February pretties

Continuing the count to 52 weeks of pretty things in and around my house ... to get every week covered so far, I should be at 9. Given that I missed 2 weeks in January and have been in phase 1 of labor (don't ever call it "false" labor because there's nothing fake about it) for most of February, I'm kind of surprised that I got much of anything done this month. But I did! Go me! And I have a couple more projects started that aren't done yet, even!

Project 4: Adam and I rearranged the pictures and everything on the walls all over the house. We took some pictures down awhile back because we shifted some furniture and never got around to putting them back up. That's done now including with updated photos (that are still almost a year old, which tells you how old the other pictures were).

Project 5: I make a new flannel swaddling blanket for each of my babies, and it's what they come home from the hospital in. Baby JK was showing signs of an early arrival (and all labor indicators flat-lined this week, so she's still not here) so I got going on her blanket. I had it halfway done when JE took a chunk out of the side with the scissors (my mom refers to her as a "busy" 2-year-old - yeeeeah, that's a good word for it.) Fortunately, it was the side and not out of the middle. Unfortunately, it was a side that was already done. So I had to trim that edge down to get rid of the cut and do it again. Done, packed in the hospital bag, and scissors put away.

Project 6: When clearing out some drawers to use for the new baby's clothes, I put down scrapbook paper as a drawer liner. I just taped it instead of using glue so I can switch it out when I get my drawers back. Cutsey pink is great for a baby but I prefer something different for myself.

Project 7: Miniature corkboards on the "school wall" in our entry for the girls to hang up their art. I saw this on a homeschool blog but didn't bookmark it. Oops. Sorry, person who should get credit but won't. You get random picture frames, take out the picture and glass, sand and paint them in whatever colors you want, and put corkboard in them. The original link used really bright colors, which I liked. I've kinda/sorta decided that our colors for homeschooling are green and yellow, so those were the 2 colors I used, and I put them up with a pink board that SM built at a Home Depot kids workshop. I also put one in my sewing corner (painted to match my spool board) to display my collectors pins that I used to get while traveling and have been sitting in a box for forever. I gave the girls my Disney pins for their boards and some others from places they've been. I kept my Australia pins and some that have more sentimental value to me.

Project 8: I wanted some kind of sewing hand-work to do while sitting in the hospital for 2 days, so enter this month's Christmas project - fabric gift tags. I used this site to look up embroidery stitches, and still seem to have kind of come up with my own version of a chain stitch. Go figure. This is not done at all - I'm making about a dozen of them, and have the stitching done on 4. It's a decent start, considering everything that's been happening lately. I'll finish all the stitching and then do all the backings at the same time.

I also cut out skirts to make for the girls but haven't sewn them together yet. My March Christmas project will be from the scraps of the corkboard after cutting it down to fit the 8x10 frames. The March priority is definitely Easter dresses for the girls, since Easter is on the 31st.

my sewing box

This was my Christmas present from Adam:

The whole sewing box, which doubles as my sewing table. Yeah, I have to sit sideways to use the foot pedal, but whatever. The plan is for Adam to eventually build me an actual table for the sewing machine itself, and the top of the box will be used for cutting, laying things out, etc. We don't have the space for it right now - maybe my next Christmas present? The spool board above the box to the right was my Christmas present last year. This is my little sewing corner in our bedroom.

Inside the box, there are two shallow shelf/boxes. One is for projects in the works, and the other is divided out for all my little bits and pieces - scissors, tape measures, buttons, my bobbin box, elastic, embroidery floss, bias tape, etc ... I've already learned - the hard way - that scissors need to be kept IN the box at all times, unless they are actually being used.

The shallow boxes lift out and underneath is all my fabric - hooray!

The box isn't stained yet - it's still just the raw wood. We're waiting on staining until next month when my mom is here to help with the new baby, and can help keep kiddos out of the way. We also need the weather to break to have the box sit outside for a couple of days for the stain to dry. I have a couple of ideas for the inside of the box that are a little more funky - I'm debating how to paint the shallow boxes, maybe some bright colors that wouldn't really go well with anything else in the bedroom. And I think it would be cool to paint some kind of "frame" around the edge of the lid, and then mod-podge swatches of my favorite fabrics so I can keep them as a sort of sewing scrapbook.

We've talked about me having a whole sewing room with lots of fabric piled here and there on shelves, but really, that's not for me. Sure, it sounds cool to have an entire fabric shop in my house but I don't think I'll ever get to that level of sewing. It's perfect that I have this big box with my fabric and notions and tools in it, which I will use to make clothes for my girls and home decor items and eventually some full-sized quilts. When I finish with the fabric I have, I'll get more for my next round of projects. Add a little table for the machine and a serger (which is also down the road a bit more), and I'm set.

January "pretty projects"

I'd like to think I can work on sewing and crafts every single day for a month, and maybe I'll be able to later this year or at another phase of life. Right now, my daughters are not particularly cooperative with letting me work on things during the day so I have to sew late at night. Even that's a hit and miss because I have punk children who refuse to go to sleep until darn near midnight sometimes. So I'm going with doing something pretty for my house and life every week for this year. Hopefully I can finish something every week, but as long as I at least work on it, I'll be satisfied. So here's what happened in January.

Project 1: hook racks for behind the girls' bedroom door. They were scrap pieces of wood left from making their bunkbed 2 years ago. I painted them and got the little hooks at Walmart. I made others here for their coats, which are under the stairs. Mindy beat me for the first project done for the year because even though I had them painted, it took me awhile longer to get to the store for the hooks, and get them actually onto the wall. This is just one of them, but there are three.

Project 2: I went through ALL of the children's books and reorganized the whole bunch. There are hundreds. An entire box went to the recycle bin because it was random loose pages, torn up books, children's magazines that had been pulled all apart ... it was a mess. It's still a mess because the girls are constantly pulling books out and not putting them away, but at least it's less of a mess. All the trash has been cleared out - that alone made a big difference. It wasn't making something - it was organizing stuff we already have. But occasional organizing projects are necessary to keeping my house livable at all, if not more pretty.

Project 3: I started my quilting class and made a scallop banner thing to hang up over a window or doorway or something - this is also my January project for the 12 Months of Christmas because I made it out of Christmas fabric.

Weeks 4 and 5: Nada - we were out of town for a week for my mother-in-law's funeral, and the next week was spent unpacking and putting the house back together. Why does it take so long to get cleaned up from a trip? It was just unpacking suitcases, for pity's sake. Sheesh. Anyway, I need to rewind back to the of my quilting class (it's all online and self-paced so I can do that - hooray! because it's, um, over now) and I want to get back on track with that at least a little bit. It's a 5-week class with 3 projects per week - it's not expected that you do everything. You can choose. I'd like to at least try everything since I paid for all the lessons and patterns but it's going to take me the better part of the year rather than just a month. Some of the projects are pretty substantial and require quite a bit of time (making more than one full-sized quilt, if I'm reading it right), and I don't have days at a time to devote to sewing. I have a few minutes here and there.

And for my weekly project deal ... I will make up these 2 weeks of missed projects! I will! Maybe not in February because of being at the very end of the pregnancy, but I'll figure it out eventually.

Also - going through everything from someone's life was an major eye-opener on what to save and what not to save. For example, photos. If Nancy wasn't actually in a photo, we chucked it. We had no idea who these people were, and the photos had been sitting in a box for literally decades. I have no interest in hauling things like that around when we move, or leaving it to my children and grandchildren to say after I die, "Who is this person, and why did Mom have a photo of them?" If there's a reason for me to have someone's photo, I'm sure I can find something that has me in the shot with them, and I need to journal/ID everything now (before I forget myself) of why this person is/was significant to me. I did a big photo album sort and purge 2 years ago when my parents brought me all the stuff I'd had stashed in their storage room for 7 years, but I feel another one coming on.

simple storage

Not being able to breastfeed means having a bajillion formula containers around the house.  They are perfect for storage, so I don't complain too much.  Tape a strip of paper around them and they are even decent looking.  I've used wrapping paper and scrapbook paper and both work great with a little bit of double-sided tape.  What can go inside of these things is absolutely endless - toys, food, sewing bits, etc.  I'm using one for my headbands and hair things. 

Headbands on the outside, everything else (ribbons, bows, flowers, clips, etc.) on the inside.  While I was organizing my hair stuff, I took a small canning jar and put all my ponytail holders around it (wouldn't work with little ones), and all my bobby pins inside of it.  Much happier with this than anything before. 

scrap tutu

The new year has brought a new energy into my home (which I hope sticks around throughout the entire year).  I've started making baby food for Cupcake - carrots, sweet potatoes, peas, and a mini-batch of asparagus so far, with a list of things to come.  Pumpkin, green beans, applesauce, butternut squash, banana, peaches.  Makes me feel productive, and happy to know exactly what I'm feeding my baby.  And it helps save money - which is the best.

I too have a list of crafty things I'd like to do this year, and I've already managed to cross one off. I found the idea on Pinterest (as everyone does these days), but figured I can do it since it required no actual sewing.

Yes, that is a small table lamp being my model.

A scrap tutu is made out of strips of fabric that are tied to a piece of elastic.  That's it.  I tore the strips, so it was super fast and easy.  I decided to add ribbons to the end of the elastic, instead of making it a full circle, so the size can be adjusted as Cupcake grows.  For now, she's too little for it, and is more interested in eating it than anything, but it will be fun for her to play in later.  If she's anything like I was, she'll dream of being a ballerina.

 

quilting class introduction

Okay, I did it. I signed up for the online curves quilting class on Stitched in Color. It starts tomorrow - that was a bit under the wire for me to get started in it, and it goes for 5 weeks through about Valentine's Day. This post is, I guess, my introduction to the class that I'm linking on the private class blog.

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I'm Trina. I just started sewing about 2 years ago and I'm still very new to the whole thing. I share this blog with one of my sisters and a couple of friends to compare notes about learning the whole Art of Homemaking, or whatever you want to call it, because I was totally NOT domestic in any way until I quit my office job when I had my first baby. My mother will probably find the idea that I'm taking a sewing class to be quite hilarious. She tried when I was a teenager to teach me to sew. And cook. She really did. It didn't connect for a loooooooooong time.

I became interested in quilting this past year for 2 reasons -

1. I read a lot of sewing blogs in general, and many of them have quilts on them. They're amazing! The fabric in general, the color combinations, the piecing work - I'm blown away every time.

2. I've been wanting to redo my bedroom for quite awhile but have never found bedding that I like at all, whether looking in a store or attempting to shop online. I was reading girl.inspired one day and saw this post with the quilt in the background ... scroll down to the 3rd photo ... and lightning struck. THAT is my quilt. I know what colors I want. I even know what to title it. It will be incredible. So when I saw this curves class, I had to take it because I need it for my quilt. Not that I can afford to get the fabric for it for another year or two, but still.

That said, my time spent on the actual class in real time over the next 5 weeks may or may not be minimal. My kids are 6, 5, 2 and 15 months, and I'm due with #5 at the beginning of March. (All girls.) My brain tends to freeze up in the last few weeks of pregnancy, which I'm getting into. Yay. I homeschool the two oldest while the baby climbs all over me and the 2-year-old does her level-best to destroy everything she gets into. (She's had a stellar week, let me tell you. I just now had to stop typing this to go sweep up an entire loaf of bread obliterated into crumbs.) I won't get into everything my husband has going on right now, but let's just say that I run a lot of interference in his behalf and manage the kids on my own quite a bit. He's usually a very involved husband and dad but he has his own ... stuff ... for the next few weeks.

Soooo, I mainly registered for the class to get the pdf and videos at the end since I don't know when or how much I'll actually get to SEW between now and March, and I'll continue to work on things later. I already know what fabric I want to use to make the pillow in the first week's projects as a commemorative piece for my girls and our recent trip to DisneyWorld, and I could use some new bibs for the new baby. I think the Rainbow Road would make an awesome kitchen rug. And the Oodalolly quilt is awesome. Love that.

I thought a lot about it and really - I will NEVER "have time" to take a class of any kind. I might as well jump in and take the class anyway, and fit things in when I can. If I want to do something (anything - not just this class), I either have to make it happen within the circumstances I have, or it will never happen. And this post from a homeschool blog just the other day was the kick in the head I needed to come to that conclusion. I especially like this part: "There are people who can work while being bombarded by family life. There are people who can shut out their worldly cares. But you're not one of them. You are a hothouse flower. You are a special snowflake. Oops, no you're not." HA! Here's to not being a special snowflake and working with what we've got, noisy kids and all.

2013 sewing targets

Here's the first run of my sewing and project list for this year:

CLOTHES FOR THE GIRLS
My general rule of thumb for matchy-matchy outfits for my girls is that they coordinate but I don't make the exact same thing for all of them. Like, for Easter last year, they all had different fabric and different outfits, but the fabric all came from the same designer and color line. Their Minnie Mouse outfits for Disney World did have all the same fabric, but they were all different. I like that better than everyone being identical because, well, they're not identical people. And we did hit on a glitch with similarity last year when I made 2 Independence Day skirts - JE won't wear her's because I made SM's first, and when I showed JE the second one, she was confused and said it belonged to her sister. It's just been sitting in her drawer since then.

- Dr. Seuss skirts for Read Across America Day on March 1. I ordered some Dr. Seuss fabric thinking it was flannel for a baby blanket. It was regular cotton, so it's good for clothes since I'm not up to making a full-on baby quilt yet. I think these will be really fun - it's a cute and silly print. I don't have enough fabric for dresses but I think there's enough to make 4 (or even 5) little skirts.

- Easter outfits for all the girls. When I was getting some Christmas fabric, I noticed that fabric.com had pastel colored eyelet marked down to $2.50 a yard - done! I got pink, lavender, cream, and white. The new baby will have her blessing (the Mormon version of christening) on Easter Sunday, so she gets the white. There's 2 yards of it which is WAY too much for a tiny baby, even with making one of those super-long christening dresses like my mom has done for all the others. The other four girls can have some combination of all four colors. I'm happy that the baby will be in her special blessing dress, but still coordinate with the other girls for the holiday. I was not even thinking about this when I ordered the white fabric - the idea occurred to me just a couple of weeks ago so I sent the white to my mom (she makes the blessing dresses by her own request).

- I have red/white and blue/white gingham to make something for all the girls for Independence Day.

- I'd like to make both Christmas dresses and Christmas pajamas for all the girls this year, but I haven't thought that far in advance. Oh, and I think I'm supposed to be making Halloween costumes for everyone as well. SM has decided that our entire family will be dressed from Alice in Wonderland. We'll see what happens with those when they get closer.

In general with sewing clothes for them, I want to start making dresses as well as skirts. And I want to use more of the tutorials that I have bookmarked and not keep making the same thing over and over. Dana's simple skirt has definitely gotten me started, but time to broaden my horizons.

STUFF FOR THE HOUSE
Most of my ideas so far are for the girls' room ...

- I already started before New Year's with painting the frame of their bulletin board. The pins to hang pictures and other random items are the collector pins from Disneyland and DisneyWorld. Before I got married, that type of pin was my collector item when I traveled. I have quite a stash from Disney that the girls think are fun so they have them now. (They do NOT get my pins from Australia. I'm keeping those.)

- Make more coat racks, like I did here, for behind their bedroom door to hang all their little tote bags that just get thrown everywhere. I'm doing 3 in green with flowers on them.

- Put ribbon on the lamp that's on their dresser.

- I've wanted for forever to redo their dressers - paint, new hardware, line the drawers, the whole thing. I don't know how much of that will happen right away. Maybe this summer? I could at least mod podge some fun craft paper to the bottoms of their drawers to start.

- THIS:

- The Sewing Loft - cover wire hangers with felt and edged by a blanket stitch. I have felt. I can do a blanket stitch. I can make little flowers. And we have ugly wire hangers in our girls' closet because SM can't remove a plastic hanger from the rod without snapping it in half. These are very girly.

For the kitchen ...

- Stitched in Color - I love love love this kitchen rug! It's quilted. What a fabulous idea! Those colors wouldn't really go well in my kitchen. I lean toward blues and greens. But the idea is definitely in my head. It would be nice for the floor to be a little less cold and hard when I'm doing dishes at 11 pm.

- my paper crane - hot pads! The ones we currently have are from when we got married almost 9 years ago and are looking pretty shabby. I could actually have a somewhat coordinating kitchen ... how would that be? Of course it's ADAM'S kitchen since he does most of the cooking, so I can't use super-girly fabrics. I'm fine with using more masculine fabrics (something geometric?), as long as the combination of this and that is not an eyesore.

On a related note, I have probably half a dozen different links bookmarked for various designs on cloth napkins. We could use more of those too, so we don't go through so many paper towels at dinner. I have a vision of a small rectangular basket filled from one end to the other with cloth napkins. And now that I'm pondering a nice-looking kitchen ... some kind of window covering? I saw something a long time ago that you get a curtain rod with clips on it, and just hang up placemats as your valance. That would be cool, except I've never ever seen a placemat that I wanted hung over my window that I'd have to look at all the time. Might as well just make a valance/curtain/whatever, or even some placemats and hang them up. Ha!

HOLIDAYS

- icandy handmade - How cute is this for Valentine's Day? The link includes a full tutorial. I especially love the giant rick-rack. I need to find some. Walmart certainly doesn't carry anything that fun.

- I'll post a picture of my Halloween mini-quilt when I get it done. I already mentioned that I made one for my brother's family for Christmas and I have 3 more in the works because that's how much fabric there was. I'm keeping one of them and giving the other 2 away, but I'm not sure to whom yet.

- I'm going to attempt my 12 Months of Christmas project again - I'll put my string of inspiration photos and links for that in another post because this one is long enough as it is.

Homemade Christmas was a success (who knew)

Based off all the other inspirational and amazing things we've read about and heard, my husband and I decided last December (2011) that 2012 was to be all homemade.  And with that in mind, we set to work.  Didn't finish everything, but set to work.

For my daughters:
I made and designed for them journal jars as well as I made them there own journals that included pictures of them inside from growing up.  This is our new weekly activity.  They each select a prompt and write/draw the response to it.

My husband and I made them marshmallow guns.  This was a hit.  Who knew.  They are dirt cheap to make and ever so fun to play with.  Seriously cool.

My husband and I couldn't get enough of the PVC pipe so we made them both bows and arrows.  My kids thought Brave was, meh, but my oldest saves up her money to go to the local archery range as often as she can (which means once a year in the life of an almost 9 year old).  We also ended up making a set for some boisterous nephews of ours (with parental permission of course).

I did (and finished) my first sewing project ever.  I made skirts.  Simple ones.  Super easy ones.  But I did it. And if any of you have ever seen me bawling my eyes out over my daughters sewing machine just frustrated  you'd understand why this was a monumental feat for me.

I helped my youngest sculpt and Eiffle Tower vase for her sister.  We finished the vase but not the flowers we were making to go inside it.  We are working on this for a birthday in a few weeks.  Hopefully we finish, we really need to.

My daughters made:
Fleece blankets, table cloths, hair scrunchies (did I mention all of this is Hello Kitty themed since my youngest is obsessed, simple scarves, stories, coupon books, paper dolls, canvas bags, rice socks, garlands, ...

My husband made:
Lots of jewelry for my kids all inspired by owls and wolves and keys (which my kids love with a mania)
He was also working on a book for them.  He only got to 40k words and didn't have time to illustrate it.  So he is attempting to finish that for next year.

It was seriously awesome.  So awesome that they all unequivocally cannot wait to do it again and make this a staple.

here is a sample of what we want to do next year:
Lillian wants to learn how to use leather
Jason wants to stencil with bleach 
Coralie wants to make charms
I'm still on a hunt for more trucks so I can do this from recycled products
And of course something like this
My husband and I are also designing a board game and card game around these stories we all tell in our family about Princess Abigail and Princess Chloe ... long story short, but they are awesome.

Anyhow, thank you for your inspirations.  I know I can do it even though I am not a crafty person. Good with a camera, yes.  Great with movies, I'm your lady.  But crafty?  Nope.

this year's Christmas stuff

Well, I was going to try to have another year of handmade for everyone, but being pregnant has stomped out most of my motivation. I did make a couple of things for gifts but not nearly as much as I was hoping for. And, um, I took pictures of none of it. But here are some links if you want ideas for next year, or just stuff to do.

Adam made hammocks for the girls. Out of pink and purple nylon canvas. Heh. His hammocks are both green - a super dark olive, and a more regular green that is frequently used in camping gear. But he bit the bullet and made the girls' hammocks out of their favorite colors, instead of camping colors.

We had the girls make these felt star ornaments for my parents - SM sewed the whole thing herself, RG helped pull the needle, JE chose the color of edging floss and the button for the middle and I sewed it, and TA - well, she's still a baby so I did it in her behalf.

I found this fabric pumpkin tutorial just before Halloween and made a couple out of scrap fabric I had kicking around. I really liked them, so I ordered a charm pack (pre-cut 5 inch squares) of specific Halloween fabric from fabric.com to make more pumpkins for my sibling gift exchange - the theme was holiday decorations. When it arrived, I'd just seen this post for a mini-quilt ... and since I've been wanting to try out some quilting anyway ... it just went better. So I made a Halloween mini-quilt and sent it off to my brother and his family. I'm kicking myself for not taking a picture of it since it was my first one. But I have the makings from the charm pack for 3 more of them, so I'll take pictures of them when they're done. I got them started but nothing was finished before Christmas so their intended recipients will be surprised later.

And that was it for my homemade Christmas. Sigh. I started on a group present for the girls but it didn't get finished. I intended to make Christmas Eve pajamas but ended up buying them (about 3 hours before we gave them to the girls - talk about last minute shopping). Hopefully next year goes better.

Oh, and as a sidenote - 2 posts ago, I said the bobbin case was missing from the sewing machine. The next day after posting that, we cornered JE (age 2) and got her to tell us it was "hiding." She had poked it with her finger into the innards of the machine. Fortunately, Adam was able to shake it back out, but I was still ready with a screwdriver to take the machine apart if necessary.

some random thoughts to finish 2012 and start 2013

Thought 1: 
As I've been reading this or that sewing or crafting or home decor blog, I'm leaning more toward the blogs in which I know the author/creator has multiple children along with their creative pursuits and blogging (which always includes amazing photography of course). The holiday drama of "Oh, I'm sooooo busy! We should all SIMPLIFY!" from bloggers who have only one child does not impress me and is really becoming annoying. You think you're so busy with ONE kid who is in school all day while you do your creative thing? It's self-inflicted, Sister. Cry me a river. Try having four at home all the time because I homeschool the older two, the younger two are demanding toddlers, and I'm 7 months pregnant with #5. I can't keep up with the dishes and laundry, let alone have the time to spend half the day making stuff and taking pictures of it with a really expensive camera. Yes, these are the choices I've made for my family, but wow - spare me the whining about how busy you are with ONE child. And then I don't save those blogs to read again later. People who have lots of kids garner a lot more sympathy from me when they comment about their level of busy-ness.

Thought 2:
I have 224 things bookmarked just in my online sewing folder (yes, I counted). This does not include blogs in general and online fabric shops, or the 14 links to specific projects that I've completed in the past 2 years. Some are general tutorials, like "how to make ruffles" and tips on using knit fabrics. Most are individual specific projects. It is time to stop collecting bookmarks and start moving them into the "projects I've completed" file. And write more on my own blogs rather than reading other people's blogs. But for what it's worth, I'm in the middle of compiling a post of links to blogs that I have found good projects on, so maybe they can give you ideas as well. I'll try to get the list finished this weekend.

Thought 3:
On that note ... I don't know if it's nesting, or I've progressed to a certain level in my sewing, or what. But I really have this bug to MAKE STUFF right now - particularly, to make my home and living more beautiful. I can't do anything about the house itself. I'm not even allowed to paint. Meh. But I can make things more pretty, add details to things we already have (ribbon around a lampshade, for example), and work with things that can go with us wherever we end up. I thought about it a lot yesterday and I'm going back and forth between attempting an entire month where I work on something for at least an hour every single day, or shoot for 52 projects, one for every week of the year. Clothing counts in the MAKE PRETTY STUFF target. Clothes look much nicer when they fit the wearer properly, and heaven knows that straight-from-the-store stuff doesn't fit my girls very well. They prefer dresses and skirts, which are either way too short or a tent.

Most of the pretty things that I've thought of so far are for the girls' bedroom. So last night, I got the bulletin board out of the girls' room and started painting the frame to match their hairbow boards, just for the heck of it. It was just the boring wood - now it's lavender.

I have some vague ideas about the master bedroom, but nothing that I can quite put into words yet. I will say that I really really really want to find colors in the seaglass color scheme - blues and greens. They're relaxing for both Adam and me, and not overly feminine. In a house full of girls, poor Adam needs his space in the house to have nothing with pink or flowers (except maybe some real ones). And I wish we could find somewhere else to stash everything that we don't want the girls getting into - our room has had landfill status for as long as we've had kids, because that's the only room we can even attempt to keep them out of.

Thought 4:
It's time to make the jump from skirts to dresses for the girls, which probably means that I need to figure out how to put in zippers. Ummm ... yeah. Maybe I'll use dress patterns and tutorials with buttons for awhile to start. Zippers are still a little too scary for me right now.

I also want to make quilts for everyone's beds - I've been seeing a lot of quilts this year on blogs and they're amazing. They're also not something you could buy in a store. That level of project is still at least a couple of years off, for the cost if nothing else (I want the good fabric so it's going to be expensive to make 6 quilts) but I've already added mini-quilts to my list of things to work on this year. I made one for my brother and his family for Christmas for my first time out of the blocks and I thought it went all right.