Smilin'

Throughout my childhood I loved to draw. I was never much of an artist rendering lifelike portraits with exquisite details or anything. I drew horses, people, houses you know that type of stuff. I did it for me and it made me happy. It's one of those things that I now regret having stopped. Art is not perfect, it is unique and imperfect and has the ability to make people happy, whether that person is just you or many. It's silly for me to think back and remember that I stopped because a boy in my class teased my portrait and I wasn't as talented as my brother. Silly stuff.

Last week I started up again and it made me happy so now I'm going to share one with you guys.


It is hard for me to put something like this our there, something straight from my heart, but I love it.

This embroidery is on it's way to being turned into a pillow for our bed. I hope to encourage the unused talents of other, perfection is not the key, smiling is and I can say that this made me smile.

Patchwork Pillow

I mentioned on Saturday's post that I got some good sewing time in. Well, this wedding gift was the main fruit of this well enjoyed time. I designed, cut, sewed and stuffed this pillow in just a few hours. As you can see I still have to stitch up the bottom, but I am saving that for a still moment. I really like how this turned out, so much in fact that I am dreaming up a similar one to make for my bed.

Lovebirds

The nasty cold that assaulted my system for over a week is finally leaving my house and making it's way to torture some other poor souls, but alas I am free! During the time that I was down I managed to crank out a few projects, 4 to be exact and here is the second one I get to share with you (the first was the leg warmers) it is the embroidery I did for my brother's wedding gift. I still haven't figured out what to put at top and whether it should be a framed sampler or a pillow, so I am begging for some opinions here!



In return for your opinions and suggestions I offer you this:

Crispy Nummy Not To Horribly Bad For You Apple Crisp

(Picture taken before baking because all the after pictures were hastily taken and therefore bad)

5 large apples

1 cup sugar

1 cup unbleached flour

1Tbsp Baking Powder

1 Egg

1.5 tsp cinnamon (I used Saigon)

3 Tbsp melted butter

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

Core, peel and slice your apples (I think it is just as good without peeling them though) and toss with 1/2 tsp of cinnamon. Pour in greased 8x8 glass baking dish.

In separate bowl combine, sugar, flour, baking powder and egg until somewhat well combined (will be a bit chunky). Pour this mixture atop apples.

Stir together the melted butter and the tsp of remaining cinnamon. Drizzle over crisp.

Bake for 50-60 minutes until golden brown.

Whipin' Up

Today I got to get on the sewing machine and managed to whip up this skirt for L

I made it out of an old sheet, can't you tell from the nice hem?

She of course was thrilled and had to wear it right then. M was thrilled because it was nice and long which is something he is always complaining about with little girls clothing. You wouldn't think that a man with an eyebrow ring would be modest would you?

As my clog project winds to a close I went ahead and started my next big one which is definitely something that won't just be whipped up in a day. I working on an embroidery sampler for my brothers wedding in May. Here the beginning

There's a bit more not shown in the hoop, I plan to put there names and wedding date above the doves. The pattern is downloadable over at Pimp Stitch it is another design from

Sublime Stitching that they have there for free.

Oh yeah and in other news, we got a car! Yay, no more being stranded at home with crazy girlies. We ended up getting a minivan which I love. I know, I know we only have two kids BUT I have 7 siblings whom I drive around. The "green" things about the minivan are that it is Ethanol capable and it shows us how many mpg we are getting at all times and has really helped me improve on my driving. The mpg is good for a minivan 22mpg average which is almost the same as my old Subaru.

I loved the nice comments on my slouchy hat, glad to see I'm not the only one with the slouchy hat love. I've been wearing the thing so much I sure I will be making another one soon. Could you ever have guessed that I'm not really a hat person? I always felt so silly in them, but once I started knitting them myself I realized I'm just very persnickity about them and I'm ok with that.

Stitch and B*tch

On Friday I was forced to sit for most of the day, due to my knee going out (ouch!). To stave off my boredom I started (and finished) my first embroidery project that I got from Sublime Stitching which I loved! They have such awesome designs, I already have 3 more patterns that I just HAVE to buy.

Here's a close up for you, not to bad for my first embroidery and I definitely learned a lot!

I would have had a wonderful weekend if it wasn't for my knee injury and the fact that I had to do online car shopping. Oh how I loathe car shopping! So much money wasted on something that could just crap out at a moments notice. Can you tell I'm mad at my old car? Well, I am. Only 2 years since we bought it and it needs a new engine.

I am also not feeling the love for my knee right now, it hurts to walk, let alone dance. So, it looks like M and I will have to postpone the dancing class for another semester, so bummed!

Amazingly enough the other parts of my weekend were great! I got to go to my clog knitting class (and no that doesn't me we knitted and clogged at the same time which is what popped into mind as I typed that) which was a lot of fun. I'm learning a lot and am so glad I took the class 'cause I am WAY out of my league! Then M's parents came up and watched the girls and treated M and I to a play. It was so much fun! If only we hadn't discussed our opinions on what kind of car to buy first, total mood buster!

Oh, and I almost forgot (literally was about to push "publish post") I wanted to point everyone (all 5 of you that read my blog) over to knitsational who is having a blog giveaway this week ;)