Excitement (!) and some new wallets.

Hi, everyone. It's been a long, tiring day, but has definitely ended in a great way. I won a copy of the new book "Stars in the Night" over at Jenny B. Jones' blog! It's the first blog giveaway I've ever won, and I'm super excited. :) Here's the best part: the book, a sort of murder mystery, is set in 1940s Hollywood. I'll definitely be sure to post a review after I've read it.

By the way, Cara Putman, the author of "Stars in the Night" is hosting an amazing giveaway contest where you can win copies of her books or awesome classic movie DVD sets! Check it out here!

I've been thinking about doing another Jane Austen post (since I seem to have been on an Austen kick lately, although I didn't really know about the blog tour until this afternoon) for Feelin' Feminine's blog tour, and I might put it up tomorrow. Tonight I just wanted to show you guys the three wallets I made yesterday.

This khaki fabric is recycled from a pair of pants. The embroidered heart was a last minute addition to prevent the wallet from being too plain, but I wish I had took the time to make it a little better. It was getting late, and I was tired.

I'm running out of zippers (need to stock up again) and labels...I only have four labels left! And the lady I buy them from on Etsy is on maternity leave until sometime in August. I guess this should teach me to not wait until the last minute to buy them, huh?

I bought this fabric (on clearance after Valentine's Day) to make something for myself, like an obnoxiously cute, frilly, Lucy Ricardo apron...since I do so much cooking. *use a sarcastic voice and roll your eyes when reading that last part* Honestly, one of my goals during my month off is to have a few cooking lessons from Mom. Cooking is one of the many homemaking skills in which I am sorely lacking. Anyway, I wanted something a little different and since I have yards of this fabric, I thought one wallet would be okay.

The pink interior is not nearly as bright and tacky as it looks. And the zipper is dark brown, not black.

I hope to be back tomorrow afternoon with something Austen-related!

Until next time,

My love of all things Austen...and yellow.

Hi, guys!

I think I've finally gotten the blog straightened out. New layout, new header, a few changes to the music player, and I tried to clean up the sidebar a little. I took off a lot of the pictures (I miss you already, Cary Grant), but don't worry, they've only been moved to the new "My Favorites" page. I also made a few other little changes. Hope you enjoy! :)

Today I made myself a wallet. I make them to sell, but I had been using a (very cute, but very small) owl one from Target. It's sort of ridiculous that I didn't have one of my own, if you think about it. This idea has been floating around in my head for a while now. It's a "Pride and Prejudice" wallet. Have I mentioned that I love that book and movie? :) Anyway, I just found out about the Jane Austen Tour over at FeelinFeminine.com and decided to add this as an entry.

It's denim and yellow gingham, with the silhouette of Lizzie and Darcy from the lovely scene towards the end. I printed off the silhouette from here and used it to go by. The applique didn't turn out quite as good as I had hoped, because the denim has a slight stretch and frays really, really easily. Also, Darcy's nose got a little too pointy and Lizzie's facial features disappeared. After it was finished, it also occurred to me that the yellow circle (which I was hoping would resemble the sun, since the scene happens at dawn) actually looks like a moon. Not to mention I haven't embroidered in a month, so my stitches look sort of pathetic. Oh, well. It's mine, and I can endure a few little imperfections.

It's from this scene:

The yellow is actually pretty bright. I got a few yards of this fabric at a yard sale, and when I was cutting it, I realized that it smelled like an old lady's strange perfume. Eh.

So, my new wallet is a combination of my favorite movie/book and color. :) Now I just need to make myself a new bag.

Until next time,

Swoon.

New layout. I'm still a little iffy, so it might get altered a bit. What do you guys think? Edit: I changed the background and finally got the header straight. I like this much better!

Last night was a perfect start to the summer. I worked on a few journal pages and ate a large bowl of "death by chocolate" ice cream (yes, I'm serious) while watching my favorite movie of all time, "Pride and Prejudice." If you've been around here any length of time at all, you have heard me gush many times about this movie (and how it is infinitely better than the BBC version), so I won't do it again. I enjoyed the movie immensely last night and was so giddy about finishing my research paper that everything was a hundred times more funny than usual. Particularly Mr. Collins. I even noticed something that I had never seen before in all my times of watching it. At the Netherfield ball, when Mr. Collins approaches Mr. Darcy to introduce himself although Lizzie tries to stop him, watch carefully. When he clears his throat and says, "Mr. Darcy," Mr. Darcy almost knocks him in the head with his elbow when he turns around. :) Mr. Collins has to duck backwards. I had seriously never noticed that before and found it hilarious.

So I got my delicious dose of Mr. Darcy, which should last me for a while. But now, I'm going to show you, with a few pictures and even fewer words, why Matthew Macfadyen makes a much, much better Mr. Darcy than Colin Firth.

1. He's ridiculously handsome. He's tall and strong and has lovely eyes. I used to like him much better with longer, Darcyish hair, but now I'm thinking he even looks nice with shorter hair (he actually reminds me a little bit of Michael Buble, when he's got shorter hair and some scruff on his face).

2. He has the most amazing smile, when he does actually smile. Because as we know, he has perfected the proud, antisocial attitude.


3. He has a sweet, boyish look sometimes.



4. You could listen to him read a phonebook. But it's even better when he reads poetry.




Okay, I'm done now. I promise my next few posts will be more mature and involve less gushing and swooning. :) Have a lovely day!

Until next time,

Confetti?

Does anyone have any confetti or balloons?

I am officially finished with my four summer classes, and I am super excited about that! Classes were over on Thursday, but I had to finish a few papers. I was a terrible procrastinator and put off starting my research paper on "Wuthering Heights" and Emily Bronte until...yesterday? Eesh. This is what my desk looks like right now. My huge record player/radio/CD player takes up half of the desk, so my papers spill over onto the bed. :) Anyway, I'm finished! I just emailed the paper to my teacher (this was an online English class).

I have lots of plans for the next four weeks...sewing, fixing up Jane, and catching up on my classic movies. I also have a pile of books waiting for me-mostly children's books ("James and the Giant Peach," "The Tiger Rising," and "The Tale of Despereaux" to name a few). Plus I've got a few fun blog posts planned...well, I'm looking foward to them, anyway. :) One about my quirkiness, which is something that has been increasingly more noticable to me recently (and I'm hoping to make myself feel better by hearing about some of your quirks, too), one about children's books (which I have been obsessed with lately), and quite possibly a new blog layout. I know I haven't had this one for long, and I do love it, but it has been becoming a little too busy and...*pink* for me here lately.

Yesterday I squeezed in some time to finish this bag. It is for Sue, the lady who gave/traded me the dress form. I was in a hurry to make it because I thought I was going to see her today, but I didn't. She said she wanted something black and white, so it would match with anything.

She traded me Jane for this bag. Pretty amazing, right? As Amber said, this was definitely a God thing. :)

I really need to take the time to match up patterns. :) This lining fabric will almost make you dizzy, anyway.

Until next time,

It's a hard knock life.

Hi, guys. I just wanted to make a quick post this morning, because I probably won't be able to post again for another week. I have one last week of summer classes. But I have a ton of stuff to do this last week. Ugh.

This weekend, me and my mom went to see a local performance of "Annie." It was lovely! I knew the basic plot of the story but had never seen it (in a movie or play) all the way through. I loved it. :) Now I'm trying to get my hands on the two movie versions to watch. The only thing I didn't like about the play was the way Mr. Warbucks was portrayed, in a sort of unlikable way. He was slightly obnoxious and tossed out a couple of mild swear words, which I did not appreciate considering that the majority of the cast and audience were children. Anyway, I absolutely loved the songs. My mom has been downstairs all morning singing "Easy Street," so now it's stuck in my head.

On Friday, I got two orders finished. First was the bag and wallet for the lady who cuts my hair. She picked out the fabrics, and I used Simplicity pattern 2396, which I'm going to use to make myself a new bag, too. I was a little worried about it at certain points, because she wanted a lot of things changed, things that I had never done before. She wanted longer straps (that was no problem), an outer pocket, and pockets all around the inside.

The outside pocket that I came up with:

She wanted inside pockets like the Vera Bradley bags have. I had never seen that before, so she showed me one. I wanted to make the pockets sort of 3D, not flat like I usually do, so I ended up making a long rectangle and then gathering it across the bottom and sewing it in that way. I'm very happy with them.

It was probably the most challenging bag I've ever made, even though it looks fairly simple. I wasn't sure if it was exactly what she wanted, but she loved it. Seeing her reaction was worth all the extra time and effort. :) Here's the matching wallet:

Here is a little bag that my cousin wanted. She was going to her friend's daughter's fifth birthday party and wanted me to make something for her. So I made this mini-version of the Buttercup bag for her. The fabric was super cheap, on clearance at Hobby Lobby.

Well, that's all I have for now. Hopefully I'll be back posting regularly again after this week. I'm still reading your blogs, though, even when I can't post.

Until next time,

Hi there...

Hello, lovely readers.

I've been meaning to post for days now, but things have been so crazy that I haven't been able to. My brain feels like it's going to explode with all of the stuff I have to think about right now: reading, research papers, projects, etc. Plus, I need to sew three bags by Saturday. I'm suppposed to be doing homework right now, but I've been distracted online. So I thought I might as well put up a short post, and short it will be because now I can't even remember what I was going to post about. :) I don't know what ever gave me the brilliant idea to take four summer classes in one month, but I have learned my lesson.

Only this week and one more week until I have some time off. I am so excited. The two things that have really helped me get through homework the past few days are: Eric Carle's beautiful children's books and Lenka's bouncy music. More on that later, I hope. I also hope I'll be back in a few days with some pictures of completed sewing projects. I mostly just wanted to stop in and say that I will be back. :)

Until next time,

Meet Jane.

Remember when I mentioned the dress form a few days ago? I got her today. Two weeks ago, we met this lady who works at a nearby fabric store. My mom casually mentioned to her that I have been looking for a dress form. The lady said that she had one that she had paid about $200 for in the garment district in Manhattan. She said it needed to be repadded and covered, but she would trade it to me for one of my tote bags (which cost about $25). I haven't made her bag yet, but today she bought the dress form to me!

Here she is. I'm not positive yet, but I think her name is Jane. She just immediately seemed like a Jane somehow.

Believe it or not, she is almost the perfect size. :) My waist is not nearly as tiny as hers, though, so that will have to be padded out a few inches. And her hips as well. The lady took off the cover because it was looking ratty. Right now, Jane is made up of this sturdy, thick, but slightly peeling, cardboard. I am going to use some batting that my aunt gave to me (she was going to throw it away) and some white cotton from my mom's discarded country curtains (I now have yards and yards of it). Hopefully by the end, I'll have a lovely dress form for around $25.

She even came on this very sturdy rolling metal stand (ignore my hideously faded 80s carpet).

I am so excited about getting her fixed up. I hope that a dress form will help me in a huge way when I'm trying to make clothes that fit me well. :)

Until next time,