A Gorgeous Morning!!

What an incredible day for so many reasons. The sun is shining, the temperature should be in the high 80's and life is good. With school taking up so much of my focus this year, I'm excited to get back to sewing. I've missed creating and playing with fabric.

What else have I been doing? We moved about three years ago, and I'm finally getting around to painting the remaining three rooms in the house. I've finished my youngest's room, and am now working on a extra room we're using for a den and laundry folding area. That one will have pale blue walls and Amy Butler fabric for the valance to match the espresso colored desk and furniture.

This weekend once I'm done painting I'll be sewing two commissioned messenger bags for two lovely Jr. High girls. I will have to post photos when they are done...the girls too of course! Until then...

I'm back!!!

Ok, I know I've been away for a while...what happened to me? Life...is pretty much the answer to that! For those of you who don't know, I am an adult college student in addition to a full time marketing manager and owner of my website business. This has been my senior year of school and it's been crazy. On top of that my day job has been impacted by the economy and my workload has increased to cover our downsizing. However, I'm thrilled to say that in December I graduate and will be done with my four year long school journey!! Woohoo

So, what does that mean? That means I will be able to get back to the business. I have bunches of goodies all made up but not on the site yet. These include handy zipper bags for things like your Ipod, cords, coupons, whatever! I also have gorgeous new shabby chic fabric shopping bags...yes, these are ready, but not on the site. I'm working on it!! Also, I will be posting at least once a week now on the blog again, so please stop by and check in. I promise to have some new contests and other goodies to reward you ;-) Thanks to all my devoted pals who've stuck with me!!

The newest addition to our family...Maggie!!

I try not to make my blog totally about business...so I'm here to announce the newest member of our family. This is Maggie!!!

Early Christmas morning we lost our beloved Belle - she was a shepard lab mix and had been with us for 14 years. It was very sad as we loved her dearly, but it was her time. We've been greiving and the house has seemed so empty without our Belle, so we started to think about welcoming a new member to the family. My husband began to look at local shelters and on the internet. We were so blessed to find Maggie - she is 7 years old and is a lab/golden retriever mix. She's a big girl at 85 lbs as you can see. She is cuddling with my nearly 18 year old son, so you can see how big she is.

Maggie was a beloved pet to a family that had to make the hard decision to let her go to a new home. Personal hardships made it no longer possible for her to stay. We've now had Maggie two weeks and she is just a love. She's wonderful, playful, and has a kind soul. I feel certain she was meant to find us and we were meant to love her. The house is now full of the canine life it was missing...and I think our Belle would have approved whole heartedly. Now, my Siamese cat may have something else to say about that. Although it didn't take long for her to re-establish who was boss!

I am back!!

Hi all!! I'm so happy to say that I'm back. I last posted in November after the very fun Northwood show. I had a show the following weekend, then a week later I was involved in a car accident. Of course the rest of my shows had to be canceled, my car was a total loss and the at fault party had no insurance. When I think back on it, I really am lucky to come out of it as well as I did. I still have lingering back pain, but finished physical therapy last week and am really excited to get back to the business!!

So...watch the site in the next week or so. I am going to be adding so many beautiful new hankies from the LuRay collection...the cutest is one with a little girl walking her dog!! I also have some new rag totes for spring, and the most darling aprons I've made - they were a great hit at the holidays - vintage and cottage flavor - some with vintage tablecloths! I'm just sooo excited to start sewing!

Please check the blog again soon - I'll be posting regularly again :-)

Pictures from Northwood Boutique

Here are some pics from my little 6x10 space at Northwood. I did fairly well here, and of course the LuRay hankies were one of the most popular items. Another favorite was my variety of aprons (pics of those later). I have a medium sized white Christmas tree, but it takes too much room so I got this smaller size. It turned out to be just the perfect size, and when it's lit up it has a pale pink tinge to it. Several folks asked me if it was a pink tree, and everyone loved it!

The lavender sachets and stocking sachet ornaments were also popular as they usually are this time of year. They look pretty on your tree, or so sweet as a gift for your best friend. I was also scouted for an invitation only event in December, so that is always a nice compliment. That's all for now!!

Northwood Boutique was Yesterday!

Well, yesterday was the Northwood Boutique. I've done this show many years ago, and it's very obvious that the current economy is having an impact on folks shopping. Attendance was down, and alot of the people attending were looking, but not necessarily buying. I can totally understand this as we are all being very careful with what money we do have.

A bright spot is that I think I did better than alot of vendors who were there. It was a fairly successful show for me and I got to meet some incredibly nice people. I also had a large variety of items selling, but of course, the LuRay hankie line is always a favorite!!!

I took some pictures of my booth and will post them later tonight. Have to get back to my economics homework now...yucky class! Not my favorite subject :-)

Machine Scare!!

So...the same night I cut my finger...see previous post...my machine started binding up. I have an Elna 7200 which I just love. However, a few months after I got it, it had a catastrophic bobbin case and hook/shuttle failure which required many $$ and specialized expertise to fix. Ever since then I've been really nervous when something binds up. So...I'm running transparent thread, and it's running just fine. For some reason, it's just starts binding up. When I pull the bobbin plate off, the entire case is shifted. Now I'm worried the timing is off again. Holy cow, what else can happen??? So...I pack it up and get it ready to take in.

However, do you remember me mentioning I have a show? So...out comes the old reliable Singer 301. Gotta love her...tried and true. My son asked me why I was using it and I told him I was going "old school" and he said "sometimes old school is the best school"...he's building a '55 chevy truck, so you can see why he would say that. This is my faithful machine that was given to me by my grandmother over 23 years ago. In fact, I picked up another one a few years ago as a second backup. I even learned how to service and oil this myself. So...off we go on the 301.

Now, here is my Public Service Announcement for quality thread. I took my machine in two days later expecting the worst, and it turns out the old Coats and Clark cotton thread I was using was causing me issues. Apparently according to the store staff, it's made in Mexico and is not high quality. It has high and low spots, leaves lots of lint in your machine, and ball up (that is when it's not breaking). If those balls get in your tension discs, they throw everything off and bind you up. Inez (the manager) put some high quality thread in from the store and she ran like a champ. I went straight to the fabric store and bought several large spools of the good stuff. How was I to know I was using the bad stuff? It looked good...come to find out that is because they put a coating of wax on it to make it look good. So...USE GOOD THREAD!! Your machine and your projects are worth it!!!

PS...in the maching is baby burp cloths for my holiday show. Aren't they just the cutest?