one of those weeks

Do you ever have one of those weeks where all you want to do is watch basketball? Ha -- me neither. But I've been watching so many games of basketball this week and haven't been doing much of anything else. Part of it has to do with the fact that I've been pretty busy with my day job and when I come home I don't feel like doing much. So I watch basketball.

Ok time to get back to work.

Happy Friday everyone. May you have a wonderful weekend.

undone

Ah the seam ripper. The tool I love to hate. Can't live without it. Hate when I've gotta use it.

Happy Monday y'all!

friday finds {art}

Slowly, (very slowly) but surely I've been filling up the walls of my house. I'm always on the look out for fun affordable art. Here are some friday finds. Have an amazing weekend!

morning rush by Leslie Thomson



Rustic by Lynda Naranjo



cherry blossom by Urban Pink Photography

The Shadow Grass Tote

Wow I guess writing the plan down worked. This is the Shadow Grass Tote. Mark named it. He now refers to himself as my marketing department.

I LOVE this fabric. I mean I liked it when it was in its flat format, but now that it's in its toting-around-the-town format, I really like it. Probably because it's grey-on-grey. It reminds me of being in Hawaii for some reason. I think it's all the spiky, palm tree looking things. Anyway.


If you like it, you can get it here. More photos are available here.

Ciao!

the plan

So I'm not really much of a planner (shh don't tell my boss ;)). I'm a bit of a wing it, let's see what happens kind of person (I barely planned my own wedding!) That being said, I do like to know everything that is going on around me. Everything. But I don't really ask a lot of questions; I just try to figure stuff out on my own. (Yes this gets me into trouble sometimes...)

Where am I heading with this? I think I got side tracked (Remember I have a zillion things running through my head at any given time).

Anyway I think what I'm getting at is that although I don't like to plan, I feel like I'm going to have to plan for what I'm going to sew next because I can't get into it. I might need some fun new fabric to get me going, or maybe I just need to get off my butt and get upstairs to sew. Can I blame my book club book for not having the motivation?

Ok let's see:

• I want to make more aprons (for adults too!) so I'm going to do that. Let's say I'll make 3 by the end of February.


• I want to get more totes sewn and in the shop. I have a few cut out already so I'll start there. I'll aim to make at least 2 totes a month. So by the end of January I should have at least one done; 2 more by the end of February.


• I want to make something out of the fun books I got for Christmas. I'll show you those later this week perhaps. I want to make 1 thing every month or 2 out of those books. There really are a fun bunch of projects waiting for me to sew. This goes for all the fun books I got last year as well.

ok so that's the plan when it comes to the sewing stuff. It feels better to write it down -- maybe I'm a planner after all! Right.

friday finds {pulp and paisley}

It's so funny how one link brings you to another and then another and then... well you get the pic. I found myself on flickr the other night and somehow found pulp and paisley and even cooler is that this lil shop is from Belleville, which is about 1.5 hrs from Toronto.


I just love this stuff -- the colours are vibrant, and the styles are unique.


Visit the shop here and have a great weekend!

scratch

So I made bread on the weekend... it was spelt bread with some sunflower and chia seeds and dang it was good! I didn't smell it when it was in the oven so I was kinda nervous and when it finally came out of the oven, Mark knocked it on the top -- it was pretty hard. But the baked bread smell filtered out when I cut my first slice. Yu-um.




I think we ate the bread in record time. We enjoyed the first few slices with some buttercup squash and carrot soup; also from scratch. I also had a slice this week with avacado -- so good. Ok I have to stop talking about it now because there is none left and I don't have any flour in the cupboard.

diaper digs

Before the holidays my brother-in-law asked me to make a diaper bag for my sister-in-law Lisa for the upcoming arrival of their son Max. She didn't want a boring ol' diaper bag so we went on a search to find some fun fabrics.

After a bit of searching we came up with some bright and cheery fabrics from Amy Butler's new Love line. I knew Lisa would love the colours because they remind me of the beach and Lisa is a HUGE beach person.


I used the same pattern that I created for The Cassleman Carry-All I made awhile back with a few small changes; mainly Lisa wanted an area on the outside back into which she could slip a blanket.

--

Well, I hope you're all enjoying January! I find it's going by super fast... not sure what it is but I hope this feeling continues into February and March so I can feel like I'm getting closer to Spring.

Happy Monday!

walk by the lake

Remember my list item to take more walks? Well I took one at lunch the other day and schlepped my camera along with me. Here are some shots from the jaunt!







Here are more shots if you're interested!

drinks on me

I think these are pretty darn cute to put drinks on if I do say so myself. Made for my Dad and his wife for Christmas.

2010

Happy New Year y'all! How were your holidays? Mine were splendid. My husband and I did a lot of driving to see family and friends and even took a little jaunt down to NYC for New Years Eve. There were a lot of cops on corners, crazy tourists (yes I know I'm a tourist but I'm not a CRAZY tourist) and sirens. Did I mention crazy tourists?

We're not much for the crowds, but we thought it would be fun to go and my step-sister graciously allowed us to stay in her apartment, so we took the plunge. We saw the ball drop too (I think). There were a lot of martinis (manhattans in manhattan...) and running before midnight involved, so I'm not QUITE sure if we saw it, but I think we did. There were a lot of fireworks anyway.

Ok.

So, I don't really make resolutions per se, but I do like to make lists of things I want to accomplish in a given year. I thought I'd share my list here and then I'll check back throughout the year to see if I did any of them, and if I did, I'll check them off.

In no particular order:

-Wear more fun, colourful accessories. I wear a lot of black and grey and would like to add some colour to my wardrobe. I actually started this two days ago by purchasing a hot pink headband from JCrew.

-Organize my receipts in a nice Martha Stewart-like way. I have receipts from past freelance writing jobs and now I have them for my sewing purchases and I need to get them in order before my husband sets them on fire.

-Approach 1-2 online/bricks & Mortar stores to sell my stuff. I already have one interested person (more on that later!)

-Take more walks. I work at home and you'd think that would give me more time to go for a walk but sometimes I forget. In the summer I lay outside in the sun reading a book at lunch, and in the winter I eat soup, curl up on the couch and hide from the cold.

-Get the little things done that need to be done in the house. Like my sewing room for instance. Remember this room??? Well it actually doesn't look like that anymore. Really all I need is some bulletin boards and a few pictures and I'll be able to show you where I sew!

-Say Hi to more people. "Hi"

-Make more food from scratch -- like bread. This was on my list from last year and I really thought I would do it, but I just didn't make the time. I will do it this year.

Hmm what else?

Oh, I need to learn how to take better pictures. This is actually a biggie. I have a great camera that really, I don't know how to use properly.

-FOCUS. My brain zips and zops in a million different directions and I really need to just focus on ONE thing. Not sure if this one is even possible. I was thinking the other day that doing crosswords might help.

-Keep off the computer after 10pm. It's actually 10:14 as I'm writing this, so I should probably go. I think I'll keep updating this list later as more things come to my head (you know 'cause right now I can't really focus on it).

On that note, Happy New Year! May this year be a great one for you.