Aye Matey!

Lately, lil C has been into pirates.  Like, crazy.  He has the pirate chest, the skeleton, the flag, the gold and the eye patches to prove it.  He recently turned four and we did a pirate party for him.  It was a smashing success and I can't wait until next year to decorate for another theme.

So, with this in mind, I set to work making him a shirt.  A very simple raglan pattern and I traced the skull and cross bones on a piece of paper.  Voila!  Arrrrg...

He loves pirates and I love sewing.  But not so great at it, yet...

I was really pleased with the outcome and I discovered a secret!  Well, it's not a secret to those who have been sewing for years and years but for me it was a life saver.  While sewing the skull on, I placed a rather thick piece of, for lack of a better term, interfacing on the back and my fabric didn't twist and get lumpy!  Which is what I was having problems with earlier and it can be oh, so frustrating.  Jersey knit is so testy and will lump around if you don't watch it...sneaky, sneaky.

Basically, the shirt started out as just that. A shirt.  But then, I started to get bored with it and I wanted to spruce it up.  BAM.  Pirates.  What better way to make a boring shirt fabulous than appeal to the wicked side of adventure.  

Skull and cross bones. Finished.  Now the bottom of the shirt caused me some pause.  Should I hem it?  Or should I leave it unfinished?  I decided on a little bit of both.  No hem AND unfinished.

I used the vari-overlock seam on my sewing machine to give me just what I needed.

I rather like this shirt, if I do say so myself.

Snap!

A passion of mine is photography.  While we lived in CA, I had my own small business and then I hired on as an apprentice to a well known, local, wedding photographer.  I got great experience there.  Loved it.  Hard work, but it was very rewarding.  

Since we moved here, I haven't really done anything with myself and photography.  I did a couple of shoots and they turned out great!  But it didn't do anything for my hopes of starting my business again.  So, I figured that I should just whip out my camera, use the best models around, my children, and start building my portfolio again.  I can do this, right?

If my son were a model...boy would be be a good one.  He set himself up on this swing and let me have it!

And then we decided that making shadows would be fun!  And fun it was.

Thinking about shooting for the stars on this one...here I come sleepy little town of Burg!

All tied up

With no place to go...but on top of cute little heads...

My latest hobby is head bands...I went a little nuts after seeing some very cute felt flower head bands.  I even purchased a couple.  Then I decided that I could make my own but with my own little twist...

There are definitely more of these in my future.  I have some nifty ideas to make these quite peachy keen cute!

It's a start!

Crafting has always lurked beneath the surface of my imagination.  I'm sort of afraid of it, to be honest.  There is so much involved and it takes a lot of time to really make your ideas work.  But, then I found the trick.  Do what you're good at!  I recently started sewing and doing other small crafts.  I'm not an expert seamstress BUT I have perfected a couple of items.  Pretty soon I'll work on a couple more...
Either way, it brings me a lot of satisfaction to make these things and to share them with others.  I hope you enjoy!

My first project was a skirt.  It's very simple but I like it!   I named it, too.  Frilla.  The Frilla Skirt.

I started to add different color fabrics to give it a twist.

Then I thought maybe stripes would be cute...

Then I decided the possibilities were endless and I got tickled pink.  You should see my sewing room...