Winner! Winner! Chicken Dinner!

Thanks to all who commented hoping to win the adorable modkid dress bag pattern. You ladies have some fun travels planned! The lucky winner (who would like to go to Australia or on a Disney cruise with her bag) is Jennifer Bailey! Jennifer- please contact me with your shipping info.



As far as travels go, I was able to go on a brief journey of my own yesterday- I took the older boys skiing for Finn's birthday! It was their first time skiing (and my first time in over 10 years) but we all did great and had perfect weather.

And as for the chicken dinner, well, I'm about to look up some new recipes for my crock pot. We've got a winter storm heading our way this weekend and I need comfort food when it's cold outside. Stay warm, everyone!

Testing, testing...

Several years ago, when we were both new to the boutique sewing world (on eBay, back in those days...) I "met" Patty Young of modkid fame when we were both members of Adagio Bleu Studios. It has been amazing to watch her career take off since then- if you haven't seen her fabric lines or patterns, you are really missing out. They are amazing!

I was lucky enough to be chosen as a tester for her newest line of patterns, and just before Christmas I received a box full of fabric from her latest collection, Flora & Fauna, along with the rough draft pattern for the dolly-sized modkid dress bag! Her pattern books are so beautiful and easy to use- full of colorful pictures, helpful tips, and easy-to-follow steps. While this was a more complicated project (it involves zippers, grommets, and gussets, oh my!) the conversational tone of her clear instructions helped me create a gorgeous garment bag. Wanna see it? It's the turquoise hummingbird one on the inspiration gallery page.



What about you? Want to try it?

Like I said, this is not a pattern for beginners, but if you are an experienced seamstress you should give it a try. I am going to give away one copy of the modkid dress bags pattern which includes instructions for both the dolly size bag I made and the larger girly bag (shhh... I'm not a girly girl but I may have to make one of these for myself!) If you'd like to win a copy of this pattern, just leave me a comment telling me where you would like to travel with this garment bag. If you'd like to promote this giveaway on your social media of choice (twitter, facebook, etc.), feel free to do so! I'll be randomly choosing a winner on the night of my son's 10th birthday (this Thursday, January 28).

Proud Mama moment

My 3 boys usually dread going to the fabric store, and sometimes I bribe them by promising to buy them fabric to make something like pajama pants. I also make them entertain themselves at the pattern table by looking through Simplicity and McCall's pattern books (Halloween costumes are their favorites).

A few months ago, Finn (who will be 10 in 2 weeks) expressed interest in sewing something himself. Not wanting to squelch his creativity, I bought him a pattern (Simplicity 3553) and allowed him to pick out fabric to make his own pajama pants. He found a royal blue tie-dye fleece that he loved and I went with that since it would mean we wouldn't have to worry about finishing any seams. I had him read the instructions and take his measurements, and the pants got cut a few weeks before Christmas. And then they sat in my sewing room for a month.

Fast forward to this week when our local Chik Fil A was having a pajama party night and kids wearing pajamas got a free kids meal. Finn didn't want to wear any of his store-bought pajamas (too embarrassing), so I encouraged him to sew the pants he had started on last month. I got out my old/back up machine and gave him a brief tutorial on how to stitch forward and reverse and keep your seam allowance correct and let him go. It was nerve wracking (would he sew through his finger? would the seam allowance be even?) but I realized that this was HIS project and I needed to let him experience the success and failures that come with sewing. Yes, the seams got a little wobbly at times and he did poke himself with pins frequently, but in the end he had a great fuzzy pair of pants that he was proud to have made himself.

Holiday hangover

I think that's what I have. Holiday hangover. Holidays are fun at the time, but when they're over, you feel awful and usually have a big mess to clean up.

Compounding my holiday hangover is the (temporary) expansion of my household. My cousin is in the process of moving to NC from Florida, and she and her daughter are temporarily living with us while they look for a home. We love having them so even their long-term visit (they arrived 2 weeks before Christmas) hasn't been too disruptive except in the sewing arena.

You see, their bedroom is the room formerly known as my sewing room. Everything sewing-related got boxed and put away (most of it in a somewhat organized fashion) before their arrival and hasn't seen the light of day since. I almost feel like I am the member of some kind of 12 step program. "Hi, my name is Carol, and it has been 3 weeks since I sewed."

So that, along with two 4 hour Christmas trips and the putting away of decorations and all of the new Christmas presents (all in less space due to our house guests), has me feeling a little hung over.

I wish I could take some Tylenol and sleep it off.

The good news is, they found a house to rent today and will be moving in at the end of the month. Maybe things will settle down then.

Or maybe not.

The X factor in all of this is my husband's job. They told him on Christmas week that his position had been eliminated (nice, huh?) but the company would like to transfer him to a different location. The location of this location is yet to be determined. Selling our house to move in this real estate market seems like a nightmare to me, so we are praying that something opens up locally for him.

This was my very long blog of excuses about why I haven't posted or listed anything new in a while.

Almost famous

Earlier this year, my boys were invited to do a photo shoot for the educational supply company Carson Dellosa. I had actually forgotten all about it until my friend brought me a catalog- and my sons and I were in it!

Alas, that catalog isn't online (I'll try to scan some pictures in later) but I did flip through one of their online catalogs and found another shot of them here.


This one has my middle guy in the olive green shirt and my oldest in the red


And then my little man in red here with my middle guy still in olive green. Okay, so that one's just the tops of their heads. I'm still a proud mama!

Trying to reason with Hurricane Season

Hurricane season technically doesn't end until the end of November, so Ida came along decided to be one of the only storms to even come ashore this year. I'm usually pretty fond of hurricanes. I mean, how many natural disasters actually give you several days notice that they are coming? But I digress...

Hurricane Ida made landfall briefly in the Gulf Coast and then sent all of her rain up to North Carolina and Virginia. We are on day 3 of rain, high winds, and general misery here. The big difference about having a hurricane in November instead of the summer is that it is COLD- I think today's high was only in the mid 40's. Power outages have been sporadic in our area; luckily we have not been affected. The creek in our backyard is very high, but not this high.

Since it is miserable outside, I'm going to share a few random things that have made me happy of late:

1. I'm a winner!

Melanie of Above All Fabric is one of my Twitter friends, and she recently had a giveaway for some Quilt Market Goodies on her blog. I was lucky enough to win this amazing FQ collection of Sandi Henderson's new collection called Meadowsweet. It's not even out in stores yet, but there are 17 gorgeous cuts of fabric in the peach colorway on my ironing board, waiting to become something spectacular.


2. Knitting

Much more portable than sewing, and easy to do while catching up on the TV shows that keep piling up on my DVR. I'm currently addicted to making little rolled brim hats for American Girl dolls and matching ones for the girls who love them. I'm taking a bunch to a local craft market tomorrow, but will have some up in my etsy store soon.

3. Patterns

I am currently working on 3 new eBook patterns to debut right before Thanksgiving. Two of them are perfect for Christmas gifts- stay tuned for details! I've got so much going on inside my head right now; I wish there were more hours in a day for me to get everything done.

Speaking of which, I've spent way too much time on this post already...

104 days of summer vacation

If you haven't seen the TV show Phineas and Ferb on the Disney Channel, you should- it's hilarious. And it has catchy songs- trust me, we own the soundtrack. So when my boys decided that's what they wanted to be for Halloween, I gladly took on the challenge. The results aren't quite perfect, but considering that I didn't have a pattern to work from, I'm pretty pleased with the results.

In other crazy costume news, I was just asked today to make a whale costume for a teenager for a play. A whale, people! Seriously? I have no idea where I'd even begin...

I'm going to spend some time cleaning up my sewing room since it became quite disastrous in there during the costume frenzy last month and I'm also working on a few new patterns that will be perfect for the upcoming holiday season. While I take a break from new listings, be sure to check my etsy store more more destash items- I've got lots of fabric and patterns to get rid of, and who knows what else!