Catching up

Hi everyone! I hope everyone had great end-of-the-year holidays!

Our planning/shopping/decorating got compressed into just a few days and then we had family in town for a couple weeks, so it was non-stop chaos for us until yesterday.

I’m so excited to get back to “normal” because I’ve got several blog posts to work on and tons of comments from all of you (thank you!) and my entire inbox to reply to, so I’ll be playing catch up for a few more days and then I can get back into my huge list of sewing projects.

First of all, thanks to your help, I WON the Pink Chalk Handmade with Love 2011 tutorial contest! Wow! I am so happy that you all love the Earbud Pouch Tutorial. The comments are still pouring in on that post so quickly that I can’t even keep up. I can’t wait to do a little fabric shopping at Pink Chalk! I’ve placed several of my last few online fabric orders with Pink Chalk. I just love their selection and I always get my fabric quickly!

The week before Christmas my friend Katie and I finished this quilt for her Grandma, which you can read about over here.

The weekend before Christmas we had “Friendsgiving,” which I highly recommend! We get pulled in 5 different directions with family holiday parties and it’s more stressful than fun most of the time. So we took a day to celebrate our friends and neighbors – no pressure, no stress, no judging – just friends, food and fun. Let me tell you, splitting up the menu and utilizing three kitchens was a great idea. We just kept texting each other with our progress and converged on our house once most of the food was ready. The boys fried a turkey, which was AMAZING! Sorry but no pictures – it didn’t last long enough for pics! Some of the food didn’t turn out, we didn’t have enough chairs and had to run across the street for more, Ken and I had to move couches to the side and put our table in the living room to make room for 12+ people… but we didn’t care! We weren’t trying to impress or avoid or deal, we were just having fun and we can’t wait to do it again!

Ken and I don’t really do the whole presents under the tree thing, but he did get me something I’ve been begging for – a new chair! And I took advantage of the year-end Bernina sale to get three new feet! I got a 1/4″ piecing foot, an overlock foot and an invisible zipper foot. I have not tried out the zipper foot yet, but I’m looking forward to not needing to improvise with the regular zipper foot!

Then I came across an amazing deal on a solid wood bookshelf from World Market – 50% off plus another 10% off coupon. And it’s not particle board! So I spent the last couple of afternoons refolding my fabric and getting it all onto the shelf where I can see it! This is so much better than tripping over it and making a giant mess whenever I sort through it. I had it stacked in boxes in the corner and it was not helping my productivity one bit. I expect this will help streamline my workflow a lot. I’m super excited about it!

So that quickly turned into re-arranging my room. I’m still not done but I got to a good stopping point. Something still needs to be done about my photo station and I was able to track down a matching 2-shelf bookcase so I need to find a place for that as well. I’m getting used to my desks being flipped around, but I think I like it! I splurged on the teal lamp and ottoman at Target. Love them!

Loki was so happy when I stopped doing scary things like moving furniture and vacuuming and I put his bed back :)

I’m loving how the teal goes with the purple that I already had! And I made room for the drawing supplies my dad gave me. Those are the *best* erasers.

I’m just getting to the most exciting part!! My brother got me a flash for my camera. No, seriously! He even came over and moved my lights around and showed me how to use it. It makes a HUGE difference. I still need to experiment a lot and get my lighting set up right, but I’m looking forward to some great pictures in 2012!

I took a picture of this little bag to practice. I made it a while back while creating this drawstring bag tutorial. I needed a little bag to take to my mom’s with Sam & Loki’s bowls, food and treats. It was perfect – it fit inside my big bag but kept their stuff separate where I could find it quickly. I love finding another use for something!

  

Did you get any fun sewing stuff this year? Or if not, what would you like to treat yourself to?

You might also be interested in: