Falling in to place

Dontcha just love it when things work out perfectly, with little or no effort involved?

That happened last week.  JoAnn's was having a large yarn sale and I needed a bit more of a particular yarn to finish a sweater.  While I was placing the order, I stumbled upon a yarn I've never heard of or viewed in person.  It's the magical blend of cotton/acrylic which I love for sweaters, and it's tiny - perfect for delicate stitches.

When the box arrived (ON my birthday even!) the green that looked grayish and iffy on my monitor is the perfect shade of limey awesomeness in real life.

Cotton-ish by Bernat, if you're curious.

It just so happens that I when I visited my Mom in Kansas three years ago, we stopped into her local Goodwill for a treasure hunt.  I sure found treasure that day.  These:

Vintage buttons in 1970's avocado...the exact shade of green as the yarn.
What are the odds?

And then, just a week ago this lovely vintage-inspired cardigan pattern was published by designer Vicky Chan:

Not my picture - this is Vicky Chan's work.The pattern above is about $6 bucks and it's called Irene.
Downloadable from Ravelry.com

Yarn + Buttons + Vintage-y Pattern = Adorable Cardigan for Spring!  Can't wait to get started on it.

In other news, my son turns 9 soon.  I made him a minion, because I can.  He's a big fan.

Meet Dave.

Fabric and Wood Letters

As promised, here's the step-by-step for embellishing wooden letters.

Materials List

• Precut wood letters (Michaels or other craft stores)
• Fabric scraps
• Wonder Under double-sided fusible web
• Iron
• Fabric Scissors
• Pencil

These letters are about 5" x 3", but any size will work.

Flip the letter backward and put it on the paper side of the Wonder Under.

Trace around the letter and cut roughly around the edge.

Fuse the sticky side of the Wonder Under to the wrong side of your fabric.

Carefully cut it out.

Make sure there are no goofs and the fabric letter is exactly the size as the wooden one.

Peel the paper backing off the fabric letter.

Put the fabric letter on the wooden letter, lining up edges.
Fuse the two together.

Ta-Daa!  I used sticky tack to hang them, but they would also be adorable sitting on a shelf.

Ok lady, get it together.

Ah, January.

The month when new resolutions shape the way we organize our lives for the year ahead, only to admit defeat by February first and pull the covers over our head and scream make it stop!

This year I lowered the bar.  The only "resolution" I made was to stop buying Diet Pepsi.  Not for any health reasons or gibberish like that (although that stuff certainly can't qualify as health food) but because I'm just so dang cheap.  Soda is going for $4 a 12-pack!   Plus a new Aldi grocery store opened near me and they don't even sell Diet Pepsi, so at least it can't leap into my cart when my back is turned like the chocolates do. Oh those sneaky chocolates.

I also decided to organize a bit because the crafting area was getting completely out of control.  It's been a week-long process, but I've cleaned out all the cupboards and drawers.  The yarn side of things is looking good.  All the evil wool yarns (which I bought before I realized that wool and I are never going to be BFF's, ever) is ready to donate to Goodwill. The lovely bamboos are living together in one cozy space, and the acrylic and cotton blends are happily co-habitating on the lower shelves.

Brace yourselves.  I had no idea there were so many fabric remnants stuffed into this until I dumped them all out for sorting.

Many of these are tiny little scraps not suitable for much of anything, so with the help of my dear son (he's my little Iron Worker, pressing each piece perfectly) I'm trimming each scrap into as many 2" wide strips as possible.  For now, they're all going in a bin.  Eventually I'll put these together into a scrappy quilt-as-you-go project.  Never tried the technique, but it looks intriguing!

Uhhh...I might need a bigger bucket.

So with the cleaned up space, it was time to add some embellishments.  Michaels has many styles of wooden letters.  Six fabric scraps + wooden letters = Easy.  I'll do a separate blog post with a tutorial for how to make these. 

Happy new (organized) year everyone!