babies babies babies

Everybody is having babies!

How did this happen?

The wedding invites are starting to dwindle and they've been replaced with baby announcements!

My mom has always been an amazing home-made gift-giver.  Every newborn has received a baby quilt and sometimes a little something extra (like an awesome stuffed dinosaur). Now that I’m an “adult” I can no longer sign my name to my mom’s beautiful gifts, so it’s time to start contributing something of my own.  

Back in the beginning of the summer a family friend of ours had a little baby boy.  So when my mom told me she was working on her quit I kicked it into high gear and made the little peanut a hooded towel.  I always loved mine when I was little, and babies look so darn cute in them.

When I was searching the World Wide Web for inspiration all I could really find were solid colors and a few ducks, so I pulled out some post-its and drew up some ideas.

The idea that got me most excited was the hippo so I headed over to The Needle Shop and bought some blue gingham and got to work making the bias tape.

cut, sew, iron, cut, sew, iron, cut, sew, iron, cut, sew, iron

I did one more drawing to figure out the details of the hippo's face and then got to work putting all the pieces together

Unfortunately I didn't get many pictures of it before I sent it out, but here are a few slightly blurry ones of the final product.

I LOVE the way it turned out!

And now that there are a few more little babes in my life it’s time to get crackin’.

p.s. here's that little peanut in the towel. 

Oh geez! What a cutie!

that's tuft

Last weekend I took another class at The Needle Shop! (remember these 1, 2, 3, 4 ?)

I get their news letters and when I saw that tufting was on the new class list I signed up right away.  Just in case you don't know what I'm talking about, "Tufting" is an upholstery term, it's something you see a lot on headboards, couches and chairs (the buttons that sink down into the fabric and create a 3D diamond pattern).  I've always wanted to learn and it turns out it's much easier that I thought!

Unlike the ottoman class, we didn't make a completed piece of furniture, like a headboard (there are too many variables to do a project that big in a beginners class).  Instead we each upholstered a 2" by 2" piece of wood.

The most complicated part is figuring out your spacing for the buttons, but once you do and you drill the holes in the wood you get to take this awesome foam cutter thing and cut your holes in the foam...

Then we made covered buttons to match our fabric.  It was so much fun!!!!!!!!!!!  I always thought you needed some crazy machine to make buttons, but it's so simple.  You just need two chintzy pieces of plastic (that come in the button pack) and a hammer (or really strong fingers).  It was really satisfying to make all these...

Rachel (owner of The Needle Shop) was so surprised at how excited we got over buttons.  And the excitement didn't stop there.

Even though we were just making a sample piece I still bought some fun fabric. I tried to center the buttons in the flowers, but I think that's a more advanced move, so after the first tuft I gave up on that idea.

It turned out really great, and now I just want to tuft everything in our house.

I'm still not sure what I'll do with my doll's bed sized headboard, but I'll let you know when I come up with a crafty idea!


p.s. Speaking of the newsletter, our tufting class was the first one The Needle Shop had held, so Rachel took some pictures for their facebook page and the site, and guess what showed up on the most recent newsletter...

Hahaha!!! A ridiculous picture of me next to a cozy cat!

holiday cheer!

I'm so excited for the holidays.
The tree is trimmed,

Our house is decked,

The stockings are sewn,

(I took another class at The Needle Shop and made The Man a Christmas Stocking I bought the material to make one for myself as well...

but I didn't get very far)

the cookies are made,

 (Glittering Lemon Sandwich Cookies)

and in a few short hours we'll be eating delicious quiche for Christmas Brunch with my fam in Portland, Oregon.

On Thursday night I got one early and unexpected present.  One of the gals I work with got sick and could no longer use her ticket too . . .

Book Of Mormon!!!!!!!

I haven't been to a play in so long I honestly can't remember when it was.  It was so incredible and hilarious and amazing and so so so so so so so good! great! fantastically fabulous! Now I want so badly to get more tickets so I can take The Man (who not-so-secretly loves musicals) to go see it too.

So Merry Christmas Everyone, I hope you all have a wonderful Holiday and spend some over-due time with your families and people who love you.

a little cush for your tush

So, I was trying to wait until I had better photos, and the job was totally done but I'm too excited! I want to share now!  I've been a pretty bad blogger lately, mostly because I had the work week from hell about three weeks in a row, but also because I had been working on an upholstery project that I was keeping from you.

I got a gig upholstering some window seats for a new salon opening here in Chicago. These are iPhone photos taken right after installation but I just can't wait another second to share them with you . . .

I didn't make the pillows, just the seats (for now *wink*wink*), but I'm so happy with them, they're so smooth! Since she didn't want a seam running along the front edge the little nubs took some finessing, but after I MacGyver-ed my way through the first one, they were a cinch!

decision time . . . soon.

Alright so I haven't made much progress since the last time I mentioned the chairs but I have narrowed down my options.  After I picked out all those fabrics The Man and I talked about the chairs themselves, their history and what I'm doing to change them.  He made a good point, keeping the chairs white and only focusing on fabrics I like isn't the way to go.  I don't want people looking at the chairs and thinking, "oh hey, look at the fabric on those chairs," I want people to say, "oh wow, look at those chairs!"

So, no more taking the "easy" way out and sticking with white paint just because I don't want to make any other decisions.  I'm going all in, and here are the options I've picked out:

I've narrowed it down to 3 fabrics, each with 2 paint options

Option 1

Kimono by Premier Prints with
Citrus Zest or
Flaming Yellow

















Option 2

Kilburn in green by Lewis & Sheron Textiles with

Sunkissed Peach or

Youthful Coral

Option 3

Kilburn in navy by Lewis & Sheron Textiles with 

Lipstick or 

Youthful Coral

So, the good and the bad, lay it on me.  What do you think?  Any preferences? Any "oh hellllllll no"s?

I'm going to mull it over for a bit. . . 

 . . . and hopefully a bit won't take me a month, like last time.

steaks and blankets {part 2}

On Sunday the man went off to work with his friend Jesse on some side projects at the shop.  When they were done they picked me up and we went shoppin'! Not for clothes, or gadgets, but for meat! 

First we went to Dirk's Fish & Gourmet Shop



We had an awesome lunch, I had a tuna melt, Andrew had a crayfish salad sandwich, and Jesse had the tilapia sandwich, and for desert we had a brownie that was like a brick of fudge.  Right then and there Andrew decided we were having surf and turf for dinner, so we bought some great looking shrimp.

Then our plan was to get some meat at the Paulina Meat Market but after parking in their empty parking lot we realized that they're closed on Sundays (whoops!).  So I suggested we go to The Butcher &Larder. 

 I've been wanting to check this place out for a few months now.  I first heard about the new shop when we had made reservations at a restaurant named Mado for our firm's Holiday Dinner.  As our reservation came closer the more rumors we started hearing about the restaurant (and not the good kind).  We soon found out that the chefs behind Mado, Rob and Allie Levitt, left to follow their passion and open a butcher shop.  I've read up on their blog and the more I learned about their shop the more and more I wanted to try it out.  Rob Levitt has a wonderful love and philosophy regarding butchering.  If you're at all interested you should check out the blog and if you live in Chicago you need to check out the shop.  I love what he wrote, these are a few snippets from various posts on his blog before and after he opened the doors of his new shop.  It was hard to choose so I mashed a few together:

Are people going to go along with my idea that, if I don’t have the ribeye you came in for I can sell you something else…maybe a little more interesting? Are folks going to expect to walk in and get 6 pork bellies and 2 hams? This ‘whole animal’ thing is intimidating. Animals only have so much stuff on them, and when it’s gone it’s gone until the next round of animals show up.

I have been talking for some time about my desire to be the friendly neighborhood butcher. I went on about getting people to understand our mission to cut and sell the whole animal, not just the obvious parts.

I have to remind myself that what we are doing is our idea of what a butcher shop should be, and we proudly stand behind it. Delicious, responsibly raised meat and house-made meat products reasonably priced, and a crew of good people you’ll want to get to know, and trust. I have always believed that if you have a strong idea you are willing to go all out and risk everything for it is the right idea. And if it fails, at least you have your pride.

We went in to buy some steak.  My first ever steak.  I only started eating red meat in December when, at that holiday dinner (we switched our reservation to Spring), I ordered scallops . . . scallops on a bed of ox tail.  I couldn't ask for something else considering it was my own fault for not reading the menu completely, and I had to be polite as I was in the company of the Company.  And to my surprise I loved it and I never felt sick.   It.  Was.  Delicious.  !!.  

So, here we were, buying New York Strip Steak.  The man behind the counter brought out a huge hunk of meat, there were no pre-cut, pre-wrapped, this-is-how-much-I-think-you-should-have portions, just a slab of meat.  He asked how thick we'd like.  We got two one-inch thick slices and were on our way.  Andrew kept squeezing the parchment wrapped steaks and telling me how they were so tender he could use them as a pillow.

They were beautiful:

As was the Shrimp:

Andrew began to prepare the surf (shelling and de-veining them), as well as the turf (cutting slits in the fat so the steaks didn't curl up, and seasoning them with salt and pepper):

I just sat back and watched, I wasn't about to pretend that I had any idea of how to cook a steak.

And since he was already on steak duty it just made sense that he do the shrimp too:

I must say, it was pretty good:

(I'm not ready to try rare yet, not sure if I ever will be)

Since Andrew did all the cooking (except the mashed potatoes, that was my job), I decided I'd make us a little dessert.

From this:

To this:

In 20 minutes!!! YUM! It was a great Sunday night dinner!!!

steak and blanket weekend {part 1}

For the first time in a while I had a very productive weekend.  One of the ladies I work with is pregnant and she's having a baby shower this coming Saturday.  I'm super excited about it, (the shower and the little one it's for).  Every time someone in our family has a baby my mom makes them a baby quilt.  She always picks the cutest little fabrics and they're never too cutesy or power blue/baby pink.  Since I took the "Mitered Blanket" class at The Needle Shop I thought I'd give it a go and make a blanket for my friend.  I went to TNS and got some fabric, it was hard to find fabric that would work for a boy, I never noticed before how girly everything is.

I decided to go with Polka Dots! A personal favorite.  This is what I made:

First cut two squares. The "feature fabric" is a 33 X 33 square and the back and border is a 43 X 43 square.  Then fold them in half and marked the center of all four sides on both pieces of fabric with a fabric pencil.  Then, lay the fabrics "pretty sides" together with the smaller square on-top and match the center of the raw edge:

Pin the edges together and sew along the pinned edge starting and stopping a 1/2" in from the feature fabric:

Next match up the centers of the raw edges on the opposite side and do the same as before:

On the next side match up the centers by holding the corners on either side and pulling.  The feature fabric will pull up and you'll see where the fabric meets up.  It might be a tiny bit off from the centers (not too much) but that's o.k.:

Pin the raw edges together, and sew from seam line to seam line:

Do the same for the last edge but when you sew, switch to a basting seam in the middle for about 6" (back stitching before and after), just enough space to pull the blanket through:

Next step is the corners.  To create the "Mitered" corners fold the blanket in half diagonally.  Mark the end of your stitch line with a pin and draw a line that makes a 90 degree angle with the folded edge. Like so:

This type of ruler makes it really easy, if you line up a 45 degree angle with the ruler on your seam line, it will create the 90 degree angle for you.

Pin this together and sew along the drawn line:

Trim the edges to a 1/2" seam allowance:

After you've finished all your corners lay the blanket flat and press the corner seams open and the edge seams out from the middle:

The next step is to open your basting stitches and pull the blanket right side out.  Push out the corners and lay the blanket out flat and even.  There is just one more step.

So the blanket doesn't completely loose it's shape when it goes through the washer and drier you'll need to sew a seam line around the entire blanket on the inner edge of the border (where the two fabrics meet).  This will also close up your opening from pulling the blanket through.  Pin along the inner edge of the border all the way around the blanket and sew your last stitches:

It is also recommended that you sew another square in the center of the blanket to stabilize the layers even further but my colors are so different that I skipped that step.  (I also skipped it last time and it's worked out fine).

Here's my Blanket!!!:

(I look a little creepy peaking out from behind the blanket, and my lack of make-up doesn't help)

(Just as long as no one looks at the baby like that I think we'll be fine)

Up close shot:

What do you think? Is it manly enough for a baby boy??  I know there's a little pink in there, but this baby will be secure enough in his masculinity to pull it off, I just know it!