move-away

Fuzz Patrol

Posted by Nat on Aug 12, 2010 | 2 comments

I realize that sewing machine maintenance is not the most amazing thing to post about, but it might help someone out, so I thought I’d post just in case.

I was having some problems with my sewing machine.  It kept jamming the thread when I was sewing simple things, and it was getting quite frustrating.  I emailed my friend Kari at Handmade Mommy to see if she had any thoughts on why it would be jamming up.  I call Kari when I really need help- I feel so lucky to have a friend who is not only smarter than me about sewing but also generous in sharing her knowledge.  Kari suggested I try a new needle, but I already had a new needle, so at least I knew that couldn’t be it.  Then I had a revolutionary thought:  consult the manual.

I pulled it out and looked in the back.  I love manuals that are written by people who don’t speak English.  They crack me up.   Thankfully this part of my manual is very well done (most of it is, really).  It said to clean things up a bit, so I flipped to the section that told me how to take off the needle plate and opened up my machine.  I laughed heartily when I took it off because this is what I saw (sorry for the big photos, but I thought it would be nice to see how bad it was in there!):

Then, when I removed the bobbin case, THIS is what I saw:

No wonder I was having problems!  And do you recognize that color?  Gee, I wonder if all of that copper-colored lint might have come from this project.  I used a small, soft paint brush (with no paint, of course) to get all of the lint out.  Now it runs like a champ.  Here’s the cleaned up “after” photo:

Much better!  I imagine one is supposed to do this often, so I will be checking underneath my machine’s “hood” a little bit more frequently.  Hope this is helpful to all my fellow sewers!

Eek!  Update:  I emailed Chris at Pick Up Some Creativity and shared my post with her.  She then so nicely posted this on her blog- I’m in a list with some pretty amazing bloggers!  Thanks, Chris!

A Thank You Party

Posted by Nat on Aug 7, 2010 | 3 comments

Don’t you think throwing a nice party is sort of a craft?  It’s definitely an art form, and it’s hard to do well, I think.  Anyhoo…..

My mother was adamant about a lot of things when we were growing up (I’m the youngest of 3, and yes, I was worried they would forget about me so I acted out just for the recognition).  One thing that I still thank her for today is the fact that she taught us such good manners (as I’m typing this I’m hoping that no one sends me a comment that reads: “Yo, you were totally rude to me and this is what you did….”).  We always said please and thank you.  I’m finding myself doing the same with my kids- maybe it’s in the DNA.  In this case, it’s a good thing.

As a working mom, one of the hardest things to do every week is leave your kids somewhere.  Doesn’t matter where it is, or even if you think it’s actually good for them to go to childcare/preschool/etc.  It’s just hard to leave them.  When we found our kids’ preschool/childcare place, it was a huge relief because we LOVE their “school.”  The classes are small, the teachers are amazing, the two women who run the place are flexible and helpful, and they still consider me the boss of my children.

I told Michael that I wanted to celebrate them this summer by giving the kids’ teachers  a thank you party.  It was so fun to plan something like this.  If you’ve been around since I started this blog you may remember this post about asking their food and drink preferences.  This also sort of built the excitement for them- they were all a-twitter the day or two before the actual party.  I thought I’d share a few of the things we made for them.

Pear Rosemary Martinis

You can find the original recipe for these here at Epicurious.  It had really great reviews, and I actually made these a few years ago for a friend’s bachelorette (ah, those were the days), so I knew they were yummy.  However, I had to alter the recipe a bit to make it work for us.  The original recipe calls for pear brandy.  Pear brandy is a bit expensive, and with everything else we were doing I needed to cut some corners.  So instead, I used some regular run-of-the-mill brandy, regular (nice) vodka, and some Absolut Pear.  My version of the martini is at the bottom of this post.

Caprese Kabobs

These are fairly self-explanatory, so I’ll just post pictures.  I got our little mozzarella balls at Trader Joe’s along with one of those huge basil plants.  I covered them with wet paper towels so the mozzarella cheese wouldn’t dry out before the party, wrapped the platter in saran-wrap, and popped it in the fridge.  Then I drizzled them with a slightly sweet balsamic vinaigrette right before serving.  Yum- and so pretty.  I liked this because it wasn’t too heavy before a nice, hearty Italian dinner.

Tiramisu

I also found this on Epicurious, here.  It was delicious!  This was my first Tiramisu.  My biggest challenge was finding the lady fingers, but once I found those we were good to go.  Warning:  do not be troubled by the filling while you are making it.  I tasted it and was concerned that it didn’t taste good, but something about sitting overnight in the fridge and setting makes it taste oh-so-wonderful the next day.  And it was great because it was one less thing to worry about the day of the party.  I used Sweet Marsala instead of dry.  Tasted fine to everyone!  And I used a trifle dish because it just sounded pretty and many commenters on the site said it made for nice presentation, so I followed suit.

Lastly, a couple of other pictures.  One is of my china.  We pulled it out, and I’m so glad we did because I. Love. My. China.  I remember calling my mother when we registered, worried that I was picking a rather fancy one that was a bit more expensive.  My mother said something like, “Do not pick a cheaper china just to be nice.  Pick the one you want and people will buy it.  You will regret it if you pick one you don’t like just to save people money.  If they don’t want to buy you china, they will buy you something else.  Get the china you want.”  She said this, of course, in the way that all mothers have- the guilt fell away and I got my china.  Thanks, Mom!

Finally, I took this picture towards the end of dinner- we turned out the lights except for some distant lamps, and lit the candles.  It was so relaxing to eat in a dimly lit room- and everyone looked stunning.  🙂  That’s my amazing husband in the background.  I am totally in love with him, by the way.

So, who can you thank?  How would you thank them?  This was so much fun, and I think we’ll do it again next summer, for shizzle.  Nothing can replace confidence in those who care for your children, and thanking these wonderful ladies felt good.  Great.  Awesome.  And I got toasty-buzzed in the process- who can beat that?  Okay fine- I was a bit hungover the next day.

Here’s that Pear Rosemary Martini recipe (my version):

1 cup simple rosemary syrup (see below)

375 ml (1/2 bottle) plain vodka

375 ml (1/2 bottle) Absolut Pear vodka

3 tbsp Brandy

5 tbsp. fresh lemon juice

For the syrup:  boil one cup of water with one cup of sugar, stirring to dissolve.  Once it boils, reduce to a simmer for 2 minutes, adding 4 rosemary sprigs while simmering.   Once it’s cool to the touch, remove the rosemary. Completely cool before adding to the liquor.

Combine all of the liquids in a pitcher and place in the freezer for at least 3 hours.  Before serving stir it up.  If you have time and a mesh strainer, it’s good to strain the pulp out of the lemon juice.  Garnish with a sprig of rosemary.  Caution:  these go down easy and sneak up on you!

Operation Organization

Posted by Nat on Jul 31, 2010 | 22 comments

This post could also be entitled “I love you, Ikea.”  Or, “I love you, Mod Podge.”

The challenge:  organize the hall closet.

A few weeks ago I was visited by my wonderful and oh-so-easy-to-talk-to friend, Jen, from Feng Shui Jen’s Way.  Jen, you inspired me to get my house’s rear in gear (which I guess means my own rear in gear).  I hope this post makes you proud!

Here is the hallway- it’s quite long.  I apologize in advance for the photo lighting- there are no windows, therefore not a lot of natural light going on. You can kind of see the closet on the right in this photo- it’s one of those old-school, folding door closets with narrow shelves that don’t hold anything very conveniently.  Great for my type-A personality.

Here’s the closet “before” (embarassing, I know):

You may notice the white tubs with the lovely pink sticky notes on them.  This was my half-a** attempt at organization.  Downside to the sticky notes (aside from looking horrid) was that they fell off.  Often.  I don’t like baskets for things like this- they look nice for a while, then they collect dust, and then they fall apart.  I needed and wanted tubs.  Ikea rocks in the tub department- did you know?

Here are the tubs in their plain, boring format.  The big ones are 5.99 and the little ones are 2.99.  They are from the Slugis collection.  See their specs here. (added:  Apparently this line of tubs has now been discontinued.  Insert maniacal crying here.) 🙁

I wanted to beautify them a little and also make them impervious to label-fall-offage.  So I went to my paper stash and picked some favorites.

I created a template and traced it on the back of the paper so I didn’t have to worry about marker showing through.  I used a nice thick permanent marker so I could cut precisely.

Then I started the Mod Podge process.  First I painted the face of the tub with a layer of MP.  I used a matte finish for this project because I didn’t want to be troubled with glaring labels whilst trying to find something.  Immediately after applying the first layer I put a piece of paper on top.  Then I slathered it up with some MP and let it dry.

I had a little bit of fun doing this- they were just so much nicer to look at after they were papered up.  Even Michael liked looking at them.  Aren’t they purty?!

Then I made labels for them.  I made them all 6 inches across to help them look uniform, and used the same font throughout.  I MP’d the labels on and then covered them with a layer of MP to finish.

The finished closet:

Can I say that I am in organization heaven?  I love opening this closet and knowing where everything is.  And the best part is that I didn’t fill them all up, so as we need to, I can put more labels on some.

BTW, this is the very first project where Mod Podge did exactly what I wanted it to.  The paper did not bubble, it went on nice and smooth- hooray!

I am so excited that this was featured on Amy’s Mod Podge Rocks Facebook page!  Yee haw!

I’m also going to link up to It’s a Blog Party’s Show Me How Party.  Yay for links!

Our Family Rules!

Posted by Nat on Jul 28, 2010 | 2 comments

You could read that two ways:

A)  Our family RULES!  (As in, our family is totally rad- and it is)

or

B)  Our family rules (As in, here are our Family Rules).

You pick.

Up there in my header there’s a list of Things I’d Like to Make.  I need to add to it because I’ve seen some pretty awesome stuff in the last few days.  One thing this 31DBB Challenge is doing is getting me to click around incessantly on the internet.  Ridiculous.  Often it’s worth my while, and occasionally I have to smack myself upside the head and get crackin’ on something of my own.  In this case, it was the Family Rules.

I first saw this idea on one of my fa-fa-favorite blogs, The Pleated Poppy.  You can see Lindsey’s fabric version here, and her friend Nicole’s version here.  If you look at the comments on their blogs you will see that many others have made these and I am way late on this bandwagon.  But better late than never, I say.

What I like about these, other than the crafty part, is that it’s a great reason to sit and think about what you want for you family.  What are your core values?  Get ’em up on the wall where you can see them daily.  I collected ones I saw on the web and then altered and added to suit our tastes, and then showed them to Michael.  He added some more and off I went.  Actually, I didn’t have to get much- just the canvas and the orange paint.

Here is my finished Family Rules:

One thing I did differently is I totally copped out on the whole font thing.  Many of the other blogs I read did their fonts by hand.  For reals.  I’m toooo lazy, and I’m also lucky enough to own a Canon i9900, which will print on a 12×12 piece of paper.  Hindsight 20/20, I wouldn’t have done it quite the same if I were to do it again, but I am still pleased with the turnout.  (And I’d still be totally lazy and print those puppies rather than do them by hand.)

I learned, however, that white ink is not Mod Podge friendly, or at least the white ink I used is not.  See the one that says “Celebrate together”?  I wanted it to *pop* on the paper which, though it’s hard to tell in the photo, is a shimmery paper.  So I spent a ridiculous amount of time covering the blank ink from my printer with white ink, only to have it wipe off when I Mod Podged it.  (Can you use Mod Podge as a verb?  Not sure…)  For some reason the other one I did, “Say grace and clean up after yourself” did not have the same problem, so it must have something to do with the paper.  Oh well- it’s all shellacked now anyway.

Here are some close ups of the smaller ones- I had to get creative because I ran out of room, so this was my solution:

Here are all of our rules (they are not in this order on the finished product):

1. Have fun, be silly
2. dance, hug and snuggle often
3. Celebrate together
4. Say, “I love you” (lots and lots)
5. Have an open mind
6. Be kind and respectful
7. Obey your parents
8. tell the truth even if you might get in trouble
9. share    listen    (these ended up as small ones so I separated them)
10. Give your guest your best
11. Mom & Dad:  remember your wedding day
12. hands are for hugging not hitting
13. encourage your siblings… share in their joy
14. there’s no such thing as too much reading
15. never give up
16. act responsibly, choose wisely
17. keep your promises
18. Use your manners- say please and thank you
19. Say grace and clean up after yourself
20. Ask lots of questions
21. Use your creativity
22. Try another point of view
23. Remember that God is Father of us all

If I get some requests I will be happy to post the names of the fonts I used- I am a total font junkie which is part of the reason I loved this project.  Such a nerd, I am.  I would do it now but I have consumed far too much BV Cab, and fear I would list them inaccurately.  🙂

I love this- it adds so much color to our kitchen, and is one of a bunch of things I’ve been doing this week to get organized and get homey before the school year starts.  I love coming home to a house with love and life, and I feel like I’m getting there.  Just wait until you see my other project from this week…. coming soon!

Martha! I Made It! #2: The Duvet

Posted by Nat on Jul 22, 2010 | 15 comments

This is going to be a long post.  I hope you read it and validate my psyche, because after this project, I need some validation.  Whew!  I am, however, totally okay with you just looking at the pictures and then posting a comment (ha!).

This project started a long time ago in my head.  Michael and I have been dreaming of getting a king-sized bed for months and months.  When your husband is 6’3″, you need a big bed.  In mid-June Michael noticed that Macy’s was going to have a stellar sale on mattresses and said we should go ahead and do it.  I was so excited and petrified.  We chose gray for our master bedroom, and while I like the gray, I’ve had a hard time deciding what to do with the bedding.  I don’t want more gray bedding- to dreary and plain.  And supposedly gray is neutral, but I think it’s a tricky neutral.

I did have two sources of inspiration.  I saw this photo in a magazine and loved the look of orange, white and gray on the walls.  (My dog is cuter than that dog, BTW.)

Then I saw this photo in (you guessed it) Martha Stewart’s Encyclopedia of Sewing and Fabric Crafts.  It’s on page 150/151.

(I took this photo with my iPhone and hope I don’t get in trouble for posting it, but couldn’t find it online anywhere).

I didn’t like the idea of having a white comforter. With a little black dog who likes to snuggle in our bed while we get ready in the morning, I could just see it getting covered with little black hairs.   And Michael and I are hard on things- white would just get dingy and dirty too quick.  But the tones in Martha’s book were a bit too muted for me- I wanted something a bit more striking.

I headed to BB&B and found some sheets.  I chose a copper color- it was as close to orange as I could find.  I did like it a lot.  I wanted to add a second color as an accent, so I chose an olive green that was near it because they just seemed to go together.  What follows is a sort of pictoral journey, if you will.  But if you don’t want to scroll through them, I’ll put the finished product first to save you the scrolling (aren’t I nice?).  🙂  Ta da!

(Please don’t look in my closet– it needs some work.  Should have closed the dang curtain…LOOK AWAY!)  I think the white pillows made it look complete.  I love it.  Really, I do.  I’m just not sure about the color combo with the gray walls.

Now, onto the process….ah, the process…

One of the wonderful things about Martha’s book is you get templates and patterns.  Lots of them.  This particular template was a doozy, though, since it’s soooooo big.  Many pages to tape together.  I also used that to cut out the teardrop templates.

I set to cutting out the appliques.  There were a lot of them.  It took me an entire morning- I caught up on a lot of Oprah.  The process outlined in the directions basically tell you to use the template to trace the pattern onto your sheet with transfer paper and a tracing wheel.  Transfer paper is also… a doozy.  I even bought the same transfer paper used in Martha’s book- you can find it here.  I wish I could tell you that I love transfer paper and it worked like a charm. I do not love transfer paper, and it did not work like a charm.  After 45 minutes of tracing the pattern onto my sheet, I pulled it away and there was very little to show for my lower back workout.  So I had to resort to my own brainpower because I wanted to get to sewing.  Bad.  What I ended up doing was placing the appliques and tracing them with disappearing ink.  I learned, however, that on this particular sheet at this particular time of year, the disappearing ink disappears quickly- overnight.  So I worked one circle at a time.  I placed the appliques on the inner circle and then sewed them down.  Then I worked my way out from there.

Tracing paper (and Sophie, wondering what in the world I’m doing)

One of my learning moments was the stitching for this project.  Martha’s book talks about using a satin stitch, but I couldn’t find anything in my sewing manual about satin stitching.  So I zig-zagged the appliques to the copper sheet (Martha and her editors said that would be okay).  Let me tell you- a king sized sheet- that’s a lot to work with.  This was my world for several days:

Things moving along…

Here was my problem, though- sometimes the zig-zags turned out okay (pre-trimming)…

And other times they pulled away- either due to my poor stitching skills or they just pulled out of the threads- a little bit of both.  When I saw this happening, I became a bit depressed.  I spent so much time on this project, and felt like it wasn’t going to pan out.  Then (enter angel chorus music) I asked my friend Kari for help.

Thankfully, Kari didn’t have to make a special trip- she was already coming over for a get together.  I brought her back to check it out and she set me straight on how to satin stitch.  Basically you set the zig zag setting on your machine at opposite ends to make it as wide and as close together as possible, and ta-da!  Satin stitch- looks much better, eh?

Once I finished up the satin stitching (several days later) I was finally ready to make the duvet.  I followed the directions in Martha’s book on page 147.  I’m glad I took my time with this part.  My white sheet was significantly larger than my copper, AND they were both larger than my comforter, so I had some work to do.

Ready to sew it up!

Up close in our room.

And the final product again.  *sigh*  I love it.

New Series on Crafting Crazy: Martha! I Made it!

Posted by missmusic1976 on Jul 21, 2010 | 6 comments

I love Martha Stewart.  For a while I was in denial.  I was one of those people who was all like, “That Martha- she’s too perfect.  Who really lives like that?  I mean, it’s nice and all, but…..”  Then I couldn’t deny it any more. I just like the look of nearly everything in her magazines.  I don’t watch her show very often mainly due to a lack of time, but I do like the simplicity of the Martha Stewart Style.  So, I gave up, gave in, and now I’m a Martha Wannabe.  I have a long way to go.

Enter her new treasure, “Martha Stewart’s Encyclopedia of Sewing and Fabric Crafts.”

Soon after I purchased my sewing machine I went out and bought this book.  (Thankfully I had some help with a generous gift from our PTA at school- it was Teacher Appreciation Week and we all got $50!  Nice, eh?)  I actually went to Barnes & Noble and pulled a bunch of sewing books and literally sat on the floor and drooled over patterns and pictures of things I’d love to know how to make (remember- no idea what I’m doing).  I ultimately chose this book because it has a little bit of everything- clothing, gifts, doggie coats, you name it.

I thought it might be nice to showcase what I make from this book.  It’s one thing to look at a project in any book and say, “Hey- that’s rad.  I could make that.”  It’s another thing entirely to follow the directions (I’m not always good at that) and see if you actually get what’s pictured.  And since I’m such a novice, I think at the very least I will give a good laugh, right?  So here we go:  Installment #1 of, “Martha!  I made it!”

On page 311 in the book are “Felt Baby Shoes.”  They looked adorable, and awfully simple to make. First I just went to Michael’s (or Joann Fabrics- can’t remember) and bought a cheap sheet of crafting felt in pink and white.  I wanted to see if they would turn out right using the pdf pattern included with the book.  In less than 15 minutes I had an adorable pair of shoes, but because the felt only cost 29 cents/sheet, I could tell they were not going to last very long.  So I headed to the back of the Encyclopedia and looked up where Martha got her felt. I love the back of the book- you can look up where they purchased certain fabrics and such- not everything is listed, but in this case I was lucky.  I surfed over to Magic Cabin and ordered some of their wool felt.  When it showed up I started drooling it was so nice.  And here’s my end result:

First and most importantly, meet Clare.  Isn’t she adorable?

Clare’s mommy, Elizabeth (E for short) agreed to let Miss Clare model my shoes.  Of course, Clare gets to keep them, too.  I wanted to see if they would actually fit a baby’s foot.  For reference, Clare is 3 months old.

Here are the shoes- I think they turned out adorable.  You’ll see that I added a little heart to the bottom of one for flair.  I know- I’m so forward-thinking, right?  No one does that, I’m sure.  Ha.

And now my critique of the directions and steps in the book.  I think these will be helpful to anyone else in case they decide to make something from this book.

This How-To was great– the pattern was easy to use, the felt is very easy to work with.  I do need to buy some smaller pins because I did stick myself a lot since I only had standard size pins.  I used a 1/16″ punch for the little holes just as they described and it was very easy to use.  I have to wonder if gluing rick-rack, as they suggest would hold up, but that will have to wait for another pair.

Other notes:  In the future I will not use buttons.  These shoes barely fit Miss Clare, so these are best used as a newborn gift so that mommies can decide when to use them. Because Clare is 3 months old, the buttons had to be readjusted a bit and they did work, but I would worry about the felt not holding up to her little kicks and such since the fit was a bit snug around her cute ankles.  Clare was also kicking up a storm, so they were hilariously challenging to get on.  I did use a crafting knife to cut the button holes- it was very easy, but I’m glad I used the sharp knife and not a pair of scissors.  This allowed me to be more exact.

A few other photos to share:

The shoes on Miss Clare’s adorable feet (this girl has long toes!)

Full shot- I feel horrible for cutting off her head, but still- is she not just the cutest?  Talk about baby fever… E said that she wore them for quite a while and didn’t seem bothered by them at all, which is also nice to know.

Thanks, E, for letting me use Miss Clare!  I can’t wait to see what other shoes I can come up with.  I have all sorts of color combinations in mind.

Next up on Martha, I Made It!:  a duvet cover.  Yikes.  It’s coming!

If you got this far, please leave a comment and show me some love- thanks!