Widening Blog Columns

It appears that I've inspired a few of you to give your own blog a face lift, so I wanted to share one more thing that I thought might be helpful. You might not have encountered this, but I have been annoyed on countless occasions of my main column being too narrow. I have typically noticed this with pictures were getting cut off on the sides. I could never figure out how to make it wider, however I knew it must have been fairly simple because I've seen others blogger blogs have wider columns. Well I finally found a helpful post after doing a little Google search. So if you'd like wider columns, visit this helpful blog post by John Deere Mom.

Now I'm off to have myself a little snack and go visit my friend who just had her seventh baby this morning! I can hardly wait to meet Miss Lucie Lynn and hope it doesn't make my uterus ache too bad for another one. I embroidered a few special things for her.

One more thing while I'm on the subject of babies. In one of the blogs I follow, I read this past week about a family who just had a baby that could use your prayers. Click on the link below to learn about this sweet baby. She's improving, but every prayer helps.

Have a great Sunday!

Face Lift (again)

Thank you for the feedback. I know I only posted a short bit ago, but I was worried it was too bright with the pinks & greens, so I changed it to a b&w theme. I hadn't thought of it clashing with pictures I might post, duh!

Not sure I'll keep my header, but for now it works. I need to get something productive done besides playing on the computer. If you see anything that looks funny, please let me know.

Face Lift

I have hated the look of my blog for a long time. I see so many other pretty blogs and feel like mine is "ho hum".

I went surfing around the net and found a site with lots of free backgrounds to choose from ~ The Cutest Blog on the Block. There are lots of cute ones and so I played around with it until I came up with something that I liked fairly well.

Now I need some honest feedback. Looking at it on my laptop it looks good, but when I look at it on our desktop it doesn't look quite as good. I think my laptop colors are off so I need to know what you all see. Does it match or clash? Please tell me, I swear it won't hurt my feelings. I know it's pretty girly girl, but I am after all, a girly girl so pink and such suits me quite well. So pretty please, tell me if it clashes or not. *smooch*

P.S. Thank you for all the sweet comments about my daughter - she really can't wipe the smile off her face. :-)

All smiles (or what $5000 will buy you)

Today was an exciting day at our house that has been nearly 2 years in the making. Our beautiful daughter got her braces off!!!!

And thank you Dr. *C* for your wonderful work. Unfortunately (for our checkbook anyway), I think we'll have at least one more kiddo in braces - ugg!

Kreativ Blogger

The ever sweet and talented Jeannine of Sew Pink nominated me for the Kreativ Blogger Award. Thank you Jeannine! If you haven't visited Jeannine's blog, you must! She makes the most beautiful children's clothing and always posts lots of inspirational pictures to get your creative juices flowing.

Here are the rules of the award~ 1. Copy the award to your site - 2. Link to the person from whom you received the award - 3. Nominate 7 other bloggers - 4. Link to those on your blog - 5. Leave a message on the blogs you nominated.

So I'd like to nominate (ABC order of course):

Angie at Quality Time

Birgitte at Bubblegum 4 Breakfast

Dawn at Two On Two Off

Lori at Girls in the Garden

Jacqui at Sweet Notions

Ruth at Sew Chic

Stacy at Stacy Sews

The rule was to pick 7, but like Jeannine, it was hard to narrow it down.

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In my previous post about my embroidered patches, I was asked which embroidery machine I have. About 4 years ago I purchased a Babylock Ellure-ESL (click to see larger pic). I think it's the prior model to the Ellure that is current available, but maybe a few have been released since I purchased mine.

It is a combo sewing and embroidery machine, I use it for embroidery only tho. I embroiders up to a 5x7 size and I find it perfect for my needs. I really thought I'd get into embroidery more, but I really haven't. I also use it to embroider the bloomers I sell (P.S. these make a great gift!).

I was also asked if I hoop or stick down the jeans and applique the patch directly on the the jeans or embroider the patch and sew it on the regular way. This probably makes the professional embroider cringe, but what I usually do is use spray adhesive and pins to hoop my item. In this case, I used two layers of cut away stabilizer in my hoop, ironed a fusible stabilizer to the back side of the knee area, sprayed some spray adhesive on the hooped stabilizer, and stuck the pant leg to that. Then for extra security I pinned it down to make sure it didn't move. Since the designs I used were more dense, I used multiple layers of stabilizer to help keep the design from distorting. I hope that makes sense. Everything was done on the embroidery machine with the exception of sewing the leg closed.

Thank you all for your positive feedback about my fix. It works for now and they love what I did, so that is a good thing in my book. :-)

*hole* lotta fixing

Do your kids (in my home read BOYS) come home with jeans looking like this? Mine do and it happen in a matter of a few short weeks. Note the pants on the right were purchased only a few weeks ago!!!

So what's a mom to do short of buying jeans every month and burning a hole in her clothing budget? Well fix them of course! Yes, I do make the boys' jeans myself and those seem to hold up better, but sometimes I just don't have enough time or find them for under $10 and buy them at the store.

Here are the fruits of my labor. I used my computer program for my embroidery machine and imported a design. Then to make it into a patch, I put an applique shape around it. It was super easy to do. And so I didn't have to unhem the jeans, I removed the inseam or outseam (depending on which seam wasn't double top stitched) from about 1" above the hem to close to the crotch and spread it open so it was flat. Sorry I forgot to take a picture of this step. Then I stitched out the design and sewed things back closed. My boys were beyond thrilled and thought they looked so cool - yay Mom!

I have a HUGE train fan. Anything trains he loves and he adores the Santa Fe diesel. I was snooping around the net and found this little gem for FREE at Ann The Gran ~ just search trains after you log in and you'll see it.

For my middle son I made a dog patch from Embroidables (link opens to the design - not free tho).

Up close and thank you blogger for not turning it the correct way - grr!

And lastly a fire hydrant from Designs By Juju (link opens to the set). This one isn't my favorite one, I mostly don't like the light gray I used. It's a good design, it's just my color choices I don't care for.

The base of each patch is the reverse side of denim. While weeding out the boys' play clothes of what fits whom, I found a few pairs of pants that looked really bad so I just cut them off to make them into shorts. Apparently I'm a little strange because I thought I should save the lower legs of the jeans in case I need a little denim for something. Viola, patches for pants! I figured denim as the base would be more durable than any other fabric I had and I used the back side as a design element.


Now go patch some jeans already!

Selling Hand Crafted Goods

Times are tight and we're all feeling the pinch. Do you sell your hand crafted items or crafting supplies on Etsy or FeeBay (um, I mean eBay)? Then you must check out this new site where it's absolutely free to sell things! It's called Art Fire. Listing up to 10 things per month is free (no listing or closing fees) and if you list more than 10 items, it's a flat $7/month. Sounds great doesn't it? Let's help them take off by supporting this new business. If you sign up, I'd love for you to use me as a referral, here is my link if you're so inclined (my user name is poshpunkins if you need that too)~

Register on ArtFire.com

Not much else going on. I've lost a little sewing mojo and am looking everywhere for it. I'm confident it will return soon. Instead I've been working on the painting and just doing the norm around my house. I still have to paint the stair well, maybe this week.

I did manage to machine embroider a quilt block for the official Pattern Review quilt. Here is what I am sending. Not too exciting, but hey it's something.

Hopefully I can find my sewing mojo somewhere around here....

Falling out of love

It happens to all of us right? We truly love something and then our feelings change. This feeling has been coming on for a while for me. I'm falling out of love with my house.

When we first moved in, I honestly couldn't think anything in the world could be finer. It was a dream come true for us. We were able to get a building loan and built a house just for us. At the time we'd have loved to gone a little fancier, but like most young families, we had a beer budget and were just thankful we had the opportunity to build something to call our own.

Now we're approaching our 8th anniversary of living here and our taste definitely leans towards champagne. Hubby and I have all sorts of ideas of things we'd like to do go give our home a face lift, but like always, there is an order of operations and money must be saved to do the enhancements. It sounds so wonderful to just run down to the bank and borrow money, but after paying off our debts in 2007, we don't want to go back there. It's super hard to save money for something, but I think we end up appreciating it more than we would otherwise.

So while we're planning our remodeling projects, what's a girl to do in the mean time to soothe her love loss? Paint of course!


This past week I got a few gallons of paint, the same colors we currently have, and am in the process of repaint our main level walls and trim. While the walls were starting to look a little tired, the trim was KILLING ME! It was so banged up from Tonka trucks ramming into it and I just cringed anytime we were having company. After two days of painting, I feel like I'm getting somewhere and it's looks soooo much better! I feel like I *like* my home again. I would say *love*, but I'm reserving that for when we have new hardwood floors and lots of beautiful crown moulding, hopefully it will be sooner than later.

I still have some painting to do over the next few days. I am really not that fond of painting, but the end result makes me so much happier and is a great way to start out the new year.

Happy 2009!

I haven't done any sewing this past week. With Christmas and my hubby home, it's hard to get much done besides playing "maid" around the house cleaning up after everyone. I did get a few goodies in the mail tho which is always so very fun.


I had planned to do a post on my sewing of 2008, but I need hubby's help to make a graph. I will still try to do that in the next few days. If I can't get the graph, I'll at least share what I've sewn. I've enjoyed reading what other bloggers have accomplished during the year. My list actually surprised me and is quite long, but many were TNT patterns and things for my kids so those are less time consuming than starting from scratch.

Be safe if you're going out tonight and may 2009 be a year filled with wonderful things.

Merry Christmas

I love the time leading up to Christmas. The anticipation is so fun and the glow on the kids' faces is priceless. This morning we forced our children go slowly with gift opening so we could savor every moment. And look at this picture, they are all smiling and it was the first (and only) picture I took of them in front of the tree today. Apparently cooperation occurs when they want to know what Santa Claus put in their stockings. ;-)


The kids were all thrilled with their gifts, but I think my daughter might be on cloud nine still. She has been bugging us for well over a year for a Sleep & Study Loft from Pottery Barn Teen. It's a little too rich for out beer budget at $2,000 (shipping included) so my uber talented hubby built her one! It was hard to pull off the surprise. As you can see, the thing is huge (it's a double bed up there). The project was started the day after Thanksgiving so it's been weeks of torture for the kids wanting to know what dear ol' Dad has been up to. The kiddos all went to my in-laws for a sleepover on the 23rd and we got busy getting the big surprise ready.

She has been going on and on about wanting pink walls with polka dots too ~ wish granted. It was fun to get her room ready for the big reveal, but the icing on the cake was her reaction. She was more than thrilled and burst into tears. And seriously, I can't believe I went to the ends of the Earth to find a pink office chair for her, she better appreciate me from here to eternity! lol And without further ado....

I received many lovely gifts from my family, but the best one of all is just being together with my family. May God's blessings be bestowed upon you this Christmas Day and always. Merry Christmas!

Old Man Winter Has Arrived...

with full force in the Pacific NW. Just a few photos I took around our house over the past few days. I have no idea how much snow we have. It just keeps on snowing here tho. Yesterday from the time we woke up until nearly 10pm it snowed nonstop. Today it's been on and off and it just makes me giddy!

I've been sewing some, but my seam ripper and I are becoming BFFs. Maybe I should walk away for a bit, but I want to get the top I'm working on done. They are dumb mistakes too considering I've made the top twice already. Tis life.

More sewing

I feel like I've been making good headway getting things cranked out lately. I'm using up fabric I have and getting different gifts made.

First up is a garment for me. It's one of my favorite patterns, BWOF 10-2005-114. I actually purchased the fabric in November when I was taking my pants fitting class. I can't remember the blend, but it's a sweater-y knit of sorts. Not that stretchy, I guess more like a fancier fleece. It has a nice texture to it and the colors are berry. The photo is a bit dark, I think it's prettier in person. So cozy and a welcome addition to my wardrobe.

I also made one for my sister out of a sweater knit I got from Joann's a long time ago. It too is prettier in person (Is this a good enough reason for a new camera since I have such crappy shots??? If so, please email my hubby and tell him! lol). I was going to get rid of the fabric, but when my sister saw it in the pile she really liked it so I decided I'd make her a sweater too for a Christmas gift. We're the same size and she'd tried on another one I made so I'm sure it will fit her. The fabric is definitely her colors and not mine. This is a "what was I thinking" purchase.

And a few box bags from this tutorial ~ thanks to Stacy for pointing out the tutorial on her blog. I will post a review on PR of this pattern very soon. The directions are a little confusing, but the pictures help. I also found a helpful post on this blog about how to do the corners in an easier manner. Below are the fruits of my labor. I made the black one larger for my SIL - you can see it matches the Weekender Bag she'll get for graduation in March.

More baby bibs! I just love the Valentine one.

And another throw pillow for my couch from some leftover fabric (ivory chenille on the back side). I got smart this time and put a zipper in it. This is soooo much better than hand sewing the pillow shut because it's faster, plus I can take the pillow out and wash the cover. I might go back and redo the other pillows I did earlier in the year.

So that my friends, is what I've been sewing. Actually I also made two more aprons from my Grandma's apron pattern to put in my "ready to gift" box. I forgot to take pictures of those, but I surely don't need another apron right now since I already have three in rotation plus a Christmas one. Oh and I made my youngest a pair of pants from Ottobre too, but they are set aside for Christmas. Nothing exciting, just blue twill, very cute nonetheless.

Today the kids are home for a snow day. The Pacific NW is getting hammered with Arctic air and now snow. In the Portland area the kids have been out all week, but we didn't get the snow they did over the weekend. Now we're all getting it and it's just beautiful out! It rarely snows here anyway and when it does, it's here for a minute and then gone. The extended weather report is snow off and on and below freezing temps through Tuesday (as far as the weather forecast goes). We might be in for a white Christmas afterall!!!!

Childbirth

If you any children, you know the pains of labor fade into the sunset once the baby is delivered. Well the same is true with making the Amy Butler Weekender Bag. In my quest to give more handmade gifts this year for Christmas, I decided to make my SIL and daughter each a Weekender Bag. Well what the heck was I thinking???? Apparently I don't vividly remember all the blood, sweat, and tears it caused me when I made myself one in January. I need to be declared insane!

Now after starting the bag, I'm not fully committed to finishing it in time for Christmas. I'm reconsidering this might be a good graduation gift for when she graduates nursing school in March (that gives me a little more time). I think I suck at big projects. I like more instant gratification projects. Possibly I'm longing for a few new things for me, so I will set this aside for a bit and bring it back to the machine soon. I will finish it, the question is whether it will be in time for Christmas - that is still to be determined.

Here is the bag in it's sad state~

Now onto my other sewing projects that I promised to share in my last post. First up is the outfit I made to wear to DH's work Christmas party. Of course you can just call me "Last Minute Lucy" on this one. I seem to have this theme every year. I want something new to wear and don't start it until the day of the party. I had purchased a black knit with subtle silver sparkles in it when my local indy store went out of business in January. I never knew what I'd do with it. It's a pretty stable knit with not a lot of give, but something kept drawing me back to it so I got 2 yds to toss in my stash. Well here is the end result, a Jalie Crossover top and a little A-line skirt I quickly drafted out of the scraps. I lightened the picture to help see the details better, but it's still hard since it's black. What I liked about the outfit was that I wasn't freezing. They always have the air cranked up and if I had any sort of sleeveless dress or top on I'd freeze.

I also recently made myself two black skirts. One I still need to photograph, but here is the other one. Forgive the lack of a full body shot; the ones my daughter took were horrible and there was no way I could post them. The skirt is from Simplicity 3631. I had Marta fit this pattern on my at my class in October because I really wanted to have a flattering straight skirt. She seemed to think the size 12 was perfect, however once I had the fabric cut and got started, I found this skirt too big. I ended up shaving it down to about a 10. I still wasn't happy with the result so I pegged the hem in about 2" and I like the look better. I'm happy I have a basic black skirt, tho I'm not sure if I'll sew this again. Quite frankly I think that A-line skirts look much better on my shape than straight skirts. The other one I made is too straight too, oops!

So here is the front view (btw, my knees are even tho the picture looks like one knee cap is way higher than the other, must have been how I was standing)~

And the back view (nice bruises on my leg, huh?)~


Here is my middle son in his new Kwik Sew 2894~

And pj's galore~

And finally I have a few bibs for my son's teacher. All my children have had the pleasure of having this wonderful lady be their teacher and she's finally bringing home her baby from Vietnam! The little girl is almost 11 months old and figured a few chenille bibs would be a welcome gift. As a mom, I know you can never have too many bibs. It was a good way to give my embroidery machine some love too.

Up next? Good question. I should be working on that darn bag, but I think I'll set it aside. I have a pillow that needs a cover and I am in desperate need of some tops.

Happy Thanksgiving

First off, my apologies for being two weeks between posts. It is never my intention to go so long, but I seem to blink and days fly by. I have been busy sewing and will detail more about that in my next post. My progress includes three skirts, two tops, and pants (all for me!), one shirt for my middle son, 7 pairs of pj's for my boys, three pj pants for my daughter, and finishing a UFO for my youngest son. I still have 4 pairs of pj's cut out for the boys and two shirts for my oldest son that need to be sewn, plus I need to cut out one pair for pj's for my daughter. So as you can see, my silence hasn't been for nothing. ;-)

Wishing you and yours a wonderful Thanksgiving. My family is blessed beyond measure and I hope the same holds true for yours. Enjoy the day!

Happy Veteran's Day!

I want to extend my most sincere *thank you* to all our veterans as well as those currently serving in the military. My family doesn't take this duty lightly and we recognize that it is because of these brave men and women that we live in the land of the free and home of the brave. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your service to our great country!

A few days ago I received a nice surprise in my mailbox. Don't you just love surprises? Well the wonderful folks at Ottobre magazine somehow found out that I'd won the PR Sewing for Children contest and sent me these goodies! Now how sweet was that? All the way from Finland - it totally warmed my heart. Included with the card were three little buttons for my children to wear on their clothes, backpack, etc. and a beautiful 2009 planner/calendar. Thank you Ottobre team!!!!! See I keep telling you all they are so awesome, they seriously have the best customer service and not to mention the best kids patterns.

So my ironing board cover was getting a little ratty. It wasn't that bad, but the ironing board I got came from Wally World. I really wanted an oversized ironing board so I upgraded earlier in the year. I had looked at Bed, Bath, & Beyond, but they wanted like $80+ for the ironing board and I just couldn't see spending that much money. So I happened to be at Walmart (my least favorite store) one day and saw they carried the oversized ironing boards too. I can't recall the exact price, but it was $40 or less. I came with an extra cover which I have no idea where I put. I could have dug around to find it, but I found the cover always wanting to grab what I was ironing and shifting around. Plus the pad it came with is ultra thin. The bottom line was this ironing board needed a makeover!

I have seen others make ironing board covers on their blogs and figured it couldn't be too hard. I found some off white denim in my stash and figured that would be perfect. Durable, yet light colored so I wouldn't get any bleeding of the cover onto a garment (wouldn't that be a nightmare!). Then I picked up a package of 100% cotton batting at Joann's over the weekend.

To make the cover, I first traced around my ironing board leaving a 2" margain around the board (let me say this now, you need more than 2" to do it my way, I think 3" would have been perfect).

Next I cut out my fabric.

Then I serged around the raw edges of the cover so the edges wouldn't ravel. After serging, I pressed a 5/8" SA, stitched the pressed edge down to form a casing in which I fed 1/4" elastic through the casing. I put it on my ironing board and adjusted my elastic to get the fit right. Once I got the length of the elastic where I wanted it, I sewed the ends of my elastic together and closed the casing up.

Lastly, I placed my ironing board upside down again and traced the shape onto the batting. I cut two layers of the batting plus I used the original batting/pad as the bottom layer on the ironing board. I have a total of three layers plus my cover and it seems like the perfect thickness.

Here is the finished board. I would have liked the elasticized edge to go under the board a bit more, so next cover I will trace with a 3" boarder so I have enough extra fabric around the edges. I actually didn't have enough fabric to make it any wider tho since what I had was a small scrap. Oh well, live and learn.

Here is the underside. You can see it's skimpy on the sides, but I got it pulled up more in the front for better coverage of the cover. In all, a quick and easy project, tho I did start it yesterday but was interrupted by having to get the kids from school and take them to swimming lessons.

I hope this inspires someone to make a new cover for their ironing board. Such an easy project!

Yummy Mail!

Who doesn't love a good mail day? My mail lady has been good to me the past few days - check out the goodies I found in my mailbox!

I got my latest issue of Threads magazine. It was fun to cozy up with this new issue. Inside was a fantastic article on fabric shopping in Portland, OR - coincidentally that is where the Pattern Review Weekend will be. The date is TBA, but will be sometime in May 2009!

I also got my latest issue of Ottobre Design and like usual this didn't disappoint. Well it is disappointing I don't have a little baby girl to sew for, but nonetheless there were some great garments I will be able to sew for my kids and maybe even myself. Yes, you read that right, sew for myself from an Ottobre kids issue. I actually fit into the size range of the tween/teen girls and I've seen many designs that I like in the past, but haven't pursued sewing anything for me yet.

Then the new Burda World of Fashion showed up! Even if I don't get around to sewing something right away from my BWOF, I still enjoy getting it every month. There are always at least a few garments I can see myself wearing, but it's so fun to look at. The November issue didn't fail me either, I see many things to my liking. I also love it that when I need a pattern, I can go back through my notebook and look for something that fits the bill. I am getting quite the collection tho, I have five full years now. I honestly have no reason to even buy a pattern at the store!

Lastly, but definitely not least, I got the BEST surprise from a sewing buddy - the famous Vilene Bias Tape which BWOF recommends sewers use to stabilize fabrics!!! I have wanted to try this product for so long, but anyone who sews BWOF knows, it's not available in the US. Well my dear sewing friend went to visit her family in the UK and brought some back for herself and decided to share with me. If you're reading this Abi, thank you again - you hit the nail right on the head! I'll post once I try it and let you all know how it works out, it's sure it's fantastic!

Halloween (albeit a little late)

Yes, I'm days late, but here are a few pictures of the kids. Only two of the group turned out well and then all the individual ones didn't turn out well at all. So this is all I have to share. :-( The first two of of my youngest and we took them the day before Halloween so I could enter his pumpkin costume in the PR Costume contest.

The above one is from Halloween night. Here we have a blue Lego, Pirate Girl, Pumpkin Boy, and Mr. Baseball (all made by me which is a first, tho the Lego involved no sewing).

In other excitement, I had my all day sewing pants session that I started with the Palmer/Pletsch sewing school on Saturday. I can't even express how exhausted I was when I got home that night - it was a long, but fun day.

My pants are fitting very nicely and with minimal alterations. I still need to unbaste the side seams and put on the bum pockets, then restitch the side seams and apply the waistband. I think I'm going to like them. Tricia (my teacher) is so sweet! We ran out of time in class, doesn't everything always take longer than anticipated, so she's having her open sewing class on Wednesday and invited us all back so we can finish our pants during that 3 hour time block. I'd like to go, but am not 100% sure if I can make it at this point. If I was really ambitious I would have another pair of pants cut out and started so she could fit those for me too.

On the pants I picked, my alterations included removing some of the inseam from the from only (about 3/4" tapering to nothing at about the knee level), scooping the seat about 1/2", a slight swayback adjustment in the back seam as well as in the back of the waistband. It was pretty painless so hopefully now when I make pants I'll know what to look for, or I'll just make a gazillion pairs of these if I end up liking them a lot after I have them all finished.

So up next is to finish the pants, work on PJ's for my kids (who are in dire need of new ones), pants for my youngest, shirts for my oldest (and probably the other two boys too), oh and some stuff for me. Guess I better get busy, huh?

Also, thanks for those of you who emailed and posted comments about the Accutane. I'm still on the fence about what to do.