So I’ve been gone for a while….

and technically I’m still gone but have limited access to a computer with internet!

In case you’ve missed me, here’s what I have been up to in the last 2 months its only been two months?!?!? feels like forever! I quit my day job and had to give up my cellular lifeline to the outside world because I couldn’t afford it and then got desperate and found a job in retail so I could at least buy my kid some Christmas presents and now I am working two jobs making less than I was in one but am still happier than I was in the last four years being there….. in a nutshell.

But things are good! I am a survivor but not in the Beyoncé sense because she’s loaded and I am SO not! and we are making it work with what we’ve got.

I haven’t really crafted in a while. I made some fantastic blankets for Christmas presents but sadly I don’t have any pictures to share right now. I will try to get them up soon although I am not sure how soon that will be and since then I haven’t even wanted to touch my sewing machine until now. Its been staring at me from the corner of the room reminding me that with all my free time I should be making stuff. Lots of stuff! and its true, I should be.

I could really get used to this barely working for a living but I need to find a way to get back all the things the money paid for…..and I will eventually. And when I get back there will be a stockpile of pictures and stories to share because I’ve really missed doing this as well I include it in all things that keep me relatively sane but I don’t have time for a long winded post unfortunately because today I have to be a taxi before I go sell questionably made clothing to unsuspecting people!

I’ve got the corner market on crude and rudimentary.

Today is the boy’s sharing day in JK. This month they are sharing favourite nursery rhymes and are to recite their personal favourites to the class. Sounds very cute except that there is no way my son’s limited vocabulary and pronunciation will ever allow that to happen. The note he brought home mentioned the kids could bring props……so I made him one.

The itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout….

Down came the rain and washed the spider out….

Out came the sun and dried up all the rain….

So the itsy bitsy spider climbed up the spout again….

Lest We Forget.

After hearing that the teachers were not handing out poppies to the students today, a fact I can’t confirm, I was doubly proud that my son would be wearing this one.

Cut out of a piece of red and black fabric and sewn to his shirt, it took a total of five minutes to make and is worth a thousand words.

When he asked why he was wearing it, I told him it was a special way to remember his “big poppa” (his great grandpa) on this day and he smiled as he thought of him.

As he gets older, and can understand more, he will be taught the significance of Remembrance Day and hopefully gain appreciation for the symbol we wear with pride.

Update: I was pleased to see they gave the kids poppy stickers to wear today so the boy ended up with two poppies on his shirt.

Blood, sweatshop and tears.

The twins were turning one! Originally I was going to make two completely different blankets but I just ran out of time. Mostly because I have a major procrastination problem and at the time a bit of creative block. And while I liked the final outcome I feel like I rushed it and therefore I didn’t do as good a job as I could have.

Also, I have hardly any pictures of the process because I killed my previous phone. Drowned it actually, and all the pictures with it. It was a sad time. I did post a picture or two here before I took my phone for a swim but it hardly shows much.

At one point my bff Michelle said we should spend a crafty day together and I was all hells yeah! She may be regretting that now because I made her work like I owned sweatshop. We spent a feverish five hours working on this thing, her pining seams and ripping out the ones that couldn’t be persuaded to line up, me sewing them all back together. Her ironing. Me sewing. It was madness!! And then it was done! well the top anyhow.

I like to make my quilt sandwiches on the floor because it is the biggest area of free space that I can lay out the whole thing. And since my mother (lives right next door, is a better housekeeper, can be coerced into helping and until recently didn’t have a dog walking all over her house) has a really nice big floor space I tend to go there for the sandwiching process. There was more ironing and then taping and ironing and arranging and arranging and finally, pinning. We had at least 150 pins in it and needed more! Except I didn’t have any more note to self: you still need to buy more pins! and then it was time to bring M back to the train station so I was on my own for the quilting.

I made it about halfway when I knew there was no way I could ever finish it, and make an entire new quilt in the next 12 hours. I had failed the deadline miserably. So I stepped back, spread the quilt out and looked at it. Then I did some measurements and realized that I could cut it completely in half and finish at least the quilting on each. and then both girls would have a present, finished or not!

After finally completing the binding I was in such a hurry to get them delivered I forgot to take pictures! (major facepalm!) but I knew where they were going and it gave me an excuse to go visit the girlies at the same time.

So here they are, sort of, the end results of my (and M’s) blood, sweat, tears and time:

His name was Man.

short for Manford. But he had about fifty nicknames.

He was just six months old when he came to live with us and he fit right in. He followed me EVERYWHERE like a little shadow and when I sat down he would be as close as possible without actually sitting on me.

He was the only dog with actual permission to sleep on the bed and not once did he chose to sleep elsewhere. Nor did we ever displace him, despite the snoring.

I miss you terribly my little snuggle-pug, this house just won’t be the same without you.

Tote-ally easy!

I made this cute little tote bag “on the fly”. I didn’t have a pattern but I had just made myself an Osoberry bag so I had a premise to follow. I believe I wrote down all the lengths of my fabric cuts somewhere but do you think I could find them now that I’ve finally gotten around to posting this? No. I’m sure they will surface as soon as I press the publish button.

I used the same main fabric on the inside and outside. So it essentially looks the same inside and out which makes it tote-ally reversible! Not that it wouldn’t be reversible with differing fabrics I just really like these stripes!

Also, my main fabric used to be a pillowcase! Which was the perfect amount of fabric for this experiment!

Mama’s bag got revised. Again.

Yes, again.

There was a serious flaw in my strap design which coincidentally I had foreseen but hoped wouldn’t happen. Sadly, the only way to fix the problem was to take it apart and try a different approach.

This time, the fabric store had the materials and I was able to get the proper size rings. I got rid of the adjustable aspect and made the strap solid, attaching to the square rings on either side.

I like this strap version best of all and am definitely not changing it again! In fact, I may make more bags with a strap like this!

(notice the derby love? GO DISLOYALISTS!)

Mama’s got a brand new bag!

Actually two bags! but I’ll post the other one later. Once I had the first one done having followed a pattern I wanted to see if I could do it “on the fly”.

I could. It was awesome.

Lets get back to topic… The desire for a new purse plus my impending lack of funds left me with a conundrum. Luckily I have a cabinet full of problem solving materials. And a friend who posts very helpful (and perfect) tutorial links!

This is my brand new bag.

As mentioned I followed a tutorial. This is an Osoberry Bag. And this is the tutorial I followed (pictures are excellent and VERY helpful for those of us that are visual learners). Here’s the link.

So as with everything I make I find something I want to change afterwards. With this it happened to be the strap. This was the original strap, all one piece and I probably just made it a bit too long so it had to be “fixed”.

I had a devil of a time finding these pieces because my local fabric store had just had a 50% off EVERYTHING and I was oblivious to it.

I made it adjustable and I’m liking the outcome. A lot.

My main fabric was a piece of Freebird by Momo that I’ve had kicking around for ages just waiting for the perfect project and the rest were large scraps of solids. I can see the buckle driving me nuts because it was a wee bit to big for the project so I am sure I will change it again at some point!

I officially have a kindergarten kid.

And he does it with style…

I’m not going to cry…

I’m not going to cry…

Okay, I may have cried a little on the inside…

But on the outside I am very happy my boy had such a good first day of school!

Paddington Bear makes a blanket.

Materials gathered….

Fabric taped to the floor and pins ready…

Helper…

Tied…

Machine sew on the edging…

Finished by hand (or paw)….

Finished!

Paddington made a blanket (with a little help from me)