So far my week is going nothing like how I planned…. Yesterday my computer died (I am using Ben’s computer right now) meaning that I need to chose between a new sewing machine or a new computer (and it is looking like the computer will probably win over the sewing machine since my sewing machine is still in working order but my computer is not so much). Today I haven’t felt good at all, I think I have some sort of cold or flu virus, which isn’t much fun because I had lots of plans for today including sewing a few things with this pile of linen…. (at least it looks pretty sitting there…)

Instead I haven’t done anything productive today, unless you consider resting, taking photos of cats, and reading productive. (Personally I would call it restful, but definitely not productive! :) So all I have to show for my day is a few cat photos and a photo of the front cover of Real Simple (which I think looks lovely and quite fallish)…

Crossing my fingers that I feel a bit better tomorrow and can actually get a few things done…

Guess what! :) I have been wanting to change my blog from being a blogger blog to being a wordpress blog for awhile now. With it hosted on my own site though it was a bit of work to get everything transferred (including old posts, comments, photos, etc.), but my wonderful husband (who is also a very talented software engineer) got it all done and switched over to wordpress. Everything is really going to be the same, since it has been hosted on my own site all this time and will still be located at this same link location. If you subscribe by feed, it should still work too (although if you notice it acting weird let me know)… The only things that will really change is the look of the blog and that I can now respond to comments a bit easier than I could with blogger (plus less of a headache from all the issues blogger had with my blog not being hosted on their site…).

So take a look around and tell me what you think! And of course leave me a comment to say hi:)

The leaves are very slowly changing colors here and today was one of the first days it really seemed noticeable. So continuing with the photo theme I have going on this week, a bit of fall color inspiration from a walk I took today…

We took a bit of a daytrip to the zoo this weekend in the big city nearby, the weather was absolutely perfect and it was a lovely day. So more photos from this past weekend…

(My favorite part… the wolves)

Doesn’t it look like she is smiling:)

Is it okay if I do a couple posts with photos and few words? I have lots of emails to catch up on, blogs to read, and stuff to work on so I thought maybe I could just share some photos. I have some crafting I am working on, but it is top secret (my handmade item for the fall swap:). So in the meantime, my weekend in photos part 1… (Part 2 is tomorrow and here is a hint of what kind of photos it will be - we went to the zoo this weekend:)

Yesterday I made up a bunch of cloth napkins with that fabric that I won on Anna’s blog…

I have been meaning to make some cloth napkins for awhile now, but wasn’t sure what fabric I wanted to use for it. When I got this fabric in the mail from her I thought it would be perfect for this project. I’m not really a matchy sort of person, so I love the mix-matched look of this set. :)

They were pretty easy to make, for each one I just cut a square in a size that sounded good to me and hemmed the edges. I thought about using my rolled hem foot to hem the edges, but decided against it. Which considering the fact that my sewing machine was competing against my computer (which is continually been trying to die for the last month or so) for the award of most frustrating technology yesterday & I have never actually successfully used my rolled hem foot, that choice was probably a good thing.

Speaking of sewing machines… If you have one, what kind is it and what is your favorite brand of machine? (Oh and why you like yours might be nice to know too.) My sewing machine & I are in a bit of a fight right now and I am dreaming about different ones:)

Remember my mentioning I wanted to knit a scarf for myself before this winter… Well I gave in and went to the local yarn store on Friday afternoon. I was completely surprised at the selection, the store was much bigger than I thought it would be! I actually had to go to the store twice because I was supposed to be somewhere and couldn’t decide the first time I stopped in…

I hardly know anything about knitting, except the basics like how to cast on, knit, purl, and bind off. Other than that my knitting knowledge is very limited, so I have no idea if the yarn I bought is really meant to be used for a scarf but I love the feel and texture of it. I didn’t even notice until I got it home that it is actually 100% cotton (again I know nothing about yarn/knitting, but this is the first time I have seen cotton yarn).

It is so soft and lovely and I love the colors I bought:) I actually started knitting it using a little pattern I made up in my head, but decided that I would really rather just do a straight basic knit so I didn’t have to think much while knitting. So after putting in about 30 rows, I ripped it back out and started over (the picture is after ripping it out). Now if I can actually finish it before winter starts! :)

Homemade apple pie baked from scratch by Ben…

He baked it on Saturday and it made it really seem like fall, with a slight chill in the air and the smell of apple pie baking. Could a Saturday afternoon get any better? :) It tasted delicious (tasted - because there is hardly any of it left:)!

Do you ever spend a bunch of time working on something, think halfway through that you are not sure it is worth it, finish it and then know it wasn’t worth it (but still try to convince yourself that maybe it was)? That was my day yesterday… I have a lot of crafting/sewing books that sit on my bookshelf, opened occasionally for inspiration but hardly ever used for the projects within. So yesterday I decided that it would be fun to try a project out of one of those books. For some reason I picked the “In Stitches” Apron….

It turned out nice, although the directions had you put it together in not the smartest way ever in my opinion. I followed the directions anyways, causing me to halfway through wish I had never read the directions and just put it together the way I would have thought it went together. (Has anyone else made this apron & felt the same way? Maybe it is just me though… I seem to hate patterns unless it is one I make:)

Anyways all that work and I don’t even think I like it on…

Oh well!

Oh and that photo above of Axel, it just seemed to fit this entry… :)

Anna did a little giveaway on her blog a couple weeks ago, and by the time I commented 200+ people had already left comments. Needless to say, I didn’t think for one moment that I would win anything, especially when I checked and saw that she had over 800 people comment in total… Imagine my surprise when I read a little comment from Regina (if you don’t read Regina’s blog, you really should!) saying she noticed I had won some fabric! What fabric is that I wondered? Oh Anna’s giveaway! Oh my:)

My favorite out of the pile of 10 fabrics she sent (all designed by her for FreeSpirit Fabrics, if you didn’t already know), the brown with multi-colored dots. So very cute!

My poor sewing machine has been a bit neglected the past few days… I had grand plans for sewing this week, but then yesterday I decided to knit on the never ending blanket I have been working on for um, *over 3 years I think*… Then today, I decided I had to knit a scarf for myself before winter! So I went to the craft stores and didn’t find a single bit of yarn I liked… I might have to try the local needleworks store to see if they have nicer yarn… Or I might just decide to give up the silly notion of knitting myself a scarf that I may or may not even finish in the next year (glancing at above record). Maybe I should go back to the original plans for doing some sewing:)

Thanks by the way for your very sweet comments on the photos I posted on Monday! It made my day:)

Oh and my husband definitely deserves a major thanks for the help he gave with the swap. I was going to manually assign people swap partners and as I mentioned in the last post he made me a program to store everyone’s data, assign swap partners, and generate a letter that put in people’s names/addresses so I could click & email everyone. Pretty amazing and sweet! Thanks Ben (you are seriously the best software engineer ever:).

Reading back through this post, I feel a bit boring… maybe it is just from feeling tired? I hope so… Tomorrow I will try to get some sewing in so I have something fun to post:)

Lovely goodies that I received from Regina… (complete with a cat’s leg in the photo because he was really interested in the new goodies and had to help with the photo taking:).

I won the zippered pouch on her blog for being her 200th commenter:) I didn’t expect it to come filled with so many lovely goodies though! Some very lovely cards (I believe she stamped them herself with a stamp she carved), lovely lace trim, a delicious looking trader joe’s chocolate bar, some beautiful buttons, and her lovely moo cards. (I really need to get some moo cards… :) Thank you so much Regina! :)

Last week was a somewhat crazy week… I got sick at the beginning of the week (actually I was terrified that I had west nile virus because my symptoms were close enough & I had just gotten those mosquito bites-apparently according to webmd it isn’t that uncommon to get a mild case of west nile virus… just what I needed to think about, right!). Then my parents came down for a bit of a visit at the end of the week. We fit quite a bit into their short visit… dinner out at a nice restaurant, a play at a local theatre, and a portrait session of the two of them with me as the photographer…

I took quite a few pictures, but these are my favorites…. (more text below the pictures…)

This one below is my favorite…

I actually took all of these photos at a not so great time of day, since the sun was high above in the sky and ideally it would have been a bit lower. So it makes for a few shadows that otherwise wouldn’t be there, but the main purpose of the shoot was to practice posing people for portraits and just get some general portrait practice in, which I feel like I did. It was also fun to be able to give my parents the photos so that they have some of just the 2 of them. :)

I am really finding I enjoy taking photos of people & animals… my poor cats are probably incredibly tired of me pulling out the camera to take yet another picture of them:) If you know me in real life and live near me, and would like your portrait taken for free (or know someone who would) contact me through email. My cats would probably be grateful to you and I would be grateful for a bit more practice w/taking portraits (plus you would get a free disc full of a bunch of photos of yourself:)

Tomorrow (or today depending on how you look at it since it is after midnight)… assigning swap partners to everyone who signed up for my swap. All 80+ people:) Yeah, um I had no idea I would get that kind of response… I am absolutely amazed and was feeling a bit overwhelmed with the prospect of assigning swap partners until Ben wrote me a computer program to organize all the info and make it a bit easier. (I love my husband! :)

If 1 more person wants to sign up for the swap, email me… I have an uneven amount of people signed up right now and would love an even amount to make it a bit easier…