*Snippets and Blabbery*

499 - Gems on the web

This is post 499! Eek! Kind of exciting :)

Anyway, some gems on the web: I’m dying to make this quilt. I think I’ve said this before…because someone else had a lovely cross quilt in red and white. But I just love Betty’s in pink and off white. Awesome.

I’ve been asked to make a purse for someone…I do enjoy making purses, but I make little fabric purses. Not nice, stylish leather purses that cool girls in NYC carry or care about. I’m not a cool city girl. I’m a plain homebody girl who likes to sew. ANYWAY, I’m going out on a ledge here and I’ve decided to make this purse, but without the bow. I’ll be using black linen for the main body, and I got a fun floral silk for the binding. We’ll see how it goes.

The best gem on the web these days is my main man Barack. So, if you haven’t read it, it might be wise to familiarize yourself with the health care plan he’s laid out…get it from the horse’s mouth, not the horse’s asses all over the tv. (I crack myself up.)

My final gem for the day is this video…my college band from 1996. I’m in there somewhere, dancing my spandexed-ass off. If you have a spare 8 minutes, you’ll see a glimpse of one of the happiest times in my life. Yay Marching Knights! The Pride of Central Florida!

blog disasters

BLERG!

Two days before we left for our road trip to Montana, I accidentally deleted my blog. That’s right, all 488 posts. Deleted. Years of blabbery and nonsense, gone.

So I inconveniently send my webhost a 911 white flag for support, and of course, it’s July 4th and no one is around. 12 hours later, someone emails me back and says, “Unfortunately, our backups erase after 24 hours. Did you happen to download a backup?”

Sheesh. What do I pay these people for?! But luckily, I had downloaded a backup RIGHT after I deleted the blog. So I had the file and it was no big deal.

But then the guy says, “oh good, now there’s a $30 fee to restore a wordpress database.”

Again, what am I already paying for?!

By then, of course, we were on the road, driving through the lands of no cell service. When we stopped for the night at a hotel, I paid the highway robbery fee for internet service to find out that my credit card on file with my webhost had expired, so they couldn’t charge me the $30. And we got hacked about a month ago, so I didn’t want to put in any new credit card info over an open wireless network at a hotel, so the blog remained down.

Then I started getting emails from Text Link Ads, who pays me for that Science Foundation link over on the right, wanting to know where their ads were.

Blerg!

Finally, I got it paid and my blog restored. Yesterday, I got my theme back, and luckily, I had all the artwork saved. One bummer is that I had made a million little changes to this theme, but I did it right in the wordpress editor, so it wasn’t saved anywhere.

Be careful, blogging friends. And download a backup of your wordpress database once a month!

As a side note, I searched for “disaster” images on google to find that chick above. All the other pictures were of horrible ACTUAL disasters, which made me feel a little guilty for bitching about this. A little. But everyone’s problems are real to them, right? Even when they’re silly?

The Owl Quilt in action

Baby Ian on his owl quilt :) How cute is that plaid jumper?! I love baby clothes. And shoes!

Super shiny gem on the web

New favorite blog - for obvious reasons.

http://kirstencan.typepad.com/

Gems on the Web Baby Edition

It’s been a while, but since I’m in search of good baby patterns for a slew of new babies on the way out, I’m finding some real treasure on the old www. Here are some links worth following:

• SewTakeAHike’s Changing Pad Tutorial
• Chickpea Sewing Studio’s Diaper Burp Cloth Tutorial and Bib Tutorial
• Make-Baby-Stuff.com’s treasure trove of free baby stuff patterns
• Simplicity.com’s free baby wipes case pattern
• TipNut’s 50 free patterns for baby (to make stuff for babies, not for babies to make!)

To sum it up, I can’t believe I buy so many patterns. There are so many free ones on the internet. It took me longer to copy and paste these links into this post than it took to find them.

Enough looking - time to get sewing. There are two baby boys on the way - one by induction tomorrow, and one in a few months. I’m thinking quilt, wipes case and a couple burp cloths. Sound good? Now I need to buy some fabric. The best part.

a whole month!

Officially the longest I’ve gone without a blog post on here in 2 years. I think. Anyway, not good. It’s a whirlwind around here. Turkeys and presents and power rangers. How do people keep up?

I’ve been doing a lot of sewing, so I’ll post some pictures soon. I read the Twilight series. Good but ultimately forgettable. Luckily, we have three more movies to go to keep us interested. I got rid of some Guild jobs and got some new ones - goodbye newsletter, hello quarterly SoCal council meetings. I got a quasi-promotion/title-change at my real job and now I’m officially working part-time. 20 hrs/week. From home. Pretty cool.

I also read the latest Jennifer Chiaverini book - Winding Ways Quilt. Good, but not the best in the series. Too many vignettes. Like a book of character sketches instead of a nice cohesive story. But still entertaining.

I joined a book club through meet up, but missed the first meeting. I thought it was at 8pm, but it was at 7pm. Dumb. And sad. And they’ve chosen “The Christmas Sweater” by Glenn Beck for the Jan. book. First of all, I hate Glenn Beck. I refuse to pay money for his book. So if I can’t get it at the library, I’m not going to read it. He’s an idiot. I really wish I had been at the first meeting so I could guage why they chose that book. Is it to make fun of him? Or was it because they are Glenn Beck fans - and if that’s the case - is this the book club for me? Highly doubtful.

Perhaps I’m overthinking it. VERY possible.

gems on the web…

The best blog you might not be reading:

http://margaretandhelen.wordpress.com/

Prepare to laugh…unless you’re a McCain/Palin supporter. In that case, prepare to get all huffy and write a mean comment. Or just don’t bother going - you won’t enjoy yourself. At least not as much as me.

La Bump

Right now, my husband is shopping online for clothes for our son. He’s a little addicted to internet shopping, I think. He was asking me what sizes to get, and I had to say 4T! I can’t believe it. Of course, William isn’t wearing 4T yet, but David was buying him new shorts and t-shirts, and he’s wearing 2T’s now that are getting a little small, and soon, it won’t be time for shorts anymore, so these shorts will be for next summer. It’s funny, David asked, “should I get him 24 months?” Sheesh.

So anyway, I’m still not really feeling the pull to have a second baby. I mean, every once in a while when I hold a tiny baby, I remember how much I loved that part, but I’m not sure. The other thing that gets me thinking about new babies is baby clothes. Sweet little dresses and shoes and socks. Is it lame to want to have a girl for the clothes? The problem is that once that girl was about four, I’d be totally clueless. I’m not a girly girl, my mother was not a girly girl. I have no girly experience. I’d be a total failure as a mom to a girl. Well, not a total failure…she’d know about civic responsibility and books and musicals, but probably nothing about high fashion or shoes or hair styling. Oh yeah, I could also teach her quilting. And some good dance moves. I guess that’s not nothing.

Plus, there is the huge closet full of maternity clothes I still have. And all the baby stuff we’ve packed away for future use.

So anyway, the perfect marriage between my husband’s internet shopping problem and our enormous amount of baby stuff - whether we sell it or need more girl stuff - is a new site called La Bump. It’s similar to craigslist where people list stuff they have to sell or what they need to buy. Very cool concept. I’m looking forward to when its super popular and full of stuff. I highly recommend it to all mommies in need!

black hole strikes again.

I’m not supposed to still be on the internet. But here’s what happened. I went back to Flickr to check if I had any comments (I did!) and followed a link to a commenter’s photos. This is how it starts. Then, I followed another commenter…and so it goes.

I found this blog, Crazy Mom Quilts, which is FULL of inspiration. Most inspiring - this Red Cross Quilt. I truly love this quilt. I’ve been searching and searching for the most perfect quilt for my sister, and this is it. I’ve been saving blue and aqua fabrics, and it’s going to be perfect.

I also stumbled onto Johanna Wright’s artwork on etsy. Wow. My craft room will not be complete until I have some of her prints - or even better - some of her original paintings. I LOVE her.

Now, I seriously need to get off of here. Now that I’ve saved those links for myself, I can go do something else. Like sew. Or drink coffee.

Aunt Millie’s Garden

I just finished glue-basting this first block from Aunt Millie’s Garden by Piece O’ Cake Designs. I’m super excited about it, and instead of being exhausted, I can’t wait to start the next one! I’ve been collecting Denyse Schmidt fabrics for about six months in preparation for this project.

I also found a few new gems on the web - these are some super awesome embroidery sites:
First I found PimpStitch (don’t miss their blog), thanks to a photo on Flickr. From there, I found Stitchy Stitcherson’s blog (I really love that name), which lead me to AnnieOakLeaves (awesome - free patterns!) which lead me back to Floresita, whose blog I already love (and is chocked full of free patterns), which lead me to Stitchy Britches (another great name), where I ended up at Exceedingly Curious’ scans of an 1886 pattern book! What a cool find! Thanks to John Governale for all that hard work!

So that’s it for the black hole of productivity (a.k.a., the internet) for today.

I’m stoked about Joe Biden. Excellent choice. I sad the Olympics are over, but glad I may actually get some sleep this week. I’m excited that my husband has a job interview this week and things may be changing soon.

Now, it’s 7 am, so it’s time to head to the park before it’s 100 degrees outside!