Alabama Studio Sewing+Design

This book is a must. I saw that several people had it and were trying various things from it. One of my friends bought it and I took a look and that was it. It is very inspiring.

 It is suggested that you go to the thrift store and get some t-shirts and try the fingerless gloves for the first try. It is helpful to get the hang of the size of stitches.

 I hope Cal Lutheran Mom doesn't mind. It was the right color that I needed.

 I had one of the designs in the book blown up and printed at Office Depot. Then cut a stencil.

 Used some grey acrylic paint to put on the stencil.

Now is where the creative part comes in. I realized that the gloves are too small. I am hoping to get these done for the trip to Paris.

More Fixing

I thought you would be interested to see what we discovered in our walls after our flood of the floors.

 This is in our livingroom which shows the pipes of the bathroom on the other side of the wall that is in our master bedroom. Our water restoration man couldn't get the walls dry in two places and his little tubes kept filling up with brown powder, which we now know was sand. We think that the contractors that built the house got sloppy and dumbed some sand in the walls when they didn't want to go outside and do it.

 We got three of these 5 gallon pails of sand out of the two places where there was sand.

This is the plumbing of the tub in the other bathroom that the toliet was in that caused the flood.

My IPad

I am taking care of my IPad for the trip and decided to make my own carrier case. I had a wool sweater that I had felted. You can see the pocket from the sweater came in handy to use to carry the cord and ear phones. I found this button trim in Minnesota at a fabric shop. I had intended to use it to trim a jacket. I am hoping that I still have enough left to do that as well. This blog entry is to test and see if I can do it on my IPad as I hope to do while I am on my trip.

Old Town Orcutt

I took a walk to about two miles from our house and thought you would like to take a look at our Old Town.

 This is the Old Town Market and they have the sides of the building and front decorated just so cute.

 This is Kay's Kitchen and is my favorite place to eat breakfast or lunch.

 This is our new library.

 This is a mural about the histroy of Orcutt.

 Orcutt had a oil well that they called Maude and was suppose to be one of the biggest ever. It was like gold mining. People came from everywhere to join the oil discovery.

This is the town clock that was put up to honor Old Maude. This is a very interesting area to walk around. Some of the small houses that the oil workers put up are still here. The owners have restored them and look fun to live in. Thanks for coming along on my walk.

Interesting Life

When I was in Minnesota and taking care of my Dad's house I felt I learned a valuable lesson. I would never do the same to my children. My goal was to come home and as soon as I recovered I was going to begin going through our house and start shedding material things. Well, I guess you better be careful what you talk with God about. A couple days ago, my husband and I went out to lunch and when we got back the toliet began to go over and there was water everywhere. Part of the carpet in two bedrooms, both bathrooms, a hallway and our living room had water on the floor. We spent four hours with a wet vacuum trying to get up what water we could.

 A lot of the house has laminate flooring and it began to absorb the water.

 Yesterday we were able to get a water restoration company out to begin the cleaning up process.

 Here is a carpet and some of the boxes of fabric that were in the closets drying out. My stash!!!

 This is what the living room looks like now.

This is the hall way. They have a very interesting way to dry out the wall. They have drilled holes in the wall and put in tubing and force hot air in. All the doors are off the doors. We have a chest in the bathroom that we have to move in order use the only working toliet. The carpets look like they can be saved. The toliet, vinyl in both bathrooms, laminate in the hallway, living room, dining room and office will be replaced. Base boards will be replaced and painted. The noise from the fans and wall drying makes it very hard to sleep. We are told by Monday morning things will be dry. So you see our lives go on. I know we all have our challenges. This is mine for now.

It's Paris

While I was in Minnesota, my friend Claudia who likes to sew and has a interest in fashion as I do, sent me information on a tour in Paris for the Festival of the Needle. The more and more we read about it we said to each other this just sounds like something we would love to go to. So we are leaving February 3rd and coming back February 25th. The tour was only six days, but we soon had settled on a week before and a week after. The first week we allowed for sleeping until we can get into the Paris scene. The last week we are taking the train to Southern France and take a look around.

I purchased a new IPad with the hope that I could share our trip on my blog. Since I am new at this technology world it is taking a lot of learning. I hope I am ready in time. It all sounds so much fun, I can't wait.

A little girl's dress

Went off in the mail today to my husband's nephew and his wife.

What is it that just makes a sewers heart melt when it comes to a little girls dress? I hadn't made a small dress for quite sometime. When I heard there was a expectant new baby in the family, my heart skipped with joy. I already had the fabric and I was off to the fabric store to find a pattern. For me it had to have some hand work as that is one of my favorite things to do. Simplicity 2392 worked out just fine. I will look forward to see how our new baby looks in her new dress.