My Craftiness

As promised here are some of the projects that I have been working on lately:



Here is Abbie's dress, I am so pleased with how it turned out. I even made her a pair of bloomers to go with it. I am also planning on making her a headband in the pink fabric to go with it.


Lately I have been thinking more and more about bringing my own bags to the grocery store. It's not necessarily an environmental thing with me, although that is a side effect, it's more that I don't like to waste and it feels so wasteful to use plastic bags. I have a couple of the acme bags from www.reusablebags.com, but they are rather pricey. So, when the dogs recently ripped one of my king sized fitted sheets I decided to recycle it into some cloth shopping bags. I got the pattern from www.morsbags.com and they have been pretty quick to put together.


Lastly this is a project that has been lurking in my sewing room for nearly three years now. Shortly before my son was born a friend gave this cross stitchery to me that she had found in a antique store. It was in a frame that I didn't particularly care for so I took it into my craft room to do "something" to it and it has just sat there ever since. Tonight I was inspired to make it into a quilted wall hanging. I origninally had put another outer border on it and did not like the results so I dug though my stash of 30's fabrics and found this green polka dot that I think is perfect. I don't have anything that I think will work for the binding so I think that tomorrow I'll stop by the quilt store to see what they have, I am thinking either solid green or solid cream.

The Cost of getting better

2 visits to the urgent care $20
1 visit to the lung Dr $10
7 prescriptions $49
5 shifts missed at work $1000

Having a husband that can work from home and help out with the kids... priceless.

I have been sick since August 13th and I just can't seem to shake it. Yesterday I went to the lung Dr. and she thought that I still had an infection in spite of 12 days on 2 different antibiotics and a 6 day course of steroids for my never ending cough. So, I am on a 3rd antibiotic for 14 days now and am on steroids for another 5 days. Thankfully I have good health insurance so those costs have been relatively reasonable, but I don't get sick time at work so that has been quite an impact. Hopefully this latest round of prescriptions will do the trick.

I have been managing to get some crafting done so as soon as I get some pictures taken I'll tell you all about it. Hint: Abbie's dress is done!

Mac and Cheese

I'll admit it, I'm a bit of a food snob and I just can't stomach the thought of feeding my kids mac and cheese from a box. This has made it so that I can't use one of those staples of childhood lunches, until today. Today I remembered an episode of Good Eats where Alton made a stove top mac and cheese that he presented as an alternative to the box ones. Well I have to say it was quick and tasty, I even had noodles left over from last night so the whole thing probably took less than 10 minutes. Now cost wise I have to admit that it was considerably more, probably $3 to $4 in ingredients depending on sales but it made a big batch and tasted good enough for me to want to eat it. Try it out yourself.

A nice day with a couple of friends

Two girlfriends and I got together today to hang out and make the handkerchief dresses that I reviewed here. All three of us made Halloween themed dresses and one of us made a cute Hello Kitty one. I am very pleased with how they turned out and they were super easy to make, especially with a serger. I also got some time to work on Abbie's birthday dress today and all I have left is the hem and the buttonholes.

Christopher Creek Camping Pictures

I have finally gotten a chance to post some pictures from our camping trip a couple of weeks ago.

Here is miss Abbie eating some biscuits that her Nana Jan made.

This is a shot of our trailer.

Alex had a blast playing with his truck and trailer in the dirt, especially the dirt under the picnic table.

Alex with Nana Jan.

Alex and Abbie with Papa Ron.

Happy Birthday Suzy!

My very good friend's birthday was back on the 2nd of August and like many quilters I did not have her present finished. When I finally finished her present I ended up very sick for over a week so the present didn't get mailed until Tuesday of this week. So, Happy Birthday Suzy you should have your present by now! Here is a picture of the patriotic angel wallhanging that I made for her (her middle name is Angel and she likes the 4th of July)

Abbie's Dress

I have spent the last two afternoons while the kids are napping working on the dress for Abbie's 1st birthday party. The dress is a size 1 and I think that it will be okay for her birthday party but it is pretty big and should fit her for quite a while. Not a problem for me since there is quite a bit of work going into it. I originally planned on making the whole dress in the floral fabric but Joe convinced me to use the pink for the yoke and waistband and I think that it was a wise choice. I think that I will also make a pair of bloomers out of the pink fabric.