What a great way to start the day! :) Jessica featured me on her blog Funky Finds today. If you haven’t taken a look at her blog before, you really should (and I am not just saying that because she featured my shop). She features different handmade items that she finds each day and it is a great way to find Christmas gifts or just stuff that you love & have to have:)

I have been working a bit on getting a few more scarves in my shop this week, since the ones I listed at the beginning of the week sold out pretty quick. There are 3 new scarves in the shop now (2 that I listed yesterday & 1 that I listed today), so go take a look… There is even a new blue & brown scarf (seen above) which seems to be a favorite color combo of many:)

Is anyone up for a little giveaway? I know this is quite the random post so far… :) Having organized & cleaned up my studio a bit I thought maybe I would celebrate and do a little giveaway… So in celebration of being a bit more organized, I will giveaway these 2 sets to 2 lucky winners:) Just leave me a comment on this entry before Tuesday morning & I will put you in a drawing. (Only 1 entry per person:)

Zipper pouch, tissue holder, keychain, & headband set.

Tissue holder, keychain, & headband set.

Estea tagged me to list 5 random or weird facts about myself… I am not sure if I can come up with 5 that everyone doesn’t already know, but I will try. :)

1. I am almost always cold. I love summer because of this and don’t really care for winter that much. I can never seem to have enough layers during winter. (Example… right now I am wearing jeans with a skirt over top plus 2 sweaters and I am still cold.)
2. I have received the pre-exposure rabies vaccine. This is different from the shots you would receive if you are bit by an animal, it is supposed to prevent getting rabies if you ever do get bit by an animal. (I hear that the post-exposure shots hurt a lot… the pre-exposure vaccines do too!) I like to think that I sort of know how my cats feel when they get their rabies shots each year:)
3. Living in a state with no large lakes or water makes me feel a tiny bit claustrophobic even though there is tons of prairie. (The first year we moved here, I really did wonder how they would light off fireworks for the 4th of July without water to light them off over… Apparently they light them off over a big field, which still sort of freaks me out…)
4. I have taken ballet off and on for years. Right now I am taking a ballet class, but I think this next year might be an off year…
5. Someday I would like to live out in the country (not in prairie country though… somewhere with trees & water nearby sort of country) with Ben & our 2 cats, I would also like to have 2 dogs & 2 horses along with our 2 cats. (I didn’t say it was a practical dream:)

I am tagging Angie, Karyn, Kelly, Regina, and Anina. (Okay seriously - it is hard to pick just 5 people to tag…) Feel free to pretend I didn’t tag you though:)

I added 2 new scarves to my etsy shop today. I was planning on a slightly larger shop update than that, but I think instead I might add more items throughout the week….

This one is probably my favorite scarf so far, which shouldn’t be too surprising since I seem to love the color grey lately.

The backing on this scarf is the grey polka dot flannel that gave me the idea for flannel on the back of scarves and it is so soft. I was a bit tempted not to list this one, since I love it so much:)

I also made another pink + brown scarf, except the fabrics are slightly different and I used pink flannel on the back…

I have a bit more of this fabric set aside too for some more napkins to match the other ones I made awhile back… Even with just the 2 of us, 10 napkins is not that many when you think about 3 meals a day + having company over sometimes & such… I actually started the napkins this weekend but haven’t finished all of them yet. I am sort of thinking about doing a little tutorial on them too, if anyone is interested? I already took the photos, but now I have to figure out how to write the tutorial out:)

Thankful for the 4 day weekend! :) Ben helped me organize my studio space a bunch today (I seriously could not have done it without his help, I would have been sidetracked a million times & not known where in the world to start)… It seems that I have become very unorganized lately. I couldn’t find my wallet in my purse today when we were at the pet store, because it is so full of junk. My desk/studio area was getting a bit like that too. Now I have no papers or clutter on my desk - only my sewing machine & computer, my fabric cupboard looks wonderful & only has fabric in it, I even have a w.i.p. (works-in-progress) shelf, and the other shelves above my desk & my bookshelf are organized. Such a wonderful feeling to have it all neat & clean. Now if only I was that organized in every other part of life (my purse still looks like a miniature tornado went through it, and my email inbox is overflowing - sorry if I owe you an email, I really am going to get to it soon:)…

I am planning a shop update for either this Monday or Tuesday (hoping for Monday though),  just in case anyone is interested. Now that my studio area is cleaned up I can finish working on my w.i.p. pile that is no longer fighting not to get buried under everything else! :)

I have received many lovely goodies in the mail lately… (Don’t you love when that happens!)

This weekend I received a lovely package from Kelly in Australia for the fall swap (how cool to get mail from a country I have never visited). The generosity and friendship from other bloggers still amazes me sometimes… It has been so neat to get to know Kelly through her blog & emailing. I was so excited to open the package from her I almost didn’t wait till I got back in the house:) (I think the postman must think I am crazy, can anyone relate to that? :) Kelly sent so many lovely goodies…

An Australian magazine (love this Kelly!), some very cute little bags for putting goodies in (with French writing on them… gah love these!), 2 (!) notepads designed by Kristen Doran (whose work I love & I don’t think Kelly even knew that:), very cute Christmasy fabric (that I think might be a table runner? Am I right about that Kelly?), a lovely postcard by Simply Photo. Of course the best part of the whole package was the handmade skirt that she made me!

This skirt is absolutely perfect for fall weather! Thanks Kelly!

Then today look what I got in the mail…

A new laptop to replace my old one which died:) Is it wrong to think your computer is pretty? :) I actually got to pick a color for the cover of this & it is midnight blue:)

So happy to have my own working computer again!

Thanks for all your sweet comments on the scarves! I am behind on emails (like always:), but hopefully will catch up soon. The pink + brown scarf is still available in my shop, if anyone is interested…

I was hoping for a productive weekend filled with some sewing, emailing, & updating my etsy shop, but instead it has been a very lazy weekend. Although there is still one day left, but I have a feeling that will be spent picking up a bit & doing laundry (well that is if I don’t decide to have another lazy day:)…

I did get some lovely goodies in the mail today (which I am so excited about!). However having a lazy weekend means that while I did take some photos of those goodies I didn’t actually take the photos off the camera yet:) Maybe tomorrow…

So instead, photos that I took last weekend at the park…

Lovely fall colors… (I looked up some info online & last weekend was supposed to be the best weekend for fall colors around here, although it didn’t seem like there were that many leaves changing & what had changed was mostly brown.)

The photo above was a little hidden place we discovered quite by accident… The top is a walkway with a bench that Ben & I have sat on many times. I think we both thought that it was just a concrete walkway on the side of a hill, but I looked over the edge - which was quite brave if you know me because while this photo makes it look like it isn’t high up there is a sudden drop on the right just outside the photo frame - and there was this little hidden room/structure…)

Hope everyone else is having a wonderful weekend!

Today has been a much nicer weather day than yesterday, complete with lovely sunshine and hardly any clouds. This means that I was finally able to take some photos of what I have been working on lately…

Last week I found some polka-dot flannel at the fabric store and absolutely had to have it! (Who doesn’t love polka dots + warm flannel and together can you really resist that:) I didn’t really know what I was going to use it for but thought about it and decided it would be perfect for scarves, since I was thinking about making some more linen & patchwork scarves. The funny part is that I made three scarves, but never used the polka dot flannel so there will definitely be more scarves in the very near future… (probably this week even.)

Brown + Blue (Sold:)

Hedgehogs + Squirrels (I actually used some of my Japanese fabrics for this one… :) (Sold:)

Pink + Brown

All 3 scarves Just the pink & brown scarf is left in my etsy shop… (Although I seriously considered keeping these for myself too! :)

Oops! So much for posting every day in November:)

While I haven’t been doing much blog reading or posting myself obviously, I have been fairly busy with other things including sewing bunches. Although the weather has been crummy all day today so I don’t have any photos to show of what I have been working on. (The *joys* of taking photos with natural light only….) On Friday I did consider showing some photos of my studio, but then after looking at the photos I decided against that because it was just too embarrassing. I seem to work better in a mess:) Although that mess doesn’t make for very nice studio photos. (If enough of you say that you want to see the photos anyways, I might be persuaded to share. Although I might have to do some photoshopping first:)

Kelly did get my swap package for the fall swap though, so I can finally share what I made her & sent in my swap package to her! The falling leaves tote that I made her….

The leaves are brown linen appliqués that I hand-embroidered onto the lighter colored linen. It took awhile, but definitely worth it in my opinion! (So much so that I hesitated when it came to actually mailing her the tote…. I thought about keeping it for myself for about 2 minutes:) I left the edges of the leaves raw so there will be a bit of fraying but I thought that would sort of complete the natural look I was going for with this… It was pretty funny trying to decide how exactly to place the leaves too. I actually placed the leaves out, took a photo, and emailed it to my mom who was a wonderful help:) (Between us on the phone we decided that leaf in such a place needs to move just a bit to the right, etc…)

Inside the tote I did a pocket divided down the middle to split it into 2 pockets….

I also made the tote handles a bit different on this bag (not sure if you can really tell in the photos). I think that I am going to use this new handle method I discovered for all the bags I make from now on. It looks a bit more professional in my opinion…

The rest of the goodies I sent her… Martha Stewart Living (just looked so fallish), 3 fat quarters, gift tags, & pretty tape:)

This is what happens when you slack off on blogging a bit… I have more stuff to share like photos that I took this weekend at a local park with Ben, but I think I will save those for a different day:)

I have gotten some lovely little bits of mail lately… Anina mentioned to me the other day that she had found something she thought was perfect for me while out shopping. How more perfect could this owl card be! :)

The back of the card is a bit like a postcard, and it says in the corner “Frame It, Share It, Keep It, Send It.” I definitely think I am going to frame it. I am already thinking up places where it would go perfectly… Thanks Anina for thinking of me! (If you don’t read Anina’s blog, you really should. She even has a 200th post drawing going on right now. So stop over & say hi to her and see for yourself how sweet she is!)

Other lovely bits of mail… the Mixtape Zine, Issue 2.

I read this thing almost all the way through in one sitting! I loved it… Seriously & how fun is it to recognize bloggers while reading through an indie zine:) (I think I might go & pick up a copy of Issue 1 since I never did buy it and now wish I had…)

On a totally different note, I sold my fourth item on Etsy today:) Which made me pretty happy of course! I am also aiming for a shop update next week sometime… which means I really need to get sewing! :)

Other things making me happy today… warm, cuddly kitties.

Only 7 days into posting every day in the month of November & I forgot to post yesterday:) Oh well! It is fun to try to write everyday, but I am not going to stress over missing a day here and there…

I found this tutorial for fabric covered floss bobbins the other day and thought it looked like a fun & quick project to try. Besides I have a nice zippered pouch that my embroidery supplies fit in (I learned how to embroider this past summer, inspired by a book I bought & the lovely embroidery projects I kept seeing out in blogland), so I figured some pretty fabric bobbins would be lovely.

Lovely & fun (for the most part) the project was… quick, not so much! It took forever for the glue to dry (the reason why I have floss on one bobbin in the above photo, but not the other two) and was not the very simple project that I first thought it might be.

A few tips if you decide to try this project… Do not use “Elmer’s Glue-All” even though it says for use on fabrics & was bought at the craft store, it will soak through the fabric causing you to have to toss it. A glue stick works better because it doesn’t soak through the fabric like the other glue did - although it does take forever to dry. Next time I might try picking up a specifically for fabric glue, although I hesitated doing that in the first place because technically you are also gluing cardboard to cardboard at one point & it seemed weird to use fabric glue for that. Do not try to use linen for this project, even if it is a tightly woven linen, because the glue will go through to the other side resulting in sticky fingers and more tossing of fabric bobbins into the bin. Try to view the mistakes as a learning process (oh I guess that last one is for me mostly:)

On a completely different note… I have 2 treasuries that I created on etsy today (1 is a regular treasury, and the other is located in the treasury west which is a testing area for treasuries I guess). Go take a look at them if you have a moment, both will only be up for a short time though so you better go quick:) Here and here.