good excuse to eat up all those Mini Lemon Bites.  I just cut a strip from the side of the container, and it worked like a charm.  The sewing machine needle went through the plastic with no problem.  Do you think a double thickness of two layers would be pushing it?

And here's the real reason (aside from the fact that I'm just not a very good photographer)that I don't have very good photos of the Bunny Bucket.  We went to pick up Rebecca from school a few minutes earlier than usual so I could use the grass in front of the main building to pose my bucket, but Jessie really only wanted me to take photos of her with Puppy.  I should have just let her put Puppy in the Bunny Bucket, but I didn't think of it until just now.

shamrock dreams

I've always been a holiday person, loved making a big deal out of them and birthdays.  St. Patrick's Day has never really been a biggie for me (I'm probably as far removed from Irish as you can get!) but with kiddos, I try to make it all special.

 
I made these pillowcases with JoAnn flannel (bought for 99 cents a yard last year) and other stash fabrics.  I'd wanted to make them unique with different gold bands on each one, but why increase the need for bickering?  There are so many pillowcase tutorials out there, but for this one I used the free pattern from Esther's Fabrics because of the French seams and no raw edges.  And if Kathy recommends a pattern, well, that's good enough for me.  Next time I think I'm going to try a different method of construction, just because I think it would be so fun to turn the tube right side out.

 
To anyone who hasn't made one, a gentle warning... pillowcases are fun and addictive.  The hardest part is choosing and cutting out the fabric, really (does anyone else hate cutting lengths past the measurements of your ruler, or is it just me?).  An extra pair is going to the Pillowcase Challenge, and these are staying with us.  The girls were beyond appreciative and excited, and are already requesting bunnies and eggs for next month.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

my favorite sewing tip - turn that tube

Sorry I haven't been around lately, I think this is the longest I've gone without posting ever since I started this blog a little more than four years ago (yep, I missed my bloggiversary).  I've been crafting up a storm, sewing, embroidering and knitting, but it's all been testing patterns for designers so no pictures yet until they give me the go ahead.

But while testing the sewing pattern, I had a 2" x 50" tube that needed to be turned right side out.  And after the requisite swearing, trying various sized crochet hooks, and searching in vain for a safety pin, I finally found a quick and easy method to turn that loop.  With a tool I have plenty of, readily available.  If you have early elementary school-age kids, chances are you have them laying around all over the place, too.

 
Take your sewn skinny tube and start turning the edge right side out.  Using your pinky or whatever, you can usually get about two inches turned before the cursing starts.

 
Now, grab your pencil, preferably with a new, pristine, unused eraser.

Insert the eraser end into the tube, and hold onto the layer of fabric that is already right side out.  Using the friction between the eraser and fabric to your advantage, put gentle pressure downwards and ease the pencil back out.  Since I'm right handed, I'm holding onto the fabric tube with my left hand, and pulling the pencil out towards the right.

 
 See what happens?  I easily turned this loop in under a minute.

Here's another photo (different pencil, same tube - don't use a mechanical pencil, duh!)where I think you can tell I'm pressing down while I'm easing the pencil out.

Hope this made some sort of sense, I'm afraid my photos made more sense to me as I was doing it than it does now that I have them all laid out.  If you're ever in a bind though, give this a try, it worked like a charm.

Edited on 5/2/2010 to add: Check out this post on Sew, Mama, Sew! for more great sewing tips.

toothpicks & marshmallows

When Jessie and I went to pick up Rebecca from school the other day, she appeared holding a baggie full of miniature marshmallows and a fistful of toothpicks.  Jessie squealed, with visions of hot chocolate and blissful munching.  I asked Rebecca where she got them, and she said the class had them but she got to take them home because no one else wanted to.  Hmmm.  That seemed strange, a class full of sugar-crazed 7 and 8 year olds not wanting miniature marshmallows?  As Jessie was about to pop one in her mouth, I figured out that they had been used by the entire 2nd grade class to make geometric shapes...  To my ears, that meant touched by 24 germy, possibly flu-carrying hands.

 
Needless to say, there was no hot chocolate, and no munching allowed.  But Jessie had fun anyway, creating and playing, with The Marshmallow Incident (written and illustrated by the same team who did Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs) lying open on the table.  She constructed for nearly an hour, while Rebecca did homework.  Who knew half a baggie of marshmallows and a fistful of toothpicks would be so entertaining?

And yes, as she was in the bathroom washing her hands, I was wiping down the dining room table with an antibacterial wipe.