Seeing Red

I am in a sea of red.  Literally.  Or at least I was yesterday.

Have you ever seen this much fabric?  It was everywhere.  This is only one side of the room.  So here is the back story.  For one of my other part time obligations, I coach a high school colorguard squad.  Their first performances are coming up, and we are in need of a new set of flags.  There just so happened to be this huge red fabric monster in their equipment closet, and since I can sew, it is now becoming our closing set of flags.  In order to manage this hug beast, I cut it down the seams into 8 strips.  Each strip was about 42 inches wide, and I don't know how long each was but I'm pretty sure it is longer than the width of my house.  So needless to say, that's a lot of fabric - cutting it apart took around 3-4 hours alone!  Fortunately my sewing room didn't look like this for long.
At first I was only going to have to make 8 flags, but now, we took our show in a new direction, so that means I have to make 24 flags.  By the 18th.  And did I mention that I am going to be out of town for work a couple of days in there?  I have recruited Byron to help me as much as possible, and so far that has meant ironing.  Regardless, it looks like my sewing machine (and my free time, for that matter) is going to be all work and no play for the next week or so.  I hope to be able to work on other things around the house too, but they might just be put off until I make my deadline!

A Saturday Morning Surprise

This morning I woke up and did what I love to do on Saturday mornings - sit on the couch with my coffee watching all my favorite design shows that I missed during the week.  Imagine my surprise when I (still sitting in the same place, um, 5 hours later) heard the door open and my husband walk in - with an absolutely beautiful and totally unexpected bouquet of flowers for me.  For no reason!  He really earned those bonus points today.  See what I mean?

Look at the blooms!  They are so beautiful I couldn't pick just one.  In case you can't tell, the bouquet is make up of coral roses, orange daisies, yellow gladiolas, and some green things, perhaps a type of mum.  Oh!  And some peach lilies.  I think that's it, but I'm no flower expert so if those aren't actually right, they are close enough!  haha.  Regardless of what the flowers actually are, nobody can deny their beauty.
And props to Byron on the tip for photographing them outside.  What a difference that makes.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

Who is the fairest of them all?  If you didn't answer "Why, you, Katie", then you can keep your mouth shut.  Kidding.  But seriously now folks.  As fast as we move around here in the morning (you may either call it efficient or hitting the snooze too long) there is probably a big chance that I could run out of the house without giving myself that one last check.  Until now.  We installed this lovely thing in our laundry room, so now we can check our teeth and noses before we leave the comfort of our home to go face the world.

Forgive my reflection - on the top half I am wearing what I wore to work today and on the bottom I am wearing, um, pajamas.
Hey, speaking of doing the final check before you leave the house, I have a funny story.  Once this past spring/summer I actually went to work in a see through shirt.  Yep - no cami or anything to keep me modest like I usually am.  Fortunately I realized it pretty quickly and was able to just button up my cardi for the day.  Phew!  Crisis averted.  But I still felt like a moron (huge moron) who had never dressed herself before.  Needless to say, I have been really careful since then. 

Say Hello to my Little Friend

We have a new member of our household, and forgive me for not having introduced her sooner.  She doesn't have a name, though. So I don't exactly know how to introduce her.  I will just show you.

This is my house plant.  Or my little friend, if you will.  I bought this plant at Lowe's a few weeks ago.  It was only like $6 which is why I was willing to try it out.  Of course, I threw away the tag, but I think this plant is called a croton.  I'm not just going off total memory here.  This supports my suspicion.  But regardless of what kind of plant this is, the important part of the story here is that it is not dead!  And, it's growing.  In case you missed it the first time, let me show you again.

Here is an extreme close-up.  If you look way down deep toward the roots, you will even see a brand new stalk.  (Are they called stalks?  Oh well, I think you get the picture.)

I feel like I am gushing like a proud parent.  It's just that in my last place, I didn't exactly have a plethora of windows, and the few plants I tried to have, both indoor and outdoor, didn't exactly thrive.  Not at all.  This one however, is enjoying her little perch on my kitchen windowsill.  
Here is the lesson I have learned so far - don't over water!  I may not remember the name of the plant, but I do remember that it said it needed a lot of water.  To me, that means a LOT of water.  Guess what.  Not necessarily so.  (If this is not news to you and you already knew that, why didn't you tell me sooner?!?!)  I water it just a bit every few days.  So far it seems to be working.  I don't want to get too attached here, but judging by the amount of growth in the past few weeks, I may even need to replant this into a larger pot in a few months.

Curtains in Person

I couldn't think of a better title for this post.  Sorry guys.  Creativity is running a little low right now.
As I promised, I finally took a picture of the curtains that I hung in our bedroom.

I think this is the best snapshot I got that shows the room in perspective.  This is the view you would see as you walk into the room from the hallway.  Forgive the pillow that I shoved under the bed.  I didn't think it would be seen.  Oops.  Now it just looks like a pile of dirty clothes.  It's an extra pillow people.  I'm really trying to keep things clean around here.
Here is the pattern close up.  I never got around to ironing them so I picked the least wrinkled spot to zoom in on.

Overall I am really happy with them.  I like them open better, because then they are more "gathery".  All of our windows are apparently wide, and when the curtains are closed they almost look like they are the wrong size.  I am hoping someday to add bamboo blinds to all of the windows throughout the house, and so once I do that (give me like 5 years or so) maybe I will just keep the curtains open all the time.
But...did you notice anything else new in the first picture?  We finally hung our wedding picture!

I've had this picture since Christmas.  Because we were in the middle of building our house, we never hung it at the old place.  Then, when we were trying to find a place for it in the new house, I was inspired by this idea and wanted to make one of my own for either side.  I would hang the three pieces in matching frames in the living room.  Then that DIY project bombed...majorly.  So this little guy was left without a home for another couple of months.  Finally, we found it a home in the bedroom and I am really happy with where we have put it.  And honestly, I think everyone else will be happy with it as well, as it is a way to keep one of our lovey-dovey personal memories in the bedroom, instead of forcing everyone who comes to the house to stare at us.  I don't think I ever convinced myself that it was okay to put wedding pictures, especially wedding pictures of this scale (it is 16x20), in the most public area of the house.  Regardless, it's up, and that's one more step in the right direction of making our house into our home.

Is This Wrong?

I recently discovered a new blog called Uber Chic for Cheap.  While perusing her posts, I came across this post that she wrote about kids wardrobes.  Is it wrong that I like every single outfit and piece shown?  Here is the picture she posted.

Picture found here.

I especially like (l-r) numbers 2, 3, and 5.  Especially 5.  Sometimes when I get dressed, I think to myself, I really want to look like Audrey Hepburn meets the 50s housewife.  Seriously.  I'm not joking here.  Doesn't look number 5 just scream that to you? I don't know if I could show up to work with a bow that big in my hair and be taken seriously, so maybe I will just save that one for the weekend.
UCFC even put together a shopping list for how to achieve these looks, so pretty soon, I'll be on my way to looking just like these 11 year olds.  I was not this stylish when I was 11, fo sho.  The best part about her blog is that all of her finds and recommendations are affordable!  Even if you aren't interested in your fashion inspiration being 11 like I am, I'll still tell you to click on over.  I just know you will find something you like!

5 Hours

Can you believe it took me 5 hours to do this?

Lets back up here.  My sewing room is out of control.  I never really organized it to begin with when we moved in...I just put things out of sight.  That left me with a dresser with half of its drawers sitting empty and a closet with absolutely no floor space.  One of the things that was occupying the floor space was a huge box of stash fabric.  It was seriously huge, and most of the pieces were inherited from my grandmother, many with the original stickers!  An aside...I will say that there was proof that some of this fabric was from my childhood and dare I say it, before I was born!  For those of you who knew Grandma Adeline, this is no surprise.
But anyway.  Yesterday, I tackled the box.  Unpacked fabric.  Washed fabric.  Ironed fabric.  Folded fabric.  Sorted fabric.  You may have picked this up from the photo, but I even loosely divided the fabric into two color ways - the left side is mostly cool colors (blues, greens, purples) and the right side is mostly warm colors (reds, pinks, oranges, yellows).  My absolute favorite find is the fabric that you see in the far right side of the photo.  It is a linen-ish fabric with little mild cartons & straws on it.  So adorable - I can see it made into a dress someday, sort of like this one.
The floor of my sewing room is still a disaster.  There is just one more (small) stack of fabric to go through plus my scrap basket.  I may require another drawer.  The two I've got are pretty much full to the brim.  Oh yeah, and it just occurred to me that I have other pieces of fabric tucked away in random places in the basement.  Looks like I still have a bit of work ahead of me.  The good news, however, is one, I have a place for the vacuum now, and two, I won't need to go to Joann's for a very long time.  Unless I want to.  Don't tell Byron.