polkadotbug

The Beginnings of the Buffalo Bonnet

It’s a little sad to admit this but fall is on it’s way.  I’m starting to get prepared for the September Indie Market and have made the first of the Buffalo Bonnets.  I have one made from 4 of my favorite designers’ fabrics, so I thought it would be a good time to post about it.  (clockwise from top left: Sandi Henderson, Heather Bailey, Anna Maria Horner, and Amy Butler)

The Buffalo Bonnet is my usual reversible baby bonnet lined with snuggly soft fleece.  The bonnet no longer has to be a spring thing.  If you don’t know anything about me, one thing I can tell you is that I love baby bonnets.  They are just too cute.  I made one lined with fleece for my little one last winter and she wore it every day.  Andrew had the clever idea of calling it the Buffalo Bonnet, seeing as we live in Buffalo and most people associate it with cold weather (hmm… I wonder why?).  I never got a chance to sell any because my first market was in the spring.  Hopefully someone else will be as fired up about them as I am!

I love this one from Pop Garden.  I think the bright happy colors are an excellent way to cheer up the cold weather.

I have a ton of sewing to do now to get ready for the September show.  I hope the time finds me.

Is it genetic? I’m not so sure.

This is the first Heather Bailey Pop Garden purse.  Same style as usual and same addiction to Heather Bailey fabric.  The difference is that I did not make this bag myself.  My 17 year old niece wanted to make a bag as a gift for a friend.  This is how she wanted me to say that it went-

on friday my niece and I had a fabulous day together. we had breakfast, played with babies, made a sweet bag, walked up to lunch, played with babies... ate pizza.... played with babies... etc. (eat, play, eat, play)

my niece kt is the COOLEST person in the whole world. she is smart, talented, beautiful and likes to eat. all those fantabulous qualities make her very very special. * you can continue with other great adjectives that make kt awesome*

I am glad I got to spend quality time with my favorite niece. we bonded and had a blast.

I hope some near time in the future we can have more laughs and fun!

There Katie, I said it (or copied and pasted it).  I will not elaborate on which parts are true or not.   Katie sewed the outer fabric and lining and one handle.  I put the rest of the bag together.  I guess it was a good start, but I am afraid to say that I don’t think I lit any crafty flame inside of her.  I can only hope!  :)  Honestly I think she has more fun mocking me and my attempts at craftiness.   Notice how the blurb above doesn’t say much about the sewing!!

The bag turned out very cute.  Excellent choice of fabric anyway! 

I definitely got the crafty gene from my mom but my sister did not.  I am not sure how that works.  Molly is super crafty right now after spending so much time with me.  I am curious to see if the desire will stick as she grows.  Either that or she’ll try her damnedest to be different than me.  Sad.

Experimenting Again

I’ve tried yet another reversible dress style and actually really enjoy it.  This newest style reminds me more of a jumper. I made button holes in the front and then just pulled the strap through and knotted it.  I saw a similar jumper like this (pants thought) in a catalog and decided to give it a whirl on a dress.  It was my first time actually implementing button holes to an article of clothing so it was a very new experience for me. 

I love that I keep coming up with new ways of making a dress that don’t involve a zipper.  Zippers frighten me.  Maybe I will get to that point some day. 

This size dress was a tad big on Abby, maybe more 24 monthish, but still super cute.  The best part is that is also fits Molly as a tank top.  How cute over a shirt with a pair of jeans?! This article of clothing can serve multiple purposes and last several years. So long as my stitching doesn’t fall out!

Here’s the reverse side.  This is how Abby wants to be ALL of the time now. On her feet.  Any day now she will be taking off on her own.  She still won’t crawl though.   Our little munchkin will turn 1 next Thursday. 

Last thing for the night… I covered a few lampshades with some glorious fabric in response to the excellent reception my first lampshade got.  Let me tell you I get a headache trying to pick which fabrics to use.  I love them all so much.  This stuff is seriously stressful for me.  That and the fact that I have to make so many dumb mistakes before I get it right.  I am thinking of putting a few on Etsy and seeing how it goes.

What do ya think?

I’m It

Ok, this is the first time I have been tagged, thanks to the lovely Amber of Amber’s Ambry.  If you don’t know Amber you have to go check her out.  She may be the only person you can find that makes poo shaped soap! 

Apparently I am supposed to list seven things that you don’t know about me.  Assuming that no one wants to know too much information about Tina, I will keep it more general.

Here we go:

1)  I am very afraid of spiders.  I try to not be, but I definitely am.  I had a hallucination when I was young with a high fever and it involved spiders all over me.  I jumped all over the couch tearing off my clothes as my dad and brother watched and laughed.  Meanies.

2)  As a 5 year old, I was an all star tee-ball player.

3)  I hate hate hate when people wear holiday theme socks when it’s not a holiday (ex. Christmas socks in June).

4)  My first job after college I spent working at Kraft Foods testing the jiggabilty of Jello (the bloom if we are being technical).

5)  I currently work in a protein crystallography laboratory.  Sounds pretty fancy doesn’t it?  It’s funny considering I have a degree in Elementary and Special Ed.

6)  I gave birth to my first child naturally and the second with an epidural.  All I can say is GO EPIDURAL!  Why suffer if you don’t have to? 

7)  When I was little, I wished I was a boy.  I thought my brother was mom’s favorite (well, still think that), so I thought if I was a boy she would like me better.  She would even cut my hair real short and “boylike” so I am pretty sure she wished I was boy too!  Turns out I am definitely a girl.  She told me I wouldn’t understand until I had a boy of my own.  So far, I have 2 girls.  I may never know. 

There ya have it.  Hope you enjoy the little tidbits of info about me.

To spread the love (pain), I’m tagging a few of you – I know it was supposed to be six blogs but I am new to this and don’t have enough people I feel comfortable with yet!  :)  Andrew wouldn’t let me tag him!  Damn food blogs.

PinkElefant

The Stuff I Live For

Mr. Monkey Suit

 

Carrot cupcake + cream cheese frosting = crazy delicious

Just thought I’d throw in a picture of one of our favorite desserts.  These are carrot cupcakes that I make from Ina Garten’s recipe.  They are super good and I have made them for a bunch of parties.  I just made them for a co-workers picnic last weekend and there was so much frosting left over (Ina often overdoes it) that I made another batch a couple of days later.  Yum.

Have a great weekend!

Crayons to Go

I think these crayon rolls are the cutest thing.  I saw my first one in person when I went on my visit to Josie’s house.  She always makes the cutest stuff.  Now she has upgraded to crayon wraps complete with books, paper and other accessories?!  I just can’t keep up!! 

I found a lovely little tutorial for the rolls at Skip to My Lou.  They are so easy and a great gift idea.  Just throw it your purse or diaper bag and always have a little entertainment with you.  Not that you couldn’t just throw the whole crayon box in your purse but this is SO much more stylish and adorable.  Again, I was using up some of my Heather Bailey fabric.

On a completely different note, our little Abby will be turning 1 in a few weeks!  How quickly the time goes.  She has developed such a little personality of her own already and has also decided that she wants to be on her feet.  She’ll scream and yell at you in her little baby talk until you grab her by the hands and take her for a stroll around the house.  Funny because she doesn’t even crawl yet, just a little butt scoot.  I think she is going to skip the crawling step.  

Oh, and I even did a little school shopping for Molly this past weekend seeing as she will be starting kindergarten in September. AHH!!!

Hope everyone is having a great week!

This Little Light of Mine

 

***Update***  I found the tutorial!  Sorry it took so long.  I had actually forgotten that I was supposed to be looking for it.  Here it is!  Good luck and have fun! 

Yay!  I’ve completed something!  This is my very own handmade lampshade.  My mom had this old lamp that she was going to sell at our garage sale.  I knew that lamp had potential but the shade was all torn up and gross.  SO why not cover it in one of the many amazing yards of fabrics that I’ve collected?  This one is from Sandi Henderson’s Ginger Blossom line. I feel like I am linking to Sandi Henderson and Heather Bailey on a daily basis!  You can probably cover a piece of poo in one of their fabrics and it would look like the most amazing thing ever.

I searched Flickr and found a great tutorial.  I wanted to link to it but can’t find it now!  I’ll add it when I have more time to look for it, or you can search Flickr if you’re interested in making one of these bad boys for yourself.  She made hers in Heather Bailey fabric and it was beautiful.  No wonder I fell in love and had to try it.  It was actually quite easy and now that I’ve finished I know a couple things I may do different next time. 

I love lamps and I love fabric so I am really excited about this.  I am tempted to start dissecting all the lamps in my house.  I was actually at Joann’s today and they had 50% off the lamps so I bought a cute and plain ivory base so I can make another.  Perhaps one for Abby’s room…   Oh the possibilities are endless. 

I really have developed a love/hate relationship with these fabric designers.  I am absolutely in love with all these colors, patterns and possibilities, but I hate that I have an addiction, I can’t decide what to do next which is causing my little head to spin, and my bank account in dwindling!  Take it one day at a time Tina, one day at a time.

Terrific Tutorials

Quick message.  I found my little reversible dress tutorial on a great blog today.  It's called 30 Handmade Days and for each day of the month she has a list of tutorials she’s found.  It was very exciting to find me there on day 21, but even better than that I found a lot of other sweet tutorials that I have to try there.  Go check it out and if you're anything like me, you can add a few more things to your list of things you want to try!

Pretty Problem Pants

Hi!  I am here!  I feel like this is my special diary and I have this stong urge to write in it all the time, but can never sit down long enough to do it!  I liked this pic of Molly and I a lot.  We had the same color shirt on and Molly thought we were twins.  That's all I want to know is how I can transplant her hair onto my head.  It's absolutely perfect. 

I want to start by thanking everyone for my birthday wishes and healing wrist wishes.  My birthday was delightful.  The girls at work went all out for me and I came in to a desk covered with balloons, flowers, banners, etc.  My sister (whom I also work with) made me a wonderful ice cream sandwich cake. YUM.  Thanks Ang!  She doesn't even read my blog but I thought I'd throw that out there anyways.

My wrist is much better now.  It's still very sore but I can do almost everything.  I just need to go to physical therapy once a week so I can stretch out the tendon and massage the scar tissue.  Fun!

With the healing wrist I actually got around to a little sewing this weekend.  You can see the girlies in their matching pants.  I started with a pair for Abby and of course Molly wanted the same exact fabrics for herself.  I don't blame her because they are adorable patterns from Sandi Henderson's new Farmers Market line, but I only ordered one yard and I could've used a little more.  I love it so much that I guess I will eventually be buying a lot more.  I need a separate bank account for this addiction I've developed.  Why does everyone have to keep coming out with new amazing fabrics!  Of course I really don't have a pattern, so I did my classic "wing it." 

I must admit that they look pretty cute in the pictures but let me tell you the whole truth.  Anyone reading this who is not an expert sewer (a novice like me) should appreciate my blunders.  Abby's pants were sewn um... upside down I guess you can say.  Basically, what was supposed to be the legs turned into the crotch and the crotch ended up the legs.  This makes for a very "low rise" type of pants that only make it 1/2 way up the diaper and fall off continuously (doesn't help that the elastic was to big too also).  Elastic always gets me because I hate pants that are too tight and leave marks on their bellies so I overshoot.  Note to self... elastic stretches a lot.

With Molly's pants I made sure that I had the crotch/leg situation under control when sewing but I still didn't make the crotch big enough.  The I have been following has the front and back of the pants exactly the same.  Is this normal?  I realize that you need more room for the butt to fit in the back so maybe I should be looking into a different pattern?  Or should I just leave a really lot of room in the crotch area?  They looked really cute on Molly but she did have to keep pulling them up so her little butt crack wouldn't sneak out.  It was definitely a learning experience, although I still really don't know how to do it right.   

Oh yeah, the serged seams tore in the crotch area on Molly's pants before the end of the day.  I was told that I didn't have to sew the seams and then serge afterwards, that the serger would take care of everything.  Is this true?  Do I just have to reinforce the high stress areas? 

I hope you have some advice for me! 

One Year Older and One Wrist Short(er)

Tonight I am here to whine. 

Is that acceptable?  You probably don't want to hear me complain but it's my birthday tomorrow so I can if I want to.  Yep, that's right, it's my birthday.  I will now be 31 years old.  I am not at all unhappy about my age.  I believe that it's all about what you feel like and I don't feel like I am getting old (except for the minor body malfunctions).  Heck, I am just getting started!  My wonderful husband's birthday is Saturday (I am 3 days older) so I guess we need to celebrate.  Happy Birthday Andrew!

I am unhappy about my wrist though.  I got the cast off on Friday and had my first physical therapy session.  My wrist didn't want to do much of anything.  I got a 2 page list of exercises and soaking regimens that I was supposed to follow.  I am absolutely terrible at following a plan so it worried me slightly.  Friday evening we had everyone here setting up for the family garage sale.  I go to pick up the pot of coffee ( I need my coffee to survive) and something happens.  Something bad happens.  My wrist begins to swell out of control, there is intense pain taking over, and I look completely deformed.  To make a long story short, I ended up meeting the doctor on call down at the hospital while everyone else sets up the garage sale (there were obvious advantages and disadvantages to that).  The doc wasn't sure exactly what happened but told me to ice the lump all weekend, don't lift a thing, and take my pain meds. 

I went in again yesterday to have things checked out.  They think I caused a bleed in my wrist somehow.  I am now told to skip the exercises and take it easy.  I need to heal first.  I really can't do anything though without disrupting it again and making it hurt really bad.  I am not one to sit around and take it easy though, so this is killing me.  Molly's lovely face above is pretty much how I feel right now. 

Ok, enough about that.  Maybe I should mention the nasty allergic reaction I had to my new soap that left a nasty itchy rash all over the sides of my face and neck.  I told you I wanted to whine!

I wish I had some crafty stuff to talk about but that will have to come later because my wrist isn't cooperating.  We are actually headed off to yet another wedding this weekend.  I should look beautiful with my rashy face and bruised deformed arm.

On to happier notes. I am not sure if you read Sandi Henderson's blog, Portabellopixie (you should if you don't), but she informed us all of a giveaway.  It is an absolutely mouth watering fabulous quilt made out of her fabrics from her Ginger Blossom line.  I LOVE it.  I want it bad.  Anyways, you can find the giveaway at Old Red Barn.  It also turns out to be a great blog so now I have some more reading.  You can always enter the drawing and give me the quilt as birthday gift if you win...  just an idea.

Alrighty folks, I am off to get an ice pack and relax.

Club Hand

Quick post tonight just to update everyone on my wrist surgery.  I am sure you've just been dying to know.  The surgery went well, I guess.  They gave me some drugs to "relax" me and I was out cold almost the entire time.  I faded in and out towards the end just to see a big blue curtain and the tops of the doctors heads.  I was a little panicked as to what I might say in my sedated state.  After my last surgery I woke to the nurses giggling.  Apparently I had been smiling and extremely happy as they woke me from my sleep.  When they asked why I was so happy I replied "I'm making bacon."   I do love bacon, but geez, couldn't it have been something better than that!

I now have a big club cast on my arm that will be coming off Friday.  I am still being quite productive with it on, although I haven't changed a diaper since my return from the hospital.  That's kinda nice.  I took the pain meds yesterday but discontinued the use of them today.  I was a little too giddy at work yesterday and began to think that it just wasn't right to be answering emails from scientists when I felt like I had a few too many cocktails.

Molly and I made a small gift for a little friend's 1st birthday.  Molly's card was just too cute. 

We made her two new bibs and a bunch of hair clips.  Happy Birthday Eliana!