Wedding Dress Construction Has Begun

I started my wedding dress the day after Christmas. I'm starting with the petticoat, so it really doesn't matter that Michael is around for it, because it doesn't look like anything right now. I'll be documenting my dress construction along the way, but I won't actually put anything up on my blog until after the wedding.

I've just been hanging out on the couch watching movies and gathering 50+ yards of net with Judo's help. All by hand because my sewing machine won't have anything to do with it. It's lots of tedious work, but it's worth it because it's looking beautiful!

A Christmas Doll For Elliott

I found this retro doll pattern at Joann during the Veteran's Day sale. It's Simplicity 2729, a reprint of "learn to dress" dolls from the 70's. I'll post my pattern review with more details soon, but this is a really great pattern.

I named him Herbie How-to-Dress. Herbie has snaps on his shirt, buttons on his overalls, and laces on his shoes. I know Elliot isn't quite ready to start dressing himself, but Herbie can just be a good friend until he's ready.

I gave him a red shirt and plaid overalls because it looks like something Elliot would like to wear. You can trim his hair if you want because it's the same length hair as the girl doll, but I thought his hair looked good long and shaggy.

Elliot wasn't quite interested in Herbie at first. But then Jess made him clap, and Elliot decided to give Herbie a chance. After a couple claps Elliot was grabbing Herbie by his hair and looking for more clapping. :)

Herbie turned out a little bigger than I expected, but I think he'll be a fun doll for Elliot to play with. Boys do like dolls too even if they need to call them action figures. :)

 

Christmas Sewing Catch-Up

Christmas was great this year!

Michael and I managed to stay healthy (last year we were sick for nearly 2 months), and we both got lots of great gifts. Too bad someone hit his car in front of my Mom's house and just drove off on Christmas Day. Well, what goes around comes around...

Anyway, now that gifts have been given and we're all getting ready for the new year to start, I can start posting some of my sewing projects. Early in December we had a wonderful dinner with Mr. and Mrs. Castillo. Alex and Kimbra had their house decorated beautifully for Christmas and Michael and I took them some more ornaments for their tree.

Since this was Alex and Kim's first Christmas as a married couple, I made them a "Our First Christmas" ornament out of the wonderful Los Novios fabric.

They made a really great dinner with roast beast and potatoes and veggies. Kim made some wonderful homemade biscuits and she out-did herself with the spice cake for dessert!

 

Santa Claus Is Coming To Town

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

Last weekend we put up all of our Christmas decor. Once again I pulled out the junky $15 WalMart tree and thought that maybe it was time to replace it. But once all the lights, garland and ornaments are on it, it looks pretty good. You can see Michael's custom robot stocking that I made for him last year, and our tree skirt that doesn't actually go all the way around because apparently I forgot how to do simple geometry. We even saved the Christmas slug last year and it went up in the window again this year. I love all of our silly Christmas decorations, even our weird, mismatched nativity set. This year Michael added an angel. No manger scene is complete without a Lego Spock angel.

 

 

I also put up the Christmas decorations at work. When I moved over to the big building almost 7 years ago, I found lots of strange stuff thrown in the darkroom. There was a fluorescent pink little kid's BMX bike, a ceramic jack-o-lantern, about 15 ancient computers and monitors, and a box of Christmas decorations among other non-biology lab related things. So I started using the Christmas decorations. There was a little tiny table top tree with lights that blink amazingly slow and funny Styrofoam decorations, lots of fake plastic holly candle rings that I think someone was using as wreaths, little rocks painted like christmassy animals, and two of those old fuzzy felt stockings from the 80's that have Santa screen printed on them. I used to tape the stockings to the fume hood like it was a chimney, but I don't do that any more. Now I just put the little tree on top of my balance with the rock animals sleeping underneath it. A couple years back a work-study student made a star for the top of the tree with a piece of construction paper and a wooden applicator. Everyone that comes into my lab loves the silly little tree and asks who painted the rock animals. Christmas time in the lab is fun.

 

The John Wright Gingerbread House

 

I just couldn't wait any longer, I made my gingerbread house this weekend! A couple years ago I got the John Wright gingerbread house cast iron mold for Christmas. One side of the mold makes a traditional log cabin style house, and the other side makes a Victorian house. But I never got a chance to use it because my cute little mama kept getting me those neato complete kits.

 

This year I finally told her that I want to use my mold. I decided I would make the traditional log cabin style house for my first time using the mold. I went to Dollar Tree and found all kinds of gingerbread house candies and I planned out how to make candy windows with a real light inside. But I ran into all kinds of challenges. In the middle of actually baking the pieces we found that we had a pond in our backyard because the sprinkler system had a major leak (for a couple days). Then, I tried to make candy windows and I completely did it wrong. So the sides of my gingerbread house actually have melted candy all over them. So I piped lots of icing on the walls to cover it. Then when I tried to assemble the house both side walls fell and smooshed my pretty icing job! I finally got the house together and the roof on and I realized that I bought enough candy to make at least 30 more gingerbread houses! Wow, did I learn a lot!

 

But, the house is cute, I really like the roof and the chimney. And you all know how I love a challenge. I can't wait for next year's house. I have lots of gingerbread house type candies in the freezer and now I know how to install candy window panes. :)

 

Here's another picture with the lights on.

 

Pumpkin Science and Dead People

I finally bought one of those beautiful Fairytale Pumpkins for Halloween this year. I just couldn't bring myself to carve it into a Jack-O-Lantern, so it's been sitting on the counter with other decorative squashes waiting to become pie for thankgiving. I cut into it Monday afternoon and look what I found!

No, those are not tapeworms! They're pumpkin seedlings! I let the pumpkin sit on my counter for so long the seeds sprouted right inside! How cool! They all had big healthy roots and a couple even had fully developed leaves. None of them had any color, though, because they've never seen sunlight. This is called etiolation. Science rocks!

I was very excited about my Fairytale pumpkin seedlings, and I thought for a second about trying to grow them, but I decided to just wait to grow pumpkins until Michael and I have some dirt of our own. At least I have pictures of them. They won't be forgotten.

After roasting my Fairytale pumpkin, I finally put my Dia De Los Muertos fabric to good use. Kimbra gave me the perfect apron-sized piece of some GORGEOUS fabric called "Los Novios" (The Lovers). I used my favorite apron pattern . And, as usual, I made it even simpler.

I bound all the edges in bias tape, and I also used it to make the neck strap and ties. I rounded the bottom corners, so the bias tape would go on easier and I added a pocket for my cell phone. Although the pocket is not too easy to find because of my ninja skills in matching the print! :)

First Christmas Gift Done!

 

Last night I completed my first Christmas gift for this season! I made a Ruby Doll for my Grandma. Ruby has turned into quite a sensation with the online sewing community. She even has her own Flickr group. In case you haven't heard of Ruby, she's an adorable little soft doll that was offered as a free pattern from the very talented Jhoanna Monte Aranez at One Red Robin.

I love stopping by the Ruby Flickr group every once in a while to see what kind of cute Ruby creations people have made.

My latest Ruby is a Christmas Angel for my Grandma. I added some sequin holly berries with felt leaves, I stitched some beads and sequins on her green shirt to give it some sparkle, and I gave her wings with a little bow-shaped button in the center.

 

The 7th Annual

The 7th Annual Halloween Party was great! The night before, which was actually Halloween, Lindsey and Cornbread and Justin and Kelly came over for some pizza and Jack-O-Lantern carving. I was hoping we'd get more trick-or-treaters than last year, but we only got one. :(

This year's party set-up went really smooth and stress-free for me. Thanks to Michael for making me take a nap so he could play garland elf, and Kelly for getting all the decor up to Esco in one turbo trip, and of course Lindsey's magical spiderweb skills. It was so nice to have the party all set-up and ready to go with plenty of time to get our costumes on. Thanks to everyone who made it happen!

We didn't have a huge turn out of party people, but what really matters is that the RIGHT people showed up. We got to be treated to a quick little appearance by Elliot in his monkey costume from his beautiful and talented Fairy Godmother. Alex and Kimbra won their second Pussy Award and brought the most delightfully awful-looking meatheads! And we had lots of new-comers to the party; even Aunt Gina Lola Zappa and her fortune-telling cards.

The pictures will be added to website soon!

Have A Happy Halloween San Diego!

Just A Sweet Transvestite

 

"I'm not much of a man by the light of day,

But by night I'm one hell of a lover."

Would You Buy This?

 

It's a Gothic Spider Bride costume made by me! I started this costume last year with intent to start up Boo Couture, my costume design business. But with being evacuated during the Witch Fire and then whole craziness of the holiday season, it ended up in the UFO pile. I finally put all the finishing touches on it last night, and I plan to try and sell it once I get some better pictures of it.

It's a size 16/18 gown (I need to take some more accurate measurements) with with a headband based veil. The whole gown is constructed from a polyester satin and trimmed with metallic rick-rack, tulle bows and plastic spiders. It'll look great with some goth makeup and fishnet stockings. I'm really, really happy with how it turned out. It's going to be hard to part with it. I hope whoever gets to be the Gothic Spider Bride for Halloween takes really good care of it.

 

 

Friday night Lindsey and Cornbread came up to our house for dinner. Lindsey made some wonderful pasta for dinner and I've been enjoying the leftovers all weekend! I wanted to put out some seasonal appetizers since it is now officially Halloween season, so I tried out my new eyeball mold. The green zombie eye dip is kinda like french onion dip and the blue zombie eye dip is garlic and chives. I just dumped some dip type ingredients in blender then added a packet of Knox dissolved in hot water. After the eyeballs set-up over night I painted the veins and iris with gel food color. The blue zombie eye dip was definitely the yummiest. Onion flavored eye ball dip is just a little too creepy for me. But the garlic and chives eyeball dip is a keeper and is fabulous on buttery Keebler Club crackers.

Happy October Everybody!

YIPPEE! It's October 1st! That means Halloween season!

For our engagement Gail got Michael and I this really cool Halloween Bat-globe. It's a very affectionate skeleton couple going for a ride in their dead mobile with bats flying all around. Plus, it's a music box that plays "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead"! Momma Gail always finds the coolest stuff!

We also were very privileged to receive a donation to the Halloween party from Alex and Kimbra. The newlyweds found a really cool skeleton candle holder while they were on their honeymoon cruise and immediately thought of the Halloween party. Thanks Mr. and Mrs. Castillo!

Michael brought home two "Wee Bee" pumpkins for me yesterday and I think they look fabulous on our table. I can't wait to get carving on some squash this year. I've decided that I'm not limiting myself to just pumpkins. I want to try some other produce. Any ideas?

I've been making progress on costume construction and the party invites were mailed out today. If you don't get one in a few days send me a quick email and I'll make sure you get one.

shannie@hhhsd.org

What's A Princess?

It doesn't matter how many new and different sewing projects I delve into, I learn something new every time, and I love that about sewing. Kelly and I are finally going to be Disney Princesses for Halloween. I say finally because I've had my fabric to make a Snow White costume since probably some time in the late 90's! And I've been holding on to an awesome out-of-print (OOP) Cinderella pattern that I've been dying to make for Kelly for almost as long. Our costumes aren't a secret this year. At least I don't think... (sorry Smelly!)

Anyway, in the process of starting my Snow White costume I have learned SO MUCH about fitting a formal dress to make an ordinary chick look like a princess. I've taken our Halloween costume construction as an opportunity to practice some new techniques I've been reading about for making formal dresses, specifically bridal couture. Now, in now way can I call myself a couturier, but I love reading about couture techniques and trying to learn some of them. It's amazing what a difference a little extra hand stitching and careful planning can do for a garment.

For a couple months I've been kinda thinking about my game plan for the construction of my wedding dress. I've read through lots of blogs, and looked through some wedding gown forums on pattern review. It seems that everyone is using Susan Khalje's book "Bridal Couture", so I had to buy it. I also bought a book by Susan Andriks about making the wedding dress of your dreams (I don't remember the actual title). This pair of books is all anyone needs to make beautiful formal gowns. They're both full of information, and each fills in any gaps the other may have left open.

I was able to use some techniques I learned from each book already in fitting my Snow White dress. I also learned a new interlining/corsellette method, and it all went together flawlessly!

I've heard style and fashion gurus make statements about how a well fitting garment makes any woman look beautiful, but I always thought "yeah, everyone but me". Yes, it's true, Stacy and Clinton do know what they're talking about. As soon as I got the bodice all boned up and lined I was able to just hold it up to myself and see the princess shape! AMAZING!

Now I can't wait to get started on Kelly's, and I feel totally confident that I'll be able to put together a gorgeous wedding dress for myself (even though I don't have a pattern).

Also, I found this blog that I thought was really interesting: Drawing Women

Costume Patterns

Every single one of my costume patterns are now in a slide show. Just go to my Costume Patterns page.

Halloween At BigLots

I love BigLots this time of year. It's a wonderland of creepy low-priced Halloween props and decorations. I think this bride and groom are especially cool. It's so nice to see the undead settle down and tie the knot. There are also some maniacal clowns and witches that are similar to the bride and groom which are also pretty cool. I noticed stacks of boxes with the magical orange Jack-O-Lantern stamp blocking some of the aisles in the store, so I'm sure as the actual holiday gets closer, there will be even more terrible treasures for me to drool over. But I was so excited about the two aisles of goodies that have been put on display, I had to snap a couple crappy cell phone pictures.

The aisle where the bride and groom are, is really the one that catches your attention, but the other aisle of outdoor lights and other electronic-type gadgets shouldn't be ignored. This year they have a motion activated thunder and lightning strobe light set. Basically when it's activated it makes pretty high quality thunder sound effects and a series of pretty good little strobe lights make the lightning effect. I think it would be perfect for lighting up your front door for the trick-or-treaters (TOTs). I might consider buying them, but for today I just pressed the "try-me" button a couple times. There are the stupid el cheapo lighted lawn stakes, that aren't cool-looking or creepy in any way, and the pre-carved lighted foam pumpkins that you can never have too many of. But another new decoration I was kinda interested in was the creepy signs. There is one that says "The Witch is In", and the "Bats Motel" which just looks like you forgot the "e", and then there are quite a few motion activated signs. My favorite is "The Blood Cafe", it looks all bloody and dirty.

I really could just spend my entire paycheck on Halloween stuff, but today I only bought the old standby 5 foot Glow-In-The-Dark blowmold skeleton. I'll pop of his skull and use the rest of him for the talking tree face/skull project I started a couple months ago. The anatomically correct skull model in no way matches the cheap blowmold plastic skeleton, but I figure I should be able to make them match each other a little better with some paint.

"I'll Be A June Bride"

 

It's official!

We're engaged!

 

My sweet, sweet Michael proposed in the most memorable way yesterday. He asked me to marry him with orange cupcakes. It was very sweet and cute. Of course I said yes, and I can't wait to be his wife.

 

I love him with all my heart, and I can't believe how lucky I am. Michael is everything I could ever want and more in a man.

 

 

Is It Halloween Yet?

My wonderful lovely and talented Michael Bacon has been staying up all hours of the night to get our new kick-ass Halloween Party Website up and running. There's even some original MB artwork on the site!

All the pictures from the parties past have been uploaded including 2007, and he added a really cool new guest-list feature. Party people can just click on the "get on the guest-list" link from the home page and send me an email requesting a place on the guest-list! Pretty cool, huh? Keep checking back as more fun stuff is added to the website as we get closer to the party.

Thank You Michael Bacon!!

 

 

Halloween party planning has begun. I've been working on my collection of bottles for my Witch's Kitchen. I got the idea from AranaMuerta. I can only hope my Witch's Kitchen will look as cool. I'm planning to transform our everyday white tile kitchen into a creepy witch's lair. Also the skull/christmas tree face merger has begun. But, It's being held up while I try to locate a suitable skeleton. I don't want to continue with the talking head until it has a body.

Elliott's Monkey

Jess and Dex and Elliot are back home!!

My mom had a little family get-together two weekends ago, and the Conrads were coming and bringing Jess and Elliot. I was so excited to see them because they had just moved back home after living in North Carolina for a little over a year. Elliot really is such a happy baby and I love to get to spend time with him and Jess. I wanted to make something other than clothes for Mr. E, so I found Simplicity 5310. They're neck pillows for older kids, but I thought Elliot could use it to snuggle with while he's playing on the floor. I happened to have some swirly orange polar fleece in my stash and some bright yellow craft felt squares. I always have fiberfill and I had safety eyes leftover from some teddy bears I made as Christmas gifts.

Assembling the monkey was pretty simple just a lot of little dart seams. The hardest part for me was making the ears round. Making an outside curve on a little tiny piece of polar fleece at 4am just wasn't as simple as you would think. But the monkey turned out really cute, and I was excited to give it to Elliot. He was much more interested in Mama Sheila's green heart-shaped sun glasses than his monkey, but I'm sure he'll cuddle with it soon.

The best part of this pattern is the nose. All the animals from this pattern have the same basic nose pattern piece. The contrast fabric is doubled and folded over the make real nostrils. This is so great because you can actually put your finger up the nose!

A Whole Year!

One year ago I met the greatest guy in the whole world. We went to a Padre game and then to dinner at Red Lobster. The next day I went all the way to his house in Escondido and we watched Blade and had ice cream in rainbow cones. We got together again the next day and saw Pirates 3. Pretty much that was it. We haven't spent a day apart since then.

Michael is so kind and generous. He's the most talented artist, musician, & creator of all things cool that I've ever known. He even loves kitties, which is good because we have 4 of them. My family and friends all love him, and you all know how important that is to me. All the time we've spent together the past year has been so wonderful, and I'm such a happy girl.

Today we took it easy. We had breakfast in bed for the second Sunday in a row (just cereal this time). Then eventually we made it out of the house and went to the beach. Oceanside is about 20 minutes from our house, but for some reason I always feel like we live really close to the beach. Maybe because I'm used to places like Coronado and Mission Beach where a trip to the beach is a major ordeal. Oceanside is just at the end of the 78, and there is always easy street parking. We actually went yesterday too, and parking was a tad bit crowded but we still found a spot in the shade just a short walk from the beach. Lots of people go to the beach, but it's a real laid back crowd. People are nice and I think a couple strangers even smiled at us. Nothing like the crazy hardcore locals at Mission.

Today we were able to park in the shade again. I didn't bring my camera but I snapped a couple silly little cellphone pictures. There was a hibiscus bush in bloom next to the car in a really pretty pink. Normally I could care less about hibiscus. But this one was exceptionally pretty and it was such a gorgeous day I took a picture. We also saw a chic pulling a wagon with a huge iguana in it. I was too excited about seeing such a giant lizard hanging out at the beach I forgot to snap a picture. She said he's ten years old and never tries to run away just as he jumped out of the wagon to munch on some grass. Pretty cool.

It was perfect beach weather today. The sky was bright blue and the water was just refreshing enough to want to stay and play in the waves for a while. We got tossed around by the waves and got piles of sand in our bathing suits. Michael loves to play in the waves. It's so great, he never stops smiling and giggles like a little kid the whole time. I love it. Since both of us are so white we almost glow, we could only take so much time in the sun. So we came back home and rinsed all the sand and seawater off, then took a little nap. We're planning on going to dinner at Red Lobster like we did on our first date. :)

What Has Shannie Been Up To?

On Saturday I got to see The Strangers with Kimbra. Despite the rude old lady behind us, we had a great time. Kim made me an adorable purse out of butterfly chic camo, and it was stuffed with movie goodies. Kim is amazing!

I highly recommend The Strangers. The word that comes to mind is INTENSE. There's just some minor gore, but the anticipation and the creepiness makes this movie really freaky. If you like to be scared at all, go see this movie.

Sunday morning I got up to start getting ready for dinner with my Mama and decided it might be nice to have breakfast in bed with my Honey. I made pancakes with fresh strawberry syrup. But I was mostly proud of my little garnish. If you look real close you'll see some fresh home-grown parsley. I know it's not rocket science to grow herbs, but I germinated this parsley from seed and I have a nice little herb garden growing in a pot on the patio. Why am I so proud of this? Well, when you garden in containers it usually means you have to hand water them. I'm not so good at remembering to water things. Plants do much better in my care if they're on some kind of automatic watering system. But I've been taking good care of this pot and my pot of mini roses Aunt Deb gave us for Christmas. When our beta was still alive I used to pour the old poopy fish water into the plants and they loved it! Since the beta has gone to a better place, I save the water leftover after steaming vegetables and feed them with that. Anyway, we had a nice little breakfast in bed for Father's Day and the parsley garnish did a wonderful job of sprucing up the pancakes.

Saturday was also Kelly's Birthday. Happy Birthday Smelly!

She and I had lunch on Wednesday before they left for Cleveland and I gave her a dress made especially for her. I discovered that Simplicity has a few patterns that have cup sized pattern pieces. This is fabulous! I was able to make Kelly's dress not only to her size measurements but to her specific cup size. The dress fits her wonderfully and she looks beautiful in it. Now I just need to get a picture with her wearing it. The dress looks much better on Kelly than it does on my dress-form.

 

A couple weeks ago Kim and I entered the Vintage Pattern Contest over at Pattern Review. We used a free couture pattern offered at the V & A Museum in London. It's from their Golden Age of Couture exhibit. I went over to Kim and Alex's house and we had an all-day sewing marathon. Kim's adorable gatos, Roxy & Romy were a great help and Alex fed us good food all day.

I'll post pictures and lots more information about the dresses when the contest is over.

Happy Birthday Michael

Thursday, May 15 was Michael's birthday. We both took the day off and had a wonderful relaxing time.

 

The night before he brought home his favorite pizza, Killer Pizza From Mars. I totally love the name, and have to admit it's pretty damn good pizza. Then the next morning we had his favorite cereal Count Chocula for breakfast. He got to open his presents in bed, and then we planned to go to the beach because he loves to play in the waves. But that meant we had to get out of bed and get dressed. We decided against that. So, basically we just had a nice relaxing day hanging around the house.

Michael's favorite place for dinner is a steak house on Harbor Island called Island Prime. So, eventually we got ourselves dressed and went to dinner. We had a great dinner as usual, but were way too stuffed to even think about his birthday cake sitting at home in the microwave. (It's the only cat-proof place) His cake was slowly eaten over this last weekend.

 

We didn't have any kind of over-the-top celebration for his birthday, but it was a nice quiet day for just the two of us. Michael is the greatest guy in the whole world and I'm so lucky to get to be his girlfriend. I hope he enjoyed his birthday this year, and I'm looking forward to many, many more.

 

Happy Birthday Michael Bacon!!

Where Have I Been?

Yes, I know, long time no post. After I found my camera things just got busy and I lost track of time.

 

Tracee came to visit from Sitka, Alaska. It was a quick whirlwind trip for only 4 days. She had lots of family and friends to see in a short amount of time, but she still managed to spend two nights with us. We saw Ironman which was an awesome movie! And she got to eat at Mr. Sulu's with us. Plus she and I got to have our quick little chick time in the makeup section at Longs.

After dinner and the movie we met the Green Fairy. Yeah, in case you hadn't heard, Absinthe is legal now! You can just pick it up at BevMo! Crazy, I know! I chose a bottle of French stuff called Le Torment Vert. I really wanted to start off with the traditional "La Louche" ritual. It involves slowly dripping ice water over a sugar cube into the green stuff. But because of attention span issues I just mixed in the sugar and ice water and Tracee mixed her Absinthe with champagne ala Ernest Hemingway. It's an anis flavored spirit with just little hint of mint. It's actually pretty refreshing, especially if you take a big whiff of the freshly opened bottle. It's cool stuff, I'll totally continue to drink it. But, no hallucinations, just a good quick buzz. It might show up at a Halloween party sometime...

 

She and I also spent way too much money on our hair at Robert Cromean's and ate way too much Mexican Food. We had a great time.

 

That same weekend Mimi turned 90! And Gail threw her a fabulous party. I made the cake, but unfortunately, I was so drained from all my time with Tracee I didn't snap a picture. Lala did, so I'll try to get one from her. It was a two tier chocolate cake with chocolate filling and whipped cream icing. Mimi's favorite is bluebirds so it was covered in little plastic bluebirds.

The following weekend was Mother's Day. Aunt Deb had a big get-together at her house on Sunday. All I had to bring was the Pink Fluff (as usual) and scalloped potatoes. But, I ended up cooking most of Saturday. I started by peeling and boiling the potatoes. While they were boiling I noticed that I had quite a few cake mixes and tubs of pre-made frosting, so I made a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. Then I was telling Michael how funny is was that we had so much leftover rice, so I made him some rice pudding. We still had lots of rice, so I made two chicken and rice casseroles. I took advantage of the cooking the chicken for the casseroles to make some homemade chicken broth that I used to make millet later in the week. Somewhere in there I also made the Pink Fluff for Mother's Day.

We all found out on Mother's Day that Alex and Kim got engaged! He proposed to her the best way I've ever heard. It involved a shovel and a gopher hole! You'll have to ask Kim to tell the story, it's adorable! Anyway...

Congratulations Alex & Kim!!

It's Back!

Michael found my camera yesterday!!! He was being his usual sweet self and cleaning our bedroom. He picked up our clothes, made the bed, and he pulled all the teddy bears out from under the bed. Judo likes to steal the bears and drag them under the bed to violate them in who knows how many ways. She also likes to steal under garments, and used tissues, and hair rubber bands. While he was rescuing all our "lost" belongings from Judo's lair, he found my camera! It had been drug all the way into the center of the bed!

Now, the last time I saw my camera it was on the kitchen counter. I inspected it this morning and found lots of new scratch marks- I think I know how they got there. There is a very definite snag in the wrist strap, and a few new scratches on the edges. I think Judo found a new heavy silver treasure (my camera) on the kitchen counter a couple weeks ago and started batting at it. Things probably got a little out of hand and the silver treasure ended up on the floor. It probably made some noise, which caught Annie's attention. When Annie came running over to check things out, Judo probably grabbed the wrist strap to make off with the silver treasure before Annie could get her paws on it. I can only guess that Judo started dragging the silver treasure away from Annie and put it in the only safe place a sink-dwelling monkey cat can stash things; under the bed with the violated bears. Once she got it there, I'm sure she was distracted by a stuffed shark toy or maybe an especially tantalizing bra (Judo loves to steal bras), and completely forgot about the heavy silver treasure.

But Michael found it! And my camera and I are reunited!

Pictures to come soon.

Baby Clothes

...And a quilt for Elliot.

Jess and Elliot were in town visiting a couple weeks ago and I decided I should give Elliot something made out his "Bravest Dragon" fabric. I actually bought the fabric last Spring to make his crib set. But, I'm lame and never made his crib set. I figured the least I could do was make him a beach-time jumper set and a little baby quilt. I bought New Look 6687 last year and never got a chance to use it. It's for little girls, but I added a pocket and omitted the ruffles to make it for Elliot. I use some navy blue and light green left over from a box of remnants Jessie's Grandma Mimi gave me. It turned out really cute! This is great pattern. It's one of those "spinning rack" patterns that you don't even have to look up in the book. I love to just grab a couple of those patterns on a whim. They always turn out to be some of my favorites. I'm sure I'll be getting lots of use out of this one.

 

I used mostly Elliot's dragon fabric for his quilt. I used more of the navy and the green from Mimi, and a little yellow check that I had leftover. I always use Warm and Natural for my quilt batting. It's thinner that anything else, and much, much warmer. For baby blankets I just buy the crib and craft size that comes pre-cut in a package. I happened to have some white cotton quilt binding in my stash, so I finished off all the edges of Elliot's quilt with it. The backing is more of his dragon fabric.

It was so nice to spend a little time with Jess and Elliot. Jessie is the best mom ever! And Elliot couldn't be cuter! He is such a happy baby. It's really cool to see Jerry and Gail with their adorable little grand-baby. I love you guys!

I also used New Look 6687 to make a dress for my friend Anar's baby, Ava. I made the dress in pink and white dots with the ruffles. You really can't get more girly.

Ava was just born in December, so I made size small. Hopefully it will fit her for the summer.

 

...and my camera is still missing