Friday, September 28, 2012

Another Triple-Zip Pouch

It was a busy day again today, but I managed to finish up another pouch! This one is Courtney's, made from her requested blue, green and pink.


I went a little crazy and made the linings out of blue, green and pink, too. :)


Three pouches in less than a week.... must be some sort of a record for me!


Really, they're so fun to make that I could make a dozen more! They may just be the most fun sewing item I've ever made.

I was lucky enough to have my little recipient/model arrive via the school bus again this afternoon, so she agreed to let me take a picture of her with it. Sort of.


And then I got this:


It has to be something to do with being FIVE!! Ha! Anyway, she loves it, and she was quite cooperative in playing by herself while I finished it up after she got here.

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Triple-Zip Pouch

Hi! I'm back... sorry for the absence. I just got really busy with other things, and I also kind of ran out of photos to post. But now I have photos, and I can also show you some of what I've been up to! I've been doing my bag lady thing again. I ran across a sweet tutorial here for a Triple-Zip Pouch. Debbie's looked so cute that I couldn't resist making one myself! Here it is:


And then I couldn't resist making another one!  Here it is:


Aren't they cute and fun?!


The fabrics, of course, are from Jess's Outside Oslo line.

I plan to use the first pouch to hold my rotary cutters, extra blades, etc. It's the perfect size!


I'm going to gift the second pouch to a friend. And then I'm going to make another one! For guess who? Yeah, you probably guessed... for Miss Courtney. She requests hers to be blue, green and pink. :) I'll show you when I get it done.

I wrote a little review of the tutorial for Jess's blog. If you're interested in a few more details, hop on over there and see all my exclamation marks! :)

Linking up to Amylouwho's Show & Tell...

Monday, September 24, 2012

Just a subtle(?) hint


Now what do you suppose she wants?!

Friday, September 21, 2012

Peppers

I've been harvesting my peppers lately. There have been some huge ones! I picked these a couple weeks ago to make stuffed peppers from. They're all green bell peppers, but in my waiting to get enough for a batch to stuff (and then some additional procrastination), some of them started to turn red.


Look how big they are!



I didn't know if this one was going to fit in the crock pot or not, but it just barely made it.


I've never made them in the crock pot before, but it was hot out, and I didn't want the oven heating up the house for an hour, so I gave it a try. I chose the slimmest ones, but it was a tight fit, even after sticking them in boiling water to soften them so I could squeeze them in.


Here I added some tomato sauce and their "lids". I've never used the tops when stuffing before either, but I saw a recipe that said to do it, so I tried that, too.


They turned out good, but the peppers were mushier than when I cook them in the oven. I think I like the oven ones better. How do you do yours?

I chopped and froze the other two peppers, and I've since chopped and frozen some red ones. I need to get out there and pick a bunch more before Mother Nature freezes them for me, since she's threatening to do that in the next couple nights!

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Wait ! ! ! !

This is an update to this morning's post. I found an even TINIER flower (another weed, of course). Just by looking down at the ground, you'd never know there was a blossom there, but knowing how well this weed (don't know what it's called, sorry... Dale???) multiplies, I figured there had to be a blossom at some point. Sure enough, they were there by the thousands! No wonder it spreads so well. Have a look:



I should've snapped one of these together with the purple one to prove that it's smaller, but I wasn't thinking. I guess you'll just have to trust me. It really is... I held them together and compared!

I don't think I'll ever find a smaller flower than this. I'm not even going to try. I need to go cut some fabric for my next sewing project!

Tiniest flowers ever?

We have patches of teeny-tiny flowers all over our lawn these days. They're actually some kind of weed, but their blossoms are so pretty. Well, if you look closely, that is. You almost need a magnifying glass to see them! Courtney thinks they're great ('course she's down there closer to the ground and notices them right away), and she tried to pick me a bouquet one day, but she gave up because they were just too little. I've tried taking pictures of them on the ground, but the pics never turned out very well. Yesterday I couldn't resist trying one more time, with the flower in my hand. That worked better! Just look how tiny it is! It kind of looks like a little daisy.


They're pretty tough (of course, being weeds), and they seem to have spread a lot in the last couple of dry summers we've had. You can see the white dots of them in the background of these pics. I don't mind them. They're definitely not as obnoxious as dandelions.


Are they the tiniest flowers I've ever seen?

Nope.

Not any more!

Look what else I found while I had the camera out there yesterday!


Another weed. But how can a flower be that tiny???

Look closer (click to enlarge the pic if you want):


Such perfect little flowers. Amazing, aren't they?!

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Reusable cat???

Sorry about three cat posts in a row, but this "oddity" showed up yesterday. Courtney and I were busy at the table doing "crafts", as we so often do. I think Josie gets a little jealous, because she always tries to get right in the middle of things. I guess we shooed her away once too often, so she decided to find something else to keep herself busy. A bit later, I noticed she was wearing something as she lay on the kitchen floor. Look!


Here, now can you see it better?


Crazy cat! It was from one of my jugs that I use to bring home water from the store for making coffee. How she managed to get it off of there, I don't know, but she did it! It brought her a little attention, anyway, so I guess she was happy. ;)

Any ideas for how to reuse a reusable cat???

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

More cat oddness

One morning when I went out to feed the cats, I noticed this sight off in the distance. Can you see her?


Here's a closer look:


And another:


Kind of an odd place to sit, wouldn't you say? I wondered if something (a dog, perhaps) had been around and scared her, making her run for the nearest high spot. What was even odder yet was that there wasn't a single cat in the machine shed waiting for breakfast! That just NEVER happens! I started looking around (fearing finding dead ones), and the only one I found was this one, on the ground just behind the one above, very much alive:


That kinda blew my theory of something scaring them all off, as she doesn't look too scared. So I don't know where the rest were, but they were all back by suppertime. They may have found a special stash of something good to eat (rabbits' nests or who-knows-what), because they didn't seem very hungry for a few days after that.

Anyway, all is back to normal now. Total remaining head count is 14 - 6 kittens and 8 adults (only one of which is a tom, whom you saw in the window yesterday). The bad news is that Patches is quite pregnant, and Mama kitty is beginning to look like she is, too. Aargh.  It's not a good time of year to be having kittens outside.

Monday, September 17, 2012

Evening rendezvous?

Saturday late evening, I was in the kitchen when I heard what sounded like one of my (house)cats scrambling to get up somewhere. I thought maybe one of them had jumped to get on top of the washer (where their beds are) and miscalculated her jump. When I looked toward the entry, Josie was on the floor, so I assumed it was Wispy, which wouldn't have surprised me, since she's rather chubby and occasionally misses her jumps.

I went out to look, and much to my surprise, this is what I saw! 


It was Snuggles, on the outside of the window! A genuine peeping tom!

It didn't take long for Josie and Wispy to hop up and see what was going on. They looked just as surprised as I was!


Snuggles seemed to be assessing his situation.


I think he was beginning to realize he was in a predicament.


I went outside to see if he was going to make it down.


This is how far he'd come up!


It was a bit tricky turning around.


But he made it!


I'm not sure if Josie was relieved or disappointed.

In case you're wondering.... yes, Josie and Snuggles are related. They have the same mother, but Josie is a year older. I think they have different fathers, however the fathers might be related, considering the coloring. Who knows?!

Friday, September 14, 2012

Vintage sewing #6

Here's one more outfit I made for Jess. It's apparently from the same pattern as this one. If I'd realized at the time that it was the same size, I'd have had Courtney model it, too.


It's actually a dress (with a waistband that needs pressing), not a skirt and blouse.


The (velveteen?) vest is reversible.


From the leftover fabrics, I also made this little matching outfit for Jess's doll, "My Baby Beth".


Her vest and bonnet are also reversible! And she has matching bloomers.


That's the end of the vintagely-sewn people-garments I have around here. I do, however, still have lots of the doll clothes I made for Beth (I also have Beth herself, still in fine shape!). If you're interested in seeing these, let me know in the comments. I might be able to convince Courtney to help me do a little fashion show for you.

Speaking of "My Baby Beth", just out of curiosity I did a Google search. I see you can still buy her on eBay, wearing her original outfit... used, of course, and the starting bid is more than I paid for her originally. That's "vintage", for ya! You can also get the clothes pattern like I used. Fortunately I ran across mine just the other day, so I don't need it. You can even buy a 2-page advertisement about her. Ha!

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Just pretty

I took these photos about three weeks ago on a walk to the mailbox with Courtney, but I never got around to showing them to you. So here you are:

Wild Sunflowers





Purple Loosestrife



Rose Hips



I really should take the camera along again and get some current pics for comparison. I noticed yesterday that the rose hips are a very bright red now... so pretty!

Update:  I did go take more pics of the pretty rose hips! Note the color change. So pretty!




Last but not least... what mom or grandma doesn't love an offering like this? :)