So, what's up with the shop?

It's been down a while, right? It has, and I miss it like crazy. I'm sort of itching to get home and MAKE THINGS!

I turned off the shop a few months ago when my 3 crazy (but utterly adorable and loved) children and late, late sewing nights caught up with me. I needed a little break. And then I planned a trip down to Florida to visit our family. My inlaws live in Orlando and we had a great time with them and even took the kids to Disney. So much fun, but with a 4 year old and twin two year olds, Disney isn't ALWAYS the happiest place on earth. Hot and tired kids = miserable kids at times. Looking forward to more Disney trips when the kids don't nap anymore!


Then we headed down south to visit my mom in beautiful West Palm Beach. My kids are beach bums, I tell ya. And I miss it like crazy (we moved to Virginia from south Florida about 4 years ago). My plan was to stay here for 2 weeks, but my husband was offered the opportunity to go help fight the wildfires in Georgia. Rather than go home to an empty house with no kid help, I decided to stay here for an extra week. It's been a great time, but we are ready to get back to our normal routines. We leave tomorrow, the kids and I, to embark on a fantastic 16 hour car trip (trying to remain optimistic here). Oh, and the dog. Not gonna lie, I am kind of dreading the stops with 2 newly potty trained kids, a 4 year old, and a dog. That might make it an 18 hour trip. Anyway, we leave tomorrow and will be home sweet home on the fourth of July.


But that's not it! My husband and I are itching tomove back to Florida and be with our families (stupid hindsight couldn't haven clued me into the fact that we'd have a handful of an older son and twins BEFORE we decided tommove away from families?? I guess that's why it's called hindsith). Anyway, it's too early to say anything, wouldn't want to jinx it, but maybe I will not have time to reopen the shop, because I will be packing. Maybe.

SO! What does that mean for my fabulous customers?? I have a closetful of ready made clothing in my shop in Virginia, that I would rather not pack up and move hundreds of miles. I'm not exactly sure what all I have, lots of dresses, some bloomers, maybe one or two boy things. But they are going on SALE. Like, I need these out of my house NOW, kind of sales. And if I end up having more time for sewing and whatnot, I would rather not move bolts of fabric. Lots of sales to look forward to in the next couple of weeks! I will keep you all posted on my Facebook page. Thanks for being my customers!!

Not your grandma's flannels

I really can't stand being cold. Especially at night, I get the chills and my cotton PJ pants are just not warm enough. I've spent the good majority of my life in South Florida, I swear my blood is just thinner.

So I was whining and complaining to my husband about my lack of warm PJs and half jokingly said I want some like Lilah's. Well, her favorite is a Hello Kitty nightgown. Geesh, a nightgown on a tiny little girl like that has got to be one of the cutest things ever. Plus, she likes Hello Kitty (as evidenced by the necklace worn in this pic and most of the pics of her modeling my clothes in the shop). He said, "Lilah would freak out if you had matching pajamas." Heck yeah, she would.



So, I half heartedly did a search for adult sized Hello Kitty pajamas. Ha. Not surprisingly, found nothing. Then it hit me. Oh yeah! I know how to sew! And there actually exists stylish flannel fabric, so I don't have to look like a grandma rocking my plaid lumberjack flannels. Or Hello Kitty ones, for that matter.

And of course I will make another nightgown for my girl, so we can be all matchy matchy. I figure I will just make us a long sleeved, loose fitting peasant dress. Now, to pick the fabric. Any thoughts on these?












Can you guess which one was a joke? Hardy-har har. And as I was browsing, I had another thought: I can embroider mine to say "mommy" and hers to say "Lilah". What! Almost can't take the cuteness factor. Thank goodness I didn't find any Hello Kitty flannels. And I'll pretend I didn't see the Disney Princess flannels.

Sweet Moments

I was sooooo tired last night. When it came time to put my sweet girl to bed, I thought I could squeeze in a quick 10 minute nap with my cuddlebug. Unfortunately, she didn't have the same idea. I lay down next to her squeezing my eyes shut, hoping that if I pretended to be asleep, she would take a clue.

Felt something on my head and she said, "cover up". Awww, I think she just covered me up. So I reached for the blankie and found a baby doll on my head. I was just in the way of where she normally puts her baby to bed.

I shut my eyes again and felt 4 little touches on my arm and looked down to see her taking the Bakugans out of her purse (what girl doesn't carry Bakugans in her purse? And, if you don't have a 4 year old boy who is exposed to other 4 year old boys at school you may not know that a bakugan is some kind of ball thing that transforms into a dragon or something. I prefer barbies and dolls, but I'm pretty schooled in all things Bakugan and Transformer).

This time I think I really did fall asleep cause the next thing I know she is at the foot of the bed shuffling something. I peak over her shoulder. Bakugan cards. And she is feeding them to her babies. Yummmm.

Then she sees me and comes right over to kiss me on the lips and says, "Now you recess". In other words, she has the power to make me into a princess by kissing me. Pretty sweet, huh?

By then I see it's 8:03 and my absolute "start sewing" time is 8 or I start to feel my motivation dwindle. Finished lots of ruffle pant sets last night and even made a one of a kind greenish hooded dress for The Crunchy Congo on Hyena Cart next Friday. Those hooded dresses are adorable, but oh boy. My least favorite thing to make.

And I may or may not have tried it on my 4 year old boy to check fit.

My (not so) Funny Valentine

I knew the day would have a rough start when my husband told me he had to work early, and thus I had to bring my 4 year old to preschool. I know, I am very lucky that he normally does it. A 5:45 wakeup, screaming emotions from the big boy, and a little girl who threw a royal fit when I *gasp* wouldn't let her wear slippers out to preschool dropoff. Shoulda picked my battles on that one. Anyway, I feel like a cattle prod in the morning and the kids hate being rushed, which leads to a lot of tantrums. At one point, I was waiting in the car and had to tell a certain 4 old that not everybody in the neighborhood wanted to wake up to that screaming (in fact, no one does - but some of us just don't have a choice). I know all the ways of dealing with these things to make it easier, but sometimes you are just over it, ya know?

A well deserved latte later, and we were on our way home. Teague took his shoes and jacket off and so I had to carry him and all our stuff up the stairs while Lilah screamed to be picked up, too. This ended with my latte being spilled on a certain 2 year old - thankfully it was almost lukewarm - and I have officially lost my shot at the World's Best Mom award by 9:30 in the morning.

My one goal of the morning? To get a picture of Lilah in my Valentine-ish outfit. I am sticking to my guns about not buying fabric until I clear some out and so avoided all the cute pink and red heart stuff I've been seeing. But i couldn't resist the perfect chance at putting personalized hearts on an outfit for the girly girls on the girliest holiday! So, it's my blue/lime green/hot pink Valentine that can be worn outside of the holiday :) Photo shoot not so good - my sweet, sweet girl is having a streak of 2 year old stubbornness today and wasn't having it. She didn't rock the outfit today, but trust me, this is a CUTE one! Doesn't she look happy??

(Not all mornings and days are like this! Normally I don't have a latte. :) )

Samplers

Digging through the closet again, I found a few yards of Michael Miller's Groovy Guitar fabric. Enough for at least 3 pairs of lounge pants, and I *know* I've been neglecting the boy offerings lately. Made some pants and was getting all set to make a name shirt for my Teague. Uggg. Today Lilah was wearing her's and I had to give her medicine and wouldn't you know she clamped her mouth shut at the very worst moment and that stuff ruined the shirt. Would have been less concerned if it hadn't been one of my stocked shirts ;) And if I were to buy something like that for my kids, it would be more special occasion, and I would probably opt to take it OFF before feeding my kid brightly colored syrupy medicine. As it is, I am careless with the things I make them. But anyway. That's a tangent.

I asked for sample names on Facebook at a discount. I just hoped that one person would take a discounted shirt so I could get a picture of it on my little guy. Never thought I'd get so many names! I only needed one, because my items are made-to-order. So, now I have a source for names to use! Now people can see what my fonts look like in names besides Jackson, Lilah, and Teague. I already have at least 3 more I need to get to, but trying to space them out. Plus I am getting busy again and losing time for creating the new stuff. (Yay!!)

So, here's my little Teague (pronounced like league) trying his hand at the modeling thing. He was less cooperative than Lilah, and said "no" to everything I asked. That's my little textbook 2 year old. Plus, he has these gorgeous blonde curls, but wakes up with some awful fuzzy bedhead. This was post nap so I had to spritz it down - bye bye curls, hello Einstein!

Happy New Year!

New Year is far from my favorite holiday. For one thing, it means the Christmas season is over and my mom has to go back home to Florida and we have to relearn parenting without huge amounts of help. For another, now that I have kids, it seems kind of bittersweet. Like another year in our lives together is behind us. I truly do look forward to the coming years with them, New Year just kind of throws it in your face that they are growing up.

So you wanna know what kind of exciting adventures I got into last night? Well, you're going to be disappointed. Even in the days in the distant past (well, like 8 or so years ago when I did the college thing) I never got into New Year's shenanigans. Guess I'm boring. And now I've seen the ball drop enough times in my life that I didn't even watch it last night. I sewed this new outfit (loooooove it, pictures to follow) and then came upstairs to realize sweet girl was coughing an awful lot. And so here starts the sickness phase again. Just as the third child is getting over his or her cold, and you think you are due a stretch of healthiness, the first child gets another cold. I.despise.winter. Toooootaallly.

So here's the one I was working on. I am committed to not buying fabric until I weed through what I've got, which is hard because I suffer fabric boredom. Just when I think it's time to whip out that Paypal account because I am just not inspired anymore, I dig through my cabinets and find some fabulous combination that I didn't realize I had. Cute boy one coming up today too, maybe.