Keeping My Life Pretty

So I've seen a couple different posts amongst all the blogs I'm collecting, concerning covers for sewing machines. Apparently you're supposed to have them... question mark? They do useful things like keeping dust out of the machinery, and they also look very pretty, if you so desire.
So, using this tutorial, I went ahead and made one! What do you think??

It's reversible; the other side is brown, and instead of bothering with troublesome things like measuring and cutting to make the cover short enough (it's quite tall), I folded the bottom up a couple times to make a cute cuff! So that you can see both fabrics at one time, and admire how well they go together. :)

Also, you might notice what's sitting on the table next to my sewing machine. Those would be bookmarks.

Front

Back

When I got married, my cousins got together and gave me some scrapbooking supplies. Which, to be honest, I don't really... well, scrapbooking just isn't my thing. Sorry, Mom. Anyway, included with those supplies were these really pretty pages of what looked like scrapbook paper, but were actually stickers. AND the awesome patterns were accompanied by coordinating solids. ^_^

So what I did here was take a used-up Barnes and Noble gift card, cut it in half, cut some of my scrapbook stickers down to size, and apply them to the cards! Super easy, and now I have some cute bookmarks!!


I'm linking to these parties:

Sewing Machine Frenzy!!

So I finally worked out my camera issues. Here's the pencil case:

Now, I admit that the photography is not the best. And that I should have made sure you could see the bow when I took the rolled-up picture. But isn't it cute!? I'm so proud of myself!

And then, because I was so excited about the color combo (I bought both of those fabrics on my JoAnn binge, BTW), I made a cute hair clip following this tutorial! I made the flower and then sewed it onto a clippy. I wear it all the time... which I'm beginning to suspect Hotty thinks is a little silly.

I feel so crafty and domestic!


AND I linked to a party on Fireflies and Jellybeans!

How excited? TOO excited!!

Hi guys!! So Christmas was pretty fantastic (can anyone say, "iPod touch"?!) and among all the excellent things I got, Hotty's parents gave me a sewing machine!! Oh em gee, guys!

I went to JoAnn a couple days after Christmas and raided the remnant fabric shelves. I bought a lot of stuff, and at the end of it I was surprised to realize I'd only spent $30! Nice. :)

I picked some colors out and made a fabulous craft. I haven't taken any pictures of it, although it's on my to-do list. But it's super-cute, I promise! I made a pencil case to put in my scripture bag, so I can keep track of my colored pencils at church. It's related to this and this, and pictures are coming! Stay tuned! :)

Domesticity

It's been a while since my last update. I'm bad at blogging, I suppose.

The other day I made some rice bags. I had three things that lent themselves to the project: an unmatched sock, a shirt with only one sleeve, and a couple sewing kits. So I guess it's pretty obvious what happened. I cut the extra sleeve off my t-shirt (the other one got donated to the cleaning rag cause a number of months ago), sewed up one end, filled it with rice, and sewed up the other end. The sock got filled and sewed, as well. They live in the freezer right now, for cold-compress purposes. The great thing about using rice instead of ice is twofold. I don't need to use a towel between the bag and my skin, like I would with a plastic bag of ice, because the bag is made of fabric. And if I need to apply heat, I can throw it in the microwave. Hooray!

We're moving soon. We have an apartment all picked out and ready to be lived in, and we're moving up to it by the end of the month. Right now this translates into trying to tidy our place right now and get rid of as much junk as possible. I know we could do a massive bout of streamlining; it's gathering the energy and stamina to do it that's hard. The other project currently going on is packing. This is my least favorite part of the moving process, but right now it's ok because I have so much time. I feel very lesiurely about it all, although that might change next week. Hotty is really good at packing, though, for which I am OH SO GRATEFUL. I'm A OK with carrying boxes and with unpacking them, and if he can help with the packing process, it will all be just fine.
The boxes aren't even going to be the hard part, though. What's going to be a real beast will be the furniture, including the bed, desk, and (ugh) the piano. Yes, I have a piano. A real, upright, 500-pound piano (I'm actually not sure how heavy it is; the only precision I have is 'very'). I think we might rent a U-Haul for the furniture. :/

Some time in the future comes the decorating of the apartment, which I have to admit to being completely clueless about.

Sew here's what happened...

I was sitting in a coffee shop with my husband and a new friend (of mine... old friend of his) and I looked at the sleeve of my jacket-thing (it has long sleeves, but is short and ends at about where an empire waistline is). There's a hole in the seam, so that it looks like one sleeve has a thumb-hole, where my thumb is supposed to go. Except, I'm always leery about using it as such because I don't want to make the hole worse. And I'm always meaning to sew it up and make it... better. But I had rifled through my purse and found my sewing kit for a reason that currently escapes me... so I decided to fix up my sleeve. It was the most random thing, but there I was in the middle of a coffee shop, sewing on the jacket I was wearing... I'm amazed I didn't stab myself. The other thing I've been intending to do to that jacket is rip the seam on the other side and make a matching hole... I didn't do that last night because a)due to my recent airport visits, I don't have a pocketknife on my keychain anymore... nothing to cut with b)it would have meant sewing on my right sleeve, and I'm right-handed.
It was pretty funny when my new friend finally acknowledged what I was doing verbally. Suddenly she's all, "So... you're sewing your jacket." It was pretty random, I admit. I think it's a good thing, though, to do upon a first acquaintance; it gets her used to my personality. It's a fairly typical thing for me to do, don't you think?