It's not oilcloth!

A cute little baby gift for Sheena at JoAnn Fabrics. I have mentioned Sheena before but I'll refresh for any new readers. Sheena is a super-friendly young lady that works at my nearby JoAnns. She has a smile that lights the entire store and talks to everyone that she sees and if she really likes you she will hug you hello and goodbye. (she must like me cuz she's always hugging me!) Sheena is having a baby girl in a few weeks and they are giving her a little baby shower today in the store. I whipped these up last night while watching CSI. I tend to avoid pink gifts because it's usually been done to death.
Hope she loves it!


While I have you, I would like to talk about a new series that I will be chatting about called "Life downstairs". I live upstairs from my parents, you can call them Frank and Ro. This adds a bit of interest to my daily life. Here is an excerpt:
Tomato plants were "buy one get one free" last week...this is huge in "life downstairs".
Frank- Hey Ro, I'll go buy 2 and then when I come home you go buy another 2 and then when the shifts change I'll go get another 2.
Ro- *grumblegrumble* OhforcryinoutloudFrank!
Later that day Ro realizes that Frank bought yellow tomatoes and now has cause to torture him all day.
Frank- Hey Ro, I think we should plant these now
Ro-*grumblegrumble*OhforcryinoutloudFrank! It's too soon, even the idiot on the news said so.
After an entire day of heated discussion Frank has a plan.
Frank- Hey Ro, let's keep the tomatoes in the wheely cart in the garage and bring them out during the day.
Ro-*grumblegrumble*OhforcryinoutloudFrank! Fine.
So, everyday at 9:00 am the tomatoes come out and Frank lets Ro know when the sun moves so she can wheel the tomatoes to it. Every night at 5:00 the tomatoes get put back in the garage.
This is life downstairs.

Ridiculously cute *updated* 04/14

I know that dishsoap bottle aprons are a little cheesy but they are just so cute in oilcloth and all hung up together!

Thank you for your nice comments. I have licked my wounds and am over it now. I tried to email the editorial assistant and it seems that she may have blocked me because it kept coming back undeliverable. Oh well.
I saw an interesting comment from Tracy at fabric.com saying that she has a gift for me and my readers...I'd better go email her!
****UPDATE*****
Tracy from fabric.com would like to offer my readers $5.00 off their orders this week only The coupon code is "blogwork" and expires 04/21/09. You should check them out, I always shop their clearance first and find amazing deals and the service is always excellent.

This isn't going to be pretty

I was so excited to come here with some happy news after a loooooooooooong absence. You see, I figured it was better to stay away until I had something nice to say... that ain't happening today unfortunately.
A while back I was approached by the editorial assistant at a certain magazine and asked if I would like my bags to be in an article about gingham. After "I came to" I whipped up a few and sent them off awaiting the May issue. I didn't tell many people because it would be kind of braggy and I'm really not like that. I saw the new issue at JoAnn's yesterday and ran to it (imagine slow-mo with music in the background). I could hardly keep my hands from shaking as I found the article.

My bags aren't there.

There must be more at the back of the magazine...the back is still good, I'll settle for anything... There were 5 more gingham products in the back.

Again, my bags aren't there.

So, I am sad. Life is a struggle at best lately and this was something I was really looking forward to. Something actually about ME in a world where nothing is about me ever.
ok, I need to go sew now. I'm sorry to dump my pity party on you.

Still not dead...

...but not quite "living" either :(
I'm working aaaaallllllllll the time and honestly haven't even read a blog in months. As soon as I can come up for some air I will be back.
I miss all of you!!!!!

I'm not dead!

Just insanely busy!
Pictures and a blog post soon....

More new stuff!

What else can you do with oilcloth, you wonder?
How about reusable sandwich/snack bags?



Here is what my listing says:
This idea was kicking around my head for a while and then a customer asked if I could make them for her and here they are. I wanted to wait until we used them for a while before putting them up for sale and they seem to work just great. I tested them with sandwiches (the bread stayed soft), cracker-type snacks (stayed crisp), and even grapes (stayed grapey). My customer had this to say:

“I was waiting to leave feedback until I had used them enough...but honestly...I LOVE THEM! They make life so easy, are so adorable and everyone who sees them, loves them! Thanks so much, I am over the moon about a snack bag.”
Caring for the bags is simple: wash in your sink with warm soapy water and hang to dry. The sewn seam is on the outside to prevent any bits of food from getting stuck anywhere.
They have a nice, strong Velcro closure and double stitching. These bags will last a long time.
No need to limit their use for food; these bags are useful for so many things!
Appr. 7” square, just like a plastic ziptop sandwich baggie.

the ever-evolving lunchbag

A year ago, I bought my Singer Futura for the sole purpose of doing monogrammed things. What a pain! First of all, I don't have a laptop so it involves dragging my sewing machine and all of its parts into the living room atop a shakey card table. Second of all...well, that's it but it's a huge pain. Everytime I tried it out, I ended up SO frustrated that the Futura almost went out the window so I didn't try again until recently. Now, I have the hang of it and it's kinda fun! I still wish I had a laptop but at least I have it working.
I am now offering monogramming on my oilcloth items, check out these custom bags that are also insulated-



Thanks for all of the nice comments about Julia's Halloween costume! She even got a mention on Craftzine.com blog
woohoo!