Monthly Archive for January, 2008

Hurray for long weekends!

Published January 21, 2008 in Blythe, Daily Life, Sewing and Sewing Room 4 Comments

I have today off of work. Horray! So far this has been a pretty busy weekend.

Saturday Candace and I had a mini-meet with Sylvia over at her house. Her little girls are just so cute and full of energy. And Sylvia’s work is just wonderful as are her lovely dolls. It was a fun time. After that we hit up Zoe’s Trunk for what else…more fabric. I picked up some prints for Valentines and St. Patrick’s Day dresses.

I’ve also been hard at work on more dolly body bags. I received a large order that I am super excited about so I need to get planning on those and choosing which prints to submit for it. I am just about out of the little tags I made so I ordered some custom printed ribbon instead. I am thinking if I do a loop for the tag then people could use that loop and the one at the top that hook on a strap as suggest by Eddo.

Oh yes! And on Friday we hit up Ikea at lunch so I could look at some shelves in person to help me decide on a bookcase for the ‘doll house’. Well, as I mentioned in my comments, they had a Bonde bookcase on clearance that was the perfect width and depth. We went ahead and picked that up and Candace helped me out by toting me home. I put that together Friday night and used two shelves for the dolls and the rest for me. I plan on decorating it after the miniatures show in February. Mr. B and I were always going to do a train track layout and I looked forward to the miniatures so now I have a shot at it.

So today is going to be filled with cleaning, laundry, sewing, and cutting out bags. Whew! Then on Friday is my and Candace’s yearly trek to the Sewing & Quilt Festival. Yay! And I almost forgot…a big thank you to Candace and Tina for coming across some cool quilted fabric prints on their trip to the JoAnn’s in SanTan yesterday!

Flickr withdrawl and Shop News

Published January 15, 2008 in Daily Life 9 Comments

OH MY! This post is from over the weekend but I never published it! Silly Pixie!

I could just cry that Flickr is down again. Working in IT though I’m sure their Ops teams is working through the issue while being annoyed by people asking incessantly for updates as the caffeine and chips pile up all over their desks.

In shop news…my serger needs new blades as I have been a bad serger mommy. I ordered those and a manual (I can’t find it anywhere!) so once those arrive I can begin production again. I did manage to get two done before everything went south.

Decisions…decisions

Published January 11, 2008 in Blythe and Sewing Room 12 Comments

Okay so…currently my Blythe girls have a very message ‘room’ inside the wardrobe in my sewing room. I have been planning on doing something a little better for them but now that i have four (more on that later).

Here is my problem, I can’t decide what I want to use for their ‘house’. I don’t HAVE to have them in sewing room but since it is my crafty place I want them in there. Here are what I think are my requirements:

  • Doors so the cats/ferret can’t get at the dolls
  • Room for all four of them with a bedroom or two, living room, kitchen and study/craft room
  • Ability to light well for photos

This is where I could use some help! I have 3 ideas for what to do.What do you think?

Smallest Traby shelf in the wardrobe. This would be four rooms inside the warbrode. Pros: Doesn’t take up much room, should be enough room next to it to put plastic drawers for storage. Cons: Too small maybe, the dark warbrode is a lighting challenge.

Bigger Narrow Billy Bookcase. To the right of my closet Ihave my jewelry armoire there now. This idea is to put that back into my room and put a tall narrow Billy bookcase there with a glass door. Pros: Lots of room, should be good light, safe from kitties, can use the wardrobe for craft storage (ols sewing machine for example). Cons: Pixel may be sad that he can’t site on the armoire in the sewing room, will the room look crazy busy/cluttered?

Biggest Large Billy Bookcase. This idea is to replace the short and wide Billy bookcase with a tall one with doors. Half the space for the dolls and the rest for the books and such I have in the bookcase in there now. The old bookcase I could put in my room or somewhere. Pros: Tons of room, okay light. Cons: may be a pain with the doors to get at books and such with the bookcase in the corner.

I am leaning toward the middle option. Hmm….

The furniture layout is wrong (except for the armoire and the small book shelf in the top/left corner) but this is the space I am in Sewing Room Take Two

Today Friggin’ ROCKED!

Published January 5, 2008 in Daily Life 7 Comments

Dear January 5th 2008,

I heart you…a lot. Thank you and please send your friends my way.

Sincerely,
SewPixie

So yeah today has been awesome so far. I didn’t think it would be after being woken up after only about 4-5 hours sleep for work stuff, but it turned out great! And here dear friends (since you really are very dear to me despite the fact that many of you are not near) is the story of why today is so great.

Today I had lots of little body bags to send to good little dollies all over the world. I think it is so cool that my little bags are going to places like France, Australia, Toronto, and Oregon! The scooter was all packed and ready to go! Just before that I found some fabric I was hunting for on Etsy and also found some adorable vintage quilted fabric on eBay in the wee hours of the morning. I need to stop buying fabric!!

Okay, so I have been frequenting a little pack and ship store by my house for a while now. I figure it is within scooter distance and nice to support a local business. Well let me tell you a thing or two! I noticed that my International shipping was a little pricey…like crazy pricey. I hadn’t noticed it before and certainly not when I was shipping little dresses. I checked the USPS calculator
 and a pattern emerged…that damn bleepin’ place was charging be DOUBLE! Now I can see a fee, they gotta make money. I expected a flat fee though not just double the price! WTF! The box I went to Australia today would have cost me $20.20 at that place for 13 ounces in addition to the box I had to buy!! Into the wee hours I searched, maybe it was a non-machinable charge…nope that is only 17 cents. Then I found that the Hallmark a little further from me has a real live little Post Office inside!! What a treat. So I scooted up there (a little busier of a street but within my ‘scooter range’) and paid the real price for the shipping and bought some little Blythe sized toys (ornaments) for the girls to boot! The Post Office area only takes cash but there is a grocery store next door so it was easy to get some moola.

Then the joy was almost lost…sprinkles everywhere and not the kind you put on ice cream! Now I love me some rain but not when I am a few miles from home and am riding a scooter. Eep! Luckily it didn’t last long.

In the same shopping center as the Hallmark is a sewing shop, actually one owned by the same people I will be taking classes from this Spring along with Candace. Well, on the off chance they would have a Juki TL-98Q for me to test out I went inside. They not only had the machine, they had it for the same price as I was going to but it for online! Saving up for it with shop money went out the window (I keep spending my PayPal money on more fabric anyways haha) so I called Candace to see if she’d help me bring it home during lunch one day next week tested it out (LOVED IT) and bought it. YAY

Then filled with glee I put $1 in my gas tank which took me to about full and went home to gush about how happy I am. I have now taken too long to that that according to Kitaro so I need to post this and take him on a walk!

2008 365

Published January 1, 2008 in Blythe, Crafting 365, Daily Life, Quilting and Sewing 4 Comments

This year I will be participating in two 365 groups on Flicker. What you do is take a photo each day for the pool. The two I am doing are Blythe (Gracie will be the subject) and Crafting. I actually started Crafting a while back but got out of practice so I am starting over.

Though I plan to do a lot of crafting today since I don’t have to go to work, my photo for the day is of the ‘kitty quilt’ I am working on. This quilt will be a combination of rail fence and other blocks. I’m not very happy with the first block but this one is looking better. I’ve switched over to pressing the seams open to see how that goes. There seems to be conflicting opinions on if you should press to the side or open. As a lot of things in quilting I bet it can be a heated argument but I am more from the school of ‘everyone do what they want’.

For the Blythe 365 pool you use one Blythe for the subject. I chose my first Blythe Gracie of course. Her first photo is with the little calendar I bought at the Sanrio store when Candace and I went there last weekend. I hope that I can keep up with both pools all year long. What a fun challenge.

So here is to looking forward to the new year with hope in our hearts.