New Sandbox Pants

He grows and grows....and more get made. This first pair is for Atlas, size 4. We call these the book pants.

Made with Anna Maria Horner's Volumes(I think) from the Drawing Room line and Oliver & S Sandbox pants.  I love love love these pants and almost have the directions memorized!

 Twill tape for the drawstrings shaves at least 10-15 minutes off of the total time to make these.....

my kinda thing!

 I didn't worry much about fussy cutting the back pockets like I did the front.

 These are a pair made from green and white ticking with Echino for the pockets and waistband.  I love the way these look together.  I wanted to find a semi-girly way to do these pants.

 More twill tape!

 Another pair of book pants

 I cut all the back pockets for the book pants with the grain going the "wrong" way - just to see....

I like how it looks....it's more noticeable in person, especially as this fabric has a little sheen to it.

The last two pairs are being donated to Atlas' school.  I never finished them in time for the auction in March...so we will have a mini auction just for the pants.

Super Random: Vacuum Karma?

Soooo, my Dyson vacuum hose broke for the 2 time this weekend.  I was pretty ticked, as it's really the 3rd replacement(story for another time....) and my vacuum is such a love of mine.  I vacuum almost anything that is dry (lazy?anyone else do this? tmi?).  I love my Dyson and have had it for almost 5 years now.

I call customer service last night at around 5:40, knowing they close at 6:00.  20 minutes would be obscene for a vacuum customer service line - right?  No joke- I was on hold the entire time and then the phone goes *click*   I immediately call back and the computer voice says they are closed and blah blah blah....

Seriously steam coming out of my ears.  I have some anger issues, clearly, but this was horrible!!!  It just got to me so bad.  So I emailed.  Oh yeah.... it was sort of bad.  In the moment, I felt I HAD to..

Hi

I called this evening at 5:40 pm and waited on hold until 6:00 when I was hung up on. I call back to find out that customer service is now closed. How rude and what a waste of my time. Perhaps you should turn your phones off at 5:30 so that people like me don't have to wait on hold for no reason.

In case you can't tell, I am incredibly angry. Not only did my hose on my vacuum break(I just paid for a new one last November) but I got to waste an entire half hour of my night for no reason. I have a feeling someone there saw that I was on hold and chose to ignore it, as they were getting off work soon and could care less.
Awful customer service!




I felt bad about sending it almost as soon as I hit the send button.  At least I didn't curse though, right?
I felt a little more bad when I woke up this morning, like I wanted to say sorry to someone.  I reacted so fast... I should have thought about it some more... not such a big deal.
So I spent the day with kids, went to the nursery, bought a tree, went to the botanic gardens, come home, eat lunch. The phone rings(I NEVER answer my phone) but it was a weird number and I had a vibe (I know, what?) so I answered.  IT WAS DYSON!!!!
I started laughing so hard as soon as she said "dyson" and told her I was grumpy when I wrote it and sorry and I'm so glad to be able to say that.  (I seriously am weird, no?)  She was laughing and said they were grateful for the feedback and that it WAS a long wait.  She said she would have written worse! :)  It was the funniest interaction - I love it when stuff like that happens. 
So I feel better!  Like getting to talk to someone there took back that negative(energy) I threw out there, you know?  It was awesome  :)

Anywhoo, lots of sewing, self-conscious about the pics, trying to get over it,
:)
Raven

The $1700 Quilt

This is the school auction quilt that my dear friend Alissa and I made.  It came out way way way better than either of us could have imagined.  And while we thought we were being a little selfish in hoping to bring in around $700-$1000, the final bid of $1700 literally had us both in tears.  I had never been to an auction - they really are exciting.  You cannot help but get into it!  And just listening to the price go up and up and up was so flipping awesome!

Everything to make this quilt came from my stash.  The background, backing and binding are all Denyse Schmidt County Fair home dec weight.  The trunk of the tree is actually the reverse of a really ugly batik.  A few of the hands are batiks, but most are different Kona greens, with a Shot Cotton thrown in for good  measure.

All of the kids at school had their hand traced by Alissa onto the lighter weight Heat N Bond.  We then ironed random hands onto the green fabrics and Alissa stamped each child's full name onto their hand.  It was a heat set fabric stamp pad (Versacraft?).   I stamped two of the hands and was very glad to leave this job up to Alissa.  She also cut out all the hands.   Just not my cup of tea........Thanks Alissa!!

After the trunk was ironed down, I sewed crazy all over it to secure it and to make it look more like a tree trunk.  I tried to throw some knots in there.  Then we started placing hands all over and ironing them down.  We then zigzagged around every single hand.  Yes, we zigzagged. around. every. single. hand................................

Used a bit of twill tape sewn down for the ropes on the swing.  The two birdies on the swing are the director and assistant director of our daycare co-op.  We asked for their favorite colors and then stamped their names on to their bird.

After we sandwiched the quilt, I free motion quilted the empty spaces of the branches.  I was very worried about making the quilt too stiff -with all the fusible stuff already in there.  For the background, I just sort of echo-quilted the trunk shape.  The name of our school.......The Oaks.  I mean for real - could we have really done anything other than a tree?

Glad we were able to get the year in there somehow :)

Alissa and I also stamped our initials onto the trunk of the tree, sort of like we had carved them in.

You can barely see them in the pic below, sort of red on the brown.  There is a heart in front of our initials also.

So that is our auction quilt!  We were insanely proud of what we made and have no idea how we are ever going to top this one next year......

Zen Shorts, some winners, the Grammys 2001 and a coat

Allie is the winner of the small bundle.....she guessed the book correctly!!  ZEN SHORTS!!
The Zen books by John Muth are my absolute favorites right now. Life changing really!!  I think they are awesome gifts for kids and adults.  I gave my dad one for Christmas.  They are in sort of an order, so I would start with Zen Shorts.  For real yo!

For the big bag of Bohemian - I used random.org to get #22 - Dana from Old Red Barn Co.   Her best birthday was last year......she got an oven.....I wanted to make fun of her, but I really wanted a new ironing board for my birthday - so I really have no room to talk, huh?

My best birthday would have to be my 21st.  My dad knew the guy who was in charge of the webcast for the Grammys (first year they were on the web I think), so he was able to get us tickets.  It was really surreal and strange, to tell you the truth.  B.B. King wished me a happy birthday.  EmmyLou Harris is so so so beautiful.  Aimee Mann is so so so thin.  Fred Durst was so so so drunk(I think). 
It was the year of the Eminem and Elton John drama/duet.  It was a pretty amazing show, the two of them singing "Stan" with Elton singing the Dido part of the song.  Blue Man Group did a thing with Moby and Jill Scott - that was totally cool - I wish I could remember the song name.....I have to go put some Moby on right now!
I didn't stay out that late or even drink much (it was me and my dad :)love you pops!).  I remember my feet killing me (awful heels) and just wanting to go back to the hotel and sleep.  It was very surreal - even more so thinking back on it now...

Oh, and rather than have a photo-less post, I will include the coat I finished two weeks ago.  It's a Heidi and Finn pattern and it was so flippin' easy.  Seriously.  Oh, even better, Lila actually likes it and wears it.  It is two sizes to big, but that is a minor detail around these parts....

I used 4 very different vintage buttons and I love how they all match perfectly.....in their own way......

sort of....

Wowzers!  Bold choice of lining fabric, wouldn'tcha say......

It's all from Anna Maria Horner's Innocent Crush line......velveteen outside.......quilting cotton for the lining

Some more vintage buttons on the back.

Um.....yes, yes that is some selvedge showing......

I think it adds personality.......don't you?

:)

Oh good golly, that sure is loud.

I really, really, really love it. 

Okay....I think that will do it for the world's longest and most RANDOM post ever!!!

My baby girl turns 2 tomorrow, so I'm off to try and sew/finish something for her birthday.....

xoxo

Raven