Nature's glory!

We had a most glorious sunset a few evenings ago. Here are the pics I took, completely unedited. Enjoy, especially those of you who can't see the sunsets from where you live! (Click any photo to enlarge.)

As I was taking pics, I turned around and saw this:

It's the sunset reflected in a window on our house. It looks like some kind of a wild wall hanging, doesn't it? Or maybe like the house is on fire. :)

Triple Zip Pouch #7

I decided to do a little "scrapbusting" with what I had left of Jess's Typography fabrics. Since I had inherited my mother-in-law's rotary cutters after she passed away, I needed somewhere to store them besides a zip-lock bag. I think the perfect storage solution is a Triple Zip Pouch, since that's what I use for my other set.

At the link above is a free tutorial. The little pouches are so fun to make, as well as pretty quick. The hardest part is deciding the fabric/zipper combo - so many possibilities! This time I went with just one fabric on the outside. It was the only thing I could make work with the zippers I had on hand, and I like it this way!

Zippers are so fun! Inexperienced sewers fear them, but really, in a bag they're so easy!

(Now if the camera would've just gotten the colors right. Aargh. The fabric color is really teal, and the orange zipper is more like in the other pics, which were taken with my iPad.)

For the linings, I used the leftover Lorem Ipsum, and since there wasn't enough of the teal to do all the pockets, I used the purple, too. I don't care if the linings are perfectly color coordinated, and I think the different colors are kind of fun, too.

The cutters fit perfectly in there. And the smallest pocket can hold the spare blades.

I've made a number of these pouches (6, in fact) before. You can see them all here. I've gifted some, and others I'm using (and there's one I can't figure out what I did with, but it's probably buried under some fabric somewhere - ha!). They're good for so many things, like Sharpee markers, for example, which is what I use this one for.

The front one below, which was my first one ever, is still my favorite. It contains my original set of rotary cutters, and it gets a lot of use!

I do my main cutting upstairs on the kitchen table, so that set stays up there. This new pouch will stay down in my sewing room where I've added a small cutting mat for those little trim jobs that I don't want to have to run upstairs and dig everything out to cut.

So that's my latest sewing project. I think for the next one, I'm going to do something totally different. And you probably won't get to see it - ha! Think on that one awhile. ;)

I mentioned in a previous post that someone was making something out of ALL the Typography fabrics. Have you guessed what it could be? Well, it's finished, so you can see it now. I have a friend who is an awesome quilter. You can see a quilt she made for me here. I recommended her to Cloud9 as a possibility for making a quilt out of Jess's fabrics (what else would take that many different fabrics?), and they decided to use her. She was thrilled to do it, and she did a wonderful job. They gave her the design they wanted her to make, and she had to figure out how to make it work! She sure did! You can see the quilt here. And if any of you quilters out there are interested, I believe the pattern is going to be free!

SEWING with Courtney!

On Courtney's last full day here before school started, we decided it was time for her to try a little sewing project... on the REAL sewing machine! She loves bags, so I found a simple example online, and we went with that plan.

She also loves pockets, and she wanted one on the inside. Since we weren't lining the bag (I serged all the fabric edges to prevent fraying), I said we would also need a pocket on the outside to cover up the stitches from the inside pocket. She chose her fabrics that day but we didn't have time to start sewing (much to her disappointment), so we got at it this week Tuesday when she was here after school.

Here she is, her very first time at a real sewing machine, stitching some of Auntie Jess's ribbon onto her outside pocket for trim.

Next the pocket went onto the outside of the bag.

My biggest worry was over little fingers that could slip under the needle, so I was watching like a hawk, but she was very careful (and I was ready to grab the hand crank if she got going too fast)!

After sewing on grosgrain ribbons for straps, she then sewed the back and front of the bag together.

Here she is with her brand new bag, proud as can be (and rightly so, as she did a wonderful job for a first-ever sewing machine project)!

(I thought she happened to be very color-coordinated that day, right down to her shoelaces!)

A closer look at her bag, made out of one of Auntie Jess's earlier fabrics:

She did fabulously! She was very careful about everything. The hardest part was controlling the speed with the foot pedal, but she'll get the hang of that soon enough. I think she's going to be a great seamstress someday... Grandma's little protégée! Grandma is very proud, too [even though it's hard to believe she's actually old enough (8) to be sewing]!

I took a couple of videos with my iPad, not knowing if I could find a way to get them onto the blog or not, but I discovered that I can email them to myself and save them on my computer, then upload them. So here you can see a couple quick clips of her sewing in action (apologies if you're on a tablet... they probably won't work there (?) ). Next time I'll know enough to turn the iPad to landscape, since I know I can use them here. ;)

She started pretty slowly, but she gained speed with her gained confidence.

I have no doubt her brain is already cooking up the next sewing project. Whatever it is, you'll be seeing it here! :)

Oops! A bit of a late update

I was reminded in the comments yesterday that I had never shown you an update of Jess and Alex's front yard after we did so much work on it last spring. Unfortunately I totally forgot about it, so I don't have any photos of the entire yard, and when I asked Jess about it yesterday, she said everything is kind of end-of-summer worn out now and beyond pretty. So I'll just show you the only pics I have saved that she had sent earlier. Here are her gorgeous crazily-blooming begonias, with the hydrangeas in the background.

That's all I have of the font yard, but here are a couple pics of her climbing black-eyed Susan vine from her back yard, with some daisies in front.

They're on a trellis. They were kinda slow to get going, but the flowers are very pretty.

(She gave me some of her seeds, and I also have them growing up the posts under our deck now. Fun!)

Sometime after we were there, she also added this beautiful caladium in the back yard.

That's all the photos I have. Sorry.

Success!

The boxers fit!

I love it when that happens!