Liam’s birthday backpack – FINISHED!

I am so in love with Rae’s backpack tutorial. It is in fact the first pattern I’ve ever felt the need to buy, so I went ahead and never looked back. Lucky for me, she has probably the clearest, easiest patterns I’ve used so far. Unlucky for me, pattern-buying is a slippery slope…

Whoops, this is the only side view I shot of it.

I’ve since bought Rae’s Washi dress* and Geranium dress patterns. Yes, the Geranium pattern is for little girls, and I only have a boy. I will obviously be making lots of Geranium dresses for any and all little girls I meet. I’ve also made the (free!) Itty Bitty Baby dress for Liam’s baby friend. (When are they big enough that I need to stop calling them “baby friends”? I hope never.) Anyway Miss V’s birthday is in July so I won’t be revealing that dress until after her party. Sorry not sorry. Also someone had to model the dress and I only had one two-year-old available so… I may have tried it on Mr. L… and took pictures. For the sake of his (future) dignity I won’t post those pictures but they do exist for me to snicker at. And possibly share with his girlfriends in about 15 years.

For his backpack, I chose this comic book-type print I found at Joann’s… sorry, I can’t find it online. I didn’t line it because I was too excited for him to start using it, but the pattern calls for adding the lining at the end so it shouldn’t be too hard if I felt like it needed it in the future. I don’t think the backpack necessarily NEEDS to be lined though. We’ve used it to and from daycare and whenever we go out. (In case you’re curious, it fits up to 4-5 BumGenius 4.0s and a wet bag, plus room for an extra pair of pants and his sippy cup.)

I bought the pattern and gathered my supplies in early March in anticipation of Liam’s birthday on April 24. It took me two nights of post-Liam’s bedtime shifts: the first night was cutting the pattern out and taping the pieces together, then transferring to the fabric and cutting all the pieces. I think the first night I also did the first few steps of sewing. The second night I was able to get it all put together. Soooo happy with it, and so much faster than I thought it would take!

Way cooler than a diaper bag. Mainly because we can make him lug his own junk around now and he thinks it’s neat. Ha! Win-win.

 I love those little straps.

The best part about the pattern is that there are directions to make a slightly bigger backpack. When he’s at the point of needing a larger backpack, he will probably be in preschool or kindergarten so I think I’d definitely line it to give it more structure so he can carry his books and pencils and whatever school-aged children carry these days. Tablets? Graphing calculators?

*I just finished cutting out my Washi dress fabric and I am DYING to put it together!!!

Serger envy

COME TO MAMA!!!

So, awesome story – I won my office’s NCAA bracket this year. I have never in my life participated in a bracket, but it was free and my whole office was super excited. I selected my bracket in about ten minutes solely based on who was picked more by other bracket participants (according to Yahoo)… and maybe also if I liked their logo or team colors.

Aaaaand I won $100! All without watching a single game! I thought that was weird, I thought watching the games and screaming at the TV was supposed to help them win and I did neither. Although my boss did send me the video of the Louisville guy who broke his leg and I nearly emptied my stomach onto my keyboard.

Anyway that money was immediately earmarked for sewing goodies. I initially planned on upgrading my sewing machine but decided that my trusty, most basic of basic Singer Promise 1409 has gotten me this far and has never given me problems yet… so a serger!

I peeped in a few sewing shops and found much better models (there was a Pfaff coverlock machine that had me drooling but I was quickly brought down to Earth when I found out how much those babies cost… even refurbished!) but I’m just not ready to invest in a high-end model yet. The Brother 1034D has ridiculously good reviews and seems pretty user-friendly, so it sounds perfect for a confident beginner/intermediate sewer like me.

We still had a little bit of leftover gift card money and some points to use (Amazon Chase credit card, wutup!) so this hot piece of work only set me back $70, after I factor in my bracket winnings!

I’m calling the rest of it my Mothers’ Day present. I still want breakfast in bed though.

Everything looks better in a ramekin.

That is a fact.

I’m no great chef, but I do like to cook. And Kev and I really like to experiment with fun recipes… it’s not uncommon for one of us to email the other a recipe during the day and say “Can we try this sometime?” and by “sometime” we really mean tonight, or this weekend at the latest.

Funny story, I thought I hated goat cheese and then I tried it again a few weeks ago and realized I like it a lot. So off I went to Acme (although Trader Joe’s usually has goat cheese for less) and grabbed some goat cheese from the rather underwhelming selection. Armed with this recipe and the sweet purple ramekins that my mama bought me for Christmas and we were off!

Ohhh Marthaaaa, you did not disappoint. This recipe is so so so easy. I went into it a little apprehensive because everyone always talks about how finicky souffles are and how difficult it is to get it just right. I’ve done this recipe several times since we first tried it about three weeks ago and it’s always perfect. Creamy and tangy and fluffy!

The only thing I really changed is I don’t really grate the cheese… actually I just leave the goat cheese out for an hour or so and then I just cut it into large chunks. It blends in pretty well in the saucepan with the hot ingredients, and I actually like the occasional chunk of goat cheese in the souffle.

This recipe has become a staple in our dinner lineup – easy and tasty!

Easy ottoman slipcover

I’d never made a slipcover before. It was nap time and we were having guests over the next day so I took one look at this sorry ottoman and decided I needed to act. Immediately.

Getting rid of this ottoman is not an option. It was the first piece of furniture we bought for our house since all of the rest of furniture was hand-me-down (except for our bed which we bought when we first got married). Thank goodness the in-laws were downsizing at the same time we were moving into our own home! Seriously – we got a This End Up matching set of a couch, armchair, coffee table, two side tables, and later on a console. Best hand-me-downs ever, right?!

Anyway a few days after we moved in to our home Kev ran out to Target to buy some essentials like you know, shower curtain rods and toilet paper holders – yes, we lived for several days without a shower curtain. How do you shower without a shower curtain, you ask? The answer is, very carefully. (Please, like I even showered in the first few days after bringing a baby home from the hospital. I’m only a little bit kidding.)

While Kev was at Target he picked up this storage ottoman as a storage solution for the living room. It was dirt cheap, maybe $20 or less. Thinking back on it we probably should have coughed up a few extra dollars for at least a faux leather one because let me tell you, once Liam was mobile that sucker got GROSS. It received a few too many yogurt treatments, I think. I was usually been pretty good about wiping it up in time before anything set in it, so it doesn’t smell at all, but the microsuede just looked awful. Besides it being our first ever piece of new furniture (I know Kev isn’t as attached to it in that way), it also houses Kev’s video games and extra controllers so obviously it serves a need in our home.

Slipcover to the rescue! This is a less-than-one-nap project so it gets major points. I used a little over a yard of this pretty fabric I found at Joann’s. I originally wanted to use the same fabric I used for this dairy crate ottoman I made in December but couldn’t find it again at Joann’s… BUT I think I like the way this turned out better – it matches but doesn’t look TOO matchy. (Dairy crate ottoman tutorial will need to come some other time. Another way easy project and looks sooo cute stuffed with Liam’s books.)

Liam’s birthday quilt – FINISHED!

I snapped a photo of Liam’s finished birthday quilt for Facebook as soon as I pulled it off the sewing machine and snipped the last threads. That’s how exciting this is for me. My first quilt! I followed see kate sew’s pleated strip quilt tutorial except very very loosely… I used strips of varying width because I just don’t have that many scraps. So some strips are up to 6 inches wide and some are only 2 inches. I had 16 strips total and I only pleated three of them.

I only purchased two fabrics for this quilt: the teal with white elephants and the black + white paw prints.

This little man loves it. Or I’ll just tell myself that.

I backed it with a houndstooth fleece from Joann’s. I sandwiched low-loft batting in there because I wanted to keep it fairly thin. I stitched the ditch, but only on every few strips or so, not every one.

I used three packages of pre-made binding from Joann’s as well. Is there anything sweeter than houndstooth with kelly green? I say not!

Excuse me while I pat myself on the back some more.

Fabrics.com sale!

Michael Miller fabrics 20% off! No time to talk, sale ends 3/4! Run!!!

I may or may not have indulged in these:

elephants!
out to sea
picket fence red stripe

No real plans for the Elephants or Out to Sea but I know I can make something fun for Liam. The Picket Fence will likely be part of the decorations for Liam’s cow-themed birthday party.

Windmills in my window

My kitchen door window! It’s the only door we use… seriously, not even guests use the front door because the driveway leads straight up to this side door. When we first moved in – not like we had neighbours – I rigged up a quick kitchen curtain. I had a half yard of a solid blue cotton which reminded me of TARDIS blue which is why I think I picked it up.

I totally went lazy-town with it and just used iron-on hem tape to hem the ends. I don’t think I even bothered to measure it – I just sort of eyeballed it, held it up to the window and decided where to hem it from there. Way technical.

Then I picked up a cheap-o curtain rod from Target and ring clips! I think it was this curtain rod and at the time I used these 1.5″ clip rings which were way too big but I didn’t care, I was home alone all day with a baby for three months. In fact I stole the clip rings from our window dressings from around the house! We have four windows that I’ve used these clip rings on so I just took one from each panel which gave me 8 for this window! Very clever of me.

 I also put it up with – wait for it – Command hooks. Not even the nice kind, the small wire ones because I had extras. It took me about a year and a half to finally buy proper-sized clip rings – I found these smaller, more appropriately sized ones (I think they’re 6/8″) at Joann’s – so maybe one day I will upgrade us to the bronze hooks. One day. At least I returned the stolen clip rings to their rightful windows around the house.

I DID switch out the actual curtain recently with this goooorgeous windmill cotton I bought at Joann’s. Is it weird to have favourite fabrics? Because I totally do and I have frequently expounded on my desire to wrap my home in this pattern. So far it has only extended to this curtain and two throw pillowcases for my living room but I don’t know if I’m done with it yet. I’m thinking kitchen towels.

I went the whole nine yards (ha, fabric humour) and actually hemmed all the edges and even added happy yellow rick rack! Full disclosure, I did all this during Hurricane Sandy when we were cooped up in the house for two days… otherwise I may not have put in the effort! I’m definitely glad I did though because I think it is just the happiest little kitchen window ever.

Ok, probably not the happiest just yet. After I switch out to the bronze Command hooks, maybe.