Tuesday, July 19, 2011

obsess much

Ok, I have a new little sewing obsession. These little pouchy totes, bags, or whatever you wanna call them.....I call them TOTALLY FUN TO MAKE! :)

I made the blue one as my experiment and gave it to Nisa. She loves it, but isn't sure what she'll use it for. Last night one of her friends came over and she really liked it, so while the girls went shopping, I whipped out the pink one for Sasha. :) I timed myself making the pink one and from start to finish it took about an hour and a half.

I used this tutorial that I found while looking for a cosmetic bag pattern. I used 8x8"squares instead of 6x8 rectangles and I quilted my fabric before I made the bags, so they have seams showing inside, but they're lined. :) I also loved her tip on using zippers that are longer than you need. It makes them so much easier to handle. I went and bout about 10 more zippers so I can make some more.

I also made this little owly bag. I went to a quilt shop in town that I had never been to, and found these cute fabrics. So, I made this bag. I like how it turned out ok, but kinda figured it out as I went (didn't use a pattern). I also lined it and put a little pocket inside. Not sure what I''m gonna do with it, but it was also fun to make...and I LOVE the owls. :)

Thursday, July 07, 2011

4th of July in DC and baby bugs

I'll go with the baby bugs first, but I don't want to scare anyone away..so if you don't like bugs, you can scroll down past the pics..I won't be offended - I won't even know you did it. :) So, since most of you who are reading this know me, have known me for a long time, or at least have seen through other posts that I like animals and creepy crawlies. I don't even kill bugs in the house. I save them in a cup and release them. I DO kill mosquitos and gnats, but only when they are biting me or flying into my eyes! A couple of weeks ago, I found these little eggs on the screen door. I didn't know what they were, but I looked at them through a magnifying glass and saw that they were super cute. They had little smiley faces. Of course, I had to take 500 pictures of them, but this one is the best.I made Anisa look at them later because, like her mom, she loves little creatures too. She googled "smiley bug eggs" or something like that and found out that they were baby stink bug eggs. Days later, we went out to look at them and they had hatched! And, her search was correct. They were baby stink bugs. A lot of my friends have had lots of problems with stink bugs, but we have only had a few in the house every once in a while (I hope I didn't just jinx myself). Here are the babies having a baby stink bug convention.After another couple of days, they all took off. We watched them and their movement around the door then one day we came out and they were all gone. Probably flying to bother some of my friends..sorry.

This part of the story is better for most people cuz it has nothing to do with creepy things, but fire! :) FireWORKS. In DC! We're really hoping to be going HOME next summer to the great Pacific Northwest so we're trying to take advantage of living near Washington, DC. I've learned over the years to try to see as much of the area that we're in as we can because we may never come back. This year I told the family we're gonna go into the city to see the fireworks over the capital. We didn't quite make it into the city, but we were on the edge of the city so we could see the Washington and Lincoln Monuments and the capital building (we could even see the Library of Congress in the daylight). I don't care who you are, the view of this city is spectacular...see...We got to the park at about 3:30 in the afternoon so we could get a good seat, and we found a perfect spot and plopped down for a hot, steamy wait for fireworks. Luckily there was a threat of a storm so there were clouds covering the sun a lot of the day. It was still humid, but we didn't have the sun beating down on us. We sat close to lots of people with BIG, EXPENSIVE cameras.It was fun to see them and listen to them, but you know me, I don't just sit and listen. We started talking to them and found out that a lot of them were in photography/camera clubs. They were super nice. I told Anisa that we are lucky cuz whenever we go someplace like that, we end up by someone cool. As evening drew near, lots of other people showed up and because our spot was so great we had to shoo a lot of people out from in front of us. dummies. Please, please, please. If you ever go somewhere where you KNOW there are gonna be lots of people, either show up early so you can get the spot you want, or be ok with sitting in the back and your view not being so great. Don't squish in front of people who have the good spot. :) Whatever. We watched the show, and at the end, started walking toward metro. We had decided to try one station, but it seemed like everyone else was going to that one, so we took off in the other direction toward Arlington. Well, the crowds around the escalators were HUGE, so we continued on our little trek and walked to the Pentagon. That station wasn't crowded at all, and we got on a train right away. Travis found out when we got home, we walked about 2.5 miles, and it was worth it...although we were all sticky icky when we got home cuz it was so humid out - which, by the way, it never really stormed. We got a couple drops, but no real rain.

Anyway, here are some of the fireworks (**click on the pictures to make them big**). It was a good show. Beautiful fireworks over a beautiful setting. If I get to do it again, tho, I'll leave Travis home (he hates crowds and the thought of waiting for a REALLY LONG TIME for Metro makes him crazy) and go right down into DC. :)