One minute you are making the bed...

On Tuesday, I was changing the sheets on the bed.  I lifted up the corner of our king size mattress, twisted to tuck the fitted sheet in, heard a pop, and almost dropped to my knees in pain. I have had horrible back pain ever since.  I'll spare you all the details of my very sad story and my quest for relief, just suffice it to say I'm barely feeling recovered today.  I've thrown in the towel and got a prescription for some pretty strong drugs and I'm hoping that I will feel better after a weekend of resting. 

So, if you need me, you can find me here:

I always knew housework was hazardous to my health...

Halloween Decorating

I worked on a few little bits to add to my Halloween Decor this past weekend.  For someone who hates Halloween, I sure seem to do a lot of projects for it!  It helps that I bought some fabulous Japanese Halloween fabric this year.  Nothing like fabric to inspire.  Remember the trick or treat bag I made my daughter?  Well, I had the smallest scraps leftover and just couldn't bring myself to throw them away, so I created a patchwork pillow cover with them.  (I love to make removable covers for the holidays-it's a lot easier to fold up the covers and store them rather than try to find a home for a whole pillow.)  I'm very proud of the way the pillow turned out.  I think it just might be my best patchwork job yet.  Practice really does make perfect.

In addition to the pillow, I created a little wall art.  I saw this project in the book,  Matthew Mead: Halloween and have been meaning to try it out for years.  I finally did it and I love the way it looks.  I'm glad I store my seasonal books and old magazines in with my seasonal decor.  That way, when I pull out my decorations at the beginning of the season, I take some time to flip through the old issues and decide if there is anything I want to try for the year.  If I don't do that, they just sit on a shelf or in a box somewhere and I completely forget about the projects I meant to try, but ran out of time to do the previous year.  I sometimes imagine that one day, 20 years from now, my daughter will pull out those old books and magazines and get a a good laugh about all the "retro" decorating ideas.  Who knows?  Maybe she'll even get inspired too.

*A note about yesterday's post.  Dupont left a comment in response to my comment about my fear of Teflon.  In the interest of being fair and sharing all sides of the story, I thought I would recommend that you visit yesterday's post and click on the informational link they left in the comment section.  I think it's our responsibility as bloggers to be fair.  Thanks for sharing the link Ross!

When it rains, it pours

We've been having very wet weather here in Southern California and, if you know anything about us, you know that the state practically shuts down if it drizzles.  We forget how to drive in the rain, we avoid going out.  I think we are part cat-terrified of getting wet.  I'm as guilty as everyone else and found that I can't even blog when it's raining.  My excuse?  It's too dark to take good photos.  But if this past week is any indication of how our winter is going to go, I think I'll need to build a light box soon!

As I hid from the weather, only going to out to buy food and pick up my daughter from school, what do you think I did with all my time indoors?  Cleaned the house?  Heck no!  I baked comfort food and sewed my little heart out.  I have tons to show you, as soon as I can take decent photos (ahem).  The good news is, the sun was a out a bit yesterday and I managed to get some photos of the Pineapple Upside Down Cake I made.

Pineapple Upside Down Cake is one of those treats that you forget about.  You don't see it often, but then you have it and you wonder why you don't make it everyday.  So good and sweet and comforting.  Mine slid right out of my well-seasoned cast iron skillet and I think it looks pretty professional.  My husband and I are always amazed by how smooth the inside of our cast iron pans have become.  I think they are more nonstick than any Teflon pan we own and I somehow feel better about not cooking on some sort of chemically treated pan.

While the cake was baking, I worked on the fabric garland I'm making to adorn my table at the craft fairs I'm vending at. It came out darling and I was able to use a good chunk of my fabric scraps up.  I'm always surprised when I do projects that tell you to use your fabric scraps, with no thought of matching.  Yet the project always ends up looking great.  Is it because I lean towards certain color palettes and designs, so my scraps match on some level?  I don't know, but it I like the magic it creates.  I'm thinking of making more garland to sew, but I'm wondering if people outside the craft world really "get" garlands.  It's a time consuming project, with lots of hand sewing involved, so I'm wondering if I should make more or not.  What do you think? 

That's my rainy day ramble.  What are you up to?

Mermaid Quilt

I'm making a small quilt to donate to Charity Wing's Seaside Soiree silent auction.  Oh how I love Heather Ross's mermaid fabric.  And the color orange.  And aqua polka dots just make me smile.  It will be the perfect size to fit a crib in a beach themed nursery or maybe to sit on at the beach, alone, and contemplate the ocean and wonder if mermaids are real.

In between the tailgate party I'm throwing before my daughter's soccer game and taking my grandmother to Sunday brunch, I'll be quilting away.  I'll show you the finished work before I ship it off to be auctioned.  (Which is going to be hard because I love it so.)  The good news is, I have some scraps leftover and last night I dreamed of placemats made out of the fabric, with white plates and sea shells place carefully on top of the napkins.  Am the only girl who dreams of table settings?

Toymaker

I want to make toys.  I want to have a studio filled with darling stuffed creations.  Dolls, bears, lambs.  I want to have a table at a craft fair covered in baskets full of toys that make children squeal with delight.

But, as a self-taught sewer, I'm constantly stuggling with creating three dimensional fabric projects.  Seams don't match-up.  Stuffing spills out.  Eyes look crossed.  And another doll goes into what I lovingly call the "Frankenstein Pile".  Once I've created the hideous creatures, I can't bring myself to throw them away.  It's as if I've brought them to life and now I'm responsible for caring for them. 

The funny thing is, as hard as I am on myself about my Frankenstein Pile, my daughter regularly comes into my studio and stands before it and looks longingly at it.  She wants to adopt each and everyone.  She thinks they are cute.  To me they are record of my failure.  To her, they are beautiful.

So, as long as she sees a glimmer of cuteness in my creations, I'm going to keep trying to become the toymaker I dream to be.  My latest obsession is to create a fabric doll.  In my first try, the head was uneven and weird and I thought she needed to rounder.  My second creation was definately "rounder" but she lost her personality when I took the edges off.  I'll try again in a few days, but in the meantime, I know these two aren't ever going to make it to the Frankenstein pile.

Embroidery Bee

I've been working away all weekend, getting ready for my Embroidery Bee.  If you are local, I'd love it if you would join me on this Thursday night (10/14) from 7-9pm at the Neighborhood Cup.  I'll be teaching a couple of basic embroidery stitches, going over pattern transfer methods and sharing an original sampler pattern.  I'm working away on my version of the sampler now.  It's a "tea" themed sampler.  Admission gets you the sampler for free.  I'll also be loading the sampler to my Etsy shop, so if you aren't local, you can still get one!

Although I'm fine with people bringing their own supplies, I decided to put some kits together too.  The kits have everything you will need to work on the sampler.  Including:

• An embroidery hoop
• An embroidery needle
• Some embroidery floss in a variety of colors
• An iron-on transfer pencil
• A piece of linen
• A bonus sampler pattern
• And lots of extra bits & bobs including, eyelet lace, fabric scraps, buttons, flowers

I only have a limited number of kits, so if you are planning on attending, you might want to pre-order yours here.  I'll reserve one for you and bring it to you on Thursday night.  Hope to see you there!

Another blog hop is coming!

I'm pleased to announce that I'll be taking part in another one of Sizzix's blog hops!  This one is the biggest yet and it's got a long list of fantastic designers participating.  For a sneak peek of the list of designers click here.  You are going to find more inspiration than you could imagine!  The hop begins November 4, but don't worry!  I'll remind you when the time comes.  In the meantime, maybe you would like to check-out some of the project I did for the last two blog hops?



Bakery Memo Holder

Read about it here.



Tea Cup Party Favor

Read about it here.



Moulin Rouge Theater Box

Read about it here.

Learning

Last year, my husband bought me a new camera.  I wanted to graduate from a point & shoot and asked for a "big girl camera".  My husband must have thought I was a better photographer than I am, because he bought me a REALLY BIG GIRL camera.  A Nikon D5000.  It was way more camera than I was ready for and I felt overwhelmed.  I found myself secretly taking photos with my point & shoot because I was so afraid of the new camera.  And I felt really guilty about it.  I knew my husband wanted me to have the best and had spent a pretty penny and I wasn't even using it.  I also knew that I was being lazy.  I didn't want to leave the safety of my old camera.  The one I know how everything worked.  To be honest, I was lazy and the HUGE User Manual seemed too heavy to pick-up, let alone read.

So last month, I signed-up for a class that teaches you how to use your camera.  Not a photography class, but a class where you drag your camera and your enormous manual to the class and the teacher shows you the ropes.  Tells you what all those symbols mean, explains white balance and aperture and shutter speeds.  It was fantastic and I learned so much.  When I was using my new camera, I was only using it on the Automatic mode and felt that the photos were coming out worse than when I used my point & shoot. Now that I understand how to use my camera, I can really see the difference in the quality.  But, more importantly, I can't tell you how energizing it was to push myself beyond my limits.  As a stay at home mom, it's easy to go on auto pilot, to not learn anything new.  Taking this class reminded me how much better  feel when I'm using my brain.  And I have a lot of opportunities to use it now.  After all, I need to practice everything I learned about using my camera.  It's going to take awhile for all of it to become second nature to me. 

The photos in this post are an examples of using the white balance feature of my camera and playing with my aperture settings.  I can tell it what kind of light I'm in, florescent? sun? shade? and it will balance the color for me!  Do I sound like an idiot because I didn't know that?  Maybe.  But for anyone else in the dark with me, I hope it helps you too!

If you want to learn how to use your camera, and can't take a local class, check-out YouTube.  Just search the site,using your camera's make and model.  There are tons of great videos out there that can help you!