Sewing Top 5: Real life highlights

It’s the year end roundup season again, hosted as always by the fabulous Gillian! This is an odd one to start with for me, but since I’m in the middle of a project, I’d like to reserve judgment on my best and worst makes of the year. So instead, here’s what has been occupying my (mostly) real life in 2018.

1. The Two Toddlers. (Can you tell I’m on a Lord of the Rings bender again? Technically, I guess Hobbit is really more of a preschooler than a toddler now, but since he started this year as a 2 1/2 year old, I’m going to roll with it.) Seriously, it has been a lot of fun to watch their personalities and relationship with each other growing this year. Hobbit is super-chatty and enthusiastic about learning, especially when dinosaurs are involved! We’ve actually slowly been starting to work on learning letters and numbers since the summer, starting with the ones in his name, and he’s been doing very well with it so far. I even caught him writing the first letter on our chalkboard wall downstairs recently, so not bad at all for a 3 year old! As for Padawan, it’s crazy to think that at the beginning of this year, he was just starting to pull himself to standing, and 12 months later, he’s not only running and climbing all over everything (so much climbing!), but he’s also starting to put together two word sentences. They mostly play very well together, aside from when one of them has a toy the other wants, so I’m thankful for that.

2. Facing challenges. While I wouldn’t exactly call this a highlight, it was a major part of our family life this fall. We found out at the beginning of October that the banking corporation that my husband works for would be outsourcing his job to India, and he would therefore be laid off in 45 business days. It was a scary prospect, especially the thought of losing our health insurance with two young and very active kids. But the whole experience really did help to strengthen our faith in God as a family, and it was good to see how our families and closest friends were so willing to step up to help, both by praying and with some financial support. Doug worked his tail off applying for everything he could find in the area that he thought he was remotely qualified for, and had a string of interviews, and even considered a major career change (trying out for the police). In the end, he got hired back for a different position at the same bank, in just enough time that he was able to end his old position on the last day and start at his new one the following Monday. And he even got a raise! Plus the process of getting ready for the physical test that he was required to take before being accepted for police training did make him take a very serious look at his health habits, which I think will be beneficial for both of us in the long run. I can hardly ever motivate myself to exercise, because frankly, I hate it. But I think if it’s something we’re able to do together or as a family, it’ll be easier to take care of myself, too.

The other sad/challenging event in the fall was having to put one of our golden retrievers to sleep. We discovered back in April that he had a tumor growing in his leg, and it was already huge enough that there wasn’t anything we could do, other than make his last months as comfortable as we could. I’ve lost pets before, but I’d never been in the room, and that was really hard. (I’m tearing up just writing this, and it was 3 months ago already.) So we’re a one dog family now. Hobbit still comments out of the blue that he wishes we could get Malkin back, which is so sad.

3. Sewing community involvement. It’s sometimes hard not to feel isolated from it when you’re not a very prolific blogger, or you can’t participate in challenges, or even sew the new popular pattern that everyone is making. But I did get to do a few things this year that I’m proud of. Like participating in Elizabeth’s Day and Night dress challenge, and Instagram challenges like #sewphotohop and #bpsewvember. I also got to write a guest post for the Sewcialists blog (something I didn’t think I’d be able to do, since I am ridiculously average by sewing community standards), and even got a response read on the Love to Sew podcast! (The Sewing Struggles episode, if you’re curious.)

4. My reading life. Reading was my first hobby love before sewing was even an option due to my age, so I spend a lot of time being torn between the two. It hasn’t been quite as much of an issue this year, since I’ve gotten greater audiobook access, between LibriVox classics, library app loans, and when a good friend with similar taste granted me access to listen to her Audible account. (Though now the issue is distraction by podcasts and music!) I also had the opportunity to join a book club this year, mostly made up of women from my church, Though I wasn’t able to attend every meeting, I think it went a long way towards both diversifying my reading and helping me finally start making some better friends there (always a challenge for a shyer introvert). There was only one book I disliked, and several that I ended up continuing the series on my own, or plan to when I can. I’m ending the year with a Tolkien reread, since that’s a comfort book for me and it was a hard autumn. I’m feeling pretty good about how many books I was able to read on my own, on top of the many, many picture books!

5. Outdoor adventures. So you know how I just said that I hate exercise? Hiking is the exception. Doug and I decided to start a tradition with the kids early on where one of their Christmas gifts is an experience instead of a thing. We weren’t sure how to handle it last year with a toddler and baby, so we got a state parks pass, because being outside is good for everybody. It ended up being a good choice! We did some family hikes, attempted paddleboating (we’re saving the next attempt for when the boys are older!), and discovered a new to us beach park that was actually amazing, and we wished we’d gone earlier in the summer. We’re not doing that as the experience gift this Christmas, but I am planning to get the parks pass again for next year so we can do more exploring!

I think that pretty much sums it up! I’m still involved in music things, of course, like the community orchestra and the flute choir (though I’m taking a hiatus from the latter at the beginning of the year, because the next concert is scheduled for the day of Padawan’s birthday and I’m not missing that entire weekend with him.) And I’ve kind of rediscovered one of my older hobbies this year, as I’ve been teaching myself digital scrapbooking on a dinosaur version of Photoshop Elements. It’s actually made it so I’m starting to catch up again, because it’s so much easier to sit down for 15 minutes and work digitally than to haul out tempting glue and scissors with the boys around. I’m actually very strongly considering doing one of those 100 days challenges early in the year to knock some more out! I’ve also discovered a site that lets me download 5 free supplies every day, and does monthly themes where people who enjoy designing create digital papers and stuff that they give away for free! All of that stuff except the zoo pictures came from there. I’m thinking that redoing my blog header may have to be a thing next year, now that I’m starting to get the hang of this better. I don’t share about scrapbooking much on here anymore, but here’s a recent page that I’m proud of, from a morning we spent at a zoo with Doug’s family over the summer.

So that’s it! I’m looking forward to reading about more of what’s been going on with all of you this year!

Crafty Christmas goodies

Hello, and happy New Year’s Eve! I figured I’d end the year with updating this with the newest toys I’ve gotten recently.

One thing I posted on Instagram, but not here, was that back around Thanksgiving, my Grandma (on my dad’s side) was in the process of cleaning some things out of her house. She decided that she wasn’t going to do any more yarncrafting. So she let my sis-in-law and I take her entire stash of knitting and crochet needles. Since sis crochets and they were mostly knitting needles, I did get the bulk of it, but she did get a couple of things, too! Grandma also let me look through her old craft books, and I did take a few booklets of some cute 60s-ish vintage knitting patterns. Thanks, Grandma! So I should be good for awhile on double-pointed needles and circular needles….but I might need to sew new cases for them, because mine are stuffed!

As usual, my mom gave me some fabric for Christmas! In particular, she gave me about 4 yards of a funky knit print, 3 yards of this oh-so-cool Japanese teacup fabric, and a couple of yards of a lightweight denim. I don’t have quite 4 yards of the knit anymore, since it shrank a bit in the wash, but that’s why we pre-wash, right?  I’m thinking a Tiramisu maxi-dress (a la Cation Designs) for the knit, a “real” Cambie for the teacup print, and maybe some wider-legged jeans with the denim–since it’s thinner and non-stretch, I think that would put less strain on the fabric. Plus a looser leg would be more comfortable for warmer weather here.

But what? you say. There’s four fabrics in this picture! Well, Doug completely spoiled me this year. Not only did he get me a new computer– and a Kindle Fire, which I’m still completely in shock over since I already knew about the computer–he also bought me fabric! With TARDISes on it! He got it off of Spoonflower, with the disclaimer that since there were a ton of TARDIS fabrics on there, he basically got the one he liked best. Love that guy. It’s a quilter-weight cotton, so I’m thinking this would make an excellent lining for the Colette Cooper bag, which I recently acquired the pattern for. The best part is that, although I’d have to buy contrast, I do have a blue canvas-type fabric in the stash already that should work quite nicely for part of the bag!

Mom made a couple of things for my sis-in-law and I, too. She made each of us a new beach bag with some meshy fabric (hers was in a different color scheme, but same idea). And she also made each of us a TARDIS wristlet–so cool! (And this would be perfect to throw into that Cooper bag that already exists in my head!)

The best part, other than the fact that it’s a TARDIS, is that she lined it with Van Gogh fabric. If you watch Doctor Who, you understand why this is great. My mom rocks. 

My mom also put a few fun new sewing toys in my stocking. I now have a buttonhole gauge, a Chaco pen, and a double-wheel tracing…thingy. She also got me this amazing wooden pressing tool, which I saw on A Fashionable Stitch and promptly put on my wish list. This will be so handy when I make that new winter coat!

I even got something for the scrapbook–my mother-in-law spotted a Project Life kit on my Amazon wishlist and got that for me. I think this one will be fun, because it’s so colorful! I love those constellation cards in particular.

So that’s a wrap on 2013, and I need to get back to trying to figure out the 3-D puzzle that is currently trying to get my craft room optimized to actually use this stuff!

Sewing Surprise!

It’s reveal day for the Sewing Surprises swap that Nova is hosting!

I received a package from the lovely Kerrilee, from Sew Exhausted. (The sewcialist that I sent to was actually her co-writer, Laurie!) My package got a bit lost in transit for awhile, but arrived just in time for reveal day, on Friday. Which was great, because the end of the week was pretty stressful and it was the perfect fun surprise to cheer me up! So here’s what was inside:
The package came all tied up neatly with a pretty ribbon. It was much neater than this, but then I repackaged it when I realized that I needed to take pictures–I was too excited and had torn into it right away!

There was a card with the cutest little cat sticker to seal it up.

There were two packages of wedding-related scrapbook stickers. Which is perfect, because of course I’m already plotting to make a scrapbook so I can hoard all of the candids that my friends and family make, as well as professional shots that we can’t necessarily fit into the album that comes with our package!

The latest addition to my stash of sewcialist-given chocolate. I’m still working on the first of the two bars I got from New Zealand for the stash swap (eating them verrrrry sloooooooowly so there won’t be any last minute dress-fitting panic issues!), but sea salt and dark chocolate is completely yummy, so I’ll be looking forward to this for sure.

And finally, there were two coordinating pieces of super-lightweight jersey, and a pattern to make them into! I’ll have to see if I can squeeze this in before the wedding, because wouldn’t this be great for a tropical getaway?

I had a lot of fun putting together my package for Laurie, and it was very exciting to see what I got in return! Thanks again, Kerrilee!

The one productive thing I’ve done all day….

Apparently my motivation to do anything productive decided to take a leap out the window in honor of February 29. But I can halfway check one thing off the list from the last post– I made a croquis! (Yay, I can delete those swimsuit pics off of my computer now!)

So here’s me, in sketchy form. And here’s what I’ve noticed from looking at this so far:

1. I guess I’m a little more pear-shaped than I thought, at least it looks that way from the front view. Though my shoulders balance it to an hourglass pretty well. But this explains why empire waist stuff always makes me look pregnant.
2. I’m not dreaming it… I do have proportionally extra-long arms!
3. Helloooooo, reason why I always have so much trouble fitting pants–my stomach is pretty flat, but look how far my thighs stick out in comparison!
4. I think I need to add “swayback” to that list of alterations I need to learn to do and use on a regular basis. I didn’t realize my back curved quite that much.

Yeah, I should go cut something out now.

The obligatory end-of-2011 roundup post!

But first….ooh, look, a finished sweater! (Minus the blocking.)

It’s certainly not perfect. The sleeves are a bit too batwing for my taste– I guess I measured wrong when checking the pattern to see if that was a good place to split off the sleeve, or it got too stretched out in waiting. I definitely need to work on my binding off–the sleeves are ok, but despite my googling to find a stretchier bind-off that I could understand, I initially couldn’t get the sweater over my hips at all. I actually had to unbind it and get my mom to do it for me, and it’s still not stretchy, but at least I can get it on now. I wish it was more fitted. But it’s a sweater, and I made it, and I learned some valuable things that I can take to the next time I attempt this sort of thing. (Like try it on a lot more often.) On the plus side, it’s cheery, it’ll work with those skinny jeans, and from the little bit I tried it on to test the bindoff today, it’ll be nice and toasty. I wasn’t sure I’d make my goal of finishing it by the end of the year, but since my day job is currently done, basically all of my students cancelled this week, and I’ve been trying to fight off a cold, I was able to knock out the rest of the knitting in a marathon session yesterday (along with watching Downton Abbey in its entirety.) So it’s done. Yay!

 On with the year-in-review: 2011 turned out to be a pretty big year for me and crafting! Well, they’re usually big years. But I made some pretty cool stuff, if I may say so myself.

Revisiting last year’s post, this is what I was hoping to do this year:

1. Continue working on fitting. Considering that I made a pair of pants that fit, and a perfectly-fitting sheath dress, I’d say this is a win.
2. Learn some more couture techniques. Little Black Dress, anyone?
3. Get my fabric and pattern stashes organized. Not so much on the patterns, but the fabric was a win!
4. Do some more reconstructions. I got 15 for the year, so I averaged about 1 a month. Not too bad!
5. Figure out whether the Etsy shop thing would work for me. I did. It didn’t. Moving on.
6. Rethink my scrapbooking. I haven’t posted much about that, but I haven’t totally neglected it this year– I reorganized my albums to a way that makes a little more sense for my current lifestyle, and I did actually finish a couple of pages. (They’d been in progress for a long time, but I’m still counting them.)

What I was not expecting this year: Knitting. Especially actually sticking with it for an entire year. And I got to the point where I made a sweater. Whoa.

I’ve been thinking about my goals for this year. And I’ve come to the conclusion that I want to keep it simple. My personal life has gotten a bit interesting lately, and I don’t want to put pressure on myself. So here’s what I’m hoping for 2012 in my crafty life:

1. Continue chipping away at the fabric stash. And whatever other stashes.
2. I have a handful of specific projects I’d like to sew. #1, the jeans. It WILL happen this time. #2, a jacket or two. #3, the Lonsdale dress I’ve been envisioning for at least six months. Aside from that, I want to leave things flexible for seasonal sewalongs and the like.
3. On the reconstruction end of things, I’ve had an idea simmering in my mind for a couple of months now. Since I’m already an Anthropologie fan, I’m setting a little mini-challenge for myself. Once a season, I’d like to choose a garment from the current catalog, and make a recycled piece inspired by it. Perhaps even with a tutorial, if the interest is there. (I was originally thinking once a month, but again, I’m trying to avoid over-committing myself. And once every 3 months sounds reasonable.) Also, I’d like to reconstruct often enough to stay a part of the Refashion Co-Op.
4. Continue working on my knitting. Specifically, I’d like to make something with a cable that actually looks like a cable, something with multiple colors in the same project, and at least start that afghan that will take me years to finish.
5. Keep chipping away at the scrapbooks as I feel inspired to.
6. Get better at picking projects that will help me make complete outfits. (I have a couple of orphan pieces that I still love and I want to wear them.)
7. Make some more things for others. I can be a terribly selfish crafter.

The other stats:
What I made or reconstructed this year: 3 items of jewelry, 7 dresses, 1 jacket, 6 skirts, 5 wraps/scarves, 13 shirts, 6 bags/pouches, 3 hats, 2 pairs of handwarmers, 1 pair slippers, 1 pajamas, 2 pairs of pants/shorts, 12 “general household” items, which is kind of the catch-all for everything else (3 of which are ornaments that didn’t get photographed), a few random scrapbook pages that I didn’t count, and, of course, my first sweater!

Favorite project this year: Hands-down, the Anthropologie pants.

Thing I’m proudest of: Actually sticking with the knitting this time. Especially through that rough patch on the sweater. This says much about the improvement of my patience levels.

So that pretty much sums it up–happy rest of 2011 to all of you, and see you in the new year!

A little thinking is a dangerous thing…

Assuming that the annual war between winter weather and my social life doesn’t recommence, I’m going to be spending the evening on Friday hanging out with my sis-in-law, a mutual friend and some of her friends for a crafty night. And I’ve been scrambling for something to do–I’ve found that jewelry and scrapbooks require hauling too much stuff, and I don’t always have handwork to do on my sewing projects.

I’m doing something unheard of…I’m seriously wondering whether I need to give knitting or crocheting another chance. Just to have something for crafting on the go. Because this is always an issue when those situations come up.

I know a lot of you out there do both… any recommendations on which one, if any, I should attempt again? I know knitting only has two stitches and crochet has a lot, but my crocheting friends tell me knitting is harder to learn. I will gladly take any feedback you all have!

Under construction (again)

Playing around with a new blogger template…wanted something a little more creative than the standards they have to offer (preferably with a background that wouldn’t clash with all my pictures!) Liking this one so far…unfortunately, I didn’t realize that doing this was going to entirely kill my links lists and whatnot! Guess I have some work to do!

(Also, I didn’t create this layout at all… I believe credits are at the bottom of the page.)

Edit: Ok, got the finished projects link list transferred, finally… I’m having a heck of a time figuring out how to get the scrolling widget back in, though! It doesn’t seem to be working with this template. 😦 I think I’m going to take a break and cut a shirt out, because at least I know how to do that!

Catching up, 4/4: The Honest Scrap Award

I am a bad, bad blogger. Catherine G was kind enough to give me the “Honest Scrap Award” back in June, and between the computer problems and all of the recent real life craziness, I’m just now getting to it. Sorry for the delay, Catherine, and thank you for the award!
The rules are as follows:

I must thank the person who gave me the award and list their blog and link it.
I must list 10 honest things about myself.
I must put a copy of The Honest Scrap Logo on my blog.
I must select at least 7 other worthy bloggers & list their links.
I must notify the bloggers of the award and hopefully they will follow the above three requirements also.

All right, let’s be honest:

1. It’s probably no secret, given my career field, but I am extremely addicted to music. Including finding new music. I currently have over 8000 songs on my iPod, and it’s an ever-growing collection (mainly due to my eMusic subscription, in which I get 30 tracks a month that I have to use or lose). I’m doing a blogging project right now (on my LiveJournal, since that’s where I keep in touch with some RL friends) where I’m trying to listen through the contents of the iPod in its entirety. I started on August 1. I got through the last of the albums that begin with A yesterday. (No jobs where I can listen to my iPod while I work, so it’s taking me a little longer than it otherwise would.)
2. The dorkiest thing I ever sewed: a vest from a vintage 70s pattern made out of snakeskin-printed vinyl. Both of which were free, having belonged to my mother. In my defense, I was a teenager at the time, and making an effort to create my own style and not just wear all the same Abercrombie crap that many of my classmates were drawn to.
3. I often wish that blogs were around back when I was a teenager, so I could have documented sewing projects like that. Somewhere back in grad school, I did realize that I should be doing that, and started a really basic scrapbook for it– just pictures, basic info like what pattern I used and when it was completed and any other comments I wanted to make, and a fabric sample if I still had one. Something about the system wasn’t working (too bulky or something) so I had to pull off most of the pictures to start over. I know I did start making a very, very basic digital scrapbook in Photoshop to start over, but that’s unfinished as well. I’m kind of torn between trying to get caught up on that and get it all printed out so I can have a tangible copy, or just scanning the pics from the original scrapbook (film camera) and documenting them in here just so I can get it done.
4. I read really fast–when I have the time to sit down and do it, I can read thick books in a day. (Worked for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, anyway.)
5. Sad to say, I’m at the point where I dislike a lot more about being single than I like. Since all of my efforts to change that status have failed miserably, I really need to work on learning to like it again.
6. Routine is tough for me. That’s why I loathed the thought of a job where I was doing the same thing 9-5 every day. (And why I have a hard time enjoying highly repetitive crafts, like knitting, crochet and needlework.) At the same time, I have a hard time sometimes with the day-to-day reality of trying to juggle an ever-changing schedule with lesson cancellations and reschedulings/other part-time work/fitting in time with friends when my schedule is so different from theirs/eating meals at regular times with my unfortunate tendency to get shaky when I don’t eat for awhile/finding craft and exercise time/finding time to read/still doing the things I have to do like laundry and cleaning. I wonder if I’ll ever find a balance.
7. On a related note to #6, I think part of the problem is that I enjoy doing too wide a variety of things. And I can’t bring myself to quit doing things I enjoy.
8. You wouldn’t know it from how much I tend to ramble in these posts, but I’m actually fairly quiet. At least within social settings, unless it’s people I’m comfortable with.
9. I get really frustrated with situations where I have to wait on other people to figure things out, like my current attempts to figure out my fall teaching schedule, because I’m too much of a planner for my own good.
10. On a completely random note, I’m one of those people who likes to throw movie quotes into everyday conversation.

And the Honest Scrap Award goes to:

1. Sorta Frugal

2. StinaStuff

3. My Fabrication

4. Dressed to a “Tee”

5. Danvillegirl Sewing Diary

6. Salinda’s Blog Spot
7. PB Designs Reading and Crochet Blog

Ok, I think that catches me up for now! Until I finish the current 2 projects, anyway…

Now to finish what I need to around here so I can do some sewing between my flute lessons! I’m going to miss my low-key Wednesdays once school starts and I’m back up to 3 jobs again.

And pardon me for a moment while I squeal… Project Runway starts up again tomorrow!!!

Finally catching up

Finally getting around to the rest of what I’ve been up to in the last couple of weeks.

#1: The car seat covers. I meant to do these last summer, but it was one of those things that I just ran out of time to do, and then it got cold, and so on. But I finished these the weekend before this past one. Made them out of four beach towels. The previous ones were beach towels too… in the spirit of trying to not be wasteful, I cut up the old ones (also beach towels) and am in the process of serging the edges of them to make blotters for a papermaking project I’m hoping to do soon.

#2: Last week was an extra-busy work week for me– the annual middle school band camp that I’m the flute instructor for. Monday and Tuesday were particularly rough in that they were very long work days, between that and my regular flute teaching. But when I got home on Tuesday, despite being quite tired, I was in the mood to do something creative that I wouldn’t have to think about too much. So I popped in Bride & Predjudice (not a mistype, the Bollywood version) and broke out the beads, and this is the result…

Gryffindor earrings!! We had some theme days, and since Wednesday was the premiere for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the kids were encouraged to wear house colors. So I went with this. (The red looks a little more burgundy when it’s not in that sort of lighting, and I happened to have a non-HP-related burgundy and gold shirt that also has a star on it, so it does double-duty.) My best friend, who is a die-hard Potterhead, stopped by briefly that night to borrow my hiking daypack, and so I made her an identical pair. She was quite pleased.

This necklace is actually a reconstruction of sorts– I made the basic necklace a couple of years ago, with a sun pendant that was huge. It didn’t look so good and it kept falling off anyway. I got the pendant separately with no idea of what to do with it, and finally realized that it went perfectly with the existing necklace.

The bone earrings were made to go with a shell -and-bone necklace that I wear all the time in the summer– one of the two original earrings got lost when I was out one day.
Finally, the “summer wardrobe” necklace– I got the materials for this specifically to fit my hippie-ish theme. (The cording is hemp.) In retrospect, I probably should have waited until I was a little more coherent and put the flowers closer to the pendant instead of the copper beads. Maybe someday I’ll redo that… we’ll see.

And then on Saturday, I spent most of the day sewing a skirt, but ended up wrapping it up with a quick refashion. I got these pjs during my freshman year of college, and they’ve served me well. But I’ve since learned that tank top + pants = limited wearability time for me– too hot for summer, too cold for winter, and the last couple of years the springs and falls haven’t really been much of a transitional time. So now I have a tank top + shorts. Much better.
And the bonus is I could make them longer shorts–I’m not particularly fond of walking around in short shorts, even for bumming around the house in my pjs!!

Also making some progress on my upcoming bedroom makeover…I’ve ended up with a different computer desk, since my dad found one for free that would save me more space in the room (and has a bit more storage options), and he’s helped me do a little repair work on it. I’ve also started what is looking to be the long, slow process of prepping it to paint– lots of sanding. (The repair involved sanding down the particle board enough on one piece that it pretty much has to be painted.) And I went to Bed, Bath & Beyond today to get some storage-type stuff for the closet and under the bed. (Was thinking about making some fabric storage bins, but I found some that were good sizes, sturdy, not too expensive and even matched the room, so I figured I’d save myself the time and hassle.)

To go back to the clothes refashioning…I’m feeling a need to do some simplifying again…the impending fall and all of its schedule changes/preparations for my brother’s wedding are stressing me out a bit. So it’s been a tough decision, but I’ve decided to take another break from Wardrobe Refashion after my pledge is up at the end of the summer. Seeing as how it’s the middle of July and I’m still working on my summer wardrobe plans, and I have to replace nearly all of my work pants and still haven’t mastered fitting those, and I need some sweaters and haven’t had luck with making or thrifting them, and my next several projects have to be things related to Adam and Julia’s wedding (including arranging the music for it, once they finalize that), I just can’t practically keep up with it. I figure I can still try to take away the lessons I’ve learned from it… I’m not going to stop refashioning, and I can look for some more sustainable options (at least for the sweaters…I have my doubts about the pants). And maybe if things calm down, I can go for another round. Everything has its season, and right now I think I just need to keep my sewing more simple and fun.

Figures….

Just when I get my computer up and running again, the internet dies! My family was completely internet-less yesterday due to the router crashing. It’s amazing how reliant on it I’ve become. No checking email or craft blogs or Facebook. No printing anything from my computer because the network was down and I don’t have my own printer. (Actually, I’m still having that problem…apparently something didn’t connect when I hooked it back up.) I’m in the midst of a massive cd/iTunes reorganization spree, and I couldn’t even upload cds that hadn’t been fully ripped because iTunes needs the internet to find the track listings! But the internet is back, and I can stop twitching now.

Of course, this means no more catching up on posts. But if all goes according to plan, this post will be updated tomorrow afternoon with project pictures and pattern reviews. Just have to take the pics first…