While the children sleep,

The dogs will get comfortable on the reading pillows!

E's ongoing DIY project

As a child I loved the Calico Critters.  I had a friend that had a bunch of them, and I remember playing with them inside, outside, and in the car.  Everytime we've been to Imagination Station, she plays with the demo house and critters.  I have a rule, however, that I never offer to buy her a toy, she has to ask for it(she doesn't know this).  The last time we were at the store, she asked for the Fisher cat family.  Of course I got them for her.  At first they lived in a drawer, then we got a cardboard box to keep them in, which has since become a house. 

E works on the house nearly everyday, decorating, playing and there are some things that she has me help her with. 

Currently I'm in charge of covering the family beds-they have to be sewn on, tape won't hold the fabric. 

I'm impressed with how much she does on her own, from cutting the foam to glueing down the carpet.  The sequins are the rug, so she told me.

I've been giving her various empty boxes, and so far my favorite thing she's done is tear the top off an animal cracker box and use it as the family car.

 I find it interesting that they have a TV, which we don't.  I kind of expected her to give them a computer or a small DVD player, but no, they have a very big TV.  Her Dad might get jealous. 

The little details also amaze me, the yellow pom pom is the light, and there's a family portrait that she drew and glued to the wall.

She also insisted the couch needed a cover so it would be comfortable.

I'm looking forward to seeing what else she decides to do with this.  And if we go back adn get more animals, well, then that's probably going to mean another house to decorate!

Happy Thoughts!

An Eco-friendly sewing day with The Quilter

I'm such a visual person I almost didn't post this because I don't have very many pictures. The Quilter lives in a beautiful neighborhood, and with the weather supposedly getting wet and yucky, I packed up my little ones and we went to her house. While the kiddos played in the backyard, the Quilter and I set up our sewing machines on the screened in porch and made a few things.

She called me last week and asked if I had seen any good tutorials for reusable lunch bags. What a co-inky-dink, I had a long list of lunch bag, sandwich, and snack bag tutorials to pick from. I got my most of my list from Whipup.net. I printed out my favorites, packed up some of my sewing room and lots of fabric scraps to take with me. We decided to do Betz White's reusable sandwich wrap, and purlbee's fabric lunch bag.

As I said, there aren't many pictures, I forgot my camera and The Quilter's camera was in the same room as a sleeping baby, so we went without.

We started with the lunch bag, which we thought would be more difficult. Honestly, it's a project a beginning sewer can do. It was fun, and probably the hardest part was choosing the button. I will say that my bag turned out better, simple because I used canvas fabric(per the instructions) and The Quilter used a lightweight cotton(ignoring the instructions, as usual) And yes, that's some sisterly one-up manship. She has since decided to take hers apart and line it with some iron-on vinyl. We also accidentally changed the pattern, which happens with us. Instead of using two 9 ½ by 13 inch pieces of fabric, ours were cut to 9 by 13 inches. It was my fault, I was the one umm, more perusing than reading the instructions. It didn’t really make a difference, and we decided we would try a few variations, longer, wider, bias tape lining, etc.

The sandwich wraps were also a lot of fun and very easy to make. It took us a little longer since we ironed vinyl onto the wrong side of some fabric, rather than buying PUL, as it recommends. We had another pattern alteration, again kind of my fault. I printed the template, but didn’t enlarge it as I was supposed to; we did it by hand, so our template was about a ½ inch bigger. Again, it really didn’t make a difference. This was a fun project, mostly because the vinyl made ironing the small seam allowances very easy. I thought the directions took the securing of the Velcro a little far until I unhooked my wrap and the Velcro came right off. In that respect, go ahead and follow the directions exactly. Even with all the interruptions from children and life in general, we had a great time and I’m, definitely going to make a lot more of both of these. The Quilter is thinking of using the lunch bag as party favor bags for G-Man’s upcoming birthday.  They are a great way to use scrap pieces of fabric, and they are quick aand easy to do.

Happy Thoughts!