Ready for Spring!

I don't know about you all, but I am ready for spring!  I'm anxious to wear capri pants and flip flops again.  I'm inspired by clean, clear colors- like green grass, blue skies and orange sunsets.  Can you tell?

No more crawling at this house!

Avery is walking- 99% of the time.  As long as she's inside that is.  The moment you set her down on the sidewalk, she either goes limp and collapses to the ground to start crawling, or she will just stand there and not really know what to do.  She does not want you to hold her hand to help her walk.  I am very excited that she is almost completely finished with scooting around on all fours :)

She has started to stay awake longer at night, so we've been able to put her to bed an hour later than she's used to.  We were naive and hoping that would mean an extra hour of sleep for us in the morning, but sadly, that hasn't been happening.  Maybe daylight savings and I will be on better terms again in a few weeks!

She loves her crawl tunnel:

A tour of the fire station.  Our reflection in a shiny part of the fire truck:

Staying out of mommy's way while she's vacuuming:

Before/After- Project #18

This next Before/After project was a fun one!  Care over at Obsessively Stitching asked me if I would help her out.  She loved the fun yellow and brown floral print on this jacket so she bought it with the intention of making it into a new handbag for herself.  But, Care is super busy doing all kinds of fun projects like these I-Spy blocks, this awesome kids' art apron, and you absolutely must check out tent week- her kids are super lucky! 

Care knew what style she was looking for, so we exchanged a few emails and a few days later I had the jacket in my hands.

Before:  Linen/Cotton jacket

After:

  Care requested a recessed zipper:

 And she wanted a pocket inside for her cell phone, so she had the great idea of using the pocket from the original jacket.  Look how cute that is:

 

This bag needed to have some width at the bottom, so I boxed the corners giving her lots of space inside:

 

Working on a re-fashion project really stretches your creative muscles. You only have as much fabric to work with as the garment has to begin with and your pattern pieces have to work with the existing piece sizes of the garment. 
I learned a TON about pattern making with this project, and a couple of the prototypes that didn't work for Care's bag, did develop into two new styles for my shop- like this one.  Hopefully I'll have the other one finished later today.

Thanks Care for this opportunity and I hope you like your new bag!

What are you watching?

We haven't been watching much of the winter Olympics at our house.  I think growing up in the freezing cold temperatures of upstate New York has scarred my poor husband so that he can't even enjoy watching winter sports.  Anyways, this afternoon I turned on the tv and caught a few minutes of Men's Curling.
And I have a few thoughts.  Growing up in southern California, curling is not a sport that we see much of around here.  So the sport of curling comes across as kind of funny to me.

For example, this just looks unnatural.

I was always told in gym class that your knee should never extend beyond your toes.  I guess it doesn't count if it's for an olympic sport.

And then there's this:

Sweeping?  While walking sideways?  How does one go about training to be a sweeper?  What are the prerequisites for becoming a sweeper?  Franz wants know if their brooms are endorsed by Swiffer :) 

And lastly, there's just so much yelling.

I wouldn't be good at curling because I don't respond when when I'm yelled at.  In fact, I tend to cry.

On the other hand, I did catch a bit of the women's snowboard halfpipe and it was exhilirating!  It's amazing to see how high they fly and how many spins they can do at one time. 

What sports are you tuning in for during these Olympic games?  Any curling fans out there that I've just offended?  If so, please accept my apology- but I still think it's a funny sport.

Before/After- Project #17

Before:  Another runner (chocolate brown/citron green and gray/charcoal)

After:  Cool retro bag!

The citron color was hard to capture on camera, it's a tad more green in person.  I still have the gray/charcoal runner, so there will be another Before/After post at some point.

Happy Birthday Avery!

Avery will turn one on Tuesday the 9th- I can't believe it's already been a whole year :)  She is starting to walk, she babbles constantly, she says mama and dada, she loves seeing the neighbor's cat "chuy" hunt in our backyard, she got her big girl car seat this week, she loves playing in the church nursery, she sleeps 12 hours at night, she likes all foods she can pick up and eat by herself- she will not let us spoon feed her anything!

We celebrated her birthday yesterday with a very small get together- she had a great time :)  We think she knew the party was all about her!  She got to eat birthday cake for the first time and she loved all the shiny balloons.  Turning one is so much fun!!!  (I know, cheesy rhyme, but I couldn't help myself).

Doing the birthday dance:

Opening presents:

Really, I get to eat this?