craftiness

I have been bitten, and bitten badly, by the craft bug. Many naptimes & nights find me sewing, reading blogs about sewing, or staring at my fabric stash WELL into the night. I even *daydream* about sewing when I have a spare moment. I find it to be incredibly cathartic and addicting. It's something I can do when the house is quiet & my stash of books has been depleted. After a series of late nights, Josh reminded me that I didn't REALLY have a reason to wear myself to the bone, after all, I wasn't working under a deadline. :-) I just smiled.

To combine my hobby with actual usefulness, I've decided to start working on Christmas presents. So, instead of having all-nighters the nights leading up to Christmas, I am just having them in September & October. I have several children projects & 1 garment in the works. I also have a real hankering to do a quilt. I just want to try it! So, I had to make up a project for one of my kids, even though they both technically have quite enough coverings for their cute sleeping little bodies. Looking at some of these Modern Quilting Blogs is enough to make me start salivating!! Of course, I imagine that my first outings won't look exactly like these, but I have to start somewhere.
Here are a few of my fav blogs:
http://tallgrassprairiestudio.blogspot.com/
http://www.filminthefridge.com/
http://crazymomquilts.blogspot.com/
http://myauntjune.blogspot.com/

I have also fallen in love with tutorials! I wonder how people ever sewed before the world of fast, free information WITH PICTURES! Can't get much better than that. I've completed a few projects, but as I'm working on gifts, I can't exactly post pics of them until the recipients, um, receive them. I will note that most of the recipients are children, and since they don't check my blog regularly, I just may post pictures of them before Christmas. ha! So, I'll leave you with some pics of my fabrics. Not all of the groups of fabric are necessarily all going to be in the same project -- they just "matched" enough for me to take a picture of them together. :-)

Herein lies my biggest projects. I approach with fear & trembling.
Projects #1 & #2

Project #3

Projects #4 & #5

Project #6

Come outside & play with me!
This is a dress I finished in the late summer, right before we went on our vacation. I'm hoping it will transition okay into a Jumper. What do you think?

She rarely accomodates a mommy photo shoot, but she finally looked at the camera & flashed me one of these gems.