A pile of pretty things

Well, I guess it isn't a pile, but I couldn't resist the alliteration. Anyhow. on our recent trip to Oregon, I was inspired by my friend Jenny's interior decorating prowess. Her house is so darn CUTE and I love how she always incorporates beautiful things that are also functional into her home without paying any attention to design rules. She seems to live by the "if I like it, it will work" rule, and in her case, this is absolutely true.

In my house, I am constantly torn between the desire to make things look nice and the desire to throw in the towel. It is, after all, a one-bedroom, 60-year-old mobile home that is just plain ugly. But little fits of despair usually clear the way for another go at making things look better. I put together this little tray after getting home from Oregon. Since I don't have a bedroom, there is nowhere for me to put MY things where they won't be destroyed by an illegally thrown frisbee or knocked over by a rogue Lego car. So I am taking a risk by putting something GLASS in a high-traffic area, but what the heck. I scored this wooden tray at Joanne's in the clearance section, and bought the little notepad and pencils at Paper Source. The glass apothecary jar was bought at TJ Maxx a while back with the intention of making a terrarium, but has been collecting dust until I decided to fill it with my small collection of seashells from Bali. The little turtle is from Bali too, to commemorate me getting to hold baby turtles while we were there (one of my favorite memories). Brett made me the little jar on our neighbor's pottery wheel, and the book under the notepad was given to me by my 8'th grade teacher when I graduated from Jr. High. I love looking at all these pretty things, which were previously hidden away in the back reaches of my shared closet. And it has already come in super handy to have a note pad and pencils right inside the front door. My kids still don't understand why I bite their heads off whenever their cute little hands reach towards my jar of shells... but they are learning to respect the tray. It is my tiny little square of peace in an over-crowded house.

Hexagon Flowers

Here is my hexagon progress to date. You are looking at 11 hexie flowers - only 106 to go! I made a lot of progress on our road trip, sewing hexagons until my little box got too full, then switching over to attaching them into flowers. As you can see, there isn't really a rhyme or reason to my color scheme. I'm just using fabrics that I like and planning on anchoring them with the occasional white hexagon throughout as well as white around the outside border. Everything I make ends up pretty bright and in violation of color rules, but I like things that way.



Our TV broke yesterday, which has been a blessing in disguise. Last night I worked on some hexie flowers while listening to Harry Potter cd's - bliss! Looking forward to doing more of the same tonight, as the hubbie has a few outside projects he's been working on after the kids go to bed.



This is my view beyond the little hexie photo shoot I set up. Here in bloggy land I tend to crop out the most important part of pictures, so I decided to give you a glimpse of reality. I'd like to find whoever invented Legos and kiss them on the mouth. :)

WOW.

This painting by MGotovac has left me speechless. And now it's mine. I'm not one to make impulse purchases of original paintings, but this was way too beautiful and well-priced to pass up. Plus, I was afraid that if I posted links here someone else might snatch it up and I'd be left without it. Can't wait for it to arrive... then I'll have to find somewhere to put it. Hm.

Progress

Last night I blocked off all 49 squares of my "vintage fabrics" quilt (is is called "blocking off"? I'm never sure if I've got the terms right since I kind of collected all my quilting skills haphazardly.) It was a nightmare! These 49 squares were the first I ever made, and I cut all the little pieces out with scissors, so things were pretty wonky. Hopefully all that hard work pays off and I'm able to attach them fairly easily.



When I got the bag of squares out of my sewing cupboard, I was not at all excited to work on this quilt. Like I said before, this is a bit too traditional for my style, and the fabrics aren't my favorite, either. Too many browns... However, once I started working on them, I feel back in love with this quilt. I started recognizing the fabrics - a little triangle from the dress I sewed with my mom, a bit of fabric left over from the throw covers in my Grandma's living room, a tiny duckling print that my Grandma used to make me a Christmas ornament. I realized that in using fabrics that were just lying around, I accidentally preserved a bit of my family's history, and that makes this quilt VERY special. The above square is my favorite - I love all the non-matchy bright colors.



We're newly home from a road trip to Oregon. I'm hoping to get some pictures from the trip ready to show you, but you know how I am with things I'm "hoping" to do... As you can see from those cute faces, we had all kinds of crazy underwear-on-the-head fun. It's nice to be home and back to my sewing machine. I made some progress on the hexagon quilt as well - those pictures are coming soon!

Wrapping up summer with style

It's been a pretty typical Monday around here. This morning my 2 year old pulled down his pants and urinated on the outside patio of Whole Foods, right in front of all the EBay executives who were eating lunch. I tried to preserve what was left of my dignity by squirting down the puddle of pee with my newly purchased water bottle then flashing them a charming smile over my shoulder as I tucked tail and hustled our little circus into the car. Then I shot some sort of terrible huge snake with the pellet gun this afternoon after we almost stepped on it on our way into the hen house. Normally I would let a non-poisonous snake live, especially since I have a mouse problem in the hen house. But this guy coiled up and hissed really loudly at us, and frankly, I didn't like his style. I could just picture reaching my hand into the scratch bin and grabbing his tail on accident, so I had to get rid of him. We wrapped things up with a healthy snack from the garden - carrots for Moses and a little bowl of raspberries for Titus. I love seeing them enjoying all our hard work out there. I planted most of my fall garden last week - okra, brussels sprouts, celery, and cabbage seeds went in. Kale, lettuce, and carrots are waiting for me to pull some more weeds. As you can see from this picture, we are kind of gardening prairie-style up here; I hack down a parcel of weeds, till up the dirt, and have about 2-3 months to grow something before nature creeps back in.

And that's my Monday ramble... hoping for some less embarrassing and dangerous adventures to come our way the rest of the week.

Sunday Sewing

I usually find myself with a bit of quiet sewing time on Sunday afternoons, thanks to my husband. Today I finished up my custom bib order - they are SO cute! I snapped this teaser picture but didn't have time to bust out the fancy camera and do an official photo shoot, so you'll just have to use your imagination.



Finishing those allowed me to do some work on my hexagon quilt. I love making these little guys - it 's very soothing. I'm the type who always needs to be doing something even when I'm sitting down relaxing, and this is the perfect portable project.



I've only finished a little more than 100, and have about 1,000 more to go, but I'm really enjoying working with so many different fabrics. I printed this awesome coloring sheet that Melanie over at Texas Freckles created and worked on figuring out my hexagon layout. As you can see, I had a little help. I'd also like to mention that I did this while in the heat of a Nerf Gun War. How's that for multi-tasking?

New Mini Quilt

I finally got this little quilt listed in the shop, along with a few new sachet sets. The boys are in bed and I am off to work on bibs for a while before settling down for some hexagon time. Sheesh, I feel like a sewing-druggie; I can't get enough!