Amber & What I Did On My Summer Vacation

I took a vacation from blogging this weekend to rest my creative word energies for all of the exciting posts to come when we arrive at the River next weekend.  (Cats!  Cocktails!  Friends!  Happy times in lawn furniture!)  Instead, I used my creative hands energies to sew a bunch of stuff.

First, I made this swell dress/top modeled on Le Sac, which you may remember if you visited me on bed rest.

A few notes about this photo.  First, notice how I match the small decorator pillows on the couch?  Next, have you any idea how hard it is to auto-time a photo of your whole body from your laptop?  A little behind the blog secret?  Sometimes, it doesn't work quite right and quite a few photos are left on the cutting room floor.

(Do you feel closer to me now that I have shared the secrets behind my art?)

And, I made this bolster pillow out of the leg of a pajama that spit at the seams.

I am demonstrating one possible usage to Nick.  Mostly, though, I intend to use it behind my knees.  But, that would have required an even more complicated photography session.  But, you get the general idea.

I also made a bunch of little sacks of cat nip.  But those had to be hidden away as soon as they were made lest they be eaten.

Sew much sewing!  (Get it?  Sew!  Homonyms!)

Amber & Sunday Well Spent

In addition to celebrating Woodra Pooja yesterday, and performing all of the honored rituals including seriously seven rounds of sink hands, I also beat my high Sudoku score.

Of course, it's the Easy version, so rather than being on fire I was really just luke warm.  But it's still pretty fast compared to my average time.  Although that seems to suggest it was just a fluke.

You know what wasn't a fluke?  These cutie little decorator pillows I made yesterday!

I finally used some of this fabric I love to make two 12" pillows.  Why are the so small?  Have you seen how small my couch is?  A bonus is that the gray in them matches well with Ginger's fur.

And the ecru color matches nicely with the sheet I have to drape over my couch to protect it from excessive fur build up.  See? Even though I have to protect all of my things from cats, I can still have pretty things.  Very small pretty things.  And cats.

P.S. A shirt is in the works out of the same fabric.  I can't wait to wear it and blend in like camouflage on the couch!

Amber & New Career Paths

I just signed up for ice skating lessons!  On Mondays at 7:00 pm, I'll be refreshing my on-ice skills and, I hope, developing new ones.

Now, I just need to get my mom to make me one of those outfits over the weekend.

When Kevin gets back from his doctor's appointment, I'll break the news to him so he can start finding my replacement.  Nick told me the shocking news that Ice Capades are out of business, but I think I will make a great Princess Jasmine.



Or, I could be the skating alligator, like in my second favorite ennui comedy.  (Wait for it.  It's in there.)

Amber & Sewing

I abandoned the old Craft In Progress. It was a crocheted sweater using a really thick, fuzzy yarn. I just couldn't see the difference between the stitches well enough. I never really got enough done (well) to update the project status from "About six inches!"

So, this weekend, I got back in the sewing habit. I did some work on some long overdue craft gifts, but realized that I lost the challenging faces for the project. I need to buy some toner and print them out again (since I can't cut a circle even with a pattern) but then I should be able to wrap them up pretty quickly. Just in time for Christmas!

In the meantime, I started a new garment!


I've shortened the dress in the photo on the pack to be a blouse and am using a Michael Miller fabric called "Pod Vine" in avocado. I had washed and pressed the fabric ages ago. So far, I've cut the pieces and basted them together. Tomorrow I have Awesome Club, so I don't expect to make much progress until Wednesday when I plan to put all the pieces together.

Maybe I can wear it to First CSA Pick Up this week!

Or, maybe it will never get finished and just become a cat environment.