a quick catch up!

hi!

i know, i know, it's been pretty quiet around here!

i've been feeling pretty crummy, so i haven't been up to a whole lot of crafty stuff.

i also promised my dad that i'd make some cushion covers for his boat, which i really didn't want to do. they're big and awkward and it's tough to control the vinyl pieces, so they make my back and shoulders ache. however, he does lots of things for me, not the least of which fighting with my disability company when i don't have the energy, so i of course said i would. that meant that i felt guilty doing any other sewing, when i should have been making the cushions, but i was totally procrastinating, so i ended up not sewing anything at all! i finally finished them up on friday, and realized i'd procrastinated for over a week, avoiding projects that took less than 2 hours each. totally ridiculous, i know.


i did get a little bit of other sewing done, secrets for friends (that are still in progress) and some sun bonnets for Caring Hearts, since it's that time of the year (though you'd never know it by the weather today!)/

the bonnets are soooo cute. so sweet. i got these two sets of 5 done, and i have more in progress as well.


yellow cotton eyelet








a little bit of elastic in the back


blue cotton eyelet, lined with a cloud patterned poly-cotton blend






i've been doing too much thrifting, and i've been having ridiculously good luck randomly finding things that i'm looking for, and i've also been going through my storage area, sorting out vintage goodies that i no longer need. i'm opening a second etsy shop, and hope to get some fun stuff listed soon!


(it's technically already open - and full of patterns! i'll do an official grand opening sale once i get more listed, but in the meantime - 20% off all patterns when you mention my blog in the note to seller!)



yesterday was father's day here (i assume it's different days in different countries, isn't it? i know mother's day is!)

we had a really nice day. my sister was down in the states for a wedding, but my brother came out and my parents, my brother, and i went out for brunch. later in the afternoon, after much drama, we went out on the new boat.

it was really fun, and was the first time i'd gone out with them. my dad bought a smaller boat last month, and they've all been out on it constantly, but i haven't been feeling up to it.

a few weeks ago my dad found another boat (on ebay, of all places!), and he and my mom road tripped down to utah last weekend to pick it up, so this was the first time we'd gone out on the larger one. we didn't go far at first, but it was really lovely. very VERY bumpy though, and my body was not at all happy. we had to dock to go pick up my brother's girlfriend from the bus stop, so i went home then, after about an hour on the water. i came home and slept, and woke up this morning feeling very very horrid. hopefully it'll pass soonish.

my dad driving the boat


the dash is AWESOME, it looks like an old school video game!

(the boat was made in the 80s, obviously!)

and a few taken just as we left, when we were still going slow enough that i could take pictures - i didn't need to hold on!

i'm back! and volunteering, among other things!

sorry for the extended radio silence folks!

again, health issues were a big part of it. i've just been so up and down the last few months, i almost preferred it when my health was consistently worse! not really, of course, but some days it gets discouraging.
(for those of you who read my blog who don't know me in "real life" or who aren't close friends, i have fibromyalgia and chronic fatique. i've had it for a long time, but it's been disabling the last few years after a car accident)

i've had lots of stuff that i've wanted to post about, but i never seem to have the energy to actually post it.

so, things i've been up to-

- i went on a cleaning rampage over easter weekend, as i had the house to myself. this is the closest to clean and organized that my studio have ever been, really that ANY of my studios have ever been, and it's super exciting! of course, i paid for the cleaning binge for almost a week after...

- i was determined to get out of the house and go to swap-o-rama-rama, a clothing and craft supply swap. i'll do a post about it later, when i finally get a chance to work with some of the goodies that i scored, but in the meantime, definitely check out the post (complete with pics!) on the got craft? blog. i lasted for about an hour and a half before my hips seized up, but it was totally worth feeling crappy for it! it would have been even more fun with a friend, but i didn't have the energy to be social AND search for cool finds!

- all of my chunky houses for the Chunky House Swap Round 3 on craftster.org have been received, so i can post pics! i had a lot of fun with them.

- my pendants are being received for the Pendant Swap on craftster.org, and i'm super impatient, i want to post them!!

- my atcs for the Fabric ATC Swap Round 4 that i hosted on craftster.org are currently winging their way around the world. i sent them canada post instead of USPS, so they're gonna be way slower.

- i've been machine embroidering! i've been buying patterns from urban threads and from embroidery library, as well as digitizing my own designs.

- i've got some fabulous thrift store finds to get photographed and posted, i've made some great scores lately!

- i'm obsessed with twitter. really. it's just so easy to keep up with! follow me on twitter!

- i won books from craftychica!

- after freaking out over the state of my finances, i finally started working on stuff for my etsy shop again! the poor shop's been so neglected since everyone started having babies! AND, i've started weeding through my stash, and i'm hoping to open a second shop with supplies and vintage goodies, since god knows i have enough of both!

- i've obviously failed at Make Something Cool Every Day April (MSCEApril), but i have made some cool stuff, so i'll have to post them. the pics below count too!

- i've been volunteering! it started out as part of my disability company's "get amy back to work" campaign, they wanted me to volunteer somewhere, basically to get me out of the house! i looked around for opportunities and found some really cool ones, but most were either totally inappropriate for me (really physical, etc), were ones that require a long criminal record check (and the disability company wanted me to start RIGHT AWAY), or they wanted long time commitments, which i didn't feel comfortable with, because i don't know what'll be going on in my life in 6 months, so i don't want to agree to volunteer every wednesday morning for a year or something when i know i wouldn't be able to do it once i'm back at work.

i was starting to get a bit discouraged. i've done a ton of volunteer work over the years, mostly political based, but all the groups i've worked with were in vancouver. i loved working with them, and one day i'd like to be able to do HIV/AIDS education work again, but i needed something local. and then i found Caring Hearts!

Caring Hearts is an organization that provides handmade clothing and blankets/afghans to children in crisis.

from their website -
Caring Hearts has hundreds of volunteers donating their time and skills to make clothing, blankets and quilts for children in sizes that range from newborn to teenagers. We provide clothing for all seasons and distribute our finished items throughout the year to many community programs in all areas of the lower mainland.Our volunteers create the hand crafted items in their own homes on their own time.

Caring Hearts is helping reduce the trauma for children in crisis, who become placed in difficult situations by giving them hand made items. These items may be the first article that was ever made ... just for them. Imagine the feeling of knowing that someone you haven't even met, did this for you! This is where your charitable contributions have the greatest social effect. Since a child's self esteem and sense of worth ultimately effects their social attitudes, giving them both pride and comfort, can produce enormous long-term rewards for our community and society at large.

i go in once a week and help put together the bundles of "orders" from the different community groups that request items, and i've started sewing for them as well. we have lots of knitting and crocheting volunteers, but we're short on sewing, so i've been focusing mostly on the stuff that we're lowest on. i've done a bunch of 2T stuff, and we're really low on jackets/hoodies for all ages, so i'm going to do some of those next.

the first things i made -

a little boy's outfit (caring hearts is really into binary gender. it's been a little weird for me, quite frankly!)

all the fabric is donated to the charity, and the size of the pieces can vary quite a lot. i didn't realize quite how small these pieces were when i took them home with me! i barely had enough, hence the mismatched cuffs on the pants!

and little girl's outfits (again, misjudged the size of the pieces, these two were much bigger than i realized!)










i gave up entirely on basting ruffles, and just cut strips of fabric and used my ruffle foot. much much faster!


and these i finished up last week. the fabric for these were actually from my stash. i got it from a friend on new year's day, thinking it would make cute bags, but didn't realize that it had stretch in it. perfect for little kid clothes!






it's been fun to just whip stuff up, without struggling with fabrics, or trying to do something quirky that requires a lot of thought. i just kind of zone out, and it's good.