I Have Been…

unusually productive with crafting lately.

For me, when I am sewing or doing needle work, I can “escape” reality. I become so focused on what I am doing that there is just no more room in my brain for thinking about the stresses of everyday life. I guess you could say it’s rather “Zen” for me. One site I visited recently described “Zen” as: something that places great importance on moment-by-moment awareness and ‘seeing deeply into the nature of things’ by direct experience.

I rather like that. Moment-by-moment awareness, although not really practical in everyday life, is a wonderful thing to explore in your down time. I feel it is necessary…like my crafting is necessary to my sanity!

We recently had some disturbing, life altering news. My Husband, the sole provider for our family of 6, has been laid off. Not due to anything wrong he did…in fact, his present and last supervising bosses both tried to get upper management to keep him.
“Sorry,” they said, “it’s just a matter of numbers.” Numbers. We are all just numbers.

Living in Michigan has been a scary proposition for many in the automotive and engineering fields lately. Closing plants, dwindling jobs…outsourcing. My Husband is an engineer. With a Masters Degree in Civil Engineering. Who said a better education will make you more successful in life? We are now in the company of a lot of well educated, jobless families. I worried about them, how they feed their children, themselves. Now I worry about us. We were just barely making all the bills that come with a house, a car, children… as it was.

So, are you nice and depressed now? Enough pity party for me…I think I need to go craft something. I’m sorry to be such a downer, I just really needed to get that all off my chest so I can move on.

This post was actually supposed to be about my needlework hero, Susan Elliot from Plays With Needles, but I think I’ll save that post for tomorrow.

Here a few pictures of what I have accomplished in the last few days. I have also supplied links to the tutorials! They were great stash busters.

First up is a pillow that I made based on Calamity Jane’s pincushion tutorial and the crochet button tutorial from Mademoiselle Chaos:

From My Art, My So Called Life

Next up, two armchair caddies based on Helen’s pattern from Hugs & Kisses (I made mine slightly smaller and without embroidery):

A pillow case from a vintage sheet and the first part of the edging for a pillow case crochet along that Cassie over at You Go Girl! is hosting:

And last but not least of my shares for today is a “Simple Party Clutch” offered by Elizabeth of Oh, Fransson! on the Sew, Mama Sew! blog (click here for tutorial):

Hopefully tomorrow I will have my originally planned post for you…and…pictures of my FINISHED (last night) tree!!!

Did Someone Say Tutorials???

I thought that today I would list a few tutorials for things I want to make! Just click on the pictures to go to the tutorial!!!

The Train to Crazy has some really cute skirts for girls! I really want to make a couple or then for Baby Girl!

Betz White has a couple. First a stackable display for goodies, and then she also has an eyeglass case that is too cute!

And last for today, Fabtalk has a darling pincushion that I will probably make up for my Stitching Angel (and of course, one for me!):

Well, I think that is enough for today! Go make something!!!

A Moth and Some Links...

Last Christmas I got a grow light system. I grew the things that came with it, then after they were harvested, I used it for some cute little pots filled with bulbs. This one had a visitor today:
Isn't he cute! He's going to be going back outside to live, but I had to snap some pictures because I thought he was so pretty.
I told a friend that I would give her the links to the things I made for my purse so I thought I would share with everyone just in case you want to make some of them yourself. Some are for pay, some are for free.

My purse is a pattern that I purchased from In Stitches. I love this purse, it's the second one I have made and it goes together pretty easily. Good instructions!


For my makeup bag I used a pattern by Elizabeth at oh, fransson! It is from a trio of patterns that I won in a lovely giveaway she had. If you are interested in it you can find her patterns for sale here. There are lots of tutorials out there for free as well. Here is a link to Sew, Mama, Sew for a couple others, although I highly recommend Elizabeths patterns, very well written and you turn out with a wonderful product!




My receipt wallet is super simple and I got the pattern from Eye Candy Designs. She posted the pattern for free on craftster. I sewed together leftover pieces to make it a scrappy one. Super easy!

The card wallet is from a tutorial by A Soonful of Sugar. I made it out of solid pieces of material but, it is super cute done scrappy too!

My change purse (and really my favorite accessory) came from Lisa over at U-handblog. I had a different top. Mine has holes in it for sewing it to your purse so I just stitched in and out through the holes and the outer and inner material. A little akward, but not hard.

I hope you will all give some of these a try. There are so many free tutorials out there for so many wonderful things. I appreciate all the hard work that went into writing all of them!

Christmas is just around the corner...

I can't believe that we only have 40 days until Christmas! We're talking just over a month away! I also have my Mom's birthday on the 20th of this month...Baby Girl's birthday on December 29th...Runner's birthday on January 15th. I have decided to make a list in my sidebar to keep me on track with the projects I need to complete before/near Christmas. I am also going to show you what I plan to make with links to the tutorials online if I have them.

There are countdowns poppin up all over on the internet. If you run across one, please let me know! I'm hoping to put the buttons in my sidebar linking to as many as I can find!

The first project I am planning/working on is an apron for my Mom. She wants something she can wear while she paints. This is what I found via Tip Nut's website:

I am also making an ornament from Peppermint & Holly Berries by Nancy Halvorsen

I also have this planned for Gamer from Sew-Mad:

I am going to make it into a holder for his PSP.

Stay tuned for more projects!